Thank you, Marya Hornbacher

When I was deep in my eating disorder, I was desperate to feel a connection to anything and anyone.  I felt alone and isolated from the rest of the world because, well, that's the nature of eating disorders.  So ever since I was young - and even now - I found comfort in books and movies about suicide, abandoned children, broken families, and betrayal. 
 The day I entered treatment was the first time I read about somebody with an eating disorder.  Before that, I've never spoken openly with anyone with any sort of mental illness.  Many reviews said the book may be triggering, but to me, it was my refuge, my sanctuary.  I can read this passage now and see so clearly that I am in a much better place than I was just several months ago.


“People with eating disorders tend to be very diametrical thinkers – everything is the end of the world, everything rides on this one thing, and everyone tells you you're very dramatic, very intense, and they see it as an affectation, but it´s actually just how you think. It really seems to you that the sky will fall if you are not personally holding it up. On the one hand, this is sheer arrogance; on the other hand, this is a very real fear. And it isn't that you ignore the potential repercussions of your actions. You don't think there are any. Because you are not even there.”
-Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Not so smooth-sailing

Recovering from an eating disorder takes a difference approach than recovering from alcoholism or drug addiction.  Substance abuse can be reduced to the deceptively simple focus of keeping away from the crack.  But you can't keep away from food even if you wanted to.  When you go to rehab for an ED, you are taught how to eat "normal" portions like a "normal" person, how to feel about and around food, and how to monitor your hunger/fullness, among other things.  When you go to rehab for drugs and alcohol, you are closely monitored to make sure you stay clean during your stay.
What does getting help with depression mean?  Learning to keep away from your own mind?  It would be a whole lot easier to get rid of Jameson than Liz.
When I was in treatment, it was easy for me to go through the motions; my motto was "fake it 'til you make it."  I thought eating healthily and having psychotherapy sessions for hours on end day after day would help with my depression.  But I found myself having no ED behaviors for 6 months and still hating myself.  Drug addicts, alcoholics, and people with eating disorders have the crutch of a tangible problem, so there are places they could be taken to for help.  There are no halfway houses for depressives, no Depression Anonymous that I know of.  Instead, depressives are under-treated by psychiatrists.  I think this may be a reason why depressives go so far as adapting a tangible problem or committing suicide to get some "real help".

Rehab of any kind is not like a conveyor belt that you ride for 30 days or 30 weeks or however long it takes to get better.  You're not pushed off the assembly line all fresh and spanking new, ready to start all over again.  It's not a fairy tale where things get worse before they get better and there's a happily ever after.  Things get worse, get better, get a little - or much - worse, get better, get worse...you get the picture.  It's not like a college course that you take for months, prepare for the exam, pass the exam, and move on with life like it never happened.
Being in recovery is like being a used car.  You have to take it to the shop to make sure all its parts are functioning well enough to take on the road.  You have to be very gentle and cautious with it to make it last as long as possible before inevitably returning to the shop for something that never really stays fixed.  It will always be a used car.  You will always be in recovery.

For me, the most infuriating thing about eating disorders is how accepting society is of them.  The American definition of "beauty" is so skewed and fucked up, and I do not see it ever changing.  People are reduced to merely their looks.  On TV and in movies, the attractive ones always end up winning the man/woman and the ugly ones are stupid and lonely.  If 2 different people are applying for the same job, the employer will hire the more "attractive" one because people are socialized to believe that attractive people are smarter, more approachable, more successful, and overall, better.
If somebody looks thinner (I'll use a female example), her friends compliment her on how much prettier she looks.  Little do they know that that person became thinner by restricting and vomiting, and this positive reinforcement only motivates the person to continue in her eating disorder.  After all, receiving acceptance due to her eating disorder is better than no acceptance. Because she is now "prettier", she has friends - or people who never knew was alive, now acknowledges her existence - and is invited to social events.  They all go drinking and she, being already so self-destructive, begins to out drink everyone.  This calls for even more positive reinforcement as she is considered fun, down-to-earth, sexy.  She tells her friends she has to pee, which the friends don't know really means, "I'm going to go purge because alcohol has calories".  She stumbles home hungry because of the purge and the drunkenness so she binges and purges, then wakes up the next day only to remember how much excitement has entered her life due to her new thinner look.  So she continues to do what she knows brings acceptance.  You see the cycle?

Ugh.  Thanksgiving's coming up.

Trustworthy Relationships and Unconditionally Safe Territory

Trust is a scary thing.  It comes with such a high cost - betrayal.  The effects of betrayal can be so damaging.When somebody trusts you me, I feel like so much is expected of me.  Sometimes too much.  Not that I don't believe I can live up to those expectations, but just the fact that those expectations exist, is scary and nerve-racking.

Maybe they're not so much as expectations as they are standards.  A person trusts me because that person holds me to a certain standard - reliable, competent, and honest.  In other words, trustworthy.  Like when I trust the doctor to prescribe me the right medicine, or my sweater to keep me warm.  When someone trusts me and confides in me, it triggers anxiety and makes me think about past instances in which I provided evidence of reliability, competence, and honesty.  It makes me second guess myself.  I do believe I am trustworthy.  I do.

Maybe it's not so much the standards that scare me.  It may be the confiding that I am scared of.  The confidential information that person tells me that causes me to worry, dwell, and obsess about the person's well-being.

Today someone trusted me and told me a piece of information that I have been obsessing over ever since.  Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for receiving his trust, but I am more grateful that he has found the comfort that comes from trusting someone.  It really brought to the forefront the things we have in common and opened up the way to more meaningful conversation and connection.  But at the same time, it brought on other emotions like fear, sadness, helplessness, guilt, and resentment.  They're so strong that I almost wish he hadn't told me - I guess that makes me selfish and cowardly.  Almost.  However, the strongest emotion was relief because we were finally able to put our guards down and invite us to get to know each other better.

There should be more trust in the world. But that only comes from having more trustworthy people and that's where the problem lies.  I feel like people are becoming increasingly manipulative and self-serving - in other words, unethical.  How do we create trustworthy people? Let us start with ourselves.