gladiatorin4inchheels.com

A few week’s ago, I organized an event for parents to raise awareness about Eating Disorders. I prepped for days, carefully curating every slide to arm parents with insights into one of the most misunderstood mental illnesses in our society.

I was nervous and excited as I logged on to the virtual session. And then, one person showed up!

My audience of one was great. I knew her well and was happy to share my spiel with her. I’ve always said, if I can help just one person – impact a single life – then I have served a purpose.

Still, the lackluster attendance frustrated me – not because I needed a large audience to make me feel good. Rather, I was disappointed that the awareness I sought to create remained unattained.

Eating disorders – as well as all other mental illnesses – are on the rise in the province, as people struggle to cope with the effects of the pandemic. And, while we are all on high alert for the Coronavirus, other dangers still lurk in the background.

“How,” I asked myself, “do I help warn people about the devastating consequences of Eating Disorders.”

This morning, as I lay in bed, I felt a sudden rush of panic – a deep-rooted desire to warn others. “For god’s sake,” I thought to myself as I planned my restriction for the day. “I have powered through 20 years of hunger and restriction. 20 years of anorexia keeping its unrelenting grip on my day-to-day. Years of therapy and intensive treatment. AND…IT…IS…STILL…HERE.”

F*****************CK! I have to stop others from falling prey to it! I have to prevent anyone from years of battle.

Anorexia is brutal. It chips away at your confidence; it takes over your thoughts; it isolates you; it sucks your energy and your ability to feel joy; and it slowly kills your spirit and, in many cases, your body.

As I write this, I am struck by how tired I am. Tired of the illness; tired of blogging about this never-ending battle; tired of being this way. I’ve lost interest in the never-ending merry go round. I’ve lost interest in my own story. And yet…

In possibly a very misguided way, I still hope that I can somehow save someone from falling into the trap I did. Or, at the very least, help someone get the support they need before their Eating Disorder firmly takes root. In that vein, if I could plant 2 thoughts into everyone’s mind, it would be these:

– Eating Disorders are extremely dangerous – partially because they are the only illness where at least some part of the patient doesn’t want to get well. Even at my most motivated, I was petrified of recovery. You are not just battling an illness, you are battling yourself.

– Eating Disorders are extremely resistant to treatment. And the longer it goes untreated, the lower the probability of recovery.

These are serious illnesses. I am not only relying on what I have read or on my own experience. Over the past 4 years of treatment, I have seen first-hand how they can break a person.

If you are reading this and believe you may have an eating disorder, I implore you to get help – reach out to someone you trust. These are illnesses that feed off shame, fear and secrecy. Confiding in just one person is a critical first step.

If you are a parent reading this, I urge you to educate yourself. The signs can be more subtle than you think and the misperceptions out there are rampant. It will be my pleasure to point you toward the information you may need.

As for me, I remain undeterred. I have contacted the Lester B. Pearson school board as a first step toward establishing Eating Disorder Awareness as part of the curriculum in grade school and high schools. With up to 30% of girls and 25% of boys aged 10-14 in Canada currently dieting to lose weight, one cannot start the education process too early.

In parallel, I plan on contacting a few treatment centres to see how we awareness can be raised and how I can help. These organizations typically require that you are fully recovered before you can get too involved. I’m hoping that my grit, determination and sheer stubbornness can somehow compensate for the fact that I have not yet won the battle.

To be continued.

I used to say that my body was my security blanket. This claim was based on the fact that in times of stress or anxiety, I often found myself seeking out a jutting bone or turning to the mirror in order to calm my emotions. For years, this was a subconscious act. Then, as I embarked on my recovery journey and became far more aware of my actions and emotions, it became a glaring one.

As my weight went up during my most recent intensive program, I learned to stop relying on the size of my body to walk me off my anxiety ledge. To be honest, as my weight grew, I had to learn to cope with the additional anxiety brought on by looking in the mirror. My body no longer was a comfort to me; worse, it was a intense source of distress. In the name of recovery, I had chosen to give away my “blankie.”

Maybe…

I had forgotten about using my body size for reassurance until recently. I had just bombed a workshop and was feeling particularly troubled by it. Failure is my greatest source of shame and self-loathing. I tried breathing, meditating, distraction, but nothing worked. Until I looked in the mirror. See, I’ve lost some weight in recent months. Not enough for anyone to really notice; enough for me to like what I see in the mirror. So there I was, a cocktail of negative emotions bubbling inside and flailing. One look in the mirror – with the words “at least I’m still thin” whispered in my mind – and I could breathe again.

In that moment, everything I had learned about how Anorexia resists treatment because it serves a protective function in the brain clicked into place.

I have spent 20 years using my Eating disorder as a coping mechanism for life. I have spent my entire working life with it. And it has been a constant throughout every adult milestone.

I moved to London without a friend in the world – Anorexia was there. I travelled the world for work – it was there. I climbed the corporate ladder and became one of the youngest senior leaders in my company – Anorexia was there. I became a mother and was completely out of my depth – my old “friend” came back with a vengeance to help me cope. And, when depression hit, I gave the keys to my kingdom to my Eating Disorder and, it not only moved in, it took over.

I have worked extremely hard over the past few years to regain my life, only to discover that I have forgotten what life was like without my Eating Disorder. It is petrifying to have no idea how life turn out when you remove one of its biggest constants. How on earth will I cope without the one thing I have always relied on to get me through the tough times? Will I really be able to hold down a job without Anorexia there to calm my self-doubts and soothe my troubled soul when I fail at something? Can I really function as an adult without it?

My therapist says I can.

“But how do you know for sure?” I ask.

She tells me that she has seen it happen in recovered clients. She also reminds me that most people live fully functional and happy lives without an Eating Disorder.

“But they are not me!!!” I want to scream. “They have not carried around this security blanket for half of their lives. They are not crippled by the fear of their own self mediocrity. They do not restrict their food intake as naturally as they breathe just in order to get through the day.”

I don’t say any of this. Because I know she is right. I know that it is fear holding me back. Palpable and uncontrollable fear that, on the one hand, I desperately want to overcome but, on the other, I am immobilized by.

This is why recovery is so hard. Battling a mental illness means having 2 opposing factions in your brain. The one that wants to kick the eating disorder to the curb. And, the other one that is desperately begging it to stay.

It is a seemingly never-ending battle.

Luckily, when I see my girls smile or I feel the sun on my face or as I look out across the lake as I type now, I am reminded of the many reasons to keep going.

Something strange has been happening recently. I look the same (for the most part); my voice sounds the same; I drive the same car and wear the same clothes; but something is different. Many things are, in fact. To be honest, I barely recognize myself lately.

Here are a few cases in point.

1. I went on vacation for 2 weeks and did not check my work email – something I have only done one other time in my 20-year career – on my honeymoon. I won’t lie. The first day was tough but I decided to try something new. I turned off my email notifications and suddenly felt my urge to check-in disappear. Without seeing the number of unread messages grow day after day, my anxiety vanished – leaving nothing but peace and inner calm.
2. Not only do I tolerate silence these days, but I actually seek it out. I can now sit in the sun, eyes closed, listening to the crickets and feel good – comforted, even. Sometimes I am able to relax to the point where I fall asleep. This has never been me. The ticker tape in my head and my to-do lists have always kept me on the move – making naps not only difficult but also great sources of personal shame.
3. I can finally be in the present moment. Years ago, my mentor threw a bread roll at me during a team dinner because I was distracted by my phone. “Look around you, Christina,” he said. “These are amazing people, connecting together. Focus on what is in front of you.” It took me several years of therapy and 3 outpatient treatment programs to finally understand what he meant. Now, I can go for a walk, and truly notice things – the contours of the clouds in the sky, bunnies on the road, and flowers in the garden. Everything seems brighter and sharper because I am no longer distracted by my thoughts. I look up and around, rather than into my phone or on the ground while deep in thought.
4. I can leave things unfinished – like dishes in the sink. The first time I tried this, it was hard walking away from a task. But it got easier. Now, I sometimes leave a few in the sink overnight. And, if Charles comes down in the morning and starts washing them while I have my first few sips of coffee, I no longer feel guilty or think that I am a disappointment as a wife.
5. I can finally give myself a bit of grace when I feel tired or anxious – putting my needs first instead of trying to measure up to the person I expect myself to be –perfect, a fixer, a machine, a doting mother, a Rockstar employee, etc…

All of these changes seem to have happened overnight. When I first noticed them a few weeks ago, I was troubled. Who am I? Who is this relaxed person – who doesn’t define herself by the check marks on her to-do list? Am I less of person if I am ok with doing less? Have I given up if I wear jogging pants on a weekend?

“No,” I decide. I base this answer, not on my expectations of myself but rather on how this new me feels: lighter and happier.

So, I am healthier, happier and more balanced. And still I cannot celebrate fully.

Why?

I cannot chalk this new me up as a win because, despite all these positive changes, one thing remains unmoved. My eating disorder “voice” remains as strong and as loud as ever.

Shit…

There are 2 things they don’t tell you about eating disorder recovery.

1. The final few pounds of weight restoration bring about a shame never felt before. You become haunted by a pervasive negative body image. It follows you everywhere and brings you down – triggering feelings of depression that petrify you because you know first-hand where these feelings can lead. In my case, these feelings were so unbearable that I turned to mild restriction and shed a few pounds…just so that I could feel like I could breathe again. This came at a price, of course. It meant that, after 3 glorious weeks without a single thought or urge to eat less, the ongoing internal dialogue about food and the consistent undercurrent of hunger swept back in. Now, instead of carrying around my body shame with me, I carry around constant thoughts of limiting my food intake. On the one hand, I feel a huge amount of relief at not hating my body. On the other, I know that a life with restriction in it is not living – it is merely getting through the day. And I want better….
2. Recovery does not always mean living a life free of ED thoughts and urges. Apparently, these thoughts and the anorexic voice don’t always go away. For some, recovery means that you reach a point where you hear the eating disorder thoughts but your healthy self is simply stronger and can overcome the urges.  When my nutritionist told me this, I balked. Really???? That is my fate – a lifetime of battling my inner urges? THIS is what I have been working toward? I want more!!! I’m out!

Faced with these two realities, it has been hard not to feel discouraged. But after a lot of reflection, I am able to see progress. First, I have been able to keep my weight stable and not engage in a trend of increasing restriction and weight loss.  Second, I feel satisfied with my body at 95Lbs, something that was unthinkable 18 months ago when I was 75 lbs – freaked out when my weight increased by a single pound. I cling to these facts as proof that I have been moving forward.

The journey ahead may be much longer than I expected. But, when I look back, I see a long runway behind me. And that keeps me going.

Recovery is fucking hard. Pardon the expletive; but without it, the statement simply doesn’t feel strong enough.

For more avid readers, you may feel a sense of déjà vu. “She’s said this before. We know…” Some may even be wondering why it is taking so long to recover – asking themselves if I have been battling in place all this time – like a bizarre game of shadow-boxing where the injuries are self-inflicted, and I remain firmly in place.

I have been reflecting on this a lot over the past few weeks.  20 years, 2 stints at the Douglas, 2 intensive treatments at the BACA Clinic (an exceptional treatment program) and the battle is not over. Despite this fact, I know without a doubt that I have not been standing still.

I am stronger. I no longer run way from every single negative emotion. I have been able to stick to a meal plan for months. I have eaten McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Harvey’s, A&W, Tim Horton’s donuts and Domino’s pizza without running for the hills. And I have maintained my heavier weight despite my body image issues.

Still…I struggle a lot with vulnerability. I continue to have this overwhelming urge to rewrite every rejection I have ever felt. And I still have a hard time with food. A few weeks back, for example, the girls wanted to have McDonalds for a picnic and I balked. I was shocked at my reaction. “What is the matter with you? You have had McDonald’s 3 times with no issue. Why are you petrified of the Golden Arches today?” The failure alarms were wringing loudly.

Here is what they tell you when you start recovery: “it will get harder before it gets easier.” This is true. What they don’t tell you is that each stage gets harder and harder until…finally… it gets easier. The problem is that it varies by person so no one knows how many stages you will have to go through until it gets easier. You have to power through and hope that the next step will be the easier one.

The other thing they don’t tell you is that you can be doing well for days, weeks, months and sometimes years – and then the eating disorder can pop up again to say hi…to see if you want to be friends again. The trick is to be aware, be prepared and kindly decline the offer. Caught unaware and you run the risk of being blindsided by the return of thoughts and behaviours you were certain were long gone – leaving you shocked, disappointed and tempted to return to your anorexia.

My current stage of recovery requires constant vigilance. I am on high alert all the time – which is not only exhausting but triggering as well. Great, I notice everything, so I can stop myself!

Um, not quite.

Shit! I notice everything and feel distraught every time I do something “wrong”. I am hyper-aware of everything I do that puts me at risk; everything that helped contribute to the anorexia in the first place. And every time I see these things, these patterns, these instincts, I get overwhelmed and disappointed. I don’t feel perfectly imperfect. I feel like a walking disaster.

Treatment has brought me many things: a greater level of self-compassion, an improved ability to feel rather than run from my emotions, a bit more self-acceptance and lots of awareness of the areas I need to work on. Initially, this newfound awareness was exciting…bringing endless hope. I knew what to fix and had a dogged determination to take corrective action. But, over time, I started to feel daunted by my imperfections – too much to fix, too many situations where I saw what I should have done differently. Some days, it feels like all of my natural instincts are wrong.

My people-pleasing causes me to put others first; to never say no. My insecurities cause me to thrive on performance & doing to make myself feel worthy. My discomfort with tough emotions causes me to run from them… to distract. These characteristics feed my workaholism, my anorexia, and my tendency to overextend myself – all of which are very hard to change.

Sure, knowing this will help in the long run as I develop more confident, secure and healthy ways of interacting with the world. The problem is that the long run seems to be far away. And since I cannot unlearn what I know, I have no choice but to work hard at adopting new “instincts” and learn from the times I resort to old habits. And this is the hardest part – not feeling like a failure when new habits don’t stick immediately and consistently:

1. When I delay eating a snack because I am highly focused on a work assignment;
2. When I volunteer for work because it makes me feel important and useful;
3. When I tell myself I have to feed the kids, put in the laundry and empty the dishwasher before I eat breakfast;
4. When I skip my chocolate milk at breakfast because I feel like a disappointment in life;
5. When I feel like punishing myself for feeling sad; and the list goes on.

Rational and self-compassionate me knows this is all part of recovery and that these are learning opportunities. The overachieving perfectionist in me cannot help but scream that I should have already learned these lessons by now. And the self-aware recovery part of me knows I should remove the word should from my vocabulary, accept who I am with zero judgment and reduce my expectations. Accept – don’t criticize; sit with emotions – don’t deny them; don’t judge; don’t judge yourself for judging; be kind to yourself; don’t beat yourself up for not being kind to yourself…

Yeah…Recovery is hard.

I’ve been quiet for a few months now. Sure, like everyone, I’ve been occupied with the changing realities of life during a pandemic. But, mostly, I’ve been silent because of the shame blanket I’ve been carrying around with me.

Ah shame…the emotion I have done my utmost over the past 20 years to avoid, numb and outrun – to the point where I could not feel it at all. In truth, I had cut myself off from emotions in general…but this is the one that I have always dreaded.

One of the things I recently realized is that I feel shame often and acutely – all I need is one simple thing to exist in my environment: perceived failure. Quite simply, I feel shame every time I think I fall short of expectations…or as my inner critic likes to say every time I think I “Fail”.

As a perfectly imperfect human, with my own special set of quirks and flaws, I routinely make mistakes or don’t live up to the extremely high standards I have set for myself. While others might feel disappointment or embarrassment in these types of situations, my emotional default is the big “S”. And, instantly, I BECOME a disappointment.

To combat this, I have spent years focused on performance, output, people-pleasing and achievement. “See”, I would tell my inner critic, “I got an A+, I got the promotion, I am non-stop at work AND home, I starved myself, I delivered, I performed, I did, I did, I did. I cannot be a failure….can I?”

And so my Eating Disorder became very entrenched in my existence…so much so that I no longer even noticed it and certainly could not separate it from who I was. For many years, I thrived and survived on the adrenaline brought on by stress and achievement. I didn’t need food or sleep when I had achievement.

Which leads me to my latest tangle with Shame – the one that led me to go quiet: my Recovery journey.

Over the past few years, I have been very vocal about my experiences with depression, anxiety and Anorexia. I have shared my progress and, unfortunately, declared premature victory on an illness that has been my invisible “friend” for 2 decades.  Every time I shared my progress, I was sure I was “safe” from relapse. I refused to believe otherwise. And, every time, I faced a relapse, big or small, I felt ashamed… so much so that I would keep it to myself and desperately try to fix it covertly on my own…usually leading to severe health issues.

A few months ago, I realized that I was falling into this trap once again. But, this time, rather than succumbing to my shame and retreating further into my long-held coping habits – starving myself and working non-stop – I intensified my Eating Disorder treatment.

I didn’t want to tell anyone about my renewed commitment to treatment. In fact, I told very few people and abandoned my blog. I did this for two reasons… 1- I didn’t want anyone in my life to feel disappointed…wondering when Groundhog day would end. I didn’t want anyone I cared about to give up on me. 2- I decided to see what this next step of recovery brought before I put a rainbow of positivity on it.

When I first started my recent round of treatment, I was given the following challenge: do nothing (no extra assignments or readings) with no distractions, no to-do lists and no goals. This…was…excruciating.

I was completely unsettled. How on earth was I supposed to live without a target to achieve…or ideally overachieve? How would I measure my worth? How would I know I was “good”, “ok”, “deserving”? I had to start to completely redefine how I determined my self-worth.

It has been messy and ugly. A lot of the time, I hate everything about myself – from my new body to my insecure, overachieving brain. Other days, I am at peace with who I am and how I look. I don’t restrict, my BMI is now considered healthy and stable and I no longer turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms to tolerate my emotions. I cry a lot in therapy. Like, a lot… But I am happier overall.

Getting to this point has not been easy. I have had to say goodbye to many things– ranging from some of my prettiest dresses to the Wonder Woman I used to be. I won’t lie…I am still at the point of recovery where I would give anything to be able to go back to the person I was before depression hit and my Anorexia became too strong to fight.  But I can’t.

My therapist tells me I don’t want to. I am not so sure; and admitting this fills me with shame as well. Who on earth would want to be a high-functioning anorexic, workaholic who was always running, thinking, overanalyzing but never present – who only knew 2 speeds, full throttle or off??

Me…Some days…

So now what? Well…I am working on diminishing my strong need to achieve and please others. As I do this, I have to continue to follow my meal plan religiously and maintain my weight no matter what stressors I add to the mix. Then I will have to dabble with adding flexibility to my plan (a little extra here, a scarier meal there) without losing weight. Eventually, I will move on to intuitive eating rather than follow a prescribed meal plan – again without losing weight. And so on.

There is still a long road ahead and I have no idea how long it will take. Nor do I know if I will get there. The temptation to go back is strong but I can’t. I can’t unlearn what I know; can’t un-feel the emotions that have now been awakened. As someone I know once said: “I can’t back peddle out of this one.”

Continue reading “Redefining Courage”

“I’m awesome!”

I don’t think I’ve ever said that before, certainly not when speaking seriously. Afterall, it is an immodest statement and I have long found boasting to be ill-mannered. More importantly, I’ve never believed the statement to be true.

Except…

Blame it on age or my recent in-depth recovery work but…recently…I have actually started to accept it as fact. Not always…no, I still have a few layers of false perceptions, unrealistic personal expectations and self-loathing to tackle. But every once in a while, the thought does cross my mind and I no longer dismiss it as ludicrous.

It usually happens when I am driving for long stretches. My mind wanders as I sit in traffic or cruise along the highway, often leading to periodic self-assessments in my head. I guess it is no coincidence that the thought is top of mind after spending a week driving back and forth to the Clinic.

In the past, my on-the-road personal reflections consisted mainly of a running tally of my short-comings, failures and recent disappointments – with an occasional positive thought popping up. But, recently, there has been a shift in balance between the positives and negatives. Now, I often find myself doing a tally of all the great things about me. The first time this happened, I was surprised at how long the list was. I have often struggled to find at least one nice thing to say about myself.

And yet, I find myself enlightened at this very moment.

So at the risk of sounding conceited, I will admit that I am pretty cool.  Smart, funny, sometimes wise, compassionate, kind, authentic, quirky, and charismatic, I am a good business leader, a considerate friend, a wonderful mother, a hard worker and a generous partner. I care deeply, I chase my dreams and I tend to make people feel better rather than worse. I can do a wicked cartwheel, sing my heart out without making anyone wince, heat up the dance floor and bake well enough to make my father proud. I am strong, I am determined, I am resilient and I am a good role model for my girls (despite the many lessons I pass on in a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of way). And, I am not bad looking either.

When I put that list together not long ago, I shocked myself. I’d never seen myself as this person – choosing only to see my downsides instead.

Why did I insist on doing this to myself?

Ah…well, because I held on to this incorrect myth that something was wrong with me. From the first time in Gym class when I was not picked first (ok that may have happened a lot), I have long believed that others being picked before me meant I was not good enough. Every time a BFF replaced me, every time a lover chose someone else instead of me, every time a role was given to a colleague instead of me…I was profoundly wounded. Quite literally, I thought I sucked as a friend, partner and person. And, I started to only see things that reinforced this view that I was not good enough.

So what’s changed? I’m not really sure. Maybe I am just opening my eyes to a few new cues and getting used to them, allowing them to wash over me in a positive ray of light. Maybe I have finally realized that those who did not pick me simply missed out (I am actually a master dodge ball player…like a ninja) or maybe I am just accepting who I am and choosing to focus on the cool stuff about me for once.

So yeah…I am awesome.

It feels wrong to say it. But it feels so good to believe it!

Some define insanity as the act of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Sane or not, I am guilty of doing just that – whether it be in the kitchen, in love, in my professional life and, of course, with my eating disorder. Why do I keep falling into this pattern? It is simple. I have a deep-rooted belief that I can achieve anything if I just work hard enough and want it bad enough.

This belief, in itself, is quite positive. There is nothing wrong with having faith in yourself. Grit, optimism and dedication are key to making our greatest dreams a reality. But, even the greatest heroes have to admit that they don’t always have the answers and that they cannot always do it alone.

The last 3 Christmases have been tough…really tough. The pattern always went as follows: I would feel stressed, a chaos of emotions would ensue – triggering my eating disorder as a coping mechanism, and I would start to spiral. And, each year, by March/April, I would be in a hospital emergency room, a crisis center or, this most recent time, in intensive treatment for anorexia, unsure if I would survive (a slight, ever so slight, dramatization).

Oh…

The first time this happened, I did not see the signs. I felt I was struggling and saw my old restriction patterns emerge but I told myself it was just a phase. The following year, back in a similar place, things felt familiar but I told myself I could snap out of it based on the recovery work I had done. Last year, I chastised myself for being back in the same place and tried to tough love myself into action. Afterall, at that point, I was not only aware of what I was doing but I also had so many healthy coping mechanisms for my eating disorder in my tickle trunk.

Each and every time, pride and shame prevented me from saying anything. And each and every time, I tackled my relapse in the same way, hiding my struggles and allowing things to snowball from a small setback to a major backslide. Same action, same outcome, and the cycle continued.

Well, it may have taken three times to learn my lesson but as I enter a fourth Christmas with the sultry voice of Anorexia whispering seductively in my ear, I am happy to say: “not this time.”

This year, rather than keep quiet, silently telling myself that I can snap out of it on my own, only to wind up in a very bad place, I am trying something different. I am opening up about how I am doing and I am seeking support.

For the next week, I will be spending my days at the Clinic – balancing a life of proper meals, therapy AND work. I will eat, process, work, eat, process, work, then eat and process. 3 meals, 3 therapy sessions, with hours of typing away on my laptop in between. I have never done this – blend work and recovery together fully. I have always swayed between full speed work and full speed recovery. I am fortunate enough to work for an organization and seek treatment at a centre that will allow me to do this.

It likely will not be perfect and, I have no doubt it will be stressful – not enough hours to get the work done, eating meals that have started to scare me again, committing to therapy to address the real stuff I am feeling. Whoah…just writing about it is giving me a few palpitations. But, I know I need to give it a try…because doing what I have always done will simply end with the same results: a new rock bottom. And, as much as I want to believe I can do it on my own, I have to accept my limitations. Hard to say that without cringing…

I won’t lie. I am carrying around a blanket of shame and disappointment that my eating disorder grew stronger again this year “on my watch.” But, I am not allowing myself to be weighed down too much by these feelings. No, the shame is balanced out by pride. Pride that I am strong enough to say: not again, no more, I want something different; pride that I am putting my health ahead of my desire to earn a shiny star at work; pride at knowing deep down, that I will not wind up in crisis in April; pride in knowing that I am better and will continue to get better; and pride in knowing that I am surrounded by people who are in my corner.

Start chilling the Champagne, 2020 will be a year of different, and that is something to celebrate

I had a rough night.

I slept with Zoe in her bed and, while it started off as the best arrangement for all, it soon became a less than optimal situation. Zoe has as much energy in her sleep as she does in her day. I am not sure what she dreams about but I am pretty sure it involves a lot of activity. She is all legs on high speed. She kicks, she digs and she suffocates with her legs of steel. I know this from experience, and yet, I always go into it with a hope that things will be different.

So…last night, on several occasions, I found myself awakened by my daughter as her subconscious had her running a marathon. I kept telling myself I should move, go back to my bed, but for some reason I stayed right where I was.

And, as I lay there, the seeds of reflection were sown.

When I woke up, exhausted, having been kicked for what felt like the millionth time, I asked myself.

“Why on earth did you stay? Why didn’t you leave your unpleasant situation and improve your odds of a good night’s sleep?”

And this got me thinking about life and its far more significant circumstances.

Many of us do the very thing I did last night on a much larger scale in our lives. Whether it be staying in an unhappy relationship, in a job we hate or in an unfulfilling friendship, many people choose to endure an unpleasant situation rather than take action.

There are a multitude of reasons we do this: fear, hope, denial, shame, comfort and a desire for simplicity.

We stay because we are afraid of being worse off if we leave; we stay because we hope things will improve; we stay because we remind ourselves of all the positives in order to be able to deny the negatives; we stay because of the shame we feel related to things not working out; we stay because of the comfort of the familiar; and, we stay because leaving can make things messy.

Of course, I am simplifying. But on the whole this rings true. It rang true for me last night as I debated about getting out of my warm bed – reluctant to move for fear of being wide awake for hours if I woke from my half-slumber as I walked across the hall.

And it rings true to me as I contemplate the next steps of my recovery.

Currently, I am faced with a bit of a setback – which I am assured is normal. This isn’t the first time I have faced this. In fact, I have found myself in a similar space the past 2 Decembers. I get worn down after months of trying to balance recovery and work. This, coupled with my fear of the holiday festivities and meals – and resulting weight gain – lowered my defenses against the voice inside my head that urges me to restrict my food intake.

In the past, I have stayed in this mindset – with its associated behaviours. I would say nothing…do nothing, hoping that I could simply power through and things would improve. I would deny – to myself and anyone that noticed – that things were getting worse. I would stay silent about my struggles out of shame. And, I would tell myself that doing something about my mental health would be complicated. It would involve disrupting my work and personal life,  and it would incur costs.

But, just like I knew what the outcome would be  if I stayed with Zoe last night, so too do I know now what the outcome will be if I do what I have always done – try to fix it on my own…with no disruption to my life.

So, this December will be different. I am not just going to write about my current situation. I am going to take a chance and try doing something about it. It is hard to leave the comfort of the current – afterall, I have been in this place many times before and I know it well.

Ah…but this is precisely why I have to make a change…because I know exactly what will happen if I leave things as they are. The unpleasantness will not change…well…not for the better. It will get worse and my eating disorder will grow stronger. Pretending that things will be different would be foolish on my part.

So…I know what I am going to do about my current situation.

What about you?

 

Recently, it was suggested to me that I was uncomfortable with my own vulnerability.

My first reaction was: “who isn’t? This is why we buy Brene Brown’s books, isn’t it?” But after that thought, I started to get defensive. Afterall, I live in a perpetual state of wearing my heart on my sleeve. I’ve written a book, I publish a Blog and I share my experience with Anorexia fairly easily. Would I do that if I was uncomfortable with being vulnerable?

“How do you feel when you share these experiences with others?”

Ah…the dreaded “how does that make you feel?” therapist question.

I wasn’t quite sure where this discussion was going so I remained silent, pensive. I have spent a lifetime cutting myself off from my emotions…so much so that I often compare myself to a robot because I literally feel nothing most of the time. I am not a robot, of course. I feel many things deeply but I am so disconnected from my emotions that numb is the only thing I can identify.

My therapist pressed on.

“Do you feel vulnerable when you write or talk about your struggles with Anorexia, anxiety, depression and mental health?”

The answer was a resounding no. To be honest, up until that point, I never gave it a second thought. Talking about my most difficult and shameful moments didn’t make me feel exposed – it made me feel purposeful. I was doing a job – creating awareness about important mental health issues. Essentially, I was in “go” mode – with no room for emotions.

Ah…maybe I do have an issue with truly being vulnerable.

Looking back at my Blog, I see now that while I share things in an uncensored fashion, I allow my eternal optimism to frame things. I tend to end things in a positive and upbeat fashion to avoid people worrying about me and to avoid bringing others down. If I frame things in a positive light, the takeaways become hope and strength.

I am not being false in my writing. Not in the least. It is just a reflection of how I react to feeling vulnerable: I channel my fighting spirit to bounce back, I take action…anything to change my emotions from the negative to the positive.

So today I am going to try something different. I am going to do what I always do: share what I am living openly and honestly. But, there will be no “I got this” message at the end. Not because I feel hopeless or am giving up. Far from it. Still, I am going to allow myself to be vulnerable and stop there, sitting with my vulnerability instead of distracting myself with my upbeat attitude.

The truth is that I am struggling to accept an undeniable fact. I can’t be like everyone else when it comes to food and I likely never will. My Anorexia, anxiety and propensity for depression create limitations that I don’t want to accept. I don’t want to be different; I want to be able to do everything your average person can do…and, if I’m honest….more. For so long, being able to surpass the average drove me, defined me and was woven into my personal brand, my sense of self. And now, I have to not only admit this is no longer the case but I also have to ask for accommodation of my limitations.

As I write this, I am cringing, hiding my face as though the people around me can suddenly see this fact. I am ashamed and want to backtrack from my last statement, claiming to anyone that will listen that I can overcome this. I can overcome my illness and be just like everyone else. All it takes is will, courage and strength, right?

Hmmm…I know from past experience that trying to behave like I don’t have a mental illness doesn’t work. In fact, it feeds into the illness, allowing it to grow its stronghold on my mind.

So here are a few truths I am working on accepting:

• I will likely have wake up every morning and take a pill to keep my anxious and depressive thoughts at bay. It does not make me weak. Just like a diabetic who has to take insulin, I have to take my medication to be able to thrive and see all the beauty in the world.
• I cannot drink alcohol. I have tried every type and every amount and sadly one drop of alcohol interacts badly with my medication, leaving me completely off the next day.
• I cannot skip a meal…any meal. Even if I am surrounded by people who are as stressed and busy as I am that they don’t make the time to eat. I cannot be like them. Even if I want to. All it takes is skipping one meal to undo weeks and months of conditioning.
• I have to follow a routine and an established meal plan right now. Yes it makes me feel awkward and stifled – eating at specific hours and specific meals – but my brain needs me to repeat the same healthy behaviours over and over again. So, I have to cut meetings short that run over the lunch hour because the minute I ignore my hunger – no matter the reason – my Anorexia wakes up.
• I cannot travel right now. Ouff, this one is particularly hard because it means I have to ask for help as it affects my ability to do my job. I fought this one a lot yesterday. But, I have seen first hand over the past week how my illness will find every opportunity to write a new way of behaving in the absence of a healthy routine.

I have not accepted these realities. I don’t want to because then it will make things real and I will have to do something about it. I will have to ask others to accept that I am different. Most difficult of all, I have to come to terms with the fact that I have limitations that affect my life – and I have to do this without self-judgement, shame or fear of disappointing others. These are things I don’t want to do…things I don’t know how to do.

And worst of all, I have to find a way to accept these truths and feel the feelings they bring up without doing THE thing I always do when things get tough – RUN. No, I don’t run away physically…well, not often. Rather, I shut off emotionally and focus solely on keeping things running in my life. And that is what I have done in the past few weeks as I started to realize some of the things listed above. I shut off emotionally – my super power – and, without admitting it to myself, I started restricting. The scale doesn’t lie.

I may have the tattoo…but I have not yet accepted my own Mantra when it comes to myself. Now I have to sit with it…