My Instagram Makeover

If you follow my Instagram, formally named leannesstory, you may realize I made some pretty drastic changes! For the better or for the worse is your opinion, but I think it was best for me.

I changed the name to runningonroses. There are a few symbolisms of this name.

 

• There's a saying, "running on empty", that means you haven't eaten anything and you are simply living off whatever energy is left in your body. "Running on roses" has the same idea. Instead of fueling and taking care of my body, providing it with food for energy, I'm thriving off my desire to be beautiful, to be perfect, like a rose. Delicate and fragile, a symbol of love and beauty.

• There's a flip side of the meaning I just explained. When choosing this username, I pictured myself running through a field of only roses covering the ground, my feet ripping their petals apart and smashing them into the earth, to die and shrivel up as I destroyed each and every rose under my pounding feet. I compare myself to the roses, once innocent and beautiful, and now being crushed by the pressure that's being pressed upon them. I also compare myself to the person who is running over the roses; I'm destructing my own happiness and purity, yet nothing stops me and I keep on running.

As you can see, I put lots of thought and depth into the choice of this new username and I feel it sums up my current situation and state of mind.
Other than the username, I made a few other changes. My bio used to have information about me and at one point the quote "my body is tired and I'm tired of my body" but recently I changed the quote to "It takes billions of years  to create a human, and only seconds to die." I matched my current bio with my online best friend, Vic, or "fadedescape" as she is known on Instagram. Our parallel bios read:

" the artist in you creates
while the critic in you destroys.

15 - ed - vegan - my journal"

All of our pictures will have white borders on the sides, a faded color saturation, and the date in the caption. Keeping my posts simple and orderly like that will help me to not obsess over every detail of my posts like I had previously. I'll post what and when I feel like with raw and real captions and snapshots of my life.
I have deleted all 689 posts from the last two years. That was pretty difficult to do and honestly made me sad. But, it had to be done. I wanted to start fresh and stop holding onto the past and wishing I looked like this again or crying because I actually looked like that.
I'm no longer in recovery in the slightest. I've unfollowed many recovery accounts, going from following 600 people to less than 400. This way I can provide the support that they deserve and connect with people on a more personal level. I was also annoyed, to be completely honest, by my feed being overthrown by the recovery accounts. All I saw was one food picture after another, people dissing other people who were even remotely thin, and people faking their happiness just so they could be seen as an inspiration to others. I didn't want my account to be like that anymore, and I didn't want to follow the accounts that were like that.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying that all recovery accounts are like this or faking their triumphs, but there are many I've spoken to and many I suspect.

ANYWAYS, I pray that I will receive the same love and support I did before no matter how I choose to live my life. I'm going to try and reach out to more people than I have in the past. It's only fair that I help the people who have helped me, and give support to those who share common struggles. :)

I love each and every one of my followers and the friends I've made from Instagram. You mean more to me than COFFEE does and ohhhh boy, that's saying something! If you ever want to talk on the phone or videochat, let me know!!