Romans 6:13 "Do not let any part of your body become an instrument for evil to serve sin. Instead give yourself completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have a new life. So now use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God" (NLT)
The sun began to peak through my shades as my puppy nipped at my nose, both indicating that it was time to get out of my cozy bed and face the day. It has been difficult to rise each morning since have relapsed and developed a tormenting nerve dysfunction. I have come to dread those moments when I first open my eyes and begin to take inventory of my pain level. I am grateful that I seem to be having a few good days here and there. It gives me hope that there will come a day when the symptoms will subside. Regardless of the nerve pain I am still bound by the habits of the eating disorder rituals I put my self through before I even begin my day. I stroll pass the mirrors over the sinks on my way to use the bathroom and lift my pajama top to check my torso from hip bones to ribs. It is just quick check to see if I have morphed into something resembling my mother. My belly looks okay straight on, but how will it look in the full length mirror naked from all angles. My flank as always disgusts me from every angle. I survey my face, and cup my breast in the palms of my hands to check for fullness of both. Do they both seem fuller? Are they fuller? I am not sure how much longer I can stay off the scale despite the fact that my "skinny" jeans still fit? I know the reflection I see, is not always accurate and I am in desperate need for some empirical data that I am okay.
How can I possibly use my body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God while depriving it nourishment, hating it scrutinizing it, and not appreciating it for the gift that it is? As I now stare in the full length mirror surveying my body from every angle and judging it, I realize how sad it must make God, my father, that I dislike even one inch of this body that he carefully knit together stitch by stitch in my mother's womb, but I do. I find some irony that this same mother who was entrusted with such a gift within her womb, was the one who taught me to hate it. I seem to forget that I am first and foremost his precious daughter.
Despite the recommendation of my husband, therapist, and pastor, I step up to the sacred alter of the scale. I check the locker room making sure that it is empty. This is one of those rituals, like my body scan, I prefer to do away from prying eyes. I imagine God holding my hand as I step on the scale and I try not to panic. I get everything set just right and step up one foot, then the next. I move the weight across the lever of the scale. It rests slightly above the 116 lbs that I have hovered around for over a year. I quickly step down. I am still alone and I take a deep cleansing breath. It isn't as low as I would like, but not as high as I feared. I feel like I do when I have an epic "yard sale" wipe-out on my skis. You know, the type when you fall head over heals down the mountain leaving your gear scattered all over the trail and take a quick inventory of your limbs and head to make sure you are in tact? Once you realize there is nothing broken, except your pride, you gather your shit stand up and continue down the mountain hoping no one saw you.
I step off the scale and take an emotional inventory. How am I? How do I feel? Does this change who I am? Am I different than the moment before I stepped on the scale. I take another long cleansing breath as I realize I am okay and there doesn't appear to be anything broken. I am not broken, in this snap shot of time, I am okay.
I find that I am more conscious about my food today and my body, but try to eat and not restrict even though I am a little nervous. It is like getting back on my skis with my heart pounding and legs quivering, as I ski the rest of the way down the trail after the fall. Two days later after weighing myself, I find myself trying to moving forward, although a little more tentative and cautious with my food and body. This is ok and just like skiing, as long as I am pointed in the right direction, I will eventually finish the run with my heart pounding and my legs quivering.
I walk into my therapist's office and confess right away that I had made my way to the sacred scale. I assure her that, while I am okay, I am still trying to process how I feel about my body. I am not sure if I am seeing my reflection accurately and don't like it, or if the fat I see doesn't really exist at all but is a figment of my imagination. I am not sure what about my body is real and what isn't. I am so frustrated and confused. I am pretty sure that I am seeing myself accurately, but just don't like it. I guess she isn't so sure that I see my body and its "fat' with any clarity. She asks me to walk with her to the bathroom and show her the "fat" on my torso and she will show me her torso for comparison. My anxiety and also a sense of shame escalates in the 30 seconds it takes to walk to the bathroom. I wonder if she is going to say something like others have said to me when I complain of feeling thick and fat. I usually get "now how do you think that makes me feel?" Others just don't understand that those of us with eating disorders aren't just unsure of our bodies, but the soul residing within it. I am becoming more sure of the soul that resides in the body, but there is still some sort of limbic lag that won't allow my body image to catch up with my soul.
I have never thought about my therapist's weight or taken notice of her body before, so this feels awkward to me. I see her kindness, intelligence, compassion, and skill, but not her weight. I try to remember my first impression of her appearance. I was drawn to her gorgeous eyes, wide easy smile, and great hair. I guess because of where I sit across from her I was also aware of her feet. Ugh! I have always been self conscious of my worn battered feet and toes, and she has fucking perfect feet! She had an air of class and confidence that initially intimidated me, but once she swore...I knew I was comfortable, in good hands and could relate to her, and her perfect feet! I could even take my shoes off to tuck my gnarly feet up under me. This exercise, however pushed me way out of my comfort zone with her. I am used to scanning and judging my body, but I don't scan or judge others' bodies.
We stand side by side (I feel like I am going to throw up). She has me lift up my shirt as she lifts hers. She points to the spots that are scars from her gall bladder surgery. Fuck, what if she sees the scars from my own hands on my body? I am relived they appear to have faded or hidden in my skin darkened from the sun. She has me look at her white belly and then look at mine. The first thing I notice is the difference in color not size. To me, she just looks a little round, solid, but I don't see fat. Her skin is smooth and free of "rolls". This is feeling very awkward and intimate, but I trust her, so I continue on. I turn sideways (always to the left), I point out the roundness of my belly and the flesh I hate that sits on the back of my waist. She points at my hip bones that jut out (not like they used to) and reveals that she can't even see her hip bones. I point out that I can't stand anything sticking out past the points of my hip bones. Then she turns side ways and runs her hand along her torso pointing out how it is rounded and soft how women were designed. She asks me to touch her. I am tentative, as she encourages me to see that she is soft and fleshy. She is softer than she looks. And she reminds me that the flesh on my flank is from babies. I remind myself that this is true. Not only is it from them, it was for them to have room to grow. I am sad that I feel that way about the part of my body that allowed for my greatest treasures in my life....my boys. I feel myself blink back tears.
It is days later and I am still trying process my bathroom session. I am a slow processor and was so overwhelmed that it isn't until I journal for hours in the car and re-live the experience that I can express how I truly experienced the session. Not only was I exposing my body to my therapist, but part of my rituals that no one has ever seen. I know that people see my body in the gym, locker rooms, in bathing suits, but I have never had anyone watch me look at my body in the sacred mirror, or touch me while in the process. She turns me around and touches the hollows (dimples) of my pelvic girdle where I have little flesh. I didn't realize she would touch me, I was startled, as I always am when I don't see touch coming, but really I am ok with it. I still, after 28 years can be jumpy if I don't realize Kurt is going to touch me. I am shocked as I realize that I still carry this response to sudden touching of my body. Oh how the body remembers trauma.
The power of this exercise isn't just standing side by side and seeing our bodies, but the intimacy of letting her into my ritual world. The only thing worse would be purging with her watching me! She knows so much about me and now I think to my self she has, with my permission, breeched the "final frontier"of my sacred world. It was so different as she stood inches from me looking me in the eyes, not across the room with her in her chair and me on the couch (looking at her feet). There isn't much space in the small confines of the restroom for me to move away or even look away. My body wasn't the only thing exposed that day and I feel very vulnerable and transparent in the small space.
We talk for a few moments about her body not changing what I think about her, and mine doesn't change who I am. I feel exposed and necessarily violated as I do when treated for my nerve. I am uncomfortable, but hoping the discomfort and humiliation will be worth it. She hugged me while telling me I was okay. I frankly didn't realize the intensity of my emotions until I felt the symptoms of my nerve flaring as a result of my whole limbic system processing and recalling the event.
I am a slow processor especially when it comes to understanding me. What I think was supposed to be an exercise to allow me to see my body with some clarity morphed into an exercise on trust!
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Friday, September 5, 2014
Quiet Is Not Silence
Quiet Is Not Silence!
Isaiah 18:44 "For the Lord has told me this 'I will watch quietly from my dwelling place - as quietly as heat rises on a summer day, or as the morning dew forms during the harvest" (NLT)
Zechariah 2:6 "for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye - "
I am home from San Francisco and from my final weekend in Walloon, aka My Happy Place! And I find my self trusting that even though God appears to be silent when it comes to my afflictions, that he is indeed watching quietly from his dwelling place. I sometimes confuse his quiet presence with silence. I am discouraged many days as I still struggle with the nerve damage and the eating disorder, but God has not been silent, he has just been quiet. I find that I need to quiet my self and stay in the moment to hear his voice whispering quietly that I will be okay. I seem to be hearing this when I am still and keeping my focus on him and who he says I am in him. I hear his whisper today as I take the paddle board out on the water. It is quiet, it is peaceful as the sun's reflections mirrors God's radiance back at me, and in the whisper of the wind I hear him speak to me "Liz you are going to be okay, you have always been okay, you are the apple of my eye"
My nerve pain isn't necessarily better than before I traveled to San Francisco this time. I am actually worse for a few days and my symptoms flare like a raging fire. I find myself doubled up on the bathroom floor with pain gripping my body from my waist to my knees. There isn't much I can do, but wait it out and hope it last 5-10 minutes, not 30 minutes. It feels like the contractions that come during the transition stage of labor and all you want is to grab the nurse by the neck demanding an epidural. In my episode of pain, I remember that I AM better than I was 4 months ago and try not to panic. I believe God is watching, growing and strengthening me to be the person in Christ he intends for me to be, but it is painful.
So, what does a person with an eating disorder do when they feel pain, apparently physically as well as emotionally? Well this person turns back to it. I face the fact that my physical pain is emotional because it is in these times that I feel God has gone silent on me and I feel alone. It is the emotional pain of feeling abandoned by my heavenly father that tears at me. So I purge, hurting my body on my own terms once again. When the pain both physical and emotional subside, I turn back to God. I am so grateful that my God is always loving and always forgiving. Is my purge my "fuck you" to God for allowing the pain? Maybe, I have never really though about it that way before. I know that people reading my story are sometimes shocked by my words, after all how can a woman of God use such language. Here is the thing, and I don't pretend to be a great theologian, but whether I write the words or say them out loud, God already knows just what I am thinking and feeling, but He still loves me and I am still the "apple of his eye." He loves me through the pain, and I like to think He appreciates my honesty (maybe not my choice of words.) He can handle my anger. He can handle all of our anger as he watches from his dwelling place waiting for us to calm down and return quietly to him. He rocks!
I wake with a well deserved headache and my heart throwing numerous PVC's from the purging. I admit to myself that it does concern me, just a little, and I wonder how much damage I have really done to my body over the years. The wondering moves like a freight train coming at me, from concern to fear as I attend the funeral of a friend who suffered for years from eating disorders and addictions. Her body, in her mid forties, just more or less gave out. I can't go back and repair what I have already done, but can I stop the train from plunging off the cliff?
The Priest's message, for this almost Pentecostal woman, was simple and beautiful. Here is all I need to say "Help me Jesus and I am sorry" I know that there are earthly consequences for the choices I have made, but he wants to help me and he will forgive me. I broke down sobbing like a child, not just in grief for my old friend and her family that loved her desperately, but tears for myself. Tears for the time I did cry out "Jesus Help Me, I Am Sorry!" I am overwhelmed with thanksgiving as I realize that the times I didn't "feel" his presence, He was still there watching quietly from his dwelling place waiting for the right moment to reach down and "Help Me." How do I know he was watching? The answer is simple; I know this because I am here. Had he abandoned me and gone silent, I would have surely perished either in the eating disorder or my own hands.
Close, I was so close to hurting myself and allowing myself to succumb to the eating disorder as a less "messy" suicide. I now understand how, for some, that life just seems like too much. It can be excruciating, and we don't want to leave our children, families, and friends to grieve, and pick up the pieces, but we don't want to live in the pain the leaves us feeling lifeless either. Such is the dilemma for those who contemplate life and death? I am glad I chose to live because I am not as sick or as in much pain physically or emotionally as I was. What if I hadn't waited it out? What if I hadn't trusted God to watch over me from his dwelling place and strengthen my faith to trust that he himself would lift my beleaguered body to its feet. Daniel 8:18 (NLT) " While he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground. Then He touched me and raised me to my feet."
Had I not chosen life, my glorious summer full of laughter and joy wouldn't have happened. My family's and friends' memorable summer wouldn't have happened. Well, summer would have happened, as time stands still for none of us, but the memorable summer would have been replaced with a memorial, my memorial. So I stand on my feet watching the grieving family members of my friend file slowly down the aisle with tears stained faces, and I hope it is not too late for this body to press on. I also hope that this is something I can look back on when life sucks the life out of me, and remember what if I hadn't pushed through one more day......
Isaiah 18:44 "For the Lord has told me this 'I will watch quietly from my dwelling place - as quietly as heat rises on a summer day, or as the morning dew forms during the harvest" (NLT)
Zechariah 2:6 "for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye - "
I am home from San Francisco and from my final weekend in Walloon, aka My Happy Place! And I find my self trusting that even though God appears to be silent when it comes to my afflictions, that he is indeed watching quietly from his dwelling place. I sometimes confuse his quiet presence with silence. I am discouraged many days as I still struggle with the nerve damage and the eating disorder, but God has not been silent, he has just been quiet. I find that I need to quiet my self and stay in the moment to hear his voice whispering quietly that I will be okay. I seem to be hearing this when I am still and keeping my focus on him and who he says I am in him. I hear his whisper today as I take the paddle board out on the water. It is quiet, it is peaceful as the sun's reflections mirrors God's radiance back at me, and in the whisper of the wind I hear him speak to me "Liz you are going to be okay, you have always been okay, you are the apple of my eye"
My nerve pain isn't necessarily better than before I traveled to San Francisco this time. I am actually worse for a few days and my symptoms flare like a raging fire. I find myself doubled up on the bathroom floor with pain gripping my body from my waist to my knees. There isn't much I can do, but wait it out and hope it last 5-10 minutes, not 30 minutes. It feels like the contractions that come during the transition stage of labor and all you want is to grab the nurse by the neck demanding an epidural. In my episode of pain, I remember that I AM better than I was 4 months ago and try not to panic. I believe God is watching, growing and strengthening me to be the person in Christ he intends for me to be, but it is painful.
So, what does a person with an eating disorder do when they feel pain, apparently physically as well as emotionally? Well this person turns back to it. I face the fact that my physical pain is emotional because it is in these times that I feel God has gone silent on me and I feel alone. It is the emotional pain of feeling abandoned by my heavenly father that tears at me. So I purge, hurting my body on my own terms once again. When the pain both physical and emotional subside, I turn back to God. I am so grateful that my God is always loving and always forgiving. Is my purge my "fuck you" to God for allowing the pain? Maybe, I have never really though about it that way before. I know that people reading my story are sometimes shocked by my words, after all how can a woman of God use such language. Here is the thing, and I don't pretend to be a great theologian, but whether I write the words or say them out loud, God already knows just what I am thinking and feeling, but He still loves me and I am still the "apple of his eye." He loves me through the pain, and I like to think He appreciates my honesty (maybe not my choice of words.) He can handle my anger. He can handle all of our anger as he watches from his dwelling place waiting for us to calm down and return quietly to him. He rocks!
I wake with a well deserved headache and my heart throwing numerous PVC's from the purging. I admit to myself that it does concern me, just a little, and I wonder how much damage I have really done to my body over the years. The wondering moves like a freight train coming at me, from concern to fear as I attend the funeral of a friend who suffered for years from eating disorders and addictions. Her body, in her mid forties, just more or less gave out. I can't go back and repair what I have already done, but can I stop the train from plunging off the cliff?
The Priest's message, for this almost Pentecostal woman, was simple and beautiful. Here is all I need to say "Help me Jesus and I am sorry" I know that there are earthly consequences for the choices I have made, but he wants to help me and he will forgive me. I broke down sobbing like a child, not just in grief for my old friend and her family that loved her desperately, but tears for myself. Tears for the time I did cry out "Jesus Help Me, I Am Sorry!" I am overwhelmed with thanksgiving as I realize that the times I didn't "feel" his presence, He was still there watching quietly from his dwelling place waiting for the right moment to reach down and "Help Me." How do I know he was watching? The answer is simple; I know this because I am here. Had he abandoned me and gone silent, I would have surely perished either in the eating disorder or my own hands.
Close, I was so close to hurting myself and allowing myself to succumb to the eating disorder as a less "messy" suicide. I now understand how, for some, that life just seems like too much. It can be excruciating, and we don't want to leave our children, families, and friends to grieve, and pick up the pieces, but we don't want to live in the pain the leaves us feeling lifeless either. Such is the dilemma for those who contemplate life and death? I am glad I chose to live because I am not as sick or as in much pain physically or emotionally as I was. What if I hadn't waited it out? What if I hadn't trusted God to watch over me from his dwelling place and strengthen my faith to trust that he himself would lift my beleaguered body to its feet. Daniel 8:18 (NLT) " While he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground. Then He touched me and raised me to my feet."
Had I not chosen life, my glorious summer full of laughter and joy wouldn't have happened. My family's and friends' memorable summer wouldn't have happened. Well, summer would have happened, as time stands still for none of us, but the memorable summer would have been replaced with a memorial, my memorial. So I stand on my feet watching the grieving family members of my friend file slowly down the aisle with tears stained faces, and I hope it is not too late for this body to press on. I also hope that this is something I can look back on when life sucks the life out of me, and remember what if I hadn't pushed through one more day......
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