Chapters

It's been a while. I have had a lot of great progress, some not so great progress, a lot of tears, a lot of laughs, a lot of pushing forward. Each day is a new day and it is important to live that day. It's easy for me to get anxious about upcoming days, or feeling the need to plan days out ahead of time, when I should just be in the moment. Enjoy each day. Because each day counts.

My new job is it's own kind of therapy. It forces me to keep my mind off the bad. It forces me to interact with people, which I love, especially out of town people. I love recommending places, restaurants, things to do. It's the perfect job. I still don't know how Paper Dreams will fall in all of this yet. We'll see. I work at noon today and I love that I work next door to Travis. It's comforting.

We move on Saturday, I can't wait. A whole new chapter of my life that I cannot wait to start and am so ready. He's asleep on the couch right now and looks adorable. I'm so going to wake him up in ten minutes to drive me to work though :)

Still here, learning to love my soul, learning to love what my body should become.

I'm ready to get that part back.

A Rainy Day

I don't like rainy days. I only like them if I get to spend them with Travis or with the girls in a warm apartment watching TV shows. But right now I am at Woods downtown. I have been here about an hour and have gone through a slew of emotions. It's odd. Can't I just stick with one for a while :)

I have an interview tomorrow at the Bellwether Hotel for front desk. I hope more than anything I get it. For a few reasons.
1. I need a second job so bad.
2. It's a beautiful hotel, and I do miss working at a hotel.
3. Even though it scares me and makes me think of the hard times at the Chrysalis, I know that is just Ned saying that to make me not want it or take the job. I need this job to say fuck you.

The Chrysalis was a great job. It was perfect. But Ned ruined it. I never told anyone that. I never admitted how certain days were designated to him and ruining my day when I was at work to then associate the agony that job entailed, when really, it was just Ned. I want to prove to myself that yes I can have this job and not let Ned come to work with me. It was my resume they chose, not his. I will not let my boss down when Ned begs me to call in to work because I am having a 'fat day' and a day of 'not eating.' I do have great memories from working at the Chrysalis, but also so many hard memories due to the daily struggle.

I want this job. I want this job for me. To prove to myself I can do it. To get the discount so Travis and I can stay there. To be at a place where I would work so close to him, and our favorite sushi place :) What a way to say fuck you to Ned. Have another hotel job, get off work, meet Travis, and go to sushi. What a slap in the face :) That just made me smile really big. I feel nerdy doing this at Woods. But a lot better than I did 30 minutes ago.

At 7 I am meeting all the girls from work and our boss at New York Pizza for dinner and drinks. I have chosen, that tonight, it will be drinks for me. I did eat today. Not as much as I should have, but more than I normally would have. I will eat later tonight as well. But I am not quite ready, but know where I am. It is huge for me, that I am even going. For 3 days Ned has told me to not go, make an excuse, you need to sit at home. So fuck it. I'm going. Angela is meeting me in an hour and we are walking over. So there.

There is a pride festival going on across the street, it looks fun, it's pouring though, maybe I'll swing over if it stops. I should have a pride festival for me. I like that.

Life Without Ed

First, this is what I have always thought, IF I EVER did get a tattoo, it would be this. I have had this image saved for almost 2 years now, it would be white, so nobody could see it, but be a lifetime reminder of where I was, that I beat it and am stronger. I don't deserve this yet. But I know I will one day.


I am almost done with this book. They weren't kidding, it's really good. For one, I haven't finished A book in god knows how long and I can hardly put this down.

There have been a few things that have stuck out to me, in the sense that they are literally what I think. Here's one for example.

At a restaurant.

"I stare at the large menu and ask myself, "What should I order?" Ed mistakenly thinks I am directing this question to him and replies, "If you are absolutely determined to eat, you must at least get one of the low calorie entrees marked with the little red heart. No matter what, you must choose a lower calorie entree than your friend orders, which will prove that you are more in control of your life than she is."

"After my friend orders the always forbidden cheeseburger and french fries, Ed points out, "All of that fat is going to end up right on her hips."
"Can I order the low fat chicken entree that comes with a baked potato?" I ask.
Ed says, "Fine, but on the baked potato, you will have no butter, sour cream, cheese, or bacon. When the server and friend look at you like you're nuts just tell them you like it better plain."
Waiting for the food to arrive is always the hardest to me. I am starving, because Ed never lets me eat any other meal on days that I go out to eat. All I can think about is the food. I cannot pay attention in the conversation with my friend, so I just nod and say uh huh a lot.
Ed loves to make comments about how much fat my friend is consuming compared to me, "She's eating french fries with ketchup. Does she know how many calories are in the ketchup? What's the point of pouring extra calories onto anything?"
In addition to making remarks about my friends meal. Ed tells me exactly what to eat and how to eat it. He says, "Eat half the chicken, but make sure you scrape off all of that fattening sauce. Cut the baked potato in half. Hide one half under your napkin and eat a few bites of the other half."
After the server clears the table, Ed congratulates me, You did it! You are finished eating and you are still hungry! Just think how big you would be if you had eaten that greasy hamburger! Be proud of yourself. You have such control! Your poor friend does not have a chance in life."

Sound crazy? I know right.

Another part that stuck out, is a story of her in her 4th grade class the nurse made them get on the scale, she weighed them, and yelled out their weight. Jenni gets on the scale and is 76 pounds. She's in 4th grade. I was 78 pounds on Tuesday and I am 23. This was a small reality check.

This is from her therapist's part. He said to make a list of healthy aspects of your food relationship and write them down. Some of mine
-I include a wide variety of fruits and vegetables in my diet.
-I enjoy sharing meals with my friends.
-I sometimes allow myself to eat dessert.

Then he says to make a list of the problems.
-I generally don't allow fat into my diet.
-I enjoy cooking for others, but I never eat anything I prepare.
-I get defensive if someone asks me to go to eat a place that does not have a salad.

Then he says to try to eat through your healthy vision. Even if you can do it for just one meal.

This is common for me:

"Ed immediately said, “Jenni, that woman is thinner than you. You are so large. You have really let yourself go.” From the ground floor to level three, I felt as if I had gained twenty or thirty pounds. Have you ever gained weight while riding an elevator? If you have, then you must be familiar with one of Ed’s favorite rules: “You must always be the thinnest person in any given place at any given time.”

Another session with Thom, this stuck out. This is so real for me.

"During one session with Jenni, my office was covered with jeans. There were jeans on the floor, couch, chairs. These were Jenni's anorexic jeans. Jeans that she had worn when she was still married to Ed. These jeans representing sickness and depression, no longer fit her body. When they were in her closet, they talked to her day and night. They said, "You're fat, if you just lose a little bit of weight, you could wear me again, you are a loser because you are too big to fit into me. "
It's important to put these clothes aside, whether you can get rid of them or not yet, put them in a box or something. Sadly, I can't afford to do that yet, for 2 reasons, money, and my voice. My voice that says to hold on to dear life for them. I am fighting that everyday, that's not me.

So I will keep reading, keep learning, keep making progress, keep making steps back.
If there's one thing I have learned from this book so far it's that, once recovery starts it doesn't mean it's an automatic uphill success the whole way. There is room for mistakes and they will happen. I will have my share of victories and my share of failures from my 'Ned' screaming at the top of his lungs to just stop and go back. Going back would be so comfortable and safe.

I want me back. I want my life back. I want to be able to walk standing straight again. Ned has taken my posture for christ's sake. He makes me at all times focus on if I look fat, because if I do, I have failed. I have failed and everyone will see right through me. So my confidence has been shattered, slowly this whole time. I can get it back sometimes, and when I have it back I have me back. I say fuck you, this is my life, these are my clothes, I AM allowed to wear whatever I want. I AM allowed to eat whatever I want. I AM allowed to take a spontaneous trip with friends. I can't count how many trips, parties, times to just see friends I have missed because he told me, you did bad today, you are fat today, you can't go, you are a failure, you need to lay in bed tonight and we will see what the morning brings. It's punishment.

What happened?

I can't count the number of times I have been somewhere. At my parent's house, with Travis alone, with a group of people, at a restaurant, at a park by myself and been screaming on the inside for somebody to help me. But Ned never let me show that. I had to be strong for him. I still do, but at least people know I need help. I need hands to hold. I need shoulders to be there when I feel like screaming and crying my eyes out until I pass out. When I think about myself and love it's such a contradiction. I love who I am. I love me. But Ned loathes my body so much that it has overcome everything I was still holding onto. I don't see me in the mirror. I don't see who I used to see. It's like he's stabbing me in the side every time I walk by a mirror. Ugly, fat, weak, pathetic, a failure, nobody will love you, you can't hold a job, you can't make money, you aren't self sufficient, so stay with me and we can fight the world together, because then at least you will look like a concentration camp person, that's all you will ever have.

Gah. Anyway. I was 80 pounds on Friday at the doctor. I really was initially very happy, mainly because I hope I won't get people yelling at me. Which I don't think is positive for recovery. Being terrified and dreading each of those trips. That's for another day. Then the guilt, shame set in. The, "You're 80 now, no more 70's, that kept you unique, that made you special, now you are on your road to becoming just another ugly, frumpy, forgetable person." My Ned should fuck Ed in the ass and they can starve each other :)

I'm sure if I ate everyday like I did on Tuesday I would be back up in no time at all. But I don't want to, nor should I, shock my body and my mind into something I can't handle yet. Because my mind can't quite yet. But alas, that's recovery.

Off to read again now. I'm glad I'm not the only one going through this too. That feels like people are hugging me, god I'm so gay :)

Oh, this is funny. Congrats Ned, here you go.

Ned's Resume:

---

Ned

Full Name: Eating Disorder Asshole
Permanent address: Always on the go with you.
Phone: Prefer email Email: Prefer phone

Objective:

Willing to do whatever it takes to control the life of beautiful, intelligent, and creative people, mainly Erin.

Education:

Bachelor of Arts: Psychology of beautiful, intelligent, and creative people

Special Skills:

Also, this is scary. But identical to what I see.

Hrm...

I feel things have shifted. I went to my lady yesterday and brought my boyfriend with me because she had asked me to and he was more than happy to go. The one thing that still bothers me, is how terrified she looked when I told her we were going camping and how she said it's not a good idea, etc, etc and to talk to my doctor about it. Thing is. I haven't weighed over 100 pounds in 5 years. I was an average 102-105 in high school. Also to note about me in high school, I was a late bloomer you can say, I looked young all through high school, it wasn't until probably a year and a half into college that I finally got rid of the childlike features and looked like a young woman. They say in college is when your body starts to fill out, and you sort of even out. I evened out. I understand 79 is not that weight, but 136 isn't going to be that weight either.

This leads me to my frustration with the BMI, more importantly the mentality of numbers numbers numbers. When I recovered last time, my body evened back out, to what (I think is the most important) it was comfortable with. And it was sustained. This is key. When your body hits where it should be, it sustains itself. I am not an idiot. They think I don't know what they want in 'the long run.' I know what they want. But you know what? This is my life. I want to get healthy, for me. Not for me. To get healthy for the people I love, not for their liability insurance. Not for their notebooks. I am not going to sacrifice my sanity, happiness, my mind basically, so they can add one more check onto their clip boards.

Thank you.
My body is not a math equation. You can't base everything on numbers.

In its entirety (because it's just that good) is the "Top 10 Reasons Why the BMI is Bogus":

1. The person who dreamed up the BMI said explicitly that it could not and should not be used to indicate the level of fatness in an individual.

The BMI was introduced in the early 19th century by a Belgian named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. He was a mathematician, not a physician. He produced the formula to give a quick and easy way to measure the degree of obesity of the general population to assist the government in allocating resources. In other words, it is a 200-year-old hack.

2. It is scientifically nonsensical.

There is no physiological reason to square a person's height (Quetelet had to square the height to get a formula that matched the overall data. If you can't fix the data, rig the formula!). Moreover, it ignores waist size, which is a clear indicator of obesity level.

3. It is physiologically wrong.

It makes no allowance for the relative proportions of bone, muscle and fat in the body. But bone is denser than muscle and twice as dense as fat, so a person with strong bones, good muscle tone and low fat will have a high BMI. Thus, athletes and fit, health-conscious movie stars who work out a lot tend to find themselves classified as overweight or even obese.

4. It gets the logic wrong.

The CDC says on its Web site that "the BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for people." This is a fundamental error of logic. For example, if I tell you my birthday present is a bicycle, you can conclude that my present has wheels. That's correct logic. But it does not work the other way round. If I tell you my birthday present has wheels, you cannot conclude I got a bicycle. I could have received a car. Because of how Quetelet came up with it, if a person is fat or obese, he or she will have a high BMI. But as with my birthday present, it doesn't work the other way round. A high BMI does not mean an individual is even overweight, let alone obese. It could mean the person is fit and healthy, with very little fat.

5. It's bad statistics.

Because the majority of people today (and in Quetelet's time) lead fairly sedentary lives and are not particularly active, the formula tacitly assumes low muscle mass and high relative fat content. It applies moderately well when applied to such people because it was formulated by focusing on them. But it gives exactly the wrong answer for a large and significant section of the population, namely the lean, fit and healthy. Quetelet is also the person who came up with the idea of "the average man." That's a useful concept, but if you try to apply it to any one person, you come up with the absurdity of a person with 2.4 children. Averages measure entire populations and often don't apply to individuals.

6. It is lying by scientific authority.

Because the BMI is a single number between 1 and 100 (like a percentage) that comes from a mathematical formula, it carries an air of scientific authority. But it is mathematical snake oil.

7. It suggests there are distinct categories of underweight, ideal, overweight and obese, with sharp boundaries that hinge on a decimal place.

That's total nonsense. 8. It makes the more cynical members of society suspect that the medical insurance industry lobbies for the continued use of the BMI to keep their profits high.

Insurance companies sometimes charge higher premiums for people with a high BMI. Among such people are all those fit individuals with good bone and muscle and little fat, who will live long, healthy lives during which they will have to pay those greater premiums.

9. Continued reliance on the BMI means doctors don't feel the need to use one of the more scientifically sound methods that are available to measure obesity levels.

Those alternatives cost a little bit more, but they give far more reliable results.

10. It embarrasses the U.S.

It is embarrassing for one of the most scientifically, technologically and medicinally advanced nations in the world to base advice on how to prevent one of the leading causes of poor health and premature death (obesity) on a 200-year-old numerical hack developed by a mathematician who was not even an expert in what little was known about the human body back then.

Note: if you click on the story link, you can listen to the NPR segment as well.

The Beauty in Everything

I started reading the most beautiful blog this morning. It's called the Wild and Wily Ways of a Brunette Bombshell. She lives in New York and is the same age as me, a year out of college, where she developed an eating disorder.
She is going through life now experiencing beauty in a way she never did. She has been writing along with the perfect body initiative. Along with others. Everyday you recognize something incredible, unseen, untouched, or ignored from your body. It's important to recognize each part and see it's beauty and the amazing things it does.
http://or-so-i-feel.blogspot.com/

So she asks, "Why is your body perfect?" My answer? It is resilient. With a heart that had been destroyed and hurt so much, it always comes back, stronger than ever. More willing to fight and believe for what my whole body deserves. What an incredible little thing.

My toes too :)

That's all for now. An interview at Pier 1 in a couple hours and a hopeful call from Haggen, fingers are crossed. It's supposed to be 85 today too, a day of park laying is in order.

A Lazy Day

I'm almost asleep. The nutritionist was awful and discouraging today. I weighed 81 lbs there and she just told me that to her I haven't gained any weight. Which is not true. She wants me to eat like a patient. A patient who is sick and has to measure and baggie and eat prepackaged meals. I am not treating myself like a patient. This is about getting back to where I was. I can do that and now I want to do that even more just to spite her and her stupid methods. It was so frustrating. I am going to bed tonight full. Very full. From eating. From eating food that is normal, from eating portions that make me full. Not by measuring out 1 tbsp nuts and 13 cherries. Give me a break.

Post of 3

2:41 and I just got back from a walk to pick flowers. I think it's important to always have flowers in your home. They make me smile. I had a great/hard weekend. My amazing boyfriend treated me two nights to New York Pizza and food. The first night I was tipsy enough to say yes to an appetizer, it was so great. Artichoke dip with crustini bread. Then I ordered for myself the chicken caesar salad and it came with garlic bread. I ate one of the breads and devoured the salad. It was so good. The chicken was so hot and actually good and it was just perfect. The next day I felt good too. Which is important to remember. Last night we went to Honey Moon and back to NYP and I got the small salad, which was so good, but I think too much dressing that made me feel a little ill, maybe because I ate quite a bit of fries. The fried food late at night is so good, but it is for sure what makes me have an upset stomach the next day.

Nevertheless. Look at that, two days of eating, eating the way I normally would. So props to that. I am so lucky to have him. He is so incredibly supportive and knows when to push at just the right times. I can't wait to take him out to lunch. And to go to breakfast! Ah! Unheard of!

Today, I am taking a me day. It's beautiful out and my walk was nice. It was nice to look around. I go see the nutritionist at 4 and hope that goes well, more importantly I just hope it goes fast. After that I'm not sure what I'm going to go do. Low key. I want to watch some girly movies tonight. I am stopping by at the parents to hang out with my mom for a little bit, after that though, painting my toes, nails, and face mask! Much needed.

I got my entire work schedule up until mid August, and I actually got some great hours. I will also know on Friday if I got the job at Haggen, fingers are crossed. I need something to sort of jump me out of this comfort zone, and a new job will do that, terrifies me, but I need it. I am dropping by Taco Lobo tomorrow too because they are hiring, who knows right?

I think I am most excited to eat popcorn tonight while I watch movies :) Not sure what I'm going to put on it, but that little machine makes me so excited. I am massively craving fruit and yogurt too, from drinking. Something nice and easy on my stomach is key right now.

I can't believe it's July! The 4th is Saturday and I work til 6, and have reservations at Hearthfire with Autumn at 7:45. That should be nice and low key and I'm so glad I get to see her. More is needed. Also, July 17-19 we are going camping in eastern washington. I got Paper Dreams covered, we'll see what happens if I get another job. But so far, it's a go. Terrifies me because of the loss of control over food, but it will be SO good for me. I mean christ, it's camping, relaxe, and I will and am so excited to just be dirty, eat smores, sun bathe, etc. Liberating.

Then by that time it will be time to start packing! Gah! Move in August 1st! Crazy excited. Then the next week is our trip to Portland. This is why I neeeeed this job, to have some fucking money for these things.

That's all for now. I feel meh. I know, realistically I am good, and I am trying to ignore these crazy thoughts that are just mean. I am the only person that is mean to me. Funny really.