An unexpected rain (Week 13)

This is Maimonides, our newest family member.

This week has been interesting, although I don't think that's a bad thing. Stressful, yes. But most weeks are like that anymore, so I think I'm getting used to it. Also, I got a fish.

I've been struggling a little more with some depression and anxiety, but I don't think it's any more than it was when I started my recovery. Then again, I feel these moments of incredible, transcendent joy that come out of no where and just bring light into my eyes.

The week began with a pinched nerve in my neck, and I'm not entirely certain it's not ending that way too. On Sunday, the Emperor took me to our family doctor, who cracked my bones and gave me a scrip for some pain meds. I, of course, took the pain meds (with food*), and laid on the couch for the rest of the day (probably watching Star Trek). We went to bed around 11pm, but I didn't take another dose of my meds because pain meds mess with my sleep... so I was in bed, awake, until 2:30 at which time, I came out into the living room and watched The Late Late Show** on my laptop. I did take another pain pill at that point, and started falling asleep during the show, but when I turned it off I was wide awake again.

3:30am doze

4:30am AWAKE!

4:35 doze

6:34am AWAKE!

And I wanted to listen to the Stephanie Miller coverage of the inauguration, so I turned my radio on at that point and half-listened, half-slept for another hour or so. At 8:30 when the inauguration was supposed to begin I turned on the tv and watched the second inauguration of our country's first non-white president. I love President Obama, so it was kind of a big deal. 

I then spent the rest of Monday half-asleep on the couch with episodes of Star Trek on in the background because I was only able to sleep with the tv on. I don't know why. 

Tuesday was less interesting, although I wish I had gotten more work done, and Wednesday was interesting for other reasons... but Thursday was very stressful. However, despite the stress of Thursday I both had breakfast AND took a snack with me during my appointments and errands (including seeing my dad during his chemo appointment). Afterward, the Emperor and I had a nice dinner for date night, and both got long, much needed nights of sleep.

Today... today I got a fish (see above). I ate my leftovers from dinner out last night, and we even went on a walk to wish the trees a happy tu b'shevat (Jewish arbor day - or the birthday of the trees). I find a few areas a little lacking still -- I would like more intimacy, exercise, and vegetables -- but I'm finding my body image improving and that's a big deal. I've nearly completed my workbook, and have listened to several audiobooks that are building me back up.

As I go forward, I think I'll do more writing on the ideas that have been growing in my brain while I've been growing through this journey. I've learned a lot about what is real and what needs to change, and I'm excited to explore those with you.

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*PF Chang's Gluten Free I-don't-feel-good Special: egg drop soup and kids fried rice with a little bit of chili paste

**that I can't watch it on my phone is a crime against Rachelity.

Sometimes it takes a brick (Week 12)

Was an 8... (hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com)

I pretty much didn't stop from last Monday (or perhaps the Friday before), until Friday morning. For some reason, a flurry of activities took over, and I felt unable to sit and rest, or even take time to read or work in my workbook. And then I was suddenly hit by a brick on Friday, which continued to get worse even after I went to the doctor yesterday to have my neck adjusted and get some pain meds.

Last night I think I may have netted 5 hours of sleep. From 11pm until 2am, I slept for less than an hour, finally getting up at 2:30 and watching Craig Ferguson until I fell asleep. Of course, after the show ended, I was awake again, and woke up every hour until 6:30 when I decided to listen to Stephanie Miller's inauguration coverage*. I dozed between 6:30 and 8:30, but never deeply enough to accomplish anything like sleep. Since then I may have gotten 40 or so minutes of sleep (maybe?), so I'm kinda out of it today.

Oh yeah, why did I have to go to the doctor? Turns out I have a pinched nerve in my neck, that happened somehow at some point through some possible action or lack of action. I don't actually know.

In other news, though, I may have conquered bingeing. While waiting to get my scrip filled yesterday, I bought binge-type foods (chocolate and chips), because if I was going to be on pain meds, I was also gonna eat junk food**. I haven't even finished off the almond M&Ms I bought. Normally it would all have been gone by the time the Emperor got home from being social, but I didn't even want to play Cthulhu and the Sacred Artifacts and devour each morsel without even tasting it. That's a breakthrough. It's actually a big fucking deal, because not wanting to eat until I made myself sick also means that I didn't want to make myself sick. Granted, I was (and still am) drugged, but I'll take the win where I can get it.

...but now closer to a 4 (on meds).

But through all the stress of the last week or so, I have been taking care of myself. I've been backsliding a little bit emotionally because I've been wracked by anxiety recently; but not to the point where I'm having symptoms. And even on those mornings where what I've been having for breakfast sounds disgusting, I've managed to eat something for breakfast, and hold myself over long enough to figure out something decent for lunch. And I've been eating meat again (YAAAAAAY!). I had tuna for lunch.

So, things are normalizing. I still have quite a bit of my workbook to get through, but I'm not going to stress about it too much***, and just try to be in the moment (even the painful ones). I think even the stress is kind of normal... the pain isn't, but *shrug*...

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*Woo! O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!
**It's therapeutic.
***I have enough to stress about... yay pinched nerve...

How can the desire to feel/be pretty coexist with beauty?

I did not create this image. I found it in a google image search.
If this is your image, thanks for making it.

Let's get one thing perfectly clear: beauty and pretty are not the same thing. A conventionally attractive person is no more guaranteed to be beautiful than a conventionally unattractive person or a person who is just sort of average-looking. Beauty isn't about outside stuff, beauty is about inside stuff. You and me, we have beauty if we choose to cultivate it; if we decide to show it off through our choices and behaviors. 

What's more, the image at left is 100% true. Beauty exists in each of us independent of the decorations we don. As RuPaul says, "You're born naked, everything else is drag."  

But, if it's what is inside that really counts - and really, everything starts with character - how do we reconcile the desire to bare our naked beauty for all its value with the desire to be seen as physically attractive or the desire to feel pretty? Can these two things coexist? Is beauty only in the eye of the beholder? Can we really get by in the world ignoring what other people think about how we look?

The answer to all of these questions is: it depends. The reason that we struggle with these questions is that their answers are nuanced and require effort to understand. We live in a very dualistic culture: hot/cold, yes/no, in/out, up/down, wrong/right, black/white, Perry*/Gaga, etc. When a question comes along that has an bit of depth to it, it is simply glossed over**, and we stick with what is superficially available. Everyone does this. As a society we are almost exclusively visual, and perception that is based in a single dimension is by definition, shallow.

The "beauty" industry is the worst offender as far as this shallowness goes. Do you ever see articles in Cosmo for character development? Nope. Sex, makeup, be skinny. What about Self magazine? A magazine dedicated to making its readers better!? Nope. Exercise, be skinny, makeup. The only magazine I've ever read that has any amount of character development included in its pages is Yoga Journal, and even that is fairly superficial. Now, something highly specialized like Success is reported to contain articles on the importance of character development in success, but people looking for beauty advice aren't going to read Success magazine for those tips, are they?

So what do we do? Ignore the messages? Abandon the "beauty" industry in droves? Those things haven't worked. Not only is the "beauty" industry not affected by people who actively avoid their products, demonizing makeup and fashion products creates antipathy at best, and enmity at worst! When we place a value judgment on makeup and fashion products, by extension, we also judge the people who do or don't use those products! That makes the world less beautiful, not more, and wasn't the point of all of this to make the world more beautiful?

Okay, so abandoning the "beauty" industry doesn't work. Judging people who do or don't value conventional physical attractiveness is counter-productive. But we still want to reconcile the desire to be beauty-full, with the desire to look how we want and have our character revealed through that venue. 

I have a revolutionary idea for you then: 

There is no moral imperative regarding how a person looks. None. Fat, skinny, average weight: all have the same determination of character. Makeup, no makeup; great skin, blemished skin; whatever color. Same diff. Natural hair color, wild hair, dreads, buzz, long curly blonde locks, a punky red reverse bob. All have the same impact on a person's value.

There is no moral imperative regarding how a person looks. That means you can look how you want! Maybe there are some standards for appearance based on your life-situation, but that doesn't affect your value, that is, your beauty. Your life-situation does impact who you be. What does have a determinant affect on your value is how you behave. 

You are beautiful without your makeup; and also with it. And while how you look may reveal the nuance of your character, how you act reveals that you actually have character in the first place.

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*See what I did there?

**No pun intended, ahem.

On not being angry or afraid anymore (Week 11)

I wrote an email to my sales director today, expressing a desire to talk with her about what I've learned while being down in the mess of myself for the last several months. "This process has humbled and softened me," I told her, but then I started to wonder what else I would say about what I've learned down here in the muck. 

I'm not afraid anymore, for one. For another, I'm no longer angry about my circumstances. I'm willing to accept that my ego needs to be set aside so that I can put g-d and family ahead of what I used to think would make everything okay. I've learned that the prizes, as nice as they are, will never say that they love me; that even after I do earn the suit and the car, those objects will not conspire to throw me a surprise birthday party; that while they're nice, and pretty, and might change my life situation a little, they won't change me or make me relevant. Those objects, whether attainable or not are not that important or relevant, because all they do is stand as symbols of something which actually is important: the people whose lives become better because I said hello to them, or put some stuff on their face, or asked them to help me make other people's lives better; and the people who make my life better. 

Through this process of telling the world that I have had such a powerful obsession with externalizing my own value that I was willing to put on the line things which actually are important in my life (my health and relationships), I have learned what is really important. I have gained some amount of peace, and taught myself to trust again. My most recent teacher, Eckhart Tolle, says that fear is simply a lack of trust. The idea that fear would be simply anything seemed like a completely incomprehensible concept to me before all this, but I get it now:

Trust your moment. Trust where g-d has put you. Trust yourself and be present, everything else will come.

At this point, I don't know where my moments will take me, but I'm starting to trust the process more and trust myself to simply know what to do with whatever the universe/moment (or g-d) brings me or sends me into. I can lead from wherever I am, because (as has been demonstrated by the readership of this blog in the last several months), people will listen to me if I tell them why they should. Before this, I didn't know why anyone would listen to me, and I was so frustrated at feeling unheard that I thought it was personal. Turns out, you just needed to know where I had been.

I think I've shown you every step of my madness. I've borne my soul, screamed, cried, and become a little more enlightened and you listened. Through all of it. And I think that's because when a leader shows their darkness people will look, and then the grace, patience, and beauty mean so much more. The darkness, the scars, the tears showed you that I am human, incomplete, and no longer in denial about what is really important. More meaningful, though, is the experience of no longer wailing away in the darkness. I acknowledge that it's there, that not only are there parts of me that are not perfect as I would have them, but that those aspects of my character make me more beautiful, even if they aren't attractive to some people (this applies both physically and spiritually); and those aspects, experiences, whatever, don't need to be redeemed. They don't.  

All these years of self-abuse will not be redeemed by the lessons that I have learned, or the ones that I hope to teach others. It's not possible, and even if it was, I don't want it. Those experiences are relevant to who I am, the scars that they left are relevant and it's all part of who I BE. They won't protect me from future scars, from disappointment, from failure or loss. They are now even too small for me to hide behind, but present enough in who I be to share relevant answers when I am asked about them. 

And so, while I don't know exactly where this moment is going to take me, as I sit present in its company, I know that whatever I do in the next moment will be an effort to bring peace and joy into the hearts of the people I share my moments with. It won't be perfect. I'll need reminding. I will fall, become wounded or ill. I will lose my patience; want to destroy myself again. I will watch fear and anger pop up in my egoic mind. I will feel pain, both in my physical body, and in my "pain body", but because my eyes are open to reality (at this moment at least), I can carry that with me into the next moment and remind myself what's truly important and not have to be so serious about it, either.

The prizes that I covet will not love me. You will. 

The cars and suits will not celebrate with me. You will.

Because you are what is important, not that stuff. You are what's relevant, and because of that fact I already have relevance. Knowing that I can go forth and show the world my relevance, be at peace with the results of that, and earn the symbols of leadership and relevance so that I don't always have to rely on my darkness as a demonstration of where I've been. 

I'm not done yet, but I am so grateful that you have been here with me in this crazy, messy place. You can bet that I will be there with you in your crazy, messy places too. The Buddha said that life is suffering; another buddha said that the only people who don't have problems are dead ones. However, no teacher ever said that we have to be so serious about all that suffering all of the time, and I think not taking all this shit so seriously is how we form peace and joy and enlightenment. 

Being forced into the muck but learning to smile anyway. That's what I've learned.

And back to me again

What moose?

Yeah, it was nice while it lasted, huh? 

Maybe it's just being highly suggestible. Maybe something has actually changed. Maybe I've been working on myself enough and making enough progress, but I feel differently than I did when I started down this road. I suppose I literally am different, but noticing it feels kinda... weird. 

Today I woke up and shortly after waking I felt hungry. I made toast, buttered it, and put it together with two pieces of cheese and a fake-sausage patty. It was. Delicious. And you know what? It was so much more delicious than it would have been if I had eaten it from a place of mechanical eating (where I've been since I've been in recovery); but even more, it was so much more satisfying than any binge.

I'm coming to a place in this journey where I'm allowing myself to enjoy good food (and even bad food!), and I'm enjoying it more because I feel hungry before I eat it! If you've spent your entire life with relatively normal eating habits, you may not realize how monumental this is. Hunger and I are not very well acquainted. I have spent so much time denying my body's needs and desires for sustenance, that the signals stopped being registered by my brain, (except in cases where my blood sugar is dangerously low, then I just start crying and screaming at people). Mechanical eating (having food at specific times each day like... now) has given my body the idea that I can be trusted to care for it properly and so hunger signals are being registered.

But what's most important is that food has never been so enjoyable as when I am responding properly to my body's needs. It's a serious paradigm shift for me, because I actually am starting to feel kinda happy about eating. It's still kind of nerve wracking to eat with other people - present company excepted - but being allowed to enjoy my food is nothing short of life-changing. I don't know what else to say.

Enough about me (for like a minute); what about you?

So, a lot of what I've been blogging about here is work on a project called Poverty of Pretty, the basic concept of which is that our culture's obsession with physical attractiveness is causing soul poverty in the best case, bullying and death in the worst cases. What I hope to accomplish with this project is a fundamental paradigm shift* in the beauty industry - that is, my industry, the industry in which I labor. What I would like to see throughout the beauty industry is what exists in Mary Kay and other direct selling companies that focus on beauty products.

In my world, the products are a vehicle that enables people of true beauty, soul beauty, to influence the lives of others and help them see and develop their own soulful beauty. Whether that's through use of good products; help from someone who actually knows and likes you; or through a business opportunity that opens doors and allows you to show other people how to get into their soul beauty. Meanwhile, the rest of the beauty industry (in cahoots with the dieting industry**!) feeds on the insecurities of people telling them that if they don't wear/use/weigh this or that, no one will love them. The corporate aspect is just one part of it, and I hope not to go on too much about it in this particular project, so pardon my rambling.

What I want to know is what beauty means to you. I have developed a survey that asks questions about your identity, relationship to beauty, and relationship to physical attractiveness. I'm not a professional researcher, but I do intend to keep these answers confidential and protect your privacy. This survey was developed out of curiosity and as research for my project. 

If you are interested in helping me with my research, please send a quick email to povertyofpretty at gmail dot com and I'll send you the survey. I would like participants of all genders, so if you're interested don't rule yourself out just cuz your identity doesn't necessarily fall in what you think my audience is ~_^.

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*AIM HIGH!

**Thanks Self Magazine!

Happy 2013! (Recovery, week... uh... Ten!)

Funny thing happened this week: the New York Times, a paper that people actually read published an article about a study of several studies about people being fat. Now, the interesting thing about this study of studies¹ is that it concluded that a fat person does not, despite popular belief, suddenly drop dead of a heartabetes as soon as they cross the invisible² threshold of "clinically obese"³.

I just about fell out of my chair when I read this article, (in bed on my phone), because there is a doctor in that article admitting that the link between weight and mortality is unfounded at best, and completely backwards and stupid otherwise. Can you believe the gall that doctor must have? Telling fat people that it's okay to be fat? That it's probably not even doing them any harm? Or that, *gasp* fat people might actually have a decreased morality rate than "normal weight" people, especially as they get older?

As it turns out, your weight doesn't really have that much of an effect on your health (unless you develop an eating disorder because every fucking person on the planet "just wants you to be healthy" by which they mean "skinny"), and that there are other factors like genetics, and actual fucking science that predict whether a person (regardless of weight) develops high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, foot-in-mouth disease, rickets, chicken pox, rabies, or any other disease that has previously been tied to the fear of fat. 

I've read several articles since the NYT one linked above, and most of them (including the original) make sure to point out, in no uncertain terms that this study is not an excuse to gain weight, because if you do that you won't fit into the cultural ideal of pretty, and you don't want to be ugly, do you? Yeah, fatass, get back on that treadmill, we all know why you're doing it an it ain't for your health.

I think one of my resolutions this year was to be more sarcastic. Anyway, I thought this study and its related articles were very interesting, and I kind of built up a little ire about the reporting and had to say something about it. (I also thought it was an interesting juxtaposition of all the articles, and groups, and exercise programs, etc that my friends were posting on Facebook because they want to be skinny - which is totally their prerogative, I'm not going to shame them for it because I love them at any size.)

Most of the rest of what I have to report for myself this week is... I don't really know. I'm stressed out, but I think I'm getting better at dealing with it in a normal-person way, rather than a person who deals with shit by not eating (or eating until I'm sick). I've had a little body shame, a little food-consuming shame, a few thoughts about how disgustingly fat I am... but mostly not. I'm not feeling as overwhelmed by thoughts of food as I was before, and I even managed to cook up some red beans and rice⁴. I even think I may have my mojo back... but I'm not 100% sure, since I haven't done anything with it yet, I'm just less terrified of what might happen if I did do something with it.

So, really, starting to get back to normal and getting the ball rolling on my Poverty of Pretty survey (more on that later). I'm sure I'm not cured yet, though, so stay tuned for more drama...

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1 what? in November every other word spoken on the teevee was "poll of polls", I can say "study of studies"

2 read: imaginary

3 read in giant, scary voice

4 It was good, although with the beans I used and how long I cooked it, it turned out more like brown beans and rice, but no one who ate it cared what color it was, cuz I don't associate with bean racists.

Reorganizing my priorities

So much of the last several years has been spent focused on money, bills, things... things that aren't important; things that won't mourn me, remember me, or matter; things that don't care about me because they aren't capable of caring. I got so focused on "work", on earning and advancing that I completely missed the point not just of my chosen career but of life.

Everyone does this to a point, I think, and I'm not beating myself up over it because I've begun to change it (or at least I see it as much in myself as I see it in others whom I would criticize for such behavior - PROGRESS!); I'm simply making an observation as a starting point. 

While journeying back to health, I have begun to search myself for the true meaning of beauty¹ so that I might be able to properly call myself a "beauty educator" and someone who knows what she's talking about. In doing so, I have begun to actually "get" it. I don't know when I'll be able to get it enough to practice it full time and teach it to others, and attract people who want to teach this lesson themselves, but one step at a time, you know? 

Step one, then, was reorganizing my priorities. Or, at least actually prioritizing the things that I claim are my priorities², rather than being so focused on things that don't really matter that I paralyze myself with stress. So, what are my claimed priorities?

1. Faith
2. Family
3. Career

That means that spending time with what I consider to be g-d each day, in prayer, meditation, and gratitude; not just saying a few things in the morning and not really feeling it. It also means practicing presence³, spending more time in my feet than my head. In spending time with g-d, I'll also be taking better care of myself, making sure to eat 2-3 meals a day with at least one snack in there somewhere, and also promising to move my body in a way that I find enjoyable⁴.

My second priority being family, means that in my weekly goals I have a promise to spend some time with a family member every week. It means calling my mother more⁵. I have further goals to have dates, and reaching out to a friend OFF Facebook⁶.

Finally, I have career and work goals to accomplish too, but I must perform those duties from a place of fulfilling my obligations to my g-d, myself, and my family and knowing that those obligations will not be fulfilled by my career but by my love, devotion, maturity, and presence. The ironic thing being, I think I'll be a lot more successful coming at it from this perspective, rather than through force. I'll be able to connect better, and I'll (hopefully) stop using moments, and therefore people, as means to ends. Having my moments, and my interactions with other people be ends in themselves, I will connect and be genuine for reals this time.

There is still darkness I have to face and move through, but I have the power to do that now so I'm not as afraid of it as I was before.

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1. This will be discussed in a later blog, sorry, it's kind of not relevant right now

2. After a long, painful, exhausting conversation with the Emperor, I realized that this was an issue that I have a lot of trouble with too.

3. Okay, I'll give you a sneak-peek of the beauty discussion: presence is absolutely necessary for beauty to even begin to be possible

4. With the focus being feeling good and keeping my body from breaking down and being useless.

5. Yes, I know.

6. What a freakin concept!

"Derp." - 2012

I believe Craig Ferguson said it best when he screamed repeatedly and without context:

"What the FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCK?!! WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUCK?!"

Because seriously 2012, what the fuck?

follow Craig Ferguson on twitter @craigyferg and watch
his stupid show, cuz it's hilarious

The year began with so much promise. I was doing well, my business was getting better and soaring to new heights; the Emperor even took me to Hawaii for two weeks! And then pretty much right around my birthday, everything started going to shit, culminating with me unwillingly upholding the family tradition at screaming at someone else on their birthday. 

Normally, I'm ringing in the new year with my family, lighting fireballs, inventing new and crazy ways to distribute spell effects, and trying not to kill other members of our party (or be killed so dead that I can't be resurrected; that happened once). This year, actually, during the whole of 2012, our D&D characters decided it was just not a good year for anything, and both of our semi-annual D&D games got canceled. And so this year, I don't know what I'll be doing just yet, except putting on a sexy dress and party hopping. But this D&D game has been an ongoing tradition for some 20 years. Yes, we missed a couple in the early years, but shit man, the game must go on!

Another time I guess.

This just pretty much sums up how 2012 was a year of unlived promises, and bitter disappointments. I can look on the bright side and say, hey, new friends, but I can also be realistic and tell 2012 to go suck and egg. And if 2013 isn't much better, the Universe and I are going to have to have words, cuz this is just bullshit.

Week 8: backsliding and feeling mad

At least one day this week I skipped more than one meal. 

The chapter I'm on in my workbook talks about discovering the emotional roots of my particular eating disorder. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with my brain, as far as neuro-chemicals go; that is to say, I am reasonably certain that my disorder is entirely behavioral, though I may be genetically predisposed to obsessive behaviors. My workbook asks to consider what was going on in my life when my symptoms first appeared (around age 12), and the thing that stands out most in my mind is the desire to hide.

I spent a lot of time alone in my room with the door closed. When my symptoms popped up throughout the last 15 years, I will inevitably retreat into my room and spend all of my time alone. I also associate thinness with being better able to "fit in"*, and my genetic predisposition toward obsessiveness kicks in and says that I am an all or nothing kind of gal, but because my mother battled anorexia I had to be better than her** and said that I'd give binge/purge a try instead of straight up refusal to eat. I thought it would make me thin. I thought it could make me disappear.

That's just some backstory. It doesn't bother me so much now. I'm pretty sure I no longer want to disappear. When I wanted that, I paradoxically wanted recognition: I wanted to be loved, valued, seen in high esteem -- all things which are the complete opposite of wanting to disappear. And they're still things that I seek, but I think I can go after them in more effective and healthier ways.

I have beef with a few people who have, (intentionally or otherwise), made me feel unimportant or broken. This is probably reasonable, but I wish I could get it out of my head. I wish that I could overcome the lingering feelings of un-importance, (occasionally dis-importance***). I wish I could overcome the dis-importance I give myself, and if I focused on that the sting even of being intentionally hurt that way by others would disappear. 

What I'm learning is that I can unlearn disordered eating, (it being behavioral, rather than symptomatic of something requiring medication), and relearn how to prioritize my own needs without giving myself a complex about selfishness or whatever bullshit I've told myself in the past. But, I'm pretty sure I need therapy to really accomplish that*', because I don't know how to make heads or tails of any of this information. 

Right now I'm okay. I'm not mad (American) for not being able to keep with my plan this week. I feel mad (British) because I have all these thoughts still jumping around in my head about my relative value, about feeling beautiful, about dealing with the words of others*'', about wanting to pirate around with sexy people; about wanting to punch someone very specifically in the balls*'''. I feel mad because it feels like David Bowie hijacked my brain.

But... I think most of the time, I'm not as angry, or sad, or lonely, or mad (British). My heart is on healing and heading forward, not staying trapped in the past, neither remote nor recent.

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*An unfortunate pun...

**Distortion: competitiveness; having a different eating disorder doesn't make me better than my mother; having a different eating disorder from her meant that it was harder for people in my family to recognize

***"dis-importance" being intentional

*'Not that I've even called the therapists my doctor recommended

*''Encouraging and discouraging

*'''I can play sadist too

Versions of Violence

The biblical figure with whom I share a name (although for whom I am not named), is seen as perpetually grieving for her people. Rachel, the wife whom Jacob loved*, had one child then disappeared from the Torah. In The Red Tent, a mishnah of sorts by Anita Diamant, Rachel dies in childbirth and was buried where she died, then forgotten. She is the archetype for the woman who never stands up for herself because she doesn't want to trouble anyone, and doesn't feel she is important enough to have her grievances heard**. 

On a related note, my rabbi's mother recently said "the best crown you can wear is the crown of a good name". I don't know if she was quoting someone, but it does give one something to think about. Especially when one shares a name with a figure who is the archetype for issues one has faced throughout life. 

I have always sought to avoid saying mean things. I have always wanted peace, and my instinct is to say nothing if I have nothing nice to say. There were a few years when I vehemently spoke my mind, but I realized after a while that it didn't exactly serve me to do so, and stopped. In the years since, I have matured and learned how to address certain things in a diplomatic way, but even still, I have a very hard time having my own personal grievances aired and by doing so I allow violence to be perpetuated against me while doing some to myself. 

This post began as a desire to say something honest, yet horrible, to someone I no longer speak with. I decided against it, because it would have amounted to airing dirty laundry, could have created drama (to which I am strongly averse), or been misinterpreted by people to whom I do currently speak. The fact of the matter is, had I proceeded immediately as intended it would have simply been gossip and not have changed a thing. The object of my anger would have remained completely unaffected, and all I would have done is hurt myself further. I've done plenty of that on behalf of said person, and I'm disinclined to continue to do so.

But then I started thinking about how I never said anything to him when we did have contact. The last time we spoke was me starting to say my piece, but he abruptly ended the conversation before I was finished. I wanted to ignore these leftover feelings and not write anything at all, because I'm so drama averse, but also because some part of me wants to think that no one knows that I have negative emotions. I identify so strongly with my positive, upbeat, outgoing persona that I don't want anyone to know that there is damage beneath my skin. But, the undamaged, unthwarted persona is just a projection and isn't real.

Some of the intimacy I've been earning recently has to do with not holding up that projection, and letting people know that I'm just as damaged as everyone else. Even so, I continue to struggle with standing up for myself. I don't want to be too aggressive and defensive, but I don't want to get caught withholding myself from people I would really like to be close with. It's impossible to develop intimacy if you're defending or withholding. 

I know that the versions of violence that I learned and assimilated from a very early age lead directly to the versions of violence set against me as my life has progressed; violence that I further perpetuated by ignoring hurt caused by it for so long that it became impossible for me to express myself. Part of what I'm doing in this adventure (apart from constantly making constitution checks***), is trying to undo this tendency toward violence against my own soul.

Much of the issues that I deal with that trigger me like not being heard, feeling helpless or insignificant, stem from treating myself this way. I don't listen or hear myself much of the time; in fact the symptoms of my eating disorder involve actively denying myself. I treat myself as insignificant and helpless. And then, to compound the effect, I tell myself I'm a drama queen by saying it out loud. I say things like:

"He's not going to want to be around someone who's always complaining about stuff. You need to be more upbeat if you want [so and so] to want to be around you."
"Quit complaining, your problems aren't that bad."
"Yeah, cuz that's the least of your problems."

At which point it devolves into me calling me names, and one part of me ceasing to identify with the whole and creating an entirely new ego problem that, when perpetuated in just the right environment sends me back to restricting, obsessing, and the binge/purge cycle. I even worry a bit for having this so public because what are people going to think of me knowing that I, too, have problems. This is a private matter and should be resolved in private - right, cuz that worked so well the first time around. 

So, on the one hand, I have this darkness struggling toward the light, fighting to get out of my soul, and on the other hand I have this ego that doesn't want to acknowledge the existence of the darkness in me. But what's the worst that can happen? That I expose myself as human, develop actual intimacy between my actual self and the selves of persons whom I care about? That I move forward with my life and stop trying to deny true things in order to please "people"? That I never, ever have to have another experience wherein I deny my right to express my thoughts until it's too late and I have to completely cut someone I care about from my life?

How is all that bad again?

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*You know, because you can't love more than one person at a time... /sarc

**It is important to note, however, that others will suffer in silence because you refused to speak out.

***First, if you don't know what that is, I can't help you; second, it's a lot harder to deal with low blood sugar when you're out of the habit of starving yourself for extended periods of time. 

Week 7: I hate pants

Nothing makes me feel more fat than jeans. Either the waist band is up SO HIGH that I can't breath when I sit down, or they're constantly falling off because if I wore them tight enough that they have something to hold onto, I would have fat spilling out all over the place. Jeans just don't fit my body right and so, I don't wear them. At least not very often. I do have one pair that I can wear that makes me my butt look good, but most of the time it's not worth the rest of it.

I'm ranting a little. I guess I'm in a ranty mood.

This week was okay, as far as normalized eating goes. I'm still working toward the eating at regular intervals thing, but most days I've been eating 3 meals and a couple of snacks throughout the day, and most of the time I am not trying to talk myself out of eating. The weight that I gained after starting this experiment has gone away, even though telling you that means that I have to say that yes, even though it's recommended I stop in my workbook, I am continuing to weigh myself several times a week. And while I still always make the disappointed noise every time, I don't think it's affecting my self-worth that much. 

Things are actually picking up in a very good direction. My social life is progressing toward being rather productive and full of wonderful people, old* and new**; my dad is ...well, I don't quite know what to say about my dad, except that he's stable and totally not dying; and I was chosen to receive a gift from a jeweler I follow on FB who did a "tell us why you deserve to be chosen to receive a gift from us" thing, and I told them the abbreviated version of what's been going on in the last several months. 

I feel better and more aligned with my own power and all that, but it's still a daily (even moment to moment) struggle to keep that going. I feel like I can identify less with my disordered eating, and more with meeting the needs of my body, but there's still a part of me that really wants to cling to that source of identity. This is normal and human, but I don't have to cling, and I don't have to react to my desire to cling; if you know what I'm saying.

Anyway, gonna cut it short. I have a wicked headache right now and should probably get some sleep***.

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*Okay, not that old... I'm not robbing the grave or anything

**Hi Z!

***By which I mean watch Craig Ferguson

When it stops hurting there is peace

When a person embarks on a journey like the one I am taking, it is at first very painful and frightening to realize that one is surrounded by people who actually give a fuck (some flying, others more comfortable with ground-travel), because the thing that got you pulled into this self-destroying, -denying, and -displacing spiral was having to do it all on your own without any real support from anyone sane. At first, the support of others feels like grinding your heel in broken glass, but that's not because of the support, it's because your whole outlook is completely completely fucked up. A person who isn't in that place doesn't adopt behaviors to destroy their bodies; a person who isn't in that place doesn't see those behaviors become obsessions.

I think that feeling, the grinding your heel in broken glass feeling, is why a lot of people go to desperate lengths to hide obsessive behaviors; not just eating disorders, but addiction, abuse, and depression*. When you see everyone as an enemy and then all of a sudden all of these people are saying "can I give you a hug?" and telling you you're so strong, and they're so proud of you for trying to be less self-destructive... it's terrifying, and it feels like everyone either has an angle or that they're mocking you. That's apart from the tapes that start playing when you start reaching out for help, those are even worse.

somewhere somehow someone must have kicked you around some... you see you don't have to live like a refugee  

"Refugee" by Melissa Etheridge

I recently added this song to a playlist, and when it was playing a minute ago, I realized that she wasn't just talking about outwardly living like a refugee in a society that sees you as less than: you don't, I don't have to live like a refugee in my body. I think I've been doing that very thing for so long, but now I know I don't have to and it's pretty freeing, and that's when it stops hurting. 

Not hurting as much doesn't make me feel any less crazy, but at least I know that the crazy doesn't have to hurt as much. Not hurting also allows me to feel the love from the people who are around me, and have mobilized to be by my side during this tumultuous episode of my life. Another thing that makes it stop hurting is being held by someone with whom a specific level and kind of trust has been established. 

Actually, that whole thought just sent my thought train off the rails**. But once the pain stops, you really get a sense of how cared-for you are, and it strengthens the healing process. There's peace there, and I think the one thing that I've been fighting for my whole life (not unlike most people) is that sense of peace that comes when it stops hurting. And I think I can report back that throwing yourself into that pain in order to find peace doesn't really work; neither does disassociating from your being and becoming a refugee in your own body. 

The feeling, the peace, isn't dependent on another person either. It's presence. It's beauty. It's being fully awake and fully your Self both in form and spirit***. And at some point, the peace will be permanent.

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*Depression is not an obsessive behavioral condition, as far as I know.

**And into thoughts of how marvelous the universe is to have the foresight to send the right people into your life at the right time, whether anyone knows it or not.

***There's been a lot of Eckhart Tolle going on recently.

Edit: "Refugee" quoted above was written by Tom Petty, according to my mother. I was listening to the Melissa Etheridge version and don't know anything about the emotional content of the original version.

This post is mostly not about sex

Since the relapse of my eating disorder, and during my attempt to actually recover this time, I have been in a weird place where the idea of having sex really grosses me out. I'm sure it's temporary, but as I'm learning to reform my associations and emotions on such basic things as eating food, I'm also discovering that I need to reform my thoughts and tendencies as it relates to dating and sex as well. 

This revelation came about after a chastisement over handling an intimate relationship rather callously, even though I had never meant any harm and didn't even realize that I, or the relationship, was as important to the other person as to warrant said chastisement. I realized, after a conversation with this person, that I take a really fucked up approach to sex, and that this is because of how I feel about my body and the deserve level associated with it. And that that dysfunction is to blame for my recent celibacy. 

I'm fat. I know that, I can't do anything about it, and intellectually I know that beautiful and sexy are not antonyms to fat, and that the people attracted to me are attracted to all of me including my fat. This idea blows my freaking mind right now, because how is that fucking possible?! Of course, there are also people who feel the same way Mable* does about my physical attractiveness: that I am pretty, despite the fat. 

In the past, I've approached sex and relationships from this viewpoint. I've always thought that the people I would get involved with did so despite my fat, that it was my eyes or personality or whatever, and these relationships would never work out for one reason or another (I guessed fat), and it would devastate me. In the recent past I had a partner who, for some reason, always felt it necessary to clarify that he didn't want to be my "boyfriend" right when we were getting intimate. The last time it happened, it really bothered me, (actually it still bothers me right now), but I didn't say anything, because that's the level of respect and love I felt I was due from that thin, attractive person.

My modus operandi in the past has been to be really casual about sexual relationships, until they get serious and then just go off the fucking deep end. Once is fine, twice is fun, but more than that I never have the tools to handle because I don't think I'm worth the investment of a regular affair. And, apart from The Emperor, I've never had a long term relationship, let alone a serious one. Most of my experience in dating has fallen along the lines of the example mentioned in the previous paragraph, and I don't know how to deal with people who are attracted to all of me, including my fat, including my neuroses, rather than in spite of them because I can only accept myself in spite of them.

"But Rachel, you said you were gonna talk about sex." Yeah, I know I said that, but my thoughts on the subject aren't quite as formed as I'd like them to be. The point is, for so long I have been laboring under the idea that in order to be worthy of any kind of actual love and affection, I needed to be thin; that my relationship with The Emperor is a fluke, and that I can't have other relationships that are equally fulfilling because there's something wrong with me.

Turns out I've been wrong this whole time. I don't think realizing that is going to make my emotionally-imposed celibacy abate any faster, but if I'm smart, I'll work this realization into the rest of them and begin forming better relationships that don't leave my partners feeling like the missed something or that I don't care about them.

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*I named my eating disorder, remember?

Recovery Week 6

This week wasn't really that interesting. The only day when I missed meals was today, but that was okay because when I went in to get my throat swabbed for strep, it activated my gag reflex. Fortunately, there was nothing for me to vomit onto my doctor*, so I didn't. 

Most of the week I listened to audio books rather than the radio, but today I listened to Randi Rhodes, and I had an urge to purge when she was talking to a listener who was, I guess, her inspiration while losing weight. I don't know if you know much about my favorite radio host, but she's not that big. She would disagree, naturally, but she really isn't. The pervasive idea that thin is the ideal, that one's value is even remotely related to the number on the scale; that prettiness, as defined by a culture who wants everyone to be so skinny you can see ribs, is the only important thing... is very upsetting.

Then there was an interesting juxtaposition of commercials: diet pills and weight loss programs, followed by "you can end hunger"... lose weight! Feed the children! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!! It's no wonder there are people like me in this society, who are obsessed with food, our culture is obsessed with food. It's insanity. 

Another thought of note, is the idea of taking care of the inner body. This is an idea broached by Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now, and prompted the thought in me "I spend so much time in my head, that I hardly ever spend time in my feet". Awareness of and oneness with the inner body brings us into the now, and this is why exercise is important. Yoga came about as a moving meditation, a means of spending time in one's feet, so to speak. I haven't been exercising much since beginning my recovery because in our culture, exercise is about losing weight. Very few people (that I know anyway), exercise for the fun of it.

I do enjoy swimming. And yoga, of course, and I think in the next few weeks I'll be moving more so that I can be in my body more. I think this will help immeasurably in my recovery. For now... I've got some healing to do since I've apparently come down with something.

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*Not that Doctor.

What are we on, week 5? Review

I guess I know why I've been doing these on Friday or Saturday, cuz it's really hard for me to think about  and remember what happened last week...

I did backslide a little bit on Wednesday and Friday, but I'm realizing more and more that my symptoms pop up when I encounter stressful family situations, and not necessarily when I was feeling fat or whatever... although, I dunno, I feel like I'm starting to come to terms with it, I just haven't quit thinking the thought about needing to lose weight... and that my eating disorder symptoms are what will make that possible, even though continuing to have this thought demonstrates that I am C-R-A-Z-Y. 

Another thought that came into my head this week was the idea that eating = fuel for the things I want to do with my life. Okay, typing it out like that makes it seem like the most obvious thing ever, but as established in the previous paragraph: C-R-A-Z-Y. It was a big revelation to me. I was working on Monday and lunch time rolled around, and as usual I fought myself (just cuz I have the appointment with myself doesn't mean I keep it or am always on time), but then I said "wait, I need to eat so I can have fuel to keep working today!" So, I did. I can't say necessarily that the thought will stick, but it's a step in the right direction. 

I will say that I ate a morning, afternoon, and evening meal almost every day this week, which is definitely progress. Even though I was super stressed out this week (for family reasons as well as at least one stupid reason), I managed to keep the tapes down, and try to have a good time. It's getting to the point where the frequency with which I argue with myself about whether it's okay to not eat is going down. Rather, rationalization is still happening, but it's not winning as often as before. 

The other big thought I had this week was that if I treated my dog the way I treat myself, I would be arrested and charged with animal cruelty. Because of the way I have treated my body, certain things have happened in it, because my body doesn't trust me anymore. I need to rebuild the trust between my self and my body so that they can work together and not have to fight each other all of the time. So, just like I developed the habit of wearing makeup daily, even though it's sort of inconvenient and I have to plan extra time in my day in order to accomplish the whole makeup thing; I will develop the habit of eating regularly and training my body to be able to expect food at certain times of day. To a certain extent it has started happening, and I've been getting hungry sounds! (I don't know if you know this or not, but this is a total win.)

Finally, there was a section in my devotional this week on how it's kind of against Jewish law not to enjoy yourself. 

The Talmud teaches "In the future world, a [person] will have to give an accounting for everything good things [hir] eyes saw, but of which [ze] did not eat" (Palestinian Talmud, Kiddushin 4:12). 

Emphasis, and gender-neutral-pronouning mine. So, apparently, g-d doesn't like it when you torture yourself for the visual enjoyment of someone else. Instead, one should say "hey that looks yummy" and have some, unless it's already been forbidden by g-d through kosher/halal law, or allergies.

Anyway, more on this idea later in the week. Right now, I need to go have dinner!

The breaking point

I realized today that I have already reached, and passed, my breaking point. 

I hit a breaking point when I realized that my eating disorder was becoming a problem again. 

I hit a breaking point when I heard that my dad had cancer. 

I hit a breaking point when I realized that I had so much more work to do on myself before I could grow into an effective leader. 

I hit a breaking point when I realized that my self had already been fractured at least 3 times in the last several months. But the thing about it is, that breaking wasn't a bad thing. When I realized that my eating disorder was again becoming a problem, the center of my world, I went to a bookstore and got a few (now 5) books on how to deal with and overcome it.

When I found out that my dad had cancer, I decided that I was going to be there for him every step of the way; that that is what's best for me, for him, and for my sibs, and other family members. 

When I realized that I had so much more work to do before being able to grow into the leader that I want to be, I decided that I must stick with my growth and leadership plans above so that I can get to where I need to be to get to where I want to be. 

I guess it's not about how much a person can handle before they break, but how the react to hitting the breaking point. Some people look to self-destruct, I decided that I was done self-destructing and it was time to do something different. That's why I've been sharing all of this with you. At some point, I hope it makes an impression that allows you to have the same revelations and make the right choices when you hit your breaking point.

So, I don't really know what broke, exactly. Maybe it was ego. Maybe it was attachment to the way things were before. I do know that it was a good thing that whatever broke broke, cuz now I can fix what's actually wrong.

Post-it Note Therapy

A friend of mine keeps a pack of Post-It notes in her purse so that she can leave positive little notes for people at random intervals. (This goes very well with the friend of mine from college who would collect notes she found on the street...) Anyway, my friend does this to remind people of things they probably already know, but forget throughout the day. It's the same idea of all those positive little messages on Facebook...

Yeah, those.

But in real life. 

Anyway, the other night I was expressing my frustration with how much people whine at me (the general population has been warned, and a few people have been all-but cut off), and I suggested that The Emperor (who is chief offender only because we live together) make list of things that he's grateful for when he's in a really good mood, then place that list somewhere he will see it when he's in a bad mood. That way, he can be reminded of all the good things going on in his life, and the things that go wrong, as the inevitably do, he won't lose his shit quite so badly.

Of course, I'm an evolved person, so when I make a suggestion for someone else, it isn't long until I say "hey that's a really good idea, I bet it would work for me too!" and think of ways I can implement it in my own life. Then I thought of my friend and her Post-It notes. I do have a few signs posted in the house affirming me, or reminding me of things, but I don't have a list of gratitudes. This would have been a great project for over Thanksgiving weekend, but I didn't lose my mind and start crying until Sunday night, so oh well; but one of these days maybe we'll sit right down and make a few lists to place in our grumpy places. 

I, then, would need to put some in the kitchen reminding me why it's a good idea to eat at regular intervals. I have a number of reasons, and the list grows by the day as I keep up with this recovery thing, but it would be good to have it handy so I can remind myself when my blood sugar starts crashing and I go into that place where the idea of eating makes me want to throw a puppy off a cliff*. My recovery book recommends affirmations, and suggested the phrase "food is my medicine", with the idea that if a doctor prescribed you an antibiotic 3x per day, you'd take it because you wanted to get better and not have whatever infection requires 3 antibiotics a freaking day (like TB or something). It's the same idea... of course, when my doctor did tell me to eat more and regularly, I lost my mind, but that was a couple of years ago, and now I seem to be on a quest to find it again.

I dunno, maybe this post is a little more boring than the ones where I flail, but at least you know I'm not all drama**. 

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*And now you know why I'm not allowed near cliffs.

**I swear to dog I'm not all drama. Just lately. Also why I'm not allowed near cliffs.

Week 4 of recovery: Thanksgiving and other tragedies

After last week's cry for help, I got a really good response, and I'm really thankful to have so many wonderful people in my life. I may have said this already, but it means a lot for so many people to be reaching out in support.

To that end, this week was a lot better than expected, and about 30 times better than last week. I almost didn't fast/restrict at all, I even ate breakfast several days this past week, (it was pie...), and mostly stuck to my lunch dates with myself, with the exception of Wednesday. 

Wednesday was different because I was up at 6:30 (eating pie at sunrise is kinda nice...) because I was going to a thing I'm going to choose to be cryptic about for the moment. I ate lunch at 11:30, then, and the circumstances of the day ended up with me having dinner after 7. However, we went to my favorite restaurant, and I had some A-M-A-Z-I-N-G food. It was so good, so made by someone's Mexican grandma, and I had just enough liquor in me that my attention to my meal completely blocked out the usual tapes, and I was totally satisfied with my normal-person-with-normal-eating-habits portion. I felt zero need to continue to eat until my stomach hurt, I didn't feel like I had lost control and compulsively cleared my plate (I even left some food on my plate); I didn't feel hungry or unsatisfied in any way, and I felt no guilt. 

I realize that this is all probably kind of confusing for the people reading this who don't have eating disorders. "You're supposed to feel like that when you eat food made by someone's Mexican grandma," you're saying. I know, I hear you, and I get it, I just have pretty much never felt that way (or at least the times that I have felt that way are few and far between). Usually when I have any kind of gourmet meal, I feel somehow unsatisfied because I've not given myself permission to enjoy myself enough, or I feel guilty because I somehow enjoyed myself too much. I'll go "oh wow, this is so good" over lots of things, but rarely will I have a completely peaceful and satisfying eating experience with myself (this is often why I don't usually eat around people I don't know, and really dislike eating alone in public). 

Whisk! Whisk! Whisk! Whisk! Whisk the 
turkey gravyyyyy! 
I rolled a 17 on my Make Gravy check, but
but only a 12 on my Make Turkey check.

Anyway, that bit of peace, (which was helped along by overwhelm and exhaustion in other areas of my life - cryptic again, sorry), rolled over into Thanksgiving so while I did restrict/fast early in the day, I gave myself permission to enjoy as much Thanksgiving food as I wanted. I even made gravy (without makeup on! - I even kinda like this picture). And, for the first time, I was able to help my mother-in-sin with some of the cooking - I don't often get an opportunity to spend quality woman-stuff time with my MIS, and it was nice to kind of kvetch with her about stuff.

I feel like I'm starting to be able to mimic how a normal, non-dieting person eats. I'm trying not to weigh myself or care about it, and while I'm kind of consumed by other thoughts, I'm still a little obsessed over food and weight and all that non-sense. It's a process, and I'm getting better.

Some of the reading I've been doing still makes me feel pretty broken, but I guess it's better than not reading it at all. It's so weird to be reading clinical stories of other people with eating disorders and think "wow, go her". No, that's not weird. It's horrible. She was really sick, I want to tell myself, not heroic. This is some serious shit. The women whose cases have been more severe than mine lost their minds to this, they didn't have better control of themselves or whatever. If anything, my body just really wanted me to continue surviving, so when I tried to force weight off by starving myself, purging, or over-exercising, it refused because my body knew better than my compulsions did. Good for me and my body. Maybe it didn't help the compulsions go away, (or maybe a lack of success did help my symptoms disappear for several years), and it definitely didn't make me less depressed, but at least I never got as sick as some of the people I've been reading about. 

One more note, while I'm thinking about this book:

Daughters who cling to the belief that they are "tragic victims" who can only control their living through food deny themselves the joys and pains of growth and the opportunity to develop competence, self-reliance, and independence. In blaming their mothers, they absolve themselves from personal responsibility and remain locked in the past, paralyzed in the present, and fearful of the future. They do not see their mothers as victims too and fail to understand and appreciate the pain and conflict that molded them.

Emphasis mine.

How You Can Help: Do you know what you say?

I want to first thank all of the people who reached out to me on Saturday to comfort and support me, and just generally be awesome. I really do appreciate the support I've received as I'm writing my way through this journey. It's a weird place to be, and there's no update for Google Maps that's going to give me a map for this thing.

A lot of people have asked me what they can do to help, or to let them know if I need anything. And earlier tonight, I decided to share with a number of my professional associates who are also my friends (emphasis because I'm not just randomly sharing this with people), which was kind of terrifying. Telling people in person, eyes fixed on my shaking hands, is a lot harder than writing about it into the internet where 6 (okay, 16) people will read it, and they're all people who know me well enough to want to know that this is going on... anyway.

So, since I've been sharing all of this, I thought it might be a good idea to start to try to answer this question of "how can I help?". The thing that comes to mind immediately is: don't talk about weight. My weight. Your weight. Some celebrity's weight. The weight loss of a woman we both know who has recently had a baby. This time when you lost a bunch of weight then put it all back on. Don't talk about that stuff.

It should go without saying that you should never offer a person with an eating disorder advice on weight loss (it doesn't); but just as importantly talking to me (or with me in a conversation among many people) about how you need to/will/want to/whatever lose weight is a really fucking bad idea. When we talk about ourselves, we say how we really feel about things. And you may not consciously think that I need to lose weight or am disgusting and awful because of something that may be as important to my value as my shoe size; but when you're talking about yourself that way, that's what I hear.

Now, it's not your fault. But the thing that I'm learning about people with eating disorders is that we are dangerously obsessed with comparing ourselves to other people as much as we're obsessed with food and our damaged body perceptions. And when you, who are much more successful than me, much thinner than me (in my eyes), so much more this and so much more that; talks about how you need to lose weight, I start to wonder "well what does she think of me then?"

I don't know what's going on in your head, and I'm not going to pretend to because I gave up omnipotence when I moved in with The Emperor, and I don't know if your desire to diet and lose weight is driven by the same obsession that has made me sick. I don't know if your weight loss is good for you or not*. And I don't consciously think that you think bad things about me because I'm not trying to lose weight, and am actually trying to be okay with where I am in my body and have a healthier image of it as it is. However, when you say something off-handed about weight or dieting, my brain goes into over-drive and I obsess about your one little comment, and start playing the tapes that tell me how worthless I am because my weight starts with a 2 on some days.

More importantly, if I ask you to stop, please remember why. My anxiety level is already so high right now because I'm fighting the status quo for my entire body that has been reinforced by just about everyone I know for my entire life. I don't know what goes on in your head when you talk about dieting and how you want to lose weight, but I know what goes on in my head when you do it, and it hurts me.

Finally, I want the people I love to stop talking shit about themselves. Seriously. If you wouldn't say it about me or to me, then don't fucking say it about or to yourself. I know better than a lot of people, as someone whose negative perceptions of herself has caused so much damage I can't eat like a normal person; that when you talk shit about yourself it does a lot of damage, and that damage is really hard to repair. If you're not trapped in an eating disorder cycle, you're already a step ahead of me in trying to heal that damage**, but for the sake of your innate beauty and divinity STOP TALKING SHIT ABOUT YOURSELF. If you can't stop completely, then stop when you're around me. I literally cannot handle it. It may or may not be true, but I view you as having a better handle on things than I do, so when someone I love and respect starts acting in ways that reinforce in me that appearance is important to beauty/value it tells me that it's okay to act like that. When someone tells me, however unconsciously, that it's okay to act like that, they might as well be telling me that I shouldn't bother with recovery and just go full bore into my eating disorder. You may not think you're saying that, but you are.

And, if weight isn't a number that is determinant in my value, then why does it have to be determinant in your value?

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*I do know that 95% of people who intentionally lose weight gain it all back and more. I also understand some of the science behind why that happens. And it's not because people who intentionally lose weight lack self-control or whatever bullshit the Diet Industrial Complex is pushing this week. 

**Healing the damage done by talking shit about yourself, it should go without saying (but doesn't) is not going to happen if you continue to denigrate yourself by saying how badly you need to lose weight. You can't actually change the inside by changing the outside. You won't like yourself better thinner, you'll just want to be thinner still. That's how it works. That's how these eating disorders start.