May Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

Maybe it’s the “auld lang syne” of January talking, but I have been reminiscing quite a lot in therapy lately. It seems that I’m a million miles away from the woman who first walked into that room, my safe place. I've been happy, I don’t call myself mean names anymore, and I’m making more and more choices for health all the time. Am I perfect now? Oh, gods no! I’m still having some issues around my father’s death and this week I have been kind of overeating at dinner due to... stuff.

But that’s okay, it’s a process.

So all of this looking back has made me extremely grateful that I started journaling and then blogging. It’s reassuring to go back to those old entries and remember what I was thinking and feeling, reminding me that I don’t ever have to feel that way again. I know I've said it before, but here is the real beauty of keeping a journal: there it is in black and white, written on solid paper, every horrible thing you think of yourself, there where you can look at it outside of yourself for the first time and notice.... it’s a bunch of bullshit. This stuff that I wrote, it sounded so much more reasonable and sane inside my head - “useless” “ugly” “lazy.” In the harsh light of the outside world we can see these thoughts for what they are.

For example, here’s a journal entry from June 2011. By this time the positive affirmations were beginning to do their thing and I was moving on from hate to our other lying bastard of a friend, guilt. Because, back then, it wasn't just that I thought I was “useless-ugly-lazy” but that I was also undeserving of success, or luck, or love. Basically, sometimes I would binge because something GOOD had happened. I felt guilty. I didn't deserve it.

Journal Entry #27:

We [that is, me and the nutritionist] also talked a bit about eating to avoid happiness. What about the possibility that being happy makes me feel guilty, so I start out celebrating but then end up punishing myself instead? I know that I do often find myself avoiding talking about happy stuff or success to others because I don’t want them to feel bad (or jealous? or hate me?).

Positive Affirmations:

I don’t deserve to feel guilty about my successes.

I am not responsible for other someone else’s feelings.

AFTER Effects

Today let’s go back to food journaling for a bit. After a few months of doing the meal evaluations and check-ins, my nutritionist gave me a worksheet to fill out about my eating preferences. I’ll add an image of it at the end. It’s called the AFTER worksheet: Aroma, Flavor, Texture, Experience, and Response.

Basically you fill in everything that you can think of about things that you love and things that you hate. It’s in five different categories about food and about the things you sense when you are eating. So it isn’t just “I love chocolate and I hate broccoli.” It’s also about aromas that make you hungry or turn you off and textures that you enjoy or that make you want to spit something out. It’s about whether you like to go to busy restaurants with crowded tables and loud conversations or intimate places with low lighting or bright places and only a few other quiet, considerate patrons. It’s about WHAT you love about chocolate and hate about broccoli. It’s about creamy, crunchy, bitter, sour, savory, salty, soupy or sweet. It’s about “warm soup belly” or feeling bloated or dehydrated. It’s about the burn of capsaicin and the cool of sour cream.

What this exercise does is get you to focus on the things about a meal that will make you feel more satisfied or satiated. If you can incorporate several of the “loves” into a meal, you can make choices based on satisfaction rather than fat and calorie counts. For example, I like to eat crispy/crunchy things and savory/salty things, so potato chips are pretty high on my list of trigger foods. But I have found that very crisp cucumbers or carrots with savory Italian vinaigrette also hit that crispy-savory spot that I need. Okay, sometimes I just want some freaking Doritos, but I know that afterward I feel dehydrated and a little sick to my stomach, so sometimes I can happily choose the cucumbers and be okay.

But even more, it gives you a way to make every meal happier for yourself, even if it isn’t a choice between the healthy thing and the less healthy thing. If I’m going to have a salad, I’m happier if there are crunchy things in it than if it’s just lettuce and tomato. I want my soups to be thick and hearty, maybe more like stew than soup, and I like lots of “stuff” in it, rather than just limp noodles and tiny cubes of chicken. If I’m going to make a steak, I prefer to marinate it in something salty/savory for a bit. These are things that I can do to end a meal feeling not only full but actually satisfied, and therefore I’ll be less likely to want to keep going or try something else or soothe myself with sweets after the meal.

Here's the sample worksheet with my preferences entered, so you can see what it's like.

Surrounded

Okay, here’s the new lesson for the week... I am not alone! Quite often, when I’m down or angry or hopeless, I sit with it for too long, think about it too much, close myself off and eventually make it so much worse. I don’t reach out to anyone for help or guidance, someone who could lift my spirits or change my mind or help me figure out what’s going on. Take note of that word “don’t” because that’s the important part. It’s not that I can’t, it’s not that no one is there for me, but I just won’t reach out.

I’ve been thinking about this - yes, I think too much, even about thinking too much! - and I see that the problem is multi-layered. I want to handle it alone, because I think that I can. But also because I think that I ought to. I think that I ought to handle my depressive cycles alone because I don’t want to be a bother to anyone. I, and my issues, are not important, not worthy enough to take up anyone’s time.

But wait, there’s more!

I ought to handle my issues alone because I’m the caretaker. I’m not supposed to dump my crap on other people, I am here to help other people carry their crap. I am supposed to carry my crap and everyone else’s crap too. Right? And besides, admitting to even having issues means that I’m weak. That I feel stuff. That I’m not perfect. That I can’t handle everything, and do it all alone.

All of that is, of course, total bullshit.

That’s what is so nice about journaling. You get to put it out there in black and white, these things you kinda sorta think to yourself, maybe even subconsciously, and take a good hard look at it. And then you realize that you are full of shit.

Do I really think that I’m so much better than everyone else that I won’t ever get angry or depressed or upset or hurt? Do I really think that I’m so important to everyone that I alone carry all of their burdens for them? Do I really think that my loved ones would lose their minds if they find out that I am not perfect?

Well, of course not.

Oh, but that inner voice, the mean, frightened little voice, it is such a good liar. I don’t hear it as much as I used to, I think I even believed that it was gone there for a while, but apparently it just went deeper inside, and now it can only emerge when the darkness spreads and it feels confident enough to whisper to me again. When I’m stuck, when I’m depressed, when I feel alone in the deep dark hole, that’s when it comes to me - and it lies. ‘No one cares,’ it says. ‘No one wants to hear from you,’ it says. ‘No one needs to know that you’re hurting - they can use it against you,’ it says. ‘Suck it up, sister.’

Surrounded!

So here is the lesson I need to remember now. I am surrounded. Not by darkness, not by despair. I am surrounded by love, and friendship, and support, and laughter (the good kind!), and kindness. All I have to do is look up.

Give Peace a Chance

This week I want to talk about giving this recovery stuff a chance. I know it seems so hard to believe that letting go is the way to find the path through. I know I didn't believe it myself, at first, and I suspect that doing it yourself is the only way to make yourself believe it. So, while these things I talk about may not have the kind of influence I meant when I began here, I can hope that it will help someone like me make a choice to try, at least.

When I started recovery, I read the books that you're supposed to read, I had tearful conversations with both my therapist and my nutritionist, and all of these sources assured me that someday I would be able to handle a meal without being tormented. Frankly, I thought that they were all full of crap, but I was out of energy, out of options, and just plain too tired to argue with anyone. I wrote in the journals for my feelings and my food, I talked - and talked, and talked, and talked. I read some more. I ate. I ate a lot, and I felt guilty and ashamed, and I wrote about it and I talked about it some more.

Time passed, I got heavier - yes, I'm going to admit that, I don't mind now, and those sources of mine, well, they did tell me that would happen. When that started to happen I wanted to quit. I didn't want to be fatter and despite all of the positive self-affirmations and loving myself work that I was doing... well, I might have learned to accept the body I have but I didn't especially LIKE it. In fact, I still kind of hated the idea that I wouldn't ever be that thin version of myself that I had always wanted.

Letting go of that idea was hard. I grieved for it for a while.

And I wrote about that too, of course. But it was getting to be a habit, all this thinking about feelings and writing about feelings and talking, talking, talking about feelings. And one day, at some point, I found myself thinking about those feelings BEFORE I ate the food. You know, instead of after. Not "Why did I just eat a half a bag of chips?" but "Why do I want to eat this bag of chips?"

That surprised me, and so I wrote about it in my food journal. I decided that I didn't actually want to eat a bag of chips. I just wanted to feel something different, even if it was just sick fullness - I don't know what, exactly, I wanted to feel or not feel any longer, because when you don't let yourself feel emotions it becomes hard to recognize them. (I'm getting better at that, I think.)

And I decided that if any feeling was better, that I could make a positive choice about what I wanted to feel next instead of letting the chips decide for me. So that first time I headed for the TV and queued up an episode of The Muppet Show. That's about the time I started working in all those other hobbies, like puzzles, and music, and reading. Did I need to feel something? Pick a mood and find an activity. I've already confessed to drawing in coloring books, so now I guess I'll 'fess up to dancing like a dork to disco and searching for naughty fan fiction on the internet.

It takes time, I'm not going to kid you about that. That Muppet Show episode was a long time ago, and here I still am, thinking and writing about things. But lately.... oh lately things have gotten interesting. Yes, I can deflect a binge (most of the time). Yes, I can stop when I'm full (most of the time). Yes, I can pass on dessert when I don't feel like it, and yes, sometimes I actually don't feel like it. But now it's almost like I'm discovering myself all over again, almost every day. What I need, what I like and even don't like. Lately I find myself having ordered this wonderful thing that I always used to love and crave, because now I'm allowed to have it any old time... and I don't really like it so much. I'm beginning to notice when things are too greasy, too heavy, too sweet. Just a couple of days ago I was about to call the local pizza place for a calzone, I love those so much! But then I thought better of it - they're so heavy and make me feel icky and sleepy. And I also found out that I love artichokes! Once upon a time I wouldn't have tried an artichoke if you paid me. It's like a whole new world.

So basically, no matter how many blog posts I do, no matter what I say, I doubt I can convince anyone that intuitive eating works. You pretty much have to experience it for yourself. All I can do is keep sharing what's happening to me and hope that it helps. I was in that place 15 or so months ago, where I'd tried everything, every diet, every gimmick, when I had nothing left... I gave it a chance, tried a little love instead of hate. I could have blown another year trying the same old thing, the thing that had not worked in 30 years, but - even though it was out of sheer exhaustion - I decided to give something new a chance. I think it's working; I like who I am again, I like my world again, and I'm still alive. I think that's better than another failed diet, for me...

Recovering the Storyteller

I am back from a long Labor Day weekend at my favorite geek convention, DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia. We had a great time and this year my eating situation was the best ever! I attended a wonderful writing workshop presented by Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston for most of the weekend. I feel like my creativity and passion has been reignited and I’m looking forward to writing fiction again for the first time in years.

As a writer and a storyteller, I often find it easier to express myself in these long, kind of weird analogies. And sometimes I run across creative tales, poems, or analogies that sink right into my heart; they stay with me and speak to me as I journey. I keep copies of them on my desktop so that I can get to them easily when I need them again.

One of them was the poem about a hole in the sidewalk, oddly enough entitled: “There’s a Hole in my Sidewalk” by Portia Nelson.

Chapter 1 

I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost… I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2 

I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend that I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in this same place. But, it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3 

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in … it’s a habit … but, my eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter 4 

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Chapter 5 

I walk down another street.

Another big favorite is The Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann, which I won’t repost entirely here because it is quite long. My favorite line of all is this:

Beyond a wholesome discipline, 

be gentle with yourself. 

You are a child of the universe 

no less than the trees and the stars; 

you have a right to be here.

And finally, a very nice analogy was blogged by the comedian Margaret Cho earlier this year. Here’s the part I loved the best, I loved it so much that I pasted it into a background and it pops up on my computer desktop from time to time as an image:

“I fly my flag of self-esteem for all those who have been told they were ugly and fat and hurt and shamed and violated and abused for the way they look and told time and time again that they were ‘different’ and therefore unlovable. Come to me and I will tell you and show you how beautiful and loved you are and you will see it and feel it and know it and then look in the mirror and truly believe it. If you are offended by my anger and my might at defending my borders and my people you do not deserve entry into my beloved and magnificent country.”

Here’s a link to an article about it on the magazine site, Jezebel, and to Margaret Cho's original blog, but be warned that the language is coarse and raw and honest. 

And as for me? Well, here’s a metaphor I came up with in July of last year, still pretty new to the recovery thing but facing the long coming year of caring for my dying father. It was tough, it set me back, but like so much of the ebb and flow of recovery, it taught me to take care of myself, to be stronger, and to hold on. Here’s what I wrote:

“I didn’t like who I had become, and I am in the process of pushing her out and emptying the house of all her shit. What’s left is an empty space for me to fix up, redecorate, and move into. But the cool thing is that I can put whatever I want back in here. I can keep the stuff that was good, get rid of anything I don’t need, and bring in new things if I want to. 

I get to start over.”

If You're Happy and You Know It, Share Your Meds

I haven’t done this in a while, there’s been so much to talk about, but today I’m going to take another retro look back at my first year in recovery and a journal entry from back then. I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about depression or anxiety medications and how ambivalent I have always been about taking them. Once upon a time my firm opinion was that depression meds were over-prescribed and that most people didn’t need them. My thought was that “people aren’t meant to be happy ALL of the time.” I still think that both of those things are true, but now I also realize that people aren’t meant to be sad and frightened all of the time either.

I started on an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety med about a year and a half ago, and it has made a huge difference in my life. I do still have down days and angry days and even anxious days, but now I have more happy and calm days than I do bad ones. And when I have bad days, I can handle them, and I understand that it’s temporary and that I won’t feel like this forever. That’s a huge reversal of what my life used to be like.

Starting anti-depressants is different for everyone, because everyone has unique body chemistry (even if they’re related). The first brand I tried was wrong for me; it actually increased my anxiety and I had a very scary panic attack after just a few days on it. The second brand I tried worked much better, but left me feeling a little off kilter; I was happier, but I was careening back and forth from happy to sad to mad and back and forth again all day. So it was back to my doctor again, and she upped my dose by just a little, and suddenly I was good. I’ve been on that brand ever since. Lately we’re beginning to consider whether or not I can begin to cut back on the dose, but that’s a story for another day...

Also, that all sounds like it happened pretty fast, but in reality it was over a period of several weeks. For most people, it takes a number of weeks or even a few months for the effects of the pills to take hold. If you (and your doctor) should determine that an anti-depressant is the way to go, you probably won’t start feeling better on the next day, or even the next week. You have to give it time! And remember that it’s different for everyone. For me, it took a few weeks to feel better. For someone I know, the effects were almost immediate. Someone else I know takes that first med that made me worse, and it works just fine for her.

So, here’s the takeaway... IF you need meds, don’t be afraid or ashamed. You don’t deserve to feel bad all the time. IF you need meds, do talk to your doctor and please please please WORK with that doctor to get on the one that’s right for you. Don’t just take the first thing you are given and then quit because you don’t feel different, or because you feel worse. Talk to your doctor about how it makes you feel. If you don’t feel better, give it time; if you feel worse, you can try something else; if you don’t feel better enough, you can try something else.

Journal Entry #14

Well, today I guess I was paying a bit more attention, but I let the moment of “finished” just roll right by and kept on eating anyway. And I don’t really even know why. Once again, I’m not really feeling anything. Just empty - and tired.

I can’t tell if the anti-depressant is changing much. I do think I’m less anxious, but emotionally.... well, I’m not sure that this is better. Before the meds I would get depressed and it would go on for two or three weeks, then I would have a phase of feeling good for a week or two before I would return to anger and depression. Now I feel completely erratic. I’m up, I’m down, I’m empty, I’m angry, all in one day. I’m all over the place.

The only consistent thing is that I’m tired. I can’t seem to sleep enough. I don’t always let myself nap during the day, but I always want to.

Fourteen days. It’s only been fourteen days on the meds. Give it time. It has to get better, it couldn’t get much worse, right?

Affirmations:

I think I deserve this HATE, but I don’t.

I give myself permission to be patient.

I deserve good things as much as anyone else.

(6-9-2011)

Joyful Eating

So now I'm not dieting anymore, but that doesn't really mean I'm off the hook. In fact, I probably pay way more attention to eating now than I ever did, but in an entirely different way – a way that sustains me instead of degrading me. Here's how that works...

I started off with a food journal. I know, lots of “diets” recommend a food journal, but what the diet really wants is evidence for the food police: every bite, every calorie, every fat gram, and so on. But now I've been set free. I'm no longer a “diet criminal” and I can eat anything and everything that I want. I don't have to keep track of all those numbers, calories in, calories out. What I do have to keep track of is feelings. And the only number that matters now is the Hunger Scale

Yes, I still write down every bite that I eat. However, this is just for reference. Not once has my nutritionist ever called me out about any item, or told me that I was doing something bad. That's not what this journal is about. It isn't about judging me, it's about discovering me.

So, I write down the time and I think about where I am on the Hunger Scale. Am I a lot hungry, or just a little? How do I feel, physically? Grumbly in the tummy? Light-headed? Am I desperate to eat or just ready? I pick a number on the Scale based on those feelings and write it down.

And then, I think about how I feel emotionally. Am I angry, sad, lonely, bored, happy? Do I feel good about eating now or would I rather wait a little while? Have I waited too long to eat? (Mind you, this is NOT “I should have eaten sooner” - don't judge it, stuff happens.)

Then, as I eat, I try to do it slowly and mindfully. There are all kinds of suggestions around this. Sit down at a table. Set the mood with pleasant music, lighting, pretty tableware, and so on. Put your fork down in between bites. Don't distract yourself with TV or work or the computer or reading. If someone is with you, have a pleasant conversation (avoid arguments or tense subjects at meals). All of these things are hit and miss, depending on where I am and what's available at mealtimes. But what I can control is what happens when I take a bite. The idea is to savor each bite. Look at it, smell it, taste it on all the parts of my tongue and think about it – what is the flavor, what do I like about it, do I enjoy it? Is it hot, spicy, creamy, crunchy, chewy? Sometimes, especially the first bite, I like to close my eyes and just focus on the taste.

That is, I TRY to eat mindfully. I don't always remember, but when I do, I have found that the meal is more satisfying. It doesn't always keep me from eating too much, but sometimes it does. I try to take little breaks, at least once during the meal, to re-evaluate where I am now on the Hunger Scale. As I get near completion, I try to stop and think about whether or not I could be done, right here and now. Sometimes it's yes, but just as often it's no. That's okay – it's not about how much I eat, just that I think about what I'm doing and make a decision.

Now that I've been at this for a while, there are some additional things I get to consider, like balancing what I want vs. what's available and trying to create meals that hit at least several of my needs for satiety (more about that later). Because I'm also diabetic, I also have to consider when I eat and sugar content. (However, that is about health and well-being, not about judgment or “sugar is BAD, m'kay?”) Just now I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to consider the composition of my meals – am I getting enough protein, grains, and freggies? (Again, it's not about NOT having the cheeseburger, it's about whether I'll feel better later having it with a side of fries or a fruit cup instead. Sometimes I choose the fries, sometimes I choose the fruit cup. And sometimes I choose the turkey sandwich instead of the burger, but that's based on what I WANT, not on what I OUGHT to want.)

And finally, at the end of the meal I go back to my food journal and I think about where I am on the Hunger Scale. Could I still eat a little more? Am I satisfied, just full enough? Am I uncomfortably full, and if so, is it a little or a lot? Or am I stuffed, like a binge? Again, how do I feel physically? Am I nauseous? Indigestion? Fine? Still empty? Did eating this meal make me feel better, happier, sadder? Do I feel okay about what I ate or am I upset at any part of it? If I'm beating myself up about something, it's important to write it down and think about it. Am I angry or disappointed that I ate the ice cream? Am I feeling “good” because I had extra veggies? (Note, that's STILL judgment – food is not “good” or “bad” and I am not “good” or “bad” because I choose to eat it!) And again,I pick a number on the Scale based on those feelings and write it down.

I have now filled an entire looseleaf notebook and two full spiral journals of food for the past year-ish. I will still be doing food journals for some time to come, too. It's still hard sometimes to evaluate what I'm feeling. Sometimes I don't feel anything about my meal, and I don't know how to talk about that. But the journal is still surprisingly helpful. And here I'm going to go again – it's helpful to have someone else to go through that journal with me (in my case, my nutritionist). At our last appointment, she was able to notice something about my notes that I had not seen. I was beginning to be more and more critical of myself as well as what and how much I ate. It was subtle, and I couldn't see it, but someone else could. We talked it out, and now I'm guiding myself back on track. (So, as always, get a support team!)

Does this sound like a lot of work? Well, maybe at first, but it becomes natural soon enough, and the benefit is too great to give up. This is, after all, a process. I didn't develop my ED in one day or one month. And, it's harder to UNDO than it was to begin. I know I'm in this for the long haul, and I know that it's tough work, but I also know that I am totally worth it.

Aren't you?

They Have No Power Over Me

So, after a brief break, let’s get back to daily affirmations and the fear of losing the things that I care about. Below is a journal entry from last year, actually from exactly a year ago, minus one day. Funny that, because just this past weekend I was learning this lesson again, but better.

I went to visit my mother and we talked, however briefly, about the pain of my childhood. She is also filled with regret and pain for the past, though that is not what I really wanted for her. I wanted her to be aware, I know that, but I didn’t want her to suffer as I have. I tried to tell her - and you know, I didn’t even realize that I believed it until I said it out loud - that the past is done and gone. That pain has no place in my life any longer, I have finally let my past fall away. Now I get to move on and work on my future and enjoy my present. The past and its monsters are no longer in control of my brain, my emotions. I no longer need to REACT to my past - I may simply ACT in the here and now to take care of myself.

Here’s what I wrote about this one year ago yesterday:

I had a lot to think about after yesterday’s (therapy) session and those affirmations I chose. Last night, while trying to sleep, I kept thinking about why I’m afraid of my feelings, why I think that I will always lose what I love.

But the truth is, that stuff is no longer of any use to me. And as a defense mechanism, it sucks. There is no one now who can hurt me, no one who will use my emotions against me, and no one who can take away the things - the people - that I love. As a child, I was trapped. I couldn’t get away from my mother’s husbands or from the bullies at school. Now, as an adult, I have the power to excise those kinds of people from my life. Like the Goblin King (from the movie Labyrinth), they have no power over me.

I don’t need pain or numbness to blunt my emotions any longer. I don’t need to hide my fears, my anger, my pain, or even my joy. I don’t need to hide in the shower to cry anymore. There is no one left to hurt me - I have left them all behind.

All I will allow in my life are people who love me. I deserve that.


Affirmations:

I THOUGHT that I deserved this pain, but I don’t. 

I deserve good things as much as anyone else. 

I give myself permission to ENJOY. 

(6-4-2011)

Dancing in the Dark

I'm going to take a slight departure for today’s post and jump around in time a little bit. Normally my posts are related to the early days of starting treatment, about a year ago. Today I want to draw attention to the totally non-linear nature of recovery by talking about right now. Recovery is not a matter of: yesterday I felt bad, today I feel a little better and tomorrow I will feel a little better and the next day I will feel a little better and the day after that I will be happy! I say that because a few days ago I felt fantastic and today.... well, today I could just lie down in the mud and let the ED take over because I’m sad and I’m tired and it just seems easier.

So, pardon me, if you will, for a brief whine.

I am sick of thinking about myself. I’m sick of poking around inside myself to see what I’m feeling. I’m sick of having so damn many feelings to think about! (Life was simpler when there was just rage and depression?) I’m sick of eating, of thinking about eating, and of feeling something about eating. I’m sick of lifting myself up and trying to be brave. I’m sick of auto-correcting the mean voice inside my head. I’m even sick of trying to be nice to myself. I haven’t even gone near a mirror today because I know what I will say to myself and I don’t even think I have the energy to say that I’m wrong.

So, um... okay. (Cue the Bruce Springsteen...)

Just so you know, those days will happen. On those days, I pick up my journal or open a new document and I rant it out. See, here I am, right now!

What shall I say to myself?

It’s okay, you know. I can just sit here, if I want to. I don’t have to move forward all the time. I can just breathe and wait for this time to pass. The work is hard; everyone deserves a day off, or a vacation, if that’s what it takes. It doesn’t make me.... wrong. A failure. A bad girl. It just makes me human.

And I know this because it has happened before. I sit with it. I wait it out. Eventually I need to get up and move forward again. Sitting still becomes frustrating and going backward again? Well, that’s just not an option.

Because the one thing I’m even more sick of than doing the work is NOT doing the work. Living every day out of control, feeling sick, wanting to die. That’s all so far away now that going back would take more time and effort and pain than... just sitting here.

I give myself permission to be not okay.

Affirm the Positive

A little more about positive daily affirmations, since I’m on a roll...
Back on my Changing the Voices entry, someone asked me how long it takes to start believing the good stuff. Unfortunately, the only answer is, “It takes as long as it takes.” I guess it’s different for everyone. I honestly can’t tell anyone how to proceed with their own healing, I can only share what is happening with me. I’ve been at it nearly a year, and I’m still only kind of in the middle of it all. There are areas where my confidence is high and areas that are still very low, and even areas that change from day to day. There are days where I feel pretty good about how I look and then the next day I’m fighting the Big Ugly Voice again.

Recovery is entirely cyclical, not linear.

Here’s another example from the past, and how I thought about the world a year ago, in Journal Entry #8:

Day two of therapy today. We talked about positive daily affirmations, in an effort to counter the nasty voice inside my head. I have trouble valuing myself, feeling like I'm worth anything. Two areas to think about, where I rated myself the lowest:

• I give myself permission to shine.
• I deserve the good things in life as much as anybody else.

I know what I'm afraid of - that anything I have or anything I do that's good will get taken away from me. I guess that's what sent me into such a tailspin when [something happened] last year. It seemed to be proof that I was right all along, that anything good would be taken away. I didn't deserve him after all and now I was going to lose him. I think it broke something inside of me that was already pretty fragile.

I've just got to find my way back to that place I was before. My confidence was high and I didn't hate myself so much. I felt love, I felt like a good person. Being fat hurt, but it seemed like I was finally in control of that.

Daily positive affirmations:

I think that I deserve this pain, but I don't.

I deserve good things as much as anyone else.

I give myself permission to shine.

(6/3/2011)

Over time, I’ve released the idea that the good things in my life will always get taken away. That’s an old idea that gave a lot of power over my life to another person. But I’m still working on the permission to shine thing. That’s part of the reason I’m here, blogging my feelings all out loud; I crave attention, but I don’t think that I deserve it.
Honestly, they aren’t kidding when they call therapy “work.”

And Then The World Didn't End

In the past, I always just tried to power through all of the bad stuff. I felt alone, and I also felt that I was just weak. I thought that my “issues” couldn’t be all that bad and if I weren’t such a loser, I could just forget about the past, take control of my life, and everything would just be okay.

But there was something deeper, darker, that frightened me even more than just being weak. I was afraid of showing my weakness, of admitting that I couldn’t handle this crap all alone any more. I was afraid to admit that it was too much, that is WAS that bad, and that I was going to lose control of it. What if I asked for help and it just exploded out all over everything and nobody wanted me around anymore because I was broken and horrible and pathetic? What if they found out what a loser I really am?

But you know what? The people around me - the people I CHOSE to be here with me - they are better than that, and I should have given them more credit for it. Here’s another journal entry from my early days of therapy, Journal #3.

I think that, at this point, I'm just feeling a huge sense of relief. I finally admitted that I need help and the world didn't end after all. I let B. see how messed up I really am and he didn't reject me. Maybe I can deal with the rest from here.

I know the bad feelings will return soon enough, but for now I'm feeling okay, if a little tender. I still don't really want to be around too many people or talk too much, but I can laugh.

(from The Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann)

You are a child of the universe

No less than the trees and the stars.

You deserve to be here.

(5/29/2011)

Hopeless?

I wrote my very first journal entry for therapy just one year ago, on May 27th. I was so full of self-hatred that I could barely move. I spent days just lying on the couch, intermittently sleeping or crying. I got up and pretended to be okay if I absolutely had to - I went in to work a couple of times a week, I managed a Mother’s Day outing, got drunk on my birthday...

I had been dieting fairly successfully for over two years, but once again it was all falling apart. The weight was creeping back up, I couldn’t get interested in counting calories or going back to the gym. It all seemed so useless. And unfair. Besides, no matter what I did or how much weight I lost I was still so ugly, and stupid, and selfish. What did it matter anyway? What did *I* matter, anyway?

And so I go to this therapist and she wants me to talk about myself - no, not just that, to WRITE about myself, about my stupid, selfish feelings. I’m supposed to take a look at these bad things I say to myself and take them back, replace them with things that are good about me.

I had no faith that it would work. But I am a people-pleaser, and I do what I’m told. I wrote the first entry, and the next, and the next, and soon the words were flowing every day and I wanted to write in this journal, I NEEDED to write, to get it out. Sometimes these thoughts are like poison and you have to suck it out, spit them out on the page and take a good hard look at them so that you can heal.

So... the following entry is me, a year ago. How strange and long ago it seems.

Journal Entry #1

I am embarrassed to even keep a journal of this. I don't think that I even like myself enough to sit here and have a conversation with me, and especially not about food, or eating. I hate eating, I hate food, and I hate me.

But I don't want to.

First day of therapy today. Mostly I spilled my guts, said all of the stuff that no one, single person has ever known. I cried a lot. I hate that too. I guess I've gotten soft in my old age, because it's gotten harder NOT to cry in front of other people now.

We set goals:

• Breathe
• Move
• Practice Driving
• Eat (5-6 small meals per day)
• Write

I am a mess. I don't think that I created this mess alone, but I certainly helped. Now the mess is too damn big to clean up all alone. Fortunately, I am not alone. At least there's that.

I'm fat. I'm plain. I'm boring. I'm needy. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm mean. I'm weak. I'm empty. I'm selfish.

I'm smart. I'm funny. I love. I'm a friend. I'm a writer. I'm an auntie. I am loved. I am not alone.

(5/27/2011)

“You think you deserve this pain, but you don’t.”