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!