My Inspiration

"...we do not always like what is good for us in this world."

~Eleanor Roosevelt

Right now I sit here in a precarious situation. No, I guess I am not in any specific kind of situation but instead I am at a monumental juncture in my life. I have a choice to make right here, right now, and I am scared to death of taking that leap.

Last night I found myself hitting rock bottom once again.

It would seam that every time I start to crawl up my hill of recovery I am finding myself, not slipping but instead, tumbling backwards hitting the bottom with the force of a bullet piercing armour. I then get up the next day and tell myself that things will be different, yet again, and it is only days or even hours later that I have regressed.

Today it feels different.

I am exhausted today and moving quite slowly, but for the first time, I don't feel bothered by it. I laid in bed until 9 AM listening to the kiddos playing and watching cartoons. I got up and made breakfast for us all, egg whites and Ezekiel toast for me and chocolate muffins for the kids, walked into the office and browsed on the computer for a while, eventually made it to my treadmill to get some kind of a workout in, and finally showered. Not a normal routine for my chaotic world.

But a peaceful one. A reflective one. One that has allowed me to see things in a different light.

Last night I opened a bottle of wine with the intent of sitting in a quiet blissful state catching up on my prime time television shows while the kids settled in their beds to sleep. That was wishful thinking.

The screams from the kids chasing each other and wrestling around pierced through the air shattering my calm state. I gathered them up and put them back to bed only to have the screams start up once again. And again. And again.

Tyler decided at one point to disappear into my room where I figured he had chosen to find a moment of peaceful playing calm but instead reemerged into the living room with the Dora toddler toilet seat around his neck. Stuck. I was livid and yet panicked as I tried to pry it off his head, at one point taking a knife to cut and make it easier to manipulate over his ears, all the while listening to ear piercing cries of pain, fear, or exhaustion emit from his little mouth. Finally the seat came off but my furry was building.

Firmly, I put him in his bed and demanded that he not come out any more then I proceeded to MiKayla's room doing the same with her. I then stormed out and without even thinking about what I was doing I poured another glass of wine, grabbed some pita chips, sat on the couch and let the binge begin.

Somewhere in the midst of my comatose behavior that gave me no emotions I heard the crack in my head, felt something sharp, which would turn out to be a tooth breaking, and continued in my state. Then came more screams, more yelling by me, and the breakdown that was building inside of me.

For another moment, quiet, but more binging.

I was snapped out of my state, this time for good, by a loving embrace from Tyler followed with the words, "I'm sorry Mama". He knew he had pushed too hard. Mama was broke. I carried him back to bed, kissing his precious little head, tucked him in and left his room with a heavy heart.

Then the guilt kicked in. And the purge.

But this purge was more painful than any I had experienced before and it still hurts now. My kids are just being kids. My reactions were what was out of control. Granted what choices they were making were bad ones, mine was worse. I looked in the mirror and for the first time in a long time I saw a stranger looking back at me. She looked tired, pained, sad, pathetic, pitiful, rotten, and ugly.

I sat down and started talking to a friend. A good one at that too. Christy patiently  listened to me complaining about the hellish night I was having that followed a homecoming that I am still trying to sort out, that being a stupid mouse in my kitchen which is stressing me out way more than it should! She then told me that I had to stop. I could turn things around right now. I need to think about my kids. Then she hit me with a reality I never wanted to hear.

"MiKayla knows. She knows exactly what you are doing and you are teaching her that it is OK. You may think you are hiding it, but she knows."

Her words sliced my heart wide open and then embedded themselves in my head. And I know that she is right. This is not the life I would ever in any world want for MiKayla. I want to teach her that beauty is found within our souls, not in our skin or shapes. Then I read something that made my heart sink more.

"How burdened we became, as little girls, with the labels applied by parents, teacher, even school chums. We believe about ourselves what others teach us to believe. The messages aren't always overt. But even the very subtle ones are etched in our minds, and they remind us of our "shortcomings" long into adulthood."

How true this is! I am suffering still from childhood experiences, emotions, events, words. I swore I would do better for my little girl. But here I am setting her up for a life of pain. Something she does not deserve nor should she be exposed to at such a young, fragile age.

Shame on me.

Now comes the choice I have desperately been searching for inspiration to push me to honor. I found it. It has been staring me in the face for 4 1/2 years. How blind I have been! Stupid to be exact. Then I remember what I read the day before.

"Change means growth. It's a time for celebration, not dread. It means I am ready to move ahead-that I have "passed" the current test...Our higher power wants only the best for us, of that we can be sure. However, the best may not always "fit" when first we try it. Patience, trust, and prayer are a winning combination when the time comes for us to accept a change. We'll know when it's coming. Our present circumstances will begin to pinch."

Well my circumstances are definitely pinching, Patience is in short stock at the moment, Trust is not easy and prayer is a foreign language to me. But I am at a time now where I must accept change and come to trust that my change will fit eventually and it is what's best for me. Today I have had time to reflect on this and am building up a staircase out of my hole, rather than climbing the steep walls in one swift motion. I can choose to change with one step at a time and focus on what I found to be my inspiration.

"...words are more powerful than perhaps anyone suspects, and once deeply engraved in a child's mind, they are not easily eradicated.'  

~May Sarton 

Emotional breakdowns while on vacation...part of my reality

Vacationing presents a challenge for me in the sense of taking time for myself to have a moment to process the whirlwind thoughts that spiral inside my head. The sheer intent of putting my thoughts on paper, or in today's technological existence of computers by typing, is a bit of a test to my commitment to address the contemplations that present themselves as a direct result of me letting an addictive disease control me rather than me controlling it. I embarked on a two week vacation with my family, two days packing and cleaning, ten days away from home, and two days of recovering, and repeatedly attempted to transfer my distorted views of myself into words I have chosen to share with the world in attempt of holding myself accountable, but to no avail failed miserably. Let me take a moment now to share with you the result of the few times I actually did start but lost my concentration and never finished...

Day 4 of vacation:
It is amazing to me how many emotions, events, stressors, and moments transpire within me while on what should be a stress free and relaxing vacation. But I also stop and laugh at myself because I am asking in my head, who on earth has a vacation that is completely full of 100% bliss? Not my family! I started to blog the other day and had to stop due to events that presented themselves and I never really got the chance to continue until now. I will share those thoughts in a moment but first I want to explain  how I have come to this point of pure vacation exhaustion where my husband has explained it to me in the best words by simply saying we need a vacation from our vacation.  I first laughed at him thinking how silly he was sounding but now know that he was completely serious as here we are on day 5 of our vacation and while I sit here blogging, listening to the rain and freezing in our villa, MiKayla is coloring, Tyler and Scott are utterly passed out in the other room and all I can think about is what on earth can possibly be next aside from all the whining, rain, blisters, breakdowns, cancellations and horrid weather that seems to be plaguing this vacation in what is supposed to be sunny California! Really, it is quite provoking my inner furry and within that furry comes the need to purge hoping I can find a way to make things more perfect but knowing that that is nothing but a stupid thought that I need to take and throw out the window. (That is a tool I use for my kids when they have bad attitudes. I tell them to take their attitude and throw it in the trash, out the window, over the bridge, etc. depending on our location at that precise moment. It seems to work for them so I guess maybe I should start heeding my own advice...)
We first embarked on this wondrous adventure heading to Las Vegas for my sister-in-laws wedding reception. She had gotten remarried last month, to a fantastic guy in Jamaica, resulting in us missing out on the event due to the fact that it is almost impossible to come up with the funds to take my whole family out of the country with only a couple months notice. Although, right now as I sit here in this rainy weather I find myself wishing we had been able to sit on the sunny beaches of Jamaica with the picture perfect scenery, being pampered with drinks and relaxation, enjoying a bit of heaven. Now that I am picturing what I perceive as the scenario of perfect bliss, I let out a sigh, glance out the window at the amazing view I was lucky enough to have, and continue on with my reality. And I must point out that it is an amazing vacation that I am blessed to be having, and I honestly would not change it for the world. We are together as a family, the four of us, and we are being adventurous. There are many hiccups but we still manage and we still smile and we still find ways to make unforgettable memories. It's just right now, I am exhausted and I find myself wanting to release my stress of the previous days.
 So back to our beginning. We had gotten up at 3:15 in the morning on Friday, loaded up the kids in the car, and headed out to Las Vegas. It turned out to be a long trip once the kids could not watch their movies since our converted crapped out on us and, what seemed like an eternity later, we finally reached our destination. We only had a couple of hours before we needed to meet everyone for dinner and I found, as I started to unpack what I thought was a brilliant planning of outfits, that I didn't pack half of anything I really wanted but instead had packed my clothes that I used to wear when I was puking all the time and was a scantily size 3. I finally had my first REAL emotional breakdown. Still, when I think back to it I am embarrassed but this is what I wrote...
 
(Day 1 of vacation)
"My family and I are finally taking advantage of a rare occasion of vacationing for absolute pleasure. I guess it really isn't complete pleasure as the instigator to this rare event would be the wedding reception of my sister-in-law, in Las Vegas, some 7 hours from home. But the formalities of taking family obligations at the beginning of our vacation open the door to the wondrous journey we are about to embark on to the happiest place of all time, Disneyland. For some, me included, vacationing sometimes does not equal absolute pleasure. I say this because of my current condition of struggling with food, control and body image, and now I am out in the world where for the first few days I am surrounded by people who judge, analyze, and criticise my decision making skills. This in turn creates quite a bit of uneasiness and opens the door wider to my self sabotage. Vacationing in my opinion, is where most people get away and enjoy without thinking of how many pounds they might gain and where is the nearest gym or the thoughts of "holy crap I didn't pack the right jeans that fit me best". For me that actually happened yesterday which led me to have a complete utter breakdown of throwing my clothes against a wall, towels that draped my body after my shower falling off resulting in me seeing an image in the mirror that was much more disturbing in my mind than probably exists, and then tears that forced me into the fetal position because I was feeling like I actually was better off when I was throwing up 10 times a day and only weighed 113 pounds. I was yelling at my husband that I was happier and looked better when I could put on anything and it fit loose on me and then I went completely insane by blaming him and everyone else for making me become fat and ugly now. My mind had gone from this happy and healthy outlook to a point of sheer illusion of a distorted reality. My husband left me alone for a few moments while going and making sure the kids were preoccupied and when he returned I was sitting on the bed, halfway dressed, still in the fetal position. He calmly came to my side, put his arm around me, kissed me on the head and simply said words of encouragement that consisted of the normal, you look great now, you were too skinny then, you looked sick then, your beautiful to me, etc. and then said "You have a choice. You can choose to sit here and let this ruin the day or we go get in the car and buy you a new pair of jeans. Simple. Easy fix". Then he left the room and left the choice up to me. I had to take a moment and process what he was proposing and then it hit me that he was right once again. I got up, fixed my hair, took my xanax, tried on another 20 outfits finally finding one that was decent enough in my mind, and we left. Now, I did find a pair of jeans that fit, but the emotional breakdown was still weighing heavily on my mind. I was struggling to look at myself in the mirror for fear of how I would see myself. I spent the rest of the day quietly punishing and yelling at myself for the temper tantrum that I had actually presented to my family over a stupid pair of jeans. Let me tell you a little secret. I knew then and I am saying it now, it was never about the jeans. When is it ever actually about the clothes? It was me giving into that evil little voice in my head that I have always had telling me that I was powerless, and when I see the people that we are here to see, they will be looking at how much weight I have gained, silently laughing at me, and EVERY time they will look at me they will be judging me..."

Now, I know that those thoughts were a mere reflection of the disease that has plagued my conscious soul and I did manage to pull myself together with help from another source of poison, alcohol, which really is not OK, but I showed up, had a good time, made a new friend, and continued on with our vacation. I sat down numerous times to try and write but they all ended up with me staring blankly at the computer lost in my thoughts and not finding a way to read my inner voice that was bogged down with emotions desperately needing an escape. So here I am, finally home from that vacation which was wonderful, uplifting, exhausting, long, fun, monumental in family time, full of so much activity, that I almost feel I am ready for that other vacation away from my vacation, but thrown into a whirlwind reality that I wasn't quite prepared for, and finally catching up on my sharing of what I experienced as a direct result of this horrible disease, with the rest of you. I went through horrible emotional roller coaster rides that I am embarrassed for and I think I am still punishing myself in my head for events that I cannot change but I guess I can learn from. It taught my kids that we all have moments of weakness where we make bad choices and it is OK as long as we grow with the knowledge that we can choose better the next time we are presented with a challenge. I am not proud of my breakdown but I feel I gained a little more insight into how fragile my state of mind really is and I cannot continually suppress it. I need to deal with my thoughts and emotions as they come to find a sense of serenity within myself.

My saddend withdrawl from a safe place...

  A while ago I had begun to attend regular Al-anon meetings in part, to support a friend I had reconnected with but also in part to maybe figure out where some of my issues were stemming from. I felt at the time like it was a legitimate thing to do since  I had grown up surrounded by alcoholics. Maybe if I could get a better understanding of what an alcoholics addiction was like and how it affected other people I might just be able to understand a little more about myself and my addiction. Now, I must say to you, that I am not blaming any of the alcoholics in my life for my developing an eating disorder or for my relapse or for my being just plain screwed up. My dad used to have this saying that went something like this..."You screw me once, shame on you. You screw me twice, shame on me". Living by that saying how can I logically blame an alcoholic or an abuser, and yes there have been quite a few, for my end resulting reactions. So I went to an Al-anon meeting and was instantly intrigued feeling the need to share my pains and sufferings, which I remind you, I have learned pain is inevitable and suffering is optional. I found these meetings as a great release from the suffering I was choosing to endure.

  Let me quickly, without great detail for now, remind you that I have been estranged from my father for many years mainly in part because of my eating disorder and the false realities it can create for both the sufferer and the loved ones close to. When things got out of control with my husbands job and the negative toll it took on our family and living arrangements, I had at the same time decided to reach out to my father and try to salvage a future that was and still is rocky and uncertain. I was attending regular meetings, remembering many of the painful events from my childhood, not only from my father and step mother but also from my grandfather and at the time my mother whom I was once estranged from as well. On a side note, my mother and I have rekindled our relationship, as she lives by the philosophy that you always love your children with an unconditional love no matter what, and now I see her as one of my absolute best friends. Granted, our past has not been without its many trivial flaws, but we have found a way to move past them and focus on the here and now. My father and I, we are working on it and I have a kind of notion that one day things will work themselves out. But first, I need to work myself out.

  So I found myself attending these Al-anon meetings, dealing with a close friend whom I felt had used me to aid her alcoholic addiction and I let nudge me back into my old habits of drinking too much, not eating enough, exercising ridiculously, and ultimately purging. These meetings were also bringing up memories for me that I had so desperately blocked out of my mind for many years because ignoring these issues was much more simple than resolving them. I was finally coming to terms with myself that facing my past, forgiving and letting go would aid me in my own self recovery. Slowly I was finding a way of dealing with them when I was presented a dramatic, sad, and challenging situation where for the first time I was able to step up in a way I never imagined possible and help find a resolution.

My mother had been left, almost as quickly as a tornado that leaves its destruction with no warning, by her alcoholic husband of more than 10 years. It was really the worst kind of divorce because in a matter of days her husband had gone from muttering the words "I love you", to completely disappearing without a trace which was leading us to the point of being moments away from filing a missing persons report, and then out of nowhere only 3 days later there were divorce papers being delivered on her doorstep. It only took me a moment to know that I was the one who could help her and instantly my family and I were on our way to another state to assist her in getting her belongings packed, find a place to store them until she found a new home and support her in every way possible, emotionally and physically. It was a trying time but we all knew it was for the better. My mom would be better off without him and I must say, she has done an amazing job at starting a new life on her own. As difficult as it was seeing her go through that event, it was at the same time liberating to be the one coming to the rescue. As much as I was able to show strength and composure through it all, it was truly an emotionally draining time, as this was the first time I had seen her in almost 3 years, which was not the reunion I had quite imagined.
  When we got home I was exhausted and found myself sharing my adventure at a meeting. I had been under the impression that  these meetings were a safe place to "dump" without expectations of any response. Instead I was greatly overwhelmed with the many responses people shared with me most of them expressing what they thought I "should" be doing or what I "must" do to get on track. Now if you met my once therapist whom I adored, you would be listening to her saying you need to stop "shoulding on yourself" and stop "musterbating". I went from feeling safe and anonymous in this group to feeling like the one everyone was judging, dissecting, while trying to dictate what my reaction should be. I wanted to cower on the floor and crawl out as fast as I could without having to talk to any of them as I was mortified. I never attended a meeting again. Instead I would find myself binging and purging even the events of trying to rekindle a relationship with my father, and the constant need of upholding an image of perfection, I was in overload. I felt I had no escape route from the stress and definitely did not feel comfortable attending any kind of meetings. I was feeling lonely in my emotional battles and found that my solace was with the little white porcelain throne in my bathroom. I longed for a place where I could go and release my thoughts without judgement like I once had in the Al-anon meetings. I longed for a non-objective soul to talk to who could give me a non-biased insight. I could not afford therapy any more as it was getting quite expensive trying to be healthy, between the nutritionist, monthly doctor check-ins, and of course the buying of food that I would eat and eat only to purge later. I was drowning.  
  How I got from there to here is kind of a blur at this moment. I know that the more I write, the more I come to remember and realize. I know that I have been clouded by my fear of the unknown. My fear of being judged in more ways than one. My fear of what healthy will look like for me. Am I going to be fat when I am healthy? Am I going to look old and worn when I am healthy? Will my kids be embarrassed by me when they get older? Am I going to be happier being healthy? Will my husband still love me the same or will he love me less? I could go on and on with what things scare me. For now though, I still open my Al-anon books and find readings that inspire a bright spot in my day, I play with my kids and find time to share laughs with them, and I reach out to my closest friends for a pick me up when I am feeling down. Each day is a new day, some of which I struggle to find my way through, but for today, I am feeling quite good. I think today has the potential of being great and I will fight to remain strong throughout. I find that writing and sharing my deepest and sometimes darkest thoughts with the world actually give me a comfort and a release from the stirring emotions that encompass my mind. Will I find enough solace in my writings to take control of the eating disorder that has me feeling shackled to it with no key, I can only hope and believe that there is an end in sight. For now though, I will be happy with a way to break that chain...

Changing my outlook...Can it realy be so simple?

I am sitting here trying desperately hard to hold my cool today. I don't know if it is exhaustion from the previous week we have had or if it is the pure annoyance of my two year old and his temper tantrums. Or maybe it is my daughters defiant attitude screaming four year old going on 16 or maybe my husbands absolute chaotic schedule that seems determined to make this week hell. I'm thinking it is a combination of all of it along with the fact that I am so angry with myself that I cannot seem to pull it together and get over this stupid eating disorder. I know it takes time to recover and heal but would it not be nice if it could happen over night!

Last night I got a call from my good friend Christy and she had heard of this idea she wanted to share with me. I was supposed to fill a glass with water and ice, make a wish into this glass, put my hand over it and then throw it out the door into the universe. It sounds kind of kooky I know, but yet it sounds so intriguing. I never did it last night because in all of my efforts I could not come up with a single wish. But, right now, as I write all of this, it hits me plain as day, why don't I wish for the strength to just stop. Stop more purging. Simple. Easy. Right? Ha! But could a wish really cure me that easily? Part of me wants to say it would and take my wish and throw it out to the universe but the rational, or maybe it's the skeptic in me, says absolutely not. You know, I never was one to have a lot of faith or any specific belief that there is a Higher Power that can help me and guide me. For me it was sort of like as long as I can see it then I believe it. So wishing doesn't entirely come easily to me. Instead I harbor my wishes and wants and tuck them away afraid of what might actually happen if I relent and let go of them. Will a Higher Power take them, process them and return them to me in the form of answers? Will that same Higher Power take them and laugh at the insane notion that I felt I actually deserved those wishes and wants and in turn hand me the exact opposite? Or will the most obvious answer to myself, be that absolutely nothing happens and I am left feeling like a fool for believing in something so silly? Even now I am not sure what I think. I probably need to stop over analyzing, which is something I do frequently and will touch on that later.

It is amazing to me that I started of writing because I was having such a hard time hanging onto my sanity today and now I am thinking about how easily some people can change their mindset in an instant, without struggle. I have this mind that wanders and jumps from thought to thought without struggle, but when it comes to changing my mindset, my mood, my decision making, I cannot seem to grasp a hold of the tools to make it happen. When Christy was over here a while back I noticed that her mood was off in a way I had never witnessed before. Normally I would not call someone, other than my husband, out on their mood but I found myself asking her what was wrong because this was not the Christy I knew. Immediately I found myself regretting the question out of fear that I had terribly offended her but her response surprised me just as quickly as my fear had set in once I opened my big mouth. She stopped and tilted her head a little, took a breath, and said "You are right. I'm not like this, this isn't me. I need to fix it. Thank you for pointing it out to me and I need to just let go...". Just like that she started smiling and was instantaneously the bubbly Christy I have grown so fond of. I was floored. To witness someone flick a switch and choose to be happy with a seamless ease I had never imagined was even possible, still in this moment makes me speechless. I was jealous because I have not yet understood how to use the tools I have to make that same movement. Today I brought that moment up to her and she looked at me, matter of factly, and said "You CAN do it Jenn. It's easy and you just have to use the right tools". Even though I was processing her words and understood exactly what she was saying, knowing how incredibly right she was, I felt my anxiety levels start to rise and my stomach start churning. Why is it so hard for me to believe what she is saying when I know it to be true and possible.  And this happens on so many occasions. I know I am capable of making different choices and changing my outlook, attitudes, moods, reactions, etc. So why can I not believe it myself. I can barely look at a piece of paper and in my own writing put the words, 'you are worth it' or 'you deserve this' down and believe it...Maybe it is that evil little voice in the back of my head that has been so plausible at telling me how not worth it I am and what kind of failure I have become that keeps me from being capable of seeing a different kind of truth. A truth I think might exist but I am hesitant to give into. Truth that I don't need purging to make me feel complete. And it hits me. Fear. I think I have just realized that Fear is a monumental piece to my puzzle. Am I afraid of being healthy and happy and, in my case of bulimia, sober? I don't think I am just fueled by fear but I am utterly terrified of what is to come, or not come. Maybe now, since I have just said this to the world, it would be a good time to start exploring my fear...And again my mind has jumped.

Something worth saying...

  As I entered the world of blogging, merely because I wanted to get it, being my bulimia and my quest to conquer it, out in the open, I turned to my husband and simply asked, "what do you do with a blog, how often can I post?". I had no idea what was right and what was wrong. This was a whole new world for me. I only knew that I wanted to hold myself accountable for my actions and I wanted a place to throw my thoughts to, not really expecting a reply. It was kind of like the movie, You've Got Mail, when Meg Ryan asks a question stating that she didn't want a reply but she wanted to throw it out to the universe. Well I wanted to blog about my battle and throw it out to the universe because my experience of writing in a diary, on a stupid piece of paper, has forever been tarnished in a way that maybe one day I will share, but for now I can pick and choose what I want to be made public and it is one story, one horrible disease, that I know I am not alone in fighting. So tonight I am sitting here and I have something to say. Something to share that I feel is important. Something I don't expect a response to but something that means a lot to me.


I have an astonishingly great friend who has also been described by another friend as an old soul. She has a way of words and a way with wisdom that one can only dream of at the age of 30. You might listen to her advice and her words of encouragement and, without looking at or even knowing her, you would think she had endured a lifetime of experience that only an old sould would know. But, my friends, she is the same as you and me. She is young and she is blessed with a gift. A gift of pure insight into a universal knowledge that I can only hope that one day I am gifted with the wisdom she possesses. So when I turned to her last night in one of my darkest moments and I confessed to her that I was in a deep dark place and I needed a friend without judgement and needed support because I was feeling as if I had hit rock bottom, she not only replied with the obvious that she was here for me, also reminding me that I need to not pop all of my tires and to stop before I set the car afire...But today she brought me even more.


I had the privilege of sitting with my good friend today and she tearfully asked me what she could do to help me. Not just shower me with the obvious that any friend might say, such as, it will all be OK and blah blah blah, but what can she do to also help hold me accountable. She then said one thing that makes a lot of sense. "I want to help you but I can only understand so much. I can't fully understand exactly what you are dealing with, I can try, but I can only understand so much..." Now I might be paraphrasing BUT she is right. No one can fully understand what a person with an addiction or eating disorder is really going through, unless he or she has physically and personally been there. The reason I mention this is because of a woman, whom I have recently reconnected with, who herself has fought an eating disorder. I admire this woman to an extent that I do not think even she knows. I have always thought of her over the years and she is exceptional in her own ways. She wrote to me the other day and in her unique wisdom brought up a valid point. In her words, "I do get it - and know from experience that the only people that truly do are people that have gone through it. Not that other can't be sympathetic and supportive - but they just . . . . . can't. . . . get it. Not all of it anyway - and there's so much that we just can't put into words too. I don't think any two people on this journey ever have exactly the same story or parts. . . but there are enough similarities that we really can understand what the other person is thinking or feeling." She hit it on the nose. We don't have the exact same story or parts but there are enough similarities to understand a fellow being who is undertaking the same battle as you. That is not to say that when you choose to open your soul and your pain to a friend whom is healthy, they cannot understand, but you trust that they can have enough sense and compassion to try and understand what it is you are battling with. They don't see you as weak, although you might, but they see you as a strong being who is fighting for a better future.


My friend, who almost brought me to tears, but I had to deflect that moment that was so promisingly beautiful and releasing, gave me this book. It is a book that is meant to bring you inspiration daily kind of like an Al-anon book or maybe even AA. I opened it to a random page and the reading hit me like lightning. It stated, "Life is a process of letting go, letting go of conditions we can't control, letting go of people-watching them move out of our lives, letting go of times, places, experiences. Leaving behind anyone or anyplace we have loved may sadden us, but it also provides us opportunities for growth we hadn't imagined. These experiences push us beyond our former selves to deeper understandings of ourselves and of others.
  So often those experiences that sadden us, that trigger pain, are the best lessons life is able to offer. Experiencing the pain, surviving the pain that wrenches us emotionally, stretches us to new heights. Life is enriched by the pain. Our experiences with all other persons thereafter are deeper. Instead of dreading the ending of a time, the departure of a loved one, we must try to appreciate what we have gained already and know that life is fuller for it....Today will bring both good-byes (to the purging) and hellos (to a healthy future). I can meet both with gladness."


I chose to look at the writing in my own personal struggles of my eating disorder. I cannot control many events or people of my life but I can let go.  There is much growth available to me and possible for my future. My experiences sadden me and trigger pain, inevitable pain from which suffering is optional, and I am able to learn from them. My life is enriched from my pain as I am developing the tools to grow. My life will bring good-byes and hellos and I can choose to say good-bye to the disease and hello to happiness. I am strong enough to say, without a doubt, that I cannot do it alone. I am grateful for my support system and to be exact I am grateful for that one lone friend who, today, sat me down and tearfully expressed her concern, and non-judgemental loving support.  It is moments like today that give me the strength to continue in my fight, no matter how challenging, and attempt to relinquish doubt that I WILL be OK...

The battle with the scale continues...

To continue on my saga with the scale, I want to first point out that I had my first victory yesterday in my quest of letting it go. I went to the doctors office to have my foot looked at since we are planning on going to Las Vegas followed by Disneyland and I kind of rely on my feet to keep me going. I told the nurse I wanted to do a blind weight check and I had no desire of knowing the number. It was a little scary as I had to breath and focus on the wall hanging to keep myself from trying to steal a glance. Just as quickly as I stepped on I was off and sitting in the chair getting my blood pressure taken. My heart was still pounding and I honestly was feeling as if I had just run a marathon. My stomach was churning and my mind was flashing through all of the numbers that I have ever seen on a scale and it was like an intense mystery novel that leaves you hanging without any answers in the end. I was imaging the worst but I still didn't want to know. Then came the realization that I had been victorious in my self control. When I walked out of the office I was feeling great. I had beaten the scale addiction for the first time in a long time. I had shown restraint and it felt good.

Now we fast forward to the next day where I sabotage myself. I was having an off day and was feeling deeply depressed. Now why I chose to try and seek comfort in the little battery operated box that has been my evil addiction I still do not understand. My husband probably thought that he had it hidden in a brilliant spot, but he is learning that if I have enough will power to go out and try to find it I will. So out comes the scale and I step on it sure it was going to be a number that would comfort my blues. Funny right? I take a deep breath, do a quick check to make sure the kids are distracted, shoo the cats away so they don't see what I am about to do, push the button, and step on. My heart skipped a beat as I read the numbers that had gone up since my last encounter with this evil electronic beast. I went from 132 to 136. I was FREAKING out! I put it back, careful to pay attention to small detail, in the exact manner I had found it. Although it was now laughing at me because it had prevailed. My battle was lost. My blues were turning black and I wanted nothing more than to purge more and more to get the numbers down.

Then came the voice inside my head. It was the voice of reason quoting Kiele. It was telling me that I had to think about what five pounds of fat looked like compared to five pounds of muscle, which I kid you not is freakishly amazing! Then the voice went on to tell me that the scale is just a number. That number does not tell me anything worthwhile. It can't tell me my body fat percentage which is pretty low. It can't tell me that the jeans I am wearing are not tight on my body, unless it is the size 3 I have purposely outgrown. IT can't tell me with accuracy anything about how strong I have become. And then the voice is taunting me that I would be in trouble with my friend since one of the biggest rules that have been put in place for this challenge is to stay off the scale. I broke the rules and I got the exact result I knew I would get. Disappointment, heartbreak, guilt, anger, resentment and sadness. Now I spend more time and energy trying to move on and let go. It really wasn't worth it giving into that temptation which I think makes me more angry than the numbers. 

My scale and I have this relationship that has been more detrimental to my confidence than any other relationship in my life. Yet I cannot find a permanent way to break up with my scale. So it sits tucked away in the garage where it patiently waits for our next encounter. I think maybe it was lying to me when it gave me the reading that made my stomach churn, trying to get back at me for leaving it out in the dark, dirty, and hot garage, alone with the spiders and crickets, when it used to sit polished in my bathroom where we would have multiple dates daily. Most of them in secret which gave me this feeling of adventure almost like I was having a secretive affair, only my affair was with a mindless machine. Maybe that is why I have not quite been able to rid my world completely of my scale but I am able to show restraint for something other than my purging. It sits out there as a constant reminder of a dark place I don't want to go back to. I do look forward to that one day I can get onto a scale and see the numbers as just numbers and realize those numbers are not a reflection of who I am now and who I can be. I can be strong and healthy and I don't need a scale to tell me otherwise. But for now my little evil friend will sit in darkness, alone, awaiting our next secret encounter which may never come which honestly it slightly depends on how good it my husband hides it this time...  

Self Sabotage

 This past weekend was one for my books. I have gone through an eccentric amount of outstandingly shocking emotions and events. I had hoped that I had enough strength and faith in myself to handle this roller coaster weekend better but found that it was habitually easier to slip into my efficacious behavior to find power. Power to change the course of events and power to feel in control. It wasn't until just this morning that I have come to the conclusion that I knew was so obvious, I can't control, change or even delete the events of the past weekend, I need to let it go and realize that today is a brand new day. A day that I can only control my reaction to events as they present themselves to me. 

 My husband, bless his soul, works so hard to provide for our family. He gets up, goes to work, comes home, and helps me process the day that he missed with the kids. It once was a commonality that he was always away from home on long jobs, far away trips, and many weekends gone. Fortunately in his new duties his job has provided him the opportunity to be close to home on most occasions which we sometimes take for granted. I say this because in the past 2 weeks he has only been home for two days and it has tested every last ounce of my patience, strength, and willpower in my quest for health.

 I say over and over again, day in and day out, that today is the day that I am no longer going to purge. I am so over it, I am in control, I am not weak. But I am sitting here laughing at myself because I am such a hypocrite. Take this weekend for example. Scott left for Texas on Sunday and I had a much harder time processing it than usual. Maybe it was the deep knot in my stomach warning me that something bad was going to happen. I could not shake the feeling for the life of me. I chose to channel that energy into making something good of my day. I had a brief lapse in judgement while changing the sheets on my sons bed when the sheet got stuck on the frame and in a furry I yanked so hard, you can probably guess it, I ripped his sheets. Anger started to take over and I had to tell myself that I could go with it or I could change it. I took my anger and transformed it into an ambitious spunk that ended with his room completely rearranged and spotless. His room became more practical for cleanliness (a mother can only hope), productive play areas, and a sense of calm that his room had desperately been lacking. I was on a role. Next was the office, kids bathroom, and finally my daughters room. I was exhausted by days end but the transformations were so ginormous that I found myself taking pictures. You might laugh but any stay at home, or even working, mother will agree that moments of absolute cleanliness is very short lived and the rest of the days are spent frantically trying to chase after the kids cleaning one mess after another and another and another and so on. My day was great. I was proud of myself and felt amazing. I put the kids to bed, treated myself to a glass of wine, and found solitude under my own sheets in my chaotic room that has in itself been neglected.

 It all got very dramatic for me around 2:30 in the morning when I was startled awake for the fifth time. This time it was my daughter who had a bad dream. I shuffled her back to bed and in my groggy state attempted to stumble back to bed. That is when the excruciation pain took over in my foot, I started to see the BRIGHTEST donut shaped light transform in my vision while everything else was fading to black. The sound of ringing and rushing waves took over and I forced myself to make it to my room before I passed out. I had stubbed my foot on a wooden chair and in the morning would wake to find it swollen and bruised beyond the toes. I decided to have it checked by the doctor since we are planning on a trip to Vegas followed by Disneyland in a couple of weeks. I definitely want my foot to be in great walking condition so I can chase my toddler when he decides to take off after something cool. The doctor was sure it was broken but to his dismay, the x-ray showed there was no need for an insanely inconvenient cast. Thank God. But it didn't stop the pain and swelling, so he sent me home with orders to stay off my foot. Does he not realize the impossibility of that with two kids and an out of the state husband...Then comes the car that I drove to the doctors just fine only to come out and find that it too is broken. A friend comes and spends an hour trying to jump start it, I am in tears over the pain and stress, making 50 different phone calls trying to figure out how to get my daughter to and from school, pick up medicine and survive without a car. Thankfully I have amazing friends and family who helped me through it all, but what do I do? I over analyze and obsess. These are common problems we all face but I am not processing it as I suppose I should. Instead I deal with the stress that was inevitable and I chose to try and find my control. My power. I purged and it made me feel worse. Time for bed, I told myself and when I wake up it will be a new day. I would be done with the purging.

 Next day comes and I am not feeling any better. The pain medicine has put me in such a fog that I literally want to dig a 6 foot hole, lay down, and sleep in peace. Peace would not come. Every time I tried to lay on the couch I was showered with demands of chocolate milk, waffles, new movies, mama I need this, mama do that, mama, mama, mama...I wanted to scream! Now I usually can handle this better but I felt like I was drowning. I had been so much better with my eating disorder and would maybe purge at the end of the day, for reasons I am still trying to figure out, but I found myself at 10 in the morning, without thinking or even realizing, standing in the kitchen, mindlessly feeding myself with food. Food I don't normally eat anymore and once I started I couldn't stop. I kept telling myself that this is a point I could stop and be OK but I wasn't buying it. The binge got bigger and bigger until I physically started to feel sick. Then came the purge. A purge I thought would turn my day around as it once did. Only this time it made me feel worse. A few hours later came the next binge followed by an even more, emotionally worse, purge. For some reason I had lost all control. I had become weak. I spent my day in such a depressed state of self-sabotage. I chose horribly wrong and spent the day punishing myself for making such a bad mistake. My friend Kiele would call this the "Flat Tire Effect". As she would say when coaching you on nutrition and exercise choices, "when you are driving down the road and you get a flat tire, what do you do" (I would call someone), she continues, "you get out and change the tire and get back on the road. You don't go around to all four tires and pop them all. It's the same with nutrition and your choices." I could choose when I binge to let it go and know that my next meal will get me back on track and keep going up from there. Instead I am the one who gets out and pops all of my tires. I continue to sabotage myself and I don't know why. This in part is what is fueling me to find my path to recovery. Although if I keep popping my tires I am not going to make it to the end of the road.

  I woke up today with my mind set that today I can make a new brighter future. I choose right now in this moment to accept that I cannot change the events of the past weekend nor how I chose to react. Instead, today I can choose to be conscious of the choices I am about to make and ask myself what I will feel with the end result of my actions. Will it make me happier, will it set me up for self-sabotage, will it be regretful or acceptable. I am pledging to make today count. I need, well actually, I WANT to have one day. One day of no purging. One day of control over my actions and my disease. One day to feel what I should allow myself to feel every day. I cannot say what today will bring. I can say that for now, I am letting go, accepting that I am not perfect, nor should I try to be, and take the events one stride at a time. Even now, I am feeling a self-sabotaging moment boiling deep inside and am fighting to deflect it...

My Weighty Obsession with the Scale

  **This portion of my blog will be cut up into a few posts, as dealing with my issues with the scale and how the scale became my obsession will take some time sharing.**

 I was once at a comfortable point in my life where I could easily pass by a scale and not have my heart pound with the dreaded agony of what it would say to me. I could step onto one and have the numbers range from 132 to 145 pounds and I was OK with it. Not always happy, but OK. It's uncannily kind of funny, but looking back onto the moment of when I would pull out my scale, it was as if I were the wicked Queen in Snow White looking into her magic mirror while chanting 'mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all'...When the mirror would respond with Snow White the angry Queen would do all in her power to change it in her favor so the mirror would give her the answer she so desperately wanted to hear. Now here I was, stepping onto the scale begging it to tell me that I was "skinny" only to find it was responding to me that I was too fat. Was that a fair presumption when my scale was merely a battery operated object that could only provide a superficial, unsubstantiated, conclusion as to who I really was by providing me with numbers. How can 3 numbers on a scale make a fair assessment as to who a person is?  But I'd be damned if I was going to let that scale tell me that I wasn't skinny. In my mind skinny was most definitely NOT where I was at by a long shot. I needed to loose at LEAST 15 pounds and drop from a size 10 to a size 7. Hence the need for power.

 It was almost a year after I had had my son that I stepped onto the scale and it read 147 lbs. I had just had a baby and yet I was livid! My scale was not my friend. I was hanging out with a new circle of friends and they were all tall and beautiful with perfect skin, hair and fashion. They had their houses organized and seemed to have it all. It would be months later that I would discover they, too, were fighting the predominance of perfection. Around that same time I was feeling myself slip slowly into a depression. When their conversations would turn to how they needed or wanted to loose weight I found myself slipping into my old self deprecating habits of judging myself. One of my friends had been dealing with anorexia, which she admittedly was not yet recovered from, and I found myself drifting into my old pre-programed ways of eating as little as I could while exercising as much as possible. Quicker than I had ever imagined my scale dropped to 140 pounds. I ate even less and worked out more and then it hit 135 and eventually once it hit 130 I was like WOW! I was controlling it's response to MY satisfaction once and for all! But I wasn't yet satisfied. Then came the surgery.

  I had been dealing with severe endometriosis and multiple rupturing cysts for the past 14 years. It finally hit such a peak of misery I was left with only one option and that was a hysterectomy. To me it was no big deal as this would turn out to be a much less severe surgery than what followed my birth with my daughter. So once my son turned one, it was literally 2 days later that I was in surgery. One week into my recovery, in which I had lost even more weight, we received a devastating blow. My husbands division was pulling out and he was being demoted to the lowest position above being fired. We were hanging on by a thread. It was so much more than I could mentally handle and so once again, began the need for comfort from the control of the scale and the food. I was purging more and more and stepping onto the scale as much as 12 times a day. If the scale did not respond to my liking I fought harder with more binges and purges. I have to say that I became insanely crazy obsessed. I was dropping into the low 120's and yet I wasn't happy. My husband, Scott, moved to Louisiana for work to support our family and I binged more. The kids got sick, water would get shut off, collectors were calling and I could not slow down. I needed some sort of release from the stress. The scale would say I gained one measly pound in one day, royally pissing me off, and I would spend the next day making sure that I got it to read two pounds less by nightfall. It was exhausting.

 Every day I would continue with the same cycle over and over telling myself that at 118 I would stop. Truly, I was only fooling myself.  I was feeding myself a bucket full of lies and I knew it. I figured that if the scale was saying I was skinny then I must be looking hot and amazing and I must be making people jealous for once! I would walk around like I was next in line to be crowned Hottest Mom of the Year, or something like that. How naive I was! Deep down I knew the scale number was getting too low. I knew it wasn't healthy but I had power. Control. Dominance. The scale was no longer an insight into my weight as a number but had become my fuel. When I would get it to speak to my satisfaction I developed a sense of accomplishment that inspired me to tackle my daily tasks with an impenetrable force field. If something would puncture a hole in my force field I went back to the scale for my refueling. The incredibly sad thing is that even though my magic source reached an insanely strong 113, my gut would churn in guilt, but my fire would burn even stronger with consummation. My fire would be complete and closer to burning perfectly; I was attaining perfection in my control. Then came the day I had to face a new reason of thinking and fight to part with my so called magic mirror. That began a brand new battle I was blindly entering into with no direction or hope that I would find victory in this new war with myself...