NEDA week and comparing my journey

I've wanted to write for a while now.  I've just been so tired and when faced with the option of curling up in bed next to my husband and sleeping or turning on the computer and organizing my thoughts into words....well, comfy bed seems to win more often lately.  Last week was a struggle for me.  I was already struggling a little but NEDA week is hard for me.

 It is a week that makes me think I was never really THAT sick.  I hear the stories of people who nearly died and I think well, I didn't nearly die.  Until my husband speaks that strange kind of logic that says, "Um, you did almost die.  You were intending to commit suicide."  And I think about so many of my friends who have spent time in in-patient care and think but I wasn't sick enough for in-patient.  I hear how someone restricted to x amount of calories and the competitive voice of orange reminds me that I was x amount of calories more than that person.

My brain, or rather my disease, argues with everything its got to say I wasn't ever really sick. I don't have the physical scars that some have. I knew how to take care of my self inflicted burns and cuts so that they wouldn't scar and people wouldn't have reason to think I was sick.  My body doesn't carry evidence of the hell it has been through so I try to downplay that it really has been through hell.

Isn't that the battle of the eating disorder though?  There is ALWAYS going to be someone out there who is sicker than you, which will always play through your head to insist you aren't sick because you aren't as sick as ______.  As long as the comparison game continues in my mind, I will never be free from the belief that I wasn't sick enough.  And I've come to realize that as long as I compete mentally to have been sick enough to validate my illness, NEDA week will always be difficult for me.

It's great to educate.  I went to a meeting of about 50 women the other day and this group of women were having a biggest loser competition.  They were standing on the scale before breakfast and giving out prizes for the most % lost. I wanted to grab the mic and tell them that in a group that big, I would be shocked if they didn't have at least one woman who has struggled with some variation of an eating disorder.  I wanted to educate them about NEDA.  I love the purpose of the week.  And I also, for my own recovery, avoided the computer radically last week.

For this time in life, my recovery depends on me not comparing my journey to someone else's journey. For this season of my recovery, I will focus on choosing the next right thing and worry less about comparing my illness to someone else's illness.  Recovering together is amazing, it is great to have friends who just know and understand.  Recovering together is not however meant to be a comparison.  Comparison is a trap, and not one I can afford to get caught in.

Just Another Glass

Journal entry from an undisclosed amount of time ago in my recovery journey.  Substance trigger alert, It is a speed bump moment with alcohol.

Just Another Glass

If I have another glass of wine
Would I forget my name?
Would one more drink
Be enough
To finally forget my pain?

Can the sweet aroma 
Carry me away?
Could the smoothness 
Of the alcohol
Wash away my shame?

I know I can't forever hide
But just another hour please
To pretend that I am anyone,
Anyone who isn't me
Another hour to feel anything,
Anything except the pain
That threatens to overcome me

I need to start my period.  This entry isn't too far off from my feelings of hopelessness today.  I need to know if I am hormonal or massively depressed.  This isn't my typical for me but in reading through my journal today I realized how much I feel this poem today.

the hard part of recovery

Do you want to know what is hard about recovery?  Believing that an 80 calorie granola bar isn't dinner.  Most people wouldn't even consider that tiny thing a snack, I tried to pull it off as dinner.

Wanna know what's hard about recovery?  When feeling full isn't the same as having enough.  Finding something else to eat while the voices in your head are screaming at you that you've already had something to eat. Needing a glass of wine just to get past the anxiety that dinner brings.  Telling people who love you when you hurt so badly that acting out sounds like the only possible way to make it through.

That is what is hard about recovery.

I lied again

I lied.  Again.  There is partial truth to my story about going to Jimmy Johns last night.  It's pretty pathetic when you start to lie to yourself too.  See when Hubby suggested either Chipotle or Jimmy Johns for lunch, I really did cringe.  I have longed for a really good sandwich and JJ's has the best bread ever.  But I've been terrified of bread lately.  So on my way to work last week I got Chipotle instead of JJ's simply because I was afraid the bread would make me cry and I didn't want to cry at work.

Yesterday when Hubby asked, I pulled away.  I cringed.  And then I did it.  "Can we do Jimmy John's?  I have wanted it but haven't been able to have it lately."  Why haven't you been able to have it?, he asks.  One word from me.  Bread.  Bread, sweet, warm, beautiful bread.  Is there anything about fresh bread that isn't comforting?  The smell, the feel, the warmth, the taste.  And yet I can't be comforted by it.  Somehow I can only feel terror. 

The really sad part is that the reason I told the story the way I did yesterday is because I couldn't admit that I had actually ASKED for bread.  I hoped by lying to myself that I would be able to lie to orange.  Hoping that she wouldn't make me pay.  I lied, in all of the places, here, where it is supposed to be safe.  Here where I spill my feelings instead of journaling because I'm too lazy to grab a pen and write.  And I am annoyed that I didn't even feel safe being honest with myself.  Orange is a bitch.

the morning after

It is late afternoon and my throat still burns when I swallow, though not like it did this morning.  I had forgotten the morning after feelings.  The feelings of a sore and raw throat.  Knowing it burns because of my own actions not because I'm fighting a cold.  And mostly the overwhelming feelings of guilt.  Guilt that I listened to orange again.  Guilt that though I know what is truth, the words in my head are still orange.  Guilt that I know what I need to do but for some reason still act out compulsively at times.  Guilt that today I sat at MOPS and affirmed how important it is for moms to take care of themselves also all the while hearing the orange rant in my head insisting that I don't deserve to be taken care of. 

Will I ever get this?  Will the voices ever shut up?

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. 

Um, yeah, can't postpone feeling until after Thanksgiving afterall

Tonight on the way to work, those feelings hit me full force.  Yeah, those yucky ones I haven't known what to do with.  Yep, those are the ones.  My anger actually graduated to rage for all of a few minutes, but then I arrived at work and had to pull myself together.  I don't know if that raging moment felt unbelievably good or if it felt absolutely terrifying!

I did the good girl thing I always do.  I pushed the feelings back and settled for just plain grumpy and annoyed.  My body feels very awkward to me.  I feel like the pounds are packing on around my middle.  My clothes all feel uncomfortable to my body.  My son got in trouble at school today.  A professor was rude to me tonight at work.  I had other customers who were thoughtless tonight.  I came home to 2 of my kids still awake and had to put them to bed.  I ran a hot bubble bath but ran out of hot water before I realized it so my bath was warm not hot.  And throw in what seems like PMS symptoms and you have my night.

I'm so hungry.  The tiger is clawing at my tender insides (read this amazing post from Jenn, you'll understand what I am saying) but the pain won't let me give in.  How long will this hurt?  I feel like every time I get through one hard thing, within days something new comes up in my heart.  I have a day, maybe two where I can breathe, then WHAM something else hits my heart and mind full force.  I'm tired of feeling like I always whine.  I'm tired of feeling like orange is winning, or at least that she is not losing.  I hate the days of feeling hungry and not being able to give in.  I much prefer those handfuls of healthy days or even the days when I'm just sick, no hunger, no arguing with myself, and no guilt.

It is a sad day when my desire is to still be sick so that I wouldn't have to hear the dialog in my head.

intuitive eating

The concept of intuitive eating is a really good one.  I like the idea of eating when I'm hungry, giving my body what it asks for and stopping when I'm full.  Here's my problem, I have ignored my hunger cues long enough that I don't think my body always does know best.  Today for instance, I haven't been hungry at all.  Ok, take that back.  I did feel a little hungry earlier, but it felt AMAZING!  I guess it is hard to trust my own body because I like the euphoria I feel right now, a euphoria induced by having not eaten today.  I need to take care of my body, but I just don't feel like it.  I know this won't keep feeling good, but it does now. 

I feel somewhat guilty that since I'm not being checked on that I haven't been keeping my promise to Hubby.  I rationalize it away but deep down, I know that the promise to eat was not a temporary one.  My meals have been inconsistent and I know that.  I need to want to eat for myself.  Eating out of desire to make my family happy and not worried is only going to take me so far.  At some point I have to be able to eat without being monitored.  I usually do for a time but it is so easy to fall back into old habits and addictions.

big emotions

Something happened.  It triggered a very intense memory.  Overwhelming shame, intense hurt, unfounded guilt and huge sense of vulnerability have flooded over me like a tsunami.  I'm so far from ok.  I don't even know how to get to ok.  I have occasionally thought of this memory.  I never in a million years thought it would be triggered though or even that it could be triggered.  And now I sit here a broken heap of raw emotions.  I don't want to feel this.  I don't want to do this.  I don't know if I can do this.  I don't think I can fake it through this one.  But I also don't want to talk about it.  I don't want to even tell Hubby that I'm not ok because that would mean talking about it.  I want to crawl under a blanket and not exist.  I want to not feel.  I'd rather feel depression like a weight sitting on my chest making it difficult to breathe than feel this.  I'd rather feel the sad I felt this morning than feel this.  These emotions are so intense.  I wonder if they won't just sweep me away in their wake. 

I exist

I do something ridiculous.  I walk sideways down the stairs at work when I wear heels.  When I walk sideways or even on my toes, my shoes can be kept from making that way-too-loud-for-such-a-quiet-space sound.  But what I realize even more is that the sound means I exist.  Even when I walk I am trying to exist as little as possible. 

I want to live an adventure but I don't want to exist.  Doesn't make sense?  Yeah, I know, too much about living with an eating disorder doesn't make sense. 

I am doing ok.  Not spectacular but not bottoming out either.  And yet I still cringe at the mere fact that I exist.  My body existing in numbers pisses me off.  The fact that I need a body pisses me off.  I want to live but I hate existing.  I hate that my shoes make noise on the stairs, it is just more proof that I cannot disappear, that I take up space.  I want to fade into the background somewhere and not be noticable.

How can I feel good about life and yet terrible about living in the same sentence?  How can I be content with my life and hate that my body takes up space at the same moment?  How can I feel loved and lonely simultaneously?