note to self

sarcasm is a suit of armor

next week

I'm sitting at a coffeeshop where I just ate chicken salad.  

Third step prayer: I need to say this prayer every morning when I wake up

God, I offer myself to you to build with me and do with me as you will.  Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do your will.  Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help.  Of your power, your love, and your way of life.  Amen.

My menu for the following week is:

Thursday dinner: sushi and 1/2 salad

Friday:

normal breakfast

turkey sandwich with cheese and orange juice

fruit

mathias to make the plate at party.

Saturday

call Erin

one slice of pizza and a side salad

Sunday

chicken sandwich with side salad

fruit

prepared salad from whole foods on way home,.

Wish

I wish I could describe how hard this is.  I wish to eat.  I wish to go to the Olive Garden and order dish upon dish.  I wish to drive to the grocery store and purchase a buggy full of macaroni and cheese, butter, and milk and spend the rest of my days consuming, consuming, consuming.  I wish to numb my pain away, but the pain I'm feeling is stemming from I don't know where.  I wish my parent to tell me what to do.  I wish to go back in time to the appropriate age where your parents dictate your life, and for mine to do just that.  To tell me to stop, to tell me to go to therapy, to not make me feel guilty for the expense of a therapist, psychiatrist, psychologist, nutritionist, blah, blah, blah.  I wish my family to understand the deadliness and destruction of this disease - to watch the show "Intervention" and to want to show that much love for me.  Ten years of wishing has led me no where.

Tweak

I just finished Tweak by Nic Sheff, the son of David who wrote beautiful boy.  Here's what I've taken from it:

"There's something about outward appearances that has always been important to me.  I always thought I was so ugly.  I mean, I really did.  I remember being in L.A. at my mom's house as a little kid and just staring into the mirror for hours.  It was like, if I looked long enough, maybe I'd finally be handsome.  It never worked.  I just got uglier and uglier.  Nothing about me ever seemed good enough.  And there was this sadness inside me - this hopelessness.  Focusing on my physical appearance was at least external - at least, to a point.  I could buy different clothes, or cut my hair, or whatever.   The pit opening up inside me was too frightening to even look at ... It's so shallow and ridiculous and I see it, but I'm powerless to change.  I mean, I don't know how to change.  All I can do is just shoot more goddamn drugs."

"I always get so overwhelmed trying to do everything perfectly.  I can't do a job and not put everything into it.  I need to be the best employee, the best coworker, the best whatever.  I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen.  Having people mad at me is my worst fear.  I can't stand it.  There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone - even people I don't really care about."

"No matter how much I want to, I can't actually believe that there is a power guiding me.  It just doesn't make sense to me on a deep, visceral level.  I don't believe in God - not really.  Honestly, that scares me.  I'm worried I won't be able to work the twelve-step program."

"I get up at 6 a.m. every day to exercise and I feel really crazy and anxious if I miss it.  It's like I need to kill my body with exercise in order to be calm enough to function throughout the rest of the day.  I also have incredible anxiety socializing with people.  I mean, if I'm at work, or I'm high, then that's okay.  But sober, going out with people my age, I am just really uncomfortable.  I'm not sure what it is that scares me.  Maybe I just don't know what to say and I'm constantly worried about what they think about me."

Yesterday

Yesterday I began my three meals per day regimen.  I had yogurt and pineapple for breakfast, a CHICKEN SANDWICH with a side of fruit for lunch, and half a slice of pizza with a side salad.  I called my sponsor at 8 o'clock, crying.  My stomach was voraciously distended, my body so full it felt like the food was reaching from my stomach to my throat.  I didn't think I could eat anything else.  Nor did I want to.  She told me it was okay, I'm experiencing normal "feelings" as I eat 3 "regular" meals each day.  And she said I didn't have to eat a whole slice of pizza, just half of one.  Which I did.  After the conversation, I went into the bathroom, bunkered to my knees, and asked whomever the hell is out there to help me get over this shit.  I walked out, looked Mathias in the eye, and said, "Fuck the eating disorder.  No more crying over pizza."  And we left for dinner.  

The size of the pizza I ate was about double the size of my pointer finger.  I didn't eat the side salad, and I awoke this morning scrupulously checking my body for signs of weight gain.  If I stretch the skin on my upper legs, I can see remnants of cellulite.  I said no more crying over pizza, but how do I stop crying over body image?

Quote

"Some great men and women are fortified and redeemed through their suffering, and they even seek sadness instead of happiness, just as van Gogh asserted, 'Sorrow is better than joy,' and Balzac declared, 'Suffering is one's teacher.'  But these dicta are suitable only for extraordinary souls, for the select few.  For ordinary people like us, too much suffering can only make us meaner, crazier, pettier, and more wretched."

-Ha Jin

Self-explanatory

'He did it to himself.  But nonetheless he has an illness.  It's a tricky illness.  Yes, people do have choices about what to do about it.   It's the same with an illness like diabetes.  A diabetic can choose to monitor his insulin levels and take his medication; an addict can choose to treat his disease through recovery.  In both cases, if they don't treat their illnesses, they worsen and the person can die ... There's that evidence that people who become addicted, once they begin using, have a compulsion that cannot be easily a matter of willpower.   They cannot to stop on their own or they would.  No one wants to be an addict.  The drug takes a person over.  The drug, not a person's rational mind, is in control.'

David Sheff beautiful boy

Powerful

"In his suicide note, Kurt Cobain wrote, 'It's better to burn out than to fade away.'  He was quoting a Neil Young song about Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols.  When I was twenty-four, I interviewed John Lennon.  I asked him about this sentiment, one that pervades rock and roll.  He took strong, outraged exception to it.  'It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out,' he said.  'I worship the people who survive.  I'll take the living and the healthy.'

The living and the healthy.

I do not know if my son can be one of them."

David Sheff beautiful boy

Shakespeare

"O God that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!  That we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts."

William Shakespeare The Tempest

Higher Power

My sponsor asked me to write a detailed list of what my ideal higher power would look like.  Here it goes:

No mental illness

No civil wars

No imperialism (be it egomaniacal or not)

No suffering the the weak, poor or impoverished

An explanation as to why it's so difficult to comprehend

No segregation between races, religions, social/income classes, sexual preferences, genders, or any schools of           thought not previously mentioned

No global dominance

TRUE equality

No broken homes

No physical violence

Pacifism in every sense of the word

No sexual, verbal, mental, emotional, physical or spiritual abuse

Unconditional love

Tangible guidance

Elimination of evil and spite

No animal cruelty (at least one kitty per household)

No terrorism

An audible voice

Someone to wipe away the tears

"Compassionate, tolerance, a sense of caring, consideration of others, and the responsible use of knowledge and power" - Dalai Lama

"I tell him that I have just gotten my son into rehab.  He says, 'God bless you.  I have been there.  It is hell.  But he's in God's hands.'  It startles me.  I mention that our family never believed in God.  'I wish I did,' I say.  'I wish I could put it in someone else's hands.  Someone powerful and benevolent.  But I don't believe it.'

'You will believe in God before this is over.'"

David Sheff Beautiful Boy

"God is a concept by which we measure our pain."

-John Lennon

Must Read

I'm currently reading Beautiful Boy by David Sheff.  He is the father of a meth addict who tried everything to help his son overcome his disease.  It's beautifully written and helpful for family and friends struggling to help the addicted.  I highly recommend it.  This is the best book I've read about doing everything you possibly can to fix the problem.  (Mom, you'd love this book!!!)

Quote

"Without food, one of man's most perplexing yet engaging problems would be rendered meaningless when one realized that the chicken and the egg both didn't come first."

Fran Lebowitz Metropolitan Life

Quote: Hunger

"The sick feeling stayed with me all morning, and my mind had lost the power to concentrate itself on any thoughts, however briefly.  The hunger pangs continued to come and go, and the darkness around me grew thicker and thinner, and with each new wave another chunk of my ability to concentrate would be taken away, like furniture being stripped a piece at a time by burglars in an empty house."

Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

Sleepless in Austin

Would anyone care for some mahi mahi, because I just ate some and can now eat it with you?!  

Happy birthday, Mathias!  (Even though you're not reading this.)

My sleeping patterns are like staccato musical streams: hiccupped, brief, trodden with small black patches.  I've woken over a handful of times in the past two weeks before 3 am.  Sleep deprivation creates chronic body image issues for me, and it makes working out a chore, which makes eating that much more painful.  Early mornings present fortressed solitude, loneliness soaked with anxiety.  I just looked at pictures of myself on my facebook account.  A picture of me with my friend Megan is haunting me, my bulging stomach lingering in my memory like sea foam on the wet sand.  I'm waiting for the dissipation to occur, understanding the bubbles are a direct result of contamination.  Decomposition of animals, human waste and garbage, petroleum - all linear correlations to depression and consumption and eating disorders. Pathetic metaphor for bulimia. And this is why I also suffer from picture phobia ... 

It's 4:30 and I have 1.5 hours until yoga.  Sweet dreams.

Milestone

It's Mathias' birthday weekend.  I made lasagna (with turkey) and strawberry coffee cake.  I ate a small portion of the lasagna ... take THAT eating disorder!

Quote

"A successful external reality depends upon an internal vision that is left intact."

-Tom Robbins Still Life with Woodpecker

Goals and updates

My medications, it seems, are endless in number.  My kitchen cabinet is spilling with orange tubes with white hats. I currently am taking daily: 40 mg of Prozac, 50 mg of Trazodone, 2 mg of Abilify, 1 mg of Lorazapam, and 50 mg of Lamicatol.  Whew.  I was informed by my doctor that the lamictal is an all-inclusive prescription, tackling depression, anxiety, and insomnia all together.  I'm left wondering why I'm still being prescribed these other meds.  I'll call her today.  The upside is that I am happy - frighteningly happy relative to 4 months ago - and it feels stable.  I don't know any other way to describe it.  So I'm a little apprehensive to change what I'm taking when things seem to be going so well.  The Abilify is still reacting strangely to my body.  I was having difficulty sleeping the first three days I took it and I couldn't remember simple conversations I had with people.  It's almost like I was induced with short-term memory loss, which is not a side effect listed on its warning label.  I slept well last night after taking the Abilify first thing in the morning, but my concentration level does not seem to have changed.  It's hard to tell after just a few days.

My goal for today is to stick to my meal plan and not eat or drink anything that isn't listed.  I may have to talk to my sponsor about the feta cheese ...

Moving on

I confessed my malfeasance to my sponsor yesterday over an email.  She called me directly, and we discussed in length about what steps to take in the future so this pattern doesn't continue.  I know it's so much work, but I asked her to give me a daily account of what I should eat each meal every day, the time spanning over 5 days.  It's bizarre.  I am aware of what a risk meal looks like, but if I am in control of eating it, my ED voice takes over and tells me I can't do it.  But if my sponsor is in control of my meal, then it's her voice that's telling me it's okay to eat.  For instance, yesterday morning I plotted my risk meal to be an omelette.  No one told me to eat an omelette, but that meal I consider a risk.  But I just couldn't do it.  Do I prepare it myself?  Do I go to a restaurant and eat by myself?  Do I go to Whole Foods and risk purchasing other binge items?  I am having sensory overload during this risk meal period.  

Today my breakfast consisted of one scrambled egg, one bagel, and one piece of fruit.  My lunch is a ready-made salad from Whole Foods with grilled chicken and feta cheese.  I must use all of the salad dressing, but I don't have to eat the entire salad.  I also have to eat most of a whole grain roll.  My snack is a piece of fruit in the afternoon.  Dinner is a piece of grilled chicken, a side of roasted vegetables, and a side of brown rice.  I'm not nearly as anxious about this as I was about the turkey sandwich.  

Last night I risked a bite of guacamole as well as a bite of chicken with sour cream.  And guess what?  I'm still alive.

Strike 2

It's been whirlwind of a day.  Regression sucks.  I was so happy yesterday - upbeat, excited for life, content with the relationship Mathias and I share.  We spent an amazing weekend together.  He was himself again.  Such a drastic change from last weekend.  He was holding my hand, smiling at me, telling me he loved me many times during the day.  But I also gave him his space.  I occupied myself, yet he asked me to spend time with him.  There was never an awkward pause between us.  Hooray for improvement.  So the question now is why is today such a struggle.  I want to drink so badly right now.  I've already eaten pineapple rings today, and I binged and purged twice this morning.  This is the second mishap now.  I sense a pattern forming.  To all who read this, please do not be disappointed.  Phone calls asking me what happened and what led up to this calamitous act are kind in their effort to support, but mistakes happen.  Especially in recovery from eating disorders.  I have to take it one meal at a time.  I binged and purged this morning, but I refuse to participate in my disorder for the rest of the day.  I am determined to wake up tomorrow back in line with recovery.  The intimidation of 3 meals every day is looming.

Nerves

It's been so long since I've felt any sense of anxiety.  Yet, last night during the ABA meeting, I listened as my sponsor described her recovery and I idled as the anxiety crept back in.  She detailed her idea of the quickest form of recovery, which includes eating three risk meals three times per day, and that the little "vestiges of control" (which for me are my pineapple rings, nighttime drink and all other obsessions and/or distractions) are all a means of the disease.  I have to fully surrender to get better, and that scares the fucking hell out of me.  I need to eat three scary meals a day with no unhealthy snacks in-between and no alcohol to lure me into my stupor.  But there's a little voice inside, echoing throughout my head and my chest, screaming that I can't let go.  I've given up so much already.  I'm tired.  When is this ever going to end?