Catch My Breath

T-minus 4.5 days until I leave the US for Tropical Research Country. I am a scatter, distracted mess. And it's been a while since you got a Randoms post. Sounds like a recipe for stream of conscious list-making to me:

-I stuck to the calorie boost enough days that it feels like the default/routine now, although I haven't stepped it up the increment that I planned. But I don't know how much I do/don't need to; I miss having D. for perspective. One benefit to this addictive personality type is that I form habits at the drop of a hat, and if I can just shove myself over the anxiety hump of making a change in the first place, I can usually make it stick in the long run. (Or maybe the short run; at least until something shakes my world up and I revert, that's a topic that needs more than a bullet point to delve into). Anyway, I'm going to a country where my immune system is going to need to be in kickass shape, so I'm trying to tell myself it's okay to be liberal with intake right now. We'll see.

-I got a new Kindle Fire today (thanks to my amazing grandpa, who couldn't stand for me to go several months without my beloved National Geographic subscription while I'm overseas), and it absorbed waaaay too much of the time I should've been putting into grant applications.  I don't think I'd realized that it is really a tablet instead of a straight e-reader. It feels like a big Droid, which is a bit clunky for someone used to Apple products (unabashed Mac Snob, sorry), but it does a ton more than my old Kindle and overall I'm happy with it.

-#thatawkwardmomentwhen you are showing off your new Kindle to your mother and she scrolls over your digital copy of the Kama Sutra. For the love of all that is holy why me...

-I think I've confessed this on here before, but I am totally a sucker for pop songs (I draw the line at boy bands and Bieber! What a goon), and this one is the newest addition to my Recovery playlist:



"Shadow-boxing the other half" really hit home for me. Also, if you didn't see Clarkson sing the at Obama's inauguration earlier this week, you totally should. She starts off slow and really opens up at the end. I don't really care what mean media people say about her; I love that voice. The video above also made me want to finally get that wrist tattoo I've been thinking about forever now.

-Speaking of music, the 'Shazam' app has changed my life.

-I ate beef today for the first time in...years. I suppose this is an achievement for 'breaking a rule,' although my reasons for not eating beef have absolutely zero to do with calories. I could give you my spiel on how unsustainable factory-produced meat is, but I won't. Anywho, I was just thinking about how I sometimes miss roast beef sandwiches even though everything I know about how their made is a huge turn-off...and I reasoned that soon I'll be in a place where I won't have the chance to indulge any random food whims whatsoever, so I went to Subway and got a roast beef sandwich, damnit. And . . . it didn't really taste good to me. I remember that I used to love those things. So weird. I think my baseline anxiety is so high leading up to this trip that I'm just distracted and out of touch with most things and maybe am just not focusing enough on the world around me to cue into sensory details too acutely. Who knows. But I ate the damn sandwich.

-I have made zero progress with curbing exercise and thus have set myself up for a major anxietyfest when I show up at my field site late next week and am suddenly faced with much less opportunity to work out without having made any effort to ease myself into it at all.

I anticipate that going something like this:

-I've been sleeping an average of 4 hours per night for the last week. That whole plan to wean myself off of caffeine before my trip, because I can't have it in the field . . . JUST KIDDING. Couldn't let all those nice coconut mocha Keurig cups that Match bought me go to waste...

-Major good news on the writing front in my "real life." Can't say more here*, but it was pretty validating and exciting.

-*I'm pretty sure that most of the people that subscribe to this blog in private mode do know who I am in "real life," and at least 100% of the people that I know for sure still read definitely know. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated the degree to which people I've met through this venue have continued to respect my pseudonymity and keep the two worlds separate; you ladies are amazing.

-GREAT NEWS: On my flight out next week, I have a five hour layover in Match City. We thought he had meetings all afternoon that day, but his adviser gave him the afternoon off so he's going to come over to the airport and hang with me. SO glad I get one more chance to see him before I go. It means another tearful goodbye, but it's worth it for even one more hug before I head off.

I have an early morning tomorrow and really should try to get a human amount of sleep tonight. I hope all is well for everyone, love y'all.

Lightly

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.”

-Aldous Huxley, Island (1962)

Placebo gauntlet

Days into birth control placebo week: 2
Number of crying events by 10:30 this morning: 3
Number of other people I made cry this morning: 1
Pounds I feel like I've gained overnight via water weight: ~847.6
Ibuprofen popped for headache: 3
Weight of the imaginary truck that feels like it's rolling back and forth over my midsection: ~5 tons
How much this compares to the physical hassle of NOT taking my birth control and getting pregnant: Nothing
Having a private blog on which to vent my hormonally aggravated woes: Priceless

Sorry y'all.

(Disclaimer: although I am in whiny self-pity mode, I love my birth control and absolutely wouldn't dissuade anyone from going on it for whatever health reason. I really count the days (5 left!) until I go BACK on it during these infrequent weeks off).

The Self in Self-Help

Sunday reading recommendation: I was fascinated by this article by Kathryn Schulz in New York Magazine on the self-help industry and what it tells us about, well, us and our issues.

 I know the Schulz uses weight *loss* as an example in one paragraph (come on, it's the American media, it's inevitable), but I she's essentially talking about lifestyle changes, and I think that can easily be translated to weight gain or cessation of disordered behaviors in ED recovery.

I was a little disappointed with the last page or so when she describes her own recovery from depression (that sounds awful, clarification: I'm super happy she made it through and is in a better place, but I think she really gave short shrift to what a damn hard process it can be). But the discussion about our concepts of self, inner motivation, and what behavior modification even means is pretty interesting.

Snip:

"...all self-help literature offers is a kind of metaphysical power of attorney for our putative better halves. But if you identify with the above-mentioned Oreo-eater or healthy-­relationship saboteur or procrastinator, you yourself are evidence that this is a nonsolution. If giving your better half executive control by fiat could change your life, sales of self-help material would plummet overnight. It is a somewhat beautiful fact that the underlying theory of the self-help industry is contradicted by the self-help industry’s existence."

Would love to hear your thoughts if you get a chance to read it!

Night Stars

Okay so I was all doom and gloom on the last post, but starting yesterday my mood has really turned around. I know this might sound silly, but I think the weather has had something to do with it--it was FINALLY sunny and beautiful again for the first time in a week and it sent my S.A.D. skittering away into a corner, for now at least. I also had opportunities to get out of the house, make myself look human (seriously, I really needed a day in which I had a reason to wear mascara), and interact with people, which is always a big booster despite my basic introvertedness (introvertivity? introversion, I think actually. Anywho I'm not shy, I just like a lot of my time to be "me time." But not too much. Closing the parentheses now).

Guess who added calories yesterday? And had a major challenge food today? (even though the food ended up not tasting as good as I expected and I don't think I'd choose it again, I still did it damnit). I am honest when I say I want to boost my health before my trip, and now I'm trying to change "want to" to "am actively working to".

I had a really long lunch/hangout session with an old high school teacher today--the only one I have EVER discussed ED stuff with. We didn't talk about it at all today, just discussed our lives and such since I graduated in 2005 and generally got caught up. It was awesome.  I like her even better now that I'm not her student and she can be more candid with me about school, politics, the world in general, etc. I love what great people there are in this world, you know?

Some of our conversation got a bit philosophical, and although we didn't discuss anything ED-related, it did make me think a bit...if I could go back and erase the ED from my life then I would, but since that isn't possible, I do acknowledge that I think I'm a more insightful, self-aware, introspective person as a result of seesawing around recovery for the past...13 years? Jeebus. Anyway, this quote captures some of what I think I was feeling today:

"What makes night within us may leave stars."
-Victor Hugo

Happy weekend, love y'all.

Exercise bicker woes

Had a major bicker with Match yesterday about my exercise habits. Cue existential angst and total despair about ever getting out from under the thumb of this thing.

It's also VERY hard to have an argument with someone when you actually know they're right about everything.

And it's impossible to fill in the parts of the issue that the other person doesn't "get" when you are too ashamed to explain yourself.

Today is a new day, right?

Get Ready

I wish I'd had this to include on my very first post for this blog:

2013 commences

Updatage:

I spent two weeks in Match City after New Year's and just got back to my family's house last night. (In case I hadn't explicitly mentioned this, at the moment I have no home place of my own and am bouncing around between other people's bedrooms until I leave for Tropical Research Country. Sounds risque, right? Really it's just exhausting. Oh god maybe that still sounds risque...).

I had a great visit with Match. On several fronts. We were getting along well, especially considering it was our longest continuous trip EVER (an entire month of living together). I also did the best ever with my food. I ate a lot of things/amounts I used to be too shy to consume in front of him. He had to work half-days most of the time I was there, so I had time to get enough exercise in to eat relatively normal amounts for me--ie, more than on typical visits with him.  Because I still default to foods with relatively low energy densities, if I'm getting all my workout time in I need volumes of food big enough to make me self-conscious, but I sucked it up and did it and you know what? He loved me anyway. Maybe even moreso for loosening up around him. Win.

Now I won't see him for five months.  He and I have to say goodbye all the time, it's the nature of a long-distance relationship.  But damn if that wasn't the hardest one ever. We're trying to tell ourselves that we'll both be so busy that it'll go by fast. Right...in the mean time, I need to relearn how to fall asleep without him rubbing my back until I drift off every night.

ED stuff: I was a good girl and took a solid month off of running when my leg was injured, then slowly eased back into it, and now I'm totally back and the leg feels great. Win.  I made it through the holiday without losing weight, although I know I should have been working harder at gaining leading up to my trip. Now that I'm back to my own routines the exercise and food stuff are 'same ole same ole', although I'm really trying to work myself up to increasing cals this week.

It's times like this that I remember why my ED flew under the radar so easily for so long. I am so, so unmotivated by food and always have been. I was a painfully picky eater as a kid, and food was never not an issue of contention/confusion for me. I'm trying to incentivize myself to eat more by reminding myself of all the things I won't have in Tropical Research Country (better take advantage of them now!), but I really just don't find food rewarding, and it's not helping my weight gain ambivalence any.  (I really hope that wasn't triggering, I think that is just sort of part of my natural temperament, even pre-ED, some people are just more foodies than others and I don't judge people poorly if they are food-motivated. Everyone's senses and reward circuits are their own). There are some exceptions and favorite foods, of course, but I feel like trying to motivate myself based on taste and sense rewards always ends up disappointing me.  WOW what a first world problem, given the fact that I'm about to go to a place where malnutrition is the norm, I'm actually pretty ashamed I'm even talking about this.  I know everything in this paragraph is not at all a legitimate excuse for being an educated adult and not nourishing oneself adequately, and I'm not trying to use it as a cop-out, just musing.

On that note, I'm going to go berate myself for being a brat and try to stop automatically rolling over in bed to whisper something to a Match that isn't there anymore.

DIY Fail

This is way too true.

Real update to come soon.

Obligatory holiday recap post and status update

Well hi there, happy 2013.  I haven't updated in quite a while; I flew up to Match City on December 16, we drove back to my parent's house on the 20th and spent Christmas there, did a road trip back to my Undergrad Town (LOVE LOVE that place) a couple of days after Christmas, and the plan was for Match to drive back to his own city this week to start work today, with me planning to fly out to spend another week or two with him later in January.

Then on Tuesday morning we started looking at plane ticket prices and realized how much more sense it would make for me to ride back with him on Wednesday and buy just a one-way ticket back, which carried the added benefit of me being here before he starts classes again later in the month. He still has to work at least a half-day most days, but at least he doesn't have classes and studying on top of that for now.

SO the upshot of all of that is that I had about 4 hours notice on Tuesday that instead of returning to all of my routines and norms and alone time as of yesterday, I actually needed to pack for a 600 mile road trip to stay up here in Match City for 2 weeks.

YIIIIIIPE.

Fortunately it was less disruptive to do this leaving from my parents' house than if I'd been leaving my own place (which I don't actually have right now; I'm subletting my apartment in PhD City until I get back from Tropical Research Country in June. I need a fictional Cammy Atlas or something to keep all these places straight).  Basically, between now and June, no matter where I am it is not my own space, so whatever.

So I'm here. It's actually going to be a bit of a relief because I'll have the place to myself until at least the afternoon and sometimes all day for most days due to Match's work schedule. And I waaaay prefer sharing a bathroom with Match to sharing one with my two teenage brothers (gag). I have access to a gym here, and the public transit is good enough to get me anywhere I need to go on my own. So it could be worse.

I did okay ED-wise over the holidays given the circumstances.  While we were at my parents' house I managed to get by on between 1/2-3/4 of normal exercise most days (sometimes less, just once or twice a bit more) by going to the gym early in the morning before Match was awake (he knew I was going, I just did it that way to avoid losing waking time with everyone). I did adjust my calories accordingly, but did NOT overcompensate out of anxiety (ie burning X less calories in exercise but taking in 2X less in food just because I'm nervous about the change in routine), which has been a strong trend during past holiday seasons.

Some days I did even come close to normal cals despite the reduced exercise (read: holiday parties = lots of alcohol = Cammy hates to let a good wine go to waste, elliptical time be damned). And I did feel a possible slight shift of norm, I think if I pushed I could let myself have full cals at 3/4 baseline exercise to start with, and try to walk it back further from there...we'll see.  I have less than a month before I leave for Tropical Research Country and did need to gain some weight before that...

Speaking of that, I haven't weighed myself at all since I left PhD City, so I have no idea what my weight did over the holidays. I feel kind of blobby because I haven't had time to get in weight-lifting and strength training like I like, but I learned long ago not to trust my perceptions on that kind of thing. And stuff still fits the same as far as I can notice. So there's that.

I feel like Match and I grow/develop/figure things out a bit more on each visit, and this will set a record as our longest continuous visit ever (over a month). There were a couple of rocky patches, but really just one or two significant fights and I feel like sometimes that's part of the growing process. So I think that's going well, which is a relief because we need a solid standing to go over 4 months without seeing each other during my upcoming field research session.

Ooookay that's my long holiday update, sorry y'all.  I feel like I'm glossing over tons of detail but most of it was probably mundane and of minimal interest anyway.  I'm behind on reading blogs since I haven't had the same amount of free internet time while visiting with family/Match, but plan to catch up soon.  Really hope everyone is doing well; happy holidays. Love y'all.