The Perfect Day

My dietitian asked me tonight what my dream day would look like.  Dream day?  Hmmm.....

Turns out my initial response - sleeping in, yummy breakfast, nice walk with the Pup, afternoon nap, dinner - wasn't all that dreamy.  Mainly cause it was me and the Pup.  I figured it was realistic, at least.... but reality?  I didn't know what a true "dream day" would look like because I've isolated myself that much.  So it took a little thought.... and here's what I came up with.

The day would start by sleeping in late, and waking up next to my (currently non-existent) partner.  WE would then go to a little cafe or something for a delicious breakfast, lingering on the last bites of food and enjoying conversation together.  Then we'd take a nice walk at a local park or trail.  That would be followed by a nap for me, and my partner would do whatever they chose, nap or otherwise.  Together we'd prepare a yummy dinner, and end the day snuggling on the couch with popcorn and a movie.

That day sounds really quite nice.  Really nice.  Like too nice.  Too perfect.  It will involve me kicking out the mean person that lives inside my brain, kicking that part of me so far out that I have room to let people into my world..... 20 some years of (false) comfort in being alone.... never really thinking there was hope for me to be anything but alone.....  But my dietitian said it's totally possible, and that it will happen.

I trust her fully, but I don't know if I quite believe her here..... I'm gonna sure try though, cause this is a day I'd love to live through......

Positive? Positive.

Tonight my dietitian asked me to find something positive in my world.  I was quickly and easily able to rattle off all sorts of positives, yet they ALL had to do with school.  There were two exceptions to that rule-- the peanut and the Pup.  While they both bring me lots of joy and add oodles of positivity to my world, the rest?  All at school.

No matter what happens at school, I find the positive.  I look for and find the silver linings.  The lessons.  The learning experiences.  A student fails at a task or project?  I help them find the learnings, and figure out what they can do differently to reach a different outcome next time.  A colleague feels unsuccessful with an attempt at a new tool or lesson approach?  We sit down and find the parts that felt awesome, and build from there.  Just today, a colleague tried something brand new, and it only sorta worked.  She was not a happy camper, and felt very much defeated.  With her team, we worked to remind her of the successes in the experience, the positives.

I'm great at helping others get there, reach the positive place.  What about me?

Nope.  I suck at it.  At least I suck at it for now.  (In other words, I'm not there, yet.)

Why is it so hard?  I get that I'm not alone in the self-inflicted negative self-talk.  I know that many, many others are challenged by this.  But I'm talking me, here.  And I need to figure out how to shift my perspective.

Example.  Horrible stomach ache for nearly a week.  Like, bubbly, volcanic eruptions that keep me close to the porcelain throne.  After about a half hour (I think, I don't keep track of time during sessions) chatting with my dietitian, she asked me if I still had a stomach ache.  Surprisingly (at least to me) it had subsided dramatically.  Why?  Cause she, like my therapist, has a knack for getting me out of my head.  Which I need. 

Inside my head, the positive island is tiny, and frequently empty.  The negative island is always hopping.  Sure, there are a few other islands -- school, pup, Aunt-hood, knowledge, creativity -- but the one I seem to spend the most time on is negative island.  (If you don't get the whole island thing, go watch Inside Out.  Trust me, it will be worth it.)  While my finances and schedule won't allow for daily visits to dietitian island and therapist island, the goal isn't to rely on them for getting me out of my head.  The goal is to take what I'm learning through them and apply it to me outside of my time with them.

Perspective shift - from my world outside of school is negative and sucks, to my world is full of tiny bits of positive every where I go - is required.  If only it were as easy as shifting from park to reverse....

P.S.  I did find something positive that wasn't connected to school -- I have a new toothbrush that I love!  For me that's big, cause the dentist and I don't get along well, but my teeth and this new toothbrush?  Awesome!

Sliding Doors

Choices.

Yesterday was a glum day.  Today was a pretty glum day, too.  I've been feeling overly exhausted lately.  Like, breathing-is-too-much-work exhausted.  Yesterday was the worst.  In addition to the exhaustion, my limbs felt like they were made of concrete.  Not fun.

And days like yesterday often multiply.  Like bunnies.  Leading to days on end of glum, gloomy, melancholy.

Yet.  While today was glum, and I am still carrying that excessive exhaustion (waiting on lab results from my doctor to see what's up) I made different choices than I have in the past.

Enter the sliding door analogy, the latest from the brilliant brain of my dietitian.

Sliding doors.  You can see what's on the other side, sometimes.  You know what will happen when you walk through the doors, sometimes.  Sometimes, you even choose to leave the doors closed.  Choose.  Choice.  Everything we do is a choice.  A life changing decision.  Every time we make a decision, we walk through a set of doors.  And every set of doors shapes our lives.  Every single decision we make is a life altering decision.  We just don't know it at the moment.

I'd add that it's how you CHOOSE to react that
matters the most.....

Turns out there was a movie called Sliding Doors that came out in 1998.  It illustrates the idea of sliding doors by sharing two perspectives of the same moment.  The moment where the main character catches the train and what happens after is one perspective.  The moment where she misses the train and what follows is the other.  Her life looks very different in both situations.  Catching the train, walking through those sliding doors, was a life altering choice.

It might not seem like it right now, at least it didn't to me, until my dietitian explained it further.  A few years back, she had tickets to go to a function that she really didn't want to attend.  But she made the choice to go, and in doing so, significantly altered her career in a very positive way.  A chance meeting with an old acquaintance led to a working partnership that to this day is still going strong.

Back to today.  Day two of gloomy me.  A day that was full of sliding doors.  Do I get out of bed or hide under the blankets a little longer?  (I hid under the blankets a bit longer.)  Do I eat a cookie with breakfast or not? (I didn't.)  Do I try to get any work done before I have to leave or not? (I didn't work.)  Do I go home after my day and nap or go for a walk? (I walked.)  Do I stop for frozen yogurt on the way home or run into the grocery store and get some watermelon? (I got watermelon.  And cherries.  And plums.)

They don't seem like big decisions with life changing results.  But in a small way, the act of choosing today was life changing.  I didn't let myself make today a wasted day of gloom.  I made a (semi) conscious choice to not let today turn into a day like yesterday.  I made (for the most part) healthy food choices today.  (I'm especially proud of the watermelon over frozen yogurt choice.)  I didn't let my eating disorder take the driver's seat today, which is usually what happens on these gloomy journeys.  I chose to go for a walk, despite my couch looking exceptionally comfy.  I may have been followed by a cloud of gloom, but instead of crying over the rain, I was grateful it was there to mask tears.

Sliding doors.  Choices.  Decisions.  Maybe one day, when I walk through the door, I'll meet the person of my dreams on the other side, in the pet store, picking up dog food.  That's why I finally realize that whenever I leave the house, I should be ready for anything.  But that's a post for another day.

Swiss Cheese

My dietitian, once again, shared one of her fabulous analogies.  This time, it had to do with one of my favorite indulgences, Swiss Cheese.

Right now, I'm going through a major transition that has rocked my entire world.  While it is all good stuff that is happening, and great places where I'm headed, it's still left me incredibly unsteady on my feet, and I feel as if the ground is constantly moving beneath me.  That makes it pretty near impossible to feel like I'm able to stand on my own two feet.

Enter the Swiss Cheese analogy.

Imagine a big block of Swiss Cheese.  It's got those holes all over it that go straight to the core of the block.  Now, picture those holes filling up with different things - say, pimentos, pickles, other cheese, maybe even some mold (hey, it goes with cheese, right?!)  What we have is no longer a block of Swiss Cheese.  It's something that resembles Swiss Cheese, yet it's been overpowered by the other flavors that filled in the holes.

Ok.  Let's make it personal.  Imagine a person as a block of Swiss Cheese.  Standing tall, full of holes.  When things happen, when life happens, they dive into the holes and stew on what fills them - the argument, the fear, the stress, the family, the job, the financials, the stuff that is out of their control.  That person is going to be pretty unsteady, full of all sorts of stuff that negatively impacts all they do.

Now picture that same person, only this time, they choose to fill their holes in with positive experiences - like journal writing, exercise, healthy choices, good friends, and so forth.  These experiences fill the holes so that the core of the person is protected.  That way, when things happen, the world will still go on, negative things will still swirl around you, but they no longer have the ability to hit you at your core.  Instead, you filled the holes with self-chosen, positive experiences, and now when the world's chaos hits, you can let it bounce off and laugh.

Pretty powerful imagery in my mind.  Right now, I am so that block of Swiss Cheese, full of holes, constantly being attacked at my core by perceived threats to me and my safety.  However, I am (finally) working hard to fill the holes.  Seeing my therapist twice a week, my dietitian once a week, making intentional choices when it comes to eating, seriously attempting to add exercise to my routine, choosing a career change that will challenge me daily, and encourage me to be truly me.  All of those choices will fill the holes in my world, helping to protect and strengthen my core.

And one day, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, one day, I will be able to stand on my own feet no matter what is swirling around me.  (Knowing, of course, that my "support" team is only a phone call away!)

My Anxious Heart

"Depression is when you can't feel at all. Anxiety is when you feel too much. Having both is a constant war within your own mind. Having both means never winning." 

Katie Crawford, My Anxious Heart

Photo Credit

A friend sent me the link to this article about My Anxious Heart, a photo series depicting anxiety and depression with photography instead of just words.  While I found all the photos in the series so spot on and relateable, it was the quote above that got me. 

On top of the eating disorder, which is thankfully under control these days, both anxiety and depression reside inside me.  There are days where my depression is so thick I can't lift my head from my pillow in the morning.  There are days when my anxiety is so strong walking from the bedroom to the living room has me short of breath.

Sometimes I miss the numbness the eating disorder provided, it was a more tolerable numbness than the one depression carries.  Depression numb is being in the dark with no light in sight, where as the eating disorder numb is more dissociative.  Both leave me feeling rather care-less.

I struggle with lots of things I see on Facebook, and I actually stopped reading the newspaper and watching the news nearly two years ago.  Why?  Because I feel too much.  Because I'd see a story about a town in need, and my heart would break for the citizens of the town.  I'd see a story about a child who won the battle with cancer, and my heart would crack open even further for the pain they had to go through.  Feeling so much, so intensely, leaves me gasping for breath.

I don't like that I agree with the author, that "having both means never winning," but I do.  I feel like the delicate balance, the grey area, so to speak, is so hard to find, and once it's found, it is nearly impossible to stay for long.  Being in one extreme, depression, is no better than the other extreme, anxiety, at least for me.  I aim to reside in the grey area.

And yet, it seems impossibly elusive.
(That's what the depression says.)

And the idea of the grey area is terrifying.
(That's the anxiety talking.)

Still, I plug on.  I see my therapist twice a week and my dietitian once a week and the rest of my team as needed and I plug on.  They haven't given up.  So I won't either.

Tomorrow

Something weird has been happening.  

I am considering making two major life adjustments in the coming months.

I transitioned (fairly smoothly) from my dietitian of 3.5 years to my new one, 

who, like my therapist, is now stuck with me for the duration of her career.

I'm cooking real food at least twice a week.

I'm eating more veggies than I ever before.

(Yes, I know, I've been a vegetarian who doesn't like veggies.)

My career is blossoming at a rate with which I can hardly keep up.

And this week has been one of the busiest, most chaotic weeks of the year.  

Yet.  

Here it is.

Sunday.

A much needed one, as I finally have a day where I can stay 

in my jammies all day and snuggle with the Pup. 

And I'm sitting on the couch watching my favorite team play spring ball.

And I am thinking of the errands I want need to run.

Sunday afternoon.  In my jammies.

And yet I'm readying to go grocery shopping - my least favorite shopping behind clothes.

This is all positive, good, growth.  

At least that's what my therapist said.

So why do I feel like a stranger in my own world right now?

Positive movement = massive tears?

I know it's not gonna be instantaneous.

But when am I gonna be able to enjoy the positive?

When is it gonna stop feeding the depression?

Melancholy may make a good friend,

but I don't know how much more of it I can take.

The Two-Hour Rule

I am a fan of rules, as you may have already figured out.
(Ok, yes, sometimes I prefer to break the rules, but generally....)

The other day, I learned a new rule that is already impacting my choices.  It's called the "two hour rule."  My dietitian pulled it out from where ever she keeps her gold nuggets, and I have to admit, it landed quite nicely.  I'm going to explain it in regards to food and eating, but really, you can use this rule for anything, any time you have to make a choice.

Am I going to be happy I ate this in two hours?
Am I going to be pleased with this choice in two hours?
Am I going to agree with this decision in two hours?

I think you get the gist of the rule.

And let me tell you, using it for less than a week has already made me stop and think, and actually change my original decision, more times than I care to admit.

Cause really, if I eat the handful of m&ms now, in two hours, will I still feel satisfied?  Chances are pretty darn good that I won't.  As a matter of fact, if I eat a handful of m&ms now, there's a really good chance that within two hours, I'll have eaten several more handfuls, and still not feel satisfied.

However, if I make the decision to have some veggies and hummus, two hours later chances are very good that I'll still feel satisfied.

I know it seems silly, but this rule reminded me of the NutraGrain commercial.... guess that really was positive marketing, for once!

 

P.S.  I have no opinion on the quality of NutriGrain bars.  I just like the commercial's "one good choice leads to another" message.

Transitions

I've been seeing my dietitian for three and a half years, and it's safe to say that I've become rather attached to her.  She's seen me in the lowest lows of anorexia, and has slowly guided me back to what she says is a healthy weight (I still think I'm overweight.)  She's been patient while I threw tantrums (yes, tantrums at age 30ish) because I wouldn't eat another bite and helped me broaden my food choices.

My therapist and I have been discussing the progress I've made over the past three and a half years.  I went from someone on the verge of hospitalization to fully weight restored (I think it has been restored a little too much!)  It's been a drama filled, sinkhole riddled path, complicated by surgery, food limitations at school, and more allergies.  Progress, though, is progress, and I am grateful for the growth thus far.

This week, I will meet a new dietitian.  When I started with my dietitian, the goal was to learn how to eat healthy while handling food allergies.  Little did my consciousness know that I was hiding an eating disorder.  I was terrified that first visit, thanks to a previous dietitian I saw once, who scared me away from any and all dietitians.  Needless to say, our focus became weight restoration and maintenance.

This time, I'm nervous, but in a different way.  My dietitian said that sometimes people take you as far as they can, then it's time to move on.  I don't want to believe her.  I don't want to start over.  Even though...... I know she's sort of right.  I have to keep going without her.

I want to make sure to keep moving.  To keep growing.  To keep learning.  All the same principles I live by in my classroom.  And while my therapist and I have been working on this for a while - expanding the safety of my classroom to the rest of the world - I am afraid to put it into play everywhere else.

Most importantly, I want to give this new dietitian a chance.  I know she's not going to be the same at all, and that's ok.  She's going to come with her own perspective and ideas, and that's ok too.  And while my dietitian played quite the parental role for me, I know my new one won't.  Because I don't need that anymore.  Which, when I think about it, is a good thing.

What I do need is to learn how to eat balanced, how to manage my food intolerances while eating healthy...... and how to not let the anorexia return.  Ever. And maybe, just maybe, she'll help me learn how to like food? 

I hope she's up for the challenge...........

I Want to Write More

I recently realized how censored I've been on the blog.  I am watching my words very carefully, and in doing so, am limiting myself and my posts.  I'm not sure why all of a sudden I recognized this, and hope to change that.

Starting now.

It's no surprise that for someone recovering from an eating disorder, the holiday season, in the states kicked off by Thanksgiving, is not an easy one to maneuver through.  Throw in there an invasive medical procedure requiring fasting and a liquid diet, and it could be a recipe for disaster. 

I'd like to say that I've staved off that disaster.  Which, I kinda sorta have, actually!  I survived the liquid diet day, I survived the morning of fasting, I survived the test, and I've actually managed to get back on the eating wagon pretty quickly!

So, I have staved off the disaster.  I was going to add an "and yet......" but I don't have one.  When it comes down to it, Yes, I got back up to near goal within days of the torture.  I survived Thanksgiving, ate well all weekend, and am pretty close to back to my required goal area.

But.

Image from Shirt Woot Derby - if you created this,
please let me know so I can give you credit!

(There's nearly always a but for me.)

While I'm doing pretty darn well getting to goal..... what I'm eating to get there is SO not the best....... it's mediocre, at best.  I guess you could say I have a very child-like palate.  I prefer peanut butter and jelly and apple sauce over Caesar salad and grilled salmon.  I prefer chocolate milk over wine.  I prefer cereal over eggs.  I prefer macaroni and cheese over risotto.

I have simple tastes.  Add in some food intolerances and a refusal to give up my vegetarianism, and, well, I make things in the "eating appropriately" department rather tricky.  My dietitian (who has the patience of a saint) has been working her @$$ off trying to figure out other sources of protein for me.  Most of which, I turn my nose up to and come up with some reason or another why I can't eat it.

Truth is, I need more protein.  I desperately need more protein.  My body needs it.  (Though, this is all coming from my team, I don't crave protein, nor do I know what my body would feel like in it's quest to obtain more protein!)  I know it's good for me.

Then again, so is writing..........

At last!

I had a pretty cool experience yesterday.  Or, more likely the experience of yesterday, months and months in the making, did not go unnoticed.  That's a more accurate description.

You might remember that a little over a year ago, I was in complete agony over my dietitian's maternity leave.  Actually, agony doesn't quite describe it.  More like, an unbearably intolerably excruciating inner ache.  Not gonna revisit that, but you can read more if you want.

Anyway.  Back to yesterday.  As I was heading for my visit with my dietitian, it hit me that it was three weeks since I last saw her.  Three weeks.  Three, rather chaotic, exhausting, long, weeks.  Three trying, frustrating, agonizing weeks.  But those three weeks were missing one thing.

In the past, when a week went by without a visit with my dietitian, I felt a desperate sense of longing, an urgency of sorts.  I could not go without my weekly visit, my weekly hug.  When we moved into visits every other week, that same longing was there, elevated at first, and while it did subside, it never fully went away.

Until recently.

Three weeks.  A few months ago, just the idea of going three weeks between appointments would have brought about crippling anxiety.  So you'd think that upon seeing my dietitian yesterday, for the first time in three weeks, I'd have that old sense of desperation and longing hanging around my neck.

Not the case.  Yes, I am just as surprised as you are.  There was no agonizing longing, no desperate sense of need.  There was just a sense of contentment in seeing my dietitian for the first time in three, long and crazy weeks.

I believe that I've finally arrived at what the psychology world calls "secure attachment."  This type of attachment is what I feel to be the healthiest, and yet, it's one I've experienced the least.  I have to admit, I was very excited to see my dietitian yesterday, and equally excited to share with her the news - that I now finally know that she's going to always be there for me, whether it's been days, weeks, or months between our visits.

Feels pretty darn good, if you ask me.