"Oh these little earthquakes
here we go again...
These little earthquakes
doesn't take much to rip us into pieces..."
-Tori Amos
Recently I expressed to a dear friend how stressed I was about an event at work. I told her how silly I felt, how ridiculous it was to put my entire recovery on the line for something so inconsequential. She wisely replied, "Cassie, it could be a crack in the sidewalk... anything is enough."
Anything is enough to trip and fall. Anything - be it an earth-shattering loss or a simple job demand - offers the opportunity to give in to the temptation of addiction. I've spent a lot of time on this blog generalizing the pulls of addictive behaviors as a whole; now I need to get back to my roots. Get back to my own story.
I've been in "active recovery" from anorexia for about 11 months. Essentially that means I've eaten what I've been told to eat, haven't lost any weight, and have kept my doctors' appointments. I've been working my program, for the 12-steppers out there. What it doesn't mean is that I'm "better."
Lately the combined demands of motherhood, my job, running a household, and keeping up with the myriad other commitments I've made has left me pretty worn out. On top of that I'm dealing with some as-yet-unnamed digestive issue that has me in debilitating pain after I eat. (Super fun when I have to eat every 2-3 hours.) I'm tired. I don't feel well. I constantly think I'm not doing any of these 2,483 things proficiently. I doubt myself. I criticize myself. I want to lose weight.
Wait, what? Lose weight? Are you kidding me? What has that gotten me in the past? I'm a mother! I'm a wife! I'm a teacher! I'm an adult, for God's sake! Lose weight. Like that's going to solve anything. I'm not a teenager anymore. I know the way the world works, I've been to rehab 500 times, I know better. Bowing to my eating disorder doesn't solve anything, it just creates a host of new problems. Not to mention the horrible example it sets to the young people around me, especially my own kids.
But oh, how good it feels. There's no rush in the world like seeing the number on the scale drop. I've never done drugs, but I don't think cocaine has anything on the thrill of getting thinner. Of that elation that comes when pants that fit last week suddenly hang at the hips. It would take the edge off. Not a lot of weight, just enough to regain a sense of control. Just enough to feel like I'm good at something again. Five pounds. Maybe ten. Maybe thirty, because I look like a fucking cow.
Wait. No. I remember now. It doesn't work. I want it to work. I so, so badly want the skinny, bone-clattering me to be able to conquer the world. But she never does. She can't. She hurts, she's tired, she can't focus on anything. Her heart doesn't beat correctly. She's mean because she's hungry. The people she loves the most get sad. They become very, very afraid. She forgets important things. She drops the ball over and over and over again. She gets frustrated and eats even less, convinced that if she just works harder everything will be okay. But it's not. It's never okay.
This is what "active recovery" looks like for those of us with eating disorders. It's not, "She's a healthy weight, so she's fine." It's a near-constant mental dialogue, a perpetual pro/con debate, a maddening internal argument. I eat my food every day. I see my therapist, my dietitian, my primary care doctor, my cardiologist, and the rest of the medical circus charged with keeping me alive. I talk about my struggle. I ask for help. I resist the agonizing pull of the scale, the diet pills, the laxatives, the empty belly. I remind myself moment after moment of all the time my disease has cost me. I keep walking the path of recovery. But it's hard. Sometimes it's really hard. Sometimes it's almost too hard. I know it's worth it, and I put my faith in God to see me through in those moments of despair.
It's important to me, though, to let the world know that we folks in recovery can't be forgotten. We can't be rubber stamped "BETTER" and left behind. We're still vulnerable. We can still succumb to those little earthquakes. We need your help, your love, your support. We are human and we are not invincible. We will get better, but we're not there yet.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Well Look At That. I Made It. (And You Can Too.)
On the morning of my 30th birthday I didn't awaken and run to the mirror to check for gray hair. I didn't examine my face for new wrinkles. I didn't yank on jeans from my junior year of high school for a quick comparison. When I awoke on the morning of my 30th birthday, I opened my eyes, took a deep breath, smiled, and said, "Thank you."
I've addressed before on this blog my past conviction that I would not survive to see 30. It wasn't some fatalistic, grumpy idea that things would end in fire and brimstone for me. It was more of a Y2K thing. Remember Y2K? When we were all vaguely anxious that the world would just stop since the computers didn't know how to function past the year 2000? That's how I felt about 30. It wasn't that I assumed there'd be some catastrophe. It was simply that I hadn't calculated my life span past age 29. There's a reason for that.
When I was a child I could only see what was in front of me. Small kids lack the capacity for true foresight; they see what's there, and they assume that's all there is. I saw chaos, and I assumed chaos was all that was. As I grew older, the chaos around me continued, but the chaos within me became even more dramatic. I was not the most well-balanced teenager. I took everything so personally, felt everything so deeply, was so desperately insecure. I didn't foster within myself the sort of long-term optimism that is sustaining in times of hurt. As I ventured into adulthood, got married, started a family, my maturity increased in spades, but my ability to conceptualize the future never kicked in.
To be honest, in my mind, everything stopped at 30. I had endured too much emotionally. How much can one person take? Then there was the physical piece. My body began taking its lumps during puberty. The hammer continued to fall for years. Every time I relapsed into my anorexia and bulimia, my body found it harder to keep its strength. Over and over I'd lose weight and I'd lose resistance. Over and over I'd beat my organs, my muscles, my bones down, and they'd have a tougher time getting up again. This last time, as I lay in the emergency room with a belly so infected it was a wonder I was coherent at all, I thought, "I can't do this again. One more time and I'm gone."
A funny thing happened in that moment. I gathered some resolve. I was in a hospital by myself, many miles from home, fighting for my life. My family and friends weren't there to comfort or guide me. I had my God, my doctors, and the tiny part of myself that had some fight left. When I gained a little strength I began to pace the halls of the hospital. It was good for my gut, the doctors said. So I walked. I walked through the emergency room and watched people in the throes of drug overdoses. I walked into the Catholic chapel and watched doctors and nurses on their knees beside patients and their desperate loved ones. I walked through the cardiac care unit and watched families praying over the still bodies of their sick loves ones. I walked through the maternity unit and paused to watch the brand new babies, tiny humans with infinite potential and no baggage to tie them down. I dragged my IV behind me and took the elevator all the way to the top floor of the hospital. I couldn't go to the roof where the helicopters landed, so I stopped just below it and hovered near the door. I waited until I could hear a chopper land. I backed up to clear the way for the emergency team, and I watched as a cluster of frantic, selfless first responders threw themselves into the care of a person they had never met.
That experience, so sick and so alone in a hospital far from home, was a turning point. It gave me a glimpse into just how much we ALL struggle. Just how hard we ALL have it from time to time. I used to think my pain was unique. Now I know that I share it with billions of my brothers and sisters. That solidarity, that awareness of the vulnerability of the world, may have been what saved me. It may have been good medicine and a body that wasn't quite ready to quit, but I believe that much of what got me out of that hospital was the promise that I wasn't alone, and that I would be okay.
So when I awoke a few days ago to a decade I never thought I'd see, I wasn't dismayed. I wasn't angry. I wasn't afraid. Rather, I marveled at how someone who was so terribly unhappy, so awfully hurt for such a long time could awaken with a deep breath, a smile, and a simple, "Thank you."
My friends, if you are in pain, if you are scared, if you can't imagine things ever getting better, please hear these words: If I could come from the torment that I used to know and make it to the absolute fulfillment that I enjoy now, so can you. I used to be a sad, mad, wildly confused kid who couldn't imagine happiness. Now I am a joyful, silly, wildly contended wife, mother, friend, and teacher who couldn't ask for a better life. IT DOES GET BETTER. IT WILL GET BETTER. But you have to keep going. No matter what, no matter how sure you are that it's all going to fall apart, no matter what nightmare you may find yourself in, you MUST keep going. None of us knows what awaits us just around the corner. We have to be willing to turn the corner in order to find out. Bless you.
I've addressed before on this blog my past conviction that I would not survive to see 30. It wasn't some fatalistic, grumpy idea that things would end in fire and brimstone for me. It was more of a Y2K thing. Remember Y2K? When we were all vaguely anxious that the world would just stop since the computers didn't know how to function past the year 2000? That's how I felt about 30. It wasn't that I assumed there'd be some catastrophe. It was simply that I hadn't calculated my life span past age 29. There's a reason for that.
When I was a child I could only see what was in front of me. Small kids lack the capacity for true foresight; they see what's there, and they assume that's all there is. I saw chaos, and I assumed chaos was all that was. As I grew older, the chaos around me continued, but the chaos within me became even more dramatic. I was not the most well-balanced teenager. I took everything so personally, felt everything so deeply, was so desperately insecure. I didn't foster within myself the sort of long-term optimism that is sustaining in times of hurt. As I ventured into adulthood, got married, started a family, my maturity increased in spades, but my ability to conceptualize the future never kicked in.
To be honest, in my mind, everything stopped at 30. I had endured too much emotionally. How much can one person take? Then there was the physical piece. My body began taking its lumps during puberty. The hammer continued to fall for years. Every time I relapsed into my anorexia and bulimia, my body found it harder to keep its strength. Over and over I'd lose weight and I'd lose resistance. Over and over I'd beat my organs, my muscles, my bones down, and they'd have a tougher time getting up again. This last time, as I lay in the emergency room with a belly so infected it was a wonder I was coherent at all, I thought, "I can't do this again. One more time and I'm gone."
A funny thing happened in that moment. I gathered some resolve. I was in a hospital by myself, many miles from home, fighting for my life. My family and friends weren't there to comfort or guide me. I had my God, my doctors, and the tiny part of myself that had some fight left. When I gained a little strength I began to pace the halls of the hospital. It was good for my gut, the doctors said. So I walked. I walked through the emergency room and watched people in the throes of drug overdoses. I walked into the Catholic chapel and watched doctors and nurses on their knees beside patients and their desperate loved ones. I walked through the cardiac care unit and watched families praying over the still bodies of their sick loves ones. I walked through the maternity unit and paused to watch the brand new babies, tiny humans with infinite potential and no baggage to tie them down. I dragged my IV behind me and took the elevator all the way to the top floor of the hospital. I couldn't go to the roof where the helicopters landed, so I stopped just below it and hovered near the door. I waited until I could hear a chopper land. I backed up to clear the way for the emergency team, and I watched as a cluster of frantic, selfless first responders threw themselves into the care of a person they had never met.
That experience, so sick and so alone in a hospital far from home, was a turning point. It gave me a glimpse into just how much we ALL struggle. Just how hard we ALL have it from time to time. I used to think my pain was unique. Now I know that I share it with billions of my brothers and sisters. That solidarity, that awareness of the vulnerability of the world, may have been what saved me. It may have been good medicine and a body that wasn't quite ready to quit, but I believe that much of what got me out of that hospital was the promise that I wasn't alone, and that I would be okay.
So when I awoke a few days ago to a decade I never thought I'd see, I wasn't dismayed. I wasn't angry. I wasn't afraid. Rather, I marveled at how someone who was so terribly unhappy, so awfully hurt for such a long time could awaken with a deep breath, a smile, and a simple, "Thank you."
My friends, if you are in pain, if you are scared, if you can't imagine things ever getting better, please hear these words: If I could come from the torment that I used to know and make it to the absolute fulfillment that I enjoy now, so can you. I used to be a sad, mad, wildly confused kid who couldn't imagine happiness. Now I am a joyful, silly, wildly contended wife, mother, friend, and teacher who couldn't ask for a better life. IT DOES GET BETTER. IT WILL GET BETTER. But you have to keep going. No matter what, no matter how sure you are that it's all going to fall apart, no matter what nightmare you may find yourself in, you MUST keep going. None of us knows what awaits us just around the corner. We have to be willing to turn the corner in order to find out. Bless you.
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