I'm sure everyone reading this blog is already aware of this, but it's National Eating Disorders Awareness week....PostSecret had a few ED secrets this week, not all of them positive. The most recovery-oriented:
I know I haven't updated lately...things are going okay, not perfect but okay. I haven't been around blogland much, when I'm in field research mode I really try to keep myself in that zone more than anything, for better or worse. I'll try to update soon, though. Love y'all, as always.
T-minus 4.5 days until I leave the US for Tropical Research Country. I am a scatter, distracted mess. And it's been a while since you got a Randoms post. Sounds like a recipe for stream of conscious list-making to me:
-I stuck to the calorie boost enough days that it feels like the default/routine now, although I haven't stepped it up the increment that I planned. But I don't know how much I do/don't need to; I miss having D. for perspective. One benefit to this addictive personality type is that I form habits at the drop of a hat, and if I can just shove myself over the anxiety hump of making a change in the first place, I can usually make it stick in the long run. (Or maybe the short run; at least until something shakes my world up and I revert, that's a topic that needs more than a bullet point to delve into). Anyway, I'm going to a country where my immune system is going to need to be in kickass shape, so I'm trying to tell myself it's okay to be liberal with intake right now. We'll see.
-I got a new Kindle Fire today (thanks to my amazing grandpa, who couldn't stand for me to go several months without my beloved National Geographic subscription while I'm overseas), and it absorbed waaaay too much of the time I should've been putting into grant applications. I don't think I'd realized that it is really a tablet instead of a straight e-reader. It feels like a big Droid, which is a bit clunky for someone used to Apple products (unabashed Mac Snob, sorry), but it does a ton more than my old Kindle and overall I'm happy with it.
-#thatawkwardmomentwhen you are showing off your new Kindle to your mother and she scrolls over your digital copy of the Kama Sutra. For the love of all that is holy why me...
-I think I've confessed this on here before, but I am totally a sucker for pop songs (I draw the line at boy bands and Bieber! What a goon), and this one is the newest addition to my Recovery playlist:
"Shadow-boxing the other half" really hit home for me. Also, if you didn't see Clarkson sing the at Obama's inauguration earlier this week, you totally should. She starts off slow and really opens up at the end. I don't really care what mean media people say about her; I love that voice. The video above also made me want to finally get that wrist tattoo I've been thinking about forever now.
-Speaking of music, the 'Shazam' app has changed my life.
-I ate beef today for the first time in...years. I suppose this is an achievement for 'breaking a rule,' although my reasons for not eating beef have absolutely zero to do with calories. I could give you my spiel on how unsustainable factory-produced meat is, but I won't. Anywho, I was just thinking about how I sometimes miss roast beef sandwiches even though everything I know about how their made is a huge turn-off...and I reasoned that soon I'll be in a place where I won't have the chance to indulge any random food whims whatsoever, so I went to Subway and got a roast beef sandwich, damnit. And . . . it didn't really taste good to me. I remember that I used to love those things. So weird. I think my baseline anxiety is so high leading up to this trip that I'm just distracted and out of touch with most things and maybe am just not focusing enough on the world around me to cue into sensory details too acutely. Who knows. But I ate the damn sandwich.
-I have made zero progress with curbing exercise and thus have set myself up for a major anxietyfest when I show up at my field site late next week and am suddenly faced with much less opportunity to work out without having made any effort to ease myself into it at all.
I anticipate that going something like this:
-I've been sleeping an average of 4 hours per night for the last week. That whole plan to wean myself off of caffeine before my trip, because I can't have it in the field . . . JUST KIDDING. Couldn't let all those nice coconut mocha Keurig cups that Match bought me go to waste...
-Major good news on the writing front in my "real life." Can't say more here*, but it was pretty validating and exciting.
-*I'm pretty sure that most of the people that subscribe to this blog in private mode do know who I am in "real life," and at least 100% of the people that I know for sure still read definitely know. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated the degree to which people I've met through this venue have continued to respect my pseudonymity and keep the two worlds separate; you ladies are amazing.
-GREAT NEWS: On my flight out next week, I have a five hour layover in Match City. We thought he had meetings all afternoon that day, but his adviser gave him the afternoon off so he's going to come over to the airport and hang with me. SO glad I get one more chance to see him before I go. It means another tearful goodbye, but it's worth it for even one more hug before I head off.
I have an early morning tomorrow and really should try to get a human amount of sleep tonight. I hope all is well for everyone, love y'all.
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.”
Days into birth control placebo week: 2
Number of crying events by 10:30 this morning: 3
Number of other people I made cry this morning: 1
Pounds I feel like I've gained overnight via water weight: ~847.6
Ibuprofen popped for headache: 3
Weight of the imaginary truck that feels like it's rolling back and forth over my midsection: ~5 tons
How much this compares to the physical hassle of NOT taking my birth control and getting pregnant: Nothing
Having a private blog on which to vent my hormonally aggravated woes: Priceless
Sorry y'all.
(Disclaimer: although I am in whiny self-pity mode, I love my birth control and absolutely wouldn't dissuade anyone from going on it for whatever health reason. I really count the days (5 left!) until I go BACK on it during these infrequent weeks off).
Sunday reading recommendation: I was fascinated by this article by Kathryn Schulz in New York Magazine on the self-help industry and what it tells us about, well, us and our issues.
I know the Schulz uses weight *loss* as an example in one paragraph (come on, it's the American media, it's inevitable), but I she's essentially talking about lifestyle changes, and I think that can easily be translated to weight gain or cessation of disordered behaviors in ED recovery.
I was a little disappointed with the last page or so when she describes her own recovery from depression (that sounds awful, clarification: I'm super happy she made it through and is in a better place, but I think she really gave short shrift to what a damn hard process it can be). But the discussion about our concepts of self, inner motivation, and what behavior modification even means is pretty interesting.
Snip:
"...all self-help literature offers is a kind of metaphysical power of attorney for our putative better halves. But if you identify with the above-mentioned Oreo-eater or healthy-relationship saboteur or procrastinator, you yourself are evidence that this is a nonsolution. If giving your better half executive control by fiat could change your life, sales of self-help material would plummet overnight. It is a somewhat beautiful fact that the underlying theory of the self-help industry is contradicted by the self-help industry’s existence."
Would love to hear your thoughts if you get a chance to read it!
Okay so I was all doom and gloom on the last post, but starting yesterday my mood has really turned around. I know this might sound silly, but I think the weather has had something to do with it--it was FINALLY sunny and beautiful again for the first time in a week and it sent my S.A.D. skittering away into a corner, for now at least. I also had opportunities to get out of the house, make myself look human (seriously, I really needed a day in which I had a reason to wear mascara), and interact with people, which is always a big booster despite my basic introvertedness (introvertivity? introversion, I think actually. Anywho I'm not shy, I just like a lot of my time to be "me time." But not too much. Closing the parentheses now).
Guess who added calories yesterday? And had a major challenge food today? (even though the food ended up not tasting as good as I expected and I don't think I'd choose it again, I still did it damnit). I am honest when I say I want to boost my health before my trip, and now I'm trying to change "want to" to "am actively working to".
I had a really long lunch/hangout session with an old high school teacher today--the only one I have EVER discussed ED stuff with. We didn't talk about it at all today, just discussed our lives and such since I graduated in 2005 and generally got caught up. It was awesome. I like her even better now that I'm not her student and she can be more candid with me about school, politics, the world in general, etc. I love what great people there are in this world, you know?
Some of our conversation got a bit philosophical, and although we didn't discuss anything ED-related, it did make me think a bit...if I could go back and erase the ED from my life then I would, but since that isn't possible, I do acknowledge that I think I'm a more insightful, self-aware, introspective person as a result of seesawing around recovery for the past...13 years? Jeebus. Anyway, this quote captures some of what I think I was feeling today:
"What makes night within us may leave stars."
-Victor Hugo
Had a major bicker with Match yesterday about my exercise habits. Cue existential angst and total despair about ever getting out from under the thumb of this thing.
It's also VERY hard to have an argument with someone when you actually know they're right about everything.
And it's impossible to fill in the parts of the issue that the other person doesn't "get" when you are too ashamed to explain yourself.
