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.
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