grattitude and challenge(s) update

I just have to say that i am so full of joy and happiness and love, due mostly to the wonderful support and comments i got on my last post. The last 2 days i feel as though a weight has lifted, and i have been walking around with a spring in my step. i know that sounds corny, but it's true. It was an amazing feeling to have people i didn't even know (and people i did know) reach out to me and tell me they understood me and cared about me! So, thank you!

I know i mentioned last week that i would be doing "food challenges" once a week on thursdays and would be accountable on this blog. Well, i had to move this week's challenge to tonight because tonight we are going to chuckie cheese for my daughter annie's 3rd birthday and we will be having cake and pizza, which will be a huge challenge for me. There is no amount of cake and pizza that feels ok to me, any amount feels like a binge. And i definately do not want to be throwing up at my little girls birthday party; that thought is just too sad. SO, i thought this would be a good opportunity to practice eating some "fear foods" in moderation. That's why i didn't do a challenge on thursday; two challenges in one week is too much for even a badass such as myself :) . Especially when, really, eating in general every day is still a challenge.

Oh, and the best for last: I have not purged since last tuesday! :) :) :) !

picture of health

These are the pictures that I had such a problem with and deleted from my Backbone post a few days ago. I'm putting them back up. This is me, being brave.

After looking at them for a little bit, I have decided that I dont think they make me look particularly fat. No, that's not the problem.


The problem , in my mind, is that they dont make me look sickly, bony thin. Why do I care? This is why, and it's embarrassing, and hard to admit.
I'm afraid that if you see how normal, how average I am, you won't care about me anymore, wont bother to read my blog or comment on it. I won't be interesting to anyone anymore, and nobody will care about me.
There, I said it.

21 days

Oh. My. Gosh. I am trying so hard not to delete those pictures of myself that i put up in my last post. You know, the ones where i'm in my swimsuit and I look like a freaking harbour seal? Or the one where i'm in the rock, and my arms look like sausages? Why did I think it was a good idea to post pictures of myself anyway? What was I thinking?

Now that I'm done wigging out, let me tell you about my Exciting New Goal. My T was talking about how most habits can be broken in 21 days (for the record, she was talking about my consumption of diet soda) and i said," gee, if only I could go 21 days without bingeing or purging! That would be so great! I would feel awesome!". Then i thought why not? Why not at least try? I dont want anyone to think i'm oversimplyfying things by saying that Ed's are just habits, cause that's not what i think. And even if i can make it without those behaviors, there is still the restricting, the body image distortions, and negative self talk to deal with. But, still, just think, if i really could go without bingeing and purging, think of all the energy i would have, the money we'd save, the extra time and stress, ect ect. You know.

So I'm going to try (not that i dont try anyway). I think it will make a difference, having a specific goal with a time frame and everything. 21 days sounds like a long time, but i'm just going to take it one day at a time. I'm feeling very excited and hopeful at the moment!

Backbone state park

Happy Memorial Day everybody! We went to Backbone State Park, one of my favorite p;aces on earth. The weather was great, just a little cool. We brought my niece Jayden who is Emma's age.

Here's Annie crawling out of the hole.


Emma and Jayden in the rock. I have a picture of me and my sister posing in this rock when we were this age.

The girls at the entrance to the cave.



Well it was my favorite kind of day; hiking, wading, picnicking, exploring! The only way it would have been better is if we were camping there. But, alas, tommorrow is a school/work day. So, it's back to the grind! Love, all :)

McFlurry Challenge

Did i mention that i ate a McDonalds McFlurry the other night? Well, i did. So la-de-da, you might say. Big deal. But it was a big deal, to me.

It started a few weeks ago, when my husband got a McFlurry and let me have a taste of it. I haven't been able to get that divine deliciousness off my mind since! But, unlike a normal person who would just go and satisfy a craving, i added it to the long list of foods that i wanted to eat but never would be able to without freaking out or throwing up, and moved on. Until thursday.

We had just gotten back from a family outing and i put the girls to bed and was really wanting some ice cream. As an occassional treat, i get soft serve from McD's. It's low-fat, it's safe. So i got in my car and headed out, but as i pulled in the drive -thru my mind was it was not the soft serve i was thinking of, it was the McFlurry. Then, when i checked the flavors and saw that they had Take 5, which just happens to be my favorite candy bar, i knew it was fate that i got that Mc Flurry (ok, ok, i know this is a little overly dramatic, and there is no such thing as fate as far as frozen concoctions are concerned, but hey, when it comes to food, i get a little emotional)!

So this is how, at around 8:30 last thursday night, i found myself in the McDonald's drive thru, ordering a McFlurry.

The drive home was like an out of body experience. I had the shake in my hand, and yet i wasn't bingeing. I felt strangely calm, yet there was this tingly-electric current that seemed to be running through my body, just beneath the surface. Who was thhis strange creature that was suddenly inhabiting my skin?

Then i knew. I just knew. This was a food challenge. I did one at the Center for Change. They put me alone in a room with a Pizza Hut pizza to see what would happen and I ate 2 slices and sat there for the rest of the hour, bored. In other words, I ACED IT!

So, i walked into the apartment and told my husband that i had decided to challenge myself with the McFlurry, and that no, I was not going to throw up. And, bless him, he did not make a big deal about it and let me eat in peace, with no annoying "how are you doing" questions. He didn't even ask me for a bite, which i was terrified he would do. I will admit that i am territorial over my food, especially treats, and do not like to share.

So, to make a long story short, i went out, bought a McFlurry, brought it home, ate it, and went to bed. The end. But it's really so much more than that, for me. That night, i broke all the rules, stepped outside the black and white. And guess what? Nothing terrible horrible awful happened. My world didn't fall apart. And, no, i didn't gain 100 pound overnight.

Thats what the challenge is all about. Taking a step outside the comfort zone and living to tell the tale. i think i have become slightly comfortable with my ED lately. I need to shake things up.

From here on out i am going to do one challenge a week and be accountable on this blog. i am not going to devote such a long post to it, just mention it in passing. The challenge day will be thursday.
I think this will be good for me.

"flashback 2000"

As I have had alot of free time lately, I have been dwelling on the past quite a bit like I tend to do, rehashing scenes from more tumoltuous times in my life. This, of course, brings up alot of feelings that range from anger to sadness to embarrassment and regret. The last time i felt like this, i wrote about it on my blog ("flashback 1998") and it helped alot, so I think i will do that again. So if you dont feel like reading a long one just now, this post is not for you:)

It's early Jan 2000 and i just spent a rather lame turn of the century new year's in the EDU at the University of Iowa Hospitals And Clinics (under committment, of course, otherwise i wouldn't be anywhere near that craphole!). I've reached target weight and am ready for discharge but there is a bit of a problem: the social worker can't find a placement. Even though i'm 21, the powers that be have decided i'm not to remain at liberty and am in need of constant care/supervision/maintainence/whatever. But, due to my history of not staying put, the adult group homes are all saying "no". Finally, the social worker works some magic and gets me into this place called the North Iowa Transitions Center. Sounds pretty good. I like that word "transition", makes it sound temporary. But it doesn't really matter what i think, I'm going whether i like it or not. So, my commitment is transferred, two sheriff's deputies come to pick me up, and off we go.

Did i mention that the NITC is in Mason City, 3 hours away from my home and family? The social worker is happy about this; says we are all "enmeshed". I think she just hates my mom cause my mom helped me escape from her crappy EDU the last time i was there. Anyway, As I roll into town in the squadcar, I notice that this town looks pretty small and borring, and it hits me that here i will be pretty isolated from friend and family, so this place that i am going to had better be pretty damn nice, or at least bearable.

It is not. I can see this right away. The North Iowa Transitions "Center" is really just a row of shabby old houses that are all connected San Francisco style, but not as cute. Very run-down. I am taken into the office by the lady who runs the joint (she looks like a crackhead!) and we do some paperwork and she tells me the rules. Then she takes me to my room. The room is pretty decent, but my roommate is highly emotional, resents me being there, and decides to sleep in the closet until i leave. I wander around to meet the other residents and am dismayed to find that, once again, i have been placed among a more severely handicapped population. The highlight of everybody's day seems to be getting their allowance and going to the corner store for cigarrettes and candy. Then they smoke and watch t.v. all day. Except for doing their L.B.D.'s.

L.B.D. stands for Learning by Doing, and it's basically chores. Like, sweeping the floor and cleaning the bathroom and stuff. I feel incredibly insulted and childish as i mark off my "L.B.D" on the chart every day, but i have to remind myself that maybe some people have been helped by this and need to learn these skills. Just not me ! Where is the vocational rehabilitation that the social worker in the hospital gushed that this place was known for? When was i going to transition out, back to my home?

After a few days, they noticed that in fact i was higher functioning then most of the residents and decided to send me to their "life skills" classes. Apparently this was the voc rehab i was promised, the training that would get me ready to live on my own, a functioning member of society! And today's class: how to tell if something in your refridgerator has been there too long and needs to be thrown out. Seriously. This is what we talked about the ENTIRE class time. So i did not go to any more of those classes. The next day i went to the mall.

This was one of the saddest, loneliest trips to the mall i have ever taken. I had to go because i needed new clothes, because none of my pre-hospital weight restoration clothes fit. Ideally, on a trip like this, you need support, a trusted friend or treatment center staff person. I had noone. For the first time in months, i confronted my body in a full lenght mirror and just cried. It was too much, just too much. The body. The situation. The isolation. Everything. Plus, i was purging again, had been from the first day i had gotten there. I had no therapist, no friends, i missed my family. I tried to tell myself that everything would be ok, but i didn't feel it would be. I felt trapped in a hell that i had created for myself, from which there was no escape.

That night, i tearfully called my aunt in arizona, who had been following my "case" and was wanting to help. She knew someone who worked at a beautiful new eating disorder treatment center in arizona called Mirasol, and she was able to raise the funds to get me there. I went to sleep that night with a tiny hope that i might find a situation better than this one. But the next day when i talked to the NITC director about the going to Mirasol, she said it was out of the question. Arizona was "outside of the jurisdiction of my commitment" and they would not release me. I was furious! How could they deny me the treatment i needed and keep me instead in a place that was so obviously a wrong fit for me?

I'm not proud of what i did next, it was a very "borderline" thing to do. But i was desperate. I told the director to take me to the hospital, because i would either kill myself or run before the day was out. She was angry, but she had no choice. i don't know if i would have done either of those things. All i knew at the time was that i had to get out of that place that instant!

I spent 2 weeks in the psych ward (most of the time in the lockdown section, for trying to escape) because once again they could not find a place for me. Then low and behold, a breakthrough- the social worker got me an interview with my old "friends" at the Abbe Center. They were very hesitent to take me back, since i had run from there before, so i had to "sell myself", say all the right things, about how i was committed to working with them, yada yada yada. Well, it worked, cause once again papers were signed and i was transferred. But when i got to the Abbe, i was suprised to find that i was not on the "persons with mental illness" ward. I was on the Residential Care Facility ward, with the people who were mentally retarded, autistic, or had head injuries. I learned that this was because it would cost the county 11 fewer dollars a day to keep me here, since there was no programming on this unit. I didnt care, though. I never planned to be there long.

In the end i only stayed there 3 hours. After all the paprework was finished, i was left to unpack, and i phoned my mom to let her know i was ready for her to come get me. To the outsider, this might look like bad, like i manipulated her, or she was enabling me, or some other bs like that. I can see how it would. But in reality, she had seen some of the places i had been put in by the "system". She knew that my heart, my mind, my spirit didn't belong in those places, that i had the capacity to get better but i just needed the right support. And, whatever reason, i wasn't getting that from the so-called helpers.

So what happened next? Well, i was in a shocked and traumatized state due to all that i had been to ( i didn't even get into what went on in the psych ward while i was there, sheesh) and relapsed with the anorexia and the bulimia full force. i stayed a few months with relatives and then went to Mirasol. Maybe i will write about that another time.

I know that this post was long, but it is very helpful for me to write about this, to get it out. Sometimes these days i worry that my ED is getting bad but then i think "wait a minute! You ate today! You went to the grocery store! You took care of kids (and hubbie)! You vaccuumed! You took your own damned meds! Noone handed them to you in a little paper cup after scanning your wrist! Look at all the things that you do now, that you never used to do, that lots of people, family, so-called proffessionals, never, ever, thought you would do! Go Lisa! You rock!

my life right now

not much is new, so i will just update on the random happenings in my life right now.

First and most important, my mom is finally out of the hospital! Yay! But in a weird way i feel kind of deflated. Don't get me wrong, i dont wish her ill, but the positive feelings i got from going down there and taking care of her were, well, incredible. And i felt like we really connected in a way we never did before. Well, trust me to take someone's cancer and make it about me. Sheesh! (I really am glad she's out and doing better)

It's 80 degrees here today and i had to expose my pearly whites (i mean my legs) to the world in a pair of shorts that looked cute when i bought them but now seem to make me look even shorter and stockier then before, if that's possible. I hate shorts weather! On the upside i was able to take Annie to the park today, where i ran into a friend and had a REAL conversation with a LIVE person (who wasn't paid to talk to me). I should, like, plan that sort of thing regularly.

I'm washing the girls' bedding today. Have you ever tried to strip/make a bunkbed? I'm feeling quite accpomlished!

My computer broke for 10 hours on sunday and i freaked out. I was overcome with this feeling of being lost in a vooid, not sure what to do with myself, wondering if life woulld ever be worthwhile again. Then my neighbor who is an it specialist fixed it and i was SAVED! but the whole ordeal haas prompted me to re-eveluate how much of my time i spend online and how dependent i am on the internet for my social needs/support. While i think it is a great tool, i'm wondering if i shouldn't try to reach out a little more to friends and family around me here. just something for me to think about. But i do feel so close to everyone whose blogs i read- just being away for a day, i was wondering how everyone was doing aand if everyone was ok and stuff. You all are so important to me.

Well, that's about it in my exciting life. Peace out :)