Is This All There Is?

Awwww crap.  It's happened again.  I was just sitting here, bored out of my freaking mind, trying to come up with something that I am looking forward to.  What do I have to get excited about?  What is going to keep me motivated to stay healthy, happy and optimistic?  Come on, what's going on this summer?  Fall?  I've got to get pumped!  What is it?  There has got to be something coming up.  Anything?  The thought smacked me in the face; a whole heaping pile of nothing.  Nada.  NOTHING!  I don't have jack to be excited about.  In fact, if anything, I have things coming up that are bound to make me mores stressed than usual.  This is always very dangerous.  Stress + boredom often = eating disorder behavior.  This is true for me anyway.  I'm trying to think if I have anything coming up.  A trip?  An event?  Life plans?  An adventure?   My sister is visiting at the end of August but her trips always come with mixed emotions.  I'm looking forward to seeing her but I always think about the unavoidable loss I will encounter when she leaves.  And of course her trip back home is more about her than it is about me.  What do I have for myself?  Ok, now I am feeling selfish.  Is that bad?


The only thing I could come up with is my trip back to Australia...in another two years.  The saving for this trip is going S-L-O-W.  I am feeling discouraged and sad that it is so far off.  I don't want to have to wait two years.  I need something sooner.  I need to make some plans immediately to keep me going.  Living life day in and day out the same way is suddenly not doing it for me.  So what am I going to do about it?  What am I going to do to keep me grounded and looking forward to the future with excitement.  Life is short.  What am I going to do?


I dunno.  (Insert pouty face here.)  Sigh...whine...woe is me.


Perhaps it is time for me to dig out my bucket list and actually complete (or start) some of things on it.  I keep getting stuck.  I can't.  I don't have time.  I've got kids to think of.  My husband needs me to do this and that.  I'm to old to learn, do, try something new.  It is time to stop throwing my own pity party.  Nobody is showing up to this shit show.  It's time to get off my ass.  I need to see things I've never seen before.  Expose my kids to the world.  Try something new!  My son is learning how to play guitar.  Why can't I learn too?  I've wanted to know how to speak Spanish for years.  So why am I not learning it?  Why am I not actually not doing that photography project I came up with a year ago?  Why am I not going to those yoga workshops I have thought about?  Can we not take a road trip down the Oregon Coast this year?  Why have I not bought those ticket for my son's first rock concert yet?


Something has been holding me back.  I have been sabotaging my own plans.  Plans I have conjured up on my own.  I suddenly don't feel good enough or up to the challenges.  Going in and out with the ebb and flow has been easier.  Safer.  No trying, no failing, right?  How boring is that?  How boring am I?  This is how depression begins for me.  It starts off here and goes down hill at an accelerated rate until I am really, really unhappy and sick.  At least this time I can notice it.  A step in the right direction!


So, my goal tonight after the kids pass out is to have an open discussion with my guy.  I need to do something.  We need to make some plans and get excited about the next few months.  Even better, maybe he'll read this post and know just how much I need this to stay healthy.  What is the whole point of it all if there is no excitement or passion?  Maybe he's feeling the same way too.  Our lives have gotten pretty monotonous and routine.  Same shit.  Different day.  Perhaps it is time for a change.


*Do you ever get stuck in a rut?
*What do you do when life is feeling ordinary and dull?
*How do you motivate yourself?

-Live on!


-Kristy

Eating and Thowing Away the Croissant

This morning I had an epiphany.  An "Oh my God!" moment.  A real eye-opening experience.  Are you ready?  Here it is:  I can throw food away.

I didn't know it could be done.


The story begins last night.  I skipped dinner yesterday because I just was not hungry.  I had a bowl of cereal as a snack in the evening but that's about it.  Come this morning, I was hangry (hungry enough to make me angry).  I ate one hard-boiled egg from the Easter batch we dyed last night.  It didn't cut it.  I wasn't about to kill anyone anymore but my hunger was definitely not satisfied.  On my way in to work I stopped by Starbucks to get a breakfast.  I do this pretty regularly but it is almost always a mind-battle:  "What do I get?  Should I get something healthy?  What sounds good?  What is good for me?  What do I plan to have for the rest of the day?  How many calories is in this vs. that?  I should get oatmeal.  That is healthy.  Fruit, grains, protein..."  BLAH BLAH BLAH!  Today I just drove up and didn't think.  I got my usual drink (tall caramel macchiato) and a chocolate croissant.  I love them.  I haven't had one in a while.  It was what sounded good.  Gooey, warm, chocolaty.  Yum!

I got to work and did my thing.  Clocked in, turned on my music, looked for my debit card that I thought I lost again.  Sipped my sweet, creamy coffee.  And I started nibbling on my croissant.  Normally I would scarf that sucker down like it's going to run away from me.  After all, I don't know when I am going to have one again.  It is sooooo good.  So forbidden.  So bad.  So not allowed in my diet a couple of years ago.  And if I did "fail" and eat one, right back up it would have come a few minutes later.  Along with some other compensatory actions.  Food like that had a power that no food should process.  The calories were calculated and the ingredients judged like they had done some terrible crime.  Over time, by allowing these types of foods back into my world as only what they are: Food and fuel, the power of them has decreased.


Today I ate my croissant at a normal speed.  You know, take a bite.  Put the rest down.  Chew it.  Taste it.  Swallow it.  It took me much longer to eat it.  I chatted with my co-workers, checked my e-mail.  Not distracted.  Just doing what I wanted to do while eating.  When I came down to a couple of bites I was full.  Satisfied and happy.  No longer hangry, I had a different kind of battle with myself.  This time it was, "Do I finish, save or throw away?"  Typically that thing would have been gone instantly and I would have wanted more.  This time I was listening to my body.  Feeding it slowly but not too slowly.  I'm full.  I don't really have enough to save.  l can throw the last couple of bites away.  "What?  NO!  You can't do that!  It's precious!  Special!  There are children starving!  You don't know when you will be able to get one of these things again!"  Guess what?  I can get a chocolate croissant tomorrow if I want one.  Yep.  Two in a row if that is what I feel like.  I tossed the last couple of bites.  I have never done that before.  I had never even considered it before.  If it was something "special,"  If it was right there in front of me,  It was going down.  It's been a few years since my food came back up.  But the battle in my brain has always been there.


Someone asked me this week what "Normal Eating" is.  It's a question many of us who do and even those who don't have disordered eating think about.  What is "Normal" anyway?!   I love Ellyn Satter's take on it.  She explains it so perfectly:

What is Normal Eating?

by Ellyn Satter, MS, RDN, LCSW, BCD


Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it-not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.
In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.

So yeah!  I can throw something special away.  Or I can eat the whole damn thing!  I just have to listen to what my body and soul are needing at that particular moment.  I just need to listen to those things rather than all the extra junk going on in my head.  If I do this consistently I will be a normal eater and my body will know just what to do.


Live on!


-Kristy

I Wish I Could Fix Her- how even a recovering anorexic doesn't have all the answers

Photographer unknown

Through this disease I have met so many others who struggle with food and other substances.  I have met some  truly amazing people both in the treatment center where I stayed, and through my advocacy work.  I have encountered others  with eating disorders and addictions all over the board.  When I left the hospital, it was advised by the some of the staff to cut off all ties with other patients I met at the facility.  I have lost contact with a large number of the people I met during my three month stay in Denver.  However, there are few I have chosen and feel safe enough to stay in contact with.  Social media has made it easy to know how others are doing, or to keep my distance.  At the treatment center there were many patients that came from my neck of the woods since at the time treatment in the Pacific Northwest was very limited for eating disorders.  A small community consisting of others who know this battle has been helpful in my own recovery journey.

I care deeply about the people I have met through this recovery process.  I see similarities and differences and respect the struggle these men and women are going through.  There is a certain empathy I have.  A compassion and a patience that perhaps people on the outside might not have.  After all, people who have never had an eating disorder or an addiction problem often find if very difficult to comprehend.  I have felt and thought the very same things as these people who struggle.  I get it.  All the twisted thoughts and behaviors, I understand.  I have been there.  And it has been a huge support to me in my recovery to know I have never been alone.

However, the fact remains, that even though I have been there, starving, purging, shoving donuts in my mouth,  stepping on that fucking scale obsessively, abusing myself, even after all of this: I still don't have the right words.  If I could save someone, I would.  But I can't.  This is hard for me to come to terms with because I feel like I should be able to.

This brings me to the present moment.  I currently have a dear friend who is drowning in anorexia.  I am afraid for her.  Over the last couple of years I have seen her deteriorate at an alarming rate.  If she doesn't get more help, I am certain she will die.  The thing that surprises me is that I don't know what to do.  I cant' fix her.  I can't convince her.  I cant' make her see what I see.  I feel like I should know just what to do, and still I try.  I keep thinking if I say the right combination of words and commit to the right actions, she will miraculously see the truth from the lies her eating disorder tells her.  She will recover.  I could be the one to help her.  I figure since I have been sick, and since I am doing so well in my own recovery, I should know just what to do.  I don't.

Even though I worry every day that she could die from this, there is nothing more I can do except pick up the phone when she calls.  Listen to what she has to say and know the pain.  I don't have to try to fix it.  Though, that is what I feel like I should be able to do.  Ultimately this journey is hers and has to be.  She has to want life.  She has to choose to fight for herself.  I can only tell her how much I care about her.  I can tell her the truth I see.  I can be the honesty that the eating disorder is hiding from her.  That is all I have the power to do.  It is hard for me and the ones who love her to watch her suffer.  It makes me think of what my friends and family must have gone through when they watched me disappear.  I now understand the fear, the frustration, the sadness, the anger and the helplessness.  I know her as a person who is incredible even when in the grips of anorexia.  I just wonder if I will ever get the chance to know how amazing she could be out of it.  I hope I get this opportunity someday.

For all of you who wonder what to do for their loved ones in this disease, I wish there were a straight and exact answer.  We only have actions over ourselves.  All we can do is show we care, and be honest about our own feelings.  In the end, it really is up to each of us to choose recovery.


Live on,


-Kristy

I Could Change My Arms, But Then What?

I hate my arms.  There.  I said it.  When I look at the reflection of my arms all I see are wobbly and soft appendages.  To me, they are not strong or beautiful.  And, as usual  I see them (along with many other things) as too big.  Over the fall and winter my awkward arms could be hidden and concealed.  I have been able to kind of avoid seeing myself.  But spring has arrived with a vengeance here.  The sun is out, the temperature is warm and I want to get outside.  I want to get away from the stupid sweaters that I've been hiding in these past few months.  Logically I know that I am way more critical of my arms, and every other part of my body, than anyone else is.  I apparently tend to see things that aren't necessarily there in the scope I believe them to be.  "But I SEE IT!"  This is part of the dysmorphia element that I struggle with.  My typical pattern would be to "fix" my arms.  Easily done.  Start working out obsessively.  Doing yoga with weights on.   Starving myself.  The problem is, once my arms are "fixed" then what?

I'll tell you what.  I will dislike another part of my body.  No matter how much I weigh, how much I lose, how little I eat, how much I exercise, there will always be something.  And at some point I will eventually  hyper-focus on something I can't do a damn thing about.  First my arms, then my legs, then my tummy, then my thighs.  Next I will criticize my face and all it's permanent flaws.  It's never ending.  And it is also not the real problem.  There is something much deeper.  My job at this point is to notice it's happening and try to figure out what the real issue is.  When I go down the road of physical self abuse, there is always, ALWAYS, something else going on.  This is also where people who do not suffer with Eating Disorders or Body Dysmorphic Disorders get the wrong idea.  The issue is not about vanity, (and I was called "vain" this week) it's about other stuff.  Deeper, not so superficial crap.  This is just how it manifests itself.  Perhaps I am struggling with fear, shame, sadness, anger, stress, boredom, and or none of the above!  My brain tries to protect me from looking at the uncomfortable or painful issues.  After all, it's easier to fix my arms right?

So back to the job at hand.  What's going on in life that has me so focused on my body, and not looking into my feelings?  I realized that the last week or two there has been a lot going on around me.   I have taken on too much emotionally.  But then again, that's who I am and what I do.  I crave that connection with people during times of stress.  But how do I take care of myself in the midst of chaos?  How do I take a step back?  What if I don't want to?  What if my compassion fatigue sets in again and I just turn apathetic?  That could happen if I don't remember that I come first.  My world does revolve around me.  My well being and healthy state of mind have to comes first to me.  I cannot be the effective and compassionate person I want to be if I am not these things to myself first.  I need to give myself the oxygen before I can help anyone else.  This is very difficult for me to actually put into place.  I feel like I always have to give, give, give.  Perhaps I need to give to myself too.

As I look at this deeper and try to find the reasons why I start hating on my body I take a deep, patient breath.  I try to remind myself that I am lucky I have my arms.  I don't like to look at them.  But I am reminded to think of all the things they do for me.  They carry my children.  They hold on to my daughter as she tries to ride her bike.  They wrap around my kitty while I nap.  They embrace my best friends genuinely.  They carry trays off food to people in need during a disaster.  They're not beautiful, but they are perfect for me.  Who knows how long I will be able to have them, or any other part of my body for that matter.  They don't need to be corrected.  Just respected.  I have other things to work on.

Live on!

-Kristy

Study of Arms
by Leonardo Da Vinci