Back to School

No, I have not actually dropped off the face of the earth, although I've wanted to a few times over the past week or so.  I moved back to University town.  Moving and unpacking has been INCREDIBLY time consuming. Why do I have so much STUFF???? I've filled 7 boxes of clothes to donate to the local domestic violence shelter, why didn't I do that before I packed up and moved everything? And don't even get me started on the books.  I am realizing I will definitely need to downsize my library, which makes me feel like someone on an A&E hoarding intervention show.

On my first official day back in town, my professor conscripted me to grade a batch of term papers for him because he was so busy (mind you, he's had these papers since the first week of April and had yet to even open any of the files until 3 days before grades have to be logged!), so I've been spending 7 hours/day on that in order to get them done by the deadline tomorrow.  As soon as I have that completed I plan to do a more detailed update post.

I have to admit that the busy work is probably good for me, I have never, ever felt so lonely and unhappy as I feel living in this damn place, that doesn't seem to have changed since the last time I lived here.

Someone Please Send a Memo to My S.A.D.

I'm not updating as frequently these days, although not for any particular reason, I think I've just been in a bit of a doldrums and haven't quite known what to say.

Event hough Match and I definitely agreed the last visit was our best ever, for some reason we've been arguing at an unprecedented rate since then. Like, arguments that literally have us bickering for half the day.  Part of the reason they're so prolonged is he almost refuses to talk on the phone when we're angry and we always have to resolve things via text. He says it helps that it gives us time to think out our answers, but really I think that discussions suffer a lot when you lack tone of voice and related measures of mood and intention and that he just needs to be a bit braver, but oh well.  Like I said, it's not like I'm the faultless saint either. We always do work it out, but lately I've been left pretty shaken over the fact of the argument itself long after whatever the issue that started it has been resolved.  It's just a bad time of semester: he's got a lot of stress on him with classes and some other issues, I've got a lot of stress with moving and thesis, we're both flat broke, etc etc.

Also, someone please needs to dial up my S.A.D. and inform it that spring is here.*  I am used to stress and angst over ED stuff, but my depression lately has been scaring me.  I've literally been spontaneously crying about 4 times a day, and I'm just so sick of feeling so resentful every morning that I have to get up and do another day. I know my life really, objectively, is not bad and is even great, and I just can't figure out what my problem is.

One factor I can identify, though is the ironic consequence that living with my family has made me pretty isolated.  They're all gone during the day, and I don't have a network of any kind in this city.  I've been traveling so much that I haven't had the chance to join anything or get very involved, and without school or work (terms of my research assistantship at my university, where I have been continuously enrolled even during this year away, are that I can't be employed externally).  I'm moving back to University Town on Saturday, though.  I won't be in classes til the fall, but I'll be around campus and the lab, and I'm hoping that having an actual peer group again will be a big help.

At the same time, as much as it stresses me having to share a house (most of the stress comes from sharing a kitchen) with 4 other people, I'm sad to be leaving them too.  Mainly my mom (sorry, dad and brothers).  She is in law school and typically pulls 12 hour days on campus, so I haven't had a chance to do much with her, and I'm leaving literally the day after her finals are over.

So very mixed feelings, and honestly I'm just so drained and hopeless feeling all the time.  I need to be in therapy, but I have crappy insurance and less than zero disposable income.  I'm hoping that the summer will bring better days, with Match being more relaxed, me having some social options again, a few trips planned, etc.

Okay, that was the latest round of lamentations.  I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter, Passover or just a great last week or so in general. Love y'all.




*Abby, I swear I had drafted this post before I saw your comment on Facebook earlier today....lol great minds think alike, or at least hate bad weather alike?

Positive Trip Report, for Once!

I'm back home and recovering from yesterday's road trip (coming back from a Match Weekend) that ended up hitting both morning and evening traffic in big cities.  I'm a pretty good traveler and have done lots of long, solitary driving sessions, but 12 hours behind the wheel is still a wee bit much for my taste.

It was, of course, worth every hour and mile.  I think that Match Visit was the best one EVER.  I can't even pin down why.  We actually did a lot less structured activity this time (going to museums, shopping, out to eat, etc).  We did go to two plays (gotta love student rate tickets), but those were the only formal outings besides his morning class on Friday and Monday; we mostly just hung out with each other.

It was fantabulous.

I also did the best ever with my eating while I was there.  The reasons for this are easier to identify, I think.

• 1) I did manage to get some workouts in.  Match got me a guest pass for the university's rec center to use while he was in class.  It seemed like a nice compromise, because it didn't take time away from Us, and it improved my mood and anxiety level by orders of magnitude for the rest of the day.  I know some of you are thinking "he checked his EDer girlfriend into the gym?" I do feel bad that I put him in positions to potentially be enabling sometimes, but we specifically addressed that beforehand.  The truth is that that gym time while he was in class was still less than half the working out I would have done on a typical day at home, but it gave me enough of an endorphin boost to be a lot more relaxed and confident the rest of the day.  It vastly improved our quality of time together, because usually by the latter half of a visit I'm getting very cranky and anxious and am restricting my food quite a bit, which sucks for both of us and makes me feel interpersonally incompetent on top of everything else swirling in my mind. 

• 2) The weather was nicer, so we got to do some nice long walks.  Being out moving and talking in the sunshine is a major mood booster on top of helping with the exercise anxiety.

• 3) We ate in much more, instead of going to restaurants.  We are both achingly broke at the moment, so the primary reason was money.  But another benefit is there are some things I am way more comfortable eating if I prepare it as opposed to someone else. So eating in is both cheaper and tends to improve the quality/quantity of what I consume.

• 4) I think I'm just getting more and more at ease with eating "real foods" in better amounts around him.  Long-term exposure therapy, I suppose.  He still eats like a growing boy, so it's not as if he's going to judge me for putting away X amount of anything non-salad, you know?

Anyway, that's the run down of that.  I still wasn't eating 100% of meal plan, but even with the gym sessions I was exercising much less than usual and I did consistently come closer to MP amounts than on previous visits, so at least my trajectory is positive, right?

I know it doesn't seem ideal that a big reason this trip went better was that I caved to exercise urges, and I know I need to keep working on that.

But getting in that bit of activity cleared my mind enough to really enjoy randomly laying down on the couch one afternoon and ending up staying there for over two hours, just talking about everything and anything with my boy; or on the spur of the moment to decide to make ourselves pancakes and Malibu screwdrivers for dinner, just as two examples.

And having that positive experience will make me a lot more likely, in the future, to realize those things are worth sacrificing a few days of routine.

My overall mood and outlook is a lot better now than it was a couple of weeks ago, too, I think this trip was a much-needed booster.

By the way, I really, really love that my boyfriend is the best friend I have ever had.  I won't turn this mushy, but I didn't want to leave.

Post-Interview Jeebies, etc.

I think the response to my last post was one of my favorite sets of comments on this blog, thanks a lot for the advice/support/sharing of your own experiences.  I forgot to mention that this weekend is my monthly trip to visit M, so I'll be away for a few days.  The timing could've been one reason things have been a bit tense over the past week or so.  I think as the month wears on, both M and I get a bit lonely and grouchy, even though we text throughout the day and talk on the phone a few times a week, and that makes small things more likely to feel disproportionately upsetting.

I had an interview with a potential PhD adviser yesterday, and it kind of threw me for a loop.  I think I performed fine.  It was a dinner meeting, which always adds kind of another layer of stress to the situation but I think I handled it okay.  What really bothered (and is still bothering me) is that I left not really sure that the position is what I want, for several reasons.  I had really been building up the opportunity in my mind, and now I feel a bit adrift as far as what I'm aiming for or what I can plan for.  Oh well, I still have some time to figure it out.

On the plus side, I got to hang out with my homegirl Amy, so it was worth the 8 hour drive! And now I'm at M's place for my monthly dose of being spoiled rotten.  (By the way, his two older brothers are totally available, fyi...just kidding, of course, but I think his mama knew how to raise boys right! ;p ).

Alright, I hope everyone has a great weekend, love y'all.

Love and Other Drugs and Anorexia

So my Netflix indulgence yesterday was 'Love and Other Drugs', with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal (swoon). I expected it to be kind of a light romantic comedy (which I don't even usually watch, just wanted something to unwind with), and in some ways it was, but some parts of it hit me a lot deeper than others.

The basic gist of the story, without giving anything away, is that Anne Hathaway's character has early onset Parkinson's disease, and she and Gyllenhaal's character, a prescription drug salesman, meet at a doctor's office, are mean to each other at first, then become "just" bed buddies and then fall in love.  Standard kitschy movie stuff, I know.

But one of the deeper currents it hits is the role of her disease in their relationship.  She is really worried that it makes her unlovable, or at least undeserving of his love/attention when there are so many other, healthy women out there that are eager to throw themselves at him. I won't give away details of the plot, but this worry manifests itself in some challenging ways.

Obviously, an eating disorder is much different than Parkinson's, I'm not at all trying to say one experience is equivalent to the other.  But still, that issue of feeling like there's something wrong or damaged about you, and knowing it will affect your relationship, is applicable to a lot of illnesses, including EDs.  The movie struck a chord with me, to a much greater degree than expected.

So in a big coincidence, today Match initiated a painful conversation about how my ED affects "us."  And even though he was not being mean or accusatory and emphasized he doesn't want to even think about letting it end things, it hit straight to the core of a lot of fears and doubts I've had myself.  I know it has to be frustrating to be around someone that has rigid preferences for meal times/types, someone that gets anxious and irritable if we don't get enough activity/exercise in on a given day, someone that totally shuts down if you touch their stomach while you're cuddling, someone that does self-destructive things day in and day out.

  I get that that has to be challenging, when there are so many other carefree and less complicated women out there, which is why I still have a hard time fathoming that I've found someone that knows about all my issues and still wants to be in a serious relationship with me.  It makes it hard for me to be optimistic about the future.  What happens when we're living closer to one another again? We lived a mile away from another in the first half of our relationship, but our relationship has progressed since then, so there would probably be more pressure for time commitments.  Or what if it ever got to a question of whether to live together, which may very well happen if we go to the same school for our PhDs? What if he just wants someone that will share a pizza with him late at night, or will be up for random snack stops and celebratory desserts and things like that? What if he wants someone that will eat birthday cake if he buys one for her? (It would be bought, I know this man and Martha Stewart he is not, LOL). Most importantly, what happens when he realizes I'm not worth putting up with the bullshit?

The main things he was concerned about were just issues that affect how often and how we see each other and communicate, any constraints on how we interact. For example, even if our monthly visits weren't limited in duration by school/work schedules, I would have a hard time lasting more than a few days without my normal exercise routines, and during those times I don't have my normal food habits either.  I'm not extremely body conscious around him, except that I really hate for him to touch my stomach.  He's mostly compliant with that, but I know he doesn't like the constraint.  He'd love to do webcam Skypes, but I don't like to because I'm self conscious about how I look (not that he doesn't know what I look like, but those cameras are super-unflattering and it makes me antsy).  There are big chunks of the day when we can't talk/text because I'm doing some kind of workout.

 Anyway, things like that.  I really don't think he meant it to be an ominous discussion portending a relationship turning point thing, just something that had been on his mind.  But it threw me for a serious loop, because of all the doubts I've had/do have on my own related to my doubts that I have any ability to let someone very close to me in the long term.

Not sure how coherent that explanation was.  Anyway, really interested in your feedback on this one: In what ways has your ED affected your relationship(s), past or present, and how did you deal with it?

Losing a Child to Anorexia = Negligent Homicide?

So I had an interesting exchange with my madre this morning.  As I've mentioned before, she's in law school right now, and she told me she had to present a case the other day that she had a "very hard time with." Being the considerate listener that I am, I asked her what the case was about....and it turned out it was about a man who was convicted of negligent homicide when his 15 year-old son died of anorexia.

The basic story is that the man (employed by the U.S. Army, this comes in later) was divorced and his ex-wife had custody of the son.  When the boy was 15, he came to stay with his dad and his dad's new wife, after years of estrangement.  The mother had not warned the father about the eating disorder (this was the late 80's, and the kid was male, so there's a chance it hadn't even been diagnosed as such).  The boy digressed while he was with the father, lost a third of his bodyweight (which was unhealthily low to begin with).  The father took him to a doctor and tried to implement the doctor's suggestions for dealing with it at home, but the boy was totally uncooperative and "physically confrontational" when his dad tried to get him to eat or go to a counselor.  He lied about food consumption, did whatever he could to conceal his weight loss, etc.. The boy lost about 40 pounds in three months, and went home to the mom.

When she saw the state her son was in, she called and made an appointment for him to be seen by a doctor the next day...but the boy died that night.

And eventually charges were brought against the father for the death in United States versus Robertson, and the father (Robertson) was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for allowing the boy to starve under his care.  He later turned to the Military Court of Appeals, and the conviction was reduced to negligent homicide.

Just fyi, the definition of "negligent homicide" is that a death was allowed to happen when someone failed to prevent it despite an implicit obligation.  It's most often used when people make dumb mistakes with vehicles and end up killing passengers or passersby.

I could immediately see why my mom had a hard time with this case, and I tend to agree with her.  When I was 13 (and again when I was 15, and 16, and 17, etc), I also basically got myself out of treatment by being a royally uncooperative brat, behaving pretty much exactly as is reported for the boy in this case.  In retrospect, at my rock bottom I should have not only been in counseling but also hospitalized.

What if I had been just a little bit less lucky, and my heart had decided not to keep plugging painfully along one night, and boom, could my mom have faced a charge like this, even though she was aware of the issue, had taken me to doctors, had begged and pleaded and cried about the issue every day? Or my dad, who happens to be in the military like the defendant in this case.  Or what if my biological dad, who never passes up an opportunity to terrorize my mom (years after their divorce, he used her social security number to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card charges, just as one example) had brought charges against her out of spite for not making him aware of my disorder, as if he would have been able to magically fix everything if he'd only known.

It breaks my heart to think about it.

I have mentioned on this blog, multiple times, that I do wish my parents had pushed me harder, had been less easy to steamroll, had really kicked my bony ass when it came to being serious about beating the ED.  And that's true.  But I also have and do acknowledge that I made it extremely difficult on them, and I don't know that I could have done much better if the situation was reversed.  And I would never, never put the blame on them for causing or exacerbating the issue, and wouldn't in my wildest dreams consider them to have been "homicidal" in their actions (or lack of action), as implied by the ruling in this case.

Both involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide are most often used in vehicular accidents, when people make dumb mistakes driving and end up killing passengers or passersby, without malicious intent.  I don't see this most common usage as applicable to losing a child to an eating disorder, though, especially when there is a record of taking the child to doctors, because it's not like he just averted his eyes for a second and boom, the kid had starved to death like a hummingbird or something.  He obviously made an effort and had a lot of mental and emotional turmoil over the issue. I live with two teenage boys right now, and good god, try getting one of them to do something he doesn't feel like, even outside the terror and anxiety that motivates ED obsessions.

Okay, that is my verbal vomit on the issue. I am really interested to hear other opinions about it, though.  What do you think, from your experiences with your parents or as a parent? What is your reaction to the ruling, do you think there's any merit, any commentary on why no charges were brought against the mother, who had been his primary caretaker for years? (Not that I think there should have been, just curious that the dad took the burden of the legal charges). Penny for your thoughts?

Musing and News-ing

So I've been a little bit stumped, as far as this blog goes.  I think I'm pretty much in a doldrums and just don't feel like I have a ton that is new or interesting to say.

I have been eating my mealplan, woo hoo, same amounts/types of things I've kept to (despite intermittent digressions while traveling, etc) for at least 2 years now.

I haven't really gained back much of the weight I've lost over the past 9 months, but I definitely haven't lost any more either.

Exercise is same as it has been since I've lived here.

I know I'm out of balance and do have some very fatigued days, but I sort of do the mental equivalent of shrugging it off, I guess.

Hence, the paucity of posts here, becuase there isn't much going on that y'all haven't heard me whine and moan about multiple times before.

Earlier this week, Carrie astutely pointed out that sometimes not being bothered by something is the most bothersome part of the whole equation, and that may be the best approximation of how I feel now.  I'm relatively healthy compared to past periods, in terms of organ function and overall robustness.  I can  fit pretty much whatever food I want (fyi the new Ben and Jerry's Clusterfluff flavor is omigodgood, especially if you're into peanut butter) into my meal plan, so I don't really feel deprived there, although my body definitely does feel sort of out of whack not too infrequently (okay, frequently). I know I *could* make a lot of progress and hate the idea of being controlled by this forever.  But when it comes to the boots-on-the-ground action to change things, I think I've just gotten complacent with the status quo. Not that I at all condone stagnancy, don't get me wrong, and I don't want to feel like I've sacrificed good for mediocre with regards to my life...it's complicated, I guess.

 My lifestyle will change a bit after I move, which is dredging up some anxieties, but I'll save that for another post.

So anyway, enough the the musing and now for some news-ing.  I OFFICIALLY got the duplex I applied for, lease is signed, I'm really happy about that!  It is more private and in a better location than the condo I lived in my first year in that town, plus it's cheaper.  It's just down the street from where M used to live...I actually saw his car on the Google Maps street-view when I was showing my mom the neighborhood, lol.

I have my taxes in, I've made progress on that medical bill dispute, I got my conference abstract in before the deadline (which they promptly extended by 2 weeks the day after I'd submitted mine, but oh well...).

So things are a lot more tranquil than they were a week or two ago.  M. is crazy busy with an onslought of tests coming up next week, so I haven't been getting quite as much attention as usual (spoiled princess alert!).  Of course I want him to do well and don't guilt him about that, you gotta do what you gotta do and I want him to be successful (although he feels guilty all on his own when we aren't talking as much).  I think the only thing that bothers me is that he studies in groups way more than by himself, and the majority of the students in his cohort are female...but I trust him 100%, have met all those girls, and don't seriously feel threatened even if it does pick at my mind a bit. I am REALLY looking forward to moving so that I'll be more connected with my peer group.  Countdown is at 27 days now.

I hope everyone is having a fantabulous weekend, love y'all.