how anxiety affects orange

My anxiety has been really high for the past month or so.  Last week it caused me to call in sick to work one day.  Something needs to change.  I need to be fully functional.  As anxiety mounts, it becomes increasingly easier to not eat enough.  I'm still eating, don't fret.  It's just easy to not eat as much as I should.  My stomach is so twisted in knots that eating is actually difficult.

I'm saying this not to make you worry, but to hold myself accountable.  I have found a natural supplement called Confianza that helps tremendously with the anxiety when I take it.  I need to start taking it regularly again.  I let the anxiety get so high that I am incapable of getting up and going to grab it out of the cupboard.  Hubby has a few times asked if I needed it, grabbed it and brought it to me when I can simply nod with tears flowing down my cheeks but can't move to get it.

I need to start taking it daily again to help bring the anxiety down and make my life functional again.  I need to stop waiting until I'm hyperventilating and starting to go into panic mode to take it.  What's the phrase, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?

I most definitely need to get the anxiety under control, anxious thoughts also make orange thoughts really loud.  It seems so easy to try to gain control through food.  Though I know fully that not getting proper nutrition makes the anxiety worse, sometimes in the midst of it that is hard to remember.  Just because I know this doesn't seem to mean that is how I handle it in the actual situation.

I am grateful for the prayers.  I can tell you there have been days that I am certain it was God's grace through the prayers of others that has carried me through the day.  I know this too shall pass.  I also know the longer it takes to pass the harder it is to wait for the light at the end of the tunnel.  This has been longer than usual and standing strong is getting harder.  Please pray that the peace of God that surpasses our understanding will guard my heart and mind.

I am still recovering, although I hate that fact.  I want to say 3 years should equal full recovery but I know that isn't true.  The healthy times are easier and not usually a concentrated effort.  The hard times are still a struggle though.  A struggle that I had hoped I'd be past by now.  I'm trying to be patient with myself. I'm trying to be patient with the work that God has started in me because I know He will carry it through and not leave me stuck in the middle.

I love you guys.  And I love the role you have played in my recovery.  Thanks.  Let's keep recovering together.

vulnerable

So I totally overreacted to something stupid.  I made a big deal over what was meant as a joke.  When he looked at me confused, wondering what could have possibly done to warrant my reaction, I started talking.  I talked myself into a corner.  And then I did it.  I blurted out something I didn't even really realize was in my heart until the words tumbled out of my mouth.

I now feel like I overshared.  I shared where my safe spot is.  I told him what I dreamed of when I was a little girl and needed to escape my reality.  I now want to rewind time and leave those words unsaid. I want to keep that spot only in my head.  I want it back.  I want it to be mine again not ours.

 I feel vulnerable. I feel guarded.  And I feel those things with the person in this life who loves me most of all, with the one person that I don't need to feel guarded with.  And feeling those things makes me feel lonely also.

I want to crawl into my head and stay there.  I don't want to be vulnerable.  Even though this vulnerable is safe.  I want to protect my heart but I'm trying to protect it from the wrong thing.

Rules and Regulations

I long for freedom from rules almost as much as I long for rules right now.  I am struggling to keep my brain from overpowering me with rules.  Rules, what I can or cannot eat.  How much I can eat.  How many calories I can have.  The order in which I eat and the way I prepare my meals.  The design and perfect order of how my plate is arranged.  I am maintaining a recovery place.  I am not using behaviors that cause me to stumble.  I am also longing for the security that food rules give me. 

I also desperately long to be completely free.  I long for the day when I refer to my eating disorder in the past tense.  I press on in recovery because someday I will be free.  Someday the rules will be the past, someday I will not crave their structure.  For now, I will settle for fighting the longing for their structure and stability.  For now I will just keep fighting. 

to share or not to share, that is the question

Today someone I work with said this,
"I understand you have a blog also, I'd love to read it."

And now I wonder, do I share or do I keep my little area of the world private?  I don't talk about my blog or even that I do blog.  Do I let her join me on my journey, on this journey that is often ugly?  Or do I let her see the cleaned up version? 

Why did I just think of starting yet another blog simply with the for everyone's eyes posts?  I could give her my other link but then if she looks at my profile she will see that I am here also. 

Oh anxiety, how I loathe thee.  Anxiety of how much of my heart is ok to share.  Anxiety that I want to share my thoughts just not sure if I want to share my journey.  How far do I let people in? 

live free or die trying

My day started yesterday with scripture going through my head.  Thank God that it did because I needed that to carry me through the rest of the day. (I'm just writing right now, not looking up the reference because I'm on a limited amount of time.)

"It is for freedom that Christ has set you free."

Hmmmmm, freedom.  What does it really mean to live free?  I pondered the question through the morning.  I looked up the definition of free in my lovely Webster's Dictionary on my desk. 

 

free: adj  1.not imprisioned or constrained 2. not under necessity or obligation .....

4a.not affected by a specified circumstance or condition......7a. not being occupied or used

freeing 1.to set at liberty 2. to release or rid 3. to untangle or clear

 

Free.  I'm not feeling very free right now.  How do I live in the freedom that Christ has given me?  How do I live not imprisioned to eating disorders?  What exactly does that look like?

 

Ok, now fast forward to later in the day.  I'm surrounded by people who have decided that mexican is the fare for the day.  Already struggling, this was a bit of a freaky choice for me but I was bound and determined to get over myself and enjoy the time together.  But then they talked about weight, hunger cues, body image, NUMBERS, and everyone had an opinion about eating disorders that they felt the need to share.  It isn't what you think it is.  It isn't about what you think it is about. 

 

Is it about weight and size?  Yes, but not in a vain sort of way, because it isn't actually about weight and size at all.  I don't care what the measurements say, what society says, what friends say, I am convinced that my hips are huge.  What I see when I look in the mirror, though not truth, is still what I see! It isn't really about society saying skinny is good, but it is about the fact that I feel like the less physical space I take up then the less people will see me.  I sometimes really do long to be invisible and let no one see the hurts inside of me.

 

I texted Hubby, I told him that I wanted to run and hide.  I told him that I wanted to curl up under the covers.  I told him that I just wanted to get drunk.  Yes, go ahead and hold that shocked face and wag your finger at me.  Good Christian girls sometimes just want to get drunk to escape their reality too!  I wanted to escape but there was no where to escape to. 

 

Did they know that the voices in my head were already loud?  Did they know that the conversation made the voices turn to screaming and demeaning?  The orange inside of my head hates that I still ate with them.  The orange inside of my head is telling me that I'm not worth taking care of.  The orange inside of my head is angry, really really angry.  And she is letting me know it.

 

And somehow in the midst of it all, I still find a little part of me that really wants freedom.  There is a little part that wants to not live affected by a specified condition.  There is a part of me that wants to live not under necessity or obligation.  That voice needs to start talking louder than the voice of slavery and quickly.  That seed of longing needs to produee something bigger than the seed of hatred that demands that I am not good enough and that I need to be punished.

me too people

The people I connect with the most are part of the "me too club".  I think that is who most people connect with on a deeper level.  I read blogs of people who say what they are feeling and are honest about it.  I get bored and stop reading when it is simply to instruct me in all the ways I fall short.  I connect with so many of you because you say, I had a great day as well as saying wow, today really sucked the life out of me.  I connect with you because you read my stuff and you say, "Hey, me too.  I know what that is like."

I want to be a me too person.  I don't want to be someone who has it all figured out.  I want to experience it with others.  My pain, their pain, my joy, their joy, to walk side by side and experience life together.  And yet at the same time, I'm a little afraid to say what's on my heart because I feel certain that no one will say to me, "yeah, me too".

I can lay it out here on my blog.  I can say, hey world this is who I am.  I've made some very dear friends through my blog.  I just have a hard time taking that into real life.  I love to hear others stories.  I love to know what makes them tick.  I love to see their lives in action, especially in the nitty gritty.  But then when it comes to me, I don't want to show them the nitty gritty.  I am afraid that in the real world that I won't find the kind of me too people that I have found here on my blog.

I love to hear the stories behind others tattoos.  And yet I find myself at work being cautious about asking the significance because then I open myself up to someone asking the significance of my tattoo.  I want to know why one woman at work picks her food apart and doesn't eat as much as the anyone else.  But then I have to admit that I have noticed it and open myself up for her questions.  Most people wouldn't notice that she does it.  It is very subtle.  But I notice, and if I notice that, why when no one else does? 

I heard Lisa Terkheurst speak yesterday and she said something that I know and yet struggle with.  God gave us emotions so that we can experience life not so we can run from it.  I feel like I experience it here, where it is safe, where few actually know me.  But I'm still afraid to experience life and emotions out there in the real world.  I really do like the safety of my blog.  What happens if I take the safety here and become a me too person out there?

7 almonds a.k.a. screw the new health class

I swear that if I hear one more person tell me that you can only eat 7 almonds for your liver to function properly, that I will scream!  If I hear one more conversation in the lunch room about sugar grams, fat grams, appropriate forms of protien, I may pull out all of my hair! But hey, at least I could make bald a new fashion statement, right? 

I think that for the next 6 weeks of this stupid health class I will be enjoying lunch anywhere but the lunchroom!  Sitting at my desk with my oatmeal and facebook suddenly seems like the best option EVER.  I want to scream at the top of my lungs.  I want to tell people that sometimes there is such a thing as "too healthy".  I want them to know that sometimes people like me take knowledge of health and distort it and use it as a weapon against my body instead of a tool to help my body.

I still read labels.  I still refuse certain ingrediants.  And I also am trying really hard to balance that with moderation.  You know, the kind of moderation that says it is ok if someone brings in cookies to work to have one in spite of the fact that there is no label for me to read.  The kind of moderation that that knows that homemade veggie lasagna is still a healthy option, even though it has noodles in it.  The kind of moderation that has lacked in my life for a while now.

For the record, work is very orange enabling right now.  I could count my almonds like they recommend, or I could trust that my nutritionist knows what she is talking about when she tells me that 1/4 cup is a serving and to not measure or count but instead trust my intuition.  My health depends on trusting my nutritionist right now and not letting other voices interfere with the plan that she has laid out for me.  That is so much easier to say than to do.

memories on the verge of darkness

It's there.  It's on the verge of my consciousness.  It wants to be dealt with.  I have no idea what aspect of it still lingers to be dealt with so I keep stuffing it.  I don't want to deal with it.  I don't want to feel it.  I don't want to think that those little things that have been randomly triggering it could be the Lord's gentle leading to let Him heal that part of my life.

It is so much easier to just keep it compartmentalized.  Well, not really in the long run, but for the part of me that knows the huge sopping puddle I become when these things surface, it is easier.  It is easier to set it to the side than engage in the feelings that have been threatening to surface.

So there you have it friends.  I know that when small things start triggering, and when my dreams contain multiple re-tellings of things I want to forget, that at some point I will either choose to face the feelings or I will run and hide until the feelings overcome me.  It will happen.  I've never actually chosen to face the feelings.  I usually let them hunt me out and destroy me for whatever their time frame for healing is.

So maybe this time will be different.  Maybe because I see it on the horizon, I will not need to hurt to the extent that I have in the past to heal.  I say that with a laugh.  The pain isn't in if I allow my feelings now, it is in allowing feelings I haven't ever allowed myself to fully feel.  I don't look forward to healing.  I don't look forward to rebreaking a bone to allow it to heal properly.  I don't look forward to the pain on the horizon.

Right now, I'm still running from it, hoping that this time I can outrun it.  Right now I will continue to stuff it all down and go about my day to day.  I still have to go to work.  I am still a wife and mother.  Those things don't get to be put on hold when I feel, though God knows I wish they could.  And when the day that I know is coming does indeed come, could you still love me and hold me up and encourage me that the pain won't last forever?  Would you remind me that God will carry me through the darkness, that He won't leave me, and that this will bring about healing? 

How does she do that??????

I planned on skipping lunch today.  Yes, I am flat out admitting that I had every intention of having a low intake day.  I have been once again fighting the voice in my head (or maybe indulging the voice in my head) that swears that I can both live and restrict.  That voice is trying so hard to tell me that I can still be me, that I can still be a great mom, wife, friend and employee without the assistance of food. 

Let's be honest for a moment, I know the voice is lying and yet I still feel the need to listen when it speaks.  I still feel like I could be the different one, that my disease wouldn't steal from me.  I still feel like if I could be down x pounds before my doctor's appointment that I would be "happy" with myself. 

And then my work friend happens along on the days that I have no intention of eating and she just seems to KNOW.  Once it was a friendly, "Hey, have you taken your lunch yet?"  Last time it was the one I blogged about with a touch on my knee and a "You ok?"  Today it was the offer of splitting the cost of Chipotle.  How did she know?  How did she know that today was the day that I needed to eat, that today was the day I had not one intention of indulging in lunch, that Chipotle was probably the only thing that could have tempted me?

I don't know, but I'm grateful that she brought me out of my head.  I'm grateful that she gave me perspective enough to see the faultiness of the voice in my head.  And I'm grateful that she went and got the food.  God must have known that I needed someone here who could pull me out of my head once in a while.  There is no other reason that I can think of that the only times she has mentioned food to me have been the days that I have really been struggling!

Power

This post really devoured me.  When I saw the word was power, everything inside of me recoiled.  And like that, with one word, I am now two days behind instead of one.

To me, power was what was used against me.  "If you don't do what I say the police officer in my family will tie you up naked on the swingset and leave you there."  "If you don't do what I say, first I'll beat you up and then he'll beat you up."  Power, in the form of sheer force, was how my attackers subdued me.

To me, power was what was far too often abused.  Power was the church telling me that my depression wasn't real but rather an indication of the sin in my life.  Power was the religious force of the day that used to tell me that I was not good enough, nor would I ever be good enough for the church or for God.

Power was what stole from me.  Power stole my innocence.  Power stole my voice.  Power stole my identity.  Power stole my desire for living.  Power stole my control.  And when power stole my control, orange came along by my side and gave me control again.

I gave MY power away to my eating disorder.  I let her abuse me just as much as other power had abused me.  Even as I have been recovering, I still saw power as a bad thing.  It has always meant the abuse of power. How could I blog about something so evil as power?

I had to read everyone else describing power in a positive light to have insight that I have never had before.  I suddenly realized that I have power, and it isn't bad or evil.  I have the power to recover.  I have the power to use my voice.  I have the power to live my life, not the life someone else dreams for me. 

Thanks Blogosphere.  Until I had to think about power, about how the word itself made everything in me pull back, I would have never realized what an important word it really is.  If I hadn't heard my friends talking about power as a good thing, I may not have stopped to really think about power and the true role it plays in my life.

in which I admit to shameful faults and resolve to work on their root cause

My kids had spring break last week.  It was a fun week of getting things done and catching up with old friends.  One of my friends who I only see a couple of times a year because of the hour plus drive between our houses came to visit me one of the days.  She said some things that have had me pondering all week long, things that the more I think about the more I think she is on to something.

So I've mentioned before that my house is messy pretty much always.  Have I mentioned that messy for me is not what messy for most people is?  There are always dishes in my sink.  I get told "Of course there are dishes, you feed five people!", but this goes beyond some left over because with boys someone is always eating in my house.  I'm a slob, people.  We eat in the living room lately because my kitchen is overwhelmed with dishes and stuff.  My laundry pile is seriously out of control, I'm not kidding when I say I'm going to try to scale Mt.Saint Laundry.  My desk?  Well, I hold my keyboard in my lap when I type because of the bills/papers/dvd cases/magazines/etc. that have overtaken the top of the desk. 

So now that I have stated my slob status, I realize that there may be a deeper issue to my aversion to cleaning.  My friend asked me questions about why it is so difficult for me to clean up.  How often does your mom come to visit you?  Rarely.  Is keeping everything messy possibly a way to keep her out of your house (ahem, life)?  Would she visit more if you kept up with your house? Crap, probably. 

This has been on my mind all week.  I keep pondering and pondering her words.  And I added my own questions.  Like, is this my form of rebelling against everything my mom stands for?  Is this my way of telling myself that I AM NOT LIKE THAT WOMAN IN ANY WAY?  Does my lack of interest in cleaning stem from much deeper issues than I just don't want to?  Hmmmmmmm.......

My friend has known me since I was a tween (hate that word and yet totally just laughed at using it).  She knows my family well.  She had lived with my family for a time when I was younger.  She also mentioned that maybe this is my connection to my mother and my childhood.  Her observation was that my mom's main communications with me while I was growing up were either manipulating me or nagging me about cleaning. I wasn't allowed to be me, to feel my feelings or to think my own thoughts.  Have I taken that to a new level as an adult in my effort to separate myself as my own person?

I have spent so many years defining myself APART from my mother and refusing to let her still run my life, only to realize that I'm still allowing her to control me, just in an opposite way than it used to be.  Until I work through my mom issues, it's never going to get better.  Why did it take me so long to realize this?

Sigh.  I guess I've got some heart work to do.  I'm annoyed that my friend was right.  And I'm relieved she was right because now I at least have a starting point of how to change it.  There is nothing about recovery that is easy.  I do consider this recovery work.  How I keep my kitchen definitely plays a factor in my recovery vs. disease progress.  Plus, I have come to the belief that recovery is combined of all of  the heart issues that cause me to use food (or rather the lack of) to cope with my feelings.

I do hope there will be an "other side" to this disease.  I do hope that as I work on the garbage in my heart that the physical side will get easier.  I do hope that as I find healing in my heart that I will also find healing in my body.  It does seem like it should be a natural assumption, right?

anxiety ridden

Feeling very anxious today.  I'm struggling to get anything constructive done.  I feel sad.  I feel lonely.  I don't feel like reaching out to stop the lonely though.  My doctor keeps telling me that exercise helps when I feel the anxiety building.  Let's just say my elliptical has seen lots of action today as has my computer.  I think I'm ok and try to do something and then the anxiety is so overwhelming that I feel my chest tightening and my vision blurring.  I hop back on my elliptical or log back in on Facebook until I can see straight again.

I had planned to go to the grocery store and the hardware store today.  But I can't make myself leave my house.  I don't want to deal with people.  I don't want to be seen.  I was panicky last night at my in-laws house too.  I had to step out during dinner for some fresh air because I started feeling claustrophobic and trapped and had a hard time breathing.

The mail has definitely not eased any of my anxiety.  My statement of benefits came in from my insurance company.  Thankfully I know what to expect before the medical bills come.  Me being sick last month is going to cost us a hefty penny just in doctor bills from visits to test and labs to urgent care.  That is without considering that I was unable to work for 2 weeks so I won't get a paycheck, the costs of multiple prescriptions, the eating take out food and the random little trips to the store that hubby made to get something to take care of me or the boys.  I would say all in all this was between a $600-$700 sickness!  Yeah, that is so not helping the panicky state of my mind today! 

Not a fan of feeling like the floor will give out under me.  Not a fan of blurred vision and tightness in my chest.  Not a fan of feeling out of control.  Not a fan of not being able to just suck it up and get my stuff done that I need to do. I really need a sense of normalcy.  I really need to be able to function.

feeling insecure and unsafe

So this morning's news had the answer to my question last night.  The ridiculously large amount of police activity near my work last night was due to an armed robbery.  The robbery happened at a restaurant that is seriously just around the corner from my work, a restaurant that I frequent, one that I have walked to from my work building. The man had a gun, the restaurant had 8 people in it, one of them being a teenager. It happened at the exact moment I was punching out.  I was leaving work, walking through my parking garage, while the police were unsuccessfully trying to find the suspect. 

Now I know I wasn't involved in any way.  By the time I pulled out of my parking garage, the police had already blocked off several side streets and the entrances/exits to all of the surrounding parking lots.  I was never in any real danger.  But for some reason I cannot convince my emotions of that.  No matter how many times I try to remind myself that I was not the one traumatized, my body and emotions are telling me differently.  I am being bombarded with feelings of insecurity about my safety.  I work in a great neighborhood.  I (usually) feel very safe there.  I have walked around in this same area at night with my son or with a girlfriend.  My husband and I have gone on walks or played on playgrounds at night in this area.  It's a good part of town.  And it's a good part of town that right now I don't feel very safe in.

I don't really feel safe at all, anywhere, right now though.  I don't like that someone stole (once again) my feelings of safety and security.  I feel vulnerable.  I feel scared.  And for some reason, I feel weak again.  And I have realized that my natural reaction to feeling vulnerable is to double up all of my protections.  And food, or I should say the restricting of food, is one of the areas that I want to run to to protect myself.  It doesn't make sense.  I'm healthy enough to run if I needed to.  I'm healthy enough to put up a good fight if I needed to.  I'm healthy enough for my brain to remember details like descriptions and directions.  And yet my first line of defense that I want to run to is to take away those advantages and go back to the girl who wouldn't stand a chance other than sheer adrenaline if put in a dangerous situation.

I drove out to see Hubby at work this morning for his lunch break.  It was how I kept myself from restricting.  Eating with him or not eating at all, I chose to eat and to feel safe in his presence for a few extra minutes.  I know it was a healthy choice, but it wasn't an easy choice.  It seems that when being healthy is a choice, it is rarely the easy one.  I want to put my heart and body in lock down to protect it.  The problem is that it isn't really protecting me.  I hate that.

I want my sense of safety back.  I want to not feel like a frightened little girl again.  I want to not feel weak and powerless.  I want my control.  Control, maybe that is why restricting feels like the right answer, because life is not controllable but food is.  I'm in a better place in my recovery simply because I can identify that.  That doesn't really make it an easier place of recovery, just a stronger one.

I'm strong enough to fight the orange in my head that swears she is the way to be safe and protected.  I need to find safety and protection somewhere else, not in her arms.

good news bad news

In case you wanted to know, it doesn't matter how far I stick my finger down my throat, I cannot throw up.  It doesn't work with a toothbrush either.  I have a faulty gag reflex.  I have proved that once again.  Sometimes the panic just gets to be too much and I have to try.  I still can't purge.  I guess that is the good news.

The bad news is that it is still an urge, one that tonight I couldn't make shut up no matter what I did until after my fingers had been jammed repeatedly down my throat.  The bad news is that orange just won't get out of my ear tonight.  The bad news is that in my shower tonight I contemplated scrubbing my skin till it bled like I used to.  I wondered if I could find an area to cut that my husband wouldn't notice tomorrow and ask me what happened.   

I wonder why these feel so strong tonight. 

control

I cannot control my tire deciding to blow out on Sunday.  I cannot control my hubby.  I cannot control my children.  I cannot control my mother.  I cannot control earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornadoes.  I cannot control the rate at which our house is sinking into the foundation.  I cannot control when the sun rises, when the stars fall, when my appliances will have their last breath, what others think of me, gravity, the waves that lap the shore, or God.

I have found myself seeking control in an unhealthy way again.  Ugh, it is so frustrating to be back at this point.  I was unreasonably sharp with my kids today.  I just felt raw.  Hubby noticed but didn't say anything.  Then I had a bagel and he noticed that my tone softened greatly with our kids.  Then he commented.  He asked what I had eaten today.  I shrugged and said, "A bagel and some cream cheese."  I was nearly 2pm.  He told me the difference in how I had talked to the kids pre-food and post-food.  I knew, I could hear it in my voice.  More importantly, I could feel it.

So once again hubby is checking in on me with food.  He told me he would refrain from pestering me non stop about food but that he would ask me daily now if I have eaten.  I thanked him and at the same time wanted to scream at him.  He asked if I was mad at him.  No, not mad at him, mad at me.  Mad that I am back at the point of needing to be checked in on that I am eating.  Mad at myself for allowing anorexia to have that little foothold again and how it affects my children.  Mad that I yell at my kids and don't really listen to what they are saying when I don't eat.  Mad that to restrict myself will cause hurt to my kids.  I don't want to hurt them. 

Since control having to do with food is not a healthy or acceptable form of control for me right now, I have to realize OTHER areas that I am in control over. 

Acceptable forms of control:

• ordering a 12 syllable drink at Starbucks (venti, triple shot, non fat, vanilla latte)
• which color sundress I want to buy or wear next
• journaling in colored sharpies
• the next books I choose from the library to read
• my sewing scrapbox
• who I am friends with on Facebook
• what time I go to bed
• choosing a font for my blog

a new haircut

every nail a different shade of purple :)

dot to dot pictures

If only you could actually hear the big sigh that I just let out.  I had another "aha" moment today.  I connected the dots again to find I'm not crazy about the picture they draw.  BUT at least I know what the picture is and can finally work with it.  So if you have followed me from the beginning, you know that my struggle began when I was 14.  At that point in time it was a body image, want to be what someone else wants me to be, supreme insecurity issue.  I was 17 when things got really bad.  There was something significant going on in my life then, something that triggered me.  I was being sexually molested by my boss at work.  He would follow me into the freezer and talk dirty and fondle me.  He was disgusting but because he was my boss I didn't know how to make it stop and I was scared.  The only way out that I could see was to leave my job and I did.

I know I have shared some of this in an early blog but for the sake of new readers, I'm going to condense it and tell it again.  The day I came in to pick up my last check, this manager was there.  He followed me out to the parking lot and started making lewd comments.  I kept walking.  He forced me to turn around, violently kissed me and then slammed me against the car.  As my mind was racing looking for a way out, he started to grope me again.  When I started to cry, he informed me that I shouldn't be crying because I obviously liked his attention because my body physically responded to him.  I was so incredibly furious with my body and felt like it had betrayed me.  How could my mind so forcefully reject what he was doing but my body still react to his touch?  I was disgusted with my own body.

Now fast forward a bunch of years later to me as a grown woman sitting in a mental hospital.  While in the hospital, I was required to speak with a therapist.  The therapist who I happened to be paired with was a very right vs. wrong, abrupt, older man.  He was actually quite a jerk, to be honest.  I answered his questions.  I told him my history.  I told him about this situation.  And being a dumbass, he asked me what I meant by my body responded.  Really?  He's older, he wore a wedding ring, and yet doesn't know in what ways a woman's body could respond to a man's touch???????  So in my most annoyed and sarcastic tone, I bluntly looked at him and crudely  informed him of what had happened.  The response infuriated me.  He informed me that I should not have felt guilty for that response.  It is an "autonomic response" that I had no control over so therefore I should not feel shame or guilt for having such a response.  What kind of therapist tells their patient that their feelings weren't valid?  Who tells you how you should feel? 

Ok, another rabbit trail to lead to my "aha moment".  About a year ago, I realized (rather suddenly and surprisingly) that I had allowed some of my intimate moments with my husband to be highly influenced by this intense need to be in control of my body.  So, at that point I wasn't acting out with my eating disorder but I was still acting out and needing an obsessive amount of control over my own body.

Today I saw my chiropractor.  He does acupuncture as well as adjustments.  When he was about to start the acupuncture, I asked him if his little magic needles could cure anything.  I asked if there were points that would stimulate appetite. He originally said he would do a few to help with food cravings.  No, no, no, I don't need to get rid of cravings, I need to gain a few!  He told me that was quite a bit more difficult because the body's automatic response is to desire food especially when under stress.  It is what my body should naturally do for itself.

Have you connected the dots?  All three of those stories have to do with automatic physical responses.  I was so traumatized by my body responding against my will all those years ago that I have fought it since to maintain a high level of control that my body "cannot" (be allowed to) have an automatic/autonomic response.  If my body acts on its own, I lose control and it could hurt me again.  I fight tooth and nail against anything my body may want to do that doesn't first have my permission.  Being hungry is just one more thing that I don't allow until it is on my terms.  Somewhere deep inside I think I am wondering, "But what happens if my body betrays me again?"

something to ponder

My last post was starting to get a bit long so I decided to make a second entry to share the thing I was given yesterday to ponder.  I was informed last night by someone who I love an awful lot, that it was presented to him by someone else that I have control issues.  The exact wording, I believe, was "She has trouble handing the keys over to someone else."  The hearer of this statement had to think about it and finally agreed.  These are people who love me unconditionally, one who knows me inside and out and one who is very observant and all too often hears what I don't say.

My first thought when I heard this was, "Well, duh!  You are just now realizing I have control issues?"  But for some reason I couldn't verbalize that so I instead denied my need for control.  I asked for specific examples.  I work so hard to cover up my intense fear of letting someone else call the shots and yet these two people could see through my mask.  That is something to ponder! 

The theories of why I prefer to be in control (it was clarified that I want to be in control, not that I am controlling. whew, that's a relief!) were interesting.  I think there was an amount of truth in the theories to add to the things that I am now thinking about.  Hmmmm, new things to wrap my brain around and to surrender to my Savior.  This will be the story of my life forever.  I will always be finding things in my life that I need Jesus to be Lord over.  This time it is my desire to control my life instead of giving Him the control.

I love both of these people who brought this to my attention.  I love how they often unknowingly challenge me in my faith.  I love that they don't allow me to be comfortable.  I also sometimes despise it.  I still have control issues.  I'm just not exhibiting it in the dangers of anorexia right now.   God be my strength as I journey through this!

control

The next two years are somewhat a blur in my memory.  At some point, though I don't know when, I started eating again.  It was never alot, but I wasn't completely starving myself either. It was somewhere near the end of my junior year of highschool when things got ugly again.  I started dating boys who were only interested in my body.  I had been sexually assaulted by a friend earlier that year and at that point began to discover the numbing grace of alcohol.

Between the asault, the alcohol use and the boys who cared only about how I could make them feel good, I started to feel my life rapidly spinning out of control.  That is when food, or rather the lack thereof, re-entered the picture in a bigger way.  I felt that I had no control in my life at all.  One day, I didn't eat, simply because I didn't feel like it.  I got hungry but I could tell my body no.  Anorexia grabbed a hold of me again with a stronger grip than the first time. 

The first time was about attention, needing it.  The second time was about control, also needing it.  I got such an adrenaline filled power rush when I realized that while nothing else in my life could be controlled, I could control my food.  I never ate because my body was weak and demanding food.  I ate because I wanted to.  The more things spiraled, the more control I exerted.  I didn't care at all about my body image at this point, only about controlling my body.  Because it wasn't about image but rather about control,  when I did eat I piled on the calories.  I didn't want anyone to become suspicious about my rapid weight loss and thus rob me of this new found power, so when I did eat, it was cinnamon rolls and milk shakes.

Again, no one really noticed, but I'm not entirely sure how I got away with it the second time around.  Somehow I managed to keep it from my parents and the couple of close friends I had.  And I'm sure no one else noticed because I was careful to cover up my figure so that it wasn't obvious that I had lost weight again.  I obsessed over my new found control and the rush I got from it.