The Reality of an Eating Disorder

Having left treatment at a healthy weight and being on a maintenance meal plan I sometimes, okay maybe more like daily, find myself thinking back to the body I had before treatment and where I was headed with ED. Idolizing that body is unhealthy and sick, I know, yet I can't help doing it. My brain is constantly comparing where I am in terms of weight and shape and size now and pre-treatment. When I see people on the street or anywhere who are skinnier than I am (or skinnier than I perceive myself as being which, face it, is most people) I get really jealous. When I see someone who is clearly unhealthy and anorexic I envy them. "It's not fair," ED says, "that person gets to be thin and bony while you have to be fat and ugly. I wish I could be like that. You really don't need to eat. You can restrict. Just cut out one item or food group a day and you too can look like that. Just a few pounds wouldn't hurt, right?" WRONG! A part of me sees the "WARNING. DANGER DANGER DANGER" signs going off. But ED always has an argument prepared to counter my rational self: It really wasn't that bad. My vital signs were still good. My blood work wasn't really off. I could still function. I could stand to lose a few pounds. It's not like restricting is dangerous. If I eat just enough to keep me going, that's fine. Hey, food isn't really that important. You've done it before. It won't kill you. Your team is just lying and wants you to get fat. I know what's best for you. RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGHT. So, I figured it's time for a reality check. So ED what really happens when I get back together with you???

Well, for one it is that bad. Not eating deprives my body of energy and nutrients that it needs to function. The logic center of my brain shuts down. I get flighty and fidgety. I can't concentrate. I can't think. My skin get dry. My hair gets dry and falls out. I am constipated. I am tired and exhausted. I am sad and depressed all the time and I cry all the time. I worry friends and family. I lose friends because they can't stand to see me like that. I get dizzy really easily. Eventually my vital signs and blood work will not be okay. I am cold all the time. My grades drop. My teachers worry. I risk passing out. I am slow and sluggish. I am tired all the time and in pain. I am damaging my organs and my body. I am alone because I isolate. I shut off feelings as much as possible. I have no life outside of thinking about food and calories and weight. I am scared and anxious all the time. I feel immense guilt over everything. I hate myself and my life. I hate my body. I am lonely. I risk getting kicked out of school or maybe losing a job. I am irresponsible and selfish. I don't care about anything. I want to just die and as I am killing myself slowly, I eventually will die. This is not the glamorous image that ED puts in my head when he tries to get me to come back to him. This is not what I immediately think of when I think of going back to him. However, this is the reality and if I remind myself of this I will remember why I am working on recovery, why following my meal plan and listening to my team is so important. So ED, fuck off. You are not wanted. That is not the life I want for myself. Get lost. 

Therapy Assignment-Home

Home. For some people saying that word instantly elicits the image of a house and family from childhood. For me that is not so. When I think of "home" my mind draws a blank. I may refer to the house my parents live in as "home" but it does not feel like home to me. The well-known saying says that home is where the heart is. Well my heart does not really lie  in a physical location but with the ones I love. In some ways Mount Holyoke is my home, a temporary home for only four years but it has traits I would want in a home. I get excited to got back there and there are places where I feel safe. That is my biggest problem living in my parents' home-I do not have a space that is mine or a place where I feel really safe. I never really get to let down my guard and being on alert for anything keeps me on my feet and is mentally and emotionally exhausting. I want a space that has no associations to the yelling and screaming and fighting of my family. A place I was not teased and humiliated. I know that wherever I find a home there will be good and bad memories formed and attached to the place but I want a place where the good memories outweigh the bad and where love is the pulse of the place. So what is home for me?

Talking in therapy this week, at the end of my session the longing I have for a real home was brought up and my therapist suggested that I think about what I wanted in a home when I have the chance to make one. It is hard to think of what I want. I know that for me a home will include my boyfriend and eventually one or two kids. My home will have pets, more specifically cats. I want to always have a pet. This has been a topic of discussion for me and my boyfriend and we have agreed to start out with a hamster and then get a cat when we have proven that we can take care of a hamster and when we live in a place where we can have a cat or two. My home will be a loving place where arguments and disagreements will be worked out in a reasonable and mature way. It will be a place of warmth and happiness. It will be a place where it is okay to have emotions and show them. Anger will be acceptable so rage will not break through when too much anger is bottled up. Communication will happen and words will not be used as weapons. Respect will be given and received. Honesty will be the policy. Tears will be shared and not shed in secret or withheld. There will be no bullying of any kind and abuse will not exist in our vocabulary or actions. News will be shared and fun will be had. There will be time for work and time to relax. Guilt will not be used a motivation and shoulds will not be thrown about. Rules will be followed but they will not be cast in iron. Faith will be shared and discussed but not forced. Opinions will be listened to and debates will be allowed but beliefs will not be shoved down anyone's throat. Consequences will exist but as a way of learning from mistakes. It will be a place of growth and movement. A place of peace and joy. There may or may not be a garden but things will be tended to and maintained. It will be organized and comfortable and have a pleasant environment. I would like room for a friend or guest and visitors will be welcomed with open arms and good conversation. Food will be for nourishing the body and not used as reward or punishment and exercise will be done in moderation. What else there may be I do not know yet but the most important piece is that it will be a safe space and intolerance will not be tolerated. And it will ours.

Comfort Zone and Voice

I am a compilation of complex anomalies and paradoxes. I am private but I will open up with certain people a write a blog for anyone who wants to see it. I like food but I hate and fear it. I want to be sexy and attractive but I don't want to be seen as just my body and I don't like it when guys "check me out." I was raised Catholic but became pagan. I love nature but hate weeding though I love gardens. I am OCD but it comes in waves  between which I find myself surrounded by mess. I want to have adventure but I don't want to be out of my comfort zone.

Living with an active eating disorder is like living life as the perpetual answering machine. People send or leave messages and hope that they get heard. You act automatically and often with no tone of personality. You are generic and have just a very limited amount of memory before it becomes "filled," after that nothing gets through. You are meant to be connected and plugged into the world, an mean of communication, much like the body is meant as a means of communication. You filter out information and receive only a small chunk of it. Well I want to be more than an answering machine, more than an automated response. I want to go, not back but forward towards those complexities and anomalies. I want to be the complicated living organism that I am. I want to scream to the world that I WILL NOT STAY DOWN! I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANOTHERS DEFINITION OF BEAUTY OR WHO I AM! This is my life and I may not think or feel that I deserve better but I know that if I was talking to another person I would  say exactly that. It is time to start taking my own advice. It is time for me to try living outside that comfort zone. ED has shrunk my comfort zone to essentially nothing, which is why everything causes me anxiety. I know that it will be hard to step across that line and it has been hard pushing those boundaries that ED installed for me, but I also know that it will be worth it; it is worth it. I know where ED wants to and will lead me given the chance. I have been there and have absolutely no desire to go back there. My life is more valuable than that. I know that I need to set concrete goals for myself and hold myself to them. It may be that I don't meet some but that is another goal, learning to tolerate not accomplishing and completing everything I set out to do. I want to be able to make mistakes without feeling like a total failure. I want to get messy and be able to handle the messiness of life without turning to ED grasping at some form of control or punishment. The realization that food is not a reward or punishment seems so foreign to me. Food is just, well, food. It provides energy and I nourishment for my body. It keeps my brain and organ functioning. It is part of life and living. I do not need to shrink myself down to be heard. I do not need to try to make myself invisible because I feel invisible. I can use my voice. If others do not hear me, I can still use my voice rather than giving up and staying quiet. I have a right to my opinions and holding everything inside for fear of upsetting someone or hurting them does no one any good. I am not responsible for that actions or reactions of others. I can only be accountable for myself. I have learned this and it is one of the lessons I continue to learn everyday.

I am sorry

Listen to my words

Do you hear the screaming silence

Do you see the deep seeded pain

Could you ever understand how hard it is to take a stand

Look upon me with doubt and disbelief

Judge me and say I am weak

Can you look in my eyes and see my soul

Can you read my mind and hear my thoughts

The vast emptiness within hidden behind a mask

Trying to quiet the voices in my head, a deafening cacophony

Trying to keep this ocean from spilling out

Chaos in my mind shows in my actions

Trying to keep emotions light leads to destruction of the soul

Take my advice and run far away from me and my own

Pick up your world and move away

Find peace somewhere with my blessing

Do not fear for me for I will always be near

Should you have need of a friend

I will do my best to support and love you

But will stay away for your good

Protect you from the life I lead

Because I love you and want you safe and happy

I will leave with no word but those of regret

That I could not be what you needed, what you wanted

I will smile and walk away with tears falling and a heavy heart

But you will never know

How truly sorry I am

Meal Plan

It has not been easy but I am working my way back up to my meal plan. I am reincorporating the greatly feared "fats." My nutritionist gave me good advice when she said "let's not think of it in terms of 'you need x number of fats, but rather think of it as 'oh I need x amount of peanut butter/nutella/avocado...." This has been really helpful. The term "fats" is just such a scary word for me right now. The ingrained ED logic that fats will make me fat is still very prominent so instead I know I need to have a piece of cheese on my veggie burger or avocado in my salad. This is much easier to do. ED is a very tricky bastard but as all of us know, he is not the brightest and thus he can be tricked as well. Just because something is labeled at a fat or a carb, does not mean that you have to call it that. Giving something a new name or calling it something else takes away the word association that ED has created, thus making the thing less scary. I do not know why I did not think of this years ago because it is brilliant. I can be the trickster to ED. I recognize that tricking ED in the long run is not going to solve my problems but it will help me get back to my meal plan right now and as I recover the ever scary hunger signals and become used to and comfortable in my body I can return to the language. That said I'd like to know what genius (please not the sarcasm) decided that the term we use to call oils and things like that would be the same term we use to refer to people we see as overweight.

Th other thing that I have noticed that is really confusing me is when restricting I often include protein as a restricted item and I do not know why. I am sure there is something significant about that but I do not know what. It is not a "fear food" or anything that engenders anxiety yet protein does get cut out. This is something I might explore with my therapist or nutritionist so see why I might be doing it. Regardless I am going to get back on my meal plan and kick ED to the curb!!!