Managing The Basics

“Anna! How are you?!”

So I hear that a lot. A lot. Like every time I run into someone I haven’t seen in more than a month. Inwardly I cringe when I hear it because it is such a loaded question. First I have to pause and think, “how much does this person already know?” then I have to think, “how much do I want this person to know?” then I have to think, “does this person really even want to know? and what is his/her motives for asking?” All of these thoughts go flying through my head and I stand there like a dummy trying to sort them out before I answer. Generally I just smile and nod and say, “yeah, I’m doing ok. Thanks so much for asking. It means a lot, I appreciate it.”

Since it’s been awhile, here is how I’m really doing, in case you’re interested…

Depression: after two full rounds of ECT this winter I’m still frustratingly depressed. I pulled three stints at UVA this winter (each about two weeks) and they all helped — I’m not suicidal anymore — but I’m discouraged that even after all of that I’m still so deep in the depression. Shemo is making noise about adding an atypical to my drug therapy to augment the Cymbalta in that hopes that my mood will lift. I’ll know more once I see him on Monday.

Eating Disorder: Better than I have ever been since my diagnosis with anorexia four years ago. In my darkest days I never thought doing this well would be possibility for me. I’m going weeks between binge/purge episodes. The variety of food I eat is pretty extremely limited because I have fears of being triggered, but while that is true it is also true that I’m not limiting calories. I may go for a week eating cottage cheese and peaches for lunch but I’m making damn sure it’s 4% cottage cheese and that I’m eating enough of it. Perfect? Not by a long shot. Progress? Incredible progress.

Marriage: I have the best husband in the whole wide world. Hands down without a doubt. I do not deserve him. I love him with my whole heart and the amazing thing is that he loves me just as much as I love him. He lives his love and devotion to me every day.

Faith: I finally got the courage to tell my parents I have left the church. My parents are both social liberals but I was still sick-on-my-stomach-nervous about telling them. I couldn’t even tell my mom – I had to have  her hand the phone to my dad. So picture me sitting on my bed, holding my phone and shaking as I stumble over the words, “Dad, you know I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. Most of me doesn’t even wantto do this, but after all the research, learning, and growth I’ve been doing I feel I have no choice. Please don’t be mad or hate me… I’m formally converting to Judaism.” There is dead silence for a minute and I’m sure my dad is about to either 1) hang up on me or 2) start yelling. What does he do? He warmly says, “Sweetie, I think that’s great you’re going back to Mendez family roots, but your mother and I aren’t going to spend a penny more than $40,000 on your Bat Mitzvah!.” I about died with relief.

So, in a nut shell, that is how I’m doing. Thanks so much for asking, I really do appreciate it – even when I don’t know exactly how to respond.

I’m back.

Not sure exactly what for this blog will take now… probably a mix of mental health advocacy and awareness stuff with updates about me and my personal journey mixed in.

Tomorrow evening I talk to Katie. This means that tomorrow morning I have to stand on a scale and have Tish weight me so that she can call Katie and give her the number.  My stomach gets achy feeling just thinking about it.

I am so fat. I’m ashamed and embarrassed. I just hate the thought that both Tish and Katie know what I weigh.  I probably weigh twice what Katie weighs.

Tonight is a gym night for me. I’m going to do 25 minutes weights like I’m supposed to, but I think I’m going to 40 to 45 minutes cardio. I didn’t go to the gym on Monday, so I figure I can work out longer than normal to make up for it.

To learn the transport by the pain,
As blind men learn the sun;
To die of thirst, suspecting
That brooks in meadows run;

To stay the homesick, homesick feet
Upon a foreign shore
Haunted by native lands, the while,
And blue, beloved air —

This is the sovereign anguish,
This, the signal woe!
These are the patient laureates
Whose voices, trained below,

Ascend in ceaseless carol,
Inaudible, indeed,
To us, the duller scholars
Of the mysterious bard!

– Emily Dickinson

I remember the stories you used to tell me about your time at Tenley. How Mindy would come and visit you and the two of you would torture the ED patients on your unit by walking around and offering them the chocolate chip cookies that were kept in the unit kitchen. At the time I thought that was hysterically funny, and — don’t tell anyone — part of me still does.

Grandma Jane and I are in touch, not often, but with some regularity. Grandpa Leonard isn’t doing very well, but he is in good spirits. I visited them last spring and we took a bunch of pictures together. I still haven’t gotten them developed, I think in large part because I know the pictures won’t do the day justice.

It was a hot day with a warm breeze. Grandma Jane took me to visit you. I’m sure you’re disappointed with your view – it can’t be nearly exciting enough for you – but I approve whole-heartedly. From your place under a shade tree you can see two fields. One the farmer has let turn to meadow with yellow wildflowers blooming, but the other field is still being used to make hay. It smells sweet, just like West Virginia hay, but it looks different. Longer, fuller. I think it must be the higher quality mid-western soil.

You probably spend your time debating military and economic policy with Nixon and Regan. Go easy on them, sister. They are no match for you. They couldn’t have gotten into Wellsely even if that had had vaginas. Just please wear decent clothes. It really isn’t fair for the men when they have to try to keep up with your wit when you’re running around with a scarf wrapped around your bra as your shirt. It is just impossible for them to handle brains and breasts at the same time.

I miss you. Save a seat for me at the table.

(PS: Mom found about about the condom wrapper under my alarm clock. Sorry. I slipped one day. If it makes you feel better she wasn’t mad. She thought it was kinda funny.)

One of my geology professors from JMU emailed this weekend. He’s my favorite prof of all time. His classes actually made me think and not just regurgitate information. He and his wife graciously offered to open their home to me when I was afraid I was going to be coming back from Chicago with no place to live and his wife has occasionally read this blog, so he knows what is going on in my life.  It was nice to know that he’s thinking of me and I appreciated his kind and encouraging words.

So why am I sitting at the computer crying?

Thinking of him and my time at JMU makes me remember how far I am from where I was. I don’t think anyone could have looked at me then and imagined that I’d end up where I am now. I took all the hard classes, even the ones I didn’t have to, and I always blew the top off the curve. I could have had anything I wanted after graduation: any job, any grad school.

Instead of getting an impressing job in geophysics or accepting a  Rhodes scholarship, I got an eating disorder. I’ve wasted two and half years and hundreds of thousands of dollars and have nothing to show for it. I’m fat. I’m depressed.

I am such a loser. I always have been. Those four years at JMU were an anomaly. I was popular. I was genuinely happy and content with my life. I loved what I was doing. Gabe and I lived in a house that we rented so we didn’t have  to face the challenges that come with home-ownership. My sister was talking to me. It was a magical time.

I don’t know why I thought it would last.

Nothing is right in my life now. The one and only good thing I have in my life is my husband and I love him so much that I don’t want him to love me anymore. He deserves better. He deserves to be with someone who is happy and healthy.

God played a mean joke on me when he gave me those years at JMU. He gave me something I had never had before: a taste of normalcy. But all he allowed me was a taste.

Pattern recognition: I binge/purge after my sessions with Dr. Shemo.

Solution: Stop seeing Dr. Shemo.

Because I have a nagging suspicious that Gabe would not approve of that solution, I’ve come up with another one.

Second Solution: tell Dr. Shemo and Katie about my pattern of binging/purging once I leave a session with him. Come up with a plan to prevent it.

Possible prevention plan:

1. Contract with Dr. Shemo that I will make it home safely.

2. Pre-plan my Monday meals and snack. Tell Gabe my pre-plan and stick to it.

3. Bring my snack and water with me and eat it in the car on the way home.

4. Don’t stop in Harrisonburg for any reason. (This means making sure I have enough gas in my car on Sunday night.)

5. Leave all my cash, debit card, and check book at home. (Bring one check with me to pay Dr. Shemo.)

6. Call Tish when I’m leaving Charlottesville and tell her I will make it home safely.

7. Call Tish when I get home and let her know how I did.

8. Eat (my pre-planned) lunch as soon as I get home.

9. Read or color mandalas for about an hour after eating, then go to the gym.

10. Have a healthy (i.e. Katie approved) session at the gym.

11. Check in with Tish before I leave Monterey.

12. Make sure that Gabe will be home when I get home from the gym.

13. Hang out with Gabe for the rest of the evening/nigh. DO NOT be alone.

14. Email Katie and give her my complete food and behavior log for the day before I go to bed.

15. If at any time on Monday I feel unsafe, I must STOP, take a deep breath, say an Our Father, and then call a supportive person. (Supportive People = Bev, Brooke, Kenzie, Cyndi, Becky D, Becky B, Mel, Heather, Kenzie, Heidi, Amy, Vicki, Elise, Kari.)

I feel so freakin’ fat. FAT. FAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

Gabe took me to H-burg this afternoon to see Lakeview Terrace. (Hint: wait until it comes out on DVD. Not worth the cash to see it in a theater, even if it does star my man SLJ.) The show started at 4:30, and I purposely didn’t eat my afternoon snack before we went. I was determined to do something that normal people do when they go see a movie: eat a small bag of popcorn.

I wasn’t brave enough to put butter on it, but I did eat it. And I felt triumphant, like “Take that stupid Mr. Eating Disorder!” for all of about 30 seconds. Ok, maybe 47 and a half seconds, but definitely not a full minute. The guilt and the gross and the “oh-my-gosh-I-have-no-idea-how-many-calories-I-ate-but-I’m-sure-its-too-many” factor set in super fast.

I’m home now. It’s 9:30 and I’m faced with the fact that I still haven’t eaten dinner. At this point I have no intention to. I’m justifying it by telling myself I must have at least gotten enough calories today with all the popcorn I ate, and that my “day count” is only counting days of not binging/purging, NOT days following my MP, so I’ll still be on a roll as far as that goes.

I am such a worthless excuse for a human being.

FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT

WORTHLESS WORTHLESS WORTHLESS WORTHLESS WORTHLESS

FAT

Decided I was only going to eat half my dinner and skip my PM snack completely.

Then Gabe told me how proud he was of me for working so hard at recovery and reminded me how well I’ve done NOT binging and purging. That gave me guilt. Major guilt. Episcopalian guilt isn’t as bad as Catholic guilt, but it’s right up there. So I got up out of our warm cozy bed where we were reading with each other and I went into the kitchen. I poured myself a bowl of raisin bran with milk.

And I ate it. And it is still in my tummy, not in the toilet.

Because, after all, as Heidi so perfectly put it: my meal plan is reasonable.

(And Katie is always right.)

Imagine two men.

Man #1 is a 29 year old married white man who has lived in rural West Virginia his entire life. He has taken some college classes but on the whole has no desire to go back and get a degree. He says, “yes ma’am” and “yes, sir” instead of “yeah.” He and his father work the farm that has supported the family for five generations. He loves to take his nephews for tractor rides. In his spare time he goes fishing and turkey hunting. He is an expert sharp shooter – he has no competitive bone in his body, but if he wanted to he could be a nationally recognized target shooter. He wants his children to be home-schooled and he changes his own oil. He registered to vote as a Republican on his 18th birthday and voted for Bush in 2000.

Man #2 is also white and 29 years old. He has been married for four years and lives on the East Coast. He loves to listen to National Public Radio and has been to two live productions of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.  His favorite food is Thai and Ethiopian and he knows how to fix killer tofu, which he does on a regular basis. He spends his Sunday afternoons relaxing with his wife reading the Sunday Washington Post. He thinks drugs should be legalized and that there are instances when abortion is permissible. He supports his wife in her career choices and encourages her to keep advancing. He does the laundry as often as she does. He sees nothing wrong with civil marriages for gays and lesbians and thinks that American needs a system of universal health care. He voted for Kerry in 2004.

Obama might classify man #1 as someone who “holds fast to his religion and his guns;” someone who is backward and againstprogress. A conservative who is satisfied with the status quo and isn’t creative or intelligent enough to realize that there is more to life than hunting and farming.

McCain and his conservative supporters would write off man #2 as a “liberal elite.” They see him as a man out of touch. Only “liberal elites” eat tofu and listen to NPR on the radio as they drive to their favorite Ethiopian restaurant.

The problem for both Obama and McCain is that there is no such thing as man #1 and man #2. There is only Gabe – my husband.

That is the reality, folks. Both man #1 and man #2 are one in the same.

To those fellow Republicans who would label him as an East Coast elitist: you are free to dismiss him if you want to, but you need to realize exactly what it is you are dismissing. He’s far from a radical leftist and more in touch with the needs and concerns of the working and middle class Americans than any Republican who serves in DC.

To the Obama supports who write him off as a  red-neck or hillbilly: to ignore him is to do so at your peril. He may own more rifles than most people own coffee mugs, but you need him to win this election. You may think his work ethic and morals are quaint and old-fashioned, but he is living life the way his mother and father taught him.

Why can’t we stop the name calling, the stereotyping, the misrepresentations, the negative campaign ads, and address the issues that have actual meaning to the electorate?

Oh, I remember: this is an American presidential election. Talking about things that really matter isn’t allowed.

But who’s counting?

To those who have gone before me: your inspiration and success motivate me to keep working on recovery. The best support you give is to allow me the privilege to be a witness to your life as you live out God’s plan for you activly in recovery.

To those who will follow behind me: I pray that your journey is less fraught with challenges than mine, but even if it isn’t, you are worth recovery.

To those who are in this with me and next to me: we are doing the work of recovery everyday, one meal and one bite and one less trip to the bathroom at a time. I am honored to call you my friends.  We will deafen the world with our voices one day as we claim full health for our bodies together.