Tired and Bored

Tired and Bored

"Man I'm tired, I'm just tired and bored with myself." (Bruce Springsteen).

 Usually I find my writing coming from the words God sends to me through scripture or sometimes just to me through prayer and writing.  Today I find the words of the "Boss" reflecting how I have been feeling the last few days, and wonder, "if I am tired and bored with myself, I can only imagine what those living with me or around me must feel?"  I am sure they are thinking "get on with it already!  We are tired of waiting for you to let go and get over the eating disorder.  Frankly Liz you are boring us to tears."  I am in a slump, and find it easier to succumb to purging over the weekend, then fight the good fight.  Last weekend I had the strength to fight the desire to get the food out.  I also had a little heart to heart with God as I was trying to decide what I was going to do with the food.  He had my back, and as promised, gave me the strength and courage to keep the food in.

Last week I was with my son viewing his award winning artwork.  We took him out to dinner and I was filled to the brim with pride.  This was his day, and I believe that God knew I would so regret the stain purging would leave on it, so he short of sent me an audible saying "DON"T DO IT, DON'T DO IT!"  I listened and in the end knew that by taking the eating disorder and laying it as his feet, he gave me strength and peace.  As I drove home that night my pride in my self for heeding God's warning was eclipsed only by the pride I felt in my son.  It was in his pleasure and genuine surprise at this award that I not only saw what joy looks like, but felt it pricking at my heart.  I love that God is using the everyday things that I once missed to reveal the joy he intends for me, for all of us.  I find that trying to stay "in the moment for me" takes practice and training just like running a race.

I feel like I am in crisis of faith season.  One when I ask why, where is God, is He who he says he is, and if he is there, then why am I here?  Why am I still entangled in this mess?  Why do I even have to sit and debate with him as I stare into a toilet basin to vomit or not to vomit?   The next time the media throws a waif like model in your face, remember how many of us throw up to measure up.  Yet do not be deceived, it really isn't about the weight at all.  Although I say it is my body image that seems to be my final strong hold, it is really my self-image.  It is what, in my opinion, all of us who battle this illness becomes the real battle.  We find ourselves not fully knowing who we are on the inside so we keep trying to perfect the outside.  When reach the ideal image of body and beauty, but still don't find our true identity, we find ourselves identified by the eating disorder itself.  Somehow this becomes better than no identity at all.  Maybe that is why recovery is so long and arduous.  Finding yourself means losing the one thing in which you have finally found your identity and replacing it with your true identity takes faith and courage to believe you really are unique, special, and more than okay.

I know that God wants me to find my identity in him and the person that he created me to be, to see me through the eyes of an adoring father that created me to love and be loved by him.  This week I allow the eating disorder to speak louder than God's voice again.  Two weeks have passed, and I step carefully on the scale at the gym hoping that no one is around to witness this sacred moment. I hold my breath as I move the scale to 117lbs and slowly bump it down one pound at a time.  My weight is down from 116lbs, almost 117lbs, to 114lbs.  I would love to say that I am disappointed, but I am not.  I am not entirely honest with my husband or therapist as to how relived I am to have lost and not gained. I imagine this would probably not surprise my therapist; after all she is the professional. My husband, I am not sure?  I don't mean to be deceitful.  Both seem to think I am doing much better, and I am, but maybe I am not as far down the road as they think.  Maybe I am not as far down the road as I think.

This weekend I am out for dinner and instead of laying down the eating disorder at God's feet, my mind keeps going back to setting my feet on the sacred altar of the scale.  I have plenty of wiggle room.  So what if I move back towards 117lbs.  I was okay there, but not quite comfortable.  A friend, a comment from someone at the gym, feeds the eating disorder this week and I lose the battle once again, as I sit and enjoy my meal, I become aware of how much food I have taken in.  Did I really need the bread? Will this one real meal with the bread send my weight right back up?  Who the hell cares? I sill do. Before I can think about it, I panic and purge.  "Dang this stupid illness!” That is what happens time and time again when I forget Psalm 46:1 "God is my refuge and my strength, always ready to help in times of trouble" (NLT) I get sucked back into worshiping the sacred scale instead of my sacred father.  I am tired and bored with myself.  The eating disorder finds an opening and I let it right back in instead of taking it back and handing it over to God. 

I must have said fifty times in the last few days that I didn't think that I'd be dealing with this at the age of fifty.  "I am too damned old for this!  How can this middle aged woman keep fighting?"  Somehow I find the answer to this in his word.  Joshua 14:10-11 "Now as you can see the Lord has kept me alive and well as he has promised for all these forty five years since Moses made this promise - even while Israel wandered in the wilderness.  Today I am eighty-five years old.  I am as strong as I was when Moses sent me on that journey and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then." I try to remember this after I purge this weekend.  Even though I feel old, weak and helpless, maybe there is some more fight in this old dog.  If only this old dog would remember the strength of her master Jesus Christ.

Twice in three weeks I have purged, and it cuts me to the core.  I beat my self up with a vengeance.  At least this time I leave my hands off my own body.  I am overwhelmed with; you name it, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and humiliation, anger, disappointment, and regret.  I am sorry and sad I have let myself down as well as God.  He has kept me alive for a reason.  He cannot fulfill that in me if I keep chipping away at myself.  So I just come straight with him that I am helpless right now.  "I don't know how to do this!!"  "That's okay" I hear him through scripture. I will not only be your refuge and strength, I will teach you. Psalm 143:10 "Teach me to do your will for you are my God, may your gracious spirit lead me forward to firm footing." ( NLT ) I don't need to know how to do this; He will teach me if I yield to his will.  

Labor

Labor

John 16:21 “it will be like a woman suffering labor pains of labor.  When her child is born her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into this world”

The last couple of weeks have been difficult as I admit to myself, my therapist, husband, and pastor that I spend so much mental, as well as physical energy on the eating disorder.   There is part of me that feels so defeated, and child like as I recognize the parts of the eating disorder that hang onto me as I am trying to let it go.  I hate it, I really do.  Even with words it is hard to describe how small and child like hanging onto being small makes me feel.  And then there is that look of pity that is thrown my way.  Pity is for the pitiful.  I am not pitiful.  The eating disorder, it is pitiful.  I am brave to wrestle with a beast that has the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness.  I am brave as I let go one finger at a time.  Releasing each symptom one at a time, and replacing it with more of me, more of who the Lord intends me to be.

It is hard to fix something you don’t know is broken, or remove something when you don’t see it taking up your space.  That is why this painful realization holds hope for me.  I have at least acknowledged uninvited distortion of what I see in the mirror, and the exhausting mental gymnastics.  Maybe now I can begin the process of ushering them out of my head, leaving room for my authentic self to unfold.  As I allow myself to unfold I hope to embrace the woman I see in the mirror, connect with her and know her.  The woman in the mirror still seems a little like a stranger to me because the parts of her that are emerging have remained dormant for so very long.  Some are good, some are bad, happy, sad, funny, and beautiful and some are downright ugly, but they are all a part of her, a part of me.  They are all okay.(I think?) 

I feel like a baby must feel like when they begin to walk and talk.  They are awkward clumsy and you never know what will come out if their mouths.  I am trying to become comfortable with so many things.  I am learning to be comfortable with feeling full and keeping in the food and my weight shifting here and there as my body re-sets itself.  I am also trying to be comfortable with all the parts me.  The good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly can all exist in this beleaguered body, and a brain that hurts from thinking.

As I think about how spent I am, I remember how tired I was when I was pregnant as it takes a lot of energy to grow another human being inside of you.  Sometimes I feel like, in essence that is what I am doing.  Growing a new person……me and laboring to give birth to the person I was intended to be.

It is not fair that at 50 years old I have to work so hard to rid myself of the burden of this eating disorder, but what other burden would I prefer?  There are so many choices.  As I am transparent in sharing my story, struggle, my burden (like people couldn’t see it), I find that no one escapes burdens in this life.  There is no “charmed” life being lived out there.  Some people like myself are just better concealing there burdens and pain behind pink lipstick a wink and a smile. I am tired of hiding behind the barrier of the eating disorder, so that is what causes me to be appropriately  honest.

All of us fear the protective wall, whatever it is made of, crumbling down around us exposing who we really are, and what goes on inside our walls.  So we are constantly getting out the bricks and mortar to repair our walls, or keep them from crumbling in the first place. It is exhausting, endless work.

So I ask myself again, “What do I want to trade my eating disorder for?”  Hey, at least it is fashionable.  It isn’t ugly like alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, but just as painful, seductive and deadly.  If my eating disorder were a drug addiction, I would have overdosed a long, long time ago.  Maybe that is why the weight of this burden is as fair as any other.  God gave me the burden that I could battle, grow from, and ultimately come out on the other side looking like, and feeling like the best me I can be, and that will just have to be enough.  

Burdens

Burdens

Ecclesiastes 3:10-13  “I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.  11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.  He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so. People cannot see the scope of God’s work from beginning to end.  12 So I conclude there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.  13 And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

I have grown weary and tired of bearing the burden of the eating disorder.  It steals my mental and physical energy from things that are much more productive and joyful.  It is in my prayer and study time that God speaks to me through his word and through my writing.  I somehow feel the scripture he leads me to addresses both my burden of the eating disorder as well as my desire to feel joy, true joy in my life once again.  I find it so intriguing how many times God uses food, thirst or taste to demonstrate his love. 

He also seems to have a clear message for me as I run on a cold, but beautiful sun drenched day.   I almost audibly hear “two weeks” and I see it before as though looking at a calendar.  What the heck does this mean?  I am pretty sure that God is asking something of me, but I don’t get it until I begin to write and the words flow from pen to paper.   “Your transformation isn’t by your power Liz, it is by My power that the way you think will be transformed.  I will transform the way you think about your weight and your body.  Begin by staying off the scale for two weeks.  Two weeks, that is all I am asking for now.  I do love you, but I need you to trust me.  I am not into punishing you for not trusting me, but you will receive so much more if you do.”  Ok, I get it now, but I am not sure I like it. 

A sense of panic came over me as I basically weighed my self on three different scales within a day or two.  My weight is all over the place.  This even includes my doctor’s scale with clothes on.  Which one is right?  How do I know?  Maybe I should get on all three in one day to figure out which is right?  It is in this moment that I realize how much of my time I give to the eating disorder, time that I could give to God or relationships.  As it consumes my thoughts it takes me out of the moments with my family, friends, and God.  So, two weeks I will stay off the scale, and just like the purging, weighing in isn’t an option. (For two weeks)

Recovery is such a fucking tedious process.  Yet, it is the details that I let go of one at a time that I will find freedom once again. Surrendering by faith that God’s plan may just be better than mine.  It actually feels safer loosening my clenched fist I have wrapped around the eating disorder one finger at a time than just opening my hand and handing it over. I get the sense that God is okay with this, and there is a reason it is a slow healing instead of the sudden healing I desire.   This is especially true right now when I have the uncertainty of Brad and Kelsey’s starting a life of their own unsettling my heart, as well as Mitchell's future plans and discussing how I want to celebrate my 50^th birthday with my twin, or on my own. All beautiful and positive changes, but changes for my life non the less.

A sandwich?  It is just a sandwich, but to me it must mean so much more.  Why can’t I eat or finish a whole sandwich?  I can eat a banana after part of the sandwich, or even a small treat like a square of chocolate, but not the whole damned sandwich.  My therapist suggests it is because of the parts of my life that are out of my control right now. Like the baby, my relationships[s with my siblings, turning fifty, and wondering if I should keep working or not.   I think it is possibly a remnant of fuck you to my mom forcing me to be a member of the clean plate club even if I was full or just not fond of the food before me.  Actually, other than fruits and veggies, since I have been on my own I never finish off any food.  Even if I plan (which I seldom plan it) to purge I still don’t clean my plate.  A sandwich used to be one of those things that I could eat in its entirety. Now it feels like climbing Mt, Everest.  Like I can make it almost to the summit, but settle for just looking at the peak.

I continue to try to process what this means.  Is it my fuck you, my fear of letting go and letting God?  Could it just be my new normal?  I have no clue and am tired of wasting time on it.  I decide it may mean nothing at all, and try to think about anything that doesn’t relate to my weight and food.

Even though I battle the desire to remain small every day, I am still staying a head of the eating disorder by not dropping wait.  It is the small battles won that in the end wins the war.  Letting it go by opening one finger at a time I trust that God will transform my heart and how I see my body as well as the fear of the weight just as he has done with the purging.  My desire to purge has drastically decreased.  I am grateful for this.  And just like he has changed my desire to purge over time, I trust he will do the same with the remaining symptoms.

“I am tired of being patient in affliction.”  I find myself saying this daily, but it appears to be my only choice.  I am tired of the eating disorder.  I am simply tired.  I worked a long day and wanted nothing more than to go home and rest, but felt compelled to haul my butt to the pool and get my planned 2,000 meters in.  I was going out to dinner and knew this was a better option than risking a purge.  Do I wish I could take a break to honor my physical fatigue?  Yes, I wish I could do this, but the mental gymnastics I put myself through doesn’t seem worth it.

I share all of this with my therapist and how I am tired of it sucking away so much of my time.  Somehow this appears to be a huge step.  I am not sure if the amount of time I spend on it has increased, or if I am finally recognizing how much time I have wasted on wasting away.