I Am Alive

I’m Alive!

Isaiah 30:20-21 “ and if you leave Gods’ path and go astray, you will hear a voice behind you say, no this is the way; walk here.  And you will destroy all your silver idols and gold images and cast them out like filthy things you hate to touch.  “UGH” you’ll say to them “be gone”

I wake this morning to freshly fallen snow transforming the dirty pools of slushy water and barren gray trees in to pristine coat of white and light.  I am not sure if it is the snow covering yesterday’s filthy view from my window or the scripture I read today, but I sense a peace.  I am growing stronger and more confident each day that I am going to be okay.  Yes, I deliberately stepped off God’s path on to the hazard filled road of the eating disorder, but if I listen closely enough, I hear him say “ no, this is the way.” All I have to step out in faith and follow his voice, and let go of my idol, the eating disorder.  It is harder than it looks to destroy those things in our lives that, even though destructive, somehow become our friend.  The eating disorder is becoming more and more filthy and unappealing to me, but I still fear the weight I am asked to gain or at least maintain.  So, for now while it is still something I hate to touch, I still need it within arms reach.  I am not quite ready to say “BE GONE”, but I know that Jesus’ death on the cross has left me as pure as the winter wonderland I gaze upon.  That is what God sees in me despite the filthy things I reach to touch, instead of letting him reach out and touch me.

I remind myself that each day is a new day, be it covered in brilliant white, abundant sunshine, or driving rains.  Even while stomping in the mud puddles of life, I have a chance to approach my Lord with pure heart, because that is what he actually sees in me.  This morning I was struck by an unusual emotion; one I am not quite familiar with – contentment.  Could it be that I am moving towards the joy the Lord promise me?  Joy, I am not even sure what joy looks like any more, let alone feels like.

I have spent so much of the past two and a half years on a dark path of self-loathing that manifested itself, once again into anorexia, so I am happy to settle for contentment.  The contentment is my light at the end of the dark lonely path, so while the path is still dark I can now see a light to guide my way.  I am not walking this path alone.  Even when I stepped off the path he has been walking beside me on this journey making sure that I did not die along the way.

I am strongly aware of this as I stand in church to sing “and its all because of Jesus I’m alive” I am alive!  Despite my best efforts to fade away, he has saved my life for today, for eternity.   I am surprised at this point that I am not dissolving, as I sing, into a river of tears.  I feel a great sense of God’s presence, anticipation and, dare I say, joy because I know that he has spared my life for a reason yet to be fully revealed.  I will wait on him.  I will continue to eat by faith even on the difficult days.  There will still be days that I am not sure I like how my body looks or feels.  There will be times that feeling the fullness of food in my body will be uncomfortable.  There will be days that I can’t keep it in.  I know I still live in fear of the scale, but at least I live, and am grateful for this.

I feel called, as I am still and listen to The Lord to re- visit the darkest days of this journey.  I think it is to remind me that my journey is one that is slowly wandering away from despair towards hope. It feels like I am climbing a hill to get a better view, and just when I think I can see the top, I hit another obstacle or switch back, but it is in the steep curves of the switchbacks that I often get a glimpse of the view from the top. 

I begin to slowly look back at down the path I have traveled.  I open my journals and read the words, my words, of despair the sprawl across the pages, like looking into a rear view mirror God reminds me “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.”   I understand that while I am out of the woods, I am still in the dark shadow of the eating disorder even though it seems so far away.  Is it good that I feel as disconnected from the eating disorder as I did (and sometimes still do) from myself?

Falling back into the eating disorder left me feeling so broken, shameful, as well as physically a mess.  I tried daily to remember that I was not alone in this.  Psalm 34:18 ( NIV)“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”  There were dark very dark days that I went to the Lord by pure will and faith, not always sure that he was close to me.  There were also days that questioned him, raised my fist to him, and cursed at him.  Why me God?  His answer “why not you?”  My answer “because God I want out and if you don’t take me home I will take myself out.” 

Death seemed so much more palatable, than food and the emotional and physical pain it caused me.  It also seemed like, in the long run, my family would be better off. They could grieve me and then get on with their lives.  As much as I tried to disguise my anguish, they saw it and felt it.  Kurt lived in fear of coming home to find me lifeless.  I still don’t think I was really capable of deliberately taking my own life, but if I accidently injured my self in one of my self-loathing rages, it would be fine.  There were actually moments that I hoped to hurt myself just enough to go into the safety of a stark hospital room, but I also feared giving up control.  I was fine with losing control, but giving it up, not so much.  I just wanted someone to understand that I was emotionally hemorrhaging, and the rage was my uncontrolled bleeding.

Was I afraid?  Damn straight!  I was terrified that I would seriously hurt my self.  I remember my therapist asking me if I was suicidal, or would hurt myself.  I told her no, but I honestly had no idea what I was capable of doing in my deepest moments of despair.  I don’t think I had revealed the scars left from clawing at my own body with my own hands.

Would I make the leap?  There were days that I felt as though I was stuck on the Tea Cups at Disney.  My world was quickly spinning deeper into the depression and the eating disorder.  I felt like my only two choices were to spin and spin, or jump from the cup just to stop the dizzying effects of the eating disorder, and we all know what can happen when you leap out of a moving object?

So was I suicidal?  I didn’t have a plan like the few people I know who made the leap.  I somehow think mine would have been spontaneous, just like my purging.  It would be a knee jerk reaction, with the only note being the journals that I write in.

I danced around it, but another therapist says to me and to Kurt “let’s just call it what it is.” “ What, what is?” I ask as if she has insulted me. “Suicide,” She says. “And that would be a very selfish thing to do to your family” I knew that in the depths of my soul, and hoped that it was enough to hang onto.

My pastor was the calm in my storm as he told me he felt that I wasn’t going to take my life.  He told me of other times that the Holy Spirit had alarmed him to literally wake and check on someone preparing to end it all.  He instead kept reassuring me that I was going to be healed of all of it; the anorexia, the depression, and the painful gut issues.  So, yes I was scared, but I knew my pastor well, and was beginning to know more and more of God’s truth and that he loved me.  I was able to some degree, to rest in this.

It was a very scary place that I wouldn’t want to visit again.  Maybe that is why God called me so strongly to visit it again.  Am I in recovery?  I hope so, but again I wish for the tangible litmus test, like a last round of chemo and follow up scans that would reveal any small threat of the illness becoming full blown again so I could plan my counter attack.

Thinking/Over Thinking

Thinking/Over thinking

I returned from Walloon Saturday after a week of being with guests.  I have realized that summer is great, beyond great and fun, but winter is a different story.  I, after years of believing I was an extrovert, I admit that I am indeed......an introvert.  I love being with people, especially those I love, but lacking the ability to find a quiet private space to write, to read, and talk to God made me a little unsettled and anxious.  I even cancelled my phone appointment with my therapist because there was no place for me to speak privately for an hour.  Yet, I needed to touch base with her because I was beginning to  to slip again into the little pressure release purging and I wanted it to stop there and not take on a life of its own.  I didn't want it to suck me back in with guilt, shame and the voice of Satan saying "go ahead, purge, your almost fifty, you will never get out of this."  We talked briefly, then I was on my own.  Well I knew I wasn't truly on my own as I had the Lord with me and had e-mailed my pastor a prayer SOS!!!  I am so tired of being  dependent on my therapist and my pastor.  Romans 12:12 "be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."  I know God's timing is perfect, but I am so tired of fighting this.
So, affliction, he is refining me through affliction, but I am running out of patience.  I finally check in with my friend, the scale, and am truly surprised to see that my weight still hovers around 114lbs-115lbs.  I am both relieved and disappointed. There is part of me that thought  if my weight did go up a little it would mean that I had survived the extra pounds and my life didn't come to a halt.  And maybe, just maybe, I would be able to try and become comfortable in my body with the weight.   I try to explain this to my therapist.  She acts like I am crazy to even entertain the idea that I could have been okay with it. "Thanks for the vote of confidence" I think to myself!

 I had prayed for God to confirm whether I am seeing and feeling my body accurately.   So, this and the fact that I take back a Christmas present that I had asked for in a size medium only to exchange it for an XS indicates that I just don't see myself with any accuracy.  Fuck!  How do I change this?  Is it possible that I do see myself accurately, but don't like what I see?  Or do I really just not see it?  I am so confused and frustrated.  I sit here trying to think my way out of this whole skewed body image.  I feel like Winnie the Pooh taping my forehead over and over saying "think, think, think"  My attitude today morphs into Eeyore and I feel like the whole world is against me.  Okay, not the whole world, but I do leave my therapist's office once again feeling so defeated and sounding defensive.  She says she believes in me, but she doesn't seem to believe me.


Every year except the past two years part of my pre-skiing fuel has been a huge glass orange juice mixed with cranberry juice.  It helped hydrate me, tasted great, and give me a little boost of energy.  I gave up my pre-ski potion once I stepped onto the slippery slope of the eating disorder.  I tell her how this year without even thinking about it I, before I left to ski each day, I had my pre-ski potion.  Instead of seeing it as a sign that I was evolving through the eating disorder, she brings it back to habits and rituals, and how I need routine.  This is true.  I like routine.  Is that a bad thing?  My point was that I had what I wanted and needed without the great anorexic want vs need/how many calorie debate.  If she saw this is a step forward, I sure didn't catch it.

I entered the room drinking a Vitamin Water the purple one because of the potassium.   My feet and legs had been cramping when I swam earlier, so after a hot yoga class, it would be wise to replace some fluids and minerals.  She was drinking an orange one.  I asked her if it was as bad as the purple one I was choking down.  She thought there was something wrong with the fact that I continued to drink it even though I didn't like it.  "Well, it was what I had" I said.  "you could have dumped it for some water" was her response.  Somehow I was thinking that by drinking something that I needed even though I didn't love it was taking care of my self.  "You said the same thing about the protein shakes, yet you still drank them?"she seemed to ask as a question.  "Again I was just trying to comply with my meal plans."  I am starting to feel a little damned if I do, damned if I don't.  She even suggests that I allowed my self chips instead of pretzels because me weight was "safe"  Can't I get just a little positive
feed back (no pun intended) for my food choices  possibly evolving past the eating disorder??  Do I  get credit for eating the sandwich I packed even though I briefly thought about all the carbs I had already had today. Nope!  Six months ago I would have had a running debate about it and probably not have eaten it.   But she does point out that I had any second thoughts about it.

I try to get some kind of clue as to what she is expecting of me.  Where if anywhere in recovery does she think I am?  I ask because I had just spoken to a group of senior high girls about eating disorders and that was one of their questions.  "are you over this?"  I explain to her that it was hard for me to do this year because some of there questions were more personal, and because of my continued reading and research yield answers that may not be as palatable as it is simply our cultures fault.  "You can say no if it is going to set you back or unsettle you" She tells me. No shit?  Really?  I do know I can say no, but I believe that God puts you through what he will use you through.  I also think that he calls us to step out of our comfort zone in faith.  And yes I do realize the irony of not fully stepping out in faith with my weight, yet fully stepping out in faith to speak about it.

I ask her if by defining myself as anorexic, or an anorexic but in recovery means I hold onto the behaviors because that is how I am defined or  am I defined as anorexic because of the behaviors?  She looks perplexed, and I am continuing to grow increasingly frustrated.  The more I do my Winnie the Pooh impression, the more my head begins to ache.  I just want to go home.  I keep reminding myself how far I have come in the past 6 months, and the few positives I hear her say, but maybe it is because of that Perfectionistic temperament, I focus on where I am falling short, rather than succeeding.  If I continue to define my self as Liz an anorexic in recovery,  then I feel like it will always continue to be who I am.  She asked me what I meant or how I would define myself.  I am so defeated and discouraged by self doubt, I am unable to get out that this is what I mean.

I leave the office and by the time I pull out of the drive way, I am feeling the sting of tears welling up and then cascading down my cheeks.  Now what?  If the changes I have tried to make with my food are meaningless or still part of the eating disorder, where do I go from here?  Home is where I know I am physically going and I can't decide whether to write, take a nap, or bum a smoke off my friend.  Am I supposed to feel this shitty after therapy?  Maybe, maybe not, but what the fuck do I know; she is the professional and I am just a fucked up client with, right now, a bad attitude missing her daddy.  I try to cry it out and work it out before Kurt comes home.  He has such a hard time with me falling apart.  It isn't like I will spiral out of control (anymore), but I believe that is his fear.

I call Rich which leads to a few more shedding of tears.  He tells me to really start praying that God would open my eyes to see myself accurately, and the revelation of the root of my fear of the weight.  I open my journal and piece of my writing falls on the table.  "Yet it is these moments of strength that I panic. 'who am I with out the eating disorder?'  And then I read who God says I am.  1 Peter 2:9 (NLT) "But you are not like that, for you are God's chosen people.  You are a royal priest, 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.  So there is at least one answer of where the root of my fear is deeply embedded, but also who I am.  I am his chosen one.

One look at me and Kurt knows I have had a bad, no, terrible day.  I can't conceal it, even though I once again try to choke back my tears and steady my voice before I turn to see him come through the door.  One lone tear sliding down my cheek becomes a flood.  I hate having him come home to me like this, and on top of it all I have totally lost track of time as I have become engrossed in writing and talking with God.  I haven't even thought of dinner let alone prepared anything. Is it really 6:45 PM already?  By now I am knee deep in the whole gamut of emotions and attitude so now,  sarcasm.  I like it and I am good at it.  I can be sharp and funny with it, or bitter and caustic.  "Oh wait, if I didn't have an eating disorder I wouldn't have lost track of time and forgotten to make dinner!"  I think, remembering something my therapist says to me today.  "Right,"  I think aloud, "I would make time for it other wise.  Oh come fucking on!  Seriously?  All the people I know have days like this and lose track of time and when to eat, and most of them have no known food issues."

We end up at the club for dinner.  I am not sure I have much in me for talking and am as irritated as glad that the old people behind us are talking so loudly that a real attempt at conversation would have been futile.  I am determined to eat a decent meal an keep it in despite my mood.  To do other wise would just offer up more proof that I am way sicker than I believe I am.  And I know I am right!!!

Broken

Broken


Psalm 51:12 "Restore me to the joy of your salvation and grant me the wiling spirit to sustain me" 17"My sacrifice is a broken spirit; a broken spirit a contrite heart you, God will not despise"

My sacrifice is one of a broken spirit one that was broken in my youth and has continued to break apart as I allow the eating disorder to chip away little pieces of it. It still serves a purpose in my life.   God is still at work using my brokenness to form his masterpiece.  Just as an sculpture sees his masterpiece in a misshapen piece of marble, God sees me, his masterpiece, in the chunk of gunk I call my life.  Where God allowed the eating disorder to initially carve away big chunks of my spirit, now it is just chipping away at me a little here and a little there.  Like the artist begins to break off big pieces of marble to rough out what he sees in his minds eye, so God has done through the eating disorder and I like to think that now is the time for him, like the artist, to continue to allow the eating disorder to chip away small pieces of me, not to shame me or destroy me, but to refine me. Isaiah 48:10 "See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction" (NIV) Isaiah 48:11"I will rescue you for my own sake, yes for my own sake! I will not let my reputation be tarnished and I will not share my glory with idols!"

As I entered the Holidays the seductive call of the eating disorder started as whisper in my ear "it would be ok to just purge a little, after all you probably have taken in more food and drink than you need. So, releasing some of it what be ok."  I came back at it with my new mantra "PURGING ISN"T AN OPTION!" "Oh yes it is."  The eating disorder spoke back to me, only this time it spoke louder, then louder still, until it began to drown out my new mantra.  I listened for the mantra, but I could no longer hear it over the crescendo of the eating disorder.  I asked for Jesus Christ to strengthen me, but I am not still enough or quiet enough to hear him.  So, despite long runs and eating modestly, my body felt thick, disgusting and foreign to me.  I see that it reflects how I feel in my family.  I feel like a foreigner among my extended family, and the darkness of my mother begins to weigh on me.  It would all be ok if I would just fall into the role I have played in my family before I began to change and evolve into the person that God is creating me to be.  I kind of like who I am becoming so I don't want to play the role anymore, but the pain and darkness that surrounds me becomes more than I can tolerate and I purge. 

Ah! Back to the familiar once again. It isn't just the little purge I had planned like letting off a little steam from a pressure cooker.  No, it is a full-blown purge expelling not just the food and drink that I have swallowed, but the grief, pain, and darkness I have choked down.   All of it was sitting in the center of my gut and soul churning like a bitter potion I had been forced to swallow and the only way to not be poisoned by it was to get it out; ALL OF  IT!  Although I had purged numerous time since my father's death, it had been a very long time since I had purged with such desperation, vengeance, and completely.  Some how watching the dark remnants of my food and drink swirling in the vortex of the basin as I flushed did just as I had hoped, and momentarily stopped the swirling of my emotions.  I should have been sorrowful or remorseful at the time, but somehow I felt that by emptying out the darkness, I had made some room to take in the light and energy of the family I, along with Kurt, had created.  I was elated!

The elation was, as it always is, short lived, and by the time my own beautiful family dispersed for the day,  I felt the shame and guilt begin to rise as I knew I had blown it once again.  I had let myself down.  I was sure I had let Rich and Laura down, and if my family knew they to would be disappointed.  My greatest sorrow was that I had let God and myself down by turning to the eating disorder instead of him.

I drag myself to the gym hoping that a hard pounding run would raise my serotonin enough to make it through the day.  Kurt and I are both as emotionally and physically spent as we had been when my father died.  We made it through the remainder of the day emotionally holding each other, and literally, physically holding each other up.  Thank God for my husband and his willingness to stay on this sordid ride with me.