Fuzzy

So, there has been a little slippage going on over the past few days.  Maybe more than a little.  Most of it not even conscious, honestly.  I just haven't had an appetite, and being out of my normal class/work routine has made it easy to let eating fall through the cracks.  I paid for it today, though, I was just exhausted and, worst of all, had that fuzzy-headed feeling, couldn't really focus on much, and I was just in a bad mood.  I can handle Empty Stomach, but I hate Empty Brain.

To "celebrate" the last day of the break (is that something to celebrate? doesn't it mean finals are looming? oh well), J. and his roommate had a Wii party.  Has everyone played that wonder that is Wii?  I'm not a big gamer, but this is possibly the most entertaining thing ever.   (Just for the record, even though J. is literally more than twice my size in real life, I routinely kick his virtual ass on Super Smash Brothers!) The controller is amazing, you get to do all kinds of zany actions with it because it works with a motion sensor.  Wii parties are a big fad at my university right now, they're a blast.  If you mix motion sensor games with alcohol and/or caffeine...well, you get the picture, hilarity inevitably ensues...

 I ended up not going, though.  I really just didn't have the mental or physical energy to do anything extra today.  No, missing a video game session isn't that big of a deal, that's not the point.  The main issue is that I hate having regrets, either about something as silly as an afternoon of Wii or about the larger theme of connecting with people.  When I look back at high school I see so many missed opportunities to have fun, reach out, just enjoy being a teenager.  I have wasted so much time/energy over the years, it disgusts me when I stop to think about it.  I have tried not to let the ED rob me of the same things during college, but sometimes it's hard. 

And that is why I'm going to make a determined effort to get back in the saddle tomorrow; with finals coming up I can not afford a crash right now.  Feeling "fuzzy" today was a reminder of why making progress is worth all the stress and anxiety.  Now that I'm used to having more energy and focus, being thrown back towards the terrible way I used to feel all day, every day is a sharp reality check.  Starting back with classes will help, I just have a hard time justifying fueling myself when I'm not in my normal school routine.  

Put a Ring on It

Randomness for today: Although I'm not all that extroverted, I really, really love to dance, and I love music that makes you move.  Most of the time G. is the only witness to my jam sessions, but on occasions when I do go out dancing I can have more fun stone sober than most people do at their most, well, juiced up.  Anyway, the main point of this post: Can I just say that it is a nice change to see a celebrity showing off and enjoying her shape?  Yes, I know, her curves are definitely those of a woman with a personal fitness team and a crew of people paid to make her look good, but I still think it sets a better example than a lot of the images we get of frail,  waifish models and actresses.  Plus, it's just a fun video. ;)  Click the link for a higher quality version, the only one that I could embed in the post has poor resolution. 

The Sodium Saga

In my last post I mentioned my ridiculous taste for salt, I probably consume enough sodium per day to give an elephant a bad case of hypertension. I do think it is something more than an idiosyncrasy of my palate. And so after last night I started thinking about it more and decided to look it up, apparently an appetite for salt can signal a zinc deficiency, which is interesting, because the study also correlated anorexia with zinc deficiency as well. Keep in mind that this is the more stark scientific usage of "anorexia," just meaning decreased food intake, not the psychological condition (the study was done on baby rats, who may be the last members of society to remain unaffected by today's barrage of messages about body and weight. So far, at least).

I remember seeing something on a parent's message board one time (yes, I spy on those sometime, it is a poignant reality check to see these issues from "the other side," and I think it might actually have been Laura's board) about giving zinc tablets to help with weight gain in recovery, and there is science to back this up. There is one study that found that about 90% of athletes have zinc-deficient diets, which was also found to be linked to the development of eating disorders. My favorite among the studies that I dug into last night, though, gives us a triple whammy: it links zinc deficiency (which, remember, apparently correlates to salt cravings) with anorexia, and then gives us the cause for that: apparently increased leptin is also related to low zinc levels, with evidence that it is specifically the leptin mRNA from abdominal adipose that is affected. Muy cool, no?

Also, it is common for ED sufferers to be hypokalemic. At my very first visit with my dietician she requested bloodwork records from my physician to see what my potassium levels were like. Hopefully everyone remembers from their high school biology class that sodium and potassium ratios are crucial for the most basic function of your cells (remember those cute ion pumps that live in your cells' lipid bilayers?), and having one out of whack can mess up the whole balance.

So, that's just a few notes from the results of my crash course in sodium/zinc regulation in relation to EDs, for anyone else who has also noticed major salt cravings and wondered about the cause. This would also explain why the salt substitutes NEVER satisfy me, because it's not the taste I'm craving, but the sodium itself.

(Image credit for sodium molecule)

Uncomfortable

I am incredibly uncomfortable in my body right now.  My weight hasn't gone up over the past week, if anything it's come down a tiny bit, I don't know what the deal is.  I just feel thick and bulky and alien. It's not post-holiday guilt, because I didn't do Thanksgiving this year. I was a good girl and got back on my meal plan today after being sick, but it's really hard.  The amount I'm eating right now is almost depressing, I am sure it's more than I would be eating "normally" (meaning if I was a regular functional person and had never dealt with an ED).  If I were doing "intuitive eating," I can't imagine that I'd feel the urge to consume as much as I am supposed to according to my team.  

So, since I am supposed to be actually thinking about these issues instead of just whining about them, there are a few factors here that are probably making me "feel fat":

 1) I am still exercising compulsively, so my cal requirements are indeed pretty high, meaning I have to eat more food than I am psychologically and physically comfortable with.  If I cut some of that workout time, I might even be able to justify changes in my mealplan to my team.  But I can't do that.  More on the exercise stuff in an upcoming post. 

 2) I always have an inordinate craving for salt, and I know that the amount of sodium I consume every day probably contributes to me feeling bulky and gross.  If I have a day where I am on the go/on campus for all meals and don't have time for any "real" food (meaning that I do mostly granola bars, etc and no cooked meals that I can add salt to) my weight will drop about 2-3 pounds overnight.  I am not sure why I always feel the need to add so much salt, I need to do research on the possible causes of this, I do think it goes beyond mere taste. 

3) My pace of life has slowed considerably over the holiday break.  I still have lots of work to do, but I can do it from home instead of ping-ponging all over campus for 12-14 hours a day, and business for the organizations, clubs, etc is wrapping up for the semester.  Hence, more free time, hence, less to distract me from how my body has changed over the past few months.  H. insists that my crazy schedule is an unconscious defense mechanism for me to "avoid addressing feelings," maybe she is right.  Usually she is, but it also usually takes me a while to realize that.  

So, it's a bad body image time right now.  Although I do know some logical factors contributing to the problem, since when has rationality played a part in any of this?  I still just feel too big, too soft, too much.

Thursday Thoughts

I figured I should jump on the bandwagon with Thanksgiving narratives and musings.   I spent Turkey Thursday solo this year, due to a nasty flu thingy I appear to have picked up.   I probably could have survived the 5 hour drive to my grandparents' house, but I didn't want to expose them to my germs once I got there.  

In an earlier comment, Tiptoe asked how I feel about being on my own (although G. can't be discounted) for the holiday.  Actually I am fine with it.  I need to have solitude periodically, it helps me to recharge.  I had a relaxing day, overal.  I laid on the couch and watched a movie this morning (when was the last time I did that?  I can't remember), and in spite of my head feeling like it weighs about 15 pounds I got some much-needed work done on a paper this afternoon.  I was feeling well enough by about 4 to take G. for an abbreviated walk, and the weather was gorgeous.  By this evening I was feeling well enough  for some solid food, so I had butterscotch pudding and white-fudge covered Oreos for dinner (although still not sure if I will regret that later, the stomach is a little unhappy now).  I actually get much more genuine enjoyment out of a quiet, routine day than I do from the hustle and bustle of holiday travel.

The only thing I was definitely not fine with was guilt over not going to my grandparents' house.  I don't grieve my Thanksgiving, that's for sure, but I do regret any missed opportunity to see them.  We are extremely close, and I know they were very disappointed when I called yesterday to say I wasn't coming.  I hate disappointing anyone, but especially them. But then again, my grandmother just got over pneumonia, and I'd hate to reinfect her with something.   All day today I kept having sad mental images of them having Thanksgiving alone.  They had 7 kids, always a huge bustling household that was overflowing with excitement for every holiday, but now everyone has moved far away (I'm the closest, and it's a 5 hour drive) and they themselves aren't really healthy enough to travel.  

Side rant on Thanksgiving: It's like the entire nation has a love-hate relationship with the holidays, and it's a miracle that everyone, including Rudolph himself, doesn't develop an eating disorder after months of being exposed to alternating "here's how to cook this awesome food to gorge on" and "here's how to cleanse yourself of that awesome holiday food" messages blasting us from all angles of society.  I have never really "gotten" that, I guess I don't understand, people eat every day, do they really think a Thanksgiving meal is any worse for them than the beer and pizza or super-size McMeals that are consumed every day?  I guess I tend to look at it from a more objective/empirical viewpoint; maybe it's because I'm a scientist, or (more likely) just because I crunch dietary numbers every day.  There is lots of shock value in tallying up dishes and saying, oh, the average Thanksgiving meal has XXXX calories.  WHAT?  Are you serious? Hold onto your cross-trainers, girls, it's a gravy-soaked catastrophe!  But really, stop to think.  If the average person consumes ~2000 cals a day anyway, the 3000, 4000, whatever they have once in a while to celebrate a holiday isn't that much else, remember that tally is not adding that entire amount, the only extra is beyond what you normally would have eaten, XXXX MINUS 2000 or whatever you normally need to consume.  If someone habitually goes to the movies on the weekend and eats a large popcorn, well, that's a Thanksgiving meal every week, and they probably survive.  Ok, that's my mini-rant about how the media abuses both us and the holidays in general.

Ok, in spite of my attempts to be rational about it, you might have guessed that Thanksgiving isn't my favorite holiday.  But I have never had extreme anxiety over it, at least not over food.  My ED is not a secret, and my family handles it very well: the make sure there are "safe" foods on the menu, try not to make me feel like I'm under the spotlight, and focus more on the visiting with family than scrutinizing who does/doesn't eat what. That part is usually fine. The biggest stressor for me is usually just the change in routine that is required in order to travel to the nearest relative's house.  Exercise addiction is like this massive ball and chain wrapped around your life, and even the suggestion of having to miss a workout makes me more anxious that the most high-strung holiday hostess.  Luckily I can always take G. for a walk and make it a family thing by inviting people along, that doesn't replace my workouts but at least takes the edge off my anxiety.

I do tend to lose weight over the holidays.  Ok, "tend" is a little wimpy; I invariably drop weight between November and February.  Part of this is because I always end up over compensating when I have a change of routine.  I'm going to miss a workout on Thanksgiving?  Ok, I'll do double my exercise on Wednesday in addition to halving my calories for X days . . . Logic, logic, wherefore art thou, logic . . . Part of this is because I'm out of school for several weeks, and when I am not under pressure to perform it is incredibly easy to let recovery efforts fall by the wayside.  Third, I am a strong believer in Seasonal Affective Disorder, and I do tend to get pretty down and lose any appetite when Daylight Savings Time ends and darkness comes progressively earlier each evening.

I never sit down and strategize a relapse every winter, it just tends to happen.  I have talked to H. about this, and my goal this season is supposed to be to hang onto all of my newly accumulated mass throughout the holiday season.  I am going to try, but we'll see how it goes.  I don't know if it's just because I've been sick, but I've felt uberly gross and uncomfortable in my body over the past few days.  I haven't had any appetite because I've been sick, but I'm going to try to get back into my regular eating pattern again tomorrow, it's way to easy to let episodes like this readjust my settings for lower intake and lead to major ED slips.

As usual, this post is way longer than I originally intended.  I started out just talking about how I spent today and ended up spilling about my annual relapse cycle.  Does anyone actually read the entirety of these monstrous things?

In any case, I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving, that you were able to relax and spend time with loved ones, and that you were able to take a little time to treat yourself like a loved one too.

Viruses, Snakes, and Coffee Crimes

Issues, concerns, and miscellany for today:

You know you have a crappy apartment when the maintenance man comes over so often that your dog greets him like an old friend when he walks in the door.

I am having an "icky body" day, I just feel grublike and gross.  Did I weigh any more today than I did yesterday? No.  Then why do I feel like I have grown my very own turkey wattle of chin fat overnight?  I haven't even eaten much today, because I apparently have some flu-type virus.  I am almost certain I picked it up in the waiting room at the doctor's office on Monday, which is ironic but not all that surprising.  I was planning to go to my grandparents' house for Turkey Day tomorrow, but their health is always tenous and I am very afraid of infecting them, so it will just be me and G. here.  

I take that back: me, G., and the snakes.  Did I mention I got a snake a couple weeks ago?  He's just a baby, a real cutie.  I'm also keeping J's snake over the break.  It is the same species as mine, but a different subspecies. They don't share a cage!  Snakes don't like sleepovers.  This species actually prefers to eat other snakes, and my poor little guy wouldn't stand a chance against J's, he's still only pencil-sized.

Speaking of pets, one of my pet peeves in life is baristas that shortchange me by underfilling my Americano.  When I pay $3 for 20 oz of coffee, I damn well expect to get a 20 oz drink, not 16 oz and three inches of air.  If I wanted that much "room for cream" I would have just ordered a latte.

Another overpriced food issue: These 100 calorie pack things are really getting on my nerves.  Now they have them for candy bars, you can get a little 100 calorie portion of M&Ms, Twix, etc.  Do the candy companies really think people are dumb enough not to realize that the traditional fun-size versions are pretty much the same thing, except much cheaper?  Also, with the cookies, crackers, etc, individually packaging each 100 cal portion is incredibly wasteful, think about all the extra cellophane, paper, plastic, etc that is being used.  I think companies should have a responsibility to use recycled and/or biodegradable materials if they insist on marketing items that use 10x the necessary amount of packaging.  Maybe this is just because I see things through the lens of a broke college student, but it costs a lot more per ounce just to fill your trashcan up with extra wrappers,when technically ANYTHING you buy can be broken up into whatever serving size you want.  Seriously, there is no need for people that are concerned about limiting portions to require food that is pre-measured and bagged. Pathological people like me have been buying regular boxes/bags of things and weighing portions out the old-fashioned way for years, and it works just fine without the super-expensive and landfill-crowding new over-packaged items that have flooded the market recently.  Also, having snack foods packaged by calorie count makes kids think snacks are "healthy" because it's just 100 calories of cookie, instead of defining "healthy" by actual nutrient content.

Why do I feel the constant need to punch the button to check my CrackBlackberry even when I can see that the little red message light is not blinking?  It's like I'm a moth attracted to this little device, I can't leave it alone.  Somehow it seems like by checking it often enough I'll POOF, make e-mails and messages appear whenever I need to feel validated.  Sadly, it doesn't work like that.  I wonder if Obama would have run for president if he knew they'd take away his BB?  It would have given me serious pause, I even use mine as a flashlight when I get up to pee in the middle of the night.  

Now that all of that crankiness (can I blame it on the flu?) is out of my system, I think I am going to head towards bed.  Goal for tomorrow: get rid of this fever, and if said fever isn't gone, don't push the exercise so much.  

Appointment Update

So guess what?  The nurse didn't say a word about the weight gain, never batted an eyelash.  If I had stuck with my previous pattern, I would have spent days agonizing over every bite and basically putting myself through hell, and the result would have been nil, zero feedback or validation.  I was very glad that I didn't waste all that energy and anxiety over something that turned out to be no big deal.

Even post-tattoo, though, the needle wasn't any easier during the blood draw!  It's not the pain that bothers me, but the general concept of something poking through my skin just makes me queasy.

But yay for no more low thryoid levels, even sans medication. It's amazing how your body can take care of itself when you're not forcing it to cannibalize itself every day.  Recoveryisgoodrecoveryisgoodrecoveryisgood, I keep trying to repeat that whenever I feel myself slipping into Blob mode.  

I like my physician, he is nice and fairly hot, but he is also clueless when it comes to EDs.  He asked why I wanted a Dexa, and I had to point out to him that having an eating disorder for nine years and never getting a period puts a person at risk for bone loss, and I was already diagnosed with osteopenia when I was 17. " Oh yeah," he said, "right, you should definitely have that looked at."  Thanks.  How much did you pay for that medical degree, anyway?

So then he asked me how my treatment for AN was going (referring to my work with H.), and I said things were "improving," and that seemed to satisfy him.  "Ok, so you're eating alright?"  If only "eating alright," were all it took to make things ok, if only.

So, Dr. R is obviously not an ED expert, but I got what I needed out of the appointment with no major trauma involved, and I was glad I resisted the urge to play scale games, it was a nice validation of the fact that so much of that is pointless, and it's not worth it to spend valuable time/energy abusing yourself for a relatively arbitrary readout on some piece of equipment in the doctor's office.

Not Letting Weigh-ins Carry Too Much Weight

So, I have an appointment with my physician today, the first time I've seen him since I came in with my tropical infection back in August.  I had some bloodwork done earlier this year that showed that my thyroid levels were low, and I want to have that checked again, plus I need a referral for a new Dexa scan.  

I have gained weight since my last appointment, more than can be attributed to normal fluctuation, and I am really, really dreading having the nurse look at the huge jump in numbers when she writes it on my chart.  I weigh myself at home, so it won't do me any good to ask to be weighed backwards or anything like that, I know exactly what the number is.  Technically, these people are in the health business, do I really think they're going to look down on me for moving more towards the healthy range?  No, not really, but I still just feel anxious and strange about it.  

So, it would have been super easy to restrict food, sodium, water, etc over the past couple of days to minimize the number.  It crossed my mind multiple times a day.  Actually it didn't cross my mind, that sounds to fleeting, it made my mind feel criss-crossed.   I held on, though, and did my normal thing.  Now that the appointment is looming this afternoon, I came so close to making a last-ditch effort, I am meeting a friend for coffee later so that would have made it easy for me to skip breakfast, or at least cut back.  

Normally I would have done that without even debating.  But really, is it worth days and days of my suffering for the 10 seconds or so that the nurse will spend recording and/or reacting to my weight?  I think not.  I have too many other things to spend my energy and anxiety on right now.

So, I just finished my normal breakfast, and I'm going to get a LARGE coffee with my friend, specifically to confront my worries about water weight.  And I'll be honest with the doctor about my exercise, that one is always hard.  And about my still absent period, that one is always harder.  Not so much that I'm reluctant to tell him, he's a doctor, but he's always got an assistant this invariably some cute young woman not much older than me, very perfectly proportioned and probably very fertile, and I just get embarrassed.

And I won't let myself get anxious about the needle when they draw my blood, considering my adventure from this past weekend, that would just be silly, right?  

Badge of Courage

So, I have been planning this for a long time, but I haven't mentioned it to anyone yet because I was afraid I would chicken out. But I didn't. And here it is:

It should be noted that I have MAJOR needle anxiety, I have never even had my ears pierced. And Mr. Tattoo Artist wouldn't let J. hold my hand, because he said any move J. made would make me move too, and you no want to be doing moving when the ink needle is in you.

Yes, I got the idea and design for a recovery tattoo from Thin, but I really like the symbol, which is actually the NEDA logo. I got mine in blue, instead of red and purple, because that has always been a peaceful color for me. I had originally planned to get it on my 21st birthday, over a year ago, but at that point I was pretty entrenched in the ED, and I thought I would have felt like a hypocrite. I wanted it to have meaning, so I decided to hold off until I actually had some progress and accomplishments to symbolize. I am still struggling day-to-day, but the general trend is definitely forward, and I have no plans to go back.

And yes, it HURT LIKE HELL. Because it's small and simple it went fast, so there wasn't really time for the endorphins to kick in. But I tried to think of it as "pain with a purpose." A little bit of pain as a reminder of a lot more pain that I am working hard to reconcile and leave in the past.

(Note: I didn't realize until I uploaded the pics that my panty strap was twisted. Sigh. Even when I am feeling profound I still manage to goof things up, oh well. Make the twisted strap into its own metaphor if you wish, c'est la vie).

Tired

I am so overtired and overwhelmed.  All I want to do is sit down and cry out of pure exhaustion, but I have neither the time nor the energy to spare for that.  The ED stuff is either stable or stagnant, depending on how you choose to look at it, for once that's not the main issue.  The major stressors right now are  just everything else that has piled up, and the subsequent lack of sleep and general freakedoutedness.  It's now officially Thanksgiving break, but I've got such an oppressive to-do list for the "vacation" that I just want to go stick my head in the sand somewhere.  

Blah, vent post, sorry.  I'll have something more substantive soon.

No Longer

"I was willing to dismember my ego and peel it apart in order to find the core of all peels in its unknown innermost essence....but I myself was lost in the process....I will no longer murder and dismember myself in order to find a secret beyond the rubble."
~Hermann Hesse, in Siddhartha

"It's Not About the Bagel."

J. and I share a rather acerbic sense of humor, but we rarely get in real actual arguments.  Today we did, and it gave me a lot to think about.  Sometimes I really think this boy is going into the wrong field, he'd make an excellent psychologist.  

The whole thing started as we were leaving our early class this morning, and he tried to convince me to come to a cafe with him for breakfast.  I had one hour before my appt with H., and I'd already packed a breakfast to eat before heading over there.  I am still weird about eating in front of people sometimes, even J., and I just wanted to go to the internet cafe in the library to sit in the corner and eat my pre-determined meal all by myself.  It's not that I didn't want the calories of going out with him, or that I have anything against bagels (I am fine with eating them on my own terms) it's just that I'd already planned what I was going to have, and I don't do spontaneity or sudden changes of plans very well.  

I couldn't explain all that to him, though, so I just told him no, I had an appt later and had to send some important e-mails before that.  He was persistent, though.  Getting in arguments bothers me in the first place, but knowing that the subject of the disagreement is something as petty as a breakfast pastry really pisses me off at myself.

J: Come on, please?

C: No. I have to send those e-mails, I won't have another free hour for the rest of the day.

J: It won't take that long, you have time.

C: No, I don't. I can't.

J: It's just a bagel, C, come on.

C: Friends don't let friends do refined carbs.

J: Ha, cut it out, let's go to Einstein's, my treat.  A bagel is not going to hurt you.

C: [glare] J, no. Period.  I have to go.  Buy yourself an extra bagel and eat it for me.

J: [double glare] It's not about the bagel, C., it's about you loosening the hell up and living once in a while.

I really couldn't argue with that, so I just walked away.

On being proactive...

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

~Will Rogers

Hot Flashes, Hunger, and Crappy Baristas

Over the past couple of weeks, it has become very obvious that my body is just as bewildered as my brain about this whole recovery thing.  First, my metabolism is erratic and unpredictable: I am having flashes where I'll get super hot all of the sudden. I'll just be sitting in class and my system will rev up and I'll feel like I need to peel off two or three layers of clothes.  After spending so many years teetering on the edge of hypothermia for weeks/months at a time, I don't take heat for granted and this symptom isn't too terrible, I can deal with it.  The one that bothers me to an extreme degree is that I am hungry All. The. Time.  This is true stomach-gnawing hunger, not just post-starvation appetite, believe me, I am so f-ing tired of food.  I am more than a little pissed at the irony that as I gain weight I'm spending much more time hungry than I did when I was starving myself.  

It's also ironic that all I have to do to turn off the hunger is to not eat.  Yes, the scientist in me knows that hunger means my metabolism is up and kicking, and that skipping meals is a sure way to slow it down to the pace of a snail, but old habits die hard.   Yesterday I was completely fed up with feeling fat and stuffing myself with food I don't want, so I rebelled and scrapped my meal plan. I was a little hungry at first, but it quickly settled down into that slightly achy yet oh-so-familiar hollow feeling.  I know this is completely disordered, but that honestly seems like the most comfortable state of being for me, it just feels like default mode.   My hair is blonde, my eyes are blue, my stomach is empty, the earth is round, etc.

And so today, I told myself I had to get back on track and stick to the meal plan.  I had my full breakfast at 7:30...and was famished by 10:00, literally so hungry I couldn't concentrate on my work.  I went to get coffee, and had a terrible time with a stupid campus barista that doesn't know coffee from the dirt in her garden.  She completely messed up my drink, and then yelled at me for it.  I refused to take the drink, which wasn't what I'd ordered, so she remade it, but then I didn't trust that she'd made it right since she was pissed at me, so I ended up throwing it away anyway.  (I was worried that she hadn't used decaf, because caffeine freaks my heart out, or that she hadn't used skim, because unplanned calories still freak my brain out).

That put me in a bad mood, and I was still coffee-less, and even more frustrated because I was mad about the barista incident (and $4 poorer with nothing to show for it after I threw the drink away) and still super hungry.  I told myself to get a grip, drank a Fuze, and stuck it out til lunch.  I ate before my afternoon lab, around 12:30, and stomach was growling again by 2:00.  Snack before I went to my other lab at 3:00, and insistent hunger pains by 4:30.  Another snack when I got home at 5:15, barely took the edge off before dinner at 7:30.   So basically I am eating all the time, getting pudgier every day, and spending virtually all of the time hungry and thinking about food.  If I wanted to be hungry and food-obsessed, I could have stayed in ED-land and still fit into my favorite jeans, instead of having the worst of both worlds like I do now.

Yes, that line of thought is disordered, and no, deep down I don't think I mean it.  Really deep down, at least, so deep that I sometimes lose sight of it until I make a conscious effort to look.

Why am I putting myself through this?  What's the point?  Some things off the top of my head: I have gone beyond the intial stages of the novelty of having energy and have moved onto actual strenth, my memory is much better, my heart isn't fluttering erratically, my fingers aren't cold with purple nailbeds, my hair and nails are shinier, and my temperament feels much more stable.  I can do spontaneous activities like dancing with my dog, helping a neighbor carry stuff in from their car, etc etc without being constrained by my ever-growing energy debt.  I am most definitely more engaged with people and the world in general.  I don't count hours until I can crawl into bed every night, completely depleted and already dreading the next morning.  Days are still long and often hard, but I feel like I am starting to go beyond searching for the light and am starting to actually stick my head out of the proverbial tunnel, squinting in the brightness, forcing myself to deal with the pain of the new light until I can adjust enough to appreciate it.  

So, my body and my mind agree that recovery is confusing and frustrating, but when have I not been confused and frustrated?  I don't know, this whole thing is just strange, my feelings about the whole situation seem to see-saw constantly.

Body Blues

I am having major body anxiety.  If I feel this gross and alien before I even hit "normal" BMI range, how am I going to not just spontaneously combust at the weight that H. is pushing for?  I  hate the ED, I hate me, I hate that I can't seem to separate the two.

Evidence that life is indeed unfair:   I feel like a stomach on legs; I swear my belly enters the room before I do.  And yet, ZERO increase in the boobage department.   Why, why?  I know the cerebral answer to my own question, your body pads the organs in the abdoment first, yaddah yaddah, but it doesn't make my apple-ish shape any less frustrating. Embarassing question, but what is a blog without an occasional dose of TMI: For those of y'all that have been through this, do you have to get your period back before the bust begins to well, bust out of hiding? 

I still haven't made much progress with decreasing exercise (ok, I'll be honest, I have made no progress whatsoever), and frankly I have no idea how I'll be able to force myself to do that when I am already rapidly becoming disenchanted with this weight gain thing.  

I just hate my face. I hate the way it is shaped when it fills out. I look like a blonde potato. I have never had a good opinion about how I look, but in the past I could tell myself "You may not be be pretty, but at least you're thin."  Now I don't see myself as either, and it is kind of killing my confidence.  I've tried the "exposure therapy" that H. recommended, I still post pictures on Facebook, etc, she tells me that letting shame keep me from sharing shots of myself doing exciting things would be a score for the ED...but I can't help wondering whether everyone that sees them is going to be flabbergasted at my newly flubberized face.

So, all this whining about appearance, which is stupid and inconsistent in light of the my emotional flare-up when H. suggested that my thinking was superficial.  Oops.  It's not just how I look, though, this also just feels strange.  I haven't weighed this much since I was 15 years old, and I have to figure out how I'm going to identify myself if I'm going to give up the ED--which has been the main component of my identity for going on nine years now--and start to look/act more like a normal, healthy person.  

Today I saw one of the faculty mentors from a leadership thing that I went to this summer, and she was effusive with the "you look great, much better than the last time I saw you" comments.   Aaack so it is noticeable, quick, where is the nearest rock I can crawl under?  I forced myself to remember that most normal people like being paid compliments, in NormalSpeak "you look great" is actually a positive comment.  

Reading over this post, I feel bad because know a lot of these worries are shallow and trivial, I apologize for the rambling.  There are so many people with disabilities, injuries, illnesses, etc, and here I am whining about my f-ing face and bra size.  I'm starting to doze off on the keyboard, but tomorrow I'll make an effort to redeem myself by doing some brainstorming on on items to add to the "why recovery is worth it" list.  

What's the Point?

As I am sure everyone has realized by now, it is ELECTION DAY!  This isn't news to anyone, hopefully.  I was extremely excited about voting in this election.  Until recently I was completely ambivalent and mildly disdainful of politics, but this circus (ahem, I mean election) has really reeled me in to the point of obsession.  I feel really strongly about the issues at hand and the candidates involved.  Literally, no joke, I have had dreams about the candidates in various scenarios for the past FOUR nights in a row.  Yes, I think that's just as sad as you probably do.  

Anyway, for those of you that are all electioned out (I think even the newscasters are getting sick of the spin, everything that can be said about the candidates pretty much has been rehashed to the point of mush), I thought it would be interesting to discuss the voting itself.  Why do we get excited about casting our ballot?  Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing people for being excited, I was in line at 5:30 this morning to vote, and I was pretty pumped about it. But, do we really think our one vote is going to determine the outcome?  No, a single vote isn't going to make a difference, even in battleground states.  But we realize that if everyone thought like that, the whole system would be out of whack, so, consciously or otherwise, we realize the importance of exercising our right to go out there and build a powerful force out of individually insignificant actions.  I am the ultimate over-analyzer, so I find things like this fun, just wanted to share a post I found with some really interesting commentary on how voting behaviors are affected by psychology and a little bit of probability and economic theory: Why do we vote?

So, that's enough of my babble, happy Election Day, everyone!

Fire and Roosters and Cribbage, Oh My!

Tagged by Tiptoe wanting to know quirks about me.

Here are the rules:
1.Link to the person who tagged you
2.Mention the rules on your blog
3.Tell 6 unspectacular quirks about you
4.Tag 6 following bloggers by linking to them
5.Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger's blogs letting them know they've been tagged.

1) I am inordinately afraid of fire.  Actually, it is not exactly fire that scares me, it is more the prospect of being burned, if that makes sense.  There was an incident when I was about eight, I picked up a metal bar that had just come off of a bonfire, and I had 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my hands, the most excruciating thing I have ever dealt with, physically, at least.  Ever since then I have been way overly cautious about touching anything remotely hot, and I'm extremely paranoid about my place catching fire when I'm not there.  The duplex I live in right now has gas appliances, it seriously took me about a year to not be completely freaked out by having the constant open flames (pilot lights) all over the place.

2)  Although I have worked with a lot of animals that people tend to be afraid of, the only ones that really scare me are farm birds, specifically roosters and water fowl.  Chalk it up to traumatic childhood experience: when I was a kid I used to visit my uncle's ranch, and he had some terrible roosters that loved to attack me.  He wanted to punish them but could never catch them, so he decided to set me out as bait so he could jump out and get them.  Thus, some of my earliest childhood memories are of cowering down watching this huge demon bird charging at me.  I don't be liking roosters.  Also, I was attacked by a male swan one time, he bit my thumb so hard that it broke and he bruised me pretty badly with his wings, I looked like a child abuse case.  I guess that taught me an important life lesson: sometimes very pretty things can have very bad attitudes.

3)  I have always loved writing fiction as well as non-fiction, and I currently have the first 60,000 words of a novel sitting on my hard drive, waiting for my big break. 

4)  I LOVE cribbage.  It is sad that so few people are familiar with the game, because it's a lot of fun.  My family has cribbage tournaments every Christmas, and I am undefeated for seven years running.

5)  My favorite movie of all time is Grease, I have seen it roughly 218 times.  Yes, I am nerdy enough to have calculated and kept track.  Young John Travolta? Swoon.

6)  I am living proof of the fact that a single teacher can drastically change the course of a person's life.  I have always loved nature, and as a kid I was constantly doing "experiments" and smuggling critters into the house.  But my parents wanted me to go to law school, so until I was sixteen I was convinced I was going to go to Harvard Law and eventually end up on the Supreme Court.  I inhaled John Grisham novels, watched Law & Order religiously, and in the evenings while I did my homework I listened to C-Span with my mom (who started law school twice but could never finish because of my dad's career). Then I took an AP Biology class, and I was absolutely hooked. In the course of one semester I discovered this insatiable thirst  for knowledge about the world that shows no signs of abating, my current field of study inspires me with awe every single day.  I have most definitely found my passion, now I can't even fathom what life would be like if I had gone in the direction I'd originally planned.

Now I am supposed to pick six more people . . . I am always ultra-shy about tagging, because I am afraid that a) they will hate me for picking them or b) I will name someone that doesn't read my blog as often as I might think, which will become painfully obvious to everyone when I tag them and they remain oblivious, making me feel pathetically obscure and overly ambitious in claiming web buddies.  Maybe this counts as a 7th quirk, or maybe it just a fact of the reality of my insignificance in the blogosphere.  ANYWAY, if you haven't been tagged by this yet, consider yourself indirectly tagged, go ahead an cite me as your source, or leave a comment on here and I can tag you post hoc. ;)