child of God, wife, mother, recovering anorexic who longs to see the beauty in herself that she sees in the world around her

Thursday, November 11, 2010

thanks

I had never thought of it like this.  I don't update often after I ask for prayer.  I was told this week by someone that she gets annoyed praying for people sometimes when she never hears any follow up about the person she prayed for.  It wasn't directed at me but it did inspire me to update here.  I am so very grateful for all the prayers that have been offered up on my behalf.  I can definitely feel them!  The day titled "trigger day" ended up to be an ok day after all.  I felt peace that I shouldn't have and was fully aware of and comforted by the Lord's presence. 

I don't feel as alone as I did.  I even called my pastor's wife this week when I started feeling alone just to ask her to pray for me.  Six months ago I wouldn't have asked for prayer, I would have isolated even more because I wouldn't have wanted to admit my weakness.  I would have been certain that I was alone in my battle and never asked for help.  I still hurt.  I still struggle.  I still have days that hungry feels better than full.  BUT I also have days that I know God is in control.  I have days when I feel peace.  I have days when full feels better than hungry.  The good days aren't constant but neither are the bad ones anymore.  It's baby steps but it is still steps. 

Thank you for going on this journey with me.  Thank you for praying for me.  Thank you that I'm not alone on my journey.  Thank you for showing me God's grace and love when I hurt.  And thank you for believing in God's power enough to not decide that I'm a lost cause.  Someday I will be on the other side forever and will see the beauty He created in me and it will be because someone like you lifted me before His throne when I couldn't make it there on my own, because someone like you loved me when I was unloveable, because someone like you interceded on my behalf.  Thank you now and thank you in advance for the amazing role you play in this journey!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

addiction

Have you ever smoked and tried to stop?  Although every ounce of will power is telling you that you don't really want that cigarette, your body still tells you that you do.  Have you ever thought that drinking was killing you and you need to stop, but to stop means to sober up and to sober up means hangover and your body definitely doesn't want to deal with that?  If you have never faced addiction, it is impossible to understand fully my day today. 

My brain is saying, "Go get some breakfast."  My heart is saying, "Let's conquer this and be healthy."  My spirit is saying, "I want to glorify God with my body." But my body, well that's a different story.  My body is saying, "I like this feeling.  It feels good to me when my stomach feels a little bit of an ache for food.  I don't care if it is destructive, it feels good to me right now."  I have smoked and quit.  I have drank and quit.  And I am even more addicted to starving myself than I was to either of those things.  It is truly a battle of addiction and old habits are hard to break.  My body wants to keep feeling hungry.  My heart wants to be more than a conquerer. 

So today, I am thankful for God's grace.  I need His strength to do the next right thing.  I need to surrender my addiction to Him and allow Him to heal my body.  Today I am so grateful that He is bigger than my physical ailments and that He can carry me through.  I'm headed off to go make breakfast and do the next right thing with His help.  Someday doing the next right thing is going to get easier, right?

Thursday, November 4, 2010

pissed off

Tonight hubby read an article in Sports illustrated.  You can click it to read the full article but the short version is that a highschool girl (cheerleader) was sexually assaulted by 3 guys at a sports party.  She reported it and sought to press charges.  In the lapse of time between the event and justice, she was cheering at a game that one of the attackers was playing at.  When he went to the free throw line, instead of cheering for this boy, she quietly stepped back from the line and didn't participate in that part.  She was kicked off the cheer squad.  Her dad was almost instantly in the principal's office defending his daughter.

Hubby told me if we had daughters and someone, especially someone in authority at a school, treated our daughter the way this girl was treated that I had better bring bail money with me.  I think he's serious!  Actually I'm nearly postive that he is.  I can actually visualize my hubby jumping across a desk and beating the crap out of the princinpal.  Hubby was furious with the school, why did they allow sports to be a bigger priority than the mental and physical welfare of this girl?

As we discussed this situation, far removed from me and my life, I must have made a face.  Hubby asked me what and I didn't answer.  Finally he said, "Ok?  Talk to me gorgeous, what are you thinking?"  I finally told him that I was angry, no furious, no just pissed off.  It wasn't that she wasn't protected, it was that I wasn't.  After I was attacked in highschool the first time, my parents were in the principals office nearly daily trying to get consequences for the boy who attacked me.  The school gave him a couple days in school suspension but left it at that.  Buttons were torn off my shirt, my bra straps were broken, but he said he couldn't help it, that's just the way he is and the school bought it.  Finally after 2 months, my mom went over the principal's head and within days this boy was expelled from the school.  It took 2 months of fighting with the school that a 2 day in school suspension was not appropriate consequences for sexual assault of this magnitude, of having to look my attacker in the eye everyday, of having the whole school talking about me, before someone finally protected me.

By the time the school acted, there were several vicious rumors going around about me, and also several other younger than me girls had asked if I had mentioned them when I talked to the administration.  They were relieved when I told them no, but had I known in advance that I was not the only person this boy attacked, I would have most certainly told about these other girls and would have pressed a lot harder to get justice.  I should have pressed legal charges.  These other girls should have pressed legal charges.  But we all felt so uncomfortable with how the school handled it that we didn't want to hear one more person question if it had really happened (afterall, he was a fairly nice and well liked boy).  My parents should have pressed charges, even though I was scared to.  They shouldn't have left the option to me.

I felt vulnerable.  I felt weak.  I felt unprotected.  I felt livid to read about another girl who should have been protected and wasn't.  That article pissed me off royally, but not just for this girl and the lack of action from the school, but also for me and the lack of action from my school.  My emotions are so haywire with it.  Hopefully a good night's sleep will bring clarity with the morning.

encouraging thoughts this week

It has been a pretty good week, but the reason it has been good has been simply remembering encouraging thoughts when I feel really low.  I've definitely had some low days.  So here are the 3 things that carried me through the rougher days and the days when food was more of an obstacle to me.

1.  Last week I told Carol that I wasn't making forward progress but I was also not falling fast as I had felt the week before.  She told me something interesting.  In the wonderful world of mental health, if you are not making backward steps, it is considered forward progress.  So in other words, just holding on is still considered going forward as long as I'm not going backwards!  That one saved my sanity, not gonna lie, a few times.

2. My husband has a favorite thing to say.  "It didn't get broken in a day, it won't get fixed in a day."  When the house is a complete disaster, he reminds me that it didn't get blown up in a day and I shouldn't expect to fix it in a day.  He reminded me 3 different times in my life that it took 9 months for my body to grow a baby, it will take more than a few days for my body to go back to being mine.  He reminds me when our check book is overdrawn or really tight that we didn't get into finiancial difficulty overnight and we won't get out overnight either.  You get the point, it wasn't broken in a day, it won't be fixed in a day.

3.  I have a wonderfully dear friend who went through a very very very dark time in her life.  Along the same lines as the one above, she made a series of poor choices for a long period of time to fall to her lowest point ever.  As she started to get her life on track, it still took years for her to be the amazing Godly woman that she is today.  In her 12 step program, her mentor used to tell her to just do the next right thing.  Sometimes I cannot look at an entire day, sometimes I just need to look at the next 5 minutes.  Sometimes I can't think about the future right things, sometimes I can only take the step directly in front of me and do the next right thing.  Eventually it gets easier and easier to do the next right thing because you have been getting lots of practice.

Those things have helped me tremendously this week.  Knowing that if I continue to just do the next right thing, that the problems that weren't caused in a day will likely not be fixed by days end and knowing that stabilty is forward progress makes, me feel like I'm getting it!  One foot in front of the other, one step at a time.  In the immortal words of Dory, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming........"

Georgie Porgie

Usually when I go to see Carol, she asks how my week has been going.  This morning, however, she asked, "So what's on your mind today?  What are you thinking about?"  I laughed.  It's random, REALLY random.  Her eyebrow raised and she told me to go for it.  Well, here is what I was thinking at that exact moment, Georgie Porgie was really a bully.

"Georgie Porgie as in Georgie Porgie puddin and pie??????"

Yep, the old nursery rhyme.  Georgie Porgie puddin and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry.  When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away.

She laughed.  I laughed.  Then I asked why we teach our children nursery rhymes.  I mean really, Ring Around the Rosie is about the plague!  How bout Rock a Bye Baby where the cradle crashes to the ground?  Yeah, that makes kids feel safe.  Georgie Porgie kissed girls who didn't want to be kissed and then ran off when the kids his size came around.  This little piggy is sending pigs to the slaughter house (that is what it means for a pig to go to market). And London Bridge is really about a bridge that kept falling.  What morbid things to teach our kids and especially in the form of a cute little sing song rhyme!

All of that to say that on the way to therapy today I was thinking about silly nursery rhymes and got rather mad at Georgie Porgie.  I've been kissed and cried.  It is not really fun and yet kids sing that stupid rhyme all the time.  Of course I'm in my 30's before I ever really thought about what the words were saying, but still.......

I change the words to rhymes.  Like for instance,
Rock a bye, Baby
In the tree top
When the wind blows the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall
And Mommy catches baby, blankie and all

I like Mommy catching the baby much better than the baby crashing to the ground.  And do you know what I learned about myself while talking about nursery rhymes?  I can choose to dwell on the good things not the bad.  My thoughts do not control me, I control my thoughts.  Hmmmm, suddenly I have a much greater understanding of why the Bible is clear about meditating and dwelling on the Word.  I can choose to believe God's truth and change my thought pattern when the icky thoughts come in or I can let the icky thoughts take control.  I think I'll think on the pure and good things and let God catch me when I'm falling, blankie and all.