Hard Travellin'

I woke up at 5 am this morning, and proceeded with my routine:

1. take vitamins
2. turn computer on
3. weigh myself
4. boil kettle
5. smoke cigarette
6. make coffee and drink whilst reading 3 specific blogs
7. eat breakfast
8. prepare food for dinner
9. smoke another cigarette

All of that went the same as it does pretty much any other day. 15 minutes later, I was huddled up against the wall, the floor around me scattered with paper, clutching my knees, rocking back and forth with tears pouring down my face. I felt like my brain was literally being hacked into a thousand little pieces. I kind of lost track of time amidst crying/writing/calculating/smoking. Needless to say, by 7am I had worked myself up into quite a state. I threw on the clothes I wore yesterday, grabbed my bag and left my apartment.

More time was lost.

Somewhere along my walk I decided I should buy pasta sauce. Not just ANY pasta sauce, but a single serving of plain tomato pasta sauce. I had remembered that I had 1 portion of tortellini in the freezer and suddenly decided that it would make a perfect dinner for tomorrow. I went into about 4 different supermarkets- in each one, I found the sauce and waited in line to pay. When it was my turn, I left the queue, put the sauce back on the shelf and darted out the store with thoughts literally crashing around in my head. I cranked the volume up on my iPod and carried on walking. With hundreds of reasons to BUY the sauce and eat pasta tomorrow, and hundreds of reasons NOT to.

I don't know why this is such a bug deal. It's one meal- my dinner is the exact same thing every night at the moment and ONE night of something different is not going to have any dramatic effect on my weight, my life, the world. Yet it felt like a HUGE deal to even be contemplating eating something different. Even if the "different" thing was a regular feature in my diet 6 weeks ago.

I went back and forth in my head about last night's post- old plan, new plan, scrap the plan...fruitarian? vegan? high protein? sodium? fibre? money? I couldn't step back and see the wood for the trees. I vaguely remember sending panicky texts to my mom, then ignoring my phone when she tried to call. I remember listening to Pete Seeger singing "Hard Travelling" at full blast. I eventually answered my phone, but when my mom started to get frustrated and yelling, the noise was too much combined with the noise in my head and I hung up.

Walking, smoking, walking, smoking.

Then it hit me. I don't NEED to give up my old plan, and I don't need to leap straight into the new plan. I can gradually work towards the new plan over the coming weeks- slowly phase out my "safe" foods whilst reintroducing new ones. It seems so damn obvious now. It's only taken me 4 days to realise that it doesn't HAVE to be so black and white/all or nothing.

I feel really stupid now.

I bought the pasta sauce, came home, tidied up the masses of paper around my apartment- pulled out a new notebook and planned the next couple of weeks out. They make sense. Suddenly my world stopped spinning wildly, my heart stopped pounding and I sat on the sofa staring out the window for over an hour. Just silent, sitting, breathing.

I started having thoughts of why I need to change the plan I have right now- why it even MATTERS even more. I feel like for years I had all these great motivating goals- as time has gone by and my recovery has been up and down, I've tried out all these goals. None of them worked out or felt as good as I hoped they would. I don't really have any concrete reason to change things, to keep working towards recovery, to keep fighting the anorexic voice in my head.

Nothing 'concrete' like a specific thing I want to be able to do (move to New York, dance, etc).

I do however have this: if the sheer hell of the past few days has been caused by anorexia, then that is reason enough for me to want to break free from this once and for all.

A Brain, Obsessed

I have mentioned a few times about how my eating is fairly repetitive- part of why I don't post pictures more frequently is because my lunches and dinners tend to be the same every day. I haven't been in this habit for a really long time (several years)- sure, I have gone through phases where certain foods make a more regular appearance, but since I was 19 (worst stage of my ED- basically was eating exactly the same foods every day which gradually got cut back as I ran out/stores weren't stocking the *exact* size/shape/brand I 'needed') I have made a VERY concerted effort to have some variety in there...

This has taken different forms over the years- from times where I would rotate the same two dinners, to times in New York when I ate out almost every meal and tried several new things every single day. For the most part, it's been somewhere in between- having food/meals that I eat a few times a week, but trying new things a few times a week.

Since moving into my apartment almost 6 weeks ago, I have pretty much stuck to a "weekly schedule". I have a few breakfasts I rotate, flexibility around snacks (within certain limits/criteria) but my lunches and dinners have been exactly the same. Aside from 1 allotted meal a week that I have something "new", though the past 3 weeks this "new" meal has just been repeated.

Obviously this is problematic. I can't go over to my mom's house for dinner, can't even contemplate the notion of a trip to NY right now...am bored to tears at the thought of eating this same thing one.more.time.

I decided on Wednesday night that I was going to switch things up and reintroduce some of my old fall-back meals into my diet. I ended up spending almost 3 hours writing lists, doing calculations, racking my brains for combinations that met criteria for meals in a healthy sense whilst being "safe" in an ED sense (note to self: the 2 aren't compatible). I sat, curled up on my sofa with 3 notepads, a calculator, old food diaries. Eventually I planned a week's worth of meals that I felt okay with. It was a rather awesome moment- a true "EUREKA", as if I had found the answer to world peace. I went to bed happy and relaxed- only to wake up a couple of hours later FREAKING out because I suddenly realised there were major flaws in my plan. Because god forbid I should be so daring as to get my protein from cottage cheese rather than yogurt, or tofu rather than tuna. I honestly feel like my world is held together by the exact breakdown of my nutritional intake- obviously I know that's not true, but that's how it feels.

So, I curled up on the sofa once again- notepads, calculator, etc, and got back to work.

I must have done this at least 10 times since Wednesday night. Suddenly nothing feels safe, nothing seems to make sense. Laws of science and nutrition, never mind LOGIC don't apply. The foods I DO eat were selected for a very particular reason (coincidentally, one of my meals happens to be the exact same meal I ate when i was 19), and to change it feels so incredibly overwhelming and threatening. So much information conflicting in my brain- everything I have ever read about nutrition/diet (eat soy/don't eat soy, eat dairy/don't eat dairy. eat healthy fats/avoid any fat, vegetarian? vegan? raw? nooooooooo!)

I'm trying to fight these thoughts with just plain common sense. I was eating different foods for 7 years with no major trauma. It's not physically possible to gain 10lbs overnight just by eating a different dinner. It's OKAY if some meals are a little lower in protein or a little higher in fat- in time, it balances out. I KNOW this on an intellectual level, but as soon as I talk myself round and feel okay with the idea of change, my brain starts throwing up roadblocks and "worst case scenarios" which I can't seem to shake off.

Every time I try to distract myself by reading/watching TV/cleaning, all of a sudden a thought will come into my head (more "EUREKA" moments!) and I have to stop, write it down, analyze it, tear it up, give up, go back to reading/TV/cleaning until 5 minutes later it happens again.

I don't know why I am writing this. I feel ridiculous. My mom and my therapist know I obsess about this stuff, but I've never quite shared the extent to which I worry about it. Or quite to what extent things have gotten to with both my intake and thought processes lately.

I feel like the last few weeks have been such a whirlwind- the horrible depression, followed by 2 days of BLISS, followed by this incapacitating thinking. I'm also wondering if due to the depression/psychotic reaction, I really let my guard down on the ED front and focused on the immediate problem- meanwhile, ED has crept in and oh-so-kindly taken care of the food front.

One part of me thinks I can't continue. The other part is saying, "eh- why not? what does it even matter at this point?" I guess depression is still lurking there too. The part of me lacking the motivation to do anything about this is, admittedly, the part that just wants to say "screw it". The part of me that I can't tell whether is depressed of sensible- the part of me that knows that all the goals I had about moving back to New York, work, etc...just aren't going to happen. So why bother trying to fight through barriers when I don't care if I make it to the other side?

Why?

Well the other part of me thinks that 1) of COURSE New York/work/all that "life" stuff isn't going to be an option in the current situation, but 2) I HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THIS SITUATION.

I'm just not sure HOW. I am beyond exhausted right now. I've had such good intentions to change my meals over the coming days/weeks and the obsessing over it so much is draining beyond words.

This has been long and jumbled and probably not making much sense so I'll end now. I just wanted to try and put into words where I am at right now.

Hope all of you are enjoying Passover or Easter or whatever you are celebrating this weekend.

Aaaand...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAIME!

Hold On Tight

Usually after a morning like today, I'd spent the afternoon distracting myself by writing up meal plans, lists of foods, planning what/when to eat. I'd throw myself headfirst into any anorexic thoughts that passed my way and cling to the "comfort" of my eating disorder, as false as it may really be.

Today I listened to music, did some arty crafty things- stuff I don't usually do, but I wanted to make sure that I nurtured that voice inside me saying, "I'm not the same person I was".

Sounds cheesy when I write it out- I always hated therapists saying, "oh when you feel like XXX do YYY" because it felt so invalidating to the feelings/urges I had. Today, for whatever reason, it felt OKAY to just accept that I DID feel anxious, upset, scared, angry, hurt...

I think feelings are weird things. They are often triggered by something small or don't quite match up to actual experiences in the way you might expect. But they are THERE and they are VALID and most importantly, they pass. Nothing can or will last forever. As horrendous or wonderful as it might feel *right now*, there is no telling how or when it will change. Feelings aren't good or bad or right or wrong- they just are.


I'm posting this more for my own reference than anything else. It's so easy to get caught up in whirlwinds of anxiety/fear/anger/hurt/excitement/happiness, that you forget how, in time, things shift. In the meantime, all you can do is embrace whatever you have right then in that moment because it's our thoughts and feelings and experiences that make us who we are. We are ALL products of the people we've met, the things we have experienced, the lives we have lived. We can't go back and change things, do things differently, take back what has been said and done. We might never get apologies we are owed or "thank you"'s we deserve. But it's our choice how we use the *us* that stands today to shape our future. Easier said than done- believe me, I know. It doesn't feel like a choice when we feel pulled towards old habits, previous ways of dealing when the s*** hits the fan. But it is. Every second we make choices in how we act or think. And every second is a chance to do things differently from before.

So when the urges are overwhelming and every fibre in your being is pushing you into something you KNOW isn't going to take you any closer to the life you want to be living, remember that sometimes all you need to do is hold on, breathe and wait for the storm to pass.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was
more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

-Nin, Anaise

Fear? Ha! I Laugh In the Face Of Fear

First of all, I want to say thank you for your supportive comment's on yesterday's post. I was reluctant to hit the "publish" button for fear of sounding like a bitch, or completely crazy. It seems I'm not the only one who struggles with these issues and it's nice to know I'm not alone.

And, WELCOME to any new readers out there- I love it when you guys comment, even just to say "hi"!

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Onto today...

I slept really well and feel a hundred times better for it. What felt like humongous stresses yesterday don't seem like such a big deal today- it's amazing what proper rest can do for your emotional state!

Having said that, today's been filled with the obsessing/calculating stuff that hasn't been at the forefront of my mind today. The trigger? Yesterday's cheese. Yes, 1oz of cheese has my brain in a complete spin and I'm not sure why. Well, that's not entirely true. It's scaring me because I enjoyed it. *gasps in horror* What does this mean? It means I want to start including it on a regular basis. It tasted good, was a nice change from my usual foods and I want to eat it again. So WHY is this a problem?

I am scared of cheese.

When I was much younger, my mom went on a diet (she was overweight) and lost a lot of weight through a healthy meal plan. When asked how she did it, she always attributed her weight loss to cutting cheese out of her diet. I've never been a huge cheese-lover, but it's stayed ingrained in my mind that cheese is something to be avoided, that it's not a food to be eaten on a regular basis.

The truth? Cheese is a source of calcium and protein. It adds great flavour and a funky gooey texture when it melts. It's not something I love enough to WANT to eat every day, but I don't want to avoid it forever.

I think I am more scared of the fact that it tasted good. I struggle to acknowledge that there are foods I like, particularly ones that are "scary"- but that's crazy. Food isn't scary or safe or good or bad or ANY of the labels I attach to it. Food is food. Nothing more, nothing less. Some tastes better than other, some is prettier than others, some is more expensive than others. But at the end of the day, there is nothing to be scared of.

Will I eat it again? Yes. The very fact that today's turmoil has been so pertinent is a clear sign to me that I need to be facing my fears head on. I refuse to be controlled by anxieties over things that in the great context of LIFE, are no big deal.

I ate cheese pretty frequently in treatment, alongside a whole multitude of foods that I have been avoiding more and more. I still ate them during the months that followed, despite struggling and relapsing. it's been pretty recent that I have completely cut out certain foods, and looking back, I was so much happier when I had just that little bit more freedom around my meals. My head was clearer because I wasn't obsessing about it so much and my body was getting a wider variety of nutrients. I had more time to do enjoyable things because I wasn't (like today) spending hours writing lists/meal plans/panicking about a little piece of 'whatever' 2/3/4 days before.

When I was unpacking some of my things, I came across some of my old worksheets from treatment a couple of years ago. One of them was a list I had made as part of a "fear exposure therapy" group- we had to make a list of our top ten most challenging foods. I left soon after so never got round to doing the full group, but I have my list and am going to come up with my own "exposure therapy" plan to conquer these fears.

Anyone got tips on how to confront this list I have or want to join me in setting some goals around this? (shout out to PAM for our virtual snack yesterday!)

I don't want a life that revolves around anxiety over eating. I want to enjoy food without guilt or fear. I want to eat my meals and go on with my day. I want freedom.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
- Anais Nis

A couple of food pics from today...

Raisin, date and walnut oatmeal (I swear this tastes like cookie dough once it's cooled) topped with fage and a jumbo banana:

A non-bar snack! Pumpkin spice trail mix with fromage frais. Fromage frais has been around in the UK much longer than the Greek yogurts hitting the shelves- it's much thinner/runnier, but has pretty much identical nutritional stats/taste, and is half the price. The trail mix is from Target- a friend sent me 3 bags a couple of months ago. Love it!