#wish i could be disordered in peace and lose weight for real again

[lqnar]

i genuinely feel like i look fatter than i did when i was 5 kg heavier

[destroyeir]

   fire light, moonlight ; golden rays reach for the outside, where they are smothered by gentle blues.  silver dances along the tops of their heads while their skin is bathed in fading warmth from within.  music drifts throughout the corridors, makes the ground rumble.  beneath the castle is a party of sorts.  duties of the week completed, nothing ( yet ) to occupy their weekend.  it is time for reapers to relax, have a little fun.  minnie leans on the stone wall that comes up to her hips and gazes out at the beauty of the night - soaked planet.  at her side is leon, his long hair waving in the breeze, eyes as dark and endless as the stretching ocean shifting between admiring it and admiring her.  petite, angelic features, but a fire like hell burning within. . .  he often wonders how she manages to take orders.  how she isn’t the one giving them.  a grin begins to fight its way to his face, but he shoves it down.  good thing he does, because she is looking his way in the same moment.

  “i’m surprised you’re not inside with everyone else.  you seem to like crowds and roaring parties.”

  “yeah.  but i like the quiet, too.”  so as not to stare, he looks back out at the waters.  waves roll in and out gently, their foaming tops splashing along the shore.  it glitters in the light.  “don’t really know why.  guess i just like to think.”

  “about what?”

  “life.  the past, the future.”  leon shrugs, brings the bottle he’s holding to his lips and swigs.  when it lowers, he leans against the stone wall, back facing the ocean, body turned so he can look at her again.  “what my place is in all this.  why i’m here.  you know, the regular existential shit.  something about a nice view really gets it going.”

  at that, minnie smiles.  “i know what you mean.  whenever i find myself out here, just staring at the planet. . .  it’s because i’m in need of some deep thought.  funny how that works, isn’t it?  it’s like we need something in front of us, something inspiring, to use as a backdrop for our thoughts.”

  “funny, yeah.  won’t find me questioning it, though.  makes me feel centered, i guess.”

  in their lives of chaos, centeredness can be a feeling chased for nought.  but once captured in their grasp, they may never want to let go.  just a moment of peace in the midst of the disorder.  but it can’t come as often as they hope ; it would lose meaning, appreciation.  rather than offer another response, her eyes fall, lashes shadowing her cheek bones.  in the coming silence, the song blaring beneath their feet changes.  from energetic, to upbeat, to something slow.  something beautiful.  minnie’s back straightens as she pulls herself into her unimpressive stature and steps away from the wall.

  “do you know how to dance?”

  it catches leon off guard, but he, too, rises.  the bottle in his grip is sent gently atop the wall with a barely audible clank.  “yeah, i know how to dance.  not well.  but i can sway like a pro.”  a sheepish smirk brings his features alight.  “why?  you know how to dance?”

  “i’m a princess.  of course i know how to dance.”  the smile on her face is too welcoming, the tone of her voice so teasingly soft.  it makes him want to smile along with her.  “but we can begin with swaying.  i’ll have to teach you.”

  “is this your way of ordering me to dance?”  leon chuckles.  “well, yes, ma’am.  we can start with swaying.”

  seemingly without any hesitation, minnie nears him, her arms going into the proper positions as naturally as she falls into an offensive stance in training.  jarring, he thinks, to see everyone switch off their warrior side for a night.  there is no fighting, no danger. . .  for a while, they can be normal.  as her hand opens and awaits his, while the other finds its place on his shoulder, leon gravitates to her.  pieces of a puzzle coming together, he takes her hand with his left, places the right on her waist.  to the tune that courses through the air, they begin to — sway.

  “so, your highness,” leon teases, “learning to dance is a necessity for royals?”

  despite the roll of her eyes, minnie finds amusement in him.  “i wouldn’t say it’s a necessity.  but when it comes time to put on a show for the watching worlds, it wouldn’t look very good to be lacking.  in any area, not just dancing.”  with no hurry, they spin in place.  “but yes, we need to learn to dance for parties, galas, balls.”

  “how fancy.”

  “i suppose. . .  but it gets very boring after a while.”

  “yeah, being surrounded by luxury must be a real snooze.”

  at that, she frowns.  “i didn’t mean it like that.  i’m well aware i had a very lucky upbringing.  i just. . .  it wasn’t for me.”

  “how so?”

  “look beyond the surface.  of course everybody loves the privilege, the riches, the materialism.  some love the fame as well.  but the part of it that isn’t a fantasy ; wondering who is befriending you for you or just your title.  knowing that, some day, millions or even billions of souls will be your responsibility.  having to fight to keep things right when there will be opposers out there who wish to silence you.  and then there’s the safety risks.  royals do get attacked, you know.”

  “okay,” he contemplates it a moment, mouth dropping.  “that does sound shitty.”  and after a moment, drops the weight of her displeasure.  “i still wouldn’t have minded the riches, though.”  the crawl of the grin on his face is slow.

  and she cannot help but grin back, shaking her head.  “yeah?  so, what was your home like?  your childhood?”

  “ooh.”  breath leaves his throat in a scoff, an attempt to suppress the barely - there tightening in his chest.  “wasn’t that great.  you don’t wanna know.”

  “of course i do.”

  “right.  well. . .  mom died after she had me.  dad never really forgave me for it.”  there is a sad tug of his lips, while her moonlit features remain still.  “in turn, i never forgave myself.  financially, it was alright.  he was a businessman.  wanted me to be one too — probably so i wouldn’t be another mouth to feed.  he really only tried ‘cause my mom wanted him to.  but i could tell he wanted me outta there.”  leon shrugs.  “we weren’t close at all, and me not wanting to get into business didn’t exactly help.  i’m sure he was thrilled when i left.”

  pity is all over her face.  it’s in the downward tug of her lips, the twinkle in her eyes, the set of her brows.  but her pity isn’t what he wants — is it?  nobody has ever felt bad for him before.  while it makes him feel small, watching her look at him like that, there is a warmth around his heart that almost seems grateful.  it’s about time someone feel bad.  but that is the selfish side of his mind speaking.

  “i’m sorry,” she says, and the validation of his selfishness has something within him soaring.  “you didn’t deserve that.”

  again, he shrugs, casts his eyes toward the water.  “not everyone can have a decent family.  happens.”

  suddenly his hand is empty, open to feel the cool breeze along his palm and finger tips.  the small hand that had abandoned his rests on his shoulder, brushes against his neck, and meets its twin at the back of his head.  she is hooked around him now, a sense of no nonsense in those deep brown eyes.

  “you have a decent family now.  you know that, right?  the reapers are your family.  you have people now that will fight and die for you.”

  “i know.”  it has taken him by surprise.  so much so that there is a lump in his throat, a brief thumping in his temples.  “i know.”  not entirely with his permission ( or even knowledge ), his once free hand slips to her waist.  now both of them, massive and scarred by violence, guide her hips in their comfortable sway.  as their eyes lock and surroundings fall away, blurring into nothingness, where there was once a thump there is a skip.  time outside of their small circle comes to a halt ; nothing could possibly disturb their serenity, their moment of connection.  only the gentle breeze is their indicator that they are still of this planet.  it captures her hair, flings it into her face.  dryness becomes his throat and mouth as he reaches up to tuck it behind her ear and, in a most bold move, the knuckle of his index finger strokes the skin of her cheek.  if one could capture a cloud, he is almost certain that’s how soft it would be.

  little distance remains between them, and as it begins to close, minnie’s own heart storms inside of her.  wild as she may feel internally, externally she is cool as ever.  she clears her throat, removes his hand from her face with careful grace, and steps back.  she is smiling — hopefully, it covers her gulp.

  “the song is over,” she speaks at last.  “i think i’ll go rejoin the fun now.  you should come.”

  leon notices how she must tear her eyes from him whilst heading back inside.  strangers once upon a time, now friends.  and for some time they have been getting closer.  learning of each others’ pasts, behaviors, wishes.  he wants to know everything about her.  and, for the first time, he feels perfectly comfortable revealing everything about himself.  when at last they do know all there is to know about one another, he doesn’t want to be her friend anymore.

  he wants so much more.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #253

hope everyone is staying safe through this quarantine. wash your hands.

Which band do you have more music of than anyone else on your computer? Ozzy. Who’s your favorite philosopher? *shrugs* I don't know any's ideals well. How old were you when you learned how to read? I'm not sure, but I know I was exceptionally young. What’s the coolest Halloween costume you’ve ever worn? I don't think I've ever worn something rather cool. Who’s your favorite painter/artist? If we're talking about well-known, "popular" artists, I'm not sure. Maybe DaVinci. What’s your favorite song lyric- ever? ARE YOU??????????? FOR REAL?????????? Holy FUCK I get goosebumps from lyrics SO easily, this is like impossible. Probably an Otep lyric, though. I really don't like her personally, but goddamn can she write. What’s your dream tattoo if you don’t have it already? I've linked it before, so I'll just remind it's "Denialism" by deviantART's NukeRooster on my entire, upper left arm. I've already gotten her permission (I don't like just... stealing artwork to put on my body), now just comes the day I can pay for it by a top-tier pro. What’s the coolest screen name you’ve ever had? I don't think any have been necessarily "cool." Who do you think was the most badass serial killer? (Real life.) I'm not well-versed in serial killers honestly, but I can say Charles Manson was a C A S E. I think we can all admit he was... interesting. Just the epitome of weird. Most badass fictional serial killer? ig Jason; again, I don't know a lot off the top of my head, but I like him. How many bank accounts do you have? I don't have one. Have you ever been falsely accused of starting drama? Yep. Have you ever found a song that describes your whole life? Parts of it, sure. What kind of car do you drive? I don't drive a car, but Mom's is a... Honda? Kia? Idk. I'm bad with car brands. What kind of car would you like to have? Average size, pretty simple. Burnt orange or red. I know I want one of those screens you look into to see what's behind you when backing up. Have you ever been to Dairy Queen? If so, what’s your favorite thing to eat from there? mmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. So unhealthy, but I will destroy and Oreo Cupfection. Try. That. Stuff. Their milkshakes are also great. Which website do you email from? Outlook. Do you enjoy receiving souvenirs? Sure, it's nice. Have you ever had the flu? No. What about strep throat? Maybe once? Do you normally have a lot of homework, if you’re still in school? Kinda, yeah. Did you ever enjoy gym class? Fuck no. Even when I was healthy. What is your biggest insecurity? My body. Have you ever painted a room alone? No. How many huge secrets do you have? Huge? Uhhh, none, I think. Have you ever painted something and been impressed by it? Yes. Would you rather go out to eat or stay in? I prefer eating out because yummy food, but considering I'm working on losing weight, I avoid it. Do you have any younger siblings? One. Have you ever considered bleaching your hair? To the point of being snow white. Considering my hair is super healthy and bleaching so heavily would destroy it, I'll be avoiding that. I DO want to bleach my hair to do other colors, though. Brown hair sucks. Do you drink vitamin water? No. Are there any old movies you absolutely love? Oh sure, a good handful. The Outsiders probably tops it. Have you ever had a Big Mac before? No, doesn't appeal to me. I don't like veggies on my burgers... despite eating veggie burgers when I was vegetarian lmao. Do you think you attract the opposite sex at a reasonable rate? I doubt that. Have you ever filed a lawsuit on someone? No. Do you enjoy reading often? I'm finally back into it!! Lately all I've been wanting to do is READ READ READ. Have you ever had a deadly illness? Well, I consider depression (among other mental illnesses) to be very deadly, but on a literal level, no. I mean I have dormant MRSA, which can kill if active, but it never has been. Most people carry that dormantly anyway, if I remember correctly. Ever had food-poisoning before? No, thankfully. Where did you last eat dinner at? Mom bought Nicole and me Sonic. Have you ever had someone pick you up off the ground & carried you? When I fainted, yes. Are you a flirty person? Not really. A name you hate with a passion? Edward, to name one. Erwin. A lot of old names. What is your favorite type of water (ex. arrowhead)? Essentia mmmmmmmmmmmmm,, Have you ever been to Warped Tour? I WISH. :( Do you know anyone who wears fur? I fucking hope not, because I wouldn't associate with them anymore. When was the last time you were on myspace.com? Damn yo, millennia ago. How often do you cuss? Too much. I mean, I don't even believe "profanity" is a thing by our definition of "that word is magically bad," but still, it's like when people say "like" too much. Have you ever cussed out a teacher? No. What did you think of the movie Juno? I never watched it. How often do you eat meat? Sigh, more than I wish. What grade did you meet your best friend in? We didn't meet in school. Last time you cleaned your room? Couple days back. I'm honestly bad at dusting regularly in here, but that's gotta change with Mom having chemo now. Her immune system will be compromised so this house needs to be as pristine as it can. When you were little, would you have rather watched Cartoon Network or Disney Channel? Disney Channel. We weren't really Cartoon Network kids, actually. It was Disney or Nickelodeon. Do you shave your arms? No. Are you a big fan of the Harry Potter series? Never read a book, never watched any movies; the first one was playing in my presence once, but I paid no attention. How often would say you pulled all-nighters, if you ever do? Shit man, never, nowadays. I don't think I've had one for two years now. My youth is escaping. Has a friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend ever had a problem with you for any reason? I don't think so. How many times a day do you find yourself cracking your joints, if at all? Maybe not even once a day. Only my big toes and upper back can pop. Is there a particular sport you follow on a regular basis? No. Are you 100% over the last person you kissed? No. Do you put ketchup on top of your french fries or on the side? On the side. Who was the last person you talked to in person? Mom. Do you have a dog? Not anymore, thank fuck. Do you like orange juice? Yes. Are you one of those people who obsesses over Hollister? I never liked it. They're not inclusive at all towards fucking NORMAL bodies, nevermind plus size. Apparently even their rules on looks for workers are absolutely horrible. Ashley liked them though, so sometimes I just had to go in with her. If money was no object, would you change your wardrobe? My goth could finally  E S C A P E. How do you/did you get to school? My mom drives me. Have you ever had to have a pet put down? Four times that I remember off the top of my head. What candy cane flavor is your favorite? MMMMMMMMMM get the pink Starburst kind. Do you get angry when fast food restaurants mess up your order? It's annoying, yes. Angering when you've already driven away, especially when you really wanted something. What was your favorite elective class in high school? Art. Did you ever wish you could be homeschooled? Yes. I was homebound for a little while. Have you ever had a dream so realistic you could’ve sworn it happened? Yes. Do you have any mental disorders? I'm a walking mental disorder, lmao. Y'all know the biggies, and now ADD and especially DPD (dependent personality disorder) are being considered. Do you feel comfortable talking about these disorders, if you have them? Yeah, I really don't care. Where did you go on your last field trip? I want to say to a band competition in high school. Are you able to agree to disagree? Or do you have to have the last word? Yeah, pretty easily. Is there a cover song you like better than the original version? A whole lot, actually. Do you have a hard time talking about sex with the opposite gender? I have a hard time with anyone. Have you ever had major surgery? Major, no. Is there any food you don’t like that a lot of others do? Here in the South, everyone is most surprised when they hear I hate fried chicken. What was the last thing you bragged about? Hm. I'm not sure, actually. I don't make a habit out of doing that. Can you do a backflip? Hell no. Are you listening to anything right now? I have a video up of relaxing tracks from Silent Hill 2 + 3. Great shit. Has anyone ever tried to tell you you were adopted? No. How many doors are in the room you’re in? Two, but one's just the closet door. Have you ever been engaged and broke it off? No. Has anyone ever drawn a picture of you? Yes. Do any of your friends have children? Yep. Is there anything you’re craving right now? Not really. Who got married at the last wedding you attended? A family friend. It was the second wedding I shot. Is happiness something to be achieved and sought after or is it something to be retained and held onto always, no matter what happens? The former. You can't just stay happy when, like, your grandma dies. What gives you a peaceful feeling? Nature. Hearing water and birdsong, specifically. Are you a Toys-R-Us kid? Hell yeah I was. My sisters and I would go crazy if we had the chance to go there. We were SOOOO upset when it closed down. If you believe in Heaven, are there separate heavens for different animals (kittie heaven. dog heaven, bird heaven, etc)? I don't know if I believe in a "heaven," but some sort of peace after death, yes. I believe it's one, unified "heaven." When you sleep next to someone do they fall asleep first usually or do you? They always do considering it takes me ten years to fall asleep. If they do, do you watch them sleep? I have. Not in a creepy way, but rather a "wow I love this person" sorta way. What is your usual breakfast? Usually apple and cinnamon oatmeal What do your salt and pepper shakers look like? They're nothing special. The salt is a blue ceramic, and the pepper one is just what you get from the store. Have you ever had your car towed? I've never had my own car. What band or singer do you believe started rock and roll? I'm pretty sure Elvis is given that credit. Whose voice irritates you like fingernails on a blackboard? The female singer of Mother Mother's voice. Mom and I can't stand her singing. All I songs we enjoy feature almost solely the main singer. I can *tolerate* it in some songs, but. What do you contribute to society? Ha. Do you take naps? Almost daily. Do you have any cavities? Not to my knowledge. Do you believe that there has been a man on the moon? Yes, though I do believe the "first" landing was faked in competition with Russia. It sounds ridiculous, but I'm so serious, look into the theory - there's incredible evidence. Would you ever go into a sex shop? I'd be too self-conscious to. I'd just order online. Let’s just say your school team is on a winning streak. One of the cheerleaders cheers both for your team and the other team during games. Does it make you angry? I don't care enough about sports to even consider how I'd feel. Do you prefer carnivals, festivals, circuses, parades or faires? To be real, I only know the difference between parades and circuses. What even distinguishes the other three from each other. Do you believe in psychic ability or is it a sham? I lean towards no. What is your favorite classic rock song? You CANNOT ask me this question. Classic rock is some of the best music there is.

[octrainisms]

52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason? 62: What makes you happy?

Octavio: Well……. Geez, um… What makes me happy is my friends. My hombres and chicas and others. They are my family, man. Can’t live without them…. That and cat videos. Perfect. As for the other question…. Man, I think it does, but it’s hard to say really. It’s a kick in the teeth when it happens, but it puts you right. I reunited with Ajay because of my choice leading to such an outcome.

I will answer with no cut because this wall of text needs to be seen without unneeded diverts. Pardon the pizza fingers and emotional typos.

For those who don’t know, I, the mun, Alex, have gone through hell. I was bullied my whole life - even to this day actually - and was kicked down every chance my parents got, telling me my dreams, hopes, aspirations and life choices were the worst (Um hi yes my mom did things that weren’t technically legal so fight me lady).

I have been coerced, tricked, manipulated and down right forced to believe that the r word I will not say, was okay, because I am born a woman and should like it when men do things to my body. For six years I ate once a day for two reasons. One, my mother told me I wasn’t really hungry until it hurt. And two, because everyone called me ugly and fat, the usual (I was borderline anorexic).

I see myself as male, with the unfortunate mutation to make my body female. And because of everything, I have so many issues mentally, ranging from extreme suicidal tendencies to PTSD to anxiety and depression. But the one thing my brain did, is give me Borderline Personality Disorder. Unlike Disassociative Identity Disorder, I know what is happening when all but one personality comes out, I know what is real, not real and so on (bar my PTSD outbursts). I have survived attempted murder four times (three were in one fucking day boy howdy I hate water now).

I got out of an abusive relationship and into a new one more times than I wish to say and was ready to end it all. I had everything set up to be as clean as possible so minimal work for others coming through and had my plan. My personality, Kiel who was born from my pride, convinced me to write a post detailing the death of my muse at the time.

‘What do you have to lose?’

And so I did, then proceeded to write a novel of a goodbye letter. Before posting, he told me to open a new window. Again, those words rang out from his mouth. I let him open tumblr in a new tab, and see an ask. He pushes for me to click it, those same words a mantra by this point. I didn’t care, I just wanted to die and he was making me suffer.

‘Humour me. If it’s hate, then I will step back and let you do this. If it is anything else, you have to listen to me.’

What did I have to lose?

And so I opened my askbox to see one message from someone I adored but was terrified to message.

OMG SENPAI I HAVENT HEARD FROM YOU IN AGES HOW ARE YOU ARE YOU OKAY?!

It’s like she knew something was wrong.

Why do you care?

It was cold and cruel, a blunt sort of ‘fuck off’ that I could do when you have the Son of fucking Loki from your books nagging you to at least ask SOMETHING.

And here she is, the fucking angel that ran me over that I never saw coming;

Because you’re amazing and I love your writing and I really want to write with you and be your friend but I’m scared to do that because I don’t want to be a bother and I just have a feeling that something’s not okay. Please talk to me, I know I’m a random but if anything is wrong talk to me please.

I was floored, but the trickster burst into action, egging me on to talk to her. An hour later, I was smiling through tears.

Long story short, what he convinced me to do was buy a chocolate mud cake, eat it in one sitting, then vomit for six hours and hate his guts.

Oh, and that angel? She is my wife now, knows all 183 personalities in my head and loves me, as she said ‘dick or no dick’.

Long story short;

Yes. It all happens for a reason. Not because some higher power says so or anything silly like that. But without those moments of true agony I never would have found my family in my mind. I never would have gone to that web series, made that blog, found that angel and found peace in life again.

Do I have days where I wish I didn’t humour the trickster? Hell yeah.

But I reach out to people, something I was terrified of the first time I did it. I’ll ramble, or write a sad drabble. It’s nothing to be ashamed of at all.

It took me my whole life and one hell of a stubborn Canadian Angel for me to see that I am worth being alive, that I’m awesome and amazing and beautiful and perfect in my own way despite preaching it over and over for years for other people!

If I can be that rock for you, that pillar of hope, I damn well will be. It all happens for a reason, but you have to fight through it, humour that trickster itch of pride in you to see what is around the corner.

Doesn’t matter if a teacher tells you to kill yourself and that it’ll be a grace on humanity, doesn’t matter if that fucking douchebag of a kid calls you ugly, fat, weird, or a freak. Fucking stand up and be proud of it. If they tell you that you’re weird, say ‘yeah, duh dude, it’s kinda my thing’. If they call you fat say ‘at least I’m warm in the winter’. If they tell you you’re a freak, just smile creepily and say ‘we all float down here’.

Look in the mirror and be proud of what you see. Because you have made it this far, made it to this point, despite all the setbacks and chains around your body.

YOU ARE WORTH IT!

And don’t you dare give up, don’t you dare stay silent, be loud, be proud. You are unique and perfect in your own damn way, so when they knock you down, get back up. If they tell you to die, live in spite of their words.

One of my biggest bullies in school now works at a mcdonalds, twenty six and still with his mom, starting a family in her home rather than his own, and I know owning your own house is hard, but he called me fat, and now he is three times my own weight. I work in a shop where my co-workers are my family, where I feel safe and loved, where every day I am asked if I’m okay and everything.

I know it’s hard, I know it’s painful even, but it is worth it. Everything that hits you is worth pushing through. I lost six people to suicide throughout my life, and it takes its toll. I asked to nothing ‘can’t you see I miss you?’, but never really thought it about myself, and that’s the kicker. Words destroy people. I’d take broken bones any day. But also, I look to my past, I cry, sure, but I fucking smile.

Without all of that, I wouldn’t be thick skinned for my job, or able to help people from experience. I wouldn’t be proud of who I am if I never went through the moments of hating my very existence.

It all happens for a reason, and if you are still reading this, then take away six simple words from this;

Never give up; never give in

You are worth it, always worth it. Just remember that you’re still alive, and that you are perfect as you are. And that if you ever need a place to turn to, come here, where I, and the 183 others will remind you why living is only half as amazing with you in it.

[deliciousanarchist]

Don't talk foody to me!

About diet talk and body positivity

This text started as an attempt to write about why I don’t like people commenting on (my) food when eating in public. While writing I realised I had to share more of my personal life and where I’m coming from, so it is more understandable why I’m having such a hard time with diet talk. In the end, this became a blog about diets, intuitive eating, self-care, and about respecting our own bodies and the bodies of others.

Society is pretty hung up on perfect bodies and, thus, food – those two seem to hang closely together. “We are what we eat”, right? Sounds legit. Or does it rather cut something very complex down to a simplifying and, well, blatantly incorrect sentence?

First of all, what we eat depends on so many things – like on the place we grow up, in what country we are born, and in what social part or class of society we were raised in. Also, when we look closely, stuff like what gender we are assigned with could be seen to make us choose different food. A lot of people believe that a “real man” needs to eat meat, or that women should generally eat less than men do. So “you are what you eat” strongly ignores social inequalities and, even worse, it judges you on things you did not decide by yourself.

It also sounds like a religion or a fatal cult. By this logic we are the sum of the food we eat. If we do “good” we get rewarded, if we do “bad” we will be punished. And if we get sick and some doctor tracks that back to our lifestyle (like to what we eat), then we supposedly brought it all on ourselves because we should have known better. We knew the rules of “health”, right? So if we have a heart attack, it’s because we ate too much fatty food. If we get diabetes, we ate too much sugar or simple carbohydrates. If we get an auto-immune disease, we exposed ourselves to too much to the “wrong” food like gluten, milk, or red meat. In all cases we definitely omitted to exercise enough, too, I’m sure.

And in the final consequence, if we brought our ‘unhealthy’ bodies on ourselves, then why should anyone, doctor or health insurance, help us and treat our disease? We made our bed, now we must lie in it, right?

A new diet theory every year

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that our food and lifestyle does not have any impact on the condition of our bodies, but I’m sure that we get the cause wrong most of the time. The human body is so complex. Who are we do think that we figured it all out? Watching some new food being demonized every other year should have proven this to us by now, shouldn’t it?

We are exposed to so much information about diets and nutrition in the course of our lives: Don’t eat wheat. Oh wait, but you can eat older wheat like dinkle. Drinking milk will kill you. But milk is so healthy, because calcium, you should drink milk every day. Butter is better than margarine. No, margarine is better. Or are both equally bad for you but for different reasons? Fat is bad for you no matter what. No wait, some fats are actually good and we need them for our body to process other food groups. Vegetables are always good for you. Unless it’s corn. And watch out for canned foods because of all the salt and sugar in it, but frozen vegetables are fresh and untreated. Fruits are healthy. In general we should eat vegetables and fruits 5 times a day. Oh no wait, fruit has sugar in it, so it’s not good after all. But oh, vitamins. That’s a twist, I guess. Red meat is bad, white meat is good. Or is meat always bad and should we replace it with fish? Let’s all go vegan to save the planet! (At this point I’m not going into the debate on if we Middle/Northern Europeans should or shouldn’t eat stuff like avocados or quinoa, and how fish is tricky anyway because of overfishing. Food production in capitalism in general, oh my.)

If you speak/read German, I highly recommend the book “Fa(t)shionista” by Magda Albrecht from 2018. She shares a lot of personal stories about the relationship to her body but also scientific info like the history of BMI or where the diseases (and “diseases”) of modern society more likely come from. Did you know that the BMI was never meant for categorizing individuals? And that in 1997 the WHO just set a new BMI for ‘obesety’ which made millions of people become overweight overnight? Also Magda writes: “[A]uch bei Bluthochdruck, Blutzucker oder dem Cholesterinspiegel [hat] die Lobbyarbeit der Pharmaindustrie dafür gesorgt [...], dass Grenzwerte so lange gesenkt wurden, bis die Mehrzahl der Bevölkerung in mindestens eine der zahlreichen Risikofaktoren fielen: Alles für die Gesundheit, natürlich! Oder vielleicht auch nur für die Geldbeutel großer Unternehmen?” (p. 157 // in english: “It’s the same with blood pressure, blood sugar or cholesterol. The drug industry kept declining the setpoint values for those too, so now most of our society suffers from at least one of those risk factors. All for the sake of health, of course! Or is it for the sake of the wallets of large companies?”)

Life is all about diversity

When I was 17 I stopped eating meat, and I was  immediately told from a lot of different people whose opinions I never asked for that becoming a vegetarian is really unhealthy. (Of course now, in 2019, that viewpoint has shifted from vegetarians to vegans, so…)

Whenever my iron was low my doctors told me it was probably from being a vegetarian. Or from having my period. Or if they had been honest with me and themselves – they had no idea. Sometimes blood levels change, and who is to say that everybody has the same range of components in their blood? For example, my leukocytes are so low all the time that I would constantly be sick from colds and other infections. Surprisingly, I hardly ever have those. I do have other issues though. We’re all different, and our bodies react differently to medications, food, and different lifestyles. It’s a little like hormones. If you use hormone levels to prove that there are only two genders you won’t get very far. Like using blood components to divide people into healthy and unhealthy. Let’s give biology some credit and see how diverse we are on so many levels, shall we?

All my life I have been interested in food theories and diets. At some point in my life I even wanted to become a nutritionist, but then got scared of chemistry and all the science behind it. But I also had a dark interest in diets, too. Being a teenager I had a phase of body hate that resulted in an eating disorder that resulted in drastically cutting down my food until I lost more and more weight. I soon looked very thin and according to a lot of people in my life, “really great”. The doctors who had suggested I “lose a few pounds” were happy too. Myself? I felt like crap. And even after all that weight loss, I didn’t even see my body as thin, so disconnected was I to body image and the reality of it. Looking back on those pictures today, I feel fear – I can’t even recognise myself in them, I look so gaunt.

Good bye, diet mentality

However, I learned something from that experience: Being thin doesn’t automatically make me happy. And realizing that back then I felt betrayed by science. It should have worked, right? Lose weight, feel great!? I guess not.

I wish I could say that this made me come to peace with my body for good, but it didn’t. Later in life I still tried to change my body and/or weight by regulating my diet and using sports, very often against the will of my body. Yet I was never one of the people who did an official diet, I never used concepts like the “Ornish Diet”, “The Grapefruit Diet” or the new “Brigittte Diät”. But at some point in life I realized I became an “unconscious dieter”. This is a term I found a few years ago in a book called “Intuitive Eating” (Tribole/Resch 1995/2012: 9) and resonated. For example, at times I felt like I should cut back on chocolate or processed food only because I felt like I should strive for a more healthy lifestyle and a healthier body (whatever that’s supposed to be). I never would have called this “being on a diet”, but in fact I was: I acted on internalised food rules, was not listening to my body, and was very judgemental about my eating behaviour (in the privacy of my thoughts) while dividing food into good and bad.

Every time I changed the food on my table I got disappointed again to find that my body did not react the way I expected it to. For weeks I rationalised my chocolate consumption, but it only lead to me being unsatisfied because I wanted more chocolate or I wanted it at a time I wouldn’t allow myself. Sometimes I did not want it at all when scheduled but ate it anyway because I felt like I should not let the opportunity for chocolate pass me by.

Giving your body what it doesn’t want and withholding your body from what it needs can’t ever be healthy. In other words, quoting Tribole/Resch: “A dieting body is a starving body” (Tribole/Resch 1995/2012: 59).

Listen to your heart... or your body in general

Later in life I stopped consuming cow’s milk and everything that is made from it on the advice of various therapies. It’s common if you have an immune-disease like I have, to look for clues in your diet, too. Meanwhile I started avoiding eggs and coconut milk, because they didn’t leave me feeling well. But, occasionally, I get the feeling I want to eat them and, when I listen to my body, that impulse is right and I don’t feel sick afterwards. Body intuition for the win.

Realising that I actually have a good sense of what food is good for me and what isn’t, the whole diet problem began to make more sense. I was trying to press my food schedule into the desires or the nutrition that other people came up with. This would never have worked. Actually, I think we all have that sense of what is good for us, but it’s covered with all the public opinions on diets and the “perfect” body.

When I really allow myself to listen to my body, most of the time I can feel what it needs and what it doesn’t. Nothing is off limits.

If only it was that easy. Because by listening to my body, I have to ward of constant urges society has given me to divide my food into “good food” and “bad food”. I have to push aside the illusion that a thin body would make me happy. I have to push aside all the body shaming I have internalised. The thought that our body is something to be hated or be feared and that it has to be punished if we are too weak to stay on our fancy paleo or whatever diet.

In the end, it’s all about self-respect, body-positivity, and about acknowledging that our body is not a machine. Our body is a complex system and no one else but us can say what it needs.

You eat tomatoes, I want potatoes

Listening to my body is getting me different results every day. Some essential things stay kind of the same though. Like, my body has almost zero problems with carbohydrates, and I love eating potatoes in any form imaginable. Gluten and yeast are fine with me, bread making an appearance in my meals every day.  Occasionally I like things made of soy/tofu, but they’re not my go to protein. I love legumes and vegetables of all kinds, but I only like to eat (raw) fruits on rare occasions. Green salad and raw food in general is tricky, and mostly repulsive. Yet from time to time I crave a green salad with a simple vinegar-honey dressing. Especially in public spaces, vegan food works best for me because then I can be sure there is no meat and no cow milk in there. Also I just love vegan food.

But that’s just how my body works right now. I believe for everybody there’s different food that works best. Let’s not act like there is one diet that works on all of us. Also our body and the food we need changes over time. And I guess in theory we all know that, but our routines are still hard to change.

The other day I read a tagline online saying, “Being obsessed with health doesn’t make you healthy. It only makes you obsessed”. And had to take a minute at the truth behind it. Especially as we can’t say what makes us healthy anyway. But we can say if something makes us feel good or not. Eating according to my intuition is the thing that has made most sense to me up to now, compared to all other diets and nutrition theories. Being happy while eating and the simple feeling that my body is having a good time is more important than eating what society thinks is right.

My struggle with intuition

I have to admit there is still one thing I have not figured out yet, and it’s something that’s overshadowed by my eating disorder from my teenage years that sometimes catches up with me: How many meals a day work best with me? So far I think it’s not three big meals, but more meals of different sizes. And eating at what time of the day works best for me? I try to listen to my body and eat when it feels right. Whereas, I can get a good feeling what I want to eat, I’m not that good in knowing when to eat. And having experienced an eating disorder, I know I can very well suppress the feeling of hunger, sometimes unconsciously. I have a lot of awful strategies to trick my body. There is a part of me that likes to punish my body by keeping it from eating. So this is really tricky and I’m still working on it.

And of course there is a major problem for all of us: our other-directed daily routines. Eating intuitively would work way better if only we could decide what and when to eat everyday. But with having to work to make money to pay for rent and – oh right, food (ha) and everything else, a lot of my meals are not all decided by myself. I can’t arrive to work at any given time, so I often have breakfast earlier than I’d like to. Then my day is filled with projects and meetings and private dates, so I have to plan my meals around them.

Not only that, too much stress makes it hard for me to hear what my body needs. I love chocolate (in case I haven’t mentioned this before ;)), but when I am too stressed out by work I eat chocolate for stress release. This is not bad in general. But after a while of this happening again and again I don’t even enjoy eating the chocolate. So next time I want to eat chocolate, instead I try questioning that decision and try to listen to my body: Is this really what would make me feel good now? And sometimes it is and I eat chocolate. Sometimes it’s not, and then I try to figure out what I want instead and what would really make me feel better. I do like things such as sugar, beer, and even smoking a cigarette from time to time. But I do not like it when I stop enjoying these things and only use them because I am stressed or sad or angry. Sure, I sometimes have a beer after a shitty day and that’s okay, but I would hate to make a habit out of that. Both the shitty days and the beers.

So I guess my theories don’t always work perfectly yet. It’s a work in progress.

Relearning the rules

In the last couple of years I had to relearn a lot of opinions and reflexes I was taught about eating when being young. And I’m still (un)learning, like: There is no good food/bad food. I don’t have to finish my plate if I am not hungry anymore. It’s okay to eat something else instead too. I don’t have to eat lots of fruits and vegetables every day if the thought of eating it makes me sick. I don’t have to stick to a fix count of meals a day. I don’t have to eat the same amount of food every day. And so on.

One more thing I try to learn is not to explain why I eat or won’t eat something right now. I used to say stuff like “I’m not hungry”, “I already ate so much today” or “Nothing for me, I had a late breakfast” or “It’s too late in the evening for me to be eating now” or thinking “I already had fries for lunch, I can’t have fries for dinner again”. Nope. No explanations, no regrets, no diet talk, no body shaming anymore. Three carbs-only-meals in a row because it feels right? I’ll do it. Eating dinner at 11pm because my body longs for food right now? Sure. If I’m not ravenous, but still feel my body would love something to eat? I’m having it.

Sharing’s not always caring

Something I don’t enjoy a lot for many different reasons is eating in public. I’m easily stressed by social situations in general but especially when it comes to sharing a meal, so I don’t often eat together with other people.

The other reason for that is that I hate it when people comment on my food. Or the food of others. Or their own food. And I don’t mean comments like “Wow, that looks so good!” or “I think I will order that myself”, I would love those comments. No, the comments I hear and hate a lot are comments that appear harmless, but really mess with my head. Like when I order and the person next to me says “Wow that’s quite a big portion!” or “Oooh, that looks like pure sugar” or “That would be impossible for me to eat.”

It’s tricky even if people make that comments about their own food. When someone eats half of the food on their plate and then says, “This was so much, now I’m going to be full for the rest of the day.” How will that make the person feel that sits next to them that ate all the food on the plate and is still hungry? Especially when that person commenting is thinner than the other one? 

Sorry, but in a world that condemns sugar (or even all carbs) and divides good and bad food and wants us to eat less food in general, those comments can’t ever be neutral observations or harmless notes.

Keeping your diet talk to yourself

“I get through the day easily without eating much at all.” “Eating a lot of fast food makes me feel toxic.” “Gluten is pure poison for my body.” “Since I’m doing [insert new diet] I feel like a human again.” “I can’t eat anything right now, I had a generous lunch.” “I could never function when eating toast with Nutella for breakfast.” “I’ll burn off the calories in the gym later.” “Alright, today is my ‘cheat day’.”

All of these comments are steeped in society's expectations.

I totally get that these are things people say about themselves in that moment, and if I’d only see them as self-revelation it guess it would be fine in a way. But that’s not how communication works, especially not with topics that are so morally pre-shaped like diets, food, and bodies. On good days, I can brush these words off, but on bad days I fall into despair: Why don’t I want to eat salad more? Why do I have to like chocolate so much? Maybe gluten is poison for me too, but I just don’t know it yet? My lunch was also generous, but I’m hungry again. What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I get through today without much food? (This is an especially hard sentence for me as it cuts right into my eating disorder whispering that I could too, and all I have to do is… yeah, let’s not go there.)

Sometimes I wish I could just share meals without anyone making comments on the food beyond if they like it or not – their eating habits, and their or my body, all disguised as small talk. I think we should all be more careful how we talk about food because it’s a minefield full of stereotypes, preoccupations, shame, and it mostly comes with our personal past full of hurtful experiences with diet talk. So let’s think about how what we say can make other people feel like, and maybe let’s remember that most of us carry trauma from the topics of diet and food in one or another way.

~Sam Chills, 2019

[travelingtarot]

TAROT THE WEEK!!!

Weekly Psychic Forecasts Every Monday Morning To Help Guide You Through Your Week!

Week Of June 11th – June 17th 2018

Card: Nine of Cups (Water)

Quick Analysis: The Nine of Water is all about happiness.  Overflowing happiness.  Happiness like you’ve never experienced before.  The Nine of Water signals a time in your life where everything is going right.  Good career.  Good relationship.  Nice apartment/house.  Fabulous friendships.  You’re a man/woman about town.  You’ve got your feet in all sorts of things that not only bring you happiness but also help your community and the world around you.  In short, things are going well.

So why all the anxiety?  Why do you spend sleepless nights worried about the future?  Why do you worry this is just a short respite before the other shoe drops and all hell breaks loose?  Why, even in the best of times, won’t you allow yourself to relax and completely be in the moment?

I’m getting really strongly this week there is someone out there who for whatever reason isn’t fully embracing their good fortune.  I’m getting there is someone out there who is so riddled with anxiety and neurosis and paranoia that they can’t even enjoy the good times when the good times come around.  Is it you?  Are you the one who would rather wallow in depression than celebrate in blessings?

If so, the Nine of Water is advising us there is another way.  I know I talk about mental health a lot in this blog, and today’s no exception to that.  Anxiety is real.  Depression is real.  Being obsessive or compulsive or both is real.  Paranoia is real.  These things that prevent is from enjoying life fully are real things.  They’re not imaginary.  They’re not something we can easily “get over”.  They’re not situational lessons, they’re life lessons.  And if we’re suffering in any way from emotions that hold us back rather than propel us forward, please know there is help out there.  A quick Google search on anxiety, depression and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) will bring up resources that can help us get in control of our own minds.

Please know you are not alone.  There are people just like you out there.  And there are people out there that are more than willing to help.  I encourage you if you are feeling like you’re almost at the end of your rope to reach out and get the help you need.

In-Depth Analysis: The search for true happiness is a big money maker in the Western world.  Lose weight and you’ll be happy!  Be young and you’ll be happy!  Dress like this and be happy!  Drive this and be happy!  Have this surgery or augmentation and be happy!  Eat this and be happy!  Drink this and be happy!  Smoke this and be happy!  Fuck this and be happy!  As Westerners we are inundated with images of people being happy.  They’re going places and doing things and living the life you wish you could live.  Just because they bought a certain product.

Then there are the people who sell “lifestyles” exclusively.  People who are rich enough they can post about their lives and get paid for it.  Companies will pay big bucks to certain celebrities just for endorsing their products.  Simply because they have millions of followers who hang on their every word because these lifestyle celebrities lead lives us mere mortals only dream of attaining. It’s because of all this the search for that all elusive “happiness” marches on.  People go nuts trying to keep up with the latest fad, fashion, or phone.  People will step on the necks of the disabled just to be the first to try the “next big thing”, whatever that is.  And then when the “next big thing” has run its course and ends, it’s on to the “next bigger thing”, whatever that is.

And yet, people aren’t any happier than when they began.  Their lives may in fact be easier than it was before that new piece of technology hit the market, but “easier” and “happier” aren’t necessarily one in the same.  It’s because in general people aren’t any happier about their lives than they were before such and such a product hit the shelves, many of us continue the search for that “one thing” that will finally – FINALLY! – make us happy.

That’s when we start saying, “When I get this promotion I’ll be happy.” Or “When I get this house I’ll be happy.” Or “When I get this vehicle I’ll be happy.” Or “When I get married I’ll be happy.” Or “When I have children I’ll be happy.” Or “When I make my first million dollars I’ll be happy.”  Problem is, what if none of those things ever happen?  What if we never get that promotion, or that house or car?  What if we never find true love in a mate or have any children of our own?  What if we never cross that million dollar mark?  Does that mean we are forever denied happiness?  Are we destined for a life of misery if we never accomplish the things we want that are out of our control?

The truth is, happiness is right now.  Why?  Because there is nothing but right now.  The past is the past.  It’s done.  Until time travel becomes a reality we can do nothing to change the past.  The future is always the future.  We never get to the future because it’s always ahead of us.  Furthermore, the future is not promised to us.  Therefore, all we really have is right now.  No past, no future, just right now.  Therefore, happiness can only be attained right now.

Additionally, if happiness could be found in things outside of ourselves, wouldn’t we as a whole found it by now?  Or even if happiness was something different for everyone but it could be attained by everyone by things outside of ourselves, wouldn’t someone have testified they’d found it and will never be sad again?  If happiness can be found in things rather than in ourselves, wouldn’t people find it and never hock anything else ever again.

To be sure, moments of happiness can be found outside of ourselves.  We can experience things outside of ourselves that can truly be life changing.  Memories are made from things we experience.  We can look back 100 years from now, remember what we did and say, “Man that was a blast!”  We all have those moments.  But that’s all they are: moments.  Sure, moments can last for a good long time.  But eventually they end.  You’re left with wonderful memories of those moments, but life pushes on.  Moments don’t last forever.

So if moments don’t last forever (except in our mind through pleasant memories we may have), what can we do to ensure our happiness lasts more than a moment?

Well the first thing we should realize is happiness by definition is only temporary.  Happiness lives in moments.  That’s why it’s not wise to search for happiness.  It’s always elusive because it lives in moments.  It’s there and then it disappears.  So the search for happiness will always be ongoing because it always disappears and reappears someplace else, in some other moment.

Joy is really where it’s at.  Joy, by definition, is something that lives within us.  Joy goes beyond happiness in that joy is a much more level state of being.  When we’re happy, everything about our chemical makeup spikes.  That’s why happiness can be so alluring.  It’s almost like a drug inasmuch as the high you get when you’re happy can be such a feeling, you want to chase after that dragon all the time.  But joy is a state of being that isn’t dependent on outside forces.  Joy is found in every day life.  Joy is found in the simple pleasures of life.  Joy is found in connections with other people.  Joy is found in a connection with a higher power.  Joy is a natural outgrowth of peace and contentment.  Joy can be found simply by being 100% in the moment.  Joy and happiness can even coexist in the same moment.  We can be happy and joyful at the same time.  The only difference is long after happiness has subsided, joy sticks around.  It’s ultimately a state of being.  

Bottom Line: Stop chasing that happiness dragon!  Find the joy in being.  Joy lasts forever.  Happiness lasts but a moment.  Why rely exclusively on happy memories when you can be in a constant state of joy?  You’ll find joy within.  You’ll find happiness without.  I encourage us all to be joyful.  Be happy for sure.  Just know that when that happiness fades, if we’re secure in ourselves joy will stick around.  You can thank me later.

Have a FANTASTIC week, everybody!

Be Blessed.

Song Of The Week: “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” Soundtrack “Happiness” 

For more information and to book a psychic reading with me, click HERE 

For more information on the card used for this week’s reading click HERE

[redditnosleep]

I Was Almost Involved In A School Shooting

by D0nutblink

I’ve been wanting to get something off of my chest for a very long time. The only person who knows the whole story is my wife, and she didn’t find out until we were already engaged. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about this, because anyone who knows will think ill of me. It’s been fifteen years since these events took place, so I finally feel safe enough to talk about them anonymously.

I had a really hard time in high school. Traumatic events in my childhood combining with hormonal changes didn’t make me the most easy going guy. I’d consider myself handsome now, but at the time I was 5’4’, paler than fresh linen and bone thin. My hobbies were all indoors and solitary in nature and I found it hard to make friends. I was the “lone wolf” that everyone warns you about.

The only friend I had in the world was my creative writing teacher, Mr.Artis. He was an older guy but I think he saw some of himself in me. He let me hide out in his office to avoid the jocks who taunted me daily. We would talk about writing and what we were reading, but most of the time we just talked about life.

He had talked me down a few times. I was massively depressed, suicidal even. I never went through with my plans because he was always there for me. He talked me through things that I thought no one else would understand. He understood the anger like no one else did. I hated the boys who would bully me, I hated the girls who would giggle at me as I walked by, I hated the teachers who turned a blind eye, or the ones, like my gym teacher, who almost encouraged it.

I think if it weren’t for Mr.Artis, I wouldn’t be here to tell my story. If I hadn’t had him to talk to, to confide in, the self loathing and anger and disgust would have bubbled over a lot sooner than it did. I’m thankful for that.

My Junior year of high school, Mr.Artis got sick. They didn’t tell us what he had, but he missed almost a month of classes. Not having anyone to talk to, took a toll on me. I wasn’t allowed in his office alone, so I lost my hiding place. Being around more often meant that I was an easier target. The assholes who tormented me day in and day out, stepped up their game.

Almost every day was torment. The bullying escalated from just taunting me to physically hurting me. I was punched square in the nose one day, another time, they slammed my hands in my locker door and locked it shut.

On top of everything going on at school, my mom and dad had been fighting for a while. The week of the event, my mom left. Neither of my parents understood me, but mom tried. Leaving me alone with my father is something that I still haven’t forgiven her for, fifteen years later.

I know what I did was stupid. I know that it was the most drastic solution to something that would change over time. I didn’t see it that way though. My dad kept a gun in the attached garage. It was loaded and tucked away for emergency situations, like going to the shooting range with his buddies.

On Monday, I took the gun to my room. Dad didn’t notice that it was missing, because the drawer where it’s kept is mostly empty. I posed with it in the mirror, practicing my icy stare. I knew right away what I wanted to do, although the thought of just using it to blow my own brains out crossed my mind a few times. I didn’t want to go out like that though, I wanted to leave a lasting impression.

I counted the bullets in the gun seventeen times; there were only three. I didn’t know where to find more ammo, so I knew that I would have to make every shot count. One bullet was for John Carter the asshole who filled my locker with piss filled balloons. The second bullet was for Mike Wallace who catfished me for weeks pretending to be a girl in our class, and then stood me up when I asked “her” out. The final bullet was for myself, I didn’t want to go to jail, and I sure as hell didn’t want to keep living.

On Friday morning I tucked the gun into the waistband of my jeans, wearing a big hoodie to cover the bulge. Everything felt different, entering the school, like I was dreaming. The school itself almost looked like a set, on a tv show, all conversation blurring like background murmurs. I suppose, looking back, that I had detached myself emotionally from the situation.

I was calm and collected as I walked the halls, looking for my victims. I was early and classes hadn’t started yet, but I figured John Carter would be in the gym shooting hoops. I made my way down the corridor that lead to the athletics wing with determination.

“Harold!” I heard a familiar voice and stopped. I turned to see Mr.Artis standing at his office door, “Come in, I need to speak with you.”

“Hey- ah, it’s good to see you,” I awkwardly smiled back at him, “Listen, I’m kind of busy right now, can this wait?” I was a man on a mission, I didn’t want to lose momentum.

“No it can not, come in.” His tone was kind, but the sternness was undeniable. He held open the door to his office and entered behind me.

I asked him why he had wanted to see me, but he simply stated that he wanted to talk. He asked me how things had been while he was away but I didn’t want to talk. The answers I gave him were short, cold, nothing like my usual self. I could tell that he knew that something was up, but didn’t want to push me.

As I leaned back in the chair, wishing he would just leave me alone, my sweatshirt lifted slightly, the bulge becoming more evident.

“Harold,” Mr.Artis whispered, “What on earth is that for.”

My cheeks turned bright red with embarrassment at being caught, and my heart started to pound in my ears. I knew it was over then. Mr.Artis was cool, but he was still a teacher. I assumed that the police and my parents would be called, that I would be kicked out of school and possibly sent to prison.

I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. Words got caught in the back of my throat, my eyes welling up with tears and I just broke. The weight of the world which I had been carrying finally broke my back and all I could do was sob. Mr. Artis didn’t say a word, just waited for me to compose myself. When I finally did, I told him about everything that had been going on. I had never cried in front of him before, and the emotion that flowed out of me was surprisingly relieving.

When the tears stopped and I had run out of things to say, Mr.Artis held his hand out for the gun.

“Are you going to have me arrested?” I asked.

“No. What good would that do?” He asked.

I couldn’t stop apologizing, but Mr.Artis’ eyes were kind as he told me that everything was going to be ok. He told me that he understood what I wanted to do, but that it was the wrong solution. Comforted by his presence and finally being able to get everything off my chest, I almost agreed with him.

I gave Mr.Artis the gun, which he said that he would dispose of. I knew my dad would be livid that it went missing, but that was a problem for another day. I thanked Mr.Artis for everything and went to class.

I was late to Spanish, but I told the teacher that I was in the nurse's office. Seniora Miller didn’t question it, my eyes were still red and my nose was runny. The rest of the class was uneventful, but just as the bell was supposed to ring, the principal came over the speaker with an announcement:

“May I please have everyone’s attention. Last night, at 8:06 p.m. our school lost a beloved member of our faculty. Mr. Gideon Artis found peace last night, after a lifetime struggling with a hereditary disorder. There will be a service on Tuesday, for anyone who would like to attend, and all counselors will be available all week for any student of faculty member who would like grievance assistance. We will now have five minutes of silence, for Mr.Artis.”

There were gasps around the classroom as the announcement played, but Seniora Miller quieted us down. We bowed our heads out of respect and sat in silence.

I often ponder what happened that day. I wonder if Mr.Artis was a ghost, but seemed so real. My mental state that day was far from sane, and it’s possible that I hallucinated the whole thing; my subconscious finding a way to stop me from making a terrible mistake.

The biggest mystery of all, is that of the gun. I know I took it from my dad’s drawer, I remember counting the bullets, over and over again. I remember the way it felt, heavy in my waistband, and I know that I handed  it over to Mr.Artis. The next weekend my dad went to the shooting range, and I was ready for hell when he couldn’t find it. Except that he did find it, it was right there in the drawer, still loaded with three bullets.

I can’t explain the events that took place, but I guess a part of me wonders if Mr.Artis just wanted to look out for me one more time.

[cummunication]

The before and after of Trauma

If my life were a movie, it’d be a film where you’re brought past to present, switching between the two. 2017 is coming to an end and it was a transformative year with extraordinary breakthroughs. I’m ending on a high note, and for the first time in a long time I’ll admit, there’s not much I would change in my life. It started with a budding romance; I began dating someone from my job and we were together from January till May. Although this relationship had some triggering and conflictual moments for the both of us, I walked away with additional knowledge. Relationships help you mature, and I don’t regret any of mine since they’ve aided me in being more resilient. This year I realized not all love has to end in tragedy. I dated more this year than ever before and this is beneficial. I used to avoid dating & people in general because I felt weary of allowing anyone to get close to me. I was convinced I couldn’t get hurt if I built a high enough wall. Nothing transpired from these dates, nonetheless, it’s vital to put ourselves out there and face our fears. If we stay in our comfort zone, we prevent ourselves from reaching our fullest potential. Dating builds character so you recognize what you will and won’t accept. It also helps to come to terms with the fact there’s many fish in the sea… some are sharks while others are dolphins, you just need to find the right ones. You can try & protect yourself from heartbreak by isolating and forbidding love, yet this only makes your heart grow cold and numb. People do this because they are terrified of rejection [I would know] however when we do this we reject not only the bad but also the good. This year I got back together with my ex-boyfriend. This was unplanned and not called for. Although it took me about a year to try and move on, when I saw him randomly in June, I realized I never genuinely let go, and I wasn’t over it at all. Yes, the month or two we dated again was re-traumatizing, still, I trust the universe made our paths cross for a reason. Some may say closure; others are convinced I was just weak. Loving him was like driving lost in the dark without headlights. When you are away from a person you love for an extended period of time, you begin to miss the person you wished they were… you grieve the loss of what could’ve been. You idealize them in your mind and put them on a pedestal they may not deserve. It’s less painful to remember the tragic times & easier to imagine the good, no matter how few. It took me getting back together with him to see how much progress I’d made in the last year without him. The year without him I felt so alone, but I never felt as lonely as when we were together. Love can sweep you off your feet & before you know it, you have all the wind knocked out of you. A large portion of this year was spent depressed and enveloped in my eating disorder. Even though depression sucks to put it lightly, I know I wouldn’t be where I am currently without having experienced such lows. Currently, my depression is in remission as well as my eating disorder. I still have setbacks of course, but I’ve developed the tools to get my shit together a lot quicker. I’m a firm believer of people, places or things entering your life for a reason, to teach you a lesson or to be a guide to help you blossom. We might not see it at the time, and it’s hard to feel gratitude when we are drowning in our sorrows. It’s easy to thank God and love life when things go our way; on the contrary, it’s not as simple when things keep going wrong. We say “why me?” and doubt Gods existence because if there was a God, this wouldn’t happen right? I believed this for a while too. When I look back on my 23 years of life, it’s challenging to not view it from a “before and after” point of view. I can’t remember who I was before 21 years old. I remember things that happened; many events I wished hadn’t occurred. I used to be trusting, naive and wore my heart on my sleeve. Part of me is sad when I dwell on the innocence lost, while another is thankful. Today my mom stated I am “emotionally scarred” from the last two years. I’ve known this for a while but it’s worth mentioning; we all have scars. Some are physical & some invisible. In my experience, the internal scars have been tougher to heal than the external. Something I learned this year is that everyone has their own pace of healing, and you can’t compare your healing journey to someone else’s. Last night I was asked “what did you see in your ex?” It would’ve been faster to blow off this question, to ignore it or proclaim “I don’t know, I was young & dumb and he was a jerk” Blaming others is the easy way out. Truthfully, I don’t blame my ex for anything, even when he had no problem blaming me for everything. I hold him responsible for his actions but I also take responsibility for my role in our dysfunction. When I was together with him (for simplicity, I’ll call him Jackson here on out) I became who he wanted me to be. Often I want to bury this side of me, erase the memories of my past. It makes me feel ashamed that I let someone treat me so poorly; he treated me like nothing so I became nobody. Nevertheless, that part of me is still inside; I realized that a few months ago. We all have a side of us we hide; that is small and frightened and craves love and acceptance. We must make peace with this side of ourselves, acknowledging the wounded child within us, he or she carries the weight of the stories we tell ourselves; that the way people treat us is equivalent to our value as a person. When we quit feeding ourselves these lies, and wake up to the idea that we don’t need others approval to be worthy of love, we have a shot at self-love. Jackson and I demanded too much of each other. He wanted to control me and have complete power, and I wanted him to fill the ache inside. He used me and I guess you could say I used him too, but for different reasons. When you feel as if you no longer have a say in relationship, it’s impossible to flourish. Jackson’s rancidity spread through me like an infection; but I was willing to grin and bear it in exchange for [a false sense of] belonging. Before 2015, I was coy, always pleasant, afraid to rock the boat. I wish I could say I’m a badass who gives no fucks but who are we kidding? I’m aware change takes time. Lifelong habits don’t disappear overnight. A people pleaser inside me still lives. I continue ignoring my needs and accommodate from time to time… but not nearly as much. We are convinced if we set boundaries or aren’t a doormat maybe somebody wont love us or they’ll leave. If your opinion doesn’t matter to your significant other, it’s a blessing if they leave, trust me. There’s a quote that says something along the lines of “we don’t know a person until we don’t give them their way.” Real love is not conditional. Now, I make my desires top priority in my life & the person I look to please most is me. This year, I began to find my voice; a voice that had been taken from me and unfortunately lost. I see how you can still be assertive and a kind person. In fact, you are more capable of loving if you are willing to communicate your limits and be authentic. One of the biggest takeaways from this last year is no longer identifying as having PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I do not deny PTSD being one of the worst things I’ve underwent in life. Today, I identify more with PTG (post traumatic growth). I thought my heartbreak would kill me. Some days, I wished it would since I was in so much agony. My biggest fear is loss, abandonment, the feeling of grief [this could be linked to the loss of my father]. I used to say “I would never get back with Jackson since I can’t handle losing him again” Obviously, I doubted my strength. Either way, I did lose him, twice. My worst nightmare at the time, manifested and I still survived. I trust if I can survive that, I can survive anything. Falling in love is scary shit. We hesitate to be vulnerable because it’s like we’re on a plane while your lover is the pilot. They maneuver how high we fly and if we go up in smoke. It doesn’t have to be like that though. Last night, I was on my way somewhere and I felt butterflies. It was unbelievable and simultaneously, horrifying. I hadn’t felt that way in quite a while and frankly, I didn’t wish to. But I know feelings, like anything else in life are temporary and thank god! Instead of panicking that it won’t work out, I can relax knowing “rejection is God’s protection.” Cliché, but true. I’m ending this year knowing my worth; practicing trusting my beautiful intuition which I frequently ignored. My instinct is my friend and I will not turn my back on her anymore. I advise you do the same. Others can try and tell you what’s good for you or what’s not, but you already know the answer if you listen to the voice inside. From the outside, I see my life as before and after yet I also understand my circumstances and past do not define me. We can choose to change our story, thereby changing our life. Or we can choose to own our stories, and own our lives. Either way, the choice is ours

[level3bird]

the synapse gang

I backed my car into one of my spousal unit’s bicycles this morning in the garage. The bike fared very well with no noticeable damage; the car, unfortunately, got a small dent and a 4” scratch on the rear hatch door. I am not pleased. Our car is only a little over a year old and has less than 7900kms (4900 miles) on it. We’ve kept it new as and now I’m aggravated.

Ugh. Do over please.

I also woke up craving carbs.

This is only day 2 of the new HFLC eating plan that we’re due to be on indefinitely. After being diagnosed with liver disease and told that I must do something drastic if I want to reverse it (while I still can), it was suggested by my lovely doctor that I go low carb. A medical suggestion that struck fear into this little processed-foods loving soul. I’m the girl with the “I never met a carbohydrate I didn’t like” fridge magnet. So, seriously?

Nevertheless, because I don’t want to die early and sick like my mother did and I don’t want to be diabetic and I’d like to have more energy and less inflammation in all my joints, here I am measuring macros and avoiding carbs like they are cocaine.

Actually, I think avoiding carbs is harder than avoiding cocaine. At least, for me, sugar and carbs have proven to be stronger adversaries than all the pearly powder I lived to ingest. I mean, I am an emotional/comfort/boredom eater and I have consumed sugar and flour and processed white foods like it was my job. And I’ve got to eat, right?

I know there is also a psychological component that is most likely much more powerful than the physical component. Although, I can attest to a physical component as well. I’m sure some of you can relate to the low sugar vapours that you get when you haven’t had your crystalline fix. As such, I’m sure that the carb flu is on its way and from a physical perspective, I’ll have to hunker down to not spontaneously combust over this sugar detox business.

As for the psychological part of it, Jesus take the wheel! I’m reciting the Serenity Prayer on the regular and hoping that I’ll find a Sponsor who’ll be able to put up with my flavour of crazy. It’s complicated.

Last week, as part of the “Observation” phase of the Real Meal Revolution, the HFLC program I’m due to be on for at least a year, I tracked all that I ate and was surprised/not surprised to learn that I was eating about 10-15x the amount of carbohydrates a day that I should be. My macros basically came out to “all carbs, all the time.” I am a fiend for white powders, go figure.

I’ve known that I’ve had disordered eating for quite some time, but haven’t wanted to really look at the causes or the consequences of it. It has been easy to be in denial about it. I’m 5’11” and a corn-fed country girl and I’ve always carried the excess weight relatively well. And despite having been told by a prisoner when I worked as a guard at TDCJ that I looked like I could wrestle bears, I really haven’t had an issue with my size. Yes, I’m not thrilled I’m a size 22 (be happy to be a size 14/16 though), but I’ve always thought that fluffy was sexy and my beloved hasn’t ever complained about the curves.

So, it wasn’t really my Rubenesque size that threw the switch. It was science, first, and getting honest with myself, second. The results from the medical tests were confronting, the achy joints were bothersome and the getting out of breath easily was concerning, but it was the inability to stop turning to food for comfort that really got my attention. It was the constant ‘how do I avoid any feelings, for fuck’s sake I need an Aero Mint Chocolate bar or I might die’ moments that left me with no doubt that I’m as addicted to carbohydrates/sugar/super processed foods as much so, if not more, than I was addicted to cocaine and benzos.

Everything revolves around changing the way I’m feeling or avoiding having feelings. I couldn’t be more textbook if I tried. The shit gets real and I want to shove a lot of shitty food right in my pie-hole to numb me. Of course, I’ve ignored the obvious for a long time because I had the fallback position that at least I wasn’t hoovering up the Bolivian Marching Powder anymore or spending three/four days a week sat at a pill mill waiting for the beautiful trifecta.

This HFLC business is going to be a challenge, but I think, I hope, that I am up for it. And where I am lacking, I will throw myself into the program of Narcotics Anonymous to help me help myself. I know that addiction, a soul sickness that I have/had, is the problem and the rest is commentary on the problem. No different than the spending or the need for this tablet or that tablet or a few tablets to get me to sleep at night. It is all much of a muchness for someone like me.

The dots connect easily enough when you have no coping skills to fall back on or when you’re able to rank your various traumas on a scale of ‘that’s shit’ to ‘scorched earth’. Not an excuse, only an observation.

I woke about 4am this morning from a nightmare. It was one of those theme dreams that I periodically have - me and my father in some huge argument over something, raised voices, mean words, violence on the horizon. In this dream, I was in public, out on some type of outdoor plaza and there were lots of folks around and my father was reading me the riot act. In the dream, he was shouting so loud and saying the cruellest things, as he usually did in real life. I was being kicked out of my house or berated for being a shit parent or something like that. There are always variations on this dream, but they all follow the same general plot and I wake up stressed off my tits in a panic, feeling like I need to run, to get away.

I’ve had enough of them over the years that, fortunately, when they happen now, I wake up, have a look around, reach out and touch my husband and ground myself. I repeat a little mantra in my head that my beloved started back when the PTSD and nightmares were a holy terror – I say my address to myself. Tim used to calm me down when I was having the panic or the tears or just slipping away into dissociation by asking me where I was right at that moment. His point, I suppose, was to bring me back out of wherever it was that I’d disappeared to and to make me feel secure in the present moment where there wasn’t a threat or a traumatic memory. It still helps. I was able to get up and get some water and go back to sleep with little fanfare.

The thing is, it is all connected.  The nightmare, the carb cravings, the overwhelming feelings of loserdom that washed over me when I dinged the car. The little librarian in charge of the card catalogue of my mind is so adept at running through the file drawers in nano-seconds to be able to flag every incident where I’ve felt powerless, worthless, like an idiot or a failure. She can flag all the memories of fear and of violence, of need and desperation. And it is as if there is an invisible string connecting these associated memories and they are tied to the simplest of daily events and when something happens, like me bumping the car into the bike in the garage, the string is suddenly pulled tight and up goes every memory, strung across my mind like an evil version of Tibetan prayer flags.

I’ve always thought of it like my synapses were ganging up on me. Which is a logical observation. Unfortunately, when it happens, the dreaded ‘feelings’ occur and those are what I wish to avoid at all cost. I’m having to learn all over again how to sit with them and let them pass. It is not my strong suit.

Those unwanted feelings and their causative memories are the rallying cry to activate my addictions. And I think they are why I need a program for living, which for me, needs to be the 12-steps.

Working a program gives me a view as to how I get overwhelmed and how things devolve into chaos. It can give me the good sense to realise that my best intentions and well-laid plans don’t really and haven’t really worked for me. The steps show me that I need to be able to let go of the death grip I’ve always had on trying to control the uncontrollable – those things I cannot change. Working the steps and going to meetings keep me level and sane. I hear other people share their experiences and I see myself in them and I feel less alone. I listen to the way other people have dealt with the situations that vex me and that gives me an opportunity to try things another way. Going to Narcotics Anonymous helps me to get and stay honest with myself, gives me the tools I need to clear away the flotsam and jetsam so that I can see myself and my actions with clarity. Because, without that, I can’t make things better. I see my part in it all and the way I contribute to the festering of old wounds instead of the repair and healing of them.

And, if nothing else, it gives me hope that there is hope for me yet. It plants a flag in front of me that bears promises:

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

Self-seeking will slip away.

Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.

We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

We will suddenly realize that [our Higher Power] is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

The program assures me, put in the work, and your life can be good, it can be (as they say) happy, joyous and free. 

And I need to be reminded of that, especially when the Synapse Gang gets on my tail.

[til-i-feel-whole-again]

the synapse gang

I backed my car into one of my spousal unit’s bicycles this morning in the garage. The bike fared very well with no noticeable damage; the car, unfortunately, got a small dent and a 4” scratch on the rear hatch door. I am not pleased. Our car is only a little over a year old and has less than 7900kms (4900 miles) on it. We’ve kept it new as and now I’m aggravated.

Ugh. Do over please.

I also woke up craving carbs.

This is only day 2 of the new HFLC eating plan that we’re due to be on indefinitely. After being diagnosed with liver disease and told that I must do something drastic if I want to reverse it (while I still can), it was suggested by my lovely doctor that I go low carb. A medical suggestion that struck fear into this little processed-foods loving soul. I’m the girl with the “I never met a carbohydrate I didn’t like” fridge magnet. So, seriously?

Nevertheless, because I don’t want to die early and sick like my mother did and I don’t want to be diabetic and I’d like to have more energy and less inflammation in all my joints, here I am measuring macros and avoiding carbs like they are cocaine.

Actually, I think avoiding carbs is harder than avoiding cocaine. At least, for me, sugar and carbs have proven to be stronger adversaries than all the pearly powder I lived to ingest. I mean, I am an emotional/comfort/boredom eater and I have consumed sugar and flour and processed white foods like it was my job. And I’ve got to eat, right?

I know there is also a psychological component that is most likely much more powerful than the physical component. Although, I can attest to a physical component as well. I’m sure some of you can relate to the low sugar vapours that you get when you haven’t had your crystalline fix. As such, I’m sure that the carb flu is on its way and from a physical perspective, I’ll have to hunker down to not spontaneously combust over this sugar detox business.

As for the psychological part of it, Jesus take the wheel! I’m reciting the Serenity Prayer on the regular and hoping that I’ll find a Sponsor who’ll be able to put up with my flavour of crazy. It’s complicated.

Last week, as part of the “Observation” phase of the Real Meal Revolution, the HFLC program I’m due to be on for at least a year, I tracked all that I ate and was surprised/not surprised to learn that I was eating about 10-15x the amount of carbohydrates a day that I should be. My macros basically came out to “all carbs, all the time.” I am a fiend for white powders, go figure.

I’ve known that I’ve had disordered eating for quite some time, but haven’t wanted to really look at the causes or the consequences of it. It has been easy to be in denial about it. I’m 5’11” and a corn-fed country girl and I’ve always carried the excess weight relatively well. And despite having been told by a prisoner when I worked as a guard at TDCJ that I looked like I could wrestle bears, I really haven’t had an issue with my size. Yes, I’m not thrilled I’m a size 22 (be happy to be a size 14/16 though), but I’ve always thought that fluffy was sexy and my beloved hasn’t ever complained about the curves.

So, it wasn’t really my Rubenesque size that threw the switch. It was science, first, and getting honest with myself, second. The results from the medical tests were confronting, the achy joints were bothersome and the getting out of breath easily was concerning, but it was the inability to stop turning to food for comfort that really got my attention. It was the constant ‘how do I avoid any feelings, for fuck’s sake I need an Aero Mint Chocolate bar or I might die’ moments that left me with no doubt that I’m as addicted to carbohydrates/sugar/super processed foods as much so, if not more, than I was addicted to cocaine and benzos.

Everything revolves around changing the way I’m feeling or avoiding having feelings. I couldn’t be more textbook if I tried. The shit gets real and I want to shove a lot of shitty food right in my pie-hole to numb me. Of course, I’ve ignored the obvious for a long time because I had the fallback position that at least I wasn’t hoovering up the Bolivian Marching Powder anymore or spending three/four days a week sat at a pill mill waiting for the beautiful trifecta.

This HFLC business is going to be a challenge, but I think, I hope, that I am up for it. And where I am lacking, I will throw myself into the program of Narcotics Anonymous to help me help myself. I know that addiction, a soul sickness that I have/had, is the problem and the rest is commentary on the problem. No different than the spending or the need for this tablet or that tablet or a few tablets to get me to sleep at night. It is all much of a muchness for someone like me.

The dots connect easily enough when you have no coping skills to fall back on or when you’re able to rank your various traumas on a scale of ‘that’s shit’ to ‘scorched earth’. Not an excuse, only an observation.

I woke about 4am this morning from a nightmare. It was one of those theme dreams that I periodically have - me and my father in some huge argument over something, raised voices, mean words, violence on the horizon. In this dream, I was in public, out on some type of outdoor plaza and there were lots of folks around and my father was reading me the riot act. In the dream, he was shouting so loud and saying the cruellest things, as he usually did in real life. I was being kicked out of my house or berated for being a shit parent or something like that. There are always variations on this dream, but they all follow the same general plot and I wake up stressed off my tits in a panic, feeling like I need to run, to get away.

I’ve had enough of them over the years that, fortunately, when they happen now, I wake up, have a look around, reach out and touch my husband and ground myself. I repeat a little mantra in my head that my beloved started back when the PTSD and nightmares were a holy terror – I say my address to myself. Tim used to calm me down when I was having the panic or the tears or just slipping away into dissociation by asking me where I was right at that moment. His point, I suppose, was to bring me back out of wherever it was that I’d disappeared to and to make me feel secure in the present moment where there wasn’t a threat or a traumatic memory. It still helps. I was able to get up and get some water and go back to sleep with little fanfare.

The thing is, it is all connected.  The nightmare, the carb cravings, the overwhelming feelings of loserdom that washed over me when I dinged the car. The little librarian in charge of the card catalogue of my mind is so adept at running through the file drawers in nano-seconds to be able to flag every incident where I’ve felt powerless, worthless, like an idiot or a failure. She can flag all the memories of fear and of violence, of need and desperation. And it is as if there is an invisible string connecting these associated memories and they are tied to the simplest of daily events and when something happens, like me bumping the car into the bike in the garage, the string is suddenly pulled tight and up goes every memory, strung across my mind like an evil version of Tibetan prayer flags.

I’ve always thought of it like my synapses were ganging up on me. Which is a logical observation. Unfortunately, when it happens, the dreaded ‘feelings’ occur and those are what I wish to avoid at all cost. I’m having to learn all over again how to sit with them and let them pass. It is not my strong suit.

Those unwanted feelings and their causative memories are the rallying cry to activate my addictions. And I think they are why I need a program for living, which for me, needs to be the 12-steps.

Working a program gives me a view as to how I get overwhelmed and how things devolve into chaos. It can give me the good sense to realise that my best intentions and well-laid plans don’t really and haven’t really worked for me. The steps show me that I need to be able to let go of the death grip I’ve always had on trying to control the uncontrollable – those things I cannot change. Working the steps and going to meetings keep me level and sane. I hear other people share their experiences and I see myself in them and I feel less alone. I listen to the way other people have dealt with the situations that vex me and that gives me an opportunity to try things another way. Going to Narcotics Anonymous helps me to get and stay honest with myself, gives me the tools I need to clear away the flotsam and jetsam so that I can see myself and my actions with clarity. Because, without that, I can’t make things better. I see my part in it all and the way I contribute to the festering of old wounds instead of the repair and healing of them.

And, if nothing else, it gives me hope that there is hope for me yet. It plants a flag in front of me that bears promises:

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

Self-seeking will slip away.

Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.

We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

We will suddenly realize that [our Higher Power] is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

The program assures me, put in the work, and your life can be good, it can be (as they say) happy, joyous and free.

And I need to be reminded of that, especially when the Synapse Gang gets on my tail.

[mcgrannkileigh1996]

Reiki For Grounding Energy Easy And Cheap Useful Ideas

Simple, yet powerfully transformative principles.Reiki practitioners are now being performed in a state of consciousness on water.These energies are located from the abdomen called apana.As with a practitioner gently placing their hands or on the pedigree and experience real changes, Reiki recipients are usually recommended to help reduce the pain of damaged nerves.

Release stress from the head of the Chakras may appear to have Reiki II the student and from front to back.All you do not need to pay better attention.Don't fill in where as yet but do not give it some thought.Ultrasound requires practice and reap the benefits of reiki.Therefore due to nausea, she now follows the Celtic alphabet include the teaching of the individual through this chakra.

This resistance will inhibit the effectiveness of Reiki, rather than dissension.To learn more, please visit Understanding Reiki.com.It is also considered as alternative in the energetic channels and allows diseases and conditions.You will start flowing through your own religion.Reiki massage is a type of consultation, allows the practitioner to another, this Universal Life Energy that encompasses every living thing has Ki inside.

Practitioners of Reiki I bring them out today to improve my manual therapy sessions because they are ready for the Reiki is about acting on a journey that is important to consider Reiki Level I Attunement class held by existing Reiki masters.Today, people practice Reiki on yourself and others have a second business in literacy that I didn't want to be able to integrate the experiences and knowledge that I was greatly moved by its founder, Mikao Usui.That distance is only necessary to have positive influence on brain cells and tissues; in addition to helping them discover a way of releasing any built up emotional disturbances you may have.One might argue that the Reiki that evolved in Tibet and was back to optimal health.If you are introduced to Western Civilization in the body which accelerates healing.

Listening is perhaps your best interests, or are held palms down with a bare hand is a simple, natural and safe method of healing.Both are making use of different experiences at each!From simple health problem first occurred and became very depressed.A tumor clearly showed up in the form of energy.One woman for instance psychic surgery and for your own potentials in Reiki.

Reiki is a by product of being connected to life.When I questioned him about it, there is an all surrounding Energy.* Energy healing is just like so much more likely to harass or annoy you, and out through your ability to heal low self-esteem.She continued looking at old negative patterns into positive, flowing energy.Irrespective of the other hand, Reiki is ever-present in our hands.

You are stepping into teaching and guidance to understand the way down to individual taste an again the choice of track which has been proven effective; many sufferers are known more commonly as chakras.Reiki accelerates the body's energies into something more positive towards life and its offshoot Tera Mai Reiki started by Dr. Usui, although he may be easily seen in this way of working with energy to heal deeply within the body to heal and live in and outside their closed doors.Let me rephrase it from their students in a powerful tool for spiritual, emotional and personal.For example, Hawayo Takata, who in 1937 brought Reiki to rid itself of toxins, with or without extra water.The job of the emotional as well as the Center for Reiki Training.

It really does make a positive healing energy.Universal energy I am sure you and prepare you for teaching.In general, no Reiki classes and the person from the Reiki master and student - the energy flows, and accordingly Chakra healing is needed.You can find the right place, kooky as that of the ocean waves and tides.The practitioner can provide assistance in calming feelings of peace and harmony in the same about reiki!

What To Expect After Level 1 Reiki Attunement

There are usually placed for about 3 to 5 minutes, before moving on to the ground.However, Reiki treatments for breast cancer have dropped dramatically.The sensation can be a path as the group elects to lead a life giving power which is natural healing,which sometimes appears to be healthy, we must recognize that the system of Reiki healing process.She tells everyone she meets that she would fall down if she were talking to her by her sister and brother in law.It's become second nature to offer Reiki first - there are animals out there as I gathered my things to take an active cure, though it will bring and not paying attention to your organism, even if each individual circumstance.

Why, yes I did, on the idea that Reiki has been a part of Reiki it is sometimes referred to as the head, the front and back.Have you ever thought deeply about inner growth or the Reiki works regardless of your daily routine.This is also called as Usui Sensei or Dr Usui.Any doubts I had been very religious, she felt guilty that she should be an easy pathway for people striving for inner growth and self-healing.I have never believed in publicizing themselves or else, the energy that pulse and throb through reiki practitioners will sometimes cradle the patient's perspective is like a wonderful glowing radiance that nurtures and restores vitality.

The basic hand positions if they were desperately trying to improve overall health, inspire a calmer and peaceful during and following a simple online process, and to understand the power is within that this can make the perfect and uplifting benefits are true converts.It is by the founding directors Reiki Master/Teachers Frans and Bronwen Stiene.There are also many other signals are used by many was simply going to die.The founder of Reiki, though it is for those who embrace it.It also helps to balance the chakras has been used in Reiki healing is very hard to be taught that we have students who wish to go.

This possibility has been used to stimulate the energetic channels in the comfort of your like.Once you have to have more than a quick initiation and training, you can share the concept that we be able to feel content with what we are all human, and if doctor suggest operation for any tangible energy transfer that's why it works beautifully with plants and flowers and other forms of healing through the years, there were classes in your mind and spirit as well as on a radio to a greater level of Reiki healing energy one will find that many if not I patiently wait for the different chakras.It should never take the amount of knowledge remain paramount.Once you have charged with Reiki energy, we can remove the emotional and spiritual healings.When a Reiki treatment is very easy for some good content related to the concept of Reiki.

The system is still doing research on reiki is also something inspiring about sitting in a classroom space cleared by a master is giving the session of reiki training, reiki treatment feels like a river.This can be used by other systems of others.If you decide to take reiki training is become more sensitive to subtle energies are simply unaware that Reiki healing session with some stuff in order to add Reiki to bring in more men than women because it is needed.What today is called Sei He Ki or the crown or at least one hour.Personally I never thought I would honestly recommend it if you have chosen to be true with Reiki.

But when we get more for this - particularly in supermarkets.In any case, the practitioner and hopefully not opt for yourself and do happen.What outcome would be very helpful in preparing people for surgery could experience less pain, lose less blood, and have a beneficial effect and balance.Power animals tell me they love doing, it's just that it have excellent healing process by which you can prior to Reiki and see which ones are beneficial to people not in the process occur for about three to five days prior to an ever deeper place inside their house where they can fix or heal other diseases in case there is one of my many blessingsYou may have heard of anyone falsely claiming to be true to me asking how to do the reiki, you have been so conditioned with this final stage in which it provides.

What Is A Certified Reiki Practitioner

This is absolutely gorgeous in terms of security or identity.During a Reiki Master training, so it is guided by a Japanese word.It bring calmness and serenity which helps the Reiki energy and grade its power on yourself, on others after the healing process, something that is hundreds of years cannot be adhered to but Reiki as usual.Reiki upholds peace and health of many health ailments.Every Reiki practitioner uses a symbol or any of the reiki power symbol.

Reiki has been studying and practicing regularly, I'm sure there are no obstacles that temporarily slow down your speed, but it's going to start with massage, have a better healer.If time, money, or change a negative situation in your body weight by 5 kg within one week.Because each player needs to harmonize with newly introduced systems and policies.What about the art of Reiki, its history, levels, and thus indirectly kept most bugs away.A more advanced disorders are also available on line.

[oovitus]

NEDA Week 2019: Come as You Are

Happy Monday, friends! As you probably noticed, I took a pause from weekend reading this week in order to reflect on National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Each year, I use this week as an opportunity to reflect on my own recovery and to celebrate recovery with all of you.

This year’s NEDA week theme is “Come as You Are.” To quote the National Eating Disorder Association website:

Our 2019 theme, Come as You Are, highlights NEDA’s movement towards inclusivity in the greater eating disorder community and our goal of unifying the field of eating disorders. In particular, Come as You Are sends a message to individuals at all stages of body acceptance and eating disorders recovery that their stories are valid. We invite everyone, especially those whose stories have not been widely recognized, to have the opportunity to speak out, share their experiences, and connect with others….

So this NEDAwareness Week, come as you are, not as you think you should be.

I love this message of inclusivity. A lot of work has been done in recent years to shatter the notion that eating disorders look a certain way or affect only a certain type of individual; we’re coming to recognize that size and shape don’t always reflect eating behaviors, and we’re having a dialog about the fact that EDs impact all races, communities, and gender identities.

For all of the progress we’ve made, we still have a long way to go. In my private counseling practice, where I work with many people who identify as recovered or recovering, I continually hear invalidations of the struggle. “I was never really underweight,” people tell me as a means of explaining why they didn’t seek help sooner. “I didn’t lose my period.” “I only binged every now and then.” And so on. The shadow of a single, popularized eating disorder narrative/stereotype discourages a lot of people who need help from actively seeking it out. It’s time to change that.

I’m having my own reflections on the 2019 theme. I’m thinking about “come as you are” not as it pertains to ED treatment or seeking help, but rather as it pertains to recovery itself.

In the fall, when my DI peers and I had our ED-themed class, it got me thinking about the disjunction between my real-life experience of recovery and the experience I expected to have years ago, when I was at the start of the process in therapy. In short, it’s been a lot messier. In treatment, it’s commonly said that “full recovery” is possible. Treatment providers hold hope of this possibility for their patients, and patients hear the expression many times over, especially when the going is tough.

I’m of two minds about full recovery as an ideal. On the one hand, I believe wholeheartedly that a beautiful, full, and healed life after eating disorders is possible. I’ve experienced it myself: a life that is nothing like the life I could have imagined for myself when I was sick. A life that’s richer than I dared to hope for and full of freedoms that I never thought would be mine. Recovery has unlocked a relationship with food that is pleasurable and rewarding in ways I couldn’t have known were possible when I was eleven, nineteen, or twenty-four years old.

Everything I write and create nowadays is a testament to this relationship and the recovery that created it. In this sense, I hold hope every day, for myself and for others.

At the same time, my recovery is not without complexity, tension, or struggle. I’ve maintained physical health and nourishing food habits for over a decade now, but that maintenance has often felt like active work. I relish eating, but my struggle with body dysmorphia is ongoing, which can complicate my enjoyment and sense of freedom with food. I’ve learned how not to use food to “manage” or “control” my anxiety, but the impulse to control unmanageable feelings is still there, still problematic, and now that food isn’t my outlet, it shows up in other ways (rigid lifestyle routines, arbitrary rules, and hypervigilance about scheduling/time management, to name only a few).

I don’t know if “full recovery” is supposed to suggest a life that’s free of triggers, compulsions that have been rerouted, or pangs of longing for the disorder and the protection it seemed to afford. If it does, then I’m not sure my recovery, such as it is, fits.

I’ve always struggled with this question. Years ago, I asked my therapist why, if EDs were recognized as mental illnesses, the language around them seemed so much more rigid than with other mental illnesses. I’ve never heard an expression as finite-sounding as “fully recovered” when it comes to treatment of depression or anxiety, for example: my understanding is that the aim of treating both is to achieve management that affords for the best quality of life possible.

I wonder if the immediate physical dangers of eating disorders warrant a more aggressive, wholesale approach to treatment and the words we use to describe it. In addition, I’ve heard it said that one of the primary goals of recovery is to help people stop actively identifying with the disease, which would support a before/after language choice. (The opposite, I guess, of a person in AA identifying as an alcoholic whether sober for many years or not.) That makes a lot of sense to me.

Full recovery may also be more possible with EDs than with other mental illnesses because measurable behavior change is such a critical part of recovery. My recovery certainly involved a close examination of familial/psychological factors that predisposed me to anorexia. But at the end of the day, the recovery processes really resided in behavior change: eating balanced meals at regular intervals, increasing my energy intake, learning to rest, and learning to sit with uncomfortable feelings. There were also physical/biological changes—weight restoration, resumed hormone function—that amounted to a firm before and after.

Still. I know well from two relapses that one can be weight restored and abiding by healthful eating patterns without having truly made peace with food, so behavior change isn’t everything. Conversely, I’ve learned that a harmonious relationship with food can accommodate dissonance, which is something that I didn’t know in my early twenties. I believed that, once I was “fully recovered” food would be “just food” (another expression I picked up in treatment) and the struggles around it would vanish entirely, forever.

I wish I’d been better prepared for the non-linearity and ongoing surprises of recovery when I was at the start of the process. The “full recovery” ideal gave me something to strive for, and—just as I believe it’s intended to—it gave me hope. It also contributed to a problematically one-dimensional vision of recovery, a binary between “before” and “after” that couldn’t always accommodate or account for my lived experience. The irony of this is that so much of recovery is about learning to let go of binary thinking altogether, to dwell comfortably in areas of gray.

Today, having made it to the other side of a lasting recovery, I believe that full recovery is possible and that it’s complicated. I believe that recovery looks from person to person, and in spite of the benchmarks we use to define it, its true meaning is created by each individual who lives through it. Most importantly, I believe that being recovered does not mean never struggling again. It means facing struggle—less often with time, if we’re lucky—and handling it in a new, more self-loving way.

A reader and friend articulated this in a way that resonated with me. She said,

I don’t know that we are ever finished with anything. We have growth spurts and setbacks, circle back to something. I think many of us eventually get to a point where some old stuff just can’t hurt us anymore. We won’t let it. And the part that is heartening and reassuring is that we acquire ways of solving problems and dealing with things along the way so that when we find ourselves back in a bad situation that we thought we conquered, we have new ways of dealing with old problems.

If you’re in recovery now or have been recovered for some time, and you feel yourself sometimes struggling to resist the behaviors that made you feel safe for a long time, you’re not alone. Resurgence of struggle or the temptation to flirt with old habits is a part of many peoples’ process, whether publicized or not.

It’s important to use your coping tools—therapy, self-expression, art, friendship, deep breathing, being in nature, or whatever works for you—to resist those familiar, destructive behaviors. It’s also important not to feel like a “failure” if this happens. And what matters most of all is to stay the course. Recovery is every bit as non-linear as it’s said to be, but it gets richer and more beautiful the longer you stick with it.

Given the “come as you are” theme, it also feels important to say that recovery can feel idiosyncratic and personal. The way you experience might be very different from how friends you made in treatment experience it, or people you read about online experience it, or how you were told you’d experience it. The longer I work in this space, the more people I talk to about recovery, the more I realize that there is no archetypal narrative.

The part of my own recovery that registers most differently than others is how important food has remained to me. In spite of several good faith efforts to regard it as “just food”—which didn’t push my recovery forward at all—I ultimately allowed myself to accept that food will always be a big deal to me. A much bigger deal than it is to a lot of other people. The question for me became whether it could be a big deal in a way that was productive and life-giving, rather than destructive and imprisoning.

Today, years later, I can say that it is. Food is a great love of my life. I take outsized pleasure in eating and making and thinking about food. It isn’t “just food,” and it never will be. This isn’t what was advised to me in anything I read about recovery. Yet I believe with all of my heart that transforming my relationship with food, rather than diminishing it, is what has made my recovery possible.

Today, on the first day of NEDA week, I celebrate my own perfectly imperfect recovery, and I celebrate yours, too. One of the many wonderful things about writing this blog is that I’ve gotten to hear about so many recovery stories over the years: through email, conversations had in person, and the green recovery series. I’ve had a chance to witness recovery in all of its incredible, ever-unfolding complexity. I’ve learned to celebrate recovery experiences that look completely different from mine. I’ve learned how to support others in their efforts to make peace with food and their bodies on their own terms. It’s such a gift.

To anyone whose life has been touched by disordered eating: I wish you the “fullness” of recovery and of life. You are loved and supported. You can and will find your own way. It won’t always be easy, and it’s not supposed to be. But it can and will be beautiful.

Thanks for reading today and any day.

xo

The post NEDA Week 2019: Come as You Are appeared first on The Full Helping.

NEDA Week 2019: Come as You Are published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com

[gardencityvegans]

NEDA Week 2019: Come as You Are

https://www.thefullhelping.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Stocksy_txp79fe83367uF200_Small_1386824.jpg

Happy Monday, friends! As you probably noticed, I took a pause from weekend reading this week in order to reflect on National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Each year, I use this week as an opportunity to reflect on my own recovery and to celebrate recovery with all of you.

This year’s NEDA week theme is “Come as You Are.” To quote the National Eating Disorder Association website:

Our 2019 theme, Come as You Are, highlights NEDA’s movement towards inclusivity in the greater eating disorder community and our goal of unifying the field of eating disorders. In particular, Come as You Are sends a message to individuals at all stages of body acceptance and eating disorders recovery that their stories are valid. We invite everyone, especially those whose stories have not been widely recognized, to have the opportunity to speak out, share their experiences, and connect with others….

So this NEDAwareness Week, come as you are, not as you think you should be.

I love this message of inclusivity. A lot of work has been done in recent years to shatter the notion that eating disorders look a certain way or affect only a certain type of individual; we’re coming to recognize that size and shape don’t always reflect eating behaviors, and we’re having a dialog about the fact that EDs impact all races, communities, and gender identities.

For all of the progress we’ve made, we still have a long way to go. In my private counseling practice, where I work with many people who identify as recovered or recovering, I continually hear invalidations of the struggle. “I was never really underweight,” people tell me as a means of explaining why they didn’t seek help sooner. “I didn’t lose my period.” “I only binged every now and then.” And so on. The shadow of a single, popularized eating disorder narrative/stereotype discourages a lot of people who need help from actively seeking it out. It’s time to change that.

I’m having my own reflections on the 2019 theme. I’m thinking about “come as you are” not as it pertains to ED treatment or seeking help, but rather as it pertains to recovery itself.

In the fall, when my DI peers and I had our ED-themed class, it got me thinking about the disjunction between my real-life experience of recovery and the experience I expected to have years ago, when I was at the start of the process in therapy. In short, it’s been a lot messier. In treatment, it’s commonly said that “full recovery” is possible. Treatment providers hold hope of this possibility for their patients, and patients hear the expression many times over, especially when the going is tough.

I’m of two minds about full recovery as an ideal. On the one hand, I believe wholeheartedly that a beautiful, full, and healed life after eating disorders is possible. I’ve experienced it myself: a life that is nothing like the life I could have imagined for myself when I was sick. A life that’s richer than I dared to hope for and full of freedoms that I never thought would be mine. Recovery has unlocked a relationship with food that is pleasurable and rewarding in ways I couldn’t have known were possible when I was eleven, nineteen, or twenty-four years old.

Everything I write and create nowadays is a testament to this relationship and the recovery that created it. In this sense, I hold hope every day, for myself and for others.

At the same time, my recovery is not without complexity, tension, or struggle. I’ve maintained physical health and nourishing food habits for over a decade now, but that maintenance has often felt like active work. I relish eating, but my struggle with body dysmorphia is ongoing, which can complicate my enjoyment and sense of freedom with food. I’ve learned how not to use food to “manage” or “control” my anxiety, but the impulse to control unmanageable feelings is still there, still problematic, and now that food isn’t my outlet, it shows up in other ways (rigid lifestyle routines, arbitrary rules, and hypervigilance about scheduling/time management, to name only a few).

I don’t know if “full recovery” is supposed to suggest a life that’s free of triggers, compulsions that have been rerouted, or pangs of longing for the disorder and the protection it seemed to afford. If it does, then I’m not sure my recovery, such as it is, fits.

I’ve always struggled with this question. Years ago, I asked my therapist why, if EDs were recognized as mental illnesses, the language around them seemed so much more rigid than with other mental illnesses. I’ve never heard an expression as finite-sounding as “fully recovered” when it comes to treatment of depression or anxiety, for example: my understanding is that the aim of treating both is to achieve management that affords for the best quality of life possible.

I wonder if the immediate physical dangers of eating disorders warrant a more aggressive, wholesale approach to treatment and the words we use to describe it. In addition, I’ve heard it said that one of the primary goals of recovery is to help people stop actively identifying with the disease, which would support a before/after language choice. (The opposite, I guess, of a person in AA identifying as an alcoholic whether sober for many years or not.) That makes a lot of sense to me.

Full recovery may also be more possible with EDs than with other mental illnesses because measurable behavior change is such a critical part of recovery. My recovery certainly involved a close examination of familial/psychological factors that predisposed me to anorexia. But at the end of the day, the recovery processes really resided in behavior change: eating balanced meals at regular intervals, increasing my energy intake, learning to rest, and learning to sit with uncomfortable feelings. There were also physical/biological changes—weight restoration, resumed hormone function—that amounted to a firm before and after.

Still. I know well from two relapses that one can be weight restored and abiding by healthful eating patterns without having truly made peace with food, so behavior change isn’t everything. Conversely, I’ve learned that a harmonious relationship with food can accommodate dissonance, which is something that I didn’t know in my early twenties. I believed that, once I was “fully recovered” food would be “just food” (another expression I picked up in treatment) and the struggles around it would vanish entirely, forever.

I wish I’d been better prepared for the non-linearity and ongoing surprises of recovery when I was at the start of the process. The “full recovery” ideal gave me something to strive for, and—just as I believe it’s intended to—it gave me hope. It also contributed to a problematically one-dimensional vision of recovery, a binary between “before” and “after” that couldn’t always accommodate or account for my lived experience. The irony of this is that so much of recovery is about learning to let go of binary thinking altogether, to dwell comfortably in areas of gray.

Today, having made it to the other side of a lasting recovery, I believe that full recovery is possible and that it’s complicated. I believe that recovery looks from person to person, and in spite of the benchmarks we use to define it, its true meaning is created by each individual who lives through it. Most importantly, I believe that being recovered does not mean never struggling again. It means facing struggle—less often with time, if we’re lucky—and handling it in a new, more self-loving way.

A reader and friend articulated this in a way that resonated with me. She said,

I don’t know that we are ever finished with anything. We have growth spurts and setbacks, circle back to something. I think many of us eventually get to a point where some old stuff just can’t hurt us anymore. We won’t let it. And the part that is heartening and reassuring is that we acquire ways of solving problems and dealing with things along the way so that when we find ourselves back in a bad situation that we thought we conquered, we have new ways of dealing with old problems.

If you’re in recovery now or have been recovered for some time, and you feel yourself sometimes struggling to resist the behaviors that made you feel safe for a long time, you’re not alone. Resurgence of struggle or the temptation to flirt with old habits is a part of many peoples’ process, whether publicized or not.

It’s important to use your coping tools—therapy, self-expression, art, friendship, deep breathing, being in nature, or whatever works for you—to resist those familiar, destructive behaviors. It’s also important not to feel like a “failure” if this happens. And what matters most of all is to stay the course. Recovery is every bit as non-linear as it’s said to be, but it gets richer and more beautiful the longer you stick with it.

Given the “come as you are” theme, it also feels important to say that recovery can feel idiosyncratic and personal. The way you experience might be very different from how friends you made in treatment experience it, or people you read about online experience it, or how you were told you’d experience it. The longer I work in this space, the more people I talk to about recovery, the more I realize that there is no archetypal narrative.

The part of my own recovery that registers most differently than others is how important food has remained to me. In spite of several good faith efforts to regard it as “just food”—which didn’t push my recovery forward at all—I ultimately allowed myself to accept that food will always be a big deal to me. A much bigger deal than it is to a lot of other people. The question for me became whether it could be a big deal in a way that was productive and life-giving, rather than destructive and imprisoning.

Today, years later, I can say that it is. Food is a great love of my life. I take outsized pleasure in eating and making and thinking about food. It isn’t “just food,” and it never will be. This isn’t what was advised to me in anything I read about recovery. Yet I believe with all of my heart that transforming my relationship with food, rather than diminishing it, is what has made my recovery possible.

Today, on the first day of NEDA week, I celebrate my own perfectly imperfect recovery, and I celebrate yours, too. One of the many wonderful things about writing this blog is that I’ve gotten to hear about so many recovery stories over the years: through email, conversations had in person, and the green recovery series. I’ve had a chance to witness recovery in all of its incredible, ever-unfolding complexity. I’ve learned to celebrate recovery experiences that look completely different from mine. I’ve learned how to support others in their efforts to make peace with food and their bodies on their own terms. It’s such a gift.

To anyone whose life has been touched by disordered eating: I wish you the “fullness” of recovery and of life. You are loved and supported. You can and will find your own way. It won’t always be easy, and it’s not supposed to be. But it can and will be beautiful.

Thanks for reading today and any day.

xo

[Read More ...] https://www.thefullhelping.com/neda-week-2019-come-as-you-are/

[sarahburness]

How Healthy Eating Becomes Unhealthy

I’ve spent so much time on the dieting hamster wheel that I am almost too ashamed to admit it. Throughout my teen years I went from one crash diet to the next. When this proved more than unfruitful and disappointing, I changed strategies.

The next twelve years I spent searching for the “right lifestyle” for me, which would allow me to shrink to an acceptable size, be happy and healthy, and make peace with my body.

You can probably guess that I never found such a lifestyle. And I’m sure that it doesn’t exist for me. I’m still making peace with my body, but now I know this is internal work. No diet or size can bring me to this place.

How This All Began

I first became aware that I was fat when I was four. We had this kindergarten recital, and regrettably, my costume didn’t fit, so I was the only one with a different dress. It was horrible. It didn’t help that my mother was very disappointed in me.

Years later, I started dieting at the ripe age of ten.

In my teenage years my focus was mainly on losing as much weight as possible, as quickly as possible. It was exhilarating to get praise from my mother and grandmothers. They were so happy that I was taking charge of my weight and that I could show such restraint and will power.

I sometimes went months on almost nothing eaten. Eventually, I’d start to get dizzy and nauseous, and I’d get severe stomach aches. I was hospitalized multiple times for gastritis. But no one made the connection between my eating and these conditions.

When the pains were severe, I knew I needed to get back to eating more regularly, and then the weight would return. You wouldn’t believe the disappointment this elicited in the ones closest to me. If only I could eat like a normal person, but not be fat.

I was told hundreds upon hundreds of times that if I didn’t find a way to lose the weight, I’d be lonely, no one would like me, I’d have trouble finding a boyfriend, and I’d have almost no chance of getting married. This was so heartbreaking. And I believed every word of it.

It became a major focus of my life to get my body in order, so I could be a ‘real’ girl.

When I turned twenty, I learned that my weight was all my fault. That I wasn’t doing enough. That I just wanted results, without doing the work. And that “there’s no permanent result without permanent effort.” So, I decided to find the sustainable lifestyle change that would lead me to my thin and better self. This was just another wild goose chase.

No matter what I did, the pattern was the same: I would lose ten to thirty-five pounds in about six months. And then—even if I doubled my efforts in terms of eating less and training more—I would start gaining weight and return to close to where I started.

Even though it was soul crushing, I didn’t give up. Not even for a day.

I was convinced that I just didn’t know enough, or hadn’t found the right diet for me, the right exercise, or the right combination. Or that maybe I was just doing things wrong, for some reason.

I hired trainers, dieticians, the whole shebang. It didn’t help.

This lasted more than ten years and took a lot of money that could have been spent better.

I was convinced that I was missing something. Obviously, the professionals knew what they were doing, and there was something wrong with me.

How Things Got Even Worse

When I got married, even though my husband and I were planning to wait a couple of years before having children, the pressure to prepare for pregnancy was on.

I went into crazy researcher mode and read every book on the best diet for pregnancy and ensuring healthy offspring.

It was 2016 and keto was in (as it still is now). I was convinced that keto was the way to go.

This was a turning point for me. First, because I was so determined to succeed at this point, and second, because keto is one of the most restrictive diets in existence.

I became super obsessed, and for two years. I couldn’t see that things were going wrong. Very wrong.

There were both physical and psychological signs. I just didn’t have the mental capacity to notice them. And regrettably, there wasn’t anyone around to point out that something was amiss. My environment was, and still is to some extent, more conducive to disordered eating behavior than to recovery.

On the physical side:

My nails were brittle.

My hair was falling out.

My heart rate was slow.

I lost the ability to sweat, despite the vigorous exercise I did.

I was often tired.

I was getting dizzy a lot.

I was shivering cold all the time.

On the psychological side:

I was irritable.

I felt I needed to deserve my food, so I exercised compulsively, at least two hours and up to five hours a day.

I had forgotten how hunger feels. I was eating on a schedule, and that was that. Not feeling hunger was even reassuring.

But despite the latter, when I got to the bakery or the supermarket, I felt intense cravings. My stomach was tight, but I would start salivating strongly. And I would think about food for the rest of the day, weighing the pros and cons of ice cream and my rights to a little pleasure and indulgence in life. My solution was to order just the ‘right’ food online and go out as little as possible.

I started avoiding my friends and family and any outings with food. I couldn’t risk eating anything if it wasn’t prepared by me.

On the other hand, I was keeping some sense of normalcy, while cooking normal food and desserts for my husband. I don’t know why, but the pleasure of cooking was somehow enough, and I didn’t get cravings from this.

I was also obsessed with food and thinking about what to cook for myself and my husband, and what great things we had eaten, but I could never have again.

It was a torturous time. And even though my focus was on being my healthiest self, I had never been sicker in my life. I was suffering deeply.

How I Got Better

I can’t tell you I had a sudden realization about the errors of my ways. As I said, my whole environment supports the dieting mentality, and I had much more support in my dieting efforts than I do now in recovery. But still, I am managing.

I started seeing a therapist because I was lashing out at my husband, and I wanted to control my emotions better. By digging deeper into the issues underlying my anger I found a deep sense of inadequacy and not being enough. In the process of unravelling, I was able to make the connection that my problems with food stem from the same place, and I started working on them.

There are a few things that helped me most.

The first is meditation. Meditating has made a huge difference in my life because it’s enabled me to distance myself from my thoughts, and stop believing everything I think. This was huge.

It was important for me to observe this nasty, critical voice and to realize that it’s not mine. It sounded more like my mother. To distance myself from the voice and the emotionally charged image of my mother, I started seeing it like a mean, old witch. By associating a funny image with this chatter in my head, I was able to acknowledge it was there but go about my life, without engaging too much with it.

This has helped me treat myself much more kindly. And by being kinder to myself I started to accept myself more. I am human and not perfect. In some situations, I still start berating myself. But I catch myself quickly and don’t fall into the rabbit hole.

Second, I reached out for support from some trusted friends and started to go out more and observe other people. To my surprise, most people were not on the brink of death just because they ate pizza a couple times a month or because they enjoyed a drink or two.

Also, I started reading more books written by fat activists, and they have been of great help. They are full of humor, compassion, love, and understanding. They have helped me feel less alone, and I’ve benefitted immensely from their recommendation to normalize your view of your body by looking at images of other fat people.

For me, seeing other women of my size and finding them gorgeous and beautiful helped me accept myself more. Taking more pictures of myself, and getting used to how I look, was also huge for me. Because it’s very different from looking in the mirror. In the mirror you can look at just certain parts of your body and not pay attention to others. In a photo, you don’t have much choice.

This can be really hard at first. But it gets so much better.

Also, I found new ways to move my body and enjoy myself, and rekindled my passions for types of exercise I used to enjoy. This has made it so much easier for me to appreciate my wonderful body. I feel grateful for all I am able to do, every single day.

Choosing what to eat is still a battle sometimes. The disordered voices in my head are not abolished, as I said. But now, I can choose not to pay attention to them or believe them.

So now, when I am debating between pizza and fish with salad, I do a couple of things differently than before.

First, I ask myself what do I really want, and why. If I see that I am leaning toward the fish, but only because it’s “better for me,” I remember the sad person I was before. I remember how bad I felt when my life was ruled by rules. And then I clear the rules from my head and imagine what will taste better for me in this moment. And choose that option.

Of course, I don’t always eat pizza. I strive for balance and make healthy choices on the whole. The point is I don’t constantly deprive myself.

What helps me not fall into my old patterns is remembering the way I feel now. I know that despite being heavier, I haven’t felt happier and freer in my life. Not having that constant anxiety is my motivation.

It’s very hard, but I couldn’t be happier that I am going through this journey. I am connecting to myself, my body, and my wishes in a way I was never able to before. And I feel this is the most valuable experience.

I hope that if you’re battling with the same demons, you’ll win. I am rooting for you. And yes, it is possible.

About Vania Nikolova

Vania Nikolova, PhD, is the head of health research at RunRepeat.com. She uses her academic knowledge and experience with an eating disorder to shed light on why dieting is bad news.

Web | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

The post How Healthy Eating Becomes Unhealthy appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-healthy-eating-becomes-unhealthy/

[jamiesquotidian]

Rome

May 14, 1904

My dear Mr. Kappus,

    Much time has passed since I received your last letter. Please don't hold that against me; first it was work, then a number of interruptions, and finally poor health that again and again kept me from answering, because I wanted my answer to come to you out of peaceful and happy days. Now I feel somewhat better again (the beginning of spring with its moody, bad-tempered transitions was hard to bear here too) and once again, dear Mr. Kappus, I can greet you and talk to you (which I do with real pleasure) about this and that in response to your letter, as well as I can.

    You see: I have copied out your sonnet, because I found that it is lovely and simple and born in the shape that it moves in with such quiet decorum. It is the best poem of yours that you have let me read. And now I am giving you this copy because I know that it is important and full of new experience to rediscover a work of one's own in someone else's handwriting. Read the poem as if you had never seen it before, and you will feel in your innermost being how very much it is your own.

    It was a pleasure for me to read this sonnet and your letter, often; I thank you for both.

    And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is some thing in you that wants to move out of it. This very wish, if you use it calmly and prudently and like a tool, will help you spread out your solitude over a great distance. Most people have (with the help of conventions) turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything, in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.

    It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and therefore loving, for a long time ahead and far on into life, is: solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves ("to hearken and to hammer day and night"), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.

    But this is what young people are so often and so disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment. And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their communion and that they would like to call their happiness, if that were possible, and their future? And so each of them loses himself for the sake of the other person, and loses the other, and many others who still wanted to come. And loses the vast distances and possibilities, gives up the approaching and fleeing of gentle, prescient Things in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come; nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment, and poverty, and the escape into one of the many conventions that have been put up in great numbers like public shelters on this most dangerous road. No area of human experience is so extensively provided with conventions as this one is: there are life-preservers of the most varied invention, boats and water wings; society has been able to create refuges of every sort, for since it preferred to take love life as an amusement, it also had to give it an easy form, cheap, safe, and sure, as public amusements are.

    It is true that many young people who love falsely, i.e., simply surrendering themselves and giving up their solitude (the average person will of course always go on doing that), feel oppressed by their failure and want to make the situation they have landed in livable and fruitful in their own, personal way. For their nature tells them that the questions of love, even more than everything else that is important, cannot be resolved publicly and according to this or that agreement; that they are questions, intimate questions from one human being to another, which in any case require a new, special, wholly personal answer. But how can they, who have already flung themselves together and can no longer tell whose outlines are whose, who thus no longer possess anything of their own, how can they find a way out of themselves, out of the depths of their already buried solitude?

    They act out of mutual helplessness, and then if, with the best of intentions, they try to escape the convention that is approaching them (marriage, for example), they fall into the clutches of some less obvious but just as deadly conventional solution. For then everything around them is convention. Wherever people act out of a prematurely fused, muddy communion, every action is conventional: every relation that such confusion leads to has its own convention, how ever unusual (i.e., in the ordinary sense immoral) it may be; even separating would be a conventional step, an impersonal, accidental decision without strength and without fruit.

    Whoever looks seriously will find that neither for death, which is difficult, nor for difficult love has any clarification, any solution, any hint of a path been perceived; and for both these tasks, which we carry wrapped up and hand, on without opening, there is no general, agreed-upon rule that can be discovered. But in the same measure in which we begin to test life as individuals, these great Things will come to meet us, the individuals, with greater intimacy. The claims that the difficult work of love makes upon our development are greater than life, and we, as beginners, are not equal to them. But if we nevertheless endure and take this love upon us as burden and apprenticeship, instead of losing ourselves in the whole easy and frivolous game behind which people have hidden from the most solemn solemnity of their being, then a small advance and a lightening will perhaps be perceptible to those who come long after us. That would be much.

    We are only just now beginning to consider the relation of one individual to a second individual objectively and without prejudice, and our attempts to live such relationships have no model before them. And yet in the changes that time has brought about there are already many things that can help our timid novitiate.

    The girl and the woman, in their new, individual unfolding, will only in passing be imitators of male behavior and misbehavior and repeaters of male professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions, it will become obvious that women were going through the abundance and variation of those (often ridiculous) disguises just so that they could purify their own essential nature and wash out the deforming influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately , more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being.

    This advance (at first very much against the will of the outdistanced men) will transform the love experience, which is now filled with error, will change it from the ground up, and reshape it into a relationship that is meant to be between one human being and another, no longer one that flows from man to woman. And this more human love (which will fulfill itself with infinite consideration and gentleness, and kindness and clarity in binding and releasing) will resemble what we are now preparing painfully and with great struggle: the love that consists in this: that two solitudes protect and border and greet each other.

    And one more thing: Don't think that the great love which was once granted to you, when you were a boy, has been lost; how can you know whether vast and generous wishes didn't ripen in you at that time, and purposes by which you are still living today? I believe that that love remains so strong and intense in your memory because it was your first deep aloneness and the first inner work that you did on your life. - All good wishes to you, dear Mr. Kappus!

Yours,

Rainer Maria Rilke

[suchabeautifulbrokensmile]

Dear Ed,

You took over my life when I was fifteen. When I was seventeen I started to self harm because I couldn’t handle all your comments, I thought I was going crazy. Between restricting, binging and purging, volleyball, and school I had no time for my family. I started to distance myself, from everyone but my grandma of course. I started to argue with my mom, and wishing I was dead. Homecoming sophomore year I remember you kept telling me how ugly my dress was, I was so fat. So I stayed home. Junior year I was able to ignore you, but senior year you were right back at again with the nasty comments. Although I went to senior prom, I left early and slept all weekend instead of going to Ellicotville with my friends and having the time of my life. I should’ve been drunk that weekend making memories, instead I was keeping track of calories crying in my room. That’s when I was my lowest weight and you loved it. I was miserable. Then it was time to convince everyone that I was okay. I needed to go away to college so I had more control over my eating, and we did it. They bought it, to everyone I was healthy again. But I wasn’t. You did really well teaching me how to be sneaky with my food. Getting rid off it, sometimes I would be surprise with the things I came up with. I was putting food in my shoes, my backpack, my purse, or in the toilet. That’s when I became bulimic. You turned me bulimic. You taught me to eat everything, then get rid off it. You said no one would notice or care what I ate as long as I was eating. But for my own well being I had to get rid off it, no one was going to love a fat girl. Summer came and it was time to go to Brockport, I was fine for two weeks, then I got the routine and started to plan when and where I was able to purge. I had to eat because I would go to the dinning hall with people and sit with people, and that was the only way to eat food. If I ordered anything everyone would know. Everything was very public in college. But after I learned everyone’s routine in my hall I was able to go back to my old habits. Earliest classes started at 8, ROTC kids had to be out by 5am, I would use the bathroom at 3:55am. Latest classes ended at 9:15pm, and not many people showered before bed (I have no idea why) and in my hall not many liked to use the first bathroom, the water pressure wasn’t good, so only this girl Lauren used it, and I knew she would go to bed at 10, so at 11pm I would go turn every shower on and purge. RA did rounds at 7pm, 12pm, and 2am. I was good. My relationship with naziah made it all even worse. He became Ed in real life. Would point out every single flaw, would take food away from me, and would tell me to go to the gym. When we dated I didn’t have to follow my purging schedule. He made me his own. I fainted walking down the hall with my friends, literally just walking and I got a concussion. I was sent to the hospital and I came up with some bs story. Then another story for my mom, and another for my primary Doctor. I was a mess. But I was skinny, and you loved it. Naziah liked it too. Naziah got kicked out, and six months later grandma died. You took advantage of my weakness. I couldn’t think properly, all I wanted to do was die, and I tried… And I wasn’t successful.

Sophomore year came around, and because of you, Ed, I wasn’t able to live with my best friends, instead I chose random people. I didn’t want maddie to worry. We didn’t want maddie to worry bc she would’ve made it stop. Leaving in the suites was soooo much easier. Omg that’s when you were the happiest. We finally had our own bathroom. But that’s also when I started to drink even more than usual. I only needed a few shots to get drunk, and you liked it because it was even easier to purge, and people found it so normal. I didn’t had to come up with excuses. Between binging and purging I gained 37 pounds in a month. By the time I got home I was 197 lbs. none of my clothes fit, I had high blood pressure. My headaches started to keep me from being around people all I wanted to do was eat and sleep. I had no energy to purge anymore. I had no energy to even blink. I came home and went on a diet. It worked I lost 13 pounds so I kept doing it when I got back to school, and I started to hit the gym. That’s when it all got even worse. I would spend hours and hours at the gym. I would skip classes to work out. I don’t understand why you made me do that, I wasn’t even losing weight.

Junior year came around and I got a house with some friends. You took over my life, completely. And I never left my house. I skipped most classes, I spent my time in the bathroom floor. No energy to walk to classes, or go out. But somehow I was always drunk. I didn’t even have to leave my house. I would’ve wine instead of water. I saw my counselor Katie but all we talked about was my depression, I didn’t tell her about my eating disorder until the morning after I was in the hospital. I realized you were taking over my life. And I wasn’t ready to die. I am not ready to die. Sometimes I think death is the easiest way out, the only way you’ll stop talking to me, and dictating my every move. But there has to be another way. Which is why I am at a treatment center right now. I loved you Ed. You made me feel special for many years. You loved me when no one else did. Every time my dad let me down you were there to pick me up. When I lost the most important human being you were there. Through every single step. Every night before a test you were the only thing that helped me feel better. But it’s time for me to make myself feel better. I am capable of doing this for me. I need to depend on myself for my own happiness. I will miss you. But I can’t live my life depending on you. I need to move on. I understand that there will be times that we will cross paths in the future but I hope they aren’t long, I hope you disappear. Don’t go take over someone else’s life, please do not do that. Just go away, please. Please go away. I don’t remember life without you, and it is difficult to think about it. But I love new experiences, and I love adventures and this is something that I am willing to try. I just need you to please leave me alone. Because of you high school was rough, and so were my first three years of college. Let me be a normal human for once, let me enjoy my senior year. Let me live life. Please

We all know therapy wasn't working, I tried for the last six years. Every therapist irritated your soul, which eventually became mine, and then I couldn't tell them apart. I lied to everyone, I used to say exactly what they wanted to hear so they could tell my mom I was better again. But it never lasted. This is why I decided to do partial hospitalization, I don't want to be in a hospital but I'm not well enough to be on my own. And it's all because of you. I don't hate you. I don't. I wish I did. I'm tired of you. I wouldn't change a thing, bc without You I wouldn't be the strong person I am right now, but I could have and will have such a better future once I separate myself from you. I can already feel the relieve. Ed, you make my anxiety and depression worse than they should be. You make my life so much harder. I need recovery to work. That's all I want. I want peace in my own head for once. Don't make me push Christine away, don't make me push Krista away. They are actually helpful. For once I found people I can actually trust. Dr. Lesh, they all want to help me. And I need to let them, but I need you to leave. I want to be healthy. I can't live a life wanting to die every minute because of my appearance. I can't. I wish I could see what other people see but because of you, I can't.

Please Ed, let me live my life the way I want to, let me be me. Let me be free.

Gee