Ambivalence

In Deuteronomy 1:6 God speaks at Horeb,  The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain" NIV(1984)  Somehow I think his words speak to me as well.  I hear him saying"Liz, my dear, you have stayed here in this eating disorder long enough.  Trust Me to lead you off this mountain."  I want off this "mountain"!

It is now deep into the winter.  I feel lost and unsure of how to find my way back to solid ground.  I feel like I am off the marked trail of a mountain with snow falling and blowing with such vengeance that I can't even tell which way is uphill and which way is downhill.

I am sitting here running out of strength to fight my way out of this storm.  I have tried to fight my way out, but keep ending up in the  same place.  Do I keep moving, or is there some one out there that can rescue me?  Or maybe I am just going to have to make do with where I am.  Besides, I am really not THAT thin.  I weigh myself.  I knew I was over 110 lbs, but now I feel a strong desire to drop below it just to see if I can do it.  Oh, I won't stay there, but I  will just flirt with it.  Then, I will begin to seek health and wellness.  The problem lies in that I have forgotten how to be well.

What scares me is how easy it was to become sick and how easy it is to stay sick.  Am I really sick?  Do I have to have the physical manifestation of  the eating disorder to justify my need for emotional support and healing of my soul?  Could I possibly seek help for the emotional trauma and upheaval I feel without the symptoms of the eating disorder?  I push my therapist. "Tell me, tell me what I am"  I beg her.  I eat way too much ( in my eyes ) to me anorexic.  I don't binge and I purge only to rid myself of foods I feel I must eat just to appear normal.  Hell, for me a yogurt can be a binge if I must eat it when I don't want it. "You are anorexic" she says. " Well your exercise is your purge, so you are bulimic, but you don't binge"
I just want IT to have a name.  For some reason I think that if I know what I am fighting it will somehow be easier.  Then I just get pissed off and agitated as I realize this is just one more place that I don't fit in.  I am an anomaly even in the spectrum of eating disorders.

My goal weight (their goal weight) is 120 lbs. I agree to it, but today I don't own it. I have always been fiercely goal oriented.  So if this were My goal I would have met it by now.  I see the prize and I race towards it.  Today I am not really fighting for this goal.  I am afraid of it, and keep looking back at 110 lbs.  it would be so easy to reach if I really wanted to do it.  It has never been like me to take the easy way out.  Who would ever guess that restricting or self denial would be the easier choice?  Today the self denial feels easier.  It is like choosing to ski the green runs instead of the black diamonds.  Feeding my mind and body, today, feels like the challenge of the black diamonds.  Too risky!

So I am standing on the edge trying to decide which way to go.  I hover like a humming bird.  Only the humming bird stops just long enough to find its next source of nectar to sustain her.  I hover, think and debate, do I stop long enough to take in the sweet nectar of sustenance, or do I continue to hover....going nowhere.

Distortion

There is a reason why they use sleep deprivation on prisoners, because it is TORTURE!  As I drifted further into the eating disorder, sleep eluded me night after night.  I would fall asleep only to wake after 2-3 hours of sleep.  Once awake my mind would race like a rat running through a maze.  Sometimes I would run through thought after thought like the mouse on a straight away in the maze.  Then my mind, like the mouse would get stuck in the corner.  It would focus on one thought.  Most the time my mind would focus on my shame and pain of being here again. It is in this corner that I would beat myself up trying to figure out how I could never measure up.  I like the metaphor of the corner because that is where the eating disorder has put me. I was Like a child being punished, only I was the one punishing myself.  So in the dark night of sleeplessness, and probably hunger, I would literally beat my self up.  I would punch the walls, rock back and forth and throw myself on the floor like a child having a temper tantrum.  Sometimes it was all I could do to not bang my head into the wall in hopes that by knocking myself out, at least I would sleep.

Now looking back with a little more clarity, I wasn't literally beating myself just because of the sleep deprivation.  I was beating myself up because I was disgusted with my self.  Then I had to admit to
myself that is wasn't only at night that I would do this.  I would do this on "bad" days when I looked in the mirror.  You know?  That distorted eating disordered mirror.  I would pound on my, perceived, protruding belly, or claw at the "huge" thighs. I would pinch the "thick" spot on my back just above my hips to stop it from encroaching  to my waist.  Then when I was finished with the physical torture.  I would verbally turn on myself for both the "fat" that I let creep up on me, and then for physically hurting myself.  "You Bitch, you ugly fucking Bitch.  When are you going to get some control over this?  I hate you!!!!"

I am able to share this now because I know that  am not alone in this, and I know that this is really the eating disorder speaking out and acting out. You see, I am shifting ever so slightly into accepting me for me. I am a beautiful sacred creation of the Lord most high. I see the irony of beating myself up for not hurting myself enough through the starvation itself.  It is an odd concept for me to think about even as I write about it.  If only I had hurt myself more by fading further away, then I wouldn't have to beat myself up. Really?   If only I had been a better daughter, I wouldn't have been hit with that yardstick, or told I wasn't good enough.

I had, once again, taken over where my mother left off.  She wasn't the one poking me in my size 6 tennis skirt telling me you look a little thick in the waist, I was the one doing it.  Only now my size 6 is a 0.

It is through this shift that God speaks to me through His Word 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ( NIV ) 19" Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your bodies."  He isn't speaking this to me today in judgement or condemnation, but believe as a gentle reminder to take care of his special creation because it is the dwelling place for my soul and His spirit.

It is never too late He promises me this. Philippians 1: 6(NIV)  "Be confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Is this ever so subtle shift the beginning of a good work in me?

Restoration

(NIV) Joel 2:25 " I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten..."  So it is in this that I rest my hope.  It is hope that that, yes I will recover, and hope that I will recover and see the good that has been clouded my the Eating Disorder through the years.  My hope is not only in this restoration of good memories lost, but they will cease to devour my remaining days, weeks, months and years.

Even the days of recovery are somehow still shrouded in, at the very least, a thin veil of the the eating disorder.  Can I really remember a time when my days weren't directed by how I felt about my body, when I was going to exercise, or what I was going to eat? I know that I had those days. Although the eating disorder was managed; it was always there.  And here is the reality, my reality, it will always be there, and that makes me scared, sad and overwhelmed.  Some days I am better at ignoring its call.  Other days I answer the call and acknowledge it presence.  Hell, I even let it in the door.

SO, maybe the valley I am walking through right now isn't a bad thing.  It is simply realizing that the demon has been hiding in the room the whole time.  Now it has made it presence  known.  I know where it hides.  Now that I see and acknowledged it,  can usher it out the door?  I am tired of the space it is taking up in my room? I am letting it take up more and more space while I apparently continue to take up less and less.  I say apparently because it isn't until God uses me in my weakest state to serve him that my eyes are opened.

Taste

Once again I ask that you will hang in there with me as my story unfolds.  Often I find myself looking back in review.  It is my way of not only sharing with you what it is like to live with this affliction, but also for me to see where I have been and where it is I want to go.

As I have said all along, this is a spiritual journey for me.  One that The Lord and I are walking together.
Psalm 34:8 "  Taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man who take refuge in him"  I find it ironic how often God uses references to food and partaking in it to teach us his love and guide us.

So today "TASTE"  There is something in this for me.  In my fear of food, taking too much in, and keeping it in, I have forgotten that food can taste and feel phenomenal.  It was meant for us to enjoy.  Just as his word was meant for us to feast on and savor as it nourishes our soul.  Now as I fight to eat and stay alive, I realize that I am just going through the motions.  I am just taking it in as a means of survival.
I just kind of put it in and hope that it is enough to nourish my body. I am not savoring the food.  I have forgotten, or fear tasting it. I am not permitted to experience pleasure, only pain. So, I don't pay attention to the texture, the flavor, the richness, the sweet, the salty, even the spice.  For now I am only aware of how hard it is to take it in.  Am I allowed to enjoy this simple experience once again?  DO I even remember what I like?

I walk through the market, which at sometimes feels like torture, trying to find something "safe" that I can eat, but that Kurt will enjoy.  Then I hear a whisper from my within me.  Liz "what would you enjoy if you weren't afraid?" I know almost immediately what I want.  I want a cheese burger.  A real burger with sharp cheddar cheese, ketchup and mayo.  I talk back to my self, but not audibly.( I am not quite that crazy). " No way!  I can't do that.  Not today as I didn't even workout. Come on Liz just give it a try.  Maybe it will be ok?   You won't know until you try it."

So what seems so simple for most.  I have a burger.  This is no easy task.  I want to just get it in, but then somewhere after the first bite I begin to not just eat it, but experience it.  I notice, the flavors.  The meat is tender, sweet, and rich.  The melted cheese coats the burger with a sharp and salty dimension.  The ketchup and Mayo (light), finish off.  And I put aside the pain of getting it in and allow myself to just enjoy each bite.  Bread and all.  Today I manage to take it in and enjoy it.  Tomorrow I may panic and wonder what I was thinking, but tonight I am ok.  I am proud of doing, for me, what seemed impossible on so many levels.

 Isn't that what we all do at times with our relationship with the Lord?  We go through the motions of quiet time, reading The Word, and praying.  We forget to "Taste" and savor our time with Him. We need to enjoy each word like a bite of a burger, then sit back and lick the remaining goodness off our fingers.  Full, but still looking forward to the next meal.

Homecoming

It is always difficult coming home in the fall.  There is a certain pain that rises in me when I realize another summer has come and gone.  I am particularly melancholy as I realize, with last glance at the cottage, how much I missed because of the eating disorder reclaiming my life.  Twenty years of recovery, and yet now I have become literally and figuratively  a shadow of myself.

I had come so far.  I had tackled this insidious beast.  I had beat it.  Then somehow, my fears, my doubts, my lack of faith, breathed life into what I thought I had slain.  Was the recovery real?  Was it all just "smoke and mirrors" distorting the eating disorder to just appear defeated?  Sometimes I feel like I am just all "smoke and mirrors"  never seeing who I really am, or allowing myself to truly be seen.  Fearing being just as I am may not be enough.

Coming home is hard because I am obviously thinner.  I can't hide that I am fading quickly into the eating disorder.  I have tried to hide it from my husband, my family, and my visitors.  I even tried to hide it from my closest friend that spent much of my summer with me.  She knows me too well, and knows that I won't lie to her of all people.  She asks me if I am restricting and/or purging.  My secret is out.  I tell her everything, from the restricting, to the endless hours of exercise often disguised as play.  I even let her in on the raw details of the purging.  My God, it was so easy to do because no one even suspected I had gone there again, and when I thought I would be found out; there was always the woods.  That is how ugly and powerful this becomes. I Knew I could always walk the dogs in the woods, purge come home and no one would be the wiser.  How classy?  How humiliating? How desperate had I become?  I wouldn't lie to her, but I asked her to keep my secret. That is how powerful the illness can become in such a short amount of time.

Still my husband says nothing.  There is no way he hasn't noticed.  How could he not wonder what was going on?  I think that he was afraid that acknowledging  it would give the disorder more power.  It would be real.  It would and did become an uninvited  menace in our marriage.  So I am forced to confess my sins of my summer.  I ashamed, and so disappointed in myself.  I broach the topic slowly.  I kind eased my way into it, yet I spare him the gory details of my repulsive behavior.  He isn't angry like I thought he would be.  He has faith in me and the fact that I have great faith in my new therapist.  His anger with me comes along later.

Coming home for both of us means coming home to our parents.  My mother is now actually sick.  I mean she always has one "ailment" or another, but this time it s real.  Dad has thyroid cancer in addition to the heart failure.  Kurt's dad is dying, and actually passes away shortly after we come home.
Today as I write this, I am heartbroken and ashamed that the eating disorder had consumed so much of my mind and soul, that I wasn't really present or available to comfort my grieving husband.

Coming home also means facing my therapist who is relatively new.  I had just started to see her in May to touch base every "once in a while".  One look at me and she would know that somewhere over the summer I had crossed the line.

Coming home meant facing the reality that I had let the eating disorder not only in the door, but allowed it to make itself at home.

Psalm 27:10

I love it when the Lord has a word just for me!  I spoke in my last post of my pain, stress and disappointment around my relationship with my parents.  Where is God and all this as I fight through this eating disorder once again.   Here is his reminder that I am not alone.  I have not been forsaken.  Psalm 27:10 " Though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will receive me."  This was his gift to me today through my daily devotional reading.

I don't need to continue  to fade away from my parents to have them either leave me alone, or God forbid notice me.  He will receive me just as I am. Scared, lonely, sleepless, and, at this point nothing more than skin and bones.  But he knows who I am.  He knows what I was and what I can be again.  I am his.  And I know that I know that He will use my journey.  He will use my disappointments in my parents and in my self as a blessing.

Sacred Summers

My summers at the lake are always special. Dare I  say sacred.  It is the place I go to refresh my soul and connect with those  love most.  I didn't plan well and it became  an endless stream of people in the door then out.  I was constantly changing beds, cleaning, and preparing for the next round of visitors.  It wasn't so much the physical preparation of the cottage as the mental preparation for all the different personalities staying under our roof!

The hardest personalities, of course being my parents.  I find it hard to figure out why they even want to come up.  My mother sits in a chair and wait for someone to wait on her.  She hassles the kids constantly, but denies this even when confronted directly about it.  Dad just isn't well and probably shouldn't be traveling.  My brother and his family are disappointed that they have to share their time with my parents.  And then there is the complaining.  Nothing seems good enough for any of them, except Leslie and her family.  I feel taken for granted and unappreciated in my own home.

I didn't realize how much I was dreading my parents descending upon me. Until they decided not to come.  I realize now that I was hoping by the time they arrived I my weight loss would scare them into behaving; into being nice to me and the children.  I was unconsciously hoping that my body could say what I had been trying to say for years.  "you are too much for me.  I can't fix you, your finances, I can't make you happy.  Dear God I can't jump through anymore of your hoops.  I am exhausted.  I am done. I have allowed you to suck the joy and life out of me, and now I am left having to revive myself."

You see, even though they didn't come, I had gone too far.  My eyes are empty, lifeless and void.  I am restless and sleep eludes me night after night.  I had stepped over that thin line.

I have stayed in this place a little, turns out a lot, longer than I usually do before I turn things back around.  Why does something so potentially harmful feel so quieting and oddly comforting.  I feel as though I am retreating deep into myself while disconnecting with those around me.  I have missed out on so much joy, connecting and  living these past eight months.  It break my heart to think of the moments that have been lost to the haze of the eating disorder.  The good, the sad, the bad are all covered in this haze.  It is lonely, yet engaging at the same time.  I know it really isn't about my food, or my body.  Hell, I don't even really see how thin I truly have become.  It is about power, control, and some how punitive.   What am I worthy of?

 Oh, it wasn't all bad.  I did have some good times.  At times I was sure I was beginning to snap back to life, but then I would stumble right back into the snare. I find it amazing that as I continued to fade away, no one said anything.  Maybe that is why I kept stumbling.  Did they not see it?  Did they not care enough to stop me?  And where is God in all this?  Ah yes, I am the one who walked away and lacked the faith that He would carry me.  So summer came and went and I continued to fade away like the sun dropping beneath the horizon;  the light giving way to darkness.

Sabotage

I finish my race well under my 2 hour goal.  I wonder how well I could have done if I hadn't spent the last 2 weeks or so purging and restricting my food?  I finish 5th in my age group.  I don't stay for the award.  Somehow I feel that because I used the training to disguise the eating disorder, I didn't really deserve the award.  Although I don't purge for the few days leading up to the race, I begin to test the availability of it within a few days.  Again, I am not binging, I use it after eating a normal meal, or after joining my friends for some wine and cheese before diner.  So, really I am not bulimic!  I use it just to fall back on.   And I am still eating at least 1,500 calories.  I am certainly not anorexic.  Yet I continue to fade away physically and emotionally.  It is the exercise that keeps me "sane"  that keeps me grounded.  That eats away at me body and soul.

On this day I run along the bay.  Then later I take the kayak out into the lake.  It is beautiful and peaceful. It is quiet and I use the time to think.  There are no distractions.  Just me, God and my own thoughts.  Why do people want to be with me?  How can they love me?  Why does God love me when my own mother seems to think so little of me.  After all, she is the one who tells me that my Aunt and my grandmother, really only want to be with me because of my husband and the fact that they think he has money.  Really?  Is that my only value?  What I can do monetarily for someone?  Could it be that I offer more to them than money.  Could it possibly be that they just love me?  I question my value all the time.

Each peddle stoke of the Hobie just seem to bring more questions than answers.  I am tired of hating who I am, and I am tired of taking it out on my body.  Although I have done well for the past 20 years. I find myself admitting my daily body image directed my day.  Then I begin to question if I had truly achieved any degree of recovery or just a tolerance  of my existence.

The exercise, the restricting, the purging all become a metaphor of my life.  I run through the pain of my I-T band screaming at me.  Oh to just relax and be still!  Am I strong because I push through the pain?  Or am I weak and stupid because I don't listen to the pain searing through my leg.  I take note that I am as good at ignoring the pain in body as the pain in my soul.  I have allowed the pain of my body to numb the pain that exists deep within my being.

Then there is the paddle board.  Although it is physical, moving through the water upon it is the closest thing I come to being still.  It is meditative and void of thought.  My focus becomes the pattern of the water, the direction of the wind, and the power of the waves. I count my stokes. 1,2,3,4 switch, 1,2,3,4 switch.  More on the right then less on the left.  I make subtle changes to stay the course.  My body gives and takes from the energy of the waves.  I am absorbing the energy as I balance and try to stay upright and out of the water.

I love the days when the water is as smooth and glassy.  I love the feeling of gliding effortlessly.  I can look back and see my gentle wake behind me reminding me I was there.  But, then again, I love the waves.  There is something about reading their power and fighting their desire to trip me up; to knock me over.  I strive to conquer their aggression.  Absorbing their energy, I make it my own.  Bring it on! Let me be!

Wow, if only my life could mirror this.  Can I enjoy the smooth water days of gliding through them with the gentle wake reminding me that I was there?  Can I applaud my efforts on the rough water days?  The days I fight with all I have to overcome the current and the waves.  The days I absorb their energy and use it as my own.  I conquer it!  Even though the wind and waves devour my wake, I know I have stayed My course.  I have not fallen into the dark green angry waters.

If only I could have stayed on top of and in control of the eating disorder.  I thought I could, but like a rouge wave it has knocked me into a cold angry place.

I blinked!

I have been spending the last few days up here at our cottage reviewing the past year.  I am still struggling to figure out how I went from 20 years of recovery, a strong healthy "perfect body", to the place I am today.  By the way the perfect body are others' words not mine.  Even in my recovered state I never saw my body as "perfect".  As a matter of fact it always made me uncomfortable for  people to say this about me.  Frankly I didn't see it, and it bothered me that people were so focused on not just my body, but any one's body for that matter. I actually had more than one person joke about not wanting to sit with me at the pool.  Really?  I think they meant it as some sort of warped compliment.  Even then I felt a sense of guilt and shame because I knew what striving for perfection had cost me.  Little did I know then that I would be paying up once again. 

So I continue to review what brought me to the point of a 15-18 pound loss in weight, 7.6% body fat, size 2's that hang on me, B12 shots for the rest of my life, and visits to cardiologists, therapists, and nutritionists.  All the while not really seeing myself as grossly thin as I am, until God used a picture of me taken on the beach to open my eyes.  Now I see me. I see the  bones that should be covered with flesh,  veins that shouldn't be exposed, and the hollows in my face.  It is shocking and I am scared.  As I review, I am terrified by how quickly I was seduced and under the spell of the eating disorder.

It Called me.  It reached for me.  It pulled me in.  Within 2-4 of  weeks I am sucked back in, but I still believe it will be a passing phase.  I am up at the cottage with my dearest friend and sister waiting to run the race that I have trained so hard for and the 3 days of purging has turned into many more days.  I am hardly starving, but I have cut back here and there.  I begin to deny myself the foods that feel indulgent or unnecessary.  I begin by just cutting everything in half. All the while running 6-12 miles a day, biking, paddle boarding, and kayaking. Then in a blink of an eye, I am at the point where part of me is afraid to eat and part of me is afraid not to eat.  I feel spent mentally and I am beginning to feel spent physically.  Funny, I don't worry about my health.  I worry that, after all my training I have sabotaged myself.

Come on Liz!! Take back your f-ing power!  Don't let it suck you in!  Why, why, why are doing this.  Just 2 weeks I would eat to perform.  To be strong and fast.  Now it is all upside down.  I have to perform to earn the right to eat.  Am I sick enough to need help or have I gone just far enough to be left alone.

I really don't want to be sick.  I feel an overwhelming sense of fear sweep over me, and in its shadow is great pain and shame.  Yet I am enticed by the way being just ever so slightly smaller feels.  I don't weigh myself, but the looseness of my clothes gives me a sense of victory and power.  I still deceive myself that I am in control.  Clearly I am not. 

My mom calls from home.  My father is sick.  She berates me as I have know idea how bad her life is.  She just knows he won't pull through this time.  I hang up feeling battered and wounded.  I am more than a little unsettled, and pissed off.  I am so f-ing tired of feeling responsible for my family.  I have friends coming in and really all I want is to be left alone.

I am tired of being strong.  My shoulders bend an fold under the pressure, and all I want is for some one to hold  me and rock me like a baby.

Pushing the limits

All I know is that today was a good day of relative normalcy. Good food day! The only exercise was just me,my husband and my dogs on a long walk in a winter wonder land. I feel so peaceful and energized at the same time when I am here. I joke with mu husband that I think I get why the likes of Earnest Hemingway came here and wrote. I could write forever sitting at my table and watching the lake.
3-10-12
Not every day of the past year has been a day of torment.  Today was a beautiful day of sunshine, blue skies and some alone time with my husband.  It is warm, but the snow is still fantastic.  Ahh!  I just soak it all in as I ride the first lift with  eager anticipation of feeling myself fly down the hill.  I have felt so penned up an restrained the past to weeks as I force myself to eat well and limit my activity.  But today, today I am free to fly.  I love it all.  The warmth of the sun.  The chill of the wind in my face.  The sound of my skis carving through the snow, and finally the speed.  Fast enough to feel on the edge of control and out of control.  I manage to stay in control while pushing my limits.  I feed off of the speed.  Then I see this as a metaphore for my life with the eating disorder. I am much better at stepping up to the edge on my skis than I am with the eating disorder.  I meant to push myself just to the edge of it, yet stay in control.  Instead it was like a gigantic yard sale of a crash ( you skiers know what I mean ), of which I am still trying to pick up the pieces.  At least I haven't bit it on my skis lately.

Today I give myself a break from being "sick"  It is better than any therapy or medicine.  I feel free and comfortable in my own skin.  And after figuring out that my slighter frame has changed how I must work to carve my turns, I ski wwith reckless abandon.  Being out in the elements, I  am so in my element!  Even though I bravely tackle black diamonds and speed, it is the courage I muster up to eat well and re-fuel my body that makes me proud.

Preying vs. Praying

Ah! Here I am setting at my table in Walloon. It is quiet it and peaceful. The coffe is brewing and my view of the frozen lake actually warms my soul. It is the best time of the day. Every thing is perfect except for the fact that my frame has become so slight that it is hard to sit on the bench. My sitting bones sit directly on the wood with little to cushion them. This, my family thinks is where the eating disorder began to prowl, circling me like a pride of lions just waiting to pounce. I was training for the Charleviox 1/2, and I was here for 6 weeks. But it isn't this place I had come to for peace and solace that set me up as prey, it was where I went to in my mind and not really trusting as I prayed. How interesting that my lack of faith when I prayed, caused me to be preyed upon by this beast. Two words sounding so similar yet they are nothing alike. Through this all I never stopped praying, I never stopped believing, I think I just stopped trusting. I think I knew as far back as April 2011 that I was if nothing else unsettled, agitated, and grasping for a way out of the pain surrounding dealing with my parents. Who I felt never really dealt with me or understood me. Feeling like I was being asked to carry the problems that they had created for themselves. And yes, I do believe even their health issue are the cosquences of how they chose to live, as are their finance consequences. The weight of their problems weighed on my soul and my foundation, what little I had began to crack. And I unintentionally went back to what I knew best. I went back to something I knew I could control. My body. In June I wrote: I catch myself setting the scene. The little excuses, well actually lies for eating a little less. Just I case anybody was still watching after 20 years of eating well. I throw the excuses out as little comments here and there. My teeth hurt, these meds hurt my gut, oh I ate a late lunch. I do this just in case my husband notices anything is amiss. Not that he did at the time. I suck! How can I not share this struggle with him? Because, I tell myself, this is only temporary. I am so in control of it all this time. I did pray that day. I prayed for the Lord to give me patience, and wisdom to handle my family. And God, if you could, just put a hedge of protection around me and protect me from their hurting me further. Will you do for me Jesus, what they couldn't or wouldn't? Jesus could and would, but still I chose my path over his and now I was facing my own cosquences. As I blog, forgive me as I jump and forth from the days gone by and the present day! Today I was sent a devotional. The good old 23rd Psalm. Words that I forgot to lean on and I strayed from. I walked off the path he had set before me. " the Lord is my Shepherd I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me by still waters, he restores my soul" Wow! Such familiar simple words. I am not in this alone HE RESTORES my soul. Like a shephed, The Lord can pull be back into his flock. I am the lamb that is lost. The good news for me and everyone, is that a shepherd will leave the rest of the flock in search of the one that is missing until he finds it. Matthew 18:12 " What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety- nine on the hill and go look for the one who has wandered off?". I am gratefully Jesus has kept looking for me. He has not left alone on the hillside. But I must be careful to stay alongside of him. I know that he can and will strengthen me if I allow myself the physical nourishment I need. I want to be strong, but for now I rely on his strength because finding my way back, re- fueling this empty tank is harder than it looks.

Thin lines

I have so many ask me what lead me down this path again? What was I thinking? How did this happen?  First and foremost it was a lack of faith.  A lack of faith that God wouldn't give me any more than I could handle.  So, I took matters into my own hands.  I search back through my journals and I do find a point of demarcation.  Some where back in June I wrote that I do feel as though I am walking a fine line between stepping back or moving forward.  I had set up great boundaries with my family, but somehow felt lost in my abilities to defend those boundaries.

I remember thinking that if I could just let my family "think" I may be struggling with my eating again, that this would cause them to leave me alone.  The reality was that in doing so I found myself dabbling in behaviors that dew me in like a moth to a flame.  It kind of numbed me to the uncomfortable parts of my life.  It also numbed me to the good parts of my life as well.  I was going through the motions of life, yet I wasn't living at all.  After working so hard to feel, how could I let this happen again?  Where as initially I was slowly enticed into the eating disorder, this time I knew better.  Yet, I heard its gentle call.  I have been here before.  My hope was, like always, to pick myself up (quickly) and not let it seduce me.

So, what did I give into?  Well, I was training for a half marathon and it began to serve 2-3 purposes for me. 1- to prove to myself that I could still set a goal and achieve it.  That includes running farther than I want on days I don't want to.  Running where I don't want to go ( HILLS)  2- Stress relief.  3- A sort of purge for a binge that I din't have.  In other words, I knew I was trying to create a calorie  deficit.

I am hardly starving myself, but I know I have ever so slightly cut back on my food.  I blame it on the heat.  I blame it on the stress, but I know......I know that I am walking a thin line ( pun intended ).

And then I cross it.  I try just once, then twice, then three times to purge, just to make sure I still have this available to me.  I have been here before, but three consecutive days...Really?  Again I fall ever so slightly, but like a cat I am hoping to land on my feet. So far I have always righted myself for the past 20 years.  But something about this time feels different and I am scared.

And I am packed and ready to leave to our cottage for the summer.  I hope it breaks the spell I have put myself under!  I ask myself if I am weak of character that I need to escape the trials of my everyday life, or am I wise in knowing that my tank is empty and I need to re-fuel?  Needless to say, somewhere along the way I chose to be weak rather than re-fuel.  Instead of filling my tank.  I began to empty it body, mind and soul.

Fade Away

No one can know

The price that I have paid 

To allow my body

To fade away

It has robbed my spirit

It has eroded my soul

On my mind, on my body

It has takes its toll

Has the hole I have dug

become so deep

That I have nothing left to do

but accept it and weep?

My body betrays me

as I try to re-fuel

It laughs and it mocks me

I feel like a fool

I want to throw in the towel

and just run away

The stakes are too high

In this game that I play

I Have nothing to lose

And everything to gain

If I could step off this path

of shame and pain

An unintended journey into the mist....

Please follow my unintended journey  as I review my past year as middle aged womenpulled back into the seduction of an eating disorder.  Follow me as I faded away into the mist and emerge back out into the light of the sun and the Son, Jesus Christ!

1 Corinthians 10:13 No Temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.  And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide away out so that you can endure it. ( NIV )

The problem began when I forgot His promise.  I turned from the father and his faithfulness and took my life into my own hands.  I chose to travel back into the disorder he rescued me from over 20 years ago.  I know, it is a crazy as the Israelites, choosing to wander back into the dessert instead of enter into the promise land, but that is just what I did.  All be it, not intentionally.  Allow me to explain.


An eating disorder was apparently not just a phase of life for me.  It was something that at times I managed, and at other times it has managed me.  It began this time as an innocent flirtation.  I am older and wiser.  I am in control.  It is something belonging just to me.  It is like a secret I am keeping to my self, yet it is breaking a confidence to my self at the same time.  So, honoring myself by keeping this secret  becomes the ultimate betray of my body and soul.  I feel clever and deceitful at the same time.  It is a dark abyss plagued with contradictions.  I won't let it go too far this time.  Just far enough.  The problem is I didn't pay attention to that warning in my soul telling me to step away from the edge.  My, how absurd of me to not realize that the eating disorder has a strength of its own.  It sits like a predator in the shadows waiting to pounce on me just as the very thing I thought I was turning to for power, weakens my strength.  So, I gave it the opportunity, and it has taken on a life of it's own.  It has made me sick.  It has made me tired.  It has left me void and vacant.  Yet, I can't let it take my life.  I must take my life back.


Vacant:  Without occupant or incumbent.  That about sums it up for me.  Somewhere along the way my mind, my soul my being checked out.  It left a feeling of vacancy in my body.  I have left a little bit at a time allowing a hollow space where I had dwelled and existed.  Since I have left, why tend to the body where the soul had dwelled?  Why should I throw wood on a fire that has already burned it's self out?  I look in the mirror and I see me, but I look through me.  I am like a special effect in a movie.  I am no longer solid.  I am a vapor that can  be seen, but not touched or held.  I am a wilting flower that has been left to water it's self from the dust under a dessert sky.  A sky that is unable or willing to yield the rain that I so desperately crave. I desperately need.


I am in a field where thin and "fit" are admired.  My self-denial and self-discipline are applauded and even envied.  This feeds my eating disorder while I can't feed myself.  So I am left feeling like a fraud.  Health and fitness.!  If only they all knew the truth.  I am not strong.  I am weak and have been subdued by the standards of this industry.  The distorted idea that thin equates heath and fitness has a place to flourish.  However, it is a quite dysfunctional and dishonest place.


I feel the soul.  My soul beginning to stir.  It desires to return home.  I see just a flicker of her in my eyes.  I need to tend to that home.  I need to make it welcoming, strong and secure.  A place of warmth and refuge.  It should be beautifully prepared as my home or cottage would be for guests.  Can I tend to that dwelling place in time for my soul to return home?  I know that Jesus has gone ahead and prepared a place for me, but I am not quite ready to go home to the place he has prepared for me.


And I remind my self that He can "make beautiful things out of the dust" (Gungor)