Distraction, Denial, and the Wagon

Where have I been for the last couple of days? Why haven't I been writing, when this space seems to be an incredible key in unlocking the mess of my heart and my mind? Three words: distraction, denial, and the wagon.

First, distraction.
I have such intense anxiety that eating and then running away - finding something to occupy my hands and my mind - seems to be the only way to avoid the fullness panic that leads to my evil cycle of purging, starving, and what my nutritionist calls "compensatory eating." I don't yet know how to eat and "sit" with the feeling of fullness; I need distraction to get through the high-level panic that I still experience every time I eat.

As a result, I've been trying to fill my days with errands, work, and play - so that I will have as little time as possible to be overrun by the voices in my head. I've been spending time with friends and diving into the many hobbies I have collected in the past several years. I find myself singing and taking long walks and harvesting herbs... anything to get out of my house and out of my head. And slowly, it's working. I'm eating - and tricking myself into sitting through the fullness that usually devolves into immense panic.

My heart and brain have also been deeply occupied in the last week by the possibility of a new relationship - something that seems to have crawled deeply inside me when I wasn't looking. It is definitely the wrong time; there are so many reasons to be scared and run away. I haven't opened my heart to anyone in a grand, long time... the process seems hard and foreign. But I'm realizing that my heart deeply wants to be opening, and that in doing so, I'm having to surrender in exactly the same way I'm doing in this recovery process.

Being distracted has been wonderful; I feel like a "normal" twenty-something! I have some drama, some love, and friends again - people I want to spend time loving.

But in the midst of these glorious distractions, I've been worried about being too distracted - enough that I forget the importance of this battle in which I am so deeply engaged. It's nice to find my brain occupied by "love" instead of diet plans and isolation, but I also haven't been as dedicated to doing the work of recovery in the last two weeks. I've felt better; things have been easier. But I also haven't been confronting the beast inside me with the same unsheltered intensity to which I am accustomed. I can't forget that I'm in battle, or my lovely distractions will become another excuse ED uses to keep me sick. If I'm too busy to be diligent about eating, ED will win.

So, distraction. A wonderful tool - but one to be watched closely. I don't have to be miserable; my current distractions are bringing me great happiness. And I don't have to live in a little bubble in order to do recovery "right." In fact, part of this process is learning to live a multi-faceted life... something that my eating-obsessed brain has been unable to comprehend for a long time. But I can't forget to keep working.

Onto the second piece of all of this: denial.
I have been distracted and busy, and I'm feeling happier and more alive than I have in the past several years. In fact, I've been so happy that ED's convinced me that I am already "better," and don't have to work any harder. Watching my behavior in the past couple of days, I realized that I am again back into an old pattern - I have been starving, eating, and purging with escalating intensity. But I don't feel sick. Usually, the ED process leaves me exhausted and miserable, but in the past couple of days, I have been so "happy" that I've been writing off my purging episodes and meal-skipping as events that "don't count." I don't feel sick, so even though my behavior has been intensely eating disordered, I've been in deep denial about my "slipping" away from recovery.

My distractions have led me to a place of denial - I am lying to myself and to people around me about how the past few days have been. Because I'm not altogether miserable, it's much easier to pretend things are fine and that I'm still on the recovery "track."

Honesty time - I haven't been "succeeding" in the last few days. I purged on Tuesday night - and again on Wednesday afternoon - and spend all day Thursday lost in the "eating disorder woods." Even yesterday (Friday), when I tried desperately to return to "recovery," I slipped. I wiggled out of a dinner party, and spent the evening alone and isolated, trying to figure out how to starve and purge my way back to sanity.

Which leads me to the last piece of today's introspection: the wagon. In Alcoholics Anonymous, they always say that addicts who relapse into their maladaptive behavior patterns have "fallen off the wagon." In the past several days, while I've been wandering through a space of distraction and denial, I haven't written because in my heart I know I haven't been "on the wagon."

The stupid thing about this damn wagon is that once you're on it, it's still easy to fall off. And once you're off of it, it's unrealistically difficult to climb back on. So staying on the wagon is a trick, to say the least.

My therapist told me yesterday that when we throw up, a chemical relaxant is released; anxious purgers get addicted to it and use it to calm themselves down. So, once I purge, it's damn hard to stop the pattern. I think, "this has got to be the last time," but when my anxiety skyrockets, throwing up really does "make me feel better." Climbing back on the wagon seems insensible, especially because once I'm underfed again, my brain stops being able to process anything logically and rationally.

This is all to say that staying on the wagon is hard work, and important work. If I fall, all is not lost. It's just a lot harder to crawl back on than to maintain my seat once I'm up. And if I'm not careful, any small thing can knock me off - forcing me back to the space where I'm fighting to even understand why the wagon is beneficial in the first place.

So, I haven't written for several days for those reasons. It comes down to distraction, denial, and the wagon.

I am currently engaged in something called "dialectical behavioral therapy." This means that instead of seeing every relapse as a failure, from which I have to start everything over again, I simply "recommit" every day - every hour - every minute - to this process. This is an incredibly elusive concept for my brain to comprehend - how can I commit to eating dinner if i spend the afternoon eating and throwing up? Don't I need to wait, get clean again, fast until my eating sins are gone, and THEN begin again? Don't I need to wipe the slate clean, and then work to earn my way back onto the wagon?

This kind of therapy is like grace. It says, "no." You never fall off the damn wagon. You just get knocked once in a while. No slip is too big, nothing makes the work I've already done irrelevant. My spot in recovery is not negated by my tangential voyages into the "eating disorder wilderness," I'm trying to learn that my mistakes mean nothing more than that I am a human, who must learn from her mistakes the imperfection of this process.

I've been avoiding writing because I haven't been feeling like I'm working "hard enough" or doing this in the "right way." But I woke up this morning and realized that despite my distraction, denial, and attempts to leap off of the wagon, I'm still on top of it. I just need to wake up and act like it.

Audre Lorde says, "You cannot find peace by avoiding life." In the past several days, I have been intentionally avoidant, convincing myself that I don't have time to write or that my eating disordered behaviors haven't "counted" as relapses and slips. But there is no peace in avoidance; there is no recovery in dishonesty.

I commit, in this moment, to this process - to all of the success and failure that comes with it. I'm not doing it perfectly, but I'm going to try and keep doing it any way, even though I am not "pure" and certainly haven't "earned" my way back onto the wagon. I ate lunch this afternoon - despite not wanting to do it. It was harder than it had been earlier this week - already my relapsed behavior has set me back a bit. I struggled to get it down and rationalize that I deserved to eat it and keep it. But I did. I'm having trouble with the concept that even if I mess up, I need to keep moving forward. But I want to keep moving forward, and I know that I won't get anywhere by dwelling in the past and fixing my mistakes - or by avoiding them by refusing to give them voice or attention in my heart and writing.

So, from the top of the wagon, though undeserved, I write this... in honesty.

Ah, what then?

My eyes are sleepy and my fingers are itching - I have a thousand things racing through my soul in this moment and the words are sitting heavily beneath my eyelids. I have had an exhausting string of days, stumbling through this process and finding a steady and calming wisdom from the imperfection of it all.

One of my favorite poems is an old one, by Samuel Coleridge. It goes something like this...

What if you slept?
And what if, in your sleeping, you dreamed?
And what if, in your dream, you picked a strange and beautiful flower?
And what if, when you woke, you were holding the flower in your hand?
Ah, what then?

Yes - what then? For several weeks this poem has been lurking in my brain, sliding in between my conscious mind and panicked body. What if I were to live as if all the flowers so delicately plucked in my dreams were real? What if I were to live as if I could, with intention, wake holding the beautiful and strange things for which I so desperately long?

I think that right now my learning is somewhere in this wisdom. I am always so paralyzingly afraid of being discovered as imperfect - what if, in my best effort, I still fail? What if I make the wrong decision? What if someone sees me as anything less than everything? What if I mess up? Hurt someone, even with my most honest and tender intention? What if I can't "do better?"

Fear has, for as long as I can remember, dictated a course for my life. I studied hard, ran for miles in bitter cold weather, and have starved myself in pursuit of some goal or another. There's always something - an art project, a new race, a new way to adequately measure and determine my worth.

But it isn't just that I'm afraid to fail these tests - I'm starting to realize that I'm more afraid of finding out that even when I have given my best effort, it might not be enough. So I've run the gamete, giving my best effort to the point of physical, emotional, and mental agony. In my younger life, this effort was always rewarded with some form of success - I was the fastest, strongest, smallest, smartest...

And my self-image evolved into just that: not simply the "best" at everything, but the one who would die trying before failing.

Here I sit, having built a life on the truth that my self worth is entirely based on my ability to suffer through something difficult that "average" individuals cannot. I can stare at a math textbook for hours, do sit-ups until my stomach muscles hurt so much that I cannot imagine ever laughing again, and starve while the rest of the world bemoans their failed diet plans. And in my adult life, I haven't received the same success and accolades as I did when I was young; I am therefore convinced that I must not be trying hard enough.

Enter the scariest monster eating me alive: fear. If I can't be perfect, then I'll die trying. So logically, to survive in a world where perfection is something that even Mary Poppins can't achieve, I have had to stop trying. If I give all of my attention to something, and still fail, what then? The sun may still rise, but what will it mean? What will be my reason for being here, in this place where the strongest sense of meaning I've found lies in my toiling and struggling to prove myself worthy of something - of anything.

But what if the game changed? What if, instead of letting fear guide me in my decisions and movement, I decided to let love in? What if, instead of needing to ensure success (by taking only those risks in which I can struggle toward perfection), I moved through this life trusting that what I feel, in each moment, is already whole and complete? What if I trusted my body, stopped trying to control the outcomes, and ceased worrying about what will be? What if the game changed and I no longer lived trying desperately to prove that I can be more than I am? What if I picked the flowers that I find rare and beautiful in this instant, trusting that my desire is enough?

And most importantly, what if those flowers, when I woke, were still in my hands?
Ah yes, what then?

The last couple of days, I've been fighting to stop the chatter about needing to do or be anything but the imperfect creature I am. Instead of trying to make myself "better" by proving that I'm worthwhile (by struggling hard and and pushing to desperation), I'm fighting to just take what I am. I'm quieting the worries about being imperfect - as it is already most certainly a certainty - and focusing instead of something else... anything else...

I'm finding that I am waking with flowers in the morning, and that sometimes, I pick sour grass and dandelions. Sometimes the world laughs at the flowers I've chosen, other times I wake up and wonder why I thought the flower in my hand was beautiful in the first place. It's a struggle. But at least the flowers are there.

I'm eating. I'm screwing up. I haven't skipped a meal since Friday, and I haven't purged since Thursday morning. I've eaten desserts, pasta, and pizza. I had a scone an hour after breakfast on Sunday... just because I felt like it. I don't always feel good, but I'm trying to label that feeling and then let it go.

I almost purged this afternoon. I was working, and felt a wave of panic and anxiety wash over me with outrageous intensity. I ate a cookie, and then some of another one... and was ready to finish my job for the day, and finish doing the damage I entertain in order to wash the other damage away.

Midway through cookie #2, I realized that I had a choice. And I also remembered the new rule: if I eat it, I keep it. I thought about Coleridge's poem, and wondered what life would be like if the rules really did change. What if purging isn't an option?

I didn't finish the cookie. I cried instead. And felt nastily imperfect. I went home from work, trying to surrender to the absolute mess surrounding me. And instead of purging, I cleaned my apartment. I didn't feel "better," but I did feel released from a usually unrelenting pressure. I felt human. Not "good," just human.

It's not going to be perfect, I guess. But for tonight, I'm going to pick the flower that I find strange and beautiful - not the one that is the most difficult to find or the most lovely or the most likely to earn me the acknowledgment I so deeply crave. I'm going to try continuing to trust that what I want to choose is right - not because it's the "best," but because it is, in this moment, what I want. And even though I'm not perfect, I am going to trust that my imperfections and failures don't make me "bad" and don't negate my intention to be "good."

And yes, what if that flower is still in my hand tomorrow? Ah, what then? A wonderful wondering, but something to consider when I wake. I will not ravage the field of wildflowers tonight in order to "get it right" - so that I can be proud in the morning. I'm going to try and twist and twirl through the field instead, and let tomorrow bring what it may. Questions, wonderings, mistakes, and all. Instead of focusing on "what then," I'm praying for the grace to trust my heart in answering the question, "what NOW?"

If You Eat It, KEEP It

I am holed up again, in a coffeehouse haven, having had a victorious day.
First, I did NOT purge last night. I made it through until this morning, and woke up feeling proud and ready to stay on the healthy track.

In group therapy we've talked a couple of times about something called "apparently irrelevant behaviors." This is stuff that isn't necessarily directly related to my eating disorder, but enables me to continue starving and purging. So, when I schedule lunch meetings and then don't have time to eat lunch... or when I forget to bring my cream of wheat breakfast to work (which happened this morning), and then can't eat because nothing else feels "safe."

So, I skipped breakfast. I thought about trying to eat something else (I was in a bakery, for the love!), but I couldn't get to a place where I felt safe enough to eat something else without my anorexic brain labeling it a "binge." I didn't want to end up purging, so I didn't eat. I figured I would get home from work around 11AM, eat an early lunch, and have a bigger afternoon snack.

Enter more "apparently irrelevant behaviors." My coworker was having a rough day - I offered to finish her morning work so that she could go home and take care of herself. So, I didn't get home until almost one. I called my coworker when I got home and asked her if she needed a buddy - and she came over. I changed my clothes, planned on eating, and before I knew it she had arrived and we were deep in conversation. My stomach rumbled around 2:30, and I figured it was time to drink an Ensure.

I went to therapy at three, and told my therapist that I had eaten lunch - because I really thought that I had eaten. It wasn't until right before dinner when I realized that the food I had put out to eat was still on the counter, untouched.

So I skipped two meals. Now that I'm writing about my "victorious" day, I'm realizing that I wasn't as successful as I thought. I feel powerful when I'm starving - being hungry and empty makes me feel worth loving and enables me to "function" in the world. I thrive on adrenaline and the rush that comes when I know I'm "succeeding" at non-eating - something that most people strive for and cannot attain. Thus, it is often the case that on the days I label "good," I haven't eaten anything - my sick brain sees those days as success stories. Writing now about missing two meals, I still feel like today was victorious, but I'm also starting to see that I wasn't "recovering" at all.

Tonight I had dinner at the house of some friends. I had an enormous amount of anxiety about going - my friends both know I have anorexia and think the solution is simply "to eat!" I was worried about feeling pressured to eat lots of high calorie foods and feast with them - and worried about having to go home afterward and throw up their kindness.

The dinner party was wonderful. A bit stressful. A little uncomfortable. I felt a little bit too full, but I tried really hard to relax and embrace their generosity. It felt good to be "taken care of" and even better to let in the love offered to me. All in all, I had a good time, and even had ice cream for dessert. And I will not throw it up. I'm here waiting out the panic.

All night I've been thinking about something that Megan - my therapist and doctor - said to me this afternoon during our session. We were talking about trying to "sit" with the "binge" feeling, and replace all of my "food rules" with the simple rule that "if I eat it, I keep it." Meaning, NO PURGING. I wonder if this could work, because usually when I purge, it happens because I "decide" that I have eaten too much (or thought too much about food, or whatever), and then need to "finish" the binge in order to make purging physically possible. Essentially, I subjectively decide I have "binged," and then either objectively or subjectively eat in order to purge. But if purging is out of the game... then when I decide that I have "binged," I won't have throwing up as an option. Instead I'll have to think about whether or not I have truly "over-indulged." And Megan thinks that even if I really do overeat, I should try and "keep it." Which now seems impossible, but if the rules change and I follow them (goodness knows one of my strengths has always been rule-following), then who knows?

Whoa. This concept is big for me. Because if all of my food rules get replaced by this one... I HAVE to eat regularly. Otherwise, I'll get too hungry and push myself into compensatory eating, or I'll get terribly fat because I'll be eating huge quantities of food (that are, I think, sometimes just subjectively huge and are other times truly enormous). This could work.

Megan also thinks I should try and eat something every three hours. She suggested having an entire muffin for ONE snack; this blew my mind. It seems like WAY too much. But last Tuesday night, I purged because I felt hungry and didn't have a snack planned in the evening - so everything seemed off limits and unsafe. This week I am going to try having a "muffin snack," and even tonight at this little coffeehouse, I ordered a dessert bar with apricots and oatmeal because I knew that our dinner party happened hours ago, and that I'll still be awake for several hours. I am trying to ride this out, and so even though I'm not entirely hungry, I'm going to try and push the food.

I feel like last week went well. It wasn't perfect, but apparently, no one is. I had some victories, and made some progress. But most importantly, I was honest, which is a new and important tool in my arsenal for this war.

Four days forward, three nights back

I've been putting off writing this for two full days, and my stomach is in knots contemplating how to put into words the failings I've been stumbling through since Tuesday. But my commitment is to honesty; this writing is intended to keep me honest and accountable. So, as difficult as this is to reveal - somehow putting it in words makes it feel more real and permanent than leaving it in the dark - I am going to do my best.

So far, this writing has been difficult, but relatively "shame-free." I have been fighting and feeling deeply, but I haven't been skipping meals or purging and my writing - thus far - has been about my recovery "victories." Even though I didn't always feel good about it, I had a solid four days of eating "sobriety" this week, with three meals a day and no purging. And then I slipped.

Time to write about the dark pig that lives inside me. I've been slipping.
Guess what world? I can't even do recovery "right."

Tuesday night I came to my little coffeehouse shelter to write, and before I left I felt okay - almost arrogantly victorious. I drove home and was fine, but before I even put on my pajamas my head was screaming. I still don't know what set it off - my best guess is that something triggered ED (the funny name we give our eating disorders) in group therapy. Our session was centered on "nutrition information," and the women in my group were really focused on what will happen to our bodies when we start eating regularly. They want to know if they will lose weight, or stay the same, or feel differently. I have the same questions, but for some reason the answers provided by the nutritionist made me feel like I was doomed to become a genetically fat, abnormal, angry woman.

Here's what the nutritionist said (according to the interpretation ED heard): "This is a hellish disease. You get everything you don't want - you gain weight, and have trouble losing it. Your cells will never again want to release fat. Your genetics determine your body type, and you have no actual control over your ideal healthy weight. If you don't get better, you'll be miserable and fat. If you do get better, your brain will work better and you'll be fat." My question remains - what if my brain gets "better," but really these crazy people are brainwashing me to think that fat is okay?

Yep, it's messed up.
Anyway, I kept thinking about our session and found myself getting more and more anxious. When I got home after writing, I tried to get ready for bed and distract myself by watching a movie, reading a book, and doing a crossword puzzle. I felt it coming, and didn't know how to stop it.

I was hungry. Stupid me. Hungry. How could I be hungry? I had eaten all day, and it was well past 10PM. I should have just gone to bed, but once I felt the hunger kick, I was stunned. The voice in my head said, "You fat pig. HOW CAN YOU BE HUNGRY? You're fat, and still eating. Pinch your love handles. Stop it. You failure. You're not hungry!"

Then I counted my calories from the day, rounding up and counting conservatively. I came up with 1600. That felt like far too much, even though I know that "regular women" need 1800-2200. And, I had worked a full pizza shift at the bakery, which amounts to me burning many, many more calories than average.

Enter the pig. While my anorexic mind screamed, "you're getting fat! Out of control and lazy. Stop it. You're not hungry!" the pig inside me was simultaneously fixated on eating something. I had to eat, the pig was rationalizing that I hadn't eaten enough during the day and that one snack could be okay. The two halves of my brain battled for twenty minutes, and I finally gave into the pig. I drank an Ensure, hoping that my anorexic brain wouldn't label it a "binge." But too late. I had screwed everything up.

The details of what happened next are still too hard to write about. I am embarrassed, and feel like I act like an untrained animal. Maybe I am an animal. The synopsis is this: once I decide that I have overeaten, I have to get rid of the food. If I don't, the world will know my failure. It will show up and I will get fat.

Purging is an awful, painful process. I hate it. I cry. I scream. It isn't something I want, but it's something that ED has convinced me I NEED. I think there are three main scenarios in which I get triggered to purge: One - I am hungry, but don't feel justified in eating (which, until the last few weeks, was absolutely every time I felt hunger. Now, I am trying to trust that I am allowed to eat three times a day). Two - I feel fat and need to do something to show myself that I am not satisfied, and won't just let it happen without a fight. And three - I need a distraction, and need to be numb for awhile. If I am obsessed with food and focused on eating, and purging, I am too stressed and occupied to deal with anything else.

So what happened on Tuesday night? I got hungry. I didn't know which voice to trust: the anorexic part of me saying, "you hungry pig," or the bulimic part saying, "you should really eat all of those cookies because you obviously aren't good enough to be a starving anorexic, and you ate all day today and are now, most definitely, going to be fat."

I don't know if I binge objectively or subjectively. All I know is that once I decide that I have "binged," I have to purge. And in order to purge, the more food and water I have in my stomach, the easier and less painful the process. Sometimes simply smelling food or entering a grocery store will set my brain off and I'll decide I've binged (without eating anything! I know that is insane, but in the moment, I honestly can feel myself getting fat). One time I woke up after having a dream about a potluck and knew that I had no choice for the morning - I had to purge.

Back to Tuesday night: I decide the Ensure was a binge. I couldn't deal with the fat feeling anymore. Instead of trusting my mom and my therapist (both of whom I had talked with earlier), I lost it. Instead of going to bed, I threw up (two episodes) and didn't sleep until almost 3AM.

This post isn't all bad news. Here's the big victory - even though I had a purging episode on Tuesday night, I woke up on Wednesday and ate breakfast anyway. I usually can't get myself to eat for days after an episode, because I feel like I need to wait until my system is cleansed entirely to try to be "good" again. But I ate all day Wednesday, and even had dinner!

But immediately after dinner, the voice started again. I had told my mom that I was going to the Vagina Monologues, and instead of calling her after I had eaten dinner, I sent her a quick text message and stayed inside my head. Instead of leaving my apartment to write, I tried to fight the voices but I also didn't leave because... because I knew they would win. I purged twice again on Wednesday night.

I got up this morning (Thursday) and thought, THIS HAS TO STOP! Mostly, because I don't have my scale anymore and I can't keep eating normally AND binging and purging. I will most definitely get fat doing something like that, and without a scale, I have no way to monitor it.

So, I went to work and ate breakfast. I was feeling full, but obstinate. I did not want to fail again today.

But then... I did. I ate the corner of a muffin, and before I knew it, I had convinced myself that I had screwed up and had no choice but to purge the afternoon away. I went home and had one episode - and decided that I needed to get back "on track" somehow. So, in addition to "cleansing" my body by throwing up everything I could imagine, I cleaned my entire apartment. Fresh start. My apartment is clean, and I had purged my way through lunch.

I have NEVER managed to eat dinner after a binge/purge episode. I can never rationalize it; there's no way that someone who has already eaten so much deserves to eat dinner. But tonight, I called my mom and told her that we needed to TALK on the phone after dinner instead of just texting, and I followed her plan to get a Subway sandwich for dinner. I ate it, with some Hot Tamales, and then biked my ass to the coffeehouse, where I am now sitting, stuffed and scared.

Usually, I starve until my survival mechanism forces me to eat "compensator-ily," and I always purge that food. But I know I still consume the calories, so I go back to starving. And I have always had a scale to make sure I'm not gaining weight.

I'm freaking out now. I have eaten regularly, AND binged/purged, AND I have no way to check my weight. Everything in me is screaming, "RUN AWAY NOW! You're already out of control."

But there's also a piece of me that is so frustrated, because while I was eating regularly and not purging earlier this week, I felt so accomplished. I was doing well; I was proud. And then I screwed up. And the thing with my disease is that once I fuck up, I have a damn difficult time rationalizing that I get a new start. I feel like I need to wait until I've been "purified" and "good" enough. To be pure and good, I must NOT EAT. It's an awful, evil cycle. I know that it's cyclical, but when I'm in it, I have a really hard time getting on a different track.

Moving back to the "healthy" track is why I'm writing this tonight. If I keep it hidden, I'll keep doing it. I'll keep getting away with it. I won't get better and I'll keep lying to my family and friends about how I've already eaten or am not hungry or can't go to the Vagina Monologues because of something or another. I'll stop answering my phone because between work, sleep, starving, binging, and purging, I have no time. And I don't want anyone to find out.

FIND OUT. I did it. Four times since Tuesday. I am dark with guilt.

BUT I REFUSE to keep lying. The only thing that's going to help me get better is to stop letting myself get away with it. Since MY brain is the thing that is sick, I can't trust myself to make sure that I'm behaving rationally and doing "well." My sick brain wants me to lie to everyone; my soul knows that when I stop lying, ED won't be allowed to get away with this stupid shit anymore. I would be lying if I said that I don't secretly WANT to get away with it... because I do. But half of me also wants to live a different life than this secret and dirty one. My work is to strengthen that half.

For today, this is still hard to write about. I am hoping that the honesty makes me brave and strong, and that eventually I can talk about the pieces of this that make me feel unworthy and eternally unlovable. And maybe, one day I'll realize that I don't have to "feel bad" about it (which, right now, feels like a naive and unrealistic dream), and that having this stupid and complicated disease doesn't make me a "bad" person.

I will end this and bike home. If I can get through one night without purging, tomorrow will be much easier. My friend Amanda is coming for the weekend, and my goal for tomorrow is to NOT STRESS about having her visit so that I don't set off an afternoon, "preemptive" purge before she arrives. One day at a time, one hour at a time. I am going to try desperately not to purge until she get here... and hopefully while she's here I can dig myself a little more deeply into the "healthy" track. Time for a couple more steps forward, right?

The Potato Incident

I feel asleep this afternoon in the middle of my living room floor, sprawled on the carpet. I had intended to rest my eyes for just a minute, and instead woke up forty-five minutes later. The world when I awoke looked different; my breath was slow and easy again... imagine! After a catnap in the sun. On the carpet, nonetheless!

I have had a bumpy day. There was less struggle than yesterday, but more emotion and "real life" to endure. I got annoyed at work because I had to finish a bunch of small tasks left undone by the morning's crew, and I was running desperately low on patience with one of our new members, who cannot get it together to roast his potatoes fast enough. These are typical emotions - I am sure of it - but every thing these days feels like a threat to the small recovering bird inside me that I am so trying so desperately to protect.

For example, let's take what I'll call "the potato incident." I needed the oven today by 2PM to finish baking my pizzas and get done with work. I can't use the oven if it is full of stupid Yukon potatoes being roasted by our newest member for tomorrow's pizza. I've talked to the "potato man" every Tuesday for six weeks, but it's the same thing... he's slow, and gets distracted, and before I know it, I'm stuck waiting for him to finish the damn potatoes (or onions, or beets, or whatever) and my schedule gets all screwed up.

Bleh. The best version of myself laughs at this, because I remember what it's like to be new and slow in the kitchen. I try desperately to practice empathy and patience, but some days, I just can't take it anymore.

So today. Potato man was still in the oven, and I needed to start baking my pizzas. I started to stress, and felt the familiar twinge of anxiety start in my right shoulder. It moved fast to my temples, and before I knew it, I was deep in a tailspin of worry about what I had eaten, how I had acted, and if I'd done a good enough job on the stupid pizzas. I needed to escape, I wanted to escape, and the only thing I could think about is how full I felt from having eaten my lunch.

Then the anorexic panic came, like clockwork. First, it's just something like potatoes... but then it's anxiety, and overwhelming fullness, and finally - panic. I start to play games in my head about how to skip my next snack, postpone drinking my Ensure, put off or avoid dinner...

This afternoon, before I knew it, I was knee-deep in panic and wanted to run away from it all - the bakery, this process, my little apartment full of recovery books... I couldn't feel anything except for unrelenting fullness. Within five minutes, I had myself convinced that I had overeaten all day and that I was an indulgent pig and bitch for not having more patience for my coworker.

Eventually, the potatoes came out and my pizzas got their time in the limelight. I finished work on time, but still felt overwhelmed, nervous, and out of control. Driving home, I felt my body expanding, my ugly thighs pressed against each other as a sick symbol of my loss of self control. "This is what happens when you eat," I thought. "Everything spins out of control - look at yourself. Where is your discipline? Where is your patience?"

The situation seemed unbearable - absolutely intolerable. And instead of thinking, "DAMN POTATO MAN!" my brain fixated on my swollen body. I arrived home exhausted and overwhelmed, feeling simultaneously hungry and too full to eat a thing. I couldn't decide what to eat, or how to manage swallowing an Ensure. All I wanted to do was be in control of my life again.

To be in control, I'm accustomed to practicing intense discipline and taking action. But today, I was too tired for discipline. This fight is wearing me out. I couldn't see straight... I was tired and confused and wanted to seize control but didn't want to sacrifice the steps I've been taking towards recovery. So, I laid down on the floor and said out loud, "I can't do this by myself. Help me. Please."

Forty-five minutes later, I awoke bathed in warm spring sunshine. And truly, the world looked different. I had no more control, but had rested enough to find some perspective. After all, everything in hindsight is just small potatoes. And those don't take long to roast at all.

It was incredible how much more free I felt - I still was too stressed to plan for dinner, but I managed to drink an Ensure, eat some yogurt, and talk to a friend. Then, I was off to group therapy, where I was expecting more breakthroughs and helpful tools. Instead, I was unimpressed, and ended up in a whirl of panic because I was so worried about not doing this process in the "right" way. I didn't want to eat dinner, but I heated some leftovers and ran off to this small coffeehouse - my little sanctuary where I can push out the crap I'm obsessing about and deal with my day in the only sane way I can imagine at this point: writing.

Maybe I just need another catnap, to awake with a new mind and a better view. The world always looks different when we get out of it for a minute or two... I have to remember that things are not permanent and that my emotions, feelings, and sensations will pass. This too shall pass. Hunger passes. Fullness passes. Even panic. I'm not good at sitting through things right now, but today I "slept" through some big feelings and rode a wave without constructing a new diet, eating and purging, or going running. It was a small victory in the sun, for which I am extremely grateful.

The Lion's Roar

"The Lion's Roar is the fearless proclamation that any state of mind, including the emotions, is a workable situation, a reminder in the practice of meditation. We realize that chaotic situations must not be rejected. Nor should we regard them as regressive, as a return to confusion. We must respect whatever happens in our state of mind. Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news."
Chogyam Trungpa

When I was a little girl, I dreaded having to go to the Good Friday service at our church. A man would stand at the back of the sanctuary, and when the final candle was extinguished, he would let out a giant, heart-wrenching roar. It was the end of the service, both terribly sad and incredibly scary for my four-year old self. In the middle of the dark, a great lion would roar and shatter the space in two.

Today, I've been watching as darkness covers me. I woke this morning at 3:30 AM, with burning heartburn, a full and distended belly, and a world full of chaos encircling me. I felt terrible - physically ill and mentally unable to fight any more. I am absolutely unaccustomed to the feeling of food inside me; I am addicted to the feeling of lightness and emptiness. When I wake, I am usually weak but "pure," feeling empty and clean and ready to greet the world. But this morning I awoke with yesterday's food and demons still inside me, and all I wanted was to shriek them out.

Instead, I had to work all morning, surrounded by food making me feel more full and more impure than I did when I awoke. I couldn't eat breakfast until almost 7:30 - I had been working for over three hours when I finally realized that I still needed to eat. But I couldn't summon the strength to do it. My will alone was not enough, because the feeling in my body was overwhelmingly winning. How am I supposed to eat when I feel full and fat? Especially this morning, when it wasn't even 8AM? This question has been lurking all day behind my shoulder, breathing down my neck, driving me to want nothing more than the emptiness I crave, the emptiness to which I am relentlessly addicted. How am I supposed to eat when I am the farthest thing in the world from hungry?

I finally mixed my cream of wheat this morning, and tried to slowly make my way through the cup. Each bite got thicker and heavier; I wanted to run away so badly that my hands were shaking. I finally gave in, but not in the submissive way that I usually do. Instead, I slammed down the rest of the cereal in one big gulp, roaring frustratingly and exasperatingly into the silence of our bakery's kitchen. I couldn't do it. I needed a lion's roar to face the fear mounting around me and the chaos strangling my breath. I needed the lion's roar to say what I couldn't speak out loud: that this process is hard and uncomfortable and I don't know if I can do it. I needed the lion's roar to tear apart the darkness in the same heart-wrenching and terrifying way that I remember experiencing the Good Friday services when I was little. And this time, I think I might have finally understood exactly what that roar was intended to do - it acknowledges the fear, but also the fight. My roar acknowledged the pain and the process, the shattering of the "perfect" and "pure," and the acceptance of the chaos. It was frustration, surrender, and a declaration that the situation was not, as the wise Buddhist teacher Trungpa writes, "unworkable."

My day didn't evolve into anything easier. The heartburn passed, but the burning chaos remained. I tried to find the calm and peaceful waters of hope, but I felt stuffed and fat and beyond repair all day long. I managed to drink an Ensure on my work break, and then felt a terrible compulsion to weigh myself. The wave did not pass, and I was resisting with all of my strength but too exhausted to keep fighting. BUT... instead of using my bathroom scale to measure my failures, I tried roaring again; I picked up the scale, gift-wrapped it in ribbon, and dropped it off outside the door of my therapist's office.

And yet... the roar didn't fix anything. I still struggled to eat lunch, and wanted more than anything to not have to eat dinner. I played mind games all afternoon to try and rationalize skipping a meal, and in the end ate my dinner as if it was a horrific punishment I had to endure. I did it. I ate all day long. And I did not throw anything up, even though all day that is the only thing I've wanted to do.

I wish I could say that I'm feeling better, but the truth is that I'm just as uncomfortable now as I was this morning, and I'm getting really tired of resisting. The darkness is still upon me, and I'm roaring desperately into it, trying to acknowledge the chaos as "good news" and the situation as impermanent. I keep waiting for my roar to shatter the darkness; instead it just keeps reminding me that I am alive and deep into the chaos of my own mind.

Today my friend Jabari came up behind me and whispered in my ear, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it." Wise, unexpected words from my unchurched, though highly spiritual, friend. There was no context or reason for his words, just a simple whisper behind me, while I was busy rolling sourdough baguettes. And since that whisper, I've been meditating on the power of light. No amount of dark can erase it. And in seemingly potent darkness, just one flicker of light shatters all of the illusions we have built. I keep waiting for that flicker of light, but I'm feeling trapped and confused by the illusions in my dark mind. I keep roaring and expecting something to tear in two, but for today, I still see nothing but dark.

In hopes of an easier day tomorrow.

Once You Say It, It Can't Be "Unsaid"

One of the members in my group therapy class, on our first night together, was talking about letting people "in" on her secret life as someone with bulimia. She said, "It's kind of like telling people that you're gay - once you say it, it can't be 'unsaid.' You may want them to know, but once they do, it's the only thing they can see."

All day today, this is the question that has been resonating in me: now that I've "come out" as eating disordered, is that all people can see? And more importantly, does it bother me that my private eating disorder is now front stage and center? In all of my important relationships, it seems that anorexia and my life is all we can talk about... which leaves me both immensely grateful and intensely worried that I am becoming "the selfish anorexic kid."

On one hand, tackling this beast requires shining a light on what has long been hidden. I feel more authentic and more honest than I have in years. Telling the truth has been my sword in battle, and I have intentionally surrounded myself with people who know I am struggling. I can no longer abandon the battle unnoticed - there are people fighting with me. The authenticity has peeled back layers of complexity in my relationships; I am learning that everyone feels broken and has a story to tell. And instead of scratching epidermis-level stories about my life, I've plunged deep into the dermis of my soul. The results have been rewarding, but now I wonder, is the only thing people see when they look at me the sickness I am fighting?

Today I have a case of what I've deemed the "coming out blues." Now that people know I have anorexia, it is all that we talk about. They ask how I am, or if I've eaten, and I answer. We talk about their lives, their bodies, their histories with pain and struggle. I am grateful, but it is simultaneously overwhelming. My eating disorder used to be the only thing that I thought about; when I was around other people spinning imaginary stories and problems, I could "dream" my way out of my own head. And now, when I am alone, I am still thinking only about my body, my food, this disease... and my conversations with the outside world provide no escape. People know. They ask. We talk. I don't lie.

I am so afraid of being one-dimensional, and I'm starting to fear that others see me that way, too. I don't want to be single-minded forever. I want to talk about art and politics and dreams and struggles that don't involve my disease. Right now, such talk would be superficial - it isn't what I am thinking about. And even when I probe the people around me to talk about what's on their minds (I can always listen and respond), somehow the conversation always comes back to our bodies and food. I feel guilty for monopolizing their minds and our conversations, and though I am grateful, part of me wants to scream, "THERE'S MORE TO ME THAN THIS!"

The scariest thing is that right now, I'm not sure what that "more" is.

Today at work two of my close friends and colleagues worked beside me for hours, and while we talked about lots of things, I was acutely aware of their attention to me. It wasn't policing, but I felt "watched," simultaneously cared for and judged in the same breath. Both of my colleagues talked about their bodies, times of weight gain or loss, and what "worked for them." They asked me to eat with them and tried to shower me with food and ideas to help. All of it was wonderfully loving. I hated it.

First, I need help and ideas. But I am annoyed because my colleagues don't know everything about my disease, and don't realize that in trying to help, they are often actually stroking the part of me that I am trying to silence. I can't freely eat pastries or come to a feast - there isn't a "simple" solution. My coworker Dee said today, "Leah, I've had anorexia, and the best part of it is that there is a ridiculously easy solution: you just need to eat!" Thanks, Dee. I know. But it's not that simple.

Dee wants to have me over for dinner on Friday night. I am warmly touched, and I accepted the invitation. I don't want to go, but I will. I'm tired of always saying "no." But I really don't want to spend the evening having food thrown at me, with every bite I take being watched. I don't want to be the center of attention while we're eating; right now, the simple act of eating is stressful enough. Dee told me to expect a feast, she and her partner are going to make me a "shit-ton of food." The intention is so kind, but the gesture is misplaced. If access to food was the only problem, such a dinner would be the answer. But my brain is the problem, and feeling unsafe and guilted into eating more food than I want to only allows the eating disorder to run wild.

But I said yes. I am going. I'm thinking about asking someone else to come along, so that I won't feel like I'm alone in the spotlight. And I should just be honest, and tell Dee that I want to come, but that I'm scared and need to feel safe. I have to respect her enough to know that she'll understand, and love me for being real.

I just hate that now that I've "come out," I can't "undo" it. I can't just talk to people about going to a baseball game without wondering if they're thinking, "is that stressful for her, having to be somewhere with hot dogs and ice cream?" I don't want people to see me as a crazy, single-minded nutcase; but maybe that's what I am. It's just hard to hide, now that I'm in the sunlight and out of the shadows that have long been prophesied by my disease as the only way to stay safe.

My brain felt more sane today. I was more relaxed and less panicked. I felt rational and non-reactive. Two days of regular eating, and I already know that I feel better. I have purpose, direction, and a goal. But I'm also trying so hard to get through this that I have put the fear growing inside me on a shelf, and I'm trying desperately not to touch it. It's like I've lulled the beast to sleep temporarily, and I am terrified that if I go deeply inside to examine what's there, the beast will awake and punish me for trying to run. All of the icky feelings - terror about being fat, worry about what people with think, anxiety about the permanence of the pounds coming towards me - are quieter now, but also quarantined. What will happen when I meditate on them and open the box? I'm too scared to look in that direction. For now, I am running away from it and pretending it's not there, praying that I will find enough strength in the next weeks to confront my demons with more armor than I had before. Today feels like a battle, but I can sense in the wind that a bigger one awaits. The storm is coming. I can feel it. And I don't like the unknown.

Today Has Been Ok

How do I start this, my virginal entrance to the blogger world? I love to write, but have found myself without words or the patience to express them in the past several years. I will take this small leap here tonight, trusting my voice in the winds of cyberspace. There is no easy way to jump into this story, but that is what I will do - hoping that these words pouring out of me will bring me to the reason and center that my brain cannot find alone any more.

I am in the midst of a battle - a great war - with myself. What I am fighting is an eating disorder, most appropriately diagnosed as "anorexia - purging type." The label shouldn't be important, but it is. I have been "sick" for a long time... the other day I realized that the last "free" memory I have - free of this beast inside me - was over ten years ago. I was fourteen. I am now twenty five.

I started treatment four months ago, and I love talking about how I "want to get better." But when it comes down to it, I'm not always sure that I am ready to give up my eating disorder - it has been the only order I've found in this chaotic world. And now, I am sitting here on this precipice, four months into treatment, having been given the ultimatum that I must gain weight in the next month or enter an inpatient hospitalization program. So I guess now I must decide: is it time to "fall or fly?" I've been talking the talk for months, but am I ready to sit down and face my demons in the most terrifying way I can imagine - by eating and gaining weight? By jumping off this cliff into a void that terrifies me just as much as the monster chasing me?

I am becoming honest. I am learning to respect people in my life by letting them into this craziness instead of "faking" that I am okay and spinning other stories to distract them from the little bird dying inside me. I have started leaping - it is now probably too late to go back. I have told my family, friends, and therapist the honest truth - that I am scared, tired, and alone. They know that I don't eat, and am terrified of everything from burritos to pears and granola and sugared gum. They know now that I have been starving for years, and that I fully believe I deserve and need to stay in my "non-eating" world to feel safe. When I venture outside that world, it seems I cannot stop eating - and that ugly, awful, pig inside of me cannot be left to run amok with my life. To protect myself from anyone knowing what I pig I am, I purge food that I cannot possibly imagine myself allowed to eat. After many years, the most important people in my life - my parents - now know that this pig exists, and that I purge to make sure and keep her in check.

I know that I must eat to get better. But even though I "feel" sick, I don't think that I "look" or "seem" sick. My health stats and vital signs are strong. I am not severely underweight. I don't look gaunt, don't need tube feeding, and still have enough energy to function in our world as much as I need to. I don't necessarily "want" to be gauntly thin... but I have trouble understanding that I am legitimately "sick" when I look in the mirror and see an average sized person, who, if anything, could lose weight and look better. Stronger. More appealing.

I don't want to eat. I like the idea of "better," but not the process it will take and the surrender I must practice to get there. But I have taken lots of steps that cannot be taken back - my parents are in on the game, and my therapist is to the point of issuing ultimatums. So I cannot retreat. I have to do this. And I don't want to. I am scared.

Today came, I got out of bed and had a stare down with my breakfast. The cream of wheat and I came eye to eye, and I swallowed it down after swearing at it and acknowledging that I did not want to be eating. I called my mom after winning the stare down and cried.

For lunch, I had an enormous victory - eating an unplanned and scary lunch and NOT PURGING afterward. I was at a farmers' market with my friend Linda. It was lunch time. She said that she needed to eat. All I wanted was to run home to my safe peanut butter sandwich - the thought of eating that was hard enough. But instead, I stayed with her, ate a flatbread, hot, rib sandwich, and DID NOT PURGE. I walked around afterward and didn't go home until I knew that I was safe enough to act "sanely." I drank my Ensure when I got home, had some Hot Tamales, and did some dinner prep. I took another walk, took a bath in rose petals and lavender buds, and came home. I finished making my dinner, cried for a minute, prayed for some strength, and then ate. Even though I wasn't hungry and felt disgusting. I finished my dinner, cleaned up, and ran out of my house, to this coffee shop where I am hiding from myself, hoping to get through this full feeling without trying to make it go away.

I am writing this for that exact purpose: distraction. I cannot be trusted alone in my home; I need a project to keep my brain active and distracted enough so I am not tempted to wander in the wilderness inside me where the beast resides.

This blog is for me.

I am feeling tired. Emotionally exhausted, and doubtful that I can do this on my own. I am a smart kid, and a disciplined one. But how am I supposed to fight and be "disciplined" when the thing that I am fighting is myself? How am i supposed to exercise discipline when the most discipline I know is the controlled life to which my eating disorder has led me? How do you fight a battle that kills part of yourself... a part that has become the biggest piece of your identity and worldview?

My mom keeps saying, "one day, you'll wake up and realize you're ready to be done with all of this." But I don't know. Because I am ready. And I'm not so sure it will be that easy.

Right now I'm still feeling unsafe. I feel fat. I feel full. My fingers feel like sausages and my stomach is hanging over the edge of my pants. What if my body won't readjust to eating normal amounts of food? What if it can't? What if I gain weight and find my clothes don't fit and that I'm not able to be physically active? What if I get so fat I breathe heavily when walking up stairs and am horrifically "average?" What else will set me apart?

I am also tired. I have to work early in the morning; I'm scared of being at my job. I am a baker, surrounded all day by sweets and breads and pizza. It is overwhelming; I have developed the ability to eat by experiencing food in a myriad of other ways (nibbling at it, smelling it, touching it, staring at it...) and by the time I get home I'm either so sick of food that I don't want to eat or I'm so full of pastries that I must purge and then "non-eat" to cleanse my eating sins.

I must work in the morning. I must be brave, and disciplined. I cannot eat the scones. I need to eat my breakfast, and stay as close to "safe" as possible. Because I cannot get home at noon and purge, or eating dinner and getting back to "regular eating" will feel impossible. I need to win this. I need to win. I need to win.

But to win this, part of me also has to lose. How am I supposed to do that?