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. 

Week 3 of recovery - Strengthening doesn't look how you want it to

This week was actually worse than last week.

Between trying to normalize my eating, avoid being a complete recluse, and recent developments in the health of a family member, I feel like I might actually break at some point here pretty soon. I feel really fragile, like that really pretty candy glass that's made out of sugar water or whatever... but then I wondered what it would take for me to break; and then what that would mean.

At this point, I don't have the option of finding out. Too many people are counting on me to come through this, and it's not how I would have chosen to build my leadership, but (as I've been saying to people this week), sometimes it takes a brick. The only trouble is that I feel like I have no support. I'm building the Tower of Babel by myself after the part in the story where g-d has knocked it down... and not only are the pieces coming apart, but no one is helping me, or even calling out when a piece is about to crush me. 

And sure, there are tons of people who will leave comments or send me messages "hey, you can talk to me", "let me know if I can do anything to help", and I don't want it to sound like I don't appreciate those messages of support or affirmation, but they really don't stop the feeling that I'm completely alone not only in this battle, but at least one other. I feel like I'm the only person invested in a particular outcome, because the people who I would look to, who I want to be in my corner, on my team, cheering for me; are too busy and lack the perspective necessary to realize that I'm in real trouble here and I need them. 

So, I feel like I'm made of glass, and that the next thing that goes wrong is going to break me. The entire operation feels futile, and part of me just wants to give up and live a life of mediocrity until I die alone and sad, but at least it would be over at that point*.

Anyway, this week was bad. 

I tried to eat regular meals (I even ate in a restaurant with a new friend on Monday, and it wasn't too bad, but my tummy hurt for hours afterward) for most of the week, but I lost control on Thursday and Friday, missing my lunch date with myself. I ended up eating one meal each day on Thursday and Friday, but I did have a midnight snack on Friday that was fairly reasonable (although, a little bingey because I ate half a box of stale crackers because they were there and I felt I needed to finish them). 

Today has been better, overall, but only through will-power. And I know why the last couple of days have been bad (I'm not going to publicize it in a public forum, but if we're friends on Facebook, you'll find out sooner or later), and I will find some way of dealing with that so that it doesn't prevent me from getting better - since this particular situation is not likely to be resolved in the near future... unless it is, but then there's so much more to deal with after that... sorry, cryptic...

I keep going back to a passage I read a few weeks ago that talked about architects and arches in buildings. It said that when the architect wants an arch to bear more weight (and be stronger), the architect just designs the arch to carry more weight. Bearing more weight makes the individual parts of the whole smush** together more, and when they're wedged together they bear more than they would otherwise. So while, there's a part of me that feels like the entirety of the last 3 weeks, 2 months, or 15 years have been gigantic (and cosmically hilarious) acts of futility, another part of me feels like there's some design going on here. I'm under pressure so that I can handle more pressure.

Or something. 

I don't know. Either that or the next thing that falls is going to take off my head.

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*I just want to emphasize that I am not suicidal. Nihilistic, yes. Depressed, for fucking sure. But I'm doing everything I can to avoid self-destructing. I want life to be better, not over.

**Technical term

What I'm afraid of...

Most of the time when we pick up a coping mechanism it's to deal with fear... or at least that's how it seems. We push people away because we're afraid of getting hurt by them (and by "we", I guess I mean "I"); even children cover their eyes to avoid being seen (I read some research or saw a TED talk about this recently and I thought it was interesting). And so, there's an idea in my head that a lot of this eating disorder stuff has to do with fear. 

I'm not afraid of spiders or snakes; darkness or ghosts or going to Hell*. I'm pretty much not afraid of anything that could actually hurt me**. I am afraid of gaining weight, though. I am afraid of all of the research linking "obesity" with "increased mortality" and "metabolic diseases". I'm afraid that I'll get or already have some kind of cancerous legions in my insides because my Celiac went untreated for so long. I'm afraid of ending up in the hospital, not being able to pay my bills and losing everyone and everything that I love because of an illness I couldn't control. 

I'm afraid that all the horrible things said about me in my youth are true. Things like how I'm lazy, how I'll never amount to anything, and no one will ever love me. I'm afraid of backbiting, and being called out for being fat. I'm afraid that the people I love will reject me for my shape and size, even though it's not like my habits or style of dress hides my body at all***. I'm afraid that my fatness - not my health, my fatness - will prevent me from being able to do my job, advance in my career and ever make anything of myself. 

Every time I feel the digestive grumblings caused by food going through me and having its nutrients absorbed to give energy to my body, I'm afraid. My workbook calls it the "washout period", where soon after you start trying to normalize your eating, you experience a lot of intestinal distress because your body got so used to the infrequent use of these vital organs, so it produces a lot of gas and discomfort. It hurts a lot, and has made the last few days a little extra awful.

I'm afraid that I'm wrong about everything, and that the tapes are right. That the people who recorded those tapes are right. That my value really is tied to the number on the scale. That "fat acceptance" is just a thing that lazy stupid fat people parade about to make themselves feel better, and that if I try to accept myself the way I am, I'll just get fatter and stop caring about my appearance, stop being loved, stop getting laid, and not be able to have the life that I want.

I'm also afraid that my eating disorder will keep me from having the life that I want. The people I love don't want to be around someone who obsesses over food, dieting; who can't keep up because she doesn't eat enough, or who secretly eats all of the ice cream at once, then feels like the worst person in the world and throws it all up. No one I know who cares about me at all wants to see me spiral into a place where I'll intentionally eat so much gluten that I make myself sick (and actually, the amount isn't that much); they wouldn't want to be around a person who would do that to herself.

So, I'm stuck between being afraid of never being loved because of my size and shape, and being afraid of being abandoned because the thing I chose to deal with that first fear will make me so sick I'd be impossible to be around, let alone be capable of returning any emotional investment. Which leaves me with one option: recovery... but that just brings up more fears. Fear of gaining weight, of never coming out of it, of not being able to hold on and actually going crazy not just feeling crazy; fear that I'm not ready to take charge, fear that seeking help through therapy would just send me back on a spiral downward because I have almost never met a doctor who didn't tell me that I was too fat and needed to lose weight****; and I've certainly never met a therapist whose competencies included working with eating disorders. I'm afraid to do it all on my own, and I'm afraid to ask for help. 

Sometimes - no, often - I'm afraid to eat. Right now, I'm kind of afraid to go to sleep. 

But, I decided before I started talking about this that I needed to face those fears. Because the thing that is worse than me going through it, being stuck in the place between two fears that is so scary it creates a third, entirely different set of terrors; the thing worse than that is knowing that there are people who are or will be in that place and in need of my help. I have the mind to make this make sense, not just for me, but for others as well, and I'm tired of knowing that other people feel this way too and they don't have a way out because they were never "sick enough" for anyone to notice that their lives were falling apart.

So, I expand the rituals and include a date with myself everyday to eat one meal. Some days, that will be the only thing I eat in any structured sort of way; other days, I'll have that meal and two others, maybe even a snack or two and it'll be okay because I gave myself permission. And I expand the social rituals to include a few new people or events, hope that I don't get too terrified when someone touches me. And I expand the rituals around my vulnerabilities, hoping to make them meaningful expressions rather than self-flagellating appeals for attention. 

My fear of not being loved is out-matched only by the fear of not completing my mission and leaving the world a better place for my having been in it. What scares me most is not being abandoned for my condition, but being unable to change it and thus unable to challenge the status quo that created it. 

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*Boom, Jewish, already taken care of.

**However, I am fairly risk-averse.

***And usually by the time I am in love with someone, they've already seen me naked at least once.

****The doctor responsible for the "Independent Medical Evaluation" I was ordered to get after a car accident a couple of years ago even wrote in the goddamn evaluation that I was too fat and needed to exercise more and lose some weight to alleviate whiplash. Fuck that guy in a ear. Seriously. Dickbag. I'm still mad about it.

Recovery week 2

This week I felt like a crazy person. 

I rollercoastered all over the place, from feeling like I was totally fine to wanting to tear my skin off because I hated myself so much. I went from "I can handle this" and giving myself permission, to justifying not eating, and feeling like I had to either go straight to McDonald's and eat until I got sick, or never ever ever eat ever again. (Instead of either option, I took a very angry nap, then very angrily ate dinner. I didn't think you could eat angrily, but my body was very mad at me.)

I kept up my reading, and highlighted things that could be helpful; did all the exercises in both books, and even read from my devotional (for lack of a better term). I bought a pair of jeans that fit, and told myself that I could have them because I was rededicating myself to healthful, normal eating. I disregarded, then regarded, then disregarded, etc the notion of intentional weight loss. I even walked on our elliptical machine for about 20 minutes on Friday and decided that I would like to go swimming* on Monday; that I wanted to do these things because my body feels like crap and moving around will get it back to feeling better. After my moderate exercise, I even felt the emotional buzz of the neurotransmitters produced by the increased blood-flow to my brain. I told myself that exercise makes your brain work better, and that that was the goal, not being thin because, let's face it: I, Rachel Setzer, will never be thin. 

Meanwhile, a slew of men-folk have been so kind as to say (paraphrasing) "ERMAGERD YOU'RE PRETTY", which I can't deny makes me feel pretty awesome. And yeah, I know that there are guys who find me attractive, but it's nice to know that someone thinks I'm stupifyingly pretty. And (and and and), this is the first time in my life that this has happened. Kind of ironic, don'cha think?** 

My insides are starting to normalize-ish, after being sick for so long; although I still can't seem to handle flesh, dammit. And for the first time in a long time, I both wanted, and ate, a piece of fruit. I think my rational mind has decided it's okay to have some asparagus this week too. I've had salad this week (which I was avoiding because of the, let's say, discomfort, that had previously resulted from too much ruffage).

I worked this week. It wasn't a banner week, by any means, but I did work. I've kept my promise to myself to have 1-2 appointments a week, and while not all of my appointments have been profitable, getting back into the swing of things is a lot better than focusing on what I'm not doing. 

I celebrated the election returns with friends and fellow liberals, and even went to a birthday party where we made an epic blanket fort for my friend who was turning 31. I reconnected with people I hadn't seen in months, and made social plans for this coming week. And saw Skyfall with The Emperor. 

The week was okay. I had some wins, and I thought about things that weren't related to food or eating or hating myself for eating/not eating. I still haven't called either of the therapists that my doctor recommended, but I will do that eventually. I do want to get better. I do want to develop normal eating habits (and know the difference between hungry and nauseated... or nauseated and full), and I want to move on with my life. What's more, I realize it's going to take more than two weeks and a few exercises from a book about eating disorders to get to the point where I do have normal eating habits and the ability to live my life rather than spend it obsessing on food, eating, not eating, and hating myself for any of it.

Where I'm at sucks pretty hard, but I've been reaching out for loved ones and they've been reaching back, so I'm pretty sure I'll be okay.

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*Year-round pool, bitcheeeeeeeez

**Aside: but then I see all these things on Facebook "seduce my mind and you can have my body blah blah blah", and I think, no, you know what? I want to be objectified sometimes. By guys whom I also find objectifilicious. And that is the difference in the ERMAGERDs of late.

Spoke too soon...

Today was a bad day. 

I didn't really sleep last night, and I can't tell you why, other than I was too fucking cold, so I couldn't get to sleep until after 3 (I didn't think to heat up my warm-thing until around 2). Then I woke up early cuz my tummy was rumbling, but I stayed in bed and tried to get a little extra sleep instead of having breakfast (this is common).

Then, I had to get ready in a bit of a hurry because I had a lunch meeting in Bellevue. As I was leaving, the Emperor said "you look tired". I almost lost my mind. In fact, when I got into the car and started driving to my meeting, I may or may not have had a clip of Glenn Beck saying "I THINK I'M GOING TO LOSE MY MIND TODAY" playing in the back of my head. 

At my meeting, I decided that I was only going to have half my lunch and take the rest for my proper lunch date at 2pm (the one time every day where I make myself eat something), and I was not feeling like my usual bubbly self, so it was kind of difficult to talk to someone new, let alone eat near them. It was a little embarrassing.

When I got home, I pretty much gave up on the rest of the day, cuz I felt like sleep-deprived, cold-symptom-having, fat, horrible, stupid, stressed out shit. Upon trying to illicit some sympathy from the Emperor, we had a fight instead. Yaaaaay. He admitted being wrong, and I laid down in an attempt to nap or something, but instead ended up in this really bad mental place where I wanted to drive to McDonald's in my PJs, order and eat half the menu - or eat until I puked anyway. (At this point in my life, with the celiac and all, there's no way fast food doesn't make me sick.) I also wanted to go to Whole Foods and buy a bunch of comparatively safe junk food and eat until I puked. 

Instead I took a very angry nap, but continued to hate myself for thinking these things.

When I woke up I was desperately hungry. I had nachos with black olives and half an avocado. A normal-seeming amount of food, but it made me kinda blerg anyway. Later I had a small baked potato with butter and sour cream, then laid down again because through all of this, I'm still exhausted as shit. A little while later, the Emperor came in to bitch about some work thing that I don't understand, and I imagined myself running past him to throw up.

Later still I received a a gchat from someone who makes me feel broken, and continued hating myself.

Then, finally, (or I guess not, since I'm still up), the Emperor wanted to listen to the podcast from last week's Bill Maher. The arguing of right-and-left-wing hacks, the sound of people screaming over each other, trying to force-prove themselves right, made me leave the room, grab my blanket and frog and curl up on the bathroom floor, telling myself that if I really did need to purge, it was okay. It's not a moral failing if you purge, I told myself, this is going to take time. I didn't purge, instead I painted the nails whose polish I had anxiously scraped off throughout the day. I'm surprised I had the skill for it, though, because the yelling in the other room was making me shake.

At this point, I'm wound so tight, I'm starting to wish I had a propeller. I'm even refusing the affectionate cuddles of my dog (which is unusual and kind of heartbreaking, when I think about it objectively). I just want to hop in my TARDIS and run away... or become someone else...

Feeling better doesn't mean I am better

I'm engaged in a process right now that is going to require a lot of me, and I have to remind myself not to let it go because the tapes have become quieter. Since I've been keeping my food journal, reading my books and writing to you to keep you updated, I've been more mindful of my value and the volume of Mable has been turned down. 

But she's not gone yet. This whole process is meant to give Mable a retirement. I want to get to the point where I don't need her, and where I can simply take care of my fuzzy-self (Emmie) without needing supervision or tapes of this subconscious creature that doesn't really know what's best, but has always been there for me. Mable isn't bad. She's not trying to destroy me, she's trying to protect me and when I'm not in an environment or situation where I need protecting, she'll take a backseat, but she's still there keeping a watchful, witchful eye. 

The thing though, even though she means well, is that she does destroy me. If I'm not careful about what I put into my head, if I'm not careful about my habits and my needs, she'll come back again. Feeling better, (which I do right now, after a week of giving myself permission both to eat and to not eat), does not mean that I am better. Just because my symptoms go away because I'm paying very close attention to them, does not mean that I am magically fixed. That was the problem the first time I dealt with this. I decided only to treat the symptoms, but I never had the tools to treat the underlying cause and prove to myself that I don't need Mable.

My circumstances are not what they were when I developed disordered eating. I almost never feel so anxious that the only way to alleviate it is to throw up (almost never). I almost never get lectures about what, when, how, or how much to eat or not eat. I am not surrounded by vapid teenagers (or adults) parroting their parents' views on what a person's body should look like. I am also not an awkward, ugly teenager. But I have been in touch with those feelings very recently, and it still stings. 

Actually, it doesn't sting. It hurts. It aches. It aches a lot. All that love from my childhood lost, and it burns from the core of me, destroying all of my good memories because sometimes it feels like Mable is the only thing I gained from my childhood. Now, I know that my various parents did the best that they could with the tools that they had. I know this because I developed a parent/care-taker in my eating disorder, who is still trying to do her best to make sure that I am taken care of and that my need to be loved is met.

That's all this is about, really. I needed love. I was taught that you couldn't be loved unless you did things a certain way. I was denied love until and unless I did things that way, and it taught me to have a disordered relationship with food, and that the only control I could have was through Mable. If my parents knew better, they would have done better. But they didn't, and that's not necessarily their fault now. Maybe they can be blamed for not knowing better then, but in order to do that, I'd have to get into my TARDIS* and go give them lectures.

That I feel loved now may eliminate the need for Mable to keep me "in line" and lovable, but it doesn't make her go away. My thoughts and tendencies aren't repaired because I've spent a week affirming myself, being affirmed by loved ones, and giving myself permission to feel my feels, rather than suppress them in an attempt to control my appetite. Feeling better doesn't mean that I am better.

But, you know what, I'll take it. It's a start.

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*Time And Relative Dimension In Space; also, you can't travel around in your personal timeline, it causes problems, even if you are a Timelord

Naming and breaking

Last night I decided to give my eating disorder a name: Mable. So when I feel the need to restrict or whatever I can shift the shame from myself and onto the disorder who is to blame. Mable prevents me from being able to take care of my "fuzzy self", whom I've previously named Emmie. 

In talking about all of this, I've received a lot of support. My friends are praising me for my "strength", and they're proud of me for being open about it and sharing my struggles. On the one hand, I'm grateful for this perception and the support of people I love, but on the other hand it makes me sad. I'm not sharing my struggles because I'm strong, if I was strong this wouldn't be a problem. Either it wouldn't be a problem because I wouldn't have it, or it wouldn't be a problem because it wasn't interfering with my life. And yeah, I know, that's not necessarily what strength is about, but Mable thinks that I'm weak and that that's why I need her.

Eating disorders (along with a multitude other self-destructing behaviors) are defense mechanisms. The needs I fill with disordered eating are fairly normal needs: control, mostly, but also wanting to feel special, seeking power, seeking relief from stress and anxiety. Something happened in my life that made me turn to this defense mechanism for help meeting these needs. And, it's not good or bad, it just is. Everyone turns to something else when they're in need, and most people have at least one self-destructive habit that meets a need for them; it's not good or bad, it just is.

So, for me, and a number of other people like me, this is where Mable steps in. She's obsessed with portion control, my weight, how my clothes look, how my profile looks in the mirror, the texture of my skin, whether I'm eating vegetables or sugar... and on their own, these concerns aren't damaging, but put them all together and then obsess over them and you have a destructive habit that plays on insecurities and, in my case, makes me want to vomit pretty much all of the time. (But wanting to doesn't mean that I do it.)

And I go back and forth. It's a difficult journey with a lot of potholes, and I'm grateful for the encouragement I receive because it helps me to get up out of those potholes. But in a few weeks, when the novelty of a friend struggling with her eating disorder fades, I fear that I'll be seen not as strong, but as an attention-whore. (I think that may be the case in some minds already.) Dealing with something that has taken up such a huge part of my life is going to be on-going for a long time, and the front of my mind for several weeks, and I know how people are about things like this. At first it's all "hey, I'm here for you", then after a while you get sick of it and want to say "fuck, aren't you over that yet?". 

Or maybe that's just me. 

I know that, whatever else happens, I'm going to break more before I can put the pieces back together. This thing is so much a part of me that I pretty much have to be crushed into dust to separate Mable from me. I'm going to keep talking about it so that I can stay on track and not fall into my own "fuck aren't you over that yet?" trap, but I fear it'll wear on people. I know that this is why I need therapy, but I hope that those who have expressed their support will also be able to avoid that trap. 

Soul Poverty (and week one of eating disorder recovery)

So, after my last post, I had a moderate amount of support from my friends, but I suspect a lot of people simply missed it because the last week has been pretty hectic for a lot of people I know - what with the holiday and everything. If you want to read my post on having an eating disorder, it'll get you caught up on some of what I'm going to talk about in this post.

This week, I started reading some books, and my doctor gave me a couple of numbers for therapists who specialize in eating disorders. One book has me keeping a daily journal of what I eat, when, why, and my emotions and compulsions surrounding food. I've noticed a pattern already: I skip at least one meal a day (usually breakfast); I feel the need to rationalize and justify everything I eat; I eat much less when I'm out and about all day; I have to focus really hard to enjoy my meal and avoid bingeing; and I almost always have tapes playing in my head yelling at me for one thing or another, and it's a real challenge to avoid judging myself for eating a meal or skipping it. 

At times, I feel more-or-less okay. At other times, I feel completely broken and hopeless. It's not completely dark in the place where I am, but it's grey enough to be overwhelming and everything looks and feels the same. (Of course, if we stick with our common wisdom, it's not what it looks or feels like that's important, but what it is like. However, at this point I'm so lost, I don't know what is from what feels. More on that in another post.) This brings me to the idea of soul poverty. 

Soul poverty is similar to a concept a lot of people know as "scarcity mindset" (google), but instead of being focused on there not being enough of anything ever, you've resigned to that fact and are stuck in this cycle of looking for ways to make your not-enough stretch. You pursue relationships, professions, hobbies, and so on that aren't right for you but they give you a feeling that you can push beyond your not-enough, and one day be enough. The problem with that, though, is that you can never turn your not-enough into enough through outside things. I will never become enough by pursuing a relationship that simultaneously makes me feel amazing and broken (I don't think the person whom I've pursued realizes that that's going on, but I'm grateful to him for his wisdom in that regard - bygones); I will never become enough by pursuing a Mary Kay career (and the thing about that, is that you already have to be enough and know it before you can get anywhere in any kind of business, let alone one that is all about leadership, consistency, and being able to "expend a significant amount of physical and emotional energy"). 

You can't become enough by looking outside yourself. Food doesn't fix it. Exercise doesn't fix it. Sex doesn't fix it. Shopping doesn't fix it. Church doesn't fix it. Books don't fix it. Soul poverty, that feeling of never being enough doesn't go away because you work hard, play hard, love hard, or give up entirely. The problem with this concept is that it's ingrained in you so deeply that no matter how hard you work or play or love or not, it gets worse. Because it's inside you. I would like to say that I know how to overcome it, but if I did I think I would have already. 

I haven't gotten that far yet, though. The comfort of the emotional ghetto (apologies) is hard to overcome. And not because I'm actually thriving in this inner-world that feels like a movie about growing up poor, it's comfortable because it's all I've ever known. I become overwhelmed when the Emperor does something that is good because he knows it's good and will help me; expecting no reprisals. I'm overwhelmed by the help offered by people I barely know. And I would like nothing more than to abandon this entire thing and pretend that I'm totally healthy again, but if I did I would be stuck here, in this place where I will never be enough, no matter what outside thing I try to be to make myself enough. 

I realize though, that this never-enough is what has been holding me back. It controls everything that I do and made me susceptible to having an eating disorder in the first place. I don't know if it would help to examine where that came from, but I do know that those are outside things and aren't going to make it enough. I don't think that my not-enough is the same as being broken, but it certainly makes me feel that way sometimes; however, I also don't imagine that if I changed it and was enough I would never feel broken again. Still, I have to change it, because I don't want to be impoverished in my soul. I want joy and fulfillment out of my life, not struggle and heartache. 

More importantly though, I want to be able to teach others how to be enough. This week I've realized that the struggle that I'm having is something that a lot of other people go through, and I want to help them out of it, but in order to do so I have to get to the other side. You can't give something you don't got, as the saying goes; also, the mess is the message.

You gotta get in to get out?

Don't ask if you don't want to know: I have an eating disorder

I don't really recall right now how much I've written about this subject, so feel free to ignore any of this. Or, you know, maybe you shouldn't, because chances are pretty good that if your reading this you care about me.

I have an eating disorder. You wouldn't know it from looking at me, or spending any time with me, but I do. The only real way anyone really knows about it is if they get inside my head at all - here's a big reason why it's so hard for me to let people in. I fall mostly in line with the clinical definition of bulimia, but there are some dalliances from that. I don't purge (anymore - I used to), but I do often fast for long periods of time, which lead to bingeing, which leads back to fasting because eating makes me feel like a disgusting slob. More than 50% of the time, I feel like I'm not in control when I eat, even if it's just a little bit. I suffer from anxiety and depression because of this, and it affects my self-worth by damaging my pride without ever affecting the number on the scale like it's supposed to - which makes me feel like a failure and then I fast and purge harder. 

This has been an issue since I was 12. I would intentionally skip meals because I was the girl in the health class who, when she heard about people intentionally starving themselves (or bingeing and purging) to lose weight, thought it was a suggestion. But the true root of this goes back farther to an abuse that lasted, I don't know how long, that took away my control over how I related to food. (The details don't really matter, so I won't go into it.) As I grew up, this loss of control was solidified in my mind, and the only way that I could control my food was to fast before a meal, or purge after it; I would still lose control when felt hungry, and snacking felt like weakness, and even though I would only eat a small amount it was a personal failure for me.

I continued to grow up in multiple environments that taught me to feel shame about my body and my relationship to food continued to be hostile. When I was in college, it was even more hostile because I had to be on food stamps, and this increased my shame, but certainly gave me an "out" as it were for skipping meals. What was even more of an out was alcohol. Even before I was old enough to drink, I would intentionally drink so much that I would vomit. The drinking was fun, but I knew what I was drinking had tons of calories, so I would make sure to make myself sick so that I wouldn't metabolize all of the fun I was having. There were even a few times when I made myself sick off of other substances combined with what I called at the time "over indulgence" but was really a binge. 

Around junior year of college, this all started tapering off and I became a little more okay with my body, (either that or I was still experiencing symptoms, but I decided to ignore them), and a little more okay with food, but the thoughts of needing to lose weight, watch what I ate, and control every aspect of my diet never truly went away. I relapsed a few times, purging for what I hope was the last time in the fall of 2010 after a fight with The Emperor. The continuing thread throughout all of this, though, has been skipping meals in order to feel like I'm in control, even though I don't feel that way.

When someone tells me they're on a diet, I feel inadequate because I can't diet. I fail at the exercise part of it because I lose interest, don't have money, or feel too weak to keep it up on a regular basis. Then I fail on the eating part of it because I'm apparently an all-or-nothing kind of gal in that respect. I sometimes feel resentment toward people who work to lose weight, because I can't figure out a way to control my weight, and I am obsessed with actually trying to do that. Or maybe I'm obsessed with failing at it, I don't know. 

What really gets me though, is food restrictions placed on me by others. If someone criticizes my food choices, I lose my shit. The digestive issues I've been having lately have been especially troublesome as doctors orders are to eliminate specific foods, and EAT ON A REGULAR BASIS. Even several small meals is okay, but the problem that no one seems to understand is that when someone tries to tell me that I should or shouldn't eat something I go nuts because they're taking my power from me. 

It all boils down to power and control, and it always has, because when I was a small child who had just developed sovereignty over her eating it was wrested from me by idiots who continued to abuse their station of authority over me until they no longer held such authority - but by then it was too late. Those tapes had already been recorded ("you're too fat", "eat it or else", "suck in your gut", "you should lose some weight", "all you have to do is restrict your calories", etc) and the damage was done. Up to this point, I haven't intentionally dealt with it, because I thought I could ignore it when it came up and just move through the cycles that various points in the year held. 

But then came the Celiac. Then came the need to be fastidious about one item of food. And it built back up. For a while, I felt comfortable in the control I took in eliminating gluten from my diet, but it still built. And then I had a gluten exposure that made my insides explode apart and got sick for two months. It's especially easy to fall back on old habits of fasting for control when I don't feel well; easier when the emotional turmoil of the battle between me and food is played out inside my body. There's so much guilt and shame going on in my body that I really can't handle it and I don't know anyone who can help.

My doctor is looking into a couple of options for me for therapy. The Emperor and I are talking about constructing a juice fast which will give me something to have power over (other than denial of food) while giving my insides something to repair whatever damage was done when I first got sick. I'm taking some steps on my own toward recovery, but goddamnit I wish that people would quit looking at me weird when I try to tell them what's going on.

Things fall apart

On Monday we got the results from my first round of blood tests. No infections; so assume that the "elevated temperature" is something else entirely, and focus on the gut issue. We also decided to do a full blood panel, and I'm going back to the vampire on Thursday. A possible culprit is the thyroid. But at least it's not lupus*. 

That was a relief, but there was a lot of talk about me and eating. Questions like "are you avoiding food because of the pain?" and "when did you eat last?" and then statements like "I don't care what you're eating at this point, as long as we can get you to eat"; then utter bewilderment when I stated that I never wake up hungry (cuz we're doing fasting blood levels). Years and years of dieting and disordered eating have caused my "hey I'm hungry" signals to turn into "omg I'm gonna hurl" signals, or just disappear all together. Turns out, that's not normal.

Then there's the anxiety that crops up because someone's giving me grief about eating. My whole life someone has been harassing me about eating too much, or again, or going back for more food, or disappearing off to the bathroom after meals, my food choices... all of the control was taken away from me in this abusive situation, and then if that wasn't enough, I had to be subject to dieting because I couldn't barf myself thin. I hid it pretty well, but then again, I don't think anyone was actually paying attention and how could I have an eating disorder? I was fat and it was always an issue. 

So, I skipped meals, and then I'd binge and get so fucked up that I'd barf. There were times when I would intentionally drink too much because I knew that I would vomit. And the fat thing was still always an issue - hell, it's an issue right now. And I knew about the health risks from bulimia and anorexia, but it was never a factor because it was more important to everyone that I wasn't fat. As it turns out, I was more unhealthy as a fat person trying to force herself to become thin than if I had just been allowed to be fat and be okay with it. 

Now I miss meals because I don't want to deal with it. Eating is a hassle. Since the gall bladder thing started, not only am I not able to eat gluten, but meat and eggs are out, AND I can't even drink (which, I suppose given my history, isn't exactly a bad thing). It's causing me a lot of anxiety. I've now had two, significantly more mild, panic attacks since the first one on Thursday last week. And while eating doesn't hurt as much as it did, I'm still really not interested in eating (unless it's something I really really enjoy like tacos or cookies), because of the emotional toll it takes. 

"You have to eat to survive," my doctor said. Well, that's nice, but you can't overcome 20-something years of programming that says that I don't have the right to eat because I am fat. Then you tell me I have to eat regularly? Actual meals? All of this conflicts with my programming, and that makes me anxious. And things start to fall apart..

__________________________________________________________

*It's never lupus**.

**Except for when it is.

Idiopathic...

I went to the doctor again on Thursday. But as we were deciding that I needed to go back in, I had a panic attack. A really bad one too. You could even say that I was hysterical, because for a little bit, I completely fit the profile of someone going absolutely out of her mind. After I stopped crying hysterically, my brain broke and I couldn't talk for about four hours. This is only the second time in my adult life (I don't know so much about panic attacks when I was a kid) when I've had an anxious episode so bad where I've lost the ability to speak. Suffice to say, the muscles in my neck and throat tensed up so badly that sound wouldn't really come out - except I said "ow" once, and that required a tremendous amount of effort.

My primary symptom are fever (hovering around 100 degrees for 15 days now - or at least, that's when I think it started; we got the new thermometer a little over two weeks ago and I don't know if I've had a fever since before that), and fatigue. As stated in previous posts, The Emperor has been doing his best to take care of me (or make sure I'm taking care of myself), but it's a little cumbersome at this moment. I pretty much can't do anything else, and I'm testing myself quite a lot by being out today instead of resting at home. (Granted, I am sitting in a Starbucks in a nice comfy chair, blogging, but there is more effort involved in being out in public than laying in bed watching reruns of Stargate.)

So, I had a fun time answering questions, and describing secondary concerns that might be related without the use of my voice. It was difficult, (and fairly disconcerting), but I found ways to communicate thanks to my smrtfone. (The Emperor kept asking "can you tell me?" or if I would just say one word to him; he didn't get it.) I was examined, palpated, and then the doc took some blood - which was an exciting experience in itself and took ALL of my my yoga training not to completely freak the fuck out and refuse the blood draw.

And that was it. "We'll talk to you on Monday, but the results might be back sooner and the doctor will take a look at it." Okay. Great. This tells me nothing. But I don't really know what else to do. I don't know what the next step is, except going over my blood panel, and I'm worried.

What if this is something that will require hospitalization? Surgery? Long term care? Is one of my internal organs failing or malfunctioning in a disastrous way? Do I have cancer or liver disease? Is there something wrong with my blood? Oh god, what if I'm pregnant? (I'm not, and quite frankly, of my list of OMGWHATIFs that's the easiest and cheapest to attend to*. Probably even easier than getting my damn wisdom teeth out.) And I know that we'd find a way, and everything would get solved and I would be okay, but still, all this open-ended stuff is really not only not making life easier, it's actively making life harder because being worried about my health is making me MORE exhausted, and LESS able to get work done. 

I had an illness like this when I was a kid (I don't know about the fever, but the gall bladder attack), and my intestines were a mess. The doctor that I went to gave me activated charcoal (for some reason, I don't even know why), and that was pretty much it. There was no follow up, there was no discussion of it being more than just angry insides. After that attack I stopped eating meat. And at some point, I remember my mom remarking at how I "had always been so healthy", so it was kind of a pain in the ass that I was suddenly not feeling well most of the time.

I don't need/intend to impugn my parents, but this commentary about me always being healthy has to be complete bullshit. Maybe it's not, but I do know that during my teen years, none of my parents knew what was going on with me and I was far from healthy LONG before my insides exploded and no one thought to actually investigate that. I don't know if my current state has anything to do with that neglect, but considering anything else, I can't help but wonder if it is. 

The other thing that bothers me from all of this is I'm wondering if I'm reporting my pain adequately. When I was a kid, every time I said I was in pain, I was ignored, yelled at, or ridiculed. At some point (some time after I began menstruating), I stopped reporting my pain. I stopped telling my parents that I was hurting, because it was pretty much constant (either bodyaches or intestinal distress), and I went around like it was all normal. This kind of conditioning leads me to, as an adult, under-report my pain to doctors, and it takes a really good doctor to be able to notice the subtleties of my reactions, range of motion, and other indicators of dis-ease. 

All I can really say now though, is that I think I'd really rather be at home with my dog.

*I don't want to hear it. I've already made the choice, and, despite the fact that it isn't actually anyone else's business, my body can't handle making a baby anyway.

Sick and triggered

I dropped the ball.

Rather, I had a surge of pain in my gut and the ball was knocked casually from my fingers by gravity. This has been the story of the last several weeks, where misfortune on top of misfortune have simply begun to pile up and I'm drowning in my circumstances. Now, for a while I put on my big girl pants everyday and "did it anyway" as Mary Kay would have advised, but when I got the flu and had a fever for going on 10 days, that determination kinda went away for a while; it was subsumed by the feeling that the next thing is going to be shingles followed shortly thereafter by death.

I stopped taking my temperature on Saturday. It was still hovering around 100 degrees, but I had pretty much stopped caring. I took the day and rested (cuz, Jewish), then Sunday morning jumped right into a busy day of community and family doings. I even went to yoga. Today I jumped onto my work necessities, interspersing that with teaching Fiery how to make a casserole so he can be more gluten-free with home-cooked food with less effort. By 6:30, I wanted to die, but I pressed on because people were counting on me.

When I got home, I took my temperature. 99.8. Again. Or still, I don't know. I immediately knew that I had overdone it over the last couple of days, but I don't know what else I'm supposed to do. If I don't work, I don't get paid. If I don't get paid, neither do my bills... but that's not even it. If I'm not working, I'm not happy. The week I spent on the couch was devastating, and I still haven't recovered from it emotionally. So, needless to say, being sick triggers me.

The helplessness, mostly. But even when The Emperor* was trying to take care of me, (in amidst all of the other things calling his attention, including being sick himself), I started feeling guilty about it. I pulled myself up off the couch and started cooking for myself. This is after arguing with him about whether I needed to eat, whether I was going to, and that I didn't want anything. His concern over my diet triggers me too, and not because he ever harasses me for eating: he gets on my case for NOT eating. 

Why would that flip you out? You ask. Well, because food flips me out. It does. All of these digestive issues that I have, plus my history of disordered eating, makes my relationship with food tenuous at best. My recent forced conversion** to a low-fat vegetarian diet (as if it wasn't already hard enough to feed myself with the Celiac) has devastated my appetite. My emotions on the issue makes it worse, and I haven't been eating enough to knock out whatever has my temperature up 2 degrees from normal.

The thing is, I've been ignoring the hunger signals. I feel hungry, but being faced with all of the emotionally charged decisions and limitations just sends me right back into disorder mode. It's infinitely easier to ignore the fact that I'm hungry (and then later cure the shaking and fog with a smoothie that has a subsistence amount of nutrients in it), than it is to deal with the emotional weight of the decisions I have to make about food. But, because I'm in disorder mode, I don't think "hey, it would be easier to deal with this now than it will to have an emotional breakdown in a couple of hours".

Then there's the lecture that follows. The programmed lecture is about how I'm fat, fat people are impossible to love, fat people are unattractive/gross; I'm lazy; need to make better (read: fewer) food choices; and I'm completely, 100% to blame for the "extra weight". So, because of this programming, when The Emperor is telling me that I need to eat, that he's worried about how little I'm eating, that it causes him a great amount of anxiety, that he doesn't understand... all I hear is the lectures and criticisms from my childhood bullies. He means well, wants me to be healthy (not skinny: healthy) so that I can work and so that I can be happy.

It's hard to deal with genuine love when you come from a background of abuse (I think people who are moving beyond their abuse know that, but precious few other people do); and I vacillate between utter admiration for the men who love me (specifically The Emperor, who has given me so much) and utter hatred because they trigger me without meaning to and don't understand why I get so upset about things that seem random and harmless. There's a different sort of helplessness here, but in that state my need to protect myself doesn't really see the difference between being loved and being harmed.

All this is to say, I dropped the ball. I know I did, but I didn't really have any choice. When we say "g-d first" in Mary Kay, that means taking care of g-d's instrument too. I know that I can get it back and make some amazing things happen, but the last two months just didn't go how I wanted or planned - and not for lack of working. Sometimes shit just happens and there's nothing you can do but got to the doctor. Sometimes you can't just suck it up and make phone calls while lying on you back on the floor; sometimes you can't see far enough into the future to make booking calls.

So when you can, you should.

_______________________________________________________
*I contemplate, sometimes, simply calling him Ten, but that's not necessarily fair.
**gall bladder issues; doctor's orders are no meat, eggs, onions, garlic, or booze. I'm not having surgery. Don't even think about suggesting it.

The Poverty of Pretty Part 1: Introduction

This is the first in an ongoing series of posts. My intention is to shift the paradigm, and it's going to take a lot of work. However, what you will read in this series are my actual beliefs based on years of study of art, fashion, and the beauty industry in general. I am biased in favor of decoration, but the basic idea is that beauty is attainable and accessible to everyone because it's not about what you look like: it's about what you are like.

I am a feminist who sells makeup (actually, my job is a lot more nuanced than that, but you get the idea). In doing so, I encounter a lot of resistance to my craft that is based on wholesale rejection of the Beauty Industry. I also experience some amount of reticence in myself because I believe what has been dubbed the "Beauty Industry" is incredibly harmful to women because it sets standards that are impossible to meet by basing the definition of beauty upon what is conventionally attractive, the definition of which it also decides. This creates a negative feedback loop: 

• the industry decides what new thing is conventionally attractive 
• -> publishes articles either praising or deriding celebrities for having/not having those characteristics 
• -> produces products that promise to enhance or hide a particular quality in the consumer
• ->consumers (actual people) buy these products, and become frustrated because the products may make them pretty, but don't make them feel beautiful, so they quit buying products
• -> the industry decides what new thing is conventionally attractive and the cycle starts over again

As the cycle continues, women (and men) become more and more beaten down by it, and find themselves searching for a way out, just wanting to be pretty and feel beautiful. OR they drop out entirely, because it's all bullshit. Both of these ways are harmful and miss the point of beauty entirely, because both of these options (trying to keep up with the trends, or telling the whole concept to fuck off entirely) are still focused on the wrong thing: attractiveness. When you focus your definition of beauty on what a person looks like, you fall into a trap called the poverty of pretty.

Beauty is art. It is intentional and methodical. It can be changed from day to day, hour to hour, and flows along with what is going on inside of the beautiful person. If we focus the definition of beauty on character (attention to emotional fitness, physical health, etc), it becomes attainable. A person can work on their character and develop or strengthen integrity, honesty, a sense of humor, physical strength, a balanced (but let's face it not perfect) diet, good fashion for their shape, trustworthiness, and any number of characteristics that are desirable in a person. 

Attractiveness, however, is not in the hands of the person, it is in the hands of the viewer, and nothing reasonable can be done to change where a person falls on the attractiveness scale. "Pretty" is determined by genetics. I have a conventionally attractive face. I can't do anything about that. I also have giant boobs, an unattractive tummy-area (which isn't my only problem with my abdomen...), long fingers and legs, and broad shoulders. These things can't be changed (some might argue the tummy-part could, but no matter what a person does about belly fat, if they're unhappy with that, they always will be because of social conditioning that focuses on conventional attractiveness). Nothing can be done about a person's genetics, I know this, and choose to develop my character thereby giving evidence to my own theory that character-based definitions of beauty are attainable, where beauty-defined-by-conventional-attractiveness is not.

This brings us to a quick discussion on the idea of art versus decoration. I had a professor in college who talked about this a lot, but we never really came to a conclusion about it (and in writing this, I now wish I had paid more attention to his thoughts on the matter). Both art and decoration have value, but, and this is very important the are not the same thing. Art is intentional, has character, history, and method. Decoration can be accidental or intentional, but lacks its own character, history, and method. A person can use decoration to enhance the character of a place, object, or even a person, but the decoration does not define the character of the place, object, or person. We can also use art to enhance these nouns, but the art maintains its own character in a kind of sentient way. 

A person is a work of art. A person is beautiful if they choose to be, through sentient intention.

Makeup, clothes, shoes, are all decorations. The lack their own character, and do not define beauty because they lack sentience.

Therefore, focus of beauty standards either on decoration or on conventional attractiveness becomes accidental and denies beauty its own ishness*, making beauty unattainable and leaving most people in the poverty of pretty. BUT if we change beauty wholesale, and just do away with these unreasonable expectations and tell people that beauty is not about what you look like, but what you are like, it becomes attainable. People become more happy. People become more willing to experiment with decoration, and it makes the lives of people like me SO MUCH EASIER because what I bring to the table isn't judgment of a person based on things they can't control, but compassion and understanding because I know that they know that we both base our beauty on things we have control over.

*ishness: the thing of a thing that makes it that thing

Glossary of Frequently Used Terms

Persons
The Empress: that's me. It's a reference to a tarot card signifying feminine leadership on the highest level.

The Emperor/Schmoogie/Moogie: My husfriend, greatest adviser, and best friend; so named for a card signifying masculine leadership on the highest level.

MKA: Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Inc. Read about here here. (You can also check out her autobiography Miracles Happen. I highly recommend it.)
g-d: This is my term for the divine, for lack of a better term, Oversoul. As a Jew, my concept of the creator is a little bit different from most of the people I know. I believe that the Universe is g-d, rather than g-d being God, a person with human feelings and ambitions. I draw a strong distinction between this idea of God and my idea of the Creator Consciousness of the Universe. It doesn't really matter, but sometimes people ask me why I write "g-d" instead of God, or GOD, or god, or whatever.

Terms and Abbreviation 

FIO: Figure It Out; a phrase often chanted by me and my colleagues

WPS: Weekly Plan Sheet, a tool used for maximizing time management

6 MIT: 6 Most Important Things list: make a list of the 6 things you must accomplish in a given day, number them in order of importance and get started. Anything that doesn't get finished that day gets moved to the next day. If it can be delegated to someone else, it doesn't belong on your list.

Active: the numbers don't matter so much here, unless you're actually a consultant (and if you are, you know this already), so for the purposes of this blog, an active consultant is one who is working her business
IBC or BC: Independent Beauty Consultant
Star Team Builder/Star Recruiter: Beauty consultant with 3 or 4 active team members
Team Leader: 5 active team members
Future Director: 8 active
DIQ: Director In Qualification; we are often told that DIQ is not a position on the career path, it is a transitional period
Director/Sales Director: Independent Sales Directors are women in a leadership position in Mary Kay, and kind of the mama on the family tree
National/NSD: Independent National Sales Directors are the top leaders in Mary Kay, defined as leaders of leaders (this is where I want to be!)

The big picture

I believe in social justice. 

I believe in giving people a safety net.

I believe in making sure that children are fed, clothed, educated, and that ALL of their health needs should be addressed and met adequately and immediately.

I believe that there are three avenues for this: self-directed, community involved, and government assisted, and that at least two avenues must be present in some form in order to maximize success and minimize poverty.

I'm an idealist.

The big picture with this whole Mary Kay thing, and I've said this before, but I really want you to grasp what I'm trying to say. Mary Kay Ash flipped a switch in herself in 1963 and that reaction lead to people being able to maximize avenue 1 of minimizing poverty. Women all over the world, (and I'm not necessarily talking about women in the states, but I include those who have used this business to take their meager beginnings and become millionaires), have taken their income from this business and made it work for them and their families. They didn't have to resort to humiliating methods* of employ to feed their kids. Then they were able to teach other women this new thing, and it spread and eventually, they're all making an income which takes me to the second avenue.

Mary Kay builds communities. We are taught to follow the Golden Rule, and seek to enrich the lives of others. If you've never been to a Mary Kay event, the community fostered just within a unit of consultants is amazing. But we are also active in our religious institutions, schools, and other organizations that are aimed at helping our communities. Strong connections in a community (look at your faith community for example) ensure that those who have needs they can meet will be met by the community. Some people call that "collectivism", and those people are assholes. Developing a strong community is how humans have come to be the dominant species on the planet. It's in our genes, and it's in all of our religious teachings.

The third avenue, government, is a bigger, more complicated and therefore more flawed version of community. Yes, in the past (and currently) government (as well as religious institutions) have been used to control people, brainwash them and divide the populace against itself so that a few rich people can have all of the money. But just because some of the people who run the show are bad, doesn't mean the entire system is bad. I don't think that Mary Kay can change governments, but because government is (supposed to be) made up of the people, by changing the people and bringing us back to being more community oriented, most of the people will be fooled less of the time.

When we teach women to value doing the right thing (because it's right), they teach it to their children. Those children become the community and political leaders of the next generation and then change the direction a society is going. Just look at the US now: young people were taught GREED IS GOOD in the 70s and 80s, and now everyone is so focused on getting their own that they vote against their own best interests because they don't want to pay more taxes (which is another conversation all together -- I get a little wonk-ish about taxes). BUUUT, when you look back further, you see that the people who were taught to pull together as a country in the 30s and 40s, well, they put a man on the moon, and created the Great Society, producing the biggest middle class in history (up to that point).

We're not all going to agree on everything (I should hope that never happens), but there are some things we have to agree on: do the right thing because it's right, build your community, share prosperity with others, and when someone is down on their luck, help them up with one hand, and give them a book with their other. That's the big picture. You don't just change your own life. You don't just change the lives of people you know. You change the lives of people all over the world, and alter the course of human events. That's the big picture. That's why I am striving in my business and I hope that vision will help others to strive too.

*And I believe that being a sex worker so that you can feed your family is probably pretty humiliating. I'm not making a value judgment on that, or saying anything about sex workers to perform that work because they like it.

One Woman Can Change the Narrative

Mary Kay Ash reached through spacetime and flipped a switch, changing the economic narrative for women all over the world. If' you're at all familiar with Mary Kay, you know this is true. The company is beginning its 50th year of Enriching Women's Lives with a campaign called "One Woman Can", urging consultants to discover what is our "One Woman Can". 

Hundreds of women, just like me have changed the narrative for their families, relationships, and futures. One woman can change the narrative of her life. One woman can change the narrative of the beauty industry and make TRUE BEAUTY accessible to everyone, not just those who feel they are conventionally attractive (cuz it's what you are like, not what you look like, thank you Madeline L'Engle). One woman can change the narrative of other women around the world, and touch the lives of people she will never even meet. One woman can teach women how to teach their children not to fight; influencing future generations and making peace where it never seemed possible before, and therefore changing their own narratives.

My beginning is my beginning, but today I can work to create a whole new ending. One woman can reach into the future and flip a switch that gives choices and opportunities to millions. I don't think many people who aren't in Mary Kay really realize how gigantic this company is, and how many lives are changed because one woman dreamed a dream, and it turned into a reality in more than 34 markets all over the world. One woman can take the nightmares of children who haven't been born yet and turn them into dreams of success and prosperity.

One woman can change the narrative. Her narrative. That of her family. That of her friends. The narrative that is hurting people she loves, and people she doesn't know. The narrative that holds others back. The narrative that excuses bullying and abuse. The narrative that encourages closed-mindedness and bigotry. It takes diligence, hard work, and absolute stubbornness, but knowing that it's already been done means that it's possible; that one woman can.

In other words: your leaders are all saying the same things in different languages

Reading the first chapter of a book written by a Christian pastor brought me around to my favorite Hebrew prayer (the Hebrew itself is in the top left, with an artful English translation below). After some amount of thought, I came into the full realization that my director, my professional leaders, and my rabbis are all saying the same thing. It had been a thought for a while, but the fact of the matter is, g-d is coming through both of these two avenues inspiring me to lead an extraordinary life. 

Divinely inspired words are filtered through the language and concept centers of the brains of the people who write them down. The ideas often sound different when you first hear them; they sound like they oppose one another because they come out of practices which, at some times, actually do oppose each other. However, truly holy words can be translated back into the language of g-d and speak into the hearts of a great plurality of people. 

In other words: your leaders are all saying the same thing in different languages. Isn't it time to listen already, get congruent, and get to work?

Probably. More to come...