Whew. It's been a week since the last post. Sorry.
Life sped up, but it's been good: some part time work at my friend's greenhouse where I can get intensely dirty planting thousands of geranium cuttings, wear old grubby clothing and pretend I'm an organic farmer Brown. Then an intense workshop on the weekend, Fuzzboy has the possibility of a new job that could start VERY soon, and I'm rolling down the hill into the last week --- hopefully, because there's always a possibility it will get cancelled at the last minute --- toward my surgery.
I talked about fear. Well, it's like Fear has been the theme of the week. Not that I'm feeling more fear, it's always been there, as a background noise. Sure, we all have it, it's a normal emotion, but I think I am regularly paralysed by it. Now, I am simply recognizing at a deeper level just how pervasively fear colors my other emotions and my actions. A miasma of fear, oozing out of every pore.
And yet, I feel very positive. I am finally believing the mental health professionals I consult regularly who have been telling me that seeing the fear is a good initial step towards dealing with its pernicious effects. I'm thinking of it as a form of mental pernicious anemia, likely a chronic disease which I inherited from my parents just like I took that recessive gene from each of them for my red hair, or my diabetes. I can't blame them for it any more than I can blame them for the diabetes, or the red hair! ;-) It's heredity, and I'm pretty sure they got it from their parents.
At the same time, I work towards not blaming myself for my fear, and instead concentrate on lessening its grip on my soul. Someone said to me this weekend that just as we can spiral down in an addiction, so can we spiral up: I feel like I hit these brick walls in my life, but maybe they are just small walls that can be detoured around, hurdled, or clambered over with a supportive leg up. When I look back on these walls that filled me with such fear, they honestly look much smaller.
It is normal to fail and to hurt. Then we have to keep going. I heard about a successful artist whose motto is "Fail Faster". It's amazing how infrequently we do fail.
I haven't a clue. I think I disappeared into the fear. I mean, I know I was doing things, although, some days, not much. Yesterday morning I blew off my oa meeting and stayed in bed, watching TV and playing games on the laptop. I eventually got up, squeezed in a hot run at the gym, showered, got late to the therapy group and managed to talk about nothing for 2 hours (ha ha! Pulled one over on them!), stuffed down some dinner, ran to costco, ran to the florist to get flowers for Fuzz's mom's birthday, stopped briefly there, and ran back home to vote in the federal election (fat lot of good that did, but I felt that at least I was flipping a metaphorical bird at the winners). Whew. When I finally got home, Fuzz said, oh by the way, there's a new job up in the next town (where we want to move) which starts in a couple of weeks, should he apply? About then I was aware of my head spinning and a headache coming on. Overload, abort, abort... I had no clue, and wisely told him it was his job, he was the best job of what he should do.
I think I was running from the discomfort. I am very aware of the irony that while I discover that I can run physically, I still run from my thoughts. Unfortunately, I don't seem to wish to run by doing housework! I feel helpless, therefore I am? I feel selfish, lazy, blahdeblahdeblah...
Funny thing is, smack dab in the middle of this miasma, I had some really great experiences. My community choir gave a performance of songs by Canadian writers, some known, like Joni Mitchell, some unknown, and it was hosted by Tom Lips (great name for a singer, eh?), an Ottawa folksinger and storyteller, who deserves to be much better known than he is.
The choir backed him up on a couple of songs, but for a couple of his more solo pieces, they realized at the last minute it needed just a few backup singers for harmony, so 3 days before the concert I was asked to come in with some gospel-like harmonies with four others. Tom called us "The Jordanaires" a reference to a group that backed Elvis, of all people. I hammed it up, as you can see full well in the photo, pretending I was in O Brother Where Art Thou, and had a great time. Got lots of good feedback from audience and choir members.
For a day or two afterward I had dreams of trying to find more small group roles, I love being a backup singer. Then the shame kicked in.
I don't enjoy talking about this part, you probably don't want to hear it, but I've got to write it out. Feel free to switch to stuffonmycat.com. I felt like I was too hammy. Some of my friends, sitting in the back row, said they could hear my voice even when I was singing in the general choir. Am I too loud? I know some of the choir resents that they weren't asked. My turn is up, nobody will want me to perform again. I want to perform, but at the same time I want to hide. Maybe that's the conflict that seems to paralyze me, and I end up back in bed. It's safe. Nobody will see me.
Ok, some things are becoming clearer. I need to write more regularly, before those dust bunnies build up in my brain... maybe the housekeeping needs to be more in my head.
Last night's sucky mood didn't improve this morning, and lasted well into the afternoon. I was an absolute slug. Everything looked bleak and hopeless. "I'm never getting better, why do I even try?" I thought.
Didn't phone nobody, didn't feel capable of doing anything of any value. Gave up. Drank coffee, watched Oprah, played video games. Finally hoisted my sorry ass out of bed and got it into the gym, because I had a community choir practice later and I had to do the gym then or not this day, but still feeling fairly sluggy. Ran for about a half hour and then did my weight routine. Still feeling bleahhhh....
By about 4:30, I was in the shower (ahhh, say my sore muscles) when suddenly, my mind clicked in. Things looked much better, not hopeless any more. Why? I don't know. The pride of having had a good workout? Endorphins? Survived the day and looking toward supper? Maybe I'm a vampire and just cheer up after dark? Hm, I do wear a lot of black...
I like that last idea best!
Sigh... I've been in a lousy mood tonight. Freezing rain putting a kink in my schedule. So I've been mostly moping on the couch.
Two things I'm noticing:
1. When I feel threatened, I cook. See previous post. Great security blanket. Fuzz doesn't mind, he loves my security blankets. Today's soup turned out wonderfully: Ham and romano bean with kale and ancho chile, a little pesto stirred in at the end to perk up the flavour. My anxiety over my surgery translates into cooking. Tomorrow I feel like climbing into a nice cozy lasagna.
2. I'm middle aged, but people still threaten me. I feel so damn vulnerable to their ideas and opinions. I said to someone today, "I don't want to spend time with X because I feel like I'll catch crazy from them!" And they replied, "How could that possibly happen?" Logically it can't, yet emotionally I feel pulled away from my own brain. I just feel like I get sucked into their orbit and I'm unable to extract myself from that vortex. My head empties, I become a chameleon, I blend into their wallpaper. I talked to 3 people on the phone today, and I just wasn't able to do anything but play along.
What a nut job I am. This is going to take a LOT of work.
I was just feeling some guilt, nay, dare I say shame, about still being in my pj's at 2 in the afternoon, and then a thought struck me. I may be a blogger. The 90's slacker becomes the 00's blogger? Here I sit, ok, almost lie, in bed with the tv on, cat curled up at my side, wi-fi laptop pushing her out of the place of preference.
I'm not totally useless. I have a ham bone and some vegetables stewing for a spicy bean and kale soup. I filled the dishwasher. I made a huge pot of Nigella Lawson's ratatouille last night in the slow cooker overnight because it was the biggest pot I have. That's the absolute last time I do that. I've got such a sensitive sniffer that by the morning, after smelled it all night in my sleep, I felt like I was stewing with it in the slow cooker. And it was overcooked, even on low. 2 hours max on the stove would have done it. That's it, I just need a bigger pot.
Geez, this sounds like a food blog. I was reading some of orangette last night, that's probably why. I'm on a cooking jag, trying to freeze up some meals for next month while I'm recovering from a hysterectomy. Fuzz is a good cook but he's really busy with work and I'm too much of a control freak to consider a month of crazy curries, chops and takeout.
I guess. I mean, well, this isn't my real birthday, but it's an anniversary. In 12 step programs some people call it a birthday. Today is my one year anniversary of my self defined food and eating abstinence. In AA they call it your "dry date". Well, one year ago I sure didn't stop eating. A drunk can stop drinking. A year ago I had my last binge.
I had been attending OA meetings just under two years at that point, and my binges had been diminishing in size and frequency. In fact, I had almost lost 150 pounds by this point, and I think that over those 2 years I had 5 or 6 "breaks" in my abstinence. That's 5 or 6 miserable days out of over 700. Heck of a change. Of course, abstinence is a self defined term in OA, like I said, you can't just stop eating, and there is no prescribed food plan or any plan, although many people will adopt the plan of eating and program study their sponsor uses.
So, it's not a year since I started losing weight, it's been a year since I have really felt out of control around food. A different kind of victory, more or less invisible, except for those who have observed my demeanor, not just my size. It's a more important victory, I think. That's where this isn't just another diet. Sanity, not just vanity.
I slept in this morning and missed my usual Monday morning meeting. There's irony for you. But next I had a checkup with my GP. She had a resident sitting in, and after the resident took my blood pressure, my doctor told her with some pride that I was now able to stop taking blood pressure medication and was now symptom free of type 2 diabetes. That's a pretty good anniversary present.
My mood was still so-so on leaving the doctor (I've got a full hysterectomy coming up next month and even the promise of a post-op epidural for the pain isn't really cheering me up much)and I had a meeting of a recovery group later that afternoon that has been helping but sometimes makes me want to shove nails in my eyes, so I went to the gym for a good run. Must be all those endorphins or something, plain old self righteousness isn't enough to explain how much better I felt. Maybe it was the sweat. I used to hate sweating when I was heavier, now it feels like sweat created by fire and passion and actually feels good dripping down my back.
I have to get some sleep, but maybe tomorrow I can examine what this year has meant to me. Funny how strange it feels when something I had been looking forward to for such a long time finally arrives. Always a bit of anticlimax, a feeling of now what? The next question is, how do I celebrate????
I guess cake might not be appropriate! On the other hand, why not, as long as it's in moderation? Its ok in my plan of eating. Just not at an OA meeting!!
Fuzz is sweet. He bought me roses.
I just had another craving. There's some leftover pizza in the fridge, it's one of my favorite foods, and it's calling to me. It did so last night too. Food addict has craving. News, it's not.
The amazing (to me) thing is that I can now look at these cravings with some detachment and say, "oh, it's you again" and know that if I tell myself "no, I'm not going to have it, and I'll feel better soon" the craving invariably disappears and quite quickly as my fractured attention forgets about it and moves onto something else, like, a newspaper article on podcasting, or something as pathetically mundane as a funny ad on tv. A little while later I will remember I was just in the midst of a craving that felt like the end of the world, but now is just a memory. I'll smirk to myself and go to bed. Most of them happen in the evening.
Why can I do this now when a few years ago I couldn't go 3 days without a binge? The answer is frustratingly circuitous. Well, tomorrow I will celebrate one year since I had a binge, and I've had enough of these cravings that I haven't acted on, that I know what will happen. It feels really strong, I don't act on it, I forget I'm having one, it disappears. Basically, the cycle was broken. The first couple of times I had to phone an OA person, or pray, as one person in a meeting said "like a bastard" to whatever higher power keeps "normal" beings from self destructing.
Hm. Look at that. It's noon. I can have lunch. I guess... maybe I'll have a cup of coffee first. Freakin' amazing.
When I started going to Overeaters Anonymous, I started hearing about "Binge Foods", "Binge Lists" "Red Light/Yellow Light Foods"...
I was pretty suspicious of these. One of the first people I met in OA was a guy running a meeting on the Upper East Side in NYC. He had a binge list as long as your arm. He had lost a lot of weight. However, he admitted he had gained half of it back, a fact that his straining pants attested. And his binge list kept getting longer. I figured he'd be down to water and grapefruit soon. He was loud, and definite, and kind of scary. He told me to call him, I didn't.
When I came to OA in Canada, I remained suspicious of binge lists. They aren't a requirement in OA, nothing is. The traditions state that "the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively". How we do it is up to us, but we can look to others in the program for guidance. So, for almost 3 years I didn't have a binge list. Mind you, I noticed after a while that there were foods I would eat if offered when out, but didn't feel safe keeping in the house --- most desserts, and salty, crunchy snacky stuff. Then there was the granola. Too easy to scarf down by the handful while standing in front of the cupboard. Got that out of the house, started getting all that good stuff in cooked oatmeal (I make a KILLER steel cut oats with fruit, nuts and spices) and haven't had any since because one does not usually encounter granola at a party!
Then, sometime in November, I realized that when I had potato chips at parties, I kind of lost my mind to them. The rest of the room vanished as my focus slid into the chip bowl. Didn't like that. Ok, I decided, maybe for now, I don't want to eat chips. I did this at a few parties, and I felt better. Then there was that flap the other day over the toffee chocolates. I decided that cheap sugar loaded candy and the cravings it aroused just wasn't worth the grief. Good dark chocolate, probably because it contains much less sugar, doesn't seem to be a problem.
So.... I guess --- sigh --- I do now have a binge list: cheap candy and chips. We'll see how it goes. For today. One day at a time. That's what makes it work: for today I can do what I can't imagine myself doing forever. No fortune telling.
I watched James Frey on the Larry King Show last night. Poor guy, he looked pretty rough, and not terribly articulate. Mind you, his written persona came across as so forceful and self posessed, even in his misery, it's not surprising to find him less forceful in person.
I'm still amazed that A Million Little Pieces made it to the top of the NYTimes bestsellers list. I devoured it, of course, read it in a couple of nights, and I know many of my friends in 12 step circles were at least interested in it, even if they didn't read it. We all want to know how someone else made it out, checking their story for the breadcrumb trail, seeing how they survived. But who else bought it? Is his writing that good, or are there that many people who are concerned or affected by addiction?
I'm not surprised there were embellishments. The book was just too slick, it read like a novel. I plowed through his sequel, My Friend Leonard, over about 4 afternoons in a bookstore cafe. It too was dramatic and polished and at times moving, and I wondered how much of it had really happened.
I did find some affirmation in his story of survival, but there are so many of those, from authors like Elizabeth Wurtzel and Frances Kuffel, Caroline Knapp, Susan Cheever, and all those people who contributed to the Alcoholics Anonymous "Big Book". I read them from time to time to get some more support, just like I read artist biographies, or maybe more tellingly, I consume them.
Does it matter how much spiritual nutrition is in his book? Or maybe like a tasty dessert, it's fine on occasion, but not at the expense of eating your veggies.
Say it out loud. It's fun to say, not so much to have.
I've got lots of flab. Or as someone calls it, her flappies. Basically, I've got a lot of skin hanging around. When you lose 150 pounds in your forties, the skin just doesn't come back the way it used to. Mind you, I've had flab all my life. I first noticed stretch marks around the age of 10.
Some days I look in the mirror and wish the plastic surgery fairy would take that little sag in my neck, the parts of my upper arm that can wave around when I raise my arms, and especially, that big roll of bread dough that hangs below my navel. But real plastic surgery, and I could swing it if I wanted to, no, not going there.
This flab is the visible remanent of my battle with my eating disorder. For over 40 years I have been at battle with myself, and these are my battle scars. I try to be brave when displaying them amongst the "normies". Some times are easier than others. The general rule of thumb is the less clothing I'm wearing, the bigger the challenge. The hardest is usually the women's change room at the gym.
I have to "out" myself and admit that when I was over 300 pounds, I didn't go to a gym very often. I did go a few times, but I felt people were looking at me. Logically I know some were, but many did not care, or if they noticed, they didn't blame me nearly as much as I did. But some people did. I still have the snide comments seared into my brain.
But when I had lost most of the weight, I felt "normal" enough that I could blend in at a gym without attracting attention. Still, surrounded by what seems to be a sea of perky young things, it's hard to bare it all in the locker room, but I don't want my shame (what else to call it? It's not modesty, it's shame) to push me into changing in one of those dumb little cubicles or even worse, in a wet, slippery shower stall. So I do it.
I think one of the reasons I overate was due to that pervasive shame swirling through my mind like a malevolent green poison. I try to counteract that by telling myself that people should see all the possibilities and shapes in the human body, that we aren't all a cookie cutter shape. I want other women to know that we can struggle and change and grow. I think my battle scars can say that. Here I am, I've come through a lot, and I'm not quitting. For today. Give me the strength to keep kicking.
Or is it just my teeth grinding?
Seriously, I have that therapy group in about an hour and I am madly scouring my brain to figure out what the Hell I am going to say to them. Much easier to surf the net, play stupid computer games, write out minutes, anything. I think my Shame Reflex is up, I feel like I've not had a deep feeling or thought for the past 2 weeks but that is ridiculous.
I've had plenty of deep stuff... I just have to look at this blog to remember some of that. Maybe I just don't want to feel it. It all feels negative, I think it's that pervading sense of shame and fear.
I had an image this morning of the shame like an evil green slime that oozes over everything I do, colors every experience, it's as if every event is seen through the baleful filter of that ooze.
The pressure I am putting on myself to come up with something insightful in this meeting is incredible! It really is like being back in Grade 7 again just before a test. I seriously don't want to hang out with these people. So, why am I going to this? Because I think it will make me do better in the long run. As my run-in with the candy the other night told me, I have work to do. I just keep shoving feelings down and feel lousier and the food seems like more and more of a good thing. Somebody said that there is something about that first cookie, drink, puff (fill in your crutch of choice) that makes the next one seem like even more of a good idea, and erases from your memory the misery it will eventually cause you. There's where I get stuck.
That's why, for the first time in 3 years of attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings, I now have 2 foods I am staying away from --- for today--- chips and cheap candy. They take my brain and shove it somewhere, I don't know, maybe into my stomach, but I start behaving as if it's shoved up my ass!
That's the best way to describe what I feel before going to my therapy group. It's a group of 10-12 people, mostly women, in various 12 step programmes (OA, AA, NA etc) facilitated by a doctor who specializes in treating people with addictions. Meeting 3 times/month on average, it's supposed to get me "in touch with my feelings" bleahh... Frankly, I'd rather be at the dentist.
Did I say bleahhhh? Oh right. I guess this feeling may be part of the reason I got to this point anyway.
Unlike many in OA, I haven't completely sworn off of sweet stuff. I find the "total" abstinence from sweets to be kind of arbitrary, ie don't eat things with sweets in the first 3 or 5 ingredients. Hm. I wonder if a pear came with an ingredient list pasted on it, would natural sugar be in the first 5?
But sometimes, I wonder if there's a point to it. Fuzzboy gave me a few chocolates he found in his sock drawer (Christmas leftover)while we were moving bedrooms to do some painting. They were an intensely sweet crunchy toffee. I wanted more. I was already bothered and anxious about the moving stuff around, so much junk, so little room, and so I had some more. Fuzz offered to put the candy away. I agreed, after a couple more. Then I was feeling still very unsettled so I had some dark chocolate, the only candy I keep around. I still craved more, simultaneously agitated. Fuzz suggested it was dinner time. And it was, past 630. The craving subsided, but I felt sheepish and as if my brain had been hijacked by a few candies.
Stuff like that frightens me. My mood is so changeable. I feel anger, shame and chagrin about being so caught up in food and not taking better care of myself. I spent most of the day on the computer playing a stupid game, avoiding thought, avoiding the discomfort of my feelings.
Hours later and a healthy supper later, I'm ok, but I'm still feeling very unsettled. I think I need to keep my house free of that stuff because I did react very strongly to either the substance itself or the feeling of soothing my anxiety in that intense candy. It's always more appealing when I'm anxious and avoiding it.
I'M FUCKING ANGRY. Angry at Fuzz for giving me that damn candy when I had asked him to keep it out of my sight in the first place. Angrier at me for taking it. It's just some damn candy, why does it make me feel like dirt?
Two friends told me about this Oprah repeat the other day and I managed to catch it...
Stacey Halprin lost over 300 pounds with the help of gastric bypass surgery. The smart thing about her is she recognized even before she had it that it wasn't a cure-all for her disease, the obesity that was killing her---body and soul. She knew it could help, give her a leg up on her disease, but to really start to recover, she had to reinvent her relationship with food. Many who have the surgery find out that their disease can come back --- the part of the stomach left has the ability to stretch, some people become bulimic. The disease is insidious.
The word "addiction" came up more than once in the interview. I strongly empathized with what she said about her life now:
"It's a hard adjustment. People think that's going to be all great; it's not all great. It's a life to get used to, it's a new person. I never thought there could be anything harder than losing weight, but there is. And that is getting rid of that 500-pound voice in your head all the time."
I still feel like a 300 pound woman in this 145 pound body. It's as if I'm squeezed into some high tech ultra-girdle... I imagine this is part of my disorder, this feeling of being an alien, someone who isn't quite a full citizen, liable to be ejected if I goof up, I don't know if I'm ever going to get rid of my 300-pound voice. I don't think I want to totally disavow it, because I want to become accepting of all of me. I can't blot out that part of my life like I tried to blot out every emotion with food. I believe that voice came out of my genes and my experiences.
I was a very buoyant swimmer when I was heavy. All that fat helped me be an excellent floater. I think it made me possible to survive the turbulent waters of my life too, anesthetize myself to my father's rages and drinking, my mother's depression and paranoia.
They died in very sad circumstances, exactly 6 months apart, Mom from lung cancer, Dad finally relieved from his deepening dementia by a stroke. After caring for them as best I could, I was left with my sad memories and my coping techniques run amok. A few months later, my own physical health crashed and I was diagnosed with hypertension and adult onset diabetes. I lost a significant amount of weight but it wasn't until I had gained almost all of it back again that I was given a gentle shove into OA by a supportive therapist. Then I started to really look at what my 300 pound voice was saying.
Some days I just don't want to get up. Hm. Maybe I should take the laptop out on the back deck to type this... where's my down jacket? This is the first real sun, and it's by no means cloudless out there, that I have seen in days. If, as my gp and therapist both wonder, I am suffering from SAD (clever acronym, that) I shoud catch some rays. It may be related to the oversleeping.
Ugh, I have a therapy appointment this afternoon. That makes me want to sleep. This being thin stuff is no walk in the park. When I was heavy, I thought being thin would solve all my problems, but some days I still feel weighted down. Yes, I know, I've written before here how the fat is all in my head, but I guess I don't even believe myself some days.
Argh, sun is gone again. But some positive things are happening:
In the past week I've been at 2 dinner parties with other women from Overeaters Anonymous. Sound strange? Well, we have to eat, and just because we are struggling with eating disorders (too much, too little, or both) doesn't mean we can't eat together. Most of the women don't eat desserts or candy any more and while I still do (in moderation, I hope) I don't do hors d'oeuvres or salty crunchy stuff because it does to me what sweets do to them, just sets up a craving for more, and I lose my brain to the buffet table. So these dinners tend to be much safer than the usual holiday parties, just salads and main dishes and fruit and/or cheese for dessert. It's so much simpler. Oh yeah, no alcohol. Some of us do, some don't drink. Everyone has to drive somewhere after. Simple. Easy. Ahhhhhhh....
And I admire these women. Many of them are a few years older than me, and they've been through a lot. We don't talk a lot of OA program stuff at these, we just do social stuff. Talk about our lives, kids, jobs, family, whatever. We pulled out some board games one night. Yesterday we went for a long walk in a local conservation area.
You hear a lot about God/Higher Power in connection with 12 step programmes like OA, AA, all the A's. It was the thought of that which kept me away from OA for so long. Now I've been around "the rooms" a few years, I really revel in the openness of that concept: A higher power can be whatever force which opens me up to doing my life differently, changing those fucked up patterns that got me into such a hole in the first place. It can be as simple as saying, ok, I'm not doing so hot here, so I'm going to have to look outside this comfort zone to see if I can change something.
Rats. Gotta see the shrink. Living outside the comfort zone ain't all size 7 jeans and Old Navy commercials...
