Anorexia and a Southern goodbye

Nothing is simple when you have anorexia nervosa. Not even saying good-bye to a loved one.

Today we buried my grandpa. He lived a long, well-loved life filled with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He loved to tease people and he enjoyed the home-cooked meals of his wife, Dean. He was a Southern boy who fought in World War II and Korea and worked on the railroad as a conductor. He tried his best to let those around know he loved them, and he accepted our love in turn.

Memories flood me of summer days visiting him in Kentucky; summer nights filled with thick air and fireflies and sitting on the porch swing. Breakfasts of biscuits and sausage gravy; dinners of thick cornbread and bean soup. Why is the food the strongest memories?

The feel is different here. It takes me back to my childhood. The yearly treks to visit Mamaw in Ohio and Grandpa in Somerset; the time spent with my father's family in the hills of Pineville. It was a world of cognitive dissonance, one I have not processed to this day. A loving grandpa and step-grandmother. Another grandmother, Mamaw; one of the most beautiful women in the world who didn't care for but one of her six grandchildren. The strangeness of my paternal grandfather and step-grandmother, alcoholism all around and church on Sunday complete with snake handling and speaking in tongues and a mantle filled with pictures of the dead in their coffins.

Several people took pictures of Grandpa today before the funeral started. Why? To add to their collection of soulless bodies. I wanted to scream, "He's not here, damn it! Can't you see Elbert Mounce has left us?" I knew he was gone when I kissed his icy forehead and touched his stiff hand as I placed a small pocket rosary in the pocket of his jeans.

I wanted to say his soul is gone, as the soul of each one of us will fly upward when the cord is cut, when God decides that is it for us, when the Grim Reaper comes to carry us home.

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound ..." As soon as the first words floated through the funeral home, the wall I had built around myself with Ativan and Xanax broke down and my heart twisted and I again was a child, playing on the green, green lawns of Kentucky, dancing with the fireflies as my Grandpa, Dean and my mother softly spoke to each other on the long, wide porch. I was again a child; a confused little girl who felt both loved and lonely, a child who dreamed of a life far in the future where I would spend each night with someone who loved me and have a life filled with books and learning.

Afterward I was surround by food. so much food it frightened me. I know the family here has noticed my weight. It has not gone unmentioned, and last night I was given a strident lecture by my sister about how I needed to eat because my mother can't bear me having anorexia anymore. As if I can bear it? My head hung down like a whipped dog, and I wanted nothing more than to become the smallest dust particle, the most miniscule piece of matter in the universe.

I wanted to disappear.

Today I tried to. I have been drinking my coffee black to avoid the plethora of sweet creams filling the house. I ate very little this morning, panicked because I can't keep total track of my calories nor weigh myself. I had a very small lunch, avoiding the rich soups and creamy dishes, the apple and cherry pies, the thick brownies that I allowed myself to have one tiny bite. This complete rigid control has made me feel safe in a place where I feel simultaneously like an adult and a child, with no control over who I am or what is said about me.

Tell me you think the way I wear my hair is ugly, and I will say nothing. Constantly harangue about how little I eat, and I just shrink into myself. Tell me I won't eat and I will just tell myself having anorexia is all my fault and that I have caused everyone nothing but trouble.

I tried to eat more at dinner, as I was feeling weak. Some chicken with the skin left on, some cheesy pasta salad. It was the small pieces of desserts, a bite of spice cake and one of almond bread, that broke me.

I tried to make myself throw up all that food inside me, feeling dirty, needing so badly to purge and be clean. The fingers wouldn't do it, but I found something else to gag up some bile and some of the pasta salad. Then my husband walked in.

Failure again. I needed it so bad. But I also know that this behavior must stop before it becomes out of control.

The end of the funeral came with a 21-gun salute and thanks for my grandpa's service to his country. Taps played from afar, and then we gathered some of the flowers and walked to our cars. As I held two roses, one white and one red, I was both a child and an adult. I wanted .... I wanted things to have turned out different.

I glanced back, one of the last people at the cemetery as they prepared to lower my grandpa's body into the ground. I wanted to scream at them to stop, and then I remembered he wasn't there anymore.

What I really want to say is, "Goodbye, Grandpa and that I've always loved you." Maybe in spite of myself, I will see you again someday. There was another song, one about a dance. Maybe we will dance in heaven, and you will be with your beloved Dean and I will feel whole and not fragmented anymore.

Saying good-bye

Tomorrow I will travel to Kentucky, see my family and say goodbye to my grandfather. I so wish I could have gotten there while he was still alive. I feel like my heart has been broken so many times these past few months, I have no heart left inside me. Maybe numbness is a good thing.

I am trying to eat more, because my sister said the other day the family doesn't want me to die and have to go to two funerals. Deep in my heart, I do care I am hurting them by having anorexia and that my mother feels she is watching her daughter die. It's just that the feeling is so deep, it can't really touch me.

But I realize I have to find strength within me. Strength to face family members who haven't seen me since I developed anorexia and now look like a shadow of my former, vibrant self. Strength to answer questions about why I can't eat. Strength to face the food that will be served and the expectations I cannot meet. I need to be there for my family and I need to say good-bye to my grandpa. I don't need to be a worry or a problem right now, and I'm afraid my presence will only make things worse.

Strength to stop thinking about all the things which have broken my heart this year — probable miscarriage and the death of my dream to have a child, losing a position because of my illness, the complete explosion of my eating disorder symptoms from rampant laxative abuse to carving so deep into my flesh I still feel uncomfortable wearing short-sleeve shirts to counting every single calorie which enters my mouth.

But the hardest thing will saying good-bye to my grandfather; I will never again be anybody's grandchild. Seeing him laid out in the coffin will frighten me, and Southern funerals are just different; it is a different world I will be traveling to tomorrow and anything outside the small zone created by anorexia frightens me.

Maybe that is the hardest thing, knowing my present and past will collide during the next few days and I'm not sure I am ready for it. I have tried to run from my Southern roots for decades for various reasons, and have failed and tomorrow I will be in two worlds, with my anorexia swirling all around me, gnawing at me, just waiting for a way to make things worse.

It is so easy to use grief as a reason not to eat; it is so easy to use anything as a reason not to eat.

And in the end, perhaps the hardest thing — saying good-bye to my anorexia. I want to hold onto the only constant in my life; my ability to restrict and lose weight. Part of me wants to stay anorexic forever, then I won't have to feel grief and pain. 

But I also won't feel joy and happiness, and I miss feeling those emotions. Being thin is a poor consolation, and flatness and apathy are poor substitutes.

My grandpa led a full life, one with joy and pain mixed in. He loved his children and grandchildren, never quite got over my beautiful Mamaw (although he had a long and happy marriage with my step-grandmother, Dean) and was interested in many things until he recently got sick.

I don't know what I'm trying to say. It's late and I'm tired and I'm grieving. I want to get better and live a full life, but I'm afraid. That's all I can manage to say right now.

Eating with my eyes

I have been eating with my eyes.

I am a stalker. I have been lurking around several blogs written by women recovered from anorexia, in which they post pics and describe the foods they are now enjoying. I feast my eyes on the pictures, drinking in the bowls of fresh oats, almond butter and bananas mixed together; the fresh bread spread with avocado and topped with crumbles of hard-boiled egg, Romaine lettuce and tomato; the long, tall smoothie blended with yogurt and cream and fresh fruit, the young woman leaning forward to take a sip; the cookies-and-cream drumstick, the ice cream slightly dripping as if it had just been delightedly slurped.

I am obsessed.

I remember when I was first diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. It was by a dietician whom my family doctor referred me to around February 2008. Of course, at the time I didn't feel anything was wrong with me. So when she said I was anorexic, I reacted first with surprise and then a little anger.

It wasn't like I didn't know anything about anorexia or other eating disorders. And I didn't have a eating disorder, in spite of the fact that I weighed about 95 pounds at the time, was very restrictive and rigid in my eating, and had an intense fear of gaining weight (and in fact, wanted to lose more.)

But I wasn't engaging in any of the bizarre anorexic food behaviors or rituals at that time. I didn't cut my food up into miniscule pieces. I wasn't afraid to eat in front of my friends or co-workers (I didn't really care if they thought two thin slices of deli turkey meat did not make a complete lunch.) I wasn't collecting recipes, reading food magazines or cooking large, elaborate meals for anyone.

So therefore, Ms. Dietician, your diagnosis is wrong wrong wrong. I am not anorexic, I do not need to see an eating disorders specialist nor go to Renfrew, Remuda, or Rogers Memorial Hospital. I do not have a problem. I am just thin and what's wrong with being thin? Even if I am depressed and anxious, even if I am yanking up my size zero jeans and fighting with my husband about food and eating and hearing from everyone that I need to gain weight and my niece's nickname for me has become "Skelator"?

I'm just fine. Other than being severely underweight, of course. There was the daily counting of calories and weighing myself. And the fact that I was becoming quite popular at the office for the weekly donuts/scones/ {insert forbidden food here} that I brought in. But I wasn't doing anything else except restricting, therefore I could not have anorexia.

My treatment with that dietician ended after she declared I wasn't making any progress, i.e. I had not gained any weight after four months of treatment. Soon after this, my psychiatrist terminated with me (I had been seeing him from depression and anxiety) because he agreed I had anorexia and he wasn't equipped to deal with it.

So I went to Rogers Memorial, only to check out AMA 24 hours later. The psychiatrist there declared I would be dead within a year if I didn't gain both insight and weight. My discharge papers were a dismal declaration of how ill I was. Prognosis: poor.

As most of you know, I did eventually agree to see an eating disorders specialist who convinced me to go into Beaumont Hospital for two weeks of refeeding. But even though I was connected to a TPN line running nutrients into my body, I remained unconvinced I had anorexia.

You see, the eating disorders patients there all did strange things like cut their food into tiny pieces and hoarded sugar and salt packets and get angry because we weren't allowed to have no-calorie sweeteners for our coffee like the other patients. One woman carried around a notebook filled with recipes and pictures of food,  another continuously chewed on ice and a third would not eat her food without loading it with salt and pepper and mustard and whatever other condiment she could get her hands on (since I didn't care what my food tasted like — the blander, the better — I was happy to give her my packet of condiments each day.)

I had read about these and other behaviors and decided there was no way I could be anorexic because I didn't do such things. I became a bit annoyed by these behaviors and seriously wanted to tell one girl to please please please stop pressing your grilled cheese sandwich between five million napkins before I lose the last shreds of sanity I have left!

But this was years ago, and I notice I have my own little food rituals. I can't eat foods that touch each other and I have to eat one food at a time. (I notice normal people eat a few bites of this and a few bites of that.) I can't tolerate foods with sauces or gravies, unless they come in a box and I know the exact calorie count. I can't pick up a sandwich and bite into it; I must either cut it up or deconstruct it. I need to eat slowly, and I actually do cut my food into tiny pieces, thus taking more than an hour to eat a meal most people can finish in twenty minutes.

Have I had these rituals for years and just didn't notice? Or did I develop these food rituals as an attempt to gain some control? Or are these behaviors the manifestation of anorexia as I have continued to recover from it.

The few times I haven't been able to adhere to these rituals? behaviors? has caused a weird sort of anxiety and strangeness, as if I didn't do it right. I usually need to take an anti-anxiety medication before I can eat out with friends. Restaurants feel like torture unless there is some type of salad I can order. I was positively thrilled when Bob Evans, my husband's favorite restaurant, came out with its light menu and listed the calories, fat grams, etc. on that menu.

Denial hangs around a long, long time. I weigh 97 pounds and have been actively restricting food since January. I feel exhausted, and yet often can't get to bed until 4 or 5 a.m. I have trouble concentrating on anything; class work, magazine articles, watching a television show, holding a conversation. I have gone through the assessment process at Renfrew and plan to be admitted in May for the 30-day day treatment program.

But despite all this, I said to my husband last night, I don't think I have anorexia. I think I am just thin and everybody is making too big a deal out of it.

Then I dreamt last night of those food blogs, the abundant richness taunting my sleep. I could almost smell the cinnamon sprinkled on the oats and taste the creamy saltiness of the almond butter. I opened my small container of yogurt, which was not mixed with granola or sprinkled with fruit, and wondered why I would ever question that I have anorexia.

I am now following a couple of these blogs; I need the images and descriptions in a way I can't describe. I want to eat with all my senses. This is my dream, and I believe full recovery will be achieved by first being able to eat without fear.

I have been eating with my eyes.

Giving up control

Things I love, or why I must give up control in order to recover:

Sunsets of deep, fiery reds melding with dark and dusty blues, making my heart long for unknown things and unknown reasons.

Broken, yet beautiful butterflies, bravely fluttering wings during their last minutes of life.

My husband's face as he leans toward me, his dark blue eyes filled with love as he softly touches my lips with his and strokes my hair, whispering, "You're beautiful." He has been through so much, and continues to love me unconditionally, always saying "You are more than your illness."

Songs of joy and sorrow, the music aching and so beautiful I must listen one more time.

Reading a book in which the characters are real, the setting is true and I feel like I am saying goodbye to new friends after I've read the last page.

Crying when I read something sad or joyous, knowing the tears make me human.

Pictures of exploding galaxies and new worlds, imagining that there might be life out there from whom we could learn how to preserve our own earth.

People who are honest and courageous, sharing their struggles and triumphs through their beautiful blogs.

Thinking about the possibilities of life, and wondering where I fit.

The laughter and playfulness of children I hear at my church each week; they truly are part of the service and are witnesses to the command of Jesus to bring the children unto him.

Art of beauty and truth that gives me a glimpse into the artist's soul.

The poetry of Anne Sexton, the truths she told and the beauty in which she wrote in spite of her pain.

The books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, comforting me on a cold winter's night as I curl up and read of life more than one hundred years ago and realize we haven't changed as much as we might think.

The challenge of battling anorexia nervosa, the compassion it has taught me and the lessons I continually learn from it I believe will make me a better person in the end.

The small flame of belief which continues to burn in me daily, giving me hope for recovery.

All those who take the time to read my writings, give me support, and send me their love and hugs.


All of these things and more are why I must recover. I realize I will need to give up control to the people who know better than me how to heal me. There will be no more bargaining with recovery; I either recover or I die. I do not want to give up the things I love, and I want to experience life in all its fullness.


I will never forget how it felt to be afraid of food and life, the sense of isolation and anger so deep I lashed out at myself by carving into my flesh. I won't forget the feeling of denying my hunger, of looking at other people eating naturally and longing to be able to do the same thing. I will always remember the feeling that I wouldn't recover, and that my entire self-worth was dependent on weight and calories and how little I could consume in one day. I can never forget feeling like a slave to anorexia, the shackles so tight it takes years and hard work by many people to shatter them


Several people have told me this week I will some day use my struggles to help others; I feel they are seeing something in me that I simply can't envision. I will always remember and it always will be a part of me. Perhaps this sounds strange, but I would not change anything that has happened. There will come a day when I will write about being recovered. The rest remains a question mark.

(Just one more picture of me with my little friend, the broken, beautiful butterfly now fluttering in heaven, wings healed. Goodbye, little one.)

604 calories

(Warning - This post could be triggering to those in recovery. Please do not read this if numbers or descriptions of restricting would be harmful to you.)
604 calories.
That is what I consumed yesterday. I made sure I got up too late for breakfast. I had my morning coffee sans sugar. I called myself a pig for drinking 230 calories of heaven in the form of an ice-cold McDonald's orange pop for lunch to accompany my four nuggets (trying to ignore the Happy Meal slogan on the box, which reminded me this amount is meant for a child.) I measured exactly one-third cup of rice and one-third cup of peas for dinner.
I went to bed hungry. I felt guilty because millions of people, in particular children, go to bed hungry without choice each night. And I have a choice. Or do I? Who is in control here, anyway - me or anorexia nervosa?

98.2 pounds.
That's what I weighed yesterday morning. The ritual of the scale hasn't stopped for three years. It's always the same: get up, blurry-eyed and sleepy, then go to the bathroom before stepping naked on the innocent-looking white box which decides each day whether I will restrict or eat. I would like to drop kick my scale across the room, set it on fire, smash it with a hammer or hurl it off the tallest building I can find in this small town. (I have many fantasies of revenge for this hated symbol of my descent into anorexia; I've destroyed several over the years, only to go buy another one.)

I am a hypocrite. For weeks, I have been posting on a pro-ana blog deploring the very behaviors I am doing, trying to convince these young girls to stop and think before some of them become sucked into the hell of anorexia. I tell them they don't want to do this; that anorexia can't be ditched as easily as a bad diet. Several others also have posted on this particular site and one woman (Marge of Lake LaBerge) was particularly blunt with them, calling them (freaking) morons and telling them they will look worse than the heroin junkies hanging out in her Vancouver neighborhood.

So why can't I stop doing this to myself? I am the freaking moron. I worked so hard last year to gain weight. I had to consume about 3,000 calories of food and Ensure to reach 110 (which still is too low, but much healthier I was.) It was sheer hell; the whole refeeding process was one of feeling bloated and fat and moody and I could hardly stand myself.

I ended 2009 with the incredibly positive post, "Leaving ED- one year later." "I dream of the future, one filled with love and teaching and writing and learning." I thought I had it all wrapped up. I thought 2010 would be the year I would conquer all my eating disorders fears and behaviors, and put the whole damn thing behind me.

Things starting falling apart by January 2. Happy Freaking New Year's! My words and my hopes make me want to throw up. I try to help others and support them when they are struggling,

I called The Renfrew Centers after my one-week IP stay in February. I tried to eat more after I was discharged, but soon ditched that plan when David went to Florida for two-weeks (Ana was just ecstatic about this, rubbing her hands with glee at the thought of restricting and cutting and oh my!) and haven't stopped restricting since. I am convinced if I don't do something more, my next trip to Beaumont Hospital will be to the morgue.

I have completed my assessment and plan to be admitted to Renfrew's 30-day treatment program (so sorry, insurance doesn't cover residential) the second week of May. The program is designed to help me overcome my fear of food and weight, and then dig a little deeper through various groups and programs. The idea is to teach me healthy coping skills to replace my all-time favorite, restricting.

So if I am doing this (and borrowing thousands of dollars from my father to pay for my living arrangements), why have I been trying to basically destroy myself the month before I go? To prove how sick I am? To make sure I am at a low enough weight so any gain will feel less traumatic? To sabotage any chance at succeeding?

Or because deep down I am a hypocrite who really doesn't want to get better? Am I really pro-recovery? Or has my past associations with pro-ana sites and my current campaign to convince a few pro-ana girls triggered me? Am I falling again for the message that I need to be thin, so thin you can see my ribs and clavicle and protruding spine? So thin that it hurts to sit in most chairs?

So thin that I get sick again? Is that I want? To become so sick I can't go to Renfrew? Why do I try and sabotage any attempts at recovery? (I've done this for years. I continue "Bargaining with Recovery.")

Am I a hypocrite? I've always tried to be honest here. But I can't yet write about what is underneath the anorexia. Exposing the roots would be too much, too violating. What's underneath, at least as far as I have explored with my doctor, feels dirty and slimy and too ugly to ever trust telling anyone else. And I can't seem to stop restricting, especially after we talk about what's underneath; what might be the root causes of me developing anorexia.

590 calories.
That's what I consumed today. I want to go lower, but I know I need to go higher.

Who is in control here, anyway? Because right now, I feel out-of-control.