Circle Time

A few of the books I've read recently have had passages relevant to a theme that I definitely relate to. So, this post is like a bit of book-sharing circle time to share a few of those passages:

From The Bitch in the House, which I read based on Kim's impeccable recommendation:

...it occurred to me that I was succeeding in the world with only part of my brain engaged.  While a tenth of it was devoted to school, a tenth devoted to my daughter, and perhaps another tenth devoted to family crises and illnesses, the other 70 percent of my mind was constantly focused on food--the calorie count of a grape, the filling bulk of popcorn...How much farther, I thought, can I go in the world if I used that 70 percent more wisely?


This *really* hit home for me.  When I think of how many hours every day, week, month, year, decade and more that I've spent on ED thoughts and behaviors, it sickens me.  I could have read hundreds more books, become multi-lingual, taken trips, met people, learned to ski, learned another instrument, been more involved, made more of a difference, actually lived like I'd never get each day back, which I won't.  It bothers me because it's an ongoing issue as well.  Not so much with the thoughts, although I do have meal planning anxiety regularly (not choosing how much to eat, I stick to prescribed calories, but all my stupid rationalizations about what to eat to fill that requirement).  But the exercise eats up a ridiculous chunk of my day and totally dictates my schedule.  I am frustrated beyond belief, but still feel pretty powerless to stop it.  Which leads to the next excerpt...


And from Voluntary Madness, by Norah Vincent:
You cannot sentence people to recovery.  You cannot cajole them, into it either...for, as the therapy at Mobius [a residential treatment center she stayed at], the message was simple.  We are not helping you.  We are teaching you that only you can help you...
     The fact that I am driving the car doesn't mean that the road will always be smooth or that I can control other drivers, the terrain, the weather, flats, malfunctions, darting animals, and other acts of God.  But it gives me the vital sense of getting somewhere under my own power, of refusing to accept passively wandering servitude to medical whim and the lonely defects of personality or birth.


I definitely relate to this as well.  I've gone into therapy determined not to get well, because I was forced, and sure enough I just digressed further.  Years later, I finally just felt broken enough to accept help, and it was a complete 180 from my previous therapy experience (although the therapist was a LOT better that time, I would've been obstinate no matter how good the first one was).  Not, of course, that I really enjoyed the eating disorder and wanted to hang onto a disease....it just didn't feel like a choice, I had no idea what I'd have left if I gave it up...feared the answer would be nothing.

From The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles:
It was all utterly familiar and wholly horrible--existence unmodifiable, not to be questioned, that must be borne.  It would never occur to him to cry out.

And that's the kicker.  Sometimes we don't even realize we need, or want, and if we do realize it we simply don't know how to ask for it.  So we stay locked in, trying to save face on the outside while the inside is crumbling.

From Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann:
I gave them all of the truth, and none of the honesty.

It's easy to play along, keep yourself out of the critical zone but still very disordered, and nothing can break through that wall of progress but some hell-bent determination.  Which, of course, doesn't happen overnight:

Also from McCann:
When you go around in circles, brother, the world is very big, but if you plow straight ahead it's small enough....
She said she would snap out of it.  But the word is not snap, more like slide...I will slide out....

Sometimes recovery is definitely one step forward two steps back, but as you easy into it and gain momentum, the net movement is forward and the steps get more and more significant.

Mary Shelley in Frankenstein:
"By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses, that alarmed and grieved my friend, I recovered."


And to close, a quote from Erica Jong (I haven't actually read any of her books, but came across the quote online a long time ago and wrote it down, sorry I don't have the source):
It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.