Attachments

So, this past week, I've been so aware of how alone I feel when I'm not around people, not surfing the internet, or not checking my iphone for the umpteenth time. The list goes on and on. Obviously, this is why I clung so tightly to food!

Every week, I long for time to myself when I'm off work; yet, when I finally get that time to myself, I feel so alone. Spiritually and psychically alone. Even if the sun is out and I've had my coffee. It doesn't happen every hour of my day. Rather, it's like I have a wonderful day, get my "list of the things to do" done, sit down on the couch to "relax," and then it hits me. First thought... I want food. Second thought... no you don't, so don't even think about it.

Today, my therapist, H, told me that I'm attached to the thought, "I'm alone." The reason for this, H says, is that it's completely familiar to me; because I'd felt so alone my entire life. I don't know if I'll get this right, but by attaching myself to that thought, I leave myself without choices. I drown in this emotional abyss, suddenly finding myself feeling very afraid in the world. No wonder I wanted to binge and purge last week! Thank god I didn't!!

The truth is that we are all alone. Yes, we reach support, we reach for control, for success; but, when all of that runs out, for a moment, it is just me, myself, and my emotional scars. The feeling of longing (for what?) begins to wrap itself around every muscle, bone, and cell in my body, until I'm crawling in my skin.

Naturally, I've forgotten the cognitive-behavioral instructions H presented me with, to change my thought process when the impending doom of "alone" strikes. However, for today, I don't feel it, as much.

Acknowledge. Embrace. Feel. Don't try to change my feelings. Lean into the fear. Lean into the alone-ness.

These are all things that I know help me.

Even though I don't necessarily feel alone tonight, as I sit here, the only question that keeps running through my head is, When can I have my snack???

Will I ever be free????????

Wanting to eat, Wanting to not eat, Wanting to purge, Wanting...

Here it is, almost 8:00 on Saturday evening. Let me just say right off the bat that I have wanted to binge and purge for hours!! These cravings have not come over me, at this level of intensity, for months--perhaps years!! I want to eat, eat, eat! I want to rid myself of the fears I have over this article I'm still procrastinating about writing (although, I'm making some progress). I also want to starve and overexercise. It's... well... crazy, for lack of a better word. Just another indication of the mental disease this is.

Just a glimpse of the ED stream of consciousness this evening:

I really want Magnolia Bakery No you can't get Magnolia Just don't eat Eat your snack as planned I really want cupcakes I really want to purge My therapist still hasn't called me back I have an excuse to binge and purge fuck that you know you don't want to do this You'll regret it No I won't Yes you will I really want to shove massive amounts of Magnolia Bakery products into my mouth Maybe I'll just go to the gym and purge that way No you don't want to do this Who cares I can start over Lisa won't be home for hours You really just want to distract yourself from doing the article It will still be here if you choose to binge and purge You know you don't want to...

How I can go from being in a perfectly great mood, to this emotionally ravenous state--in an instant I might add--is nuts. I won't pathologize too much... none of this is abnormal when you have an ED... even in recovery... that's the real kicker. It's like, yeah, go to treatment, get some recovery--oh, but I might have forgotten to mention that I'll be haunting you for the next, oh, rest of your life. Yes, I have a lot of "freedom," meaning, I don't B/P/S/OEx, and I have the "freedom" to go out to eat without worrying too much about calories; but, on days like today, I feel like I will never get total freedom. I tend not to believe those who say they "recovered" from their EDs. Excuse me, did you have an ED like I had one? To some extent, even without an ED, people will live with food/body issues.

Anyway, all I can think about is going to Magnolia Bakery for their famous treats and shoving as many as I possibly can into my mouth... and then, of course, spewing it out. Wow, that release would feel great--but then I'd feel like shit. Now, I've been mulling this over for several hours, my contemplative options changing by the 15-minute interval, and, I think that I've gotten over the hump (at least for this interval).

As I've made it to the end of this post, I realize that I am definitely not going to binge and purge tonight. Why??? BECAUSE I'M CHOOSING NOT TO!!!!! I'm not going to overexercise at the gym tonight either. I'm going to sit with my feelings and eat my snack, as planned.

My mind tells me that I REALLY don't want to do this, but my truth tells me that I really want to be abstinent.

Recovery is about honesty. As a colleague used to say to our clients, "We don't get honest to get what we want. We get honest to get what we need. Ya know, I really hate honesty at times.

Self Soothing... hard concept for EDs

Why, or perhaps I should say, how, is it that the feeling of fear or panic can strike at any moment? One minute I could be at the bookstore having a lovely time admiring and skimming through dozens of books, and the next minute I'm in complete fear. Or, I could be walking down the street on a perfectly sunny NYC day, and all of a sudden, wham!, I feel completely alone, unsafe, and on the verge of tears. These feelings aren't cause by anything external, but rather, feelings that sit in the depths of my soul and permeate through my psyche--their only release coming in the form of a panic attack or a heavy crying spell.

Does this ever happen to you? My instinct tells me I'm not alone in this.

Immediately, when this happens, I call my therapist for security. It's interesting that my first thought is to reach for something or someone external. It used to be food, now it's my therapist. The only things more soothing are my iPhone or shopping at Anthropologie. As a person who has been through hospitilizations, day treatments, outpatient, long-term residential, years of 12-Step, and more, it is somewhat disheartening that I haven't been able to sharpen my ability to "self-soothe," one of the many palliative prescriptions recommended by H, my therapist.

Once again, this shows me how there are SOOOO many levels to this eating disorder. Actually, this has NOTHING to do with the ED itself; these are the feelings that led me to seek out ED in the first place. It's amazing how powerful feelings can be, isn't it? After all, rationale tells me, Feelings Aren't Facts, but when you're living in a state of fear, it's rarely rational... at least, that's what I've learned.

...Just one more piece of evidence that proves that the ED and all of it's pathological accoutrements are, indeed, a disease (or, at the very least, dis-ease) of the mind.

More on this later

The Three P's of Inaction

In our session yesterday, my T told me that I was suffering from "The Three P's"--Perfectionism, Procrastination, and Paralysis. Oh, how right she is.

For literally weeks now, I've been procrastinating about an article that I'm writing for my school. Typically, I love to write; however, because I will get paid/published for this article, and because this article is for a professor at a prestigious university, I've become paralyzed to write it.

It's amazing how something like an article can make the three p's show up in all parts of my life. I haven't been able to call people back or get my list of things done. I don't feel like going to work. I haven't been writing on my blog (sorry!) Of course, the impending guilt, which perpetuates the three p's' cycle, doesn't help matters.

Naturally, my mind tries to distract itself by shifting to FOOD chatter... I need to lose weight, cut my calories, join the new gym so I can compulsively exercise, blah blah, blah.

Today, luckily, I woke up feeling less stuck in the grips of the three evil p's.

Today I know that focusing on my food and body won't get my list of things done, or that article written. It will only help me to procrastinate longer and feel more guilty--both of which are great set-ups for a binge/purge--the ultimate sabotage.

The Helix of Old Wounds

A few months ago, I moved back to NYC. Prior to the move, I'd been telling my therapy group that I knew I'd be getting back into meetings, as the recovery is amazingly strong in the city. Before my arrival, I'd envisioned that when I came back to my "home group" (from 8 years ago), I'd walk into a room of familiar faces... faces that would remember me.

As soon as I arrived in the city, I went back to my home group. The room had changed. Gone were the old spongy donated couches I used to sit on. The room had been painted and cleaned of clutter, the only remaining furniture was a circle of chairs. I recognized one person. And they didn't recognize me. My ego was, at the very least, humbled... Since then, I've been going to the same Sunday meeting for the last couple of months--I haven't exactly jumped into meetings; I'm slowly integrating myself back.

So, this past week, I made a few phone calls to people from the Sunday meeting, and I was amazed (hurt, baffled, pissed, etc.) that they didn't know who I was! Call it a case of an "egomaniac with an inferiority complex," but I (or rather, my ego) felt extremely hurt by this. Hadn't I dazzled them enough with my shares (Ha,ha)? How could they not remember who I was, when I talked to them after the meeting, albeit a brief encounter? My HP is probably laughing at me...

Yesterday, I returned to the meeting. I felt this extreme sadness throughout, and while I should've shared, I didn't. Rather, after the meeting, when a woman I knew at the meeting asked me how I was, I became a volcano of sadness, my tears erupting and pouring out everywhere. The embarrassing thing for me was that my sadness was triggered by these phone calls, something seemingly small.

The issue is that it brought up this feeling of not being a part of, which is something I'd felt throughout my life. Nobody knew me, I didn't count. I was invisible. I wasn't a part of this recovery clique... blah, blah, blah.

Now I know these are wounds from the girl I once was, and this is a perfect example of how old wounds never dissipate entirely; rather, like my therapist says, our issues resurface like a helix: they will come up again and again, but, over time, they will have less intensity, as you work through them. But they always resurface. That has definitely proven to be true for me. Where, at one time, certain issues would be emotionally debilitating to me, today, they may cause pain for a few hours or a day, but then I move on.

So, for today, I will try not to have expectations about how people will (or how I think they should) react to me.

Conscious Contact with Reality

Hi Everyone,

Today I'm focusing on "reality," which is something ED hates. Reality tells me that it's okay to be a "normal" weight, and reminds me that while the isolation of living in the ED mindset can feel comforting and powerful, it is all an illusion... the same way our minds play tricks on us to tell us we're fat.

Reality, for me, is about honesty. I know I post a lot about honesty, but isn't that what it's all about? When I tell myself, "It's okay, you don't need to eat," when I'm physically hungry, or when I tell myself, "Just finish the rest, you can start again tomorrow," when I'm holding my stomach because I'm clearly full, I'm not living an honest recovery.

Today, I'm trying to live in reality and listen to what the quiet ED voices in my head are saying, because when I listen to the subtle voices--the voices that seem like no big deal, but could actually be the most seductive, insidious, and manipulative voices--I eventually start listening to the overt ED messages that send me straight to the grocery store or to the toilet.

For today, having conscious contact with reality means to eat what's on my food plan, don't listen to ED voices that will only sabotage my recovery and make me feel guilty, and to have the COURAGE to either pick up or put down the fork when I cross over to emotional eating.

Recovery teaches me everyday that it is really just one day at a time.

Hunger is... okay.

It's funny... prior to recovery, I spent so many years vacillating from bingeing and purging to starving myself, intentionally trying to feel physically empty. Yet, in recovery, I've become afraid to feel that which I used to crave... hunger. It's not the type of thing where I'm afraid to feel the grumbling in my stomach before a meal; actually, now that I'm writing, I'm not even sure that it's fear...

At the treatment centers I so humbly crawled to in the summer of 2001, we ate in an extremely regimented way (of course), being served up breakfast, lunch, dinner... and meta. Meta, or metabolic, went against the grain of every eating disordered bone in my body. Eat a snack before bed to regulate blood sugar? Moreover, it went against the dogmas of the most popular diets, which told me not to eat past eight in the evening, or no carbs past the afternoon. Dogmas that even Oprah buys into.

I'd always prided myself on going to bed on an empty stomach, hoping that I'd wake up (and feel) one more pound lighter. Just one more, and I'll feel okay about myself.

Ever since my discharge from the rehabs that saved my life, I've eaten meta every night. It's a great plan. That said, the compulsive eater in me sends warning signals to my brain if I don't eat meta, or if I don't eat every 4-5 hours the way I've been conditioned to eat.

So, yesterday, after some probing questions from my therapist, I found myself at another level of honesty in my recovery. What I know is that I don't have to always eat something just because my brain tells me I should. Now, DO NOT get this confused with some type of anorexic cognitive distortion--this is hardly that. This is me being honest with myself about the fact that I still emotionally eat, in small doses.

I've been complaining (for years) that I just want to eat cleanly. I'll eat cleanly for the entire day, and then at the end of the night, I'll eat something--that "thing" that I'm hoping will make me feel "whatever," but in actuality makes me feel guilty and increases my self-loathing--I don't really need, just to sabotage me, mentally.

Well, I'm happy to report that last night, I, finally, went to bed without sabotaging myself! It was a little uncomfortable to go to bed without the maladaptive comfort of knowing I screwed up my perfectly clean abstinence yet again. But today, I feel so happy that I honored self-honesty.

This has triggered many thoughts and questions... I'd like to be able to not have to rely on "perfect" abstinence in order to feel good about my recovery. That's very black and white, eating disordered thinking. I wonder if anyone reading this has come to a mental middle ground with their recovery? More next post...