i need a new drug

I'm having a weird day.

It's probably a response to many outside factors:

-Current political climate (hurray! anxiety!)
-Career worries (how the fuck does anybody reenter the work force?)
-Financial stress (single income household, anyone? Bueller?)
-Gonna be honest- general discontent/jealousy/depression (how the fuck does half the damn world afford to go on vacation right now? You know who needs a vacation? My family, my hardworking husband, ME?!)
-I finished a crazy involved, hella depressing book about the end of the world last night. It was 800 pages, and I read it in 7 days because I am a psychopath who believes if she isn't writing, she better be reading so she can better herself as a writer. Anyhoo, it made me feel very down on the future of the human race, and beyond that, anytime I finish a really big book, even if it wasn't my favorite piece of writing, I always feel a bit sad that it's over. It's like a strange misplaced nostalgia for  a time that never was.
-For some reason this week, I've been not into my yoga. Right around Christmas, and all month long, I've been doing about 20 minutes of yoga every morning, with my personal favorite yoga videos by the amazing, mega babe, super witch Sadie Nardini. BUT as I've been working on listening to my body more, being intuitive with both my eating and fitness habits, every morning, when it got to my customary yoga time, I just didn't want to. So even though all the voices in my head were arguing that I should do it anyway, instead, I've taken a deep breath, had another cup of coffee/tea/water, whatever, and skipped it.
-Finally, the last reason I feel "off" is because last week I walked 40 miles with the babe. And this week, for one reason or another (too cold, too wet, too windy), I have barely walked at all. Which is great if you're trying to power through an 800 page novel, but not so great if you are severely lacking in fresh air and vitamin d.

So there, text evidence that I feel all kinds of jacked up for totally valid reasons.

Here's the shitty part,
my brain took all of that anxiety, all that stress, all those negative vibes that have built up in the last five days, and channelled them into a body hate powerhouse.

It started when I was brushing my teeth and I started worrying that they were too yellow.
I found a tooth bleaching kit (god knows how old it was), and used a pair of the films. It took ten minutes. After, I thought for sure I would feel better, but the weird part was I didn't.

From there, I went to playing with the baby. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I still felt like something about me was wrong. I drank another cup of coffee and had three of these chocolate zucchini muffins I made yesterday. I didn't do yoga. I tried to relax.
I then tried to take the baby on a walk, but it was too windy. We instead killed some time at a cafe down the street. I had a chai and tried o relax, but my plans to meet with a friend fell through, and that made me sad. I've felt very lonely this week. One of my closest friends in the world moved three hours away at the beginning of January (like this girl came to my house almost every day when the babe was first born. She's probably spent more time with me and him than my family and other friends combined). Another really close friend moved to the next town over, and she may as well have moved three hours away. My third closest friend went away for two weeks, and only returned yesterday. We were supposed to get together, but I had to cancel last minute because the baby was showing symptoms of getting sick (of course he's fine today). My sister too was supposed to come hang out one day this week, and she cancelled because she had to get ready for a crazy wonderful vacation she is taking to an island in the pacific for the next two weeks.

So I've been lonely.
There's kind of a horrible note to being cancelled on when you're a stay at home mother...like people just take it for granted that you won't have anything better to do than wait around for them and their "real" responsibilities to be free.

So after the baby had waved at everyone in the cafe six thousand times, and I had exhausted myself chasing him around, I strapped him to me hoping he's fall asleep and let me at least get a little sunshine.
I'd only gone about half a mile, when the wind began blowing ferociously, and it woke him up so he could scream and fight in the carrier as I rushed to get home.

Once home, I made a spinach and banana smoothie, with a nice big handful of peanuts mixed in for protein and texture. The baby chilled out, and we played on the floor until lunchtime.

All this lead up to a very odd moment...

After his lunch and more playing, the baby was sufficiently tired to try napping again. I'd had a phone call from one of my friends and was feeling a little less hunchback in the tower-y, and I was surfing around online, nursing the babe when an article on haircuts caught my eye.

I took my hair down and looked at myself in my phone camera. I didn't necessarily hate my hair, but it didn't resemble anything as flashy and pretty as what I'd just been looking at, and it reminded me of how I won't go to a salon and get my hair cut because it feels like an unnecessary waste of money, but I really miss feeling pretty.  A familiar torrent of thoughts tumbled down my brain.

Why aren't things better/
Where did I go wrong?
What am I not doing right now that could make our lives so much better and easier that we can get haircuts and go on vacations and drink wine and eat brunch?

This thought process was followed immediately by a series of completely nonsensical desires/placations.
You should buy a box of hair dye! Yelled my brain.
Yeah! And a bottle of wine! Shouted another part.
Ooh, and while you're at it, get some chocolate! Said a third.

I sighed then and felt my heart plummeting as I answered each voice.
You can't dye your hair. You can't leave the baby to dye your hair in the bathroom for 45 minutes!

Why would you drink wine? If you're alone and you drink to cheer yourself up, then there's something wrong with you. You don't have any friends to come drink with you, so you don't have another choice. Plus, do you really think it's wise to have a glass of wine at two in the afternoon when you have a baby to look after?

What? Do you just want an excuse to stuff your face with chocolate so you can feel like an extra big failure because you only ate out of an emotional response, and didn't enjoy it at all?

So I sat and I pondered.

Then my stomach growled.

I was hungry again.

I got up, maneuvered around the kitchen in the super awesome mom way that has become second nature to me now, and I made myself a bowl of yoghurt with banana and peanut butter.

It wasn't a lot, and it wasn't unhealthy, but I ate it kind of quickly, and as soon as I finished my whole body lit up with shame.

You failure, my brain said.

It felt exactly how I used to feel after a binge.

I felt shame, powerlessness, disgust, and worst of all that sense that I was terrible at being a grown up.

If you've read this far,  I commend you, because it's been a slog, but the point I am getting to is that is how insidious disordered eating and terrible body image is.

I am not a failure.
I have done nothing wrong.
I am taking care of myself, my baby, and doing my fair share of the work keeping my family running.
I am allowed to feel sad.
I am allowed to feel disappointed because I can't go on vacation. I am allowed to feel lonely because my friends are far away or busy.
I am allowed to want things and be upset that I will have to wait before I can have them
NONE OF THESE THINGS REFLECTS WHAT I LOOK LIKE OR HOW I CARE FOR MY BODY IN THE NEGATIVE!

It's insane that I have to keep reminding myself of this stuff, but the disorder is like a parasite, dug in so deep that  it's hiding in places I would never have thought to look. It's okay though, because the more of it I find, the deeper I go, the more I realize how dug in it is, the more of it I dig out of me and as soon as that shit sees light, it fucking vaporizes. Like a vampire at dawn, that bloodsucking, soul destroying line of thinking is powerless against the cold light of the truth.

My body does not reflect my worth.
My body is a means to experience pleasure, and I am allowed to decide how and what kind.

Respect your mind, it will help you find and destroy the mindfuck.

Loving Small

I have this half-baked theory about what is wrong with the world right now.

How loaded is that sentence?
I know, I'm a dick for even pretending I have any clue as to the predicament in which the globe and its inhabitants find themselves, but I've been developing this idea nonetheless.

I think it has to do with the internet.

WAIT! Don't run away! I'm not about to hate all over the advent of the greatest information technology in human history. I'm really not. Believe me, I'm as addicted to blogs, sites, news, social media and the rest of it as you are.

But.

I have this idea, right?

Bear with me.

Back before there were tons of online forms of validation,
we people had to invest in our neighbors.

We had to wave at the people across the street from us because they gave us smiles or scowls depending on whether or not we lent them a cup of sugar or returned the rakes we borrowed at Halloween or shared shovels during those epic blizzards in January.
This extended beyond our neighborhoods too.
We talked to people while we waited in line at the movies.
We nodded politely to strangers when we passed them on the street.
Part of this was manners. We were taught it was impolite not to do these things.
But part of it was also this odd feeling of community.
Like, if we walked down the street in our hometown, the odds were good we actually knew about 40% of the people we passed, and a nod was a way of greeting, especially if we forgot the person's name, but remembered he held the door for us last Thursday at the post office.

I want you to stop for a moment and think about the last time someone held a door for you, or you held a door for someone.
Try to remember the last time you slowed your hustle and bustle and let someone out at an intersection, or offered your letter carrier a cup of coffee because it was cold out.

Some of you might be thinking, well that's all well and good if you live in freaking Pleasantville, or American American, USA, but think about it for a second.

My theory is that the internet provides us with the validation that these small gestures used to give us.
Now, without leaving the comfort of our homes, we can read and discuss the latest daily news stories. We can share our opinions on politics, tv story arcs, books we're reading, or gossip. Not only can we share these thoughts, but we can have them evaluated by handy little buttons. We can see if twenty people agree or disagree with us. We can incite angry diatribes or touch the hearts of sensitive acquaintances.

We can feel as relevant and validated as we ever could, probably more so, without every opening our mouths or looking into the eyes of another human being.

I feel like this is fostering in us a kind of abandonment of human interaction. I mean, what good does it do anymore? In fact, I see a rise in people's reluctance to interact altogether. Many millenials admit they would rather go to the dentist than answer a phone call.
This from the same people, who will text back and forth for two hours straight.
Why?
Because there's less pressure.
There's less judgement.
You can take a minute and a half to think up a response to a text. You can delete your initial response and then come up with another more clever one.
You can represent yourself better, and then receive immediate confirmation that it was a wise choice.
You can't do that in a phone call. In a phone call, silences are awkward. Taking time to think of witty responses feels scary and too high stakes.
With the ease and safety of faceless validation found online, comes a mistrust and a fear of being put on the spot when one is live and in person.

And I will admit, it can be scary.

But rather than face these fears, people are choosing to withdraw into them further, and so we pass each other hurriedly on the street and we avert our eyes. We cut off the person trying to turn onto our street and then race to get away from them. We see someone we know in the grocery store and we hide behind the bananas because the prospect of talking to them has become too much to handle.

And here is where I think we are failing.

The reason we are so scared right now, is because we don't trust our neighbors to give a shit about us anymore.

And after this election, I don't blame that train of thought. We thought we were safe. We thought everybody was in this for each other, and then we felt betrayed.

But now, and for the next four years, rather than living in panic about the current state of the world, rather than freaking out about what is happening overseas and feeling powerless and small and insignificant, and then hiding, we need to be getting back to taking care of each other.

Our neighbors need their driveways shoveled!

That girl you see with her umbrella blown inside out, maybe she needs someone to offer her a ride. Even if she declines the offer (and she might because we live in a scary world), but the offer of the ride could be hugely comforting.

As someone who holds doors for people, I like meeting their eyes.
I like saying hello to people I run into at the store.

Sure, sometimes I'm exhausted, and I can't do the small talk thing, but I force myself to admit it rather than hide. I force myself to say, "Hey so and so, I'm not up to snuff today, the baby only let me get .7 hours of sleep last night, and I can barely see straight."
You won't get judged.
I promise.
You'll get empathy. You'll get sympathy. You'll get someone relieved that they can share how shitty they feel without feeling like it's a failure.

Let's start taking care of each other again. If everyone took care of their community, we'd be a hell of a lot better off. No ifs ands or buts. We just would be.

So love small. Love microcosmically. See the person, acknowledge the person, maybe even help the person. I promise you. It's a thousand times more validating than the nicest online comment.

Falling for the Old Tricks isn't like it Used to Be.

It's funny to look back a week and a half ago and see how upset i was in that last post.
It's funny to look back a few months ago to when my Refinery 29 article came out and I was getting a hundred+ views on this blog, and now, I get 1 or 2 views.
It's funny because things change, and things stay the same.

My first instinct is to judge myself harshly.
I want to accuse myself of writing too honestly, too emotionally, of putting myself out there too unfiltered and frightening people away. It's something I've always done. I have many memories of various authority figures, especially in my childhood, in whom I felt safe enough to confide something my anxious little heart had been turning over and over, only to have them look at me with this expression of mixed pity and incredulity and say (in various formats), "that's a very strange way to think, young lady."

It taught me to cloak all my deep thoughts, all my true feelings in humor, or shove them down into a deep, silent place in my soul and replace the catharsis I was looking for in human understanding with the acceptance that was more readily available, for example, managing my eating and exercising habits so that I became acceptably attractive, or overloading my courses and extracurricular activities so that I would be too busy overachieving and impressing everyone to feel those feelings. If I was too busy to sleep, then I couldn't feel things as deeply, good solution, no?

I think about how this still effects the way I think and take action as an adult sometimes, about how I want to post nothing but pictures of my perfect life on instagram, myself with a super cute messy mom bun and Bastian babbling away delightedly at one of his wooden, learning toys from a small shop in Maine that gets all its toys from Europe. I think about how my reflex is to feel embarrassed that I have no bloody idea how to make the "cute" messy mom bun, and my hair, more often then not is wound into these super tight, British head mistress buns, because if there were any flyaways, the babe would find away to yank them right out of my head.  I think about how the baby's favorite toy is actually is horrendous robotic dog that his grandparents got him, and the reason he loves it is because it has light up buttons he can press, and it mechanically chirps at him, and because he can pick it up by its tail and bash it around and then it still sings a silly song to him. I'm fairly certain this is teaching him awful things.

My instinct is always to read mom blogs, compare and contrast. How is Bastian's development against these arbitrary measurements? Is he teething again, and is that normal? He's gone from picking at food with a cursory interest to snarfing entire bowls of things in one sitting which used to last for a week. Measure measure compare compare.
It's all bullshit.

I've forbidden myself from doing it anymore.
My caveats are of course, if I'm terrified the baby has some kind of medical issue and I need to look it up...well...I'm probably going to fall into an internet wormhole, and I allow myself to go to one or two very specific mama sites where the writers are very honest about their struggles and coping mechanisms (cough cough wine cough). These exceptions make me feel less like a shoddy failure, and more like a person surviving if not thriving.

I am now taking it further.

There is a faction of my friends, slightly long distance friends, so our relationships are maintained solely through social media, who have recently become representatives for a couple of different "Beauty" brands. I put the quotes around beauty, because at least one of these brands is actually a weight loss program.

I have nothing but respect for these women. They are working their side hustle so they can stay home and take care of their babies, and that is totally legit.

I do, however, need to self protect, so I don't fall into the trap of the product they are selling.
Because, whether they realize it or not, the product they are selling is dissatisfaction with the self, and a shift of focus on changing one's body shape over changing something that might be causing real stress.

I realized this when i was scrolling through a feed, and one of these women posted a picture of a slim pair of legs in athletic looking leggings with the caption:
Recruiting for a 90 day weight loss group! PM more details on how for ____ dollars a month you can join us in a quest for health and fitness! Blah, positive thing, sales pitch, blah.

My reflex, upon looking at this picture and the caption was to think, and I'm not joking.
I bet I'd be good at that.
I bet if I joined that group I'd totally lose the most weight out of everybody.

It actually hurts to admit that those were my thoughts.

Because I am in recovery though, and it is part of my process to share, because disorders, eating disorders, self esteem disorders, body morphia disorders, and everything else that is wrong with the way we make women think about themselves in this country, thrive when they are kept secret and shameful.

So I am purposefully thrusting my vulnerability into the light.

I, a person, who is currently trying to GAIN WEIGHT TO BE HEALTHY, still fall prey to the insidious thought processes of the weight loss industry.
My disorder told me that I would be the best at losing weight because that would mean bringing it back into the forefront of my life. It would mean putting it above all else in my life as a priority. That's right, above my son, above my career, above my marriage, my friends, my hobbies, my family. That's what disorders do!
They override your logic, your reason, they warp your priorities and make it seem like nothing else matters except managing your physical shape.

IT'S SICK.

Again, I want to say that I can't pass judgement on the women who are using this as their job. I really understand that you need to make money however you can to support your family and maybe this is the only way that makes sense right now, and I support you.

I would like to say, however, that as someone who cannot take part in your business, because it would be harmful both to my physical and mental health, I am probably going to block your feed for a little while.
At least 90 days.

I'm probably going to miss out on awesome pictures of your kids doing cool stuff.
I'm going to miss out on little fun things, and big life things you post about, and I hope you'll forgive me my absence, but I am making this decision based on what's best for my family, which i'm hoping you'll understand.

Because part of being the best mother I can possibly be is being the best version of myself, and teaching my child, that he is not his appearance, that his focus need never be on what he looks like, but what he believes, does, and is.

I can't do that, if I'm not setting the example by doing it myself.

So if I only have two views on this blog from now until the end of time, it's fine by me, because I don't do this for anyone else. I do this because transparency is part of my process.
If you are reading this, and it helps you stop feeling shameful about your own ED past or current disordered habits and rituals, that would make me very happy, and I would encourage you to reach out, talk to someone. It can be someone you trust not to tell you you're weird or stupid for having these thoughts, and if you can't think of anybody who would have that reaction then think of me, because I will never judge you.

It's part of the wonderful thing that is recovery.

Backslider

Today I'm going to talk about something that is very difficult for me to admit.
Hold on to your hats everyone.

I am not perfect.

Haha...jk, we already knew that, but it plays into the real point of this blog which is,

Recovery is not a straight line.

Thanks to that shitty little algorithm built into facebook right now, we are bombarded with our, "What you were doing a year ago" pictures and statuses, which, while a cute nostalgic little touchstone for some, can also be hella triggering for others forcing us to compare where we were to where we are now for better or worse.

I'm not saying that this is the sole source of backsliding, but it certainly contributes. Comparison of ourselves, our bodies, our progress, our process to anyone, and that includes older versions of ourselves, can be very detrimental to our recovery.

Anyway, all this to introduce the this very uncomfortable admittance.
I have backslid.

The holiday season is stressful. This is just a fact. It's stressful financially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Coupled with the pressures of being a new parent who wants to fulfill all the dreams of their little creature (and -let's be honest- relive a bit of our own childhood through them), the stresses of the season compound and we fall back on unhealthy habits to survive.

Oh goddamn.
Okay.
Why is this so hard to say?

I lost too much weight.

If anybody wants to be mad at me for "complaining" about losing weight during the holiday season when they might have gained a pound or two over the season, I want to reiterate that this blog is a document of my personal experiences, and I would never pass judgement on anybody else's struggle. Believe me, in years past, I have put on ten pounds during December and then another in January and made myself feel like shit about it, and that was just as unhealthy, not the weight gain, but the feeling like shit part, the beating myself up part, the not taking care of myself part, and that's how we end up here. Backsliding.

I have struggled both with anorexia and exercise addiction and with BED and compulsive restricting and binging cycles. Believe me, I have swung on this pendulum back and forth many times in my fifteen year struggle with Disordered Eating.

This year, it swung this way.

I used my pediatrician's recommendation that I cut wheat out of my diet to help my son's colic as a jumping off point to restricting again.

Even after the doctor said I needed to introduce wheat back into my diet to see if it made any impact through my breastmilk, and if it didn't, then I could let the baby try wheat, even then, I smiled virtuously and refused the passed plate of holiday cookies. I shrugged at the stuffing on the table, and shook my head at the Christmas pudding with custard (my absolute favorite holiday dessert).
All the while, I told myself I was being cautious, a good mother. I ate one item with wheat in it every day, a cracker, a bite of dry toast, a half the crust on a piece of pumpkin pie, taking my wheat almost medicinally and refusing to enjoy it.
I kept telling myself that I was being a good mother.
That I was just making sure I didn't flood my system with wheat and hurt the baby.

It was total bullshit.

I was losing weight.
And I liked it.

I watched the numbers get lower.

I watched the numbers on the scale get to places they hadn't been since high school, and then I watched them get to the place where they had only ever been before when I'd been disordered.

Then something totally stupid happened.

After the holidays, we traveled to Virginia to see my in-laws and let them spoil the baby.
We traveled, stayed two days, and traveled again, and I woke up five days ago sick as a dog with a head cold.

But not the way I usually get sick.

I am usually the girl who skips the flu shot.
I don't use anti bacterial wipes, and I always eat a piece of something if I drop it on the floor. I firmly believe we live in a germphobic society that will ultimately lead us to get wiped out by some virus we should have antibodies for. Well, not that extreme, but I do think that the whole obsession with cleanliness is both a symptom of privilege separation, and very American. Europeans are shaking their heads as so called Beauty-Gurus pound their vanities and deliver sermons about the virtues of not washing your hair every day because DUH. Sebum is nature's way of caring for your hair.

Whew...see how eager I am to get off topic?

I fucking hate talking about this.

Yes,
and that is why I need to.

So I got my flu shot this year. I brought antibacterial wipes on the trip. I wiped everything down before letting the baby touch it. I was a psycho about cleanliness.
And Beard was fine.
Baby was fine.
Me?

I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH FAT ON MY BODY TO FIGHT OFF THE FUCKING COLD SO I CAME DOWN WITH IT LIKE A MONSTER.

I have spent the last four days in my house, unable to exercise, unable to do much more than drag my carcass back and forth between bedroom and living room. I don't have the energy to play with my son. I am dizzy anytime I stand for longer than five minutes. It feels like an entire beehive is inside my skull and that the bees are using my sinuses as a major highway system.
I can't sleep, and my throat feels like it's coated in broken glass.

All this, because I didn't eat enough for the last month.

SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES COME FROM BACKSLIDING.

I had a come to jesus with myself in the bathroom the other day.
It was in the worst of the cold.
I had a hot shower that lasted about twenty minutes. Bob looked after the baby, and I let the steam work on my lungs and nose. I let the hot water soothe my shivery muscles and bones.

Then I looked at my body in the mirror.

I'd been telling myself that getting thinner wasn't important, but it was a nice bi-product of the no wheat thing, but that was another lie.

I liked seeing my body get smaller this year after watching it get so big the year previous.
I liked seeing it return to dimensions I thought maybe it would never see again.

Then I pushed it.

I couldn't just listen to my body.

My body wanted a sandwich, but I couldn't have the bread, I told it. Even if it could.

My body is now, when you look at it, not unhealthily thin. I look fit for my size. I look HEALTHY.
But I am not.


I am legitimately at an unhealthy weight for my body because if I had weighed more a week ago, I would not have gotten this bloody cold! My husband and my son are healthy, and they did not get the cold. Conclusion: I am not healthy.

This is the fucked up beauty industry bullshit telling us that the thinner you are the healthier you are.
I am here to tell you it's not true!
If I'd had just five pounds, ten pounds more on my frame, I could have battled off this bug and not spent the last four days hobbling around my house like a useless pile of misery!

But here's the thing...

you have to forgive yourself when you backslide.

No matter what it looks like.
No matter how scary it is.

You have to say,
I love you body.
I'm sorry I stopped listening to you.

And you have to work to tune back in to your body's needs.
You have to praise it for pushing those numbers back up on the scale.
You have to recognize that you got here, but you can get back again, and that recovery is not a straight line, and that's okay.

You are not a fuck up.

You are a human being.

And you are struggling.

And that's okay.