Oh, no! She didn't!!

It can happen so quickly. One comment can shoot you right down out of the sky. That happened to me today at the gym. I was down stairs lifting weights, feeling pretty good, and a woman that I see there on a regular basis came up to me and proceeds to tell me that, according to her, she thinks I look much healthier now. She says for a while I had been too thin and looked peaked and sickly. Yes, she says, I look much better now.

I realize she meant to pay me a compliment and how could she know that I’m recovering from an eating disorder. However, even with knowing this, I suddenly felt fat and ugly and disgusting. There are some things you should never say to someone with an eating disorder, and that includes commenting on weight and appearance.

It surprised me just how much her comments affected me. I immediately started thinking I was gaining weight which made me depressed. What an irrational conclusion based on an innocent comment! But my thoughts didn’t get any better. My knee jerk reaction was to over exercise and to start restricting to lose weight again. But I did neither. I exercised my two hours, had snack on the elliptical machine, and left. And in spite of my feelings, I adhered to my meal plan for dinner. Dinner is never easy, as it is the last meal of the day, but tonight’s dinner was incredibly hard. But I did it.

Recently I have been feeling good about my recovery. I’ve kept on my meal plan, been attending my EDA (Eating Disorders Anonymous) meetings, and stayed off the scale. But even now, hours after the comment, I feel like a failure. All my successes pale in comparison to the reminder that I’m not as skinny as I used to be. It’s amazing the power that even an innocent comment can yield over someone.

There’s a saying that goes “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I’m in hell because of her good intentions. I hope this will pass soon and let me start feeling good about my recovery again.

I’ve listed a few web-sites that list the dos and don’ts of what to say to those with an eating disorder. They are really insightful and helpful to friends and family of someone with an eating disorder.

http://www.angelfire.com/bc/peacelovehope/rules.html

http://www.mirror-mirror.org/applove.htm

http://www.something-fishy.org/helping/whatyoucando.php

http://hubpages.com/hub/Top_Ten_Worst_Things

April 30th

Yesterday was such a beautiful, warm and sunny day that I decided to plant some flowers. I love flowers but do not have a knack for keeping them alive. That only thing that thrives in my garden are weeds. Nevertheless, things can change and I chose some flowers that are appropriate for where I'm planting them. I can't tell the names of the flowers I planted because I just don't know. But here are some lovely pics.

This is the before picture. Hence, my lovely weeds.

And the flowers (alive before I get to them) from Lowe's.

And here is the finished product:

This is my fave.

And coming in 2nd:

This next one doesn't look as good but I'm still happy with it.

I also went to Trader Joe's last night and was SO disappointed. I thought it would be like a Whole Foods, but it was so small and had a very limited selection of produce and vegetarian products. However, I did come across a small find:

(Sorry for the grainy picture.) This "peanut butter" is to die for. It's smooth, creamy, and lower in fat than regular peanut butter. I heated some up with a muffin and yogurt this morning, along with strawberries and it was so yummy.

I'm trying to keep my recovery interesting and not so boring by trying new food products.

Question of the day: Is there a food product that you just go crazy for? Where do you like to grocery shop?

Pardon our dust...

a remodel is a must.

Blog under construction.

Be back soon.

Tinkering on the edge of sanity

As I was lying in bed waiting for the elusive sleep to descend upon me last night I was thinking about how I relate to food and how eating it makes me feel. It’s been staring me in the face all this time but it wasn’t until last night that I fully recognized that my struggle is not about the weight. It’s doesn’t matter what I weigh. My fight is not that I want to weigh X amount of pounds; it’s about how the abuse made me feel and my attempts to distance myself from it through restricting food.

The inner war is more about feeling clean and whole and I thought resisting food would do that for me. In truth, I need to find different ways to make myself clean, although it can be argued that I’m not dirty. What was dirty was the way we were treated and what people did to us. However, it is still hard to buy into the line of thinking that we weren’t to blame and we are clean.

Something made me so sad last night. One of the member’s of my system that has the eating disorder is afraid that if we conquer our preoccupation with food and weight she will no longer be needed. She has done her job well at keeping us distracted from the real issues. Her desire to be thin and symptomatic is to ensure that people and Therapist know that she is not okay. She is afraid if she lets go of her disordered thinking and disordered thoughts that no one will see her pain. Even though we know that the real issue is the abuse and not our weight, she still wants to lose. Just as cutting is a cry for help so is her eating disorder.

My heart breaks for her because she feels unwanted and disposable; like if we get better she will be unneeded and expendable. She has been vital to keeping us alive and “functioning,” for a lack of a better word. She will need a new job in our system. Even though we know this, it doesn’t make recovery better. As I write this she sends me memories that she harbors. The pain is overwhelming. We are still sad.

This is all bull sh*t. I hate myself.