I'm a writer. It's my job. For the past few days, I have been tasked with writing up a conference report I was at a week or two ago. The job was painful for several reasons. One, it was not going to qualify as life's most interesting writing project by any stretch of the imagination. For another, I really suck a summarizing things.
My lack of skills in this department weren't obvious to me until very recently. I didn't really think about it, nor did I really think about why the task was so difficult. It wasn't until I was researching an article on cognitive remediation therapy that I grasped the basis for my difficulties.

One of the tasks in CRT is to summarize a short story or a letter in just a sentence or two. The idea is to help people learn to understand the main idea of something rather than focusing on the details. At first, I thought this was a pretty unusual task- I mean, what could summarizing a fairy tale have to do with anything? But then I got to thinking: maybe this had more to do with anorexia than I previously thought.

Reading about this task reminded me of the time when my college roommate was watching me highlight my biochemistry textbook. I dutifully dragged my fluorescent green marker across lines of text, thinking I was marking up the most important sections of the chapter. My roommate looked over and asked why I bothered highlighting if I was just going to turn the whole page green.

"I skipped some words," I pointed out indigantly.

"True," she said. "I think you missed a 'the' up top."

In my biochemistry text, as in so many other areas of my life, I was so overwhelmed by the details of the information that I lost track of the entire point of highlighting. I only needed to highlight the key points, except I couldn't figure out what those key points actually were. I literally couldn't see the forest for the trees.

It was the same with my conference summary. The hardest part for me was deciding which aspects were important because it all felt important to me. Previous summaries I did when I was in school or at other jobs usually turned into long, rambling tomes because of this difficulty. Certainly, this "summary" wasn't short, not by any stretch of the imagination. But knowing what my difficulty was helped me focus my attention. I told myself that the actual writing bit was pretty straightforward, and so I needed to focus instead on identifying one or two key points from each presentation.

This wasn't easy. I worried a lot about missing something, and from picking one aspect over another. It's hard to move away from beating myself up over having trouble with what should be an easy task. But there's no reason summarizing "should" be easy. I finally finished the project this afternoon, and I am so, so glad it's over!

I turned in my book manuscript draft in mid-February. Then I went on vacation. Last week, I came back and faced down a migraine. The last week has been harder than I thought it would be. My therapist mentioned that this might be the case, especially since I have a history of what I like to call post-adrenaline depression.

I hated final exams at school. I was a stressed-out basketcase. I rarely slept, couldn't eat all that well from anxiety (even before the ED...my love of snacking on pretzels helped stem the weight loss), was usually sick with a cold, and was irritable, moody, and generally not fun to be around. But my need to keep myself together in order to take the exams usually kept things from getting ridiculously out of hand. My myopia saved me, in a sense. After the exams were done, despite being uber-glad that they were over and I could read for fun! and sleep! and drink something that wasn't espresso! I almost always plunged into a depression afterwards. Maybe depression wasn't the right word. It was more like a serious funk--my mood dropped, I was apathetic and unmotivated, and, horror of horrors, bored out of my mind.

The last week has pretty much been a repeat of that. Not quite as serious because bills need to be paid no matter how much I (don't) want to work, and I got a couple of extra projects from one of my freelance places, which also helps. Productivity is my antidote to despair.

Along with this funk came a bit of decline in my eating. It was thrown off first by the end of the book-writing period in which things just got chaotic. Not restrictive per se, but I didn't have the time, energy, and brainpower to take the time I normally would in planning and preparing meals and snacks. I did really well during my vacation, eating responsibly and mostly not too little or too much. Then the migraine hit and I didn't eat nearly what I needed to for that day. I didn't do quite as bad as I initially feared when I tallied everything for the day, but there was a definite drop. The next day, I did eat what I needed but felt terribly guilty. And so the passive restricting began, followed by the active restricting.

It wasn't super severe, especially in comparison with some of the crazy stunts I've pulled in the past. My weight didn't massively go down. Mentally, though, I was having a rough time yesterday. Depressed, cold, apathetic and terrified of everything. Which is kind of what snapped me into action. I texted my therapist and we worked out a safety plan and I'm trying to get back on track. I did a full day of meals today and most of the day yesterday. I was horribly anxious this morning, but I'm pushing through it and it's lifting, mostly.

I have a busy rest of the week planned, which will help, since business helps make the ED stuff more obvious (I don't have the brainspace or time to obsess or engage in behaviors). It also gives me something to think about besides calories and existential anxiety.

So...that's where I am. Regrouping and pressing on.

This Wednesday, I had a chance to practice being spontaneous. A friend from my now twice-weekly knit/crochet group texted me saying "Feeling knitty? Wanna meet at XX Deli for dinner and yarn?"

Wednesday is, of course, my Zumba class. I had been planning to go and shake my thang. But this girl had come to our newest group up near my place the night before, so I thought I should probably return the favor and drive down to hear get-together. So I rode my bike instead of shaking my bootie, and went to the deli.

It was really fun, but let me tell you, it stressed me out to no end. I had to navigate changes to my eating and my exercise routines (oh, the horrors!) on the same day with basically no warning.

I got to the deli--I had never heard of the place before, but apparently it's some sort of a chain--and had another freakout. The menu was huge. I had no idea what to pick. To make things even more interesting, they had a "Light 'N Healthy!" menu. Not ordering the so-called "healthy" or low-cal, low-fat items still stirs tremendous guilt and anxiety. I mean, what are the people behind the counter going to think of me when I order something from a different section?!? If one section of the menu is "healthy," then the other is (presumably) not healthy. Or less healthful. Or whatever.

I was anxious to begin with, and then I had to figure out what to order and all of a sudden, I found myself at the front of the line. So I ordered off the "Light 'N Healthy!" menu. I was literally like a deer in the headlights. I froze. The one little section of the menu at least narrowed down my choices to something manageable. By the time I got the sandwich, the side, and the free frozen yogurt (free froyo? Why yes, I think I will), it was probably equivalent to a "normal" dinner. The sandwich was pretty good, all things considered.

I have mixed feelings about how the evening went. On the whole, it was probably positive. I did something spontaneous. And social. I switched things up. The anxiety, however, was a pretty big sticking point. I know I shouldn't have ordered off the diet menu. That the decision (to go to the event, or what to order off the menu) shouldn't have sent me into panic mode.

I hate that things like this are still so stinking hard. I'm doing better, so much better, in a lot of ways. But having to make snap decisions and do things outside the norm still cause ridiculous amounts of anxiety.

When I went on vacation last week, I knew there was a lot of activities I would want to do.  I spoke with my therapist about being more active than usual, which she said was fine, as long as I ate more to compensate.  So I ate a bit off the meal plan, and all worked out well.

We've discussed this in the past, the idea of eating "extra."  That is, eating outside of scheduled snacks and meals, or eating more food than "required" at those times.  Not surprisingly, this freaks me out.  I've never been a rule-breaker.  The very idea terrifies me.  Part of it is the sense that the rules are the rules, and you don't break the rules.  If I do think a rule is silly, I often am too anxious to go outside the prescribed letter of the law anyway.  I rely on rules (many of them self-imposed, but rules nonetheless) to help me cope with anxiety. Breaking a rule is anxiety-provoking in and of itself.  Breaking an ED rule is even more so.

But my therapist raised a really good point.

It's not "extra" if you're hungry or you've been more active.  That food is necessary.

I've often complained to her about how horrible I feel when I eat food that isn't on my meal plan*.  And almost every time, my therapist said that my weight stayed the same and so my body needed every calorie.  This meant that those "extras" weren't extra at all--they were more like little "necessaries."

Oh.

An extra is eating some dessert because it looks good, even though you've just had dinner and aren't all that hungry.  It's finishing all of your favorite entree at your favorite restaurant because you love it, even though you started feeling full near the end.  That sort of thing.  Eating in response to hunger is never "extra," even though the food may not appear on any piece of paper.

The obvious solution would be a new rule to "eat when hungry."  Except implementing this rule means changing the old rule of "eat what's on the plan," which means facing the anxiety of rule-breaking AND change, neither of which I do well at.  I also mistrust hunger signals and never quite know (unless I'm ready to gnaw on my neighbor's arm) if I'm really hungry or just think I am or if what I think might be hunger means I should eat something or get something to drink or just suck it up.

Quite a quandry.

*I'm guessing right now that I'm going to get comments saying I should ditch the meal plan.  The problem is that I would likely undereat without the guidelines. My instincts on what I "need" to eat aren't the greatest. A meal plan can be a double-edged sword, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives at this point.

I'll be honest: the past few weeks have been rough, ED-wise.  Nothing catastrophic has happened (as in, people are talking in nervous whispers about "hospitalizations" and such), but my weight is down some and I've noticed an uptick in ED thoughts and behaviors.  I've been remanded to daily doses of Ensure Plus, which isn't my idea of a good time, as well as upping the food intake.

As a consequence, I've been unusually tired and wiped out, which probably explains the decrease in blog posts over the past few weeks.  Either I didn't know what to say, or I didn't have the energy with which to say it.

The fight for recovery is exhausting, and I just want the fight to end.  I want food to be food and not filled with doubts and terrors.  I want my own mind to cease being a minefield and my own worst enemy.  I want anxiety to stop snowballing into something bigger and more sinister.

It's frustrating mostly because I thought I was past the point where I thought something this serious could happen.  I knew that small slips and things were likely just because life is life.  But to have to go back to Ensure Plus?  Seriously?!?

Ouch.  It's a bit of an ego blow, I'll confess.

The good news is that I've learned from previous experience and I'm not in any medical danger, I'm still working to my usual capacity, and I'm not a suicidal basketcase.  I've gotten a handle (or at least started to address things) before they spiraled totally out of control and I lost my ability to fight the anorexia as an outpatient.  Because as bad of an ego blow as this is, it's not as bad as having to quit my job and/or move home and/or go back into treatment.

So.  That's where I'm at.  Down but not out.  I'm pulling myself together and getting back on the recovery bandwagon.

Between the move and everything else that is going on in my life, I feel like I am juggling about 10 million balls, trying desperately to keep them all up in the air at the same time.  And I suppose not just keep them up in the air but keep track of where each ball is at any point in time.

If this were actual juggling instead of metaphorical, I'd be screwed.  My coordination is essentially nil.

Despite the metaphorical nature of my juggling, it is nonetheless exhausting.  I want to blog many nights, but I'm either too tired to actually put my thoughts into coherent sentences or too tired even to form thoughts, period.  I think back to my college days, when I lived on four hours of sleep and turbo-charged black coffee.  I was miserable and depressed, but I can't help but get jealous at the old Carrie who got so much done.  And then I feel lazy in comparison.

Considering I was neither mentally healthy (the OCD rituals were much of what kept me awake when I wanted to drop) nor do I really miss being that 18, 19, 20-year-old Carrie, I don't know why I haul out that old yardstick.  But I do.

One of the many topics I've been working on in therapy, from the first time I ever saw a psychologist over 10 years ago now, is "being gentle with myself."  Basically, it means sleeping when I'm tired, eating when I'm hungry, and so on.  As much as I know that not pushing myself to write in the wee hours of the morning is a victory, I still feel insanely guilty when I do lay my head upon my pillow.  As if the Forces of Lazy have somehow won a massive victory.

The years of abuse from the anorexia combined with the inexorable forces of aging have played no small role. My body simply won't let me push it that hard.  It falls asleep standing up.  It finds a way to sneak in a nap.

I took a power nap for about 30 minutes this afternoon, and I know I should be popping the champagne or something, but it makes me feel squeamish and guilty.  Sort of like when I eat something and it's not actually meal or snacktime.  My body doesn't follow a clock exactly, blah blah blah.  Logically, I get it.  But emotionally?  It's a whole different story.

I think it comes down to one word: should.  I shouldn't be hungry, I shouldn't be tired.  I have these internal rules about "appropriate" times to eat and sleep.  Feeling hungry or tired at "inappropriate" times really messes with my head.  I do love traveling, but the experience is often jarring for the first day or two, largely because my body clock is often thrown out of whack.  I do well with schedules.  I can become way the hell too attached to these schedules, yes.  But I also need them, probably more than most people.  Free time scares the hell out of me because I have no idea what I should be doing.  I've gotten okay with "me" time--reading, watching TV, crocheting, farting around in the kitchen.  All of these are fine.  But a block of time that I don't know what to do with?  Total freak out.

So I'm blogging about how I'm so damn tired I can't seem to work up the energy to blog, and here I've written a novel.  Figures.

I'm also falling asleep at the computer, so I'm going to call it a night.

I got home from group therapy tonight (which was really great- I will fill you in tomorrow) only to find that it looks like I won't be able to close on my condo.

Why?

The building (not necessarily my unit, but the building itself) had some Chinese drywall in it.  My unit didn't appear to have any of this, but without ripping everything out, there's no way to prove that it didn't.  And Freddie and Fannie won't give mortgages to places that might have Chinese drywall.  Since there's no way to prove that my place doesn't have the drywall, the assumption is that it does.

Which leaves me without a place--assuming my real estate agent says what I think she's going to say, which is walk away now. 

I had hoped that, for once in my life, something could go according to plan.  That it would go like: girl finds house, girls gets mortgage to buy house, girl buys house.  Finances aren't my problem.  Finding a place isn't a problem.  Stupid, cheap-ass builders who imported toxic drywall is my problem.  I had hoped that this was a sign that my life was starting to come together.  My career is actually doing well.  I am starting to make real progress in recovery.  I was hoping to have my own place to go along with all of this.

It's one of those moments when I just want to write a note that says "Dear Universe, F*ck you, too.  Love, Carrie."

I realize the situation could be a lot worse.  I could be like the current owners who can't sell their place because it might have Chinese drywall.  I could have bought the place only to find out later that it had this problem.  I'm trying to remind myself of this.

And it still sucks.  I'm feeling more than a little sour.  I don't want to go through all of this again.  It sucks.  It's a pain.  But no amount of whinging is going to change that.

Sorry- it feels better to get this off my chest.

Recovery needs to continue whether we want it to or not.  And I'm not just talking about those moments when it seems like losing a few pounds is, quite possibly, the best idea you've had all year.  The moments I'm talking about are when it all seems to suck, when you wonder why in the hell you even bother, when you know that giving into the ED will make you feel at least a little bit better.

Those moments.

Sometimes, when I have these days or weeks, I get at least a small amount of pride when I can look back on the day and realize I did not indulge my ED obsessions and compulsions.  At least, I think, at least that went well. Everything else might be in the toilet, but I held strong to my recovery.

Yesterday was not one of those moments.  I was compliant with my treatment plan.  I ate every last exchange I had to (though not a crumb more).  It wasn't going to go down as a Hall of Fame Good Day, and I was okay with that.  Yet despite doing everything I could in recovery, I didn't get that small surge of pride when I realized I had held tight to recovery and life and HOPE.

Nope.  I realized:

This
F*cking
Sucks

I knew a run or a marathon exercise session would take the edge off the stress.  Or that going to the drugstore to buy some pills might alleviate some of the negativity and anxiety.  I knew that, and I also knew that what little relief they brought would be temporary at best.  That all too soon, I would be back to the stress and funky moods, only now I would have to contemplate telling TNT when I saw her next Monday.  There was nothing more to do than stay with those crappy feelings and hope that they would pass.

It took most of today for them to pass, but they did.  I'm still not gung-ho about life and ready to skip off into the sunset with my unicorns and glitter.  But for almost 48 hours, my recovery simply boiled down to going through the motions.  There was no joy at overcoming my illness or enjoying a nice meal out.  There was no pride in knowing that at least I clung to health.  There was just the daily slog of three meals, two snacks.  Almost as soon as I had finished one meal, it seemed like it was time to start thinking about the next.  Food was the last thing on my mind.

I realized: it doesn't seem fair for recovery to suck this much.


Much of my bad mood was steadied by the realization that it really isn't fair.  That good recovery means you feel like shit and you go through the motions and you don't give a crap about health or any of that.  But it means you don't stop trying, and you don't let the negativity win.

(Thanks to Z for the post that helped inspire this.)

What I started to get at near the end of my Compulsivity never cured anything post was the idea of perspective. I have a million worries and all one million of them are jostling for my attention. It doesn't matter that a few worries are big, legitimate worries (and I'm going to pay all my bills how?) and the rest are just small nagging worries (did I lock my car door/set my alarm clock/empty the litter box?). They all seem equally important and equally dramatic in my mind.

Because they all seem important and dramatic, being compulsive starts to seem like a rational idea. I'm addressing X worries out of Y, so hooray for me!

I've always had problems with perspective. One of my roommates in college looked over at me highlighting my biochemistry textbook at the beginning of the semester, and she said, "You highlight everything. Wouldn't it be easier to just not bother?"

I told her that I was only highlighting everything I thought might be important and that there was some stuff not highlighted--words like "and" and "the" and the obvious transition sentences.

She raised and eyebrow and said, "Girl, you have issues."

The poor girl had no idea...

So yes, perspective. It wasn't that I didn't understand the big picture (I usually did), it was that all of the other information seemed equally important. I couldn't figure out what was important and what wasn't. When I first started writing, I often included either totally irrelevant details or none at all because I just couldn't figure out what the important bits were.

With term papers in undergrad and grad school, I would spend so much time nailing down the world's most inane facts, terrified that Herr Professor would find out I said April 1786 when (silly girl!) I meant May 1786, that my paper's thesis suffered. I understood my subject- that wasn't the problem. But all of the details overwhelmed me because deciding what was important was extremely anxiety provoking.

I've coped with this anxiety in two ways: the above (by going overboard on the details) or by essentially covering my ears with my hands and yelling "LALALALALALALA!" Neither is really all that effective. Both these strategies make for crap writing and a somewhat less-than-effective approach to life.

Intellectually, I can tell the difference. I have a clue that eating 50 extra calories isn't on the same plane as a nuclear apocalypse, but it still feels the same in my brain. I get rather frustrated when by brain won't calm the hell down over such trivialities, just as I got frustrated when working on said term paper. I was pretty sure I was wasting my time on little more than a fool's errand--but I wasn't positive, and so I fretted and worried and wasted my time.

It's interesting to note that I have a problem with actual depth perception. When I'm driving, cars usually look closer than the actually are. It's better than the opposite problem, but still. For that matter, I can't see those stupid Magic Eye thingies no matter how hard I try, how many hints I get, or how long I stare. Something with my vision is just messed up (no, I don't wear or need glasses). I'm not saying this has anything to do with my psychological inability to put things into perspective, but it's an interesting parallel.

Do you have problems putting things into perspective? Share your thoughts in the comments.

At least, this is what I'm telling myself right now.

It seems to be the cure, because I'm always anxious about something. So if I do XYZ, then I won't have to worry about this one thing.

The problem is that the thing my brain is currently freaking out about (did I exercise enough? Did I ask the right question during the interview? Did the person I was interviewing think I'm a dumbass?) really isn't relevant to what I'm actually anxious about, which is the boatload of uncertainty in my life right now. Being compulsive fixes these little worries (do more exercise, double-check the interviews, nitpick over their transcriptions, analyze the questions you asked) but it really does nothing to address that big, looming question.

But at least that one worry is fixed, right? At least then that's one thing I don't have to worry about.

Except that outside of my OCD-wired brain, I'm not actually worried about these things. They're a smokescreen. Or a record that gets stuck. You know, the old black vinyl circles that our parents (and occasionally some of us aged bloggers) used to listen to. If the record got a scratch, the needle couldn't translate the sound right because it got stuck on the scratch. It couldn't play any further. OCD is like that stuck needle, playing the same annoying two-second stretch of song over and over and over again. It can't get off of it unless you get up and physically move the arm. The entirety of the album is like my overarching worry. Focusing on every little scratch doesn't help you listen to the album.

(Am I totally dating myself here? I owned several records when I was younger, one of which was a Sesame Street album, and also a Debbie Gibson record. There were others that I'm blanking on. Good times.)

So metaphors and reminiscences of the 80s aside, it's easy to over inflate the importance of these nagging worries. Sometimes yes, they do need to be addressed, but sometimes it's just your brain getting stuck. It's easier to focus on silly things you can do something about that a ginormous, looming fear that you can't quite articulate.

Of course, when these nebulous worries plague me, my brain gets stuck more easily. It's almost primed to get stuck on every stupid little thing that comes my way. I don't deliberately try to focus on the minutiae, but that's just where my brain goes. Then I forget all about the big picture because I'm caught up in ridiculous details like "is the fact that I exercised for 27 minutes instead of 30 going to make me gain 10 pounds?"

One not-so-irrelevant detail is that it's bedtime, and sleep deprivation doesn't help one bit.

I love the blog F*ck Feelings. It always provides a great perspective and very useful advice for dealing with what the authors call "the shit sandwiches of life" (their advice: ask for ketchup). They've never really addressed eating disorders, and I was always curious to see how they handled the subject. One of the most recent blog posts gave me my answer.

A woman had written in about being very dissatisfied with her weight, and asking why she was having these problems if she was already on the thin side.

Dr. Lastname ("because doctors always go by their last names") had this to say:

Most people aren’t happy with the way they look or how much they weigh, and all people spend at least a little time each day being unhappy, but many still manage to live normal, albeit slight chubby/grumpy lives.

As to the source of your insecurities, your guess is as good as mine and the many other scientists, clinicians, and desperate-for-a-topic writers who explain this phenomenon. It could be your ex, or it could reading too much Cosmo.

These experts assume, for the most part, that you wouldn’t be so self-critical if you didn’t listen to magazines, celebrities, or your critical-yet-well-meaning grandmother, and just believed in your self. They tell you that self-esteem will conquer all. Of course, they’re wrong.
There’s lots of evidence that self-hating body thoughts can happen to people with perfectly good self-esteem, nice families, and normal bodies. Instead of obsessing about why you feel this way the same way you obsess over calorie counts, stop and ask yourself, first, whether these thoughts are doing you much harm.

I know they’re causing you pain, but ask yourself whether they’re affecting your health or relationships. Right or wrong, you can think you need to lose a few without hiding major parts of your personalities and or being a bad friend or parent.

If you think your body-hate isn’t doing too much harm, try ignoring it. Certain kinds of psychotherapy may help, but watch out if you find yourself becoming more self-obsessed and blaming yourself for not getting better. The mark of good psychotherapy, like good coaching, is that it gives you ideas and motivation for managing a problem without increasing your expectations of control.

If body-hate is hurting your health or relationships—if you purge, have become anemic, or acquired any number of the dire symptoms that come with an eating disorder—assemble a treatment team, including a primary care physician, a psychiatrist and dietitian, and don’t hesitate to put yourself into an around-the-clock “eat-your-food” camp if it’s necessary. It can save your life.

In any case, don’t pin your hopes and self-esteem on self-control, or self-hating thoughts will just get worse. If you make it your job to keep trying and regard the illness as you would the weather, it can’t touch your sense of who you are.

You need never see yourself as a food nut or anorectic; you’re simply a person with eating issues, which puts you in the same camp as 90% of the population. You might feel like shit, but you are truly not alone.

Aside from their perspective on intensive treatment (an around-the-clock "eat your food camp" is an apropos enough descriptor), their benchmarks for determining the difference between disordered eating and eating disorder is pretty darn accurate. Because so many people are obsessed with food and weight, it's often hard to determine where this cultural obsession leaves off and where an eating disorder begins. If your obsessing about food, weight, exercise, etc, are causing any health problems (purging, anemia, marked/unhealthy weight loss) OR if these obsessions are hindering other areas of your life, then you've got a serious psychological problem. Not that you can't or shouldn't address disordered eating, but feeling like crap after reading Cosmo is not, in and of itself, an eating disorder.

It should, however, be a really big sign to stop reading magazines that make you feel like crap.

What do you think of "Dr. Lastname's" assessment of eating disorders in general and this woman in particular? Share away in the comments!