What it takes

Over the course of the last several days, I'm realizing that what I need is balance and kindness and patience. More so, I'm realizing that aiming for those three things are my only options. By balance I mean not only how you spend your time (don't spend the entire day trying to starve or exercise; on the flip side, don't spend the entire day eating too much and never exercising; and don't spend the entire day trying to study or work, but don't spend the entire day socializing and chilling either) but also how you think (don't think in black and white; usually, the truth is somewhere in between two extremes). I have to behave in a way that I'm willing to keep up for the rest of my life. By kindness and patience I mean kindness towards yourself and towards others. Having kindness for your self means accepting yourself where you are, acknowledging that you ultimately want to be somewhere else, and encouraging yourself to get there - not berating yourself for not being there yet. Sometimes I don't care to aim to balance my life or be kind to myself because I don't care about my quality of life. I do, however, care about the quality of life of others. I do care about the state of the world. I do care about my ability to be a role model. I've realized that if I do not aim for balance and kindness in my life for myself, then I am not able to be someone who improves the quality of lives of others to the degree that I want to improve it. I will not be a role model. And, really, in the end, I do care about the quality of my life, too.

Jane is damn good at what she does. Really, you should see her, she probably needs a nap after working with me. If I start to back down, laugh it off, change the subject, sink back into the chair, hesitate too much, she reacts by leaning more forward, speaking more directly, keeping eye contact as if her life depended on it, using key phrases like "Come on, Come on" and "Laura, you are capable of handling this conversation right now. Let's go."

She does several things that are very helpful to me right now:
1. She makes me eat with her. I either eat breakfast or lunch with her depending.
2. She lays my brain out on the table and points out the various part of it, then she talks as if she's my brain and I'm supposed to talk back to it. We'll have these whole conversations where she's talking as if she's my brain, and I'll be me. I usually end up cracking up because she is so dead on with what she says. We talk until I win. then even when I think I win, she keeps talking and I have to win again. It's usually super helpful though. I "play along" but, by playing along, I end up convinced and I end up separate from the ED and I end up more empowered.
3. She also makes me talk t my brain not in an argumentative way - but in a way that shows compassion and understanding towards it. As if I am mentoring my brain and teaching it the right ways. Not fighting it as if I hate it. Rather, accepting it, correcting it, teaching it.
4. She models self talk that help me deal with times that I feel super fat or hate myself or times when I feel like a failure or times when I'm procrastinating. During these times, I hear her gentle voice in my head and I can model my own voice off of that.


Seeing Jane more frequently and letting her push me is really giving me some of my own power back. This is good and I want it to continue. It also feels bad a lot of the times. Basically, she's working. Interestingly, even when I'm in a "I want my eating disorder" mindset, she STILL works. She always said, "I don't care if you WANT this or not. I'm going to help you anyway." I always thought she couldn't make me change if I wasn't willing to. In fact, she can make me change. I've realized that "I don't want to eat" is actually the eating disorder speaking. It's not my true thought. Same with the thought that goes "Just leave me alone so I can get away with being hungry." What Jane is good at is untangling my thoughts. She's good at separating me from the disordered, unhealthy, weight concerned, anxiety ridden, perfectionism fueled, scared part of my brain. I "play along" with her pushing me. But, as a result of "playing along," I reclaim some of my own healthy, confident, rational, smart, reasonable, evolved, and mature identity. And then I have a choice between two roads. Before, when I had lost my own identity, I didn't really have a choice in the same way. I still fall back into forgetting that I have a choice and losing the healthy voice, but seeing Jane more frquently every week + the messages + the phone alarms all force that healthy voice to come back. The healthy voice comes back, stays around, sinks, comes back, stays around, sinks, come back, etc. The point is, it doesn't ever have the chance to sink for that long now - b/c of Jane and messages and phone alarms. Now, whether I want it or not, because of Jane, I have a choice. And, ultimately, the healthy side always wins.

It's just that when the healthy side wins, I know it's right, but it sometimes feels bad. I know it's a "Win." But I feel like it's a "lose." This really feels like a "lose-lose" situation. Here's what I mean: If I choose to do the ED thing (starve, binge, focus on weight, hate myself on repeat in my head, isolate) then I LOSE the ability to be an adult without and eating disorder. I lose ability to be present in my day. I lose the ability to be a role model. I lose the ability to have my ED under control by the time I 25 (or around then). I lose the ability to honestly say that I live my life only thinking about my own well being and that of others (not food and weight). I lose the ability to be someone I'd be proud of being all the way through. It's really immature to be the adult who won't stop obsessing with numbers and food/exercise habits. So if I choose the ED thing, then I LOSE maturity. I LOSE role model status. I LOSE being someone I'm proud of being You are following, right?

So you'd think that'd make it easy to just choose the healthy option (eat a normal amount of a food you like but is also healthy most of the time; exercise in the way you want to that particular day; eat even though you feel fat; participate in the conversation even though you feel fat; socialize even though you feel fat; put your energy outward on the activity and the people instead of inwardly on yourself and your food and your body). If you LOSE by choosing the ED, then you'd think you'd win by choosing the healthy option. Ulitmately, I know, you do win. But it feels like you lose here too. If you go with healthy, you LOSE feeling better about your body (or at least thinking you'll feel better about it). With the healthy, mature choice, you LOSE feeling good about yourself (even though this could be challenged and if you evaluate what you're using to feel good about yourself, you have to agree that it makes no sense). You LOSE the "on top of the world" feeling that sometimes pays you a visit while you're turning down food again and again and again. You lose the thing that tells you you're doing okay.

So when it comes down to it, it's a question of what do I want to lose. (I know it's winning, but at this stage it feels like losing). Do I want to choose healthy and, as a result, lose feeling good about my self, my body, lose feeling in control and okay about myself? Or do I want to choose the ED and, as a result, lose the chance at being the person I'd be proud to be? The more healthy choices you make, the easier it gets. I know. But for a while - it feels just like there is nothing to feel good about. It's not like I choose healthy and I feel "Oh, wow, I am the person I want to be. I feel great!" No, it's more like I choose healthy adn I feel fat, uncool, fat, like a failure, and more fat, and not special, and more like a failure. (not starving? well, let's turn on the self hate then!) It takes strength to feel that self hate and to feel that fatness (real or perceived) to feel like you're failing b/c you're not in control of your food and continue to make the healthy choice because you know that a non-eating disordered person (someone focused on others - not on herself) is the person you want to be. You know?

Eating disorders are pretty selfish. Even if you don't realize in the moment how they're selfish - they are. Not to say that people who have eating disorders are selfish; no one starts out with this pursuit. You've all been around someone who is just so down about their self (maybe they're in a bad mood because they feel fat that day) - that's not a fun person to be around. And you've been around a person who is so caught up in their own self (their plans, their body, their thinness) that connecting with that person on an emotional level is just a turn off. People don't feel like they want to open up with you. People feel kept out. It's not done purposely - but that is how it is perceived and how it makes others feel. If you are thinking about how far your stomach is sticking out or if your legs are touching or not, you are thinking about parts of yourself that don't matter. You are NOT thinking about others, about designing the life and the networks for yourself that allow you to enjoy life and live for others. If you are only thinking about (and dwelling on) what you should eat when, when you should exercise, if you are fat today or not - then you are not as great a friend/daughter/son/coworker/boss/sister/brother as you could be. Basically, with an eating disorder (and not on purpose, but this still happens), you are living your life with a number or a body size or as your priorities. That's a very inward focused priority. Selfish almost (not on purpose - I'm not saying ppl are selfish and choose to have EDs). But if you remember that your priority is actually being a good human, being there for others, brainstorming ways to improve a given situation .. you have to keep remembering and realizing that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be eating disordered AND live in accordance to that priority. Again, I want to emphasize that I don't think people with EDs are selfish (well, probably some are but not BECAUSE they have an ED). And I hope no one reads this and says "I am a bad friend and a selfish person who only thinks about his/her own fatness all day long. I am horrible!" I don't mean that at all. Simply though, realizing that having the ED is one way that I put energy inward at the cost of being able to put it outwards, is something that is motivating for me. And that's not enough to instantly change it - so I can't beat myself up if I find myself doing ED things and focusing inward. I'm nto going to start calling myself Selfish and Vain and all that.... but it's just helpful to remember what I want. I want to be an outward energy person - so it's motivation to deal with the discomfort of not engaging in the ED.

So it comes down to this: can you deal with feeling badly about yourself and feeling fat while you make the healthy choices so that your mind ultimately can be freed up to give to the world all you have to give? Do you have the strength and the support - (I certainly could not be doing this without frequent sessions with Jane and Tracy and some friends and voice mails to T and J) to be able to make the healthy choice that allows you to live with outward energy, that allows you to be the person you're proud of being, that allows you to be available to help others EVEN THOUGH making this healthy choice makes you feel like crap in the moment? And are you able to look at the evidence that lies in the countless normal-weight, happy, nice, normal-eaitng individuals in this world and HAVE FAITH that you, too, can still have a normal weight (that will look thin to most people) if you eat normally? Have faith that you have a human body that will not instantly gain 20 pounds in one week even if you feel like that's the case. Have faith that your body can deal with extra food without massive weight gain just like other bodies can? Can you have faith that if your weight does rise, then it can then fall again without drastic measures simply by returning to normal eating? Can you have faith that you actually will be more likeable without your eating disorder? Can you have faith that, eventually, you'll like yourself better without it too? I believe that everyone can have faith and can have the strength to make the healthy choices IF they have enough support and IF they have people they can talk to in a "moment of crisis" and IF they can be separate from their eating disorder for long enough, frquently enough, to hear the healthy, rational voice that has no fear but is rock solid sure that healthy is okay. I think for some - the help is not great enough. For some - they have too few people to talk to. For some - they have just barely begun to hear a voice separate from their ED voice. (and, btw, when you aren't separate from it, it's really hard to even realize that it's not your true self talking) For some - they need help being separated out, they need support to stay separated out, and they need people to talk to.

On a different note, this is what I'm working on right now:

1) Giving myself some sort of structure so that I spend my time productively but in a balanced way (socialize, exercise, study for GRE, apply to Grad school, apply to Jobs). That means that I have to approach some free block of time and attach a purpose or intention to it.

("For the next hour, I will do things related to Job applications. Meaning I will make follow up phone calls and aim to submit one resume/cover letter." Something like that. When I don't set intentions/purposes, I end up getting nothing done. It's okay to do nothing, but not all the time. The intention could even be to do "nothing." My intention could be: "for the next hour I am going to quiz myslef on GRE vocab words." or "For the next 2 hours I am going to take a practice GRE test." or "For the next hour I am going to exercise." Or "For the next three hours I am going to socialize." (Yes, that one got 3 hours haha). Or "For the next hour I am going to write a draft of my personal statement for grad school.")

2) Dealing with my eating on nights I work at the frozen yogurt store. I need a better plan during this time.

See, this is what happens: I arrive. I sample all the flavors. I decide I just ate 900 calories. I decide that was dinner. I don't eat the dinner I packed. I continue to eat random samples of frozen yogurt over the evening. I arrive home at 11:15pm. I am pretty hungry. I think I'm not allowed to eat a snack. A few weeks ago, I would ahve gone to bed hungry. I'm getting more used to eating now, so now I eat. However, My brain says something like this: "I want to eat but I don't want to b/c I shouldn't but I want to so maybe I'll just eat one bite of everything I own... and now maybe I'll just eat a little more of this... and now you're being very bad by eating more than one bite of everything you own and... oh? what's that? you want oatmeal? bread with PB? how about you have carrots.... oh, fine you can dip them in hummus... that is way too much hummus... see now you're super fat. now what are you going to do. Now oyu'er full. And you don't even know what you ate. Let's count it. Yup, you ate 4,800 calories. Now you weigh the most you've ever weighed in your life." And sometimes I react to that by eating even more! And sometimes I stop. It doesn't really matter - either way it totally screws with me.

This is what I need to do: Eat real dinner (set alarm), eat not too much frozen yogurt, come home and immediately get ready for bed, eat a planned evening snack if I want, brush teeth and get in bed with a book. I shall not linger in front of the computer at my kitchen table.