Randomly Down

(I know I just posted this morning and I try not to space posts too closely, because it seems to decrease per-post commenting. Apologies in advance.)

I am really sad today. For no single tangible reason. I had a cry in therapy and still don't feel any better.

I think that's all I wanted to say.

Finally Home

A few headlines from the past few days:

-The visit home was a big success. I challenged myself with food and came around 100% of cals both days I was there.

-The Match Meets Family night went well! We watched the Lost finale, which provided a good sort of bonding time with my brothers.

-Exercise was so-so. I still came in close to full workout time on Sunday, despite taking my brothers to a movie, doing some shopping, and entertaining M in the evening. Busyness. I have to admit I totally exploit G for this, I use the "G has to walk" excuse frequently.

-BUT I did absolutely zero secret exercising in my room, first time that has ever happened on a visit home.

-I went on a run with my mom on Sunday morning. BIG mistake. Cardiovascularly and energetically I had no problem, but less than a mile in my bum knee started flaring up. Being the Cammy that I am, I ignored it and pushed to the finish, but it felt absolutely destroyed for about 48 hours after that. Which didn't keep me from still walking/biking on it. Fail. I am SO frustrated that now that my body is repaired enough to handle runs, my legs are still apparently fairly damaged from years of abuse.

-Following up on the issues in this post: I sent and e-mail to both C and D yesterday requesting a joint session. This is the text:

I'd be highly interested in scheduling a joint session (me with both of you at the same time) in the near future, do you think this would be possible? I have been thinking about it quite a bit this week. I feel that right now my progress would be greatly aided by a more cohesive direction/plan, to which end a joint session would be very beneficial.

Both responded and were open to "entertaining the possibility". I have a C session today, but am not scheduled to see D again for a couple of weeks. I feel kind of bad that I'll be able to talk about things in more detail with one than the other today, but that's how it goes. This whole thing has got me feeling pretty apathetic about my treatment right now.

-I waited far to long/did too much before breakfast today, which usually makes me fuzzy-headed until after lunch. I recognize, accept, and even anticipate this pattern, yet I don't change it. Something to work on.

-Between house-sitting for someone here and visiting my family in another state, last night was the first time in over a week that I got to just be home and sleep in my own bed. Aaaahhh that felt good.

A Weekend Win

So, a bit of a change of pace for today. My dad recently got a promotion, and my parents (who live about 5 hours away from me) had a BBQ to celebrate. I hadn't seen them in a while, and I'm in a lull with research/lab activity right now, so I packed G up and hit the road to spend the weekend with them.

My total exercise today was about half of normal, but I know I had at least as many cals as usual, maybe a bit more. I feel stuffed and uncomfortable, honestly, but I'm trying to ride it out. I could easily be exercising up here in my room right now, but I'm exhausted, it's been a long day, and I Just Don't Want To.

I find it so easy to restrict on car trips, because my appetite drops to nil, but I made a point of getting a huge loaded smoothie on the way out of town this morning, it kept me busy for a while and prevented me from being dragged out and fatigued when I got here, which has been the pattern in the past.

It was really nice to meet my parents' friends and their families and truly get to enjoy people without worrying about the food. I have made progress to the point that I'm pretty comfortable eating at these things, as far as finding foods that I'm okay with eating in reasonable amounts. It helps that my family are pretty healthy eaters. I think the second Boca burger was a mistake, though. It was well within my calorie range (especially since I just nibbled at lunch because the BBQ was between my normal lunch and dinner times, so I still needed most of lunch plus all of dinner cals), but those things make me SO full and it put me into the uncomfortable zone. I'll know better next time and pick something not so likely to overstuff me, like allowing for some dessert or something.

My brothers are awesome. My parents are great. My dog behaved like a champ. I'm happy I can focus on that now instead of being overpowered by the ED, and feel pretty victorious that I can enjoy these get togethers, after spending so many years dreading and freaking out over events like this.

Tomorrow will be tougher because I'll be here all day (I did get a workout in at home before I left home this morning). And it might rain, which limits chances to walk G, my main release for exercise anxiety here (it's also a great bonding time with my brothers, boys talk much more easily if you get them moving). But we'll see. Match is coming to Meet The Parents tomorrow night! I hope my brothers don't scare him off. ;) And we're watching the Lost finale! I'm going ot miss my weekly dose of shirtless Sawyer now that the series is ending!

Cohesion, Anyone?

So, apologies for the freak-out yesterday. Was a bit stressed and overwhelmed. As it happens, I neither spontaneously combusted NOR voided my pantry. I have too many good peanut butters in there to do that!

I especially hate it when "One of Those Days" days fall on date days as well. But maybe that also helps to resolve it faster, because I always feel 110% better about myself and life in general after a dose of Match time. My feminist streak cringes a bit at that, because I have never been one to seek male validation, maybe I can get away with it by pointing out that it's a specific male, not the species in general, and it's more the connection than the validation that makes the difference?

One thing that I wish would be resolved fast is my current treatment "plan". Basically because it doesn't exist. I've discussed before that C and D are not on the same page and sometimes appear to be barely civil to each other. And this just isn't working. I'm not saying that any lack of progress is their fault, but I feel like there is something missing here. I'm paying hundreds of dollars a month (C is sliding scale fee but D isn't) and yet still feel a sort of lack of cohesive direction. Granted, recovery is all about my decisions and action, but I go to them for guiding help and still feel like I'm sort of flailing around.

Especially since exercise stuff was transferred to D. I actually like D better, she's always got great and down-to-earth advice, but the way she's handling this issue isn't working. She's just given me some vague things to shoot for, but no specific goals or challenges with it, except to say she didn't think the approach C took (increasing half days every week) was worth continuing. And she often forgets to check in on specific exercise issues during our sessions. I've completely backtracked all the progress I made with the exercise challenges C was giving me, and D hasn't said a word. Is this their fault? Absolutely not. It's Cammy that chooses to get on the bike, chooses to pop in the cardio DVD, etc etc. But I do feel that it is not helping me for D and C to regularly give me conflicting advice/opinions on issues. Or for D to decide that C's plan to help me decrease exercise (which was working for me, ever so gradually, remember?) was misguided and needed to be scrapped, but then hasn't replaced it with anything concrete. Plus, I see her so infrequently that there is very little pressure for accountability. If I bring up the exercise stuff with C anymore, she just shuts down and says I have to wait for D to talk about that. And D is totally resistant to the approach C was taking, I think maybe for personal reasons (not wanting to grant that C's way worked better for me) more than anything else. Seriously, people, this ain't middle school.

I hope this doesn't come across as a lot of scapegoating others for lack of progress. Again, I know that I could turn this around 100% if I just woke up and decided to one morning. But I do think that I'm not getting what I need/pay for out of the treatment service, and it's frustrating me a good deal. In the end, this is my life and I need to step up and just do it, because self-accountability is the key. I totally accept that. I guess I just needed to process/vent.

I miss H (the psychologist I saw in Undergrad Town) so much that it truly hurts some days, you know? I am getting teary just writing that. Not in an inappropriate attachment kind of way, but I just miss having someone I connected with that really understood me, it's so hard to find in the first place, much less replace. She reeled me in from the very brink after multiple other therapists had given up and fired me. She always called me on my bullshit but let me know she understood it, that I was sick but I was not a freak. She would say things that I dismissed at the time, and then weeks or months later realized were dead-on accurate. She got me.

Ok I literally had to take a break and stop writing because of the tear flood that snuck up on me from the last paragraph. I forgot where this post was supposed to be going. Damn. Over and out.

One of Those Days

I am having one of those days where on the one hand I feel very exhausted, depleted, and physically out of balance, and on the other hand I am so disgusted and angry with my body/shape that I just want to scream and throw out all the food in my house. Some days I honestly don't believe I'll ever be normal.

I Deserved That

Reality check of the day:

"This exercise issue is not going to resolve itself. If you were bulimic, I would not expect you to still be vomiting every day this far into your treatment. You have to step up and make this happen."

~D

A Question of Taste?

First background: Cammy has a huge sweet tooth. Except for a brief period at my EXTREME bottom with the ED, I have never really made junk food a taboo. Even at times when I was severely disordered and underweight, I regularly had candy bars, sweet snacks, etc. I gave myself X calories per day and didn't have a huge hang-up about what those calories consisted of, as long as I stayed within the "budget." A Snickers has the same number of calories as a Clif bar, after all, so I figured it was all fuel for the furnace and I'd burn it to hell anyway.

I have/had a special penchant for Reese's peanut butter cups, FYI. I had one last night and I want one right now, actually.

Believe me, there were times when I was chowing down on something chocolate when I thought "who in the world would believe I'm anorexic?" I ate three times a day and I had candy for dinner a few times a week. Who, sick, me, no? Not, of course, acknowledging that I at the time I had a near-lethal BMI, bruises from sitting in chairs, heart palps, failing kidneys, hair falling out in clumps, and various other perks that come along with an ED.

Just a little public service announcement here: people with legit eating disorders can and do indeed eat more than lettuce and coffee. Be gone and be damned, ye olde stereotypes!

Anyway, that's the backstory. Feel free to chime in with your own anecdotes so I don't feel self-conscious about my confession?

So, the point: So I have noticed something strange over the past few weeks. Suddenly some things that I used to eat/enjoy have seemed Way.Too.Sweet. I never understood the term "sickly sweet" until now. What gives, people? Is it age, hormones, BMI, what is influencing this? I had a Pop-Tart yesterday and nearly gagged, even though I used to eat those things all the time and never had an aversion to them.

Basically, what I'm wondering is has anyone else noticed a significant changing of their taste in recovery, especially when it comes to sweetness? I'm not necessarily upset about this, as I know less sugar won't hurt me (given that I'm filling meal plan energetic requirements, please don't be triggered!), but my scientific curiosity has been piqued.

The Exercise Question

A very important question from Formspring:

I know this is still a problem for you but how did you even begin to get a handle on the compulsive exercising? i have the same issue and I am starting to get some physical symptoms that really frighten me but I just...can't make myself stop. Any advice?

You're right, this is still a big problem for me, and to be honest I've moved backwards a bit with it since my exercise issues were switched from C to D, because I see D less frequently and it's harder to stay accountable. (Although what I am at now still represents progress from the initial starting point.) Anyway, believe me, I understand that this is an EXTREMELY difficult habit to overcome. I'm sorry you're struggling with this, and believe me, you're not alone, I understand it's much, much more difficult than just "stopping".

For me, it was all about increments and thresholds. With C, I started out doing one half-day a week. Then two the next week. Then three the next week. And so on, and so on. That seemed to work pretty well, and it gave me time to adjust slowly and to see that truly my weight was not going to balloon from the shortened workouts. And it didn't. At first my weight actually inched down for a period. I started birth control at the same time, so I was doubly freaked out about potential weight gain, but overall it hasn't really been an issue. I can't predict what someone else's body will do, just trying to point out that your body is much, much more complex than the simple 'calories in/calories out" model would suggest.

In that vein, one of the reasons I became so obsessive about exercise was that I knew restriction would slow my metabolism, and I thought working out all the time would keep it revved up. That is not how it works in reality, though. Both restriction and overexercise rob your body of nutrition and energy, and it WILL compensate by slowing down. I know that some people actually lose weight when they decrease their exercise, because their body is no longer in such a state of depletion and their metabolism accelerates as a consequence. This means that restricting your food to make up for decreased activity is counterproductive if you're concerned about your metabolism, it's a "six of one and half a dozen of the other" scenario...

So anyway, back to what the question actually asks. Partial answer so far was to try increments. Now remember it varies by case, if you're extremely unhealthy it really may be best to go cold-turkey, especially if you're having heart issues. Always listen to your doctor, because I am not one, I can only attest to my own experience/observations. But if you truly are not at a place where you can do that, and you're not in an inpatient setting where someone is enforcing it, the best way to handle it, mentally, I have found is just to set new thresholds as routine and establish new norms.

For me, I am such a creature of habit that once something is routine, I'm fine with it, it's just the anxiety in decreasing what is routine that's the issue. That's how I got to X hours a day of exercise in the first place: each new ceiling (record high workout time) became the new floor (I MUST do at least this and no less tomorrow). For recovery, you just have to use the same principle in the other direction. I only did X today, and even though that's a new low, it's going to be my max limit for tomorrow (or next week, etc). Ideally you will shed the total dependence on routine altogether, but if that's too intimidating at the outset then consider the floor=>ceiling aproach.

Also, working in substitutions can be helpful. Walk instead of run for X time. Do a yoga DVD instead of a cardio DVD. Do some light weights instead of the stairmaster. And on and on. This at least allows you to be active and move around without putting your body under as much stress as your normal routine. There is often a big mental release/anti-anxiety effect involved with working out (endorphins! as with so many things in life, my true love is often also my true downfall! see below), and it just takes a while to wean yourself off of needing that high in order to control urges and anxiety. Once you're used to the lighter exertion and are less dependent on an endorphin rush, it will be easier to cut back and stay still for longer periods of time. Expect your anxiety to peak at times while you're working up to that, but be confident that you WILL make it through and be happier in the end.

Finally, diversions. I would highly recommend finding some kind of hobby, like a craft or even a computer game that can keep you occupied when you're jittery and feel like you must move or ELSE. I am a big fan of cross-stitch and jigsaw puzzles. Movies tend not to work so well, at least for me, because it's easy to zone out and just sink into the anxious swirl of thoughts. Writing is a great one! Journaling can help give you some release for those feelings and anxieties without you putting your body through hell for the endorphin rush. Also, you need to have something to do to fill your time, so you're not just sitting there going out of your mind during your normal workout hours. I have found the extra free time to be one of the MOST rewarding things about tackling this issue. I am so saddened and frustrated when I look back on how many thousands of hours I spent doing pointless exercise, when I could have been doing any number of other enriching activities.

As a sub-point to diversions, branching out socially can be huge. Find a group or club or just an informal set of people to get together with periodically. People know/care about enough to feel accountable to if you're tempted to cancel. For me, belonging to several organizations in college was a big help, and dating Match has been HUGE in helping me to loosen up about workout times. Not that you should go out and grab a boyfriend as a recovery tool, but any kind of activities that get you out interacting with people are great. These type of events, depending on what you do, can involve food too, making it a double challenge but again one that is WAY worth undertaking.

By the way, I highly recommend the book Endorphins, Eating Disorders, and Other Addictive Behaviors by Hans Huebner. It's an older book (out of print but available used online), and some of the "bedside manner" recommended for dealing with ED patients is really dated and terrible, but the main idea and science behind it are fascinating. I know no two people have the same etiology for their EDs, but I found these ideas really hit home with my experiences, because it explains the compulsive exercise as akin to a drug addiction, except the drugs are endogenous to your brain. You truly *do* feel like you must do it or else, and have physiological symptoms when you try to cut back. I found it to be pretty validating (although not justifying) and thought-provoking, and it gave me hope for being able to beat the issue. Another good read is The Exercise Balance by Pauline Powers and Ron Thompson.

Good luck, this is a tough battle but one well-worth fighting. Hang in there and remember that your life can and should be way, way wider and more enriching than anything you'll get to experience while the ED is still hanging around. <3

By the way, a few past posts on exercise issues, although it comes up frequently in many others:

Anorexia Athletica vs Exercise Bulimia?

Taking it Back

Exercise Experiment by Proxy

Compliance Milestone

Shoulda Listened and Spontaneous Score

Hey y'all, hope everyone's week is off to a good start. I had a late night and am sleepy as hell, so I am blogging instead of doing anything productive...I really wish I was able to take naps, but I absolutely can't fall asleep during the day, unless I'm in a car.

So, remember my frustration about the major hunger issues late last week? Well, it appears my body was actually being honest in its signals. For some reason (I've been good about my meal plan for the last week) my weight has been down progressively for the past few days, not a HUGE difference but lower than what's been within my flux range since late February. No explanation there. Which would probably explain why my normal meals just haven't been satisfying me, my system knew it was dropping weight and "wanted" to avoid that. Please note that I do have a reason in reporting this and it is NOT to celebrate or promote my weight slipping down, it's just a kind of "lesson learned" that when your body is sending you signals that it needs something, chances are that it actually does. Who woulda thunk it?

An ED habit I need to kick (Tweeted about this yesterday): menu obsessing. I've gotten pretty comfortable with eating out, but if there is an online menu available for the restaurant (or even "better", nutrition info), I will spend a really stupid amount of time examining it, weighing options, agonizing over choices. And I have a typical meal I always tend to resort to in the end, so it's a largely pointless exercise. And even after all the time spent poring over the menu online, I still take a long time to decide once we get to the restaurant. I need to quit doing that.

That does present a slight score for me from yesterday: M and I went out for lunch, and I'd pre-selected ahead of time the exact sandwich and side salad I was going to order, with the customizations and everything already planned. So we get there, and they were out of the meat that I wanted for the sandwich (salmon). Total loop thrown in plans. Panic? Sort of and sort of not. I didn't want to choose a different sandwich because I didn't know the calories for anything besides what I'd picked online. This was a disordered way to view the situation, I acknowledge, because I could have easily picked/estimated something equivalent. But I was put on the spot and panicked a little and reverted to ye old boring ED favorite, the grilled chicken salad. Once I am truly fully recoverED I'm never going to order one of those damn things in a restaurant again, after so many years of feeling like it was my only option everywhere I went. I loathe the thought of them at this point, and I do still sometimes resort to them but with decreasing frequency.

So that part was a win for ED, not for Cammy.

BUT, I knew that we had a full afternoon planned and I wasn't going to be satisfied by that salad (even my huge meal plan hasn't been satisfying me this week, remember?). So on our way out of the restaurant I got a milkshake, something I had absolutely not considered/planned for beforehand. (It was not JUST a milkshake but a Bailey's milkshake...I'm on summer vacation, I can have alcohol at at 1in the afternoon, right?). So the spontaneous milkshake was a huge win that should have given the ED a pretty nasty scar.

I didn't narrate any of this inner dialog to M, but he's pretty perceptive. He picked up on the fact that 1) having to change my order could be highly stressful and 2) the milkshake was an unusual and positive step, and his body language/face definitely told me he was pleased and proud. Reward!

Balance Eludes Me

I am having one of those periods where I just can't seem to find any semblance of balance with my body. Could be that I'm still paying for crappy eating last weekend during the cascade of big events and family time with M., because I've been really low-energy all week.

Last night I stepped way outside the box and had a pre-bedtime snack. It sounds silly that this was a big deal, especially considering that I had made "allowance" for it in my dinner calories, but it's something I probably have not done in 10 years. Score?

Yet I woke up this morning with the most evil, mind- and body-clenching hunger I have felt in a long time. Hey body, you make my life difficult sometimes.

As part of my food records for D, I'm supposed to rank my hunger both before and after eating, with 1 being "I'm about to starve" and 10 being "I'm about to vomit." According to her, "normal" people should eat at around a 3 or a 4 and be around a 7 right after a meal. (Just a note: this doesn't always apply to people with EDs because your signals are all mixed up. Sometimes you DO need to eat even if you're not getting a hunger signal. That's the purpose of her having me do this, because my signals are still pretty screwy and it's supposed to help me pay more attention to them.)

So this morning I was just above a 1, had my normal breakfast, and still only felt like about a 3 for the rest of the morning. Then I just had my normal lunch, and all of the sudden I feel full to the gills yet still with a little bit of hunger throb. That makes no sense, I know. I wish someone would tell that to Ms. Stomach down there.

I had a major hypermetabolic phase early in my recovery, and it cropped up again periodically after that. I used to get SO pissed that I actually spent more time hungry while refeeding than I did when I was restricting. And the hot flashes. Had I somehow skipped from pre-puberty to menopause? Then it faded away slowly such that I didn't realize right away that it was leaving. Then there are days like today, when it is roaring back on me. I know it's normal for "regular" people to have hungrier than normal days, but I eat the SAME number of calories every day, to a pathetic precision, it's not as though I'm making up for a light day yesterday.

And now my fullness is at about an 8.25 (D makes fun of me for using decimal precision on my hunger scale. I'm a scientist!) but I'm already feeling unsatisified and counting hours til dinner.

Sometimes I wonder if my body and I will ever be friends again?

I'm also having a pretty down day for various academic and personal reasons. I can't wait for my summer traveling to start, I really need some adventure/change of scenery.

More Good Questions

From Formspring:

Your blog title "building beauty beyond body" conveys that you believe the ultra thin look is "beautiful" and that you are trying to build something beyond this. Do you really think the ultra thin state is beautiful?

I am sorry to hear that the title can be interpreted as such, because that is honestly not what I meant to imply. I *absolutely* do not think that the ultra-thin state is beautiful, glamorous, feminine, or to any degree desirable. I look at pictures of myself from my rock-bottom periods, and the only thing I can think is that I looked like...a creature. Barely even human, much less beautiful. Ultra-thin is sick, miserable, cold, and empty. None of which are anything to aspire to. I would not go back to my thinner body if you paid me, even if you promised I wouldn't feel cold, hungry, tired, etc. I for damn sure wouldn't want to look like that again.

So what DOES the title mean, then? It is hard for me to articulate exactly, but basically I mean for it to convey that in order to resolve body issues, you have to focus on the bigger picture, you have to look at the beauty around you, the beauty of experiencing life, engaging with people, and fulfilling your potential. Physical beauty comes and goes with the trends and the years. Part of recovery is finding physical balance, and I hope that everyone does indeed see the beauty in their healthy bodies. But in the end you have to find a more lasting beauty in your life in order to stay happy in the long term. We are constantly bombarded with messages that we have to be X, Y, or Z to be beautiful. We have to be thin, we have to be curvy, we need no fat on our stomachs but plenty on our chests, we have to be tall and leggy or petite and precious, curly blonde or super-straight brunette. We get hit with diet pill ads back-to-back with fast food commercials. Our culture invented both the Stairmaster and the escalator. Wtf, really? It's like being Alice in Wonderland, where she is given all kinds of pills that lead to different physical results (should she shrink down tiny or grow to an enormous height?), and the mixed messages just scramble everything until we can't tell up from down, but we know we always seem to be oriented the opposite direction from what we think we want.

Now I'm rambling from atop my soap box, apologies. The title of this blog is meant to imply moving towards a fuller, more multi-faceted embracing of life, because being happy and healthy is the most beautiful state possible, inside and out. I know it might sound cliche, but it's so true.

You've come a long way since you began this blog, and even if you still have issues to overcome, you're much farther along on your path to recovery than I am. Do you have any advice for someone with anorexia who has just recently began trying to recover?

This is a toughie because I feel like the answers are both simple and complex. In general, people with EDs are highly intelligent and high-functioning in other areas of their lives. So it's not an issue of getting someone to understand that eating only X or continuing Y behavior will damage them physically, make them mentally miserable, and shorten their life. We get that, right? The hard part is to learn that those rules actually apply to *you*. This might sound strange to an outsider, but I would bet most EDers understand. You would never tell a friend she could only have a tiny amount of food and must exercise many hours a day, would you? You wouldn't impose that on a child. I hope you wouldn't even do it to an animal. But we do those things to ourselves every day, with the behaviors and the destructive self-talk. So one of my main pieces of advice would be to work on taking a step back and asking yourself if you would want your friend, sister, daughter, etc, making the decision you're about to make.

Another item: give yourself time to adjust to your body as you gain weight. I tend to be in freakout mode for a week or two when I add a few pounds, but after a grace period I honestly come to love the healthier look. It takes a while for your brain to catch up with what your body is doing (see this post for a detailed discussion on the science behind that: http://buildingbeautybeyondbody.blogspot.com/2008/06/does-this-outfit-make-my-schema-look.html). So if you get to a goal weight, or even just to a milestone, and find that you don't think you can stand it, do your best to wait it out, it really will get better, and you'll be much happier in the end.

One of the most frustrating parts of anorexia, for me, was the wasted time and opportunities. With all the hours I devoted to my disease every day, I could have read an extra library of books, become fluent in several languages, done tons of art projects, played a team sport, created deeper relationships, written a novel...but I literally just burned time away. One of the greatest things about recovery is creating room in your life for other hobbies/goals. Maybe if you're struggling, it could help to start a project, join a club, invest in supplies for a new passion that will both occupy your time constructively and give you some other way to define yourself beyond the ED.

Taking it stepwise is ok (assuming your treatment team is supervising/approving the steps), just make sure you're consistently stepping in the right direction. Remember that no matter how hard recovery is (it is challenging, I won't lie), look at the alternative. It's amazing how easy it is to cling to a harmful and miserable lifestyle just because it's known, the familiarity factor is very powerful. But each day is a new box on the calendar and a new chance to make the right decisions. There is NO power forcing you to do something just because you did it yesterday, even if it feels like the pattern is inescapable. You're the boss and you call the shots here, the disease is a part of you but it is not You.

Too sappy? I'm not sure, if so then major apologies. But it's still true.

(Apologies for color variation at the start of the post, must have been an issue in copying and pasting from Formspring).

The Pill That Got Away

So, yesterday I griped about complications after missing a birth control pill, and it struck me that the incident itself was slightly entertaining due to its mindlessness, and I felt like sharing.

So we were at a BBQ at M's family's house on Saturday, and I had just finished eating. (One upside to the skinny Other Girlfriend being there was that she complained about the food options, something I wasn't brave enough to do, so we did end up having Boca burgers as well). I went over to discretely get the pill from my purse, taking my paper plate with me.

I realized that I didn't have water, so I put the eensy white pill on my plate and went into the kitchen for a drink. Those pills are so tiny that I don't really need water with them, but it's a habit and I'm usually thirsty anyway. I took the last strawberry from my plate and ate it on the way to the kitchen.

I stepped into the kitchen and M's uncle started up a conversation with me. I focused on fielding his questions, very much in Make a Good First Impression on the Family mode, and without even thinking I tossed my plate in the garbage. I left the kitchen and went back to sit down next to Match.

About 3 minutes later I realized that I had no memory of taking the pill. But on the other hand, I didn't have a distinct memory of *not* taking it. Does that make sense? I didn't remember either way. I could have popped it into my mouth when I ate the strawberry. Or I could have left it on the plate. I had totally just blanked out/automatized and had no idea. Kind of like those times when you're driving, maybe you have a lot on your mind, and boom, all of the sudden it's 15 miles later and you have no distinct memory of covering that ground? I am telling you as a biologist: Humans are scary, spacey-brained critters.

I told Match what had happened, and he offered to go check the trash, since my plate was still probably on top. I told him he didn't have to do that, but he assured me that his family "has definitely seen me do weirder things than that." LOL I heart him, you know?

So Match proceeds to go sift through the hamburgery paper plates and beer cans in the kitchen trash can. He didn't find the pill; the plate had tipped, and it was like trying to find the proverbial needle in a rather slimy haystack. Which is probably a good thing because even if he had found it I would have been hesitant to take it after it was in there.

But the conundrum remained: I had no evidence that I had or had not taken the pill. I could have taken the next one in my pack, but if I had indeed mindlessly swallowed the original, I would have been ultra-nauseous from the double dose, and I didn't want to drown my body in hormones when I still had some challenging situations ahead the next day.

So I decided to bank on the fact that I either had taken it or that just missing one day wouldn't be enough to throw my body too out of whack. I'd forgotten that my system appears to be totally hormone-poor without pharmaceutical intervention. It probably didn't help that I skipped my last placebo week (I am still new at the this menstruation thing and I am NOT a fan, so I wimped out and decided to avoid it), so my body was ready to jump at a signal that it was time for a cycle. Thanks for the advice I got in feedback from yesterday's mention of the issue! I called my doctor today just to check with her about it, and she said to double dose myself, which was recommended in my blog comments, but I wasn't sure if it was too late to do it this many days later. So anyway, big ole batch of TMI for you readers tonight, apologies!

And that be the the long story of the long lost Pill.

More Miscellany

Ok, now that I am a little more stable/rested/coherent, and now that you all have been saints about putting up with my wailing and flailing about the past week's events, I wanted to mention some positives/lessons learned. As much as I stressed beforehand, while it was happening I had fun the majority of the time.

~One of the highlights was yesterday afternoon, when we went to the beach with M's family (mother, brothers, one brother's girlfriend). I gave up my afternoon routine to do it, and was pretty stressed. But when we were there, and I was kicking a soccer ball around on the beach and playing in the waves with Match, I was so incredibly happy to be doing something normal. I was having fun. I was being active, getting out in the real world engaging with people. That is the kind of thing I want to have memories of decades from now, instead of just remembering countless afternoons spent alone on my exercise machines.

~Match was appreciative of the LBD that I agonized over all week. Score.

~I love Match's family! They're funny and laid back, and they treated me like I was just one of them, so that was a positive. I was stressed about all the "obligatory" events over the weekend, but it did mean a lot that they wanted to include me in everything.

~One challenge was that M's brother's girlfriend is VERY thin. She's in medical school, so she's pretty health conscious, and she would frequently bring up food in conversations, which was pretty awkward for me. I was also self-conscious about eating in front of her in restaurants. But I had a hard time figuring her out. She seemed to eat pretty liberally at some points, and she joked about having a "food baby" after a big meal, but did honestly seem to find it funny. I see a "food baby" on myself all the time but would rather die than call people's attention to it. So anyway, I don't know how her size compares to mine because I'm not a good judge of those things, but I'm still getting used to sometimes not being the thinnest one in the room. I hope that doesn't sound bad, because I never wanted that for attention purposes, it was just usually a fact, and after 10 years of that it's still a little bit of a surprise sometimes when it's not the case. I hope that makes sense and I'm not coming off as either self-centered or triggering? Anyway, I need to get used to that, so I suppose this was good practice. My mom suggested that SHE's used to being the smallest and the only girl at those family gatherings (Match only has brothers, and only one has a girlfriend), which could be why she was kind of stand-offish at first. Dunno. We won't ever be best friends, but we got along.

~I think my stressage did open up some more communication with Match and spurred us to discuss some of those issues, so now he has a better idea of what is still challenging for me and what I can handle. It gave us the chance to score mutual points: him for being understanding and supportive, and me for going out of my way to challenge myself and participate even though it was hard.

~Even several days of crappy eating didn't really affect my weight (ie the slashed calories didn't result in any loss). Moral of that story: your body resists change even when you abuse it, so just treat it right and you'll both be happier in the end.

~Unrelated girl question: How common is it to bleed after missing just one Pill? I missed one Saturday night, didn't notice any effects til this afternoon, but now I am definitely affected and not at all happy with the situation.

Ok, that's all for now. By the way, Google Analytics tells me readership is a bit down...let me know if y'all have any requests for posts/topics! Remember I'm Cammy4B on Formspring. I have a couple of questions lined up right now, sorry I couldn't get to them sooner, was tied up all weekend! But they are in the pipeline, promise.

Challenge Weekend

I have so much to recap from this weekend, but I'm not quite very articulate right now. Will do a thought-out recap with lessons learned later. Really I need to sit down and have a big Release Cry, but I'm too tired. I'm tired but caffeinated, so I'm not all that functional but can't quiet my mind enough to sleep. I have also only had a fraction of my meal plan calories for 3-4 days in a row, and I can definitely feel my body and brain becoming more pissed off by the hour.

It's funny, because internally and externally this weekend have been totally different experiences. I had a full-blown anxiety attack yesterday morning, and 2 hours later I showed up primped and pressed for a big ceremony and day of activities, smiled and joked and put on my best charms for Match's family. I cried halfway to the event today, but got there and truly had a good time. What is wrong with me? I did spontaneous things and stepped out of the box, but just contemplating it at the start of each day made my head want to explode.

I feel kind of like I've been holding my breath all weekend, trying to make the most of things in the moment while a craving for the norm underlaid everything...and I find out today some of his family is staying til tomorrow, and I'm invited to do more stuff with them. I felt like a deflated balloon. And I fucking hate that, because I LIKE these people. I have fun with them. They're smart and funny and awesome. I'm the freak with the screwed up gears in my head.

Match and I had some tense words this morning, he was pissed off that I didn't stay overnight there last night to hang with his family more, but I really, really needed the recharge time. I don't think he really understood that. Then I felt like he was being pushy and demanding and a bit controlling (I'm an adult! I'll sleep at my own apartment if I want to!). BUT, I hadn't really kept him in the loop about how stressed I was throughout the weekend, I played happy happy dress up smile and sunny because I didn't want to be a cloud over the celebrations. Once I explained to him just how much effort and stress it is for me to even break routine a little, much less for an entire week, he was a lot more understanding. Communication! What a great invention. He was great about working in some breaks for me today, and did request for me to spend time with them tomorrow but told me he'd work around whatever time was most comfortable for me, and wouldn't expect me to stay very long if I didn't want to. And the thing is I DO want to spend time with them. It's just scary and stressful. I think I've already said that several different ways at this point.

Ok for being too tired to do anything this is a very long post, I shall cut off the rambling....now.

Litany of Whines

Somebody call the wahmbulance:

~I really dislike it when I am at the grocery store and run into someone I recognize from the ED center waiting room. And least it's not as bad as when one toured my house.

~I need to figure out how to convey to Match that being told I am "soft" is not one of my favorite compliments. This makes me feel bad because I know he is trying to be sweet.

~I have a killer headache, like needles in my temples.

~I didn't do too hot with "staying on the wagon" today. I volunteered to help a friend move, involving 2 straight hours of carrying heavy things up 3 flights of stairs, yet still restricted my food. I honestly didn't have an appetite anyway, but that's just a lame excuse because I know I know better.

~There is a big cook-out with Match's family on the schedule for tomorrow, and it appears that there is not much Cammy-friendly fare on the menu. Actually not many foods I'd even like even if calories etc didn't matter. Match's family's eating is so different from what I'm used to. And I don't eat pork or beef as a moral thing (not an ED hang-up), which apparently he either forgot to tell them or didn't think it necessary, so all they're having is hamburgers and hot dogs. We're going to be at a ceremony during lunch and most of the afternoon, and driving and then the BBQ for dinner and driving again and probably not back until midnight, so not much time to myself if I want to bring a snack. So although I had to make an effort not to restrict yesterday, and lost that battle a bit today, tomorrow I'm actually a bit worried about getting enough to keep going.

~Supposedly there will be a veggie tray, Match was proud for requesting that for me. But the thing is, while I do like veggies and salads and appreciate having them on hand, when there is just that and then something out of the question like hot dogs (again I'm not criticizing you if you eat hot dogs, the meat issue is more environmental than nutritional for me, just wanted to state that because I'm so paranoid about triggering someone), I get so frustrated because I find it to be totally enabling. Tossing a few veggies on the table to "take care" of me seems to imply the expectation that I can/should go all day on what is essentially crunchy water food. Which I can do, of course, but I know that I'm going to feel unsatisfied and annoyed.

~It scares me to see how many calories I can cut, and how easily, when I want to.

~In spite of all of that, I do like Match's family and am glad he's making me a part of their visit. Although I don't think M's brother's girlfriend likes me, I'm not sure why? :(

~As another non-whine, I did admit to Match that I have a superhard time with ED stuff at times like this, and he has been incredibly supportive and nonjudgmental, way more than I deserve.

Ok going to bed so I can get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, since the morning is the only time I'll have to myself for the rest of the weekend. Apologies for not such a positive post, this week has been draining in multiple ways.

Hanging onto the Wagon

It just occurred to me that, due to visiting family members (both mine and M's), I will be eating out 6/7 nights this week. Last night was my only night "off". Yikeys.

Even though I gripe that I don't connect with C as well as D, yesterday I was reminded of one factor in her favor: C has had an ED, and D hasn't. Not that I'm biased, and I think D is INCREDIBLY insightful, it impresses me every session...but sometimes there are small things that come up, and someone with that experience can look you in the eye and say "I get it" in the way that other people can't fully do.

Confession: I had totally planned to restrict and manipulate my meal plan this week, out of anxiety for the upcoming events on Saturday. I literally had it mapped out on a piece of paper (cut X here, Y here, do an extra Z minutes of this exercise on this day, etc). I mentioned I'll be eating out a lot, but that actually makes it even easier for me to restrict because I just play the Picky card as an excuse for not eating much.

Yesterday's double therapy sessions (I usually see C weekly and D every other week, but I knew I was inching towards a bad place and so got a session with her yesterday even though I saw her last week also) helped me get my head back on straight. I didn't have illusions of losing weight before the weekend, just wanted desperately to not gain, look bloated, etc. Which is how I started the whole ED path in the first place, of course--not to lose a ton of weight but just to not gain anymore, which I became pathologically good at to the point of withering away to almost nothing. But really my weight hasn't gone up in a while even doing my full MP every day, so it was just irrational anxieties trying to manifest in the ways they typically have done in the past. But really this event is not centered on me, and I want to have good memories of it, not fuzzy ones formed in a hypoglycemic haze.

So the current goal is to hang in there and do my best to make it through this week without falling off the wagon.

The Hurting

Some weeks D gives me some statement that really gets me thinking, and some weeks she guides me to make a statement that both surprises me and really gets me thinking (see here for a previous example). It's funny how sometimes you don't even know that you believe things until they come out of your mouth, and you then realize it's the truth.

Context: we were discussing my anxieties about looking ok in my dress for a big event this weekend (the LBD I mentioned earlier). It is very form fitting, and I have stomach pooch anxieties. So we were discussing how I feel about moving towards a more "normal" woman's body, etc. And she mentioned another client that is just out of inpatient, and freaking out because she "misses" her anorexic body for what it communicates to the world. I told her I sometimes have nostalgia for being thinner, but wouldn't choose to go back to a sick weight if I had the option.

D: It's sort of difficult, then, if you don't want the old body, but the new one is still uncomfortable, isn't it? What is it that makes moving forward more valuable to you now that going back to the old body, since the behaviors are so familiar and tempting?

Cammy: I think that for me, and maybe for people like the other girl you told me about, I was hurting and didn't know how to voice it. So my appearance told people I was hurting. Now I'm not hurting like that anymore.

Whoopsie

Cammy: That blue and white dress you brought me fits perfectly!

Mom: Oh really? I almost didn't bring it because I thought it might be too big.

*mutual awkwardness as we both process what she just said*

Pancakes, Parents, Etc

A few brief items:

--This weekend I had a Breakfast for Dinner night at IHOP with Match and it was awesome.

--My mom is in town visiting for a couple of days! Detailed discussion of this in a later post, but in a nutshell I'm so happy to get time with her.

--Found to-die-for Little Black Dress today. I've been having a rough time w/body image the past few days, but this dress actually helped I think, because it made me appreciate my developing curves. It would have looked ridiculous a couple of years ago.

--Hello, summer! How could you have left me when you know I love you so? All is forgiven, though. I love that it's now cool enough for shorts at night, that's my standard for satisfactory climate.

--Seriously, every time I log into Facebook someone new is pregnant. Babies are going to take over the world. Random: I was looking at pics today of someone's infant with a strange name I'd never heard before, and could not for the life of me figure out the gender of the thing. It was a set of baptism pictures, so It was in white, no culturally defined gender color bias to help me.

--My dog is sick AGAIN. He had two accidents over the weekend, doubling the number he's had in the entire 5 years that I've owned him. I also have zero, zilch, nil dollars for the vet right now. It seems like feeding him rice instead of dog food avoids the tummy problem, but he can't eat that forever, it doesn't have the nutrition he needs. Poor poor G.

--I'm basically taking this week off from lab research, and A., my adviser, is to busy to notice or care, he pretty much lets me do my own thing as long as I meet deadlines.

From Formspring:

Can you share a moment when you were extremely proud of yourself?

This one is fairly recent: it happened last month when I went back to speak at an event at my undergrad school. I gave my presentation (loved it, had a blast!), and afterwards a former student (I co-taught a Freshman class my senior year) came up to talk to me. I remembered that she had contemplated switching majors last spring, she was struggling a bit and thought about dropping science for something "less intense." I really saw a ton of potential in her, and tried to help her see her her strengths in the subject and make it seem fun and relevant, without exactly telling her what I thought she "should" do as far as her major. So anyway, that night, she told me that I was the reason she had decided to stay in science, and that she was now super-excited about her career path. I don't think I have *ever* been so touched in my life.

I hope you are all having a fantabulous start to the week!

Challenging Questions

Ok, there are a couple of Formspring questions that were posted 2 weeks ago, yet I still haven't gotten to them yet. They're rather difficult, and I haven't been putting them off intentionally, just haven't had the chance to give them the depth of thought/discussion they deserve. So, deep breath and deep thinking, here we go:

If you could go back and either 1) stop yourself from developing an eating disorder or 2) develop one but start working on recovery much sooner, would you do either? If so, which one? If not, why not?

This is such a hard one to answer. I am insatiably curious as to what my life, my personality, my body, what everything would be like if I had never developed an ED. I was always a picky eater with a passion for being active, so I had never really thought about my weight at all prior to the year I developed an ED (I decided to diet more out of need for an anxiety outlet than anything else), and I do wonder how/when/if I ever would have developed more of a consciousness of those issues.

Although...I do have lots of lingering issues and a ways to go before I'm really recoverED, but I do like who I am now, in spite of my countless flaws. And I know I wouldn't be the same person without the ED and the experiences it has wrought. Would I have just developed a different "issue" (drugs, alcohol, depression, etc). Would I be as close to my mom? Would have done better, or worse, in school? Would a different high school experience have led to a different university, or even a different major in college? I'd be in a different relationship, or married, or single. I would have a different pet. Everything would be different. And from my perspective, I love my pet, my relationships, my job, etc. But, if you asked Alternate Cammy, I hope she'd say she likes her Alternate Circumstances too. So strange to think of how much of our lives are based on contingencies, you know?

So in ways, the ED has made me stronger, wiser, more self-aware, and I value that. But in the end, when I think of the hours, days, weeks, months, years, not to mention the physical and emotional energy that I have poured into this disease, I am really, really saddened and disappointed at all of the regrets. I spent so many nights isolated and so many days distracted by ED thoughts and behaviors. So even though the ED has indeed helped me to grow in some ways, if I could rewind the tape I'd choose the life of enriched experiences instead, I'm sure I'd have learned plenty of lessons along that path too.

I am a longtime lurker/reader, and I am SO PROUD of you for how far you have come since you have started this blog!! What do you wish you could tell the Cammy that started the blog (about recovery especially but also about life or anything else)?

This one is also a toughie, but in the end the answer is simple. I wish I could just go back and reassure myself that this whole damn ordeal of recovery is infinitely worth it. I was so scared and directionless and just plain exhausted at everything. I really wished I would just not wake up one morning, because I hated living with the ED but didn't think I could ever tolerate living without it.

At first, recovery feels almost like someone is forcing you to break up a long-term relationship. Even if it's been abusive, it's the only way you know how to function, the only image you have of yourself. And so it's scary to venture out and find a new, healthier life, even if you know it's the healthy and necessary decision. Untested waters, road untaken, insert your favorite metaphor here. I think that's why going into treatment can seem so threatening: suddenly someone else is telling you how to life your life and why, and there can be a "gimme back" reaction if you feel like your ED is being taken away by someone who doesn't really understand. An abusive boyfriend would also tell you other people don't really understand your relationship, really it's not so bad and they're just imposing out of ignorance, right? Same deal.

So enough with the analogies and figurative language. In a nutshell, I'd go back and tell the Cammy of June 2008 that yes indeed it's going to be a long road, but that 1) she'd love her body even more after XX pounds, 2) she'd love life INFINITELY more after achieving more balance, and 3) no artificially small size looks as good as energy feels. All in all, the same thing I'd say to anyone reading this right now who finds themself struggling or teetering on the edge. Keep going. You're worth it. It's never hopeless. Look at the alternative...what is there to lose? Baby steps add up to giant leaps. It may take a grace period to adjust to everything. But whatever you do, never doubt that you deserve better, and keep going.