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Wednesday, December 23, 2020

In the Shower

Depression doesn't always "look" like depression.


In the Shower

My wrist mimics the motion of the rounded
metal valve as I spin it all the way to the left.
I let the water scald me,
but the heat and pressure always fall short.
I just want to feel something.
I step out into the opaque cover of steam.
It hides me from myself. The mirror
is blanketed in fog, the way I like it. Reflection is
too much to handle. I reach for the towel, the ratty
one that's always waiting for me—a mere 
arm's length awayand cloak myself in the familiar
synthetic fibers. I wrap and tuck my body
like an origami swan, hiding the ugly
duckling beneath. My mind lingers on those places
where the fabric brushes against
bumps and curves, those corporeal protrusions
I fight so hard to ignore. I drop the towel,
vacating my shell of safety like a hermit crab,
cringe at the momentary exposure,
and reach for the baggy clothing carelessly
tossed next to the sink, as I have a thousand times.
I move with the muscle memory of one who's mastered
the art of not seeing herself clearly.

I dress in near silence, nothing
but the sound of residual water dripping
from the showerhead. And for a fleeting moment,
I think perhaps I do feel something
envy, clear as those final droplets as they escape
down the drain.

Monday, December 14, 2020

Alone on a Sunday Morning


Alone on a Sunday Morning 

I stand at the kitchen sink, peeling
boiled eggs, fingertips grasping at the hardened
opaque membrane. Cracked skin is met
with cracked skin. I can feel
the sharp fragmentation as
I cradle life, arrested, in my hands.

I dig at shattered remnants, desperate
to find purchase, to reach the softness within.
I lift away broken layers that pull
at the gentle flesh beneath,
too stubborn to let go. They cling to the vestiges
of what was

once whole. I watch the purity of white flesh
become marred by my earnest desperation.
I clutch the segments of fractured, empty shell.
Consumed by the endeavor, I become
lost, unable to remember how it feels
to be unbroken.



Monday, June 1, 2020

I Got Slapped in the Face by My Own White Privilege, and It Made Me Want to Be Better



I have a somewhat embarrassing confession to make: I didn’t know the details of what happened to George Floyd until about four days after the fact.

I know what you’re probably thinking: How is that even possible? It seems like EVERYONE is talking about it.

But you see, here’s the thing: I wasn’t entirely ignorant. I knew that something tragic had happened.

I saw the headlines.

I saw the photos.

I saw the countless Facebook posts.

I saw the rally cries, the Black Lives Matter hashtags, the petitions, the memorials, the brilliantly composed song lyrics, the faces—both black and white—painted with pain and outrage.

I saw the world burning. Literally, in some cases.

I “saw” all of it, but I deliberately chose not to SEE any of it.

I didn’t click on the news stories, didn’t watch the videos, didn’t engage in the discussion. I didn’t join my friends in their public outcries for justice. I avoided Facebook and news outlets. I didn’t ask my husband what he’d heard about it. I didn’t want to hear about it—or worse—think about it.

In fact, for days after the incident, I stayed in my safe little COVID-19 quarantine bubble. I sat around in my home, reveling in the familiar comfort of my favorite bathrobe and house slippers. I sipped my coffee, played with my kids, and forcibly repressed my curiosity whenever it began wandering into dangerous territory. I intentionally chose the numbing bliss of unawareness.

Why?

Because I knew. I knew if I plugged myself back into the broken world we live in that it would hurt—that I would hurt. I knew once I read the details about what happened, I wouldn’t be able to get them out of my mind. I knew I’d feel lost in a sea of confusion, anger, sadness, and helplessness. I knew it would leave me feeling unsettled.

 At the risk of sounding juvenilely simplistic, I knew that facing the reality of everything would make feel “yucky” inside.

So I delayed the inevitable for as long as I reasonably could. I avoided awareness. I avoided truth. I avoided pain. I put off the discomfort until I felt a little more emotionally prepared to face all that heartache and ugliness.

And that’s when the realization slapped me in the face: THAT—that luxury of avoiding and delaying all those “yucky” feelings—is just one example of my white privilege.

There are people out there who wake up with that “yucky” feeling every damn day simply because they happen to have more melanin in their skin than I do.

There are people who have to function in a state of relentless emotional exhaustion all the time.

There are people who worry about the safety and security of their family and friends every minute of every day.

There are people who walk out into the world on a daily basis feeling like “the underdog.”

There are moms who have to weigh the risks and benefits of allowing their kids to play outside unsupervised.

In fact, when my own black son—who is now “adorable” but already “big-for-his-age”—gets older, I will become one of those moms. There will be a day, a few years down the road, when I’ll have to explain to him why he can no longer play with nerf guns outside of our home. I just pray I have the wisdom to handle it with as much grace as possible.

Coming face-to-face with your own white privilege is not a pretty thing.

In fact, it's rather ugly. It can make you feel embarrassed, ashamed, and futile. I don’t think any decent human being likes knowing that there are people out there who have it “so much worse” than they do. It’s just another one of those things that makes you feel kind of “yucky” inside.

But you know what else it is?

It is necessary.

That awareness is one of the driving forces behind beautiful and altruistic things like homeless shelters, food pantries, foster care, and mitten trees at Christmas time. It makes us want to be better. It sparks positive change.

In fact, as life coach Tony Robbins once said, “All growth starts at the end of your comfort zone.”

We owe it to one another to acknowledge and face our minor discomforts, like white privilege, in order to spare our brothers and sisters from the major ones—the tragedies, like what happened to George Floyd and countless others before him.

We are all human. We are capable of change. We are capable of being better.

I’ll admit, I am still figuring out exactly how I—as a privileged white woman—can be better. But here are some things I do know:

Choosing to be aware of my own privilege and allowing myself to acknowledge the pain and injustice around me is a good place to start.

I also know that as a Christian, I am supposed to hold Jesus’s words—“Love one another as I have loved you”—as the greatest commandment. Jesus advocated most often for the frightened, the poor, the lost, and the oppressed. I am going to strive to love as He did.

And finally, I know that as a mom, I have perhaps the greatest power—and concurrent responsibility—to heal this world with both awareness and love. I can raise my children to do better, to love better, and to be better.

Because at the end of the day, what I want most is a better world.

For all of us.

Monday, February 17, 2020

Calling It What It Is: How Talking About ED Diminishes His Grip on Me


I remember my first crush. We were in first grade, and his name was Chris. He had freckles and curly brown hair that was always in slight disarray. I was a scrawny, fairly awkward girl with a pixie cut that— now that I think about it—probably looked pretty similar to his own hairstyle. Maybe that’s what drew me to him. I don’t know for sure, but I do know that one day I just decided I thought he was cute.

And just like that, BAM, I “liked” someone.

For a while, I didn’t tell anyone about my crush. I relished having a secret of my own, and I spent a lot of time daydreaming about Chris and concocting a fake relationship with him in my head. Having a crush on a boy made me feel special. It was new. It was exciting. It was a little taboo. But most importantly, it was mine.

But kids have this inconvenient inability to keep secrets for very long. Eventually, I decided to tell my best friend, who of course told one of our other friends. Before I knew it, most of the kids in my class found out, followed by my mom, and then (Oh the horror!) the boy himself.

As my “secret” spread, something weird happened: My feelings just kind of fizzled away into nothing, like the bubbles of the sickeningly sweet grape soda I used to get out of the pop machine at K-mart.

The thing is, I don’t think I even “liked” Chris that much. I think I liked the idea of liking him, and I liked that it was something I did in secret. I loved covertly scribbling hearts with our initials in them on the inside cover of my Lisa Frank notebook, and sneaking glances at him in art class when I thought no one was looking. I took pleasure in coordinating the color of my hair scrunchie to the hue of his winter jacket and acting like it was just sweet serendipity when we matched.

But once everyone found out about my crush, it lost its wow factor, and I sort of just stopped caring about it. Then I stopped thinking about it altogether. Soon enough, my daydreams became less occupied with Chris and returned to their regularly-scheduled-program.*

*For those of you wondering, these often involved being both an Olympic gymnast and a famous singer. Also, a hot pink princess dress. There was always a hot pink princess dress involved.

*

You’re probably wondering where the hell I’m going with all this, since this is a piece about eating disorders. If you’re still here, thanks for sticking with me while I reminisce about the simpler days of Dunkaroos and childhood crushes. I promise there’s a point, and here it is:

Something I’ve discovered since starting eating disorder therapy is that the more I talk about ED, the less “special” he seems, and the less significant my relationship—my infatuation, or “crush,” if you will—with him becomes, just like when everyone found out about that first grade crush.

Keeping ED a secret gives him more power over me. It makes me feel closer to him, like we share an exclusive bond that no one knows about. It sounds weird, but let me put it this way: Imagine one of your close friends tells you a secret—maybe that she’s pregnant—and she asks you not to tell anyone yet. How would you feel? Special? Honored? Privileged? Chosen?

That’s how ED makes me feel sometimes. He whispers in my ear that I’m the only one he can trust to keep our secret, that I’m the only one who understands him, and—even more importantly—he’s the only one who understands me. He convinces me to keep our relationship quiet because other people won’t—or simply can’t—“get it.”

And guess what? He’s right. Most people DON’T get it. But that doesn’t really matter. People don’t need to “get it,” they just need to know about it.

This is something that’s particularly difficult for me because I feel an immense sense of shame about my eating disorder and how it’s affected not only myself but also the people I care about. However, with time (and a lot of therapy), I’ve realized it’s not only healing for me to talk about ED, but also vital for me if I want to keep fighting that son of a bitch.

I have to acknowledge ED. Own him. Call him out by name.

Any other Harry Potter nerds here? Remember when J.K. Rowling brilliantly wrote that “[f]ear of a name increases fear of the thing itself?” It’s so true. That’s why it’s important for me to openly admit that I struggle with an eating disorder. In doing so, I become less afraid of it.

*

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people shy away from openly discussing mental health issues. There tends to be this completely misguided notion that they’re too personal, embarrassing, or even shameful to talk about.

But when we don’t talk about this shit, we give it more power over us. When I don’t talk about ED, the proverbial ball is in his court: He’s in control, and I’m left living in the constant fear that I’ll make a mistake, and he’ll expose our relationship to the world: that I’ll slip up—skip a meal, over-exercise, get caught chewing and spitting—and someone I love will wonder, what’s going on with her? I don’t want people to wonder. I want people to know:

I spend every day fighting a fucking eating disorder, and it is exhausting.

I want to share my struggles on my terms, not his. So I talk about ED. I talk about ED to the people who “get it,” like my therapist. And I talk about ED to the people who may never get it, no matter how hard they try, like my husband (who can eat an entire pizza, flex his six pack, and not give it a second thought). I talk about ED to strangers on the internet (I’m looking at you, reader). I talk about ED even when it makes people feel awkward or uncomfortable. I talk about ED when I feel like talking about him, and I talk about ED when I really don’t feel like talking about him.

The point is, I TALK ABOUT ED.

And here’s the thing: The more I talk about ED, the less I find myself listening to him. Sure, I still hear him. In fact, hearing him is a conscious choice I’ve made along my path to recovery. I allow him say his piece, I acknowledge it, and then I call him out on his bullshit. You see, there’s a difference between hearing and listening, and there is power in the choice to hear someone but not listen to what he’s saying.

So when ED tells me I’m not good enough, I try my best to reply with a not-so-friendly “Fuck you” and carry on my merry way.

And if I’m feeling really sassy, I might even go eat a donut, just to remind him—and myself—who’s boss.


Me with my eldest child, who recently asked to take a picture with me in the new shirt I got him.
As you can see, it has food on it. More specifically, a donut. So I thought it was appropriate lol.