Pendulum Swings and Limbo

First of all, I want to say how much I appreciate your comments and kind thoughts on yesterday's post. I have been reading through them today sporadically, and it's been such a comfort to me to feel less alone with this.

Today has been a whirlwind of thoughts and feelings, from one extreme to the other. I know there is no "right" way to feel right now, but I am swamped with guilt around some of the thoughts I have been having right now.

One minute I am thinking, "I wish it was me". A horrible thing to admit to- I am NOT suicidal, but I guess there is a big part of me that just wants a way out of this. I don't want to say it's the "easy way out" because I don't think anyone, my amazing friend included, would take such a decision so lightly and without thought, but having it brought 'home' somehow makes it seem like... I don't know. Not an "option" per se, but a little less of "one of those things you read about in newspapers".

Then there is this other part of me that is SO grateful to not be in that place right now. I'm stuck and I'm struggling, but I'm looking for answers, solutions, ways forward, rather than embracing the dark shadows around me. I am grateful that I didn't succeed in my last suicide attempt, grateful that I *have* what I have- ie, a chance to make things better. I don't know how or when or what that will look like, but as long as I am alive and relatively well, I have more than a fighting chance of making a life for myself.

The moments of wishing it was me are fleeting but disturbing. More disturbing due to the sheer contrast between the other thoughts about using this to really throw myself headfirst into recovery and leave this behind. Using it as fuel to fight the fire that anorexia burns, using it as momentum to swing things around and start embracing life in all it's (albeit hideous at times) glory.

Torn between darkness and light, torn between wanting to stand up and say, "Enough- I am reclaiming my LIFE" and lying down just thinking about all the people this disease claims as it's own, and wondering why I should even entertain the notion that my future won't be the same.

It's scary to think about the statistics of eating disorders- the percentage that die, the percentage that struggle for the rest of their lives. It doesn't make a pretty picture to look at the charts and tables, the graphs and results, the data, the evidence, the research studies.

But you know what? F*** it. These studies only look at small pieces of evidence. YES, eating disorders kill. Either directly as a result of the behaviour, or more subtly by eroding the soul until suicide seems like the only viable option. And I don't believe it's just a choice of recovery/sickness. I really think people make the best choice they have, based on the options they see in front of them.

So what do I see?

I see a blank canvas. I have dreams of living back in New York one day. As soon as possible. It will always be where I call "home" and it's heartbreaking for me to not be there- but it's one of my main motivations for recovery and I'm not going to get dragged down by the fact that I am NOT there, because that blocks me from taking the steps to get there.

What else do I want?

I want freedom from my rituals and obsessions. I want to be spontaneous- to grab dinner somewhere just because I am hungry and need to eat on my way to do something. I want to have friends I can meet for brunch, go to comedy clubs with, go to bookstores with, wander around and take goofy photos with. I want to go to people's houses for dinner, take day trips to the beach. I want a regular-houred office job that I LIKE (or at least, not hate), but that doesn't define who *I* am. No more "Devil Wears Prada" scenarios, but something I feel good about doing, something that interests me, something that pays enough to not have to work 16 hour days and still barely cover my rent. I want to discover what it means to me to be close to someone, to share my time and thoughts with someone who is interested in me as more than a client/patient. Someone who makes me laugh but can take me seriously when I need them to. Someone who likes falling asleep at night watching "Scrubs" and looks forward to a big cup of hazelnut coffee in the morning. I want to go on bike rides on Sunday mornings, visit farmers markets, go to swing parks and night and rock back and forth looking at the stars. I want to go camping and fall over in muddy puddles, walk in the rain and gather round a campfire at night drinking hot chocolate.

I want so much more than what anorexia will ever give me, but ultimately it comes down to this: do I want all of that more than I want to be thin?

Yes. The problem I have is believing that by giving up the body/weight control, I'll have a chance at creating the life I want. It's NOT possible to have it both ways. To "not have the cake and not eat it either" :P There is this horrible limbo period at the start of recovery, when it feels as though you are giving up the "good" parts of the eating disorder, but yet to reap any of the benefits of recovery. They come later. Much later.

How do I hold onto the bigger dreams I have for my life, whilst living through the limbo?..

Another Star In The Sky

I've been sitting in front of my laptop for about half an hour, trying to formulate some kind of coherent thoughts/words right now.

I haven't yet come up with anything.

I received news today that a friend of mine passed away at the end of February. She was someone I have known for years- through the depths of her disorder, then as a "role model" after she entered residential treatment a few years ago and remained in a solid state of recovery from her eating disorder since then. Over the last couple of years, she has made random appearances with updates about how things are going, how recovery has taken her places she never thought she would go and how she was well and truly embracing life.

She was someone I have often thought about in my own difficult moments. A kind of, "she did it, so can I..." type way. She was actually one of two people who prompted the change in my own motivation to recover and seek out the admission I have been discussing the last few days.

Her struggles apparently didn't end, and her absence was not necessarily due to life being great/wonderful/absorbing. She took her own life on February 22nd.

It seems like yesterday that I posted about Lorrie passing away. I guess when your entire social circle is composed of people you meet through the common ground of an eating disorder, as time goes on, the chances increase that you will be losing more friends than any 26 year old would ever expect to.

I want to say more. So much more. So much about what I am thinking right now, what I am feeling, more about my friend. It just doesn't feel "right" this evening. There aren't words to do her courage and spirit justice.

Love never disappears for death is a non-event.
I have merely retired to the room next door.
You and I are the same; what we were for each other, we still are.
Speak to me as you always have, do not use a different tone, do not be sad.
Continue to laugh at what made us laugh.
Smile and think of me.
Life means what it has always meant.
The link is not severed.
Why should I be out of your soul if I am out of your sight?
I will wait for you, I am not here, but just on the other side of this path.
You see, all is well.
-St. Augustine

Fake It Till Ya Make It

That's been today's theme, and you know what? I'm feeling okay about it. I'm not bursting at the seams with self-love, but I'm not beating myself up for pushing away the negative thoughts that came my way today ("go away- there is no time for YOU today").

I've been struck this week by how precious life truly is. Both in blogs and through the loss of my friend last week. I'm still not ready to talk about that in great detail, but it's just hitting me quite how fragile life is, how we never really know what lies around the corner. That's what makes life so exciting and wonderful, but also where heartache and pain and fear lie. Uncertainty, loss, unpredictability.

I was just wandering around town (shoe shopping!), but obsessing over my usual jazz ("if I eat abc for dinner, then I should have xyz for snack") when I got to thinking quite how much time I spend thinking about food, weight, calories, etc. The sheer amount of time I devote to essentially trivial stuff. None of which is going to matter in a week, a month, 6 months, a year...next Valentine's Day, am I even going to remember what I ate for snack on February 11th 2008? Hell no.

It just really got me thinking- when I'm old, I don't want to look back on my life and remember nothing more than endless hours in grocery stores, making lists, walking the same walk every.single.day. Enough of my memories NOW are of hospital, treatment, disaster. I don't want to waste more of my time- I want to look back and remember the trips I took, the relationships I formed, the cool adventures I had with friends. I want photos of nights out partying, vacations, celebrations. NOT piles of boxes of notepads filled with calculations about exactly how many raisins to put in my oatmeal. Life's too short.

Spend your time wisely- you never know how much you have left.

I want to look back and laugh and cry at the ups and downs, but I don't want to look back with bitter regret at all the things I never did because I was "too busy" with an eating disorder.

Fight For Your Life

I must have written and rewritten this post about fifteen times by now.

I received news yesterday that a friend from treatment passed away yesterday. I'm not ready to talk about it at this moment, but I did feel a need to say something.

I know most of my readers are waging their own wars against their eating disorders right now. I beg you, to KEEP on battling. To carry on with this fight for your life, because if you don't- who will? We don't need to do this alone, but ultimately, the demons are within us. It's up to us to wake up EVERY SINGLE DAY and make the choices necessary to move beyond this horrible illness. The results of listening to that voice in your head is beyond tragic- either ending in death, or a tortured existence. Nobody deserves to be trapped in an eating disordered life. Nobody chooses to be afflicted with an eating disorder- but we, as sufferers, CAN fight our way out of this. Hell, I don't know right now if I even believe this. There are so many unanswered questions in my head right now and I don't know if I am making sense right now.

All I know is the statistics. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric condition. 20% of sufferers I die. I look around my friends who struggle with eating disorders, and thought of losing anyone, is heart wrenching. I have lost too many friends to this, and I can't even contemplate the thought of losing more. I doubt these people ever realised quite how much they meant to their friends and family... I question my own value to MY friends and family.

Right now I am questioning whether death is inevitable, whether recovery is even possible, whether this is all that there really is.

Deep down, I know that what I *really* believe is that nobody is destined to lose the battle they are facing. Everyone has a fighting chance, and if you grab it and FIGHT LIKE HELL, the odds of winning are in your favour. So I ask this of you, of ALL of you, to never back down. To fight and fight and fight until your eating disorder is obliterated. Face fear in the face and LAUGH. Acknowledge that voice in your head telling you to restrict/purge/exercise and IGNORE IT. Set challenges each and every day- take every opportunity you get to leap towards a life free from this hell.

Why?

Because you deserve it. You deserve to be happy, you deserve to be healthy and you deserve to be free.

"Live like you were dying..."

Recent events have got me thinking. The topic of death has come up in my life more than I care to think about over the last few months- kind of put things in perspective a little. Most of these people had no warning, no time to say goodbye, to prepare. I've been left feeling kind of numb an analytical over the whole situation (it's complicated and I won't go into it right now).

Death is a rather taboo topic. Something people seem scared of discussing. I don't know where the fear stems from- death is the only thing certain in life. Time is the only variable, and there isn't crystal ball you can look in and know exactly when/where/how. Perhaps that's what is so scary- how unpredictable it is.

It's made me think about how I spend my days, and how any given day could be my last. There's no way of knowing what will happen tomorrow, next week, in a month's time. I don't know how I would feel or react if I was told I was going to die- I don't think there's anything that can prepare you for that kind of news. I don't know... I know that if I died tomorrow, there are countless things that I would have liked to do, thing I have wanted to say, people I have wanted to spend more time with. I want to say that starting now it's going to be different, that I'll live each day as if it's my last- and as cliche as that sounds, I would want it to be true. The reality is that I'll probably never get around to saying those words out loud, making the time I should for the people I want to be with, following through with the plans/goals I have for my life.

I'll go back to burying my head in the sand, pretending I'm immortal and spend the rest of my days building up a mental list of "things to do before I die".

This all sounds rather morbid. I have no intention of dying anytime soon. But at the same time, neither do I see myself living forevermore. Life is really rather daunting. I like to take things as they come and focus on small, rather irrelevant, things rather than the panic about the potentially long and arduous future ahead of me.

It doesn't have to be arduous. It doesn't have to be daunting. In some ways, knowing I could die at any given time is a rather freeing train of thought to follow... But still, whilst I am alive and kicking, I feel I should be making more of my time here.

"Like tomorrow was a gift and you got eternity to think about
what�d you do with it what did you do with it
what did I do with it
what would I do with it?

Sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and then I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I watched an eagle as it was flying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance

to live like you were dying"