I think one of the reasons why a lot of us find our feelings hard to deal with is that we incorrectly categorize them. Because they happen inside our heads and hearts we tend to think of them as a sort of wordless thought, but in reality feelings have a lot more in common with the senses.
Thoughts can happen fast, but a thought progression is also under our control. We can rewind, check our logic, reevaluate ethics, even revisit an entire chain of thoughts step by step. On the other hand, though a feeling (especially one that is being repressed or not appropriately dealt with) can last a long while, it is hard to recall a feeling with the same force without being exposed to the stimulus that first provoked that feeling. So, for example, I can think "I like cats." and think about all the reasons I like cats to confirm that conclusion of my own volition. But while having my cat on my lap makes me feel happy, I can't just will myself to be happy because I was happy that time there was a cat on my lap.
Similarly, with unpleasant emotions, we can't just will ourselves to not have them. We can learn to stop thinking harmful thoughts, but emotions arise in response to stimuli. We can't stop ourselves feeling scared any more than we can stop from seeing a bear in front of us. Both the feelings and the sight of the bear are a warning that there is danger nearby. Now, many of us want to stop feeling certain feelings, but that is as risky as shutting our eyes to the sight of the bear. The bear is still there, all you're doing is removing your early warning system.
So the real task is not to stop having difficult feelings, but to use them to alert us to the bears in our lives.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
The Perfectionist in Me is Screaming "It's Been TOO LONG to Go Back Now!"
How long has it been? I could check, but I won't because it would only inspire self recrimination and make me feel like the comeback post should be way more amazing than it probably will be. I mean, it'll be moderately amazing, if you are easily amazed or just love to the point of no reason. But don't expect total amazement. You will be let down.
I had a professor at Fredonia whom I absolutely loved. At the start of a semester he would usually begin his classes explaining that we'd be sort of spiraling around the subject matter, visiting it, moving to other topics, then revisiting it more deeply with new information and insight. He said this was the way to approach literature, because it reflects life and in life you return to things with new eyes and new experience over and over again. Those of you who have read Eating By the Light of the Moon know that the chapter headings all have a labyrinth symbol, because recovery and life are like a labyrinth, a cycle revisiting the same areas again and again but always moving deeper in.
Over the past six months or so, my recovery had gotten increasingly more fragile. I was having binge purge episodes that would come in patches and then I'd regain control after a few weeks, but always feeling less powerful than ever. At the same time, my relationship with my boyfriend was moving from new and fun but a bit superficial to something more meaningful.
He'd known from the beginning about my bulimia, but there's a wide range of knowing and he had some misconceptions about my use of recovery. And I can be evasive when I'm feeling ashamed, so for a long time, I knew he was getting to know only parts of me, and that my ED self, and the self that is devoted to recovering (a huge part of me, two and a half years' worth of me) was still hidden. The thing is, though, that felt normal to me. Nobody knows those parts. Some of my very serious friends see the most of it, but that's through the reassuring portal of text. Internet connections count, but they often lack the immediacy of a face to face daily interaction. A lot of my friends know that I have been in recovery, but there's very little interest expressed. Nobody wants to pry, or feel uncomfortable, or make me uncomfortable.
I've said it to my friends who are also working on recovery a million times: ED's thrive in secrecy, make connections and share your experience. But I was living that advice only very shallowly.
Until I gave my boyfriend my copy of Bulimia: a Guide to Recovery. I'd realized that I can be too easily discouraged and too evasive to be able to explain myself fully. So I gave him the book that first explained me to me. My intent was just to help him understand, so that if and when I broke down and lacked the words to fully explain what was happening, we'd have to common experience of the book to refer to.
I was not counting on this boy's pair of brass social bullocks. Having read through much of the book, he sits me straight down and asks me questions, nobody does that. And he follows up. Now I have to be accountable for my behaviors to someone besides myself because every few days he's going to aske me how I'm doing.
It is so much easier to deflect the urge to binge when you know that someone besides you will know about it. People with ED's are used to feeling like we've let ourselves down, but we hate it when we disappoint our loved ones. That tendency to please is usually a factor in our ED development to start with. It's about damn time it helps out with recovery.
So this is me, revisiting one point of recovery and realizing I was still half in shadow, but am now stepping further into the open.
I had a professor at Fredonia whom I absolutely loved. At the start of a semester he would usually begin his classes explaining that we'd be sort of spiraling around the subject matter, visiting it, moving to other topics, then revisiting it more deeply with new information and insight. He said this was the way to approach literature, because it reflects life and in life you return to things with new eyes and new experience over and over again. Those of you who have read Eating By the Light of the Moon know that the chapter headings all have a labyrinth symbol, because recovery and life are like a labyrinth, a cycle revisiting the same areas again and again but always moving deeper in.
Over the past six months or so, my recovery had gotten increasingly more fragile. I was having binge purge episodes that would come in patches and then I'd regain control after a few weeks, but always feeling less powerful than ever. At the same time, my relationship with my boyfriend was moving from new and fun but a bit superficial to something more meaningful.
He'd known from the beginning about my bulimia, but there's a wide range of knowing and he had some misconceptions about my use of recovery. And I can be evasive when I'm feeling ashamed, so for a long time, I knew he was getting to know only parts of me, and that my ED self, and the self that is devoted to recovering (a huge part of me, two and a half years' worth of me) was still hidden. The thing is, though, that felt normal to me. Nobody knows those parts. Some of my very serious friends see the most of it, but that's through the reassuring portal of text. Internet connections count, but they often lack the immediacy of a face to face daily interaction. A lot of my friends know that I have been in recovery, but there's very little interest expressed. Nobody wants to pry, or feel uncomfortable, or make me uncomfortable.
I've said it to my friends who are also working on recovery a million times: ED's thrive in secrecy, make connections and share your experience. But I was living that advice only very shallowly.
Until I gave my boyfriend my copy of Bulimia: a Guide to Recovery. I'd realized that I can be too easily discouraged and too evasive to be able to explain myself fully. So I gave him the book that first explained me to me. My intent was just to help him understand, so that if and when I broke down and lacked the words to fully explain what was happening, we'd have to common experience of the book to refer to.
I was not counting on this boy's pair of brass social bullocks. Having read through much of the book, he sits me straight down and asks me questions, nobody does that. And he follows up. Now I have to be accountable for my behaviors to someone besides myself because every few days he's going to aske me how I'm doing.
It is so much easier to deflect the urge to binge when you know that someone besides you will know about it. People with ED's are used to feeling like we've let ourselves down, but we hate it when we disappoint our loved ones. That tendency to please is usually a factor in our ED development to start with. It's about damn time it helps out with recovery.
So this is me, revisiting one point of recovery and realizing I was still half in shadow, but am now stepping further into the open.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Something Even Harder
...for people who experience it is the tendency towards theft than sometimes accompanies an ED. I think (not sure, too lazy to check now) that there's a higher incidence of this with bulimia and binge types than with restrictive types of ED's.
Essentially what's going on here is that we try to fill an emotional emptiness with food. And sometimes we try to fill it with things. Things that we take. The rush of the theft is momentarily distracting the same way that a binge is, and sometimes the two get mixed together and then we're shoplifting the food we will binge on.
Thing is, ED people are usually pretty convinced that they're no good. And compulsive theft just underscores that feeling. We're obviously bad, we think, because bad people steal. So if you have experienced this phenomenon, understand that it's not you being bad. It's that you're reaching out for anything at all that will shove away your feelings for a second or two. And understand that you are not alone. This is a really common thing, it's just even harder to talk about than all the rest of it which we already know is damn hard to talk about.
Essentially what's going on here is that we try to fill an emotional emptiness with food. And sometimes we try to fill it with things. Things that we take. The rush of the theft is momentarily distracting the same way that a binge is, and sometimes the two get mixed together and then we're shoplifting the food we will binge on.
Thing is, ED people are usually pretty convinced that they're no good. And compulsive theft just underscores that feeling. We're obviously bad, we think, because bad people steal. So if you have experienced this phenomenon, understand that it's not you being bad. It's that you're reaching out for anything at all that will shove away your feelings for a second or two. And understand that you are not alone. This is a really common thing, it's just even harder to talk about than all the rest of it which we already know is damn hard to talk about.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Personal Blog Established!
There will be some crossover, still, since a lot of my personal stuff is ED related. But thisiswhereiblogthings.blogspot.com is where I shall be putting more general stuff I feel like sharing. Goodenougheddiscussion.blogspot.com will be pretty much just for ED talk and related talk.
Feel free to scoot over to This is Where I Blog Things to bask in the very first post there. It has stick figures ;)
Feel free to scoot over to This is Where I Blog Things to bask in the very first post there. It has stick figures ;)
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Well, I won't have the internet for very long, so I thought I would just toss out some things. I like vegetables. People from the ghetto look at you funny when you tell them you don't weigh yourself. Mental contamination happens when one thing is associated in your mind with something bad and it takes on the bad feelings even though there is nothing bad about that first thing other than it's proximity to the second thing. Writing with carpal tunnel is hard, but it distracts from self criticism. I miss my fingertips, though. Paragraph breaks make things easier to read.
Sometimes I wonder if my occasional breakthrough binge/purge behaviors occur (in part at least) because so much of my identity is based on my ED experience and recovery and I am afraid to be totally without it. The bites all over my legs are healing up, so I feel less like a leper. But I am so afraid of bedbugs now that I spend half the time convinced that my awesome new place has got them, too. And then I wonder, am I being paranoid, or are my fears legit. Since I am much more of an anxious person than I used to think, it's hard for me to know exactly how much credence to give my fears. I bought new shoes from a guy selling them on the corner (oh, the ghetto!) and I love them.
Tonight I am buying a vacuum. Chores are easier and more fun in a house that it just mine because it's not work, it's making things how I like them. When I was younger, I had a big cackly laugh. It went away for a while, but seems to be coming back. My friend is making another upswing of progress against his depression and alcohol dependence and somehow that makes me feel a bit useless. I get the feeling this blog is going to be trending towards personal entries. Or maybe I should make a personal blog and keep this one for ED topics only? Thoughts, oh nine followers? Ha! You're like the Fellowship and I must be the One Ring.
Sometimes I wonder if my occasional breakthrough binge/purge behaviors occur (in part at least) because so much of my identity is based on my ED experience and recovery and I am afraid to be totally without it. The bites all over my legs are healing up, so I feel less like a leper. But I am so afraid of bedbugs now that I spend half the time convinced that my awesome new place has got them, too. And then I wonder, am I being paranoid, or are my fears legit. Since I am much more of an anxious person than I used to think, it's hard for me to know exactly how much credence to give my fears. I bought new shoes from a guy selling them on the corner (oh, the ghetto!) and I love them.
Tonight I am buying a vacuum. Chores are easier and more fun in a house that it just mine because it's not work, it's making things how I like them. When I was younger, I had a big cackly laugh. It went away for a while, but seems to be coming back. My friend is making another upswing of progress against his depression and alcohol dependence and somehow that makes me feel a bit useless. I get the feeling this blog is going to be trending towards personal entries. Or maybe I should make a personal blog and keep this one for ED topics only? Thoughts, oh nine followers? Ha! You're like the Fellowship and I must be the One Ring.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Boyfriend and I had our very first fight a few days ago. Hardly a fight really. A tiff. He startled me, then teased me about it. I got mad and a little bit shrill. He was taken aback. Basic two-people-interacting stuff.
This was pretty significant for me, though, for a couple of reasons. For one, I am pretty sure it was my first real relationship fight. My first boyfriend only ever was with the me that was too occupied with food obsession to be mentally present, and it's hard to fight when you're not really engaged with your own life at all.
Second, it led to a talk about me and how my brain works. See, right after we settled our little fight, I needed to quell the part of me that was screaming that I screwed up and nobody would ever love me and I was BAD because I'd gotten angry. Boyfriend wanted to go into a related discussion. I stopped him and asked if we could table the serious discussion until I processed some things. This was only moderately successful because then I had to explain why I needed time (Boyfriend liked to get to the heart of things as they happen, which I admire, but was not capable of) which wound up being a serious discussion itself, but less draining than the other one would have been.
Fun fact, I cry when I'm overwrought. And since outside of my own head there was nothing particularly upsetting going on, Boyfriend was understandably confused. He took it all like a champ, though. He didn't say anything stupid like "don't cry" and he took my word for it when I explained my needs and that everything was long-run fine but short-term overwhelming.
All of this led to a talk the next day which covered a lot of things, how ED's work, how long I'd been affected, how it affected my previous relationship and so on. I learned that I'm getting better at speaking out loud about these things, even if they're about me in particular and not just general ED facts (that has been a problem for me in the past, being able to discuss ED's in a generic way, but not able to articulate my own experience). I also learned that I like the kind of questions Boyfriend asks, and that he does, in fact, ask them at all. So many people are afraid to pry, but I crave their interest. After all my ED and recovery are a part of who I am and that part gets routinely avoided. So it filled a need to be grilled gently for a while.
The less emotionally able parts of me want to be able to just tick "fight" off the list of Relationship Things and never come back to it. But Boyfriend can be as infuriating as he is adorable, so I doubt that's going to happen, and it wouldn't be a good thing if it did happen, anyway. But hey, maybe a few more fights and I'll start getting more comfortable with expressing my anger and learn to do so effectively and appropriately.
This was pretty significant for me, though, for a couple of reasons. For one, I am pretty sure it was my first real relationship fight. My first boyfriend only ever was with the me that was too occupied with food obsession to be mentally present, and it's hard to fight when you're not really engaged with your own life at all.
Second, it led to a talk about me and how my brain works. See, right after we settled our little fight, I needed to quell the part of me that was screaming that I screwed up and nobody would ever love me and I was BAD because I'd gotten angry. Boyfriend wanted to go into a related discussion. I stopped him and asked if we could table the serious discussion until I processed some things. This was only moderately successful because then I had to explain why I needed time (Boyfriend liked to get to the heart of things as they happen, which I admire, but was not capable of) which wound up being a serious discussion itself, but less draining than the other one would have been.
Fun fact, I cry when I'm overwrought. And since outside of my own head there was nothing particularly upsetting going on, Boyfriend was understandably confused. He took it all like a champ, though. He didn't say anything stupid like "don't cry" and he took my word for it when I explained my needs and that everything was long-run fine but short-term overwhelming.
All of this led to a talk the next day which covered a lot of things, how ED's work, how long I'd been affected, how it affected my previous relationship and so on. I learned that I'm getting better at speaking out loud about these things, even if they're about me in particular and not just general ED facts (that has been a problem for me in the past, being able to discuss ED's in a generic way, but not able to articulate my own experience). I also learned that I like the kind of questions Boyfriend asks, and that he does, in fact, ask them at all. So many people are afraid to pry, but I crave their interest. After all my ED and recovery are a part of who I am and that part gets routinely avoided. So it filled a need to be grilled gently for a while.
The less emotionally able parts of me want to be able to just tick "fight" off the list of Relationship Things and never come back to it. But Boyfriend can be as infuriating as he is adorable, so I doubt that's going to happen, and it wouldn't be a good thing if it did happen, anyway. But hey, maybe a few more fights and I'll start getting more comfortable with expressing my anger and learn to do so effectively and appropriately.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Because Guin and I have both been feeling inappropriately responsible for things lately.
Mental Checklist to Determine if it is Appropriate to Feel Guilty, Responsible or Generally Bad
No? All right, then, you're fine. A lot of us have tendencies towards control and towards self directed negativity. That means we tend to think "I should have prevented this, I should have done more, or be doing more. If I can't fix this, then it's my fault." Not true. You only need to feel accountable for things you did knowingly.
This doesn't mean you need to walk away from situations you're not accountable for. If a friend is in a bad place, for example, you may choose to help her. But it is your own choice and not something you are required to do. Nor is it your fault if a problem is too big for you to fix, and all you can do is offer support. Just remember it's not something you SHOULD do. Should is a word that means I expect myself to do this for no good reason and I think I'll be a bad person if I don't do it. And some situations, though not your fault, do require action to keep yourself safe and happy. But having to respond to a thing is totally different from having caused that thing.
So, in conclusion, stop taking on more trouble than you've earned.
Mental Checklist to Determine if it is Appropriate to Feel Guilty, Responsible or Generally Bad
- Did you take direct, specific and conscious action to cause this situation?
No? All right, then, you're fine. A lot of us have tendencies towards control and towards self directed negativity. That means we tend to think "I should have prevented this, I should have done more, or be doing more. If I can't fix this, then it's my fault." Not true. You only need to feel accountable for things you did knowingly.
This doesn't mean you need to walk away from situations you're not accountable for. If a friend is in a bad place, for example, you may choose to help her. But it is your own choice and not something you are required to do. Nor is it your fault if a problem is too big for you to fix, and all you can do is offer support. Just remember it's not something you SHOULD do. Should is a word that means I expect myself to do this for no good reason and I think I'll be a bad person if I don't do it. And some situations, though not your fault, do require action to keep yourself safe and happy. But having to respond to a thing is totally different from having caused that thing.
So, in conclusion, stop taking on more trouble than you've earned.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
STRESS!
You may or may not know it, but my life isn't characterized by an overabundance of good luck. In the big areas like friends and good health, I am pretty lucky, but in the day to day business of my life things go to hell on a regular basis. Like this month. This whole month is really sucking a lot of eggs.
Now, recovering from an ED is difficult enough under ideal circumstances. When things start going downhill it gets really complicated. And since people who develop ED's tend to be sensitive and prone to overthinking things, even the smallest of disturbances can have a big impact.
So let's say that you've been on what you feel is a good track: Steadily maintaining your recovery, maybe just starting to learn your own needs, or taking regular steps towards healthiness. Whatever it is, you feel like you've got life set up in a way that allows you to grab this problem and work with it. Then all hell breaks loose. Your support system breaks down, or your havens become unsafe or your calm is disturbed or maybe your bed is full of bedbugs and it is really pushing your triggers. What are you going to do?
Congratulations! You have found yourself in a Shitty Learning Experience. Feel free to hate them, because they truly are shitty. But learn from them. They have a lot to tell you. They tell you where your breaking points are, and your strengths. They teach you to invent new coping strategies, often on the fly. They show you what you can do without and push you to choose the things you will not do without, come hell or high water.
But most importantly, you learn that you can survive anything. Anything. When things go tits up, the common mantra is 'I can't handle this." "Oh, work is so stressful I just can't handle it." "This guy is crazy and I just can't take it." "I am so alone and it is going to kill me." Not true. You can and will get through all of it. Gracefully? Maybe not. Easily? Nope, it's stressful -maybe even heartbreaking- for a reason. But you're going to make it through. You are going to be OK, in time.
Realize that, and it changes your focus. You stop wondering how you're going to make it through and you start seeing what you can do now to make it through easier and faster. You can stop dreading that you'll be crushed and start finding your power. It's there for you, even in the Shitty Learning times. Maybe especially then, because that's when you need it.
Now, recovering from an ED is difficult enough under ideal circumstances. When things start going downhill it gets really complicated. And since people who develop ED's tend to be sensitive and prone to overthinking things, even the smallest of disturbances can have a big impact.
So let's say that you've been on what you feel is a good track: Steadily maintaining your recovery, maybe just starting to learn your own needs, or taking regular steps towards healthiness. Whatever it is, you feel like you've got life set up in a way that allows you to grab this problem and work with it. Then all hell breaks loose. Your support system breaks down, or your havens become unsafe or your calm is disturbed or maybe your bed is full of bedbugs and it is really pushing your triggers. What are you going to do?
Congratulations! You have found yourself in a Shitty Learning Experience. Feel free to hate them, because they truly are shitty. But learn from them. They have a lot to tell you. They tell you where your breaking points are, and your strengths. They teach you to invent new coping strategies, often on the fly. They show you what you can do without and push you to choose the things you will not do without, come hell or high water.
But most importantly, you learn that you can survive anything. Anything. When things go tits up, the common mantra is 'I can't handle this." "Oh, work is so stressful I just can't handle it." "This guy is crazy and I just can't take it." "I am so alone and it is going to kill me." Not true. You can and will get through all of it. Gracefully? Maybe not. Easily? Nope, it's stressful -maybe even heartbreaking- for a reason. But you're going to make it through. You are going to be OK, in time.
Realize that, and it changes your focus. You stop wondering how you're going to make it through and you start seeing what you can do now to make it through easier and faster. You can stop dreading that you'll be crushed and start finding your power. It's there for you, even in the Shitty Learning times. Maybe especially then, because that's when you need it.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
I have not forgotten you or given up!
It's been a weird few weeks and I just couldn't formulate a whole blog post. Expect one probably Thursday evening. Thursday shall be laundry and blog post day.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Who Are These Children and Why Are They in My Head?
One of the things I love about discussing ED's and recovery with people is that it makes me think in different ways about things it would not ever have occurred to me to look at more closely. For example, the inner child. It didn't occur to me how casually I approached this topic. Me of a few weeks ago was bopping along and if there was much thought in my head about the inner child it went about like this: Child, inside. Be nice to it. Check!
And then Mars said, "Lets discuss this whole inner child thing." And my mind was blown!
OK, my mind wasn't exactly BLOWN blown. But it turns out I was being incredibly cavalier about a topic that is actually pretty nebulous and very open to interpretation. It also turns out that a lot of my ideas about the inner child seem to have come right out of my... well, it turns out very few of my resources talk about the inner child at all. I got all the ideas I had about it from Louise Hay and a big dollop of my own randomness. And since concrete resources on the inner child on the web are hard to track down, what's coming up next is mostly just the result of more focused speculation on my part.
Now, the way I had been thinking of the inner child was basically another name for the past self. The way I see it, there's three selves in my head. There's me of the present, who has the power to act, think choose, speak and so on. There's the future me, whose needs and comfort I need to plan for and who has near infinite potential. And then there's the past me, from whom I can learn who I am and what made me this way, and whose unresolved needs and concerns I need to meet.
But since we all tend to have problems treating ourselves well whether they be past present or future selves, it helps to think of the past self as a child. Self as a child is different from how I see myself now. That perceived disconnect makes it easier to be kind because one of the things most ED sufferers have in common is the inclination to treat others with way more consideration than we treat ourselves.. But now I am thinking that while calling the past self the inner child can help start the process of healing, this also does it a bit of a disservice. It might be easier to care for something that is not-me, but the goal is to be able to take care of me.
You might be asking yourself how one can resolve needs that weren't met in the past. After all, the past is PAST and we can't change it. And you're right...rightish, anyway. The past self needs you to understand it and to really take its part. For example, I have a pretty big fear of abandonment. Having done a lot of introspection about my behavior when I feel abandoned and the types of situations that bring that feeling up for me, I've been able to locate a few main reasons why I feel this way. The biggest one is that as a child, my father was emotionally and physically absent and my mother, while present, trusted me to speak up about my needs. I wasn't able to advocate for myself (oooh, that's a good post topic, too!). As a result, I learned to believe that I was not important to others. And that led me to think that as soon as I was out of sight, I was out of the minds and hearts of the people whose love I need.
My goodness what a huge paragraph! I'm going to break it in half here.
Understanding that, I've already met my past self halfway. The past self needs to know it is being heard. Once you've heard it, you can tell it, "I can see how things were and how that hurt you/me. Now THIS is how it should have gone." And in your head, you can build an alternate reality where the best things happened and your past self got all the things it needed. You can't live in that reality, of course. You're here in the present, where your power is, but you can use that power to soothe the past you. And then, finally you tell your past self that you're not going to let that stuff happen ever again. The past self will be able to fully put aside its hurt when it trusts you are going to keep the same thing from happening to your present and future selves. So now I am working on advocating for myself emotionally, making sure people I need know that I need them, and learning to trust that my relationships are reliable even at a distance. As a result of this work I am in much less distress when people I rely on aren't around.
Women, Food and God (the book I brought home from Barnes and Noble) has what seems to be a similar view. The author says there is no one inner child, but there are frozen places. Times and situations that your mind gets stuck in and tends to recreate again and again. So if you were very frightened and got frozen in that fear, you might have a hard time losing that fear, and find more and more things to fear in your present without realizing that what you're experiencing is not a healthy reaction to real threats, but an unhealthy construction imposed on your reality because you can't let go of the fear of the past.
I also like to think of the inner child as the echo of the baby you used to be. As a baby, you had no shame, were not self conscious, and acted as one with your physical self. To a baby, there's no disconnect between the mind and the body. She is her body, her body is her and she knows she's the perfect expression of herself. I'm not sure it's possible for an adult with a fully formed ego to regain this oneness, but it's an ideal to strive for.
I'm sure Freud had lots to say on the inner child, and it probably had a lot to do with penises, too...but I made a choice not to even ask Freud about it before I wrote this post. Freud is good for cigar jokes and good insults, but I don't want him coming near my recovery.
Here's a link to Louise Hay's official site. http://www.louisehay.com/ She's a great teacher of self love and a good source of uplifting affirmations. Just don't believe her when she tells you you can heal disease with self love. I'll be the first one to tell you that self love can improve every aspect of your life. But for some things, like physical illness, your self love should take a supporting role while science and medicine take center stage.
And then Mars said, "Lets discuss this whole inner child thing." And my mind was blown!
OK, my mind wasn't exactly BLOWN blown. But it turns out I was being incredibly cavalier about a topic that is actually pretty nebulous and very open to interpretation. It also turns out that a lot of my ideas about the inner child seem to have come right out of my... well, it turns out very few of my resources talk about the inner child at all. I got all the ideas I had about it from Louise Hay and a big dollop of my own randomness. And since concrete resources on the inner child on the web are hard to track down, what's coming up next is mostly just the result of more focused speculation on my part.
Now, the way I had been thinking of the inner child was basically another name for the past self. The way I see it, there's three selves in my head. There's me of the present, who has the power to act, think choose, speak and so on. There's the future me, whose needs and comfort I need to plan for and who has near infinite potential. And then there's the past me, from whom I can learn who I am and what made me this way, and whose unresolved needs and concerns I need to meet.
But since we all tend to have problems treating ourselves well whether they be past present or future selves, it helps to think of the past self as a child. Self as a child is different from how I see myself now. That perceived disconnect makes it easier to be kind because one of the things most ED sufferers have in common is the inclination to treat others with way more consideration than we treat ourselves.. But now I am thinking that while calling the past self the inner child can help start the process of healing, this also does it a bit of a disservice. It might be easier to care for something that is not-me, but the goal is to be able to take care of me.
You might be asking yourself how one can resolve needs that weren't met in the past. After all, the past is PAST and we can't change it. And you're right...rightish, anyway. The past self needs you to understand it and to really take its part. For example, I have a pretty big fear of abandonment. Having done a lot of introspection about my behavior when I feel abandoned and the types of situations that bring that feeling up for me, I've been able to locate a few main reasons why I feel this way. The biggest one is that as a child, my father was emotionally and physically absent and my mother, while present, trusted me to speak up about my needs. I wasn't able to advocate for myself (oooh, that's a good post topic, too!). As a result, I learned to believe that I was not important to others. And that led me to think that as soon as I was out of sight, I was out of the minds and hearts of the people whose love I need.
My goodness what a huge paragraph! I'm going to break it in half here.
Understanding that, I've already met my past self halfway. The past self needs to know it is being heard. Once you've heard it, you can tell it, "I can see how things were and how that hurt you/me. Now THIS is how it should have gone." And in your head, you can build an alternate reality where the best things happened and your past self got all the things it needed. You can't live in that reality, of course. You're here in the present, where your power is, but you can use that power to soothe the past you. And then, finally you tell your past self that you're not going to let that stuff happen ever again. The past self will be able to fully put aside its hurt when it trusts you are going to keep the same thing from happening to your present and future selves. So now I am working on advocating for myself emotionally, making sure people I need know that I need them, and learning to trust that my relationships are reliable even at a distance. As a result of this work I am in much less distress when people I rely on aren't around.
Women, Food and God (the book I brought home from Barnes and Noble) has what seems to be a similar view. The author says there is no one inner child, but there are frozen places. Times and situations that your mind gets stuck in and tends to recreate again and again. So if you were very frightened and got frozen in that fear, you might have a hard time losing that fear, and find more and more things to fear in your present without realizing that what you're experiencing is not a healthy reaction to real threats, but an unhealthy construction imposed on your reality because you can't let go of the fear of the past.
I also like to think of the inner child as the echo of the baby you used to be. As a baby, you had no shame, were not self conscious, and acted as one with your physical self. To a baby, there's no disconnect between the mind and the body. She is her body, her body is her and she knows she's the perfect expression of herself. I'm not sure it's possible for an adult with a fully formed ego to regain this oneness, but it's an ideal to strive for.
I'm sure Freud had lots to say on the inner child, and it probably had a lot to do with penises, too...but I made a choice not to even ask Freud about it before I wrote this post. Freud is good for cigar jokes and good insults, but I don't want him coming near my recovery.
Here's a link to Louise Hay's official site. http://www.louisehay.com/ She's a great teacher of self love and a good source of uplifting affirmations. Just don't believe her when she tells you you can heal disease with self love. I'll be the first one to tell you that self love can improve every aspect of your life. But for some things, like physical illness, your self love should take a supporting role while science and medicine take center stage.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Like a Kid in a Candy Store?
I got all charged up today after finishing this morning's post, so I've taken myself down to Barnes and Noble for some idea generating/refining reading and general faffing about.
If I had the dollars and was willing to carry all these back home at once, I would! I'll be taking Women, Food and God home with me. The others will have to wait. But I'm excited about building up my library with good resources.
If I had the dollars and was willing to carry all these back home at once, I would! I'll be taking Women, Food and God home with me. The others will have to wait. But I'm excited about building up my library with good resources.
I thought about your queston for most of the week, Lac. No, I don't think it's possible (or really desirable) to be absolutely objective about yourself. I mean, self work is pretty darned subjective. And being absolutely and totally without the ability or inclination to judge yourself is borderline sociopathology. I want to be absolutely clear on this: Though I am pretty sure sociopaths have less self image issues, I am not recommending it as a solution. For one thing, it scares the neighbors.
But I don't think it's possible to learn anything useful about what goes on inside your head if as soon as you see a feeling or a thought you throw it right into the good or bad box. Actions deal with other people, and are therefore more subject to regulation based on social and moral guidelines. But to really get into your head and see how it works, you need to be able to just watch it without flinching or labeling or (at first) trying to change it.
Think of the introspective part of you like a Mars Rover. It lands in your thought process and starts taking videos and samples. You're the scientist back on Earth. The Rover is mostly autonomous, but you can use radio control to take it over if you choose. So here's your Mars Rover, taking pictures and samples of the surface of Mars. If you take control of it, and start making it sort all the Mars rocks into piles of good rocks and piles of bad rocks then your Rover is going to run out of batteries before you see all of the Martian landscape.
--quick aside, did you know studies have shown that people have only a finite amount of willpower to work with? I'll find the article and post a link at the bottom--
Also, they're just rocks. It's silly to think there's good rocks and bad rocks. And it's a bit silly to think there's good thoughts and bad thoughts. There are going to be thoughts that you don't want to act on. If I punched in the face every person I ever thought about punching in the face, nobody would ever get near me. But it's OK to have that thought, because what it really means is that someone is pushing me too far and though it is not going to be through punching someone in the face (though ooooh, I want to!) I do need to defend myself, either through verbal negotiation or removing myself from the situation or pulling in a third party or whatever. And there are thoughts that are self harmful, like if I look in the mirror and think "Gah! I'm horrible!" Eventually, that's got to go. But to get rid of harmful thoughts, you have to understand where they come from: What in your history and belief system leads you to this thought. And if you're putting energy into condemning that thought, you're not putting energy into exploring its roots.
In general, I try to avoid words like good, bad, and should when I'm thinking about myself or about other people. They're blanket terms that throw a lot of judgment around without inviting understanding. I'll try to find some more specific way to think about it. That isn't a bad thought, but it is self defeating, or perhaps unrealistically negative. OK, now WHY is it those things? If I just think "That's bad!" then the reaction is "OhmyGOD Getitoutgetitoutgetitoutgetitout!" And that's not really helpful.
Articles!
This one is just cool. Stop yelling at yourself for zoning out!
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/15-brain-stop-paying-attention-zoning-out-crucial-mental-state
Argh. The Discover article I want is buried, and I have depleeted my willpower trying to find it. Here are the wikipedia article and a reputable-seeming article that references the study I was thinking of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion
http://lifehacker.com/5662132/youve-got-a-limited-supply-of-willpower-so-use-it-wisely
PS: I'm sitting on my porch writing this and the sun is warm but the breeze is cool, so I keep pulling my hoodie on then taking it off. Temperature regulation is a pain in my @$$!
But I don't think it's possible to learn anything useful about what goes on inside your head if as soon as you see a feeling or a thought you throw it right into the good or bad box. Actions deal with other people, and are therefore more subject to regulation based on social and moral guidelines. But to really get into your head and see how it works, you need to be able to just watch it without flinching or labeling or (at first) trying to change it.
Think of the introspective part of you like a Mars Rover. It lands in your thought process and starts taking videos and samples. You're the scientist back on Earth. The Rover is mostly autonomous, but you can use radio control to take it over if you choose. So here's your Mars Rover, taking pictures and samples of the surface of Mars. If you take control of it, and start making it sort all the Mars rocks into piles of good rocks and piles of bad rocks then your Rover is going to run out of batteries before you see all of the Martian landscape.
--quick aside, did you know studies have shown that people have only a finite amount of willpower to work with? I'll find the article and post a link at the bottom--
Also, they're just rocks. It's silly to think there's good rocks and bad rocks. And it's a bit silly to think there's good thoughts and bad thoughts. There are going to be thoughts that you don't want to act on. If I punched in the face every person I ever thought about punching in the face, nobody would ever get near me. But it's OK to have that thought, because what it really means is that someone is pushing me too far and though it is not going to be through punching someone in the face (though ooooh, I want to!) I do need to defend myself, either through verbal negotiation or removing myself from the situation or pulling in a third party or whatever. And there are thoughts that are self harmful, like if I look in the mirror and think "Gah! I'm horrible!" Eventually, that's got to go. But to get rid of harmful thoughts, you have to understand where they come from: What in your history and belief system leads you to this thought. And if you're putting energy into condemning that thought, you're not putting energy into exploring its roots.
In general, I try to avoid words like good, bad, and should when I'm thinking about myself or about other people. They're blanket terms that throw a lot of judgment around without inviting understanding. I'll try to find some more specific way to think about it. That isn't a bad thought, but it is self defeating, or perhaps unrealistically negative. OK, now WHY is it those things? If I just think "That's bad!" then the reaction is "OhmyGOD Getitoutgetitoutgetitoutgetitout!" And that's not really helpful.
Articles!
This one is just cool. Stop yelling at yourself for zoning out!
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/15-brain-stop-paying-attention-zoning-out-crucial-mental-state
Argh. The Discover article I want is buried, and I have depleeted my willpower trying to find it. Here are the wikipedia article and a reputable-seeming article that references the study I was thinking of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion
http://lifehacker.com/5662132/youve-got-a-limited-supply-of-willpower-so-use-it-wisely
PS: I'm sitting on my porch writing this and the sun is warm but the breeze is cool, so I keep pulling my hoodie on then taking it off. Temperature regulation is a pain in my @$$!
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Vocabulary
There are some things that I think are so very important that I talk and think about them a lot. I might not take into account that people around me have not been there when I was learning about all these things, coming to these conclusions or making this stuff up. So here are the terms I'll probably be mentioning a lot and a bit of a description about what I mean when I say them.
Eating Disorders- The dictionary definition of eating disorders is "a group of conditions characterized by abnormal eating habits that may involve too much or too little food intake to the detriment of an individual's physical and mental health" and to a point I agree with this. But it's important to stress that while eating disorders are mentally damaging, they also arise from mental damage. It's not like an ED fell out of the sky, landed on you and then your thought processes started going awry. The best way I ever heard it put was that ED's happen when a person who is smart and sensitive (and who might have a genetic predisposition towards them) is presented with a situation for which they just do not have the means to cope. This individual retreats into a food obsession in order to escape the pain they can't deal with.
Disordered Eating- Similar, but not quite the same as an eating disorder. The official definition for disordered eating covers a wide range of situations. When I use the term, though, I mean any eating pattern that is not fulfilling and healthful for the mind and body. This includes but is not limited to dieting, fasting, eating due to social pressure, eating food you do not want or enjoy, etc. I think our culture has no proper idea what to do with food, and it seems to me nearly everyone's eating is more disordered than it should be. Disordered eating can be a good recovery tool, in a way: If you're suddenly noticing new or stronger disordered eating behavior, then you know it's time to do some introspection and figure out what's wrong.
Introspection- This is your best tool for recovery and sustained mental health. The word literally means "looking within." Introspection done properly is done the way a naturalist might observe a new species of animal; with careful attention to the significance of every small detail and with no value judgment. No value judgment. One more time: NO VALUE JUDGMENT. There is no good or bad, only what you observe.
Self Talk- Self talk is expressed through your inner monologue and is the sum total of the things you say to yourself all day, every day. Positive self talk is uplifting, supportive, loving, flexible and kind. Negative self talk is abusive, demanding, inflexible, and usually reflects a lot of the negative crap other people have caused you to believe about yourself. I don't think it is possible for a person's self talk to be too positive. Ideally, you are your own best cheerleader and champion.
Self Love- Take positive self talk and back it up with action and you have self love. Self love is caring about your needs and providing for them. It is working with yourself, not against yourself. It accepts all of you, even your "flaws." Self love happens right now, not five pounds from now.
Self Abuse- Self abuse is every bit as detrimental as abuse at the hands of another person. Perhaps more so, since ideally you are your own best ally. Self abuse includes negative self talk, self injurious behavior, failing to provide yourself with the things you need, setting unrealistic standards for yourself, etc. If you saw someone doing something or saying something to a little child in their care, and you think "Hey now! That's just cruel!" then doing the same thing to yourself is self abuse.
Inner Child- You should treat yourself the way you would treat a child you love and cherish because we none of us ever really grow up. If you didn't feel safe as a child, inside you now is a child who desperately needs reassurance. If you felt ignored, your inner child is crying to be seen. Almost nobody had a perfect childhood. After all, our parents are people too and dealing with their own imperfections and hurts. Most of them do the best they can, but we all grew up with hurts and unmet needs. Well YOU are the adult in your life now, and you can give to yourself the things your parents couldn't.
Inner Caretaker- The inner caretaker's job is to seek out your needs and respond to them. The inner caretaker is the voice that wants to support and protect you. It is the voice that will point you to nurturing and life affirming things. It grows stronger with self love and is too often drowned out with self abuse. It sounds tiring, doesn't it, addressing all of your needs and hurts? But that's because most of us have a backlog of needs right now. When you give your caretaker a chance to address all the past hurts, and get the present set up to meet all your current needs, then you're all ready to address whatever the future throws at you.
And on the subject of the future and what it holds, no "coming up next time" today. Tell me in the comments if there's a topic you'd like me to sound off on in the next post. If not, I'll see what's on my mind over the next few days and develop that. 'Til next time!
Eating Disorders- The dictionary definition of eating disorders is "a group of conditions characterized by abnormal eating habits that may involve too much or too little food intake to the detriment of an individual's physical and mental health" and to a point I agree with this. But it's important to stress that while eating disorders are mentally damaging, they also arise from mental damage. It's not like an ED fell out of the sky, landed on you and then your thought processes started going awry. The best way I ever heard it put was that ED's happen when a person who is smart and sensitive (and who might have a genetic predisposition towards them) is presented with a situation for which they just do not have the means to cope. This individual retreats into a food obsession in order to escape the pain they can't deal with.
Disordered Eating- Similar, but not quite the same as an eating disorder. The official definition for disordered eating covers a wide range of situations. When I use the term, though, I mean any eating pattern that is not fulfilling and healthful for the mind and body. This includes but is not limited to dieting, fasting, eating due to social pressure, eating food you do not want or enjoy, etc. I think our culture has no proper idea what to do with food, and it seems to me nearly everyone's eating is more disordered than it should be. Disordered eating can be a good recovery tool, in a way: If you're suddenly noticing new or stronger disordered eating behavior, then you know it's time to do some introspection and figure out what's wrong.
Introspection- This is your best tool for recovery and sustained mental health. The word literally means "looking within." Introspection done properly is done the way a naturalist might observe a new species of animal; with careful attention to the significance of every small detail and with no value judgment. No value judgment. One more time: NO VALUE JUDGMENT. There is no good or bad, only what you observe.
Self Talk- Self talk is expressed through your inner monologue and is the sum total of the things you say to yourself all day, every day. Positive self talk is uplifting, supportive, loving, flexible and kind. Negative self talk is abusive, demanding, inflexible, and usually reflects a lot of the negative crap other people have caused you to believe about yourself. I don't think it is possible for a person's self talk to be too positive. Ideally, you are your own best cheerleader and champion.
Self Love- Take positive self talk and back it up with action and you have self love. Self love is caring about your needs and providing for them. It is working with yourself, not against yourself. It accepts all of you, even your "flaws." Self love happens right now, not five pounds from now.
Self Abuse- Self abuse is every bit as detrimental as abuse at the hands of another person. Perhaps more so, since ideally you are your own best ally. Self abuse includes negative self talk, self injurious behavior, failing to provide yourself with the things you need, setting unrealistic standards for yourself, etc. If you saw someone doing something or saying something to a little child in their care, and you think "Hey now! That's just cruel!" then doing the same thing to yourself is self abuse.
Inner Child- You should treat yourself the way you would treat a child you love and cherish because we none of us ever really grow up. If you didn't feel safe as a child, inside you now is a child who desperately needs reassurance. If you felt ignored, your inner child is crying to be seen. Almost nobody had a perfect childhood. After all, our parents are people too and dealing with their own imperfections and hurts. Most of them do the best they can, but we all grew up with hurts and unmet needs. Well YOU are the adult in your life now, and you can give to yourself the things your parents couldn't.
Inner Caretaker- The inner caretaker's job is to seek out your needs and respond to them. The inner caretaker is the voice that wants to support and protect you. It is the voice that will point you to nurturing and life affirming things. It grows stronger with self love and is too often drowned out with self abuse. It sounds tiring, doesn't it, addressing all of your needs and hurts? But that's because most of us have a backlog of needs right now. When you give your caretaker a chance to address all the past hurts, and get the present set up to meet all your current needs, then you're all ready to address whatever the future throws at you.
And on the subject of the future and what it holds, no "coming up next time" today. Tell me in the comments if there's a topic you'd like me to sound off on in the next post. If not, I'll see what's on my mind over the next few days and develop that. 'Til next time!
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Some Eating Disorder Statistics
Nothing brightens your day like harrowing statistics!
I'll stop at that, because I want you all to want to come back to my blog. It amazes me, though, that eating disorders can be so dangerous and so prevalent, and yet we rarely ever hear about them. I guess popular culture is still much happier promoting unrealistic ideals than helping us out.
Maybe when breast cancer is cured, ED's can step up to the plate as the new women's issue?
It's not all hopeless, though. There's so much more good information on eating disorders available now than there was twenty years ago, or even ten. There are lots of free resources available through community programs and on the internet. And a lot of ED survivors are coming forward with their stories. So although inpatient treatment is unavailable to many, there is a growing network available to anyone ready to recover.
Up next time: a glossary of things you'll be hearing me say a lot!
These harrowing statistics plus many more, as well as tons of other info can be found at these websites.
http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/anorexia/statistics.htmhttp://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/
http://www.mirasol.net/eating-disorders/information/eating-disorder-statistics.php
- An estimated 8 million Americans suffer from eating disorders (7 million women and one million men).
- One in 200 American women has Anorexia and two to three in 100 has Bulimia.
- 10-15% of people living with Anorexia or Bulimia are men.
- ED's have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
- The mortality rate of Anorexia is 12 time higher than the death rate of ALL other causes of death in women age 15 to 24
- 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems.
- Only 1 in 10 ED sufferers receive treatment.
- Of those who do receive treatment, 80% do not get the intensity of treatment they need to stay in recovery.
- 50% of girls between the ages of 11 and 13 see themselves as overweight.
- 80% of 13 year olds have attempted to lose weight.
- Almost 50% of people with ED's also fit the criteria for depression.
- 25% of college aged women binge and purge as weight management techniqe.
- Over 1/2 of teenage girls and 1/3 of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking, vomiting and abusing laxatives.
- Seventy-seven percent of individuals with eating disorders report that the illness can last anywhere from one to 15 years or even longer in some cases. It is estimated that approximately six percent of serious cases die. For many others, there are long-term, irreversible consequences which can affect one's physical and emotional health. Up to now, only 50% all people with this devastating disease report being cured.
I'll stop at that, because I want you all to want to come back to my blog. It amazes me, though, that eating disorders can be so dangerous and so prevalent, and yet we rarely ever hear about them. I guess popular culture is still much happier promoting unrealistic ideals than helping us out.
Maybe when breast cancer is cured, ED's can step up to the plate as the new women's issue?
It's not all hopeless, though. There's so much more good information on eating disorders available now than there was twenty years ago, or even ten. There are lots of free resources available through community programs and on the internet. And a lot of ED survivors are coming forward with their stories. So although inpatient treatment is unavailable to many, there is a growing network available to anyone ready to recover.
Up next time: a glossary of things you'll be hearing me say a lot!
These harrowing statistics plus many more, as well as tons of other info can be found at these websites.
http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/anorexia/statistics.htmhttp://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/
http://www.mirasol.net/eating-disorders/information/eating-disorder-statistics.php
Welcome!
Ahem. Testing...testing...is this thing on?
In case you're wondering, I chose this title because I was dithering and dithering about what to name the thing and I realized if I didn't just pick something, I'd never get started. So I picked one of my favorite recovery slogans, decided it was indeed good enough and slapped it up at the top of the page.
I'm going to play around with colors and fonts and things now. A more to the point introductory post will be along shortly.
In case you're wondering, I chose this title because I was dithering and dithering about what to name the thing and I realized if I didn't just pick something, I'd never get started. So I picked one of my favorite recovery slogans, decided it was indeed good enough and slapped it up at the top of the page.
I'm going to play around with colors and fonts and things now. A more to the point introductory post will be along shortly.
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