Friday, June 08, 2012

June challenge 7: honesty

Is it the best policy?
Sometimes. During the May HfC challenge, I challenged myself to share one post with my FB friends. This, to me, was scarier than sharing it within the HfC community. My FB friends know that I have anorexia but I have never before been able to be honest about the reality of my life, my darker thoughts, the way that the illness has impacted my experience of every day over the past few decades. My insides still flip over at the thought that I actually allowed people to read it.

On the other hand, the responses I got from people, whether in comments to my post or in private messages, was overwhelming. A few people wrote words of support that brought me to tears. By sharing, by being honest, I seemed to enable friends to be honest with me. Through this, I learned that various people truly value my friendship and even (perhaps) value me ... just for being me.

This is something to hold onto: being honest about my darkest times (when I don't like me, and don't want to be me) enabled people to say that they do value me.  And that's one step in learning to value myself.

3 comments:

Jenn said...

this is so great! the courage you showed through your honesty is so beautiful and i admire you for putting yourself out there to your friends and letting them "inside" a little more ; )

Anonymous said...

I find that when people choose to write honestly, to "bare their soul" if you like, the result is powerful writing.

Jackie T said...

Lindy this is so admirable. I have read as much as your blog as I can, and have related so much to the recent challenges. Not sure if i have said this before but you have an amazing smile. xx