When I don't want to deal with something--ED or otherwise--I tend to avoid it.  I must confess that it is, occasionally, effective.  Sometimes people need to let their tempers cool off, and sometimes rebooting the computer really does fix everything.

Most of the time, it doesn't end up like this.

Usually, the scenario goes something like this:

Make a small mistake.  Feel embarrassed.  Avoid dealing with small mistake.  Small mistake festers into a big mistake.  Avoid dealing with that, too.  And so it goes until I spiral into a masterly cycle of self-hatred and despair.  In the midst of this self-hatred and despair, I never really deal with the actual problem: my avoidance.  Instead, I tell myself that the real problem is that I'm lazy, stupid, and a bad person.

Aside from the verbal self-flagellation, the litany of reasons I suck gives me an out.  Bad people do bad things.  Ergo, I have no real reason to push myself to stop.

It happens with the ED stuff (embarrassment at a small slip -> don't tell treatment team -> I'm a failure -> small slip becomes a big slip), and it happens in real life.  I never really listened to criticism and helpful feedback because in my mind, anything less than perfect was just an example of how crap a person I am.  I didn't listen because there really wasn't much point.

So I avoided even more.  Pulled away, hid from view--even when admitting my difficulties would have made the situation so much simpler.

An example: I was late on a deadline this past weekend.  Part of it was the chaos of moving, yes, but once I realized I was overdue, I resisted buckling down and attacking my job.  Plainly, I was mortified at my mistake.  I can be a space cadet at times, but generally I can keep things put together.  By going back to my work, I would have to admit to myself that I wasn't perfect, that I had royally screwed up.  So I put it off.  It was the weekend, and it wouldn't have mattered much anyway.

There was an element of truth to that.  But if I was being honest with myself--
If I cut the bullshit and really admitted to myself what was going on--
I was avoiding dealing with the problem.

A simple email to my editor saying "Oops, totally forgot in the moving chaos, I'll get something to you by Monday morning," would have essentially fixed everything.  Sending that email would mean I had to admit something was wrong.

I didn't want that.

I wanted to pretend it was all okay.

That wasn't okay.

The ED was a way for me to avoid so much of the crap that was going on in my life.  I didn't actually have to deal with it because I was focused instead on exercise, food, and weight.  When I was into the anorexia, I mentally checked out of life.  I didn't intend for that to happen, not really, but it fit my profile of dealing with things.

Avoid.
Ignore.
Smile through the tears.

Neither my reluctance to send an email nor the anorexia-driven avoidance really ever solved any problems.  I could pretend for a while.  Pretend that everything was fine, that it was no big deal, that I could manage everything.

This weekend reminded me that I couldn't.  My editor asked me to kindly send her an email when I was going to be late.  To be honest, I earned that. 

But this screw up allowed me to see another of anorexia's accidental functions.  I could connect the dots and see the patterns.  Avoidance.  I started to see the consequences, for once.

So I stepped out of that self-hate spiral and told myself: the only way to solve this problem is to get to work.  Not punish yourself with more exercise or less food or some other misadventure. I didn't need punishing, I needed to sit down and finish what I had started.

And so I did.