Weighty questions

This year was the first Thanksgiving in several years that I've been at a near-normal weight. I went to the family dinner with the intent to - this year, finally - enjoy the company and the food, to eat without fear. Then my mother looked at me and asked me, "How much do you weigh?" I was stunned, but I answered her. She then cheerfully replied how great it was that she didn't weigh much more than me. My first thought was, "Well, that's something to aspire to - compete with a recovering anorexic!" I sat at the meal, picked at my food, and barely choked some of it down.

How could I have responded? Could I have said, "Well, Mom, at least I'm healthier this year?" Or, "I'm aiming for health, numbers don't mean anything?" Or, "It's really none of your business?" My husband said afterward, "She just doesn't get it."

On the plus side, it was still great to see a lot of my family and to laugh and joke with them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! And may this be an ED-free day for you all!

Love,
Angela

Acceptance???

I stood in the shower this morning and I started crying AGAIN! Hating what I see in the mirror, fearful because of many days with the pain of a migraine resistant to all forms of medication, regretting my slide into anorexia, wondering who I am now because I'm no longer diagnosed with anorexia, afraid of the future because I'm trying to create a new career, tired of feeling ugly because I don't conform to someone's artificial standards of beauty (hair too curly, too short, not thin enough, never thin enough!)

As I cried and screamed, no one but the cat around to hear me, I finally asked - When am I going to accept myself? When am I going to love who I am? When am I going to celebrate the good things in my life? When is this going to end?

I'm so afraid it will never end. I will never look at one bite of food without being afraid of it. I will never put one spoonful into my mouth without looking down at my thighs, my stomach and seeing FAT. I will never look in the mirror and think I am beautiful, as my husband tells me I am so often.

I will never be happy. I will never be free.

There. I've written my worst fears in those two sentences. I don't know where the key is. I don't know what medication, what exercise, which doctor, WHAT WHAT WHAT will free me????

I try to tell myself the key is within myself, even if that does sound cliché. But if the key is within myself, it is buried underneath years of regret and torment and self-doubt and anorexia and illness and ....

I asked God the other day why didn't He just let me die of anorexia last year? My weight was very low and dropping, the blood tests were getting bad, I was getting sick.

He didn't answer me.

Counting ...

One cup of Cheerios - 110. Two scrambled eggs - 154. Half a banana ...

Food food food - I can't seem to live without it, and I'm afraid to eat too much of it. I add up the daily calories in my head to reassure myself, only to ask why why did I eat that and that and that ... I'm a pig, I'm too fat, I'll never be thin again, the size one dream is GONE.

I started to cry as I walked through the mall today, mourning my thin thin body, missing my bones, the curving in of my stomach, the clavicle standing out, the too-big eyes. The mannequins were all smaller than my, lighter than air, fragile, delicate; everything I used to be and now am not. Inside I cried to myself, what have I done???

I looked at the gracefully hung clothes, remembered the times I could walk in and get the smallest size and sometimes even have that size be too big.

I look at pictures of women with anorexia online. They are so tiny, so airy, so light. I want to be them, I want to be someone like them, I want to have that look. I miss my stripped down arms and my thighs not touching.

So today I started counting again. When I was still actively anorexic (am I now a retired anorexic? Have I given up on ana? Can I ever separate from her, or is she like a demon, part of my soul, that can't be cut away???), I counted every single calorie. One of my biggest downfalls is that I can't have diet products because I'm allergic to aspartame. So if I want any sweetness, it has to be sugar.

One packet of sugar - 10 calories. One teaspoon of CoffeeMate Lite - 10 calories. Water, blessed water - 0 calories. Five Ritz crackers - 60 calories ... It's too much, each damn calorie means one more step to losing myself.

I hate how the calories now add up to a four-digit calorie intake, meaning NO WEIGHT LOSS FOR ME!

Counting, counting! Numbers and food and what it all means swirling around in my head.

Only sleep brings some relief. Until I dream of food.

Hope rising

It has been a tough week of restricting and little sleep. The days were dark and ana was begging me to come back and I almost fell for it.

But today I feel hope rising.

I went through the many messages I received from friends through this, and I am just amazed at the support I've been given through almost three years of battling anorexia.

I thought, "With all these people behind me, how can I fail?" Thank you Courtney, Carrie, Caryn, Patti, Joan and so many others I can't even begin to name all of them.

I discovered today I do want it all and a normal life free of anorexia is within my reach.

I am just grateful for the opportunity to go to school, to be with my husband, to look out the window at the sunshine (a minor miracle in Michigan!) and to write and breathe and love and live.

So ED, KISS MY ASS! You're not welcome here anymore.

Dreams

Talk about crashing. Tuesday and Wednesday, I felt like I could do anything, that I could overcome the anorexia and have the normal life I crave. Last night, my mood started to fail, I couldn't stop crying and I ended up developing a migraine. Today has been totally useless - instead of working on my future (i.e. studying and writing for my graduate school classes), I've surfed the Internet and Facebook, looking at pictures of people with families and lives and fun, feeling sorry for myself.

AND I HATE TO FEEL SORRY FOR MYSELF!

I feel that my dreams are too big for anorexia. I eat, then I think I don't want to eat. I'm trying to reduce the number of anxiety meds, then this afternoon took extra in the effort to stop thinking about how many ways I've screwed up. I write to friends who are struggling, trying to help them see that they can get better and live a full life, and can't convince myself I can do that.

I feel like I'm sinking, and I don't even know why.

I feel like all my dreams are dying, that I have no right to want more, that I have no right to expect a happy, normal life without ED.

I keep trying to kick ED out, and like a bad-boy boyfriend, he keeps coming back and enticing me. Try telling this charmer you're done with him. Ha! He'll just say, "You know you want me." And the problem is, part of me still does.

Because if my dreams can't come true, what do I have left? ED will always be there without fail.

Craving normalcy

I want to be normal.

I want to: go to the movies and gorge myself on popcorn; hang out with friends and have scones and hot tea; eat too much, eat too little, and eat just right and it not be an issue; have dinner at 6 p.m., 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and not have it matter; eat for the day and have no clue how many calories I have consumed; eat an oatmeal raisin cookie, a chocolate chip cookie, a brownie or all three and not give a damn.

I also want to: grow in my marriage, not have anxiety, be medication-free, have a family, complete graduate school and move forward in my professional life.

I want full-on, normal, boring, every day life - it would feel like a miracle.

I crave normalcy like I once craved to be thin. I look around at all the normal things people are doing - traveling, hanging out, working, going to school, getting ready for Halloween ...

I am afraid to speak my dreams out loud, even on this blog. I'm afraid my dreams are too normal and are closed to someone like me, someone going into her third year of battling anorexia. I fear that there is a sign a head that says "STOP - You are not allowed to proceed. To the left to continue the drama of ED. No normal life for you!" (Said in the tones of the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld - NO Soup for you!)

I'm afraid it's too late. But I can't give up the hope, the dream, of ... normalcy.