If you don't hear from me for a while, I wish all of you the best in your recovery efforts and please remember to relish each day that you can just move and do normal things - these days are more precious than I can ever describe.
26 February 2009
The depths
I haven't blogged in a while, and probably won't for a while after this post. I am sick, so sick I can barely move some days, and I'm going on temporary leave from work this week. I don't know what happened to make me feel so physically tired and terrible, and I dread the search for answers. I just pray my doctors can make me better again - my husband, family and friends all believe I will get better, and I have to believe in their hope.
13 February 2009
A celebration
It's working! Three meals, three Ensures - every day, no matter what - and I've gained weight. And I'm happy.
It means I'm beating that demon, that evil spirit who tried to steal my life - anorexia. I never, ever thought I'd be happy to see a higher number on the scale - but I am! It means my life is coming back to me.
I'm elated!
02 February 2009
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.
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.
14 January 2009
Life's a competition sport - even when it comes to anorexia!
I've been in the hospital for a few days, dealing with anxiety and anorexia. I quickly discovered two things - I'm not the thinnest girl on the block and I'm not sure if I like that.
Let me explain: at this particular hospital, all the eating disorder patients have to sit together at meals. That means we get to discuss calories, weight (exactly how low did you go? Oh, 92? Pshaw, I'm 60 pounds right now and could lose more in a second), weight lost techniques (do you take laxatives? the whole box or just the normal amount? how about water pills? enemas? Syrup of Ipecac, anyone?) and how much you may or may not be eating (You're not going to eat that muffin, are you? Well, yes, I had thought I might - until now.) (You're not worried about those two creams in your coffee? - said in a slight incredulous lilt in the voice - But after all, they are only about 20 calories - 20 calories can't hurt anything - CAN IT?) And then someone (thinner) points out how brave you are, how well on the way to recovery you must be if you can tolerate those two creams, how they would like to be like you but just can't imagine it.
Blood tests come back bad? That anemia and bad kidney functioning might have you worried, but damn, at least you aren't a walking heart attack waiting to happen. Your clavicle protrudes? But why do you still have so much hair? Any self-respecting anorexic would have lost most of her hair by now.
The doctor says you need to stay for a week, get better. The doctor says another person must stay for a month, and was threatened with a power of attorney if she did not agree to the catheter pumping thousands of calories into her heart (which, btw, I experience for 10 days this summer - oops, did I just one-up?)
I sit down at the table each meal, trying so hard to eat what is a normal meal for others. It makes me so anxious. It makes me feel like I will get fat. It makes me feel like I'm giving up anorexia, that ever-present companion. I feel so proud of myself for trying so hard - even though the anxiety sometimes feels like it will kill me - to eat like a normal person. I feel so proud that I am trying so hard to rejoin life.
Then I look around at my meal and her meal and I feel like a pig. How could I let myself get this fat! Fat fat fat at about 100 pounds???!!!
I keep telling myself, the only way out is through. And eating normally is the way to health and the life I want to lead. The way back leads to death.
I don't want my whole life to be anorexia. I want this bitch to DIE! But the competitive part? I wore a size 0. She wore a size 10 - children's.
Let me explain: at this particular hospital, all the eating disorder patients have to sit together at meals. That means we get to discuss calories, weight (exactly how low did you go? Oh, 92? Pshaw, I'm 60 pounds right now and could lose more in a second), weight lost techniques (do you take laxatives? the whole box or just the normal amount? how about water pills? enemas? Syrup of Ipecac, anyone?) and how much you may or may not be eating (You're not going to eat that muffin, are you? Well, yes, I had thought I might - until now.) (You're not worried about those two creams in your coffee? - said in a slight incredulous lilt in the voice - But after all, they are only about 20 calories - 20 calories can't hurt anything - CAN IT?) And then someone (thinner) points out how brave you are, how well on the way to recovery you must be if you can tolerate those two creams, how they would like to be like you but just can't imagine it.
Blood tests come back bad? That anemia and bad kidney functioning might have you worried, but damn, at least you aren't a walking heart attack waiting to happen. Your clavicle protrudes? But why do you still have so much hair? Any self-respecting anorexic would have lost most of her hair by now.
The doctor says you need to stay for a week, get better. The doctor says another person must stay for a month, and was threatened with a power of attorney if she did not agree to the catheter pumping thousands of calories into her heart (which, btw, I experience for 10 days this summer - oops, did I just one-up?)
I sit down at the table each meal, trying so hard to eat what is a normal meal for others. It makes me so anxious. It makes me feel like I will get fat. It makes me feel like I'm giving up anorexia, that ever-present companion. I feel so proud of myself for trying so hard - even though the anxiety sometimes feels like it will kill me - to eat like a normal person. I feel so proud that I am trying so hard to rejoin life.
Then I look around at my meal and her meal and I feel like a pig. How could I let myself get this fat! Fat fat fat at about 100 pounds???!!!
I keep telling myself, the only way out is through. And eating normally is the way to health and the life I want to lead. The way back leads to death.
I don't want my whole life to be anorexia. I want this bitch to DIE! But the competitive part? I wore a size 0. She wore a size 10 - children's.
13 January 2009
Anxiety overdrive
My anxiety has gone into overdrive, and I have chosen to admit myself into the hospital. I'm scared to death and don't know what is going to happen to me.
I keep thinking - if only I had been better. If only I had pulled myself together. If only I had tried harder. If only ....
But the anxiety was consuming, my medication didn't seem to be working, and I have not slept in about 36 hours - I couldn't stand the way I felt, and if I had to feel that way, I'd rather be dead.
I pray this can be fixed, and that I can heal from the anxiety and anorexia. It's my only hope.
I keep thinking - if only I had been better. If only I had pulled myself together. If only I had tried harder. If only ....
But the anxiety was consuming, my medication didn't seem to be working, and I have not slept in about 36 hours - I couldn't stand the way I felt, and if I had to feel that way, I'd rather be dead.
I pray this can be fixed, and that I can heal from the anxiety and anorexia. It's my only hope.
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