Posts Tagged disordered eating
Right Here, Right Now
You know how sometimes they say what you want is right in front of you, and has been there all along?
Well, it hit me this week that I’m blessed and I’ve got everything I could want right now in life.
And instead of dwelling on something harmful, I’d rather focus on the good.
In spite of tough economic times and hardships all around, I feel seriously blessed.
I have a beautiful family, amazing friends, the most incredible husband, a house we own with a beautiful creek in the backyard (and a new stove coming next week!), a fantastic and fulfilling job and career in PR, a car I own, education/degrees that can never be taken away, travel experience I wouldn’t trade for anything, my health and fitness, and sometime in 2010, maybe even a little one (we’ll see!)
Things really are amazing, and they’re right in front of me. Why is it so hard for me to see it, when everyone else can?!
I wish I knew. Perfect Girl syndrome tends to rear its ugly head, but right here, right now, I’m shoving her away. There’s just no room for her at this table. (more…)
5 comments May 1, 2009
Open Book
I’ve been doing a lot of introspection the past couple weeks. One of the drawbacks about putting your thoughts and feelings out there in the blogosphere is that not everyone will love what you have to say, all day, every day.
Shocker, right?!
Naturally, I know it comes with the territory; it’s a risk I have to take, both as a writer, and also as someone who is trying to overcome a challenge. I have to realize that when I broach touchy subjects (or any subject, really), some people will possibly be turned off by my words, and some people might feel annoyed, frustrated, or upset reading my words …
Likewise, I never know what will be a “good post” or an “eh post.” Some days I see zero comments (but 700 hits) and other days I get a ton of comments on a particular post, or follow-up e-mails.
Comments are good; they create a dialogue, which is one of my blog’s missions. Often your comments (positive or not) lead to another post, and I do that because I’m listening … observing … absorbing.
Deep down, I know change doesn’t emerge from stagnancy … and so I know in my heart that writing/blogging about the good, the bad, and the ugly has helped myself and others. And I do believe that without it, I might not be where I am today on this journey.
That said, whereas before I wrote my thoughts and feelings in a journal and no one but me could read them … now my thoughts are out there for the world to read. And that can be a daunting notion. (more…)
7 comments April 29, 2009
Passing Judgment
Note: This post is all over the place and content-heavy, so … consider it a stream of consciousness and please bear with me.
My post last Friday about the evidently malnourished Australian Miss Universe contestant got me thinking about judgment … specifically, my unconsious (human?) tendency to pass judgment.
I called this woman out here on my blog — a disordered eating recovery blog — for being too skinny (at 5′11 and 108 lbs.) and for possibly having an eating disorder … in spite of her denial of it being true.
I called her out because in looking at her, I was concerned that this is the image our children see.
I called her out because I was both sickened and saddened — sickened that she looked so skeletal, and saddened that her figure personifies “beauty” to some … possibly even some of my own readers or followers of “thinspo” (the pro-ana movement).
The irony is, if I saw a morbidly obese person on the street, who might not be in the best health either, though I might make a superficial judgment in my head (as in, stating the fact that the person is morbidly obese) … would I devote a post about it?
No, I wouldn’t. (more…)
11 comments April 27, 2009
How Disordered Do You Want to Be?
I ask this because I, like you, have a choice.
The answer for me is … not at all.
We have a choice. We might tell ourselves our disordered minds are in control, but they’re not. We are.
If we punish ourselves with restriction or over-exercising, or if we punish ourselves with a binge, we’re doing it to ourselves.
It’s not about the food or the exercise; it’s always about something else. Food or exercise (lack of it or over-abundance of it) is a coping mechanism.
And I don’t want to use either as my coping mechanisms any longer.
This weekend, during an Honest.Open.Willing. chat with my husband, he asked me point-blank, “When will the obsession end?”
He sees me more than any of my friends and family, and he sees glimmers of hope, some aspects of behavioral change. He knows I want to be better, to be more fun again, to be the happy girl I was when I was heavy … but he (as well as others close to me) have said, ” … but the obsession is still there.”
He’s right, it is.
I want to turn it off. I don’t want to be disordered, or have disordered thoughts, or to make progress only to fall back. (more…)
19 comments April 9, 2009
When Walking Away Works
Recently I read about a fellow blogger’s experience with anxiety, following hearing a skinny friend moaning about her weight, and it really hit home.
I bet many of us have had similar experiences in the past: the skinny friend ordering the salad and bemoaning everyone else ordering fries when SHE wants fries; the girl who brags about how many miles she ran and justifies why she’s eating such-and-such (as though anyone gives a darn) …
And perhaps there would have been a time where I was either a part of that situation … either dwelling on the problem, or commiserating about a solution.
But I’ve noticed over the past few months that I’ve deliberately and fully extracted myself from conversations about weight (more…)
11 comments March 23, 2009
Chewing and Spitting & “The Bases”
You probably remember “the bases” from middle school and high school. You know: the locker-room gossip about how far someone would go sexually.
Well, I’m about to make a kind of crazy, provocative analogy that I truly hope won’t offend anyone, but it’s one that I’ve been thinking in my head for a long time now … and only now, do I feel comfortable enough to share it here with you, my readers.
One of the questions Dr. G. asked me (when I initially started therapy and we were talking about anxiety and my perfectionist tendencies) was how things are in the bedroom for me –am I able to “let go” and enjoy sex/intimacy.
I was kind of surprised, because I certainly wasn’t seeking therapy for marital problems or sexual problems of any kind.
But I guess when she heard so much about my tendencies to restrict certain foods at certain times, over-exercise, obsessive calorie-counting, negative body image etc., chewing and spitting — i.e., my tendency not handle such things in moderation — she was concerned perhaps those tendencies also flowed into my personal life (read as, sex life). (more…)
16 comments March 17, 2009
Feelin’ the Burn & Finding Beauty in the Breakdown
Can we say, precious?!!
Last night, Cristi (my trainer) kicked the hell out of my triceps, chest, back and abs. We did super-sets and I am feeling it today. But I love it. Oooh, I love it.
When I am lifting, I feel strong, lean, in charge. I only think of what my body is capable of when I’m lifting, not what it lacks. I think of the musculature that is developing in time, of the tightening of my figure with each set, each rep. It’s therapeutic in a way. (more…)
12 comments March 3, 2009
Facing Reality
One of the positives about always being heavy is you never really “gain weight” — you just are always “big.” There’s no yo-yoing, no four sizes of clothes in your closet that all could fit on a day’s notice.
I’ve never experienced the whole “tight clothes dilemma” … or needing to buy new things … until now. Now my body dysmorphia (when I lost weight and was “thin” and still thought I was fat) has turned into full fledged reality; no, I don’t mean to imply I’m fat, but I’m uncomfortably chunky at the moment.
Over the past two years or so, sure, I’ve had to move certain things to the back of my closet; even skinny people experience this from time to time. (Those white capris from the summer of 2005, for example. At my thinnest, they fit perfectly but now? HA.)
But for the most part, I have been able to wear almost everything I used to wear. Until now. (more…)
18 comments March 1, 2009
Candy Hoarder/Sweet Tooth Fiend
If this boy was a girl ... it'd be me, circa 1988
We never fought about the deals being made (even as we got older), and if my mom said, “You can eat just one piece now!” we listened to her.
My brother, 27 now, always let my sister (25 now) and I have the best candy — he’d trade us his chocolate or jelly beans for nasty Sweet-tarts or Bottle Caps or Mary Janes.
To this day, he is like that; an absolute giver. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the more I think about it, I’m a taker. Especially when it comes to candy. (more…)
13 comments February 17, 2009
Is a Cookie Ever Just a Cookie?
There’s a scene in the HBO documentary THIN where Polly, who is in treatment for anorexia and bulimia, can’t eat a piece of pizza. She just can’t do it.
It makes no sense to a rational person: it’s just food, why can’t she eat it? But to Polly, it’s not. It’s “poison.” It’s “fattening.” It’s “weakness.”
Her therapist asks her in a soft, soothing, low voice if she can’t maybe view it as, “A piece of bread, with some tomato sauce and cheese on top”?
Polly shudders. She can’t. She just can’t. And then she leaves the table.
I don’t understand this, personally. Unlike Polly, I can eat a slice of pizza or a cookie, and I do (ok, if the pizza is in NJ being the pizza snob that I am!).
I’m learning to ungroup/uncategorize foods to make life more enjoyable … it’s been a long process but I’m getting there. I don’t look at foods in such stark black and white terms anymore. (more…)
14 comments January 29, 2009
