longing to be whole

I dreamed that I was sick again. I dreamed that I was restricting like I used to. The problem is that I haven't been restricting so my body doesn't feel sick. In my dream it was the anorexia that every eating disorder longs for, the one that allows the control and euphoria of restricting while still having the feelings of being healthy. It was the lie that orange always promised, "You can be different. You can restrict and not get sick."

A lie is a lie, but for a moment it was a familiar lie that beckoned to me to try again. It was a lie that reassured me that it could be different. The dream came at a time of body loathing. It was a dream that made the idea of anorexia sound good for a moment. Maybe more than a moment. 

I have had to be extremely vigilant this week to maintain recovery. Illness sounds alluring; stress, a packed schedule, and an upset stomach have made it difficult to battle the allure. And yet I have battled. I have fought to remember where I have come from. I have fought to remember the pain when my family hugged me. I have fought to remember that healthy is entirely better. 

To this point, I can say I've fought well. I have had meals that would have been easy to skip because no one but me would have known. Now to continue fighting for my recovery. How I long to be completely whole. How I long for the day when those thoughts don't creep in. Though I don't know if that day will ever actually arrive, I will continue to fight as I hope for it.

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.

recovery or recovering

Today I feel like I am "doing recovery" rather than recovering.  I think you have to have experienced recovery in some form for that to fully make sense.  I am tired.  But I'm tired because I'm depressed not because I haven't gotten enough sleep.

Yesterday, once again, I begged God to heal me.  I promised Him the world, just make this heaviness go away.  PLEASE!  Instead He filled my ride to work with songs about trusting God even through the pain, songs about how His love doesn't fail us even through the dark times, songs of reassurance but no songs of healing.

So once again, with a heavy heart, I am asked to trust what I cannot feel.  And I do.  And I will.  Even if the heaviness never leaves, He is God and He is good.

I saw this on Facebook last week.  I have to share it because it is true.

Yeah, I really am glad.  I'm glad you're here still.  I'm even glad I'm here still.  Keep pressing on.  Keep hanging on.  Keep doing recovery even when you feel like you are doing recovery not recovering.  Keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Keep doing the next right thing.  And next year we can all gather around each other and be glad that we are still here. 

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? 

Even If....

My new favorite song Even If by Kutless......

Last week was hard.  Really, REALLY hard.  I've decided that suicidal thoughts come in many forms.  I've had days of actively wanting to kill myself.  Last week I didn't want to actually kill myself but I just wanted to die.  My friend had a time similar this week.  She didn't want to kill herself but wished that someone else would kill her.  And it is all suicidal ideations whether it is wanting to kill myself, wanting to die or wanting someone else to take your life.  And it is scary. 

It is scary to fantasize about dying.  Even when I am in a good place I still wonder what it would be like to die.  Even when I am loving my life and not overwhelmed with depression, I still wonder what would happen if I took the entire bottle of pills.  I still think about it, maybe not all the time, but regularly. 

Last week I heard this song for the first time.  It is truly what I believe.  This song has moved my heart.  If my healing never comes, if I struggle with depression, suicidal ideation, and eating disorders for the rest of my life, it won't change WHO  God is.  He is still good, even if my healing never comes.

encouragement to live to fight another day

This morning I woke with the same sluggish, less than hopeful, depressed view that I went to bed with.  While taking my boys to school this morning though, the Lord brought to mind a verse.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Philippians3:12-14

Today I know I have a battle raging inside of me and today I will press on.  I will fight and I will lean on the strength of the Lord to carry me through.

HR confessions and more

I've had so many thoughts attacking my brain that I haven't even known where to start or the words to say to debrief.  Sunday was a beautiful day of worship at church.  For a while I was able to bask in the presence of the Almighty.  I was able to worship without reservation.  For a few moments and for a few hours later, I felt at peace.  I felt that my life really mattered.  I knew that my sole purpose in life is to bring glory and honor to the Lord, to reflect Him and the work He is doing in my life.  For a few moments, the size of my body didn't matter and didn't even cross my mind.

Today was a rough day.  Nothing specific, just felt like going through the motions was like waking through mud today.  I am so grateful for those moments in time, like Sunday, when I feel the Lord's presence so profoundly.  Those moments carry me through the rest of the days when I struggle desperately.  Today I didn't feel God, not even once but times like Sunday remind me that He is there even though I don't feel His presence.

Is it completely wrong for the girl who loves God, who believes He is good even when life isn't, who works for a Christian ministry, to say things like I didn't feel God today?  Does that mean, as was so often told to me growing up, that I don't really trust Him because I don't always feel Him?  Does it make my faith less if I share my doubts and fears?  I don't know the answer.  I do know though that on days like today, I have to hold on to what I know to be true not what I feel to be true.

Today brought the opportunity to talk to the HR person at my work.  I really like her and I trust her.  I went into her office and told her about my concerns with the health class that our work is sponsoring being either triggering or enabling to me.  She is the only person at my work who I have told that I struggle to eat, that I have major depressive disorder, and that some days going though the motions is overwhelming.

I told her I don't want to make this public knowledge at the moment.  I don't want my plate analyzed by every person in the office.  I don't want the calorie police hovering over me and worrying even when I'm doing ok.  (I told Hubby that calories are the little bastards that hide in your closet and sew your clothes smaller while you sleep.  He laughed.  And that is completely off subject and random. :)  )

On a food note, I'm both struggling and doing well.  I'm maintaining but at the moment the thoughts are pretty aggressive.  Like for instance, I had my physical recently.  My weight was satisfactory.  My ideal however, I realized in reading through my journal, is 5 lbs lighter than what my ideal was this time last year.  I feel the viciousness of the cycle that insists that no matter how much you lose, it isn't good enough for Orange.

My doctor allowed me to opt out of the metabolism screening which is good, that is always very triggering to me.  So I didn't have the extent of numbers to contend with that I usually have but I still had the scale numbers to contend with.  I still had questions from the new nurse wondering if I'm eating enough calories.  I told her yes.  And then I told her that I'm not counting them so I suppose I'm getting enough.  When I'm counting them I know I'm not getting enough.

For the TMI part but it does show how distorted Orange can be.... Before my physical I had a severe kidney infection.  The medicine I had to take for it backed up my bowels a LOT.  The doctor recommended some different products to help cleanse my colon without being laxatives.  It took several days to get back to being able to go.  Then for a day it turned into diarrhea and I stopped taking the supplements.  Today I contemplated starting them again.  The conversation in my head went something like this:

You should finish the full 14 days

No, I don't want to deal with cramping stomach and emergency trips to the bathroom

Yes, but think of the weight you are losing in cleansing

But the goal of cleansing is to be healthy and get my system jump started a little to get back in the swing of things, it isn't supposed to be about the weight
Keep taking it.  A little diarrhea shouldn't be enough to stop you.  You can still be in control but really, isn't the diarrhea worth it for what it will do to flatten out your stomach?

And just that quickly the battle is raging again.  In my actions I am still pursuing recovery.  I am still striving to beat the voice in my head.  Sadly though, that voice isn't little and it torments me day and night right now.  I covet your prayers right now as the voices are really loud.  Please pray for strength for the battle and peace for my heart. 

There is still so much more  but I've already made this really long and also it is getting very late and I need to attempt to sleep.  I need rest so I can be productive at work tomorrow.

she's only 8

We had an interesting conversation today in the lunchroom and I want to throw it out there to you guys to get some thoughts.  My friend and co-worker has an eight year old daughter who has been using the f word.  FAT.  "I'm fat" with her hands on her stomach. 

They have tried to affirm her with some healthy thoughts but she still doesn't see her beauty, she sees her weight.  Of course these conversations terrify me because I was the eight year old who thought I was fat too.  All of these years later my inner eight year old still points at my thighs and moans, "So fat."  I never want another girl to hear those words.

I want her view herself with truth.  I want her to see the beauty she possesses.  She is a darling girl with a fabulous smile.  She is perfect.  But she can't see that.  She is seeing through distorted eyes.  And I have to wonder, do all girls see through distorted eyes?  Maybe, but not all girls go as far as eating disorders to fix the perception of distorted vision.

How can my friend help her daughter?  Can she avoid the road I've walked or is it as some have said genetic and cannot be stopped?  What do you say to an eight year old who thinks she is fat?  I seriously want to cry and I want to hold her and I want to protect her from this. 

Or do all girls say they are fat at eight and I'm just hyper sensitive to their negative body image?  Aren't eight year olds supposed to be more concerned with puppies and dolls than weight?  Or is that just the ideal image in my head that doesn't really exist?

getting back to normal

I spent quite a while in a constant state of depression and anxiety.  It has only been within the last week that I have felt more alive, more like myself, and less overwhelmed.  I had called my doctor to refill my anti anxiety prescription back when we were getting our new roof.  Having had a couple of pretty bad panic attacks up to that point I decided that having my medication on hand again might be a good idea.  My doctor never called back though which is extremely unlike her.  She has never missed returning a phone call.

When the theater shooting happened I found myself having panic attacks again.  I panicked when I was driving home one evening and saw police lights.  I hyperventilated when I heard sirens or saw emergency vehicles speeding by.  For where I live, that is a lot of fear to be living in.  I live less than a mile from the police station.  I live next to a highway, near a military base, and smack in between three major hospitals.  I hear sirens and helicopters all the time.  I see military and Flight for Life helicopters every day.  To have fear and anxiety with every helicopter and every siren was not good!

I decided that it was time to go visit my doctor.  She never got my message about my medication.  The former medical assistant who I called my message in to, well she is the former MA, that should say it all right there.  My doc did refill my medication and also recommended a supplement.  The main ingredient is GABA.

I happened to have already done a lot of research on GABA and had some in my house, though I wasn't taking it regularly.  I started taking it daily upon my doctor's recommendation.  It is helping me so much.  I've only had overwhelming anxiety once but that was when we took our kids to a theater to see Men In Black 3.  I'm thinking movie theater and action movie with the entire family so soon after a movie theater shooting  maybe gives reason to feel panicky.  I spent the entire movie watching the exits, judging the best way out if there was an emergency and thinking how Hubby and I would be able to protect all three of our kids and get everyone out safely if a madman came barging in shooting everywhere.  That was cause for the medicine!

There have been some big things happen.  I have more to share but not tonight.  Tonight I'm tired and really only wanted to write because I miss you guys!  Hope everyone is well and I'll try to not stay away so long.

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!

depression and recent observations

I'm really struggling right now. Depression has creeped into every inch of my soul. I want to be ok, but I'm not.  I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other but right now it is incredibly hard.  I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. I find myself praying on the way to the work that the chit chat is minimal and the phones are quiet just so that I don't have to talk to anyone.

On another note, I've been observing people a lot lately.  I've had questions. My friend and I have been discussing what is beautiful.  Like for instance the photo below.....


Once being curvy was a sign of wealth, it meant you could afford food.  Now being curvy is seen as a disgrace.  Why?  When did being a walking skeleton become better than looking like a woman?


I'm not any different.  I think those skinny gals look amazing.  I envy them.  Until I see Keira next to Marilyn.  And then I wonder where we went wrong as a society.  Marilyn Monroe must be the sexiest woman in history and by today's standards she would be a plus sized model and second class to the likes of Heidi Klum, Kate Hudson, Keira Knightly.  Why?

My friend posted this old advertisement.....


My friend made the comment that the skinny girl in the ad, looks miserable and hungry.  How true. My lament was that now we are trying to lose those same 10-25 pounds that women 50 years ago were trying to gain.  It isn't about being healthy, it's about being skinny.  If it were about being healthy, we wouldn't be afraid of carbs or every single calorie.  We would be balanced and sometimes chocolate cake would be ok.  We would eat real food and we would look like women not sticks.

And another thought.  Why are we as women so obsessed with getting the pre-pregnancy body back?  Nothing about our lives is the same as before pregnancy, why do we expect our bodies to be the same?  Why do we expect the body of a 12 year old instead of the body of a woman?  Why are we so damn afraid of curves?

Better question, why am I so damn afraid?  I see the walking skeletons, I don't think they are gorgeous.  But I still end up envying them.  I struggle to eat because I'm depressed and food seems so trivial right now.  I have found myself not even getting hungry and eating simply because oh yeah, it's 2 o'clock and I haven't eaten anything yet.  I just don't care.

I'm trying to care.  I'm trying to hang in there.  But really I want to crawl under a big rock and not come out.  I want to hide.  And I just want to sleep for a million bajillion years.  I'll be ok, I always am.  I've noticed a pattern, it is always worse in summer and near Christmas.  It will get better.  I'm ready for it to get better now.

Sorry if I rambled.  I'm tired and over it.  That is usually the best time to write to clear my head but also the worst because I verbally vomit all over the place. 

breaking the silence part 1

It has been a while.  I have struggled and grown, fought and been stretched.  I didn't intend to do any of those things, nor did I intend to do them alone.  The budget was tight this month and the tv/internet was the least important of the bills and therefore, I had no internet and ended up growing and stretching without you, my dear friends and sounding board.

I have to say this month has been one of the hardest and one of the most rewarding.  I had to come to terms with the diet talk at work.  Someone mentioned the person who had taught the class about "the diet" and I know her.  And the "diet" isn't a diet at all, it is a healthy living lifestyle class not a "I'm fat and need to lose 20 pounds" fad diet.  Here's where I had to realize my own insanity.  This class is a really helpful and informative class.  Much of what it entails I had already been doing in my own efforts to live healthy (before relapse) before I even took the class. The problem with it was in my own brain.  I took those healthy living steps in that class and made them into hard. fast. rules.  So though I was already mostly living them, suddenly they were RULES and I would rather not eat than break them.  I am the one who went too far, not the program.  It was my brain not the class that distorted it into what it became for me.  For most people I would recommend it in a heartbeat, just not for me or anyone else prone to eating disorder struggles.

My first three weeks at work were filled with tears.  I loved what I was doing, I loved the people when I saw them in their cubicles or in the hall or mail room just not when they were all gathered together.  I cried more in front of people in those three weeks than I think I have in years.  I just couldn't stop the tears from coming no matter how hard I tried.  I was tired.  I was lonely.  I didn't know where I fit in this tight knit group of people who all already know each other and have a history together and know each others stories.  I tried so hard to make conversation.  I would add something to a conversation and get a polite head nod and then they were back in their own little lives and the conversation went on as though I had said nothing.  They weren't trying to exclude me but I felt extremely excluded.

And then there was food.  Ahhhh, my old bitter enemy.  Rephrase, food isn't the enemy, how I feel about it is, how I interact with it is, how I use it to avoid my feelings is the real enemy.  I wasn't eating breakfast and barely eating lunch.  All I could think about was how I was going to cope in this very lonely place that I now work in four days a week.  Restricting was just the easy go to.  It felt wonderfully terrible.  I cannot think of a time before that restricting made me feel so guilty while still delivering the physical euphoria that I longed for.  I knew I wasn't taking care of myself but for the life of me I couldn't remember why I needed to move forward.  All I could think about was that I don't think I was really that sick EVER.  It couldn't have really been that bad or I would remember why I couldn't go back to it, right?

I have one vivid memory that is the only thing I can see in my mind as proof to myself that it was worse than I ever thought it was.  When I was in the hospital a very overweight woman looked at me and said, "This is what self hatred looks like, eating a weeks worth of calories in a day."  I pulled up my shirt and said, "It also looks like this, eating a days worth of calories in a week."  Three people in the room gasped when I lifted my shirt and showed my ribs.  The face of one person in particular is etched in my mind with the reaction given at seeing my ribs.  It is the only thing I have to remind myself that though maybe I couldn't see how bad it had gotten, it really was that bad.

I tried to remember the feelings but I couldn't.  I couldn't remember what being sick felt like and it really did start to glorify in my mind again.  Since I couldn't remember the feelings, I forced myself to remember the facts.  I may not remember what it felt like to wince in pain when my kids hugged me, but I know that I did.  I may not remember how my body felt when it hurt to just lay down and sleep, but I know that it did.  I thought about my mom-in-law smacking me with a newspaper and telling me I'd lost too much weight.  I thought about the clumps of hair that were constantly falling out. I thought about the worried and sorrowful looks Hubby would give me when he thought I wasn't looking.  I thought about the look on that persons face while I was in the hospital.  I thought about the friend who stopped me one day to ask how she could help because she knew of my past struggle and could see the current struggle getting worse and worse.



I never did feel it, but I forced myself to remember it, even as just black and white facts.  I never did FEEL why going back to sick was bad.  I just had to trust that I knew it.  And that right there friends, was when I realized that I can do this recovery stuff.  I couldn't feel a single reason to pursue recovery or to at minimum to hold steady enough to not relapse and yet I knew those reasons.


The next post is the kindness that I needed in the moment I needed it, the panic attack at work in front of my entire team, the words of wisdom that bring me back to you only a little shaken but not completely shattered.  But for tonight, I'm tired.  It's good to be back.  I've missed you guys!

thoughts from a recovery plateau

I have so much to say.  I wish I could sort it all out so I could say it all.  My brain has been a jumbled mess lately.  I've been forgetting to return calls and my thoughts just tumble over each other in no particular order. I feel like my brain looks like those pictures I posted of my house.

 I find myself both fighting for and against recovery at the same time.  I'm not (usually) intentionally trying to sabotage my recovery and yet I find that I keep getting in the way of my recovery at the same time.  Someday I will reach a point where I can eat intuitively.  I'm definitely not there yet.  I struggle when I feel full but I know I haven't had enough.  My appetite has been rather weak lately.

My taste buds are off.  Few foods actually taste right to me right now.  I actually don't like the taste of most food right now, even some of my favorites.  Thankfully peanut butter is still something I can enjoy so I've been eating spoonfuls of peanut butter when I know I need more to eat.  It is hard to eat when you nearly always really feel full and food has lost its flavor appeal.

I hate this place.  I want to be healthy because I'm actually (mostly) enjoying living again.  And though I know I want to recover more than I want to indulge in my addiction, the addiction still somehow works its magic and causes me to submit-sometimes subconsciously.  There have been more than a few evenings in the past few weeks that I have eaten out of decision rather than desire.  I'm not getting worse, but right now I'm not getting better either.  I have hit a crazy plateau.  Being somewhere in the middle aggravates me more than words can say.  I want to be better or sick, not in the STUCK in the middle!

I feel rather hypocritical that I have a healthy view of food when I think of others but not when I think of me.  When I'm talking with someone else I can see how food is not the enemy.  When I'm dealing with me, however, it's a different story entirely.  I'm so tired of seeing food as the enemy or at best seeing it as a necessary evil.  I so want to enjoy food the way that I expect others to.

And so, at this point of recovery plateau I must live by the immortal words of Dory.....

"Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming."