Saturday, June 11, 2011

Safety at a premium

In one of my writing courses in college to be an English teacher, we were taught not to wait until we had something to say or a topic on our mind in order to write. We were instructed to write to find out what to write about. Given the unexplained rampant panic burrowing in my bones and fat cells, that is what I’m attempting to do.
This anxiety could be could be explained over the food I’m eating. I’m starting to have my meal plan increased, which means I’m eating more, which means I’m feeling less empty and safe, which means I’m gaining weight and I’ll die from the . . . actually I can’t finish that. If I gain weight I won’t die; I’ll just fucking want to.

Even though it feels I’m gaining weight, today was not a good run day. I ran 3.2 miles and was so depleted of energy. I did meet my goal of finishing in under 28 minutes, I dragged myself across the finishing point.

Even with the run today, I have felt panicked all the time. I kept myself busy and active today, not resting, not being a couch potato, and twisting it in my head that I’ve burned my calories, I wanted nothing more than to eat and purge tonight, and that’s unusual. On run days, I never want to purge. In a sense, my run is my purge. But I want to lose weight, even if it’s just five pounds, and I feel if I purge dinner then I will be safe. Safe. Safe. Safe. Why is all about fucking safety?
I didn’t purge. Instead I’m here typing away my mundane thoughts, boring the hell out of my readers, and whining about being unsafe. I can’t care about that right now. I can only care about keeping it together the rest of the night.

Husband and I are fighting on what to do tomorrow. He wants to go to Water Park. I have a long run scheduled, and ate my full meal plan today thinking that would give me the energy I needed for the run. If I go to Water Park, it’s all in vain.
Off topic: Since I’ve only got one year of school left, and the majority of that is doing my student teaching in the public school system, I’ve been thinking of what my future really holds. Therapist and I had a derivation of this topic this week.

Careers and life seem so easy for everybody else. But for me, they are broken down. From the largest anything to the smallest is complicated and a battle for me. Nothing is easy. A trip to the store to pick up one item becomes an epic battle inside the splintered mind. After hours in the store, indecision can not gives way and we walk away with everything we don’t need but wanted. It feels like, as I’ve mentioned to Therapist before, there is something innately wrong with me that won’t allow me to function on a normal level.

But birth mother had the nerve to ask me a question to which I could not supply an answer. For now, I have a hard time finding the mental energy to clean and cook and run errands. I can’t do anything without the aide or company of Husband. So birth-mother mentioned it wasn’t always this way. That I could cook and clean before Husband. So what’s changed is the question.

The only thing I can think of is that when we first married I wasn’t in school or working. There were no stressors. I could function better. But now that I’m in school, I don’t do as well as I did before. But then there’s a twist: I’m out of school for the summer and still having a hard time doing mundane, household chores. Is it because my mind is wrapped and cocooned inside an eating disorder and there is still no energy or focus left for life?

Whatever the cause, these next two semesters will determine what I’m made of. And I’m freakin’ scared. I would rather be a little girl, standing in the corner, waiting for someone to rescue her and protect her, and that’s not normal. That’s what my depths in the eating disorder have done: forced others to rescue me and the little girl to protect us, and we/I am an adult. That’s my job now. Only I don’t know how to do it, if I want to do it, if I can do it. The little girl(s) inside me need me, but I feel a failure and am too damaged to care for myself, let alone them. At least that’s the bull shit I feed myself to find another way of not having to take care of us.

But seriously, the proposition of rescuing the little girl and not calling on the eating disorder to protect us is a prospect I am ill-equipped for.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

After reading about your struggles with eating, I'm beginning to believe that for you, as for me, you have to think about food all the time - to psych yourself up. I have to think about food all the time to make sure I know what I'm eating so I don't GAIN weight. If donuts and brownies were their own food group good for me, I wouldn't have a problem. I feel for you, I think you'll probably do fine student teaching. Your littles will love it - may even get you thru it!