I am currently in Miami, attending the 2011 International Conference on Eating Disorders. Several deadlines and spending most of today traveling meant that I haven't had much time to blog until just now.

I have a new post on Body of Evidence called Rethinking Recovery. Yes, PJ, this is the post I promised you. A little delayed, but better late than never, right? I get paid based on page views, so visit early and visit often! LOL

In other news, I got to meet the wonderful Julie O'Toole in person for the first time, and was totally flattered to hear her and her husband say that they hoped I would be attending because they really wanted to meet me. That's almost like having George Clooney say he was looking forward to meeting me. Swoon!

Tomorrow is a full day of talks, interviewing, and schmoozing, so it's bedtime for me. I will be live Tweeting the conference, and you can follow my ED Bites Twitter feed or just search for the hashtag #aed11

Last week, I received a wonderfully unexpected email in my inbox from my editor at Psychology Today. I had been working with her on a piece about eating disorders (it will appear in the July/August issue), when she asked me to join the Psychology Today blogging team.  My focus? The science of eating disorders.

And so it is without any further adieu that I introduce you to:

Body of Evidence: Dispatches from the Forefront of Eating Disorder Science.

I won't stop blogging here at ED Bites. This blog will remain my place for personal insights and such.  The PT blog will cover more of the latest research and other issues related to eating disorders.

I hope you like my new blog, and be sure to come on over and view my first post.  {{I get paid based on page views, so be sure to visit regularly!}}

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.

Everything to Lose, Everything to Gain: An Alcohol Addiction Interview with Kendra of Voice in Recovery.

The Ravello Profile: Development of a global standard neuropsychological assessment for young people with anorexia nervosa.

"Be Bad. Snack Well." We don't need food morality, thanks. Also, the SnackWell cookies from 15 or so years ago weren't even that good, so "SnackWell" is not exactly a truthful name.

11 Dangerous Myths about Binge Eating Disorder. The food pics are a little annoying, but the info is good and written by my friend Sunny Sea Gold.

Olanzapine Use for the Adjunctive Treatment of Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa.

Set Point: Your Body’s Take on Weight. A MUST read for those of us struggling with weight changes in recovery, myself included.

Unmet need for treatment in the eating disorders: A systematic review of eating disorder specific treatment seeking among community cases.

Neuroscience of the Gut: Strange but true- the brain is shaped by bacteria in the digestive tract.

Testing mediators hypothesized to account for the effects of a dissonance-based eating disorder prevention program over longer term follow-up.

Interesting study of food cravings: Eliminating some foods may eliminate cravings for them.

Hospitalizations for Eating Disorders in the US from 1999 to 2006.

Light Switches Brain Pathway On-and-Off to Dissect How Anxiety Works.

The Relationship Between Quality of Life, Binge-Eating Disorder, and Obesity Status in an Ethnically Diverse Sample.

Horses can be therapeutic, but is equine therapy a legitimate treatment for eating disorders? One therapist thinks so.

Not everything published tells the whole story - hierarchy of evidence explained.

50 things you should give up for a happier life.

The Emily Program opens treatment facility in Seattle, Washington.

Area of brain linked to harm avoidance may help explain anorexia risk.

A few extra Easter-related tidbits for you:

Five Ways To Eat Cadbury Crème Eggs.

Eggsperiments: Scientists crush and burn Cadbury Creme Eggs.

National Geographic Traveler's "Peeps in Places" Photography.

Some days, I just think that it would be nice if life only threw one or two things at me at a time. These days, I feel like my life is one never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole. During the day, I'm chasing down writing stuff. Lately, given my publishing drought, I've been working a lot in the evenings as well. I have my recovery stuff to juggle, the book stuff I really need to get working on, a crochet shrug to take with me to the AED conference this week, stuff around the house, you name it. It leaves me desperately wanting a nap!

These are times when it's hard to stay on track, not because you start valuing recovery any less, but because you're just so damn tired. I know, though, that skimping out on recovery stuff now will lead to more work in the future. Not a good thing. So you stick with it, even though you just want to nap for the next, oh I don't know, hundred or so years.

My old psychiatrist had a sign in his office that said "This too shall pass. Now would be nice."

I think of that sign in times like these. When I know that what I'm going through is likely temporary, that I'm just tired and annoyed. I know that this won't last forever and revovery will get easier and my book will get written, and written well. I just want to know the outcome now. Easier said than done, right?

Sometimes, I just think I need to whine a bit. I feel very guilty doing so, since so many people have a harder life and harder recovery than I do. So what do I have to complain about? But my life is my life, and my crap is my crap. It's my blog and I'll whine if I want to.

Maybe I need to hold on to the fact that I can make it through this. Even if it doesn't always get easier, I can handle it. I know what to do. I know how to reach out for help. I know how to endure, to get stuff done, and to come out okay in the end.

Recovery, they say, is more like a marathon than a sprint. And like any endurance event, half the battle isn't physical, but rather mental.

I would love for life to be fair.  For good people to get good things, and bad people to get what they deserve.  But life isn't like that.  Luck generally doesn't care what kind of person you are, and much of what happens to you in life is a matter of luck.  Do with that what you will, but luck rarely creates "fair" situations.

It's perhaps a little infantile, but many things about my recovery seem unfair.  What's been irking me lately is my supposed need to gain a few pounds even though I'm already at a healthy weight.  It seems horribly unfair that my weight seems to settle naturally at the very tippy-top of what the charts say is "healthy" when lots of other people get to recover and stay thin.

It's total ED thinking, I know, but it's still true.

Which is why this blog post from Judith Beck rang true for me:

Their sabotaging thought? "It's so unfair that I can't be as thin as I want." This idea brings them significant emotional pain. Often they are preoccupied by a sense of unfairness. Instead of being proud that they were able to lose and maintain some weight loss, they feel a great injustice. "I worked so hard, and I have to continue to work just to stay at this weight [which is unsatisfactory to me.]" How sad that they feel so negatively, when to lose weight at all is such an accomplishment.


I often say to them, "Yes, you're right. It is unfair, but it seems to me like the greatest unfairness is for you to suffer for even one more day because of this terribly painful idea that you have that you have to be thinner -- an idea that makes you obsess, that makes you unhappy with yourself, that creates a negative frame of mind, that doesn't give you peace with yourself."


I often give them the following analogy: It's like someone who's a good runner who says, "I have to make it to the Olympics." He becomes obsessed with running, he's unhappy with himself, he doesn't have good peace of mind, and so on. Maybe he's a good guy and doesn't deserve to suffer, but he does suffer because he has the realistic expectation that he should be able to make it to the Olympics. And on top of it, instead of accepting the fact that he just isn't built to be a world-class runner, he's preoccupied with the idea that it's unfair, which makes him feel deprived and a little bitter and puts a negative edge on much of his day-to-day experience.


Of course, there is lots more we talk about in terms of fairness. (For example, by and large, many dieters have unfairly positive lives compared to many other people in the world.) But this initial discussion, which implies that dieters have some control over their suffering, via their thinking, is an important start.

Now, truth be told, I think the premise of her last book (which teaches you to "think like a thin person") is a little ludicrous.  I'm not convinced in the slightest that thin people think differently from fat people.  However, there is still wisdom in the above snippet.

Recovery isn't fair.  Here's the thing: it doesn't need to be.  Maybe it's not fair that I've survived long enough to work on recovery.  Lots of things aren't fair, and letting just another unfair fact get in the way of my recovery seems rather petulant and childish.

This isn't to say that I've magically made peace with my weight.  I haven't, not really.  But I'm starting to try and make peace with knowing where it needs to be.

So this whole life-size Barbie doll created a spark of discussion not just on my blog, but also on the Today show.  Take a look at a clip from this morning's show via Hulu:



Did you notice that one word was absent from this discussion of eating disorders? One aspect of the discussion that is so frequently ignored, here and elsewhere?

Biology.

I'm not trying to ignore culture and the ins and outs of people's lives that can have a significant effect on the development of an eating disorder. I'm not trying to say that an eating disorder is "just" biology, because the idea that anything is either biological or cultural is pretty ludicrous.

But biology is pretty much absent from our discussions about eating disorders in the mass media. Sure, people will mention that genetics influence eating disorders, but the discussion stops there. Of course, biology is being mentioned, which it wasn't just a few short years ago. Still, the notion that eating disorders are rooted in biology and have an actual neurological basis is rarely mentioned in most stories about eating disorders.

So often, media stories file eating disorders under one or two major causes: unrealistic beauty images and control issues. There might be lip service to ideas about neuroscience and genetics and biology, but it doesn't get much discussion. And that bugs me. I don't want a slew of cookie cutter stories on eating disorders, blathering on and on about DNA and nothing else. Eating disorders are very complicated and biology is one aspect of the story.

But it's a big aspect. It explains so much about why people get sick and why they have such a hard time getting better. And we (as a community, as a culture) basically ignore it.

It's something that continues to baffle me.  We talk about biology in lots of other contexts--why are eating disorders so different?  Why are we so resistant to bringing up the biology factor?

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.

Psychology of Food Cravings: What makes food cravings different than hunger? The role of specific mental imageries.

Heightened fear of uncertainty in anorexia and bulimia nervosa.

Children develop pain-coping strategies by watching parents deal with pain.

Characteristics of persons with an eating disorder and type 1 diabetes and psychological comparisons with persons with an eating disorder and no diabetes.

Are you a supertaster? Your friends and family may not be tasting food the same way you do. Take the test here.

Electrocortical Processing of Food and Emotional Pictures in Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa.

Body Image Often Based on Others' Opinion.

The Blind Spot in the Drive for Childhood Obesity Prevention: Bringing Eating Disorders Prevention Into Focus as a Public Health Priority.

Are gyms fueling eating disorders?

Pharmacological Interventions for Binge Eating: Lessons from Animal Models, Current Treatments, and Future Directions.

Study shows how discrimination hurts: lack of fair treatment leads to obesity issues.

Personality pathology and its influence on eating disorders.

A brief introduction to Family Based Treatment from EatingKids.com (presumably the site is about kids and eating, not how to cannibalize your kid sister).

The mind-body-microbial continuum.

Of interest to those of you following the comments on the recent Barbie thread: this week's cover story in New Scientist magazine is on neuroscience and free will. Sorry it's just a teaser, but I'm guessing some of you have personal and/or university access to read the complete article.

Eating behavior in anorexia nervosa: Before and after treatment.

The Human Brain Atlas, a map of gene expression in the human brain.

A meta-analysis of circulating BDNF concentrations in anorexia nervosa.

Hunger hormone enhances sense of smell.

Neurobiological and Psychopathological Variables Related to Emotional Instability: A Study of Their Capability to Discriminate Patients with Bulimia Nervosa from Healthy Controls.

Why diets are bad for children.

Food for Thought: The Anthropology of Obesity.

If you can arrange your court docket, try to slot yourself for right after lunch. Judges are *much* less likely to grant parole when they're hungry.

The role of dietitians in treating eating disorders.

As much as my inner feminist hates to admit it, I had a Barbie doll when I was younger. I had several of them, in fact. And I even had the Ferrari. And a token Ken doll.

The point of this post isn't to wax nostalgic about toys gone by. It has to do with a recent blog in the Huffington Post about using a life-size Barbie to help raise awareness about eating disorders and body image issues.

Forgive me, but I'm not exactly sure I see the connection between a mental illness and Barbie. We don't connect Baby Cries A Lot and major depression. Or Furbies and animal hoarding. It's a plastic toy. And let's remember that eating disorders and even body image issues existed long before Barbie hit the scene in the 1950's.

I get that Barbie is probably not the best role model for pretty much anything other than reinforcing gender stereotypes.  I get that she is an exaggeration of what some people feel is the "ideal body type."  That being said, so was the Venus of Willendorf, and my body doesn't look a thing like either Venus OR Barbie.  Most women don't.

Our culture has some seriously warped ideas about beauty, especially feminine beauty.  Most of us buy into them, in one form or another.  Most of us don't have eating disorders.


I find blaming Barbie and the like (models, etc) for eating disorders pedantic and not just a little offensive.  I wasn't unable to eat and at death's door because I was over-idealizing a plastic doll with blonde hair.  I was unable to eat because my brain was broken and it needed to be fixed.  The suggestion that I nearly died because I was somehow society's dupe strikes me as a little bizarre.

I'm not saying that cultural body image stuff is irrelevant or totally unrelated.  It isn't.  It forms a backdrop against which eating disorders form and emerge.  Many in the fashion industry have frank eating disorders themselves, so there's definitely some overlap.  But it's not a cause, and I kind of resent it being made to look that way.

A college girl who learns that Barbie has an unrealistic body will be more informed and hopefully a better consumer of media and its messages.  The problem is that knowing these things--that models are Photoshopped, that eating disorders are dangerous, that Barbie is a total fake (the bitch!)--don't prevent eating disorders.  EDs aren't decisions.  They aren't under conscious control--if they were, they wouldn't be an actual mental illness.  I knew plenty about anorexia and Barbie dolls before I got sick, and here's the kicker: I still got sick.

I think stuff like this--however well-intentioned and well-executed it might be--almost trivializes eating disorders.  It makes me feel like a supercilious brat, when that's not the case at all.  Lots of things influenced my eating disorder, and I'm happy to take a good, hard look at any of them.  But, please, leave Barbie out of this one.

One of my readers sent this list to me, and I had to share it.

20 REASONS RECOVERY IS AWESOME
1. With each new day, I look less and less like a sickly little fuzzy rat-person.
2. My butt is coming back! And it’s sexy!
3. There is more hair on my head than on my hairbrush/shower drain.
4. I feel like a part of the world, rather than merely floating above it like a shadow. I feel my feet on the ground and the wind in my hair, and my senses can’t get enough of it.
5. My skin and hands are moist and lovely without gobs of lotion.
6. When I wake up, my first thoughts aren’t about food!
7. As a feminist, I no longer feel guilty about buying into cultural pressure that tells me that my worth is dependent on my size.
8. I get to eat whatever the hell I want (well, within reason…)!
9. Ordering off of a menu is super exciting rather than super anxiety-inducing.
10. My body temperature is HIGHER than normal due to the return of a functioning metabolism. No more shivering and excessive layering!
11. I get to share meaningful moments with people I care about, whether at dinner, out shopping, or whenever, without food issues getting in the way.
12. Energy! Without 50 oz. of caffeine!
13. In my experience, it seems that body weight and sense of humor are positively correlated. Someone should really conduct a study on that… Think about it.
14. Improved hormone function => Puberty (Round Two ) => Giddy as a schoolgirl with the dirty mind of a teenage boy. And yes, that’s a good thing.
15. My brain can CONCENTRATE and ANALYZE and CREATE again. Feeling smart and being productive is a major self-esteem boost!
16. Saying YES to food is like saying YES to all that is delicious in life.
17. Being a “food saint” (ie., eating a diet composed of ONLY “healthy” or lower-calorie foods) is fucking boring and depressing. No one wants to hang out with a saint.
18. I actually get my ass out of the house and party, and feel like hot shit while doing it. “Another drink? Oh, why not…as long as you’re buying!”
19. I fit into the clothing sizes sold at most major retailers, and it flatters rather than hangs off of my body.
20. I’ve learned that life isn’t black and white, good or bad, wonderful or terrible, and that living in gray areas is normal, healthy, and even—dare I say it?—rather thrilling.

What's on your list? Please share in the comments!

I was in the bathroom today, and I got to thinking (thinking, for me, is generally a dangerous phenomenon and especially so when I have lots of time to myself, such as when using the loo).  Alcoholics can take Antabuse.  It doesn't take away the cravings or the ability to drink, it just makes drinking extremely unpleasant.  And I was thinking that it would be nice if I could have something like that for anorexia.  Something to make the illness immediately and acutely unpleasant.  Something to retrain my brain from thinking "But not eating will make me feel so much better..."

Of course, if an alcoholic really wanted to drink, they would just not take the Antabuse, but still.

I know that anorexia does make me feel worse in the long run.  But then I think that not eating will make me feel better right now, and it gets hard.  Because "long term" is very cognitive; "right now" is much more emotional.  It's much harder to use cognitive skills against a very visceral reaction.  It makes good evolutionary sense. When there's real danger, it's actually an asset to act without thinking.  The problem is that our brains generally suck at figuring out when it's real danger (as in OMG-I'm-going-to-be-eaten-by-a-tiger) and when it's not.  Again, thank natural selection.  It operates on whatever helps us survive and reproduce, not what makes our lives calm.

Which brings up the next question: maybe it's not my response (stress=ED thoughts), but my perception of danger.  The problem is that I find the world pretty terrifying.  And what do you do when you always feel on edge?  When you're never quite sure what will come back and bite you in the ass and so you treat everything like a rabid animal?

I think it's something I need to discuss with Dr. H tomorrow.  I know I need to desensitize myself to many of these things.  Exposure and response prevention is very effective with OCD, and I know personally that it's helped diminish my food fears.  But with the OCD and anorexia, I had something concrete to work on.  I was scared of germs.  Or food.  Or of hitting someone with my car.  Now, my problem isn't so much OCD but generalized anxiety, that constant "what if" chattering away in the back of my mind.

Anxiety can be overcome--or at least people can learn to live with it.  I'm still trying to figure out how.

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 new scoop on emotional and binge eating.

Plastic film that changes color when food spoils. (I wonder what color you would find in my fridge?)

Diet and physical activity in women recovered from anorexia nervosa: A pilot study.

Like Mother, Like Daughter: Can you fight genetic destiny?

Ghrelin and its potential in the treatment of eating/wasting disorders and cachexia.

Organic label makes foods seem tastier, more healthful.

Mealtimes on eating disorder wards: A two-study investigation.

Cultural rituals and OCD: Is there a common psychological mechanism?

An eating disorder randomized clinical trial and attrition: Profiles and determinants of dropout.

Are you sure you need that second piece of pie? Guilt as a lifestyle motivator.

Motivation to change among residential treatment patients with an eating disorder: Assessment of the multidimensionality of motivation and its relation to treatment outcome.

Food Addiction And Substance Dependence Have Similar Brain Activity Going On.

Effects of acute alcohol intoxication on eating-related urges among women with bulimia nervosa.

Sweet, bitter? Taste perceptions significantly affect moral processing in the brain.

A prospective test of the relation between weight change and risk for bulimia nervosa.

The hunger artist: escaping from anorexia.

FDA Clears Mandometer® for the Treatment of Eating Disorders.

Heightened sensitivity to reward and punishment in anorexia nervosa.

I did something cimpletely out of the ordinary today. I was reading reviews of the various new e-readers (like the Kindle, the Nook, etc) when it occurred to me that I really wanted one. I thought about it for a bit and realized I may as well bite the bullet and get one. I looked at the different options and decided to go with the Nook color. It was a bit more expensive than the Kindle, but I also read that you can turn it into an Android tablet computer with a few clicks of the mouse.

I had my RD appointment this afternoon (her name is Marsha, so I now call my treatment team the "Brady Bunch." You know--Marsha, Marsha, Marsha...?) and then I went out to dinner with my parents. After we were doneeating, I dragged them to Barnes and Noble, where I had a $20 Groupon that was about to expire. So I got my Nook, and I'm using to blog right now.

I generally don't do stuff like this--splurge, make semi-impulsive purchases, that sort of thing. But I figured I needed a recovery gift to myself, something to celebrate my commitment to wellness. And what better way to do that than with books.

It's a total Clusterfluff.

When your throat is in strange agony and the thought of swallowing almost seems ludicrous, Ben and Jerry's is to the rescue!

Much of the writing about anorexia is couched in the terms of mind vs. body.  Perhaps it is something of the nature of eating disorders; perhaps it is our conception of what an eating disorder is.  As hunger pulls at your gut, you tell yourself "mind over matter," as you crack open yet another can of Diet Coke.  Starving, you tell yourself, is an all-out war with your body, and your mind is determined to win.

Recovery, then, seems like capitulation.  Surrender.  Okay, stupid body, you win.  I'm waving the white flag. You couldn't vanquish your body and so you break down and eat.

Or, in my case, lay off the exercise, too. 

This past slip didn't see a return of the full-blown exercise addiction that I've shown in the past.  But the urges did increase somewhat, and now I've been advised to basically cease all activity until my weight starts trending upwards.

I know my body needs this to heal.  I try to think about my heart, liver, and kidneys.

But then I start worrying about my mind.  How am I going to stay sane if I am sedentary?  Some people exorcise their demons, but exercise mine.  The repetitive motion is soothing--I'm like a baby being rocked.  And as much as I hate the fatigue, it does turn the volume down (however slightly) on the worries and obsessions.

So exercise right now seems good for my mind and bad for my body, which pits me right back at the crux of the matter.  Of course, exercise addiction is a Very Bad Thing for my brain over the long term.  Anxiety, however, rarely takes the long view.  Sure, it obsesses about the future, but when in the throes of anxiety and stress, all I'm thinking is make this stop NOW.  The long term can go screw itself for all I care.  I'm not going to be around for the long term if I can't ratchet down the anxiety--or at least, not around and sane.

I'm struggling to find something half as soothing as exercise.  Today was especially hard, as the day was warm and sunny.  Perfect day, I thought, for a bike ride.  Except, oops, I messed up and now going out for a spin wasn't in the cards.  So I crocheted this evening, all gloom and doom and look at me working on this motherf*cking project like a good little girl. Woo woo. {{Say it in an Eeyore voice.}}

Healing my body will heal my mind.  I'm trying to tell my fat starved neurons that avoiding a good sweat is good for me, really it is.  My neurons aren't buying a word of it.  That doesn't make it untrue, just pathetically unbelievable. 

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.

People who are more aware of their own heart-beat (have higher interoceptive awareness) have superior time perception skills.

The tyranny of patient/consumer "choice" in medicine in the face of uncertainty & complexity.

The history of psychiatry through objects.

Perhaps an underlying neurological explanation for the overlap between social anxiety and eating disorders: children with social anxiety often misread human facial expressions.

From the mental_floss Twitter feed: In the 1980s, a product called Vision-Dieter glasses promised to curb your appetite by making food look unappealing.

Escape from anorexia, part II.

Alert over childhood eating disorders in the UK.

Women get real about weight and body image. (Note: there are heights and weights posted here, but in the look-at-me-I'm-awesome way)

An Older Generation Falls Prey to Eating Disorders.

Anorexia nervosa striking children as young as seven.

Advocates work to bring eating disorders out of darkness.

Negative attitudes toward fat bodies going global, study finds.

Care with family roots.

Ghrelin in Eating Disorders.

Anorexia, 138 Years Ago.

Registration for the first annual FEAST Conference outside of Washington DC is NOW OPEN! I'll be there!

Stressful life events predict eating disorder relapse following remission: Six-year prospective outcomes.

Dietary variety and energy density are important in preventing relapse from anorexia nervosa.

Aggression and impulsivity with impulsive behaviours in patients with purgative anorexia and bulimia nervosa.

A brief emotion focused intervention for inpatients with anorexia nervosa: A qualitative study.

I love Missy Higgins.  She's my new favorite singer/songwriter.  One of my favorite of her songs is called Nightminds, and it reminds me so much of this blog and the people who visit.

So as a lazy Sunday morning post, I'm sharing it with you.  I hope you like it.


Maybe one day if I actually sit myself down and learn the sheet music, I'll post a video of me doing a cover of it. Or not. Whatever. ;)

My best friend L is visiting me for the weekend.  She's never seen my new place and she needed a weekend away, so I invited her down.  We've had a nice time thus far--she got to meet J, and we went out for dinner at a local Indian restaurant.  She'll be here through tomorrow.

It's been really nice to get to spend time with her, and just relax and talk.  But having anyone come to visit, especially when coming off of more ED struggles, is tough.  It's not just the food thing as it is having to share my space with someone and having my usual routines disrupted.  I love having L here, so that's not the issue.  But all of a sudden, there's someone else in my space, and I have all of these little quirky habits that don't always mesh well with visitors.

My learning flexibility is a good thing. Yet it's still hard for me to adjust to new things.  {{Wait, someone with anorexia having trouble with change? That doesn't sound right...}}

I'm mostly used to doing my own thing on my own time. To being in charge of the TV remote.  It's not the easiest thing to adjust.  At the same time, it's something I know I need to do.  I get way too easily attached to my routines and rituals.  It's part of my personality.  That chair I sit in on the first day of class? That's the same chair I'll use for the rest of the year.  Most of the time, these habits are pretty harmless.  After all, exactly where I sit in class probably didn't have that much of an effect on my learning.  But the problem is that I get almost unspeakably anxious when I have to sit in a different chair.

Granted, I have plenty of habits, rituals, and compulsions that are harmful in and of themselves (hand-washing, cleaning, that whole eating disorder thing).  For the majority of my habits, though, it's the thought of changing them that causes all hell to break loose.  It's that I find them too meaningful and perhaps too helpful.  So when things get changed, I tend to find it difficult.

I'm actually doing okay food-wise today.  I've been eating what I need to, if not always at the exact right time.  That structure is probably what is saving me right now.  That and friends and good times and yarn.