february 1, 2010

today was my first day back at samford from magnolia creek. i was terrified.

breakfast was fine. breakfast is always fine. i'm a true believer in the fact that a body doesn't start burning calories until it's had something to push it out of resting metabolism from the night before. so even when i restrict i eat breakfast.

morning snack was hard. it was sitting there in the cup holder of my car- just a stupid nutrition bar- but it took me nearly thirty minutes to decide whether or not i was going to eat it.

it was a beautiful morning and i'd fixed my hair and put on some make up and i liked my outfit. still though, i was shaky and nerves were churning my stomach. the thought of eating anything felt as unnatural as trying to fall asleep just after a cup of black coffee. i pulled my car into a parking space, slipped my phone into my purse and climbed out of my car. i could see the green and yellow snack wrapper through the car window. i took a deep breath and turned and started the long walk to class.

there were a million things to think about: class starting, reuniting with my friends, being free from magnolia creek (which actually didn't feel like freedom at all), beginning the rest of my life on the recovery side of an eating disorder...

...but all i could think about was the snack that i'd left in my car.

the soft, sinister voice that i thought i'd displaced from its home in my head swiftly returned, wrapping itself around me like a silk blanket. its whisper was a thin, winding blackness. it was proud of me for skipping my snack. i felt the familiar success and euphoria of my past and my head felt just a little higher. finally, i thought, i feel like myself again.

i was 20 or so yards from my car and already late to my first class. the sun was almost blinding, but my mind was in enveloped in my disorder's delectable blackness...

...until my brother's face popped into my head.

suddenly, i was flooded with memories from home. i remembered one evening my senior year of high school, my brother and i sitting in the kitchen. he was just a little boy then, with curly hair and a half-changed voice. he stood at the counter, begging me to let go of my disorder, telling me how awful i looked and how lifeless i seemed. looking back, i realized he was fighting for my life.

i thought about my brother and how estranged we'd become. i thought about the attention my disorder had demanded, the tears and teeth-knashing and anger and fear that had infiltrated our home along with it.

jim and me, we hardly know each other, i thought, i've attempted recovery so many times, only to fall down a few months later. no wonder we can't be close. who would want to be close to someone with an eating disorder? heck- who could be close to someone with an eating disorder?

i thought about my sweet brother, sitting in class, thinking about who knows what. i thought about the fact that i wanted to be his best friend, to make up for being a crappy big sister for so long.

i slowed my steps to a stop. i turned around and walked back to my car. i unlocked the door, grabbed my snack, unwrapped it, and took a small first bite.

you are so weak, my disorder said.

no i'm not, i said, one day, i'll be able to do this for myself, but i can't right now, so this snack- it's all for my brother, and he would disagree with you.

*the above is not an isolated example. for nearly two months following treatment, i was required to eat three meals and three snacks each day. the story i just told happened a million times in a million different ways throughout early recovery. my record was far from perfect, but i won more battles than i lost, and [at a snail's pace] eating gradually became easy...

last night, i ate chicken alfredo.

love,

EA

January 15, 2010

i got out of my magnolia creek bubble and went to church today. it was not what church is supposed to be. i was grossly full {as i usually am these days} from breakfast, so i took the liberty of skipping my midmorning snack.

when we stood to sing, i was undeniably aware of my bloated stomach and the saggy feeling that all this is forced sedentariness has left in my legs. i was in a state of inward cringing through each song and prayer, able only to ask god if we could please sit down already so i could quit feeling how gross i've become.

i started out the sermon attempting to listen, but my mind quickly drifted to lunch after church. i figured the friends i was with would want to go somewhere. i was hardly hungry, so i started to talk myself into the idea that it would be okay to skip lunch as well...

okay so i could just not go and then make something for myself at home. but that would be letting my eating disorder keep me from being around people. maybe i should go so no one gets worried and i could just get something restrictive. okay but i'm not supposed to get something restrictive...maybe today will be a really big day for me and i'll get something normal and eat it and make everyone really proud. but probably everyone will just think i'm crazy and wonder why i went to magnolia creek in the first place because they're all way skinnier than me. that's the thing- other people can eat those things but i just don't do that. i don't think i can. but maybe i should. maybe God wants me to. but that girl like three pews down- she is way skinnier than me. that means i shouldn't get anything normal. i'll feel so much better after i restrict anyways.

thankfully, the friend i'd come with to church was sick with mono and had planned on just going home. i ended up going to another friend's apartment after church because a dear friend of ours that transferred out of samford freshman year was in town. the three of us sat on the bed talking and catching up until the both of them decided they were hungry. we ended up at taziki's, one of the places at which i do my best restricting.

okay so maybe i'll get a friday special for the first time since freshman year. they'd be so proud of me. or maybe i'll get one of those gyros or something. it might be fun to at least see what that tastes like. i'll look at my reflection in the window and if i look skinny, i'll do it....

looks like i'm restricting today.

i ended up ordering the same thing i always order at taziki's. i am a master at going to restaurants with friends and ordering and eating without consuming more than a negligible number of calories. i know i'm going to have to stop doing that. but today, i just wasn't ready to let go.

one of the girls i was with is my best friend. like literally, we'll be close til we die. she asked me what the hell i was doing, ordering "rabbit food" as she calls it, just like i used to. "aren't they teaching you any better at magnolia creek," she asked?

what i could tell was a guiltily sinister smile slowly slid across my lips. i stared down at the ground, basking in the seemingly warm glow of my successful restriction. "i mean, yeah," i said, "i really am learning a lot. they just feed me so much. i'm so sick of food. i needed a break."

she told me she understood, but that i'm going to have to learn to order an actual meal on my own at a restaurant if i'm planning on getting better.

i told her i knew that. but the way i imagine it'd be hard to look all the way right or left with a cricked neck, trying to stretch my brain around the idea of freedom is completely uncomfortable. i know it's going to happen one day, but it won't be one day soon.

love,

EA

it's time to eat.

I am currently sitting on my parents' red leather couch. my finger and toenails are wet with a periwinkle polish. i keep my nails short enough that i can i still type with them wet. my dad and i are watching "the king's speech" as we type on our respective laptops.

"the king's speech" is a {true} story about George VI's inheritance of england's throne. he has a terrible stutter. right now, i am watching him work with a world class speech therapist. [who in and of himself is a true inspiration.]

i've been feeling a little burdened lately to take a few (well, more than a few) steps back, back before i started this blog. i haven't much spoken of the months between my time at magnolia creek and the time that i started this blog {february, march & april of 2010}.

they were three hell-ish months of eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating.

i'm reminded of these months' importance as i watch the duke {known as "bertie" by his family} working day in and day out with his speech therapist.

there is a single, poignant scene mentioning the cause behind bertie's stutter. but aside from the painful moments during which we learn how the stutter developed, we spend much of the early film onlooking as bertie undergoes intensive treatment during which he speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks.

bertie is a person with deep feelings and thoughts. but bertie has a life to live, a life that is liberated as he reclaims his ability speak.

in november of 2009, i saw my current therapist for the first time. she asked me what i was hoping to accomplish through counseling. "i just want to figure out what is causing all this," i said, "i want to work on all of these messed up thoughts i have so i can maybe try to recover."

"that is so great," she said, "let me give you a nutritionist's number so we can get started."

in other words, working through the pain and the scarring and all the horrible happenings and mindsets behind our disorders is necessary and vital for healing. but {for me at least} physical and habitual recovery in terms of nutrition and health were a gateway for right processing of feelings and thoughts.

the first four months of my recovery were a vital part of the freedom in which i walk today, and i want them to be a part of this blog.

so i'm going to write the next couple of posts from the perspective of immensely early recovery. they will be labeled with dates from february through april of 2010. look for them.

love,

EA

more body image: passing the test and getting somewhere.

i ended my last post with the thought i may have embarked upon a "new beginning" with body image. it was a culminating sentence that could have come across as a nice and heartwarming way to close things. but if you know me, you know that nice and heartwarming are not enough to merit a sentence into my blog. in other words you can read about the progression of "new beginning" below.

being a really bad driver is something for which i'm known.

although i've never had a wreck, i've hit 13 stationary objects, gotten five (or six?) tickets and have probably seen a world-record number of middle fingers.

i think it may have started in 9th grade when i took my written drivers test. i didn't know what could possibly be on it that i wouldn't have already learned either through common sense or riding up front with my mom, so i figured that studying would be, "oh my gah like totally pointless".

the morning of the test, i put on a graphic-tee with a picture of snoopy on the front, pulled my hair into a mass of a bun on top of my head and admired the way i looked in sunglasses in the rearview mirror of my mother's minivan the entire way to the testing site.

i obliviously made my way through the forms and lines to a smelly, white-walled room full of faux-wood desks. i sat down and rolled my golf pencil up and down the table top until someone handed me a booklet full of questions and a scantron.

20 minutes later, i stormed out to the car with a twisted, whimpering face. i had failed the test and like...completely ruined my life.

two weeks later, the same thing happened again.

a month later, it happened a third time.

i felt like an idiot. especially when i had to tell my mom. whatever lesson she might have hoped to teach me was utterly invalidated by the fact that she couldn't keep herself from laughing.

finally, on my fourth try, i caught on to the fact that me passing the drivers test might require something more than showing up and letting my sheer, natural brilliance prove its superiority over the test. i got out the ugly book with figurines of a family and car on the front and i read it and made flash cards from it and went through them until i never wanted to see them again.

i went back, i took the test, i made a 96%.

although its quite entertaining to look back on my 14-year-old self and laugh, i can't help but see some of her in myself today. in the same way that i tried my broken strategy over and again expecting different test results each time, i now continuously go to the mirror hoping that it will show me a girl i like, proving my thoughts about myself wrong. but it never does.

looking back, i realize that the reason i kept on refusing to prepare for the drivers test was rooted in pride. i am not, nor have i ever been, a lazy or uncaring person. somewhere in my maladaptive thoughts was the idea that i shouldn't have needed to study to pass the test. I wanted to be the girl who just walked in and got it. and i've approached the mirror the same way.

i've been told countless times to talk myself through bad body image. my counselor always asks me what i tell myself when i'm looking in the mirror.

until now, my answer has always been, "nothing". i didn't want to tell myself anything because i wanted the mirror to prove to me that i'm not fat, that i'm shape, that i haven't let myself go.

although it looks and sounds like pride and stubbornness, what it really is is insecurity. it is a need for someone or something else to reach out and extend validation outside of any effort of my own to obtain it. if i don't look fat, i figure, then i shouldn't have to tell myself i don't.

i didn't want to have to prepare for the drivers test, i just wanted my 14-year-old awesomeness to see me through to my permit. now 8 years later, i don't want to have to talk myself into a successful look in the mirror, i just want my body to stand there and let its reflection convince me i have nothing to worry about.

but every time, i leave the mirror the same way i left the driver's test- with dragging feet (sans pink converse nowadays) and a hanging head and a feeling of hopelessness.

it's funny to me that eating disorders are all about control, but the moment we start trying to fight them we find ourselves feeling completely helpless. i'm quitting the helplessness thing, i think. and the same way i {finally} decided to hang it up and prepare for my drivers test, i'm going to start preparing my mind for the mirror.

i am healthy, i'll tell myself, and i have joy. i don't under eat and i don't over eat. i may not be a twig any longer but that's not what God made my body to be. I am an individual with a unique body and build, and i look like myself and no one else, so there really is nothing to which i or anyone else can compare. and most importantly, what is in this mirror doesn't matter anyway.

it was admitting that i needed to prepare for the drivers test that ultimately got me behind the wheel and going places. for body image, i'm hoping that preparing my mind for the mirror will do the same.

love,

EA

body image: part forever.

lately, i can never really know what the person in the mirror is going to look like when i stare back at her.

many days she's a young woman, slightly overweight but not quite fat.

other days, she's a medium sized girl who wouldn't mind losing 5 or 6 pounds.

on others, i'm not really sure what she is, she just looks like me. those are the days that i like her.

but even on the days i like the EA i see in the mirror, i find myself looking her up and down and making mental notes of the parts in need of the most focus in my workouts, the parts that i just know i'll look back on and be mad at myself for letting them get that way.

lately though, i've had this crazy, scary thought that there might not be anything wrong with my body. it's possible, i think, that my body looks great the way it is and that the recurring problem of me hating it isn't a problem of fat rolls or big bones or one too many sweets; it's a problem that is rooted in my mind.

to think the above thought scares me a little. i'm scared it isn't true. i'm scared that if i assume that the problem is in my head and just resign to loving myself i'll be loving something that doesn't deserved to be loved yet because it needs a lot of work.

but even at my sickest, a part of me has always been a rebel, and that part of me just wants to realize that my body is the only body like it on the whole wide earth and that it's therefore impossible to hold it to any sort of standard, because there can't be one standard for a whole bunch of billions of different designs.

maybe my body is beautiful like it is. maybe my legs and my arms and my short torso and swayed spine are in imperfectly perfect position. maybe it's the remnant voice of my disorder is that's ugly and horrible and should be left unwanted.

maybe this starts a new beginning.