Psyching Up for Travel

Hitting the road for a few days tomorrow. I'm going across a couple of states to visit with family and friends from high school over the 4th of July weekend. Historically, I tend to suffer pathetic ED regressions when I travel, and going back to the town where I went to high school makes it even worse.

Why? The main reason is that I feel some twisted sense of obligation to slide back into the role that I played in high school. I wasn't open about my ED, but you would have had to be blind and deaf not to pick up on it, so my friends all just came to expect that Cammy wasn't going to eat. I didn't get invited out to dinner, if we were hanging out and someone passed around food, I was automatically skipped. I know that they were just trying not to stress me out by putting me in the spotlight, but after a while it just seemed like one more padlock on the door to my little disordered cell. At times when I truly wanted to try to do better, I'd go behind the gym, in my car, or in some corner of the library to eat at lunch, because I didn't want to draw attention to myself by eating in the cafeteria.

Was this logical, rational? No. I had/have incredible friends, and I know they wouldn't have reacted negatively to me eating. It probably would have thrilled them. I guess I just wanted so much for the disorder to fly under the radar, I felt like an obvious change in behavior patterns would call attention to it more than the disordered behaviors themselves. Does that make any sense? If not, then that is precisely the point.

So, now I go back up there, still not in that ever-lauded "normal" weight range, but significantly heavier than any of them have seen me. My mealplan demands more for lunch than I used to consume in an entire day. Thusly, it's a wee bit awkward for me.

I have been up there once or twice a year since between high school graduation (2005) and now, so they've seen me at various stages, and I have eaten out, gone drinking, etc with them. I'm sure they think about the food thing much less than I do. But I still feel like I'm under the microscope. And I still feel the need to take preparatory measures in the days leading up to the trip, to make sure my tummy looks as flat as possible, things like that, even though I know my friends are much more interested in what is going on in my head than in the status of my midsection. And outside of worries about other people's perceptions, toying with food and limiting weight probably serves as an outlet for anxiety leading up to the trip. Not a good or desireable outlet, don't get me wrong, but it is what it is, just calling it like I see it.

So, I went over all of this with H. this week. I am going to try very, very hard to be as normal as possible so that I can enjoy this trip. Historically, I freak out, restrict, and feel weak and spacey after a day or so, greatly impeding any enjoyment, which is supposed to be the point of the trip, right?

I'm staying with a friend tomorrow night, then visiting with family on Friday and Saturday, coming home Sunday. My mom and brothers are going to be visiting as well (they live several more states away, so my grandparents' house is the central convergence point). I'm very glad my mom will be there as well. My grandmother does make an effort to cook Cammy-friendly food, but it is nice to have my mom around, because she is sort of a health nut (without being unhealthy about it), and so I won't feel spotlighted so much for my food preferences if she is there preferring those foods as well.

Also, I am looking forward to time with mis hermanos, known around here as Bro and Littlebro. (Slightly misleading names, because they're both "littler" than me in years, being 16 and 13, but are both much bigger than me in stature). I was such a terrible sister to them when we were kids. When we were very small I had no patience for them, always yelling and telling them to leave me alone. As a teenager, I still lived with them but pretty much checked out of their lives so I could devote myself to ED-dom, and I am really working to make up for that now that we're all semi-adults and can have intelligent conversations, go do fun things, etc. Bro was recently dumped by his girlfriend, and we're hoping the trip will help him take his mind off things.

So, what can I do to make this trip positive?

-Don't restrict. Such a simple idea in theory, right? But seriously, being out of my daily routine is very challenging. If I try to eat intuitively, I end up with way less than my meal plan. So I should probably break this goal down into more specific chunks:

-Don't over-compensate for calories not burned when I miss exercise sessions. I am in the terrible habit of knowing that I haven't burned X, and thus cutting back 2X on my calories. Must not do that this time.

-Don't abuse caffeine. I need some whilst on the road, but I can't let myself overdo it. It makes me sick to my stomach and increases my anxiety about everything (food and exercise always being the favorite topics) if I have more than a cup or so. And when I am that jittery I have no appetite, so it also contributes to restriction.

-Don't try to imagine what other people are thinking about what I am eating.

-Don't try to imagine what other people are thinking about my size.

-Focus on making the memories I want to have with my family. Meaning to relax and allow myself the energy to enjoy the time with them, instead of making just another edition of all the "I felt too tired and weak to have fun" weekends I have had in the past.

I will probably be sans internet after tomorrow night, but I may pre-write a post and schedule it to go up while I'm gone, depending on how my time goes tonight. I hope you all have a fantabulous 4th of July weekend!