Sunday, December 22, 2013
Options?
Options?
Isaiah 58:11 "The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
I last purged the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and for once I am aware of why I default to the eating disorder. I have faced so many changes in the past few months. Some are happy and some are sad, but they are all changes that alter the road I am traveling. Brad and Kelsey are now married and the wedding will always be one of the greatest days of my life. Although I am still his mother and always will be, he now has a wife and a home of his own. He is a good man like his father and we are both proud of the man he has become. My dad is gone and like Obi-Wan Kenobie said in Star Wars "I felt a strange disturbance in the Force.....I fear something terrible has happened" Something terrible has happened and the void he leaves behind feels as big as Space itself.
The uncertainty of the holidays looming before me leaves me feeling like I am approaching a bend in the road, and although I am confident that I am still on the road, I have no clue what lies around this bend. The road I am on feels scary and unfamiliar. I am feeling lost and out of control. I need something to stay the same, something to feel familiar, so I purge. It is something that feels familiar. I don't plan to purge it is a spontaneous reaction that somehow comforts me. When so much is changing around me this is the one constant I have always had to fall back on. I hear God speak to me through this verse. "Liz I will always Guide you. I know you feel so very lost on this new road that unfurls before you, but remember I love you and you are not walking alone. Keep your eyes on me"
Each time I purge I hate admitting it to Laura, Rich, and especially Kurt. It is just one more piece of evidence that means I am still sick and not doing as well as I think I am. I hear something on the radio about approaching marriage with the idea that divorce is simply not an option. At first I find myself remembering that this is exactly how I had approached my marriage; divorce is not an option. Then a second thought pierces spirit. Could it be that God is using this to relate to my purging? I can no longer look at purging as an option. I decide that this will become my new mantra "Purging is not an option, purging is not an option!" Finally I have something to replace the mantra the pulled me back into the black hole of the eating disorder, "nothing taste as good as skinny feels."
I speak this new mantra to myself over and over again these past few weeks as I am faced with parties, weddings, and holiday celebrations all which include food. I think out loud "really, the holidays, why did you have to pick now to change things up?" If not now, then when? When am I going to do it? So I approach the weekend fearfully as I have three nights in a row of eating out with little control of what kind of food I will be served, and purging is not an option.
The first night I find myself reciting the mantra repeatedly in my spirit. I am somewhat careful about what I take in, knowing it isn't coming back out. I am anxious and uncomfortable. I am also admittedly somewhat distracted my vigilance around my food and honoring my promise to my self. This is somewhat frustrating because I thought by surrendering the eating disorder and the purging, I would be more present and engaged in even the fleeting moments of my day. What if I lost track and consumed more than I had planned? I try to rest in the fact that God is using this to strengthen my frame, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. I also rest in the fact that I am teaching an 8:45 am spinning class the next day. Ah, it is always fun to make my students pay the price for my perceived gluttony. I make it through and eventually settled in and pay more attention to the people than my food.
I wake the next day and see that I am fine and survived without relying on purging as an option. I am fine. Ok, I am a little hung over from too much wine, but the friendship and laughter was worth it. I choose not to step on the scale that tugs at me like a puppy playing tug-o-war. The harder it pulls, the harder I have to pull. I am tired of it winning, so today I pull away with everything I have. I feel fine, I don't look any different than the day before, and I don't want some number on the scale to dictate my food for the day, or how I feel about myself. My day is already going to challenging enough as I have to take my mother to get her cut just days after a horrid phone call from her. I have great plans for my evening.
My second night out is to a wedding and yes there will be great food and plenty of it. As I am getting dressed I wonder "can I really do this two nights in a row and not purge?" I repeat once, maybe twice as I slip into my heels, "purging is not an option," I add a little post script to my thought "You still look skinnier than you feel." I toss on my faux fur sweater and glance at my reflection and head out the door. The wedding is beautiful and I become engrossed in their joy. My face actually hurts from smiling. I find myself talking to a few people who ask about, about the eating disorder, but don't really think about it. I am hungry and a grab a plate of a little of this a little of that. I eat what I want and feel satisfied. Purging doesn't cross my mind. On the table in front if me 2 cupcakes appear. I have a choice to make chocolate or vanilla? I, of course, choose the chocolate. Yes, that was my initial thought! It wasn't whether or not I would have the cupcake, but what flavor did I want. Something feels like it is shifting, and even though it is for the good as these words fall onto the page I realize it is scary. Maybe I am taking this bend in the road too quickly? Am I ready to change up the eating disorder since so much has changed already this year?
Maybe God has already strengthened my "frame" more than I realize. The third night is at Stumps, my husband's men's club. This is normally not an enjoyable night for me, but I go because it is important to him. I hope that the old man that thinks it is a game to get a picture of me isn't there, and God spares me on this one. Again I am at the mercy of whatever "down home" cooking that is put before me, and remind myself the "purging isn't an option." I leave feeling full and proud that I somehow manage to not purge, I lift my praise to Jesus Christ who must have strengthened me because I have made it through these days, achieving, for me what seemed impossible.
I am so close to recovery, I can almost taste it (so to speak). I don't want to settle for "out of the woods" I want to live. I want it gone for myself, but also to be a walking testimony of God's glory; That he has transformed my life into something worth living. As I write this a wave of fear and sorrow washes over me. Why the fear and sorrow? It is the backwards glances and I realize how very close I came to losing my life to the eating disorder itself, or somehow taking my own life. Either way I would be dying by my own actions. Really that is what an eating disorder is, a long lonely walk down a road that leads to death. First the spirit goes then, the mind, then finally the body succumbs beginning to feed on itself until it is no more.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
The Scarlet Car
The scarlet car sits silently in my driveway. I can sees it from my window, where I pray, where I write. There is no one in the driver's seat. There are no passengers. It is my riderless horse, fireman's last call, and soldiers empty boots. It is my father's car. I have allowed myself to look at it from a distance as it holds so much within. It is solemn, sacred, and although empty, it holds precious memories locked behind its doors. Most are joyful, but some are painful.
It is almost Thanksgiving and as I drive down to the lower driveway, I see the scarlet car. I feel an unexpected wave of grief rise within me. For a moment I wonder "why is my dad parked down here?" And as quickly as the moment comes I remember he is not here and he will never be here again. I walk slowly past the driver's side, and pause for a moment brushing off the snow that sticks stubbornly to the glass. I peek through the window and suddenly the car is filled with life.
I cannot even count the number of times I leaned into this same window smelling the sweet fragrance of the tobacco wafting from a pipe dad wasn't supposed to smoke. I sees the packages of spearmint gum resting on the center console. I close my eyes and inhale deeply. I can almost smell them both on his breath as I did every Thursday when he came to take my boys to lunch. I carefully instructed him on what they could eat and when to have them back to school. He would grin and wave as the power window slid up and into place. Then he would drive away with his special lunch dates.
I can see them laughing at silly jokes, and hear the laughter resonating through the frosted windows. It was in the scarlet car that priceless relationships were forged. I see the trips he made to school to deliver forgotten homework, medicine, or money for lunch because they new he would be there in a flash. They knew that I, on the other hand, would have let them learn from their zero, or figure out how to eat lunch off their buddies cast offs.
I continue to gaze into the window and see their muddy footprints on the mats of the scarlet car after a lacrosse game in the rain. Never once would dad complain about the dirt and grime they left behind. They insisted on riding with him even when I was there. I know it was in the scarlet car that they shared there hopes, their dreams, their fears and heartaches. He was the confidant every child needed; knowing that Bop would share only if it endangered them or some one else. It was an unspoken agreement between my dad, their grandfather, and each of the boys.
He in turn shared with them his successes, failures, and how to know God's love for each of them in a personal way. It was in the scarlet car the he drove to our families' baptism in the neighbors pool, and to his own in Walloon.
The scarlet car, it was Santa's sleigh. Each year, as they read the Polar Express the boys would catch a glimpse of Santa through a frosted window much like the one I am looking through, and in the morning would find their jingle bell. I wonder if the sleigh ever brought Santa to Ian, his youngest grandson and my tears begin to flow.
It was Bop that picked them up when they got sick at school, and Dad that brought his forty something "little girl" crunchy ice from Frischs' drive through when she was sick. It was in the scarlet car that I revealed that I was sick again, scared, and this time I needed more than crunchy ice. I needed him to step in and be the hero that I always thought he was, but it was too late. His greatest asset had become his tragic flaw. He had trusted and tried to help out the wrong people. He confessed and asked for my forgiveness. It was from this car that I exited with a tear stained face, and realized he had noting left to give.
Two years later with my hand on the scarlet car, I let it all go. Then I sit and watch the snow melt, washing the scarlet car and I hear God speak. "Come now let's settle this," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet I will make them white as snow."(Isaiah 1:18) And with that I scrape some snow off the roof of the car allowing it to melt in the warmth of my hand, remembering that I too am forgiven and washed as white as snow.
It is almost Thanksgiving and as I drive down to the lower driveway, I see the scarlet car. I feel an unexpected wave of grief rise within me. For a moment I wonder "why is my dad parked down here?" And as quickly as the moment comes I remember he is not here and he will never be here again. I walk slowly past the driver's side, and pause for a moment brushing off the snow that sticks stubbornly to the glass. I peek through the window and suddenly the car is filled with life.
I cannot even count the number of times I leaned into this same window smelling the sweet fragrance of the tobacco wafting from a pipe dad wasn't supposed to smoke. I sees the packages of spearmint gum resting on the center console. I close my eyes and inhale deeply. I can almost smell them both on his breath as I did every Thursday when he came to take my boys to lunch. I carefully instructed him on what they could eat and when to have them back to school. He would grin and wave as the power window slid up and into place. Then he would drive away with his special lunch dates.
I can see them laughing at silly jokes, and hear the laughter resonating through the frosted windows. It was in the scarlet car that priceless relationships were forged. I see the trips he made to school to deliver forgotten homework, medicine, or money for lunch because they new he would be there in a flash. They knew that I, on the other hand, would have let them learn from their zero, or figure out how to eat lunch off their buddies cast offs.
I continue to gaze into the window and see their muddy footprints on the mats of the scarlet car after a lacrosse game in the rain. Never once would dad complain about the dirt and grime they left behind. They insisted on riding with him even when I was there. I know it was in the scarlet car that they shared there hopes, their dreams, their fears and heartaches. He was the confidant every child needed; knowing that Bop would share only if it endangered them or some one else. It was an unspoken agreement between my dad, their grandfather, and each of the boys.
He in turn shared with them his successes, failures, and how to know God's love for each of them in a personal way. It was in the scarlet car the he drove to our families' baptism in the neighbors pool, and to his own in Walloon.
The scarlet car, it was Santa's sleigh. Each year, as they read the Polar Express the boys would catch a glimpse of Santa through a frosted window much like the one I am looking through, and in the morning would find their jingle bell. I wonder if the sleigh ever brought Santa to Ian, his youngest grandson and my tears begin to flow.
It was Bop that picked them up when they got sick at school, and Dad that brought his forty something "little girl" crunchy ice from Frischs' drive through when she was sick. It was in the scarlet car that I revealed that I was sick again, scared, and this time I needed more than crunchy ice. I needed him to step in and be the hero that I always thought he was, but it was too late. His greatest asset had become his tragic flaw. He had trusted and tried to help out the wrong people. He confessed and asked for my forgiveness. It was from this car that I exited with a tear stained face, and realized he had noting left to give.
Two years later with my hand on the scarlet car, I let it all go. Then I sit and watch the snow melt, washing the scarlet car and I hear God speak. "Come now let's settle this," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet I will make them white as snow."(Isaiah 1:18) And with that I scrape some snow off the roof of the car allowing it to melt in the warmth of my hand, remembering that I too am forgiven and washed as white as snow.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Disrobing
Disrobing
Matthew 10:29-31 "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your fathers care. And even the very hairs of your head are numbered. So, do not be afraid; you are worth more than sparrows.
I have the strong sense that my days of growing darkness are numbered, as are my days of shrinking away leaving me just a shadow in the light as it shines on me. As God speaks to me he confirms that it is time for me to step out into the light and allow myself to take up space and to shine. Just as he has numbered the hairs on my head so has he numbered the days of my darkness.
I left my last therapy session feeling hopeless, defeated, and though not intended, like a faceless being as she read her notes from the last session to me. I got in the car and allowed my tears to flow as I asked God "What now?" There is something I am missing, or that she isn't getting. Then, as I was driving down the road I had a clear vision of God coming into the car and hearing the sound of a zipper, and it was in that moment that I knew I no longer was holding onto the hate and self loathing that I had carried around for most my life. It was if I physically shed a cloak that I was never meant to wear. By disrobing this cloak from by body I could feel God's love for me like I had never felt it before. I even feel this new sense of love of me, who I am, who I was meant to be, and who I am yet to become. My brutal emotional and physical self inflicted wounds seemed to fade like images in my rear view mirror. I had a swelling desire to live the abundant life I was meant to live.
I begin to pray for God to allow myself to see my physical body more accurately and he began to reveal it little by little to me over the past few weeks. It is in a picture from Mitchell's senior day that I see that I am still shapeless beneath the baggy sweater and jeans that once fit me like they were made for my once "perfect ass'. Those aren't my own words, but those of friends and fellow gym rats. Trust me I never thought of any part if me as perfect, but I have to admit it wasn't too hard on the eyes. Then I see my reflection as I walked, ironically, through the buffet line at a recent benefit for St. Rita's School for the deaf surrounded by mirrors. Wait, God is that really me? What happened to my perfect 34 B cup breasts that still stood upright on their own? I see that I am not scary skinny as I was 2 years ago, but I am much smaller than the body I remembered and was pleased with at one time. I ask for just some confirmation that this image staring back at me is what I really look like? I walk into church the next day after the benefit and Tree looked at me and asked me if I was okay. "You have just been on my heart. You look so thin." It was as if this is some form of confirming that the image staring back at me is accurate and slow coming into focus.
He even allows me to become aware of the way my bones especially my ribs are felt even through my clothes. Only the Lord would give me more than I asked for. I only asked to see, but he allows me to feel it.
Somehow I make it through the benefit without purging. Surprisingly it doesn't even cross my mind until I get home and realize I ate pecan pie with ice cream. Was it just that I was enjoying myself, or that somewhere inside I felt that if these children struggled everyday to make it in our hearing world not by their own choice and I essentially choose to hurt myself, and then I found myself thinking "what the Fuck was I thinking?" It was too late to purge. I just had to sit with it and surprisingly I lived to tell about it; my jeans still fitting just as they did the day before.
My week passed by in a blur as I continued to eat by faith, even as my gut still ached at times and I was exhausted from long days of work, classes, and meetings. I was doing it all one day at a time and there was a shift inside that I still can't put into words, but my pastor notices it right away. "There is a lightness about you that I haven't seen before." He tells me. And he isn't talking about my physical presence! I tell him about my preceding days, and the shedding of my cloak of self hatred and loathsomeness.
Then as easily as I don't purge the past weekend this weekend I purge, and I think I can even connect the dots on this one. I start to feel the disappointment and shame rise once again. I am sure I wear it like the cloak I have just shed, but then I hear God speak through his words. Psalm 34:5 "Those who look to him are radiant; Their faces never covered in shame." God doesn't want me to cover my face in shame even when I mis-step with my food or purge as I did last night. Yet, he doesn't want this for me either. He wants me free from it; all of it. So, yes I am disappointed in my self, but shame? Shame would pull me back down into the depth of the eating disorder. Shame would tell me you'll never be free. Shame would tell me to surrender to the eating disorder instead of God. Shame would tell me I am weak, a loser, but God tells me "oh no, you are my child, and you are radiant as you keep seeking me. I will bring you out into the spacious place in my timing because I delight in you, and in your weakness I am strong and using all of this to bring you from glory to glory. So, get up, hold your head up and thank me, worship me and bring me your praises as you rest and refuel in me. Your brothers and sisters in Christ are waiting for you to join them in worship. Do not stay away from church today because Satan would have you believe you failed and are filled with that shame. By my blood you are my daughter. You are redeemed. I love you!"
Matthew 10:29-31 "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your fathers care. And even the very hairs of your head are numbered. So, do not be afraid; you are worth more than sparrows.
I have the strong sense that my days of growing darkness are numbered, as are my days of shrinking away leaving me just a shadow in the light as it shines on me. As God speaks to me he confirms that it is time for me to step out into the light and allow myself to take up space and to shine. Just as he has numbered the hairs on my head so has he numbered the days of my darkness.
I left my last therapy session feeling hopeless, defeated, and though not intended, like a faceless being as she read her notes from the last session to me. I got in the car and allowed my tears to flow as I asked God "What now?" There is something I am missing, or that she isn't getting. Then, as I was driving down the road I had a clear vision of God coming into the car and hearing the sound of a zipper, and it was in that moment that I knew I no longer was holding onto the hate and self loathing that I had carried around for most my life. It was if I physically shed a cloak that I was never meant to wear. By disrobing this cloak from by body I could feel God's love for me like I had never felt it before. I even feel this new sense of love of me, who I am, who I was meant to be, and who I am yet to become. My brutal emotional and physical self inflicted wounds seemed to fade like images in my rear view mirror. I had a swelling desire to live the abundant life I was meant to live.
I begin to pray for God to allow myself to see my physical body more accurately and he began to reveal it little by little to me over the past few weeks. It is in a picture from Mitchell's senior day that I see that I am still shapeless beneath the baggy sweater and jeans that once fit me like they were made for my once "perfect ass'. Those aren't my own words, but those of friends and fellow gym rats. Trust me I never thought of any part if me as perfect, but I have to admit it wasn't too hard on the eyes. Then I see my reflection as I walked, ironically, through the buffet line at a recent benefit for St. Rita's School for the deaf surrounded by mirrors. Wait, God is that really me? What happened to my perfect 34 B cup breasts that still stood upright on their own? I see that I am not scary skinny as I was 2 years ago, but I am much smaller than the body I remembered and was pleased with at one time. I ask for just some confirmation that this image staring back at me is what I really look like? I walk into church the next day after the benefit and Tree looked at me and asked me if I was okay. "You have just been on my heart. You look so thin." It was as if this is some form of confirming that the image staring back at me is accurate and slow coming into focus.
He even allows me to become aware of the way my bones especially my ribs are felt even through my clothes. Only the Lord would give me more than I asked for. I only asked to see, but he allows me to feel it.
Somehow I make it through the benefit without purging. Surprisingly it doesn't even cross my mind until I get home and realize I ate pecan pie with ice cream. Was it just that I was enjoying myself, or that somewhere inside I felt that if these children struggled everyday to make it in our hearing world not by their own choice and I essentially choose to hurt myself, and then I found myself thinking "what the Fuck was I thinking?" It was too late to purge. I just had to sit with it and surprisingly I lived to tell about it; my jeans still fitting just as they did the day before.
My week passed by in a blur as I continued to eat by faith, even as my gut still ached at times and I was exhausted from long days of work, classes, and meetings. I was doing it all one day at a time and there was a shift inside that I still can't put into words, but my pastor notices it right away. "There is a lightness about you that I haven't seen before." He tells me. And he isn't talking about my physical presence! I tell him about my preceding days, and the shedding of my cloak of self hatred and loathsomeness.
Then as easily as I don't purge the past weekend this weekend I purge, and I think I can even connect the dots on this one. I start to feel the disappointment and shame rise once again. I am sure I wear it like the cloak I have just shed, but then I hear God speak through his words. Psalm 34:5 "Those who look to him are radiant; Their faces never covered in shame." God doesn't want me to cover my face in shame even when I mis-step with my food or purge as I did last night. Yet, he doesn't want this for me either. He wants me free from it; all of it. So, yes I am disappointed in my self, but shame? Shame would pull me back down into the depth of the eating disorder. Shame would tell me you'll never be free. Shame would tell me to surrender to the eating disorder instead of God. Shame would tell me I am weak, a loser, but God tells me "oh no, you are my child, and you are radiant as you keep seeking me. I will bring you out into the spacious place in my timing because I delight in you, and in your weakness I am strong and using all of this to bring you from glory to glory. So, get up, hold your head up and thank me, worship me and bring me your praises as you rest and refuel in me. Your brothers and sisters in Christ are waiting for you to join them in worship. Do not stay away from church today because Satan would have you believe you failed and are filled with that shame. By my blood you are my daughter. You are redeemed. I love you!"
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Radiant
Radiant
Psalm 34:5 "Those who look to him are radiant; their faces never covered with shame"
God again uses the image of light to reach out and comfort me. So not only does he delight in me, he now sees me as radiant. I believe he wants me to see past the shame I have carried that feeds the eating disorder, as well as the unique shame that comes with the eating disorder itself. It is a viscous cycle that I want out of, but just can't quite figure out how extricate myself from the behaviors that, as I have said before, seems hard wired into my brain. It is like skiing a black diamond from top to bottom. My heart races, not from the physical exertion, but from the adrenaline and dopamine flooding through my body. I am going way too fast on a slope that is way to steep, but somehow I make it down. My legs quiver from fear and my lungs burn from breathing quickly as if to keep up with the racing of my heart. I take a quick inventory to make sure I am really still standing and in one piece. I am frightened, I am tired and know I was lucky to escape unharmed, yet I get back in the lift line, knowing that I am pushing my limits.
That is what the eating disorder is beginning to feel like. It is scary, dangerous, and I am lucky to survive, but I keep going back to it again and again even though I know that it is always that one last run that takes you out. Last year at this time I could have cared less if I died on the steep slope of the eating disorder. I didn't care if it hurt me or I hurt myself, but I am shifting as God reveals more and more of himself to me, and that he loves me, delights in me and now I am radiant! My pastor asks me to look myself in the eyes everyday and say "I love you Liz" "Really? I am not sure if I can do that. It feels, well, contrived and unnatural. I know that God wants me to love myself as he loves me, but I am not sure I can do this. I am not sure I believe it," I say back to him. It is easy for me to look in the mirror and pick myself apart and tell the woman staring back how much I hate her, but tell her I love her; I am not so sure. He encourages me to just try it. If I could scream the lies that Satan would have me believe, how much more would I be able to believe the truth about the woman God loves and delights in if only I would speak it to her. I agree to give it a try and find that each time I do the haze that I see myself through is starting to lift like the fog off the mountains that take my breath away.
I have used my dad's death as an excuse to flirt with the eating disorder. At least that is what I thought I was doing since I had been feeling so much better and stronger. I believe I am in recovery. I just don't feel "sick" anymore, and really don't think I look anorexic or too thin. My therapist disagrees. She spends much of the session pointing out each piece of the eating disorder that is still alive. She pulls out her notes from my last appontment and reads them to me. I am not sure if it is to make me feel better or worse, but I feel worse. I am not sure if it is what she reads or the clinical way that the notes are written. It was like listening to someone describe the results of working with a chimpanzee for research. I felt hidden behind the illness even as I believe I am starting to emerge. I feel the tears beginning to well up, but it is almost time for me to go so I draw in a long breath allowing God to hold them again. This felt safer since he has no time limit. I think she sees the despair on my face. She hugs me and says "The eating disorder is BIG, but you are doing great, you really are!" I leave feeling defeated, hopeless, and too weak to keep pressing into God and recovery.
I felt old and childlike at the same time. That familiar feeling of shame starts to rise like bile in my throat, and that is when God reminds me that as long as I keep looking to him I am radiant and released of my shame.
Psalm 34:5 "Those who look to him are radiant; their faces never covered with shame"
God again uses the image of light to reach out and comfort me. So not only does he delight in me, he now sees me as radiant. I believe he wants me to see past the shame I have carried that feeds the eating disorder, as well as the unique shame that comes with the eating disorder itself. It is a viscous cycle that I want out of, but just can't quite figure out how extricate myself from the behaviors that, as I have said before, seems hard wired into my brain. It is like skiing a black diamond from top to bottom. My heart races, not from the physical exertion, but from the adrenaline and dopamine flooding through my body. I am going way too fast on a slope that is way to steep, but somehow I make it down. My legs quiver from fear and my lungs burn from breathing quickly as if to keep up with the racing of my heart. I take a quick inventory to make sure I am really still standing and in one piece. I am frightened, I am tired and know I was lucky to escape unharmed, yet I get back in the lift line, knowing that I am pushing my limits.
That is what the eating disorder is beginning to feel like. It is scary, dangerous, and I am lucky to survive, but I keep going back to it again and again even though I know that it is always that one last run that takes you out. Last year at this time I could have cared less if I died on the steep slope of the eating disorder. I didn't care if it hurt me or I hurt myself, but I am shifting as God reveals more and more of himself to me, and that he loves me, delights in me and now I am radiant! My pastor asks me to look myself in the eyes everyday and say "I love you Liz" "Really? I am not sure if I can do that. It feels, well, contrived and unnatural. I know that God wants me to love myself as he loves me, but I am not sure I can do this. I am not sure I believe it," I say back to him. It is easy for me to look in the mirror and pick myself apart and tell the woman staring back how much I hate her, but tell her I love her; I am not so sure. He encourages me to just try it. If I could scream the lies that Satan would have me believe, how much more would I be able to believe the truth about the woman God loves and delights in if only I would speak it to her. I agree to give it a try and find that each time I do the haze that I see myself through is starting to lift like the fog off the mountains that take my breath away.
I have used my dad's death as an excuse to flirt with the eating disorder. At least that is what I thought I was doing since I had been feeling so much better and stronger. I believe I am in recovery. I just don't feel "sick" anymore, and really don't think I look anorexic or too thin. My therapist disagrees. She spends much of the session pointing out each piece of the eating disorder that is still alive. She pulls out her notes from my last appontment and reads them to me. I am not sure if it is to make me feel better or worse, but I feel worse. I am not sure if it is what she reads or the clinical way that the notes are written. It was like listening to someone describe the results of working with a chimpanzee for research. I felt hidden behind the illness even as I believe I am starting to emerge. I feel the tears beginning to well up, but it is almost time for me to go so I draw in a long breath allowing God to hold them again. This felt safer since he has no time limit. I think she sees the despair on my face. She hugs me and says "The eating disorder is BIG, but you are doing great, you really are!" I leave feeling defeated, hopeless, and too weak to keep pressing into God and recovery.
I felt old and childlike at the same time. That familiar feeling of shame starts to rise like bile in my throat, and that is when God reminds me that as long as I keep looking to him I am radiant and released of my shame.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Light
LIGHT
Psalm 18:17-19 "He rescued me from my powerful enemy; From my Foes that were too strong for me; They confronted my in the day of my disaster; But the Lord was my support; He brought me out into a spacious place;(Get This)Because He delighted in me.
28 You Lord keep my lamp burning; My God turns darkness into light.
Ephesians 1:18 I pray that you hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
1Peter 2:9 (NLT)"But you were not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
There is a common word running through these three scriptures that I happened on this past week; Light. God is trying to speak to me through His word, and I begin to wonder how this ties into the question or answer for that matter: Who am I, and what about me causes Him to "delight in me" What is it that causes others to "delight in me" when I find it so difficult to delight in my self. Is it possible that God and those outside of my own body and definitely those outside of my own head see someone entirely different than I see my self? Could they possibly see light piercing threw the darkness of the eating disorder, with each ray bringing me out of the dark places of the last few years into his wonderful light?
God uses light to expose our strengths, but also our weakness. It is both my strengths and weakness that he is showing me and reminding me that he has a plan and a way out for me. As I read the above scriptures I know that he wants me to turn to him, yet I keep getting sucked back into the habits and rituals of the eating disorder. I use my dads death as an excuse. I get to flirt with the eating disorder again because I am grieving. God is coming to rescue me and I turn away. This weekend was just like the last. I ate well on Friday night and though my desire to purge was pulling at me and calling me like a siren's song, I stopped and tried to focus on God and his promise that he will lead me out of this darkness. I hear him whisper in my ear that I will be okay. I wake on the Saturdays and I am okay. It is just as he has promised. I am rested I am strong. I run for miles soaking in warm sun, followed by a gentle cooling breeze. "You are doing it'' I hear him say. " You are growing stronger from the inside out."
Yet it is in those moments of growing and strength that I panic. Who am I without the disorder. It is as if I wear eating disorder as who I am. Then I falter. Then I purge. Recently I have fallen back into the rituals that accompanied me for the past two years. I think that some of it rises out of comfort, and some of it out of needing take some sort of inventory of body since I have agreed to stay off the scale. So, I only get to know my weight every 2 weeks when I meet with my nutritionist.
I find I am beginning some days now with the same anorexic rituals that I retrieved from my adolescents two years ago. As I wake to the strum and vibration of my cell phone, I begin to take inventory of my body. It as if I think that in the darkness of the night I have morphed into the fat ugly body that I fear.
I curl tightly into a ball, like an infant curling into it's familiar fetal position, and slowly run my hands along my legs as they unfurl. I check to feel for the muscles and bones just under the surface of my skin unobstructed by some potential new layer of fat. Are the veins that that scared me, yet somehow mesmerized me still protruding? Are they still palpable? I point and flex my toes causing calves to grow taut, and I feel for the firm ball of tissue as it contracts and relaxes under my fingers. I need to know they can be felt and seen,
I stretch out supine under the weight of the covers. My hands wander the length of my thighs as I feel for the 4 definite muscles that form my quads. Can I feel each one, or have my legs become a glob of fat and other useless tissue? I feel for the line of definition along the side of my thighs, and then confirm the existence of my "dancer's hollow" I let out the breath I had been holding.
My hands wander up over my hipbones fearing they will no longer rise above by belly, but they do.
I let out another breath that sounds more like a sigh of relief as I realize my belly sinks leaving a space between the waistband of my pajama bottoms and the surface of my skin. How much longer until the two will meet? Should they meet? Will they meet if I gain the 5-6 pounds that would please everyone, but possibly me. They have never met before even when I was 10 pounds heavier than I am now.
The assessment continues. I palpate my body like I would a patient in the squad, but instead of looking for injuries, I am checking for flaws. I need to feel the segments of my rectus I draw my finger around each segment hoping there is no new layer of sub-cutaneous fat. Then I run my finger along the mid-line of the rectus until it lands on the ridge of the vertical internal scar from my hysterectomy. I have felt the emotional scar of the procedure for years, but it is only now that I feel the physical scar. So, now it is because of my weight and the eating disorder that physical and emotional scars are revealed
Next I feel for my ribs through my back and even through my breasts, noting the scar from the biopsy a year ago. I think for a moment, maybe cancer would be easier than this. The treatment either works or it doesn't. There is a beginning and an end.
I run my hands down one arm then the other, stopping along the way, and finally wrapping one hand around each wrist insuring my fingers still touch each-other as they encircle the bones. I turn to my right and then to my left seeing if my belly still looks flat and intact. And slowly get out of bed.
I know this seems like a long drawn out process, but like the eating disorder itself, it is hardwired somewhere in my brain. I can process how my body feels, as fast as you can google eating disorders on your high speed internet.
I then go to get dressed and stand in front of the mirror as I shower and dry off for the day. I allow my eyes to yes, survey my body, but then I allow my eyes to wander to my face. I hear God speaking to me "Liz there is a beautiful face attached to that body. Look her in the eyes. Who do you see? No don't turn away in shame. Look carefully you are not just a body, you are my daughter and I delight in you. I delight in your transparency, your tenacity, your sensitivity, how you love me, you step away, but you love me and you keep coming back to curl up on my lap listening to me intently seeking my heart and seeking to know me. These are just a few of the qualities that make you who you are, and remember that each time you falter and are broken, I am collecting the pieces and just wait until you see the beautiful stained glass mosaic I am creating. It will leave you speechless!"
Psalm 18:17-19 "He rescued me from my powerful enemy; From my Foes that were too strong for me; They confronted my in the day of my disaster; But the Lord was my support; He brought me out into a spacious place;(Get This)Because He delighted in me.
28 You Lord keep my lamp burning; My God turns darkness into light.
Ephesians 1:18 I pray that you hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
1Peter 2:9 (NLT)"But you were not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
There is a common word running through these three scriptures that I happened on this past week; Light. God is trying to speak to me through His word, and I begin to wonder how this ties into the question or answer for that matter: Who am I, and what about me causes Him to "delight in me" What is it that causes others to "delight in me" when I find it so difficult to delight in my self. Is it possible that God and those outside of my own body and definitely those outside of my own head see someone entirely different than I see my self? Could they possibly see light piercing threw the darkness of the eating disorder, with each ray bringing me out of the dark places of the last few years into his wonderful light?
God uses light to expose our strengths, but also our weakness. It is both my strengths and weakness that he is showing me and reminding me that he has a plan and a way out for me. As I read the above scriptures I know that he wants me to turn to him, yet I keep getting sucked back into the habits and rituals of the eating disorder. I use my dads death as an excuse. I get to flirt with the eating disorder again because I am grieving. God is coming to rescue me and I turn away. This weekend was just like the last. I ate well on Friday night and though my desire to purge was pulling at me and calling me like a siren's song, I stopped and tried to focus on God and his promise that he will lead me out of this darkness. I hear him whisper in my ear that I will be okay. I wake on the Saturdays and I am okay. It is just as he has promised. I am rested I am strong. I run for miles soaking in warm sun, followed by a gentle cooling breeze. "You are doing it'' I hear him say. " You are growing stronger from the inside out."
Yet it is in those moments of growing and strength that I panic. Who am I without the disorder. It is as if I wear eating disorder as who I am. Then I falter. Then I purge. Recently I have fallen back into the rituals that accompanied me for the past two years. I think that some of it rises out of comfort, and some of it out of needing take some sort of inventory of body since I have agreed to stay off the scale. So, I only get to know my weight every 2 weeks when I meet with my nutritionist.
I find I am beginning some days now with the same anorexic rituals that I retrieved from my adolescents two years ago. As I wake to the strum and vibration of my cell phone, I begin to take inventory of my body. It as if I think that in the darkness of the night I have morphed into the fat ugly body that I fear.
I curl tightly into a ball, like an infant curling into it's familiar fetal position, and slowly run my hands along my legs as they unfurl. I check to feel for the muscles and bones just under the surface of my skin unobstructed by some potential new layer of fat. Are the veins that that scared me, yet somehow mesmerized me still protruding? Are they still palpable? I point and flex my toes causing calves to grow taut, and I feel for the firm ball of tissue as it contracts and relaxes under my fingers. I need to know they can be felt and seen,
I stretch out supine under the weight of the covers. My hands wander the length of my thighs as I feel for the 4 definite muscles that form my quads. Can I feel each one, or have my legs become a glob of fat and other useless tissue? I feel for the line of definition along the side of my thighs, and then confirm the existence of my "dancer's hollow" I let out the breath I had been holding.
My hands wander up over my hipbones fearing they will no longer rise above by belly, but they do.
I let out another breath that sounds more like a sigh of relief as I realize my belly sinks leaving a space between the waistband of my pajama bottoms and the surface of my skin. How much longer until the two will meet? Should they meet? Will they meet if I gain the 5-6 pounds that would please everyone, but possibly me. They have never met before even when I was 10 pounds heavier than I am now.
The assessment continues. I palpate my body like I would a patient in the squad, but instead of looking for injuries, I am checking for flaws. I need to feel the segments of my rectus I draw my finger around each segment hoping there is no new layer of sub-cutaneous fat. Then I run my finger along the mid-line of the rectus until it lands on the ridge of the vertical internal scar from my hysterectomy. I have felt the emotional scar of the procedure for years, but it is only now that I feel the physical scar. So, now it is because of my weight and the eating disorder that physical and emotional scars are revealed
Next I feel for my ribs through my back and even through my breasts, noting the scar from the biopsy a year ago. I think for a moment, maybe cancer would be easier than this. The treatment either works or it doesn't. There is a beginning and an end.
I run my hands down one arm then the other, stopping along the way, and finally wrapping one hand around each wrist insuring my fingers still touch each-other as they encircle the bones. I turn to my right and then to my left seeing if my belly still looks flat and intact. And slowly get out of bed.
I know this seems like a long drawn out process, but like the eating disorder itself, it is hardwired somewhere in my brain. I can process how my body feels, as fast as you can google eating disorders on your high speed internet.
I then go to get dressed and stand in front of the mirror as I shower and dry off for the day. I allow my eyes to yes, survey my body, but then I allow my eyes to wander to my face. I hear God speaking to me "Liz there is a beautiful face attached to that body. Look her in the eyes. Who do you see? No don't turn away in shame. Look carefully you are not just a body, you are my daughter and I delight in you. I delight in your transparency, your tenacity, your sensitivity, how you love me, you step away, but you love me and you keep coming back to curl up on my lap listening to me intently seeking my heart and seeking to know me. These are just a few of the qualities that make you who you are, and remember that each time you falter and are broken, I am collecting the pieces and just wait until you see the beautiful stained glass mosaic I am creating. It will leave you speechless!"
Monday, October 21, 2013
Water!
Isaiah 43:18-19 "But forget all that, it is nothing compared to what I am going to do . For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry waste land"
I look backwards and remember describing myself as a flower wilting in the dessert desperately trying to find water to bring the flower back to life. I also began to think about water and how essential it is for life as I watched my father die. I know that a human being can go three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes with out air before dying. I count backwards from the time of my father's death and realize that he died just after three days without water.
It has been one month since my flawed hero, handsome Henry Kleinfeldt, Bop, Hank, The Hankster, Pops, Dad, and Daddy went home to be with the Lord guided by a glorious full moon. Dad did it his way and waited until he was alone with his savior. I know he didn't want us all hanging around fussing and crying. Or repeating Christmas Vacation word for word. ( That drove him crazy). He never was comfortable with being the center of attention, but I so wanted to hold his hand and walk him home just as he walked me to school, and my children to school on their first days.
I was tired and my heart ached as the nurse suggested that we go home 2 at a time to rest as she thought he would make it into the morning. I walked over to his bed and lay my hands on his one more time. Ok, "now" I thought "it is time." So I lean down and speak to him the words I couldn't bring myself to do earlier. "Dad, it's Liz, I love you so and forgive the last two years and I know from the core of my being that you are so very sorry and that you love me with a love that is deep and everlasting. The past two years can not erase the other forty-seven years. I am so grateful that the Lord gave us to you when you were so young, and although you will die young I had you for almost 50 years. My boys, now really men, adored you as much as you adored them. I praise God that I was young when I had them. You gave them the gifts of love, support, friendship, faith, and fun. And fun they had with you, although I probably wouldn't have let them watch Terminator, or Jaws when they were eight and ten years old, it is one of heir fondest memories. Really they seem no worse for the wear."
I stop for a moment to catch my breath and say to him "Dad I want to be here with you when you go home, but it is ok if you need to go before I return. You have suffered long enough. You deserve to be set free from all the pain; The physical, and the emotional. Jesus suffered for you and he is waiting for you, to present you washed clean and forgiven to your heavenly father 'Abba'. I will be alright." I stop short of promising him that I will leave the eating disorder behind. I couldn't make I promise that I knew I couldn't keep for the immediate future. And just as I walked with the eating disorder back into his room, it was with my trusted friend that I walked out. However this was searing pain that even Anorexia couldn't numb.
So it is in the dry waste land of death that I see the new thing that God has already begun to do as I allow myself to feel, to grieve. Feeling my tears roll down my cheeks is like releasing a torrent of water from a dam. It is grief for more than my father's death, but that of my feelings that I have held in check for years, sometimes with the eating disorder, sometimes by my fear of not being heard, and more often than not disguised in anger.
This torrent of water is different. It isn't one of misplaced rage swirling out of control waiting to suck anyone or any thing under its surface to drown. A rage, that like a swirling rapid, would cause anyone to seek to go around it; Not through it! This rush of water is like the water that flows as the sun warms and slowly melts the snow pack of the hills allowing it to flow towards the streams, river, and eventually the lake. As I allow the warm memories of my father to come to the surface, and learn to trust my heavenly father, his Son begins to soften the hard protective shell the eating disorder formed protectively around my heart.
Like the water of the river that flows in to the lake, there is an ebb and a flow to my life and my recovery. There are times when my anger explodes like rapids, although there are few times that this happens. There are times that I am calm and move slowly forward, making progress like sitting in an inter tube going with the flow of the current. It is these time that I sit back and soak in all that surrounds me, and allow myself to be connected with the people in my life. More importantly it is these time that I allow myself to just be. I connect with me allowing myself to feel happy, sad, lonely, cranky, and hungry. Hungry, yes for food, but also for life.
Then there are those times that I feel more like the salmon that I sit and watch on the Bear River fighting to get up and over the dam to even begin the arduous task of insuring their survival. Some will fight with all they have to survive. Time and time again they move backwards then thrust themselves with great effort to make the leap just to keep swimming upstream. Some will keep this up for hours on end until they succeed. Others will try once, twice maybe three times and then give up allowing the river to carry them back into vast cold waters of the lake where there future is uncertain.
This past week I was the salmon that tried a few times and gave up. I felt like just riding the current backwards even if it meant falling into my rage, that leads to restricting, and eventually purging. then waking up the next day feeling horrible not from the purge, but because I purged. Even if I had the energy to make the leap I wasn't sure I deserved to try again. How many times do I get to begin again?
The sun rose Sunday and again today, and a new day dawned. So I guess I get to begin again. Today I am the salmon fighting to take the leap. Mine isn't over a dam, but a leap of faith. Faith that He holds my future in His hands and has already begun something new that may be just out of my view. The tears that I feel hopefully are making a stream that will forge its way through this wilderness of my life and finally water this flower allowing her to bloom.
I look backwards and remember describing myself as a flower wilting in the dessert desperately trying to find water to bring the flower back to life. I also began to think about water and how essential it is for life as I watched my father die. I know that a human being can go three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes with out air before dying. I count backwards from the time of my father's death and realize that he died just after three days without water.
It has been one month since my flawed hero, handsome Henry Kleinfeldt, Bop, Hank, The Hankster, Pops, Dad, and Daddy went home to be with the Lord guided by a glorious full moon. Dad did it his way and waited until he was alone with his savior. I know he didn't want us all hanging around fussing and crying. Or repeating Christmas Vacation word for word. ( That drove him crazy). He never was comfortable with being the center of attention, but I so wanted to hold his hand and walk him home just as he walked me to school, and my children to school on their first days.
I was tired and my heart ached as the nurse suggested that we go home 2 at a time to rest as she thought he would make it into the morning. I walked over to his bed and lay my hands on his one more time. Ok, "now" I thought "it is time." So I lean down and speak to him the words I couldn't bring myself to do earlier. "Dad, it's Liz, I love you so and forgive the last two years and I know from the core of my being that you are so very sorry and that you love me with a love that is deep and everlasting. The past two years can not erase the other forty-seven years. I am so grateful that the Lord gave us to you when you were so young, and although you will die young I had you for almost 50 years. My boys, now really men, adored you as much as you adored them. I praise God that I was young when I had them. You gave them the gifts of love, support, friendship, faith, and fun. And fun they had with you, although I probably wouldn't have let them watch Terminator, or Jaws when they were eight and ten years old, it is one of heir fondest memories. Really they seem no worse for the wear."
I stop for a moment to catch my breath and say to him "Dad I want to be here with you when you go home, but it is ok if you need to go before I return. You have suffered long enough. You deserve to be set free from all the pain; The physical, and the emotional. Jesus suffered for you and he is waiting for you, to present you washed clean and forgiven to your heavenly father 'Abba'. I will be alright." I stop short of promising him that I will leave the eating disorder behind. I couldn't make I promise that I knew I couldn't keep for the immediate future. And just as I walked with the eating disorder back into his room, it was with my trusted friend that I walked out. However this was searing pain that even Anorexia couldn't numb.
So it is in the dry waste land of death that I see the new thing that God has already begun to do as I allow myself to feel, to grieve. Feeling my tears roll down my cheeks is like releasing a torrent of water from a dam. It is grief for more than my father's death, but that of my feelings that I have held in check for years, sometimes with the eating disorder, sometimes by my fear of not being heard, and more often than not disguised in anger.
This torrent of water is different. It isn't one of misplaced rage swirling out of control waiting to suck anyone or any thing under its surface to drown. A rage, that like a swirling rapid, would cause anyone to seek to go around it; Not through it! This rush of water is like the water that flows as the sun warms and slowly melts the snow pack of the hills allowing it to flow towards the streams, river, and eventually the lake. As I allow the warm memories of my father to come to the surface, and learn to trust my heavenly father, his Son begins to soften the hard protective shell the eating disorder formed protectively around my heart.
Like the water of the river that flows in to the lake, there is an ebb and a flow to my life and my recovery. There are times when my anger explodes like rapids, although there are few times that this happens. There are times that I am calm and move slowly forward, making progress like sitting in an inter tube going with the flow of the current. It is these time that I sit back and soak in all that surrounds me, and allow myself to be connected with the people in my life. More importantly it is these time that I allow myself to just be. I connect with me allowing myself to feel happy, sad, lonely, cranky, and hungry. Hungry, yes for food, but also for life.
Then there are those times that I feel more like the salmon that I sit and watch on the Bear River fighting to get up and over the dam to even begin the arduous task of insuring their survival. Some will fight with all they have to survive. Time and time again they move backwards then thrust themselves with great effort to make the leap just to keep swimming upstream. Some will keep this up for hours on end until they succeed. Others will try once, twice maybe three times and then give up allowing the river to carry them back into vast cold waters of the lake where there future is uncertain.
This past week I was the salmon that tried a few times and gave up. I felt like just riding the current backwards even if it meant falling into my rage, that leads to restricting, and eventually purging. then waking up the next day feeling horrible not from the purge, but because I purged. Even if I had the energy to make the leap I wasn't sure I deserved to try again. How many times do I get to begin again?
The sun rose Sunday and again today, and a new day dawned. So I guess I get to begin again. Today I am the salmon fighting to take the leap. Mine isn't over a dam, but a leap of faith. Faith that He holds my future in His hands and has already begun something new that may be just out of my view. The tears that I feel hopefully are making a stream that will forge its way through this wilderness of my life and finally water this flower allowing her to bloom.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Life in Death
September 16
Psalm 17:13-14 "I am still confident in this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord"
I find myself slipping back into old thoughts, anguish and frustration the past couple days. I wonder if the fog I am trying to look through is a normal part of grief, or if I am being swept up by the depression that threatened my life a few short months ago. Maybe I am just worn out from from trying to be strong through my dad's death, and trying to "be strong as I wait on the Lord to heal my gut (whatever) and the eating disorder.
My life has been a blur. The past 3 weeks feel like one. Well, one very long week that began September 16, 2013. It was on this day that for the second time in my life I thought "I am an adult." The first was watching my son get married, but on this, the sixteenth day of September I do not want to be an adult.
The call came minutes before my alarm was set to wake me from my restless slumber to call Hospice to care for my father. Eight o'clock I figured was an appropriate time to make this call. My ring tone "I love the way you love me" shatters the silence, although I am already in and out of sleep and quickly reach for the phone I look at the caller ID "unknown" "shit!" I think as I am pretty sure it is the nursing center calling me. I fear that he has died during the night, and guilt began to crowd my thoughts. First I was concerned that I hadn't been there, and second that I hadn't arranged for Hospice the day before so that he could have at least pasted comfortably. Why me? I am going to have the be the bearer of bad news to the whole family. So no matter how small and frail I try to make myself, I am still the go to person. Somehow my weakness is my strength. I think to myself sarcastically that starving does take a great deal of strength. (I guess)
"Yes" I tell the voice on the other end of the phone, "we all agree that it is time to call in Hospice
especially if his night was as horrible as it sounds. The second call comes minutes later. "Can we start the Ativan and morphine before you actually meet with the Hospice nurse" The words piercing through the fog of just waking up and my heart at the same time. "Yes" I say, "he deserves to be comfortable." I wonder for a moment if I am dreaming? I have had dreams like this before. Then I hear some noise from the end of the hallway. Mitch! How could I forget that he had come home yesterday just to hold Bop's hand one last time. I see him now walking out of his room, bleary eyed in boxers. It is then that I realize with a heavy heart, that this is not a dream. I hear the toilet flush and I ask him what his plans are. "I am going back to bed," he says as if I am missing the obvious. All the while I am wishing I were still in bed dreaming my reality.
Well, now what? I make the phone call to all my family and a few select friends, including my pastor. I find myself wandering around the house picking up this and that. Pouring another cup of coffee, eat a few bites of cereal, and take my meds. I have a feeling I am going to really need them over the next few days, just when I was wondering if I really needed them at all. Can I face my brother after our phone call that brought me to tears for hours? Am I really the shallow, selfish person that he left me feeling like? I remind myself that I am doing the best I can, and ironically I think out loud "It is well with my soul", but it still hurts.
I go through the usual debate of call, don't call my therapist. Is this a clinical emergency, or just part of life that sucks for all of us? I decide to just leave a message. Maybe she will get it, maybe she won't. She seems like a far away part of my life right now, but I am aware of the eating disorder as I think that this gives me an excuse for not eating. Pitiful! My dad is dying and I am thinking that at least I may drop a few pounds in the process of being with him as he dies, and as I grieve. I tell myself that I deserve to go to the eating disorder since I can't go to my dad.
I can go to my heavenly father. I need to pray, but am not sure what to pray for, or even how to pray. I sit quietly then begin to pray in the spirit. The Holy Spirit will know what I need and what my dad needs. I listen to my praise music, turning up the music to drown out the sound of my sobbing. I don't want to wake up Mitch. Like anything can wake up a 21 year old used to living in a frat house?
I am wound and ready to spring out of my skin; wanting to spring out of my current situation. I want to be with Mitch, but let him sleep. I go out or a quick run, pounding the pavement as if it is at fault for my father's illness and impending death.
I wake Mitch to go back to school. He seems sad and a little unsure of how to deal with the feelings a grief beginning to seep out of his pores. He is torn as he knows he must go back up to school, but wants to be, no needs to be, with his family. Bop could be like this for days even weeks, so I encourage him to go back to school. I know that is what his grandfather would want him to do. We go to lunch first, but I can't eat. I send him off with tears spilling down my cheeks.
I enter the nursing center relieved to see a few friends there with him, because I was not remotely prepared to see him restless and in obvious distress lifting his arms repetitively trying to breath. I imagine that that is what Jesus felt like as he slowly suffocated on the cross for dad, for me, for us all.
Each breath sounded wet and labored. It almost sounds like listening to someone breath from a regulator under the surface of the sea. After a while it becomes oddly comforting. There is still a rhythm of life to it
I made some calls as it became evident that he would be with us maybe a day or two, not weeks. Jerry, his life long friend comes down the hall, and I meet him to tell him that he has rapidly declined since Friday. He cries like a baby. How beautiful it is to see his unashamed love and emotion. Their connection runs long and deep. I cry, I shut down, I cry, I shut down as I watch a parade of my past march through the door. Their faces etched with age, their hair, if they had any was mostly gray, but every eye was misted in tears. I am numb, I am cried out, and I fill the void by taking care of "business"; checking in with nurses, visitors, and signing papers. How should I feel, what should I be doing, and am I doing it right? Whatever the fuck right is in this situation? All I know is I need to do this correctly.
It is loud and crowded in the room when the Hospice nurse arrives. By the way he is nothing like the little old nurse I expected. He is very young, very tan, very gay, very kind, and compassionate as he tells each us to give him permission to go. I look at my dad and wander to rub his head, then turn back. Nope, not yet. He may be ready, but I am not. He tells us, including my mom who decides to come that Dad is indeed in the active process of dying. He will most likely die by day break. I am anxious and irritated. Part of me wants everyone to get the fuck out so I can be with my daddy. Instead I wander outside. How can this be? It is a beautiful fall day. I stand on the hillside that over looks the village that my dad dearly loved, and realize that life is going on all around me. Did I expect the world to stop and pause because my dad was dying? I pull my sweater closed around my waist letting it envelop me as it wraps over itself. I am strangely comforted feeling as physically frail as I feel emotionally. I begin to scold myself for going there, but than think "fuck off "my dad is dying I will feel this way if I want to, and if the eating disorder wants to show up to ease my emotional pain, fine with me, and the two us make the slow lonely walk back to his room.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Loving and grieving in the midst of anger
" Be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. ( Ephesians 5:1-2) (NIV)
" Love the Lord you God with all your strength and with all your mind; and, love you neighbor as yourself" Luke 10:27 (NIV)
It has been two and a half years since I relapsed into the world of anorexia. Hungering for nothing, yet starving for so much. It has been one and a half years since God used a picture of me serving his people in Belize to see that I was in grave physical and emotional danger. It has been one year since I began to attempt to eat by faith and allow my self to satiate my physical hunger and consequently recognize that I hungered for more than food, but to love myself and take in the love of those around me. It has also been one year since my body began to reject most food I attempted to eat. Imagine that? After 2 years of seeing food as the enemy, I was now asking it to see food as my ally. It has been six months since I weighed under 112lbs and was thinking that dying would be a better way out for me. Six weeks since I entered my first triathlon and maintained my weight while competing. One month since I did my second triathlon and placed fourth overall in woman. It has been 2 weeks since I last purged just to see if I could. One day since I last restricted, somewhat afraid of weighing in at the doctors. Twelve hours since I decide that I am still hungry, and after a long debate with myself, allow myself a bowl of cereal at 10 pm. Today I listen to my very tired body and take the day off after countless days of running, biking, and swimming without a break. And I see myself moving forward allowing myself to come back into view, it is not without fear.
Fear, it is so powerful. I fear losing weight. I fear gaining weight. I fear eating. I fear not eating. I fear purging. I fear not purging. I fear that by taking control, I am somehow giving up control. I realize I am still holding on to the eating disorder when I should be letting go.
It has been 1 week since I last spoke with my father, and five days since I let him go home to be with the Lord. And now since I can't hold onto him or reach out to him, I reach out to the eating disorder, or maybe it is reaching out to me. I am tired and overwhelmed with emotion and find it hard to eat. Even during the years of recovery, it was always hard to eat when I was scared, sad, or angry, but always bounced back after a few days. I know I have probably dropped a few pounds and this time it tries to pull me in to its snare. I don't want to go back there, but am too tired to fight it.
I hear the Lord remind me that I am not going to have to fight this all alone. He sends me family and friends to comfort me and pray for me. I am surrounded by love. I ask myself " do you love yourself enough to hold onto the ground you have gained?" I find it hard to know the answer in the midst of my anger and grief. The last 2 years of my father's life were tarnished by actions I will probably never understand. I have been angry, I have been hurt, and it was so very easy to be angry. The grief that came roaring at me like a hungry lion and it caught me by surprise. The compassion that the Holy Spirit gave me for both my parents took me by surprise. Be careful what you pray for.
Just as I am not a mere ball of eating disordered symptoms, he was more than the sum of his recent past transgressions. Despite it all he was my daddy, and more than that he was my hero. And I allow myself to grieve in hopes that by allowing my feelings to be big, scary,and powerful, I won't need to fadeaway.....
" Love the Lord you God with all your strength and with all your mind; and, love you neighbor as yourself" Luke 10:27 (NIV)
It has been two and a half years since I relapsed into the world of anorexia. Hungering for nothing, yet starving for so much. It has been one and a half years since God used a picture of me serving his people in Belize to see that I was in grave physical and emotional danger. It has been one year since I began to attempt to eat by faith and allow my self to satiate my physical hunger and consequently recognize that I hungered for more than food, but to love myself and take in the love of those around me. It has also been one year since my body began to reject most food I attempted to eat. Imagine that? After 2 years of seeing food as the enemy, I was now asking it to see food as my ally. It has been six months since I weighed under 112lbs and was thinking that dying would be a better way out for me. Six weeks since I entered my first triathlon and maintained my weight while competing. One month since I did my second triathlon and placed fourth overall in woman. It has been 2 weeks since I last purged just to see if I could. One day since I last restricted, somewhat afraid of weighing in at the doctors. Twelve hours since I decide that I am still hungry, and after a long debate with myself, allow myself a bowl of cereal at 10 pm. Today I listen to my very tired body and take the day off after countless days of running, biking, and swimming without a break. And I see myself moving forward allowing myself to come back into view, it is not without fear.
Fear, it is so powerful. I fear losing weight. I fear gaining weight. I fear eating. I fear not eating. I fear purging. I fear not purging. I fear that by taking control, I am somehow giving up control. I realize I am still holding on to the eating disorder when I should be letting go.
It has been 1 week since I last spoke with my father, and five days since I let him go home to be with the Lord. And now since I can't hold onto him or reach out to him, I reach out to the eating disorder, or maybe it is reaching out to me. I am tired and overwhelmed with emotion and find it hard to eat. Even during the years of recovery, it was always hard to eat when I was scared, sad, or angry, but always bounced back after a few days. I know I have probably dropped a few pounds and this time it tries to pull me in to its snare. I don't want to go back there, but am too tired to fight it.
I hear the Lord remind me that I am not going to have to fight this all alone. He sends me family and friends to comfort me and pray for me. I am surrounded by love. I ask myself " do you love yourself enough to hold onto the ground you have gained?" I find it hard to know the answer in the midst of my anger and grief. The last 2 years of my father's life were tarnished by actions I will probably never understand. I have been angry, I have been hurt, and it was so very easy to be angry. The grief that came roaring at me like a hungry lion and it caught me by surprise. The compassion that the Holy Spirit gave me for both my parents took me by surprise. Be careful what you pray for.
Just as I am not a mere ball of eating disordered symptoms, he was more than the sum of his recent past transgressions. Despite it all he was my daddy, and more than that he was my hero. And I allow myself to grieve in hopes that by allowing my feelings to be big, scary,and powerful, I won't need to fadeaway.....
Friday, August 16, 2013
Strength and Redemption
Lamentations 3:58 "You Lord took up my case and redeemed my life"
Romans 8:26-27 " In the same way the Spirit helps in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for,but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words can't express. And the father who knows all hearts knows what the spirt is saying, for the spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will"
I know that it is not God's will for me to be sick, yet there is something in me that feels like I need to stay here on the fringe of sick and well. A part of me that believes that I am nothing without the eating disorder, that there is somehow strength in my frailty and small frame. This is the last part of of the illness I fight to hold onto, or let go of and give to God. I have allowed my mind to grow, my emotions to felt and revealed, and my spirit to be filled by the Holy Spirit, but this I hold back. I am reassured that He is indeed strength in my weakness, and He intercedes for me when I have know idea how to pray or what to pray. By praying in the spirit he bears witness to my soul and reveals himself to me.
My body still rebels, at times, as I continue to eat by faith even when I am not hungry or when my gut is hurting. I still keep myself small enough, but I am so much stronger physically than I was two years or even a year ago. It is interesting how this time around I am not obsessed with counting calories, diets, or thinking about food all the time. I am just not hungry or aware of my hunger(most the time). It is as though the anorexia was hard wired into my brain many years ago and once I decided to tap into that line I didn't have to work at the eating disorder. The energy flowed effortlessly out of that wire flooding my mind body and spirit to enable me to literally fadeaway with out even thinking about it.
So now, in order to maintain the ground I have gained I must think about it and eat by faith. I have done two triathlons in the past few weeks. I placed in both of them as my physical strength begins to return. It is a fine line I walk being strong enough to compete, but small enough to.....I am not sure. I am also aware that it is a fine line I walk between training out of passion for the sport and compulsion to stay small. I have been there before allowing the eating disorder to sabotage my high school swimming career. I loved the sport and was competitive, but over a short period of time my passion became my compulsion. I used the swimming to feed the eating disorder while I wasn't feeding myself. As I faded away my compulsion grew and the passion for the sport slipped away. I was no longer able to keep up with the team and my coach had to let me go I love competing in these triathlons. God is my strength in my weakness and trusting in this, I eat by faith not wanting the eating disorder to sabotage my passion or my life.
I falter time and time again as I do eat by faith, and ignore His still small voice and purge what I take in. Yet it is fewer times, and not as often. It is also less of what I take in. Meaning that it isn't the
whole meal, but just enough to remind myself that I could if I wanted to and little enough to tell the
Eating Disorder that I really am in charge. It can have less and less of me and I can have more food and more of me in mind, spirit, and eventually physically. I feel some remorse, and guilt when I do this; however I don't allow myself to go into self-loathing any more. Even as I pretend I don't hear His voice telling me "stop undoing what I am trying to do" He groans for me he redeems me, He loves me. The condemnation isn't from God. He wants to scoop me up and put me back on track. Satan, however, would prefer to see me walk down the path of powerlessness and self-loathing.
Growth! It is hard for me to measure my growth in overtaking this illness because the only tangible measurement of my growth, my weight, falls below the bar that has been set for me. The intangibles of emotional and spiritual growth are difficult for me to measure and see. I have set my own bar so high and it is constantly in flux. I must turn to others to point out my growth. I turn to those that I have entrusted with my pain, my struggles, and my truth which at times is very ugly and disturbing. It is humbling and scary to not see yourself clearly physically, but even more terrifying to not see yourself at all from the inside out. So I turn to those I have entrusted with all of me to show me how I have grown. Little by little I see the growth that they see in me, and I almost believe it.
So for now I am trying to be content with the growth that isn't actually measurable by a scale; growth that is coming from the inside out, and that someone greater than I could ever imagine is pulling for me and interceding for me with groans I can't begin to comprehend.
Romans 8:26-27 " In the same way the Spirit helps in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for,but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words can't express. And the father who knows all hearts knows what the spirt is saying, for the spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will"
I know that it is not God's will for me to be sick, yet there is something in me that feels like I need to stay here on the fringe of sick and well. A part of me that believes that I am nothing without the eating disorder, that there is somehow strength in my frailty and small frame. This is the last part of of the illness I fight to hold onto, or let go of and give to God. I have allowed my mind to grow, my emotions to felt and revealed, and my spirit to be filled by the Holy Spirit, but this I hold back. I am reassured that He is indeed strength in my weakness, and He intercedes for me when I have know idea how to pray or what to pray. By praying in the spirit he bears witness to my soul and reveals himself to me.
My body still rebels, at times, as I continue to eat by faith even when I am not hungry or when my gut is hurting. I still keep myself small enough, but I am so much stronger physically than I was two years or even a year ago. It is interesting how this time around I am not obsessed with counting calories, diets, or thinking about food all the time. I am just not hungry or aware of my hunger(most the time). It is as though the anorexia was hard wired into my brain many years ago and once I decided to tap into that line I didn't have to work at the eating disorder. The energy flowed effortlessly out of that wire flooding my mind body and spirit to enable me to literally fadeaway with out even thinking about it.
So now, in order to maintain the ground I have gained I must think about it and eat by faith. I have done two triathlons in the past few weeks. I placed in both of them as my physical strength begins to return. It is a fine line I walk being strong enough to compete, but small enough to.....I am not sure. I am also aware that it is a fine line I walk between training out of passion for the sport and compulsion to stay small. I have been there before allowing the eating disorder to sabotage my high school swimming career. I loved the sport and was competitive, but over a short period of time my passion became my compulsion. I used the swimming to feed the eating disorder while I wasn't feeding myself. As I faded away my compulsion grew and the passion for the sport slipped away. I was no longer able to keep up with the team and my coach had to let me go I love competing in these triathlons. God is my strength in my weakness and trusting in this, I eat by faith not wanting the eating disorder to sabotage my passion or my life.
I falter time and time again as I do eat by faith, and ignore His still small voice and purge what I take in. Yet it is fewer times, and not as often. It is also less of what I take in. Meaning that it isn't the
whole meal, but just enough to remind myself that I could if I wanted to and little enough to tell the
Eating Disorder that I really am in charge. It can have less and less of me and I can have more food and more of me in mind, spirit, and eventually physically. I feel some remorse, and guilt when I do this; however I don't allow myself to go into self-loathing any more. Even as I pretend I don't hear His voice telling me "stop undoing what I am trying to do" He groans for me he redeems me, He loves me. The condemnation isn't from God. He wants to scoop me up and put me back on track. Satan, however, would prefer to see me walk down the path of powerlessness and self-loathing.
Growth! It is hard for me to measure my growth in overtaking this illness because the only tangible measurement of my growth, my weight, falls below the bar that has been set for me. The intangibles of emotional and spiritual growth are difficult for me to measure and see. I have set my own bar so high and it is constantly in flux. I must turn to others to point out my growth. I turn to those that I have entrusted with my pain, my struggles, and my truth which at times is very ugly and disturbing. It is humbling and scary to not see yourself clearly physically, but even more terrifying to not see yourself at all from the inside out. So I turn to those I have entrusted with all of me to show me how I have grown. Little by little I see the growth that they see in me, and I almost believe it.
So for now I am trying to be content with the growth that isn't actually measurable by a scale; growth that is coming from the inside out, and that someone greater than I could ever imagine is pulling for me and interceding for me with groans I can't begin to comprehend.
Monday, August 5, 2013
And He Will Rescue Me Again...
2 Corinthians 1:10 (NLT) "And he did rescue us from mortal danger and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him and he will continue to rescue us"
So, before I even begin I want to make sure that my readers know that the quote I am using is from the book Gaining:The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders by Amiee Liu and is from a study done in London by Janet Treasure using a method called functional magnetic resonance imaging. It can be found on pages 86-87 of Gaining:The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders.
I wake up this morning feeling down, and restless. I sit for a moment before even getting out of bed trying to figure out what has triggered this empty listless feeling rising from within me before I even rise to face my day. It is a sense of dread, a loss of time; time lost to the eating disorder and fear that I am running out of time to recover and come back once again from the eating disorder.
I believe what has set of this cascade of fear of loss time and running out of time comes from reading, for me, two powerful paragraphs from the book afore mentioned Gaining. " The longer a person has been ill, the stronger the response of the frontal region, which also dispenses moral judgment such as guilt" Treasure is speaking of the eating disordered brain's response to food being displaced from the area of the brain that should be responsible for response to food. "When people return to normal eating habits., however, multiple areas of the brain spring into action to override the disordered response to food. This patching, Treasure said acts as a brake on the impulse to suppress the appetite. The more time that passes without relapse, the stronger more permanent the patch becomes. It cannot, however, produce a truly normal appetite response. Even after decades after their list fast or purge, former anorexics and bulimics will respond to the sight of layer cake with a complex mix of attractions, resistance, guilt, calculation, permission and release."
This quote has been weighing (no pun intended ) on my mind for the past few days. I suppose the weight of it is what has now brought me to the this sense of pain and sorrow. If I was truly recovered for 20 years, why did my "Patch" unravel so easily in such a short amount of time? Why didn't this carefully constructed patch that I worked so hard create, hold like it was supposed to? Why didn't it hold its place protecting me from, well, protecting me from myself. I find myself fighting back the tears all day long as I ponder this. What did I do wrong that this "patch" didn't just fray around the edges, but became completely unstitched. This isn't fair! Was it not enough to have had the eating disorder in the first place? Now, where others recover and their brains adjust, mine remains flawed. Even the way I go about the eating disorder isn't right. I find my self asking the question, " Was I ever in recovery?"
I feel like I have flaws on top of my flaws. I try to remind myself that I am human, therefore I am flawed. I remind myself that the illness, flaws and all do not need to define me. It isn't a statement about my character. I am still compassionate, sensitive, thoughtful, kind, generous, honest, open, a prayer warrior, even with the flaws. Still I wonder why didn't my "patch" hold? Did little pieces of it fray each time I restricted or purged over the past twenty years? Was it that this time I din't leave enough time between the behavior to weave it back together.
I begin to think in a rather circuitous direction. If the "patch" was meant to hold, did it fail me and allow the eating disorder back in, or did becoming eating disordered again (which theoretically shouldn't have happened after twenty years) cause it to unravel? My brain hurts as I try to analyze the theory and myself.
How can I make sense of this? How can I understand why God brought me through this journey only to send me back through it once again? I look to God's promises. I think of my pastor and his faith in my complete healing. I spent much of the day praying, seeking, and crying out to God. I hear him say a couple things to me. If I knew why, would it really change anything about the current journey? Probably not, but I would sure like to know the end of the story. Then I see 2Corinthians 10:1 and believe that he did indeed rescue me before, and he will do it again. God won't give up on me, as long as I don't give up on myself. Genesis 28:15 "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."(NLT)
I still look for meaning in this illness, this relapse. I need something other than the fact that we live in this fallen world. 2 Corinthians 1:4,6(NLT) "God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and your salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things." Ah, but does patiently mean gracefully? I am rather clumsy even as I endure. I guess God will use my less than graceful passage through pain and suffering as well.
I want to curl up and fadeaway, but I will fight because I know it will be for his glory. My God knows the end of the story. He sees the beautiful stained glass mosaic that he continues to create out of the broken pieces of my life. I picture God's stories told through the stained glass windows of a church and envision He will be revealed as he shines through the window of my life. So although still down and tired; I am not out of the fight.
So, before I even begin I want to make sure that my readers know that the quote I am using is from the book Gaining:The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders by Amiee Liu and is from a study done in London by Janet Treasure using a method called functional magnetic resonance imaging. It can be found on pages 86-87 of Gaining:The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders.
I wake up this morning feeling down, and restless. I sit for a moment before even getting out of bed trying to figure out what has triggered this empty listless feeling rising from within me before I even rise to face my day. It is a sense of dread, a loss of time; time lost to the eating disorder and fear that I am running out of time to recover and come back once again from the eating disorder.
I believe what has set of this cascade of fear of loss time and running out of time comes from reading, for me, two powerful paragraphs from the book afore mentioned Gaining. " The longer a person has been ill, the stronger the response of the frontal region, which also dispenses moral judgment such as guilt" Treasure is speaking of the eating disordered brain's response to food being displaced from the area of the brain that should be responsible for response to food. "When people return to normal eating habits., however, multiple areas of the brain spring into action to override the disordered response to food. This patching, Treasure said acts as a brake on the impulse to suppress the appetite. The more time that passes without relapse, the stronger more permanent the patch becomes. It cannot, however, produce a truly normal appetite response. Even after decades after their list fast or purge, former anorexics and bulimics will respond to the sight of layer cake with a complex mix of attractions, resistance, guilt, calculation, permission and release."
This quote has been weighing (no pun intended ) on my mind for the past few days. I suppose the weight of it is what has now brought me to the this sense of pain and sorrow. If I was truly recovered for 20 years, why did my "Patch" unravel so easily in such a short amount of time? Why didn't this carefully constructed patch that I worked so hard create, hold like it was supposed to? Why didn't it hold its place protecting me from, well, protecting me from myself. I find myself fighting back the tears all day long as I ponder this. What did I do wrong that this "patch" didn't just fray around the edges, but became completely unstitched. This isn't fair! Was it not enough to have had the eating disorder in the first place? Now, where others recover and their brains adjust, mine remains flawed. Even the way I go about the eating disorder isn't right. I find my self asking the question, " Was I ever in recovery?"
I feel like I have flaws on top of my flaws. I try to remind myself that I am human, therefore I am flawed. I remind myself that the illness, flaws and all do not need to define me. It isn't a statement about my character. I am still compassionate, sensitive, thoughtful, kind, generous, honest, open, a prayer warrior, even with the flaws. Still I wonder why didn't my "patch" hold? Did little pieces of it fray each time I restricted or purged over the past twenty years? Was it that this time I din't leave enough time between the behavior to weave it back together.
I begin to think in a rather circuitous direction. If the "patch" was meant to hold, did it fail me and allow the eating disorder back in, or did becoming eating disordered again (which theoretically shouldn't have happened after twenty years) cause it to unravel? My brain hurts as I try to analyze the theory and myself.
How can I make sense of this? How can I understand why God brought me through this journey only to send me back through it once again? I look to God's promises. I think of my pastor and his faith in my complete healing. I spent much of the day praying, seeking, and crying out to God. I hear him say a couple things to me. If I knew why, would it really change anything about the current journey? Probably not, but I would sure like to know the end of the story. Then I see 2Corinthians 10:1 and believe that he did indeed rescue me before, and he will do it again. God won't give up on me, as long as I don't give up on myself. Genesis 28:15 "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."(NLT)
I still look for meaning in this illness, this relapse. I need something other than the fact that we live in this fallen world. 2 Corinthians 1:4,6(NLT) "God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and your salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things." Ah, but does patiently mean gracefully? I am rather clumsy even as I endure. I guess God will use my less than graceful passage through pain and suffering as well.
I want to curl up and fadeaway, but I will fight because I know it will be for his glory. My God knows the end of the story. He sees the beautiful stained glass mosaic that he continues to create out of the broken pieces of my life. I picture God's stories told through the stained glass windows of a church and envision He will be revealed as he shines through the window of my life. So although still down and tired; I am not out of the fight.
Monday, July 29, 2013
The Choice
Deuteronomy 30:15 ( NLT ) " Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster."
Each day I wake I am choosing between life and death. Taking up space or fading away, or staying somewhere in the middle. I am waiting for God to reach down and transform my mind so that I k ow longer fear the very thing that sustains me or the weight that comes along with it. Faith Liz, where is your faith? Each day I chose to walk in the eating disorder instead of His truth, I am choosing the eating disorder over him. I am saying this is what makes me feel safe. This is what makes me powerful ( while becoming weak ). I am tired of fighting the battle to eat by faith even though my body responds to the food with pain and discomfort. So, yes I am angry with God! If I am to eat why then are you making it so difficult to eat. I am so frustrated, I am depressed and I go through a period of questioning not just God, but is he even who he says he is? Even he even there?
I panicked! If he isn't there, then I am out here fighting this alone. I made calls to my pastor daily, and began to re-read apologetic literature, historical references, and yes the Bible. What I needed was evidence that He was there, because I couldn't imagine a Loving God allowing me to suffer so emotionally or physically. I see now that he was using this crisis of faith to grow, me and prepare me to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and hear his still small voice over the booming voice of my past telling me I was never enough and would never be enough.
During this time my weight went up, it went down, never lower than 112 lb's, never higher than 117 lb's and my body fat hovered around 10-12 %. Okay God, " I need my tangible evidence. I need my equivalent to Moses' burning bush. I need it now before I go off to Belize to be your servant." This was my plea over and over again.
God showed me his face as I, despite my questions, continued to seek it. Through words spoken directly to me through my own writing, and through baptism in the Holy Spirit, and receiving the gift of praying in Tongues. I went to Belize, not only as a believer in Christ, but spirit filled as well.
I hoped this this would be the final piece of my healing puzzle, but God had more to do with me, and I suppose I had more to do with Him because I was not suddenly healed. I felt great while on the mission trip, but as soon as the plane landed back in Cincinnati the pain the gas, the bloating the anguish over eating.......was rearing its' head with a vengeance.
And so the battle raged on. I was in a spiritual battle, and a battle against my own body and mind. I also found my self battling my therapist as I believed, and still do believe God can completely heal this.
Acts 3:16 "By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus name and the faith that comes through Him that has Completely healed him as you can see."(NIV) I chose this version because of the word COMPLETELY. Jesus can completely heal by faith even Anorexia which has the highest mortality rate of ANY psychiatric disorder and limited recovery rate.
God, like I said, speaks at times through my writing, through listening for his voice. Each time I chose the eating disorder over him, I hear him telling me "Liz, stop undoing what I am trying to do!" Have faith in me not the purging, not the restricting.
I find myself struggling some days to eat because of the discomfort, and on the good days fighting the urge to purge fearing that I have taken too much in. Yet I believe that despite the fact the anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder and limited recovery rate that Jesus will heal me completely, despite the fact that even as I write this I have purged a little today. I am disappointed that I fall to this as God has been so good to me on this trip and my gut has handles a great variety of foods. Today I enjoyed a grilled sandwich for lunch, and a large cookie from the bread store. I really didn't think about it. I just ate it and enjoyed it. So, it wasn't until dinner and it was a safe and heathy meal that I feel like I need to get rid of just enough...... I want to cry, I want to take it back. I don't need this any more. I still believe in his promise of Acts 3:16
I see it coming, but I hear God telling me that I still have work to do, it isn't work to earn grace or healing, but stepping out in faith. 121...I keep seeing and hearing this number. I sense that this is my goal weight. If I get there then my healing will become complete. God speaks to me " So for now, rejoice in your suffering. I've got this in MY hands, leave your hands off your body. Eat by faith, even when you don't feel like it. Keep seeking, keep thanking, come to me on prayer when it gets too much. I will carry you through it all. Trust, trust, trust. I promise I will not forsake you. This pain will be used for me glory. Wait and see. If I had healed you completely when you begged me and I told you patience, the time isn't right, would you know me more and have been reunited with your pastor and baptized in my spirit? There will be healing and revelation, but you my precious one must do some of the work. Again, not for grace, love and mercy (you already have that) but as an act of faith and trust. I love you Liz, I really do, trust me"
I fear letting Kurt, my pastor or my therapist know that I have struggled these past few weeks with purging. It is small and just a little pressure release, but I know it isn't ok, and I feel guilty and remorseful (as I always do). I remind myself there is no condemnation in Christ. I am human and I will slip and fall, but he is there to pick me up and let me lay it all down at his feet. I am starting to see that I may break down, but I am not broken, but made whole my Lord.
So, now you are pretty much up to date with my past year. Oh and it wasn't all bad. My son was married a few weeks ago. God showed me that I can have fun again and experience joy! It was a weekend filled with joy, blessings, and being with those I love and those that love me. I soaked it like a sponge filling every nook and cranny of my heart and soul. I plan to savor it, and experience it again and again as I trust and and let God fill the space that is left as I evict the eating disorder one day at a time. Today I chose to let the eating disorder in the door, tomorrow I can hear its knocking, but chose to not answer the door.
Each day I wake I am choosing between life and death. Taking up space or fading away, or staying somewhere in the middle. I am waiting for God to reach down and transform my mind so that I k ow longer fear the very thing that sustains me or the weight that comes along with it. Faith Liz, where is your faith? Each day I chose to walk in the eating disorder instead of His truth, I am choosing the eating disorder over him. I am saying this is what makes me feel safe. This is what makes me powerful ( while becoming weak ). I am tired of fighting the battle to eat by faith even though my body responds to the food with pain and discomfort. So, yes I am angry with God! If I am to eat why then are you making it so difficult to eat. I am so frustrated, I am depressed and I go through a period of questioning not just God, but is he even who he says he is? Even he even there?
I panicked! If he isn't there, then I am out here fighting this alone. I made calls to my pastor daily, and began to re-read apologetic literature, historical references, and yes the Bible. What I needed was evidence that He was there, because I couldn't imagine a Loving God allowing me to suffer so emotionally or physically. I see now that he was using this crisis of faith to grow, me and prepare me to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and hear his still small voice over the booming voice of my past telling me I was never enough and would never be enough.
During this time my weight went up, it went down, never lower than 112 lb's, never higher than 117 lb's and my body fat hovered around 10-12 %. Okay God, " I need my tangible evidence. I need my equivalent to Moses' burning bush. I need it now before I go off to Belize to be your servant." This was my plea over and over again.
God showed me his face as I, despite my questions, continued to seek it. Through words spoken directly to me through my own writing, and through baptism in the Holy Spirit, and receiving the gift of praying in Tongues. I went to Belize, not only as a believer in Christ, but spirit filled as well.
I hoped this this would be the final piece of my healing puzzle, but God had more to do with me, and I suppose I had more to do with Him because I was not suddenly healed. I felt great while on the mission trip, but as soon as the plane landed back in Cincinnati the pain the gas, the bloating the anguish over eating.......was rearing its' head with a vengeance.
And so the battle raged on. I was in a spiritual battle, and a battle against my own body and mind. I also found my self battling my therapist as I believed, and still do believe God can completely heal this.
Acts 3:16 "By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus name and the faith that comes through Him that has Completely healed him as you can see."(NIV) I chose this version because of the word COMPLETELY. Jesus can completely heal by faith even Anorexia which has the highest mortality rate of ANY psychiatric disorder and limited recovery rate.
God, like I said, speaks at times through my writing, through listening for his voice. Each time I chose the eating disorder over him, I hear him telling me "Liz, stop undoing what I am trying to do!" Have faith in me not the purging, not the restricting.
I find myself struggling some days to eat because of the discomfort, and on the good days fighting the urge to purge fearing that I have taken too much in. Yet I believe that despite the fact the anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder and limited recovery rate that Jesus will heal me completely, despite the fact that even as I write this I have purged a little today. I am disappointed that I fall to this as God has been so good to me on this trip and my gut has handles a great variety of foods. Today I enjoyed a grilled sandwich for lunch, and a large cookie from the bread store. I really didn't think about it. I just ate it and enjoyed it. So, it wasn't until dinner and it was a safe and heathy meal that I feel like I need to get rid of just enough...... I want to cry, I want to take it back. I don't need this any more. I still believe in his promise of Acts 3:16
I see it coming, but I hear God telling me that I still have work to do, it isn't work to earn grace or healing, but stepping out in faith. 121...I keep seeing and hearing this number. I sense that this is my goal weight. If I get there then my healing will become complete. God speaks to me " So for now, rejoice in your suffering. I've got this in MY hands, leave your hands off your body. Eat by faith, even when you don't feel like it. Keep seeking, keep thanking, come to me on prayer when it gets too much. I will carry you through it all. Trust, trust, trust. I promise I will not forsake you. This pain will be used for me glory. Wait and see. If I had healed you completely when you begged me and I told you patience, the time isn't right, would you know me more and have been reunited with your pastor and baptized in my spirit? There will be healing and revelation, but you my precious one must do some of the work. Again, not for grace, love and mercy (you already have that) but as an act of faith and trust. I love you Liz, I really do, trust me"
I fear letting Kurt, my pastor or my therapist know that I have struggled these past few weeks with purging. It is small and just a little pressure release, but I know it isn't ok, and I feel guilty and remorseful (as I always do). I remind myself there is no condemnation in Christ. I am human and I will slip and fall, but he is there to pick me up and let me lay it all down at his feet. I am starting to see that I may break down, but I am not broken, but made whole my Lord.
So, now you are pretty much up to date with my past year. Oh and it wasn't all bad. My son was married a few weeks ago. God showed me that I can have fun again and experience joy! It was a weekend filled with joy, blessings, and being with those I love and those that love me. I soaked it like a sponge filling every nook and cranny of my heart and soul. I plan to savor it, and experience it again and again as I trust and and let God fill the space that is left as I evict the eating disorder one day at a time. Today I chose to let the eating disorder in the door, tomorrow I can hear its knocking, but chose to not answer the door.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Unbelief/Disbelief
"What do you mean, if I can?" Jesus asked, "anything is possible if a person believes."
The father instantly cried out, "I do believe, but help be overcome my unbelief" Mark 9:23-24 ( NLT )
It really isn't too difficult to catch you up on my story because basically I survived one miserable day after another. Each day I would open my eyes hoping this would be the day of my healing from the gut issues and then the eating disorder could be addressed as my system could actually tolerate food. It didn't happen, although my pastor keeps telling me that I really am going to be ok, and that God is working a deeper understanding in me of who he is and his great love for me. I remained angry with God, and my self more days than not. " Really, really God? This is how you are showing me how much you love me???" I felt more like he was mocking me. Yet I did stay in the word, and continued to learn from my pastor more and more about God's character and the love that he has for me. I have to be honest my head knowledge of his love for me was far ahead of my heart knowledge. I also had a hard time believing that My Pastor and his wife truly loved me and wanted to spend time with me. How could they want to spend time with me? I was angry, bitter, and depressed. How could they possibly desire a relationship with me? Heck I didn't even want to be with me.
It was also at this time that I really began to miss my dad. He never called to see how I was, and our lunch dates became few and far between. I was so disappointed that he had time to be with his secretary, and help her out with her new baby while his own baby was slipping away to the Eating Disorder and the daily pain in my gut. Speaking of gut....my gut instincts told me he was involved with something inappropriate, but at the time wasn't quite sure what. I felt compelled to call him and I needed him to ask for my forgiveness for not protecting me as a child. He said"you have no idea the things that I need forgiveness for and I don't deserve it" Still I persisted, and he eventually ask for it and I gave it to him. I also told him what I needed from him. It wasn't much. A phone call, stopping by for coffee, maybe lunch. I told him how close I'd come to the hospital because of both the eating disorder, and the cloud of depression that threatened my life. He didn't call. We had lunch only if I called him. I saw him Thanksgiving Day, because I hosted. I dind't hear from him again until December. He needed to borrow 8,000.00 dollars. I was crushed. I told him, "no! I would feel like I was prostituting myself by giving you the money when all I wanted was a phone call!" Now I was convinced he was involved in something illegal, inappropriate, or immoral.
By December the doctor treated for a possible parasite I may have picked up in Belize, then a small bowel overgrowth, and finally said IBS learn to live with it. Oh and I also cut out gluten, dairy, eggs and peanuts from my diet. Nothing seemed to help. I pleaded to God to heal me or take me home. God had already given me more than I could handle of that I was sure. And now, my hero my dad had forsaken and abandoned me when I needed him most. God answered my plea, but not with any sudden healing, but a simple message. "Liz, take refuge in my arms, in my house, with me people. I love you, my people love you. You are mine. Remember though your parents have forsaken you, you my precious one belong to me. Let me be the one to hold you. You will be okay this I promise you. I am your father, and this daddy has never will never forget you are his baby, his darling little girl" I took solace in this message for a period of time, then as my symptoms persisted I fell apart behaving like a little girl throwing a temper tantrum. Challenging God, "Do you love me now"
We were scheduled to go on a cruise with the kids and friends. I sat on the floor the night before rocking in pain and frustration. Kurt was reaching his limits and said we should just cancel. I couldn't do that to the others going. No, I can feel like crap on a boat as easily as my home. I prayed and woke in the morning the first words out of my mouth were "ok God show me your glory" and although not perfect of normal, he did. I had fun, felt ok and was hoping I was turning a corner. Then I panicked as I realized if my gut gets better, I have to meet the eating did order head on.
My mind jumps to the present and I wonder if my subconscious is that strong causing my symptoms and giving the excuse I need to restrict? I have some more good days. Days that feel almost normal, but then I'll have some horrible days. How is my fear of weight, connected to my symptoms. Give me revelation my Lord!
Some time between Christmas and Belize, I began to let go of my anger with God because I was beginning to not only doubt him, but if he was even real. So now I was facing unbelief and as I discovered more about my dad, disbelief. How could he do this to me, to our family, to himself?
The father instantly cried out, "I do believe, but help be overcome my unbelief" Mark 9:23-24 ( NLT )
It really isn't too difficult to catch you up on my story because basically I survived one miserable day after another. Each day I would open my eyes hoping this would be the day of my healing from the gut issues and then the eating disorder could be addressed as my system could actually tolerate food. It didn't happen, although my pastor keeps telling me that I really am going to be ok, and that God is working a deeper understanding in me of who he is and his great love for me. I remained angry with God, and my self more days than not. " Really, really God? This is how you are showing me how much you love me???" I felt more like he was mocking me. Yet I did stay in the word, and continued to learn from my pastor more and more about God's character and the love that he has for me. I have to be honest my head knowledge of his love for me was far ahead of my heart knowledge. I also had a hard time believing that My Pastor and his wife truly loved me and wanted to spend time with me. How could they want to spend time with me? I was angry, bitter, and depressed. How could they possibly desire a relationship with me? Heck I didn't even want to be with me.
It was also at this time that I really began to miss my dad. He never called to see how I was, and our lunch dates became few and far between. I was so disappointed that he had time to be with his secretary, and help her out with her new baby while his own baby was slipping away to the Eating Disorder and the daily pain in my gut. Speaking of gut....my gut instincts told me he was involved with something inappropriate, but at the time wasn't quite sure what. I felt compelled to call him and I needed him to ask for my forgiveness for not protecting me as a child. He said"you have no idea the things that I need forgiveness for and I don't deserve it" Still I persisted, and he eventually ask for it and I gave it to him. I also told him what I needed from him. It wasn't much. A phone call, stopping by for coffee, maybe lunch. I told him how close I'd come to the hospital because of both the eating disorder, and the cloud of depression that threatened my life. He didn't call. We had lunch only if I called him. I saw him Thanksgiving Day, because I hosted. I dind't hear from him again until December. He needed to borrow 8,000.00 dollars. I was crushed. I told him, "no! I would feel like I was prostituting myself by giving you the money when all I wanted was a phone call!" Now I was convinced he was involved in something illegal, inappropriate, or immoral.
By December the doctor treated for a possible parasite I may have picked up in Belize, then a small bowel overgrowth, and finally said IBS learn to live with it. Oh and I also cut out gluten, dairy, eggs and peanuts from my diet. Nothing seemed to help. I pleaded to God to heal me or take me home. God had already given me more than I could handle of that I was sure. And now, my hero my dad had forsaken and abandoned me when I needed him most. God answered my plea, but not with any sudden healing, but a simple message. "Liz, take refuge in my arms, in my house, with me people. I love you, my people love you. You are mine. Remember though your parents have forsaken you, you my precious one belong to me. Let me be the one to hold you. You will be okay this I promise you. I am your father, and this daddy has never will never forget you are his baby, his darling little girl" I took solace in this message for a period of time, then as my symptoms persisted I fell apart behaving like a little girl throwing a temper tantrum. Challenging God, "Do you love me now"
We were scheduled to go on a cruise with the kids and friends. I sat on the floor the night before rocking in pain and frustration. Kurt was reaching his limits and said we should just cancel. I couldn't do that to the others going. No, I can feel like crap on a boat as easily as my home. I prayed and woke in the morning the first words out of my mouth were "ok God show me your glory" and although not perfect of normal, he did. I had fun, felt ok and was hoping I was turning a corner. Then I panicked as I realized if my gut gets better, I have to meet the eating did order head on.
My mind jumps to the present and I wonder if my subconscious is that strong causing my symptoms and giving the excuse I need to restrict? I have some more good days. Days that feel almost normal, but then I'll have some horrible days. How is my fear of weight, connected to my symptoms. Give me revelation my Lord!
Some time between Christmas and Belize, I began to let go of my anger with God because I was beginning to not only doubt him, but if he was even real. So now I was facing unbelief and as I discovered more about my dad, disbelief. How could he do this to me, to our family, to himself?
Friday, July 12, 2013
With Me
Mark 5:30 " Jesus realized at once that the healing power had gone from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked ' who touched my robe?' "( NLT )
With Me
It goes with me wherever I go
Following like a haunting fragrance of the past
Or before me like my shadow
It is hidden
It is visible
Yet, it goes with me wherever I go
I can push it away
For a moment
For a day
Still, it goes with me wherever I go
I can swat it like
A buzzing bee
Only to miss
And feel its' sting
It wounds me as it goes with me wherever I go
It calls for me
It wants to be heard
I tune out
By tuning it in
It beckons me as it goes with me wherever I go
I bury it deep
In the cracks of my mind
And the crevices of my soul
It digs and it digs
Clawing its' way to the surface
Gasping for air
wanting to thrive
Over and over again
It is persistent as it goes with me wherever I go
When I don't run back to catch it
Somehow it catches up with me
It is sneaky as it goes with me wherever I go
It is time to send it on its' way
Far enough that it can't go with me wherever I go
Like a security blanket
I can't part with it
so I tuck it away
I need to know where it is
If it is not going with me wherever I go
I may need to find it
Run my fingers along the edges that are frayed
Allowing it to comfort me again
Or...It can remind me that I have grown
By simply touching his robe.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Fear and Desperation
I sit watching the sun continue to rise over walloon, knowing that I will return home for a week or two before I will see the splendor of God's gift of this place once again. I was hoping to catch up more on my blog so that I could start writing in the present. The real miracle is that I am here at all.
I had hit the point of utter despair as each and every day I expected to feel better, but did not. I began to really question God. I was a woman of faith that was quickly losing her faith and basically losing it all together. Had God abandoned me? Was he punishing me? Was this my own doing by stepping back into the eating disorder? Maybe the physical symptoms were a result of starving and asking to much of my body? Was my mind causing my symptoms because hidden deep in my psyche was the fear of the weight and recovering? Somehow I made it through day after day wanting to just curl up, go to sleep and never wake up. By the end of September I was able to pull off my teaching in both the classroom and the gym, but behind my closed doors, I was falling deeper in to the depression, anger at God and myself, and my therapist insisted that enough was enough. She asked me to please go on meds, and if I was suicidal. " No" I told her "I really don't think I could take my own life, but was ready go home to God if he would take me." I am not sure how convinced she was? I agreed to try the meds again.
I just wanted to feel well, feel normal, eat without fear of the discomfort, and with out the fear food because of the eating disorder. I felt like I was in a place that I wanted to be done with the eating disorder, and now it physically hurt to eat. Then as I was shaking my fist at God, it dawned on me that Satan is real and he wants to throw stumbling blocks in our paths. In my case it felt like boulders of granite, not mere blocks. But I had no idea how to fight this physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
It was around the end of October that, as I was reaching the end of my rope. The Wellbutrin was taking the desperation down to despair, but the meds prescribed to take the edge off of what they were now calling irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, made me feel like I was in a drug induced stupor trying to fake my way through the day. Needless to say, I went off the drug. I'd rather be curled up in pain than live disconnected from myself and the rest of humanity. I seriously felt like driving into a wall, or calling the squad to come get me before I hurt my self. Yet, the slow death of the eating disorder was somehow okay? Although it wasn't like putting a gun to me head, or slitting my wrists, the end result if not physical death, is hardly living!
I was starting to see that this was not just a physical battle but a spiritual battle. I needed help beyond cognitive therapy, or medication. I needed and advocate to show me how to fight my life long demons and lies I believed about myself. I began sharing with a friend a the club. I knew she was a believer, and I knew he husband pastored a church, and had lead Young Life with my father when I was a child.
She suggested I sit and have them pray for me. I expected a simple prayer of healing and I would be on my way. What I received was a safe loving couple that cared for me and began to show be that God was in this from the day I was conceived. He loved me and would work this for the good. I was, of course skeptical. I had been a Christian for years, but my view of who he was, was tainted by the way my parents had treated me. How Could the God of all the universe love and care about me, when my own parents didn't seem to love and cherish me.
I felt abandoned and punished. Yet, I didn't know why. I told my pastor and his wife words that I felt God had given me as I cried one morning begging for God to heal me or take me home. Keep in mind, that I wanted to physically and emotionally be healed, but wanted to hold on to my frailty. "Patience my child. I will take care of this. The time isn't right. There is a reason it is still and deep. Trust me. Just be. When you are stronger."
"Liz, look at he Petoskey stone I sent you. It is my promise that you will be okay." Said the Lord.
I answered, ''Lord, it would be such a relief to just trust you, to just be......I look at he Petoskey stone you sent me. I love that it is oddly shaped, but somehow reminds me of a throne and its' edges are jagged. It is not perfect, or polished like the ones for sale in the stores. No, it is like me; incompletely formed. Its' design only seen when moistened with water, like you life giving rivers of water. John 7:38 "Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them" It is the Lord's river of living water that flows through me revealing my intricate design, and my purpose. "Believe this Liz!' And by the way, you are more solid thane you think. Look at the stone, feel the weight of it, hold it in your hand. See and feel it. That is you. And even though the base is uneven, see how it sits and doesn't tumble. Notice that it wobbles. but only in one direction. It doesn't move from the other side, Which direction are you focusing on, the weak or the strong?"
So, I began meeting with My pastor and his wife at least once a week. They began to love me and think of me as one of their own. Both also felt(feel) that god will completely heal me. I worry that I won't live to see the healing of the eating disorder, the depression, of the IBS. I can't count how man times would call him in tears fearing I was not going to make it. If God didn't take me home.......
well?????
I was afraid, Kurt was afraid that I would implode and not purposely take my own life, but in one of my melt downs of despair hurt myself beyond repair. We spent most of the fall and winter walking a thin line between life and death. If the eating disorder itself didn't take me out, my reaction to my physical discomfort would. I was counting on God to heal me, or to take me home.
Every day was a struggle to eat by faith even when I was fearful and in pain, but I fel that this what God was asking of me.
I had hit the point of utter despair as each and every day I expected to feel better, but did not. I began to really question God. I was a woman of faith that was quickly losing her faith and basically losing it all together. Had God abandoned me? Was he punishing me? Was this my own doing by stepping back into the eating disorder? Maybe the physical symptoms were a result of starving and asking to much of my body? Was my mind causing my symptoms because hidden deep in my psyche was the fear of the weight and recovering? Somehow I made it through day after day wanting to just curl up, go to sleep and never wake up. By the end of September I was able to pull off my teaching in both the classroom and the gym, but behind my closed doors, I was falling deeper in to the depression, anger at God and myself, and my therapist insisted that enough was enough. She asked me to please go on meds, and if I was suicidal. " No" I told her "I really don't think I could take my own life, but was ready go home to God if he would take me." I am not sure how convinced she was? I agreed to try the meds again.
I just wanted to feel well, feel normal, eat without fear of the discomfort, and with out the fear food because of the eating disorder. I felt like I was in a place that I wanted to be done with the eating disorder, and now it physically hurt to eat. Then as I was shaking my fist at God, it dawned on me that Satan is real and he wants to throw stumbling blocks in our paths. In my case it felt like boulders of granite, not mere blocks. But I had no idea how to fight this physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
It was around the end of October that, as I was reaching the end of my rope. The Wellbutrin was taking the desperation down to despair, but the meds prescribed to take the edge off of what they were now calling irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, made me feel like I was in a drug induced stupor trying to fake my way through the day. Needless to say, I went off the drug. I'd rather be curled up in pain than live disconnected from myself and the rest of humanity. I seriously felt like driving into a wall, or calling the squad to come get me before I hurt my self. Yet, the slow death of the eating disorder was somehow okay? Although it wasn't like putting a gun to me head, or slitting my wrists, the end result if not physical death, is hardly living!
I was starting to see that this was not just a physical battle but a spiritual battle. I needed help beyond cognitive therapy, or medication. I needed and advocate to show me how to fight my life long demons and lies I believed about myself. I began sharing with a friend a the club. I knew she was a believer, and I knew he husband pastored a church, and had lead Young Life with my father when I was a child.
She suggested I sit and have them pray for me. I expected a simple prayer of healing and I would be on my way. What I received was a safe loving couple that cared for me and began to show be that God was in this from the day I was conceived. He loved me and would work this for the good. I was, of course skeptical. I had been a Christian for years, but my view of who he was, was tainted by the way my parents had treated me. How Could the God of all the universe love and care about me, when my own parents didn't seem to love and cherish me.
I felt abandoned and punished. Yet, I didn't know why. I told my pastor and his wife words that I felt God had given me as I cried one morning begging for God to heal me or take me home. Keep in mind, that I wanted to physically and emotionally be healed, but wanted to hold on to my frailty. "Patience my child. I will take care of this. The time isn't right. There is a reason it is still and deep. Trust me. Just be. When you are stronger."
"Liz, look at he Petoskey stone I sent you. It is my promise that you will be okay." Said the Lord.
I answered, ''Lord, it would be such a relief to just trust you, to just be......I look at he Petoskey stone you sent me. I love that it is oddly shaped, but somehow reminds me of a throne and its' edges are jagged. It is not perfect, or polished like the ones for sale in the stores. No, it is like me; incompletely formed. Its' design only seen when moistened with water, like you life giving rivers of water. John 7:38 "Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them" It is the Lord's river of living water that flows through me revealing my intricate design, and my purpose. "Believe this Liz!' And by the way, you are more solid thane you think. Look at the stone, feel the weight of it, hold it in your hand. See and feel it. That is you. And even though the base is uneven, see how it sits and doesn't tumble. Notice that it wobbles. but only in one direction. It doesn't move from the other side, Which direction are you focusing on, the weak or the strong?"
So, I began meeting with My pastor and his wife at least once a week. They began to love me and think of me as one of their own. Both also felt(feel) that god will completely heal me. I worry that I won't live to see the healing of the eating disorder, the depression, of the IBS. I can't count how man times would call him in tears fearing I was not going to make it. If God didn't take me home.......
well?????
I was afraid, Kurt was afraid that I would implode and not purposely take my own life, but in one of my melt downs of despair hurt myself beyond repair. We spent most of the fall and winter walking a thin line between life and death. If the eating disorder itself didn't take me out, my reaction to my physical discomfort would. I was counting on God to heal me, or to take me home.
Every day was a struggle to eat by faith even when I was fearful and in pain, but I fel that this what God was asking of me.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Pain and scars
So, as I sit her today and write I have come so far, yet have so far to go. I have ventured out of my comfort zone professionally, socially, with my rituals, food, and, faith but not quite so much with my body.
I spent the last school year working in the Junior High schools and Senior High schools on the surrounding suburban schools of Cincinnati. I work for a non-profit teaching teens a three day abstinence based sex education class. I love working with the young people and I love that I am basically getting paid to do God's work. I truly believe from, not only a moral point of view, but for physical and emotional reasons this is the healthiest, and wisest choice. God has also used it to challenge my belief that I am too far entrenched in this eating disorder to ever change. I have read so much about the plasticity of the brain, and how it is moldable well into adulthood, even into advanced middle age. It gives me a sense of hope that my brain can move beyond the trauma of my childhood and the lies that I have believed about myself all these years. I also think that I owed it not only to myself, but to my students to present myself as a healthy role model by keeping my weight stable. I wish I could say that I reached the magic goal weight of 121lbs, but I was proud that I wasn't losing.
Not losing became harder than even I could have imagined. Some time in August my body once again began to betray me. Every time I ate I became so uncomfortable with bloating, gas, and pain. ( I will spare you the details), but this impacted everything I did from eating to going out, and even my work.
Once again I became so angry with God. What are you doing to me Lord? I am willing to eat. I want to recover and now my body rebels against almost every thing I put in it. So, began the rounds to doctors, naturopaths, acupuncture, energy work, and now psychiatrist to treat the depression that grew bigger and bigger each day as my body betrayed me.
I couldn't take the bloating and began to loathe my body more than ever before. I would try to live with the discomfort thinking that each day it would subside. Each day my hope quickly dissolved into despair. I could only take so much before I would implode. it usually started with pressing on my abdomen to press the bloat away. The I would grow angry that my body, once again couldn't do the most primal task of eating. I would sadly begin to punch at my gut hoping that like punching bubble wrap it would eventually pop. When that didn't work, I would claw at my gut begging God to take it away, or take me away. I would eventually dissolve into tears rocking, shaking and crying out to God "I can't do this anymore, I can't do this any more, I can't do this anymore, over and over again. Kurt, both my therapists and others feared I would take my life. I don't think I was suicidal because as much as I hated myself, my body, I loved my family. Yet, if he chose to take me home, then I was ready to go. I just wanted the pain and discomfort to stop, and when it didn't I could distract myself by hurting my self. To my own horror, I today bear the scars from my own hands. And I was losing faith in myself and my God.
I spent the last school year working in the Junior High schools and Senior High schools on the surrounding suburban schools of Cincinnati. I work for a non-profit teaching teens a three day abstinence based sex education class. I love working with the young people and I love that I am basically getting paid to do God's work. I truly believe from, not only a moral point of view, but for physical and emotional reasons this is the healthiest, and wisest choice. God has also used it to challenge my belief that I am too far entrenched in this eating disorder to ever change. I have read so much about the plasticity of the brain, and how it is moldable well into adulthood, even into advanced middle age. It gives me a sense of hope that my brain can move beyond the trauma of my childhood and the lies that I have believed about myself all these years. I also think that I owed it not only to myself, but to my students to present myself as a healthy role model by keeping my weight stable. I wish I could say that I reached the magic goal weight of 121lbs, but I was proud that I wasn't losing.
Not losing became harder than even I could have imagined. Some time in August my body once again began to betray me. Every time I ate I became so uncomfortable with bloating, gas, and pain. ( I will spare you the details), but this impacted everything I did from eating to going out, and even my work.
Once again I became so angry with God. What are you doing to me Lord? I am willing to eat. I want to recover and now my body rebels against almost every thing I put in it. So, began the rounds to doctors, naturopaths, acupuncture, energy work, and now psychiatrist to treat the depression that grew bigger and bigger each day as my body betrayed me.
I couldn't take the bloating and began to loathe my body more than ever before. I would try to live with the discomfort thinking that each day it would subside. Each day my hope quickly dissolved into despair. I could only take so much before I would implode. it usually started with pressing on my abdomen to press the bloat away. The I would grow angry that my body, once again couldn't do the most primal task of eating. I would sadly begin to punch at my gut hoping that like punching bubble wrap it would eventually pop. When that didn't work, I would claw at my gut begging God to take it away, or take me away. I would eventually dissolve into tears rocking, shaking and crying out to God "I can't do this anymore, I can't do this any more, I can't do this anymore, over and over again. Kurt, both my therapists and others feared I would take my life. I don't think I was suicidal because as much as I hated myself, my body, I loved my family. Yet, if he chose to take me home, then I was ready to go. I just wanted the pain and discomfort to stop, and when it didn't I could distract myself by hurting my self. To my own horror, I today bear the scars from my own hands. And I was losing faith in myself and my God.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Acknowledgement
I find it hard to believe that it has been close to a year that I have posted on my blog. It isn't that I have had nothing to say or report on my journey to some kind of recovery from the eating disorder, but that my years has been one of distress and pain both emotional and physical. I wasn't sure at the time that I could actually share with people the reality of my life anymore, or the pain I was inflicting on my family as well as my self.
I spent most of the summer of 2012 fighting to feel a sense of normalcy return to my mind and body. Frankly, I was struggling with a depression that I wasn't sure I was going to make it through with or without medication. It was different than the summer before when I actually walked willingly back into the Anorexia/Bulimia( I am still not sure which label I fall under ). Then, I was withdrawn, numb, in denial, and using all my energy to hide my secret and to play the role of the happy wife, mother, and etc. I didn't feel the depression back then. I just didn't feel. The Anorexia was doing its' job. by mid summer 2012 I felt it, I heard it, I could no longer deny it to myself, my family, or my therapist. The depression was huge! It was real, although despite the reality of it, I somehow felt more alive and more connected just by acknowledging it. So now the depression and eating disorder on the same page.
It wasn't just the depression that was huge, so was the eating disorder. I still managed my food, weight, and exercise with a vengeance all the while trying to convince myself, family,therapists,and doctors that because my weight had stabilized at 113lbs -117lbs. I was fine because I no longer looked frail and weak. My therapist and I would go around and around on this one. Oh, and the 117lbs scared me so much that I quickly dropped back to 112lbs. I was much more comfortable to hover at 112-115. Yet most the time I felt safe at the lower end of the range, and most thought I appeared so much better than the early months of 2012. I find such humor and confusion that the same people that were horrified by my 113lb frame when I came home from Michigan 2 years ago now think I look fine. So, I must be fine right? Not exactly.
Through out the summer of 2012 I struggled with numerous anxiety provoked health problems. Some insomnia, eye twitching, and Burning Mouth Syndrome. The hardest part through all this was believing that God had abandoned me because I had deliberately walked back into the eating disorder; therefore demonstrating disobedience, and a lack of faith.
I review my journals and find a common theme of hating my body woven throughout the text. I hated that it constantly seemed to betray, not just in the present, but through my past. It never did enough for me. It wasn't fast enough, strong enough, tall enough, smart enough, kind enough, faithful enough, thin enough, pretty enough. What was enough? I wasn't sure. I just knew in some way I wasn't enough and my body was the enemy, and if I could somehow at least be thin enough, the rest would fall into place.
So began my first battle with Anorexia and with my body. One that went untreated and became disguised by the fact that my family and friends saw me eat. What they didn't see me do was purge any meal the observed and pick my way through food the rest of the day. I had settled into believing that because I WAS eating, I wasn't sick. My parents, not wanting to look at how unhappy I was, or at themselves, lived contently in my denial. I was happy to let them.
I was also happy to let Kurt believe this as our friendship and dating lead to love and marriage. However, knowing I wanted children, and tired of living a lie, I confessed my struggle. This was so painful for me to acknowledge to myself as well as Kurt. So, began 10 years of working towards recovery.
Then the ultimate failure of losing 3 babies to miscarriage or ectopic pregnancies sealed the deal. My body couldn't do the most primal task of having babies. I felt like I was being punished by God and spent much of my time angry with him and my body. Somehow forgetting the blessings of the two boys I did have. (The oldest is 24 today.) Not that I for one second didn't love them and care for them with every ounce of my being, but forgot that God hadn't forsaken me, but blessed me beyond measure. Somehow through it all I was recovered and stable. I became comfortable with my body and my life for the next fifteen years. Or so I thought?
I spent most of the summer of 2012 fighting to feel a sense of normalcy return to my mind and body. Frankly, I was struggling with a depression that I wasn't sure I was going to make it through with or without medication. It was different than the summer before when I actually walked willingly back into the Anorexia/Bulimia( I am still not sure which label I fall under ). Then, I was withdrawn, numb, in denial, and using all my energy to hide my secret and to play the role of the happy wife, mother, and etc. I didn't feel the depression back then. I just didn't feel. The Anorexia was doing its' job. by mid summer 2012 I felt it, I heard it, I could no longer deny it to myself, my family, or my therapist. The depression was huge! It was real, although despite the reality of it, I somehow felt more alive and more connected just by acknowledging it. So now the depression and eating disorder on the same page.
It wasn't just the depression that was huge, so was the eating disorder. I still managed my food, weight, and exercise with a vengeance all the while trying to convince myself, family,therapists,and doctors that because my weight had stabilized at 113lbs -117lbs. I was fine because I no longer looked frail and weak. My therapist and I would go around and around on this one. Oh, and the 117lbs scared me so much that I quickly dropped back to 112lbs. I was much more comfortable to hover at 112-115. Yet most the time I felt safe at the lower end of the range, and most thought I appeared so much better than the early months of 2012. I find such humor and confusion that the same people that were horrified by my 113lb frame when I came home from Michigan 2 years ago now think I look fine. So, I must be fine right? Not exactly.
Through out the summer of 2012 I struggled with numerous anxiety provoked health problems. Some insomnia, eye twitching, and Burning Mouth Syndrome. The hardest part through all this was believing that God had abandoned me because I had deliberately walked back into the eating disorder; therefore demonstrating disobedience, and a lack of faith.
I review my journals and find a common theme of hating my body woven throughout the text. I hated that it constantly seemed to betray, not just in the present, but through my past. It never did enough for me. It wasn't fast enough, strong enough, tall enough, smart enough, kind enough, faithful enough, thin enough, pretty enough. What was enough? I wasn't sure. I just knew in some way I wasn't enough and my body was the enemy, and if I could somehow at least be thin enough, the rest would fall into place.
So began my first battle with Anorexia and with my body. One that went untreated and became disguised by the fact that my family and friends saw me eat. What they didn't see me do was purge any meal the observed and pick my way through food the rest of the day. I had settled into believing that because I WAS eating, I wasn't sick. My parents, not wanting to look at how unhappy I was, or at themselves, lived contently in my denial. I was happy to let them.
I was also happy to let Kurt believe this as our friendship and dating lead to love and marriage. However, knowing I wanted children, and tired of living a lie, I confessed my struggle. This was so painful for me to acknowledge to myself as well as Kurt. So, began 10 years of working towards recovery.
Then the ultimate failure of losing 3 babies to miscarriage or ectopic pregnancies sealed the deal. My body couldn't do the most primal task of having babies. I felt like I was being punished by God and spent much of my time angry with him and my body. Somehow forgetting the blessings of the two boys I did have. (The oldest is 24 today.) Not that I for one second didn't love them and care for them with every ounce of my being, but forgot that God hadn't forsaken me, but blessed me beyond measure. Somehow through it all I was recovered and stable. I became comfortable with my body and my life for the next fifteen years. Or so I thought?
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