In which she breaks her silence...

I am healthy no longer anorexic.

I have family who loves me.

I have a job that I adore, and that makes me feel worthwhile.

I am finally rebuilding my life after things started to implode in 2010...

And I hate my body

I HATE my body

There's no getting around that fact.

And I'm angry about it.

It seems as if many ED recovery blogs show recovery as all lightness and fluff. You push past the fear, you post smiley "Operation Beautiful" affirmations on your bathroom mirror, you do a lot of yoga, and ... and you are recovered. Slim, beautiful, worthy of admiration because you came through the fire and look amazing for it.

What about the rest of us?

What about those of us who careened past recovery weight and are now tipping precariously into the overweight, or even God-forbid, obesity range?

We hear it all the time - love your body. YOUR body. And typically the person spouting that is still acceptably slim, slim enough for society to accept her, while not so slim to be considered anorexic anymore.

What about the rest of us?

Those of us who are fighting the Buddha belly and the thunder thighs; those of us who are not slim by society's standards, those of us who really are overweight and yet we are constantly bombarded with the message that we are to LOVE YOUR BODY.

I don't want to love this body. This body is overweight and tired and has high blood pressure. 

This body is too-round and too-curvy and too, dare I say it? Too large.

Does loving my body mean not taking care of it? Have I loved my body so much that I've put it in danger? Did I listen to those affirmations too much, forgetting that loving my body might mean keeping it a healthy weight? Not around 155-160 pounds for a small-framed woman of 5'3"?

My ED doctor says I'm not overweight. My GP tells me not to stress about my weight.

But how long should I love this body, before love kills me as anorexia tried to?

And why is it that it seems as if the strongest advocates for "loving your body" are those who are slim, those whose bodies don't offend society?

Walking on Water

I am
Walking on Water

Skirting the Edges
Trying to not let
The fear

Consume me.

For
1
5
10
Infinity

I have done
Whatever I could
Do
To Please you.

Nothing
Nothing
Nothing

I am Not
The Evil One
Here

I have
Been Walking
On Eggshells
For

LIFE

When I was born,
Did I ask
For this
Life
Sentence

I have
Not
Been Able to

Walk on Water

But does that
Mean
That
I
Am
Doomed?

I try
To
Fight
This pain...

But
No Matter What

I am
Not
Able
To
Walk on Water

And therefore
I
Am
Not
Worthy

------
@11:34 a.m.  - 334
@ 12:48 p.m. - 534
@1:52 p.m. - 542
@ 2:33 p.m. - 550
@ 3:53 p.m. - 558
@4:09 p.m. - 566

Each number represents failure.

As I continue
To try and fight this
The Chaos
In my Life
Threatens to take control.

Each number represents success.

As I continue
To try and suppress
My
Hunger
This is the only thing
That I can control.

Because
I will never be able to
Walk on Water.

An Acceptable Number?

I no longer can pretend that I am recovered from my eating disorder, if I ever was. The thoughts, the actions, the pattern of behaviors - all point to the fact that I am still struggling with anorexia.
People look at me and think, "She's at a healthy weight, so she must be better." Scratch that. People probably look at me and think, "She's fat, poor thing; she really has let herself go."
I asked Dr. S the other day if he thought I needed to lose weight. I waited to hear the hesitation in his voice, the pity that I was now at the other end of the spectrum. He answered with an emphatic, "No."
Who am I to believe? What he says or what I see with my own two eyes? The thing is, I don't know if I can trust my own eyes; they have lied to me so much during the past six years.
And what about the number on the scale? The scale does not lie, it is an impersonal  machine that really doesn't care what I or anyone else weighs. The bar slides forward and back, speaking to the fears of hundreds of women who watch, silently, praying that it would stop on an acceptable number.
What is an acceptable number? During the past six years, I've hit a low of 91 and a high of 168. My body has gained and lost the equivalent of a toddler, except the only life that was lost was mine.
I remember sitting in McDonald's a few weeks ago. It was hot, so very hot. A couple in their 60s or early 70s stopped in, ordering cold drinks. He order a chocolate shake, topped with whipped cream and a cherry. She ordered an iced coffee, and I'm sure it was either unflavored or flavored with sugar-free syrup.
The message was this: men can order whatever they like, the world of food and its flavors are completely open to them, they don't have to restrict their lives. 
Women, on the other hand, must rein in their appetites, and instead delicately sip on low-caloried beverages and pretend that they really don't want the milkshakes and other treats that are out there.
Of course, this is changing with a new generation, and men are also increasingly taught that they must deny themselves.
This is just a little vignette, something to highlight the increasing rage I feel toward the eating disorder voice that taunts me.
I also thought this: will I be her when I'm in my 70s, still restricting myself from all that the world offers? That is, of course, if I am still here.

Bad News — Especially for an anorexic

TRIGGER WARNING — Numbers are in this post.

I found out today that I am at least 10 pounds overweight, and most likely, because I am small-framed, about 30 pounds.

I need to lose 30 pounds.

I am speechless.

I knew I was heading in this direction, but of course no one wanted to say anything to me. Who wants to say to a recovering anorexic — the eating disorder voice is still very strong — that she needs to lose weight. I wouldn't.

But weight does effect health, and now I am in the position that I need to lose instead of gain.

I had hoped that I might be able to move past weight. I had hoped that this, all of this, wouldn't be a focal point of my life.

I had hoped to achieve recovery, but right now it feels as out of grasped as when I was at my thinnest.

I can't believe this.

I am so upset.

Is complete recovery from an eating disorder even possible?

In 2007, an inexplicably irrational and frightening disease entered my life — anorexia nervosa. I was familiar with it, of course, although I did not have any close friends who struggled with anorexia or any other eating disorder, at least that I knew of.

My first contact with anorexia was with a two-sentence entry in my Abnormal Psychology textbook. It was the 1980s, and eating disorders just weren't getting a lot of attention. My next encounter with anorexia was in the early 1990s, when I was hospitalized at the University of Michigan Hospitals after a particularly bad bout with depression and anxiety. There was a young woman there, very thin and pale, who was on complete bed rest. I later found out that she had anorexia. I scoffed, eating my bacon eggs, that anyone would willingly starve herself.

Little did I know that years later, that woman would be me.

I developed anorexia after a bout with another frightening disease, hypoparathyroidism, caused me to lose a significant amount of weight. I found that I liked being that thin, and thus was kicked into anorexia and five years of utter hell.

There have been many fits and starts during my recovery, when I would go so far, only to jerk back and start clinging to anorexia like it was my best friend. I became a serial patient at my ED doctor's hospital, being admitted eight times between 2008 and 2012.

I still sometimes ask myself, will there be a ninth admission?

I started working seriously on recovery after my last hospitalization. I was discharged on 1 January 2012, and days later, I slammed my scale against the trash can and tossed it out. I have not owned a scale since.

But eating disorder thoughts still come and go, some fleetingly, others taking hold until I feel as if I am smothering.

Fat. Not so fat. Cellulite. Dimples............fatttttttttttttt.....oh so fat!!!!!!!! I wouldn't be caught.dead.in.a.bikini, said in a clinched tone. FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT, SCREAMING AT ME, GOD PLEASE STOP THESE THOUGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, anorexia isn't really about weight and food and body image. And yet it is. My life is pretty stressful right now. I'm looking for full-time work after finishing graduate school. My living situation isn't idea. I feel like a failure after the twin disasters in December and June.

It is characteristic of me to turn inward, churning up self-hatred, berating myself for actually nourishing myself as a normal human being, hating myself for no longer being a size XX.

But all of this leads me to think, will I ever be completely recovered?

I mean, the truth is, I am at the high end of the acceptable weight for my age and height. I do need to lose some weight. I am risking my health, or I was, with all the sugar and simple carbs I've been ingesting.

So how does a recovered anorexic — if I am truly recovered — address possible health issues and the need to lose weight? How do I do it safely, or is it simply not possible?

Or will this simply trigger another relapse? Can I safely maintain my healthy, get to a healthy weight, without inviting anorexia back in?

Does anyone ever really recover from an eating disorder?

What's wrong with being fat?

Someone recently asked me, "What's wrong with being fat?" The answer I came up with - because of how society treats and views fat people - just doesn't add up to me anymore.
I keep thinking of her question, why people with anorexia are so afraid to be fat. Society? The media? The fact you see the beautiful, thin people on every billboard, in every television show and plastered across this country.
Anorexia plasters you. It nails you down and sucks out your life, filling it with anxiety and a desire for perfection that you can never meet. As I (or anyone with anorexia) look at our thin, plastered down bodies, may be we should think - There's nothing wrong with being fat. Most of the fat people I know are living their lives, not counting calories or fighting this demon.
I don't know the answer to this person's question, but maybe it's good I'm now asking it.