Last December I was given a precious gift. If you asked me even days before, I wouldn’t have understood any of what I’m about to share. I would have had no reason to.

I lied. Mine was a 50-year kind of lie.

One book published and two Facebook pages with over 12K likes later, I thought I’d successfully healed. Then, without warning the ground beneath me crumbled and then collapsed. I was in a slow-motion free fall, and found myself in a place I never imagined I’d see, let alone attend daily for three months.

Three long months. Each morning I and about a dozen others began with an exercise in mindfulness. With both feet on the floor and my eyes closed, I attempted to control the clutter that short-circuited my every thought. My unwelcome, joy-robber interrupted the words and thoughts I dared to honor. I was burglarized. All I held dear was stolen.

I searched, sought and scrounged.

For the following few months, I did my level best to evict the refuse, rubbish and rubble that sought rent-free residence in the core of my soul. These declarations and feelings told me to hate myself. They told me to soothe my starved spirit. They implored me to stuff my stomach to the point of purging, only to begin again, ad nauseam.

Daily I faced painful moments. I was aware that like a hoarder I had held on to the last bit of breadcrumbs that were remnants of my past abuse. Little did I know that they would soon resurface. I was seasoned at camouflage, but they were burned into my being. A scorched soul, ignoring the signs of a raw pain that simmered away, night and day.

“We will no longer allow you to slowly destroy yourself.” These were the words that seared through me. After many years of trying to disguise my binging, purging and restricting, my husband and youngest daughter declared, “You have an eating disorder.” They could no longer accept my dysfunctional behavior. I had run out of excuses. I decided it was time to surrender to them and not my disorder.

The first three days of the eating disorder program were tough. I was forced to see that I did, in fact, have a mental illness in the form of an eating disorder. Then came the downpour of tears and onslaught of fear. I was about to lose the very coping mechanism that fed my survival up until now. How do I face my empty toolbox and craft a new way to deal with life? There was no recipe for this new endeavor, and there was no going back. I surrendered to tears, anger, and regret. How DARE my mother saddle me with this! Little did I know that this was both a curse and a huge blessing. My “tearcup” was empty-just like her heart.

SHAME ON HER! She imprisoned me in a cell. She pocketed the key.

With the expert guidance of therapists and nutritionists, I no longer found myself looking through lenses that viewed a future with a focus on the devastation. Not anymore. I finally healed from the miserable, all-consuming eating disorder that plagued me for so long. There was a small celebration where customarily those reaching recovery are asked to choose a stone from a glass vase. It was a humbling celebration of sorts. My selected stone was held then passed along to everyone in the room. Each time the stone was passed from one to another, one word was offered to summarize me and my journey. Now it was time to move on. I was armed with an arsenal of food journals and emotional recovery charts. I bore the wounds of a hard-fought war. I’d won a battle that lasted 40 years. Victory for me!

I wanted to believe that my victory would last forever. Sadly, "forever" turned out to mean just three short months. I fell hard ever so silently. Tumbling down on a kamikaze mission that was futile journey. I was in pieces and had no glue. My tears and hope plunged simultaneously. My mother was still there. I thought she had lost her lease from my head, heart, and soul. Little did I know she was hiding in the basement.

"Relapse" is a hard word to hear.

Like a feral feline, she came back to fill her still-insatiable, evil, sadistic craving. I knew that I HAD to return to my eating disorders program before I was rendered a fragile porcelain plate teetering on the edge of the table. I fell. Hard. Like sharp shards of shrapnel, I was but shattered pieces of hope scattered across the kitchen floor. I was reduced to a deconstructed, devastated debris.

My barren, frozen heart aimlessly sought people to bring me the comfort I found from the familiar feeling of rejection. I soon realized that comfort was within me all along. My foundation was stronger than I ever knew. Still, I continued to be confused and overwhelmed. Miraculously I found a way to spend 33 years lovingly mothering my five children. All the while, and not unlike the villain disguised as my mother, I had only a heartless hole for myself. My lack of self-love turned my soul into a rancid refuge.

I entered my second round of recovery a walking, talking wasteland. I was numb from disbelief. But I was there. I went back to fix what remained broken. This time I am unequivocally determined. I bring a want like never before. I offer all I have. I need to succeed. I will dig deeper and find the ingredients I was missing.

I will get it right this time.