uninsurable

My insurance agent made a mistake and didn't switch my bank account on my life insurance when we changed banks.  He switched it for my car and home insurance, he didn't get the life insurance policy switched.  It lapsed, I realized, I panicked.  He told me reinstating it  was easy, just fill out these forms.

I fill out said forms which ask  questions about physical and mental health within the last 5 years.  Well, you can't lie, that is insurance fraud, and I do have things on my medical record that weren't there when I first got my policy.  Things like an eating disorder and a stay in the mental hospital.  Things like suicidal ideations, Major Depressive Disorder, anxiety, and PTSD. 

Apparently insurance doesn't like those things.  They asked more questions.  I answered them.  Yesterday I received the letter stating that my request for policy reinstatement was denied.  I have no life insurance anymore.  I am not insurable anymore.  And I lost my coverage all because of a clerical error.

I have a myriad of emotions about it.  The first was anger.  And let's be honest, I'm still pretty hot about it.  I felt a little bit of overwhelm.  And I also feel a bit like Marshall in the episode of How I Met Your Mother when he is imagining bears jumping out at him in NYC and attacking him.  Ok, so that last one makes me laugh so at least when I feel the pit in my stomach growing I can switch gears and laugh for a moment.

One more thing that this eating disorder has taken from me, insurability.  I don't know if I'm most angry at my agent for the error, at myself for not catching it sooner, or at Orange for stealing one more thing from me.  I'm going to get better.  I'm going to prove them wrong. 

And now I need to take a deep breath, finish getting ready for work and take this day one step at a time.  I will trust myself to my Creator, both physically and emotionally.  He sees it all and He is here with me, even here, even without insurance.

worth it

The depression has been dark.  Hubby has been kind.  Yesterday was one in a series of days that he took care of me both physically and emotionally.  In the quiet darkness of our bedroom, I lean into his arms.  I whisper thank you for taking care of me today.  He brushes hair from my face, leans into my ear and whispers back the last words I heard before sleep came, "You're worth taking care of."
Words he repeated again by mornings light, just to make sure that I had heard them.  I shake my head, I don't understand.  But I am grateful that he does.  I'm worth the effort, even though sometimes it is great. 

I'm a guest blogger, I'm no longer MIA and I'm hanging in there

I have been reminded that it has been a while since I have updated.  Now that Hubby works from home and I go to out to work, writing has been something I unintentionally shift to a back burner.  My preference is to write with a quiet, preferably empty but I'll take sleeping as well, house.  I go to bed before Hubby now that he doesn't need to be up in the middle of the night for work.  I get ready for work while he takes the littles to school.  I have no time to write.  Well, that is not true.  I just don't make it a priority or time block for it anymore.

I'm doing ok.  I'm not dealing as much with food panic right now but I am still walking through the heavy mud of depression.  Some days have been dark.  Some days have been bearable.  Few days have been wonderful.  I'm trying hard to not isolate, though there is nothing in the world that sounds better right now.  Work has been a good distraction from focusing on me and my own pity party.

Today my father in law has surgery to remove the screen that they put in his lung to trap the blood clots.  I'm trying to trust the doctors when they say it is a very basic surgery with low risks.  It is hard to trust that when just a couple of months ago we thought we were going to lose the man I love so much.  He is a pillar of strength to me, to my husband, to our entire family and the mere thought of anything going not as planned makes my heart quiver with anxiety. 

Hey, if you have a moment, go visit Brittnie at A Joy Renewed.  She is doing a great series on life with an eating disorder and today my very dear friend Amy's story is posted.  My story, *gulp* will be posted tomorrow.  I know I'd appreciate some support from those of you who know me and love me because it seems scary to guest blog.  Why?  No idea, I already lay it all out here but for some reason it is different laying it all out on someone else's blog to friends I haven't met yet.

Love you guys, sorry I've been MIA, I'll try to be more intentional and not block y'all out!

Swearing inside my head

This morning I am silently cursing the breakfast that stares me down. The breakfast that is one peach slice smaller than intended because of the panic in my head.

Yesterday I silently cursed my own body. The way it bruises too easily. The way it left evidence of the anxiety that I took out on it.

I long for complete healing. To never ever have days and moments of completely overwhelming anxiety that makes eating hard and self harm easy. But since this is a journey not a destination, I will press on thankful that I am further on my journey than I was a year ago.

a note to the wounded

Wonded One,

Keep fighting.  Keep pressing on.  Keep getting out of bed when it feels like you can't.  We need you.  We love you.  You are not alone.  And remeber when you feel like you have failed that three steps forward and two steps back is still one step closer to your destination than when you started.  You can do this, WE can do this, together we will fight and together we will stand and together we will overcome the demons in our heads.

Much love,
Dawn

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. 

containing the damage? I hope so

I wonder if there really is some amount of truth in the thoughts of genetics playing a role in eating disorders.  I mean, it can't all be the crazy messages of false beauty because everyone hears them but not everyone gets trapped in the dark world of eating disorders.  Majority of the women that I talk to are trapped by the messages that their bodies are not good enough, pretty enough or small enough.   But majority of the women I know do not end up starving themselves or purging their ingested nutrients.  Is it possible that like other diseases that there are physical factors that make one more susceptible to an eating disorder?

I have been walking through some big and often scary things with one of my children.  I have only one who I worry about as far as food issues go.  I have one who has for years now been more sensitive about food, body size and weight than is probably normal or healthy for his age.  This is the child who sometimes refuses to eat, claiming he isn't really hungry.  This is the child who talks about losing weight.  This is the child who talks about one day diets.  This is the child who sometimes mentions that he feels a little lighter that day.  This is the child who we are specific in not mentioning pants sizes with because he is an average waist size but his brother is a slim sized pant.  This is the child who the pediatrician specifically has told me to keep an eye on his habits and behaviors to make sure that if he starts sliding down that path that we can help him before it is too late and he is trapped.

Recently he had a school assignment that involved writing about why healthy breakfast is important.  He really struggled with it.  As I dug a little deeper I discovered that he doesn't believe that any breakfast is important at all much less healthy breakfast.  We read articles online about breakfast.  One headline caught his eye about how eating breakfast can help you lose weight.  He looked me dead in the eye and said, "Mom, that doesn't even make sense.  Eating food is what makes you fat."  A part of me died when he said that and I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me.

I helped him look up articles about metabolism, breakfast, fueling the body.  We looked at many that were geared directly toward the nutrition that children need to grow and to feed their brains.  I could see him finally starting to accept some of the information but that didn't happen until we hit WebMD.  That was the only site he was willing to trust somewhat, albeit reluctantly, because actual doctors wrote the articles and did the video interviews.  For three hours we read and talked and hung out together discussing what we had learned.  He finally had enough of an arsenal that he felt like he could do the assignment.

Later in the kitchen he was writing and he informed me that his friend's parent probably don't know the same information that he had just learned.  I asked why and he told me that that these particular parents are on a diet and trying to lose weight.  He said that they usually skip breakfast because the other two meals they have planned for the day are too high in calories and they don't want to go over their amount of calories or they won't lose weight. 

WHAT?????? Are you freakin kidding me?????  Why on earth would you say stuff like that to children?  What part of that sounds like information that growing children need to think about?  My kids are growing.  They NEED the nutrition.  Their bones and muscles need to grow and develop.  Their brains need to be able to grow, to learn, to be healthy.  And all of that includes them EATING.  Why do adults talk about their diets to children?  Ugh, it made me feel a little sick to my stomach. I'm not blaming them for my son's views on food.  I am however annoyed that they fueled a fire that has already been trying to gain ground for a long time now.  I know it was unknowingly done, but I still don't understand talking with kids about diets.  It is information that they simply do not need, they need to concentrate on growing up not on losing weight.

I'm sure that you know this, I went to bed emotionally drained and at a loss for words that night.