Back, Almost Intact

Well hi there.  I made it back to the US very late on Wednesday night.  The trip went smoothly overall, and I've got a good deal of nostalgia about it being my last visit to my field site and research country, but I'm so, so glad to be home.

Eating and exercise stuff were about as usual there.  I have NO idea why I feel obligated to restrict and overextend myself there.  I guess it's just anxiety with being *sure* not to gain weight when I'm removed from my usual environment and routine, so I go to the opposite extreme.  I lost some weight but not a ton, which is a testament to how efficient your body is at adjusting its efficiency to vastly reduced input and increased output, I guess.  My metabolism always bounces back once I get back on track, but I'm always a bit worried that it won't.

I didn't get any jungle tummy sicknesses while I was there this time, so that was good.  The main challenge was a hellacious hike that ended up making me look and feel like a mugging victim.

 It was about 15 km a day going up and down a mountainside, which doesn't sound like much distance until you realize that it's all very steep slopes in mud up to your knees the entire entire way (about 8 hours a day), and the only breaks from that are river crossings,  in downpours of rain more often than not. Keep in mind everyone had to carry 20-30 pounds of equipment the whole way.

By the time I got back, my shoulders were black, blue, and purple from the pack straps, and I had a 6 inch band of the same bruising across my lower back/hips from the pack belt.  Apparently being soaked in repeated rainstorms decreases the efficacy of the cushioning, who woulda thunk it.  I also took a few spills, resulting in some plate-sized bruises on my legs and ass. My quads felt like wooden boards (fyi/tmi, now I know why old people have the high chair setups on their potties), and I had massive subungual hematomas on my two big toes which made it pretty excruciating to wear shoes at all, much less walk in them.  But because my shoulders, back, and hips were pulpified, it also meant that it also hurt to sit and lay down. Moral of this story is that rainy season is NOT optimal for major backpacking trips!

I had to go to the doctor yesterday to get holes melted in my toenails (technical term is trephination using a cautery) to drain out the buckets of blood that were collecting under them, which is awesome (not) for someone with a major phobia of being burned (bad childhood experience). I usually have a disturbingly high pain tolerance, but I cried in front of the nurse.  :'(

 But I conquered that volcano and was queen of the fucking mountain, roar! ;)

Anyway, back to real life now. My bruises and muscles are mending well, except the damn toes.  Apparently the big ones are fairly important for participating in this whole bipedal fad. I'm glad to get back and jump into my work, although coming home also involves coming back to a ton of responsibilities, some more welcome than others.

My new labmate, who is continuing the research there, was distinctly unimpressive both in terms of maturity and intellectual agility, and I'm worried about the fate of the ongoing work, because I really love that place and the system I studied.  I guess it's out of my control, but is still bothering me.

It's the end of this era of research, in terms of the fieldwork.  It definitely always brought challenges for me, but I wouldn't have traded all those days/weeks/months of waking up to this for anything:

An Ending

In exactly 24 hours I'll be boarding a plane to leave the country, and I've got the pre-travel crazies right now. I really think it might be healthier for me to put things off til the last minute so I had something to occupy myself with the day before a trip. As it is, I make sure to get things done ahead of time, and that means everything's together and ready by Travel Eve, but I can't turn off the buzz motivation, so it becomes the LONGEST DAY EVER with me piddling around doing a whole lot of nothing important.

Fortunately, most of my anxiety is about the travel itself, and I'm actually looking forward to the trip itself.  Once I'm buckled in on the airplane and on my way, I relax by a factor of about 100.  It's the gettingthereontime whatdidiforget willimakemyconnection wherethefuckisthestarbucksonthisconcourse chaos that really puts my mind in tremor mode.

As you've probably observed, I don't have the best track record with staying on top of my eating on these trips.  This one will be both similar and different in its challenges, I think.  Our accommodations will be a lot better, in terms of lodging and food (amazing how you get banished to the slave quarters on one trip, but put up in the hotel rooms when you bring a professor with clout that the owners of the place want to impress).  I kid you not, some nights on a trip or two me and me two field assistants were left about 2 servings white rice for dinner to split between the three of us.  Those conditions don't help much when you're in a situation where it's so easy/tempting to restrict.  Anyway, hopefully there will be more edible/safe foods served this time.  I've also got a small suitcase full of bars, tuna, dried fruit, oatmeal, etc.

Another thing is that the group will be much different.  Before, it was usually me and 2 or 3 assistants just doing my work.  This time, my work is done and I'm helping a labmate get started on his project, in addition to co-teaching an undergrad field course.  So there is the double pressure of needing to look normal in front of both my superiors (the other professors) and subordinates (the undergrads).  There is only one female student in the group (not uncommon in my field), and one of the 2 profs is female.

I actually do better around men in a lot of ways, for some reason they just seem easier to manage (sorry guys! if you're out there).  Eating is obviously easier, because I don't feel like I'm being scrutinized for whatever goes onto my plate or into my mouth.  Not that all girls scrutinize that, but it just feels more like they'll notice it and draw direct comparisons to themselves. Also, I think I find guys easier to read, and so I'm more comfortable around them when I'm still getting to know them. I don't want to use the word "simpler" because of the negative connotations, but I guess that's the first one that comes to mind.  Not that I don't play nice with other girls, of course.  Now I'm WAY off on a tangent, sorry.  One thing that M. had to get used to in our relationship is that some of my best friends from college are guys, but he did learn that they're really like brothers to me, except I actually like them (I kid! I love my brothers).  If I were to REALLY psychologize myself, maybe the fact that I grew up with 2 brothers has something to do with that trend in my life; I was comfortable being the only girl in the group without either sacrificing or exaggerating femininity.  I actually do have a half sister somewhere, just never met her.  My brothers are halfs technically too, but I never, ever think of them that way, and you'd never know by looking at us.

I have no idea how I got off talking about my tangled family tree instead of my upcoming trip, deepest apologies.

Anyway, another motivator on this trip is that there is the potential to get in some super badass multi-day backpacking trips, in terrain that's different than anything I've ever camped in before.  I want so badly to do it, and I know that I can't take it on if I'm going to be a liability to the team because I'm not fueling myself properly.  Also, I'm in a leadership role, and there's a certain responsibility to function that comes along with that, you know?

Match is beside himself worrying about me going on the camping trips, mostly because it's in an area where it can get cold at night and where bad storms can set in with little warning.  He's convinced I'm going to hypothermiate or have a heart attack or fall and break one of my JiffyPop bones and have to be carried down the mountain by the undergrads who might accidentally drop me in a volcano or something.

 I tried to tell him that if I do have a heart attack, the hypothermia could help to minimize organ damage and protect my cognitive function, but he didn't think it was funny.  Actually, his reaction was something like this:

He was not amused, in other words.

I truly dreaded my last couple of trips down (part monotony, part travel burnout, part some other intangible emotions), and ended up having a good time while I was there despite the eating/exercise fails.  This time I'm actually excited about what I'll get to do, so I'm hoping it all pans out.  I'll be gone longer than I was the past few trips, but having a real building to stay in with (hopefully) no chiggers in the beds will do a lot to make that more bearable, and the backpacking trips away from our base lodging will break up the routine and make it go faster, I think.

I've also got a bit of a nostalgia thing going on.  Despite the issues I bring to every trip, I really, really love that field site, and this is probably the last time I'll ever visit it.  It's sort of an end to a chapter in my life, and I want to make it a good one.

I will have limited internet access Tuesday and Wednesday and then none after that til August 3rd.  I hope all of you have a great two weeks, love y'all!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PS I never know how many people go back and read comments on previous posts, so I often feel like I should just address them in the next post if I want to comment on them.  Anyway, regarding the melancholy I got from finding my little Pandora's Box a couple of days ago, Sarah was very right (she's a wise one, that Sarah).  I was a bit tense and distant with M. all day, then had a complete emotional meltdown during our goodnight phone call.  And then I felt a lot better.  Thanks for all your comments and support about that, I felt a bit whiny, but sometimes the past can be a bit overwhelming.  All the more reason to focus on the present, I suppose.

A Different Kind of Self Pity

I don't know if I've mentioned it yet, but my next trip to Tropical Field Site is coming up fast; I leave on Tuesday and will be gone until August 3.  I've been finishing up my packing today, the last stage of which involved dredging through my closet looking for my box of hiking socks (yes, I own more pairs of wool hiking socks than high heeled shoes, and I like it that way).

At some point during that search effort, I pulled down a box that was still sealed from my last move (probably from my last 2 or 3 moves, actually).  I knew it didn't have the socks, but opened it anyway just out of curiosity.

Then I realized why I'd left it sealed.

It was a collection of journals, letters, photos, scrawled poems, and other things basically chronicling my anorexia, anxiety, and angst from grades 7-12:

• Agonized writings (poems, essays, journals, some printouts of an ED recovery forum I belonged to) about being depressed and hopeless and hopelessly in denial about my eating disorder.

• Pictures (which will never, ever see the light of day on Facebook or anywhere else) of me looking like a marionette skeleton (and being completely oblivious to that fact). 

• My dog-eared and thoroughly highlighted copy of the book Wasted. 

• The prayer journal I kept for about a year, back when I was a super-devout church-goer, where I basically just chatted to God every night before I went to bed. I was so afraid I was "crazy" because I was being punished for something, or that if that wasn't the case, that I deserved to be punished for being so shallow (see Sarah's excellent post addressing this guilt/sinfulness issue).

• The best graduation gift ever (sorry I had to photoshop the name out of the top star)...I know the person who gave this too me may be reading this, and if so, you know who you are and what was in this notebook: love you girl, you are a beautiful person and I hope you know how much you helped me get through those years.
• 

• Tracy Gold's autobiography and a few other very EDish books that I must have felt obliged to keep hidden at some point before I moved out on my own.

• And a single artifact from college: a copy of the magazine with the article featuring me discussing anorexia (and the first use of my Cammy pseudonym) done for a local women's magazine.

Quote from journal, from my freshman year and first relapse since my initial bout of anorexia in the 7th grade:
 My heart is freaky this week and I've only been sleeping a couple of hours a night. It feels like a sick bird in my chest, and sometimes I start to get light-headed before I realize I've been holding my breath waiting for it to calm down. I feel so hopeless, like every day is just a countdown of hours I have to endure, and then the whole thing replays itself the next day, and the next, and the thought of a whole life of that makes me want to throw myself off the nearest bridge, I feel like this is a black hole and nobody in the entire world will ever understand what it's like in my head. And if they did, they'd be disgusted. I feel like I'm in a glass box watching the world happen but unable to reach out and be a part of it.


Entries of this type were common for 4-5 years at least, basically 2005 until I went to college and got too busy to journal.

It has put me in a heavy mood all day, for reasons I don't even know if I can articulate.  Just weird and sobering to have a box full of evidence of years and years of wasted life, I guess. Sat and had a good cry for the wraith-girl in the pictures that I treated so badly.

 I guess it was a form of self pity? I feel so sorry and ashamed for what I did to the girl in those photos.

But maybe I needed that, because it also made me so glad for what I am and what I have now.  Not a finished product by any stretch of the imagination, but a damn legitimate work in progress, and, for better or worse, I wouldn't be who I am today without that history.

Maybe it's a good time to put a link to the newest song on my Recovery playlist, because it just seems relevant to the whole "looking back at how far you've come" theme. I thought it was a bit hokey the first time I heard it, but the more I listen to it the more it gets to me.



Love y'all.

Placebo Pity Party (and Broader Recovery Tie-Ins)

Warning, lots of girl talk! I don't know how many male readers I have these days (I love it when readers delurk, by the way!), but I felt the need to issue a disclaimer, even though I've tried to turn the girly issues into broader recovery lessons. Anyway, here we go.

I think these days birth control placebo weeks are one of the biggest triggers for me to struggle with staying on track with keeping ED behaviors at bay.

 Long-time readers might remember that I had a ton of angst and anxiety leading up to starting my birth control pills. I was afraid they'd give me acne, make me emotional, and, most of all of course, make me gain weight.

Various treatment providers had been trying to get me on BC for years to help with my skimpy bone density, but I kept putting it off until I was in a serious relationship and the costs of being afraid of it had a growing potential to outweigh the benefits.

And the result? I LOVE the BC pills and like my body a lot better on them.  I did not, in fact, gain any weight when I started taking them, and the hormone boost actually redistributed the weight I had in a more feminine way, which helped to make me feel at least a bit sexier and more confident than if I were still shaped like a rectangular milk carton.

Anyway, gist of it is that after all those years of fearing them, now I HATE the placebo week when I have to take a break from them, and count days til I start them again.  180 degree turnaround in opinion once I actually started them! Which may serve as another, more indirect recovery lesson: even if something is scary and unknown, it's often worth trying and you may be surprised at how positive the result turns out to be.

Anyway, I think the 3 main things about hormonal limbo that freak me out have some broader lessons/implications for recovery, so I thought they were worth discussing and REALLY hope that presenting them through the BC example isn't TMI. Sorry for all the lead-up, this part was the actual point of the post.

1) Water Weight:
On placebo week my weight always shoots up about 3 pounds overnight and stays that way for 3-4 days.  I suppose I am retaining water. I'm not sure how this pattern compares to a natural period (never had one), but it sucks.  Then again, flux in weight is natural, and this is where one has to cope by reverting to logic, a strong yet sometimes elusive tool in recovery.  We know intellectually that an increase in the scale of 3 pounds (or 2 or 5 or 7 or whatever) cannot possibly be fat, as it's almost sure that you didn't consume the calories to produce that result that while you were sleeping.  Thus, it must be something else, and does not mean you're flabbier or a failure or any of those things. The reason can be hormones, medication, salt intake; any number of factors. Our bodies are dynamic, and they're not going to be the same from day to day.  Yes, bloat sucks, but it's temporary.  Probably helpful to have in mind some outfits that you feel ok in on days when you're at the higher end of your weight range, so you don't have to go through the torture of trying on a bunch of things to don't fit "right."  I guess the basic message here is to give yourself a break, be kind to your body and don't flip out over things that are out of your control.

2) Lack of appetite:
My appetite digs itself a burrow and dies during that week of the month (okay, I actually cheat and only do the placebo once every 2 or 3 months because I hate it so much, which my gyno says is fine).  This is where you have to trade a bit of the intuitive signal strategy for conscienciousness about your intake.  I think intuitive eating is GREAT and wish I were better at it, but if you're still sort of struggling with listening to and honoring your body cues, it's important to remember your signals may not always be accurate, especially when you've changed medications, have a hormone shift, etc. If it's the middle of the afternoon and you find yourself still not hungry for lunch, you need to suck it up and nourish yourself anyway.  You'll thank yourself later, because taking advantage of that appetite drop to deprive yourself not only weakens your body, but it weakens your defense against future temptations to skip and cut and let the ED edge farther back into your habits.

3) Pain:
Cramps! Damn.  I don't have an answer for this one.  I have no idea why it was evolutionarily necessary for women to feel like their guts were being rung out like wet towels.  I usually can't even sleep through the night for a couple of days.  Surely all the mechanics in there could happen without pain receptors being involved.  But they didn't ask Cammy how to build everything, obviously, so it is what it is.  You can try to spin this positively, I suppose, by using it as a practice for taking care of yourself and giving yourself a break when you're not feeling good.  Cuddle on the couch with a hot drink and a good book or tv show, take it easy, treat yourself like you would a best friend that was hurting.  It's something that's hard for a lot of ED sufferers, but an important thing to practice.

Again, I hope none of that was too TMI, but I try to be fairly 'tell it like it is' and this is an issue I know everyone deals with.   I just happen to have a blog and the inclination to whine about it right now.  Wouldn't have brought it up if it didn't tie into the ED, but it also makes it incredibly hard for me to stay on track with eating when I feel both fat and distinctly un-hungry for most of the week.

BUT it always passes. Another good concept to keep in mind.  So often we have things weighing on our minds (and at times, in our minds, weighing on our bodies) that drive us to distraction, stress us out, and generally make for a lot of time and energy and wellness wasted on worry and anxiety.  But in general, things get worked out one way or another, and what is top on your stress list today may be entirely resolved and forgotten by this time next week, month, year, etc.  That's not always the case, of course, but just try to keep in mind that nothing is the end of everything, and it's worth hanging in there.

By the way, I typed this while watching the Women's World Cup game.  Even though Match lives and breathes soccer, it has taken this cup series to get me really interested in watching the games on TV. I have a girlcrush on Hope Solo and Abby Wambach is superhuman (see goal 2:39 into that video).  Damn, girls! Anyone else watch?

Just Can't Say It

Seriously, how many times have I thought this? (via PostSecret)

Really, really saddens me to think that other people have gone through it too.  I have those mixed feelings a lot when I read PostSecret: something akin to relief that someone understands, but deep regret at the knowledge that so many people out there are suffering in so many ways.

It also makes me realize how good it feels this weekend to be blasting cheesy love pop songs on my radio instead of the same old "low" songs that I always listen to when I'm having one of those spontaenous crying drives during down times.  Starting to feel a bit of a crunch about work/school etc, but still feeling pretty strong and positive for now.

Back to "Normal"

Well after just two days back at home, and having jumped immediately back to my normal food/exercise patterns, I have an observation: god I feel like shit.  I am eating more calories than I was on the trip, but I feel incredibly run down.  I wasn't exactly restricting while I was away, either; I think I kept myself fairly balanced (hence no weight loss or gain), but even on increased calories now I feel WAY out of balance again.  Pretty sure it's the workouts.

Actually, in retrospect I don't think it's all that different from how I usually feel at home on my typical routines, right now it's just juxtaposed with the different experimental treatment I was dealing with on my trip (yes I'm a scientist, sorry).

I guess the contrast between more relaxed on trip and back to the high exercise load here was just striking.  I've traveled TONS over the past year, but usually I restrict pretty severely when I travel, so previously I didn't have the rested and fueled feeling upon my return to contrast with how my "normal" (ha) life feels.

Definitely something to think about, I guess.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Well hey there.  I was at a conference for a few days and then took off to visit family and go vacationing with Match, so almost 2 weeks later I'm home and back in business.

I have to say, it was an AWESOME trip.  I really struggled with the eating stuff at first, being out of my normal environment and routines.  There were definitely some stressful moments and I wouldn't by any stretch of the imagination say I handled it the way a normal, non-EDer would have, but in retrospect I'm actually a bit impressed with myself.

It helped that we were able to stay very active.  The weather was fantastic, so we did a lot of hiking, M. and I tossed a ball around most evenings, and we went on a lot of riverside walks.  I think one of my favorite memories of this relationship so far is hiking to the top of a mountain and finding the most picturesque alpine lake, like our own private postcard (Facebook pics to come for those that know me).

With eating, I had a hard time regulating at first, but I did try to keep myself fueled and think I did it well.  I loaded up on safe foods when they were available and stepped up to challenges with harder foods when needed.  I actually ate a steak, wowza.  Note that I'm not against beef for nutritional reasons; I just hate how it's processed and produced in our country and hadn't eaten any in at least 4 years.  But I had the chance to try some at the very farm where the cow had been born, raised in a huge lush pasture, slaughtered and meticulously packaged on site by the farmer, with no antibiotics or hormones or other shit added.  So I ate some, with no idea how lean the cut was or how many cals I was consuming.  And you know what? It was damn good.

I had a full plate at the 4th of July bbq and an ice cream after a hike with Match.  I had an unplanned glass of wine one evening.  I got girly drinks at Starbucks instead of plain coffee. I used non-skim milk and (gasp) real sugar in my coffee at my family's house and didn't die from it.  The family I was visiting was greatly amused by the volume of fruit I can consume, and I easily ate 2 or 3 pounds of strawberries a day because they bought a fresh half-flat of them every morning. I got non-salad entrees on almost every restaurant visit. We had a fitness room at one of the hotels we stayed at, and I ignored it in favor of going on walks and spending time with my boy.

So, given all of that, by the last couple of days I was UBER anxious and convinced I'd gained weight on the trip.  I got in last night and was nearly in tears when I stepped on the scale this morning...

...and you know what? I weigh the same, down to the absolute ounce, that I was when I left almost two weeks ago.  Huh.

Oh and remember the conference presentation I was so nervous about? I think I may actually have nailed it (not to pat myself on the back too much, but that was the feedback I got and I felt good after delivering the talk) and was approached by several profs with promising opportunities for my next degree program, so I am feeling tons better about PhD opportunities.

The family I was visiting was actually my biological dad's family (I don't talk to him and last saw him when I was 9, 15 years ago). I hadn't seen them since I was 2 years old, and was very nervous about going up there, especially since they have always had a poor opinion of my mom.  They have been great to me via letters and email my whole life, though, and the trip went very well.  I discovered that my grandmother and I are strikingly alike in many ways, and had a ton of fun getting to know her better and spending time with some cousins that I had never met before. I was really glad to have Match with me, since at this point he's really more like family to me than they are, and it was nice to know that I had my best friend and absolute ally for support the whole time.

And the visit with Match was possibly the best ever.  I feel like I say that every time, but every time it feels true.  I don't want to get mushy on you, but I really, really am grateful for this boy, and it's harder and harder to leave him every time; we still both cry ourselves to sleep the night before we have to part.

I finally, finally feel like I'm coming out of the funk I seem to have been under for 6+ months.  Sometimes it really seems like the dark tunnel will never end, but I'm starting to think I may be reaching the light again.