Oh who am I and where will I go????????

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” 
― Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...” 
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

“we accept the love we think we deserve.” 
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

My mind feels like it is going everywhere at once. There is no one thread that links my thoughts. I am here and there. I am tired and exhilarated at the same time. I am everything and nothing. I want to be happy and healthy and whole but I feel broken into tiny pieces and I don't even know if they are all there to put me back together again. I guess for me this is part of the process of recovery. I know that ED/Ana broke down and apart the person that I was. I do not even know who that person was. I do not fully know who I AM and for someone who likes to be in control of things, that is a scary feeling. I know that I can decide who I am and who I choose to be but I am a very indecisive person. With ED/Ana I knew exactly what I did and who I was. I was the girl who did not eat, who went to the gym for at least an hour, more often an hour and a half. I was the girl who stood on the scale multiple times a day. I was the girl with the incredible self-control. I was the girl who was envious of everyone around me. I was the girl who was here but was not really here. I was the girl who was terrified of her own shadow and so sought to make that shadow disappear. There was certainty with ED/Ana, a clear and definite path. Now I have hips. I have breasts. I take up space. I am messy and dealing with messy emotions. I have thighs. I have power and a voice. I have a body. But I do not have a set path anymore. I do not have the clear rules. I do not have the defined categories. I feel like my life is unraveling but in reality, it is just beginning.

I am no longer chained to death. I have free will. I have choice. I have a chance at life. I can be free of fear of food. I still feel that pull towards that old path but I know I don't have to go down it. Instead, I CHOOSE to go to school, to take classes and throw myself into my course work and my job and my friendships and relationship with my boyfriend, to in essence throw myself into life. I am getting ready to go back to school and this will be a new beginning, a chance to make the most of my final year at school. I don't want to waste time on ED/Ana. I am going to choose health, happiness and recovery.

Finding My Voice

Life is hard enough without having any disorder. There are always unexpected challenges and things thrown at you that you have to deal with. Being diagnosed with any ED means that you have to constantly be aware of what is going on, not just around you, but also within you. ED has a nasty way of sneaking back into people's lives. After so many years of hearing that voice it is so easy to slip into the ED mindset without realizing it. Being about a month and a half out of residential treatment I am still struggling a lot with the feelings and thoughts surrounding food and body. I still feel guilty any time something goes into my body. I hate looking at myself in the mirror and I hate taking showers because I hate having to look at my body. It is really hard to fight that critical voice in my head and I will admit that at times I don't even bother trying because I am just so tired. However this does not mean that I have given up, it just means that I don't win every battle. It does not mean that I am relapsing, it just means that I am human. I am learning to accept the defeats along with the wins and know that each time ED scores there is something to learn and I can take pride in the wins even more. Recovery is not a linear process. I know this but knowing and believing and experiencing something are completely different. When I get knocked down I know how important it is that I do not stay down. I am learning to keep getting back up. Being at home is really hard as many people who know me know and acknowledge. My mother is not the healthiest person in the world and is very difficult to be around and even harder to be healthy around. I have to take the fact that my weight has remained stable (even if at times I don't necessarily want it to be) as a sign that I am stronger than she. I am not lying down and taking her bullshit anymore. I have learned to use my voice rather than my eating disorder and even if that gets me in trouble with her at times, it is SOOOO worth it. I don't have to starve myself to get my point across. Speaking up is another choice. Knowing that I am going back to school is helpful despite the fact that I have reservations about that as well. I understand myself so much more now that I have had the experience of living away from home. Being in a different environment has allowed me to see just how unhealthy the one I came from is. I am able to take what I have learned and experienced now and use it as a reality check. I do not have to react the way she wants me to anymore. I do not have to take the bait. I can remain calm and hold my ground. Not that I am successful in doing this every time but my eating disorder is no longer the means by which I communicate.

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.