Slipping out of grasp

I am afraid of food.

I am inside a dark hole, the rope of recovery hanging just out of reach. My fingers stretch to grab hold, but cold winds swirl around and twisting, turning, it moves out of reach.

Once I could almost see the top.

I see myself hazily, a small figure desperately reaching out to grab hold. Everything else fades, the world is filled with ghosts moving around me, not touching me. I long to disappear altogether, to a place where nothing can touch me.

I look at food and I don't care. I look at graduate school and I see it as a dying dream. I look at my marriage, my love, and I see it dying.

Food seems so alien now. I was at my most pure two years ago. Light, airy, almost not of this world. At least I had Ana. Or she had me.

It started New Year's Day and meeting three young girls, interviewing them about their futures, filled with hope and without fear and anxiety. My optimism of the night before faded, as I thought about all my failures.

Like being drunk for two years at Michigan State University.

Like sleeping with every guy who came along.

Like throwing away a full scholarship to Stanford University.

Like being the campus slut.

Like having an affair with a married man.

Like . . .

But hope still held the first of January. Then Haiti was struck with an earthquake and I realized how very useless I am. I could do nothing.

Cut here. Cut there. It is so easy to eliminate food when you still eat so little of it. Guilt has become my food and I'm choking on it.

Then the triggers came. This person was thinner than I. That person was purging more then me. Everyone was suffering and I couldn't do anything about it.

Guilt became three meals a day.

I don't deserve to eat. Food is for those who matter. And everybody matters but me.

I have became afraid of food. The mere thought of it touching my lips terrifies me. I look at my yogurt in the morning, and I want to throw it across the room. I cut my sandwich in half at lunch and toss part of it in the trash. The dead chicken breast on my plate at dinner mocks me.

I waste food in a world that is starving.

Then I thought — I could fast for the Haitian people. I could offer up myself and my heart as a sacrifice.

But I am unworthy.

And I'm still afraid of food.

Now I wonder how I can grasp the elusive rope of recovery. I have been climbing for years, my arms are tired and my hands are bruised. I was almost to the top when it slid out of my grasp.

I realized this morning, I can't grab that rope by myself. I need someone to hold it steady for me. Then, maybe then, I can slowly climb my way back.

I haven't given up. (Or this wouldn't have been written.) But I'm asking anyone out there — will you grab that rope for me? Just hold it, friend, hold it steady. Then I can start climbing again.

Haiti

My heart is broken. I went to Haiti when I was my sickest - about 92 pounds. Now everything I knew there is destroyed, and I don't know if the children I held are dead or alive.

I wasn't suppose to go to Haiti. My doctor told me I was too sick. My mother cried and begged me not to go. But I felt Haiti calling me ...

And in the end, Haiti saved me. The children there were honest, and told me I was too thin. The pictures of me shocked me, and helped open my eyes to what anorexia was doing to me.

Here are a few pictures. I am very proud of them, because it shows that I went outside my eating disorder and was still Angela underneath the bones and the unrelenting obsession with food and calories and weight. I was still me, and anorexia had not stolen my love for people and helping them. I just wish I could have given Haiti more.

Picturing me

I just looked at a photo of me in my "anorexia days" and my reaction was both surprising and gratifying.

Surprising because I was absolutely appalled by what I looked like at my lowest weight (this is a picture of me on a mission trip to Haiti - which I went on against doctor's orders.) I look so gaunt, so skeletal, so thin ...

At the time, I thought I was very attractive. I certainly was the thinnest one around - several small Haitian children would come up to me, stroke my arm with their little fingers, and whisper "too thin," "too thin." (That really should have given me a clue - if children in a third-world country who have seen starvation tell you you're too thin, you might want to think about it!)

I was very proud of being the thinnest one around during the summer of 2008. Unlike many anorexics, I didn't bundle myself up in layers of clothing (unless I was too cold) - I wore mini-skirts and tiny T-shirts to show off what I thought were my thin, model-like legs (no thighs touching!) and slender arms. I remember feeling so proud walking into a store and being told, "I'm sorry, we don't have anything small enough to fit you," "What are you, an extra-small," ad nauseam ...

Oh brother!

Now looking at the picture, perhaps seeing myself as others saw me then, scares me. My arms look stripped to the bone, my face tightly pulled against my skull, my skin dead-white. Frankly, if I saw someone looking like I did, I would be scared for her life!

I am gratified by this reaction, because I feel that in spite of some small relapses and evil thoughts (get that thin again! come on, you can do it! it is easy!), my reaction makes me feel that I am getting better. I don't really want to lose weight. I enjoy being able to wear jeans without tugging them up no matter what size (and near the end - or maybe the end of anorexia's complete and total grip on my soul? - I was tugging at those size zero jeans, and I thought it was terrific; I was aiming for teens size 14!)

I am grateful for the health I've gained, for the curves I've earned, and for the right to at least try and eat without fear.

At first, I thought about posting that picture with this blog. But no. She isn't me anymore. And she never will be again.

"just think of the starving children..."

As if I don't feel guilty enough about having an eating disorder, someone recently told me I needed to think of the starving children in (insert country here).

I do think of the starving children. I traveled to Haiti to help children and others on a medical mission - against doctor's orders. But it didn't stop me from starving myself - I gave most of my food away on that trip - and it didn't stop me from feeling guilty.

If I could give all the food I haven't eaten while anorexic, I would. But comments like these are not helpful.

Neither are these comments: Just eat. (Gee, I hadn't thought of that! Let me just grab that doughnut and scarf it down and I'll be all better), I'd love to be anorexic - for a little bit (Really? You mean I can turn it on and off? and Be careful what you wish for - I use to wish I would be really thin - And now I am!), You actually ate something? (Well, even anorexics eat something; if I didn't eat at all, I would already be dead), I didn't think you would want to be invited because it involves food (Yes, I just like be left out of fun things with friends because I have an eating disorder), and my all time favorite (from a relative, no less) - You just need to pull yourself together!