part 2 {survival}

in my first post on body image i recounted my experiences of enslavement to bad body image. here, i explain how i moved from enslavement to survival by a fairly unlikely means.

about a year ago, i began watching season 1 of grey's anatomy.

all of my friends were participating in a campus wide tradition known as step sing [it's a song and dance contest between campus organizations]. i was still gaining weight and attending roughly four therapy/doctors appointments per week. when my nutritionist told me we'd have to up my meal plan in order for me to participate, i promptly erased my name from the list.

my friends were all in the show and constantly in rehearsals and then performances. consequently, i found myself left with a lot of alone time for the first three or so weeks of the semester.

one late afternoon, my best friends along with 65 other chi o's participating in step sing exited the house in a whirlwind for their first dress rehearsal. their streaming chatter and noise no longer resonated between the house walls. it was filling the crisp air between sorority quad and the auditorium with visible breath and chi o cheers and laughter.

the house was completely quiet, but the stabbing, deafening thoughts in my head were just getting started.

i looked in the mirror and shook my head at the husky girl who stared back. i was angry at my body, i was angry at myself.

i tried to reason with the thoughts, but for every successful cognition in which i told myself i was seeing distortions, my disorder fired a hundred flaming "you're fat and disgusting" arrows back.

i couldn't be in my head any longer. i wanted to escape, to stop feeling like a punching bag for my disorder. i knew exercising would help, but i also knew that somewhere deep inside me wanted to recover, and that exercising would only eventually make things worse.

i sat, slightly dazed, on my bed and wrapped my hand loosely around the bed post. i glanced around the room for something, anything that might give me a break from my thoughts. my eyes stopped on my roommate's collection of grey's anatomy seasons. i took out disc one of season one, slid it into my computer, plugged in my ear buds and left the world outside seattle grace hospital in a foggy distance.

it was utter bliss. it took less than a week for me to finish season 1, and i immediately began season 2, then 3, then 4, then 5.

i was living and loving life, but when i couldn't fight off my thoughts any longer, grey's anatomy was an escape, a numbing agent.

in the past, when bad body image has attacked, i've jumped straight back into my disorder. even when i truly wanted to recover, the pain of hating my own flesh was too much, and i knew no other solution for ending it, besides my age old pattern of restriction.

at first, i felt guilty for how much grey's i was allowing myself to watch. but then i considered the fact that i had an eating disorder for five years. my mind was finely trained to replace discomfort with numbness via starvation. this time around, i was escaping the excruciation of bad body image with something that might leave me temporarily mush-brained, but most assuredly wouldn't kill me.

this may sound silly, or even a little a scary, but i allowed grey's anatomy to stick to as closely to me as i'd allowed my disorder. my therapist and i agreed that when i was ready, i would separate from grey's and find my thoughts manageable on my own, but until then, grey's would keep me safe and grey's would keep me eating.

i think this concept could be helpful for anyone struggling with a maladaptive behavior from which they seek comfort. it's nearly impossible to "just quit"an obsession without replacing it with something harmless. the idea is to try to live life as naturally and normally (no one is normal) as possible until the temptations/thoughts become too much to bear. each time the arbitrary replacement is selected over the maladaptive behavior, the ties between the maladaptive behavior and person on whom it preys are weakened. eventually, the ties become weak enough that the individual is free, and strong enough to fight and to sever the remaining ties on his or her own.

by May, i had watched every episode of grey's anatomy, including those from the current season. my second night at home for summer, i watched the season 8 finale with my mom.

this past fall, i watched the first episode of season 9, but i couldn't tell you anything that's happened since.

life has been too much fun for grey's.

part 3{truly alive} coming soon.

love,

EA

body image {part1}

body image is a struggle for everyone.

but for those of us with eating disorders, body image and the struggles that accompany are magnified a million times in every direction.

when what we see is good, what we see is really good, and consequently, so is everything about us and our day and our lives; when what we see is bad, it's excruciating, and everything about everything follows suit.

i haven't any numerical or real evidence of this outside of my own experience, but i firmly believe that body image distortions are one of the top reasons that recovery rates from eating disorders are not higher than they are. many of the times that i attempted to recover in the past, it was the sheer excruciation of hating my body that drove me back into my disorder. the searing, exasperating pain was simply not worth it.

when i first went into recovery, it was almost physically painful to look at myself in the mirror. i saw huge, monstrous shoulders on either side of an expansive chest with oversized arms and a ballon-like face.

on terrible days, the above upper half sat atop a pair of thundering thighs. i remember walking to class one day last spring, imagining the pavement crumbling beneath each of my steps.

i sucked in heavy, shaky breaths as i walked, biting my lips and scrunching my nose in attempt to squelch the flow of tears that welled behind my eyes.

i approached the psychology building and took straight, zombie-like steps towards my classroom door. i got there and i reached for the door knob, but as soon as i started inside, an uncontrollable sob burst forth and i made sure to disappear before anyone could see.

i somehow ended up in a courtyard behind the building. i dropped into a flower bed, curled up against the brick behind me and allowed the sobs to take over me. i hunched over my notebook and shook, scratching tearful prayers for mercy across the wet pages. when i finally regained some composure, i walked back to my dorm, put on my shoes and ran myself numb on the trail across the street.

although i struggle with body image daily, every so often i find myself amidst an exasperating bout like the one above. it's like a bad dream in which i want nothing more than to run away, to escape, but i can't make my legs move. the pain, the self-loathing, the harsh downpour of lies (or are they real?) surround on all sides, arousing a desperate desire to escape a thorny maze of circular thoughts with no way out.

after about 10 months of recovery, though, things began to improve. i remember on halloween, getting ready to go out with my friends and thinking, "wow. i guess i kind of like my body tonight."

i expected things to tumble downhill from there, but they never really did. i had bad days here and there, but nothing that left me reeling, dazed and drained the way it had before.

i don't think the truth and i have reunited completely. in fact, in the next paragraph, you'll see that we have not. but since october or so, the gap between the truth and me has undoubtedly narrowed, and i've deeply enjoyed and rested upon the peace that's resulted.

i thought that i'd finally escaped the painstaking battles of body image described above, but from sunday evening through yesterday afternoon, i found myself taken over with self hatred once again. thanks to God's strength, and my wonderful support system and my own desire to recover, i'm feeling much better. and thanks to the battle itself, i've decided to attack body image head on in upcoming writings.

these next couple of posts will be a continuing discussion of body image, and how i'm journeying from enslavement, to mere survival, to true life in relation to the way i view my body.

have a beautiful day, love your beautiful self.

love,

ea

an almost relapse.

the other day i drove back to samford for my very last semester of college.

i was supposed to be sentimental or incredulous or savoring memories past and memories to come, or something like that i think.

i allowed my mind to drift for old time's sake, but i wasn't softly smiling or feeling full-hearted in result...i was counting calories.

it had been months since the familiar, sinister voice beckoned to me, offering its advice to make me look a little thinner, and thus worth a little more.

it took me aback a little bit...the way it does to see a somewhat forgotton name from a dramatic past pop up at the top of a text message...as much of a jolt as it was, there was something spark-like about it, something that stirred up everything i'm trying to hate and reminded me how much i used to love it.

i knew the moment i detected them that i needed to drive the thoughts out of my head, but i didn't. i didn't, because as much as i hate to admit it...

...i kind of liked that they were there.

it takes roughly six hours to drive from my home to my school. apparently, it also takes roughly six hours for me to step an entire year back in my thinking.

i hadn't planned on acting on any of the thoughts. i just wanted to enjoy the safety of thinking them. but by the time i got to my apartment, i'd devised a restrictive eating plan and began to carry it out.

i won't go into any detail in regards to what i ate/didn't eat saturday night and sunday, because i just don't see that information serving any positive purpose for anyone.

but i will say that i spent sunday morning wandering the grocery store, purchasing my eating disorder's favorite "foodless foods" as i like to call them, and feeling strangely secure having them rolling around in my cart.

i continued, walking hand in hand with my disorder into the night.

i found myself at an opening event at which everyone reunited for coffee and dessert to welcome the spring semester. i downed a couple of cups of coffee (many of you fellow strugglers have probably experienced a twisted relationship with coffee) and found it incredibly {but now that i look back, unsprisingly} effortful to be myself.

i can remember being around bigger groups of people when i was sick and feeling completely caged. it was like the real me was in there, but my eating disorder was a prison that not only took over my body and mind, but my personality as well. i was so frustrated that i couldn't just make my real self come out.

it took proper nutrition and disobedience of my disorder to liberate my true self before, so i don't know why i thought i could have it all this time.

it took about an hour amidst the people i love for me to remember that my disorder wasn't going to accept just a portion of my efforts. it will always want everything. my thoughts went into a battle that was so explicitly back and forth, i could almost feel it from one side of my head to the other. it was like i was going to rip down the middle.

i was just standing there, feeling safe, but dizzy; euphoric, but sad. as much as my disorder wanted me, i knew God wanted me more. and my true heart, the one that's emerged from the past year of healing, began mourning all i was going to lose if i chose to stop eating and turn back.

this person doesn't know this, but as the battle reached its peak of intensity, a friend approached me and told me a story of some positive effects of this blog he'd observed in a fellow struggler's life. {that being said...this is God's blog...he put on my heart to start it, and he does what he will with it...so if i say that someone has benefitted from any words that i post, i am not implying that i did anything besides stand in as a willing vessel to accomplish any of it} at that point, the battle was over.

i texted my best friend and my mom and told them what had happened and told them it was over. i felt joyously liberated and i thanked God for his provision and i danced with friends and glow sticks and went to sonic with them afterwards and ate/drank a dr. pepper float.

i woke the next morning feeling relieved and even safer than i'd felt with the "foodless" cans in my cart. i bought some awesome velcro dance shoes and some cinnamon almonds and you know what?...

...i haven't looked back.

love,

EA