Happy

Or getting closer.

It is so strange how, after a few days of feeling incredible low, I feel so great today. I've put on a couple of pounds, but I think much of it must be muscle, because this morning I looked in the mirror and actually thought, "I look perfect." Not in a fitness, or even runway model way, but in a V way. Like this is my best possible body. Today I'm proud of the small but sexy curves, the gentle rounding of my tummy. And my perky little ass.

This is not meant to sound narcissistic. But I so rarely feel this way, so I will celebrate my body while I do.

A blogger that I like posted a long, beautiful entry about her pregnancy which is coming to an end. She included this lovely poem from Mary Oliver. It felt so relevant for me, so I'm passing it along as well.


"Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do."

God, today I just want to be outside, in nature, hiking and experiencing new things. It makes my throat ache.

Stronger

Cue Britney Spears song.

Or not.

So I've had a shitty couple of days, and wasn't feeling great this morning either, but I just got back from the gym and I'm feeling so much better (though sweaty and hungry). I really just wanted to lay in bed, but J practically forced me out the door. I have a much easier time going and feeling motivated when he's there. He's a great running buddy. But today it was just me, and halfway through my ab work I realized that I felt like I had surfaced. LIke I'd been submerged in something for the last couple of days. But I always feel more myself when I have a good workout, because it makes me feel strong and proud of my body for what it can do. I can't work out like I like to when I'm not eating enough, so not only is it incentive to eat well, but I also feel justified in doing so when I've worked hard.

*I should note that I am not and never was an over-exerciser. I am way too lazy for that shit. I do very minimal cardio (I slow-jog for about a mile) and prefer strength training.

I also had a little boost when I was lifting weights and noticed the girl next to me. Now, since this is my university gym, there are always plenty of super skinny girls who I glare at with envy. But this girl was a good ten pounds heavier than me (still thin), but also had more muscle. And I realized that this girl was far more attractive than the skinnier girls at the gym. And if I thought this, guys must think this as well. It's always helpful for me to have those real life encounters that support the idea that "real" girls are more attractive than skinny ones. Makes me want to go eat a burger. Which is exactly what I'm going to do after my shower.

Bad days

I've had a hard time the last couple of days. I haven't been working out because of work, mostly, and in my head I look SO much bigger. My belly, as always, is the focus of my anxiety. It looks so much rounder, and even now I am worrying over whether or not to have any popcorn tonight. I haven't had any carbs today, but I've eaten TONS of fats.
Honestly, this is one of those days when I wrestle with my desire to plan tomorrow's meals as follows: Breakfast-banana, Lunch-boca patty, dinner-salad. Which is exactly why I WILL go make some popcorn. Because I can't give in to that temptation.
I hate the fact that J and my plans to go out tomorrow contribute to the food and weight anxiety, rather than making me happy. Instead of looking forward to it, I am freaking out about how much I eat tonight, because it will affect how big I look tomorrow, and what I can wear. I don't want to have to dress frumpy because I feel fat. I am also worrying about how I will fit in a workout in the morning, so that I will feel semi-okay about eating a restaurant dinner.
I'm playing phone tag with the therapist I want to see. Ugh.

Ok, so my post last night may have sounded more than a little immature. But based on how upset I still am, let me elaborate.

I got angry because what that moderator did was so hurtful. It was being loudly called out and branded a freak. Like we are infectious, unwanted, and "other." And today my anger has given way to an aching depression that just makes me want to lay in bed all day. Like I don't deserve to be out among the "normal" people. Like no matter how hard I try, everyone will know what a dirty freak I am, and I will be abhorred. But no matter how much I change my behaviors, I don't know how to change what I am, and somehow everyone will always know that I am different, "off."

Her action has such a greater impact than she could ever know. It tore away some essential part of my strength.

Pissed

I had all sorts of relevant things to say today. It was an important day for me - a beach day. Eating in a bikini with a big group of people - major accomplishment.

But now I don't even want to talk aout that. Because now I'm fucking pissed.

I am (was) part of an online community for vegans. And before all that shit storm starts, my veganism is NOT part of my ED. I became vegan after I had been eating normally for quite a while. It is an ethical choice. But back to the point: There are boards on this site for all aspects of life. Recently, someone started a thread in the health section about her ED. She was backsliding and looking for support. Most all the responses were simple "Get help" thoughts. I, and another person, added that we have been there, and understand her anxiety. I also told her to please get help. Then the moderator, the site's founder, wrote a scathing response about how much she hates threads about EDs, because it "invites" everyone to share their ED story, which only "encourages" them. Then she said that she was locking the site, banning the subject of EDs, and told us all to get professional help.

Granted, I understand that talking about it can be triggering. But at the same time, no one who has not experienced an ED can understand how isolating the disease is. Especially in recovery, it is so encouraging just to hear that you are not the only one feeling a certain way, and it particularly helps to know that others have felt it and overcome it. To make that, or really any topic like it, "banned" just seems like a bad idea. And for someone to make such a harsh judgement is just bitchy. We are not junkies or criminals. We are SICK.

So yes, to that person, I say this: Fuck you. Fuck your site. Fuck your books. I'm not contributing to your career anymore.

Exhausted

Just called three therapists. Baby steps.

Inertia

Is the worst. It's the enemy. And it's taken the last year from my life. But you know what? To say that it has "taken" the last year, is so passive and lacking in any accountability. I've succumbed to it.

Inertia is the reason that I sit on my ass, on the right side of the couch (J's is the left), dicking around on the internet for the majority of my day. Excusions include the gym, work, food (cooking or eating out), and going to movies. Couch time consists of eating food, watching movies, and staring at millions of food blogs. Yes, I am obsessed with food blogs, but that is another post for another day.

Today I make my confessions about inertia (maybe using a Hitchcockian word just feels better than saying "lazyness"). Inertia is the reason that I still haven't been to a therapist about my ED. Yup, managed to get myself eating normally, gained weight, maintain weight with no help. Except J's. And that is unforgivabley unfair. The night I decided to start this site, he broke down about how much my body image/self-loathing and everything that goes with it is hurting him. He suffered from major depression before, and when he told me that this is making him go back to "the dark place," I just wanted to die. It's bad enough to know that I alone am responsible for my own daily misery, but to add the fact that I am making the most important person in my life miserable too? And out of LAZYNESS? All he needs is for me to go to therapy, something my parents will even pay for. Why is it so hard for me to make the phone calls, set up some appointments? What am I scared of? I don't even know. But I feel immobilized.

Beginning

I've created this blog for a couple of reasons. First, to fill a void. I've looked for sites like this before when needing support, the anti-pro-ana (the anti-ana?) sites, and never found one. At least not one that was maintained for very long, and that alone is scary. So here I will wage my personal war against the culture of eating disorders as well as my own demons. Which brings me to my second purpose here. This will be the place where I will chronicle my uphill climb out of the pit that is anorexia. I've already done a lot of the leg work, but now comes the really hard part. I hope that this blog will help me in that battle. Third, I want people (or at least the few people who might stumble across this blog), to know the truth about anorexia. There are so many myths and stereotypes about eating disorders. They are sensationalized in the media and the victims are treated like freaks, despite the fact that EDs are as American as overpriced bottled water.

So this is where I tell the truth. The whole truth, the ugly truth, the inconvenient, unapologetic, unpopular truth.

Let me begin with some groundrules.

#1: I will NEVER post food journals. They are triggering to me and anyone with an ED who might read this. I will post all my scary thoughts about food, but listing what I consume is playing with fire.

#2: I will not provide my name. It doesn't matter anyway. I will try to give voice to the millions of faceless girls, boys, men and women who suffer with this everyday. Just think of me as your daughter, your sister, your friend.

#3: If you are a pro-ana blogger and would like to share your thoughts - bring it. Mine shouldn't be the only voice here.

These are all the rules I can think of right now. I'm sure more will come up later.

And now I'll tell you about me.

I am twenty-two years old. This whole awful trip started two years ago. For almost a year I had an active eating disorder. By that, I mean that I actively starved myself, eventually consuming less that six hundred calories a day. I was never a full-on faster. I would not have been able to function at all, and at the time, I was a fiercely competitive student in a poisonous university theatre department. But that's another post. I also took diet pills and abused laxatives. I vomited sometimes. Only when I felt like I'd "binged" (you know, like a muffin. or more than one piece of fruit). I was never a true binge-and-purger, since purging was one of the most humiliating, degrading experiences of my life. Imagine looking at yourself, and realizing that you have reduced yourself to being on your knees, with your head in a toilet, all the suspicious rings and stains of that toilet inches from your face, and the expulsion forces hot tears out of your eyes. Every part of your face burns and your body is sore and you feel like refuse. That was purging for me.

I got better and better at being anorexic (ooh, Rule #4, I will NEVER call it ana). Within months, I went from being the ideal weight for my height, to dangerously racing toward the point of no return. Oh, and there's Rule #5. I will NEVER post my weight or BMI stats. These are also triggers. When I say that I was reaching the PONR, I mean that I was significantly underweight, looked sick all the time (I look back at pictures and I literally look like a cancer patient), my skin was actually turning yellow, but I had not yet gotten to the skin-and-bones stage. The stage where you can't hide the disease anymore. The stage where force-feeding starts.

And after almost a year of it, I got lucky. For one thing, I had fallen in love. We had gotten together soon after the ED started. He was a fiercely intelligent and talented grad student. He also became my best friend. And the day he told me point blank that if I didn't do something to change, this disease would be the end of us, was the day I started eating again. But J's (as he will be referred to here) statement was just the catalyst in a reaction that was slowly taking place already. The way this disease felt and still feels every day is like split personalities. There is the disorder, and there is me. I know that when I am in the throes of disordered thinking, I sound like a person possessed. I have lost most of my friends through the loss of myself. But I was and am a surprisingly smart person, and that person was always keenly aware of just how fucked up my life was. And I was miserable. Everyday was hell because every moment, every single thought was devoted to food and my weight. I had ceased to be a person. And the sane one inside knew that I couldn't continue living like that. So, slowly and with a tremendous amount of effort, I started eating normally again. It took a good six months before it became habit, and the turning point was one night, at J's apartment, when I was incredibly hungry. I hadn't eaten dinner, and I was going to resort ot a veggie sub at Subway - a safe food - but they were closed. J was sitting there, eating a pizza, and not just the hunger, but the sadness and the feeling of injustice was gnawing away at me. After staring at the food, fighting with myself, crying..I ate a piece of pizza. And then another. And then a third. And then it was over. I had done it. I realized that I had control, not the disorder.

The eating got easier after that. I became obsessed with health and nutrition, yoga, homeopathy, and ayurveda. I started treating my body like temple, gained weight, and now I'm always told how much I "glow." But the secret is that my mind is still the torn cesspool that is was back when I starved. The sane me just puts up a better fight. But I still consider myself anorexic, I'm just an anorexic who eats. This is where my story begins and this incredibly long post ends.