What I Want

First of all, thank you so much for the sweet comments on my last post.  It really means a lot to me that people read all the way through my sloppy ramblings, and even take time to reach out and be supportive.  Just from that alone, my outlook is hugely improved.  I tend to get so wrapped up in my own crummy moods that I forget there are a ton of awesome, smart, caring people out there and I am not totally alone in this.

ANYWAY....I hope I didn't scare anyone away with my weepy whiny update.  I have been taking steps to turn this around and be proactive instead of letting it turn into a full-blown relapse just because I am too tired to care.  Already, things seem way less overwhelming and out of control

I feel like I'm sort of at a crossroads in terms of recovery.  I have definitely been slipping back into my old anorexic way of thinking, but I've also had a glimpse of what health feels like over the past few months and I'm not so eager to give that up.  My mind is majorly conflicted.

Part of the problem is that I have always viewed recovery as giving up parts of my life.  Recovery is: Not starving.  Not working out excessively.  Not being Anorexic.  The extra weight on my body feels like a loss instead of a gain; I have lost being sick, lost my ability to skip meals, and lost my identity as the thinnest person in the room.

Now, I am finding it helpful to focus on what I want out of recovery.  My disordered thoughts have been around for so many years that it feels strange to imagine living without them, but I've been trying to reframe recovery in terms of what I want to have, not what I am giving up.

Here are some things I've come up with - things that I want from life as a recovered person, rather than things I can never have because my fear of letting the anorexia go trumps all of it:

1. Saying YES to invitations without worrying about whether food will be involved.

2. Saying NO to invitations because I have better plans (or just want alone time), not because I am trying to avoid dinner out.

3. Using alone time to kick back and chill out, NOT to fit in an extra gym session or skip dinner or mope over the suckfest that is my life.

4. Being able to drink more than one shot before falling over (I kid...sort of.  Empty stomach + low body weight = extremely low alcohol tolerance).

5.  Having a closet filled with clothes in one size that consistently fit from week to week.  Not discovering that my favorite jeans are too tight because I bought them X pounds ago when I was bony and unhealthy and have since porked up from re-feeding but still refuse to throw the jeans out.  Not discovering that a cute dress now looks baggy and stupid because I haven't been sticking to the meal plan and am fast approaching bony and unhealthy once again.

6. Running because it feels good and I can.  Skipping the run when sleeping late sounds better.

7. Eating when I am hungry.

8. Eating lunch at 11:30 if I want, even though Lunch Time isn't until 1:00.

9. Eating a snack at 2:00 even though Snack Time isn't until 4:00 and it's been less than three hours since I last ate (can you tell that my food schedule is a little rigid?)

10. Not having a food schedule.

Struggling

I'm having a pretty rough time lately.  Less food, more running. Weight loss.  It's sort of hard for me to admit, but when I step back and assess things, even I can see myself slipping.

I'm eating way less than I'm supposed to.  I'm not exactly sure how it happened, since I have always had good intentions about sticking to the meal plan throughout my recovery.  Since I first started seeing my dietician about seven months ago, I have generally stayed within an acceptable calorie range.

Lately, though, my range has been going down.  It hasn't really been systematic restriction, but more like the maximum calorie amount that I am "okay" with is getting lower and lower. Now I find myself stuck with this arbitrary upper limit.  I have no idea where it came from, but I absolutely will not eat over it.

Same with exercise.  I have a certain number of minutes that I must work out every day and it has somehow gone up.  It almost seems like I started exercising more without noticing; then once I did notice, I was stuck with it.

My weight is the lowest it's been since March.  The bad part is: I'm not disappointed one bit.  In fact, I'm relieved.  I feel like I dodged a bullet.  Whew.  How did I let myself get so fat?  Good thing I came back to my senses.

I feel like the past few months of eating and gaining weight belong to a different person, and now I'm back to being me again.

A major trigger has been depression.  Even though a lot of things are looking up lately (e.g. end of stupid internship in sight, lotsa good friend times happening, getting excited about school starting soon), I still find myself crying several times a day.  It almost doesn't seem unusual anymore, since this has been the norm for me for at least a couple of months, but I guess I have to admit that this is NOT normal.  That I shouldn't feel like this.

I'm trying really hard to eat better.  I saw my dietician today, and she was pretty concerned about my weight. Even when I know I haven't been eating enough, it usually doesn't fully register until someone else tells me.  Denial?  NEVER.

So I'm trying - to stick to the meal plan, to cut the exercise, and to not fall into the same traps my mind has been setting for years and years.

Success?

Well, it was a loooong weekend. Definitely some ups and downs - but more ups than downs, I think. I'm pretty sure.

I had a crappy day at work on Friday. The usual boring uselessness. Then I saw my dietician and my weight was UP. Ugh. Not a lot (or even a very significant amount at all), but enough to take my shaky mood from bad to worse.

So I was NOT feeling up to the barbecue that night even though I was already totally committed and not going was not really an option. I even wanted to go. But, of course, I had to go through my ritual meltdown of tearing through my closet trying and re-trying on clothes and ripping my hair out.

Although I am pretty reserved by nature, I actually love people and nothing depresses me more than being lonely. Sometimes, though, the thought of having to put on my "normal" face and perform in a social setting is too overwhelming. ("I'm too fat/ugly/tired/stressed/busy/etc. to go!") I almost always end up having a great time once I'm there, but I guess my default is to stick to my regular, solitary routine and it takes a real push to get me out the door.

Long story short: I went to the barbecue and had a great time. My friends are hilarious and I haven't laughed so much in months. We ended up staying for over eight hours because no one, not even me, wanted to leave.

In terms of food, I got off easy. Another girl there was a vegetarian, so there were low-cal veggie burgers and salad. It ended up being a way smaller meal than I had even planned on, so I was starving when I got home and ate an extra protein bar at about 2 a.m. (VERY out of character for Kaylee) before going to bed.

Lesson learned: just go. You'll be fine.

The next day, my friend C came to visit. We ate dinner at home and hung with some other friends for a bit, but it was a pretty low-key night. I had therapy in the morning so I dropped C off at a coffee shop for an hour, then we went shopping. Again, though, I was low on calories. I had planned to grab breakfast at the coffee shop with C, but we were running late so I ended up only having a granola bar in the car. Lunch was small, and I didn't have any extra snacks with me. By late afternoon when C left, I was way under my usual calories. That, combined with two nights of very little sleep, had me falling apart by dinnertime.

My mom was cooking something elaborate and for some reason, it just seemed like too much.  Too many ingredients, too many unknown factors, too much to calculate.  I guess the little stresses of the weekend finally caught up with me and the idea of eating something new and unknown for dinner was just too much.

Even though I'd had a fantastic weekend, I was hungry and exhausted and basically in tears as I ate. My mom got to witness a full-on ugly cry, which had us both a little baffled. Yes, I had a good weekend. No, I don't want to talk about it.

These kinds of mood swings haven't been entirely unusual for me lately. I'm beginning to see how they are connected to changes in food intake, exercise, or stress. My body is definitely much stronger and healthier than it was six months ago, but sometimes I am terrified by how fragile my mind still feels.

I'm not exactly sure where this leaves me. My weekend was amazing in terms of reconnecting with old friends and catching up with C. Becoming socially engaged again is so important to me and always makes me feel so much better, so I am really proud of pulling that off. Foodwise, the fact that I avoided consuming thousands of excess calories and gaining thirty pounds overnight is always a success in my book...but I did eat less than I was supposed to and instead of feeling guilty about it, I feel relieved. So that, I guess, is a recovery fail.

Weekend Worries

Lots of scary stuff coming up this weekend.  First of all, I'm seeing my dietician tomorrow.  The good news is that I get to miss an hour of work for my appointment.  The bad news is that I will be getting weighed, which I despise.  Also bad: I will have lots of unpredictable eating situations in the next couple of days that I do NOT want to approach if I am already upset about my weight.  Since I weigh myself at home, I usually know what to expect at my dietician's office, but my weight has been doing funky things this week (fluctuating way more than usual for no apparent reason) so I worry that it will be high tomorrow which will land me in a Fat Funk.

More challenges: tomorrow night I'm going to a barbecue with some old friends from high school.  The biggest issue with this is the "unknown" factor.  I'm not exactly sure what's on the menu, and whether it will be a free-for-fall where everyone takes their own food, or if there will be a big to-do over how many burgers to cook, who wants potato salad, etc.  So I'm nervous about attention to my eating, which never fails to kill my appetite.  Stressing about food makes me not fun to be around, and I really don't want to let that ruin the night.

Then on Saturday, one of my best friends from college is coming to visit.  (To clarify, our school is six states away but this friend grew up about an hour north of me.)  I am really excited to see her, but definitely a little nervous about food.  This friend is a little overweight but not unhealthy, since she is pretty active and eats well.  Read: she's normal.  At the same time, though, I know she worries about her weight and little comments about calories/fat/BMI tend to sneak into our conversations.  Not to make her sound obsessed, because she's not.  She also loves to go out for ice cream, which definitely worries me.  I can usually do meals okay - it's the "extra" stuff (dessert) that freaks me out.  More so when it follows a conversation about calories and BMI.

But even more than food issues, the idea of having someone in my "space" is always nerve-wracking to me.  I love love LOVE seeing my friends, but I can't last very long without having some exit strategy for when I need some alone time.  Food definitely plays into this - when you spend several hours with someone, you can only avoid eating for so long.  This scares me.  I don't really have issues with eating enough at the moment; it's more that I like to eat certain foods at certain times, prepare my own foods, and be able to measure/count/season everything myself so I know exactly what I'm eating.  When I'm with friends, there's the pressure of not having that control, plus the pressure of trying to look normal.  I can't plan obsessively, and I can't obsess about my lack of planning.  Anxiety?  YES.

I don't eat spontaneously.  I don't skip workouts.  I don't choose what looks yummy.  Is this disordered?  Duh.  Does this lend itself to a fun-filled weekend of friends, ice cream, and barbecue?  NO.

In the spirit of recovery, though, I am trying really hard not to let myself get stressed over what should be a really fun weekend.  I have spent too many social events be overshadowed by my own freaking-outage in the past, and it's so not worth it.  Lately, it has been occurring to me that recovery is not just about eating enough calories, but putting yourself in situations that are uncomfortable and stressful (for food reasons or otherwise), and coming out on the other side.

Kaylee Fun Facts

- I am 20 years old but I've been mistaken for a high school freshman twice in the last year.

- I am a mix of six different ethnicities.

- I played the violin for 15 years and almost went to a music conservatory for college.  Now, I barely play at all and I haven't touched my violin in almost a year.

- I bite my nails like crazy.

- My mom and I have always been super close, but my anorexia has put a major strain on our relationship.  We talk to each other about pretty much everything except for that.

- Nature makes me happy but I am intensely afraid of poison ivy.

- And snakes.

- I have a 23-year-old brother who is the smartest, funniest person I know.  Growing up, we fought nonstop but now we are much closer.

- I tried to read a book on my mom's Kindle but hated it so much that the book was totally ruined for me.  I had to go buy a paperback copy and reread it.

- Depression, diabetes, cancer, alcoholism, and schizophrenia all run in my family.

- My dad looks Middle Eastern (he's not) and anytime I am in an airport with him, we get stopped and searched.

- Six months ago, I decided to give up Diet Coke because I read that it's bad for your bones.  I've pretty much abstained in that time with only a couple of lapses.  We'll see if I can hold out during the summer.

- I refuse to give up coffee.

- I know I'm not supposed to, but I still weigh myself twice a day.

- I am terrified of giant squids.  Not sharks, just squids.  Even in swimming pools.

- When I was in fourth grade, my teacher told me that I should try reading Gone With the Wind when I got older.  I made my mom go buy it for me that day and I finished it within the week.  I have since read it about five more times.

- The same teacher also once told me: "No one is going to know that you're smart unless you speak up and let them know."

- My biggest insecurity is that people will think I am shallow for having anorexia.

Living, losing

There is another intern, A, in my department at work.  We sit on opposite sides of the office and don't see each other much during the day, but we've been meeting up for lunch or walking to Starbucks together most afternoons.

I'm generally a wimp about making new friends and I hate eating in front of other people - especially new people - but A is actually awesome and we have really hit it off.  She has this dry, smart, sarcastic sense of humor, but she is also really thoughtful and intelligent.

Aside from being entertaining, though, A is super confident.  She is a lesbian and sometimes mentions her girlfriend, which I think makes the other interns a little uncomfortable, but A is totally cool about it.  She is who she is, no apologies, take it or leave it.

BUT...she wants to lose weight.

She was munching on some carrot sticks at lunch and another intern made some comment like, "Oh, you're so healthy!" and A just sort of laughed and said, "Well, I'm trying to lose twenty pounds!"

And I choked.

I have absolutely no idea how to respond in situations like that.  Do I encourage her?  "Good for you!" To me, that seems like I'm saying: Yes, you sure need to lose those twenty pounds!

Do I protest? "Omg no way you're soooo skinny! You don't need to lose any weight! Hugz!" Fake.

(For the record, A is not overweight.  Not thin, but definitely not fat.  Maybe a tad over "average," but she looks just fine to me.)

So to hear her say that she wanted to lose weight depressed me.  I see her as someone full of life and confidence; someone who clearly has a lot to offer the world.  But what if she secretly hates herself?

The possibility didn't make me feel any more bonded to her in some sisterhood of body-image blues.  It made me feel lonely.  And sad.

So I was sitting there stuttering, trying to decide how to answer, when A frowned.  "Oh wait, I just realized I said twenty pounds.  I meant ten."  She laughed.  "If I lost twenty pounds I would be a skeleton."

For some reason, that made me feel so much better.  A doesn't want to "Lose Weight" and reach some vague goal of being skinnier.  She wants to eat her turkey and cheese sandwich, veggies, fruit salad, and pretzels; go biking after work; and live more healthfully because she is young and if not now, then when?

(Does she need to lose ten pounds?  I honestly can't say just by looking at her, and I've only known her for a few weeks.  So, maybe she does and maybe she doesn't.  Not my call.)

Regardless, she seems to have a really healthy approach to it, which both impresses and baffles me. See, I wouldn't be able to say "I want to lose X pounds" and stop there.  Throughout my eating disorder, I've never had a specific goal weight in mind.  In fact, I was never really trying to lose weight - just terrified that I was going to Get Fat.  I would restrict, lose a little, freak out about gaining it back, restrict more, lose more, etc.  Fear, anxiety, nightmares of fatness.  Health was never part of the equation.

Will A be satisfied after losing ten pounds?  I hope so, if she actually does have ten pounds to lose.   I hope she feels awesome by becoming healthier - NOT by becoming some lesser version of who she was before.

Dear Stomach: SHHHH

My appetite is, honestly, scaring the heck out of me.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I am starving ALL THE TIME.  My usual meals and snacks just aren't satisfying me.  My stomach literally starts growling within an hour of eating.  (And I'm eating enough!)

I don't know why this is happening now, after I've been maintaining a basically healthy weight for over a month.  I remember how a few weeks into re-feeding, my hunger was ridiculous - like, I would finish a meal and be starving ten minutes later, but my dietician had told me to expect that.  I was at a lower weight and the idea of more food = metabolism speeding up = increased hunger made total sense to me.

But now?  I guess I have been running a lot, so maybe it's accumulating fatigue or something.  My best friend from high school and I starting taking a Pilates class that makes me pretty sore, so maybe I'm building new muscle.  Plus, last weekend was a change of routine so maybe my body is recalibrating or something.  (I'm totally making up these theories on the spot.)

I've been eating pretty much the same number of calories since coming down from weight gain amounts over the past couple of months.  My lower days definitely outnumber my higher days, but I don't think I've ever dipped below a healthy, dietician-approved amount.

So why now am I suddenly SO. HUNGRY. all the time?  I eat my usual breakfast at 8 and am dying by 10.  I usually hold out until lunch at 11:45-12 or so.  At the beginning of the summer, I was having my snack at 3:30 - this week, I've been lucky to make it until 2:15.  So, naturally, the thought of waiting for dinner at our typically 6 or 7 is unbearable.  My mom and I have been eating around 5-5:30, just because I get home from work absolutely famished and literally can't make it any longer.  Then I have another snack around 8 or 9 and try to get to bed before my stomach starts growling again.

Secretly, (of course) I was hoping this meant I'd lost some weight - but no.  My weight has maybe slid down a teeny tiny bit in the past month or so, but definitely not enough to warrant the massive increase in food that my body has abruptly decided to ask for.

This isn't normal-person "I-haven't-eaten-since-breakfast-so-of-course-I'm-hungry" hunger, either.  This is dizzy/shaky/sick hunger.  Dear-Kaylee-give-me-food-any-food-NOW-love-your-body hunger.

Something that I have noticed since starting re-feeding is that eating regularly, meaning every 3-4 hours, is just as important as eating enough calories for me.  Even if I eat a massive breakfast, I would still need to eat again by lunchtime.  I'm not sure what the biological mechanisms going on here are, but I seem to get low blood sugar or something very easily.  So maybe my body has had enough of that dance and would like to just get a heftier stream of calories to work with?  Build up some reserves?

Another thing - periods still aren't regular.  I had one totally normal period in April, one very light one in May, and nothing since.  But even with the light/no period months, I still definitely got PMS symptoms around the weeks when my period should have come.  So maybe my body is telling me I need a bit more food to get the hormones running?  Or something?

But why now, body?  And why can't you just be happy where you are?  Or a little thinner?  Just kidding.

So, I am confused.  And irritated. And HUNGRY.