Back

So, I'm back from Jungle Land, been traveling since 3 this morning.  Really worn out.  To be honest, I didn't try very hard with the ED stuff.  It could have been much worse, but I could have done a lot to make it better.  I think I've decided to try seeing a new therapist after the holidays.  I so fucking want to just be a normal person.

Done Gone Away

Just fyi, I didn't have time to do a last post before I left, but I am actually in tropical research country for the next couple of weeks, just made it to an internet cafe to let the fam know that I survived the flight and a day in the capital city intact.  I'm worried and not all that confident about how food will go, I'm already kinda having a hard time. Possibly because my sleep has been minimal the past two nights and that just saps my mental energy.

  This time around, though, I have some great friends as my traveling companions, and they're aware of my eating issues even though I've only ever explicitly discussed it with one of them, and even then not at great length...but I think that having them around will make me feel more accountable, make it harder for me to take off on my own all the time for extra exercise, etc. So hopefully it'll work out.  And if it doesn't, at least it'll be my shortest trip yet; putting a rush on things to be back in time for Christmas.

Anyway, hasta luego, hope all of you handle the holiday season well, mucho amor!

My Tardy Turkey Day Tale

Hey y'all, I'm back!  Didn't intend quite such a long hiatus over Thanksgiving.  I flew up to see my Boy for the holiday.  We drove to his brother's house for a family Thanksgiving with his brother, dad, brother's gf and a couple of their friends.  Overall it went well.  The brother's girlfriend still makes me a little uneasy, and if I hadn't asked a few polite questions about her job/life to make conversation I doubt she would have talked to me at all.  But I was glad she was there if only because it meant that I didn't have to come in last place every time on our 4-player Wii Mario Kart battle. ;)

I really stressed over this visit after I found out that M's family has been clued in to my ED.  But it went okay.  I volunteered us to bring a couple of things I was comfortable eating.  As scary as the holidays may seem to be for people with EDs, I tend to handle Thanksgiving pretty well.  It's way better than, say, traditional 4th of July food.

Despite the Arctic temperatures, we played some football and I made a good showing for myself, by the way. ;)

So that was Thanksgiving.  Since I left for college I think I've only returned home for a single Thanksgiving with my own family, so I'm used to and usually fine with being alone that day.  As comfortable as I am with that solitude, this was definitely the best Thanksgiving I've had in a long time, just for the slight victory of normalcy and the fact that I really like M's dad and brother (and M himself isn't bad either... ;p).

I stayed the weekend up there, flew home Monday.  Usual recap of doing various things around the city and being spoiled rotten by doting boyfriend.  He took me to pick out my very own coffee machine to keep at his house (he's not a coffee drinker), significant relationship milestone, no? ;p

We did some museums, saw Harry Potter, took a day trip to another city and got to have a lunch date with the fantabulous Amy, who is even cooler in real life, if you can possibly imagine that!

Oh and we went ice skating on Sunday, and despite not having worn skates in about 10 years I did NOT fall a single time!

That was both a fun and desperate outing, actually.  I really struggled with lack of exercise on this trip, mostly because it was so bitterly cold outside, limited our usual outdoor walking to virtually nil, and we spent a lot of time in the car traveling between various states on a couple of days.  I held up ok for the first couple of days, but was definitely getting anxious and uncomfortable about it by Saturday.  I hate it when the ED takes over my personality and makes me quiet, edgy, and too much "inside your head", as M. says.

I put M. in a difficult position with that.  He wants me to be happy and relaxed, so he tries to work in activities for us where possible (we did the skating, and he took us down to a nice river park on a sunny afternoon to brave the cold for a walk).  But there is a fine line between accommodating and enabling, and I think he worries about where he's falling in that gray area.  He's told me that if I am really having a hard time with the anxiety and want to use the rec center at his school, or go to a nearby gym on a guest pass, he's fine with that.  On any trip longer than 4 days I think that would be best, not to do my usual whole daily routine but at least to have a token getting off my ass session...  But anyway, I worry about putting him in a position like that, can't be easy.  I guess what I mostly hate is that any part of my ED could affect my behavior and dictate the time I spend (or don't spend) with loved ones, I resent the ever-ugly hell out of that, my friends.

Anyway, food always goes a bit off on a trip, but I guess it was a success in proving to myself that I can not only survive a few days without working out, it didn't actually make me balloon or even put on an ounce.  So there, ED.  And I got right back on the wagon with food and have been sticking to mp faithfully all week.

So, I've put off updating because I didn't think I had anything to write about, and now I've written a book here.  I am just over a week from my next trip to Tropical Field Site and CAN'T WAIT to escape to warmer climes!  I feel like these days I am always either packing, unpacking, or both.

love y'all and happy Thursday!

Weighty Thoughts

One thing that I've had to learn in recovery is to resist black-and-white thinking about weight.  For a long time (and sometimes still, on bad days), I thought that if I wasn't underweight, it meant I was fat.  No thin, no slender, no normal, no average, no in-between.  It took a while for it to sink in for me that you can fall along many points within a spectrum, some healthier than others but with "healthy and desirable" still being a range, not a singular cut-off point.

A related issue that is a bit of a struggle in the context of larger society is the common view of "thin" as opposed to the medical view of underweight vs normal.  I remember, during my very first stab at recovery when I'd gained some weight but was still verytooreally thin, one of my fellow 7th graders told me my weight was "perfect, I wish I could weigh as much as you for my whole life."  People, I was still very sick (I'm not often tempted to use numbers, wish I could this time to show you just how ridiculous this incident was, but it's not worth it). Even at the time, it really bothered me that she saw that scrawny, prepubertal form as the ideal.

So, for people learning to re-adjust their perceptions and become comfortable with their bodies while battling an ED, it's hard to figure out what's "right", and to learn that no two rights are the same.  Hard as hell. I was "thin" at my rock-bottom, although at that point "thin" was a really just kind euphemism for emaciated.  It took me a long time to realize that gaining dozens of pounds in recovery didn't make me fat.  It doesn't mean I never *felt* fat, of course.  I felt fat at weights that were, in retrospect, way thinner than I ever want to be again. I found that one of the keys in weight restoration is to give yourself time.

I wrote a post a while back on body image vs body schema, gives a much better treatment of this issue, if you have time.  Basically, it takes your brain a while to catch up with the changes happening in your body.  When I reached weight X, I felt awfulhorriblehuge.  I felt like my body was alien, like I was stuck in someone else's clothing.  But if I plateaued there for a while, after a short time I was amazed that I really became ok with my "new body" if I held out and was patient.  That scary weight X would be WAY lower than I'd allow myself to go at this point, because I know it would look/feel terrible and wouldn't be healthy.

 I reached my lifetime peak weight earlier this year. Still underweight, but the biggest underweight I'd ever been, really just a hair below normal (scary, right? Normal??? Like, optimal for health and function? Yikes.  lol..). Just sort of a cognitive milestone that takes some working through. I was/am un-underweight enough that the casual observer probably wouldn't guess I had an eating disorder, maybe just a good metabolism and an active lifestyle.  Even today, when I've slipped weight-wise over the past few months (and incidentally, Match confessed he thought I was more attractive at peak weight, who knew?), But the issue still kind of challenges the identity you've created for yourself over the years. I doubt I'd be pegged as an EDer.  Thin yes, sick no.  Underweight on the charts, but not abnormal looking when clothed.  I can't go into every store and always wear the smallest size.  I may not always have the smallest waist in the room.  At this point I can pretty much just observe that, deem it marginally noteworthy and move on, but at first it was a sort of existential crisis.

It's a stereotype that anorexics always see themselves as fat.  Not true. There were plenty of times when I was well aware of how gravely thin I was, I just didn't want to change it. I could/can even look at women that I know have at least 10-20 pounds on me right now and think, "Damn I wish I had a body like that."

 And not looking sick is ok with me, I know that emaciated is not sexy or even attractive, and I don't pursue that.  I never wanted to be that thin because I thought it looked nice, I just made an obsession about avoiding the opposite. After years and thousands of dollars in therapy, I realized that for a long time, I was hurting.  Being sickthin was they only way I knew to communicate that.   Now, I'm really not hurting in those ways anymore, and the ED patterns are more a hard-core habit than anything else, and instead of being the manifestation of me hurting, they're the biggest thing hurting me now, a different kind of challenge.  Not that I don't have esteem issues or an addictive personality anymore, but day to day challenges aside, I have a good life and I generally like who I am (with the exception of how much I allowed the ED to entwine itself in my life).  Realizing that made me finally stop feeling obligated to be sickthin, ok with not wearing the smallest jeans in the room.  Hard transition, but doable.  Blocking everything but the ED out of your life for years on end mean that sometimes coming out of it can be a bit of a splash with cold water.  It that ultimately proves to be life-giving and refreshing, but still somewhat of an initial shock.

 One thing people (myself definitely included) don't seem to be that good about is introspective objectivity: it's hard to see the actual you, easier to just compare yourself to what you used to be (often sicker, with an ED), or to all the photo-shopped images we're bombarded with every day.  I definitely struggle with this every day.  That's why it's nice to have a support team (professional and personal) to keep you grounded.  There are definitely days when I wish I could just be a fly on the wall observing myself objectively, or days when I wish I could actually follow all of the recommendations I'd give someone else as far as self-care.  Work in progress, right?

I feel like there is some wise and eloquent way I should tie all this together to wrap it up, as I've rambled around several issues related to weight.  In a nutshell, just emphasizing poundage is NOT the only issue with EDs, but it can be an amorphous and challenging issue, no doubt, when trying to deal with the deeper things as well, because too often it's tempting to judge surfaces and not give proper weight (pun only slightly intended) to substance.  I've always wished I could observe some alternate universe to see what my weight would be in a parallel life with no ED.  And how much would it matter?  I can bet that I'd be heavier, but I can also bet that I wouldn't be any less loved, accomplished, or enriched, and would probably much more of all of those things.

Ok hella long post, thanks to anyone who soldiered through this whole thing!!!

Circle Time

A few of the books I've read recently have had passages relevant to a theme that I definitely relate to. So, this post is like a bit of book-sharing circle time to share a few of those passages:

From The Bitch in the House, which I read based on Kim's impeccable recommendation:

...it occurred to me that I was succeeding in the world with only part of my brain engaged.  While a tenth of it was devoted to school, a tenth devoted to my daughter, and perhaps another tenth devoted to family crises and illnesses, the other 70 percent of my mind was constantly focused on food--the calorie count of a grape, the filling bulk of popcorn...How much farther, I thought, can I go in the world if I used that 70 percent more wisely?


This *really* hit home for me.  When I think of how many hours every day, week, month, year, decade and more that I've spent on ED thoughts and behaviors, it sickens me.  I could have read hundreds more books, become multi-lingual, taken trips, met people, learned to ski, learned another instrument, been more involved, made more of a difference, actually lived like I'd never get each day back, which I won't.  It bothers me because it's an ongoing issue as well.  Not so much with the thoughts, although I do have meal planning anxiety regularly (not choosing how much to eat, I stick to prescribed calories, but all my stupid rationalizations about what to eat to fill that requirement).  But the exercise eats up a ridiculous chunk of my day and totally dictates my schedule.  I am frustrated beyond belief, but still feel pretty powerless to stop it.  Which leads to the next excerpt...


And from Voluntary Madness, by Norah Vincent:
You cannot sentence people to recovery.  You cannot cajole them, into it either...for, as the therapy at Mobius [a residential treatment center she stayed at], the message was simple.  We are not helping you.  We are teaching you that only you can help you...
     The fact that I am driving the car doesn't mean that the road will always be smooth or that I can control other drivers, the terrain, the weather, flats, malfunctions, darting animals, and other acts of God.  But it gives me the vital sense of getting somewhere under my own power, of refusing to accept passively wandering servitude to medical whim and the lonely defects of personality or birth.


I definitely relate to this as well.  I've gone into therapy determined not to get well, because I was forced, and sure enough I just digressed further.  Years later, I finally just felt broken enough to accept help, and it was a complete 180 from my previous therapy experience (although the therapist was a LOT better that time, I would've been obstinate no matter how good the first one was).  Not, of course, that I really enjoyed the eating disorder and wanted to hang onto a disease....it just didn't feel like a choice, I had no idea what I'd have left if I gave it up...feared the answer would be nothing.

From The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles:
It was all utterly familiar and wholly horrible--existence unmodifiable, not to be questioned, that must be borne.  It would never occur to him to cry out.

And that's the kicker.  Sometimes we don't even realize we need, or want, and if we do realize it we simply don't know how to ask for it.  So we stay locked in, trying to save face on the outside while the inside is crumbling.

From Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann:
I gave them all of the truth, and none of the honesty.

It's easy to play along, keep yourself out of the critical zone but still very disordered, and nothing can break through that wall of progress but some hell-bent determination.  Which, of course, doesn't happen overnight:

Also from McCann:
When you go around in circles, brother, the world is very big, but if you plow straight ahead it's small enough....
She said she would snap out of it.  But the word is not snap, more like slide...I will slide out....

Sometimes recovery is definitely one step forward two steps back, but as you easy into it and gain momentum, the net movement is forward and the steps get more and more significant.

Mary Shelley in Frankenstein:
"By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses, that alarmed and grieved my friend, I recovered."


And to close, a quote from Erica Jong (I haven't actually read any of her books, but came across the quote online a long time ago and wrote it down, sorry I don't have the source):
It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

Smoothing Out the Edges

I often have blogger's remorse after I do a negative post, so I felt the need to redeem myself after yesterday's whinefest.  Yes, all of those things are difficult right now.  But in the big picture, I don't have it so bad...even my rough patches have pretty smooth edges, if you think about it

I am sick but...I live in a country with top medical services available, AND I have a great health insurance package.  After a year of paying tons of money for a mediocre plan, my university started offering a great plan that I get for free. I switched immediately, and it is so nice to not have to worry about a high co-pay and deductible every time I set foot in someone's examining room.  I know so many people have no medical insurance at all, and I'm really lucky that I do.

My boyfriend lives 600 miles away...but he is still super-attentive and ultra-trustworthy.  I have never for a second worried about him straying.  And he texts me good morning and good night, and all day in between.  He makes sure I know I'm loved no matter what else is going on.  I can tell him when I'm struggling without being judged, and he understand that I don't look to him to fix anything, it's enough to just be able to get it off my chest.  And he's just plain fun, he invariably knows how to make me smile, even on the worst of days.

I am back living with my family....and I have a healthy family that I am very proud of and close to.  They're letting me live here rent-free, which is really saving me financially right now.  I get along with them, they give me my privacy, and G. gets a lot more stimulation with more people and cats to track around the house.

I'm definitely feeling lonely and disconnected...but I do indeed have a great network of friends that care about me, even if they're not close by.  I moved a ton when I'm a kid, and I know from experience that friendships can stay strong over the miles and years.


I'm feeling a bit puny but not gaining weight despite following my meal plan....but I'm at a psychological point where I can follow the meal plan every day, getting at least that much nourishment.  It means eating amounts/types of food that would  have been unfathomable to a former version of Cammy.  And even though I have lost weight this year, I'm definitely more robust than I kept myself for most of high school and undergrad.


I'm feeling pointless because I don't have enough work....but at least I'm getting a bit of a breather, compared to semesters when I literally had to consult my planner to see when I could fit in a shower.  I'm sure that I'll have plenty of high-stress hectic times before I finish my MS and PhD, shouldn't complain about a quiet period while I have it.  And it has given me time to work on a couple of side projects not related to my thesis.

One of my favorite professors died...ok it's hard to find a positive for this one.  So I'll just be glad that I had the chance to know her when she was alive.  She left a huge imprint on so many lives, even though hers was cut off early.

In the big picture, it ain't so bad.  Yesterday was one of my Down Days, today has been a bit better. Thanks for the texts, comments, and e-mails, by the way, you know who you are and you're awesome. <3

Rough Patch

I never thought I'd think/say this, but I'm actually getting a little frustrated that I'm not gaining weight.  I have stayed consistent with my food intake, and am actually down a little bit, if anything.  Really weird.  I'm wondering if the antibiotics that I'm on are messing with my gut flora such that I'm not digesting like I should.  Although I haven't had any of the gastro issues they warn you about with antibiotics.  Who knows.  I just don't feel good right now.  I get light-headed and fatigued easily, I have to worry about my heart palps if I'm out in the cold, etc etc.  I'm sure it's partly due to the infection, but I know I'm suboptimal on my weight and it probably isn't helping anything.

Of course, a reasonable, normal person would think, well, I'm not gaining weight on my meal plan, why don't I....eat more food?  Huh.  Or stop exercising obsessively?  Hmm.  I want to be a reasonable, normal person when I grow up.

I don't mean to be glib.  Not much anyway.  It's just been a rough week or so and I feel like even cheesy lightness is better than being a total downer.  I traveled down to my undergrad town to go to a very, very sad funeral last week.  Most tragic memorial I've ever been to in my life. The world is not fair. Then this week my infection flared up again.  I cannot stand when my body has something going on that I can't control.  I know that plays up to every single stereotype about anorexics being "all about control", which I don't necessarily agree with, but I'll agree that to a certain degree it is an issue, in at least some cases.

I feel pointless right now.  In between research trips I don't have much to do.  Being back at my undergrad school, where I still have tons of friends, reminded me of how much richer my life was down there. Here I am living with my parents, my boyfriend is 600 miles away, I have pretty much zero opportunities for face-to-face grown up conversations except for with the old lady I've befriended at the gym, where I really should be spending less time.  This is not how I pictured my life as a master's student/developing scientist, and I kind of feel like crying right now but I'm afraid if I start I won't stop.