Twists and turns. Ups and downs. Mood swings from being so depressed I can barely speak to feeling so restless I can hardly sit still. The inability to settle down long enough to read a book or magazine article. Thoughts flooding me until I feel so overwhelmed I wanted to run and hide.
My wild mind still isn't used to all this. Every day I have to fight to get out of bed, eat the freaking food and deal with both my raging emotions and physical pain. It feels like I'm going through puberty all over again.
I have learned many things in the past two weeks. I don't like confrontation. I am ultra-sensitive right now. I often can't even handle too many things at once (people talking and the radio on during meals makes my skin crawl at times.) I struggle to talk with strangers. I have a strong desire to flee, and I suspect that desire kicks in when anything threatens my eating disorder thoughts. My soul still has a death grip on anorexia nervosa. I don't want to let go and yet know I must in order to live.
But the worst thing I have discovered is that my feelings about recovery are ambivalent at best. I keep waiting for the recovery magic to kick in. I want the optimism I felt when I first started this process (i.e. before my two-week long fight with my insurance company, which caused me to lose both more pounds and motivation.)
I want to scream from the rooftop - I want to live, I really want to live! I want to embrace recovery as I once embraced starving. I want to channel all that energy into getting better and getting my life back.
The best I can manage is at this moment I want to live.
I have discovered at least one good thing about myself. I might hate almost every minute of this, I might want to run away and hide, I might be ambivalent about recovery and I might still want to stay thin, but I stayed. I stayed and went through it, and I suppose I will continue until ... well, either the insurance kicks me out or it's time for me to come home.
This has to be the hardest, most excruciating thing I've ever attempted in my life. I have done many things in my life and overcame many obstacles, and my friends and family tell me I am a very strong person and I will get through this too.
But right now I feel like I'm on one hell of a rollercoaster and I don't know where it's going next. I feel like I am being tossed and turned upside down.
I often feel so lost ... I often feel so alone. I don't know who I am or where I'm going. Forget taking it one day at a time. Sometimes I can only handle one minute at a time.
Starving was easy. Recovery is hard. That is all I can say.
31 May 2010
29 May 2010
My story (is still unwritten)
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Angela who lived in a world of books and dreams and fantasies. As she listened to the fights and yelling and alcoholic rages swirling around here, she dived into this world where she was safe.
One day she packed her bags and left for the unknown world of college. She never returned to the land of her childhood. But the deep recesses of her mind refused to let the past go, and her life took on many twists and turns that she had not planned for during her childhood dreams.
These twists and turns took her through abusive relationships and lost dreams. She ran through life, always searching for that elusive dream life and the person she had hoped to become. She did many things she was ashamed of, and that she struggles to forgive herself for to this day.
But eventually she was able to find some sort of center and take control of the story of her life. She decided she was going to write the story of her life and create what she had dreamed of so long ago. There was love and learning and books and writing and all the things that she had pictured. She started to feel safe.
Safety turned out to be an illusion. Something strange and illogical began to happen. An illness called anorexia nervosa grabbed hold and wouldn't let go of me. Suddenly food equaled fear and I longed to disappear. I became smaller and smaller, and lost the grip I had on my life. The thinner I became, the thinner I wanted to be.
Anxiety grew, waxing and waning with the number on the scale. I felt lost in a world with no help and unable to find the key to unlock my mind and release anorexia from it.
I began to wonder if anorexia would be the story of my life.
Now I am trying to regain my grip on life.
But the center is lost and there is no normalcy when trying to recover from anorexia. Food becomes an obsession in a new way. I used to count how few calories I ate in one day. It was so easy not to eat and the lower the number, the better I felt.
Now I have to count and make sure I meet the number of calories in my prescribed meal plan. It is hard. I don't like food and anorexia still seems to have a strong hold on me. It physically hurts to eat regular meals and snacks after barely eating anything for almost six months. I keep waiting for the thrill of recovery to kick in, the moment of realization when I know I want to beat anorexia completely and I can say I am totally done with this eating disorder crap.
Instead, I cried several times today as I looked at my meal plan; the calories and fat frightens me, the amount of food scares me and trying to plan it all around a visit home overwhelms me. I just wanted to run away and hide somewhere, anywhere. Find a place where there is no anorexia, no food and no people. Just me and my racing mind that can't seem to calm down.
So I cried and yelled, said I wasn't doing this anymore. I said I wasn't going back to the River Centre, I was quitting, I want to be thin, the hell with it all and why can't I die of anorexia if that's what I want. My mind has just been swirling, swirling all the time.
Then I read Tara's latest blog post. She writes The Struggle Within and is also dealing with weight restoration while caring for three children and grieving for her deceased husband. Tara, thanks for the inspiration behind this post. And getting me to go into the kitchen and heat up the lasagna that's part of today's meal plan.
Once upon a time ... I will write the story of my life if I have to wrestle that pen out of anorexia's hands. I may get tired and I may want to give up, but in the end I will keep fighting.
The only other option is to have my story end with, "and she died of complications from anorexia nervosa." I've thought of writing that as the ending of my story. But I'm don't think so. My story is still unwritten, but I am trying not to give control of it to an illogical, horrific disease.
One day she packed her bags and left for the unknown world of college. She never returned to the land of her childhood. But the deep recesses of her mind refused to let the past go, and her life took on many twists and turns that she had not planned for during her childhood dreams.
These twists and turns took her through abusive relationships and lost dreams. She ran through life, always searching for that elusive dream life and the person she had hoped to become. She did many things she was ashamed of, and that she struggles to forgive herself for to this day.
But eventually she was able to find some sort of center and take control of the story of her life. She decided she was going to write the story of her life and create what she had dreamed of so long ago. There was love and learning and books and writing and all the things that she had pictured. She started to feel safe.
Safety turned out to be an illusion. Something strange and illogical began to happen. An illness called anorexia nervosa grabbed hold and wouldn't let go of me. Suddenly food equaled fear and I longed to disappear. I became smaller and smaller, and lost the grip I had on my life. The thinner I became, the thinner I wanted to be.
Anxiety grew, waxing and waning with the number on the scale. I felt lost in a world with no help and unable to find the key to unlock my mind and release anorexia from it.
I began to wonder if anorexia would be the story of my life.
Now I am trying to regain my grip on life.
But the center is lost and there is no normalcy when trying to recover from anorexia. Food becomes an obsession in a new way. I used to count how few calories I ate in one day. It was so easy not to eat and the lower the number, the better I felt.
Now I have to count and make sure I meet the number of calories in my prescribed meal plan. It is hard. I don't like food and anorexia still seems to have a strong hold on me. It physically hurts to eat regular meals and snacks after barely eating anything for almost six months. I keep waiting for the thrill of recovery to kick in, the moment of realization when I know I want to beat anorexia completely and I can say I am totally done with this eating disorder crap.
Instead, I cried several times today as I looked at my meal plan; the calories and fat frightens me, the amount of food scares me and trying to plan it all around a visit home overwhelms me. I just wanted to run away and hide somewhere, anywhere. Find a place where there is no anorexia, no food and no people. Just me and my racing mind that can't seem to calm down.
So I cried and yelled, said I wasn't doing this anymore. I said I wasn't going back to the River Centre, I was quitting, I want to be thin, the hell with it all and why can't I die of anorexia if that's what I want. My mind has just been swirling, swirling all the time.
Then I read Tara's latest blog post. She writes The Struggle Within and is also dealing with weight restoration while caring for three children and grieving for her deceased husband. Tara, thanks for the inspiration behind this post. And getting me to go into the kitchen and heat up the lasagna that's part of today's meal plan.
Once upon a time ... I will write the story of my life if I have to wrestle that pen out of anorexia's hands. I may get tired and I may want to give up, but in the end I will keep fighting.
The only other option is to have my story end with, "and she died of complications from anorexia nervosa." I've thought of writing that as the ending of my story. But I'm don't think so. My story is still unwritten, but I am trying not to give control of it to an illogical, horrific disease.
25 May 2010
Eating my pie (chart)
What makes up a person's identity? Relationships Interests Career Friends Education Beliefs Goals . . . Eating Disorders
Yesterday we explored our identities. Each one of us drew a pie chart, proportioning out what we felt made up our identities.
Anorexia nervosa took up three-quarters of my identity pie chart. How did that happen? When did anorexia slide in, taking over until it began to eat the other portions of my being?
And how can I stop anorexia from consuming what's left of me?
The other quarter of the chart has personality/outlook and spouse as the next biggest portions. That also saddens me. Depression and anxiety are scrawled in as the dominant features of my personality right now. When did I lose my ability to smile and laugh? When was the last time I laughed, really laughed with joy???
Then there is David. How could I allow anorexia to so consume me he only rated a small piece of my identity? I love him so much and think of him constantly while I'm here. I miss waking up next to his warm, smiling face in the morning. The safety of lying next to him at night, arms around each other and knowing nothing could hurt us, is gone. I go to be each night in a twin-size bed, wrapping the covers tightly around me in a pathetic attempt to feel held.
How could I let things get this bad again?
I have fought to keep the other parts of my identity. Squeezed into the chart are interests and my (sometime) strong belief in God and my Lord Jesus Christ and the importance of serving others. Friends and education are still there and both still mean much to me.
But anorexia nervosa is the demon swallowing all of it. Like a hungry monster, it is moving across the landscape of my identity and tearing chunks out of it here and there. Anorexia became larger as I became smaller. But why? Will there ever be an answer?
Now I am fighting back. Each bite of food I take is another step toward making anorexia's hold on my identity smaller and smaller.
Not that I like it. I hate every mouthful and the urge to just dump the food in the trash is strong. I fight urges to just jump up and scream, "I hate all of this" and then hurl across the kitchen my still-full plate with the hated food. I crave laxatives to cleanse my body of all this food inside me like a junkie craves meth or crack. I still want to feel the emptiness of restricting, the cleanliness of a pure body.
I become more depressed the longer I am here. My therapist here says that is normal and it will get worse before it gets better because my eating disorder is fighting back. (It feels strange to write about a different therapist — I am so used to working with Dr. Sackeyfio and will I ever meet with him again? My fear of abandonment runs deep.)
I keep waiting for the thrill of recovery, the sense of a new life to kick in. I keep waiting to feel and sound like the others here. But so far it's not happening.
But what would I be going back to if I left now? The ghost of myself, memories of a different life fading with each day of restricting and becoming smaller. And eventually, nothing.
Identity. When will I know who I am? I once was so certain — or was I? Am I too old to figure all this out again? It feels like being a teenager in some ways, with mood shifts and questions and answers elusive as wisps of dandelion fluff floating through the summer sky.
Identity. I want, no I need, a different pie chart. I am choking on this one, choking on anorexia and its relentless hunger for me.
Identity. And I am ... ???
Yesterday we explored our identities. Each one of us drew a pie chart, proportioning out what we felt made up our identities.
Anorexia nervosa took up three-quarters of my identity pie chart. How did that happen? When did anorexia slide in, taking over until it began to eat the other portions of my being?
And how can I stop anorexia from consuming what's left of me?
The other quarter of the chart has personality/outlook and spouse as the next biggest portions. That also saddens me. Depression and anxiety are scrawled in as the dominant features of my personality right now. When did I lose my ability to smile and laugh? When was the last time I laughed, really laughed with joy???
Then there is David. How could I allow anorexia to so consume me he only rated a small piece of my identity? I love him so much and think of him constantly while I'm here. I miss waking up next to his warm, smiling face in the morning. The safety of lying next to him at night, arms around each other and knowing nothing could hurt us, is gone. I go to be each night in a twin-size bed, wrapping the covers tightly around me in a pathetic attempt to feel held.
How could I let things get this bad again?
I have fought to keep the other parts of my identity. Squeezed into the chart are interests and my (sometime) strong belief in God and my Lord Jesus Christ and the importance of serving others. Friends and education are still there and both still mean much to me.
But anorexia nervosa is the demon swallowing all of it. Like a hungry monster, it is moving across the landscape of my identity and tearing chunks out of it here and there. Anorexia became larger as I became smaller. But why? Will there ever be an answer?
Now I am fighting back. Each bite of food I take is another step toward making anorexia's hold on my identity smaller and smaller.
Not that I like it. I hate every mouthful and the urge to just dump the food in the trash is strong. I fight urges to just jump up and scream, "I hate all of this" and then hurl across the kitchen my still-full plate with the hated food. I crave laxatives to cleanse my body of all this food inside me like a junkie craves meth or crack. I still want to feel the emptiness of restricting, the cleanliness of a pure body.
I become more depressed the longer I am here. My therapist here says that is normal and it will get worse before it gets better because my eating disorder is fighting back. (It feels strange to write about a different therapist — I am so used to working with Dr. Sackeyfio and will I ever meet with him again? My fear of abandonment runs deep.)
I keep waiting for the thrill of recovery, the sense of a new life to kick in. I keep waiting to feel and sound like the others here. But so far it's not happening.
But what would I be going back to if I left now? The ghost of myself, memories of a different life fading with each day of restricting and becoming smaller. And eventually, nothing.
Identity. When will I know who I am? I once was so certain — or was I? Am I too old to figure all this out again? It feels like being a teenager in some ways, with mood shifts and questions and answers elusive as wisps of dandelion fluff floating through the summer sky.
Identity. I want, no I need, a different pie chart. I am choking on this one, choking on anorexia and its relentless hunger for me.
Identity. And I am ... ???
22 May 2010
Bones and flesh
Do I really want recovery? I have had anorexia for three years now, and I have become used to the sharpness of my bones. The protruding collarbone, the feel of my clavicle, the jutting of the hipbones have become familiar. The leanness of my face, the prominent vein on the left side, the absence of flesh are all embedded into my soul.
What will I feel when my breasts become round and firm again? How will I handle the curvature of my hips, the roundness of my buttocks? My stomach already feels as if it is becoming rounder and more feminine, and it frightens me.
But my bones do not always feel friendly to me. It still hurts to sit. My hips hurt when I lie down, no soft layer of flesh to cushion against. I walk out of the shower each morning, and often am shocked by my reflection, not recognizing the emaciated frame as my own. I look at my arms, stripped of flesh and looking anorexic. My collarbones appear too prominent. A girl with anorexia on a proana site once said I “beautiful collarbones.”
What happens when my body once again changes? Being in treatment full-time so far has raised more questions than given answers.
I waver between recovery and wanting to let anorexia nervosa run its course. The first offers life, which is both exhilarating and frightening. What do I do with life once I have it? How do I continue without being anorexic, which has been my identity for years? Who will I be then? The choices are endless, but I have forgotten how to chose anything but restricting calories and love and living.
I could go home and let anorexia run its course. There is a part of me that wants to do that so badly. Just live with this identity, continue on until I reach the lowest weight possible. Then release. Sweet release from all the pain and hurt of this world. I would have no worries, no fears. I wouldn’t have to make any choices. I would be surrounded by beauty and love; the perfect love of God and my Savior, Jesus Christ.
I would walk in the sunlight and never feel left out. I wouldn’t feel sad or angry or disappointed in my many failures. Joy would suffuse my being, and it would be forever.
Flesh. I am scared of flesh. I am scared of gaining too much weight, of having too much flesh. Don’t people realize that the smaller I get, the safer I am? Now I have given that up by coming here to the River Centre. I will again have some flesh; the safety of being smaller and smaller is being destroyed by all this food and drink.
I still want to be small, as small as possible until I am floating into nothingness. I see nothing beyond that.
How could I have given up on my goal to become so small that nothing would ever hurt again? How could I have committed myself to this? I am so frightened by this week, every fiber of my being says to run as far and fast as I can.
But I am not being held here against my will. I could leave right this minute. I could dump my breakfast in the toilet and never say a word. I could refuse to eat.
I could leave right this minute. So why don’t I?
19 May 2010
Feeling under attack by three trolls
Recently I disagreed with one comment someone made after a blog post, and suddenly I feel like I'm under attack.
Most readers have done nothing but offer kind and supportive comments when needed, and challenged me when that is appropriate. But if someone challenges me, that does leave him/her open to also being challenged. It goes both ways.
It started with my posting about how happy I was with my first year of grad school's GPA. Someone without a link calling herself "Ig" posted that I should remember a GPA is just a number, too. I replied in my comment section that I felt that was taking away the only thing I felt good and positive about. I was so proud of that achievement I wanted to share with my friends and fellow bloggers, and now it feels like ashes in my mouth. It feels like nothing, the one thing I felt I accomplished this year. Now I'm sorry I ever mentioned it.
Then M and Trish felt the need to get into the act, calling me defensive and that I couldn't handle criticism (because of the recent comments another troll made about my blog glamorizing eating disorders - which most of my regular readers have either written or tweeted me that I do not do that in any way, but instead describe the pain and problems that come with having anorexia.)
Okay, first let me explain the picture of me with the NG feeding tube. This my blog and I put it up there for me as a reminder that I did not want to fall that far again and to show what having anorexia can do to you - it isn't pretty. I put it up there solely for my own visual reminder to try to stay in recovery. I have removed it since some people obviously find it offensive.
Now my posts in the past six months have not been positive because of my relapse and the reasons behind it. I became involved in proana websites and wrote about them in the hopes of alerting others to the lure that these dangerous sites can have, and also how the sites helped contributed to my relapse.
It is really unfair for someone who hasn't regularly read the posts of the past six months to come in and then lecture me about my attitude toward things such as comments. I think I have always been fair and have allowed comments to stay up that other bloggers would simply delete and then move on.
But I am not going to continue to defend myself to people who won't leave a name or link, who feel they can breeze in here and fan some flames and then waltz out again. It is too triggering and too upsetting for me, particularly in light of the fact I am in PHP right now and am really really struggling.
I am fine with people challenging me, telling me they hate what I write, saying I'm wrong, etc. But please do me the courtesy of leaving a link so I can clear up a misunderstanding, or at least returning to see if I answered your challenges, etc. I don't like "hit and runs" where someone scoots in anonymously, writes something upsetting and then scurries away. That is cowardly and from this point on those posts will be deleted.
I have to stress I am really struggling right now. I am really hurting right now, and my motivation and drive for recovery is about at zero. I can't let a few trolls push me lower than I already feel and right now I am feeling ultra-sensitive. Anyone who has gone through the refeeding syndrome will understand that.
I started this blog for me, and feel like I shouldn't even have to write this post. I love that many people read it and follow it, and I would hate to have to close it to invitation only. I love the feedback I get, and then reading the blogs of other people who leave their links on my site.
But I must protect myself first and not internalize the comments of three people who haven't even tried to get to know me and my writings more in depth.
I will stress: I have to protect myself and whatever attempt at recovery I can make. That has to be first and foremost in my life, not defending every word I write and every picture I post.
Most readers have done nothing but offer kind and supportive comments when needed, and challenged me when that is appropriate. But if someone challenges me, that does leave him/her open to also being challenged. It goes both ways.
It started with my posting about how happy I was with my first year of grad school's GPA. Someone without a link calling herself "Ig" posted that I should remember a GPA is just a number, too. I replied in my comment section that I felt that was taking away the only thing I felt good and positive about. I was so proud of that achievement I wanted to share with my friends and fellow bloggers, and now it feels like ashes in my mouth. It feels like nothing, the one thing I felt I accomplished this year. Now I'm sorry I ever mentioned it.
Then M and Trish felt the need to get into the act, calling me defensive and that I couldn't handle criticism (because of the recent comments another troll made about my blog glamorizing eating disorders - which most of my regular readers have either written or tweeted me that I do not do that in any way, but instead describe the pain and problems that come with having anorexia.)
Okay, first let me explain the picture of me with the NG feeding tube. This my blog and I put it up there for me as a reminder that I did not want to fall that far again and to show what having anorexia can do to you - it isn't pretty. I put it up there solely for my own visual reminder to try to stay in recovery. I have removed it since some people obviously find it offensive.
Now my posts in the past six months have not been positive because of my relapse and the reasons behind it. I became involved in proana websites and wrote about them in the hopes of alerting others to the lure that these dangerous sites can have, and also how the sites helped contributed to my relapse.
It is really unfair for someone who hasn't regularly read the posts of the past six months to come in and then lecture me about my attitude toward things such as comments. I think I have always been fair and have allowed comments to stay up that other bloggers would simply delete and then move on.
But I am not going to continue to defend myself to people who won't leave a name or link, who feel they can breeze in here and fan some flames and then waltz out again. It is too triggering and too upsetting for me, particularly in light of the fact I am in PHP right now and am really really struggling.
I am fine with people challenging me, telling me they hate what I write, saying I'm wrong, etc. But please do me the courtesy of leaving a link so I can clear up a misunderstanding, or at least returning to see if I answered your challenges, etc. I don't like "hit and runs" where someone scoots in anonymously, writes something upsetting and then scurries away. That is cowardly and from this point on those posts will be deleted.
I have to stress I am really struggling right now. I am really hurting right now, and my motivation and drive for recovery is about at zero. I can't let a few trolls push me lower than I already feel and right now I am feeling ultra-sensitive. Anyone who has gone through the refeeding syndrome will understand that.
I started this blog for me, and feel like I shouldn't even have to write this post. I love that many people read it and follow it, and I would hate to have to close it to invitation only. I love the feedback I get, and then reading the blogs of other people who leave their links on my site.
But I must protect myself first and not internalize the comments of three people who haven't even tried to get to know me and my writings more in depth.
I will stress: I have to protect myself and whatever attempt at recovery I can make. That has to be first and foremost in my life, not defending every word I write and every picture I post.
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