Swinging Down

There has been major slippage going on this weekend, and the thing that scares me the most is that it doesn't scare me very much.  I need it right now.  I need to want. Or at least that's what my mind has been whispering to me.  In some ways I welcome it, even when I know I shouldn't, and that ambivalence, I guess, is the most disturbing part.

I guess I have just had a lot on my mind.  J. left last week (it does not help that I got a text from him today that he's unhappy and "a wreck," in his words, since moving), and two more of my close friends are leaving town this week.  One tomorrow and one Wednesday.  I will miss them.  A lot.  One of them is a fellow EDer, we have been through quite a bit together; we have both had our ups an downs over the past few years. I know friendships with active ED sufferers in Real Life can be tricky, but really we have been great support systems for each other, in a positive way. I have double anxiety: that of missing her company, and that of worrying how she'll do over the summer. 

I suppose I am starting to feel left behind in some ways, as if everyone else is moving on and leaving me in the dust.  Objectively I know this really isn't true.  I'll be here all summer, yes, but that's because I have that holy grail for Class of 2009: employment. I have a good teaching job here, and then I'll be moving to a new state to attend my top choice graduate school in the fall.  So no, I'm not really the slow kid, I just feel like it.

I'm also starting to psyche myself up for my own move, anticipating leaving H., setting up new routines, etc.  I'm not in full anxiety mode over it yet, but it's a lot to think about.

Also, my job doesn't start until June, so I have had about three weeks of free time, which is never good for me.  It gives me more time to exercise, for one thing.  Also, if I'm not busy, I feel like I haven't earned as much food, so I tend to decrease my intake.   I am still not to the stage where I can eat for me, instead of eating in order to perform (in academics, work, or otherwise).

So I've been cutting corners with my eating, then cutting more than corners.  Boosting the exercise when I have a lot on my mind.  My head hurts, my stomach is empty, and I feel weak.  My head has that Fuzzy Brain feeling. Poor G. has started running and hiding whenever I pull his leash out, because it has rained EVERY SINGLE DAY for the past two weeks, but I make us do a forced march through it at the standard walking times, no matter how heavy the downpour. 

The first day I hated it, my body is not as accustomed to maltreatment as it was in the not-very-distant past.  But then I was reminded of how I got sucked into this whole ED thing in the first place.  Even after all the progress I've made, all of the months of and thousands of dollars spent on therapy, I still get a sick and displaced satisfaction from feeling empty and seeing the scale move down each morning.  It's just so simple, so predictable, and I find comfort in predictability. And somehow, it feels right to do, even when I know it's wrong.  This has been my default mode for almost 10 years, and it takes so much less energy to sink than to swim.

I know, though, that slipping does not mean relapse.  I am aware of what's going on, and I know that the consequences of continuing the trend are not desirable. I have my appointment with H. tomorrow, and hopefully I can get my head screwed back on straight.

Have I mentioned that the speed with which I can make these swings scares the hell out of me?

Weekend Randoms

~Major, major headache all day today.  Not sure of the exact cause.  Maybe the fact that I have been averaging reading 250-300 pages a day in the two weeks since my graduation?  That's just an idea, could be anything.  And I'd rather have a headache than stop reading.

~Still mixed up about J.  Questioning my assessments about how I feel about him.  If I was so unattracted to him, why did I get a little thrill when he smiled a certain way?  Well, wouldn't anyone like getting that kind of attention, even if the source isn't your soul mate?  Very aware that I am way too disconnected from my emotions to really do anything besides talk myself in circles and confuse my mind into a knot.

~I watched "In Her Shoes" today and have been thinking a lot about sisters. I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but I have a half-sister that I've never met. Long story.  She should be in the 6thish grade by now, but I don't know where she lives.

~I was doing yoga this afternoon, and was concentrating very hard on my side plank (I hate that move!  Turns my arms to rubber. Whoever invented it should be hit in the head with a real plank) when G. took advantage of my proximity to the floor and wandered over to give me one of those sneaky tongue-in-mouth doggy kisses.  Next time I will LISTEN to the DVD yoga instructor when he tells me to keep my mouth shut and breath through my nose.

~I have my bone scans posted on the refrigerator, as a reminder that this whole recovery thing does indeed have a point.  I've got the old ones (from 2006, also the ones that were laying around when Ms. Earlier Session visited last week, eek) to contrast with the new ones. By the way, I griped about my orthopedist yesterday (this guy was not my primary physician, although my ED history was included in the file at his office), but at least it wasn't as bad as the osteoporosis screening staff at the campus health fair earlier this year, that was definitely a yikes incident.

~Despite headache, did do a little bit of cleaning today.  My strategy for preparing to move is to establish a new rule: If I haven't used/seen it in over a year, it gets thrown out or donated.  I sorted a ton of stuff to throw away or recycle, and filled two trashbags full of clothes to donate.  Score one for decreasing both the volume and entropy of items in here.

~Coconut-lime scented candles make me happy.

Ok, going to wrap this up and try to sleep off my headache. I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

"Suspected of Anorexia"

From the ED Ignorance files:

I went by to pick up my bone density scan results today.  I was already a little irked, since my scans were done about a month ago, they told me they'd call when they were ready later that week, and then I heard nothing.  I got tired of waiting and dealing with their automated phone menu, so I finally just drove out there to get the printout today.

My irritation increased when I saw the coversheet for my scan results, which featured a brief patient profile.  I quote:

"22 yo female, 5'7", X lbs.  Results significant osteopenia.  This woman is suspected of anorexia."

This Woman wonders who the hell handled the file, because This Woman gave her medical history, including ED diagnosis, duration, details of weight cycles year by year, and copies of previous bone scans, to not one but two different nurses prior to have a scan done by This Doctor.  And if This Doctor suspects This Woman of a life-threatening mental disorder, This Woman is puzzled as to why the staff not only did not suggest tips for addressing bone health during ED recovery, but basically sat on the results without contacting her until she showed up on their doorstep over a month after she was told they would send her the information.  This Woman thinks This Doctor is "suspected of" being a dumbass.

Ok, needed to rant.  On the upside, the density in my hips/lower spine has increased since my last scan (which was in fall of 2006).   Woot for the human body, which can be very forgiving when it so chooses.

 It also illustrates that all the calcium supplements in the world (I have taken them religiously every day for years and years) can't substititue for the restorative effect that weight restoration can have on your bones (technically I'm not in the normal weight/BMI range yet, but I have gained a good amount over the last year and a half).  I actually take less calcium now than I used to  because my dietitian said I was taking so much it put me at risk for stones, but it took adding poundage to get me out of the osteoporosis zone.  I would imagine that when the Monthly Friend finally starts visiting, the hormones will be another booster, maybe enough to get me out of the osteopenia zone.

This Woman was very glad to finally see a set of numbers that makes her feel proud.

J. Thoughts

J. officially left today.  I'm still kind of processing this.  The truth is, despite all of my stammered attempts to rationalize my feelings away, I will miss him a lot.  A lot.  

We had coffee yesterday morning, a chance for me to redeem myself and act normal after flubbing our outing the day before.  And it turned out to be a chance for him to address stuff that I have kind of just alluded to and talked around in the past. After about an hour of chatting about news, moving, grad school, etc, he finally brought up the ED stuff.  He apologized for some random things he has done that he thought might have been insensitive (but honestly weren't), and mentioned a few books about EDs that he has read.  He said he really doesn't understand it, but knows that it's hard for anyone who hasn't experienced it to really grasp the problem 100%, and understands that it is a real disease.

Then he fumbled around for words a little bit and finally asked "Do you think you're getting better? Or that you will?" I was flabbergasted, at first, too shocked to filter my thoughts before replying.  I just gestured down at myself and said "Can't you TELL? I've gained _ this year!"  

This is where the difference between girls and guys was made obvious, I guess.  Or just the difference between internal dialogue and external observer.  He got this thoughtful look on his face and said "Well, I noticed this morning, when you walked in, that you are looking healthier. But how are you feeling?"  And that was it.  Every morning that I have agonized about my weight down, sure every ounce is on display to the world, and after one year the total of his observations are just "healthier."  

Not sure whether to laugh or cry about that.

So, in a nutshell he has been a great source of support and has gone out of his way to try to learn about what I'm going through.  He doesn't push about the ED, but apparently considers it behind the scenes.  In a condensed nutshell, I'm losing someone really great.

The thing I've been thinking about is how to classify how I feel about him.  In the taxonomy of relationships, it's not romantic, but more than just a buddy.  We have been close, and we care about each other very much, but I don't love him.  Not more than a typical friend-love, I mean. Sometimes I really wish I did.  I have dated here and there and have had a couple of serious boyfriends, and J. has treated me way better than any of those guys ever did.  Way better than I can fathom deserving.  Despite that, I have never had romantic attraction/feelings towards J.  Never had that tingly, mustbearoundhimmusthearfromhimmusthavehim sensation. I have felt close to him, I guess attracted to the comfort and familiarity I get from him, but that's it. 

I guess the thing that bothers me is that I'm not sure if I don't love him because I don't love him, or if I don't love him because I have forgotten how to allow myself to do so. Both the ED and some scarring from past experiences have led me to become more and more effective at creating emotional walls, acting fine but in reality always keeping people at arms length.  And now that we're going our separate ways, I will never really have a chance to figure that out.

Ok, that was my YEARLY quota of sappy sentimentality, we now return to our regular programming.

Awkward Turtle Incarnate

So, yesterday's challenge was kind of a failure.  

Three more friends ended up joining us, but I didn't mind, it was nice to have a group. (Just for the record, J. and I are not an official couple, I have gone out of my way to ensure we haven't advanced far beyond "close friends").  The restaurant doesn't have nutrition info on their website, but they do have a menu, so I had already planned what I was going to order, to avoid agonizing and taking forever when we got there.  

I'm going to break my rule about not discussing specific foods, I guess, or else I won't be able to explain the situation which much precision.  I was going to to get the Hawaiian mahi mahi burger, seemed reasonable.  I ordered that, proud of myself for being decisive, etc etc.  But then when they brought it out, it wasn't at all what I expected.  I had anticipated a grilled cut of mahi mahi on a bun, but it was actually a processed, breaded and fried fillet.  I knew I could eat it and still probably not pass my usual alotted lunch calories (have I mentioned how ginormous my meal plan is?  Feels that way, at leaset), but just the fact that it was not what I had planned really threw me off kilter and I couldn't eat it.  Normally I would have sent it back for something else, but I didn't want to risk making us late for the movie after lunch.  Fortunately, I had ordered a side salad as an extra, so at least I had something to pick at and didn't just sit there not eating anything at all.

Poor J. tried so hard to be helpful, which just made me feel worse.  He had ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and offered to trade with me, but 1) I felt dumb and self-conscious about doing that in front of everyone and 2) he has IBS and I was afraid the greasy fish burger would make him sick.

So, food challenge failed.

Movie was decent, at least.  They changed the ending of Angels & Demons, but still did a much better job than the movie version of The DaVinci Code.  I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have, though, because my lunch had been thrown off and my mind was racing over if/when/how I should compensate for it later in the afternoon.

Yay for Cammy, the awkward turtle incarnate.

More thoughts on J. soon.

(Continuing to test blog feed lag time, submitting this at 23:34 CDT, testing to compare that to time stamp when it shows up in my Google Reader list.  Just checking because I think Blogger has been lazy and slow this week.)

Publication Delay?

Has anyone else noticed that their posts aren't being published to feeds for a significant amount of time after they're submitted?  I did my last post between 7:30 and 8:00 PM yesterday, and it didn't show up in my Google Reader feed until 8:01 AM, according to the time stamp.  It's not all that important, just checking to see if fellow bloggers are experiencing the same thing, or if it's just me.

(Just to test, because I can't resist being empirical, I am submitting this post at 9:19 CDT.  Any other Dark Tower nerds out there that take note of things that happen at that precise time? :p)

Challenge Date and Anticipating Absence

Major food challenge tomorrow.  J. and I are having lunch at a local restaurant, for which I have NO nutritional charts or calorie information.  My promise to myself is that I will not order just a salad, it has to be a Real Food day.  Plus, the menu there is pretty interesting, and I am reaching total disgust with the default "safe" meal I've been ordering in restaurants for years.  Is there anything in the world more boring than a grilled chicken salad, really?  At first it was a big achievement for me to be ordering anything beyond a pile of lettuce, but iceberg topped with reheated breast meat is finally starting to get old.

I can say that with bravado, but I still have anxiety.  It's not so much the number of calories I might eat, it's just that I don't know how many.  Considering the demands of my meal plan, I highly doubt that a reasonable order at this restaurant is going to exceed what I am supposed to be preparing at home anyway.  The nerve-wracking part is just not knowing what I've put into my body.  

So, facing that down.  And then we will catch a matinee showing of a movie. Thus, I can't come home and exercise right away.  J. and I haven't explicitly discussed this plan as a form of exposure therapy for me, but I know he's aware that it's a challenge.  

He is leaving next week, have I mentioned that?  As in moving forever.  He's starting his PhD in the fall and got funding to begin the research this summer.  I pride myself in being neither clingy or needy.  I take almost pathological precautions against this.  I won't claim that "I couldn't have made it this far without him," because truthfully (just a prediction from what I know about myself and my motivations) I'd probably be at about the same stage, albeit via a slightly different path.  I didn't start getting serious about recovery until about 2 years after we met.  But who knows.  I am trying to convince myself that his leaving is just like any other person moving away. I probably sound like the most ungrateful friend ever, just trying to paint things objectively.  This is what I do, according to H., when it comes to dealing with feelings.  I don't mean to deny he has helped me, the support he's given has been amazing.  But I am independent and stubborn enough to know that, realistically, I won't have a meltdown, depression, or relapse as soon as he leaves the state.  We have spent less time together this year than in the fall semester, so the transition won't be as huge as it could have been.  And it's not as though we'll never talk again,  about half of our current communication is via Facebook and texting even though we only live 1.5 miles apart.

Still, his absence will most definitely be an adjustment.  Knowing him has convinced me that, contrary to previous experiences, some guys are just good.  Much better than I deserve.

In Which Another Patient Tours My House

Fact: There is a girl I see every week at H's office. She has the session right before mine, so I see her leaving before I go in.

Fact: She is very thin.

Guess: I admit to committing blatant assumption based on looks: I think she is probably seeing H. for an ED. This is likely regardless of her size, because although H. doesn't exclusively treat ED patients, it is what she "specializes" in.

Fact: We have this rather involuntary kind of acknowledgement, no nod or wave, just a brief glance every week to assure that yes, things are going as routine. I guess we are part of each other's landscapes on Tuesday mornings.

Fact: Last Friday, my real estate agent notified me that she'd be showing my place this morning.

Fact: Agent showed up this morning, and guess who she had in tow to check out my home?

Fact: As you have probably guessed by now, it was Ms. Earlier Session, and her boyfriend.

Fact: AWKWARD.

So, it was interesting to have one of H.'s other ED patients roaming around my house checking my stuff out. I would guess she might have an idea that I see H. for an ED also, since, again, that's H's special expertise, and because I was extremely underweight when we first started seeing each other, and have been inching upwards during treatment. I tried to see things through her eyes. I had to wonder, if she wasn't sure I was seeing H. for an ED, would my stuff give me away? Exercise equipment, check. Bathroom scale with notebook next to it for record keeping, check. Kitchen counter furnished with food scale, calculator, and reference book of calorie counts, check. Wii with a variety of "active" games stacked next to it on top of Wii Fit balance board, check. And, to top it off, printout from my last bone density scan, sitting on one of my end tables.

Fortunately, I was so amused by the randomness of the whole situation that I didn't really get anxious or upset about the incident, you have to admit it's kind of funny. It will be interesting to see her at the office tomorrow morning, now that she has encountered me in my natural habitat . . .

I can't help wondering what she thought when she was in my kitchen (my pantry has no door, so a ton of food is very visible) or bathroom or whatnot. I'd feel pretty weird wandering around the house of a stranger that I had only ever seen in a psychology office. But then again, she may not even know I see H. There are several psychs in that practice, and since she is always on her way out, she never sees H. come to fetch me from the waiting room. I know for a fact that she sees H., because she always walks her clients back out.

This leads to something I wonder more and more, as I advance in recovery: if someone just looked at me, with no context, would they suspect I have an ED? I guess the bigger question is, would I want them to? Or, even bigger, why would I need them to?

Lots of facts, but not that many answers in the end.

(I have no idea why the font size decided to freak out, and blogger won't let me fix it. Sorry. And if you have no clue what the Awkward Turtle is, see here)

A Sign of the Times, or Not?

Ok, another Gone with the Wind quote for you today:

There was no one to tell Scarlett that her own personality, frighteningly vital though it was, was more attractive than any masquerade she might adopt.  Had she been told, she would have been pleased but unbelieving.  And the civilization of which she was a part would have been unbelieving, too, for at no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on feminine naturalness.

~Margaret Mitchell

This scene in the story takes place in 1861.  Mitchell wrote the book in the 1930's, apparently unable to imagine the degree to which females would be "unnaturalized in the media in coming decades.  Now that we can digitally manipulate images,  we can whittle women down and airbrush them so that they are literally beyond what even brutal underwear and other cosmetic strategies accomplished in previous centuries. Remember this video?  And this focuses mostly on face, not so much on body size.

This emphasizes touching up and smoothing out.  What's even sadder is the ultra-thin images that aren't all that whittled down, the stick-thin and decidedly unnatural ones you see in the media that are imitated by both boys and girls, young and not-so-young.  I, for one, am having to really challenge myself to learn what "natural" actually is, and the variety of forms it can take.  Let me tell you, one sure thing is that weak, skinny-ass primates with starving reproductive systems and fragile bones would not have gotten our species very far in the grand scheme of things . . . a good sign that this is not "natural" for us.  What would Margaret Mitchell have said about the Dove video, or about an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog, or about shows like America's Next Top Model?  

What's interesting about the book, I found, is that while the girls do go to lengths to cinch in their waistlines, there was still appreciation of healthy figures.  Scarlett pities girls that have to sew ruffles on their dresses to conceal lack of bosoms.  Scarlett isn't allowed to go to parties unless she eats a good meal before leaving.  This is partly to ensure she won't act unladylike by eating in public, but at least her nutrition is ensured at home.  As Scarlett observes at one point, "Mother is a lady and she eats . . . Ashley Wilkes told me he liked to see a girl with a healthy appetite."

When they do go through hard times and food shortages during Reconstruction, all of the characters lament how terrible the girls look as they lose weight.  So, I would have to say that Mitchell is wrong about our unreal expectations for women peaking in the mid-19th century.  It is sad, though, that these trends have been a part of life throughout history.

As an unrelated side note, I think one way I will know I am on the home stretch of recovery will be when I stop relating everything I see/read to eating disorders.

Up in Arms

It seems like every week has a feature body part that I have a hang-up about.  Last week it was thighs, the week before that it was belly (although that one recurs pretty frequently), and this week it appears to be arms.  

This makes little sense for two good reasons.  One, my weight has, if anything, inched downwards over the last week, so there's no way my arms should be any more padded than the week before, when I was largely oblivious to them.  Two, I have been doing yoga and working on strengthening exercises to sub for some of my cardio, so my upper arm strength is actually greatly improved right now, showing that increased sizage can probably be attributed more to muscle than flab.  Or at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself.  

But I still have that icky feeling that when I clap my arms down to my sides, they spread as wide as Texas.  This is a new one, I've never had arm self-consciousness before.  And I honestly can't blame the omni-tank-topped Michelle Obama.  I'm pretty sure this is a mind game of my own making.

I am still in the phase where I have to avoid mirrors as much as possible, to preserve the remaining shreds of my sanity.  I wait until after I shower to put my contacts in, so I can't catch any accidental glimpses of myself.  I've taken down all of the mirros, actually, except one neck-up one above my sink in the bathroom.  

It's not so much the looks, though, it's the feel.  Having your body change just feels weird, alien, like you're in someone else's clothes.  I've mentioned this frequently before, so this is probably just same ole same ole ranting.  See here for my past analysis of the psychology of body image vs body schema: "Does This Outfit Make My Schema Look Fat?"

I should be enjoying these arms, damnit.  They are much stronger than they used to be.  They can do real push-ups, they can carry more groceries, and they hauled luggage for my grandparents last weekend.  They can heave G. into the bathtub, they can steer my bicycle, they can move boxes full of books as I begin packing my stuff up to move at the end of the summer.  They can carry a water bucket for my friend's horse, they can dig in the campus community garden, and they can carry boxes of traps for a research project I'm helping out with.  They can do this nerdy party trick wherein I cock my arm back so that my elbow is next to my ear, balance a stack of quarters on my elbow, then snap my arm down and catch all of the coins before they hit the ground.  Pretty sexy, let me tell you, still haven't figured out why THAT one hasn't turned out to be the Man Magnet that it deserves to be.

Remember this guy?  When I think about him, it's hard for me not to feel like an incredible [insert favorite expletive here] for griping about anything about my arms.  I guess that's what makes EDs frustrating, though, it's like you're a rational core locked inside an irrational box within your mind, trying to break out but still having that straight-jacket on your thoughts.

Running Where?

So, in this passage "hunger" is used as a metaphor for many things.  In the actual story it has no relation to eating disorders, but it did strike a chord with me as being a perfect description of how I have often felt about recovery, when "normal" was a lifetime ago and I have no fathomable concept of what it's like to live without the ED as a scaffold for my life:

I'm so empty it hurts, and so frightened.  My mind keeps saying: "If I ever get out of this, I'll never, never be hungry again" and then the dream goes off into a gray mist and I'm running, running in the mist, running so hard my heart's about to burst and something is chasing me, and I can't breathe but I keep thinking that if I can just get there, I'll be safe.  But I don't know where I'm trying to get to.

~Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Rumble Grumble

I have had major roaring hunger for the past couple of days.  I tried to do the intuitive eating thing over the weekend, since I didn't know the calories for much of what I was eating, and I think I probably under-ate as a result.  I didn't restrict, but I guess I'm still not to the point of wanting as much as my meal plan--and body, apparently--demand.

I went through a long period of this a few months ago, and then my appetite seemed to settle out a little.  I wasn't sure if warmer temperatures decreased my appetite, or being at a higher weight, or probably some combination of factors.  

I have been working on breaking up exercise routines, not really decreasing time yet but just varying activities more, to shake the Do or Die approach to routines.  This means I'm using new muscle groups, and replenishing those could also be revving up the appetite. 

I guess it is the scientist in me that can't resist making hypotheses about every tiny phenomenon that I notice.  If I am hungrier than usual, there must be a reason I can pinpoint (yoga-induced muscle fatigue, lack of sleep, or the omni-scapegoat, global warming), as if having a quantifiable explanation will make the problem go away.  The practical fact, though, is that I'm howngry.  

For all the progress I've made, I still haven't built up enough trust in my body to give in to its cues.  I eat the huge lunch prescribed by my meal plan, and feel ravenous 30 minutes later.  I am stuck waiting until the next meal, though, because I cannot bring myself to exceed the mealplan.  I think I "should" be full, and still can't justify taking pity on my body for being needy. 

Has anyone else had the hypermetabolism/appetite part of recovery come and go in waves?

PfYM: "Curves are IN"

Yay for mothers, I refer you to a PfYM post from this morning: "Curves are in"

Milestone Weekend

So, I am now an Alum.  It hasn't really sunken in yet.  I'm not really "free," because grad school is ahead, and I'm not even particularly thrilled to be leaving here, because I love this town/school more than any other place I've ever lived (and as an Army brat who attended 9 schools between kindergarten and 12th grade, that says something).

But, it has turned into a really happy weekend.  Mostly because of my family and friends that celebrated with me.  There is a lot I could say about the weekend, but I think I'm still processing.  It was definitely a whirlwind, with 14 family members descending on me on Friday, non-stop entertaining yesterday, Mother's Day bash for breakfast this morning and then poof, everyone hits the road and I'm solo again.  I was very ready for some solitary recharge time, but it's sad to see them go.

I guess the one solidly formed thought that I have from the weekend is that it was such a nice change to be healthy enough to really enjoy visiting with my family.  I let myself eat without knowing my calorie tallies, had more than the damned default grilled chicken salad at restaurants, and didn't freak out over altered exercise patterns.  I cannot remember the last family gathering we had where I wasn't cranky and quiet and extremely anxious due to concerns about eating and exercise.  By the end of a weekend I would be utterly drained, dehydrated, unable to focus . . . not exactly the life of the party.

My dress was something I could never have worn a year ago, not without looking like a pathetic little kid in her mom's clothing.  I was able to realize, "yes, my body has changed, but it works pretty damn well in this outfit, so I guess I'll go with it...."

Not that I was completely laid back and carefree the entire weekend, and I did get workouts in (no one was staying at my place, so I had time for that in the early morning/late night hours), and I worried  about how fat I would look in all of my pictures, but those thoughts, for once, weren't dominating my inner dialogue.  I honestly did feel calm and comfortable to a degree that I haven't experienced in a long time.  

I was happy.  That may sound simple, but for me this is still a novelty.  My little cousin offered to share her M&Ms, and I took a few.  At my party, I drank my entire class of wine, instead of just politely sipping it once for the toast.  I traded bites of meals with my brothers at the restaurant last night.  Little things like that, which I guess normal people don't really think about (?), but made it a new and enjoyable experience for me.

Graduating from college is one of the standard milestones in a person's life, but I think that right now the most significant milestones are the small parts of daily life that I am slowly rediscovering.

Strange Mood

I am in a strange mood tonight.  It's officially the last day of the semester (although my last exam was Tuesday), so the entire town is in a state of celebration.  I've gotten a barrage of texts asking me to come join various versions of graduation festivities with different groups of friends.  But I really don't want to go out.  And it has nothing to do with avoiding high-calorie situations.  I'm not depressed, or sad, and I do love my friends.  But I just feel like being alone.  Not depressed and moping in isolation, just kind of want some space right now.

Not that I ever have anything but space.  I live by myself, and am not exactly a partyer.  I have plenty of friends, but no Attached at the Hip Best Buddy types. I honestly am happy with solitude.  I am fine with going to movies by myself, making solo shopping trips, zoo visits, hikes, etc.  It's not that I'm antisocial, I enjoy people and make friends easily . . . I don't really know how to explain it.  Obviously the ED has worked as an isolating factor for many years now, maybe the solitude has just become such an inborn habit that it lingers now, without needing the food fears as a driving force.  But I don't have social anxiety, it's not like I feel incapable of going out, just don't feel the urge to most of the time...now I'm rambling and feel like I've said everything twice, so I'll stop.  In a nutshell, I know that I will be sad when my college friends and I part directions, and I don't want to regret missed opportunities to bond with them, but right now I feel a little disconnected from the group revelry. 

My mom wanted me to go through my share of the family photos before the visit, so we can have them out while my extended family is visiting, so I've spent the last couple of days going through boxes and boxes of pictures.  It really became an almost obsessional thing, I tore everything out of every closet, opened every box I own, making sure I hadn't missed a single cache of photos.  I really felt like I was looking for something, but I couldn't define what it is.  It was like I was driven to find some kind of answer to an unarticulated question, something that I could figure out from evidence in the photo-record of my past.  Kind of silly when I try explain it, I guess.

Going through old photos has given me a lot of mixed feelings.  You know what? I had a great childhood.  Tons of shots of me beaming, doing fun things with my parents, friends, and brothers.  Cammy hugging Littlebro, Cammy cuddling Grandpa, Cammy at any of the dozens of zoos my parents trucked to in order to indulge my passion for critters.  Cammy reading a book in the top of her favorite tree, Cammy eating ice cream with Mom on the 4th of July, Cammy brandishing a frog or lizard scrounged from a neighbor's garden.

Then fast forward to teenage years.  It's not just my body that melts away.  You can see the changes in my eyes and the set of my mouth.  The Wall.  An Iron Curtain.  The cloudier my expression, the smaller my body, and the trend through the years is like a pathetic flipbook.  It's interesting, because even at very low weights, I had no idea how terrible I looked.  I guess this is common.  Seeing the photos now is pretty disturbing, because I literally had no clue that I looked that deathly.  I have hundreds of photos on Facebook, Flickr, etc, almost all from college, where I've stayed underweight but have rarely dipped very far into the danger zone that I somehow subsisted in for much of high school.  I guess I am so used to seeing that "version" of myself that seeing images from the past is a bit of a shocker.  How did I ever think that was ok?  I poured all of my energy and soul into looking that terrible?  If I was that incapable of seeing the truth about my situation, will I ever be able to trust self-assessments?

Most of all, I just feel this strange emotion towards the girl in those pictures, one that I can't really articulate at the moment.  A mixture of frustration and empathy? I understand she's in pain but am still appalled at the waste of life and energy. 

And I don't know where the beaming, bouncing kid took a wrong turn and got sucked into that dark alley of anorexia.  Maybe that's what I've been searching for.  Trying to find some transitional fossil of my own ontogeny, some key clue that will tell me what the hell excuse I can claim for all of this.  

There seems to be a direct yet ironic correlation between the length of my posts and the difficulty I have in putting my feelings into words. Maybe going out for a drink wouldn't be a bad idea after all.

Breaking Tradition

So, yesterday I celebrated the end of finals.  Not just any finals, but my final finals (until grad school, that is).  Joy, celebration, freedom! One thing I have been dealing with, however, is resisting the usual post-finals routine: massive dive into restriction.

Historically, I am very careful about maximizing nutrition while preparing for and taking finals.  And historically, by the end of exams I am craving a crash, as irrational as that sounds.  I feel like the entire week I am being "good," filling and fueling, it's like I'm holding my breath underwater.  Then, when it's over, I get to burst above the surface, release that tense charade of normality, and dramatically overcompensate by severely restricting for a week or so.  It's twisted, but it feels like such a relief.

That was the past, though.  This year, I can't let myself do that.  This year, interestingly, I don't feel that much of an urge to.  It's still there, still a slight shadow of the "want to want," but it doesn't carry the same sense of "oh my god let me breathe" urgency to go backwards.

One complicating factor, though, is that graduation is on Saturday.  I hate how I look in most of my recent pictures, and it's so tempting to try to restrict to slim down for the event.  Plus, I have relatives coming in from 5 different states, most of which have not seen me since I was dangerously, dangerously thin.  There's no way they can not notice the change in my weight.  Awkward, awkward, awkward.

But, I must be rational.  In reality, I know that

1) I don't need to lose weight.

2) Graduation is three days away, and even drastic restriction will not take a significant amount of fat off over the next 72 hours.

3) If I try to restrict anyway for the psychological purge, I will feel crappy and low energy on one of the most important milestone days of my life.

4) The last time I slipped into restricting for a few days, my weight not only bounced back rapidly, but it settled out a couple of pounds higher than it had been before.  I had been at a plateau for about 3 months, and 3 days of restricting was all the excuse my vengeful metabolism needed to wig out on me and store a few extra pounds as insurance.  I'd rather not repeat that pattern. Still trying to work on this whole mutual suspicion thing going on between my body and mind.

So, I am trying to stay busy to keep myself from obsessing over ways I can whittle the meal plan down.  I also had to go buy an outfit for my graduation party today, TORTURE.  Shopping never fails to put me in a foul mood.  But I was able to realize how much better it is to actually be able to find sizes that fit.  Having a body is helpful when looking for clothing.  Thinness is often seen as a surefire way to be beautiful and look good in whatever you wear, but it really isn't.  When you're emaciated it is impossible to find clothing in a size and/or cut that makes you look good.  So, shaky woot for wearing a size!

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Side note:

My text conversation with my mom yesterday elicited a lot of comments.  Yes, my momma uses big words in texts.  She is a Scrabble fiend.  In my entire 22.5 years, I have never beaten her.  And I'm talking huge points margins, she typically comes about about 100 points ahead of everyone else.  Anywho,  she is actually pretty funny, even when not using 30 point words, so I just wanted to share a exchange from today (fyi, lack of chestage is a frustration for me, but we do joke about it):

Cammy: Your credit card just bought me a graduation dress and some GIRLY tops.  And shoes.  Major shopper exhaustion.

Mom: You can't as exhausted as that card.

Cammy: I found sales!

Mom: Famous last words. But yay for GIRLY tops!  Do they have the built-in boobies or is my card going to be buying those separately?

History

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived,

And if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

-Maya Angelou

Take Notes!

Just finished the LAST exam of my undergrad career.  Graduation is Saturday, and I am overwhelmed with a sense of freedom.  I could babble about it, but a text conversation I had with my mom earlier probably says it all.

Cammy: DONE.  Feeling atypical sense of happiness w/world.  Is this what it's like to be a cheerful person?

Mom: Yes indeed!  Notes, honey, take copious notes!

The Treadmill Has Left the Building

So, the treadmill left on Saturday.  I sold it through the Facebook market. I am moving in a few months, and am trying to minimize the amount of junk I need to move from here to grad school, several states away.

This is a significant symbolic event, but not really huge in terms of my day-to-day life.  And to be completely honest, I did it partly so I can afford an elliptical after I move.  Due to years of pounding abuse on my joints, my knees gave out at the ripe old age of 20, ending my career as a compulsive runner.  I then had to switch to the stationary bike, and I hadn't used the treadmill in over a year. 

It is strange to have it gone, though.  We'd been through a lot together.  Back in high school, I earned minimum wage (back when it was only $5.15 an hour, boy am I old!) cleaning cages at a vet's office, and had saved all of my nickels and dimes for a very long time so that I could buy it, freeing me from sharing the ones at the local YMCA with sweaty old men (my podunk town didn't have a real gym). 

I purchased it my junior year, much to my parents' surprise and dismay when the delivery truck showed up in the driveway. I figured it was one of those situations where it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.  I'm not sure if they were more shocked at the treadmill or that I had the guts to go behind their back and do that, because usually I was pretty quiet and compliant for a kid.  Anorexia kept me out of trouble, I guess.  But the audacity of an ED knows no bounds, so I didn't let their treadmill-induced fury faze me, and it blew over fairly quickly.

Funny-ish story* (remember when this happened, Tiptoe?):  As you might have expected, I was/am/probably always will be a creature of habit.  In high school, you could set your watch by me showing up at the YMCA after school, pounding out my miles, then zipping home so that I would arrive before my mom, so that she wouldn't see me coming home sweaty and in gym clothes.  On her days off, I gave myself time to change and cool off, then made up an excuse for why I it took me over an hour to get home after school let out.**

Thus, I was part of the landscape in the cardio room in the afternoons.  Once I had my own treadmill, though, I could go straight home to run.  Bye-bye, salty smelling hallways and steaming carpets, sayonara to streaky wall mirrors and TVs that seemed stuck on Fox News and the Montel Williams Show.

On the third day of my new home-gym routine, I had just finished on the treadmill when we (myself and my two younger brothers, then ages 10 and 7) heard a heavy knock on the door.  A big, beefy police officer had appeared on our porch and was looking suspiciously at the window blinds, which were twitching and jumping as my brothers crawled all over each other to peer out.

Mr. Cop said he had been called to come by for a "welfare check."  Apparently the YMCA people had gotten concerned when I didn't show up for several days in a row, and called the police to check and make sure nothing had happened to me.  He asked my name, where my parents were, etc.  I explained to him that I had my own treadmill now, which was why I had changed my routine, and he accepted that and left without giving us any problem.

So, it was rather anticlimactic, except that it was a small town and of course soon everyone knew that the cops had come over to do a welfare check, which mortified my mom.  She called the YMCA and threw and absolute (and probably justified) fit at them for not at least trying to contact her to check on me, instead of going straight to the police. 

So, that was one rather random story relating to the treadmill.  Which is now gone.  I do miss running, no amount of pedaling or elliptical-ing can substitute for the rush I got from it.  I would like to repair both my body and my behaviors enough to be able to run again in the future, we'll just have to see.  I will definitely never get another treadmill, though, I think that is partly to blame for my knees.  I have long legs, and Ihave to switch to an unnatural stride on the machine.  Why not run outside?  Because then I wouldn't have my LED layout of numbers, distances, speeds, etc etc . . . EDs love nothing more than quantification.

So long, treadmill, I hope there are many happy miles ahead for both of us, but in different directions.

*Not really funny as in ha-ha smile and laugh, but funny as in wow aren't people ridiculous sometimes.

**I don't know why I even tried with this charade, because she knew I exercised after school.  It was a small town, and I knew she or someone she knew could (and probably did) easily check to see if my car was at the YMCA.

Thinking About Thinking and Recovery

Ok, time for one post before I succumb to sleep for the night.

The stressful/crazy week we've had here has brought to my attention an aspect of recovery that I hadn't really contemplated before.  In the past, waking up in the middle of the night to sick dog, or really ANY minor disruption of routine and schedule, would have absolutely torn me apart.  Anxiety, anxiety, meltdown.  I am not just suggesting this could have happened, it has, historically.  G. has a weak stomach, so to say, so we've had episodes like this before, and in the past I would really freak out, yell at him for things that weren't his fault, berate myself for being such a spazz, instantly develop a pounding headache and heart palpitations, feel like the sky is falling, and  just mismanage the hell out of the situation in general.  

Why?  I knew it wasn't going to help matters.  I hate myself both during and after.  I was acutely aware that my freaking out was out of proportion to the situation.  But in the moment, the anxiety and frustration overwhelmed me so much that rationale was out the window.

This past week has been a marked contrast.  Even the very first night, when everything came on as a surprise on a night when I really needed the sleep, I managed to keep my cool and just focus on being efficient.  Nothing but calm words for G., methodical steps to minimize crisis.  This sucks but it will not cause the world to end, so just deal with it and go back to bed.  Am I a perfect parent? Not by any stretch of the imagination.  But I can say that I at least kept my wits and didn't exacerbate the situation by freaking out.  This may sound trivial (woo hoo, don't traumatize yourself and your sick dog, what you want a gold star?), but in the past my anxiety would have made this nearly impossible.

When I first started seeing H., she emphasized that I would be able to think much more clearly and rationally once I got my weight up out of the danger zone.  I thought she was full of shit.  What was wrong with my thinking?  I felt like I was perfectly fine, thank you, my body may have been evaporating but surely that wasn't impacting the integrity of my cognitive processes. . . right . . .

Anyway, the moral of this story (besides the fact that H., as usual, really knows what she's talking about) is that the benefits of recovery are not all physical.  As we all know, when you're in a state of deprivation, your hormones and brain chemistry are all out of whack, and it makes it very hard to make decisions or deal with stress, right at a time when you really need to swallow your fears and make big changes in your life.  As your body rebuilds, your mind does as well.  The process can feel pretty wrenching and disorienting at times as you learn to live a new life, which makes it easy to take for granted the fact that rationale-stemming from better nutrition and stabilized hormone levels--is slowly chipping away at those blind anxiety responses.  In addition to emotional stability, I've noticed a big difference in my memory over the past few months. Last year I would spend hours and hours working on memorizing my class notes and constructing papers, and now I can read something once or twice and boom, I own it, it's stored forever.  Very, very nice.

Trying to pull a positive out of the trials of the past week, I guess.  I think I needed an opportunity to demonstrate to myself that even though I am having major issues with feeling comfortable in my "new" body right now, my "new" mind is definitely a plus.  In addition, it's also a reminder that when we take care of ourselves, our loved ones (even "just" the furry ones) reap the benefits as well.

Battery Meter = Red

Soooo loooow energy . . . and no, I haven't been cheating on my meal plan, just feeling run down.  I have several post topics sloshing around in my mind, but right now I haven't had any extra energy to divert from studying for finals.  

The most probable reason is that sleep has been hard to come by over the last 10 days or so, because G. has been sick and we've been getting up multiple times a night.  It is one thing to wake up at 3:30, curse at the clock, then go back to sleep, and another thing to wake up, calm/clean G., stumble into the backyard and wait for him to do his thing, get us both back into bed, etc, then go back to sleep . . . and repeat it about every 90 minutes . . . 

I guess this another lesson for me that energy/health is more than just a numbers game, I can get all my cals, etc in and still feel like my battery meter is red.  He seems to be improving today, so hopefully we'll both get over our zombie-ness and I'll find time for some real posts soon.

Anywho, back to Markovian transition matrices. I am one final exam away from finishing my undergraduate career!