“What does recovery mean to you?”
…this was the subject line on an email in my inbox today from… (drumroll)….
President Barack Obama. Yep. You heard right. During the campaign I was on a mailing list and received nearly daily emails from Barack and Michelle and the whole gang asking me to support them in various ways. HA -if only they knew how unable I was to support ANYone, including myself, this fall. So these emails keep coming as part of Prez’s plan to stay technosavvyconnectedawesome with his people. I didn’t even open the email, knowing it would spoil the illusion that MY PRESIDENT is so in touch with me and my needs that he wants to know how my ED recovery is going. So, B., I’ll tell you:
Recovery means:
I have much more time on my hands to make things and pet my dog and free-read for hours at Barnes and Noble. Sometimes this time makes me feel edgy and anxious. Other times lonely or sad. I am getting better at tolerating these feelings without my infamous “maladaptive coping strategies”.
My mother doesn’t call every day and ask how “my appetite is” and encourage me to drink Ensure if I “can’t keep solids down”. The phone rings less frequently than when I’m sick, but I’m more likely to answer it when it does.
I’ve begun the journey to figuring out who the real ME is, beneath the skin and bones and mountains of jiggly, soft flesh.
Ironically, I actually think LESS about my body and weight at my “healthy” weight than I do at my “sick” weights. When I catch myself in the mirror, I am, however, still mostly disappointed. Such is life. Things don’t change overnight.
I save water by flushing 75 fewer times per day.
The hopelessness has receded. I’m pretty sure on most days that I should be alive and that I may have things to contribute to the world.
I can eat most meals without acute distress. There is often regret and shame and self-loathing afterwards, but I don’t struggle to put fork to mouth or skip meals altogether.
I can choose not to go to the gym – if I’m tired or busy or want to take a long walk instead. The gym is not punishment for my last meal. But I have to go tonight because I didn’t go yesterday!
Looking skyward and whispering, “thank you” to whatever god, goddess, life force, quantum physics or nothingness has helped me make it this far. Pleading with it to stay near and keep helping.
Really really hoping that I never have to crawl out of the black pit of despair again.
I wish I could do it without rules
Yesterday was.start.to.finish.horrible. I had such grand plans for a great Snow Day. Turned out in addition to being a s’no work day, it was also a s’no food staying in my belly day, s’no way I can stand up without being dizzy day, s’no way I should be on this treadmill right now day. And honestly, the first day I worried about acute health repercussions to my purging and restricting.
Thursday I ingested some gluten and my sensitive Celiac gut reacted, well, with some GI distress (I’ll spare you the details). But this always means that I stop absorbing the food in my gut, make many trips to the el bano, and wind up very hungry and thirsty. And in the lovely land of Bulimia very hungry leads down a destructive road. Yesterday was another one of my purging lows, in frequency, in intensity, in wobbly after effects. And because I was snowed in, there wasn’t much I could do to distract (this is an exaggeration, there were things I could do but felt so much at the mercy of my disorder that I forgot about them). At some point in the afternoon I crawled into bed and vowed not to get out until J got home from work (4:00, usually). By 5:15 I was panicking and hungry again and praying that he would show up soon so we could go to my favorite restaurant and get a crepe for dinner and keep it down. I could NOT eat another meal alone in this god-forsaken apartment. Phone rings. J is working late – until 7:30. Groan. You can imagine how dinner went (other than alone and in this god-forsaken apartment).
But hang in there, it’s not all doom and gloom. The road may be curving a bit, mainly because I felt so fucking scared and sick yesterday. Possessed, in fact, by this disorder. I know on so many levels it feels like it gives control, but this is a myth (at least for me) and there are those rock-bottom moments when you realize you are completely controlled by IT. Yesterday I felt like the only way I am going to have control of my life is to not have my disorder in my life. If I allow it to be there, even in small doses (what I like to call “dabbling” in my behaviors) – I guarantee myself that I will have these days, weeks, (hopefully not but possibly) months where it is my master and I its slave. Days where the moment I see J’s face I am a puddle of blubbering tears. Days where all there is to do is take a valium and go to bed at 8:00.
That Valium induced sleep lasted until about 3 a.m. at which point I began hatching a plan. Just for today. I’m not going to worry about a week from now or a month from now. Today, Saturday December 13, I have a meal plan in writing and stuck on the fridge. At the bottom of the meals and snacks listed are some rules.
-No eating on the couch. Sit at the table.
-Only eating off plates, not out of packaging.
-No multi-tasking. Pay attention to eating and how you feel (emotionally and physically).
I’ve tried meal plans before – a few weeks ago I had a few good days as a result of planning what I’d eat and sticking to it. My major concern is that it is ME that created the plan. So I’m just trusting that it’s coming from the healthy/recovery me and not the restricting/want-to-lose-weight me. At my absolute lowest in ED behaviors I kept very rigid (and unhealthy) meal plans and obsessed about them. I went to a dietician post-diagnosis with Celiac (in her defense she had no idea that I had an eating disorder) and holy shit – it fueled the fire BIG time. Part of me is wondering, though, if it would help to have my diet planned by someone without an eating disorder. Probably. But I’m terrified of that. Maybe should talk to Bree about it.
Next to the meal plan on the refrigerator is a big sheet filled with “Things to Do Instead”. Including specific tasks related to housework, being outside, playing with my dog, connecting with others (email, christmas cards, phone calls and a list of all the people who ARE in my life and WOULD at least chat with me about bullshit and Christmas and anything besides purging), relaxing.
My goal: To have a “good day”. Translation: To eat what my body needs, not purge, exercise a reasonable amount. Bonus (but this may be setting the bar WAY too high): Not be excruciatingly anxious and difficult to be around.
I really wish I could do it without rules. I wish I could just wake up, smile at the sunshine glinting off the snow and go along my merry way of normalcy today. Just set the intention and have it all pan out. But I just know that, right now, that doesn’t work. It did when I was 4 months into recovery. But not the day after one of my worst days ever. I need the structure. I think about the stories I’ve heard of residential treatment. It’s not like you walk in, they pat you on the back and congratulate you for making the commitment to recover and then send on your way to figure out what to do all day. They schedule your day and plan your food and keep you busy and take a lot of the choices and decision-making off your back (at least in the beginning, from what I hear). So I guess what I’m doing is somewhat aligned with that. I have the best intentions for today and it feels like it is ME and not my disorder choosing this path.
Off to shovel snow with a slice of toast with PB and a little smoothie in my belly. Off to shovel snow with a little bit of pride that I did it – one meal of the day. Off to shovel snow with the fear of disappointment if this day takes a turn for the worse.
*one last observation. That last line about fear of disappointment – it makes me want to beg, plead, bargain, pray with some power in the universe (not necessarily spiritual) not to let the disorder take over today. But acknowledging that feels like it’s taking the power away from ME to keep today on track. So is it better to rely on myself (thereby putting pressure on myself) to battle this today or to turn it over to the universe to keep the disorder at bay. Or maybe a bit of both – I’ll do my part today and hope the universe can give me a break?!
The awkwardness of being human
J just had the most wonderful insight as we laid in bed chatting about our crazy families of origin and the possibility (albeit a terrifying one to both of us) of a family of our own.
“Everyone just walks around acting like everything’s normal. No one ever talks about the awkwardness of being human. It’s really weird to be a human.”
That, folks, is why I love that man.
I had an extremely weird human experience tonight at the gym. Some sort of weird waking vision – like a dream, only on minute 18 on the Stairmaster. I got this imagery of my father doing surgery on me in our living room and harvesting my organs. It was so disturbing and vivid that I got very rattled. Unsure of whether to hop off the 814th floor of my imaginary building and head home, to cry while pounding away on the pedals or to open my book and pretend the whole thing never happened. I wound up spending the next 12 minutes pouring sweat into puddles on the floor directly below my elbows. I decided to stay with the image but was so uncomfortable that I cranked the machine up to level 20 and began sprinting. It felt strangely like whatever was coming up, bubbling up from the pool of yuck inside me and was somehow important. Probably very painful but valuable. I came home and later wrote about 3 paragraphs of it to get it out of my head. It is truly bizarre, a visual metaphor for my relationship with my father. It feels too fresh and twisted right now to share on the blog but that will likely happen soon. Just need to give the emotional dust a few days to settle. Need to talk about it in therapy Thursday.
Yoga was pretty solid for me tonight. I felt comfortable and present. Heavy through the soles of my feet (I guess that’s what they mean when they say “grounded”). Still purging but at least I feel like it’s for good reason – like some of the yuck is making its way up and of course I don’t know what to do with it. I do feel like I’m getting just a little bit closer to knowing. Like maybe I’m on the cusp of something. Maybe. Please, maybe.
The contents of my stomach
…are distressing me at the present moment. I’ve had about a week of consistent restricting, exercising, purging and generally not taking care of this cursed body (which I hate but apparently am the only one in charge of taking care of — whoever gave it to me didn’t realize that I’m not ready for such responsibility). This afternoon I ate more than I was comfortable with (this is my version of a binge – nowhere close to a textbook definition but it feels “binge-y” to me when it’s more than I want, a food that feels instantly fattening or for longer duration of eating than I want) but was planning on (1) purging and (2) going to the gym. But a damn computer repair-guy came to look at our DSL connection (which has been slow and fritzy lately) and threw a large wrench in my plans. So here I am – angrily digesting. I’ve lost weight. That’s the hook I need to keep this slip going. And to add to that little guilty pleasure – J noticed. He’s “worried”. Granted, it’s not a large chunk of weight (obviously not enough to satisfy ED thoughts) but I guess J’s never seen me go through a series of “bad” days with no “good” days to balance them out. The result? Rapid change in body composition. I think my reassurances are useless and screwed up since they’re coming from such a muddled ED place in my head (“oh, honey, don’t worry, at this rate it’d probably take me at least 3 months to get to the point of needing hospitalization.”)
I really related to the post on Marine Snow about how the sick role protects you from the scary adult-type things of the world. My job challenges, the prospect of a mortgage in the not-so-distant future, a wedding, a marriage, children. I am so conflicted on these issues and go through these periods of blissful optimism and a false sense of readiness for them. Then I slide down into a pit of hopelessness, fear and escapism. On days when the “I want to be sicker than I’ve ever been before” “I want to run away and live alone in a cabin in the woods” and the “I don’t want to live anymore” voices get loud, I feel an urgency to do something drastic to remove myself from this adult life before too many people are counting on me. I’ve got one foot in the door of adult responsibilities and the other doing some serious toe-dipping in the waters of self-harm and relapse.
On the job front, after the initial “this is the perfect job for me and I’ll throw myself in 110% and have a life-changing experience” phase (oh, this is such a hallmark reaction for me and noticing it and waiting for it to pass is such a positive – and brand-spankin’ new – outcome from therapy), I started to realize that it’s NOT what’s best. I’m not in a place in my life where I can pour out energy into this fledgling project and lift it off the ground and make it soar. I don’t want to take sole responsibility for the success or failure of anything – not even myself (most of the time). The search for a new job was, in part, spurred by a desire for a job that wasn’t emotionally and physically draining. Just someplace I spent the day and came home to my “real life” (HA!). As much as my overly enthusiastic super-self would like me to be, I am not in the position to be a leader, a role-model, a teacher, a sole pillar of strength to an organization or division. I want to blend into the gray fabric of a cubicle somewhere and be a cog in a wheel. So that rehab position has the option of just giving me a one day break from my current job (8 hour position as opposed to my anticipated 16 hour with a transition to full-time). It’s still a consideration and the hiring owner of the rehab place seemed to very clearly understand the difference in commitment and energy between these two options. She called the 8 hour position the “safe option if I’m not ready to take on the leadership and administrative role”. I am working VERY hard to restrain myself from acting impulsively, as I am known to do in situations with unbearable amounts of uncertainty. Step 1 of this restraint was NOT sending the email to the hiring owner at 5:30 a.m. the morning after the interview. I waited until 10:00 a.m. Pats on the back for me. I still have another interview this week for another pediatric position which offers some promise. But again, I just need to slow my brain down before I commit to something from a frantic, panicked place and not a thoughtful and introspective place.
ED group starts Monday. I’ve committed to it. I am terrified. I feel the way I did the night before I started meds when I was at my lowest weight – “what if this takes my eating disorder away from me?” THEN, what will I do?
