Surviving Myself

 Despite myself and sabotaging my own efforts, I keep surviving. It isn’t pretty, but I’m doing it.

I read a post today from a regular blogger to whom I subscribe that reinforced her description of her blog. She related it was a pro-recovery blog, and so she was trying to keep everything positive in her posts. I have a different view of my blog. Recovery is never perfect, and, for me, infrequently positive. At least right now. So when I write, I share exactly what is going on with me: the good, the bad, and the ugly. If it is triggering, then I’m sorry. If it’s negative, I can’t control that. I have to be as authentic as I can, and that often means when I write it is not from a good place. So if this blog triggers you or takes you to a place in which you find it difficult to cope, I apologize.

I relate this, because I vaguely recall a post that was submitted recently, and I’m afraid the post was triggering. I do not know what this post was about. I never go back and read my posts, because I don’t want to be reminded of what I might not have written. But I have a funny feeling it might have been triggering. If so, I regret that it might have hurt people.

As I’ve obsessed about mentioned before, I am having horrible anxiety attacks, and they are related to food and weight. And right now I’m in the sticks of Tennessee where my in-laws specialize in anything deep fried, so it has been hard to navigate what to eat and what not.

For the first few days in Sticksville, I didn’t run because I didn’t know where the trails were. This town is the king of hills, and it is not safe to run on the streets. I finally found a trail, but it was on a riverbank that was disgusting and filthy. The trail itself was questionable; I couldn’t tell if I was running in mud or duck and dog poop. So the run was less than stellar.

But yesterday I found a trail that was beautiful and made me want to strap on my running shoes. The sun created twinkles on the lake, and the air was so crisp and clear to breathe. It was the run that saved me. It was 4.5 miles of grounding myself by listening to my feet pounding the pavement, hearing my heart beat, and focusing on my lungs expand and contract. I cleared my head of all non-sense. I saved myself by running.

My salvation lasted only a few hours, and then the anxiety returned, kicking me in the gut, seizing my thoughts, fueling my desire for escape, and rendering me useless. But that’s okay. For a few hours I felt like myself. And I realized in my darkest of darks, I can save myself. It’s not beautiful, and it’s not scripted. It seems to be rough and ugly, trial and error. But I’m saving myself! And I know if I’ve done it before, I can do it again.

Peace.

Long Run Ramblings

This post is a couple of days late, but it’s still time for some long run ramblings on recovery.

To see other ways recovery is like running a marathon, look at 1/2 Marathon Musings and The Marathon of Recovery.

This past long run on Sunday, I was reflecting on how hitting a stride or pace in running is similar to hitting a stride in recovery.  When I go out for a long run, it takes me 3-5 miles before I actually hit my stride, get into a comfortable pace, and “sit” back and enjoy the run.  When I first start out running, it usually feels miserable.  My legs rebel, my lungs don’t want to cooperate, and everything inside of me is telling me to turn around and go to Dunkin Donuts go home. 

But I don’t give in or take the easy way out.   I push through.   I know that after my warm up and get into my run a few miles I will feel better and even enjoy the run.

I’ve found recovery to be similar. Sometimes you have to push through the uncomfortableness of the beginning of recovery to hit your stride. 

 I’ve been in varying stages and degrees of recovery before, and there’s one thing I’ve always noticed: taking that first step, getting help, and starting out is the hardest move. But once you’ve made step after step, mile after mile in recovery, it tends to get easier.  Once you start opening yourself up to the process of following a meal plan, restoring yourself to a healthy weight, and working on the issues that brought you to your eating disorder, recovery starts to get better.  After you’ve done your warm up and found your stride in recovery, the steps it takes to get healthy become second nature and less antagonistic.

Along the same lines, it’s true that in the marathon of recovery, we might tire out along the way, “hit the wall”, and stop, also known as relapse.  This “stop” in recovery reminds me of a real stop I make during my long runs.  There happens to be a McDonalds off the trail somewhere around the half way mark, and I stop in there to fill up my hydration belt and sneak a little free Coke Zero.  The stop feels great!  I’m out of the heat, I’m not pushing myself, I’m refreshing myself with ice water, and I have a brief rest period.  But when I start the second half of my running, my body again doesn’t want to listen to me and demands that I stop. Still, I push through, though it takes some time again before I find my groove in running. 

A relapse in recovery is no different. If we stop taking the steps and the miles we took in the beginning of recovery to start getting healthy, we are not going to want to start again.  It is going to be that much harder to take the first step and find our running legs again.  Our body, our ED, will rebel , making a run for recovery difficult.

 So give yourself a chance to hit your stride in recovery, to get better.  And once you do, don’t slow down, don’t stop.  Continue in your groove.  Keep going.  If you take it step by step, mile by mile, your marathon of recovery will be successful.  

Life in the stress lane

First things first, I didn’t post yesterday, but got in a tough 8.5 mile run, with a 1 mile warm-up.  When I finished my run, I decided to walk up the trail to the shopping center at the top of the hill where an Atlanta Bread Company lays waiting for me with an iced coffee.  It is a 2 mile walk round trip. 

The iced coffee wasn’t as good as Dunkin Donuts (sorry I cheated on you, DD), but I did find where they are putting in a new fro-yo store.  Score, big time!

Today before my run, Husband met me at the trail and we had a 30 minute walk.  I’m trying to get him more active and he agreed to do a run/walk 5k with me in October.  I’m hoping a little exercise will improve the deep depression that has kidnapped him right now.  Towards the beginning of the trail, we noticed a man flat on the ground with a pack of EMTs around him.  We heard the sirens of the ambulance on the way.  As everyone was giving the firefighters space to work on the downed man, we were all talking about how important hydrating ourselves is.  This occurrence happened at 8:30 in the morning when it was only 73 degrees out, but high humidity. 

So, my PSA today is to keep yourselves hydrated before, during, and after your run. 

After our walk, I had a 4 mile recovery run.  I wanted to get some mileage in today, but didn’t want to push it too much because my long run is tomorrow.  I’m really looking forward to it.

I haven’t written in a few days because things in my life are a little . . . um . . . anxiety filled.  I’ve not a shred of creativity and my brain feels depleted.  I have things to write about, but when I sit down to type it out, the words escape me.

One of the biggest struggles I perceive in my life right now is Husband.  He just finished his 12 rounds of ECT (Electro Convulsive Therapy).  While, for a time I noticed a slight improvement in his mood, the last couple of days he has been extremely depressed and anxious and fearful.  The effects of the ECT treatments have stressed not only him, but me as well, because I feel like I’m living with a child.  His short term memory is fried, and he can’t remember answers to questions he asked me just five minutes prior. I am taking care of affairs that normally would fall to him and that he previously coped with better. He says he doesn’t feel like himself.  He worries he will never be the same.  I feel helpless.

I don’t know how to help him.  We considered him returning to the hospital this weekend for inpatient treatment, but decided against it, since he sees his psychiatrist on Monday who can make a recommendation as to where to go from here with his treatment.  They’ve restarted him on his anti-depressant, but that takes weeks to kick in.  So it’s really hard to be positive right now.  I can’t handle my own anxiety, much less help him with his. 

On a better note, last night as I was running early to my appointment with Dietician (major epic fail session.), I noticed a sign for a bookstore in a shopping center.  I <3 books, so I HAD to stop!   When I walked in the bookstore, I saw that it was a new and USED bookstore, so my inner Book Snob immediately was judgmental at the thought of used books.    But we looked around anyway and found our way to the Young Adult section.  Surprisingly, most of the used books were in amazingly good condition and were 50% off the book price!  Major score!  Being tight on money, even in a used book store, we could only buy one book, so we found a book by Laurie Halse Anderson titled Prom.  Though it’s not War and Peace or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it’s a really good, easy read and one I know my female students will like.  My collection of loaner books for my students is growing larger, and I’m really stoked about having so many choices to offer them. 

Lastly, as I was leaving the store, I noticed some chairs and tables lining the walkway outside the strip mall. They belonged to a store called Menchie’s, another fro-yo store!  I went inside and they had all the amazing flavors and toppings that will do my fro-yo addiction proud.  Score, again!

So, even though I’m living life in the stress lane, I’ve had some good runs, took Husband on a walk, found two new fro-yo stores, and an up-scale used bookstore. 

Not bad for someone hanging on by a thread.    

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

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!

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?

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.