Little Earthquakes (what reality looks like)

"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.