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.

To the Woman Lost in Her Eating Disorder

To the woman struggling, the woman caught in the death grip of her eating disorder:

I see you. I know you’re trying to hide—to disappear—but I see you.

I see you because I was you.

*

Do you remember those yellow rubber Livestrong wristbands that were all the rage in the early 2000s?

I do. In fact, I’ll always remember. I’ll remember because while other people were using them to show their outward support for a worthy cause, I was using one to support the ongoing deterioration of my self-worth.

I was using one as a catalyst for my own self-destruction.

I can recall, very vividly, slogging away on an elliptical in a tiny workout room near my college campus, periodically sliding that yellow band slowly up and down my withered arm: I would start at the emaciated wrist, traverse the path to a bony elbow, cross the spot where the bulge of a bicep used to be, and finally end at the top of a protruding shoulder bone.

I would leave that bright yellow band there, for a few minutes—tucked beneath my armpit—and relish in the knowledge that it still fit there, that all my hard work was paying off.

I would leave it there to remind me that the hours of exercise, the days of starvation, the constant sense of being half-alive, was worth it.

That isolating myself from friends and family was worth it.

That living the shell of the life I once knew was worth it.

That being numb was worth it.

That ED—the disease that had possessed me with a ruthless, unforgiving ferocity—was worth it.

I convinced myself that as long as my arm was skinny enough for that little yellow band to encircle every part of it, everything I was doing was worth it.

And yet, even though I believed my destructive behavior was worth all of the consequences, was worth losing myself, I never stopped feeling worthLESS.

*

That’s what anorexia does to you. That’s what an eating disorder does to you. It tricks you into thinking that you’re working toward something—an accomplishment, a meaningful goal, a happy ending in which you’ll finally feel fulfilled.

But there are no happy endings, no dreams fulfilled, no real achievements. Those are all figments of your imagination that ED plants in your mind to keep you under his control.

You can never reach your goal because there’s always another one. There’s always more weight to lose, less food to eat, longer workouts to perform.

There’s always more you can do to become less.

And so it becomes a manipulative cycle. ED convinces you he’ll make you happy if you just keep giving him a little more of yourself, until finally there’s nothing left to give. Eventually, you’ll forget that you ever even hoped to be happy, because happiness becomes an elusive, intangible concept—like the soft serenity of a cloud in the sky that you can clearly see but know you’ll never touch.

It’s like signing a contract with the devil. You sell your soul for empty promises, and you end up with nothing but—

Emptiness. In every possible sense of the word. Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual.

*

This is the part where I’m supposed to talk about the turning point in my life. This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you that everything works out in the end, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

That you are stronger than your eating disorder.

But I’m not going to do that. Not today.

Today I’m going to tell you the truth, and the truth is that not everyone beats ED. The truth is that you’re not inherently stronger than your eating disorder. The truth is that you have to choose to be.

The truth is that people die from this disease. The truth is that I was almost one of them.

The truth is that you could be one of them, and that if you don’t make the choice to fight, you probably will be. I don’t believe you want that. I don’t believe that you—the real you, the you without ED—is ready to sacrifice your life to this disease.

So don’t. Instead, CHOOSE. Choose right now not to become an empty statistic. Choose right now to fight for what you want.

Do you want to be that girl on the elliptical, measuring her worth with a small yellow band, suffering quietly—senselessly—as a means to an (unhappy) end?

Do you want to continue sacrificing yourself for empty promises?

Do you want to BE empty?

Do you want to just keep going through the motions, the ones that are slowly killing you?

Or do you want to STOP?

Stop and look at what you’re doing to yourself. Stop and ask yourself if there's something you're blatantly ignoring: an instinct, a deep-rooted feeling that you want to stop, a sign from the universe... 

*

It was right there—literally at my fingertips—all along: the words I needed to see.

Livestrong.

Live. STRONG.

*

You have to choose. No one else can do it for you.

Choose to live. Choose to be strong.

Because even though I’ve never met you, even though you don’t know me, I know you. And I see you.

I see that you’re worth it. Just like I was—just like I am—worth it.

It’s about time you see it, too.

*

For more information on National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and what you can do to help save a life, check out nedawareness.org. And please, if you know someone who's suffering, consider sharing this post <3

I Am Not My Eating Disorder, but It Is a Part of Me

Recently, I’ve noticed a strong social media movement aimed at removing the stigma associated with mental health issues. Celebrities are coming out to talk about their struggles with postpartum depression, people are bringing awareness to the many different faces of eating disorders, and individuals turning to medication to treat their depression are finally viewed as heroic rather than weak.

As someone who’s struggled with some of these issues myself, I’m happy to see this push toward awareness and acceptance. I applaud the individuals who’ve had the courage to emerge from the shadows, sharing their stories and shedding light on the mental health problems that plague so many of us.  

I encourage them—and others—to keep these conversations going.

But. BUT. I’d also like to clarify—perhaps even challenge—one of the themes that’s emerging as a result of the push toward mental health disorder acceptance.

“You are not your disease.”

Think about it. How many times have you heard or read that in one form or another?

You are not your depression.

You are not your anxiety.

You are not your eating disorder.

It’s that last one that really strikes a chord with me, although I’ve struggled with my fair share of the other two as well.

Anyone who’s read my past work knows I have a long history with an eating disorder.

Scratch that. “History” is indicative of the past, and mental health issues—even those you “recover” from—are never completely in your past.

You see, sicknesses—like depression and eating disorders—change you. Permanently.

They mark you.  For life.

They leave scars: Some figurative, and some literal. Some physical, and some emotional. Some that still have a tendency to jolt you awake in the night, rousing you with a sharp, sudden twinge of pain; and some that leave you with a dull, lingering ache—like a torn muscle that’s repaired itself, but remains stiff and sore from the growth of new tissue.

Some that will never heal, and some that slowly numb with the passage of time.

Some that make you feel weak, and some that make you feel like a warrior.

Some visible, and some not.

But as someone who bears these kinds of scars, let me assure you of this: Even if you—or others—can’t see them, I know they’re there: carved into my mind, stitched into my heart, spanning my very soul.

So, no, as many others have affirmed, I am NOT my disease.

I am NOT my eating disorder.

But it is a part of me.

It’s the part that makes me push beyond my physical limitations. I’m a runner, and some days, it’s the broken part of my soul that motivates me to keep moving. It’s the brokenness that fuels my determination, that help me focus, that makes me feel strong.

Odd, I know, how the very thing that once starved my body now fuels my soul; but my eating disorder reminds me of weakness, and that drives me toward strength. I know what it is to live in a body so emaciated it can barely function, and because I remember that feeling, I now revel in its renowned power.

I take pride in the swell of my leg muscles as they continue to carry me forward. 

It’s the part that ensures my children are cared for, even when I’m exhausted. I am all too familiar with the abyss a person can fall into when not properly nourished—either physically or spiritually—and I refuse to watch my children fall into that black hole of self-destruction.

So even when I’m frustrated, or tired, or battling my own personal demons, I make sure my boys are well-fed. I make sure they know they are loved. I make sure they are aware that they are always, always ENOUGH.

It’s the part that inspires me to write, to connect to others through my words. I can’t stand the thought of others suffering the way I once did, the way I sometimes still do.

It’s the part that makes every laugh, every smile, every tiny personal victory, a little brighter. It’s a matter of perception: light always looks more radiant in the presence of darkness. 

It’s the part that gives me perspective. I can see now that memories, not calories, are what count.

It’s the part that makes every bite of cake, every spoonful of peanut butter, and every finger-lick of cream cheese taste SO FREAKING GOOD. How—HOW—did I ever live without this stuff?

It’s the part that reminds me to cherish every moment of this life (no matter how corny that sounds). Because it brought me so close to the brink of losing it.

It’s the part that makes me irrevocably, uniquely ME. It’s a part of my past, a part of my story, a part of who I’ve grown to be.

In an ironic way, my eating disorder has given me substance. Its scars fill my soul with joy by reminding me of the misery that accompanies emptiness (both literally and figuratively speaking).

Sometimes, I like to think of myself as an Easter egg. (My boys are obsessed with Easter eggs, even as we approach Christmas). A fresh egg is fragile. Its shell is prone to crack, and if it does, everything inside of it—what makes it an egg—leaks out.

But when you boil an egg—when you expose it to heat and stress, when you push it to its breaking point—you give it substance. You make it tough. Then, even if its shell cracks a bit, the inside remains unchanged. It is solid. It is resilient.

And it has the potential to be any color you choose it to be.

I am not a disease. I am no more a disease than I am a number on a scale (something it has taken me a long time to acknowledge and accept).

But I have been changed by one, and I am all the more beautiful for it.

How a Question About Cockroaches Got Me Writing About Mental Health

Greetings FROM INDIANA, blogolicious followers! That's right, we have officially exited the Gates of Hell (a.k.a. the gates of Fort Hood, TX) and have no intention of returning. EVER.

Apparently, Satan wasn't happy about our departure, so he sent some of his evil henchmen to see us off. After living under his tyranny for just over a year, I would expect nothing less.

So, on our last day in Texas, I discovered a dead roach clinging to one of my sports bras. Thank God I wasn't WEARING the sports bra at the time, or I probably wouldn't have lived to tell the tale, as I would have likely bludgeoned myself with my husband's kettlebell in order to squash the (already dead) bastard, just to be sure it really was dead.

This is just how badly living in the south has scarred me: All I had to do was scream incoherent gibberish (okay, and a few VERY COHERENT profanities), and little Ollie knew what was happening. He came running into the room, yelling, "EWWW! Bug!"

Eww indeed. Silver lining (or, pink lining, since that was the color of the sports bra in question): At least it was dead when I found it.

Which is more than I can say for the colony of fire ants that crawled up my shorts at the playground later that evening.

You see, poor Trystan had been having constipation issues for days, and it was making him miserable. We took him to the playground for some exercise to try to get things...you know...MOVING along. It worked like a charm, and when he finally pooped, I was so caught up in my relief over his LITERAL relief, that I didn't pay attention to my surroundings when I plopped down to change his diaper.

Ladies, you have not known pain until you've been attacked by fire vaginAnts. Holy freaking shit.

By the time we made it to Indiana two days later, I had welts all over my ass and lady bits, so we spent our first evening home at Medpoint, where I was stabbed in my swollen butt with a needle full of steroids.

Hopefully, I'm not drug tested at my next marathon. Hardy har har.

Have I mentioned just how much I hate Texas? Seriously, if the United States of America were a bag of Halloween candy, Texas would be one of those nasty taffy pieces of shit that no one really likes, but that heartless cheapskates insist on buying and handing out anyway.

candywarehouse.com

For real, does anybody actually enjoy these? I think I'd rather get a rock, like Charlie Brown in the Peanuts Halloween special. It would probably be easier on my teeth.

As emotionally scarring as my horror-movie-worthy-bug-infested departure from Texas was, there was some good that came of it (besides the obvious DEPARTURE part).

You see, these traumatic bug experiences led to some seriously deep thinking.

Before I get to that, allow me to provide a little background info: My husband has this odd habit of asking me really stupid hypothetical questions (since he's apparently a giant toddler, and having two normal sized ones pester me with senseless inquiries clearly doesn't meet my daily quirky question quota). Past examples include: Would you rather marry Gollum or Uncle Fester? If you had to have sex with Grima Wormtongue or Beldar Conehead, who would you do? (I have an irrational fear of Coneheads.)

For the record, I went with Grima, even though I'd really rather not think about Frenching someone named "Wormtongue."

tumblr.com

GUH-ross.

BUUUUUT....I just honestly don't think there is anything more disgusting than a Conehead. 
(Besides cockroaches, of course.)

reddit.com

*Shudders at keyboard, causing several inadverte507nqt ty8po=s*

So, back to the "deep thinking." As we were driving away from the Hell known as Texas, Andy asked me what I would choose if I had to be trapped in a coffin and covered in either (A) FIRE ANTS or (B) COCKROACHES.

For the first time, I found myself stumped. You see, I'm pretty sure that being bit or stung or whatever by thousands of fire ants would kill me. Like, pretty much internally burn me alive. (I have horrific reactions to bug bites.) But I'm also pretty sure that being covered by thousands of cockroaches would make me wish I were dead. (I have horrific emotional reactions to tiny demons tickling me with their freakishly long antennae while their beady little eyes stare into my soul.)

Cockroaches are effing repulsive. I know I joke about them a lot, but the truth is that I'm legitimately terrified of them. I've lost sleep over them. I've cried over them. I've screamed over them, and refused to enter my own house over them. I know it's dumb and irrational. A cockroach can't really hurt you. (Although, I did have a huge-ass one land on my head in GA once in the middle of a spin bike workout, and it sort of felt like getting thwacked in the temple by a hot wheels car.)

So, even though I knew that fire ants might actually kill me, or, at the very least, make me feel (ironically) like an ant under a magnifying glass, I'm pretty sure I'd take them over the roaches.

Is this all sounding a little stupid to you? That's probably because it is. I mean, it was a STUPID question about STUPID bugs.

**Note to reader: If you were looking for a lighthearted, humorous post about my hatred of cockroaches, you can just stop reading here.**

But here's where things get all serious and weird. Before I knew it, this insipid hypothetical question had me thinking about the power of the human mind.

Here's the thing: Physical pain sucks. But mental anguish can suck just as much, if not more. And as someone who has a history of depression and anxiety, I can tell you that sometimes the latter is a thousand times worse.

I've endured my fair share of bodily pain. I've had my ovaries swell up to the size of my head, broken multiple bones, suffered internal bleeding into my abdomen, run a 50 mile trail race, and had two human beings cut out of me.

And yet, the thought of a bunch of (theoretically) harmless insects crawling over my skin is pretty much unbearable to me.

Have you ever wondered why people cut themselves? Here's a truth I've not yet shared with you, loyal followers: I used to be one of them.

At my worst, when the yarns of my depression, anxiety, and eating disorder wove themselves into a cloak of misery that hid who I was, that threatened to swallow me up in darkness...

...I cut myself.

I cut myself to feel a pain I could label. I cut myself to feel a pain I could explain, a pain that made sense.

I cut myself to feel anything besides the mental and emotional pain that was just too much to bear (like the thought of thousands of cockroaches crawling all over me).

This is the same reason I starved myself for years. I wanted control. I wanted distraction. I wanted an empty stomach, something that could be both a literal and figurative black hole, something that could suck up all my feelings of pain and inadequacy.

Fear, anxiety, depression: They are real, and they are terrifying. They are so terrifyingly real that most people who deal with them would gladly embrace physical torment if it meant a reprieve from the emotional pain inflicted on them by their own minds.

So, I know this post is a little hodgepodge, and I've gone from being funny to being painfully honest and vulnerable, and I know that fire ants are a poor analogy for self-harm, and that cockroaches are nowhere near as destructive as mental health issues like depression.

BUT. The mind is a funny thing. A powerful thing. A scattered thing, and a scary thing. And so are the thoughts and words it manufactures. (Hence, the nature of this post.)

So yes, readers, my husband's stupid question about bugs led me here, reflecting on mental health issues. And while I'm here (and you are too, if you're still reading), I'd like to make a request:

Please stop making light of mental health issues.

Sometimes I hear people make cavalier jokes about cutting themselves, or starving themselves, or making themselves throw up, or even killing themselves. And it makes me cringe.

Because those aren't things to joke about.

Because they're not funny.

Because there are REAL people having those REAL thoughts, everywhere, everyday.

And they're hurting.

So please, think before you speak.

And look before you sit.

(Unless you want to end up on a mound of fire ants, like myself.)