I was almost done with my shift, and I had returned to the bakery for a few minutes to help finish packing out the few items that remained. Co-worker A was there with Guy B, a floater from the produce section who was helping us out. They were talking about Guy B's recent weight loss efforts, which consisted largely of cutting back on the Cheetos and taking daily walks. It made me uneasy and a little uncomfortable (as any talk of weight loss is wont to do), but it wasn't overtly triggering. So I plastered a grin-and-bear-it smile on my face and just started packing stuff up.

The talk eventually turned to BMI, and the fact that Guy B's BMI was higher than he thought it was. From there, the dialogue went as follows:

Coworker A: I wonder what my BMI is. I should go look it up.
Guy B: It was eye-opening for me.
Coworker A: I wonder what Carrie's BMI is 'cuz she's such a fatass! ::lots of giggling::
Guy B: Carrie isn't fat! She isn't anywhere even near fat!
Coworker A: I know! That's what makes the joke funny!

And in that moment, I killed her in my head. Violently. Instantly. I grabbed a giant flyswatter and then crushed her. Splat.

I'm about 95% sure coworker A was joking. I mean- she said as much. But there's that nagging doubt that has sent my head reeling. Am I a fatass? Was she joking? I still have no idea of what I really look like (in terms of body size), so I almost always think of how I look through the eyes of others. I struggle so much with my current body size, which is larger than I've ever been before. This not-thought-out joke cut right to the core of my strongest anxieties.

Rationally, I'm almost sure A didn't mean anything by it. She's goofy and much younger and she's not the type to think out some sort of deep psychological jibe towards someone. And as much as I know this and can tell myself this, my brain keeps spinning around what if, what if, what if... I wanted to ask A what she meant by the comment, but I realized that there was probably nothing good that would come out of that. If she did mean it, I doubt she would admit it to my face. And if I questioned her, I would look like a neurotic tightass who couldn't take a joke. None of these options seemed much better than the never-ending uncertainty of whether A really was joking, or if there was some deeper meaning.

I don't know what to make of this (other than the fact that A needs to learn how to shut her freaking mouth). I know I'm overthinking this, although that has yet to stop me from actually overthinking this. I'm angry at A and her big mouth, and I'm also angry at myself for taking this so seriously. I'm also angry at myself for getting so fat that someone would even joke that I was a fatass--although the joke was pretty much meant to be an expression of irony.

So short of searching out a person-sized flyswatter, what should I do about this?

When I sit down to blog every Sunday, I always end up thinking "Really?!? It's time for another smorgasbord?"

Apparently so.

Enjoy your chewy little ED-related morsels.

1. Psychiatric disorders among parents of patients with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa

2. Have you been denied insurance coverage for eating disorders treatment? Share your story here.

3. I'm feeling like some spleen: Hunger pangs guide meat-eating animals to eat certain body parts of their prey.

4. Differences between threshold and sub-threshold anorexia are irrelevant to response to cognitive behavioral therapy.

5. Why dieting tires you out

6. Using Dissonance-Based Interventions to Prevent Eating Disorders

7. The taste of tiny: Putting nanofoods on the menu

8. Research sheds new light on the role bacteria in the digestive tract may play in obesity.

9. Functional polymorphism in the GPR55 gene is associated with Anorexia Nervosa

10. Development and validity of the Disordered Eating Attitude Scale (DEAS).

11. Maintaining a therapeutic connection: nursing in an inpatient eating disorder unit.

12. Undue influence of weight and shape: is it distinct from body dissatisfaction and concern about weight and shape?

13. Obesity Rejected as Psychiatric Diagnosis in DSM-5

My friend Angela, who is in recovery from anorexia, asked today whether her life would ever be normal again. It's a question I've often asked myself: when will my life stop being ruled by my eating disorder? When will I start to feel normal again?

Normal, we are told, is relative. Normal is just a setting on a washing machine. I'm not normal- I'm not even sure that I'm psychologically capable of being normal. I've come to accept that I'm never going to be normal. This is fine, and yet here I am, still searching for "normal," whatever that means.

What one of Angela's friends pointed out is that maybe normal isn't the exact thing that we're looking for. Maybe we're actually looking for a sense of normalcy in our lives.

I think the actual definition of normalcy will differ from person to person, but to me, I define normalcy as the loss of that feeling that your life has been hijacked by the eating disorder and other mental illnesses. It's the sense that you are living an authentic life, rather than being obsessed with food and weight.

I don't look around at my life now and think, "Damn, this is the life I've been wanting to live." I'd rather not spend my days wrangling pies and slinging bread. I'd love to support myself by freelancing alone. However, there is that pesky little thing called reality to deal with. Despite all of this, the normalcy in my life has dramatically increased compared to when AN was ruling all of my thoughts and behaviors.

One of the biggest advantage of this return to normalcy is the knowledge that I don't need to hide how I spend my time (reading cookbooks in the gym--yes, I've done that!). Not that I spent my time like some sort of stereotypical twenty-something; this normalcy isn't the sense that I'm doing what everyone else is doing. But as I leave the ED behind, I don't feel like my ED is making me life a freakish life. My life now involves things like eating and watching TV. It involves resting and napping and licking the spoon when I bake brownies. It involves chatting with the girls at work about the cute customers and visiting with old friends and their new babies. It's a normalcy I never thought I would ever see again...and yet here I am.

No, I'll never be normal, but I am starting to experience some normalcy.

I hate being weighed. It makes me freaky anxious and I just don't like it. I worry that I might have gained, which will make me hate myself. I worry that I might have lost and then everyone will freak out on me. The ED part of my brain still sees maintenance as some sort of abject failure because I should be losing weight, not maintaining it.

It probably sounds pretty paradoxical that I find the concept of being weighed at my therapist's office to be reassuring and helpful. Not because I take comfort in being weighed--I most certainly don't--but because I find it helpful to know my weight and know that it is staying where it needs to be.

My first therapist never weighed me, although it didn't really matter all that much because I was weighing myself 80 bazillion times a day anyway. I ended up in the hospital soon enough because my physical deterioration was making my low weight almost a secondary issue. My second therapist used to weigh me, back to the scale, each week and then she slowly phased that out. Ditto for my dietitian. That left me to my own devices for quite some time, and it wasn't pretty.

Not being weighed felt nice at first, because I really do hate being weighed. It's kind of embarrassing, like someone knows all of your dirty little secrets. The problem was that the ED had a field day. I couldn't self-regulate around food. I would overeat, and then restrict and overexercise. Whether this would have showed up in my weight is unclear, but the lack of weighing added one more way for me to hide the seriousness of my ongoing eating disorder.

With my relapse last year, it was back to the weekly ritual of being weighed. I was weighed with my back to the scale so that the weight gain wouldn't freak me out. This was no doubt a wise move, as I'm reasonably confident that I really couldn't handle knowing the number at that point in time. However, TNT has a very different philosophy about weighing (namely that it's just a number and there's a time when you have to get over it) and so I started actually knowing my weight. After an initial freak-out, the actual number ceased to be such a huge deal. I still detest that number, think I'm a whale, etc, but the number itself doesn't provoke as much anxiety as it once did.

Now that I am in recovery and doing well, I'm still weighed by TNT, although only every other week. It works out well- I get a respite from the grueling scale-induced anxiety attacks but TNT is still monitoring my weight closely enough that the ED can't really get out of hand. My parents and treatment team are (not surprisingly) more worried that I will start losing weight again. Since I have the eating disorder and am therefore not that rational about my weight, I mostly worry that I will once again start gaining. Seeing my weight stay exactly the same week in and week out gives me the reassurance that my body isn't going to flip the hell out at an extra cupcake, and it reassures my parents that I really am taking this whole recovery thing seriously.

There's another interesting variable that my weight gives TNT: an insight to my psychological state. Bouts of the stomach flu aside, usually a drop in my weight means an increase in anxiety and ED symptoms. There's no clear cause and effect (did the drop in weight increase the ED thoughts or did the ED thoughts cause the drop in weight? I think both are true) but the fact that my last therapist pushed for a higher weight and then insisted I stay there (despite me calling her a meanie and much, much worse) has given me much greater psychological stability. The slightly higher weight (5-10 pounds) is the price I have to pay for a hint of peace of mind. But the opposite would have been a Faustian bargain: a weight I "preferred" but an ongoing, never ending, ultimately losing battle against the ED. Seeing my weight every other week is a reminder of that icky number, but it's also a reminder of my renewed peace of mind.

I like the fact that someone is monitoring my weight even though I really do hate getting onto that scale. Waiting for the little slide weights to settle themselves is like waiting to hear a verdict: it's long and agonizing but it probably really takes no more than 10 seconds. I'm getting used to my new weight although I still don't like it. I prefer knowing the number to not knowing it because at least if I know it, I'm not imagining having reached a four-digit weight overnight. Which makes the entire situation one massive paradox: hating getting weighed, liking the security of being weighed; hating what I weigh, liking to know that awful number rather than leave it to the imagination.

Since when did an eating disorder ever make sense?

At the bakery yesterday, I began worrying about money. For someone who is almost pathologically cheap (except inside book, yarn, and bead stores), this is a fairly common worry. My income is pretty minimal, and I began to have serious doubts about my ability to move out on my own and support myself. Although these doubts are somewhat rational, where my brain went with them was decidedly not.

Each worry spawned another worry, each more outrageous and freaky than the last. It was as if my initial worry set off a series of dominoes, each worry knocking into yet another worry and soon any bit of rational sense and positivity had been knocked over.

The worries about money
Begat worries about my ability to live on my own
Begat worries about where to find freelance writing jobs
Begat worries about my ability to make it as a science writer
Begat worries about my skills as a writer
Begat worries about whether I was in the right career
Begat worries about whether I would ever find a suitable career
Begat worries about my abilities, period
Begat worries about being dependent on my parents for the rest of my life
Begat worries about what was going to happen as my parents aged
Begat worries about...

And so the dominoes fell.

This didn't even count all of the "what if?" statements that accompanied these worries, like "What if I'm being too selective about the jobs I'm looking for?" or "What if I'm just not cut out for adult life?" All too quickly, I was distressed, freaked out, agitated, and pissed off. This is not a good combination.

The important thing about realizing the domino effect of my worries is that removing one domino would have stopped the cascade. Is it rational to be concerned about finances in my position? Well, at least somewhat. That being said, I didn't have to let these worries spiral so out of control that I had visions of myself at age 60, my bloated corpse being plucked out of my parents' house with a cherry picker, along with a horde of cats. The thing is, I suck at pulling myself out of these worry spirals. Usually I just get sucked in and end up drowning in anxiety. I need to remember what worries are rational and what aren't, what worries I can address and what I must leave up to the universe.

I never really understood that I could stop these worries. I thought they existed as an independent entity, one that I had no control over. Most ironic thing: I felt I had no control over my worries that were about things I felt I should have control over but didn't. Life, you're too much for me, sometimes.

It's much easier for me to think of these worry spirals as a series of dominoes because then I can remove one, and the worry stops. I don't have to get rid of all of the dominoes to stop the cascade. I suppose my next task will be learning not to have so many dominoes that they can start a cascade.

In recovery, one of the most difficult things for me wasn't just eating, but getting used to eating regularly again. I resented having to do the dishes because it was such a pain and it was so much easier when I wasn't eating and therefore didn't dirty anything. I hated having to pack a lunch- though it is time consuming and a pain in the butt, ED stuff aside. And I hated having to think about what I was going to be eating. When I was in the midst of AN, it was easy. I ate the same thing day in and day out. Same brand of cereal, same flavor of yogurt, same fat free salad dressing. It was a ritual to help relieve my anxiety about eating.

Working with my meal plan has been challenging because I'm not allowed to eat the exact same thing every day, and I also had to eat adequate amounts. Even six months after weight restoration, I still follow my trusty meal plan. It keeps me on track, and my dietitian worked in enough flexibility that I wouldn't feel penned in by meeting my requirements (my snacks are X exchanges, one of which has to be fat or protein). Throughout the past year, I've picked up a number of tips that really make meal planning much easier.

Batch cooking. When I was working full time, I made meals for the entire week on Saturday or Sunday. Because I lived by myself, I usually made two different meals that I could alternate and/or bring for lunch. The variety wasn't optimal, but living by yourself doesn't really allow for heaps of variety. Nonetheless, it worked. And then I didn't have to get home from work exhausted and have to think up something to cook. If I had leftovers, I portioned them out in individual serving sizes in freezer bags, and then just popped them in the freezer. Great for those times when you need something fast.

Plan the night before. In the moment, I often get anxious when I have to decide what I need to eat. Often, it was easier not to eat than it was to decide. So I began to decide what I was going to eat the next day when I could remain calm and rational. Not that I didn't get anxious, but I could make much wiser decisions when I didn't have to face both the decision and the immediate prospect of eating.

Deal a meal. I don't know if any of you remember "Deal a Meal" diet with Richard Simmons (did that totally date me? I think it did), but the general idea was that you got a bunch of index cards with various recipes/menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Essentially, it was a weight loss meal plan. But after a while of working with my current meal plan, I developed a few staple meals and snacks that I could use. Such as: cereal, granola, milk, banana, sunflower seeds. Or power oatmeal. Or an egg sandwich. Lunch could be a sandwich or cottage cheese with peanut butter toast. Things like that. This way, I didn't have to plan each meal or snack from scratch- all I had to do was pick one of my options, and I ended up with a pretty wide array of options.

What tips do you use when cooking or planning meals that help you stay in recovery? Have you found anything that's less than helpful?

When my first therapist met me, she said that I wasn't going to have annnnnnnnny trouble, that I was going to be just fine. The second part of that message didn't really register with me because I was too busy scoffing at the first bit. I think my therapist was trying to do a little bit of a cheerleader routine for me by telling me that I had a promising future! and I was smart! and I had no reason to stay anorexic!

I should have asked her what is a good reason to stay anorexic. But, alas.

The problem was that telling a perfectionist that she's not going to have any problems really isn't the best way to ensure either honesty or a realistic idea of what recovery is really like. Because any small mistake I would make then translated as: I can't even do recovery right, so screw it. At least I won't screw up the eating disorder. I shouldn't be having problems- my therapist said so! I'm obviously not meant to recover...

Of course, my friends and family wanted me better right away, which at first I thought was completely pathological (because not wanting to see a loved one suffer is totally pathological). They should know recovery is a process, that I might not want to get better right away. And I projected all of my own perfectionism crap onto everyone else, convinced that they wouldn't be able to tolerate knowing about one single slip of mine. So I started to keep even more secrets, afraid to give up the illusion of "The Perfect Recovery."

The irony is that the only person who strove to create a perfect recovery was, um, me. This secret-keeping meant that I never addressed my triggers in therapy, never allowed myself to ask for support and basically stayed stuck as f*ck. Everyone else was aware that I was barely keeping my head above water, but a lot of the struggles stayed below the surface. No one knew how bad it really was. I was deeply embarrassed to be struggling and I often had no real way to explain my fears and anxieties.

In order to begin to move forward in recovery, I had to lose the idea of the perfect recovery. I had to develop the humility to put all my cards on the table and say "this is where I'm at." Then, I had to keep putting all my cards on the table, even when I had a bad hand and would have rather tried to bluff my way out of the situation. I had to accept that I might lose a few rounds and that--here's the kicker--it was okay. It's pretty hard to learn how to play canasta if you're always trying to skirt the rules.

One of the best parts of my honesty policy is that I have a lot more trust and street cred with my parents and friends. They don't have to guess if I'm secretly combusting on the inside and smiling on the outside. I'm not hiding it; I'm letting it all hang out.

It's different for me- I've never been much on sharing to begin with (for many of the same reasons I didn't share about ED stuff: I was really afraid people would think less of me if I had "issues") and this has an extra layer of meaning added to it. It still doesn't feel natural. I really wanted the perfect recovery. I wanted to have that light bulb moment where I would just ditch the anorexia and start eating cheesecake. It never happened. Most of the time, I wasn't even sure I wanted to recover.

But here I am, recovering. Not perfectly, but recovering nonetheless.

Is it that time already? Apparently, it is. I'm trying a slightly new format and adding numbers to the links so that if you want to reference one in the comments, it will be easier and everyone will be on the same page. So sit back, relax, and enjoy your smorgasbord. :)

1. What should you expect from an Eating Disorder Provider?

2. The psychology of food cravings--what the research says

3. College students' perceptions of individuals with anorexia and bulimia nervosa

4. Eating patterns in patients with spectrum binge-eating disorder

5. Brain tissue volume changes following weight gain in adults with AN

6. Eating Disorders Go Untreated as Experts Debate Definitions

7. Genes and brain centers that regulate meal size in flies identified

8. Clinical psychologists' perceptions of people with mental illness

9. New York Soda Tax Plan Would Give Diet Drinks a Break

10. Scientist creates 1st objective yardstick for smells, giving each molecule a single, simple score

11. Comorbidity and age of onset of eating disorders in gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals

12. The experience of siblings of adolescents with eating disorders

13. Perfectionism as a transdiagnostic process: A clinical review

14. Pleasure for visual and olfactory stimuli evoking energy-dense foods is decreased in anorexia nervosa

15. Set-shifting abilities, central coherence, and handedness in anorexia nervosa patients, their unaffected siblings and healthy controls

A few days ago, Therese Borchard (I blogged about another one of her posts here) wrote an excellent column in the Huffington Post called "I'm not bipolar; I HAVE bipolar." And the title is pretty self-explanatory: that we are not our illnesses, because the illness is just one aspect of our lives.

Writes Borchard:

For those of us with chronic illnesses that we can't imagine away, I believe Dr. Remen simply encourages us to make decisions as individuals, not necessarily as bipolars, or diabetics, or cancer victims. We will always have to be mindful of our diagnoses, of course, in our relationships and work ventures. Because we need to surround ourselves with supportive people who will undergird our recovery, and we must maneuver our careers in ways that will aid our health.


And perhaps it's that one bit--being mindful of our diagnoses--that struck me the most. There are times when I am sick of thinking about food, sick of making sure I always have an energy bar with me, sick of preparing balanced meals. I want to forget. But I need to stay mindful of the fact that I do have an eating disorder and I am still very new to recovery and that recovery can easily be derailed by convenient amnesia.

Yet the fact that I have an energy bar in my purse and a chip on my shoulder at mealtime doesn't mean that this is all there is to me. True, I think about my eating disorder and related topics (food, calories, weight, etc) way too freaking much. And I have to keep my eating disorder history in mind when I go to make decisions (guaranteed lunch breaks at work, not buying a treadmill, not letting sleep patterns get chaotic) but that doesn't mean that I am my eating disorder. I'm Carrie who does in fact have an eating disorder, but I'm also a writer, a daughter, a friend, and a kitty mom.

The hard part is finding the balance between not labeling myself as "anorexic" and also not disregarding the limitations my diagnosis has given me. Long days without eating? Extremely physically demanding job? Working at Weight Watchers? Not an option--or at least not an option that will end well. Usually, I flip from one extreme to the other, in a classic case of black and white thinking. Either I'm terrified of everything because it might trigger ED symptoms, or I just take this eff-it-all attitude and think I can handle everything. Like most things in life, the answer lies somewhere in between: acknowledging your diagnosis but not letting it rule your life.

On Facebook today, I read a status update from a friend of mine who asked us to honor the memory of a girl who died from her eating disorder five years ago today. Which is tremendously sad, and I hope that her story will help others pursue the treatment they need and deserve. But that's not the point of my post. The point of my post is that my friend said the girl died from "the pressure to be thin."

No. She died from an eating disorder. Big difference.

I didn't comment on my friend's Facebook status because I didn't want to take away the importance of honoring this girl's memory, nor do I like Facebook arguments because I can't be concise. Also, even despite my friend's statements, we still remain friends and this hasn't changed that.

But "the pressure to be thin?" Seriously?

I'm not saying that the pressure to be thin is irrelevant to eating disorders because it does play a role in some people's triggers, and certainly in obstacles to recovery. But an eating disorder isn't a pathological and deadly response to the pressure to be thin; it's an actual mental illness that involves a life-threatening inability to self-regulate around food. Furthermore, by saying that an eating disorder is "caused" by the pressure to be thin, it excludes all of those with eating disorders who don't have body dysmorphia, those who developed EDs in cultures that didn't place a high value on thinness, and those who developed EDs long before there was a widespread cultural pressure to be thin.

So. Now that we've got that out of the way...

For most of the people I've talked to with eating disorders, being thin is usually the least of their motivators when in the thick of it. I did have a phobia of gaining weight (a massive phobia of weight gain, for that matter) but it wasn't a cultural pressure. It was me. It was from the eating disorder--I didn't feel that pressure before, and I don't really feel it now. I didn't decide to lose weight to look like a model. It was an attempt to eat better, exercise more, maybe lose 5 pounds and pull out of the awful depression I was in. Without my predisposition to anorexia, I'm fairly confident everything would have stopped there. But it didn't.

Did I use our culture's obsession with dieting and thinness as an excuse while in my eating disorder? Yes. And to some extent, it would have felt more sane to tell myself I just wanted to look like some famous waif than to actually understand that I was terrified of food and eating. I never thought of my eating disorder as just "being on a diet" or "trying to be skinny." It was just this single-minded obsession to eat less and exercise more that really had no explanation.

I did think that if I could lose enough weight then maybe I would stop hating what I saw in the mirror. And I'm not going to say that culture had nothing to do with that, but I was well aware that everyone else saw me as too thin. It was my own messed up standards that didn't really kick in until after I had already started walking down the yellow brick road to anorexia. In other words, the intense body hatred was as much a result of my eating disorder as it was a cause.

Saying this girl who died from "the pressure to be thin" minimizes the true, serious nature of eating disorders. It takes a very complicated issue--the interplay of nature and nurture--and so over-simplifies it that the truth is lost. Not that feeling pressure to be thin has nothing to do with eating disorders, but to say that this pressure to be thin is the same thing as an eating disorder is a rather big misstatement.

One of my most frequent blog categories are "narrating anorexia" and "narrating recovery." The general gist of posts in these categories have to do with explaining what it was like for me in the midst of my eating disorder, and also to see myself as a central character in my own life. Yes, I was dragged into recovery kicking and screaming, but I'm also staying there through my own hard work. This concept of seeing myself as a narrator also helps in my process of Figuring It All Out, of trying to make sense of this past decade.

I've written about firing the writer of my internal monologues, which was ultimately a post about re-narrating my own life. I can file some of my knee-jerk, emotional reactions into the "rough drafts" bin and edit them to a more coherent, compassionate response. Because events are just events and feelings are just feelings--it's how we integrate them into our lives that really makes the difference.

I read one of my favorite blogs, F*ck Feelings, which had a post today on living the life of a writer. Some brief quotes:

Writing looks easy; after all all you need is pen, paper, and maybe a table at Starbucks. Then there’s inspiration and an interesting topic. Plus a fully functioning brain, a supportive audience, and, of course, shitloads of luck. Oh, and a trust fund. It’s no wonder then that writing and depression dance a delicate pas de deux with one another, and that torturing yourself for not “succeeding” as a creative mind is a pretty useless, uncreative punishment.

{snip}

I know, my congratulations do nothing but cause your inner-writer chagrin. That voice says you’ve failed to fulfill your creative purpose, find your voice and message, connect with an audience, or put together something that moves people.

The good news, again, is that there’s nothing I or anyone can say to quiet that voice, because it will never let you be entirely happy. Short of getting a lobotomy, that voice will be your most constant companion, and if you succeed in writing a book that sells, his demands become more relentless.

So invent a good, kind speech for your inner narrator to tell yourself. You don’t control the result, so your job is to respect the effort. Consider the many writers and immortal characters, from Chekhov to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who remind us that we don’t fight against hardship to win, we fight to fight, regardless of the result.

It was that bolded statement that really stuck with me. Just as I have control over the words I include in my blog, I have control over what my inner narrator gets to say. I don't control all the action in my life--much of it, I don't get any say in at all--but I do get to control how my story is told. And up until now, my inner narrator was fairly mean and waspish when I was narrating my own life. I was never good enough, never worked hard enough, never (insert anything) enough. There was always something wanting, and it always was my fault.

What I'm trying to remember is that stories evolve. Static characters are really boring--the best books have characters who are dynamic and changing. I'm not the same person I was when I first developed anorexia. I can change how I view things, and how I participate in them as well. It's taken me a long time to realize that I have an "inner narrator" and that my story isn't set in stone. And that oftentimes, the point of the story isn't the ending, it's the process of getting there that's important.

Many of the conversations I have with customers in the bakery are repetitive and predictable. Most of this is pretty expected: we have quite a number of items, but not that many. You can only ask for so many things. But part of the repetitive nature of the conversation has to do with people (mainly women) commenting about how fattening everything is, how can I be skinny and work in a bakery?!?, and how what they're buying is for "someone else."

I just want to shake some of them* and say "I don't care. Really. I'm not judging you for buying a sweet treat. I really don't care. What's more, I'm kind of glad you indulge your overpriced sweet tooth because it means I have a job. And it's not my dream job, but I do rather like getting a paycheck."

What these people are really doing is apologizing for buying something "fattening" and "tempting." I have plenty of issues with apologizing, to be sure, but the cultural mea culpa when it comes to eating is something else. I want to say "You are buying food in a grocery store- there's nothing to be ashamed of!"

A woman yesterday bought an eclair and said it was for her husband. She had just started Weight Watchers and wanted to "be good" so she was going to watch him eat it, "with tears running down my cheeks." All I could think was: and I'm the one with the eating disorder? Why must everyone else be so conflicted about something that my treatment team has been telling me for years is a good and necessary part of life?

More than that, it's really boring. I am so incredibly sick of thinking about food and weight and good and bad and should I or shouldn't I. To have these thoughts echoed in the people around me is just annoying. And so I want to say (to them and to me):

It's just food.
Really.
That's all.
You don't have to feel guilty
or ashamed
for eating food you like.
There's nothing wrong.
I'm not judging you.
It's just dessert.
Enjoy it.
And then move on.

*Not the least of which was the old lady who yelled at me for mislabeling the pecan cinnamon rolls as our regular cinnamon rolls. I told her that wasn't pecans on top, just streusel. She said no, it was pecans. I said it was streusel and grabbed several other boxes to show her. She got angrier and angrier, saying No, it's PECANS, until I finally convinced her that it was streusel by showing her the pecan rolls. And she said "Well, how can I see that without my glasses?"

My language isn't exactly pristine, but I'm not a potty mouth, either. I can let the curse words fly, but I generally don't. Still, I use the s-word a little too much for my own good.

No, not that s-word. The other s-word: sorry.

Sorry is a good and useful word that should probably be used more often in some situations (public transit) and less often in others (pre-teen sarcasm). I would like to think I apologize when I am genuinely sorry, but that's not really the point of this blog (sorry about that!). The point is when I apologize for things that really weren't my fault.

I've become immune to how much I say "Sorry 'bout that" throughout the day, and it was only when a co-worker brought it to my attention that it hit home. (This was the co-worker who asked why I was upset at being hungry, not the one who told me to let my titties hang out.) The direct quote was something along the lines of "What the hell are you apologizing for? You just knock that off!"

My response? "Sorry!"

Yep- I'm pretty hopeless in that respect.

I'm not a stereotypical people pleaser--I'm pretty selective in who I bend over backwards for--but I am terrified of someone getting mad at me. Part of how I cope with that fear is by apologizing profusely and otherwise keeping my mouth shut. I don't ask myself whether someone is actually upset with me, whether that anger really matters in the long run, or whether I have any reason to be sorry for my actions. I generally just apologize. Sorry for being in the way. Sorry for not being there. Sorry for existing at all.

When I was deep into my eating disorder, I truly was sorry I existed. I was sorry I took up space and resources, and sorry I was me. This mindset pervaded everything I did. In my first hospital stay for anorexia, I was standing in line in the hospital cafeteria (I was actually pilfering Equal packets for later) and another boy pushed in front of me. What did I say? "Sorry." It was reflexive. I was clearly in his way. This somehow got brought up in group therapy, and so I was told to not apologize for anything for 24 hours. It was hilarious- I didn't even last 24 minutes until I was apologizing again, and then apologizing for failing to follow the instructions not to apologize.

I've gotten a little better since then, but not much. I still have that mindset that I am in the way, or that I am a bother. Really, that my existence means I have something to be sorry for. I use oxygen/water/food that would be better for orphaned children/serial killers/feral cats. Self-esteem problems? Where would you get that idea?

Working in retail, the ability to apologize for anything does come in handy. I've been told to apologize for whatever it is, and then make the situation right. This is strategic and differs dramatically from the reflexive oh-I-suck type of thinking that I otherwise engage in. I've apologized to diffuse a very tense situation. Like I said, saying "sorry" can be useful. It's just that I really don't use it in those useful ways very much.

I know I need to start working on valuing myself more as a way to stop apologizing, and I also need to just break this habit. It's just a matter of how.

Well, my relationship with lunch is still a little more conflicted than the title of this video, but it made me smile:

Because there's no better way to end your week, here's the always-quirky, ever-tasty Sunday Smorgasbord.

Being a Neurotic, Insecure Wreck May Help You Survive (I'm not insecure, I'm just highly evolved!)

Doubt Is Cast on Many Reports of Food Allergies

Allure of Vices Tied to a Woman's Monthly Cycle

10 Ways To Find New Motivation and Rise Above Roadblocks

Scientists trick mice's regular fat into becoming fat-burning fat

Fight Erupts Over Rules Issued for ‘Mental Health Parity’ Insurance Law

Report: Health Claims for Food, Drugs Deserve Same Scrutiny

When parents' good intentions disparage obese children

Large Clothes on Small Women: a Plus-Size Marketing Mystery

The Brain Science of "Aha" Moments

How can I encourage flexibility and independence in family-based treatment for anorexia? (Question of the week from Maudsley Parents)

New Intervention To Reduce Self-Stigma In Mentally Ill

Rise in eating disorder hospital admission

Severity of binge eating disorder linked to childhood sexual or emotional abuse

Washington University looking for participants in anorexia study

Hooked on a good thing: when exercise becomes addictive

Quality of life and eating disorders: a systematic review

Locating eating pathology within an empirical diagnostic taxonomy

And lastly, a cute kitten video for your enjoyment:

This study just irritated me: Psychiatric 'diseases' versus behavioral disorders and degree of genetic influence

The study's premise was that

"Psychiatric conditions in which symptoms arise involuntarily ('diseases') might be assumed to be more heritable than those in which choices are essential (behavioral disorders). We sought to determine whether psychiatric 'diseases' (Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and mood and anxiety disorders) are more heritable than behavioral disorders (substance use disorders and anorexia nervosa)."

...And what do they think drives behaviors? Have these researchers even thought about what anorexia actually is? No, it's not a bunch of skinny dieting champs. It's about being scared to eat. Which strikes me as less of a behavior and more of something arising "involuntarily."

I've heard some people say that they chose to be anorexic, but I would say that for the vast majority of people, they didn't choose their eating disorder. I know I didn't. Did I make the choice to lose a few pounds and exercise more? Yes, I'm not denying it. But choosing to head to the gym regularly is totally different than choosing to be anorexic. The first I will concede; the second I most definitely will not.

It frustrates me. It really does, especially because this is a scientific study carried out by actual professionals. I can grit my teeth and try and explain to Jim Bob that I wasn't randomly deciding to live on Diet Coke and look like a model because he very well might not know better. But psychiatric specialists? Seriously?

Interestingly, they didn't consider OCD in their spectrum of diseases, which would be interesting since it involves what they would term "involuntary" symptoms (obsessions) as well as chosen behaviors (compulsions). Nor did they address how people with depression are often told to cheer up and snap out of it, which implies that it really is a choice.

There are endless choices I've had to make as I've recovered from my eating disorder, although many of them were a choice amongst lack of alternatives. I've been told recovery is a choice, and although I don't think that's wrong, I don't think it's that simple. It's not as if recovery is one single choice, and it's not as if our brains always have the same capacity to make these choices as we move through recovery. There is some small amount of choice when my brain is compelling me to engage in ED behaviors or OCD behaviors, and I can see that now that I'm no longer in it on a minute to minute basis. But in the moment? I didn't see a choice, and my brain chemistry tipped the scales so heavily in favor of the disordered behaviors that I couldn't un-choose my disorder without a serious amount of support.

Ultimately, the study didn't find that "behavioral disorders" were any less heritable that psychiatric "diseases." They found a 60% heritability rate for anorexia, although other studies have found rates of 70% and Walt Kaye frequently uses an interval of 60-84% heritability (I believe this can be found in his Maudsley Parents lecture here).

The authors concluded:

No systematic relationship exists between the disease-like character of a psychiatric disorder and its heritability; many behavioral disorders seem to be more heritable than conditions commonly construed as diseases. These results suggest an error in 'common-sense' assumptions about the etiology of psychiatric disorders. That is, among psychiatric disorders, there is no close relationship between the strength of genetic influences and the etiologic importance of volitional processes.

Maybe that's because these "behavioral disorders" really are diseases...

One of the things I've been discussing with TNT lately is my self-schemas: basically those meta-terms in which I think of myself. For instance: nerdy, weird, writer, curious.

In middle and high school, I described myself as a nerd in a pretty negative sense. I liked the fact that I was smart and I didn't try to hide it, but my hard-core geekery made me a little uneasy. It wasn't cool to like science or reading, to attend random lectures or the planetarium. So I kept these likes and hobbies to myself. I wanted to like that I was nerdy, but I just wasn't there yet. Fast forward several years through college and two stints of grad school, and I can say that I've fully embraced my nerdy side. I love learning, I love esoterica, and I love science. I've turned the 13-year-old Carrie's negative view of the word "nerdy" and turned it into one of my almost-30-year-old self's favorite adjectives.

That isn't really the self-schema I've been talking with TNT about. The self-schema I really struggle with is this one: weird. I feel inexplicably, unalterably weird and different. Freakish. I conceal this under a thin veneer of decent hair days and minimal knowledge of pop culture. I always felt different than the other kids. It didn't help that I was teased a fair bit and began fearing every little difference that might possibly be made fun of (my voluminous reading habits, for instance, or the fact that I listened to totally different music, or the clothes I wore, or whatever). Psychologically and socially, too, I felt like I operated on a totally different plane. I was always more shy and inhibited, and I always felt far more comfortable around my teachers than the other kids in my class. I didn't connect that easily. Looking around, I saw the other kids in my class making friends and chatting and having fun and figured the problem was me.

Ultimately, I became rather scared of and uneasy with the rather unique parts of my personality. So I pulled back. I stopped sharing. I marinated in my perceived freakishness, which was only amplified by said endless marination. No one understood me. It was hopeless. I should grow up and be a hermit. Melodramatic statements like that really didn't help the situation. And so all of those really unusual things about myself became liabilities instead of assets.

The eating disorder was both evidence for this freakishness (I can't eat, this grain of rice will make me gain weight but not you) and an antidote to it (I bitched about my thighs with the rest of Young Female America). It was almost a culturally-acceptable way to be a little weird. Now that I'm in recovery, of course, I realize that a) an eating disorder is an illness and b) there are lots of other ways to express my uniqueness that won't kill me.

Still, I have a general negative connotation with the word "weird," and I still use it to describe myself. I read books about smallpox while listening to Celtic rock bands featuring lads in black leather kilts while enjoying my new aromatherapy candles. It's a pretty unusual combination. But the point of my discussions with TNT weren't to accept the fact that I'm probably not as weird as I think I am (though that's also true), but to embrace my weirdness.

There's a campaign in Austin, Texas called "Keep Austin Weird," which aims to keep the unique, individually-owned stores in downtown in business by keeping larger chain stores out. The idea is that the weird is a good thing for Austin, and it's something worth keeping and treasuring. So I've kind of co-opted that phrase and started my own campaign to "Keep Carrie Weird." The weird isn't going anywhere, so I may as well make the best of it, right?

I learned to embrace my nerdy side, so I figure I can learn to embrace (or at least accept) my weird side, too. It's like they always say: if you've got it, flaunt it.

I saw this blog post on my Real Beauty Is... newsletter, and it really struck me how much I've been letting go of who I was in recovery.

Danielle Boonstra writes:

I used to identify myself with so many external things. This, I thought, helped me to know my worth in the world. I would question "Is my job good enough? Do I make enough money? Do we live in a nice enough neighbourhood? Am I smart enough?". Of course all of this was meaningless. Being in competition leads to misery every single time. Life is not a race.

And so I work on shedding these things. I get better and better at it everyday. Who I really am is not concerned with how much money I make. My authentic self is concerned only with creative expression of my divine purpose! As I let go of the labels I used to love, I become more me...the me who will not be defined because I am constantly evolving!

Ah, that old tired game of Compare and Despair. The truth is this: I often don't have a clue of who I am, where I stand, or if I'm "good" at something because I'm always comparing myself to others. How could I be smart when there was an 11-year-old mathematical prodigy in my calculus class? How could I be pretty if I had a zit? How could I be a good friend if I got mad at my friends? There was always someone nicer and smarter than me. Which was probably true, it's just that the big cognitive distortion was that this meant that I couldn't be nice or smart. If I wasn't the best, it didn't matter.

I can has perfectionism?

In a way, letting go of who I was is somewhat easy because I didn't really know who I was. Sure, I could find adjectives to describe myself that weren't all negative, and I'm guessing that some of those adjectives are still the same (curious, moody, funny). But mostly, this letting go of who I was means letting go of that insecure girl who needed others to define her. Who was so unsure of herself that she hauled out any and all yardsticks necessary to try and figure out where she stood. I'm still getting out the yardstick too damn often, and it's not helping me or anyone else. I used to get rather angry at that girl for (among other things) being "stupid" enough to get an eating disorder and then being too stupid to get herself out.

The simple fact is I can't really hate the girl who didn't know any better than to go yardstick hunting before she could walk--she was doing the best she could. And even if I could hate her, I just don't have the energy. So I'm letting go of that insecure girl, the girl who cared so damn much how she stacked up and where she stood. I don't know that I can't be defined, as Boonstra says, but I do know that the actual definition itself isn't a tool with which to measure myself. It's a definition. It can change. So can I.

Watch this short video of a little penguin trying to escape from a pod of killer whales:



And then tell me: what's your boat? And who is in it?

Lying and keeping secrets are second nature to people with eating disorders. I don't really think of myself as a dishonest person, but when I am into my eating disorder, I feel compelled to lie, cheat, hide, and cover things up. A lot of this covering up has to do with protecting the eating disorder--the real problem isn't that I'm hiding food, the real problem is that everyone is watching me eat--but sometimes I don't come clean even after the fact.

And it's that not coming clean otherwise that really cuts to the core of who I am. The reason I keep some things secret is really rather simple: shame. I am ashamed that I have done XYZ. I am ashamed that I screwed up. I am ashamed I lied. So I lie again, rather than face the facts. It's easier--and I don't have to look or feel "less than."

This works in the short term--the very very short term--but in the long run, I just get more and more mired in the eating disorder. So I keep on lying until even I'm no longer sure what's reality and what's the nice little PR spin I've tried to put on my latest fiasco. This, of course, doesn't do me or anyone else any good at all.

In order to stop doing this, I've had to acknowledge two major things:

1. I'm not perfect


2. It is a big deal

Despite my epic perfectionism, I find it just as hard to deal with the second of these, probably because I have to crack through a pretty thick layer of self-delusion. I know I'm not perfect- in fact, I'm painfully aware of that. My perfectionism is more based on the twin facts of not wanting to hate myself for not being perfect and not wanting others to see just how really flawed I am. But I digress.

I believed for years that one skipped snack, one missed exchange, was really no big deal. I thought I was even dealing with issue #1 because I was being gentle with myself for screwing up. Which, like, ha! I was deliberately interpreting the statement of "Don't be so hard on yourself, Carrie" with "My snack is hard today, therefore I will skip and not be hard on myself." When I started going to the gym several times each day, I didn't really think it was worth mentioning because it wasn't that big of a deal, really. Or when I started skipping breakfast. It was just once, it's no big deal. But the next day breakfast rolled around again, and I was paralyzed by the guilt of needing to eat today what I didn't eat yesterday. So I skipped breakfast again. It still wasn't a big deal, right?

I've had to learn the hard way that one slip really is a big deal because it can so easily become one. I hate having to say "Mom, I, uh, threw away my snack last week," because it's super embarrassing, it lets on just how seriously flawed I am, and I also feel like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill (a skill for which I am legendary). I don't think I will stop hating having to say this, and so there is really only one logical solution: no more secrets.

I can't keep omitting things to TNT or my family because I'm afraid of looking "less than" or because I don't think it's a big deal. I can't keep up the ridiculous hubris that I will be able to handle it on my own, that I'm fine, that no one needs to know when things go pear-shaped. I would like to be able to handle it on my own, but the fact is that when recovering from an eating disorder, I need all the help I can get. Maybe I can handle it on my own, but maybe I can't. The worst that happens if I can is that I have a lot of people on my side; if I can't, well, let's not go there.

It's hard for me to change like this, to admit I need help sometimes, to admit I screwed up, to admit that the eating disorder might once again have gotten the upper hand. That doesn't make it any less necessary, though. So I can only reaffirm this: no more secrets.

Thus was the title of this week's Cases piece in the NY Times. The author wrote about not being able to donate blood after a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis (i.e., Crohn's disease), despite her illness being in remission for several years. And oh how true it is for those of us with eating disorders, too!

Because I am entering Year 3 of a robust remission, I rarely think about my disease. I don’t spend time worrying about another attack on my colon by my immune system. I don’t contemplate the fact that azathioprine increases my risk of lymphoma and liver damage — or that the only true cure for my disease is surgical removal of my entire large intestine.

But the rejection from the Red Cross revived all that mummified information. It reminded me that my body is rebellious and will always require diligent medical management.

And unfortunately, that’s how chronic disease works, at least for me. Just when I think I have conquered the emotional challenges of incurable illness, something reminds me that those challenges are never fully conquerable.

It’s frustrating. I find the mental fortitude necessary to stop thinking about my increased risk of colon cancer. I convince myself I can live without my large intestine if it comes to that. I tell myself that I am like any other 32-year-old, ignoring the many difficult questions I will face if I want to have a baby.

And I can believe it, all of it, because while I am in remission, I don’t have to confront my disease. Until something happens to remind me that I am not like most other 32-year-olds, that my ulcerative colitis is inescapable, my shadow.

Then I wonder if maybe I am just feeding myself lines to get through the day. And I panic. And all my emotional progress feels lost.

That's the thing about eating disorders and other chronic illnesses: we can recover, we can move on, but we can never forget. I can't go back to eating without a care in the world because the stakes for a missed snack or missed meal are infinitely higher. I have to think twice about engaging in certain activities out of fear they might shatter my already brittle bones. This hauting isn't my whole life or even the majority of my life, but there is a profound sense of grief when you come to know that you can't escape your past.

What did you think of the article? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Sorry for the deficit of posts this week as I've been sick (but am on the mend after much napping yesterday!), but I couldn't deprive ya'll of your weekly smorgasbord. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed my broiled scallops and flounder for dinner tonight!

Dieting: The High of Hunger

Teaching about diet and exercise can promote anti-fat bias

Starving in a World of Plenty

Brain stimulation may reduce food cravings in bulimia

A 'manorexic' male mannequin (I'm just shaking my head at this, for any number of reasons...)

Decreased food intake by people with AN is related to cognitive inhibition and not differences in taste sensations

Relationships among injury and disordered eating, menstrual dysfunction, and low bone mineral density in high school athletes

Early response to antidepressant treatment in bulimia nervosa

Saying "good-bye" to your Gremlins

Anorexia nervosa: towards an integrative neuroscience model (I would love to see a full text version of this...hint hint...email is carrie@edbites.com)

DBT with a CBT module may be a useful treatment for women with borderline personality disorder and eating disorders

Never Place a Period Where God Has Placed a Comma (from the always-awesome Therese Borchard at Beyond Blue)

Out, damn'd decision: Hand washing helps us live with our choices (if this were true for hand-washing OCD, I would be easily able to live with any of my choices for the next milennium...)

'You can't bully me out of my skinny jeans!'

How do therapists decide which therapeutic orientation they prefer?

PTSD Can Stem From Trauma-Induced Changes To Genes (a random fun fact: the lead investigator of this story was going to be my PhD advisor had I decided to pursue a degree in epidemiology)

I called in sick to work today. After spending the morning light-headed and hacking, I realized that there was no way I was going to make it through an 8.5 hour shift. Considering that I work in a bakery, and tomorrow is Mother's Day, this was not a good time to get sick. But whatever germ is knocking me down doesn't really care about holidays, fruit tarts, and key lime pies.

It's quite possible I felt (emotionally) worse about calling in sick than I did with whatever infection I had.

Mostly, I feel guilty. I know it was the right decision to make--I wasn't even sure I could drive to work, let alone finish my shift. I slept 9 hours last night and took a 5-hour long nap this afternoon. I feel and sound awful. That's my rational side speaking. My emotional side--my guilt-ridden, angsty emotional side--has an entirely different story. I shouldn't have let my boss down. I should have pushed through and gone to work. I don't have sick days, so I'm not going to get paid, and where is that going to leave me financially? I've inconvenienced everyone. I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I'm being a baby. I'm a disappointment.

Blah blah blah.

Generally speaking, my family has a bull-through-it approach to illness, a kind of "take two and call me in the morning" approach. Which worked fine when I was younger and had lots of mild colds, etc- there really isn't much else to do for the sniffles than drink orange juice and hope for the best. I never got the ever-coveted "perfect attendance" award because I usually ended up being pulled out of class for something-or-other (be it illness, a special program, or what have you), but many years I came close. At the time, I didn't see it as a sign of a really good immune system but as a sign of how seriously I took my education and how dedicated I was.

I rarely get sick anymore, but when I do, it tends to be knock me flat. I still pride myself on my dedication and work ethic (the anorexia took that "work ethic" to the extreme), and so being clobbered by some random virus gets in the way of that work ethic. I feel like I should be able to ignore such things, not have to stay home from work and sleep!! Of course, getting sick says nothing about my work ethic, and rationally, I know that. Practicing good self care doesn't make me a lousy worker. I know my boss was inconvenienced (there's no way she couldn't have been), but she also sent me a text during my nap saying she hoped I felt better. Which was so sweet of her.

I don't know why I torture myself like this so much over something so minor as calling in sick to work when I was, you know, actually rather sick. I wasn't playing hooky, I wasn't goofing off and knocking back a six pack of beer. These things should legitimately cause guilt. I was dizzy, feverish, and coughing. I did the right thing. I keep repeating this to myself in the hopes that I will start to believe it.

Maybe this is what Jenni Schaefer refers to as "positive guilt," which is the guilt that overtakes you as you start to do more recovery-oriented things. Guilt like eating extra at dinnertime because you were hungry, guilt like going for a walk instead of a run, guilt like staying home sick from work when you were, you know, actually sick. I know the guilt isn't rational and that I can't let this feeling dictate my life. I might have wound up in the ER had I tried to go into work. I don't need to prove anything to anybody. No one gives out trophies to the person who has worked through the most illnesses. It's okay, Carrie. It's okay.

I did the right thing. I don't need to feel guilty.

Howdy there. I'm fighting off a nasty cold/cough combo at the moment, and so my brain is rather congested and I want to get to bed early. I even skipped my bike ride today (though thanks, self, for reminding me of that!).

I will be back tomorrow, hopefully with sinuses that are less overflowing and a throat that feels less like I'm swallowing razors. Until then, I ask you to read this great article:


Finding a Healthy Medium: Eating disorders don't discriminate based on size

May this be the start of a new trend on educated, compassionate reporting on eating disorders.

Feel free to share your favorite article/story on eating disorders in the comments!

Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.

—Herman Melville, Billy Budd

And so, too, with the eating disorder and recovery. "How long have you been in recovery?" people ask me. I don't know. For that matter, I don't know exactly when I first became ill. I remember when I first lost weight and became terrified at the prospect of gaining it back. I remember the first time I went to the gym twice in one day. I remember the first time I made myself throw up. But I don't remember exactly when it was I first became so afraid of food. It happened so gradually- one food gone here, another cut there, and all of a sudden, I was living on carrots.

Recovery has been the same way. Yes, there was a moment in time almost a year ago when I grimly accepted the need to gain weight. And there was probably a day when I finally became weight restored. Which are milestones, but they don't tell me much about the progress of my recovery. After all, I've been weight restored before and my recovery was shaky. As I spend more time in recovery, I've noticed a (very) slow diminishing of the ED thoughts and behaviors. Unsupervised lunches at work are no longer a fight (and as much as I've been peeved at my jacked-up metabolism, the intense hunger pangs have helped in that respect). I can contemplate exercising less than my maximum number of allowed days by my treatment team. And there are still plenty of things about my thinking that are disordered: freaking out at "unplanned" food, rigidity with my meal plan, major body dysmorphia, etc.

Yet looking back at a year ago (when I finally began giving up the eating disorder) or even a decade ago when the ED first began, I can see major differences. If now is purple, then those times are definitely orange. They're different colors; it's obvious. But when did that purple become orange? That's what I can't figure out.

I don't know if I need to figure it out. And maybe recovery isn't just one "color" but the blending of colors as I move from anorexia to life.

My history of OCD and current experience of Generalized Anxiety Disorder have made me very, very familiar with obsessing and worrying. It is, quite possibly, the world's most pointless activity--especially since I don't have any control over the things I'm freaking out about!

So when I saw a PsychCentral post on how obsessions can be productive, I had to read it. Because I was convinced the authors were well and truly full of shit. Obsessions make me so anxious I puke. Obsessions make me wash my hands in Clorox, make me run on the treadmill for hours, make me starve myself for days in preparation for a meal out with friends. How could obsessing be productive?

I'm still not convinced that the obsessions themselves are productive, but it's a matter of channeling that productivity into something worthwhile. My friend Jeff Bell calls it The Greater Good. In the PsychCentral post, which reviewed the book Brainstorm, blogger Susan Perry had this to say:

Writers and other artists are often desperate for fresh inspiration and renewed motivation. By learning concrete ways to tap into the brain’s potential, Maisel’s readers can better move forward in whatever realm they care most passionately about. What the Maisels are talking about here is another way to look at flow, or focus, or deep engagement, or mindfulness. Even if they’re not all defined as precisely the same experience, there’s no particular need to pull apart the threads of difference. They’re all extremely positive states of mind, ones that creative people often crave and benefit from.

PRODUCTIVE OBSESSIONS (paraphrasing Maisel):

1. Are not always easy or fun; but ease, fun, and joy may be part of the process.
2. Are fueled by good reasons, not only love and passion.
3. Need to be strategized. To be continuously effective, you need to plan what you’ll do when you feel anxious or at a dead end.
4. Require stretching. “Expect the emotional equivalent of aches and pains,” writes Maisel.
5. Necessitate switching gears between your normal life and your obsessive life. Learn to do so with the least time wasted and “no internal drama.”
6. Need to be monitored. Learn to pay attention to your state of mind, taking breaks when needed, or devoting a full week to your obsession when that is what’s called for.
7. Are risky. “Take the risk that your project may not prove as important as you had hoped,” notes Maisel. “Take the risk that it will prove exactly as important as you had hoped, taxing you with its difficulty and troubling you by its felt significance.”

As I read through this list of seven things, I thought about how true it was, especially for my blog. It is exhausting and frustrating at times--the writer's block or, at other times, the flooding of ideas--and I think about my blog a lot. It's also true of my life as a science writer and my work as an advocate in the field of eating disorders. I think about these things all the time anyway- I may as well make some good come out of them.

The other reason I was glad to read this was that it showed me that my propensity to obsess about basically everything could actually be a useful skill. It can allow me to immerse myself in my work, focus on one subject and become and expert. Things like this blog and my writing career let me use my skills for good instead of evil.

How do you turn your obsessions into something productive? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Your Sunday Smorgasbord awaits. I hate it when my meals/snacks get delayed, so without further adieu, here's your weekly sampling of ED tidbits.

"Skinny dream" burst by weight loss realities (helpful reminder for those of us with EDs who think behaviors are the solution to our problems!)

Mental health patients turn to each other for strength, advice

Oprah's TV network to air reality show on ED rehab. Needless to say, I won't be watching.

What if: I stopped comparing myself to others?

Are mental disorders brain disorders? (You know what I think- but it's nonetheless a an interesting and useful discussion)

Diets and Eating Disorders in a YouTube World (the part about how YouTube and social media has changed certain aspects of eating disorders is interesting; the rest is a slew of misconceptions. People don't die of EDs because they're just trying to stay thin. Seriously.)

Emotion brain alterations in anorexia nervosa: a candidate biological marker and implications for treatment

A single gene is responsible for OCD-like behaviors in mice

The Extrastriate Body Area and Visual Distortions in Anorexia

GPS for the Recovering? Researchers Study Behavior Through Mapping

A ghrelin gene variant may predict crossover rate from restricting-type anorexia nervosa to other phenotypes of eating disorders

Mind Over Medications: The Role of the Psychiatrist in the 21st Century

Emotion's Alchemy (Seed Magazine feature on unraveling emotions)

An empirical typology of perfectionism in early-to-mid adolescents and its relation with eating disorder symptoms

Alexithymia and eating disorder symptoms in adolescents

I was chatting with one of my co-workers today in the bakery (though not the one who told me to "let my titties hang out"), and griping about always being hungry because my metabolism is now fighting back. Between work and my recreational cycling, my body needs a lot of fuel. I'm not exactly fond of this always hungry state. It's pretty annoying. But my co-worker looked at me and said:

"Isn't the point of cycling so that you can eat everything?"

I thought, hmmm, that's interesting. Although I am still very aware of the fact that exercise burns calories--both from my ED history and from the fact that living in this culture, it's kind of hard not to be aware of it--that was never my motivation for starting to exercise. I did it to manage stress and to improve my health. Did I harbor secret fantasies about losing weight because of my new exercise habits? Yep. But that wasn't the sole reason I was exercising.

Even at the height of my eating disorder, the exercise was as much an OCD ritual, an addiction (damn didn't I loves me some endorphins), and a way to absolve guilt over eating (my therapist didn't describe my routines as "punishing" for nothing) as it was a way to burn calories. After a while, I didn't really have a motivation for working out- it was just something I had to do, like brushing my teeth and wearing deodorant. I did feel extremely guilty for not burning calories when I didn't exercise, but it wasn't a major motivator.

I've been trying to break my OCD obsessions with counting calories, miles biked/run/climbed, speed, etc, by avoiding exercise machines. It just makes it too easy for me to obsess over this minutiae that the ultimate goal of exercise--the stress relief, the enjoyment of it--gets lost. Buying my bike was a big step in this direction. Exercise still has the connotations of weight loss about it, and I guess given my history that shouldn't be all that surprising.

But the one thing that made me laugh about my co-worker's comment was that I couldn't understand why someone would want to eat more? It's annoying. I have to think about food even more than I already am, just from a practicality standpoint. I have to spend more time on food prep and grocery shopping. All around, I wish I could do my biking and not have my metabolism be all "FEEEEEEEEEED MEEEEEEEEE!!" like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Even though I haven't lost weight while riding my bike or being on my feet, I continue to do them. I know that the benefits my rides (and my job) give me make the extra calories worthwhile.

Although my co-worker's comment did make me laugh a bit, it also made me realize just how much exercise and weight loss are linked in our culture, and how so many other factors played into my exercise issues. It also made me realize that the idea of me, biking for the sheer enjoyment of the wind in my hair--in my helmet, really--makes me pretty unusual. All I can think is how much nicer the world would be if we all got back to this primal enjoyment rather than the drudgery of calories burned.