Eating Disorder Recovery: What Do You Want to Eat?

When you first start trying to eat like a "normal" person again, there's usually a period when you feel just obsessed by food.

Now, eating disorders are of course functionally obsessed with food anyway - what you are eating, what you aren't eating, how much you're eating, how little you're eating, what you're going to eat and keep, what you're going to eat and "get rid of."

But in early recovery, the feeling of obsession takes on a different quality.  Since it's been however many weeks/months/years since you were "allowed" to eat what you want, suddenly you have to... you know... figure out what it is you want.  At every. single. meal.

Going from not thinking about what you want because there are only certain things you eat in your disordered routine, to having the option of deciding what you actively want to eat, at least three times a day, is an unexpectedly major adjustment.

I mean, we're talking about, there is a lot of food to choose from, setting aside things like money and assuming you're not working around allergies/sensitivities.  Bagel or toast?  With egg or cream cheese?  Any cheese on that egg?  Any tomato on that?  Or will it be oatmeal or granola and yogurt or yogurt?  What about the fruit on that - strawberries or banana or other berries or mango or kiwi or what? 

Or what if you want to be really brave and eat something everyone else calls "bad"?  I mean, those are all fairly "healthy" foods I just rattled off.

And that's just breakfast. 

And we're still not at the "actually gaining perceptible weight" bit yet.  Oh, no.  That comes later.

No, early on the challenge is all around, "It's okay to want to eat that," but even more so around, "It's okay to have to think about what you want to eat."  Allow me to get cheesy for a sec and extrapolate from there:  "It's okay to think about what you want."

Oh, lord.  Well, I've had my cheese quota for today, then.

Recovery Redux (Redux)

Basically every day over the about two and a half years it took for my weight to reach bottom, almost every day, I said to myself, "It's going to suck putting this weight back on and eating healthily again.  It's going to suck royally."

And it does.  It does, in fact, suck royally.  Imperially, even.

I haven't actually begun to even gain weight yet, but rather have just been getting more nutrients and calories into my body.

And yet.  It sucks.  Royally.  Imperially.

I'm distracting myself a lot with work, or sudoku, or rereading The Lord of the Rings.

I'm thinking happily about all the summer clothes I have, and love, that are too big right now.  I'm taking deliberate time to appreciate the physical energy I have.  

I'm breathing through anxiety.  I'm going through nutritionist litanies in my head, about how feelings are like waves, they have peaks and they never last forever.

I'm surviving, so far, but it sucks.  It sucks royally.

You guys, it hasn't even been one. week.


This sucks.

Checking in on the Met

The Met opened its New American Wing several years ago, and tonight they opened a members-only preview of that wing's new setup for the Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts.  (Opens to the public on Sunday)

Since I get a Met membership every year from my parents for Christmas (that and a National Geographic subscription), naturally, that's where you would've found me tonight.

Y'all.  There was a LOT of George Washington.

Hai.

Ohai.

I shall call it The Blue Room

Madame X in her new home

This picture just cracks me up for some reason.  Look at Washington in the background... then look at all these slouching modern twits.  (Don't get me wrong.  I was slouching too.)

I also took the opportunity to visit the new Islamic art wing when it wasn't achingly crowded.  If you get a chance, go.  No, seriously.  Go.

Anyway.  I feel... refreshed.

Questions Not to Ask Someone With an Eating Disorder: Did You Gain Weight?

It was a bad week.  A bad, bad, bad, bad week.  All things considered, my eating really wasn't that bad.  At least, it wasn't bad, bad, bad, bad eating.  I actually managed to probably eat more than usual.

Combine the out-of-the-ordinary eating with the bad, bad, bad, bad week, and I'm just proud I got through it without imploding.

So what do you not do after something like this?

You don't ask me, apropos of nothing, probably not even thinking of the change of eating or the tough week, "Did you gain weight?"

You don't ask that of an eating disorder patient, period.

You don't ask that unless you're a doctor, a counselor, or a nutritionist.

You don't ask that in the manner you'd ask an alcoholic, "Did you go to AA?" or the manner you'd ask someone with borderline personality disorder, "Did you sign up for the DBT group cycle that starts next week?"

First of all, I don't know if I gained weight.  I haven't weighed myself in about a week and a half or two weeks now.  The last time I weighed myself, it was the lowest weight I've seen since 2003, and it was officially anorexic.

At this point, I know my struggle well enough to know that if I weigh myself around now, no matter what the number, I'll take it the wrong way.  If my weight's the same, I'm relieved but also ashamed.  If my weight is down, I'm ashamed but also have a little frisson of accomplishment.  If my weight's up, I'm ashamed but also proud but also panicked.

You don't ask an eating disorder patient, in the manner of checking whether an assignment was completed, "Did you gain weight?"

It doesn't work like that.

I gain weight -- and keep it on -- when I start to feel emotionally safe doing so.

I start to feel emotionally safe keeping on weight when food and body and weight stop taking the places of things I'm really trying to say or do or feel or figure out.

Food, etc., stop usurping the places of real experiences and challenges when I feel allowed to figure out what those experiences and challenges are, and conquer them head on or enjoy them for themselves.

I don't gain weight in a week and keep it on and then everything's okay because I gained some weight.  That's not how it works.  Don't ask me that.  Don't ask anyone with an eating disorder that.

Ask how I'm feeling.  Ask what I'm thinking.  Give me time to figure out the answers, and if you're going to ask, listen to me -- really listen to me -- when I give you answers.

That's how it works, no matter who you are to me, no matter who I am to you, if I am someone with an eating disorer.

Holidays, Food, Women, Willpower, Bullshit

There are so many things wrong with this one piece in the HuffPo that I don't even know why I violated my self-imposed no-HuffPo policy.  (They have a strikingly irresponsible track record with ED and body image coverage, IMO.) I'm not actually linking to it up at the top here, because I don't want to give it any more traffic than it's invariably gotten.  I'll link to it at the bottom.  Hopefully that will minimize the number of you actually clicking through.

The gist of the piece is around "decision fatigue" and how it has an impact on willpower.   Specifically, the discussion revolves around the holidays.

The piece is chock full of statements that on their own would be fine and dandy, even really practical advice ("[Mistakes] make you human... Give yourself a break," "Ratchet down the stress by putting things in perspective").  So far, so good.

However, then you have to put those statements into the context of article.

The context is, of course, that "willpower" is harder for women to exercise than for men (because, lady brains), and of course "willpower" is defined mostly in terms of decadent holiday food (and drink) (because, lady existence: defined by lady waistlines).

Because of course it is.

First of all, I find the "eating yummy things and having willpower are diametrically opposed" meme to be bullshit of the smelliest variety.  It's related to the ignorant belief that anorexia has to do with willpower.  Sure it does.  Just like OCD has to do with the willpower to push through and just check that door lock one more time.

But second of all, and more to the point, I 100% grok the experience of "decision fatigue."  I could be a social scientist's perfect specimen in observing the paralysis that sets in just due to the overwhelming stress of oh my word, it's all too much (especially when the paralysis itself just adds more to the much).

I don't deny that many people (particularly people socialized in the female way) DO view their food and drink activity, especially at holiday time, as a function of willpower or lack thereof.  I am aware that it happens, and moreover I am aware that it happens to me.

I just think that it's total bullshit.  (You're reading this, so you might just agree.)  Articles like this, that just go ahead and assume that of course you're going to have trouble not shoveling Christmas cookies down and of course you're going to agonize over each extra pig in a blanket?  Well, articles like this just play right into that total bullshit and perpetuate it.

What if - just run with me here for a second - we, as girls and woman, didn't spend our holiday-time lives from age 4 or so assaulted by the message that holidays can be stressful, and our stress will get taken out on all the holiday food?

What if - keep with me a little longer here - we spent our lives hearing that holidays can be stressful, and our stress will get taken out in different ways, because we are different people?

I know, I know.  That's just silly.  We're all really the same and we're all doomed to eat too much over the holidays, and what's more, beat ourselves up over it, not because we've spent our lives being told, "You're going to beat yourself up for eating too much holiday food!" but because, lady brains.

Obviously.

Here.  Here is the crap article that buys into every assumption of Western femininity and food ever.