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.

I had some extra yogurt pretzels last night.  Five of them.  They were leftover from Christmas, so they were in the shape of little trees and had candy cane crumbs on them.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

But then I freaked.  I had already fulfilled my meal plan for the day.  Now I had something "extra."  This was scary not just because of the additional calories, but because I was breaking one of my "rules" (i.e., Thou shalt not eat more than is required on thy hallowed meal plan).

I mentioned it on Twitter because I'm like that, and I got some wonderful support.

One of my friends says that her nutritionist tells her to "say yes amidst the resistance."

I seriously love that phrase.

It's hard for me to confront my own internal resistance because it is just so damn strong.  At the root of that resistance is anxiety.  Recovering from an eating disorder means that I have to confront issues in basically every aspect of my life.  Many of those issues have to do with food, and many of them don't.  To overcome all of them--to overcome any of them--I had to say yes despite the resistance.  I had to say yes to butter.  To days off from exercise.  To going out with friends.  To ordering off a menu.  To spending money.  To relaxing.  All of these created tremendous inner conflict.

To change or not to change, that is the question.

Not all internal resistance is bad.  I feel resistance when I think about purging now, which is something that was not always there.  But when challenging our fears, we have to accept the resistance.  Move with it.  Move through it.

One of the ubiquitous recovery quotes I was always given was this by Eleanor Roosevelt: "Do one thing everyday that scares you."

I'll confess, I've received this quote so many times, it seems a bit cliche.  That doesn't mean it's not true.  Saying yes amidst resistance is the same as doing something that scares you.

Feel the resistance.  Understand it.  Identify it.  And then let it go...

--Muriel Barbery
"Elegance of the Hedgehog"

This quote from Around the Dinner Table has to be THE BEST explanation of the saying "An eating disorder is not about the food."

It's often said that it's not about the food, it's about the feelings, but it really is about the food, it's about eating no matter how you feel.  That's what recovery is.  And finding a new way to deal with feelings.  I guess that's sort of like telling an alcoholic that it's not about the alcohol, it's about the feelings that lead you to drink!  You still have to eat or stop drinking either way.

Yes, this.  This is exactly it.  No, an eating disorder really isn't "about" the food, but you also can't ignore the food at any point in recovery, whether it's at the very beginning or you've been doing well for years.

I took a deep breath, and I did it. I quit my job at the bakery. I gave my two week notice this afternoon, and I will no longer be an employee of the bakery as of August 5th. My boss took it surprisingly well. She knew the second I pulled her aside and asked "Do you have a minute?" that I was going to leave. Bless her (occasionally flaky) little heart, she gave me a big bear bug and told me she was really happy for me.

So I guess that's it. I guess I really have committed myself to writing full-time.

I think I'm still in shock. It doesn't seem quite real yet. I have never really done the brave, adventurous thing in my life. I've done plenty of things that are interesting and unusual, but I've never sort of leaped off the cliff and figured I'd learn how to fly before I hit the bottom. I'm harm avoidant. I don't like doing things unless I know how they're going to turn out and that I'm going to succeed (keep in mind, this is a perfectionist's definition of success, too!). I was lucky in that I did many things well enough that I could stay safe and be fairly successful. With my writing, I tested the waters while still saying "safe" and ensconced within my very predictable little world. Although I loved writing and--more importantly--being a writer, I felt compelled to remain on terra firma. Where I was safe, but in high school guidance counselor speak, was "not living up to my full potential."

Have I mentioned that I both hate heights and the sensation of freefall? Both make me want to puke. Kind of ironic for someone in recovery that so many metaphors for what I just did are leaping into the unknown.

I always loved this quote by Anais Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." My therapist back in Michigan loved that quote, and we often discussed it in the context of recovery. After all, one of the factors prodding me forward was the realization that staying in the ED was more painful than facing my fears of getting better and all it required.

Now, however, I'm realizing that this quote is even more appropriate for what I'm feeling now. I'm still the same harm-avoidant person I always was. It's just that I'm seeing the harm in not going for it, in not following my dreams, as well as the harm in falling kersplat on my face and looking like an idiot. There's risk in both. But my harm-avoidant self recognizes more harm in not taking the leap than in staying safe and predictable.

It's quite an interesting change for me. One that is probably going to require lots of Dramamine.

No, I'm not talking about bowel function for once...

Instead, I'm reading a book titled "The Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner that is simultaneously amusing and fascinating. The basic premise of the book is that author travels around the world to see how different countries find happiness. On his visit to Iceland, Weiner gets talking about how unhappy experiences are relevant to happy ones, especially in terms of art/writing/etc.

Crap plays an important role in the art world. In fact, it plays exactly the same role as it does in the farming world. It's fertilizer. The crap allows the good stuff to grow. You can't have one without the other. Now, to be sure, you don't want to see crap framed at an art gallery, any more than you want to see a pound of fertilizer sitting in the produce section of your local grocery store. But still, crap is important.

Crap, really, is important to life. I didn't start to deal with my anxiety and food and depression issues until they turned from a slightly sour bottle of milk that you could push to the back of the fridge and ignore to a grand, stinking compost heap. We all have these compost heaps in our lives. It's a matter of deciding whether you're going to let them sit there and attract rats, or use them to fertilize your life.

It's not about making the crap "worth it," because, hey, it's crap. It's about taking something that would otherwise go to waste (ie, the really bad times) and using it to help grow the good.

"People ask me: "Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do?" . . . The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry."
--M.F.K. Fisher

Or maybe, writing about food and eating and drinking (and our relationships to all three) means that you simultaneously write about power and security and love.

What do you think?

...keep on going.

I first heard this song on the lovely Sarah's recovery CD, and I totally fell in love with it. It's one of those roll down the windows, crank the volume, and sing along sorts of songs. It's also one of my mottoes, and a song I use to help me pick up my spirits when ED gets mean and exhausting.

So turn up that volume and enjoy!



The original quote, "If you're going through hell, keep going," is by Winston Churchill.

I love quotes. I like the really oddball ones, or inspirational ones that no one else knows about. I got heaps of inspirational quotes each time when I was in treatment, but most of them made me gag a little bit.

Be a butterfly!
You can do it!
Stick to it like a stamp!

Some of this I think I might have gone for if I hadn't heard them so frequently they became rather cliche. Instead, I've kind of compiled my own list of favorite quotes, and here are a few of my new favorites:

"There is no progress without struggle." --Frederick Douglass

"I will be as strong and as weak as I need to be." --Thomas S. Szasz

"If you're afraid of butter, use cream." --Julia Child

And my all-time favorite that I used at the conclusion of my second book:

"Trials never end, of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that wasn't there before, and isn't just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through, that says: we've won this. Things are going to get better now. You can sort of tell these things." --Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

--William Ernest Henley
"Invictus"

I stumbled across this poem while I was reading this afternoon, and it made me think more about the ever-thorny issues of nature and nurture, biology and environment, and chemistry and culture. At first, the idea that eating disorders are fundamentally rooted in biology can seem depressing. You're stuck with your genes for life. Your fate was written in the stars before you were even born. So you're stuck and you're screwed because basically you have no control.

I don't have any control about the fact that I was born with a genetic predisposition to AN. I can't control that. Even I, control-freak Carrie, am well aware of this. I also don't have any control over when (late 20th century) and where (United States suburbia) I was born. I can't change the fact that I developed depression and OCD and anorexia.

What I can control is my future. Despite my current ED illness, I can start to take control of my future. I can engineer accountability so that I don't start restricting and over-exercising again. I can learn better ways to deal with anxiety and depression. I can make sure I'm not in a situation where I would have to skip a meal. I can ensure that I eat enough to keep up with my metabolism. I can stay in therapy and I can go back to therapy if I start struggling again.

I don't believe I'm omnipotent and can totally prevent the possibility of another relapse. It will always be within the realm of the possible, and that will help keep me on my toes. But I can start to take steps to make that possibility as small as possible.

I was out to dinner tonight at a fabulous restaurant, and I saw this quote above the door:

"All the change that needs to happen in America starts at the dinner table."
--Ronald Reagan

It really resonated with me because so much in my life that needs to change has to happen around the dinner table.

A fabulous quote on recovery from Laura Collins:

"Full recovery is not just weight and ending purging - it is living peacefully in one's mind again."

In a way, living peacefully with yourself is the hardest part, a part I have yet to do.

Here's a great quote I stumbled across:

"Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
--Paul Bernard

I had read the book "Appetites" by Caroline Knapp a number of years ago, and picked it up tonight after I knocked it off the bookshelf while trying to dust. On page 3 was this quote:

Cottage cheese, of course, is the food God developed specifically to turture women, to make them keen with yearning. Picture it on a plate, lumpy and bland atop a limp lettuce leaf and half a canned peach. Consider the taste and feel of it: wet, bitter little curds. Now compare it to the real thing: a think oozing slab of brie, or a dense and silky smear of cream cheese. Cottage cheese is one of our culture's most visible symbols of self-denial; marketed honestly, it would appear in dairy cases with warning labels: this substance is self-punitive; ingest with caution.

Though I don't always agree with Knapp, I think this paragraph is particularly poignant of the ways that food is used in our culture as a symbol of morality, of how strong and how good you are.

If I walked into my old office during their diet psychosis, with only a bowl of cottage cheese for lunch, no one would say, "That's it?" They would say, "Oh, you're being so good." Many of my co-workers were nurses. Yet still they were held hostage by this same mentality.

I still wait for the day when food is food and that is that.

Michael Pollan is one of my favorite writers. He has a new book out, "In Defense of Food," which is a follow-up to his fabulous 2006 book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." I'm still reading IDoF, but it's good. I don't agree totally with all of his points, but he does make a good case for eating wholesome food, not food products (butter as opposed to margarine, cheddar instead of Velveeta).

"...how do you measure a year in the life?"
-Rent

My God- that's a lot of minutes.

I haven't been not blogging because I haven't wanted to, but in part because I wanted to write this post but didn't really know how to say it.

My life pretty much hit rock bottom last December 1. I didn't see a life without anorexia, and figured it was going to kill me eventually. I got bored of waiting for 'eventually' and took a massive overdose. I remember the time (3 am), I remember what I took and how much (the nurse in the ER said "That stuff could kill you" and I told her that was kind of the point), and then...I don't remember much of the next several weeks. I was in the CCU on heart monitors for a while, and then transferred to a psych unit for 2 weeks.

What I do remember is being told how lucky I was to be alive, a sentiment I found blithely laughable at the time. It's not like you try to kill yourself, and then the next morning you wake up and think "Holy shit, what was I thinking???" and then sing and dance. No, you wake up and groan and realize that you're going to have to do this thing - wake up and meet the day - for a very long time to come. And it sucks.

I have done this for the past 365 days. Greeted 365 mornings and gone to bed 365 times. I had hoped, in the beginning, that I would be able to refer to anorexia in the past tense after a year had passed. This was enough time, surely. One year. One whole year.

Though I am not actively anorexic (I eat, I maintain a healthy weight), the AN is very much present tense. Most of the time, eating is still followed by thoughts of anger and guilt and fatpigfatpigfatpig you lazy idiot! But still I eat. I know I must. It's hard for me to see my weight and not immediately go back to starving and purging. Yet I know that no weight is low enough, and that I have to make peace with who and what I am.

I am not always happy to be alive. I'd rather be alive than not, however, and this is often enough for me.

At this time last year, I was serenaded by the beeping of my heart monitor in the CCU. At this time last year, I was still underweight. I had far fewer scars from cutting and a little bit more money in my bank account. I hadn't yet begun to apply to the writing program.

And now I'm half done.

525,600 minutes.

There were some pretty damn long minutes, too. Facing plate after plate of food. Sitting in traffic. Dealing with my batshit crazy co-workers. And, in spite of everything, there was some good times, too. Getting accepted to Hopkins. That 15-minute-turned-four-hour-nap. Blogging.

Grey's Anatomy has the best wisdom:

Maybe we're not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human. Maybe we're thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we're thankful for the things we'll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate.

No, these two things aren't related.

But I was reading the book "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert (which I am enjoying immensely and hence not doing the grading I really should be doing), and I was at the end of the "Eat" section. The author is traveling to Italy, where she stays in Rome for 4 months, learning Italian and beginning to heal her depression. There are many memorable passages, but the section ends with this:

It was in a bathtub back in New York, reading Italian words aloud from a dictionary, that I first started mending my soul. My life had gone to bits and I was so unrecognizable to myself that I probably couldn't have picked me out of a police lineup. But I felt a glimmer of happiness when I started studying Italian, and when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt- this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.

I came to Italy pinched and thin. I did not know yet what I deserved. I still maybe don't fully know what I deserve. But I do know that I have collected myself of late- through the enjoyment of harmless pleasures- into somebody much more intact. The easiest, most fundamentally human way to say it is that I have put on weight. I exist more now than I did four months ago. I will leave Italy noticeably bigger than when I arrived here. And I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person- the magnification of one life- is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happens to be nobody's but my own.

All of the bold parts are my emphasis.

So go read this book. You'll love it.

I've been profoundly busy all day. Working on teaching material, grading papers, working on stuff for class, researching my next story, cleaning the apartment.

Free time? Me time? What's that? Granted, I enjoyed working on my story, and I've decided to turn it into my thesis- mosquito-borne diseases in the modern world. There's all sorts of interesting stuff out there. My current story is going to focus on the Chikungunya virus, currently affecting swaths of Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. It's even taken hold in Italy. I'm looking at climate change and mosquitoes, as well as how a virus moves from one area to another. Fun times.

Anyway, since I haven't done much of anything interesting, I'm going to leave you with a quote from my professor. We had a discussion about how much of your first bit as a professional writer, you do a lot of flailing, trying to find a beat, a job, anything really.

She said: "It's better to flail here where people care, rather than out in the real world where they mostly don't give a shit."

Not exactly uplifting, but it's good advice.

I think that's what all of us here are doing: flailing in a safe environment. It's good. It's useful. And it's better than flailing in the real world.

I was browsing through an old ED support forum I used to visit regularly (Something Fishy), and I found this quote posted in one of the forums. It is so beautiful, I have to share it.

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the 'right' reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn't ask anyone for advice. She didn't read a book on how to let go. She didn't search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all of the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn't promise to let go. She didn't journal about it. She didn't write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn't check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.

She didn't analyze whether she should let go. She didn't call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn't do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn't call the prayer line. She didn't utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

- Ernest Holmes