Tag Archives: eating disorders

ED Recovery – Dealing with the Unexpected

One of the first things that anyone tends to learn when they start to take a closer look at eating disorders is that it’s not really about the food: it’s about emotions and control. When everything is upside down and feels twisted inside out, sometimes it feels like the only thing that you can control is what you do or do not eat – and in what quantity. Part of recovery is recognizing that there are other ways of taking control in life and learning “more effective coping mechanisms.”

When I’m not writing here (or in one of my other personal blogs or working on building the ED Recovery Blog Community – and if you haven’t yet, remember that you can sign up for your own ED Recovery Blog community blog), I’m a ghostwriter. Well, in a tough economy, a lot of people are cutting their marketing budgets. What that means is that, well, I went from eighteen paid gigs to eight in the span of two weeks.

In other words, I lost more than half of my monthly income and it’s fair to say that I’m panicked about it. If ever I’ve felt like I have lost control of the way that things are going in my life, it’s now.

In the past, there’s a really good chance that the panic that I’m feeling would have led me to lose it a bit. One of my first thoughts probably would have been about saving money and, when I was using anorexia to gain some (however false) sense of control, I would have decided to quit buying groceries. This time, I’ve decided that I’ll go to Costco to get produce in bulk and buy other food at Trader Joes and, worst case scenario, give up my Diet Coke addiction.

It’s interesting to me the way that things change over time. Do I feel like I’m losing control right now? Yes, absolutely. Do I feel like I have to spiral out of control and run away from taking care of myself this time? No, not at all.

I’m not sure when the lesson was learned, but somewhere along the line it dawned on me that I couldn’t keep hiding out and turning to strategies that gave me the illusion of control when things went to hell. What I’ve learned over time is simply this: I can’t always control what happens to me, but I can control my responses and take actions intended to change the course of things. As terrifying as it is, I know this is for the best.

Affirmations? 7 Things I've Been Telling Myself

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Since my doctor’s appointment, I’ve been obsessing a bit. There’s something that’s thrown me a bit – something about the fact that, well, as my partner put it last night, I have this tendency when I relapse to be so dissociated when it happens that it always seems to surprise me when someone tells me how bad it was. In retrospect, I’ve had similar reactions in the past – when my former therapist looked at me and said, “you know that shit doesn’t work;” when a close friend – at her wedding reception – came over to me, gave me a hug said that she loved me and that she and her husband wanted to send me the money I’d make working so that I could quit working at a job that was sucking the life out of me (and again a couple of weeks later when she was telling me that a friend of hers who I don’t know well had asked what was wrong with me and whether or not I was okay).

I was talking about it last night – obsessing some over the fact that I was obsessing and wondering if it was alright. She said, “are you going to stay okay?” I said, “what do you mean?” She said, “just, sometimes in the past, when someone has asked you what you’re doing and if you’re alright, you get into a spot where you start thinking about it so much that you do it.” I didn’t talk a whole lot for a while, thinking some, so she asked another question: “or do you think that you’ve just started to be open about it once you’re called out?”

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Personal Chaos: When it Rains it Pours

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One of the things that always sets me off – sets me into a panic and pushes me back towards embracing my eating disordered behaviors – is uncertainty. When I’m feeling stressed out about money, about not having enough to do – in general when I get restless – and things get chaotic, I kinda fall apart.

The one thing that was true for me when I was 17 that remains true now that I’m much older than that is that I’d rather be dead than bored. It used to be that I used my eating disorder to keep the chaos there; it used to be that I intentionally put myself into situations that would trigger me and push me into getting far worse.

I’m glad to report that I don’t do that anymore. I’m thrilled that I can say that I can find some extra things to do when I need to. The problem I’m facing today though is at the other end of the spectrum – the chaos came out of nowhere.
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Eating Disorder Behaviors Sometimes Creep Into My Dreams

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Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. During the day, I can keep those eating disorder behaviors that I’ve worked so hard to put behind me at bay – I don’t spend five hours working out (even when I kinda want to); I don’t purge all of the items that I don’t need or my meals; I don’t focus on jumping on the scale twenty times a day. Actually, I don’t even have a scale. But once I’m not actively focused, when I’m sleeping, my mind takes over and all of those habits and patterns prove that they’re still there.

Last night in my dreams I purged anything that I ate. Last night in my dreams, I spent time at the gym envying the buff guys their lack of body fat and the girls who had a better pace on the treadmill, smaller arms, smaller waists. Last night in my dreams, I saw myself wearing clothing that was entirely too big to hide the fact that I was entirely too small. Despite being freezing cold, I woke up sweating, in a panic, and. . . And suddenly sad because I missed it.

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Eating Disorder Behaviors and I Can Quit When I Want

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One of the most common occurrences in any recovery effort is the struggle with the belief that nothing is really an addiction – the belief that anorexia, purging, drinking, smoking or drug is something that could just stop if only the willpower was there.

if i wanted, i could put the bottle down. this’ll be my last butt. one last cut. just a few more pounds, then i’ll stop purging/start eating normal. but it becomes physical. your body needs it. it needs the alcohol, the nicotine, the rush of physical self-inflicted pain… the lack of nourishment. it learns to compensate on it’s own. and it hates recovery just as much as you do.

The very nature of addiction says that it’s impossible to just quit – addiction is about need, not want. With addiction, you’re fine until you’re not. The behaviors may be able to be set aside, but the body and the brain fool you into thinking that it’s all okay, it’s as natural as breathing. Continue reading →