As I’ve mentioned previously, my fiancé is away on business in another part of the country until October, so I am alone. Well, not entirely. I do have the cat to keep me company. I also have my job, though my hours have been cut back to roughly 10-12 per week. So I have a lot of free time. I have so many hours where I could be doing so many productive things—editing my book-in-progress, devoting time to my fiction side project, updating my blog, cleaning our apartment, making a dent in my mega-long reading list. Sharpening my guitar skills. Brushing up on my French. Planning our wedding. Applying for a better job. There are so many productive ways I could be spending my time. What am I doing?
Working out (far too often)
Obsessing over food
Weighing myself
Watching reality television
Sleeping
Playing Angry Birds
Listening to pensive indie bands (which I do love)
Avoiding reality
Avoiding responsibility
Avoiding recovery
Self-sabotaging
Self-destructing
Somehow I’ve found myself in the midst of a depression. Depression is nothing new to me. I’ve dealt with it since I was twelve when my father was first diagnosed with colon cancer. I fade in and out of it so fluidly that sometimes I don’t even recognize. For the last few years it has been relatively mild (I don't take any medication). However, it worsened back in January when my mother remarried. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned her husband (soon to be ex-husband, God willing), but he is a very, very negative and verbally abusive person, which yielded a whole host of trouble. I’ve been so stressed and worried about my mother, among other things. Of course, my eating disorder is closely linked to my depression. And, of course, I’m not eating nearly enough. But it’s hardly even a conscious choice this time. It’s because my fiance is gone and I’m here on my own. There’s no one else to cook for and I’ve been too emotionally drained to cook for myself. I don’t have the energy to do anything at all. All I want to do is sleep. I started out eating frozen dinners just to keep from cooking—which I normally love to do—and I’ve slowly been eating less and less. In the back of my mind I know it isn’t right, that I was doing so well in my recovery for the last several years really, and that not eating is never an option. I know how unhealthy it is, I know how hard ED behavior is to overcome. I know how hard I’ve fought this thing and how much progress I’ve made and how I never ever ever want things to go back to the way the used to be. I know all of this but I can’t snap out of it. I can’t snap out of it because, without really trying to, I’ve lost about 8 lbs. Suddenly my brain insists that I can and should lose more.
“Don’t you love a challenge? 8 was easy. Let’s do 15!”
The one thing that has been keeping me solid in my recovery all these years is my ability to block out those eating-disordered thoughts. They have always been there, but I’ve been able to override them and do what is right. But now, it seems so much easier and requires far less effort just to let my eating disorder do the thinking for me. I’ve been fighting this for 7 years. I’m tired.
I’m not saying I’m giving up on my recovery. I’m not giving up and I’m not going back. I just need help, and thoughts, and prayers right now to keep me grounded and give me the energy and motivation to keep fighting. It is worth it, I know that. I believe that. Really I do.
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
A White Flag Waving
Thank you all for the support and encouragement you offered on my last post. It is very, very much appreciated. I've been trying hard this week to get a handle on my emotions, to slow down and breathe, to think rationally, calmly, to nurture myself, to stay positive, to smile. I would be lying if I said that it wasn't challenging. I've been suppressing so many emotions and memories and ill feelings deep inside me now for last few months-- even the last few years-- and I guess they're all finally spilling out, whether I'm ready to cope with them or not.
I've written here before about the terrible rift in my family. I will spare you the details. What is important is that my brother and I almost never speak. My father is dead. My mother is remarried (as of last month) and she doesn't call me anymore. We don't speak unless I call her, which my pride won't let me as often as I want to. My mother and I grew very close after my father's passing. But now that she's remarried, it's like she's a totally different person. I've only met her new husband once. From what I have observed and from what she has told me, he is very controlling. I don't know if he simply won't let her contact me, or if she just doesn't want to. Either way, I feel brokenhearted, betrayed, abandoned, alone.
Maybe it's silly for me to feel that way. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'll be 27 in a few weeks. But I feel utterly abandoned. Orphaned.
A few days ago at work one of my coworkers asked me whether or not I missed living in Las Vegas (it's been almost a year since I moved from there). I told her yes, I missed it very much. She asked if I still had family there. I meant to tell her that I didn't have any family there. But the words that came from my mouth were, "I don't have any family." I didn't even realize what I'd said. She placed her hands on my arm and said, "Honey, what do you mean you don't have any family?" I felt tears rising up in me but I held them back. Talk about the Freudian slip of the century.
I know that I do have family. I know that they love me. And I love them very much. But our relationship is so wounded that none of us communicate with one another. We don't see each other. We don't call each other or speak to each other or e-mail each other or text each other.
I do have family. But we are no longer the family we once were.
All of these negative emotions have been fueling eating disordered thoughts. And I have been using them as an excuse not to eat, to lose weight, to funnel all of my energy into letting myself feel pain instead of forcing myself to fight against it. I know that's not okay. I've been praying very hard for God to mend our broken family, to soften our hearts, especially mine. I've been asking him to help me to not hold grudges, to not be bitter. And I realized that we don't have to stay broken. But we will stay broken until one of us takes the first step forward, a peace offering. A white flag waving.
I've never been one to surrender. I can hold a grudge longer than anyone. But so can my brother and so can my mother. I guess we're more alike than any of us realize.
Someone has to give in.
I don't know if I can do it, but I have to try.
I've written here before about the terrible rift in my family. I will spare you the details. What is important is that my brother and I almost never speak. My father is dead. My mother is remarried (as of last month) and she doesn't call me anymore. We don't speak unless I call her, which my pride won't let me as often as I want to. My mother and I grew very close after my father's passing. But now that she's remarried, it's like she's a totally different person. I've only met her new husband once. From what I have observed and from what she has told me, he is very controlling. I don't know if he simply won't let her contact me, or if she just doesn't want to. Either way, I feel brokenhearted, betrayed, abandoned, alone.
Maybe it's silly for me to feel that way. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'll be 27 in a few weeks. But I feel utterly abandoned. Orphaned.
A few days ago at work one of my coworkers asked me whether or not I missed living in Las Vegas (it's been almost a year since I moved from there). I told her yes, I missed it very much. She asked if I still had family there. I meant to tell her that I didn't have any family there. But the words that came from my mouth were, "I don't have any family." I didn't even realize what I'd said. She placed her hands on my arm and said, "Honey, what do you mean you don't have any family?" I felt tears rising up in me but I held them back. Talk about the Freudian slip of the century.
I know that I do have family. I know that they love me. And I love them very much. But our relationship is so wounded that none of us communicate with one another. We don't see each other. We don't call each other or speak to each other or e-mail each other or text each other.
I do have family. But we are no longer the family we once were.
All of these negative emotions have been fueling eating disordered thoughts. And I have been using them as an excuse not to eat, to lose weight, to funnel all of my energy into letting myself feel pain instead of forcing myself to fight against it. I know that's not okay. I've been praying very hard for God to mend our broken family, to soften our hearts, especially mine. I've been asking him to help me to not hold grudges, to not be bitter. And I realized that we don't have to stay broken. But we will stay broken until one of us takes the first step forward, a peace offering. A white flag waving.
I've never been one to surrender. I can hold a grudge longer than anyone. But so can my brother and so can my mother. I guess we're more alike than any of us realize.
Someone has to give in.
I don't know if I can do it, but I have to try.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Letting Go
Today marks the 8th anniversary of my father's death.
I don't think I need to explain how I feel today. Or maybe I do. People assume, myself included, that once the grave is dug, the body is buried, the mourning period has passed, and the griever has returned to what appears to be a normal life again, that the pain is over, or that it's less somehow. But that isn't true. I miss my father terribly. I miss him more than I'll ever be able to explain. 8 years seems like a long time. It seems like it should be easier by now to cope with his passing. But each year that goes by, instead of learning to deal with his absence and miss him less and less, I miss him more and more. I am constantly reminded on days like today that he's never coming home. And then I grieve all over again.
I wrote a post a couple of months ago in which I had a major epiphany. I had always assumed my eating disorder was my unintentional way of coping with the death of my father. But I realized while writing that post that my eating disorder was actually my way of not coping with the death of my father. Shortly after he passed away my eating disorder began. I had no time to think of him. I had no time to approach and deal with the emotions that followed his death. I kept myself busy with diet plans and calorie counting and constant weight loss.
So, 8 years later, I still haven't properly dealt with all of this. I still haven't faced the issue head on. Every time I think of my Dad I either smile and then think of something else very quickly, or I feel the knives in my throat and the sensation that I'm going to cry, and then think of something else very quickly.
After my father's funeral, everyone commented on how well I was taking his passing. Considering how close he and I were, I suppose everyone thought I would fall apart. And I did. It just took a few months to manifest itself. Of course I cried at his funeral. I did nothing but cry for days and days and days. And then I went numb. According to those who believe that there are 5 stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance) I have never made it past stage 4. The denial, the anger, and the bargaining all happened when he was so sick with cancer he could no longer talk or walk or function, when he became bed-fast and the doctors told us he'd never recover. The depression set in too, but after he died, it skyrocketed. Then the eating disorder kicked in. And the acceptance, well, I suppose I haven't gotten there yet.
I've always thought of the depression and anxiety I feel due to losing my father as something completely separate from the anxiety and depression I feel due to my eating disorder. But I'm learning very quickly that perhaps they're related. And perhaps I can never recover from one until I'm ready to recover from both.
I have to admit my food intake has been low for the last two weeks. I've been anticipating today for a long time. I've been thinking about Dad a lot. I've been thinking about the collapse of our entire family structure. I've been thinking about lots of sad things. I haven't been thinking of recovery. I've also been working a lot. I've worked 7 shifts in a row, many of which were doubles. Most days I returned home from work about 10 or 11 pm. I've eaten breakfast every day but that's it. No lunch, no dinner. I justify this by telling myself that I don't have time.
But that's not true.
I don't think that this is a relapse. And I know that my behavior is not okay. I know I need to eat. I know how vitally important it is. I know all of those things. But I'm so overwhelmingly sad that I don't even have an appetite. I also know that's no excuse. Like I've said before, recovery has to be a conscious effort. You have to actively think about it and pursue it if you want to accomplish it. Unfortunately for me, I haven't been, at least not lately.
I have a lot of work to do to get myself healthy. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. I have a lot of work to do, but I still know I can do it. I don't know how, but I have faith.
Each year on the anniversary of my father's death I can think of nothing but the Emily Dickinson poem "After great pain a formal feeling comes." In the final stanza, she says
Here's to letting go.
I don't think I need to explain how I feel today. Or maybe I do. People assume, myself included, that once the grave is dug, the body is buried, the mourning period has passed, and the griever has returned to what appears to be a normal life again, that the pain is over, or that it's less somehow. But that isn't true. I miss my father terribly. I miss him more than I'll ever be able to explain. 8 years seems like a long time. It seems like it should be easier by now to cope with his passing. But each year that goes by, instead of learning to deal with his absence and miss him less and less, I miss him more and more. I am constantly reminded on days like today that he's never coming home. And then I grieve all over again.
I wrote a post a couple of months ago in which I had a major epiphany. I had always assumed my eating disorder was my unintentional way of coping with the death of my father. But I realized while writing that post that my eating disorder was actually my way of not coping with the death of my father. Shortly after he passed away my eating disorder began. I had no time to think of him. I had no time to approach and deal with the emotions that followed his death. I kept myself busy with diet plans and calorie counting and constant weight loss.
So, 8 years later, I still haven't properly dealt with all of this. I still haven't faced the issue head on. Every time I think of my Dad I either smile and then think of something else very quickly, or I feel the knives in my throat and the sensation that I'm going to cry, and then think of something else very quickly.
After my father's funeral, everyone commented on how well I was taking his passing. Considering how close he and I were, I suppose everyone thought I would fall apart. And I did. It just took a few months to manifest itself. Of course I cried at his funeral. I did nothing but cry for days and days and days. And then I went numb. According to those who believe that there are 5 stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance) I have never made it past stage 4. The denial, the anger, and the bargaining all happened when he was so sick with cancer he could no longer talk or walk or function, when he became bed-fast and the doctors told us he'd never recover. The depression set in too, but after he died, it skyrocketed. Then the eating disorder kicked in. And the acceptance, well, I suppose I haven't gotten there yet.
I've always thought of the depression and anxiety I feel due to losing my father as something completely separate from the anxiety and depression I feel due to my eating disorder. But I'm learning very quickly that perhaps they're related. And perhaps I can never recover from one until I'm ready to recover from both.
I have to admit my food intake has been low for the last two weeks. I've been anticipating today for a long time. I've been thinking about Dad a lot. I've been thinking about the collapse of our entire family structure. I've been thinking about lots of sad things. I haven't been thinking of recovery. I've also been working a lot. I've worked 7 shifts in a row, many of which were doubles. Most days I returned home from work about 10 or 11 pm. I've eaten breakfast every day but that's it. No lunch, no dinner. I justify this by telling myself that I don't have time.
But that's not true.
I don't think that this is a relapse. And I know that my behavior is not okay. I know I need to eat. I know how vitally important it is. I know all of those things. But I'm so overwhelmingly sad that I don't even have an appetite. I also know that's no excuse. Like I've said before, recovery has to be a conscious effort. You have to actively think about it and pursue it if you want to accomplish it. Unfortunately for me, I haven't been, at least not lately.
I have a lot of work to do to get myself healthy. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. I have a lot of work to do, but I still know I can do it. I don't know how, but I have faith.
Each year on the anniversary of my father's death I can think of nothing but the Emily Dickinson poem "After great pain a formal feeling comes." In the final stanza, she says
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.
Here's to letting go.
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