i have a hard time knowing what "recovered" means, or if it even exists.
i used to think it meant that a person had absolutely no ED thoughts, urges, or behaviors; they'd officially eradicated their ED from their lives. of course, this ultimate state of recovery is not believed in by most. how many times have you heard, "full recovery is not possible," or "your ED will always be with you?"
i can say with full honesty that i was in this state of full recovery once - oddly, it wasn't decades after my eating disorder (i'm only 2.5 years into recovery), it was early recovery. as soon as i gained all the weight back, the thoughts disappeared, and my body image was phenomenal. so was my mindset - i truly didn't give a shit about what i ate or whether i gained weight or what the fuck ever. i was a recovery powerhouse, as you might have seen if you've read my earlier entries. i told people that i was recovered, because that's how it felt.
it all changed when i relapsed last year. while that relapse has strengthened my recovery in some respects, i have to say that i haven't been the same since. i do have thoughts and urges, sometimes on a daily basis. i also have periods of time where i'm not bothered by my ED at all and feel very immune to it. my state of recovery seems directly related to what's going on in my life - at least for the most part.
what can explain my fleeting time period of "full recovery"? i can only guess.
1.) weight. i gained beyond my setpoint. i was closer to overweight than normal weight, and i'm someone who's been naturally underweight for most of her life. to get to this stage, i of course was eating massive amounts of food... during refeeding i was eating 4k - 6k every day, and later was comfortable with 3k.
2.) immense gratitude. i'd just escaped rock bottom and a horror show of medical complications. i had survivor's high and wanted to kiss the ground i walked on. my anorexia nightmare was so fresh in my mind that to even conceive of going back there was impossible. i had to do a mental 180 to get through recovery, and that made me pro-recovery in a rather intense manner.
3.) i had very little going on in my life, apart from my recovery. this is normal for anyone in recovery, especially if you've had medical issues that needed to be addressed. even though you're getting healthier, you're still hidden from the world in a lot of ways, like you were when you were sick. i was concentrating mostly on eating, therapy, and honing my recovery for the longest time.
to compare all of these factors to what's been going on in the past year:
1.) my weight is down... way down. i lost my refeeding weight without even trying, and went down to the setpoint i've always had, ever since i was a teenager. anorexia wrecked my immune system, so i've been sick a number of times and lost weight from that. on top of this, i have a hard time maintaining my weight because my hunger signals are still abnormal, and i seem to have a permanently high metabolism ever since refeeding. maybe being on the cusp of "too thin" has triggered my ED. i've read that it's best to be around a BMI of 20 so you have a buffer against unexpected weight loss. how do you do this when your setpoint is lower than that? it would feel disordered of me to overeat all the time to keep my weight above what it wants to be, yet i can't help wonder if gaining some weight would help with my thoughts.
2.) i still feel grateful, quite often, for being alive and healthy. but it will never be as intense as it was straight out of rock bottom. you can forget so easily how shitty eating disorders are, and in my experience it doesn't take long at all to start missing them. that's what happened to me when i relapsed, and the relapse was a great reminder that i can't go back to that hell. but how often does someone need reminding that they shouldn't go back? at what point have you relapsed and struggled enough to be completely turned off by your ED? does that even happen?
3.) i truly feel that outside factors have had a lot to do with my fluctuating modes of recovery. i've had a shit load of stress to go through lately, to say the least. you can spend time in therapy all you like, but nothing prepares you for the unexpected problems you'll face in the future. you are always vulnerable to being fired, losing a family member, getting into a car accident, being called fat by a loved one, etc... the list goes on and on. there are countless sources of stress and challenge in our lives. for every problem that comes up, you have to learn how to cope without using your eating disorder. it can be very hard to do this, because nearly every situation is a new surprise, and you have to be on the ball all the time- to react using healthy coping mechanisms, and not your ED, no matter what it is. it's this risk that makes me doubt that full recovery exists. take the strongest recovered person out there, and see what happens if some awful tragedy happens in her life - is there any guarantee she won't relapse?
for this reason, i think recovery status strengthens with time and experience. the more that you go through and survive without turning to your eating disorder, the stronger your recovery is. it's a constant learning process. even then, the stress might be so high that your ED is taunting you against your will. this conflicts with that recovered definition of having no thoughts or urges. is it possible? i don't know. i know that you can get through life without your eating disorder, but how easy that is seems to be at the mercy of what life wants to throw at you.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
be a whale
Recently, in a large city in France, a poster featuring a young, thin, tan woman appeared in the window of a gym. The poster read: “This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?”
A middle-aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.
To Whom It May Concern,
Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, sea lions, curious humans). They have an active sex life, get pregnant and have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins, stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Bering Sea, and the coral reefs of Polynesia. Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and virtually have no predators, other than humans. They are loved, protected, and admired by almost everyone in the world.
Mermaids do not exist. If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis: fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them. (Not to mention, how could they have sex? Just look at them … where is IT?) Therefore, they don’t have kids either. And who wants to get close to a girl who smells like a fish store?
The choice is perfectly clear to me: I want to be a whale.
P.S. — We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful. But I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids, a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver, and a piece of chocolate with my friends. With time, we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren’t heavy . . . We are enormously cultured, educated, and happy. Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, “Good grief, look how smart I am!”
A middle-aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.
To Whom It May Concern,
Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, sea lions, curious humans). They have an active sex life, get pregnant and have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins, stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Bering Sea, and the coral reefs of Polynesia. Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and virtually have no predators, other than humans. They are loved, protected, and admired by almost everyone in the world.
Mermaids do not exist. If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis: fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them. (Not to mention, how could they have sex? Just look at them … where is IT?) Therefore, they don’t have kids either. And who wants to get close to a girl who smells like a fish store?
The choice is perfectly clear to me: I want to be a whale.
P.S. — We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful. But I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids, a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver, and a piece of chocolate with my friends. With time, we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren’t heavy . . . We are enormously cultured, educated, and happy. Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, “Good grief, look how smart I am!”
learning to dance 3
discovering biology was great, but it was the only redeeming factor about being back home. i missed new orleans and my friends terribly, and wanted to go back, only this time to study science.
moving back was a smooth transition. i applied to a private, rich college for the hell of it, and they gave me a 28k grant. i secured an apartment ahead of time. i managed to have the money to move back. i felt fine about leaving my family again - while home, i was privileged to experience my mom's astounding recovery, and to offer her all my support and love. she was transformed, and i knew she'd be okay if i left again, which i did last may. i even had surgery in july to cure my acid reflux, which my ED had worsened, and recovered quickly before my move. it all worked out so perfectly.
my recovery was put to the biggest test yet the first weekend i was back. i was sexually assaulted.
i don't know what else to say about that. i think the worst consequence to go through was opening my eyes to how sexist, victim blaming, and women hating our world is. i always knew we lived in a rape culture, but now i knew and felt it firsthand. i even lost a friend over cruel things that were said to me. i lost my trust toward men. for about a week, i couldn't leave my apartment. i'm still paranoid now, always assuming the worst of men, although i try not to be that way. i am very careful now. it has changed my life irrevocably.
very surprisingly, i did not relapse, or even come close. i had some SI urges, but that was about it. i really had no desire to rely on my ED. my relapse last year had confirmed to me that there was no point in being EDed because it did absolutely nothing to improve my life. i pursued therapy, and my therapist was my anchor who kept me going.
i won't go so far as to say i am thankful for this experience because i learned from it - no, thanks - but i DID learn. it did change me. the kicker is that i did everything in my power to let it change me for the good. i feel that this mindset is very important in any sort of recovery. you can let your past drag you down, and become so despondent over all you've lost that you don't feel motivated to do something different, or you can accept that the challenges in your life have been a hard, bitter pill to swallow, but that they are over and you are stronger for them.
this is the hardest part of my update to write out, because it's all so fresh to me. in a nutshell, life got worse and worse in new orleans. i caught a bacterial infection, lost my job, was very disappointed in my friendships, had to deal with the assault all by myself, and the final straw was starting school and not liking my classes. physics drove me insane, ancient history was one of the worst classes i've ever taken, and chemistry didn't sweep me off my feet like biology did. last october, i started a repeat of what happened in graduate school - depression, skipping classes... i emailed my mother in a moment of desperation. i said i felt i shouldn't be in school anymore because i was wasting so much money, but didn't know what i should do, and i'd feel like a failure if i came home again.
she said something i'll never forget: "unless you're going to jail for 20 years for some horrible offense, everything is fixable. you can't screw up too much with school or work for it not to be fixable. especially when you're a younger person."
my therapist had a similar sentiment when i talked to her. "i believe that no choice is irreversible," she said, "except children and death." we had a good laugh over that.
my mother repeated the question she had asked me last year, "if you could do anything, what would it be?"
the answer was still animals. the animal careers classes i took in the spring taught me that a lot of animal jobs paid very little, and even though i don't need much money, that steered me away. however, if this year has taught me anything, it's that i can't put up with anything for too long if it makes me unhappy, and that includes everything from my eating disorder to physics. i feel so strongly that i owe it to myself to do what i love, and for that reason i have very little patience for things in my life that i dislike. i am so defensive of my desire to build a great life - have a wonderful career, live in a place i love, avoid relapse - that i would move the moon and stars to ensure my happiness and health. i'd leave new orleans TWICE because it made me unhappy. i have driven cross country four different times and spent thousands of dollars on these decisions, and i regret none of it. i have been making choices that may seem risky and a waste of money, and it's all in the spirit of following my heart. i don't care about anything else because i refuse to waste any more of my life than i already have.
my journey of self discovery would probably not be so chaotic and expensive if i'd never had an ED and had a proper foundation laid down in knowing myself. this is not the case, and i fumble around a lot like someone relearning to walk after they've been injured. do i stand around and cry about it? i did for a while... and that got tiring. you have no other choice in recovery but to throw yourself at the world and see what happens. it's painful to grow into yourself - like going through puberty again - and it's awkward as fuck. but the sooner you get started, the sooner the fun begins (and believe me, most of this is a blast.) there's no reason why, ED related or not, you can't start today. if not now, when?
so, time to get to work.
i came home a few weeks ago. i've been living like a vagabond. my parents both offered to have me live with them. my mom spoke of all the animal internships and jobs in her area. i dove into this and held nothing back, applying to every animal-related job i could find. i was staying with my dad just on a visit, and within a few days i had interviews for kennel tech and zookeeper positions. i didn't get the kennel tech job, i did get the zookeeper one. i tried it out on saturday and it was an awful experience - nothing like i was told it would be - so i'm writing that off and i'm truckin' along.
i had an interview at petco today, and have another one at petsmart on thursday.
i have started volunteering at an animal shelter 5 minutes away, and i absolutely love it. the people there are all kind and really love animals, like i do.
i am thinking about applying to vet tech school.
i don't remember being happier than i am at this moment. i would have never envisioned my life like this. i'm living with my dad, i'm actually looking forward to working in a store making minimum wage, i'm not in new orleans, i actually LOVE being back home because all that time away has made me appreciate it so much, i have practically no money... but i do have the limitless support of my family members, and this amazing opportunity to start a new career without having to worry about pressures like rent and grad school. my life has been a grand adventure since starting recovery, and it doesn't seem to be letting off anytime soon - i'm just sitting back and enjoying the ride.
my recovery has been surprising to me, and i want to continue blogging about it here. it's a journey of twist and turns and it can be unpredictable and frustrating. i am no longer the "recovered" person that i was in 2009 to early 2010, fresh out of anorexia and high on life - i am not immune to this disorder - yet in some ways my recovery is stronger than ever because it has been put to the test so many times. you have to adapt recovery to your life, and because your life is constantly changing, this is not easy. my recent experiences have inspired me to explore this challenge on my blog.
thanks for reading.
moving back was a smooth transition. i applied to a private, rich college for the hell of it, and they gave me a 28k grant. i secured an apartment ahead of time. i managed to have the money to move back. i felt fine about leaving my family again - while home, i was privileged to experience my mom's astounding recovery, and to offer her all my support and love. she was transformed, and i knew she'd be okay if i left again, which i did last may. i even had surgery in july to cure my acid reflux, which my ED had worsened, and recovered quickly before my move. it all worked out so perfectly.
my recovery was put to the biggest test yet the first weekend i was back. i was sexually assaulted.
i don't know what else to say about that. i think the worst consequence to go through was opening my eyes to how sexist, victim blaming, and women hating our world is. i always knew we lived in a rape culture, but now i knew and felt it firsthand. i even lost a friend over cruel things that were said to me. i lost my trust toward men. for about a week, i couldn't leave my apartment. i'm still paranoid now, always assuming the worst of men, although i try not to be that way. i am very careful now. it has changed my life irrevocably.
very surprisingly, i did not relapse, or even come close. i had some SI urges, but that was about it. i really had no desire to rely on my ED. my relapse last year had confirmed to me that there was no point in being EDed because it did absolutely nothing to improve my life. i pursued therapy, and my therapist was my anchor who kept me going.
i won't go so far as to say i am thankful for this experience because i learned from it - no, thanks - but i DID learn. it did change me. the kicker is that i did everything in my power to let it change me for the good. i feel that this mindset is very important in any sort of recovery. you can let your past drag you down, and become so despondent over all you've lost that you don't feel motivated to do something different, or you can accept that the challenges in your life have been a hard, bitter pill to swallow, but that they are over and you are stronger for them.
this is the hardest part of my update to write out, because it's all so fresh to me. in a nutshell, life got worse and worse in new orleans. i caught a bacterial infection, lost my job, was very disappointed in my friendships, had to deal with the assault all by myself, and the final straw was starting school and not liking my classes. physics drove me insane, ancient history was one of the worst classes i've ever taken, and chemistry didn't sweep me off my feet like biology did. last october, i started a repeat of what happened in graduate school - depression, skipping classes... i emailed my mother in a moment of desperation. i said i felt i shouldn't be in school anymore because i was wasting so much money, but didn't know what i should do, and i'd feel like a failure if i came home again.
she said something i'll never forget: "unless you're going to jail for 20 years for some horrible offense, everything is fixable. you can't screw up too much with school or work for it not to be fixable. especially when you're a younger person."
my therapist had a similar sentiment when i talked to her. "i believe that no choice is irreversible," she said, "except children and death." we had a good laugh over that.
my mother repeated the question she had asked me last year, "if you could do anything, what would it be?"
the answer was still animals. the animal careers classes i took in the spring taught me that a lot of animal jobs paid very little, and even though i don't need much money, that steered me away. however, if this year has taught me anything, it's that i can't put up with anything for too long if it makes me unhappy, and that includes everything from my eating disorder to physics. i feel so strongly that i owe it to myself to do what i love, and for that reason i have very little patience for things in my life that i dislike. i am so defensive of my desire to build a great life - have a wonderful career, live in a place i love, avoid relapse - that i would move the moon and stars to ensure my happiness and health. i'd leave new orleans TWICE because it made me unhappy. i have driven cross country four different times and spent thousands of dollars on these decisions, and i regret none of it. i have been making choices that may seem risky and a waste of money, and it's all in the spirit of following my heart. i don't care about anything else because i refuse to waste any more of my life than i already have.
my journey of self discovery would probably not be so chaotic and expensive if i'd never had an ED and had a proper foundation laid down in knowing myself. this is not the case, and i fumble around a lot like someone relearning to walk after they've been injured. do i stand around and cry about it? i did for a while... and that got tiring. you have no other choice in recovery but to throw yourself at the world and see what happens. it's painful to grow into yourself - like going through puberty again - and it's awkward as fuck. but the sooner you get started, the sooner the fun begins (and believe me, most of this is a blast.) there's no reason why, ED related or not, you can't start today. if not now, when?
so, time to get to work.
i came home a few weeks ago. i've been living like a vagabond. my parents both offered to have me live with them. my mom spoke of all the animal internships and jobs in her area. i dove into this and held nothing back, applying to every animal-related job i could find. i was staying with my dad just on a visit, and within a few days i had interviews for kennel tech and zookeeper positions. i didn't get the kennel tech job, i did get the zookeeper one. i tried it out on saturday and it was an awful experience - nothing like i was told it would be - so i'm writing that off and i'm truckin' along.
i had an interview at petco today, and have another one at petsmart on thursday.
i have started volunteering at an animal shelter 5 minutes away, and i absolutely love it. the people there are all kind and really love animals, like i do.
i am thinking about applying to vet tech school.
i don't remember being happier than i am at this moment. i would have never envisioned my life like this. i'm living with my dad, i'm actually looking forward to working in a store making minimum wage, i'm not in new orleans, i actually LOVE being back home because all that time away has made me appreciate it so much, i have practically no money... but i do have the limitless support of my family members, and this amazing opportunity to start a new career without having to worry about pressures like rent and grad school. my life has been a grand adventure since starting recovery, and it doesn't seem to be letting off anytime soon - i'm just sitting back and enjoying the ride.
my recovery has been surprising to me, and i want to continue blogging about it here. it's a journey of twist and turns and it can be unpredictable and frustrating. i am no longer the "recovered" person that i was in 2009 to early 2010, fresh out of anorexia and high on life - i am not immune to this disorder - yet in some ways my recovery is stronger than ever because it has been put to the test so many times. you have to adapt recovery to your life, and because your life is constantly changing, this is not easy. my recent experiences have inspired me to explore this challenge on my blog.
thanks for reading.
learning to dance 2
i saw a therapist for a few sessions in new orleans - funnily, she was a professor in the program i dropped out of, but said it wasn't an issue as long as i never took a class with her. during our first session, i launched into my tale about how i had no clue who i was, what i was going to do with my life, where i was going to live, how i was going to afford my apartment, and basically how to rebuild my life from the ground up after i had demolished it with my ED. she came up with a brilliant idea:
"why not go back to undergrad? when i was a student, i took pottery. i took acting - loved it, but found out i had stage fright... this is why people go to college. you can take classes in anything that appeals to you and find out what you're interested in. they'll take care of housing and meals for you, so you don't have to worry about that. it would be a great way to find yourself."
i was sold on the idea before she'd even finished talking. see, i had gone to college for five years to get my B.A., but for the most part, i was going through the motions. i didn't join one club, attend any events, and only started interning after i'd entered recovery. i went to a commuter school so i could get in and get out. i studied film, and i found it interesting but not particularly challenging. i had dropped out of high school due to my ED, and therefore knew little about what i could handle academically, apart from standard liberal arts classes. i avoided science and math like the plague, because i had little exposure to them and had always assumed i was too dumb to go that route.
now i was rethinking all of this - i was brainstorming like crazy. what had i been missing out on all this time? my mom asked me, "if you could do anything, what would you do?" i had to really think hard about that, because without my eating disorder... there wasn't much left to ponder. but as i thought it over, i did come up with an answer: animals. i've always loved animals. they never fail to put a smile on my face. they make me feel at peace, and i have a natural way with them - many people have commented on how strange it is that their surly fur child likes me. i just seem to have a connection with them, and i feel good being around them. and you know, if it weren't for the fact that i grew up on a farmhouse with a lot of animals, i might have never found this passion - i had NO room for anything else with an eating disorder, so i felt lucky that i even knew this tidbit about myself.
i called up my old therapist, who'd worked with me all throughout recovery, and told her what was going on. she was very encouraging to me, and told me to approach life like it was a science experiment. "you have to find out through trial and error who you are," she said. "go to an amusement park and ride on the rollercoaster. afterward, ask yourself how you feel. was it fun or not? that's one more thing that you know about yourself. every time you have a new experience, you've learned more about what you like and what you don't like. think of it as an adventure."
i followed her advice. i reapplied to my alma mater back home - as luck would have it, they were one of the few colleges that was still accepting applications for spring 2011 transfer students, and they accepted me. they had a number of animal majors and programs for me to look into. they also had numerous math and science courses, and i felt inspired to take some on the chance that i liked them. excluding math and science totally from my college career, out of fear and insecurity, was cheating myself - who's not to say i had a knack for science? what if i loved science and wanted to become a veterinarian? i'd never know if i didn't try. i was ready to start making up for everything the ED had taken from me. i wanted to explore all possibilities, and give myself the opportunity to discover new passions. i also chose to move home because i could not afford to stay in new orleans - since i was an all around mess and not fit to work, it just wasn't feasible.
i drove all the way back home, a 26 hour trip. i did it by myself this time, while on the way down i had been accompanied by my grandmother and her friend. i arrived in november last year, and it was very strange. i had put myself in the mindset of never going back home again, and was used to living on my own. my mother was gone - her alcoholism had escalated horrifically when i moved away, which was my worst fear and why i always remained so close to her and to home, and she had been forced to go into rehab. it was winter, and the days were cold and dark. there was nothing to do for two months until school started. i was coming down from all the recent events, and my ED thoughts were out of control. i had no energy, no appetite, i was depressed, and had lost weight. it seemed that overnight, i had tipped over from perfectly fine to perfectly fucked up.
i knew what i had to do; i got back together with my team. i started seeing my therapist, and i made an appointment with my dietitian. he put me on a weight gain meal plan, and the first few days were tough, though they'd never hold a candle to what i'd experienced during refeeding. in a short amount of time, my appetite was back and i was eating normally again. before i knew it, intuitive eating was also back and so was normalcy. my moods leveled out; i was me again. just as quickly as the thoughts and depression had come, they'd disappeared within the blink of an eye. amazingly, i hadn't even been EDed for that long, and was only a few pounds at most under my setpoint, yet the effects had been powerful.
i felt so much better after regaining to my setpoint and eating normally, and this reinforced my recovery better than anything else could. i was strongly reminded how utterly essential healthy weight and eating are, and even better, how pointless and unproductive my ED is. i was only sick again for a short amount of time, but here's what happened: i was severely depressed, i had little mental and physical energy, i was unhappy, i felt fat and scared all the time... what did any of that do for me? did it solve my problems? did anything good come of it? no. this discovery has made a long lasting impression on me and my recovery. of course, these were things i knew after recovering from rock bottom years ago, but it really drove the point home when it happened in a different context. two years ago, i was almost dead, and recovery revolved around intense gratitude toward my life and health, and fundamental physical and mental healing. this time, being sick was directly related to coping with some trying personal problems in my life, and i was able to witness and analyze very clearly what a useless function the ED served during that experience. it also boosted my confidence that i was able to pull myself out of it so quickly. i felt great!
in january, i moved into a studio apartment at my alma mater and started a new semester. i had high hopes, and they were dashed. i hated the town i was living in, and my apartment was a bit of a nightmare, complete with shady landlords, cop visits to break up constant partying that made my lights blink on and off, and an errant mouse that emerged from my stove burners. i got a job at a sales associate with a moody boss, ridiculous rules, and boring tasks. my classes were a mess; for some reason, i had been paired up with horrible teachers. one of them was just bad at teaching and i hated the topic (equine health) and another made me feel uncomfortable because he was socially awkward. i kept a biology class, two courses on careers with animals, and a course on running a horse show. i fucking hated the horse show class, i hated the stupid horse people, and it's miraculous i got through that class with a B. i spent 13k on a semester that i mostly hated.
even while dealing with all this shit, i was thankful for it. i was learning new things all the time. i was learning how to deal with landlords, apartment living, crabby bosses, and mouse infestation. i learned that i equine health bores me to death and that horse shows are terrible to run. i learned that retail is not for me. i learned that, when healthy, i CAN function at a job, and i kept mine for four months, and actually quit on my own terms. i learned a lot about different animal careers. but best of all? i discovered a burning passion for biology! this is no exaggeration - i had an intense love affair with the subject. i would study for six hours on end, gladly. i poured over the study materials, did tons of research on my own, and even joined some science boards so i could help people with their homework. i was IN LOVE with it! and i couldn't believe i'd had this undiscovered love for science all along. on top of that, i did well at it - even though i'd hardly taken any science classes in my life, i passed with a B+.
i was keenly aware of how recovery allowed me to have these realizations, experiences, life changing events, epiphanies... everything that's happened since i've chosen to get well. if i hadn't gone into recovery, there's no chance in hell i would have earned a B+ in a college biology course. when i was sick, i could barely even read. without a healthy body, i would have died at the horse show. we did a lot of heavy lifting with setting up the jumps, and let me tell you, i felt like a bad ass. enjoying college and getting to explore careers would not be possible - or not nearly so enjoyable - without my health.
yet no matter how strong you feel, you can't control events in your life, and thus your recovery is always open to be challenged. relapse humbled me. i don't hesitate to admit that relapse is tempting in hard times, but even then you may surprise yourself...
"why not go back to undergrad? when i was a student, i took pottery. i took acting - loved it, but found out i had stage fright... this is why people go to college. you can take classes in anything that appeals to you and find out what you're interested in. they'll take care of housing and meals for you, so you don't have to worry about that. it would be a great way to find yourself."
i was sold on the idea before she'd even finished talking. see, i had gone to college for five years to get my B.A., but for the most part, i was going through the motions. i didn't join one club, attend any events, and only started interning after i'd entered recovery. i went to a commuter school so i could get in and get out. i studied film, and i found it interesting but not particularly challenging. i had dropped out of high school due to my ED, and therefore knew little about what i could handle academically, apart from standard liberal arts classes. i avoided science and math like the plague, because i had little exposure to them and had always assumed i was too dumb to go that route.
now i was rethinking all of this - i was brainstorming like crazy. what had i been missing out on all this time? my mom asked me, "if you could do anything, what would you do?" i had to really think hard about that, because without my eating disorder... there wasn't much left to ponder. but as i thought it over, i did come up with an answer: animals. i've always loved animals. they never fail to put a smile on my face. they make me feel at peace, and i have a natural way with them - many people have commented on how strange it is that their surly fur child likes me. i just seem to have a connection with them, and i feel good being around them. and you know, if it weren't for the fact that i grew up on a farmhouse with a lot of animals, i might have never found this passion - i had NO room for anything else with an eating disorder, so i felt lucky that i even knew this tidbit about myself.
i called up my old therapist, who'd worked with me all throughout recovery, and told her what was going on. she was very encouraging to me, and told me to approach life like it was a science experiment. "you have to find out through trial and error who you are," she said. "go to an amusement park and ride on the rollercoaster. afterward, ask yourself how you feel. was it fun or not? that's one more thing that you know about yourself. every time you have a new experience, you've learned more about what you like and what you don't like. think of it as an adventure."
i followed her advice. i reapplied to my alma mater back home - as luck would have it, they were one of the few colleges that was still accepting applications for spring 2011 transfer students, and they accepted me. they had a number of animal majors and programs for me to look into. they also had numerous math and science courses, and i felt inspired to take some on the chance that i liked them. excluding math and science totally from my college career, out of fear and insecurity, was cheating myself - who's not to say i had a knack for science? what if i loved science and wanted to become a veterinarian? i'd never know if i didn't try. i was ready to start making up for everything the ED had taken from me. i wanted to explore all possibilities, and give myself the opportunity to discover new passions. i also chose to move home because i could not afford to stay in new orleans - since i was an all around mess and not fit to work, it just wasn't feasible.
i drove all the way back home, a 26 hour trip. i did it by myself this time, while on the way down i had been accompanied by my grandmother and her friend. i arrived in november last year, and it was very strange. i had put myself in the mindset of never going back home again, and was used to living on my own. my mother was gone - her alcoholism had escalated horrifically when i moved away, which was my worst fear and why i always remained so close to her and to home, and she had been forced to go into rehab. it was winter, and the days were cold and dark. there was nothing to do for two months until school started. i was coming down from all the recent events, and my ED thoughts were out of control. i had no energy, no appetite, i was depressed, and had lost weight. it seemed that overnight, i had tipped over from perfectly fine to perfectly fucked up.
i knew what i had to do; i got back together with my team. i started seeing my therapist, and i made an appointment with my dietitian. he put me on a weight gain meal plan, and the first few days were tough, though they'd never hold a candle to what i'd experienced during refeeding. in a short amount of time, my appetite was back and i was eating normally again. before i knew it, intuitive eating was also back and so was normalcy. my moods leveled out; i was me again. just as quickly as the thoughts and depression had come, they'd disappeared within the blink of an eye. amazingly, i hadn't even been EDed for that long, and was only a few pounds at most under my setpoint, yet the effects had been powerful.
i felt so much better after regaining to my setpoint and eating normally, and this reinforced my recovery better than anything else could. i was strongly reminded how utterly essential healthy weight and eating are, and even better, how pointless and unproductive my ED is. i was only sick again for a short amount of time, but here's what happened: i was severely depressed, i had little mental and physical energy, i was unhappy, i felt fat and scared all the time... what did any of that do for me? did it solve my problems? did anything good come of it? no. this discovery has made a long lasting impression on me and my recovery. of course, these were things i knew after recovering from rock bottom years ago, but it really drove the point home when it happened in a different context. two years ago, i was almost dead, and recovery revolved around intense gratitude toward my life and health, and fundamental physical and mental healing. this time, being sick was directly related to coping with some trying personal problems in my life, and i was able to witness and analyze very clearly what a useless function the ED served during that experience. it also boosted my confidence that i was able to pull myself out of it so quickly. i felt great!
in january, i moved into a studio apartment at my alma mater and started a new semester. i had high hopes, and they were dashed. i hated the town i was living in, and my apartment was a bit of a nightmare, complete with shady landlords, cop visits to break up constant partying that made my lights blink on and off, and an errant mouse that emerged from my stove burners. i got a job at a sales associate with a moody boss, ridiculous rules, and boring tasks. my classes were a mess; for some reason, i had been paired up with horrible teachers. one of them was just bad at teaching and i hated the topic (equine health) and another made me feel uncomfortable because he was socially awkward. i kept a biology class, two courses on careers with animals, and a course on running a horse show. i fucking hated the horse show class, i hated the stupid horse people, and it's miraculous i got through that class with a B. i spent 13k on a semester that i mostly hated.
even while dealing with all this shit, i was thankful for it. i was learning new things all the time. i was learning how to deal with landlords, apartment living, crabby bosses, and mouse infestation. i learned that i equine health bores me to death and that horse shows are terrible to run. i learned that retail is not for me. i learned that, when healthy, i CAN function at a job, and i kept mine for four months, and actually quit on my own terms. i learned a lot about different animal careers. but best of all? i discovered a burning passion for biology! this is no exaggeration - i had an intense love affair with the subject. i would study for six hours on end, gladly. i poured over the study materials, did tons of research on my own, and even joined some science boards so i could help people with their homework. i was IN LOVE with it! and i couldn't believe i'd had this undiscovered love for science all along. on top of that, i did well at it - even though i'd hardly taken any science classes in my life, i passed with a B+.
i was keenly aware of how recovery allowed me to have these realizations, experiences, life changing events, epiphanies... everything that's happened since i've chosen to get well. if i hadn't gone into recovery, there's no chance in hell i would have earned a B+ in a college biology course. when i was sick, i could barely even read. without a healthy body, i would have died at the horse show. we did a lot of heavy lifting with setting up the jumps, and let me tell you, i felt like a bad ass. enjoying college and getting to explore careers would not be possible - or not nearly so enjoyable - without my health.
yet no matter how strong you feel, you can't control events in your life, and thus your recovery is always open to be challenged. relapse humbled me. i don't hesitate to admit that relapse is tempting in hard times, but even then you may surprise yourself...
learning to dance 1
well, i'm back.
it's been a long time. a lot has changed since i last wrote here.
i am still in recovery, although i don't like to use the word "recovered" anymore because it's a bit premature, and i'm not even sure what it means. i think recovery is a lifelong process that is always subject to revision. i'll write more on this another time.
i relapsed six months after my last entry. you are probably wondering, "what the hell happened?" and the answer is very simple - i didn't know who i was and i didn't know how to function in the real world without my eating disorder. i came to some startling realizations about myself in graduate school, mainly that i felt completely empty and lost, without direction or self-knowledge, and it was very frightening. of course, i had knowledge up the wazoo about my anorexia and recovery, but that can only get you so far. you will find that life in general is not all about mental illness, and your expert knowledge on EDs is not really applicable to much, which is perhaps why so many people with EDs end up attempting to work with EDed people; it's a special niche.
i was sitting in class one day - the teacher was talking about mental illness - and i said to myself, "this is depressing." something didn't feel right. i began to feel depressed myself and was skipping classes. at my work study job at an agency for the homeless, i was warned i couldn't wear a skirt because, "the men around here get friendly real quick." a drunk man charged me on the streetcar; i knew that, as a social worker, i would have to deal with people like him all the time, and it made me incredibly uncomfortable. i asked myself what i was doing in such unpleasant situations that triggered the hell out of me. a big chunk of my life had already been involuntarily focused on mental illness and addiction - why was i going into a field where i'd make money off of submersing myself in the things that made me so sick? after a great deal of soul searching, i decided that going into social work wasn't right for me. i wanted to go into a profession that didn't involve so much stress - i'd had enough of that in my life.
i dropped out of the program in the middle of the semester, and as you can imagine, my whole life was turned upside down. i was embarrassed and depressed about doing this, even though i knew it was right for me. it was such a hard decision that i relapsed in ED behaviors and self-injury. i was scared out of my wits; i had moved all the way across the country to attend school, and now i was dropping out and had no idea what i'd do next or how i'd pay for my apartment. i didn't know a damn thing about myself and it felt like the floor had dropped out from under me. to feel like a stranger in your skin, to not know what your next thought or action could be, to feel so totally groundless and empty - it is indescribable. i was a void. i literally felt that i had no identity; my eating disorder had stripped that away from me, during all the years i missed out on school, friendships, jobs, social events, and countless experiences that would have otherwise contributed to my life, had i not been preoccupied at home with counting calories and starving myself. thanks, anorexia.
i will never say that going to grad school was a mistake. i don't believe any experience is a waste, even an eating disorder, because you learn and grow from everything you do. if i never went, i might have always imagined it would have been the right choice, and the only way to find that out was to give it a shot. not all of it was unpleasant either - not even close. i realized my lifelong dream of living in new orleans, i moved away from home for the first time - cross country! i drove there! - and i immediately formed a number of friendships with my peers. for the first time since i was a child, i had a circle of friends and i regularly socialized. we went out partying constantly and it was the best time of my life. i learned how to order a drink at a bar, rode in cabs by myself, went to all sorts of clubs and restaurants, danced with strangers, tried new foods (and yes, alcoholic drinks), went to florida and spent halloween at a gay club that was having a drag show... i had a blast. i loved the city. new orleans taught me how to dance.
which is why it was so fucking hard to leave it, and i agonized over my decision. i just knew that i had gone into social work because my life up to the point of recovery had always been about helping others above helping myself, sacrificing my needs for the needs of others, caring about people way more than myself... i wanted to be there for new orleans, but also to help other people; already into my recovery, i was so focused on everyone else! i could really see myself becoming very unhealthy as a social worker, and i had pursued it for the wrong reasons. plus, i was fresh out of anorexia, and had lost years and years of self-discovery; i jumped the gun by going to grad school so soon. i knew myself so very little that i'd gone into a graduate program that was completely wrong for me. i hadn't given myself time at all to get to know myself, my interests, my dreams... i just gravitated toward a profession that contained elements familiar to my life, forgetting that they had damaged that life and made me very sick.
apart from being in a program i disliked, it was quite a shock to my system to reenter the world. i felt like an alien that had been dropped on a strange planet and was expected to just get up and immediately know how to get by. you forget just how much you miss out on when you're eating disordered, how much you hid away from and neglected to explore... and it all hits you in the face in recovery. you have to come to terms with what you have lost, and the magnitude of it can make you want to run screaming back to your eating disorder, because it is so overwhelming and unfair and sad. i felt stunted emotionally, socially, developmentally, because the day i became eating disordered was the day i hit the "pause" button on my life. time has passed, and everything has changed, and yet you did nothing with your time except make yourself sick. i'm not going to lie; it sucks. i hated thinking about how i'd missed out on high school, and so many years that i could have spent hanging out with friends, traveling, going out to dinner with people, instead of the shit i was doing by myself, in my room, on my computer prowling ED message boards. i went through a mourning period, grieving over all i had lost, and did it while feeling like my identity had been swiped clean. it is this stage where many people flounder - they can't handle the feeling of displacement, destitution, and confusion. your eating disorder is what you know, it lets you hide away from the world and all your problems (in the short run), it makes you feel good (sometimes), and it's painfully familiar - naturally, it's where you turn.
like i did.
it's been a long time. a lot has changed since i last wrote here.
i am still in recovery, although i don't like to use the word "recovered" anymore because it's a bit premature, and i'm not even sure what it means. i think recovery is a lifelong process that is always subject to revision. i'll write more on this another time.
i relapsed six months after my last entry. you are probably wondering, "what the hell happened?" and the answer is very simple - i didn't know who i was and i didn't know how to function in the real world without my eating disorder. i came to some startling realizations about myself in graduate school, mainly that i felt completely empty and lost, without direction or self-knowledge, and it was very frightening. of course, i had knowledge up the wazoo about my anorexia and recovery, but that can only get you so far. you will find that life in general is not all about mental illness, and your expert knowledge on EDs is not really applicable to much, which is perhaps why so many people with EDs end up attempting to work with EDed people; it's a special niche.
i was sitting in class one day - the teacher was talking about mental illness - and i said to myself, "this is depressing." something didn't feel right. i began to feel depressed myself and was skipping classes. at my work study job at an agency for the homeless, i was warned i couldn't wear a skirt because, "the men around here get friendly real quick." a drunk man charged me on the streetcar; i knew that, as a social worker, i would have to deal with people like him all the time, and it made me incredibly uncomfortable. i asked myself what i was doing in such unpleasant situations that triggered the hell out of me. a big chunk of my life had already been involuntarily focused on mental illness and addiction - why was i going into a field where i'd make money off of submersing myself in the things that made me so sick? after a great deal of soul searching, i decided that going into social work wasn't right for me. i wanted to go into a profession that didn't involve so much stress - i'd had enough of that in my life.
i dropped out of the program in the middle of the semester, and as you can imagine, my whole life was turned upside down. i was embarrassed and depressed about doing this, even though i knew it was right for me. it was such a hard decision that i relapsed in ED behaviors and self-injury. i was scared out of my wits; i had moved all the way across the country to attend school, and now i was dropping out and had no idea what i'd do next or how i'd pay for my apartment. i didn't know a damn thing about myself and it felt like the floor had dropped out from under me. to feel like a stranger in your skin, to not know what your next thought or action could be, to feel so totally groundless and empty - it is indescribable. i was a void. i literally felt that i had no identity; my eating disorder had stripped that away from me, during all the years i missed out on school, friendships, jobs, social events, and countless experiences that would have otherwise contributed to my life, had i not been preoccupied at home with counting calories and starving myself. thanks, anorexia.
i will never say that going to grad school was a mistake. i don't believe any experience is a waste, even an eating disorder, because you learn and grow from everything you do. if i never went, i might have always imagined it would have been the right choice, and the only way to find that out was to give it a shot. not all of it was unpleasant either - not even close. i realized my lifelong dream of living in new orleans, i moved away from home for the first time - cross country! i drove there! - and i immediately formed a number of friendships with my peers. for the first time since i was a child, i had a circle of friends and i regularly socialized. we went out partying constantly and it was the best time of my life. i learned how to order a drink at a bar, rode in cabs by myself, went to all sorts of clubs and restaurants, danced with strangers, tried new foods (and yes, alcoholic drinks), went to florida and spent halloween at a gay club that was having a drag show... i had a blast. i loved the city. new orleans taught me how to dance.
which is why it was so fucking hard to leave it, and i agonized over my decision. i just knew that i had gone into social work because my life up to the point of recovery had always been about helping others above helping myself, sacrificing my needs for the needs of others, caring about people way more than myself... i wanted to be there for new orleans, but also to help other people; already into my recovery, i was so focused on everyone else! i could really see myself becoming very unhealthy as a social worker, and i had pursued it for the wrong reasons. plus, i was fresh out of anorexia, and had lost years and years of self-discovery; i jumped the gun by going to grad school so soon. i knew myself so very little that i'd gone into a graduate program that was completely wrong for me. i hadn't given myself time at all to get to know myself, my interests, my dreams... i just gravitated toward a profession that contained elements familiar to my life, forgetting that they had damaged that life and made me very sick.
apart from being in a program i disliked, it was quite a shock to my system to reenter the world. i felt like an alien that had been dropped on a strange planet and was expected to just get up and immediately know how to get by. you forget just how much you miss out on when you're eating disordered, how much you hid away from and neglected to explore... and it all hits you in the face in recovery. you have to come to terms with what you have lost, and the magnitude of it can make you want to run screaming back to your eating disorder, because it is so overwhelming and unfair and sad. i felt stunted emotionally, socially, developmentally, because the day i became eating disordered was the day i hit the "pause" button on my life. time has passed, and everything has changed, and yet you did nothing with your time except make yourself sick. i'm not going to lie; it sucks. i hated thinking about how i'd missed out on high school, and so many years that i could have spent hanging out with friends, traveling, going out to dinner with people, instead of the shit i was doing by myself, in my room, on my computer prowling ED message boards. i went through a mourning period, grieving over all i had lost, and did it while feeling like my identity had been swiped clean. it is this stage where many people flounder - they can't handle the feeling of displacement, destitution, and confusion. your eating disorder is what you know, it lets you hide away from the world and all your problems (in the short run), it makes you feel good (sometimes), and it's painfully familiar - naturally, it's where you turn.
like i did.
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