Over the last few weeks, I've started taking a Zumba class at my local community center. Several of my friends had said that they enjoyed Zumba, and I thought it would be fun to try. So I went. It's really fun, actually, despite the fact that I look like I'm re-enacting that scene in Date Night when Tina Fey and Steve Carrell do the robot dance when in fact I'm really doing the cha-cha.

Gracefulness has never been my strong point.  I can follow along. I can keep up.  But I'm not very skilled at the intricacies of the movies. I'm just...not.

So I'm following the instructor* and trying to figure out exactly what she's doing with her fancy footwork, and I kept getting frustrated for my first two classes. I couldn't get my feet and legs to move that fast. So I just hopped and trotted and jumped in combinations that I hoped resembled what the teacher was doing, and then soon enough we would be back to a section that involved walking or the grapevine, and I was all good.

When I went the other day, I finally figured out what my problem was.  I was making the moves way more complicated than they really were.  The instructor wasn't actually stepping, just sort of shifting her weight from foot to foot. And there weren't three little jumps, just two, and so on. I was getting angry and frustrated at my inability to keep up with all of the steps, when in actuality, I was keeping up. I was just overcomplicating things rather dramatically.

It's pretty much a metaphor for my life. I make things way more complicated in my head than they actually are in reality. I'll grant that some of this is what I call the ignorance of the newbie: all the moves look really complicated because I haven't mastered them yet. But often, whether it was when I was still in school or working at the bakery, I had an alarming talent for taking a simple task and making it really difficult. Then I would get stuck in that horrible cycle of berating and blaming myself for an inability to do a simple task, which slowed me down further, which made me hate myself even more.

I need to remind myself that most things aren't all that complicated. They might seem that way at first, but once I get going, I need to remember that things also get easier. That if I can quell my initial panic that I suck and I'm in over my head and I'm never going to be any good and holy crap, do I suck!, then I can see more clearly exactly what I need to do.

Of course, it's much easier to identify these things in a relatively meaningless dance class than in more important things like career and recovery, but I guess it's a start.

*The instructor this week was a sub--it was the male yoga teacher. His style was totally different, although the class was still good. It was, however, a total blow to my minimal self-esteem to see a large, hairy male be far more light and graceful on his feet than me. Sigh.

A few months ago, I started "tip days," in which I tackled some of my readers' biggest recovery quandaries. It fell by the wayside due to time crunches and that annoying little thing people like to call life.

But a question from a reader resurrected the idea of tip day, and I like the idea of moving it to Tuesday, since Tip Day Tuesday has a much nicer ring to it. Yes, I am that shallow.

The question: My roommates talk about calories and exercise constantly - they even ask me questions like "do you know how many calories are in that?"; this is obviously triggering and generally uncomfortable. How do I live with all this diet talk without taking a dive off the end?


Ah, yes. The small, curious pleasures of recovering from an eating disorder in a culture that quite possibly has more food issues than we ever did. Some people might cultivate their inner advocate and tell people that diets don't work, etc. If that's you, congratulations. You have more chutzpah than me. Especially in these situations, I want to distance myself as quickly and easily as possibly.
 
There are ways to survive intact--or at least minimize the damage. Here are a few things that I do in these situations.
 

• This ain't your drama. It's a simple reframe, and it doesn't always make the situation any easier. At the same time, letting them own their piece (the obsession with calories) and you yours (how the talk makes you feel), can give a better perspective on what's really going on. Looking at it this way, there are really two issues: the outer talk and your inner talk. Just because they're getting sucked into the gigantic cultural drama of don't you know how many calories are in that? doesn't mean that you have to.
• Change the topic. You don't have to be that subtle about it, either. Ask about homework, if someone noticed the leaky faucet, who forgot to clean the dishes, etc. If they're too self-involved or clueless not to notice that you're not digging the calorie talk, then they probably won't figure out the rapid change of subjects. It does mean you need to be prepared with at least one workable idea, but there's generally something.
• Cultivate your inner smartass. I realize that you can't always say what's on your mind, but that doesn't mean you can't say it in your head. What I mean is you can answer the question of "Don't you know how many calories are in that?" with "Just a fraction of the calories that I'll burn when I pop you in the jaw." Just, you know, do it quietly. Really quietly. Like, silently. And then enjoy...
• Answer the question. They're probably not expecting an actual answer, so maybe give them one. You know how many calories you're eating (or at least you have a good guess), and they did ask, after all. I would typically follow that up with "So?" Lastly, you can always say, "My food is my business, okay? I don't comment on what you eat, please return the favor." It probably won't give you major friendship points, but you probably don't want them with these people, anyway.
• Tell them to STFU. With that last comment, it gives them an idea that this is NOT a cool subject, but it doesn't reveal anything you might want to remain private. I have generally kept this as a last ditch effort, for when everything else has failed.
• Accept that you might not be able to do much. In fact, accepting you can't control the situation should probably go at the TOP of the list, rather than the end. But I'm lazy and don't want to reformat the list, so here it stays. There's a chance that no amount of "I" statements and feeling talk will get your roommates (or anyone else) to take a hint. In that case, I recommend distance. Distance and headphones.

Do you have a pressing recovery question you'd like me to take a stab at? Email me at carrie@edbites.com, and it just might appear on an upcoming Tip Day.*

*Legal crap: Any questions you send to me will become my property, and I reserve the right to reuse them on my blog and edit for clarity, brevity, and any triggering information. Sending in a question doesn't mean I will be able to answer it on the blog, so don't be worried or offended if it doesn't appear. I won't answer medical questions, and this isn't a substitute for actual, on the ground support. Parents and family members are welcome to submit questions, too.

It's once again time for your weekly Sunday Smorgasbord, where I trawl the web for the latest in ED-related news, research, and more, so you don't have to.

Do we need to talk about weight to bond with other women?

A New Law on School Fitness Data Faces Obstacles.

Looking into Ramachandran's broken mirror.

There Is No Biological Reason to Eat Three Meals a Day -- So Why Do We Do It?

Repetitive behaviors reduce stress in elite athletes and mere mortals. In other words, OCD-like behaviors reduce anxiety, at least temporarily.

Mouse Model May Help Reveal New OCD Treatments.

Girls, ADD, and Anorexia Nervosa.

The secret world of mid-life bulimics.

Use of treatment manuals in bulimia nervosa treatment.

Alexithymia and its relationships with eating behavior, self esteem, and body esteem in college women.

Which criteria for recovery are relevant according to eating disorder patients and therapists?

Psychosocial barriers to engagement with an eating disorder service: a qualitative analysis of failure to attend.

The Use of a Nonimmersive Virtual Reality Programme in Anorexia Nervosa: A Single Case-Report.

Impulsive behaviors in female patients with eating disorders in a university hospital in northern Taiwan.

Sorry for the lack of posting these past few days, but I came down with a stomach bug and have been pretty much out of commission the last little bit. I think I've turned the corner, as I actually got to make the bed today. I basically didn't get out yesterday, so this was big news indeed. I'm also glad that I won't have to reschedule my haircut tomorrow morning because I'm rather shaggy and it's driving me nuts. Tomorrow will resume your regularly scheduled programming.

When I was driving home yesterday after one of the most non-ED-related mentally grueling days I've had in a long time, I had to stop for dinner. I was tired. And cranky. And had spent Lord only knows how many hours sitting in traffic the last few days, and I was cruising along well down a major interstate. I was petrified that I was going to hit (yet another) traffic snarl.

Yet the fact remained: it was dinnertime.

So I did something unusual. I pulled over at the next exit to the Chick-fil-A* and went through the drive thru. I realized, as I placed my order, that I was 31 and had just ordered my first drive thru meal. I've ordered beverages at a drive thru plenty of times, but never an actual meal. I've ordered fast food in the actual restaurant as well, also on my own, but again, not the drive thru.

Let me give this a bit of context. Drive thrus were illegal in my hometown because they were deemed a safety issue (eating and driving). They have a point there- I feel horribly guilty for eating and driving yesterday, but it really couldn't be avoided. I really don't like ordering stuff out (it has nothing to do with food and everything to do with my fears of talking to strangers. Apparently, you can be 31, have never eaten from a drive thru and also have an overblown case of stranger danger. Sigh), and since I've been on my own, I've pretty much had an eating disorder. Diet Coke, fine. Actual food, not so much.

But I guess all of that changed yesterday. I got crumbs on my lap and grease on my fingers and I survived. I didn't like it, and I survived. I much prefer eating dinner when I'm not behind the wheel, but I also think the dangers of not eating outweighed the dangers of eating and driving.

So that concludes the tale of Carrie and her First Drive Thru.

Random story postscript: Doing this blog post reminded me of my undergraduate advisor and a story she told me when we were at a conference. She was originally from Taiwan, and when she first moved to the US to start her PhD, her English was pretty limited. She said that for the first week or two she lived in America, she ate dinner at McDonald's every night because you can order by number and she knew she could count to ten. Now, whenever I have to order a menu item by number, I think of her. She was a really neat person.

*As a family, we rarely ate fast food and still really don't. I generally don't like a lot of fast food places, but I do enjoy me some Chick-fil-A. My RD made me to food exposures at all the major fast food chains so I know I can eat there, but still.

The last few days have been really hectic. Yesterday was simply brutal--I spent from 8am to 5:30 pm listening to very dense, technical scientific talks with only two ten minute breaks, and a brief lunch. I had to pay attention the entire freaking time, and my brain was just fried by the end. After I got done, I had a 4 hour drive back home, and then I basically collapsed into bed shortly after. I didn't wake up until shortly before 10 this morning.

I will return to my regular blogging later this evening.

It's once again time for your weekly Sunday Smorgasbord, where I trawl the web for the latest in ED-related news, research, and more, so you don't have to.

The Psychology Of Yogurt, or what probiotics can teach us about the mind-body problem.

Help improve the Maudsley approach for teen anorexia in Uuniversity of Chicago study.

An n-gram of the phrase "fat free." More on n-grams here. {For fun, I made an n-gram of anorexia.}

Beautiful Brains- National Geographic piece on the teenage brain.

Families and Mental Illness: What Do They Know?

The Same but Different? Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa in Adolescents and Adults.

Intuitive Eating Pro Newsletter, September 2011.

The End of Dieting? ADA Debate Throws Obesity Science Into Doubt.

Eating disorders plague teen boys, too--it's not just a girl thing.

Changes in salivary cortisol levels as a prognostic predictor in children with anorexia nervosa.

Women with history of EDs more vulnerable to postpartum depression.

Brain as art: Waves of Mu.

Social cognition in bulimia nervosa: A systematic review.

Wonderful Robert Krulwich post about "extreme tidying up."

Yale psychologist calls for end of individual therapy-based mental health.

Eating Patterns in a Population-Based Sample of Children Aged 5 to 7 Years: Association With Psychopathology and Parentally Perceived Impairment.

Amazing new eating disorder magazine out of Scotland, "The Voice."

Imagine running one marathon & then another, no preparation - for parents and child, this is what beating AN is like.

A little over a week ago, I was writing about my unruly puppy dog brain.  A puppy chews on anything--it needs to chew. Just like my brain with thinking. It's why I don't do well with down time and being bored. This was the case a week ago, and things have become rather different in the past few days. I was traveling Thursday and doing the lengthy meeting thing on Friday. I'm staying with my friend this weekend and trying to get some work done in the off hours. Then tomorrow and Tuesday, it's back to the lengthy meeting thing, plus writing some press releases for them and trying to work on my book.

Phew.

It's good to have work to do. It makes me feel like I have a purpose. It pays the bills. And it also gives my brain something more productive to chew on.

I know I need to do a better job at making time to work on my book.  I was working on the bit about "analysis paralysis," which got me laughing because it's exactly why I'm a little a bit just a touch more than a little behind where I need to be on the writing. Starting the writing process is terrifying because I don't know if I can do it. I've never had to juggle this many interviews and references and all this other stuff before. I don't know if I can churn out that much writing, let along quality writing.

I also have to censor myself, as saying something is "bullshit" isn't likely to get high marks from my editor. It is still, of course, bullshit, but that's besides the point.

The solution, I've found, is simply to dive in.  Start writing.  Accept that there will be shitty first drafts and that this doesn't imply a shitty final draft.  And so now, I'm neck deep in PubMed references, pdfs of journal articles, interview tapes, and snippets of blog posts. But I banged out over 1000 words this afternoon, which is a pretty good clip.

So.

Being in the thick of a project makes it much easier to work because I've gotten over the most massive hump that's known as "Getting Started." I'm still petrified that there will be some scrap of research I've failed to factor in to all of my writing, and that it will essentially blow my book to bits. I know--how ironic that with all of the reading and researching I've done, I still have this fear. But there you have it: analysis paralysis in action.

I'm currently on the road for one of my recurring freelance gigs. It's pretty new--I just started last month. I found out about the job from my science writing teacher, who passed along the job opening. I'm really liking it, and it pays really well.

Which brings about the point of the post.

I asked my teacher how much I should charge on my job proposal, since I really didn't know what the going rate for a freelancer was (generally, I'm paid by the job, not by the hour or month).  She told me what she knew, and my jaw dropped. It was a serious amount of money, and I hesitated for a long time about quoting that much.

I thought about it and figured it couldn't hurt, and I didn't even know that I was competing against anyone. And if it was the going rate...  I did put on the proposal that the rate was negotiable because I didn't want them to reject me outright because of my fees.  I'm not so comfortable financially that I'm unwilling to take a little less money with the knowledge that it was going to be a regular, recurring job (it's a MAJOR luxury when you freelance).

I fretted for days about the amount of money I was charging. I thought they would laugh me out of the interview room.

In the end, my fee wasn't mentioned. They hired me right after the interview, no questions asked.

My dad asked what I was making (he helps me with accounting), and I told him.

I also added, "I can't believe they're paying me that much! It's almost ridiculous!"

He said, "Clearly, that's what you're worth."

I said, "But it's $XX/hour!"

"You're worth it."

Obviously, I was. They wouldn't be paying me the rate I quoted if they didn't put the same value on my work.

It's something I have trouble with--valuing myself and my work appropriately. I think I inadvertently cheapen myself. I'm not that good and it's not that difficult or that much trouble.  Except that it is.  Or that other people think it is and are willing to charge for it and actually get paid for it.  I'm afraid of doing that--of finding and asking fair market value because I really don't think I'm worth it.


If I hadn't asked my old writing teacher, I never would have asked enough money.  I never would have valued myself properly (partly out of ignorance, partly out of fear).

It's a huge learning curve.  And it's scary to think that my skills are worth it. But I guess they are.

Although this article was more geared towards parents, I think it really helped me understand a lot better about what the hell was going on in my head during the worst of the eating disorder.

An excerpt:

An interesting area of research known as “theory of mind” posits that your child’s brain really does change as his or her weight dips below the starvation level. Theory of mind researchers are studying the eating disordered person’s ability to read facial expressions to intuit mental states, sometimes solely by looking at the eyes of the person they are with. They’re finding that this ability falls victim to starvation, just as does the body’s ability to maintain strong bones, keep warm, or grow lustrous, healthy-looking hair. A starving person has difficulty attributing emotions, beliefs, and desires to themselves and to others. Without this ability, it can be hard to function smoothly in the social world.



...One test the researchers used showed both people with anorexia and recovered patients film clips of social interactions between people. Test subjects had to scrutinize facial expressions, body language, conversation and context to read complicated emotions such as desire, embarrassment and hostility. When a teen with anorexia looks into her worried, and frustrated parents’ eyes, can she recognize the emotions written on their faces, and compare it to feelings she has experienced herself? Researchers noted clear deficits in this area among anorexics. The test was able to distinguish those currently suffering from anorexia and those who had recovered. So the good news is that this weakness in processing emotion seems to get better with recovery.


Ulrike Schmidt and colleagues are now readying a paper for the International Journal of Eating Disorders that looks at theory of mind in relation to bulimia. In her tests, Schmidt and her colleagues examine study subjects and the ability to attribute mental states to others and ourselves, which they call “mentalizing.” Interestingly, when a group of patients with bulimia were given this test, they were better able to recognize negative emotion than the control group. Schmidt and colleagues have detected enough of a “distinct socio-cognitive profile” among bulimic patients (translation: they do read and process emotions differently) to merit further research.

The fact that patients with anorexia who have recovered seem to regain their ability to recognize and attribute emotions to others, Banker notes, indicates that this phenomenon could well be a temporary lapse into autism-like cognitive behavior. “When someone’s in a state of starvation that kind of empathic, or higher-relational function shuts down,” she notes, news she hopes will “reduce the personal hurt” that comes with the territory of helping a loved one battle anorexia.

Basically, when I am in the grips of the eating disorder, my "self" shuts down.  It's like my own self is too difficult, too expensive for my starving brain to maintain. And so it goes to ground. Hibernates.

When it does come back, it's like your hand or foot waking up after falling asleep--pain and pins and needles. That this phase is likely necessary doesn't make it any easier. What also doesn't make it easier is when you realize just how long you've been absent. When it suddenly hits you that all your similarly-aged friends are married and having babies and you're still not quite figuring out this whole thing the world likes to call "dating."*

It makes me want to get a t-shirt that says "Excuse me, but my brain was on a prolonged leave of absence."

The irony is that my life looked pretty normal. Graduate degrees, jobs, things like that. It didn't look like I was missing out on a whole lot. But I realize that I never really went through the process of making friends and meeting people for almost a decade. Add in the fact that my natural skills at these tops out at "total suckitude," and it's not hard to see how you find yourself at 30, rather adrift in the world.

Even more ironic is that the eating disorder can start to seem like a good solution. If I shrink my world back down, I'll go back to being oblivious about what I'm missing. Not a bad solution, at least in the short term. Until you realize that going back will mean that even more time has passed and you are further and further behind where you want to be in life.

I think this is the "mourning" the therapists tell you about. You don't just mourn the loss of the eating disorder, you mostly mourn the loss of everything that went along with it. The illness keeps you charmingly oblivious to, well, everything, and only as you come out do you realize what you've been missing.

*Honestly, what keeps my sanity is looking at mating rituals in the animal kingdom. I can put them into context that way. Clearly, I'm a nerd...

It's once again time for your weekly Sunday Smorgasbord, where I trawl the web for the latest in ED-related news, research, and more, so you don't have to.

Eating disorder patients battle insurers over care.

The Importance Of Values In Eating Disorder Recovery.

New research project to support young people suffering from eating disorders.

Mirasol Eating Disorder Clinic files for bankruptcy.

The children who fall victim to anorexia.

Angry parents say child weighing scheme risks eating disorders.

A haunting dispatch from inside the hospital that saves children. The article also contains one of my favorite quotes from a recent ED article: ‘Anorexia isn’t the slimmer’s disease, it’s the biggest killer of all mental health illnesses. To suggest it’s about people wanting to look like someone they see in the media trivialises it, but certainly I think that those images don’t help.’

Good, brief description of FBT from the Eating for Life Alliance.

Play Games, Treat Anorexia (my latest for Psychology Today--the actual magazine, not my blog).

Bone health in anorexia nervosa.

Spain wants EU call for online anorexia crack down.

It's pretty much impossible to escape the fact that today is the 10th anniversary of 9/11. It's also pretty much impossible to miss all of the memorials. Many of them are heartfelt and sentimental, but I won't be watching any of them.

I'm not anti-memorial, but this date is one of those things I really don't want to remember. It's something I remember all too well.

I could tell you that I had just dropped out (basically been kicked out) of college because I was deemed a danger to myself because of my anorexia. I could tell you that I had essentially stopped eating and was weak, depressed, and losing touch with reality. I could tell you that my dad had called around 9:30 am and told us we had to turn on the news. Didn't matter what channel, this thing was everywhere. And I watched buildings fall with a strange sense of numbness because everything was numb because I was weak and crazy and dying.

What I will tell you is this: the only thing I ate that day was a few carrot sticks. Adding mustard seemed too complicated. I will also tell you that, as I nibbled my carrots and watched TV, that all I wanted was to trade places with someone who had died in the buildings or airplanes. Because I didn't want to face inpatient and gaining weight. Because I was so depressed I didn't care. Because I would much rather have died than dealt with all of this.

Which is why watching any sort of memorial really doesn't help me. It dredges up memories I'd frankly rather forget.

Maybe one day I'll be able to look back and be grateful that I wasn't killed in the tragedy, and that my mindset is so much better now. But not now. Not today. And that's why I'm not watching any memorials.

I was reading a memoir of chronic loneliness (Lonely by Emily White), and she was discussing  the genetic predisposition to loneliness. She described it as having a backseat driver in your life. Emily was still the driver of her life, but she also had a backseat driver (the predisposition to loneliness) who was shouting out directions.

Of course, you usually don't always know that your backseat driver is an arrogant ass who really doesn't care where you're driving. If you're me, you might be confused about where you're going or how to get there. As much as you might dislike the person giving directions, you're simultaneously grateful to have directions. So you follow along.

Sometimes, the backseat driver gaines in power and influence, and all of a sudden he's sitting in the passenger seat. As Emily said, sometimes the backseat driver even grabs ahold of the wheel from you and is driving the damn car.

The ultimate goal of treatment is to wrest control back from the backseat driver  You might not always be able to toss the SOB out of the car, but you can turn up the radio to drown out his directions. Or you can work to push him back to the backseat, and ultimately to the trunk.

Genetic predispositions work this way. They rarely start out by suddenly grabbing the wheel away from you. Rather, they creep up in importance and influence. We do, ultimately, remain the driver of our lives, but as anyone who has followed GPS directions only to end up at the wrong place knows all too well, bad directions can lead to a very different road traveled.

Our predispositions towards eating disorders or anxiety or bad boyfriends tend to nudge us. They change what environments we're likely to seek out, and our environments can provide new backseat drivers (or new directions for the existing ones). They can be annoying passengers in our lives, but there's also not a lot we can do about them. We're often stuck with them for the ride.

The goal is to diminish their influence. Most backseat drivers I know don't change no matter how many times you tell them to shut their traps. It's much easier to deal with them effectively once you know that they're a) a backseat driver and b) know that their sense of direction really sucks.

Of course, throwing your backseat driver in the trunk can leave you directionless. This makes the asshole in the trunk all the more appealing. It's much more appealing (and less anxiety-provoking) to have someone in control and telling you where to go than for you to be driving the streets of a neighborhood you don't know in the dark. Directions--any directions--seem ridiculously helpful.

Maybe they are, but I have to keep reminding myself that the backseat driver never asked where I wanted to go. He's not interested in that. He just wants to drive. So I can't necessarily get to where I want to go by listening to the jerk.

I also have to remember that the wannabe driver is going to be trying to give directions for a good long time, and that he might figure out how to get out of the trunk and back into the car at some point. I have to be ready for that. I have to get my own directions and be confident in that. I also need a killer playlist for my iPod so I can drown out his racket.

Perhaps I've taken the metaphor farther than it was meant to go. But I think it explains a lot about remission and recovery in EDs. Lock the bastard in the trunk and drive secure. Also be prepared for him to bust out and try to drive your car again. Remember this, however: you are the driver. You get to pick where you want to go. All sorts of things are going to give you a nudge in one way or another. But you're always the driver.

I've been feeling rather disconnected from things, almost as if there's a pane of glass between me and the rest of the world. I think the grim slog through recovery and meal after meal after snack is taking its toll. Plus, I think I'm already starting to sense the change in seasons, with the cloudy, rainy weather where we are combined with the shorter days. It just has me in a funk.

With work, I had a really busy week or two that's been followed by a really insanely slow week. This always makes me anxious. I like to stay busy. I do much better mentally if I'm solidly busy. Not so busy that I start to panic about whether I can manage things or get them done, but also enough so that I don't have lots of extra time to start and think about finances, about how everyone else's career seems to be going more smoothly than mine, etc, etc, etc.

It's sort of like how dogs need chew toys or else they eat the furniture. Dogs are going to chew on things, so they may as well do it on something non-damaging. My brain is the same way. It's going to be churning and thinking regardless, so it's much better if it's thinking about something productive (career stuff) than non-productive (senseless worries about money). When I'm focused on my goals, I don't have time to engage in the compare-and-despair routine.

With all of this--recovery exhaustion and increased anxiety--I've sort of found myself engaging with others less and less. You probably noticed that the frequency of blog posts has gone down. Some of it is that I am too tired to write, or I don't feel I have anything to say.  And I just care less about being around other people.  It's a LOT of effort for me to be social, so unless I push myself, I start to isolate. If being social didn't help me so much, it would probably be a lot easier.

Then, when I am out, it feels hard to relate to other people. Their issues are so different from mine: kids, husbands, and other things with which I have zero experience.  What stresses me out is so different, and it makes me feel more than a bit alienated. I mean, I'm 31 and still looking for a gold star when I eat cake. Kids? I can't imagine...

Hence the disconnect. Sometimes I feel that it's easier to disconnect from everyone than to try and connect and still feel that something's missing.  And there are days when I almost don't feel I have the energy to make the effort.

I'm not depressed, I don't think. I function. My mood is generally not all that bad. There's definitely a dip from normal, but nothing like I'm going off the rails. I'm (mostly) coping.  I just still get so tired sometimes of how hard it is to put one foot in front of the other.

I think this is going to be my new theme song:




Thanks to Miss Mary Max for alerting me to this special gem...

It's once again time for your weekly Sunday Smorgasbord, where I trawl the web for the latest in ED-related news, research, and more, so you don't have to.

A substantive and methodological review of family-based treatment for eating disorders: the last 25 years of research.

ED treatment improves impulsive behaviors in people with AN and BN.

CDC Statistics: Mental Illness in the US. Impaired neural processing of social attribution in anorexia nervosa.

Eating Disorders May Affect Oral Health.

Spatial orientation constancy is impaired in anorexia nervosa.

"We can all be pretty but beauty is an action." Ad campaign sets out to undo the thwarted definition of beauty.

Risperidone no more effective than placebo for adolescents and young adults with anorexia.

"How Can I Become More Resilient?" It's a good question for those of us working on recovery...

The impact of an implicit manipulation of self-esteem on body dissatisfaction.

Biology, Not Just Society, May Increase Risk of Binge Eating During Puberty. (um, no kidding?)

Effects of reducing the frequency and duration criteria for binge eating on lifetime prevalence of bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder: Implications for DSM-5.

What Full Recovery From An Eating Disorder Means.

Wasting Time: Symptom and Enemy of Anorexia.

When eating too healthy becomes harmful. The subtitle says that orthorexia "...may lead to mental stress." So does being in a traffic jam. I'm thinking they should have been a little more specific. Also, EDs aren't about wanting to lose weight. That can be part of it, but a focus on weight loss is not universal to EDs.

Interesting discussion on the root of "guilty pleasures."

I was reading the blog Dances With Fat earlier and I stumbled across this quote:

Also consider the possibility that there’s no such thing as “before” or “after; maybe there’s only “during” and maybe we are all perfect exactly where we are right this minute.

It's something I struggle with--wanting things to be finished and complete.  I don't like the idea of being "in recovery" or "working on recovery" because it's so nebulous. Exactly what's my status here?

I like things in my life (not surprisingly) to be nice and neat and even. Considering myself to be in process or en route is a much less defined category. I want the end result, not the half-finished product. It's much eaiser to report on something that has happened or will happen than something you're just "working on."  It's unfinished.  Messy.  I don't like that.

In reality, though, we're all works in progress.  Life is really never finished.  Yes, things start and stop all the time, but there's never really an "after," at least not a definite one.  There's just "now."  And now has to be good enough.