"Crazy" is the word that most often wins the race to the forefront of my mind, and somehow, putting that onto paper (virtual or otherwise) makes it seem much more real, and much more overwhelming. What would I do with the mess I'm afraid I'll read I've become? Will I believe i'm more hopeless if I read the words rather than just thinking them? And my mind swirls, and my chest tightens, and I realize I'm forgetting how to breathe like a "normal" person. Because that's the goal, isn't it? To fall into the "average". To be just like the 3 or 4 people seated nearest to you on any given occasion. To not stand out. To not be the red dot on the statistical analysis chart that falls off of the line and gets chalked up to be systematic error... The one they show us in the programs they send us to, in effort to "fix" what's "broken" within us.
It all sounds so exhausting when you aren't like any of those people. When you are the off point on the graph. So, I feel like I need to know who decided this. Because I'm willing to wager that they've never tried to fit a mind, or a heart, or a set of fears of their own into someone else's version of the world.
How can I be taught to find myself- be myself- love myself.. When I'm simultaneously being told that once I'm more like everyone else, I'll be in a safer place. The world will feel easier.
I just can't find the sense in that... And so yes. Hell yes. That makes me a little anxious. I have a thing with clarity- and that just isn't clear.
For the last 2+ years, I have been on a mission to mend. Be it my heart, mind, body, or otherwise. I am now 31 years old. I've struggled with Anorexia Nervosa off and on since the age of 12. It developed as a coping mechanism for the death of my father, and a handful of years of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of my mothers physically abusive & severely alcoholic boyfriend. I was 12, and they don't teach you how to deal with these sorts of things in elementary school. Anxiety and starvation came easily, and so I followed their lead, because they swallowed the guilt, and shame, and fear I felt about both of these things. I wasn't a worry to anyone- I was just a mousey girl, desperate to please, who grew to be a "picky eater".
At age 16, I began to self-harm.
I came out as a lesbian to my friends, and certain family members at the age of 17. After my first heartbreak, and my homophobic-Christian mother questioning my sexuality, I turned back to "straight" dating, and it pushed me into a hole of despair that I wasn't able to crawl out of until age 20, when I met my now wife, and came out to my mother (who, btw, came around to things rather quickly. She attended our wedding and cried tears of joy when she stopped my walk down the aisle to hug me and tell me that she loved me).
We'll fast forward a few years, and a few life dramas, to 2011, when my wife and I began visiting a fertility clinic in hopes of getting me pregnant. The one thing I was sure of all my life was that I was put on this planet to be a mother. Motherhood was what I had dreamed of since age 4, and I couldn't wait.
After an incredible pregnancy, and a complicated delivery, I took to my daughter like she had been here all along. She felt familiar and safe and right.
Scarlet was just under a year old when my weight, once again, began to plummet. I was wearing, loosely, a size 0, and weighed 88lbs. At 10 months postpartum, I weighed nearly nothing. As a result, my panic attacks were frequent and growing in intensity. I couldn't make heads or tales of it- i worshipped my daughter. I was a good mother. A great mother. I had everything I had dreamed of having. What was wrong with me?! I researched postpartum anxiety, desperate to find the reason for my feelings- for the reasons I had ended up being taken away by ambulance for a possible stroke- but it was "just a panic attack". One that left me without control of fluid speech for 3 weeks. One that caused me to stutter, and forget everyday words. One that caused me to lose control of my balance, and the feeling in my right arm and both legs. It had never occurred to me that my weight could be the reason. I believed, to my core, that my falling hormone levels were at fault. I saw that I was a busy mother to a newborn, and that that meant I had missed some meals and ate less than I should. I knew a lot of new mothers and this seemed par for the course. I didn't realize my anorexia was creeping back into charge, because I didn't want to...
And because I wasn't eating anyway, out of a simple lack of time and sleep. I was waiting for it to pass. Like all new mothers. Like everyone else I had spoken to. I was "normal". I told myself over and over and over- I. Am. Normal. I didn't know. Not until it hit me like a ton of bricks.
During my last visit to the emergency room, a psychiatrist came to speak with me, carrying a set of papers. They were for consideration of entry to their eating disorders program. My family doctor was to examine them and get the ball rolling. I had avoided recovery all my life, but this time it was different.
I had a miracle depending on me to teach her what life is supposed to be- and I would not pass this along to her. I wouldnt let her down. I wouldn't damage her. I was terrified, but I was onboard...
And that was when I realized that we were doing this for one another. I was going to heal for her, and she was going to be my every reason for doing it.
It's two years on now. I am just over a month out of my programs, and yes- I've had a few slips, but this time I feel differently about them. I feel as though they serve me rather than define me. They remind me that I still have work to do, and that I am strong enough and wise enough to do it.
I've lost 10 lbs since my "discharge", and I have to admit that I am of two minds with respect to that fact. I feel a sense of relief- a certain comfort, if you will, because I simply felt out of place at my higher weight. I felt so lost inside of a body that took up too much space too quickly.
I am also terrified- of relapse, of shrinking, of undoing to good I've done. The latter statement fills me with a sense of accomplishment and of pride. I am learning to fear my eating disordered thoughts- even the ones that bring me a veiled sense of peace... And for now, in this very moment, that is enough.
I am enough.
