Book Snob

I have one book left to read for the summer, and need some more. Now since I’m a pathetically poor college student, I’m on a tight budget. No bueno for someone who is a voracious reader and needs books to breath. So I went to a *insert shame* used book store with a bag over my head and picked up a few books.

Pictures of hollis woods. Patricia Reilly Giff. ISBN: 0-439-69239-3

Silent to the bone. E.L. Konigsburg. ISBN: 0-689-86715-8

Someone like you. Sarah Dessen. ISBN: 978-0-14-240177-4

One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I’m a book snob. I DON’T LIKE USED BOOKS. I don't like their smell, worn, tatty pages, or discolored edges. I don't like the idea of someone else's fingers touching my book. It's just not right. And I can save just as much money on Amazon.com.

I feel very passionately about his. Too passionately. I think I need a support group for people like me who can't stand used books.

"Hello, my name is Missing In Sight and I'm a book snob." "Welcome, Missing In Sight."

After I left the nasty, old, decrepit, never-to-be-seen-again used book store, I went to my university for a little running and yoga.

I did a five minute warm-up jog, 45 minutes of tempo work, and 20 minutes of the elliptical machine. My views weren’t as pretty as the trails, but here is what I stared at for about an hour.

While on the elliptical, I ditched obnoxious, bratty Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye and watched Maria Sharapova win the semi-finals at Wimbledon. As she was graciously waving to the crowds

it reminded me of one thing I need to do:

Nuff said.

I topped my exercise off with some serious stretching in yoga. I love that we have the lights off in yoga and form a circle. It makes it so much more intimate and reflective.

Note to self: Nike Tempo Shorts are NOT appropriate attire for yoga class. I treated the class to a view of . . . well, you know. Embarassing!

When I got home I wasn’t feeling well. I feel like I’m coming down with a cold, so I took a nap. Guess who kept me company?

All in a days work

So what does an obsessive, compulsive runner do on her rest day without giving in to bad behaviors? She, along with her Crew, try on different perspectives and outlets to channel her running energy. So that’s what we did today. We explored our options.

The morning got off to a rocky start. We burned our bagel, spilled our beloved walnuts all over the dirty floor, ran out of almond butter *gasp*. But the day was looking up.

By 11:00 we had loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, including the dreaded silverware, folded two loads of laundry, went grocery shopping, and caught up on blogs.

We decided to try our hand at our once loved baking, so we baked a Chocolate Pudding Pie that turned out badly.

(Yes, it’s from a box. Don’t judge me.)

And made two burned pumpkin pies.

(Trust me. You don't want to see the other pie.)

While looking for our pumpkin pie spices we found an old friend.

Hi, there, you "intoxicating" Captain Morgan. (We have a date later. *wink, wink*)

We threw a little love in our day with Johnny Depp and POTC 3.

And gave our piggies some much needed TLC and paint.

And made time to love on these two ugly pound puppies.

So rest day was hard, but we made it a success with no misbehaving. All in a days work, my friends.

XOXO

1/2 Marathon Musings

*sigh* Okay. At the behest of Dietician, I am bowing out of the Atlanta marathon on October 30. When I told Dietician I had scheduled the ½ marathon for October 2 and would run the full marathon October 30, she literally laughed at me and told me I was crazy. It wasn’t the best idea to her. She said my body wouldn’t have time to recover from the ½ marathon and then get geared up for the full marathon. I disagree; I think it would only take me a couple of days to recover from the ½ and I’m very already very close to marathon mileage. But I thought maybe, just maybe, the diplomas lining her office wall might mean something, and maybe I should follow her advice.

So instead of running a ½ marathon and a full marathon in the same month, I’m signed up to race a ½ marathon on October 2 and another ½ marathon on Thanksgiving. There is a full marathon that I can race in March, and I will be better trained and experienced for it. At least that is what my recovery voice is trying to tell me.

In any case, Sundays are still my long run days. I ran 19.14 miles today at a 8:43 second pace. Why I’m running 19 miles when I have no full marathon to train for is a topic for another post. It’s excessive, I know. But in any case, my long runs are times when I think and meditate.

(Another favorite spot of mine. It's on a bridge over a golf course.)

And just like last Sunday when I compared a marathon to recovery, more similarities hit me again today.

When running today, one thing I noticed was how when I stop to refuel (eat my Gu gel or drink my Powerade), it is always so hard to get my legs running again. I stopped at mile nine to refuel and when I hit the resume button on my Garmin and started to run again, my legs weren’t having it. I even stumbled a few times before my legs obeyed my brain and got me back to my running pace.

I pondered how recovery is similar to this. When I stop in my recovery or slow down, when I miss a meal or a snack, it is so hard to get back on track. This past Spring and early Summer were prime examples for me. I started missing meals, not fueling for runs, and ignoring the advice of my treatment team. My recovery was glad because it didn’t have to work hard anymore. It could take it easy. But when I tried getting back on track and doing the things necessary for a healthy me, it was damn hard. My figurative legs wouldn’t move. I had rested in my recovery too long and it showed. But after considerable effort and lots of stumbles, I finally found my recovery legs again.

Another thing I noticed on my run today is how my pace slows down when there are no other runners around me. It’s not that I’m tired or feel I can slack off since other people can’t see me; it’s that there are no other runners to keep me motivated. When I see other people on the trail, it’s like a silent competition. I think to myself, She’s still running. Maybe I can keep going, too.

(Post-run fuel.)

(I think I was a little sweaty when I had my post-run fuel. What do you think?)

Recovery is similar. When we are by ourselves, when we cut ourselves off from other people, when we don’t have the support of a treatment team or friends, our recovery can slow down and lack the encouragement we need to keep on going. I know this very well.

For example, there is a recovery group that meets on Wednesday and Saturday where I live. I’ve noticed that when I stop attending these meetings, it’s the first sign I’m on my way to relapse. Without the support group, I lose focus. I lack encouragement, motivation, and determination to keep on going like my fellow support groupies. But when I attend my meetings, I’m filled with resolve and purpose to be active in my recovery and keep on metaphorically running for my recovery.

So don’t slow down. Don’t stop. Surround yourselves with others, on-line or in real life, who are like-minded and focused on recovery and getting better. Recovery IS a marathon. And as cheesy as it sounds, you can make it, one foot in front of the other, until you reach that finish line.

Clicks and shifts

Today something clicked in me. It was hard to obey the click. But I knew what the consequences would be if I didn’t listen to what the click was telling me.

It began last night when I decided I wanted to run early this morning. Normally my runs are around 11:00 or sometime in the afternoon at the apex of humidity. But my upcoming races are in the early morning, and I wanted to train myself to run between 7:00 and 7:30 to acclimate myself to my race runs. So to better my chances of running in the early morning, I slept in my running clothes, sans the shoes. I did everything I could to prepare myself for an early morning run.

So I got up at my normal time between 6:15 and 6:30. But I was just not awake enough to go running. At least that's what I told myself. I had a banana thinking that would give me some energy and wake me up. Foolish thinking. It’s not like a banana has caffeine.

I kept giving myself increments of time of when I would leave: I’ll leave in fifteen minutes. Okay, make that thirty minutes. I ended up falling back asleep on the couch, and when I woke up, I thought I just wouldn’t run today. If I couldn’t run when I wanted to, it was useless. It was just easier lying on the couch, sleeping, watching t.v., feeling sorry for myself that I once again couldn’t make myself run in the morning.

Silly, Missing In Sight. That’s black and white, all or nothing thinking. But I was all too complacent to give into it.

But as I lie there feeling sorry for myself, something clicked in me. I did a run through with my thoughts, predicted the outcome. I thought my actions, or rather inactions, through and tried to picture how I would feel if I didn’t get in my run. I knew I would feel depressed, would more than likely go off my meal plan, and I would feel fat. Not the best reasons in the world to exercise, but, it is what it is for now.

Then I thought it through as to how I would feel if I went running anyway, even though it wasn’t the exact time I wanted. I knew I would feel better. I knew I would be able to relax the rest of the day, read, follow my meal plan, and not harangue myself for not running two days in a row (I didn't run yesterday, which fed into my feelings of being a failure).

So it clicked in my head. I would go running anyway.

It wasn't a major shift in thinking. It didn't take away all my anxiety. It wasn’t earth shattering. It didn’t move mountains. It didn’t find the cure for cancer. But it was a little gesture toward breaking the black and white thinking that typically dominates my recovery. And to be honest, I will probably have those black and white moments again, where if my life isn’t structured just so, and I can’t follow my self-imposed rules as I set them, I will feel defeated. But just for today, I can celebrate that I didn’t give in to the negative side of myself.

If I hadn’t allowed myself to follow the click in my head, I wouldn’t have enjoyed having fro-yo with my husband (scary as hell, and ultimately not a good idea. Live and learn).

Or gone to see the dollar show with him.

Rango, by the way, was very disappointing, and you’re hearing this from someone who loves Johnny Depp.

So disband the black and white thinking. The all-or-nothing thinking. Recovery can take many forms. It may not look the way we want it, or act the way we want it, but it doesn’t mean we should abandon recovery because it doesn't behave according to our rules.

XOXO

A moment in time

I FAILED TODAY. It was EASY. No effort at all.

I’M AFRIAD THAT IS ALL THAT I AM MADE OF.

New Psychiatrist? Fail.

Disclaimer: you are about to read the ventings, histrionics, rudeness and foul language of MIS. Sensitive eyes need not apply to this information. Please scroll down for today’s gratitude. Thank you, and have a nice day.

So today I got up early (okay, 10:00) and went to see a new psychiatrist, at least I thought I was seeing a new psychiatrist.

We didn't get off to a good start. The front office gave me a freakin’ novel to fill out under the guise of paperwork. Page after page I completed. It took me an hour to fill in just a fraction of my history.

(Me filling out the damn mountain of paperwork.)

So a nurse comes and brings me back and begins to interview me. She must have seen the bewilderment on my face because she tells me once she had all my information down (isn't that what the novel was for?) she would “relay” it to the doctor and then make the recommendations regarding medication. Again, not a good start. Thirty minutes into my interview she says they don’t prescribe to and treat people like me. WTF? What kind of people would that be, I wonder to myself. People with pink streaks in their hair? People who swipe Splendas at Dunkin Donuts? People who think your hair is fucked up and from the fifties?

Apparently they, like the other two psychiatrists and nurse practitioners, don’t see people who have dissociative disorders, eating disorders, or people who have recently escaped from the loony bin. Well, in the words of the late Chris Farley, whoopty-freakin-do! Excuse the hell out of me. I didn’t realize I was so f’ed up and that I was such a safety risk that 3 out of 3 doctors couldn’t treat me. What the hell do I do now? I have been rejected by 3 doctors and 2 nurse-practitioners. *Insert sarcasm* Thanks, guys! I’m sure your patients are really lucky to have you.

In addition, after I was told they didn’t treat people like me, the bitch kept asking me questions about my history. She asked about abuse, parts, dissociative symptoms, etc. I asked her why she needed to know if they weren’t going to prescribe medication. That info is on a need-to-know basis. Dumb bitch. If you can't prescribe me medication, what the hell am I still doing in your fucking office?

So my attempt at finding a new psychiatrist was a flaming, fat, fucking fail. (My professor would love the alliteration. I digress.)

In other news, I saw Dietician last night (put me in a bad mood so I didn’t blog) and went to see Secondary Therapist today. I arrived at Secondary Therapist’s office early, so I drove around the neighborhood to kill time and found, to my delight, a Dunkin Donuts (no I didn’t swipe Splendas this time. The clerk was watching me.) So I crossed three lanes of traffic, cut a mustang off, and was the recipient of some very nasty hand gestures, but I didn’t care. I got my iced coffee fix.

(Nothing makes therapy more palatable than sipping an iced coffee while therapist tells you you’re a lost cause.)

(Finished with therapy! But out of iced coffee. Boo.)

Lastly, we miss Primary Therapist. He’s on vacay this week and we didn’t see him last week either. Not sure WHY we miss him, but we do. No wonder psychiatrists won’t treat us. We really must be sick in the head.

Today’s gratitude:

We set a new PR in our running today!

Got the letter today we made President's list for Spring semester!

Husband is continuing to improve with his ECT treatments. He even suggested seeing a movie tomorrow!

TMI

This is filed under the category of TMI, but, oh well. I’m going to share something with you I’m not proud of. Here goes:

The mess in the room is so bad, I couldn't even get in the room to take "good" pictures. And the lighting sucks, but I'm a blogger, not a professional photographer.

Recently Back in November we had a yard sale. What didn’t sell we tossed in my “daughter’s” room. Since I was working and in school full-time, my schedule didn't permit me to organize her room. The semester ended, I had more time, but I was on winter break and wanted to rest. So the room sat. And it sat. And it sat.

Until today. What is so special about today? It’s my rest day. After running over 17 miles yesterday, my legs mandated that they be given rest today. WTF? No exercise? Not good. I don’t do well when I can’t run. I was born without the gene that lets you figure out how to spend your day even when it doesn't revolve around running and food.

So in the vein of recovery and not giving into my self-destructive thoughts and behaviors when I can't workout, I stole borrowed a bookcase from birth mother and got my clean on.

Drum roll, please.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I spent my day.

The marathon of recovery

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."
--Thomas Edison

This isn’t an ode to Father’s Day post. I have issues with Father’s Day. I have issues with fathers. I plain have issues.

But I digress.

As I think I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’m training for a marathon. In doing so, I complete a long run once a week where I train and add to my mileage. I will spare you the numbers, pace, speed, etc. I know many of you suffer with eating disorders, and I don’t want to trigger you. But I will say on my long runs there is ample time to reflect and think and meditate.

(When I’m in the middle of a run I don’t often stop to take pictures, but today was different. Want to see where I meditate?)

Beautiful, isn't it?

Anyway, as I was running, it occurred to me how much recovery (from anything, i.e. eating disorders, alcohol and drug addiction, OCD, BPD) is like a marathon. Recovery is not a sprint, nor is it over once you are weight restored, followed your meal plan, been self-mutilation free, or sober for X amount of days. Yes, that is an accomplishment, but recovery isn’t over at that point. That’s when the marathon of recovery BEGINS.

I was obsessively reading on-line recently that many runners train and race with injuries. (I’ve run on many aches and pains myself. I’m still waiting for the feeling to return to my legs after today’s run.) What I thought interesting about these runners was that they alter some aspect of their training to facilitate the healing of their injury. Maybe they include a few more rest days. Maybe they run their next jaunt a little slower. Maybe they do more physical therapy. But they do SOMETHING to ensure their health and their ability to continue to run.

Why should recovery be any different? We may have sustained our own injuries along the way. Some of us may be injured by abuse, poor family dynamics, relationship issues, or whatever. Why should that detract us from our ultimate goal of recovery? If anything, these “injuries” should be learning experiences that help us see what in our training we need to tweak. Just like the runner, these moments provide reflection to see what aspect of our training we need to alter so that we may continue our marathon of recovery.

Just like running, recovery also happens at different speeds. When I run a race, I make it a point to start out slow. I conserve my energy for later in the race when I’m getting weak and tired and need all the energy I can muster to complete the race. Sure, I will see people pass me in the beginning. That doesn’t mean they will run a better or more fulfilling race, because, experience has shown me, I will pass them later in the race since I’ve conserved my energy and they spent theirs in the beginning.

Recovery is the same. We may see people who pass us on the journey. It might appear that it is easier for them to follow their meal plan or to make friends or talk about painful subjects. But that doesn’t mean their marathon is more productive or they’ll reach the figurative finish line before we do. It’s been my experience that those who jump at the start of the race gun end up burning out and relapsing.

(My thoughts were so much more coherent and eloquent this morning when I was running. That’s what oxygenated blood flow and humidity will do for you.)

The point I’m laboring to make is that recovery is a marathon. We are in a rigorous, demanding, and challenging training program to lead a life free from our disease, our obsessions, and our disorders. It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years of training to get recovery. But slow and steady wins the race. We may have to pace ourselves more than others. Take things a bit slower. But if we keep putting one foot in front of the other, we will eventually win the race.

Now go get your run on.

Growing up

I tried on a new me today. As I mentioned in my previous post, Lost and Found, I had plans today to put on my grownup, big girl shorts and attitude and drive my fraidy-cat self to down-town Atlanta for a practice run for the Peachtree Road Race.

And I did it!

I woke up unnaturally at 5:30 (damn alarm clock) and ate my normal pre-race breakfast of half a bagel with 2 tbsp of almond butter and a banana (so much food is still a fear for my E.D., but I do it anyway). I was so nervous my stomach decided to grumble and complain about the food until it recoiled at even a hydrating drop of water. But I didn't let it deter me. At 6:30 I left my house and turned on my GPS and navigated the suburbs, highways, and byways to find Big Peach Running Company, the meet-up destination for the participants. Just making it by myself to Atlanta was a score, so I didn’t care if I ran or not.

Not really. I was all about the run.

Since I left early, I arrived early: 7:00. As we were waiting until 7:30 for everyone to arrive, I sat down on the sidewalk and looked down and noticed something funny. Can you tell what it is?

In the 5:30 am, no-coffee-allowed-before-a-race mind fog, I changed out one sock and not the other. So I have on two different socks. Someone less anal than me would have been, “Oh, well,” but not me. So I went inside the store and found a pair of socks.

I didn’t know what to expect, if anything, from “special” running socks, but they were SO not worth the $10 bucks I paid on the fly for them. Boo. But at least I matched after that.

Anyway, at 7:30 we divided ourselves into wave groups according to pace, and when it was my group's turn to go, all I could hear was the sound of beeps going off from everyone’s Garmin being set. I found it amusing. I don’t know why, because I have a Garmin and mine was one of the many beeps playing music, but, still, it made me chuckle. Runners are a peculiar lot.

So I had no warm-up and foolishly didn’t stretch, and I paid dearly for it in the beginning of the run. It wasn’t until after the first mile that I finally began to get in my zone. I had my iPod playing and I was feeling pretty good and was looking around at all the Atlanta landmarks I’ve never seen before. I turned around and looked behind me, and I saw no one. I was the last one in my group. I was the freakin’ caboose. Did this bother my recovery minded, compete-with-no-one, compare yourself to no one attitude? Hell, yeah! But I was still making great time, so I just focused on the backs of the runners in front of me and kept going.

I was warned that around mile four we would come to what has been affectionately known as Cardiac Hill/Heart attack Hill/Heartbreak Hill. Take your pick, they’re all freakin’ true. For one whole miserable mile, it was all uphill. I stopped once, but only for two seconds. Then kept right on going.

All in all, the run took us from Brookhaven to Midtown, a total of 7.0 miles. When we were done, we were given Marta Breeze passes for free to transport us back to Brookhaven where we were parked. Aside from the sock incident, the no stretching, and being the caboose, my run had gone off without a hitch. . . until I made it to the Marta station. I didn’t know what the heck a Breeze pass was or how to use it. I felt really scared, lost, and overwhelmed. I didn't know what to do without looking like a total incompetent. There were other runners in my group using Marta and I could see them staring at my indecision. Finally I summoned the station attendant and asked him what the heck I was doing. He was less than helpful, almost indignant that I didn’t know what to do. So I just copied what my fellow runners were doing and how they were doing it.

I know I looked naïve, but that’s because I am. And that’s okay. I grew up a little today by taking on a new experience, putting myself in new situations, opening myself up to the possibility of good things happening. New experiences always have bumps and curves in the road; there’s no shame in that. It’s how we navigate those turns that prove how successful we are.

And I consider today to be a success!

Lost and found

I’m finding my Husband again. Today was his fourth treatment of ECT (of which I will speak more in a later post), his second bi-lateral shock, and I think I’m starting to see results in him. He is less withdrawn, more engaged, and literally there seems to be a light coming back into his eyes. His days of being glued to the bed are lessening and he shows interest in things other than dying. It’s been hard living with his illness and coping with mine. How hopeful it would be if we were both on the mend.




After Husband’s ECT treatment today, we decided to go out. I had some workout clothes to return to TJ Maxx (I ended up buying more!), and he wanted to eat at Olive Garden. I am still not in a place mentally where I can eat out and not feel guilty, but I wasn’t about to say no to the first time he showed interest in food other than cereal. So we went. I already knew what the “safe” choice was: soup, salad, and bread.






I had one bowl of Minestrone, 1 breadstick, and 1 plate of salad. Though I didn’t go overboard, E.D. still wouldn’t let me feel good at the milestone of eating in public, eating healthy, and doing so only with earning my food on a measly 3.2 mile run in the morning.

But E.D. can talk all he wants. It doesn’t mean I have to listen. And as many of you know, night time is the hardest time for me. It's when the E.D. thoughts and self-destructive thoughts are at their peak. So I’ve prepared to occupy my time by finishing my book, Looking for Alaska, and watching probably the dumbest movie ever, “Grownups” with Adam Sandler.

On the plus side, I treated myself to OPI’s new Shatter nail polish in Black Shatter and OPI’s other color, “Shorts Story” for the underneath color.




So I’m looking at the positives of the day: My wonderfully made legs ran me 3.2 miles, I ate lunch out with Husband, and I have some cool new nail polishes to try!
I hope you did something positive for yourself today! You deserve it!

Changing my outlook on change

For some of us it’s pretty uncomfortable. For me, it’s down-right painful. But to grow in life and to change, unpleasant situations are necessary.

I remember for Spring semester an assignment Professor had given the class that was met with profound and immeasurable moans and groans. We were to complete an extensive amount of writing in numerous genres in a relatively short amount of time. Many of the genres in which we were to write we had no experience with, so, the class was a bit overwhelmed to say the least.

The Professor said something I hope never to forget. He remarked, and I paraphrase, that in order to grow and learn we must step outside of our comfort zones, our homey little boxes in which we live and know intimately. We must attempt situations and goals of which we have no experience and pretend to DO what we wish to learn, so that we can eventually master the task through horrid trial and error. It’s how we grow. Something like that anyway.

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

I’ve never been good at new situations. I’ve never been good at going outside my comfort zone and making friends, exploring new places to visit or eat. I stay wrapped up in my safe bubble. But this weekend will be different. I’m competing in the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, GA on July 4th and have NO idea what to expect, except for unbearable heat and humidity. However, there are participants going out on a practice run Saturday and I’ve sheepishly decided to join them. I’m not worried about running the 6.2 miles. What I’m worried about is the drive downtown (I don’t like to leave my subdivision, much less trek through Atlanta traffic and fight for a parking space so I can breathe heavy with 200 other people) and the aforementioned 200 other people frighten me as well. Crowds scare me. Normally Husband would accompany me, drive me where I needed to go, be my familiar in an unknown world. He would be my safety net, my comfort zone. But because of his ECT treatments, I wouldn’t dare ask him to drive me downtown and wait an hour while I run with strangers. He’s not feeling up to it, and that would prove counterproductive to my growth and recovery.

So I’m putting my big girl Nike shorts on this weekend and driving my grown up self to Atlanta to do a practice run with 200 strangers. I don’t know what to expect, but I’m hoping to meet some people, share a few laughs, swap a few stories, and just have a good time. I am attempting to grow and learn by taking on new challenges; working out my proverbial muscles so they will get stronger, so to speak. We’ll see how it goes. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

And as for the assignment Professor gave the class, it was an uncomfortable journey, but I got an A, and hopefully it has helped me to become a better writer.

Cheers!

No more Groundhog Day

It started out a bitter day. Up at 5:30 to take Husband to ECT treatments. I’ve discovered I’m ill-equipped to be his nurse. Husband’s being ill brings out the child in me. Perhaps it was from years of playing mother and nurse to the birth mother. I was her caregiver, not the other way around. I was her mother, her nurse, her caregiver, her everything.

But as we were waiting for all the paperwork nonsense and the IV’s and the ever late doctor to arrive, I sat and cried. Not because I was worried for Husband (which I am), but because I feel overwhelmed and lacking in resources to give him the attention that deserves but I feel I need. Which sounds selfish, I KNOW. I realize I’m NOT the one being induced with a seizure in order to scare away my depression temporarily.

But it is what it is. I was reduced to tears and hiding internally, which he noticed and only served to stress him more. So I’ve decided to have birth mother take him so I can take care of myself while I’m still trying to recover and find the internal part that can take better care of him than I can.

After we brought him home and he retired to bed with fatigue, grogginess, and a headache, we had a decision to make: We could continue to lock ourselves away inside our head, go to bed, binge/purge, or we could do something positive for ourselves.
So we decided to go for a run. We made sure Husband was okay, and we put on our running gear and fled the scene. The run was a little more than our usual 10k; that was our E.D. talking and trying to make up for the debacle of binging/purging that ensued yesterday. But we were well fueled and could tolerate the extra mileage with ease. The only problem we encountered was our slow pace. Running is as much mental as it is physical, and our depression dominated the first part of our run, insisting that we run at a slower pace than usual.

But the beauty of a run is that the world slips away and you get lost in the pounding of your feet on the pavement, the allure of the mile markers waving goodbye, the thump of the music in your ear. Soon we were running at a pace faster than normal. . . and it felt therapeutic.

The run saved us from ourselves.

We came home to the same Husband tied to his bed, which would normally drag us down. But while he is recovering from his ECT and depression, we are in recovery, too, and can not forget to take care of ourselves.

So we showered, applied our face, which we have neglected lately, feeling all too ugly, and endeavored the thirty minute drive to Secondary Therapist’s office for our scheduled appointment. Why is this an accomplishment, you ask? Because yesterday we could not pull ourselves together to save our life. We canceled Primary Therapist’s appointment and reduced ourselves to a brief phone session with Dietician.

In retrospect, we’ve realized what a mistake we made. We realized that we only take ourselves to our therapy appointments when we are doing well. What sense does that make? It is because we don’t want others (our treatment team) to see us at our worst for fear of embarrassment and judgement, especially of Primary Therapist. However, it’s when we are in the deepest pits of hell, as we were yesterday, that we should have taken our tear stained face, pajama clad body, and blistered knuckles from purging and hauled ass to Therapist and Dietitian's office. A lesson learned indeed. If they can’t handle our lowest of our lows, then they aren’t the treatment team for us. However, I think they can handle it and would have welcomed it over missed appointments.

So, for today, nothing changed but us and the way we reacted to Husband’s ECT treatment. For our recovery, we went for a run and made it to Secondary Therapist’s appointment. Score two for us! Go Team!

What positive step did you make today toward recovery, whether it was your eating disorder, your depression, your cutting, your anything?

Some days are better than others. . .

But today, not so much. It’s challenging today, Evenings are the worst, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel I have hours to kill before bed, and I’m trying to do so without bingeing and purging.

If I look at it honestly, I’m not using any of the coping skills in my repertoire, because I’m just too damn tired. I don’t want to do Sodoku, play with the dogs, read a book, watch a movie, play cards, ect . . . , and I have no friends to call to help me get through the rough moments, hours, days, and weeks. For now, I don’t want to do anything except will the panic away. I rented two movies earlier in the day preparing for this moment of panic and anxiety, but am uninterested in what I rented. All that I care to do is eat something, anything, and purge it.

But I’m trying to follow the actions through. In the short term it might make me feel better to purge, but in the long run I will feel worse, both physically and mentally. I realize this truth in my MIND, but my HEART hasn’t caught on to the notion. And my heart is wondering why the hell it can’t feel better right now. My heart is breaking open desperately. And it bargains if I can’t binge and purge, then let me burn myself. Just a small place on my arm and it will feel better. I will give anything to feel better. Just don’t ask what is wrong, because I fucking don’t know. It’s just all wrong. And I feel so alone.

I know my internal tantrums are partly because my meal plan is increased, and I haven’t worked out today. It’s a rest day. Shit on that. I skimped on dinner to make up for it. I took an ill-advised trip to the grocery store with Husband (he can’t drive as he had a 2nd round of ECT today. More on that later). I peruse the aisles, looking at all the means to an end, fantasize about all the food I could easily purge. I know through past experience if I just let myself relax and have some of those “forbidden” foods, I won’t crave them so much or want to binge on them. But I will not find the bridge to that nirvana anytime soon, because I’m soooo terrified of gaining weight and adamantly refuse to gain weight that the joy of eating what my body craves must remain a mystery to me.

This is not a way to “live.” It’s a self-induced, slow acting death.

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.

On the Hunt

Why is this so hard? I’m on the hunt down for a new psychiatrist, and my search is not going so well.

One option would be to see the psychiatrist I had prior to my hospitalization, but I fired him due to stupidity and complacency on his part. Another option would be to see the psychiatrist I had while inpatient, but the rumors of long waits in the waiting room and his dozing off in sessions scare me away, so that’s no good.

So…., I consulted my insurance panel and picked a new psychiatrist who listed among his specialties eating disorders and dissociative disorders and mentioned he was accepting new patients. So I called said psychiatrist’s office to make a new patient appointment. After listening to a ten minute recording of the fax number, address, if I’m having a medical emergency dial 911, blah, blah, blah, I am told to leave a message and the new patient coordinator would get back with me.

27 hours later, New Patient Coordinator returns my call and informs me that the psychiatrist is not accepting new patients, but his partner is. “Sure. No problem,” I say. When New Patient Coordinator learns I just escaped from the loony bin, I am shot down again because the alternate psychiatrist does not see patients who have been in the hospital within the past year. Excuse me? What the . . .?

I’m amused and pissed at the same time. Why are certain doctors so discriminatory? Does he only want to treat healthy people? Or is he just freakin’ incompetent and can’t treat people who have just come out of crisis? I just don’t understand.

So I’m offered the possibility of the nurse practitioner. Maybe I’m too easy, or just don’t want to fight the battle, but I agree to see a nurse practitioner. After all, I see a nurse practitioner for my migraines and love her.
So New Patient Coordinator told me she would have to consult with Nurse Practitioner and make sure the aforementioned would want to handle “my case.” Still haven’t heard back.

Getting help shouldn’t be this hard.

Hunger games

Read the Hunger Games series? It's pretty good, though has nothing to do with eating disorders like I thought it did.

I hear the clock in my living room ticking and tocking. The ticks remind me it’s dinner time, as if I needed the reminder. I don’t. I’m painfully aware that it’s time to eat. My stomach rumbles. Something inside of me smiles at the emptiness, at the depletion. Hunger is a comfort. Hunger is safe.

I’m probably using this blog posting as a stalling technique. “Can’t eat now. I need to finish my post, get out my feelings” I think. I know what I’m doing: forestalling the inevitable. I will eat. I don’t know what, or how much, but I will eat.

Today was a “rest” day. Yesterday we ran 15.4 miles, so today we are doing what the coaches tell us to do and resting our body so it can repair itself. Resting is a hard thing to do, especially when I feel I can run again today. I itch to run. Running has become a need. It’s dangerous NOT to run. On days we don’t run we have a greater need to binge and purge. We’ve already alerted Husband of our current need to binge and purge, and we’ve asked him not to let us go to the store alone, or shower with the door closed. We’ve told on ourselves, called ourselves out. Hopefully that will be all that is needed, because we know deep down, when push comes to shove, if we want to purge, we will. Nothing he can say or do can deny us.

Therapist thinks we give in to the urge too easily. I say forget that. We’ve sat with the feeling now for three hours. It doesn’t go away.

But we’re trying to think about the good things of the day. We went to Water Park today, and it was bliss. We spent four glorious hours reading our book, basking in the therapeutic rays of the sun, cooling off in the lazy push of the water, and riding the man-made waves. The evening will be about stroking my doggy’s fur, reading my book, catching up on blogs, and chasing the moments away ten minutes at a time.

Remember me?

There’s not much to say, or maybe I’m just too tired to say it all, but since it’s been a while I thought I would provide you readers with an update.

I got out of the hospital Thursday. I begged and pleaded to get out. I went in at my treatment team’s recommendation and my husband’s insistence. It was their opinion I needed to go in because I wasn’t eating and I had lost weight. Once I got in there I just wanted out. I didn’t want to eat their food or gain any weight. So I was out after five days. Probably not the best idea to get out so early, but my running shoes were calling and I wasn’t prepared for the dictations and limitations of the hospital.

I’m trying to handle my disordered eating and thoughts on an outpatient basis. So far I’ve been in trouble. My eating hasn’t been what it should be given my running, and I’ve had two bouts of binging and purging since Thursday. I know I’ve got to get it under control, because I only have a year of school left and this upcoming Fall semester will be extremely important given I’ll be in the public school system teaching.

I quit my job. I was becoming too sick to work. I had no energy to carry out my job and I was becoming less than pleasant to the customers. So I’m a free woman all Summer. No job. No school. No stress. I’m dedicating this Summer to recovery.

Recovery. Been there. Done that. I don’t know how I ended back in the disordered eating zone, or the I’m so worthless and fat space, but here I am. I’ll expound my theories on that in a later post. But for now, this is where I am. And other than devoting my time to recovery, lying out by the pool, training for a marathon, and reading a stack of books this summer, I plan on blogging more.

It’s good to be back.

A serious face ends up in one place

Trigger Warning for talk of intimacy.






I can't catch my breath, I've been crying so hard. I can't seem to stop. The flood gates opened at work today, and now at home. And it hurts so bad.

I work in a major department store as a cosmetics floater; I fill in for the regular employees when they are sick or on vacation. So I don't work in one specific area. I approached my boss today, told I was grateful for my job, but I would prefer to be at a permanent location. She said was wasn't thinking of moving me to a permanent position because she had concerns over my “serious face” and my lack of smiling. She said I was unapproachable. And then the tears began. I've been told I don't smile enough before and that has always pained me, because when I think I'm smiling everyone tells me I have a sad look.

So I don't think I can change this about myself. Boss Lady told me that she can see I'm trying to smile, but it doesn't come naturally and doesn't come from the inside, and customers will notice that.

I've always lacked the carefree, happy-go-lucky attitude. When I was in third grade some of my poetry was entered into a contest. The feedback I got back was that it was too serious, too dark, and not happy enough for an 8 year old. Story of my life.

Now, because of the comments by my Boss Lady, I feel worthless. I feel like I'm not made good for anything. Everyone does everything better and I never stood a chance. What made me this way? Did he? There is no hope for me.

Later this evening, Husband and I were intimate. And it hurt over and over. I couldn't catch my breath because of the pain, but I didn't want to say anything to him or ruin his pleasure. When it was finished, I started bawling, not from the pain, but from what it reminded me of. It reminded of when Abuser hurt me as a little girl by having sex with me, a seven year old. Husband was beautiful while I cried. He just held me and let me sob away, promising we would never do it when it hurt again. But I'm still crying.

I hate Therapist. He thinks we'll get better. He says we've made progress. But he's not there for these moments. He doesn't see how bad it gets. The hopelessness, the helplessness, the crying, the want for everything pure and innocent. To find a time when maybe I wasn't so tainted, so cheapened, so serious, so misfit. And I hate myself for believing his bull shit. He doesn't know me. If he did, he would see I'm dead inside. And I can't be resurrected. And I just want it all to go away. I want me to go away. It's been a bad life that I was reminded of in one day.

Am I really going to publish this? LHM

I can not believe I’m going to write this.

I need help. I have a dilemma and I would like feedback on this. Of course I will take it up with Therapist, but I need second and third opinions.
Last night I saw Dietician. My weight dropped. I thought I was doing better, but, according to Dietician, I’m not replenishing myself enough after my runs. (I’m training for a 10K.) It’s also the reason the constant desire and thought to eat and purge is so, so strong. In our conversation, she warned me as soon as I started giving my body what it needs I would gain a few pounds because I can not maintain my weight and give my body the nutrients it wants. (This sets up a whole different post for a different time.)

I am not happy about this. I hate my weight, and, more specifically, the shape of my body. I am pear shaped. I perceive more fat around my hips and thighs than other women have. I’ve done body tracings and this has only confirmed what I know. I am extremely curvy in the region. I don’t like the way my body looks in spandex. I feel like my thighs just jut out. (so embarrassed to be writing this.) I hate the way I look when I do lunges. Again, my thighs form a peak on the outside of my leg and it looks unattractive. I’ve always had trouble finding jeans to fit me because my waist is extremely small in ratio to my hips and thighs. And my hatred of this area also fits into not wanting my thighs to touch, which the eagerly do. I hate, hate, hate this part of my body. This part of my body is what makes me fat.
Dietician thinks my body image is just distorted, but it’s not. I’ve hated my hips and thighs since I was ten years old. I remember the exact moment and what I was wearing when I realized my hips and thighs were too big.

Dietician asked if I talked about my body image issues with Therapist. I told her no. When she asked what we talked about, I thought hard but couldn’t come up with an answer. I really don’t know what we talk about, but it’s not body image. The reason I know it’s not body image is because it’s something I don’t feel comfortable discussing with him.
That feels wrong to me on so many levels. Shouldn’t I be able to tell him anything? The man I trust most, second to my husband? But it feels too personal and I don’t know that he’d understand. Maybe I should try and discuss it with him…force my way through the awkwardness. I don’t know.

But Dietician was insistent I discuss my body image issues with someone. So she recommended I add an additional therapist to my lineup. She said I would never get better unless I got over the shame about my perceived body flaws.
So here I am, not knowing what to do. Of course I’ll discuss it with Therapist, but it seems like a betrayal to imply he’s only qualified to help me in certain areas and inadequate to help in other areas. And don’t you think the two go hand in hand? Eating disorders and DID? How can I talk about my body to a therapist without revealing something about the DID? I’m not willing for another therapist to know about it. But what if it would help? That’s the question I keep going back to. I’m so tired of struggling with my body and food. This last venture into the world of disordered eating was sparked by the meeting with Abuser X over the summer. I don’t want to talk about abuse issues with a body image therapist. But what if it would help?

So I don’t know if I’m not giving Therapist enough credit and me enough room to be vulnerable, or if it would be better to add another therapist to my treatment team. I’m in a conundrum. Any thoughts out there?

Cuts like a knife

I don’t feel well today. I don’t feel well any days.

Could it be for purging this morning? Probably.

Could it be for having lunch with a “childhood” friend ? Probably.

Could it be for just having lunch? Probably.

Could it be the anxiety over due dates and deadlines? Probably.

Could it be the anxiety over feeling like a failure? Probably.

Could it be the sadness over a wasted life? Definitely.

I cried in writing class yesterday. We had to draw memory maps, make annotations of things we remembered from when we were nine and ten years old. I was never nine or ten, but someone was and they cried over drawing the neighbor’s garage. They said bad things happened there.

I just put my head down and let the droplets of tears hit the floor, praying no one would notice. I couldn’t get up and leave without people noticing me. I just looked down and waited for the tears to finally stop.
And today my assignment is to work on a writing piece based on when I was nine years old. And all I can do is cry and cry by my lonely self. And I’m sobbing like a nine year old that can’t catch her breath and whose chest is heaving up and down, trying to find breath.

And I’m all alone. And I hurt so deeply it cuts like a knife. But nobody knows it but me.

Religion Part 1 - With a Side of Dreams

For my benefit I write this post. For my anxiety I disclose these words.

In the last thirty six hours I’ve purged five times. I feel completely out of control.

Session with Therapist was deeply disturbing today, but I don’t feel as bothered by it as I do the dreams that hacked at my sleep all night. It was the usual dream: my being around abuser X and abuser X denying what he did to us and me just trying to make him admit it. In the dream there were the other “family” members who were so non-chalant to his presence. Everyone was acting normal towards him. Both sides of the “family” was there, which was an odd part of the dream. I never speak to the other side of the family, not because I don’t like them, I just feel like they don’t “get” me and don’t understand how to handle me.

We have a cousin who is older than us by just a couple of years and in this dream she was going through a hard time. She was sleeping on the floor or an air mattress like we do because beds terrified her. I asked her questions and was surprised to get responses. It turned out she was me, just inverted. She had just begun to deal with the abuse by her older brother. She reminds me of a member of my system.
This dream has rocked my world today. The anxiety has been unbearable and I just want everything to stop. I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s more than I bargained for. It’s more than I can handle. I feel like I’m doing this alone and I want to stop. I want to effing stop this "journey."

I could have brought this up with Therapist today, but we were too busy being disturbed by a different topic on the table: religion. I don’t like discussing religion or my beliefs. My beliefs are significantly different than some of the other crew members and I don’t want to be blasphemous to something they believe.
We were raised very religious. Christian. I’ll leave out the name of the specific denomination because I don’t want to put it in a difficult light. Even though I don’t believe in it, I can still respect it enough to protect it. But I want nothing to do with religion. I remember the birth mother shoving it down our throats, always pulling out her study books, trying to teach us, and acting superior to us. She always tried to quiz us on various topics and events in the Bible, “just for fun.” Only it wasn’t fun for me. In addition, the place of worship became an unsafe place for me. I remember being around eight years old and refusing to close my eyes during prayer because I wanted to know what was going on around me, not because I was afraid of prayer, but I was afraid of what happened when I closed my eyes. It was protective.

I also hated the songs. They were beautiful songs, and Birth Mother taught them to us before we could read them. The songs were very inspiring and would pull on our heart strings, but I don’t go for that emotional bull sh*t, so I didn’t like it. I know the music would make some members cry, but I don’t think it was a good cry. I think they cried because the music made them feel empty and deficient.
The damage by abusers had already been done. We were already emotional and tearful and not put together well. So when the music was added to our emotional state the result was feeling empty and helpless.

That’s enough m*effing, bull sh*t for now. I’ll write more later.

If only the words would come alive I could tell you what is deadening my heart, what is making me screech in the silent darkness. I can't speak the words threatening my sanity. I can't speak the words that would save me.