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thecosmiccuttlefish · 7 years

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Eating Ice Cream, accepting who I am.

March 25th 2017

8:47pm

So, today....

I don’t know. I further realized that a big part of recovery is surrender to my body. Surrender to whatever I look like when this is done. It also means constantly fighting the eating disorder. Forever and ever. Eating that peanut butter that I left in the little plastic container for snack, speaking up when I’m hungry, speaking up when I miss my snack, like I did this morning, not believing myself when I say things like “Oh. It won’t hurt if I say no to this almond.” or “Just run a little bit longer. You’ll get a little bit stronger.”

My question is though... can I even think about healthy eating? Can I avoid sugary bad for you foods? Or should I eat them in some sort of act of defiance? Should I eat them until I’m not scared anymore? Then do I stop?

Last night, my heart rate was over 40bpm the entire night. This is good. The medication might have something to do with it to. Not that it really matters or anything.

Melody came for breakfast.

Then I worked.

Then my family came for lunch. I felt slightly irritated for no good reason by them. I was able to calm myself by realizing that it’s just a feeling that’s passing through me and I don’t need to own it. That helped.

Then my grandma visited.

Then Skyler came, and we laughed like old chums.

Then Melody came back for dinner. Skyler knows Melody and reccomended her to my parents. It was interesting to see how she interacted with Melody. She treated her no differently than she treated me. Still making jokes, being normal. I guess I’d been not making jokes around Melody because she’s bubbly, and it would seem that most things might... I don’t know fly over her head? Or she doesn’t seem ambitious, or a deep thinker, but seeing Skyler (who I really get on with and feel is very bright and a strong character) talk to Melody... normally joking and poking fun... I don’t know. Maybe I was bamboozled by her sing-songy voice and forgot to take risks with my verbal jests. It was inspiring and I tried joking around with Melody just as I would with Skyler.

Like there were “country potatoes” being served at dinner:

“Oh man. Look Melody, not just regular mashed potatoes Country Potatoes.”

“Haha, ya... like actually country is put in the potatoes.”

“Or they have to be harvested way outside the city!”

“Oh ya! Way out there.”

“They sneak out at night...”

“Like in ninja costumes! But with the hospital logo on the back!”

“Haha ya! Or they just knock on the doors like: ‘I’m sorry ma’am. We need the potatoes.’ ‘No. Please. Not our potatoes-’ ‘Ma’am. I don’t have time to argue It’s for the hospital.”

Anyway, the point is we got on.

We puzzled, had dinner, went outside with the ukulele and puzzled again. Then Psychiatrist #1 came and while Melody (who is bloody brilliant at puzzles) by the way worked away on assembling some silky purple pajamas of a 1950′s man in a magazine illustration, I explained in the kitchen the looming presence of anxiety I’ve only now begun to recognize. She nodded her head.

While Skyler was here I came up with an explanation to why I do dangerous things to combat my anxiety. Things like climbing tall trees, jumping off of rocks and running around cities and graveyards in the middle of the night. It’s like this.

You’re in the woods being chased by a bear. You have a terrible sense something bad is going to happen, the bear is going to jump out and you get attacked. Then! Suddenly! The bear jumps out of a bush, but misses you and rolls off of a cliff. Your heart is pounding, your arms are shaking, you have a huge adrenaline rush. There’s a release, and the “angst” (as my dad might say) you were feeling before is gone.

When you have anxiety, you’ve got this constant sense that something bad is going to happen. So, I do dangerous things so I get that adrenaline rush.

The anxiety is gone. Temporarily. But, as Skyler puts it, the cup begins to fill back up again.

How do you even recover from an eating disorder?

How do you stop that?

Strength comes not from what you can do, it comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t. -Rikki Rogers

One more for good measure.

It always seems impossible until it is done. -Nelson Mandela

At university, I had so many things. I was on an improv team, I was writing, I had a great coach, the eating disorder stole that.

It gave me the tummy of dreams, but was it worth the nightmare it came with?

No.

But even more so,

Was it worth all that it took away?

One thousand times no.

It took away months, years, sapped enjoyment, and if fighting it means I need to eat ice cream and live with who I am. I can pay that price.

As my coach would say: ;)

Skyler works out, but she has no eating disorder, as her muscles grow so does her appetite, so she eats Ritz crackers, so do her muscles, and she too has to accept herself.

She’s pretty cool. I’m thankful I know her.

Here’s a small list of things I’m grateful for:

1. My family and their support.

2. My nurses here and their support.

3. Skyler.

Thanks guys.

#ed #ed recovery #anorexia recovery

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