Being nuts is being somewhere

Eating Disorder Awareness Week

25% of anorexics will die.  35% will make a full recovery. And the other 40% will live with an eating disorder or subclinical eating disorder for the rest of their lives.

That statistic kills me. (Almost literally.) The doctor at Remuda actually told me before I discharged from the inpatient facility that she thought I was going to be one of the 20% to die (different statistic apparently) when I was first admitted. I had to force myself not to laugh at the time, but it’s an interesting thing to ponder in retrospect.

Here’s an blog post I highly recommend to anyone about making ED awareness week more than just making people aware.

http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/survivinged/2013/02/whats-all-the-fuss-about-eating-disorders-anyway/

Compare like we just don’t care!

It’s so easy to compare to other people.

Ex - ‘She’s underweight and she’s healthy’

Well, hello! I am not ‘her’; because my body is just somewhat royally f***ed up, I have different needs that need to met nutritionally. It’s like, if a non-disordered person skips a meal because, I don’t know, they forgot - it’s not as big a deal, yeah? They don’t have the mental baggage, and because food, weight, calories, etc isn’t their life, it won’t really disrupt it.They’ll just move on and maybe eat more later if they’re feeling extra hungry.

Sayonara to those good ol’ days, eh? But, while it will never just be okay to skip a meal, there is that hope that disordered thoughts won’t drive our lives anymore - once we get our little behinds in gear.

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I have a few pre-ED pictures on my computer and I really shouldn’t look at them because they make me very upset. Not because I was fine the way I was, but because of how big I let myself get. That isn’t to say I should have starved myself, but I knew I had let food take me over. From emotional eating mode to starvation mode; what a transition.

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Terribly awkward

A friend of mine from treatment texted me out of the blue, and at first she just asked if I took progress pictures of myself through my weight loss/gain. I told her yes, yes I did. She also told me she’s thinking of doing an art project based around anorexia.

…And she asked me if I could give her a picture of me (I’m assuming at one of my low weights) for her to base her artwork off of.

Oh.

Gosh.

I told her as politely as I could that I wasn’t comfortable with it, and she just texted me back with ‘No worries’ because most people would be uncomfortable with it and she already felt really awkward for asking. She was one of my really good friends from inpatient - though we barely keep in touch nowadays - and so I’m not backing away slowly, in the metaphorical sense.

I feel bad for saying no, but there are a lot of reasons why it would just unsettle me. Oh, the guilt.  But she says it’s okay…I just feel like I let her down, but I’m sure she’ll find another way to make her project spectacular.

Thought on recovery

I don’t think you have to love yourself, but I think part of recovery is learning to accept yourself. To accept your body, your mind, your surroundings, and yourself in general. You don’t have to love your body, your mind, your surroundings, or yourself. I think that is pretty rare, and it’s okay to shoot for as a long-term goal, but I don’t think it’s fair to beat yourself up when you don’t meet your expectations of what recovery is supposed to mean.

I don’t think it’s supposed to be anything. In a way, it’s everything. Not the recovery from your eating disorder, your depression, your self harm, but that acceptance that comes with it.

My family really shouldn’t have to deal with me

I don’t care that they do, because they do. Despite how much they may love me, they shouldn’t have to deal with me.

Backwards failure

They tell me I’m doing good and that my thinking has turned around…and that triggers me to no end. Suddenly I’m looking fatter, I’m feeling fatter, and I want to purge even though everything that I ate hours ago is already digested.  Also sad for another reason that is more personal.

All this recovery business makes me feel like a failure. It’s very backwards, and the rational part of my mind recognizes that, but the other part just does not give a care. I don’t want to keep disappointing them, but I don’t feel like I was meant to recover, to eat, to be at a healthy weight. That’s stupid, right? I’m stuck between a face-palm and a sad sigh because a part of me really does believe that’s true.

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That moment

I’m still waiting for that moment when something is going to happen and I’m going to suddenly have this revelation: “I want to recover!”

But what if I never have that singular event to push me past mediocrity that is stuck between recovery and active-disorder mode? Maybe I just need to tell myself, ‘Get your shit together and want to live already!’

But I can’t find motivation to do that either. Fail.

Stuck between heaven and hell

“I eat to much to die, and not enough to stay alive. I’m sitting in the middle waiting.”

- Unknown (though featured in “4st 7lbs” by Manic Street Preachers)

This is one of the saddest quotes I know. Sometimes it triggers me, sometimes it just makes me melancholy. But I love the song it’s featured in so I guess I’ll just have to be surprised each time, wondering how I’m going to feel when I hear it.