I'm a "Crack" Addict

CAUTION:  Nerdy, scientific blog post follows...

I'll try and weave in the word boobies though, to keep you interested.

My "crack" is Negative Energy Balance (expending more energy (calories) than you take in).
For me, and for most people who are afflicted with the disease of Anorexia Nervosa (AN), the scientific, biological state of Negative Energy Balance is anxiolytic (anxiety-calming) rather than unsettling or uncomfortable like it is for people who are not pre-disposed to Anorexia.   Going on a diet will often trigger this biological state, causing irritability, hunger, and anxiety for most people (our body's natural response to consuming too few calories).  It prompts one who is not prone to Anorexia to go "off" the diet and begin eating enough calories again to avoid the discomfort.  We've all been there (including me, before the onset of AN).

Negative Energy Balance is primarily the biological explanation for why the disease led me to restrict calories, to purge any small amount of food intake (bingeing is not my issue, but I have Anorexia-Purging Type and would purge even small amounts of food eaten)  and to excessively exercise, ever-pursuing this calming state which numbs pain (and joy) like nothing else ever did in my life.  It's a vicious cycle because the more one restricts/purges/excessively exercises, the more our body begins to release cortisol,  causing more stress, inciting the Anorexic mind to restrict/purge/excessively exercise more to reach the anxiolytic effects.   Please, if you read no further, understand that this is why Anorexia is not  a choice or a life-style or solely a quest for the ultimate vanity.  It is a biological trap.

On the first day of my first go-around in treatment at Mercy,  I had to fill out a questionnaire which calculated the number of times (on average) that I "purged" (defined as vomiting after eating,  excessively exercising to compensate for food intake,  abuse of laxatives, and restricting food intake).  My score was 29 times per week (on average).  Hey, it was a test... if you know me, you know I like to get the highest score possible!  In all seriousness, this is precisely why for me to stay in recovery, it's all about the food.

Today, I am proud to report, marks the longest period of time that the number has been ZERO.ZILCH.NADA  (51 days), and as a result, I am at my target weight which quite literally, insulates me against falling into the trap set by a Negative Energy Balance.  (The number is the same for days abstaining from alcohol, because I made the personal decision to continue this mandatory condition while in treatment at Mercy as I recover. )

Last Day of Partial Hospitalization at Mercy
(during my second stay)
Here I had gained 7 pounds back already

This was taken last week
just a pound  or two from my goal weight :)

In order for me to maintain the health that is in its new and fragile state, one of the fundamental elements of my personal recovery (as I discovered one time   two times  ten times finally figured out) is that I can never, ever again, dance anywhere near a negative energy balance. It is like crack to an addict.  It happens by not only skipping a meal or a snack, or over-exercising, but even by messing with the timing of my meals (going longer than 2-3 hours between meals and snacks).  I can't yet just fly by the seat of my (bigger now) pants and eat "intuitively" like most people.  I need to stay on a prescribed, structured schedule for eating until it no longer is dangerous for me to be more flexible.  This is one of the major reasons I have relapsed in the past.  I start to think that I can do it "my way".  Until this time around, I was not willing to take this part seriously.  What I know now, is that it is a matter of life or death for me.  One whiff of that calm and relaxed state that effectively quiets the noise in my head and the anxiety I feel in decided and familiar situations that can tip me over, and I am like the Walking Dead without rational thought, programmed to chase the elixir for their souls.

Is Olivia still in there?  Oh yes! Now, when I am stressed or anxious though, I use coping skills I have learned in treatment and in reading as much as I can about Anorexia.  I breathe, I walk (slowly) and I have mantras I use when faced with a struggle to eat ("why does this matter?" and "what am I afraid of"?).  The more I use healthy coping skills, the more I develop new thinking patterns in my brain that override the old, self-destructive ones.  The more I start to recognize my own strength and develop a confidence a few months ago, I could only dream of.  Today, I have a new mantra too, "why would I ever go back?"

Oh, and you should see my boobies now!

I'll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours!

What? you were expecting something else??

In treatment, I learned that my body needs at least 1300 calories each day just to lay in bed all day long and lift nothing heavier than the remote control.  For my more scientific readers, this is called our Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR.  It is the minimum amount of caloric intake needed just for basic biological functioning such as breathing, blood flow, brain and nerve support, (you know, nothing really important) in a 24 hour period.  It is a formula based on factors such as weight, height, age, etc.  If you are interested in calculating your own BMR, you can calculate it here.

When I was active in my eating disorder, I didn't even come close to 1300 calories per 24 hour period. In addition, because I also exercised compulsively and to the extreme, I would easily burn through the calories I did eat (If I didn't purge them before my body had a chance to absorb them).   Often, I wouldn't even take in 1300 calories stretched over a 48 hour period.  Little wonder that my blood pressure plummeted, and as I was bragging to my paramedic friend (Hi Ken!) about how low my pulse rate was (before I told him that I had an eating disorder) he said, "we give IV fluids to people with rates that low".  

One of Costin's 8 Keys to Recovery relates to the notion that "It's all about the food".  Essentially, most anorexics (myself included) have rigid rules that get more and more restrictive as the disease progresses, including a list of "fear foods" or "bad foods" never to grace our lips.  My rules included such insightful wisdom such as:
~Never eat before exercise (I am a morning exerciser)
~Wait as long as possible to eat after exercise (sometimes 3 or 4 pm)
~Exercise every day (often twice a day) through injury and illness, because I have to burn any  calories I was so weak to eat
~Any food eaten before coming home from work must be purged (so I can "eat" dinner in front of my daughters and they would think I was perfectly normal...only to purge it when they left the table for a shower or to go to their rooms after dinner).
~No fat (EVER)
~No flour, sugar or simple carbohydrates
~Count every calorie (obsessively...over and over and over...in case you missed one) to make sure that the number never, ever exceeded 800 for the day.  Always rounding up just in case..... (I didn't subtract for what I purged either by compensatory exercise or actual purging).

There are a lot of reasons why I was able to adhere to such rigidity.  That is a post for another day.  Today, it's all about the food! 

Often people ask me, "what can I do to support your recovery?".  It's a question I used to reply with, "nothing...I'm good".  I wasn't.  Clearly as you can see above.    You see, even in my strong and determined pursuit of recovery, I can get caught up sometimes in eating foods that are "safe".  I am eating enough calories to support the weight gain I still need to accomplish but I notice that I gravitate towards foods that feel "safe" to me (and away from more varied and "challenging" foods).  This is not a means to the end of FULL recovery that I am gunning for.  It is a loop-hole that I need to make sure stays closed, tightly.  The photo you see above is exactly that (except that I have replaced fat-free yogurt with full-fat yogurt).  This is what I ate for breakfast today (and so far, every day this week) except for the Kashi bar and cherries, that is my mid-morning snack.  What isn't pictured is the pre-workout smoothie I consumed before a kettle-bell work-out this morning. 

So, I am reaching out and asking for help from all of you who might be reading (Hi Mom!), to  "Show me Yours!" It helps me to see what others, who do not have disordered eating patterns eat for daily meals.  If you have the time, it would be a tremendous boost to my recovery, to see what you ate for breakfast (or lunch or dinner if you are reading this later in the day!)  Post your list to the comments below or to face book.  And if you can include a photo~ even better!

One last thought.  During our monitored breakfast one day at Mercy, the director of the program came into the room and shouted (he's loud) to us, "Hey! What's the most important meal of the day?" to which we all mechanically and dutifully replied, "Breakfast!".  He shook his head and retorted, "NO! The meal in front of you!".  Every meal, every snack counts for me...everyday.

Motivation, Patience, Hope

This photo is my bathroom mirror in my home.  Stuck to my mirror is the first definition of “Recovered” I have ever read.  Beneath it are the 8 Keys to Recovery.  Both are from a book by Carolyn Costin that changed the way I approach recovery, recommended to me by one of my favorite counselors (who is herself, recovered from an eating disorder) from the Mercy Hospital Eating Disorder program.  This book saved my life and I read all of the words  you see each morning before I do anything else.

The definition of recovery card reads:
"Being recovered is when a person can accept his or her natural body size and shape and no longer has a self-destructive relationship with food or exercise. When you are recovered, food and weight take a proper perspective in your life, and what you weigh is not more important than who you are; in fact, actual numbers are of little or no importance at all. When recovered, you will not compromise your health or betray your soul to look a certain way, wear a certain size, or reach a certain number on a scale. When you are recovered you do not use eating disorder behaviors to deal with, distract from, or cope with other problems." 

After having it up on the mirror for a few days, I asked my youngest daughter if it embarrassed her to have it there, in case her friends might see it.  She said, “Mom, leave it there, I think it’s cool”. 

The Keys to recovery are not necessarily to be taken in order, but they are all-important elements to lasting recovery.  The first key, “Motivation, Patience, Hope” is truly the cornerstone to my tenacious determination to have all of the components of “RecoverED” (emphasis intentional) put forth by Costin. 

Motivation :  (without it, recovery has no backbone.  Without my own internal motivation, there is no reason for me to choose recovery every morning when I wake):
~To be the best ME I can be.
~To stand on my own two feet and love the woman I am.
~I am a damned good mom.  I want to be a great mom.
~To be present and ready for the day when I might need to take care of my mom and dad.
~To be the most loving friend to those in my life whom I adore.
~To learn from my past mistakes of choosing eating disorder behavior instead of recovery when it mattered, and to honor those I hurt because of it, with my commitment to recovery.
~To one day be someone a man could love and trust.  To one day trust the love of a man who loves me.

Patience:   (I have the same measure of patience to fill a cup as I have boobies! Just ask my daughters...)
Here is what I have learned about patience:
~Sometimes being patient means shutting my mouth and trusting the process.
~Sometimes being patient means rather than trying to DO something to make the pain stop, I need to do nothing.
~Patience requires me to slow down and stop trying to recover yesterday.  A prolonged process ensures that I get it right.  Far more important than getting it fast.
~Patience requires that I feel what I am feeling rather than impulsively taking action to numb it. ~Patience begets patience and with practice, I am getting pretty damned good at it.
~Patience requires me to stop trying to control everything around me and to accept what is,   without judgement.  Without being attached to the outcome.
~Patience allows me to walk each evening...without an ipod...reflecting on the day and what I did well...what I can do better...and to cry for my pain and losses without self-destructing.  Patience is knowing that sadness and pain are temporary and will pass, if I just ride the wave.
~Patience requires that rather than wishing for those whom I love to trust me again,  I have to simply earn it by living each day, choosing recovery. 

Hope: For the first time in years, I am filled with hope. 
~I hope to be accepted into the Masters of Social Work program this Fall so I can be the best advocate for families’ of loved-ones afflicted with an eating disorder that I can be.
~I am so filled with hope that someone is reading this blog and my words are touching their soul.
~I am hopeful that the journey before me will afford me the wisdom and knowledge to be the agent of change in the lives of those who suffer with Anorexia.
~I am hopeful that once healed,  I will find the one true love of my life.
~ I hope for many more of these in my life:  (They have nothing to do with recovery! They just bring me such joy!)

Bright Eyes, Bangs and Boobies

“Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life." ~Steve Maraboli

Yup, they’re all mostly almost all coming back.

Bright Eyes
I was looking through old photos the other day and started to notice how over the past four and a half years, during times when I was most active in my eating disorder, my eyes had no life in them.  This picture haunted me by how the blank, still look in my eyes reflected the emptiness I felt in my life during that Spring following my divorce.  I was heavily restricting during this time and exercising to the extreme. I remember that day in May of 2013 in the photo so vividly~ it was Prom in Boothbay and we were taking photos at Barrett’s Park.  It took every ounce of energy and strength I had, to summons the energy to be out in public, facing all of the other parents who were most assuredly (said Olivia)  judging me, the newly-single mother.   Olivia threw the barbs inside my head for them,  “How dare you be here thinking you fit in with all the other families?”, “I bet they think you are a terrible mother”  "If you were smaller, they would all like you better" ....  As always, in public atmospheres, I was a bull's eye target for the thoughts being hurled at me by Olivia, like bullets from a gun with a crooked barrel.  I tried desperately to smile when summonsed by my daughter to “look happy” as she snapped a photo:

Bangs
 Friends who know me well, know that I am most uncomfortable dressed up, done up and accentuating my body in such a way that might draw attention.  I have, for most of my life, steered clear of dresses and skirts, heels and form-fitting clothing, opting for more sporty-type items and loose, boxy pants my friend Julie (Hi Julie!) affectionately refers to as “man jeans”.   I would have my hair cut once a year, making the excuse that I cannot afford it, when really, I never dared to do anything different, even though I longed to be confident enough to try out a new style.  It was always more comfortable to hide (literally) beneath ill-fitting clothing and unassuming style.

You see, Olivia convinced me that I didn’t have the right to try and look pretty or attractive because I had not yet achieved the double-digit weight we were gunning for and until that happened, I was weak and “fat” and undeserving of any compliments or affirmations that might (out of pity for sure) come my way.  Comparing myself to all of the other women in the room became an obsession that always left me in dead-last and full of self-hatred and regret for not devising a plan that would have excused me altogether from having to attend in the first place. 

Having to dress up for events that included eating were the most dreaded and often ended in a quiet, internal hell that I swallowed instead of the dinner being offered. Later, as my disease progressed, I would almost always have enough to drink to try and quiet the noise in my head causing my food-deprived body to quickly absorb the poison, stymieing any possibility of leaving with my dignity intact. 

Fast forward to today... I am almost completely weight restored and doing things deliberately that are outside of my comfort zone because if nothing changes...nothing will change.   I choose to wear skirts and heels to work and do plenty of self-affirmations in the mirror before I enter the courtroom or a meeting, feeding my healthy-self rather than fighting Olivia’s familiar derision.  I am gentle with myself if I make a mistake, avoiding negative self-talk and being as kind to myself as I would be to my daughters.  And today, I followed through with the decision to try a hair-style I have been wanting to, including color (taking deep breaths with every snip!) veering away from the idea that I don’t deserve to take care of myself, to try and look pretty.  You know, I kind of like it...and I think I notice that my eyes are full of life... and change... and hope.

Boobies
OK, well.  Two out of three ain’t bad!  ;) 
(Just checking to see if anyone actually reads these...)

Just Eat!

   "If only our eyes saw souls instead of bodies, how very different our ideals of beauty would be."~Healthyplace.com

 Please, if you have 15 minutes, and you know someone who struggles with Anorexia specifically, (if you are reading this blog... you do!) watch Laura Hill’s Ted Talk about what it is like to struggle through the “noise” of this disease.  It is the most beautiful and accurate depiction of what this is like on a day to day basis I have ever heard. 

   This is particularly relevant as the shallow, pop-media continues to perpetuate that people who are afflicted with Anorexia are vain and posses the “will-power” to take dieting to the extreme, with their only and ultimate goal, a thin body.  That this is not a disease but rather, a “choice”. 

       I’ll never forget the look of helpless sorrow on my dear friend’s face who supported me through treatment the first time around, when I tried to eat my first evening meal (in many weeks) through panicked tears.  After that meal was finally over, I believe he understood for the first time, that something more sinister than a drive to be “thin” was at work.  I felt finally, that someone understood~ really and truly understood, that I was not “choosing” not to eat.  It was the first time I ever risked letting anyone in to see what the struggle was truly like.  The relief in that moment, was like being wrapped in a warm blanket and feeling safe in the world for the first time since Olivia arrived in my life. 

      So I ask my readers (hi mom!) to please watch Laura Hill describe with true compassion, why someone with Anorexia can’t “just eat”.

Anorexia Sucks

This isn't a post to debate the etiology of Anorexia.....  Biological or Sociological.  I actually had a conversation recently with someone who described it as a "life-style".

Bullshit.  No one chooses this. 

It might start out for some people as an innocent diet, a way to get healthy, maybe lose a few pounds.  But much like alcoholism, soon she chooses you.

I'm not going to fill this page tonight with science or studies to educate whomever might stumble across my words (I will do that later). 

I just want to tell you what Anorexia sucks:

She sucks away all of your self-esteem.
She sucks away your ability to reason or think clearly.
She sucks away the life from your eyes.
She sucks away your dignity.
She sucks away your ability to walk into a room with the confidence you once were filled with.
She sucks away your ability to be fully present in life.
She sucks away the voice you once used to assert and defend yourself.
She sucks away your desire to do things that once brought you joy.
She sucks away any relationship that threatens her very existence.
She promises to suck away your pain, only to temporarily numb all of your senses, leaving your life unrecognizable. Your soul as empty as your body.
She sucks your ability to pay attention to what's happening around you and to empathize.
She sucks away your family.
She sucks away your job.
She sucks away all of your anxiety (temporarily) so you start to believe she is the only one who will take care of your pain.
She sucks away your ability to sleep soundly for one Godforsaken night.
She sucks away the one true love of your life.
She almost sucked away my life permanently. 

Anorexia sucks.

It wasn't my choice to have Anorexia.  But it is my choice to recover. 

 "We acquire the strength of that which we have overcome." - Ralph Waldo Emmerson"

Finding My Voice

"With addiction, you figure out how to lock the tiger in its cage and keep it there. With an eating disorder, you have to figure out how to take the tiger out and walk it three times a day"  – Tennie McCarty

Recovering from Anorexia Nervosa is a piece of cake Hell. 

I planned on starting this blog after I recovered.  You know, keep things tidy and pretty to protect my image in case someone I know <gasp!> actually reads it.  I planned to wax philosophic about “making it" or to share the Top Ten Secrets to an Easy and Full Recovery from your Eating Disorder...

F**k that.

The fact is, Anorexia isn’t tidy or pretty.   She ("Olivia"...more on that later) wants its prey to suffer endlessly on the inside while looking tidy and pretty on the outside, so nothing (or no one) blocks her charge to sabotage all that brings us joy in our lives.  To protect with iron-cladness, all of the pain and negativity and self-hatred/doubt that feeds her.  She wants her victims to keep it all inside of a shiny, hard-candy shell whose appearance promises a familiar, satisfying and sweet inside that in reality, is abandoned of its former lively, joyful self and is now as hollow as a cheap chocolate confectionery that disappoints everyone who get close enough to experience it.

I wish to share this journey of recovery with you~ failures, relapses, successes and all.  It likely won’t be tidy or pretty, timely or linear.  Postings will be erratic and unpredictable at best, like the recovery I am so tenaciously seeking.  It won’t be one of those blogs that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside after you read it.  You ( hi mom!) might even read things that make you cringe or cause you to want to order me a life-time supply of those pretty (white) jackets that zip (up the back and force me into a perpetual self-hug). It’s a story I feel compelled to invite you to participate in, if you have the stomach for it, because candor is “Olivia’s” kryptonite. 

It’s the story of my fight against something I never asked for or dreamed would become public.  It might make you feel something.  (It might make you hit the back button faster than I can pass out weak from a lack of food and drunk at an important family event). It is the journey I am on, as I find my way back to the “me” I know, the “me” I deserve to be and the “me” my friends and family might once again trust and respect.

Like in my life so far, my hopes for this blog are that:

Some of you might drop in and stay for awhile, leaving me with a piece of you before you go.

Some of you can take something from me that resonates with your own life.
 
And some of you might stay forever, no matter where my journey leads.