The sweet smell of sugar cookies baking filled the air in Kris Shock’s kitchen.

She pulled a tray from the oven and sat down with her 9-year-old son, Drew, to frost the treats.

Then, Shock did something that might have been unthinkable for her a few years ago. She took a bite of a cookie.

Shock, 36, of Kennesaw, Georgia, spent most of her adolescence and early adulthood struggling with bulimia and an addiction to diet pills.

Long holiday seasons were always the worst, Shock said, as she dealt with the stress of trying to create a picture-perfect Thanksgiving and Christmas for her family.

“I would be emotionally and physically exhausted come the New Year, and I would have no memories to show for it other than sheer anxiety,” Shock recalled. “I would be acting out at every moment, whether that was using diet pills, taking laxatives or restrictive behavior, whatever I used to cope at that moment.”

Now in recovery, Shock approaches the holidays and all that tempting food with a bit of trepidation

“I always keep in mind that relapse is potentially possible if I don’t do the right things,” Shock said. “For me, that is being honest with myself, knowing that tomorrow I may have to pick up the phone and call a nutritionist … or call my therapist.”

That’s just what some experts recommend, including Cynthia Bulik, director of the University of North Carolina Eating Disorders Program.

“For some people, the holiday season is filled with joyous occasions and wonderful food,” Bulik said. “For other people, it can actually be quite a nightmare … especially if you have eating disorders.”

Bulik is busy these days helping her patients figure out how to navigate all the stress-inducing holiday parties and family gatherings.

She tells people with eating disorders, “Keep your support team on speed dial.”

Bulik targeted her advice to people who suffer from anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder in which people develop an aversion to food, lose a lot of weight and are afraid of gaining weight.

“It can be incredibly overwhelming to be surrounded by so many different types of food,” Bulik noted. “We often suggest that people with anorexia go to a party with a wingman. … Take someone with you who is safe, to whom you can say, ‘This is really tough for me. I need to take a break.’ ”

She shared similar advice for those who suffer from bulimia, a condition in which people binge and purge.

“We tell people to never go to a party hungry. … That’s the worst thing to do. It’s really best to have a decent meal before you get there so you’re not tempted to binge when you’re at the party,” Bulik recommended.

One of Shock’s biggest challenges while recovering from bulimia was coping with probing family members.

“It was very anxiety-filled,” Shock recalled, “I had to eat dinner with all these people where, many times, there were unspoken things I wanted to say.”

Last Christmas, Shock tried a new strategy: eating dinner with her husband and children first and then attending a party. Shock called it a safer situation.

“I can take care of my physical body and then handle the process, the emotional anxiety that comes with typical social situations,” she said.

Bulik advises well-meaning family members to try to help people with eating disorders feel as comfortable as possible.

“There is no play book,” she said. “The best thing to do is not to push. … Don’t focus on their appearance, don’t focus on what they’re eating.”

Another complication may occur when someone with an eating disorder must step into the chef’s role and prepare dinner for a crowd.

Bulik advised, “If it is too tough to prepare that meal for 20 people that year, call in some help. Get takeout for a change. Do something that is easier for you. Don’t always feel like you have to be the perfect hostess, because that can be the first step toward relapse.”

Shock is taking the advice to heart. Remember the sugar cookies she was frosting with her son? Rather than stress out about making them from scratch, she bought the slice-and-bake version at the supermarket.

She figured she’d have more fun spending the extra time with her son.

“Take care of yourself,” she advised. “You will feel empowered.”

Given that it was the first night in a week (more or less) that I slept in my own bed, it’s little surprise that I was so sacked. Of course, also given the fact that nearly 2 weeks had passed since the last time that we went to the grocery story, that meant that, well, we had to head to the grocery store before it was even possible to make breakfast at home.

Of course, after that we headed home, grabbed a bite to eat and - just as it was in my worst days of my last relapse - I headed back to bed. That means that there were two projects that I’d had - both due today - that simply haven’t been looked at. It’s not good, not even redeemable really. And the kicker is that while I could get something more done now, it’s just not something that matters to me right now.

Tomorrow, even though my ability to breathe still sucks, I’m planning to go to the gym. I just need to reclaim my focus because, well, without it I’m screwed. When I was working out more, I was feeling a lot better and I was able to think more clearly; my emotional health was a lot more in check. I’m hoping to get that back - even if it hurts while I’m getting started.

In other words, I’m trying to reclaim the way that I had been feeling before I got sick. I’m trying to reclaim my comfort level and the sense of what I can accomplish. I’m also trying just to get back to a point where I feel like I have a home rather than just a place where I crash at the end of the day. There are so damned many changes that I need to make; I just need to figure out how to make them.

Did I need to get a handle on my depression? Absolutely. Was it necessary to find some balance and have me under supervision when I started to take anti-depressants? You betcha. Was it at all the right place for me to be? Fuck no.

Every year this comes up for me, at least a little bit. This year, Thanksgiving was out of context - we were at my sister-in-laws place and the crowd was made up far more of her husband’s family than anyone else. While this was slightly more appealing to me than spending the day with my family, it was a lot more stressful than I really wanted it to be. I’m behind on work, didn’t have a lot of down time and more or less felt useless throughout the entirety of the week.

Interesting thing, of course, is that Thanksgiving is a remarkably difficult holiday for me - and it’s not even about the food or the displacement of the Native Americans. While it’s not a huge deal and it’s not something that I know how to put a finger on, there’s something about it that creeps up on me and leaves me unsettled. Last year, it manifested in getting totally wasted at a wedding reception and passing out on the ground by the fire - fire ants be damned. This year, it’s been a quieter, sadder sort of response (but, like last year, I drank more, particularly this week).

I don’t really know what to make of it. I don’t really know whether or not I feel like I’m off track or if I’m just so far removed from my regular environment that things just all feel wrong. What I do know, however, is that I need to find a way to cut back on the distraction before it completely takes over.

I’m in Vermont mostly on my own. I’d had plans to stay with a friend again tonight - but her schedule got all weird because of a death in a co-worker’s family and tonight I’ll be staying with my sister-in-law and her husband even though I don’t always like them (it ought to be great. Seriously. My partner will be coming up tomorrow, we’re trying to figure out how to see everyone and, in general, I’m trying to figure out how to stay out of the way.

The trip is part Thanksgiving, part doctor’s appointment (and, while I love my doc and she’s the only one I’ve ever had that I trust completely, I’m starting to wonder how many more times I’m going to pay to fly up here and pay for the appointments since, well, I have insurance that I can use in Virginia and the PCP I selected with the policy has an office that I can walk to in a matter of 5 minutes). The doctor’s appointment went pretty well - the whole cough of death that I had and have been fighting on and off still has left my lungs sounding “cranky and wet” (the medical terms that were used). I talked about missing the gym, she told me to go, do what I could and avoid too much cardio - which is what I knew I should do.

Anyway, we talked a lot about my depression. My blood pressure was high again and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s always higher after I’ve been drinking (so I should probably cut that out - especially since it doesn’t help to improve the mood at all).  Right now, we’re leaving everything the same, but I might be looking at increasing my meds at least for the short term just to see if it would kick start an improved mood.

Ultimately, we talked about the combination of those things too - the fact that being sick and not going to gym was messing with my mood and my appetite. She looked at me, shrugged, said pretty bluntly, you’ll handle it - and call me if you need anything - you know what you can do and what you can’t.

I do know what I can handle. I do know what I can’t. It’s just strange to have it put so clearly in front of me, especially these days when I’m so tired I could collapse. I need to find balance again… I really really do.

Last week I requested that my workload be shifted a bit - the closest that I’ve come to saying that I am overwhelmed ever - after I realized that I was getting tired of working 16 hour days 7 days a week. I think that the phrase that made me realize what was going on was that I was making my life all about work and that it had quickly become my latest obsession (and there were still a number of projects that were falling through the cracks). I was using work as a distraction rather than using it to, I don’t know, make money to pay the rent and buy groceries.

In other words, I don’t think that I was making the best choices ever, and I think that the choices I was making were starting to drag me down.

It’s never comfortable to come to that realization. It’s never comfortable to say “I’m really afraid of what this could do to me.”  And yet, that’s where I am:

• I’m stressing out because I haven’t been to the gym in over three weeks and I miss it, but I know that my lungs aren’t feeling quite up to it yet and that going wouldn’t be healthy for me.
• I have no idea whether I’ve lost of gained weight because I don’t own a scale, but my body feels different and it’s weirding me out.
• I’m flying out on Monday to head up to Vermont to see my doctor; at least I’ll be able to talk to her about how damned tired and out of it I’ve been. I’ll get to see some friends as well which also will be good for me.

In other words, there’s a lot on my mind, but I’m definitely in an interesting spot - one where I know that things can shift a bit. I think that I’m mostly heading in the right direction, and I know what I can do to move even further in that direction.

Sometimes when I’m spacing out - or stressing out, the two are pretty similar really, at least for me - I start thinking about concepts. Control seems to be the concept of the day, the one that crosses my mind at least.

Last month, I had every intention of participating in Nanowrimo. I signed up, but I’ve been so busy with work that the concept of writing fiction is, in and of itself, something that I don’t make time for. I could probably find the time if I tried hard enough or sacrificed one of the five hours of sleep that I get each night. But for the purpose of self care, I’m not willing to sacrifice my sleep (I’m crabby enough with only 5 or 6 hours; if you judge the amount of sleep that you need based on the difference in time between going to bed and waking up without an alarm, then it’s a fair assumption that most nights, my body would be much happier with twice the sleep that I’m giving it.

There are a lot of things like that in my life right now - there are things that I’m so bitter about the idea of talking about them just isn’t something that I’m able to do. There’s this deep down realization that I should consolidate my credit card debt so that I have less money stress in my life and actually manage to get out from under it at some point, but every time I think about doing it, I find myself with doubts and an underlying sense of failure (something that I know is ridiculous - it would be taking control and preventing worse circumstances).

And then there’s that concept of control again, right there in the foreground. You see, sometimes I think that I don’t really want control - if I did, I’d take it wherever I could get it, right? Sometimes I think that the very idea of having control doesn’t sit well with me even though I’m often clutching at the air and wishing that I had a better handle on things. Sometimes I think that I’m programmed to look for control in all of the wrong places, and when I do, I think that I need to get a handle on what that’s all about.

In a personal aside, congrats to those who fought so hard for equal marriage in Connecticut. While their fight is far from over because the benefits are not equal because of things on a federal basis, it’s still a win for all of us, and while caught up in the frustrations of Prop 8 in California and other measures that passed a week ago yesterday, it’s still important to take a step back and just celebrate that moment.

So, just for a break from all of the work that I should be doing but haven’t been getting around to, I thought this might be an interesting exercise if nothing else.

10 Things that You Probably Wouldn’t Guess Just By Looking at Me

1. There were two times that I was hospitalized for problems with my heart before I was 21, long before I started to really spiral out of control. There was another time, when I was 29 that, if I had been honest about what I was doing to my body I would have been hospitalized for cardiac evaluation. Since then, I still struggle with regulating my heart rate if I’m frightened or working out hard and my pulse speeds up beyond a certain point.
2. Even though I haven’t had my camera out more than twice since the move in the beginning of June, I’ve still been selling photos on microstock sites.
3. If it weren’t for music, I wouldn’t exist. It’s more important to me than oxygen.
4. There are times that I’m convinced that if I didn’t like beer so much, I’d probably still be underweight.
5. Yesterday after finding out the someone I knew was in inpatient treatment, I went out to dinner to celebrate the fact that I’m not in that situation anymore - and had a killer cheeseburger and fries.
6. Despite the fact that I have a civil union in Vermont and I’m aware every day of the fact that separate but equal is nowhere near equal, I’m more outraged about the kids in foster care who will go without loving families simply because of the ban on adoption by anyone who is unmarried - including special needs kids and kids with terminal illnesses - who could be given love by two parents who want, more than anything to have a child - in Arkansas than I am California’s Proposition 8. However, in terms of prop 8, Keith Olbermann’s special comment at the end of Countdown last night made me cry.
7. I know that I would be a different person if the first high school that I attended had not closed, because, thanks to sites like Facebook, I’ve been in touch with friends from that year (20 years ago) and the bonds between us are like family; on the other hand, almost every person that I’ve reconnected with from the second high school are extremely conservative and still have no idea where I’m coming from.
8. There was once a time when I suffered from such terrible anxiety and depression that I didn’t shower for two weeks - and when I did, I loathed my body so much that I didn’t take my clothing off when I finally did.
9. While I’m a ghostwriter and seem to hardly be seen anywhere without a computer and while I take what I do very seriously, the reality is that I look at almost everything that I write for work as a sort of fiction.
10. Some days the person who I miss most in the world was one of the most destructive forces that I’ve ever come up against.

Every once in a while, I feel like it’s so easy to hide behind the computer or to just avoid getting personal in this space. Every once in an even rarer while, I think it’s important to put myself out there, if only a little bit.

That’s part of the reason why there are major gaps in this blog from time to time, delays between posts. I think about writing in here daily, but it just doesn’t happen most days.

This morning I started to read some other blogs, including one by a musician whose work I admire who is currently in an eating disorder treatment facility. What it made me realize is that we all have our demons. Whether we’re successful in our fields or we’re working on something that isn’t quite right, whether we’re struggling publicly or silently, we all have those things that we simply need to get through.

The worst thing that we can do is to deny them or to pretend that they aren’t really a problem. The worst thing that we can do is to focus every ounce of effort that we can muster into keeping our insides - our thoughts - in.

In addition to my tradition workload, I’ve been writing websites. One that I’m passionate about is all about teen pregnancy and it’s giving me the chance to be a little bit political and to feel like I stand a chance of making a difference - if only for one person; another that I find almost laughable is all about Oprah Winfrey with an emphasis on her role in the business community. Others are far less exciting: merchant accounts, forex trading and estate planning. Anyway. . . Enough about that part of my life.

I think I commented in the last post that I actually wrote (way back in mid-September) that I joined a gym, and that probably makes for the most appropriate topic for this post.

I’ve realized that while I still have the impulses that I’ve associated with my own eating disorder are still there, but I’ve also realized that they just aren’t important enough to me to get me to act. Sure, I look at the scale every time I go to the gym, but I’ve only been on it once. Sure, the personal trainers offer body fat analysis, but the idea of it doesn’t even appeal to me. 

But wait, there’s more. I’m not spending all of my time doing cardio and trying to burn fat; instead, I’m doing more weightlifting, building some muscle and then cooling down with a few minutes of cardio. I don’t even bother to bring a magazine of something else that could distract me and make time disappear.

I went to visit a friend the other day and said, “ya know, it’s weird. I was so worried about this, but I’m realizing that for the first time I’m working out and I’m in control.” I talked with my partner about this as well. Her comment was a little less “good for you” and a bit more, “still, don’t just feel so good about it that you get complacent - that just leads to disaster.”

It’s true. I know that I need to be careful. I know that even though I’m making an effort to eat when I’m hungry and to eat what I want, there are moments that feel less right sometimes. In other words, what I’ve found is this: I actually feel pretty good, and, mostly, I’m starting to just be better - it’s a really good change.

(source)

Many teenagers look to someone for some sort of guidance. Most of them look up at celebrities, and honestly, it’s a really bad thing. What Hollywood is telling us couldn’t be farther from what teenagers actually need to hear! Here are a few examples:

Jamie Lynn Spears was pregnant at 16. First off, she used to be a Disney kid celebrity, so imagine what her situation conveyed to kids who watched “Zoey 101”! Second, in the USA -the name of the state eludes me- a group of female teenagers (I’m pretty sure they were around 16) made a pact to get pregnant. They went ahead with it and slept with random strangers (from homeless people, to total strangers) and got pregnant. When interviewed, the girls said they wanted to show their support for Jamie Lynn Spears. Right, nice way to show your support: ruin your future!

Jamie Lynn’s older sister, Britney (which all of you have probably heard of considering the huge coverage her life has had in the media) has just released her newest single, “Womanizer”. Pre-release, I kept an eye on a few interviews she gave, and in all of them, Britney said her album will be the best she’s ever done, with new, original sound. Um hum. Not. “Womanizer” is the #1 on Billboard Top 100 Songs, but I have no idea how it got there. The reviews are horrible, and Britney’s haters aren’t that much more gentle. To top it all, she’s naked in the video.  I thought music sold your voice, not your body?! No further comments.

Lindsay Lohan (and a long list of celebrities) have been in an out of rehab for drug and/or alcohol addictions. Either that, or they nearly killed themselves by becoming bulimic and/or anorexic. I used to think the saddest thing you could do would be to ruin your future. I have a new top #1: having all the money you need and yet not being strong enough to get professional help is quite possibly more pathetic.

And last but not least, Paris Hilton, who would rather spend millions on clothes, parties, dog clothes and whatnot, than giving one donation to a single charity. As if that’s not enough, she has got to be the most worst-mannered celebrity living in Hollywood: from peeing in her own hotel pool to wreaking havoc in her room, Miss Hilton has definitely won the “Biggest Brat Of The Century” Award. If that existed.

Granted, Hollywood isn’t all that bad. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt show us there’s more to being a celebrity than having money and living “la vie en rose”. Namely, spending the said money to help out other people!

As a teenager, though, I have to say, if I were to actually listen to Hollywood’s message, I’d be out there partying all night, flunking school, getting pregnant, and then getting myself into a rehab center for being anorexic.

It’s a good thing I couldn’t care less about Hollywood, then, right? The bad thing is, a lot of teenagers actually do care. So then, how can we help those teens that are facing possible ruination of their lives? I only have two solutions: either obliterating Hollywood’s message, or transforming it into something more positive.