What Would Control Look Like If You Were Able to See It?

One of those sneaky little things in my life - and, sure, there are more of them than I’d care to let on really - is that I still crave control. I don’t want to do anything too desperate about it, I’m just not willing to settle for a false illusion of control (which is all that my eating disorder ever was for me). I just want to be able to control when my motivation hits. I don’t want surprises or to be held back by the type of exhaustion that just kinda sweeps over me sometimes - the kind of tired you could drown in.

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.

I’ve done a lot of thinking the last couple of days - actually, let me rephrase that. I’ve had a number of thoughts that have almost been living me the last couple of days. Despite having what seems like a million and fifty things to do, I’ve just been caught up thinking about the fact that I haven’t been to the gym in a while, thinking about setting up a new computer and formatting the hard drive from an old system to use for file storage and I’ve been considering the fact that, well, my attention span just hasn’t been up to par.

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.

I get caught up these days and neglect the things that matter to me. This is always a warning sign for me, a sign that I’m not listening to my gut, that I’m not hearing my heart and that I’m not feeling a sadness that’s about to consume me.

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.

I suppose that the most logical option would be to begin at the beginning and work my way forward, but my brain doesn’t work that way. Apparently, for that matter, my brain doesn’t seem to work in a spread out multi-tasking sort of way anymore either - which is probably okay. 

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.

It seems as though an eternity has passed since I had the time for an update. Promises that that will change are being made, however while reading this post in it’s relationship to teen pregnancy, I realized that it was worth sharing.

(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.

Tags: anorexia, teen pregnancy, teen pressures