The Fine Art of Control

Sophomore year in the fall I took a creative writing class. During one of our classes the professor asked us to write on the prompt "The fine are of ..." I chose control because that has always been an important hot topic in my life. Growing up with extremely strict parents often leads to feelings of being controlled and with this  resentment can set in. This is exactly what happened in my case and I needed to find some way to take control of my life. Food seemed to be the perfect thing. The one thing in my life I could control was my body and so I did. I know this is all very cliche for those in the eating disorder community but it's true. It did not hurt that my mother's way of showing love was through food and so by refusing to eat I could convey the message that I did not feel as if she really loved me. Logically I knew that she loved me as I was her daughter but it always seemed as if she put the family last and I hated this. I believe that my mother has an anxiety disorder that has gone undiagnosised  for years. The anxiety that I felt due to constantly being late to everything and criticized in my behavior, school work, body type, eating habits and so much more led me to my eating disorder.

Control is something that everyone wants. Everyone seeks to be in control and people deal with not being in control in different ways. Life is full of uncertainty and that can be terrifying. Thinking about my future often gives me panic attacks. Lately, as I have been struggling, I have been thinking a lot about my future and what I want to do with my life. For a long time I wanted to be a therapist and help women and men who are going through what I am going through and have gone through or something similar. ED does not like that idea because he knows that in order be a therapist I have to be fully and completely committed to recovery which he does not want and scares the hell out of me causing lots of anxiety. I know that I cannot let ED control my life like this but thinking about my future as a possible therapist and reevaluating that has proven to have a positive aspect. Over the summer I interned at a domestic violence shelter. Working on the hotline I encountered a lot of women in horrible situations whom I had to talk to and counsel to the best of my ability. Some days were so difficult emotionally because of the situations these women would find themselves in which has made me consider the burnout rate for therapists and others working in that field. I have started looking into other options for my future which is both exciting and anxiety provoking. I have control over this, some control, but it is just such a major decision that I know I need to seek out advice. I will not let the fear and anxiety of this decision and situation rule me. This is one way that I can work to take my life back from my anxiety and ED.

The Fine Art of Control
You feel a  gradual welling up of fear. But you know you need to keep your cool. In these situations it does not pay to panic. Taking a deep breath you still your wildly beating heart, willing it to slow its pace. It does not want to listen, in a race with the techno music blasting from your speakers. You start to regret the decisions that landed you here. Why are you here again? You don't remember. You search frantically for your friends hoping to spot them in the crowd. It's too thick; you cannot see. The dull ache turns to an intense knife of pain. You sit down trying to convince your hear it is okay. But the pain continues, you decide to give into it knowing that it will eventually go away. After all who is in control, you or your body? "Me," it says but you don't listen and you never did.

Negative Energy and a New Year

"Through the Goddess, we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions." Starhawk

I know that I have just used this quote in my last post but I would really like to take some time to reflect on what this means. In struggling with my eating disorder I am denying myself more than just food and the nutrients that comes with it. I deny myself the energy to get things done, to have fun, to  live my life. I deny my needs and say that they are not important, that they can be set aside as easily as one casts away junk mail. I am denying my very right to exist. In not eating and working my body beyond the point where it can safely maintain itself I am seeking to disappear, to become unseen, unnoticed, invisible. I have to ask myself why, why is it that I allow myself to continue down a path that I know deep down holds only pain, betrayal, anger, frustration and so much more. What is going on within me or in my environment that has fostered the right condition for such self-hatred? Growing up Catholic I was always taught that we are made in the image and likeness of God, with the capital g, and as such are we not god-like ourselves? But no with the sin of two people we were supposedly cast out of paradise and made to live a harsh life. I do not claim to be a theologian but this does not seem like the act of a loving god. The old testament, actually, shows an angry, vengeful god who deals out punishments to his people for disobeying his laws. I think that this punishment is what I really took away from my religious education classes and this is what I experienced at home. As a child I was filled with so much fear that I hid things and did things in secret so as not to be punished for being myself. I do not seek to criticize any religion but for me, I need to work on my relationship with the goddess. I think that I have allowed the daily difficulties of life to get in the way of time spent in reflection. This is not wholly my fault. There has been a lot of negativity this past year and that is what I need to work on first.

Negative self-talk is a major problem. I can never seem to shake the critic in myself. I do not use the same critic when talking or thinking about others so why am I so hard on myself. I do not know the answer but I would like to make a fresh start this year. I am going to try to reduce this negative self-talk. I am going to work on staying positive and not letting myself get bogged down when things get difficult. This past year I had to deal with a lot of shit and I need to work on cleaning up the wreckage that was left in it's wake. Included in working on the negative self-talk, I need to start taking a step back from other people's lives. I love my friends but I seem to make friends with people who have a lot they are dealing with and I have learned that, though some day I may become a therapist, at this moment I am not equipped to handle all of the worries and trials of my friends. I need to learn to set boundaries if others are unable to set healthy boundaries themselves. I need to learn that it is okay to say no and that I need to take care of myself before I can even think about taking care of others. I have known this for a long time but this year I am making it a goal, a priority to carry the knowledge into action.

Boundaries themselves have always been difficult. I never seem to be able to have healthy boundaries with friends. I need to be able to say no, to define what is and is not appropriated in a friendship. So this year I am going to work on boundaries. Already I have been trying to set up strong boundaries with my mother. In the past we have had a lot of issues and I have felt that she is often invading myself, my very being. I have felt crowded by her and have been working to not let her get through my defenses. I have to do this before I can get better along with many other things. This is just the beginning. I know I have a lot of work to do and a lot of reflecting to do. I am going to make a commitment to take time each day to reflect and grow closer to my goddess and to myself.

"What the caterpillar calls the end the of the rest of the world calls a butterfly." Lao Tzu

Looking for Inspiration

“Spirituality leaps where science cannot yet follow, because science must always test and measure, and much of reality and human experience is immeasurable.” Starhawk

“Through the Goddess, we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions.” Starhawk

“As women, however, we need to look very closely at these philosophies and ask ourselves the hard-headed, critial question, "What's in it for me?" "What does this spiritual system do for women?" Of course, the gurus, teachers, and ascended masters will tell us that, even by asking such a question, we are merely continuing in our enslavement to the Lords of Mind; that it is simply another dodge of the ego as it resists dissoulution in the All." Starhawk

I know that my body is not a place to carry out my war on the world or my family. It is not the ground for my struggle with any opposing force. I have been through the therapy and know these things rationally but it is difficult to apply rationality in daily life. As a human I am not just a rational being but an emotional being as well and right now my emotions are just crazy. Life is just crazy and I have really been struggling. I am trying to look for the things and reasons for to get better and stay in recovery. Currently ED is very loud and resistant to leaving me alone. I have seen my doctor twice in two weeks. I see her again in a week. My weight has been stable for the past two weeks. My vitals are beginning to be affected. I know I can't keep going on like this but Can't seem to stop either. 

My doctor describes ED as a chronic disease which it is. I will have to live with this constantly and struggle with it. This knowledge makes me feel so hopeless about the whole thing. I don't want to be constantly battling my eating disorder. I don't want to have the comments constantly running through my head. I don't want to be thinking about calories, exercise, food portions and weight all the time. I spend too much time focused on numbers but I want to be more than just a number. I want to be more than my eating disorder. But at times I forget this or don't believe that it is really what I want. ED gets in my head and tricks me. I have a hard time distinguishing between myself and him. He convinces me that he knows best but I know he is wrong, so why does that not make ignoring him easier? The worst thing is that I know logically that it is bad and wrong but I keep using behaviors that will kill me if I do not stop. I do not know how to deal with this. I love my friends, family and boyfriend and do not want to cause them pain but I cannot explain what it's like to them. They will never understand, ever. They cannot understand unless they have been through it. They don't know how to support me in recovery and I don't know how to get support from them because I don't know how to make things better. 

I have a hard time remembering what it was like before ED. I don't remember that child-like wonder and self-love. It seems to me that I have always hated my body and been filled with self-hatred. I guess the depression started before the eating and the depression reduced my intake then I started losing weight and loved it. Right now I'm not losing weight and I don't like it. I want to be skinny. People tell me I am skinny but I have so much trouble believing them. I wonder what is wrong with me and just become more depressed. The problem right now is I don't know how deep I am in which probably means that I am in too deep and need to get out and will need help to get out. But I don't know if I want that help. I am acting like I do to my treatment team but I am just so filled with doubt. I find myself doubting everything. Yet if I continue I will lose everything. and I don't want that. I just want to be beautiful. That is partly how this started but now I don't know how to finish it but it may finish me. 

I don't want to die but I know that if I don't start getting better I will end up permanently damaging my body. I do not want this to happen, though it may already have happened. I need to work to find the motivation to get better. This seems so wrong that I have to work to eat and find the motivation to eat. Eating should be something that is natural. What happened to the world that this has become such a major problem? How did this happen? Life used to be so simple and now every day is a major struggle. I don't understand how this has gotten so bad. All I know is that ignoring ED seems impossible.

Christmas Eve

Well it's christmas eve and the family is at church. I'm home alone. Got together my boyfriend today and it was great! However I am still struggling a lot. I feel guilty for eating and then when I do eat I get sick. I hate this. It's not like I'm trying to throw up but I am throwing up and I know it's not good. I know I can't keep going on like this but I'm finding it almost impossible to stop.I know I need help and I'm working on it.

Home and Still Struggling

Well I came home last night. My boyfriend brought me back and I fell asleep on the way back. I am now in egg-shell land and have to be vigilant all the time. Meals will be late and with the parental units with comments make all the time. I don't know how this is going to be. I don't think things will go well with me here. I am seeing my psychiatrist this week and I'm supposed to make an appointment with my doctor. I don't really want to do that but I know I have to. I'm going to try to make it so that my boyfriend takes me instead of my parents. I want to change my emergency contacts so that my parents are no longer my emergency contacts but that's a whole other story.

I am home and while my kitties make me feel better I also have to deal with my mother and that doesn't go well. I brought my scale home which made my boyfriend disappointed in me but I'm not ready to give it up. I just don't know how to do this. I know deep down that what I'm doing is wrong, that I should not be restricting but I can't stop. I can't seem to trust my boyfriend completely about this. I want to believe him but ED has a hold on me. I am so tired of fighting that I don't know if I want to keep it up. I almost wish that I could be a Renfew but I don't have time for that. I am just so sick of all of this but I can't give it up. I feel horrible about it but it's so hard. I feel bad because I'm constantly disappointing my boyfriend. He is trying to hard to be helpful but I'm not getting better so it's frustrating for him. The guilt from not getting better even though he's trying so hard to be helpful is just making everything so much harder and I know he doesn't want me to feel guilty but I can't help it.

Further Down The Rabbit Hole

Years ago I followed this image, chasing it wherever it went. Little did I know what the results would be. I followed the image through the mirror and down the rabbit hole. In this world ED was the ruler. His word was law. While I thought that three years ago I had escaped this world but today I find myself back down the hole. I am not really sure how I got here or why ED is being so aggressive. I have some thoughts as to the possibilities but I know it is more complicated than just one or two reasons.

I don't want to be listening to him and yet I do. I am finding it really difficult to separate myself from ED. I am living in his world and his reality. It's like he's taken over my life and I'm letting him. I feel weak because of this. I was doing fairly well in recovery but now I've given in again. All the time, money and resources I've spent and my family has spent on my recovery is now wasted. I don't really want to get "better" and don't need to because I have convinced myself that there is nothing wrong. I have control of my life. These are the things that ED is telling me/I am telling myself. Logically I know these are lies but I believe them. This knowledge makes it even more difficult. It has started to effect my relationship with  my boyfriend and for that I feel horribly guilty. Almost everyday he and I now have a fight over my intake, working out, my appearance and worth, etc. and it makes everything so much harder. I know that ED is trying to split us apart and he's doing a pretty good job of it. My boyfriend is starting to question whether I love ED more than him and the pain that this causes is unbearable. I love him so much and to have him believe this is excruciating. I have been trying to fight ED but I just can't seem to do so. I am weak willed and it is affecting every aspect of my life. I know what I need to do but it is actually doing it that is so damn hard. I am fight first for the will to want recovery 100% because I know until I make that decision and commitment everything else is pointless.

I Can't Fight This Feeling

I cannot fight this anymore. I am really struggling. I feel so guilty when I eat anything. I take every opportunity to go to the gym. I feel like I'm a total failure and completely worthless. I am depressed and cry myself to sleep most nights. ED's voice is in my head all the time and I cannot shut him out or shut him up. This was the case even in recovery so once again I believe him. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. I am tired, so tired, all the time. I just want to give in and give up. All I want to do is curl up in my room and hide but I cannot do this for obvious reasons. I am sure that part of the problem is it's finals and I have a lot to do but this was bad before that. I cannot say that it came back when my friend attempted suicide because I was struggling before that. I was struggling on and off even before school started. Honestly part of it I think was the realization that I had been in recovery for three years this summer and that freaked me out. I don't know if that is the sole or main cause or factor but I know that I am not doing well and I don't want to admit it. I don't want to say that it is a problem. I do not have the time to have an eating disorder that needs treatment right now. I just don't. I have too much going on in my life to take the time to stop and get help for this. I have goals that do not include treatment. Writing this and reading it sounds crazy and my rational side can argue and say that those goals are the very reason that I need to get help but my mind is not rational right now. I am not myself. ED has just completely taken over and I am torn between wanting to get better and wanting to get worse. I know that as an adult I cannot be forced into treatment. I know that I have to finish this semester. I know that I have friends and family who love me and are worried. I know my boyfriend is in a lot of pain because I am not eating right. Yet none of it matters to me. All that matters is the anxiety I have about eating food. The fear of gaining weight. The belief that I am too fat. The need to lose weight and deny my needs. I am so scared of myself, of ED, of others, of what I am willing to put myself through. The self-hatred that I carry is huge and it scares me. I know that I am in a lot of pain right now and I don't know why or how to deal with it but ED does. ED is giving me the answers right now and I am listening because I am weak and scared. I know that I need to stop listening, stand up for myself and figure out what is going on but that is scarier than ED and I don't know if I have the strength right now. I am overwhelmed. I know what to do but I don't know how to do it.

I Can't Do This

I am really really really struggling. I keep cutting back and going to the gym whenever I can. I am extremely stressed and having a hard time focusing, especially with reading which is what I have most of. I am losing hope if I haven't already lost it. All I can think about is how fat I am. I have two mirrors in my room which aren't helping any, one right across from my bed. I hate feeling like this all the time. I hate the feeling of food in my stomach. I don't know what is wrong or why this is happening. I just want it to go away. I hate my body and I hate everything about myself. I just want to sleep, curl up in my bed and not go anywhere or do anything. I especially don't want to eat. I don't understand why this is happening. I don't understand why I just want to lose weight and be skin and bones. I know, logically, it makes no sense and is wrong so why do I want it so badly. What is wrong with me? I'm so confused and scared. I just want to disappear. I can't deal with everything. I have to get through finals but I don't know if I can. I can barely concentrate. I just feel like I can't do any of this and I don't want to. I just want to stay in my room and starve, leaving only to go to the gym because when I go to the gym I feel better.