Let these words become my house...

I got help today.

After nearly a year of denial, I finally submit to the hard realization that I am as sick now as I have ever been. My life looks different now - I live in a different state, have a different job, and live at home with my family. But despite the differences, the voices in my head are no quieter, and I am still terrified to consume anything. I obsess over apples and devour entire containers of ice cream in maddened hunger and despair.

I'm tired of fighting.

But I'm also tired to pretending that I have no problem. I'm fed up with the secrets and lying and "double life." I'm exhausted from trying to be the perfect teacher, student, coworker, and athlete... all the while trying desperately to cover up the anorexic and bulimic thinking and behavior that dominates nearly all of my waking hours.

I'm lonely. I don't want to talk with my family - somehow it makes it worse. So I told my doctor. Who held me while I cried, and then gave me medicine to help me calm down and handle the bottled anxiety. And today I went to a support group - and found several counselors who seem to at least know where to begin.

Just talking about my struggle - NAMING IT - and listening while others names their own had enormous power. I feel alone and crazy... every day. But at this place, there is space open all the time for people - just like me - to come and try to overcome the disease that has crawled into each and everyone of us.

When I left, one of the therapists hugged me. She said, "I survived an eating disorder. It's why I now do what I do. You seem ready. I know you can survive, too."

Dear Lord, let this be true. I am terrified, but also filled with a radical hope that makes me want to utter the words "I can get better." Maybe. I think I want to try again.

Let these words become my house. As Hafiz says, "The words we speak become the house we live in." So let this be my house. Of hope. Blindly... but boldly.

What Doesn't Bend, Breaks

This winter, my bones literally broke beneath me. I was running so fast and driving myself so hard that my body itself crumbled. As I sat waiting in the doctor's office, I realized that my rigid and relentless drive for perfection had finally become unsustainable. I didn't want to bend - on anything. Nothing was good enough, prepared enough, thin enough, or lovable enough. I was not enough. And I couldn't bend until I was.

Instead, I broke. I crumbled. The stress broke me.

Officially, my hip and pelvis broke from running - two stress fractures. But in reality, the stress causing the fractures ran much deeper than an athletic overuse injury. It was deep stress that had infiltrated every cell of my body - stress finally moved deep in my bones. Stress from the pressure of never feeling good enough - never being perfect enough - never being able to rest and accept myself and my efforts as the imperfect revelations they are in this imperfect world.

I am not perfect. And I hate myself because of it. I work relentlessly to ensure that no one will see my hideous imperfections - I CANNOT bend. I am too frightened to let go of my effort and let people see the disorganized, un-put-together mess that may be in me. Bending means submitting to my ultimate imperfection and accepting that I will never be able to do it all.

But if I do not bend, I will surely break again. My bones will shatter. And I cannot sustain another crumbling, another broken heart, another broken hip. I can't risk it - but bending or breaking are both terrifying. What doesn't bend, breaks. Ah.

Staying in the Debate

In my eating disorder group last Tuesday, one of my therapists asked me what purpose "staying in the debate" has in my recovery. She was referring to the amount of time and energy I spend thinking about whether or not I have an eating disorder and whether or not I want to "buy into" treatment - I am essentially constantly debating the process of recovery and evaluating how deeply I want to dive into all of this.

So, what good is the debate? What is it doing for me - what purpose does it serve? After yet another afternoon of debating my presence in the Kaiser eating disorder treatment program, I decided the time was ripe to pick at this question a little bit, and see what raw bone lays underneath.

Why do I "stay in the debate?" I stay here because I am convinced, still, that I do not fully qualify as eating disordered, that I am not a "good enough" anorexic to need treatment. I don't feel skinny enough or sick enough. I don't feel like I need to follow a recovery meal plan because I'm not truly eating disordered.

I stay in the debate because it allows me to waddle in the pool of treatment without being fully submerged in the water. While I debate whether or not to dive in, I avoid actually being in the water at all, and I can stay timidly on dry land. Rather than spending my energy eating, using DBT skills, or working through my disease, I argue both sides of an interminable argument. I don't actually have to do anything, and I can procrastinate treatment in an underhanded way.

But it's not that simple. I am locked in this argument and refusing to surrender to either side - even though I realize that the debate itself serves the eating disorder's control in my life. The debate feels important and symbolic because I am trying to exert independence in my life again - and isn't blind surrender of control (even to the wise Kaiser ED team) just moving my servitude from one master to another? When does this process become MINE? When do I get to make my own decisions, eat in a way that feels good to me? Without anorexia OR a team of doctors telling me what to do? When will I be able to trust my body and my instincts again? When will I get to declare that my life is MINE again, with all of the idiosyncratic patterns and eating habits that develop when a person is living fully?

I want to get better, and I know that I need to let go of control. But I want to get better in MY way. Even as I write this, I realize that my desire to do things in MY way is maladaptive - yet another tool of the eating disorder. But ED treatment is so uncomfortable, and I am so tired of being "sick." I spent an hour today on the phone with my family members justifying stopping treatment altogether - my argument was that I was tired of seeing myself as "sick" and tired of my eating disorder being the center of my life. I am ready for fullness; I want to build up other parts of my life and accentuate other neuroses and wisdom. I want to stay in my comfortable "yoga/meditation/reading" zone and push myself in ways that feel safe and non-threatening. I don't want to push at ED anymore.

I know. I know. This is exactly why I SHOULD be going to treatment. I have a poster on my wall about the "dignity of daring" by Pema Chodron. Essentially it says that true friends are those who push us past what is comfortable, the people who shove us off of familiar rafts to unfamiliar shores. Perhaps staying in treatment - for me right now - is the highest spiritual discipline. It doesn't look like anything I expect of spiritual growth - it's not yoga or meditation and it certainly involves very few moments of enlightened peace. Instead it feels like a fucking battle every second of the day; I just want a flippin' break. Can't I just stay on my yoga mat, happily chanting with my eyes shut and dreaming of lavender? Isn't that the REAL way to spiritual enlightenment?

WHY DOES MY LESSON HAVE TO SUCK SO BADLY?
And when can I stop? I want control over everything; the fact that recovery presents such a threat to my independence and autonomy is probably exactly why I need it. Damn it, Pema Chodron. Maybe ED treatment is the friend shoving me off of my little brown raft, pulling my little pink heart towards an unfamiliar shore.

Ahk. When I started writing this entry twenty minutes ago, I was set on the idea of quitting formal ED treatment. Blast. What an annoying insight. I guess I'll return again and hesitantly put another questioning toe in the water, and stay in the debate some more. Woof.

Dear Meditation

Dear Meditation,

Thank you for aligning everything in my life when a lesson needs learning. If I don't get it the first time, I am so very grateful for the incessant reminders that pop up until I finally realize what it is that You are trying to teach me. Apparently sometimes I just need a swift kick, while other times I need to be bulldozed with the message I'm meant to hear.

Thanks for the annoying evolving process of Enlightenment.
Yours,
Leah

Seriously.
I just got back from meditation, and the question I keep asking myself is, "seriously?" How is it possible that when there is something we need to hear, it comes up over and over again until we internalize it and finally start to listen? Just yesterday I had a painful awakening about my self-righteous arrogance - the belief that I am "too good" or "too different" to have an eating disorder or submit to the traditional recovery process - and ever since, I've been continuously bombarded with messages about egotism, arrogance, and letting go of the identities to which I cling so fiercely.

My daily Annie Dillard reading was about the childhood realization that we are not invincible - when we realize that we aren't going to grow up to be be a Major League pitcher or the winner of the Nobel Prize for mathematics. There is a point in our growing up when we come face to face with the truth: we are not The Best. We aren't going to shatter every world record or be outstanding in every pool we enter. In our childhood realities, we can do and be anything we desire, and I, at least, never pretended to be "average." We don't dream about being normal - we envision a world in which we are the stars, the headliners, and the centers of attention. For people like us, the rules of this world just don't apply (Hello, Gravity?).

But at some point, our internal realities come crashing into an external world with rules that do in fact apply to us, a world where we aren't always the only shining star in the sea. We get cut from the basketball team, get deemed a geek and relegated to a certain cafeteria table, and break our arms when we jump off the roof fully expecting to fly. Over time, we come to see ourselves as special, but not set apart from everyone else in some sort of distant "Different League."

Apparently, I missed the last part of this lesson. I am still hooked on the notion that I am exempt from the rules and limitations of this world; I see myself as set apart in a "Different League" where being normal is not acceptable and being average could jeopardize my club membership. I hold myself to unreasonable standards, and justify everything I do with the understanding that I am different, better, and "terminally unique." Yep. If this isn't undercover self-righteous arrogance, I don't know what is.

Enter meditation. I walked into the meditation space tonight with my head held high, after a solid day of committed recovery and spirituality. I had eaten all day, spent time reading, writing, and using treatment skills to surf through waves of self doubt and deprecation. I sat on the cushion breathing in all of the things from which I'd rather run away... and before I knew it, I had been swept into a deep visualization. I saw myself in the midst of a great crowd, with everyone dressed alike in white robes. We were indistinguishable; I was one of the crowd. It was terrible. I thought I was going to lose it - all I wanted was to be seen, to be noticed, to be identified and set apart. And yet, here I was, in this space in my meditation where I was just one of many, truly equal, beings.

I still can't shake the feeling of terror that overcame me during the sit. Who am I, if not separate and identified? How will I survive? My ego is fighting hard to survive, and in response, the Universe keeps firing all of these pieces at it to encourage me to bravely begin the process of separating my True Self from the False Identity I cling to for dear life.

And in case I missed the memo that my lesson for the week is about my arrogance and refusal to see myself as an equally lovable (no more, no less) sentient being, the Universe pounded home the message again - following the sit, our meditation leader gave her dharma talk on the ways in which we use our identities to protect and shield ourselves. She talked about how we use identity as a way to render ourselves visible in a world that has often crushed us and made us feel unlovable and invisible. When we are hurt, we react protectively - we cling to our identities and they become the life rafts to which we cling, making sense of the world by dividing ourselves into small boxes and camps where we can be safely recognized and named.

Letting go of these identities - the labels and ideas that have grown around us to protect us and make us feel like we are set apart from the millions of other beings around us - is an incredibly frightening endeavor. During our meditation leader's talk, I wandered back into the crowd of white-robe wearing equals, and found that without the shield of my distinct identity (as a Minnesotan lesbian, college graduate, anorexic...) I was lost. Without those things, I am terrified of becoming invisible - being lost in the crowd - and not having any sense of direction and purpose.

So, apparently my ego is tied to the labels and boxes in which I've found visibility, security, and comfort. What does that mean? It probably means that my process of awakening involves a deep consideration of my identity and a quest to find peace in the sea of white anonymous robes. I hate it, but I have to learn to let go of the idea that I am, somehow, too different to reach outside of myself - too good to settle for average, normal experience - too self-righteous to submit to eating disorder treatment and recovery. Maybe I am not "too special" or "too different" or "too good" for the experience of life. Maybe it is the belief that I am "too... whatever" that is preventing me from experiencing my body in this time and place in a fully wakened state.

Lesson for the week. What am I scared of in becoming "normal?" Why do I panic when I think about becoming nameless, and faceless? What is there in my arrogance that is protecting me, and shielding my ego from letting go into a state of truth and clarity? How do I even begin to put on my white robe, walk in the crowd, and find peace in my soul without being "set apart" somehow?

Until I find out, I'm sure the Universe will continue to throw messages in my direction. It's painful to get hit, but how else will I awake?

Terminal Uniqueness

I write again tonight, reaching deeply for a strong dose of humility and patience. I have been treading water in my recovery in the past month - pretending to "do the work" without being truly committed or dedicated. I go to meetings, struggle through therapy, and do a lot of thinking and talking about my eating disorder. But through all the talk, I've remained addicted to the control of anorexia and have absolutely refused to let go the reigns of control that bind me to the disorder. I haven't been eating - I've been refusing to sleep normally and the survival eating mechanism inside me has been in overdrive. My days are spent planning for the day when I finally will be "ready" to surrender to treatment, and obsessing about my body and the weight I have gained in the past months.

I just got back from an ED drop-in group, which proved to be painfully humiliating. I was trying to articulate why I'm having such a difficult time in treatment - why I still can't bring myself to fully trust the process or treatment team. I was explaining that I completely agree with their meal plans and guidelines for other people, but that I see myself as exempt somehow - I don't qualify to eat three meals a day and two snacks because I am, somehow, different. I need to eat less for some reason - I need to exercise more because of my athletic background - my body won't know how to respond to food in the same way as other people. I can think of a hundred reasons to not surrender to treatment, because I am just NOT LIKE OTHER PEOPLE.

One of my therapists heard this and bluntly said, "yep, that's common. In 12-step programs, it's called terminal uniqueness. It's this idea that your addiction is somehow MERITED because YOU are different - you have special circumstances - no one could possibly understand." Essentially, her point was that I am holding this self-righteous idea that I don't NEED the same treatment plan as everyone else because I think that I should be exempt - I am too good and too different to be "normal." I don't want to play by the normal rules, because I see myself as set apart from the group.

THIS STUNG.

The minute it came out of her mouth, I felt my defenses rise. She was right - I don't see myself as one of the group - I see myself in an entirely different league than the people for whom this treatment is designed. I see myself as needing different guidelines and standards because I have always been naturally thin, because I am a long-distance runner, because I have friends who are thinner than me (which, in my ED logic, means that I should be worried about LOSING, not GAINING, weight).

It stung because it's true.

I asked what it would take to push myself from "pretending to be in treatment" (showing up for meetings and talking about changing) to actually surrendering to the process (which would mean trusting my body, submitting to weight gain, and ACTUALLY EATING instead of just planning and thinking about it). My therapist replied with another stinging reality check: "humility."

Owwwwwww.
It hurts. I know it's true, and it sucks. I know it's true because every molecule in my body reacted... it was as if the word itself vibrated in me. I was so uncomfortable my breath caught in my chest... I HATE BEING TOLD THAT I NEED HUMILITY.

Being seen as arrogant is something that terrifies me - probably because I know that my inner self-composition is based largely on the idea that I am inherently different than (and thus, set apart from and superior to) other people. I know that I am deeply arrogant, and I hate it. It is a part of myself that I try desperately to hide - I don't even admit to myself that it is there. To have someone in a public space call me out on this great "secret" was humiliating, humbling, shame-producing, and defense-inducing.

So now, here I sit, well over an hour after hearing a therapist tell me that my eating disorder is surviving because of my arrogance... and I can't help but think, "no, that's not me. I'm different. The rules don't apply to me because of blah blah blah..."

Maybe I am terminally unique. Maybe that's why this stings so badly and why I am having such a strong reaction to it. I don't want to be normal - I want to stand out from the crowd. If I don't, how will I survive? My entire identity rests in being valuable and worthwhile by outdoing others... what happens if I am just one of many? Who will I be then?

I have to be special... we're told from our childhood that we are unique and special people. I believed it all, and then spent all of my time trying to stand out and find the spotlight by proving my exceptional "specialness." If I'm not special after all, what am I?

How do I LEARN humility? What does humility look like? How can I humble myself without degrading myself or declaring absolute self-failure? Every time I try humility, I end up undervaluing myself, my knowledge, my experience and opinions... I swing from one end of the pendulum to the other.

But I don't want to cling to terminal uniqueness forever. I don't want to continue to see myself as "exempt" from the rules of life - from the process of ED treatment - from the harrowing reality of anorexia. So where is the middle ground? And how do I go about letting go of the only identity I've ever known... the identity instilled in me from my very birth... that I am a "special" and "unique" child in the world?

Funny Little Hybrid Child

I am a funny little hybrid child; currently studying Buddhist philosophy and practicing yoga, believing fully in the earth-based spirituality offered in Paganism, and a Christ-doubting, but God-loving, Lutheran Christian.

It works for me.

My dad is a Lutheran pastor, which means that I always get a good dose of Christianity when I'm home to visit. We Lutherans are "grace-lovers," which is to say that we believe that there is nothing we can do or say to make us more or less loved by the divine. I embrace the idea of grace with open arms, but as a perfectionist constantly trying to prove my worth, I must admit that I still cannot understand how grace could extend to a being as "imperfect" as myself.

The psychologist Carl Jung emphasizes that it is only when we fully love and embrace our "dark parts" that our lights can shine freely in this world. Similarly, the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron writes continuously about the importance of accepting ourselves as we are - wherever we are - however we might be. This means opening to all of our pieces - the broken and dirty ones, the cravings, the addictions, the imperfections - without hardening ourselves against them, wishing they were gone, or trying to cover them up. In a word, trying to love ourselves with the same grace my dad believes in so surely, the same foundational concept inherent in all of my funny hybrid spiritual practices. Accept myself as I am, know that I need not change or do anything to be "better," "more worthy," or "more loved." Live with confidence in grace and impermanence, accepting imperfection and pushing nothing away in this world's experience.

My job is to be open. To be open enough that the universe and the divine can sing through me, blowing through the channel of my being freely and unrestricted. My constant worries block the spirits from flowing through me, obstructing the song that I was meant to produce. When I worry about my body being perfect enough to be worthy of use, I block the channel and destroy my song. When I try to control the tune, tempo, quality, and audience, everything seems to fall apart, and I lose the divine grace that was meant to flow through me without my constant intrusion, doubts, and worries.

I've been worried a lot today - more than usual, I've been acutely aware of what I'm eating, how much I've exercised, and how much weight I've gained. Instead of dropping into the present moment, reflecting on my breath and the impermanent sensations I am experiencing, I've been stuck in a constant string of "what ifs." What if I get fat? What if I don't find a job when I move to Colorado? What if I can't find the true purpose of my life, and wander aimlessly forever? When will I get to live deep in the mountains? When won't I be trapped in debt? When will I be able to fully release from all of this future-boding and rest in the grace of this present moment?

In the middle of all of this chest tightening, breath confining anxiety, I picked up my dad's devotional book and read this - a favorite of mine from when I studied Christianity with slightly more fervor than I do today:

"Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ."
Phil. 4: 6-7

I suppose this is a similar vein to the Alcoholics Anonymous foundational thought that a "higher power" is needed to get through any addiction. I love control; I've been resisting the idea that I need help to get through my eating disorder for years. I've wanted to recover alone, prove my strength and discipline, and I've refused all sorts of intervention (both human and divine) with the stubborn resolution that I could prove that I am good enough by recovering on my own.

And now, I'm being held like a small child, fed by my parents who fix my food and keep me company. I sleep during the day and have monitored exercise periods. I've started relying entirely upon what my mom and dad say about the world - when they tell me that I haven't eaten too much, I try to trust them, and rest in the peace that comes from releasing control.

I guess that it's finally time to start relinquishing control on a larger level, trusting that there is something bigger taking care of me - something bigger, even, than my dear parents. Trusting, maybe, that if I stop worrying, the universe will hold me, and that the divine God will in fact sing through me once I stop trying so hard. And the song might just be peace, a peace that passes all understanding because it comes without being earned or deserved. It comes as a song of grace, once I release enough to open myself to the universal instrument I was meant to be.

And as a funky hybrid child, born of many spiritual persuasions, all of this seems to fit and make sense. All things are impermanent, our experience is ours to feel and not protect ourselves against. I am connected to all things - the earth, wind, water, and fire - and am part of all things. My song is not mine, but simply a sound produced in the channel of being I currently occupy. It's a song of grace, impermanence, and light. It's a song of peace and letting go, of accepting and loving the instrument I am, with all of its perfect flaws and imperfect desires for control.

So tonight, I sing. Wild hopes.

Marshmallow Courage

Today I feel like I'm walking on the rim of a ferocious volcano, with red hot lava spitting up at me as I twirl and dance, holding my balance simply by staying in motion. I've been afraid of falling into the pit for so long, and I've avoiding hiking up the volcano for years because I know that a fall is possible - even inevitable.

My younger sister, a brave and bold traveler of this planet, just returned from a grand adventure to Guatemala and Costa Rica. My mom and I met her in Minneapolis shortly after she returned, and we were blessed to hear some of the details of her adventure. If she wasn't camping in the rainforest or jumping through a dark hole in some cave with only a candle and her optimism to hold onto, she was talking with strangers, being led to people's homes to see their weavings, and hiking up the side of the Pacayo Volcano.

For those who follow the news, my baby sister hiked up the side of THE volcano that only TWO DAYS later erupted and killed several people. Not only did she hike Pacayo, but she roasted marshmallows over the hot lava.

She is brave in so many ways - and always has been. She has a spontaneous spirit and a bold trust in this universe that I have always admired. She rides the scary rides, follows the rules only until she finds them ridiculous, and has a confidence about her that I can only hope to one day emulate.

So, back to the volcano. Today I've been stressed, anxious, and worried. I have been at this recovery thing - at full speed - for two weeks. I feel like after talking about getting better and planning to "recover" for the past several years, I finally started hiking up the side of my own "volcano." And now... two weeks later, I am standing on the rim and peering into the lava beneath me, terrified of being burned.

Today I was bored. I was stressed about the future and had a difficult time bringing myself back to the present moment. I ate a lot, panicked a lot, and had a DANGEROUS day. A full box of Hot Tamales this afternoon; hamburger, french fries, AND a milk shake for dinner. I am okay; slightly anxious and uncomfortable, but managing it. I feel like today I truly did wobble alongside the rim of this volcano, playing dangerously close to the edge.

And then I realized... what if I took a breath, calmed down, and trusted that I could balance on the edge? What if, instead of freaking out about what MIGHT happen, I took a cue from my little sister and simply made the journey to the rim a grand adventure? What if, instead of running and wobbling along the rim, I stopped to roast marshmallows?

Trusting that I will be okay is a difficult thing for me. Jumping into a dark hole with no assurance of what awaits me sends me into a panic; following a stranger to see their mother's weaving at a small home (in who knows where) makes my heart race. But my sister just jumps. With grace and trust, she knows that everything will work itself out; and if it doesn't, she knows that we aren't in control anyway, and that such worries are senseless.

My body knows what to do and how to regulate itself. Too much food is uncomfortable, but it doesn't have to result in panic. What if, instead, I prayed in thanksgiving for the feast? What if I stopped running scared and brought out the marshmallows instead?

I love telling people that "life's a party, but no one's going to throw it for you." I find myself often saying this to others, but rarely able to take my eyes away from my fear long enough to relax into the party waiting for me. When I think about my sister, it brings me to tears to realize how proud I am that she ALREADY lives this way.

So, my baby sister will be my guide for today (and, probably, forever). I'll grow into some of her boldness and hopefully give her something in return. And maybe one day, we will roast marshmallows over this volcano together, laughing about the journey, and grateful for the feast.