Bad Medicine Is What I Need

Eating disorders are a mental illness. (There. I said it.) Like anyone with an illness of any sort, I see doctors to help keep me on the recovery path. There's a therapist, a nutritionist, my primary care physician and, of course, my meds doctor who writes prescriptions for what I like to call my "happy pills." My meds doctor - I shall call him Dr. Meds - is wonderful, kind and very conservative with my medication, which I appreciate tremendously. He's also adorable and would totally be my gay boyfriend if he wasn't my doctor.

But anyway...I saw him late last week and knew my meds needed tweaking. I'd been taking the same anti-depressant (ADP) for nearly two years and it had really lost its zing. I was feeling kind of flat and uninspired - all signs that a depressive episode could easily creep in. (For the depression rookies: a depressive episode for me = not wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to leave the house, not wanting to take a shower, etc. Even the smallest task feels insurmountable.) Dr. Meds suggested adding a very small dose of Prozac to the ADP I was already taking and, knowing I needed *something* else, I agreed. I mean, how bad could it possible be?

Day 1: I added the Prozac to my other ADP. Nothing happened. Hooray!

Day 2: I took my meds and got ready to go shopping/out for lunch with a friend. I stopped to grab breakfast so I could eat on the way and...ugh. I couldn't eat it. I got about halfway through my egg white sandwich and felt physically ill at the thought of eating more. I ate lunch alright but by the time late afternoon rolled around, my body was shaking and I'd developed a weird twitch in my right index finger. And an appetite? Forget it. The mere suggestion of food was enough to make me gag. Then I had a thought: the last time I started restricting my food intake and landed in the outpatient program was triggered by a change in medication. It made me not feel hungry so I thought, "why eat just for the sake of eating?" I went to the bathroom - where I do my best thinking - sat on the toilet and just started sobbing. "This cannot happen again," I said out loud. No. This cannot happen again.   

Day 3: My morning coffee tasted like a cigarette butt or something else awful, bitter and smoky. I had to take my meds, so I forced myself to eat a packet of instant oatmeal so there would be something in my stomach. I felt woozy and shaky and pretty miserable all day, but forced light foods like cup o' soup and saltine crackers throughout the afternoon. "It would be so easy to lose a few pounds this way," something said to me. "If you're careful, no one will even notice but you." Being alone with my thoughts is a pretty scary place, so I took Norman out for a long walk to try and clear my head.  I felt better when I got home and made a real dinner, stupid voices be damned.

I forgot how much my body hates SSRI's, a particular type of ADP that increases your levels of serotonin. (Prozac falls into that category.) After a bad episode with Zoloft several years ago, I swore them off completely and decided I'd rather feel like shit than feel like I did on Zoloft. Now here I am...taking a combo of medications...including the dreaded SSRI. Dr. Meds said it will take my body time to adjust and I believe that. What scares me is that my mind won't adjust and that I'm not strong enough to keep it quiet. I know this eating disorder will wiggle through even the smallest opening I give it because it's always waiting for me, quietly plotting its next move.

The Closet Monster

I know a lot of people who can't sleep with their closet door open for fear the Closet Monster will pop out and eat them. I don't like sleeping with my closet doors open, either, but it's NOT because of a monster.

I love pretty things: shoes that sparkle, dresses that twirl, anything pink. Over the years, I collected a closet full of beautiful things that made me so happy, sometimes I'd slip into a fancy dress just to spin around my bedroom and feel like a princess.

Those beautiful things don't make me happy anymore.

I still gaze lovingly at the garments and run my hands over shimmering fabric or intricate beading, remembering where and when I last wore the item. But now, trying to feel like a princess instead makes me feel like an ogre as none of those lovely things fit me anymore. My new body - the body with larger breasts and fuller hips, the body I'm desperately trying to love - no longer shimmies into a size 2, much to the chagrin of the ruched, red Ralph Lauren dress that's begging to be worn one last time.

I've always put a lot of care and effort into my appearance. And I know where it comes from - I was told how ugly I was for so long that, when I wasn't ugly anymore, I couldn't risk sliding backwards and had to maintain a certain level of attractiveness. After all, if I was going to be loved, surely I had to be pretty, right? I'm still trying to put all that care and effort into how I look, but it sort of feels like shoveling shit against the tide when your closet has betrayed you.

A typical mourning morning looks and sounds something like this: I need to get ready for work and pull dress after dress out of the closet and hate them all. Stripes, polka dots, black, white, pink, red...are all strewn across my bedroom floor in a sad looking heap. By now, I'm sobbing, late for work and still in my underwear. I'll finally choose one of the things I feel comfortable in and race out the door, makeup optional.

What's happening here? This isn't me!

No. It's not me. This is the new me and I have to stop fighting with her.

I've never really embraced my body. In fact, I have always fought against it, hated it and called it terrible things I would never call anyone else. I have felt ashamed that my thighs brush together, that my chin is too small, that my breasts aren't exactly the same size. (I do have nice eyes, though.) My body has changed thanks to a steady diet of, well, food, and I'm thinking it's time to try and see myself differently. I could keep up this nonsense of trying to fit physically and mentally into what was or I could take a giant leap forward and start loving what is.

 

I have a ginormous bag packed to bring to a local consignment store. It's full of frilly dresses and other lovely things, all which I have outgrown. It's not about outgrowing those clothes physically; I've outgrown them emotionally. What they represent - fighting to be skinny, fighting to be pretty enough, fighting to be good enough to be loved - that's what doesn't fit me anymore. I am so much more than my clothes and shoes. I'm not just pink and sparkling and superficial.

That said, I deserve to get dressed in the morning and leave my apartment, head held high, feeling confident and knowing I look great. I deserve to own my presence and not feel badly I take up a little more space on the bus than I used to. I'm beautiful, with or without a few extra curves. And with that, I'm off to buy a couple of fabulous new fall outfits, outfits that fit the NEW me. I'm totally worth it.

Much love,
Bethany

The Battle Rages On

I've talked about "Stephanie," the eating disorder voice that likes to whisper horrible things in my ear. She's calmed down quite a bit, but still lingers, popping up from time to time to try and lure me back in with promises she cannot possibly keep.

While Stephanie isn't as strong as she once was, she's a tenacious character and tries to make it  harder for me to resist my disordered ways by bringing in her sidekick, "Al." Al is - that's right - alcohol. And what Al does is alter my mental state enough so that I can forget about the bad day I had. Or the bills that came in the mail. The deep disappointment I feel over the job I took six months ago...that's is not at all what I thought it would be. He even helps me forget about the painful, empty hole in my heart that still needs to be filled with love. It all goes away, if only for a few moments.

The problem with Al is that while he helps me forget my problems, fears and pain for a brief time, they all come flooding back when the sun rises. Then, I'm off to my disappointing job, worried about finances and needing to fill the hole in my heart all over again. It's a cycle of feeling, numbing, feeling and numbing. It's what I did when I was starving myself - trying to control the uncontrollable and cover up holes that need so much more than just a band-aid.

I can hear Stephanie laughing quietly in the corner as this all goes on.

This morning, I awoke to a dreadfully dark and rainy day. Thunder boomed in the distance and lightening shimmered across the grey sky. My head, after a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc the night before, felt as grey and murky as the weather. I realized, in that moment, I had a choice to make: I could keep doing what I'm doing (which obviously isn't serving me well) or tell both Stephanie and Al that they needed to go. So, I chose the latter. I actually laid in my bed and proceeded to have a conversation with both of them. I told them where to go and exactly how to do it.

Stephanie and Al have been packed in a box that's tightly sealed up and on its way to Abu Dhabi with no return address. Let's hope they stay there for a good long time.

Much love,
Bethany

It's Not About the Food

It took more than fifteen years for me to realize I had an eating disorder. Admittedly, that's a long time to not be fully aware of something so profound. But, when your brain is obeying a disordered voice and you can no longer hear YOUR OWN voice, self-awareness is all but obliterated.

I was working with a brilliant therapist when I had my "Ah-ha!" moment and understood that all the things I was doing (like pretending to eat) actually were abnormal behaviors. The moment will stay with me forever: I was sitting on my bed watching a show on Style called "What's Eating You?" I loved tuning in every week to learn about these men & women with extreme eating disorders and never felt anything more than interest...until I watched this. Everything she said out loud were the same things that had been swirling in my head for as long as I could remember. So, it hit me: what I was doing wasn't normal. I had an eating disorder.

Once I made the discovery, I was elated, terrified, sad and angry all at the same time. What I was doing to myself - the bouts of restriction where I'd drop 20 or 25 pounds, sneaking food, bingeing and purging - had a name and a face. And I wasn't alone. Fast forward two months. I was now spending four nights a week in an outpatient program for women with disordered eating. We sat together in group therapy, ate our dinner together, journaled about our experiences and kept food diaries, all to get to the bottom of WHY we were doing what we were doing. Some of the girls didn't want to be there and it was obvious as they stared at the floor and acted despondent. Some of the girls absolutely wanted to be there but were still so deeply entrenched in their disorder, that they just couldn't see the program through. And then there was me: hungry for the knowledge of where my behaviors came from and why I did what I did. Most of all, I was hungry to find a way out of my own misery. It was one of the first times I'd been emotionally hungry in a healthy way.

What fascinated me most about my eating disorder was that it acted as a seperate being. It said things I would never say, did things I would never do, acted in ways I would never act. The disorder looked like me and sounded like me, but it wasn't me. I even named it (Stephanie - which I'm often called by mistake) because it was so very different from Bethany. I started talking to Stephanie when she got too bold and told her to fuck off. I was also learning that it wasn't about the food. Trying to be perfect by starving myself was covering up all the wounded messiness that hid beneath my well-clothed exterior. Torment, rejection, failure - those were all things I had no control over. But I could absolutely control what I did or didn't put in my mouth. Relinquishing that sense of control, which had been a safety net, was (and still is) the most challenging part of recovery.

As I began to heal and grow, I could clearly see the destruction I'd left behind. Blinded by misery and depression - side effects of "Stephanie's" hold over me - I had relationships that needed mending. But the question in my head was, were those relationships at all salvagable or had I caused irreparable damage? I couldn't expect a friend or loved one to fully understand what I'd been through, but could I expect them to forgive me?

My parents, who will never quite "get" what happened, were totally fine. My brother was amazingly supportive. Most of my closest friends (who I'd abused badly with my less-than-fabulous behavior) were willing to leave the past in the past. And then one of my best friends, who swore she'd stay by my side forever and ever, just couldn't keep her word and essentially broke up with me. With the exception of that one person*, I was moved by the resilience of the human spirit and the capacity to forgive.

And speaking of friends, family and love, I added some extra of all those things to my life by adopting this little man, my dog, Norman:

 

Norman couldn't have shown up at a worse time - smack in the middle of my outpatient program! - but having him around gave me something bigger than myself to get better for. We'd both had pretty messed up lives and I looked at us coming together as a fresh start. And it was. It still is.

Much love,
Bethany

*Note: that friend who broke up with me did eventually come back around.  I've only seen her three times since then but we do occasionally chat via text or through email. We've both tried very hard to accept the new versions of each other but I know things will never be the same. Perhaps that's a good thing. Only time will tell.

Serendipity

I'm a publicist by trade. I'm a dreamer by nature. And I'm a child at heart.

I laugh as easily as I cry. Sometimes I get angry too fast but I'll forgive and forget just as quickly.

I am a young woman who started a journey to self-discovery by accident - the happiest accident of my life. This path that I'm on, a journey to becoming the best version of myself possible, is the definition of serendipity.

My life until now appeared quite perfect from the outside. I've always had (what was perceived as) a great job and lived in an amazing city. Friends, family and even perfect strangers often told me I was beautiful and intelligent, fashionable and chic, basically the whole package. What everyone didn't know was that inside, I was filled with demons from my past and that those demons tormented me 24/7.

I was an overweight kid, teased mercilessly in school, out of school, at Brownie meetings, at swim class, on the street...you get the picture. I remember one instance so vividly, it still stings to this day: I was little, 5 or 6 years old, and playing outside in the sprinkler on a hot summer day. Two teenage girls drove by in their car and called out the window, "HEY FATSO!!!" I immediately felt ashamed and ran up onto the porch to hide. The girls actually turned around to try and taunt me again, but I stayed hidden away, eating green grapes and trying not to cry. There was the time a boy in my 5th grade class took my winter hat from the coat hook and urinated on it, just because I was deemed fat and unattractive by classmates. There are so many more examples that are seared into my brain, but you get the jist: I was bullied on a daily basis for most of my formative years.

The bullying came to an end my junior year of high school. I'd lost a few pounds over the summer and started taking charge of my eating by bringing lunch to school and eating less of my mother's delicious home cooking at night. The irony is that people started being nicer to me and boys started paying positive attention to me simply becuase I looked physically different. My hair was the same. My personality was the same. All I'd done was go from a size 12 or 14 down to a 10. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Of course, that's not where the story ends, but rather where it begins. As I transformed physically from an ugly duckling into a proverbial swan, my hurt and angry insides didn't change at all. I was (and am) still deeply scarred by the bullying, emotional abandonment (another story for another post) and I believing that being thin was the secret to being loved.  And that's what got me to where I am today; the quest for love. To give love, receive love and most important of all, learn to love myself.

Stick with me - we're in for quite the ride.

With love,
Bethany