At least half of my clothes don't fit me.
When I was an emaciated size 2, I convinced myself that I would never, ever, ever gain back the weight I had lost and so I got rid of almost everything I owned that was too big for me. While I am usually such a fan of decluttering and donating, for the last few months, I have been kicking myself that I got rid of so much stuff that (whether I like it or not) I would fit into again these days.
So yeah.
Style inspiration for the season? Not much.
I still don't like how my body looks. I don't like what I see in the mirror. The boy will routinely tell me to "stop mean mugging" myself in the mirror because he's a little sick and tired of me grimacing at what's looking back at me while I struggle to find clothes to wear each day. I wind up wearing either some version of leggings and a sweater most days, or my one pair of jeans that fit, or my scrubs when I have clinical, or sweats when I just can't take it anymore and give up before I burst into tears (or after, as the case may be).
Pretty much the only time these days that I don't care what I look like in clothes is when I'm running. Usually it's darkish, so that helps.
Sorry for the debbie downer post, you guys. But yeah. Sometimes recovery is awesome. And sometimes it sucks so fucking much you want to punch it in the nads.
30 Days Hath November
Day 01: A place I'd like to travel.
Day 02: A favourite movie.
Day 03: Something I never leave the house without.
Day 04: A friend I adore.
Day 05: My hometown.
Day 06: A book I'm reading.
Day 07: A song for the day.
Day 08: Three inspirational quotes.
Day 09: A close-up of my day.
Day 10: A favourite recipe.
Day 11: Three years ago today.
Day 12: The last item I purchased.
Day 13: Something I'm proud of.
Day 14: Style inspiration for the season.
Showing posts with label eating disorder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eating disorder. Show all posts
Monday, November 26, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Finding the Gray
My third grade teacher gave me an award on the last day of school that recognized my propensity for always thinking in black and white. It was meant to be funny, but in a less than ironic keeping with the award's very point, I couldn't see the humor. All I saw was that I was being made fun of, and I didn't like it. Not to mention, it bothered me that the award title was so long that the words ran off the allotted line. Rigid much, Cait? Give or take a dozen years and not much has changed.
I've been told, often, to "find the gray." To find the area of logic, or reasoning that is neither this nor that, one thing or the other, but rather somewhere in between. For me, the in-between is an excruciatingly uncomfortable place. It lacks definition, and, therefore (in my mind) meaning or worth. Without a structure, without a category, without a system in which to file experiences, thoughts, worries, and fears, my mind races, turns in circles, and often freaks out.
The eating disorder provided the clearest, most easily accessible system that I had ever encountered. Within it, I had access to a kind of mental utopia that Valium and Seroquel only claim to provide. In that world, decisions were so simple. Eat, or not eat? Purge, or not purge? (I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.) My mind relaxed. It didn't matter that I didn't know what to do about anything else that was going on in my life, because I had the real stuff figured out: I had figured out how to lose weight.
I remember how this all began. It was the end of December. (Is anyone happy with how their body looks after the holidays? I wasn't.) I weighed myself, took stock of the situation, and set a goal for myself based on how tall I thought I was (turns out I'm an inch taller, but I didn't know that then). Here's where the butterfly flapped its wings on one continent and it caused an earthquake on another: I took a reasonable goal weight and I subtracted one pound. That's my goal, I decided. That one pound does not make a difference anyway, and I like the way the second number sounds better. Can you hear the tectonic plates shifting? Because that was all it took. You know how many times you can subtract one?
Take away one sugar packet, and now you're drinking black coffee.
Take away one piece of bread, and now you're eating half a sandwich.
Take away one meal, and now you're only eating two.
Take away one more (because you don't actually need breakfast and lunch, good god, don't be a pig), and you're left with only one.
Almost without noticing it, your original goal weight slips by. You don't really notice, because for weeks now, you've had a new goal weight. One that's just a tiny bit lower. And so on, and so on. Until something happens, like your father getting diagnosed with cancer, to make you realize you've been operating under a profoundly selfish paradigm for far, far too long.
Shedding the eating disorder is not comprised of a series of careful steps forward, with pauses in between each one to make sure you're ready before moving on. Nope. It's a clusterfuck of good intentions, bad decisions, guilt, tears, frustration, and despair. I can't, I can't, I can't, chants your ED brain, while You must, you must, you must insists the real you, the you you're trying to access, to create, to find again after so long. It's four steps forward, and twelve steps back. It's picking one thing to focus on, and going for broke on that, and only that. I will not purge, even though I just binged and I am gasping for air and my stomach is distended and I hurt, everything hurts, but I will lie here in bed and I will clutch my pillow over my swollen belly and I will tell myself that tomorrow, tomorrow will be different. Hopefully better, but if not better, at the very least - different.
Here's the "tomorrow" that I have landed in now, one that I swore up and down I would never be in again: I am an unhealthy weight. And not because I weigh too little, though a year ago, that was very much the case. As my body readjusted to being fed again, it put on weight. And more, and more, and more weight. Meanwhile, I was fighting tooth and nail to keep from purging (it's been weeks now, you guys), but the compulsions to binge were much slower to fade. Cut out the excessive exercising too, and hi, we've now got ourselves a weight problem. When I try to find clothes that fit me from a closet of 2's and 4's, or when I don't manage to escape the bathroom without seeing my reflection, my brain feels like it's screaming, You know what to do. You know how to lose this weight. I sigh, inwardly, and grit my teeth. That road is closed, I tell myself. Tempting, yes, but closed.
I had a physical with my nurse-practioner last week in preparation for Yale. I asked to be weighed backwards, and after, she and I discussed where I'm at. We talked about normal exercising patterns, normal eating patterns, and what a normal, healthy weight for my height would be. Armed with encouragement, strategies, and a real goal, I hopped on the scale at home the next morning. I crumpled. It's the highest number I've seen in years. Higher than when I started losing weight, all those months ago. In months past, the thought of losing almost twenty pounds wouldn't really have fazed me. Give me two months, I might say, and then I'd promptly stop eating for three days to give myself a head start. But now? I'm fazed. I'm scared, and apprehensive, and emotionally bruised, but I'm also stubborn and I refuse to give up now. My recovery may have taken a turn I didn't expect, but it's a turn that I have to live with.
Black and white thinking tells me I will never find the middle ground between weighing too much and too little, that I will live the rest of my life oscillating from one extreme to the other, and I will never figure this out.
Here in the gray zone, though, in the profoundly uncomfortable contortion I am inhabiting, the future looks a whole lot brighter. The gray tells me that I will learn. The gray tells me that I will get to a healthy weight, though it's going to take a lot longer than I want it to. Mostly, the gray tells me that however I do this, and however long it takes, and however many times I want to give up...I am worth the fight.
And that? Well, that is something to hold on to.
I've been told, often, to "find the gray." To find the area of logic, or reasoning that is neither this nor that, one thing or the other, but rather somewhere in between. For me, the in-between is an excruciatingly uncomfortable place. It lacks definition, and, therefore (in my mind) meaning or worth. Without a structure, without a category, without a system in which to file experiences, thoughts, worries, and fears, my mind races, turns in circles, and often freaks out.
The eating disorder provided the clearest, most easily accessible system that I had ever encountered. Within it, I had access to a kind of mental utopia that Valium and Seroquel only claim to provide. In that world, decisions were so simple. Eat, or not eat? Purge, or not purge? (I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.) My mind relaxed. It didn't matter that I didn't know what to do about anything else that was going on in my life, because I had the real stuff figured out: I had figured out how to lose weight.
I remember how this all began. It was the end of December. (Is anyone happy with how their body looks after the holidays? I wasn't.) I weighed myself, took stock of the situation, and set a goal for myself based on how tall I thought I was (turns out I'm an inch taller, but I didn't know that then). Here's where the butterfly flapped its wings on one continent and it caused an earthquake on another: I took a reasonable goal weight and I subtracted one pound. That's my goal, I decided. That one pound does not make a difference anyway, and I like the way the second number sounds better. Can you hear the tectonic plates shifting? Because that was all it took. You know how many times you can subtract one?
Take away one sugar packet, and now you're drinking black coffee.
Take away one piece of bread, and now you're eating half a sandwich.
Take away one meal, and now you're only eating two.
Take away one more (because you don't actually need breakfast and lunch, good god, don't be a pig), and you're left with only one.
Almost without noticing it, your original goal weight slips by. You don't really notice, because for weeks now, you've had a new goal weight. One that's just a tiny bit lower. And so on, and so on. Until something happens, like your father getting diagnosed with cancer, to make you realize you've been operating under a profoundly selfish paradigm for far, far too long.
Shedding the eating disorder is not comprised of a series of careful steps forward, with pauses in between each one to make sure you're ready before moving on. Nope. It's a clusterfuck of good intentions, bad decisions, guilt, tears, frustration, and despair. I can't, I can't, I can't, chants your ED brain, while You must, you must, you must insists the real you, the you you're trying to access, to create, to find again after so long. It's four steps forward, and twelve steps back. It's picking one thing to focus on, and going for broke on that, and only that. I will not purge, even though I just binged and I am gasping for air and my stomach is distended and I hurt, everything hurts, but I will lie here in bed and I will clutch my pillow over my swollen belly and I will tell myself that tomorrow, tomorrow will be different. Hopefully better, but if not better, at the very least - different.
Here's the "tomorrow" that I have landed in now, one that I swore up and down I would never be in again: I am an unhealthy weight. And not because I weigh too little, though a year ago, that was very much the case. As my body readjusted to being fed again, it put on weight. And more, and more, and more weight. Meanwhile, I was fighting tooth and nail to keep from purging (it's been weeks now, you guys), but the compulsions to binge were much slower to fade. Cut out the excessive exercising too, and hi, we've now got ourselves a weight problem. When I try to find clothes that fit me from a closet of 2's and 4's, or when I don't manage to escape the bathroom without seeing my reflection, my brain feels like it's screaming, You know what to do. You know how to lose this weight. I sigh, inwardly, and grit my teeth. That road is closed, I tell myself. Tempting, yes, but closed.
I had a physical with my nurse-practioner last week in preparation for Yale. I asked to be weighed backwards, and after, she and I discussed where I'm at. We talked about normal exercising patterns, normal eating patterns, and what a normal, healthy weight for my height would be. Armed with encouragement, strategies, and a real goal, I hopped on the scale at home the next morning. I crumpled. It's the highest number I've seen in years. Higher than when I started losing weight, all those months ago. In months past, the thought of losing almost twenty pounds wouldn't really have fazed me. Give me two months, I might say, and then I'd promptly stop eating for three days to give myself a head start. But now? I'm fazed. I'm scared, and apprehensive, and emotionally bruised, but I'm also stubborn and I refuse to give up now. My recovery may have taken a turn I didn't expect, but it's a turn that I have to live with.
Black and white thinking tells me I will never find the middle ground between weighing too much and too little, that I will live the rest of my life oscillating from one extreme to the other, and I will never figure this out.
Here in the gray zone, though, in the profoundly uncomfortable contortion I am inhabiting, the future looks a whole lot brighter. The gray tells me that I will learn. The gray tells me that I will get to a healthy weight, though it's going to take a lot longer than I want it to. Mostly, the gray tells me that however I do this, and however long it takes, and however many times I want to give up...I am worth the fight.
And that? Well, that is something to hold on to.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Coasting
As I stood over the stove this evening, stirring a pot of oatmeal and enjoying the faint whiff of cinnamon blooming from the oven where a batch of granola was baking, I glanced idly to the retro clock on the wall, and below that, the bookcase that houses (mostly) cookbooks. I paused, and counted. Twenty. I own twenty cookbooks. Plus a recipe box that's more than halfway full. Which doesn't even begin to extend to the hodgepodge of recipes I keep filed in my internet cache, through bookmarked sites and cooking blog posts. For someone who has food issues, I sure like to cook, I thought wryly. Indeed, for as long as I can remember, I have always enjoyed cooking - for others. I grew up watching my mom in the kitchen, standing on a stool to crack eggs, gripping a wooden spoon in my two small paws to stir whatever it was she was working on. Eventually, I graduated to cooking and baking on my own, mostly things for my family and eventually treats for friends, school events, and bake sales. In college, it didn't take long for my friends and I to start a Thursday night supper club that usually consisted of steaming bowls of pasta (cheap, and feeds a crowd) clutched in our laps while the Massachusetts winter would rage outside. We would collapse into each other while we ate, fitting into the curves of shoulders, leaning against knees, and talking endlessly as we fell into the easy physical fluidity that characterized our circle of four. Food, and the experience of it, was a refuge. A haven of nourishment and safety in the midst of the emotional turmoil and academic challenges that Smith presented. I hold these memories close, even while the four of us have geographically dispersed to almost comical distances. After college, I jumped for joy at the prospect of having a kitchen again, albeit one that was wedged into the corner of our studio apartment like an afterthought. I started cooking for Alix with gusto, attempting to recreate elaborate dishes from her childhood, crafting four course birthday dinners, and creating towering stacks of dirty dishes that took two hours to wash in the tiny sink. I have cooked and baked for every family for whom I have ever nannied, held many a small hand while we cracked eggs together and encircled little arms that strained to stir a bowl of batter. These days, I bake for my roommates and I cook for Hallie, making food on the weekends to last the two of us in the week of work ahead. I make everyone else's favorites because I don't know what mine are. I ask what people like, what they want for dinner, for their birthday, for anything at all, because it's far more straightforward than attempting to cook for myself. I cook for others. I always have. I want the food to show how much I care for these people in my life. Maybe this means I play to people's most base selves, but it's what I do, and I do it well. Talk to me about cooking for myself though, and all bets are off. When it comes to me, I hate it all. I hate food, I hate needing it, I hate eating it, I hate what it does to me, I hate everything about it. I get angry about it, and my brain's completely twisted way of conceptualizing food and turning anything and everything about it into permutations on the idea of BAD. Same story, a million different incarnations.
My therapist asks me when we talk, "how food is going," the way one might ask after the welfare of your child, or your pet. What she means is, "Tell me what you're eating and then let's talk about it." In other words, saying "Fine" and expecting her to say "Great" and move on her merry way is laughable (I know this because I've tried and she has laughed and I still have to talk about it.). Have you ever had to tell someone what you eat, every day, in excruciating detail? No? It's tons of fun. No, it's not sufficient to say you had a smoothie for breakfast. Your therapist would like to know what the smoothie is made out of and how many calories are in it. Don't pretend like you don't know. Often, the fact reporting part of these conversations is rather short, for the obvious reason that I don't eat a lot, and for the maybe not obvious reason that I eat the exact same thing every day. It's simpler that way. Week to week, the combination might change slightly, but I will eat the same thing every day for up to two weeks in order to avoid having to recalculate calories for new recipes or foods. If I heard of other people doing this, I'd think how sad it was that they didn't know how to cook different, yummy things for themselves (or didn't have someone to cook for them). But honest to blog, swing the camera back on me and my brain says, "Nope, nuh-uh, doesn't apply to THIS person right here."
Dealing with an eating disorder is like doing an elaborate dance to which you don't know all the steps. You see other people doing the dance and you know that it's not that hard, but when you try to do it, you keep taking the wrong steps. So you watch other people, again, and try, again, and maybe this time you get the first part right and you mess up a different step. It's exhausting. So you have all these rules and security measures in place to try and keep you from completely collapsing on the dance floor (i.e., eating the same thing every day for weeks at a time) but even with these in place, your disordered brain finds ways to knock down your carefully constructed little house of cards, and you're back to square one. Again.
My therapist isn't all that happy with me. She says I'm "coasting" right now.
Coasting, as in, I'm kind of attempting the dance, but my heart's not always all the way in it.
Coasting, as in, this works for right now because everything is just fine the way it is, thank you very much.
Coasting, as in, what's going to happen when things change?
What happens next in the dance?
You think I know?
My therapist asks me when we talk, "how food is going," the way one might ask after the welfare of your child, or your pet. What she means is, "Tell me what you're eating and then let's talk about it." In other words, saying "Fine" and expecting her to say "Great" and move on her merry way is laughable (I know this because I've tried and she has laughed and I still have to talk about it.). Have you ever had to tell someone what you eat, every day, in excruciating detail? No? It's tons of fun. No, it's not sufficient to say you had a smoothie for breakfast. Your therapist would like to know what the smoothie is made out of and how many calories are in it. Don't pretend like you don't know. Often, the fact reporting part of these conversations is rather short, for the obvious reason that I don't eat a lot, and for the maybe not obvious reason that I eat the exact same thing every day. It's simpler that way. Week to week, the combination might change slightly, but I will eat the same thing every day for up to two weeks in order to avoid having to recalculate calories for new recipes or foods. If I heard of other people doing this, I'd think how sad it was that they didn't know how to cook different, yummy things for themselves (or didn't have someone to cook for them). But honest to blog, swing the camera back on me and my brain says, "Nope, nuh-uh, doesn't apply to THIS person right here."
Dealing with an eating disorder is like doing an elaborate dance to which you don't know all the steps. You see other people doing the dance and you know that it's not that hard, but when you try to do it, you keep taking the wrong steps. So you watch other people, again, and try, again, and maybe this time you get the first part right and you mess up a different step. It's exhausting. So you have all these rules and security measures in place to try and keep you from completely collapsing on the dance floor (i.e., eating the same thing every day for weeks at a time) but even with these in place, your disordered brain finds ways to knock down your carefully constructed little house of cards, and you're back to square one. Again.
My therapist isn't all that happy with me. She says I'm "coasting" right now.
Coasting, as in, I'm kind of attempting the dance, but my heart's not always all the way in it.
Coasting, as in, this works for right now because everything is just fine the way it is, thank you very much.
Coasting, as in, what's going to happen when things change?
What happens next in the dance?
You think I know?
Friday, February 3, 2012
Scars
Disclaimer: This post contains references to self-harm. If this bothers you or is triggering for you, please do not read.
I have my fair share of scars. After all, I have five brothers. There are a few scars from my years of horseback riding, some that are evidence of Tucker's early days, and a jagged beauty that snakes up my right index finger from the car accident. Through some combination of youth, luck, and genetics, my skin hides the scars well. Indeed, my freckles alone have rendered most of the marks near invisible. Except for four. On my left thigh, exactly halfway between my knee and my hip, lie four wide, white bands that, even healed, look angry and frightening. These are not the calm, orderly scars left behind after neat stitches have sealed a surgical incision. Nor are they the barely perceptible lines left behind by cat claws or wood splinters. These are disorderly, angled against each other as if fighting for space. They are uncommonly wide, the sure evidence that they required stitches that never came. The skin puckers faintly around them and they've barely faded in almost three years' time. When I sat on the floor of my dorm room's closet my junior year of college, and dug a razor blade deep into the flesh and waited for blood to appear - I wasn't thinking about the scars I'd have someday. At that moment, I was pretty damn sure I wasn't going to be around for breakfast the next day, let alone for a future that featured healed wounds. I shook with silent, quaking sobs - my tears had dried up days ago. I watched the blood bubble to the surface and trickle down my pale flesh before dripping to the floor. I don't remember how long I sat there, wedged into my closet, willing my pain and anguish to rush out of the wounds I'd made for it. Eventually, the trickle slowed, and then stopped. Exhausted and numb, I uncurled myself from the floor, dropped the sticky blade into the trash, and collapsed into bed. The pain inside me was still there. Now I had an aching leg to go with it.
When I was admitted to the hospital only a few days later, I answered the intake questions honestly, too broken to defend myself and convinced there was nothing worth defending anyway. Self-harm? Yes, here. I mechanically pulled up my sweatpants to show my still tender cuts. Were you trying to kill yourself? No. Really? Yes, really. Why did you do it? I stared fixedly at the floor, trying to find the words. Because, I said, I just don't want to be...like this...anymore. Don't want to be like what anymore? Me, I said simply. I don't want to be me anymore.
It turned out that the me I was living with at the time was an undiagnosed - and thus untreated - manic depressive. I can say with a great deal of certainty that I don't ever want to be that version of me, ever again. The right medications, therapy, and ultimately time have given me another chance to learn to live, often stumbling and flailing along, but living nonetheless. It's not perfect, by any means, but I'm not giving myself any new scars.
I wonder, though, if there will come a time in my life when I feel something other than revulsion, fear, and hatred for the body I inhabit. My body is the canvas against which I scrawl my pain and anguish, cutting, starving, and punishing it for the demons I wrestle with daily. As a child, I kept my body at arms' reach, avoiding mirrors and clothes, burying my mind in my books and fantasy worlds. As an adolescent, shocked and horrified by its unwillingness to remain unchanged, I proffered my body up to person after person, desperately seeking the validation I could not give myself. Now, the objective is simple - if there is less of it, then there will be less pain because of it.
More than anything, I want to protect and treasure what my body is capable of doing. I have cradled countless babies against my chest, shushing them and circling them close in my arms. I have been an athlete, have grown strong and swift in pursuit of first place. I want the demons, the sicknesses, the pain I carry with me every day from now until forever to find a different canvas. I'm still trying to find a way to etch some distance between the demons inside me and the flesh they inhabit. For now, I can no more separate them than I can trust myself to drop the razor blade, eat a meal, or pull my head out of the toilet. Some days, there are moments when grace intervenes and I manage to do it. After all, I hold down a full-time job, I have great friends, an evil cat, an apartment, and a nursing school application in the works. But just because everything looks okay from the outside doesn’t mean the inside isn’t disintegrating before your very eyes. I know that one of my greatest strengths is to be able to put the hold switch on my symptoms with the stubbornness that only comes through genetics. But oh, is it hard when the job is done. When I can turn off the smile and take down the “I’ve got all my shit together” façade and actually fall apart. You might not think it, but sometimes that fall is the biggest relief there is. Here’s the catch: the higher you go, the stronger your fight, the longer you hold out – the faster and harder and scarier the fall.
All I know is this: we don’t get to choose the demons that we fight, but we can certainly choose to fight them. And the harder we fight, the more we allow others to fight their own demons too. There will always be battles to be fought. But there are also songs to be sung, babies to be held, and art to be made. And that - that is worth fighting for.
I have my fair share of scars. After all, I have five brothers. There are a few scars from my years of horseback riding, some that are evidence of Tucker's early days, and a jagged beauty that snakes up my right index finger from the car accident. Through some combination of youth, luck, and genetics, my skin hides the scars well. Indeed, my freckles alone have rendered most of the marks near invisible. Except for four. On my left thigh, exactly halfway between my knee and my hip, lie four wide, white bands that, even healed, look angry and frightening. These are not the calm, orderly scars left behind after neat stitches have sealed a surgical incision. Nor are they the barely perceptible lines left behind by cat claws or wood splinters. These are disorderly, angled against each other as if fighting for space. They are uncommonly wide, the sure evidence that they required stitches that never came. The skin puckers faintly around them and they've barely faded in almost three years' time. When I sat on the floor of my dorm room's closet my junior year of college, and dug a razor blade deep into the flesh and waited for blood to appear - I wasn't thinking about the scars I'd have someday. At that moment, I was pretty damn sure I wasn't going to be around for breakfast the next day, let alone for a future that featured healed wounds. I shook with silent, quaking sobs - my tears had dried up days ago. I watched the blood bubble to the surface and trickle down my pale flesh before dripping to the floor. I don't remember how long I sat there, wedged into my closet, willing my pain and anguish to rush out of the wounds I'd made for it. Eventually, the trickle slowed, and then stopped. Exhausted and numb, I uncurled myself from the floor, dropped the sticky blade into the trash, and collapsed into bed. The pain inside me was still there. Now I had an aching leg to go with it.
When I was admitted to the hospital only a few days later, I answered the intake questions honestly, too broken to defend myself and convinced there was nothing worth defending anyway. Self-harm? Yes, here. I mechanically pulled up my sweatpants to show my still tender cuts. Were you trying to kill yourself? No. Really? Yes, really. Why did you do it? I stared fixedly at the floor, trying to find the words. Because, I said, I just don't want to be...like this...anymore. Don't want to be like what anymore? Me, I said simply. I don't want to be me anymore.
It turned out that the me I was living with at the time was an undiagnosed - and thus untreated - manic depressive. I can say with a great deal of certainty that I don't ever want to be that version of me, ever again. The right medications, therapy, and ultimately time have given me another chance to learn to live, often stumbling and flailing along, but living nonetheless. It's not perfect, by any means, but I'm not giving myself any new scars.
I wonder, though, if there will come a time in my life when I feel something other than revulsion, fear, and hatred for the body I inhabit. My body is the canvas against which I scrawl my pain and anguish, cutting, starving, and punishing it for the demons I wrestle with daily. As a child, I kept my body at arms' reach, avoiding mirrors and clothes, burying my mind in my books and fantasy worlds. As an adolescent, shocked and horrified by its unwillingness to remain unchanged, I proffered my body up to person after person, desperately seeking the validation I could not give myself. Now, the objective is simple - if there is less of it, then there will be less pain because of it.
More than anything, I want to protect and treasure what my body is capable of doing. I have cradled countless babies against my chest, shushing them and circling them close in my arms. I have been an athlete, have grown strong and swift in pursuit of first place. I want the demons, the sicknesses, the pain I carry with me every day from now until forever to find a different canvas. I'm still trying to find a way to etch some distance between the demons inside me and the flesh they inhabit. For now, I can no more separate them than I can trust myself to drop the razor blade, eat a meal, or pull my head out of the toilet. Some days, there are moments when grace intervenes and I manage to do it. After all, I hold down a full-time job, I have great friends, an evil cat, an apartment, and a nursing school application in the works. But just because everything looks okay from the outside doesn’t mean the inside isn’t disintegrating before your very eyes. I know that one of my greatest strengths is to be able to put the hold switch on my symptoms with the stubbornness that only comes through genetics. But oh, is it hard when the job is done. When I can turn off the smile and take down the “I’ve got all my shit together” façade and actually fall apart. You might not think it, but sometimes that fall is the biggest relief there is. Here’s the catch: the higher you go, the stronger your fight, the longer you hold out – the faster and harder and scarier the fall.
All I know is this: we don’t get to choose the demons that we fight, but we can certainly choose to fight them. And the harder we fight, the more we allow others to fight their own demons too. There will always be battles to be fought. But there are also songs to be sung, babies to be held, and art to be made. And that - that is worth fighting for.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Dream Date
I loved this cartoon as a kid. I still love it. I also love the part in the movie Stepmom where Susan Sarandon arranges a dream date with her little son (yes, that Stepmom, I know it's a horrible movie, but I like it, okay? OKAY??). H. and I regularly schedule dream dates when we're apart from each other - like now, when I'm in New York for my weekly stint with Birdie. Yes, we go three days a week without seeing each other. Yes, we miss each other when we're apart. Yes, it's mildly pathetic but so is the movie Stepmom and we've already discussed my feelings on that, so there you go.
You know what I dream about?
A place where I'm happy with my body. A place without eating disorders. A place where I don't base my self-worth on the shape of my stomach or the number on a scale. That's why they're called dreams, right? Because those places don't exist in real life. I wish they did. Tonight, I'm wishing so hard that they did. Instead, I'll try to find that place in my dreams and enjoy it until the sun rises, the alarm rings, and a new day begins.
Where do you go in your dreams? Do you bring anyone along? I'd like to think I'm not the only one.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
A few minor changes...
My life. Has changed. So much.
Here are the facts:
1. On Wednesday mornings, I take a 6 AM bus to NYC, where I work for J. all day, then take a train to NJ to see my therapist at 8 PM at night (God bless this woman for staying late to see me) and then I take a 9:30 train back into the city before returning to J.'s apartment to collapse.
2. Thursdays, I will be babysitting a little boy for a few hours, puttering around NY, taking care of things, and then taking care of Birdie for her parents' date night starting at 5 PM.
3. Fridays, I work for Birdie all day and take a bus back to Boston around 7 PM.
4. Saturdays, I collapse, do laundry, hug my best friend, go grocery shopping, etc.
5. Sundays, I go to a local horse barn where I shovel shit in exchange for the chance to ride. I also do this on Mondays and Tuesdays. I AM THE LUCKIEST GIRL EVER.
6. Right now, I am camping in the room of this girl I talk about all the time. Starting in December, though, I'll be living in the apartment upstairs with two roommates (yet to be found, inspected, and approved).
7. I'm looking for a part-time job in Boston for Sundays-Tuesdays, to help bring in more money. I've applied to every coffee shop and bookstore I could find, so we'll see what happens there.
8. I miss my boys terribly. For the sake of Rupert, his need for more consistency, and the ease of me finding a place to live, he is living at Alix's dad's house for now. I have shed more than a few tears about this, because he was (and is) the light of my life and not snuggling up with him every night has made a part of me die. In fact, I'm tearing up right now just writing this. But I know he's in a better place right now, this is temporary, and yes. Okay. It's better. I know it is. But oh, I miss him.
9. Until I move upstairs, Tucker is staying with my brother so as not to continue to overcrowd H.'s apartment with warm bodies. So I'll be counting down the days until December 1st when I can begin our staring contests again. (He usually wins. But I feed him. So technically, as the wielder of all things edible, I WIN.)
The gory deets:
Living with Birdie's family three days a week is going surprisingly well. We genuinely get along, we have fun together, and it's not awkward. (This is remarkable. I am the queen of awkward. I could make a coffee table feel uncomfortable, if I tried.)
I am eating. More. Every day. It's hard. I am trying. The end.
I applied to Yale. I wrote a damn good essay (if I do say so myself), and the office of admissions is being very understanding about the lateness of two of my letters of recommendation due to the snow/ice storm that took out power in the town from which two of the letters are coming.
Last week, when H. was helping me pack, it was quite honestly, the most exhausting 72 hours of my life, between packing up all of Alix's stuff to put in storage, going to Boston to go job/apt hunting, coming back, packing up all of my stuff, loading a moving van, driving to Boston, unloading the van into a storage unit, and then driving me and H. and my essentials to her apartment. ANYWAY - we were packing. We were tired. So, we decided to get coffee. Then, we decided coffee was boring. So, we added Bailey's. Irish coffees make packing A LOT more interesting. Please see below:
The last time I picked up a golf club was...oh wait, never. So yeah. Around 3 AM, everything was in boxes, labeled (although you can only imagine how much more fun the labels got as the hours swung by), and organized into piles for van vs. car. A couple hours later and we were up, bumping furniture down three flights of stairs and soon on our way to Beantown.
I was so tired when we got there that I almost fell asleep on the floor. Of the living room. With the lights on.
Today, I took a walk in Riverside Park, just for fun. Just because I wanted to. Because I had enough energy to do so. Because the sunshine felt nice, and I had nothing else to do, and I was happy.
Further gory deets, though: I am still swinging like a monkey on a tree between moods. Definitely hanging out in the depressed section these days, for way longer than I have been in a good long while. I'm hoping that my medication changes will help, as will all these other huge life alterations that were all done in the name of saving my sanity (even if temporarily, it's disrupting it completely). Eventually, I will even out. And so will my life. And life will go on. And all that stuff that they say, but it's true, and it bears repeating.
Holding this close to my heart tonight, and trying like hell to believe it:
You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
Here are the facts:
1. On Wednesday mornings, I take a 6 AM bus to NYC, where I work for J. all day, then take a train to NJ to see my therapist at 8 PM at night (God bless this woman for staying late to see me) and then I take a 9:30 train back into the city before returning to J.'s apartment to collapse.
2. Thursdays, I will be babysitting a little boy for a few hours, puttering around NY, taking care of things, and then taking care of Birdie for her parents' date night starting at 5 PM.
3. Fridays, I work for Birdie all day and take a bus back to Boston around 7 PM.
4. Saturdays, I collapse, do laundry, hug my best friend, go grocery shopping, etc.
5. Sundays, I go to a local horse barn where I shovel shit in exchange for the chance to ride. I also do this on Mondays and Tuesdays. I AM THE LUCKIEST GIRL EVER.
6. Right now, I am camping in the room of this girl I talk about all the time. Starting in December, though, I'll be living in the apartment upstairs with two roommates (yet to be found, inspected, and approved).
7. I'm looking for a part-time job in Boston for Sundays-Tuesdays, to help bring in more money. I've applied to every coffee shop and bookstore I could find, so we'll see what happens there.
8. I miss my boys terribly. For the sake of Rupert, his need for more consistency, and the ease of me finding a place to live, he is living at Alix's dad's house for now. I have shed more than a few tears about this, because he was (and is) the light of my life and not snuggling up with him every night has made a part of me die. In fact, I'm tearing up right now just writing this. But I know he's in a better place right now, this is temporary, and yes. Okay. It's better. I know it is. But oh, I miss him.
9. Until I move upstairs, Tucker is staying with my brother so as not to continue to overcrowd H.'s apartment with warm bodies. So I'll be counting down the days until December 1st when I can begin our staring contests again. (He usually wins. But I feed him. So technically, as the wielder of all things edible, I WIN.)
The gory deets:
Living with Birdie's family three days a week is going surprisingly well. We genuinely get along, we have fun together, and it's not awkward. (This is remarkable. I am the queen of awkward. I could make a coffee table feel uncomfortable, if I tried.)
I am eating. More. Every day. It's hard. I am trying. The end.
I applied to Yale. I wrote a damn good essay (if I do say so myself), and the office of admissions is being very understanding about the lateness of two of my letters of recommendation due to the snow/ice storm that took out power in the town from which two of the letters are coming.
Last week, when H. was helping me pack, it was quite honestly, the most exhausting 72 hours of my life, between packing up all of Alix's stuff to put in storage, going to Boston to go job/apt hunting, coming back, packing up all of my stuff, loading a moving van, driving to Boston, unloading the van into a storage unit, and then driving me and H. and my essentials to her apartment. ANYWAY - we were packing. We were tired. So, we decided to get coffee. Then, we decided coffee was boring. So, we added Bailey's. Irish coffees make packing A LOT more interesting. Please see below:
 | |
| In case you can't read: (H) AIR (Y) Conditioner (and golf clubs) | . |
I was so tired when we got there that I almost fell asleep on the floor. Of the living room. With the lights on.
Today, I took a walk in Riverside Park, just for fun. Just because I wanted to. Because I had enough energy to do so. Because the sunshine felt nice, and I had nothing else to do, and I was happy.
Further gory deets, though: I am still swinging like a monkey on a tree between moods. Definitely hanging out in the depressed section these days, for way longer than I have been in a good long while. I'm hoping that my medication changes will help, as will all these other huge life alterations that were all done in the name of saving my sanity (even if temporarily, it's disrupting it completely). Eventually, I will even out. And so will my life. And life will go on. And all that stuff that they say, but it's true, and it bears repeating.
Holding this close to my heart tonight, and trying like hell to believe it:
You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Fighting for Sara
Something happened to me tonight that rocked me to my core. I stood, on the sidewalk, shaking and near tears for a good two minutes before I managed to plant one foot in front of the other in order to keep moving.
Let me back up a bit. Today was a day where I took care of Birdie all day and then rushed home to walk Rupert before heading to another regular babysitting gig that takes me about thirty minutes to walk to (it's a tight fit, getting out of work at 6 and trying to make it here by 7). I was booking it along, in the rapidly fading light of a New York sunset, when I looked up and locked eyes with a woman coming towards me on the sidewalk. There were a good six other people surrounding both of us, walking in either direction, but our eyes caught, and without even a millisecond of conscious thought, my brain saw her and thought: eating disorder. Her cheeks were sunken. Her eyes were haunted. She was clutching her coat around her in the chilly night air. I saw myself in her, except she was much, much sicker. Then, the unbelievable happened. She stopped me. She told me she needed help. She said she was sorry, that she wasn't asking me for money, but that she needed help. She had an eating disorder. Today was her first day home from being in a residential facility in Florida. She had gained forty pounds (she looked as if she weighed around 110). Her OCD was out of control at the moment. She had just eaten with a friend and had left the house so as to avoid purging and the door had locked behind her. She was lost and didn't know what to do. She didn't have a phone. Could I please call her sister?
My mouth hung open in shock. I ushered her over to the side of the sidewalk. I told her in the calmest, quietest voice I could that everything was going to be okay. I said I understood. I said I have an eating disorder too. I said that we would call her sister. I dialed, and it went straight to voicemail. She looked panic-stricken. I asked her how far away her sister lived. She said all the way down in Battery City and she started to shake. Hey, I said. It's okay. Look at me. It's okay. I want you to take this money. Go to the Duane Reede right here and get a Vitamin Water and drink it, okay? And then get in a cab and tell them to take you to your sister's house. Take a deep breath. You're going to be okay. Everything will be okay. She looked at me and insisted that she couldn't take the money without having a way to reimburse me. Please, I said. Please just take it. I want you to be okay. I know you can do this. You can get through this. You can fight this, even though right now, it feels so, so hard. We can fight together, okay? Her dark eyes locked with mine and she bravely asked me: You said you had an eating disorder too. Are you better?
I took a deep breath. I'm getting there, I said. I'm getting there. And so are you.
I will never see Sara again. I will never see that money again. I could give two hoots about the money, never mind the fact that I'm dirt poor right now and I desperately needed that money. She needed it more. She needed so much more than I could give her. But I'm sitting here tonight, and I am hoping with everything in me that she is okay. That she made it to her sister's. That she is safe. That she believed me, even if only the tiniest bit, when I told her she would be okay.
Everyone you meet is fighting demons. Sometimes you glimpse those demons and you try like hell to help. Please pray for Sara tonight. Tonight, I am fighting my eating disorder for her. I hope she is still fighting too.
Let me back up a bit. Today was a day where I took care of Birdie all day and then rushed home to walk Rupert before heading to another regular babysitting gig that takes me about thirty minutes to walk to (it's a tight fit, getting out of work at 6 and trying to make it here by 7). I was booking it along, in the rapidly fading light of a New York sunset, when I looked up and locked eyes with a woman coming towards me on the sidewalk. There were a good six other people surrounding both of us, walking in either direction, but our eyes caught, and without even a millisecond of conscious thought, my brain saw her and thought: eating disorder. Her cheeks were sunken. Her eyes were haunted. She was clutching her coat around her in the chilly night air. I saw myself in her, except she was much, much sicker. Then, the unbelievable happened. She stopped me. She told me she needed help. She said she was sorry, that she wasn't asking me for money, but that she needed help. She had an eating disorder. Today was her first day home from being in a residential facility in Florida. She had gained forty pounds (she looked as if she weighed around 110). Her OCD was out of control at the moment. She had just eaten with a friend and had left the house so as to avoid purging and the door had locked behind her. She was lost and didn't know what to do. She didn't have a phone. Could I please call her sister?
My mouth hung open in shock. I ushered her over to the side of the sidewalk. I told her in the calmest, quietest voice I could that everything was going to be okay. I said I understood. I said I have an eating disorder too. I said that we would call her sister. I dialed, and it went straight to voicemail. She looked panic-stricken. I asked her how far away her sister lived. She said all the way down in Battery City and she started to shake. Hey, I said. It's okay. Look at me. It's okay. I want you to take this money. Go to the Duane Reede right here and get a Vitamin Water and drink it, okay? And then get in a cab and tell them to take you to your sister's house. Take a deep breath. You're going to be okay. Everything will be okay. She looked at me and insisted that she couldn't take the money without having a way to reimburse me. Please, I said. Please just take it. I want you to be okay. I know you can do this. You can get through this. You can fight this, even though right now, it feels so, so hard. We can fight together, okay? Her dark eyes locked with mine and she bravely asked me: You said you had an eating disorder too. Are you better?
I took a deep breath. I'm getting there, I said. I'm getting there. And so are you.
I will never see Sara again. I will never see that money again. I could give two hoots about the money, never mind the fact that I'm dirt poor right now and I desperately needed that money. She needed it more. She needed so much more than I could give her. But I'm sitting here tonight, and I am hoping with everything in me that she is okay. That she made it to her sister's. That she is safe. That she believed me, even if only the tiniest bit, when I told her she would be okay.
Everyone you meet is fighting demons. Sometimes you glimpse those demons and you try like hell to help. Please pray for Sara tonight. Tonight, I am fighting my eating disorder for her. I hope she is still fighting too.
Monday, September 26, 2011
This is your brain on an eating disorder
"That girl is so skinny, she must be anorexic."
"Ugh, I can't believe I just ate that huge dinner. Maybe I'll just go puke and feel better."
"I am so jealous of people who are anorexic! I wish I could have that kind of control, just for a couple of weeks so I could lose this weight."
"She's been in the bathroom a long time. Haha, I bet she's throwing up!"
"People with eating disorders are so stupid. It's not that complicated: eat when you're hungry, don't eat when you're not."
How many times have you heard comments like these? How many times have you said things like these (or thought them, but didn't say them out loud)? Maybe while you read this blog, you think things like, She doesn't look anorexic..., or Really, Cait? What is the big deal about food? I'll be honest, I had a lot of hesitations about "coming out" with my eating disorder on this blog, and one of the biggest reasons was that I was afraid people would look at pictures of me and dismiss the whole idea; say I'm exaggerating, I'm faking it, I don't really have a problem because I'm not wasting away in a hospital bed at 66 pounds. All I know is, I wouldn't wish my daily battles with food on my worst enemy. I don't have all the answers to the endless array of questions you could ask, that's for sure. But there is a lot of information out there that may help combat the confusion and misconceptions that surround eating disorders in our culture. Allow me to elaborate.
1. People with eating disorders do not choose to have them. If you want to read a great blog entry about this very fact, go here. In a nutshell:
A. Anorexia is a phobia of food. It's a dangerous phobia, because we need food to survive and we can't just avoid food like how someone with a phobia of spiders can stay out of musty basements and not go to see Spiderman on Broadway. Telling someone with anorexia to Just eat, is like telling someone with a phobia of heights to Just get over it and climb the ladder.
B. The compulsions behind bingeing and purging in bulimia and binge eating disorder are akin to the compulsions behind OCD. It is not a choice we make, to eat compulsively, without stopping to breathe. It is not a choice to then go and throw it up. It is a compulsion that is as impossible to fight as the need for a person with OCD to wash their hands repeatedly, or count, or have certain rituals.
2. Eating disorders are based in genetics. Genetics is the loaded gun, and environment pulls the trigger. It's no use - and it trivializes the issue - to blame the media, or society, or celebrities for the presence of eating disorders in our culture. This delegitimizes the struggle that everyone with an ED faces, because it insinuates that since we are all exposed to the same culture, those who have eating disorders must be weaker than others or more susceptible to those messages. People with eating disorders have a genetic predisposition towards them. Things like emotional trauma, the onset of puberty, mental illness, and a host of other things can be the spark that initiates the use of an ED behavior, and the use of these behaviors solidifies the existence of the eating disorder itself. It's not my fault that I have an eating disorder. It's not my parents' fault, it's not my friends' fault, and it's definitely not society's fault. I got stuck with a genetic hand of cards that is chock full of mental illness. That's just the way it is.
3. The use of eating disorder behaviors (restricting, bingeing, purging, and excessive exercise) are all coping mechanisms. They help the body and mind deal with certain situations, stress, anxiety, and trauma to prevent a "system shutdown." The use of them reinforces their own power, and in so doing, trains the brain to need them in order to cope with everyday life.
4. There is endlessly complex biology behind how these behaviors function as coping mechanisms and here is the short version. The important chemicals involved here are endorphins, the neurotransmitter serotonin, and the hormone vasopressin.
Endorphins are pretty well-known. What releases endorphins? Exercise! (And lots of other things.) Someone with an eating disorder who over-exercises does it as a means to flood their system with endorphins, again and again and again.
Serotonin is a fun guy. Antidepressants work on serotonin, by preventing cells from sucking it back up, and instead making it hang out for longer in our synapses (the space between neurons) so it can do its thing. Serotonin is kind of complicated, but when it comes to mood, suffice to say that it's good stuff. It keeps us feeling good - balanced, not anxious, and generally even-keeled. SSRI's (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, i.e., most antidepressants) are the most commonly prescribed drug in the US. So you can see that serotonin is pretty crucial.
A. Restricting works with serotonin in this way: when a person severely restricts their food intake, not only do they lose weight, but their brain actually shrinks. As the brain shrinks, though, it doesn't alter the levels at which it is producing neurotransmitters. So all of a sudden, an adult who is heavily restricting is flooding their smaller, shrunken brain with enough serotonin for a much larger brain. Hello, feel-good stuff! Hello, positive reinforcement to keep restricting in order to keep up the serotonin flood! Your brain can actually compel you to continue restricting in order to maintain the serotonin flood that has begun.
B. Bingeing works with serotonin quite differently: people who binge almost without exception report bingeing on carbohydrate-heavy foods. There is a biological compulsion going on here. The precursor to serotonin is an amino acid building block called tryptophan. When we eat carbs, the insulin that is released causes the uptake and processing of everything except tryptophan. Tryptophan hangs out in the blood and enters the brain where it gets made into gads and gads of serotonin, flooding the brain with feel-good stuff.
Vasopressin is a hormone that is crucial to the body's functioning, especially the heart. Purging acts on vasopressin in a very compelling way. When you vomit (self-induced or not), there is a huge release of vasopressin in the blood. It does three very powerful things in regards to the brain: it acts as a sedative, an anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) and an antidepressant. This is why purging, the eating disorder behavior that is often the most difficult for anyone to understand, is so addictive. Your brain experiences a huge rush of chemicals that calms it, lifts its mood, and decreases anxiety the instant you purge. Now, because the brain is constantly adapting, as time goes on, it requires a higher and higher level of purging in order to get the same effects from the vasopressin (much the same way that an alcoholic must drink more and more in order to get drunk and feel better).
An eating disorder is based in biology. It's an illness, just like diabetes or cancer is an illness. It's also a hell of a ride. Food is everywhere. It's necessary for survival. It permeates every social setting, every gathering, every aspect of our culture. When you fight battles with food, every meal, every day, all day long, it's enough to make you want to be anywhere but here, doing anything but living life in your body that is alien to you, in your mind that has turned against you. Please try and remember this and look with compassion on those who may be struggling around you. We didn't choose this. We're just fighting like hell to get though it.
"Ugh, I can't believe I just ate that huge dinner. Maybe I'll just go puke and feel better."
"I am so jealous of people who are anorexic! I wish I could have that kind of control, just for a couple of weeks so I could lose this weight."
"She's been in the bathroom a long time. Haha, I bet she's throwing up!"
"People with eating disorders are so stupid. It's not that complicated: eat when you're hungry, don't eat when you're not."
How many times have you heard comments like these? How many times have you said things like these (or thought them, but didn't say them out loud)? Maybe while you read this blog, you think things like, She doesn't look anorexic..., or Really, Cait? What is the big deal about food? I'll be honest, I had a lot of hesitations about "coming out" with my eating disorder on this blog, and one of the biggest reasons was that I was afraid people would look at pictures of me and dismiss the whole idea; say I'm exaggerating, I'm faking it, I don't really have a problem because I'm not wasting away in a hospital bed at 66 pounds. All I know is, I wouldn't wish my daily battles with food on my worst enemy. I don't have all the answers to the endless array of questions you could ask, that's for sure. But there is a lot of information out there that may help combat the confusion and misconceptions that surround eating disorders in our culture. Allow me to elaborate.
1. People with eating disorders do not choose to have them. If you want to read a great blog entry about this very fact, go here. In a nutshell:
A. Anorexia is a phobia of food. It's a dangerous phobia, because we need food to survive and we can't just avoid food like how someone with a phobia of spiders can stay out of musty basements and not go to see Spiderman on Broadway. Telling someone with anorexia to Just eat, is like telling someone with a phobia of heights to Just get over it and climb the ladder.
B. The compulsions behind bingeing and purging in bulimia and binge eating disorder are akin to the compulsions behind OCD. It is not a choice we make, to eat compulsively, without stopping to breathe. It is not a choice to then go and throw it up. It is a compulsion that is as impossible to fight as the need for a person with OCD to wash their hands repeatedly, or count, or have certain rituals.
2. Eating disorders are based in genetics. Genetics is the loaded gun, and environment pulls the trigger. It's no use - and it trivializes the issue - to blame the media, or society, or celebrities for the presence of eating disorders in our culture. This delegitimizes the struggle that everyone with an ED faces, because it insinuates that since we are all exposed to the same culture, those who have eating disorders must be weaker than others or more susceptible to those messages. People with eating disorders have a genetic predisposition towards them. Things like emotional trauma, the onset of puberty, mental illness, and a host of other things can be the spark that initiates the use of an ED behavior, and the use of these behaviors solidifies the existence of the eating disorder itself. It's not my fault that I have an eating disorder. It's not my parents' fault, it's not my friends' fault, and it's definitely not society's fault. I got stuck with a genetic hand of cards that is chock full of mental illness. That's just the way it is.
3. The use of eating disorder behaviors (restricting, bingeing, purging, and excessive exercise) are all coping mechanisms. They help the body and mind deal with certain situations, stress, anxiety, and trauma to prevent a "system shutdown." The use of them reinforces their own power, and in so doing, trains the brain to need them in order to cope with everyday life.
4. There is endlessly complex biology behind how these behaviors function as coping mechanisms and here is the short version. The important chemicals involved here are endorphins, the neurotransmitter serotonin, and the hormone vasopressin.
Endorphins are pretty well-known. What releases endorphins? Exercise! (And lots of other things.) Someone with an eating disorder who over-exercises does it as a means to flood their system with endorphins, again and again and again.
Serotonin is a fun guy. Antidepressants work on serotonin, by preventing cells from sucking it back up, and instead making it hang out for longer in our synapses (the space between neurons) so it can do its thing. Serotonin is kind of complicated, but when it comes to mood, suffice to say that it's good stuff. It keeps us feeling good - balanced, not anxious, and generally even-keeled. SSRI's (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, i.e., most antidepressants) are the most commonly prescribed drug in the US. So you can see that serotonin is pretty crucial.
A. Restricting works with serotonin in this way: when a person severely restricts their food intake, not only do they lose weight, but their brain actually shrinks. As the brain shrinks, though, it doesn't alter the levels at which it is producing neurotransmitters. So all of a sudden, an adult who is heavily restricting is flooding their smaller, shrunken brain with enough serotonin for a much larger brain. Hello, feel-good stuff! Hello, positive reinforcement to keep restricting in order to keep up the serotonin flood! Your brain can actually compel you to continue restricting in order to maintain the serotonin flood that has begun.
B. Bingeing works with serotonin quite differently: people who binge almost without exception report bingeing on carbohydrate-heavy foods. There is a biological compulsion going on here. The precursor to serotonin is an amino acid building block called tryptophan. When we eat carbs, the insulin that is released causes the uptake and processing of everything except tryptophan. Tryptophan hangs out in the blood and enters the brain where it gets made into gads and gads of serotonin, flooding the brain with feel-good stuff.
Vasopressin is a hormone that is crucial to the body's functioning, especially the heart. Purging acts on vasopressin in a very compelling way. When you vomit (self-induced or not), there is a huge release of vasopressin in the blood. It does three very powerful things in regards to the brain: it acts as a sedative, an anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) and an antidepressant. This is why purging, the eating disorder behavior that is often the most difficult for anyone to understand, is so addictive. Your brain experiences a huge rush of chemicals that calms it, lifts its mood, and decreases anxiety the instant you purge. Now, because the brain is constantly adapting, as time goes on, it requires a higher and higher level of purging in order to get the same effects from the vasopressin (much the same way that an alcoholic must drink more and more in order to get drunk and feel better).
An eating disorder is based in biology. It's an illness, just like diabetes or cancer is an illness. It's also a hell of a ride. Food is everywhere. It's necessary for survival. It permeates every social setting, every gathering, every aspect of our culture. When you fight battles with food, every meal, every day, all day long, it's enough to make you want to be anywhere but here, doing anything but living life in your body that is alien to you, in your mind that has turned against you. Please try and remember this and look with compassion on those who may be struggling around you. We didn't choose this. We're just fighting like hell to get though it.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Lies My Mirror Tells Me
A few weeks ago, I was chatting on Facebook with a dear friend who is living in South America right now. In case you need to brush up on your earth science, this means that she's surviving the dead of winter (that is slowly changing to spring) while we enjoy the shift from summer to fall. Months of living in snow and ice have worn her down, as has the need to constantly be building, tending, and maintaining a fire in her woodstove, lest she freeze and go hungry for lack of cooked food. I asked how she was doing and her weary reply, "Tired, cold, the usual," came all too quickly. She returned the question, and I, with a similarly bleak outlook, answered honestly, "Tired, hungry, the usual." Thousands of miles apart, we both laughed. The truth is often ironic, sometimes a little crass, and always hard to wrap your head around. Does being perpetually hungry or cold mean that neither of us can be happy too? Certainly not. But feeling like you're fighting a losing battle against a seemingly endless winter or a seemingly unrelenting eating disorder can be a bit disheartening.
***
On my flight home from California, I had the incredible fortune to become fast friends with my two seatmates, G. and K. G. is an artist and teacher based in Brooklyn. His passion and aptitude for both were readily apparent as he talked about his students and his most recent paintings. K. is a director of photography based in LA and similarly, her passion for portraits that catch a glimpse into the lives of those around us was inspiring to me, an amateur photographer. Never have I enjoyed a flight so much as I did those five and a half hours it took to get from LA to Baltimore. The three of us talked constantly, covering topics from childbirth, to html coding, to the pets and children in our respective lives. While none of us were parents, it only took an hour or so for us all to whip out our cell phones and begin showing off pictures of the kids we knew and loved. Admiring the sight of G.'s chunk of a nephew in his mother's lap, K. laughed at his Buddha belly so big that his t-shirt had ridden up to his armpits. "I love when babies are so big and their mothers are your size!" she exclaimed, looking at me.
Stricken, I looked back with a mixture of confusion, incomprehension, and utter terror. What did she mean, "my size"? Size huge? Why is that cute? Why is she saying that? What the hell is she doing, noticing my size?
Seeing my look of confusion, she continued, "You know, tiny. It always makes me wonder how they managed to have such a big baby when they're so small."
The conversation moved on between G. and K. for a few minutes while I attempted to collect myself. You are NOT, in the slightest, by any stretch of the imagination, tiny, my mind reminded me. As I took deep breaths to combat the anxiety that had rushed through me, I tried to be calm. Any comment, no matter how benign or well-intentioned about my body sends me into a panic. I literally cannot handle the thought that other people look at, notice, or pay any attention to my body. It terrifies me. It floods my brain with the message, FAT. It confuses, baffles, and overwhelms me to hear people contradict what I feel I know to be true about how I look. How can it be possible that other people see something different than what I see when I look in the mirror?
***
During my trip to California, my friend and I did some outlet shopping. Clothing shopping is as terrifying to me these days as jumping out of a plane without a parachute. There are just far too many opportunities to fall apart. I was doing okay though, even mildly enjoying myself as I tried on shoes and scarves. Gathering my nerve, I tried on a few pairs of pants in a style I liked. They were all too big. I tried a size down. Still too big. Finally, I put on a size of pants that I've never been nor have I ever considered it possible for me to be. They fit. My mind reeling, I stood frozen in front of the mirror, seeing everything I hate and not understanding how it was possible for me to be wearing the size that I was. Driven to desperate frustration by my lack of clothes that fit, I bought the pants. As I got dressed yesterday, I dreaded pulling them on, convinced that this time, they would surely be too small. Nope. Still fit. Far from making me feel good, this fact only serves to send me into a panic similar to that brought on by K.'s innocent comment on the plane. Why, oh why, can I not see what others see or what the facts seem to show?
Some days, it takes an hour for me to get dressed. I've very nearly been late to work because of it. Near tears, I will try on literally hundreds of combinations of clothes, only to reject them all into a towering heap on my bed.
Then, there are days when I do better. Days when I manage to resemble normalcy, when the food isn't as scary, when I cook something healthy, when I eat with a friend and keep it down. Still, it's hard not to feel like it's constantly one step forward and three steps back. The frustration, fear, and weariness of the whole shebang often bring me to tears. I know that I can't fight this alone. It grows more obvious to me by the day that this is a war whose battles I cannot always win by myself. Seeking help for this will certainly be one of the hardest things I have yet to do, but I know it's necessary. With the support of friends and family behind me, I can only hope for the best. Because I would desperately, more that anything, like a day to come when this doesn't crowd my every thought. When I don't feel like I'm fighting to hold my head above water. Hopefully, that day will come. Soon.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Plus One
Saw this on Post Secret today...
It hit a little close to home. I've written about this before so forgive me if I sound like I'm beating a dead horse. It's just that this is something I think about a lot. I've wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember and while that dream has undergone significant metamorphoses through the years, the bare bones of it have remained the same: me, belly, baby, love. Now, however, there's an element to the dream and the worries surrounding it that I've never entertained before - what if I can't get pregnant? I've taken a few pregnancy tests through the years (Hi Mom and Dad!), so I'm acquainted with the two minute waiting period, the feeling of sitting on the cold tile of a bathroom floor, sending desperate pleas into the universe, Please say no, please say no, please please please say no. It's always said no. I've been lucky. I certainly didn't want to be pregnant any of those times, and when I held the hands of a couple of friends who were not so lucky, I was acutely aware that There but for the grace of God go I.
Now, though, two diametrically opposed things have happened. The first - I'm finally with the person with whom I want to have and raise children. Lucky for me, she wants them as badly as I do and so I know that in the grand scheme of things, I don't have to wait that much longer. The second - I'm (currently) infertile. As far as modern medicine has brought us in regards to providing men and women with the ability to choose how and when (if ever) to have children, there is biology millions of years in the making that still has the final word. And when a body is too malnourished to support life, it doesn't waste its precious energy and resources growing and releasing eggs, let alone supporting a fetus in the event of conception. Survival comes first. And since May, my body has been shunting resources far, far away from my (albeit unused) reproductive system. I'm sure you can see where this is going: Did I waste my chance? The thought plagues me late at night as I contemplate the perversity of the situation. Years went by of birth control and the hastily whispered prayers in the bathrooms where an ounce of urine could spell a drastically shifting future and now that Alix's and my ducks are (somewhat) in a row, I've up and quit ovulating.
Physically, amenorrhea as a result of malnourishment is largely reversible. It's a pretty simple process - once the body isn't desperately harboring nutrients for the support of more important organs, like the brain and heart, it'll start allotting some for the ovaries and uterus and things (should) get kicked into gear again. Of course, the mental/psychological hurdles to leap over to get to that point are significantly less straightforward. Which is precisely why I've made a promise to myself: When - not if - I get through this, I'm not wasting any more time. I'm not going to take my body and my ability to support life for granted anymore. I'm determined, with a fierceness that I haven't felt before now, to beat this monster that has taken so much from me and from my relationship with Alix.
I will learn to feed myself so that my body can grow a baby, so that I can nurse that baby, and so that I can be the mother I want to be. I will beat this thing, one way or another. And when I do? There will be a different picture heading a blog post. Something with a plus sign. My family plus one. The best one of all.
It hit a little close to home. I've written about this before so forgive me if I sound like I'm beating a dead horse. It's just that this is something I think about a lot. I've wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember and while that dream has undergone significant metamorphoses through the years, the bare bones of it have remained the same: me, belly, baby, love. Now, however, there's an element to the dream and the worries surrounding it that I've never entertained before - what if I can't get pregnant? I've taken a few pregnancy tests through the years (Hi Mom and Dad!), so I'm acquainted with the two minute waiting period, the feeling of sitting on the cold tile of a bathroom floor, sending desperate pleas into the universe, Please say no, please say no, please please please say no. It's always said no. I've been lucky. I certainly didn't want to be pregnant any of those times, and when I held the hands of a couple of friends who were not so lucky, I was acutely aware that There but for the grace of God go I.
Now, though, two diametrically opposed things have happened. The first - I'm finally with the person with whom I want to have and raise children. Lucky for me, she wants them as badly as I do and so I know that in the grand scheme of things, I don't have to wait that much longer. The second - I'm (currently) infertile. As far as modern medicine has brought us in regards to providing men and women with the ability to choose how and when (if ever) to have children, there is biology millions of years in the making that still has the final word. And when a body is too malnourished to support life, it doesn't waste its precious energy and resources growing and releasing eggs, let alone supporting a fetus in the event of conception. Survival comes first. And since May, my body has been shunting resources far, far away from my (albeit unused) reproductive system. I'm sure you can see where this is going: Did I waste my chance? The thought plagues me late at night as I contemplate the perversity of the situation. Years went by of birth control and the hastily whispered prayers in the bathrooms where an ounce of urine could spell a drastically shifting future and now that Alix's and my ducks are (somewhat) in a row, I've up and quit ovulating.
Physically, amenorrhea as a result of malnourishment is largely reversible. It's a pretty simple process - once the body isn't desperately harboring nutrients for the support of more important organs, like the brain and heart, it'll start allotting some for the ovaries and uterus and things (should) get kicked into gear again. Of course, the mental/psychological hurdles to leap over to get to that point are significantly less straightforward. Which is precisely why I've made a promise to myself: When - not if - I get through this, I'm not wasting any more time. I'm not going to take my body and my ability to support life for granted anymore. I'm determined, with a fierceness that I haven't felt before now, to beat this monster that has taken so much from me and from my relationship with Alix.
I will learn to feed myself so that my body can grow a baby, so that I can nurse that baby, and so that I can be the mother I want to be. I will beat this thing, one way or another. And when I do? There will be a different picture heading a blog post. Something with a plus sign. My family plus one. The best one of all.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Date with a Monster
I was supposed to be waking up right about now. Instead, I woke up about an hour and a half ago and knew it was useless to try to go back to sleep, so I hopped in the shower and finished my packing. Why did I have my alarm set for 2:15 AM? Because I'm catching a 6:05 AM flight to Michigan with this girl! It's a yearly family vacation trip that she makes each summer and on which she graciously invited me to tag along.
Yesterday, I was a bustle of activity. I took Rupert to Alix's dad's house for the week, I did laundry, I cleaned, I figured out how to hold my mail, I took care of my plants, I packed (halfway), and I got Tucker safely into the hands of my brother. It should be noted that while Rupert was sad to see me leave, Tucker left for his uncle's house without so much as a backward glance. Clearly Mom's coolness pales in comparison with that of his hip, artsy uncle (who happens to live in a ginormous Brooklyn apartment and who feeds him grilled cheese).
Last night, packing by myself in the emptiest apartment I've ever been in was surreal. There was no panting dog that needed to be carried down three flights of stairs. There was no sulky cat waiting in the shadows to attack my legs as I walked by. And there was definitely no Alix, the most heartbreaking absence of all. However, it should be noted that I had a super duper fun experience with the "My-Job-is-to-Make-You-Highly-Uncomfortable Monster." Otherwise known as the activity of trying on swimsuits. I hate looking at myself in the mirror anyway, let alone scantily clad in swimwear. And the most frustrating thing about it? Seeing that the suits I wore when I was forty pounds heavier hang off of me like oversized diapers and bras two cup sizes too big does not make it any easier to see that my actual body has changed. I still look in the mirror and find the body I see to be disgusting and fat. It horrifies me that forty pounds ago, I felt confident enough to go out in public wearing these suits when now, even though they're hanging off of me, I'm terrified of going to the beach in anything more revealing than a snowsuit.
I'll tell you this much - eating disorders really screw you. They manipulate, they talk you down, and they seek to control over your every move. They also cloud your vision and lie to your face. I'm determined to have fun on this vacation, eating disorder be damned. And on that note - I got a plane to catch. See ya!
Yesterday, I was a bustle of activity. I took Rupert to Alix's dad's house for the week, I did laundry, I cleaned, I figured out how to hold my mail, I took care of my plants, I packed (halfway), and I got Tucker safely into the hands of my brother. It should be noted that while Rupert was sad to see me leave, Tucker left for his uncle's house without so much as a backward glance. Clearly Mom's coolness pales in comparison with that of his hip, artsy uncle (who happens to live in a ginormous Brooklyn apartment and who feeds him grilled cheese).
Last night, packing by myself in the emptiest apartment I've ever been in was surreal. There was no panting dog that needed to be carried down three flights of stairs. There was no sulky cat waiting in the shadows to attack my legs as I walked by. And there was definitely no Alix, the most heartbreaking absence of all. However, it should be noted that I had a super duper fun experience with the "My-Job-is-to-Make-You-Highly-Uncomfortable Monster." Otherwise known as the activity of trying on swimsuits. I hate looking at myself in the mirror anyway, let alone scantily clad in swimwear. And the most frustrating thing about it? Seeing that the suits I wore when I was forty pounds heavier hang off of me like oversized diapers and bras two cup sizes too big does not make it any easier to see that my actual body has changed. I still look in the mirror and find the body I see to be disgusting and fat. It horrifies me that forty pounds ago, I felt confident enough to go out in public wearing these suits when now, even though they're hanging off of me, I'm terrified of going to the beach in anything more revealing than a snowsuit.
I'll tell you this much - eating disorders really screw you. They manipulate, they talk you down, and they seek to control over your every move. They also cloud your vision and lie to your face. I'm determined to have fun on this vacation, eating disorder be damned. And on that note - I got a plane to catch. See ya!
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
3,000 Thoughts
I heard during some inane commercial tonight on the tv that people have approximately three thousand thoughts in one day. I stopped chewing the frozen grape that I'd been methodically moving around my mouth for the past few minutes until it was a pile of mush. I almost laughed. Three thousand? That's it?
We, us weird people with eating disorders, we either go wayyy over that "average" of three thousand or else we're just highly trained professionals at thinking multiple thoughts at one time. I, for one, know that has been a constant internal dialogue that I honestly can't remember ever not having. I can change a diaper with one hand and my eyes shut, but I can also do things like study for an organic chemistry test while adding up calories in the margins of my notebook, or read Winnie the Pooh to a four-year-old while frantically calculating how many minutes are ticking by before it's too late for me to throw up whatever it was I last ate, or carry on a perfectly normal conversation with someone while scrutinizing how much they weigh and what size clothes they wear so I can assure myself that I am always, always bigger.
It's generally a bad sign if I talk about having watched television, by the way. I watch tv when I'm numbing myself out. Purging is also an extremely effective way of numbing onself out, if one so chooses. In combination, they are the perfect storm of background noise and serve to cease all thought, for once, ohgodplease just let me stop thinking all of these things. Please.
I know what purging does to my body. I know that it's bad for my esophagus, my stomach, my teeth, and especially, my heart.
I know what severe restriction does to my body too. I know that it's why I've stopped getting my period and why I'm covered in bruises all the time.
I know that in combination, the two things are the reason I'm underweight and unhealthy.
But knowing those things doesn't make it real.
Knowing my ribs are sticking out doesn't make me feel any less fat.
Knowing my hip bones hurt because I keep hitting them on things doesn't make my ass or stomach look any smaller.
Knowing that people love me for who I am doesn't make me love me for what I'm not - small enough.
Three thousand thoughts? Bullshit.
Here's a thought for you (in case you haven't hit your 3,000 quota yet) - if you've ever, in the back of your head, or even out loud, wondered why people like us "do this to ourselves," I would tell you this:
I don't want to be doing this.
I don't want to be kneeling over the toilet bowl for the tenth time in one day.
I don't want to feel vomit splashing back and hitting me in the face.
I don't want to feel like I have two options in life: either eat nothing, or throw up whatever goes in.
And I sure as fuck don't want to be sitting on the cold wood floor in front of my scale every morning, rocking back and forth in my underwear, crying because it's never, ever good enough.
We, us weird people with eating disorders, we either go wayyy over that "average" of three thousand or else we're just highly trained professionals at thinking multiple thoughts at one time. I, for one, know that has been a constant internal dialogue that I honestly can't remember ever not having. I can change a diaper with one hand and my eyes shut, but I can also do things like study for an organic chemistry test while adding up calories in the margins of my notebook, or read Winnie the Pooh to a four-year-old while frantically calculating how many minutes are ticking by before it's too late for me to throw up whatever it was I last ate, or carry on a perfectly normal conversation with someone while scrutinizing how much they weigh and what size clothes they wear so I can assure myself that I am always, always bigger.
It's generally a bad sign if I talk about having watched television, by the way. I watch tv when I'm numbing myself out. Purging is also an extremely effective way of numbing onself out, if one so chooses. In combination, they are the perfect storm of background noise and serve to cease all thought, for once, ohgodplease just let me stop thinking all of these things. Please.
I know what purging does to my body. I know that it's bad for my esophagus, my stomach, my teeth, and especially, my heart.
I know what severe restriction does to my body too. I know that it's why I've stopped getting my period and why I'm covered in bruises all the time.
I know that in combination, the two things are the reason I'm underweight and unhealthy.
But knowing those things doesn't make it real.
Knowing my ribs are sticking out doesn't make me feel any less fat.
Knowing my hip bones hurt because I keep hitting them on things doesn't make my ass or stomach look any smaller.
Knowing that people love me for who I am doesn't make me love me for what I'm not - small enough.
Three thousand thoughts? Bullshit.
Here's a thought for you (in case you haven't hit your 3,000 quota yet) - if you've ever, in the back of your head, or even out loud, wondered why people like us "do this to ourselves," I would tell you this:
I don't want to be doing this.
I don't want to be kneeling over the toilet bowl for the tenth time in one day.
I don't want to feel vomit splashing back and hitting me in the face.
I don't want to feel like I have two options in life: either eat nothing, or throw up whatever goes in.
And I sure as fuck don't want to be sitting on the cold wood floor in front of my scale every morning, rocking back and forth in my underwear, crying because it's never, ever good enough.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Slipping Away
Today is Saturday.
Today, I ate a Clif bar. I also had some coffee. I agonized over putting sugar in it because there was no zero calorie sweetener available. I didn't add milk. If there had been Splenda, I would have been allowed to add milk.
Yesterday was Friday.
Yesterday, I ate a Clif bar. I had the same battle with my coffee. Sugar, no milk. Those are the rules.
The day before that was Thursday.
Thursday, I ate a falafel wrap at midnight after riding a bus for five hours after working nine hours.
Ten minutes after I ate it, I was holding my hair back with my left hand while kneeling over the toilet.
I washed my hands, splashed my face, brushed my teeth, and turned out the bathroom light.
All better.
Am I starting to sound like a twisted version of that kids' book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar? It wouldn't be that far off from the truth, because lord knows I'm hungry. Or, at least, I think I am. I don't know what the word "hungry" means anymore. It's certainly better than full. Often, it means empty. It always means success.
I could continue with the daily food report for at least the last three weeks, but it'd get pretty boring. The brief summary given comprises the tenets of yet another diagnosis I can plaster across my forehead, lined up neatly beneath that of BIPOLAR DISORDER. This one reads: ANOREXIA and BULIMIA. Or, if you want to get technical, BULIMAREXIA (but that just sounds like some extinct species of dinosaur, in my opinion).
I could write a long-winded post about when this all started (nine years ago), when this wormed its way to the surface again (December), and when it turned into its current, monstrous form that has effectively taken over my life (February). That would be a very long post.
What matters is not the duration or the dates or the numbers or the weight or the calories or even the fucking food. It's not about the food. It's not about the weight. "Well," you might say, eyebrows furrowed, "Then...what IS it about?" And there is not a single person with an eating disorder who could answer that question truthfully. Because the real truth is, we don't know what it's about anymore. (And Lord have mercy on your soul if you so much as suggest that it's about that ever-present, overused word control. Trust me. It's not that simple.)
I am not unique.
There are millions of people with eating disorders.
There are thousands far sicker than me.
But if we're being honest here, I'm pretty damn sick.
Since I graduated college, I've dropped four clothing sizes.
Since February, I've lost almost forty pounds.
I don't own clothes that fit me because I cant afford (or have any desire) to buy newer and smaller items.
I hide behind baggy sweaters and loose leggings in the ninety degree heat of the New York summer.
When I look in the mirror, all I see is too much.
The face that looks back at me - eyes bloodshot from the burst blood vessels purging causes, cheeks hollowed, eyes sunken and with dark circles underneath - I don't recognize myself. It is not myself anymore. I don't remember who myself is. What I see in the mirror is every imperfection, every shame, every bad thought or nasty word, every choked back cry and hateful look written all across my pale, freckled skin. They merge to form one word, one thought, one theme that runs my life: Fat. I am both too much and yet not enough. I am success and failure. I am numbers up and numbers down. I am a vessel, a shell of who I used to be. And while the eating disorder is eating my flesh and muscle, it's also eating my soul. I can feel it slipping away.
And I want it back.
Today, I ate a Clif bar. I also had some coffee. I agonized over putting sugar in it because there was no zero calorie sweetener available. I didn't add milk. If there had been Splenda, I would have been allowed to add milk.
Yesterday was Friday.
Yesterday, I ate a Clif bar. I had the same battle with my coffee. Sugar, no milk. Those are the rules.
The day before that was Thursday.
Thursday, I ate a falafel wrap at midnight after riding a bus for five hours after working nine hours.
Ten minutes after I ate it, I was holding my hair back with my left hand while kneeling over the toilet.
I washed my hands, splashed my face, brushed my teeth, and turned out the bathroom light.
All better.
Am I starting to sound like a twisted version of that kids' book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar? It wouldn't be that far off from the truth, because lord knows I'm hungry. Or, at least, I think I am. I don't know what the word "hungry" means anymore. It's certainly better than full. Often, it means empty. It always means success.
I could continue with the daily food report for at least the last three weeks, but it'd get pretty boring. The brief summary given comprises the tenets of yet another diagnosis I can plaster across my forehead, lined up neatly beneath that of BIPOLAR DISORDER. This one reads: ANOREXIA and BULIMIA. Or, if you want to get technical, BULIMAREXIA (but that just sounds like some extinct species of dinosaur, in my opinion).
I could write a long-winded post about when this all started (nine years ago), when this wormed its way to the surface again (December), and when it turned into its current, monstrous form that has effectively taken over my life (February). That would be a very long post.
What matters is not the duration or the dates or the numbers or the weight or the calories or even the fucking food. It's not about the food. It's not about the weight. "Well," you might say, eyebrows furrowed, "Then...what IS it about?" And there is not a single person with an eating disorder who could answer that question truthfully. Because the real truth is, we don't know what it's about anymore. (And Lord have mercy on your soul if you so much as suggest that it's about that ever-present, overused word control. Trust me. It's not that simple.)
I am not unique.
There are millions of people with eating disorders.
There are thousands far sicker than me.
But if we're being honest here, I'm pretty damn sick.
Since I graduated college, I've dropped four clothing sizes.
Since February, I've lost almost forty pounds.
I don't own clothes that fit me because I cant afford (or have any desire) to buy newer and smaller items.
I hide behind baggy sweaters and loose leggings in the ninety degree heat of the New York summer.
When I look in the mirror, all I see is too much.
The face that looks back at me - eyes bloodshot from the burst blood vessels purging causes, cheeks hollowed, eyes sunken and with dark circles underneath - I don't recognize myself. It is not myself anymore. I don't remember who myself is. What I see in the mirror is every imperfection, every shame, every bad thought or nasty word, every choked back cry and hateful look written all across my pale, freckled skin. They merge to form one word, one thought, one theme that runs my life: Fat. I am both too much and yet not enough. I am success and failure. I am numbers up and numbers down. I am a vessel, a shell of who I used to be. And while the eating disorder is eating my flesh and muscle, it's also eating my soul. I can feel it slipping away.
And I want it back.
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