The Thursdays…

I am doing a short update, even though I don't have anything interesting to say. I kind of like it, and I kind of hate it, when other bloggers do this. I have had a good week overall, but a rough day today. I had a doctors appointment this morning, because I have a lot of digestive issues. These issues have gone on for a a while… They all spring from the damage I did to my body through my eating disorder. I have to deal with them, though, this doctor did prescribe me some medicine, that I have to take for a week. The next week I have to have a test done, I can't stand doctors, or the entire medical field, really. I do see their purpose, but I don't like being involved in it. So, I am off work and just goofing off on my iPad. Not too happy about having to take medicine… And feeling like I just want to go to sleep.

Phases

My days/weeks/months/body image/mood/productivity feel like they fluctuate so much.  My husband has commented on it since we started dating, “inconsistent”, it’s like an annoying animal that follows me around.  Trust me, the only thing I want in the world is to find some kind of stability in my life, in my world, but I don’t seem to find it. 

I will say that I’ve improved, I used to be on a lot of medications supposedly for my eating disorder, and also for anxiety and depression, but about a year ago, I just stopped taking them.  I want to embrace a cleaner life style, and I felt that those medications made everything so fuzzy.  So, believe it or not, I have become more stable off the meds, than I was on.  I have struggled more with my eating disorder, but right now I feel that is manageable, (whatever that means), and it is better than feeling foggy and slightly drugged up all of the time.  I feel like medication takes away my ability to function. 

I know it helps some people, and I’m all about that, but on the whole, I do feel like our society is over medicated.  I take antibiotics if I have a bad ear infection, and I occasionally take OTC pain medicine if I’m really hurting, but overall, I try to stay away from medicines.  I take my multivitamin, and vitamin D. 

I mentioned the inconsistency at the beginning of this post, because it struck me this morning, that I am at a very different place this week than I was last week.  Last week I was stuck in an awful B/P cycle that seemed like it had been going on for a few months.  It seemed like something I would never get away from.  Now I am out of that cycle, eating my “normal” diet, and feeling more like myself.  I am not sure what contributed to the change, maybe seeing my friend over the weekend, but I also theorize that it could have to do with the enormous amount of stress I have this week at work.  I have a big project on Wednesday, and for some reason stress always has a clarifying effect on my mental state.

My convictions from last week about recovery and wanting to be better are pretty much out the window.  I have to be in a really bad place, usually in the middle of a B/P cycle, to ever feel like recovery is an option.  So I’m restricting, feeling very good about it, and staying consistently inconsistent, if nothing else.

Working for the Weekend!

I am so excited about the weekend, an old friend is coming into town to hang out, and we have plans to go shopping, and just watch some movies.  My husband is working overtime all weekend, so it will be pure girl time.  I am looking forward to it, this friend does know about my eating disorder, and although she has always seemed concerned, she does not push or pry about things.  I think she feels out of place bringing it up, unless I bring it up first.  That is just fine with me; it won’t come up most likely at all.  She loves to do physical activities outside, and even though it’s in the 90 degree range here, we will most likely do some hiking.  I actually really enjoy being in the heat and sweating, I know that sounds gross, so cleansing, though.  Okay, I seriously have to kill the last bit of this work I have to do.  Have a good weekend everyone!

Remembering Recovery

I binged last night in a major way, and felt like absolute shit afterwards.  It really makes me miserable.  I want to stop.  I pulled out an old workbook from one of the psychologist I used to see, and was reading about normalizing eating patterns.  I want to be better, but I also just want. That. Number. To. Go. Down!  When I look at myself, I feel disgusting.  I just do not see what is evident to everyone else.  Sometimes in pictures I see that I am a small person, with thin arms and legs, but when it comes to looking in the mirror I miss it completely.  I hate my legs especially. 

In the workbook I was reading it says that the major cause of binges is restricting, and if you can eat a normal amount when you are hungry than you can stop the binges; This is so difficult, though; I think I’ve trained myself so that feeling hungry is very positively reinforcing.  I love that feeling of being hollow.  The last thing I want to do when I feel that way is ruin it by eating.  This is common when someone has an eating disorder, and the solution is a meal plan, so that you know when and what to eat.  I have had so many of those, and I do find them hard to stick to, although when I was in recovery for almost two years, I began that recovery with a great nutritionist and a meal plan.  She was sensitive to what I wanted, and she was flexible about when and what I ate.  I was living in New York at the time, and I did get some excellent treatment there.  I saw that meal plan last night, and it made me cry a little.  I do not know why, but I just want…I don’t know.  Here is that meal plan:

Note:  Keep in mind that this is a summary, when I first started on the meal plan I was not eating this much food at all, and I worked up to this over time.  This is a limited diet, but it was what made me feel comfortable at the time, and I use the word comfortable in the loosest of terms.  It was what I knew I had to do to get better.  It did take me a while to gain back weight, but I did slip up and not follow this all of the time.

·         Breakfast: 1C of bran flakes with 1/2 C of almond milk, 2 pieces of multigrain toast with a spread, usually peanut butter, and a piece of fruit.

·         Morning snack: some berries or other fruit

·         Lunch: A wrap with vegetables and hummus, or a sandwich with tofu salad of some sort, a side of vegetables, like broccoli or a small side salad, then a dessert, like yogurt

·         Afternoon snack: some nuts or pretzels (this usually did not happen, because nuts are a fear food, and I don’t really like pretzels).

·         Supper: a vegetarian main dish, usually something with beans or garbanzo beans and vegetables, a starchy vegetable of some sort, a bread, like a roll or a pita, with a spread, and then either a heavy or light dessert depending on the night.  Heavy dessert would be soy ice-cream, and a light dessert could be fruit salad or yogurt.

I am eating nowhere near this much now.  I also was flipping through my journal from the time when I was recovered, and I was so happy.  I was not binging at all, or very rarely.  I just can’t recall for the life of me how I got to that point.  I sometimes have moments of clarity when I know I want to get better, but they never last long, and my ED voice can usually obliterate them quickly.  I can feel it inside of me, though, I do want this to stop, I see the evidence of what being recovered means, but I just do not have the road map to get to the point where I feel the utter conviction, and know for sure that is what I want.

Avoiding Social Pressure

I work at a center where I teach technology all day.  We mainly work with elders, and people who have very limited experience with computers.  We rarely go past the basics, and spend most of our time doing things like opening a document, and saving a document.  It is a fun job, and a fairly good environment. 

The only drawback is that the older people that I work with love to bring food.  They make a lot of comments about my weight, as older people are wont to do about everyone, and they bring food to the lessons.  Sometimes they bring bags of cookies and crackers, but sometimes they bring muffins and cakes; Nothing even remotely on my safe foods list, of course.  I have worn out the “I’m not hungry” excuse, and they pressure me a lot, especially if it’s someone I’ve been working with a while. 

One woman in particular seems to have picked up on the fact that I avoid food at all cost, and she asks me directly if I want to eat certain things.  She asks me about my favorite foods, and brings versions of those foods that I would never eat in a thousand years.  For example, I told her I sometimes like to eat yogurt, and she has started bringing these yogurts to work that are full of fat and sugar.  The kind with syrup drizzled throughout, granola on the side, etc.

It makes me feel uncomfortable, but more than that, it contributes to terrible binge/purge cycles, because I eat something that someone brings, (usually under social pressure), and then I feel like absolute shit about myself, and end up purging it.  Fortunately I do not think any of the elders at my work, even this one wily old food offering woman, has picked up on my purging trips. 

 

All of this food pressure usually takes place twice during the day, during morning, and afternoon break times.  Staff and students basically share a break space, and everyone sits or stands around and eats or drinks coffee.  My strategy for this is to always bring something for break time, whether it is something safe to eat, or just being caught up in a cup of coffee.  I unfortunately cannot drink diet soda because of a sensitivity to aspartame, so that is out of the question.  I am one of the staff members tasked with monitoring the break room, so it’s a situation I can’t really get out of.

I am running out of time to finish this post, to sum things up, I “binged”, I mean for me I binged, on those Ritz Bits sandwich crackers today at break, and then had a lot of trouble purging.  I also know my husband is going to want to go out to dinner, so I’m struggling with anxiety and freaking out a bit.  I know this isn't a big deal, but I'm honestly stressing about a few things, and they are kind of building up.

ProAna

This blog is not pro-anorexia. None of the content posted on this blog is meant to endorse behaviors that mimic the symptoms of anorexia. Some of the things I post may be triggering, but they are not intended to encourage ProAna Behaviors or followers. I was diagnosed with this disorder 11 years ago. I do not see it as a game, or an act. It is not something you want, the thought that someone might wish it, makes me afraid for them; it also makes me sad. I will do my best to stay away from triggering content. While my ED does focus a lot on my body image and losing weight, for me and most people with an ED, it is more about a way of coping with the everyday world. I have been in out of various treatments, but am struggling with a relapse that started in early March of this year.  I would like to stick a disclaimer about this blog being absolutely not ProAna somewhere on this page, but I’m still figuring out this blogging thing.  I will work on it.  At the same time, I do know that I am putting myself out on the internet, and the contents of this blog will be used however the people who read it damn well please. 

Guilty Pleasures

I have this fairly recent addiction to YouTube videos.  I love them!  I wish I had the guts to make them.  I can’t really imagine ever putting myself on camera.  I hate to admit it, but I am very sensitive to the troll people and the things they say.  It is most of the reason this blog will pretty much be anonymous.  I do find it entertaining, however, to watch others.  The random bits of their life, their interesting prospective, and oh, but most of all…I love playing chicken with myself and trying to trigger myself.  Not healthy?  I know this…it doesn’t really matter, I like doing it, and I wonder if others do too.  I will click on a video so quickly if it says trigger warning.  There is a little voice in my head that whispers, “Come on, let’s see what will happen”.  Beyond my own psychological issues, a lot of times the videos I watch can also be helpful, not only helpful for things like, ‘how to make the perfect sock bun!’, but helpful for me emotionally.  I follow several beauty channels as well, but it really is the videos on anorexia and bulimia that drowned me, and cause me to spend hours on line clicking my life away.  These are some of the channels where I lose myself…

Kamelya Ozten

Holly Griffiths

Lily Lucia

Raganmae

Vishmantri

These are five lovely ladies who I find very helpful and entertaining.  Give their videos a watch.  There are quite a few others, and like I said I do watch some non-ED related vlogs, but I'm at work and do not have time to list them all.

Learning to Crawl

I wanted a space where I could write.  I wanted a place where I could face down the girl who is Ivy, and see what she is made of…I wanted to join the community of bloggers.  Here it is…