Dinner Alone

I believe I’ve mentioned before that my boyfriend and I regularly eat dinner together. On the weekend nights that he has his son, if I have my kids the same weekend, I have a hard time figuring out what I actually want to eat for dinner. I have a few go-to concoctions on which I rely. I always keep my staples in the apartment on those weekends. Tuna, peppers and onions, baby carrots, crackers, bread, peanut butter. My list is small, but strong.

Last night, my boyfriend and I had a dinner time with the kids off at their grandparents house. It was just the two of us. And he informs me before I leave for work that because he ate lunch, he wasn’t very hungry for dinner. He didn’t care what we had for dinner, if he decided to eat anything. I had to fend for myself.

I instantly start going through all of the scenarios of how I can convince him that I didn’t need dinner either. But I reprimanded myself for that because it was an unhelpful thought.

When I got home, he was already all comfy and ready to just snuggle and relax… but I still needed to eat. I spent over an hour going over what I had available, what I could make, what I didn’t want, what I could be hungry for. I was in a great deal of distress. And when I finally settled on a very strange concoction of tuna with Mexican corn, sour cream, Mexican cheese blend in a tortilla quesadilla style… he questioned me multiple times if I was sure that that is what I really wanted. He didn’t know if it would actually taste any good. He wasn’t sure that it would all work together. Now, I understand it sounds like a strange combination. But if I didn’t think it was going to work, I wouldn’t have continued making it.

I have a hard enough time trying to decide on what to eat. What can I eat. What should I eat. SHOULD I eat? (yes. always yes) It is far more difficult for me to commit to something when it is constantly being questioned, or when someone is showing constant distaste for the thing I’m eating. And the fact I was eating and he wasn’t did not help my situation much.

We ended up going outside to have a smoke to let my food cool. He got distracted filling a snake hole, so I went downstairs, and ate my food. He didn’t even realize I had eaten everything, and finished before he came back inside. But I did it. And it. Was. Delicious.

It was not, however, how I wanted to spend my date night without the kids. Next time, I’ll be more prepared. Or at least try to.

Out Loud

I’ve mentioned a few times before that I have a hard time admitting that I have an eating disorder. It’s even harder to talk about it out loud to another person. I tried talking openly with my boyfriend last night. I asked him if he wanted to hear about my new homework for my therapy, and he said, “…sure.” I could tell he was trying, but he really has a hard time understanding.

Yeah.. he didn’t really understand the importance of me working on my homework either. He mentioned that as long as he’s known me, this is a different ‘phase’ than he’s ever seen. According to him, I have a regular eating phase, an eat everything phase, and an eat next to nothing phase. This is a “weird” phase where he thinks I’m eating “normally” but I’m still obsessing like I would be if I was in an ‘eat next to nothing phase’.

I think that is actually a small victory. I’m in a different phase. I’m TRYING to break the cycle. I’m working toward finding that happy medium, and living there.

I told one of my co-workers. The one to whom I’ve been talking about my frustration with my boyfriend where mental illness is involved. She understands the need for therapy, so why wouldn’t she understand my reason? So I told her. I’ve been diagnosed with Atypical Anorexia Nervosa. and she said, “Oh my god. That’s so terrible. But wait… I thought you always eat supper.”, and she proceeded to try to give me constructive ideas on how to fix my problems. 😐

People may be more understanding of mental health now a days… but boy, they don’t really understand mental illnesses. Anorexic people eat. Bulimic people can keep food in their stomachs. And sometimes… you just don’t fit into a category at all. So they call you atypical.

It’s conversations like these that give me doubt. Even my Primary Doctor noted that I have a possibility of an eating disorder. Sometimes, I really wonder if I’m just making it worse than it really is. Maybe, I’m just a normal, healthy, 26 year-old woman experiencing normal thoughts for a healthy 26 year-old woman.

Or maybe I trust the therapist and acknowledge that I indeed have a problem. That this is not normal. That I am so stubborn, that I wouldn’t have even considered talking to a doctor about this if I wasn’t concerned, or thought I could do it myself. . .But I can have hope that one day, I will be able to have a boring, regular NORMAL life! There’s plenty of other things to make my life exciting. And I want to enjoy them.

Work “friends”

The thing that I hate about working in an office is how close to… and how ridiculously far from.. you are to your co-workers. I have always had a hard time being real around anyone. Multiply that by a million when I’m in an office full of women who play the ‘office politic’ game. I feel like anything that I could possibly say to anyone can, at any given moment, be twisted into something that is entirely different than what I intended.

I’ve been a little touch-and-go with letting people know that I’m seeing a therapist. I believe out of the 15 people in my office, 2 I have told, but they all know that I’ve been having regular ‘doctors’ appointments every other week. I’m sure some of them have figured it out.

What they don’t know is why. It’s difficult for me to explain when I’m still trying to figure it all out. I am slightly closer to some co-workers than others. And I’m thinking about the idea of slowly dipping my toe into the waters of owning my problems. I almost feel like if I were to be transparent with one or two of them… it may help to know that I’m not trying to keep this completely in the dark – that being open with a select few might actually help me in my getting better.

I feel like I’m constantly hiding. I try to hide my body. I try to mask my eating habits. I try to hide how I feel. I try to hide…everything. And maybe, part of getting better is taking that mask away. Coming out into the light and saying, I have a problem. I mean… in real life. With people. That sounds so hard, but so is everything else I’m doing in order to … not fix… overcome my illness.

It’s also really been nagging in the back of my brain… maybe you should just tell someone. Maybe, you can find someone who would understand and not think they need to fix you, or worry that you’re skipping lunch again, or look at you in a different way. Okay. THAT is what terrifies me. All. Of. The. Above. But maybe it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as how I imagine it in my head. It almost never is. Until it is.

Atypical My Ass

Something that frustrates me the most about finally addressing my mental health is that I would absolutely LOVE to be able to just turn it off. I am on my lunch break. My routine for my lunch break is go home, check the mail, pick up my daughter from school and drop her off at daycare, then run back to work. Occasionally, I have a few extra minutes to run to the store or gas station.

Today, I have been particularly hungry. I checked the mail and went inside. Keeping in mind my next appointment is tomorrow morning, and I have homework to complete…. I figured I would look for a snack.

I looked in the cabinet. I wanted soup – too calorie dense. Peanut butter? Too many calories. I looked in the fridge. I was there, crouched in front of my refrigerator for 5 minutes… And couldn’t bring myself to actually make a decision.

I haven’t put my number for dinner into my tracker, and so everything had too many calories.

And as I sit here in my car waiting for school to dismiss for the day, I’m unhappy that I didn’t make a choice. I’m upset that I can’t just eat. Why is that so fucking hard? I mean… it’s not in theory. Just in practice.

My stomach is empty. And I should just eat. But something in my brain is preventing me from doing just that. So yes. I am suffering from an eating disorder. And progress doesn’t just happen. It takes time. It takes effort.

Today has been a bad day. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll never get there. Each day starts fresh. And tomorrow will be better. I will be stronger. And every day after that. And when I DO finally get this thing under control, I will look back at this, and be proud of getting myself away from feeling like this.

Snack Attack

So I’m working on noticing the difference between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ behavior. It is normal to crave a snack, eat that snack, be satiated, and be done. It is abnormal to crave a snack, so you find everything you possibly can, and eat it alone in bed late at night.

Last night, I had 2 pop-tarts, a caramel MilkyWay bar, a hollow bunny, some jelly beans, some milk duds, and a giant spoon full of peanut butter. Somehow, I managed to eat all of those things within a half hour, alone, in bed. That is abnormal behavior. That, my friends, is what we call a binge. Maybe not the worst binge in the entire world… but definitely a binge.

What’s even crazier in my mind (which I’m sure you’ve figured out is crazy within its own right), is when I did my morning weigh-in. I had gone DOWN two pounds. Immediately, I wanted to reach for my measuring tape… but it’s the weekend – no measuring on the weekend. Ugh.

And now… What? Where do I go from here? What I want to do is punish myself for this. *Not normal* I want to avoid eating anything today, to ‘make up’ for this. *which will lead me right back to this point* But it’s done, so I can’t go back and fix it now.

Now… what should I do? I should take into consideration that I’ve not done that in a long time, and when you deny your body some things for so long, you’ll pay for it eventually. I should understand that unhealthy snacks are actually.. okay.. in moderation every once in a while.

Maybe, I’ll have to work one ‘naughty’ food into what I allow myself to eat for a week. For me… it’s never about whether or not I want to eat sweets – I always want to eat sweets… It’s about what I allow myself to eat. THAT is what I should stop.

I am always allowed to eat.

Eating is a function that provides fuel for my body, that keeps it healthy, that keeps it running, that keeps me here. Why, since I understand the logistics so well, am I so unable to apply these things in practice? That is the part that really sucks the most in particular.

Denial

What a dirty word. Denial. In the back of my head, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it’s true. Every time I’ve thought to myself, “Hey, Vim. I think you could probably use some help.”, I kick myself in the ass and say back, “Believe me. I’ve got this! I am so strong, and I’ve taken care of myself my whole life. Why would I need help with something like this?”

-DENIAL

You know what is NOT a dirty word? Help. Accepting that there is something in your life that you thought you had 100% control over, and realizing that that control… is what’s slowly killing you.

Food has given me control over my life. Anything and everything around me that I have no control over. But I have the willpower to deny my BODY something it NEEDS in order to LIVE. Now THAT is control.

-DENIAL

But I have periods of time when I let go. When I indulge in something that I’ve been wanting to eat for the last 6 months but haven’t allowed myself to because it just wasn’t in the cards. I can’t possibly have an actual disorder if I have periods of time when I can just ‘let go’, even when everything seems to be falling apart around me. If that were the case, people would take notice, and show concern over the appearance of my body, right?

This isn’t a problem. This cycle will not start over.

-DENIAL

I just need to find a healthy balance. Between eating too much, and not enough. That should be easy, right? I can do that by myself.

-DENILE

I will get to a point. Where I’m okay with not being okay. It’s just not today. And that is okay.

Homework…

I have homework to complete before my next visit with my doctor. I’ve been kind of dreading it, even though it’s really small changes.

1.) Only take measurements on weekdays. No measuring on weekends.

2.) Deleting 10 of the oldest photos in my ‘body’ album.

3.) Only buying vending machine food if I eat it within 30 minutes of buying it.

4.) Reduce Social Media with targeting ads.

5.) Bring a small amount of food into work one day a week.

Here we are. It is Friday, and I have chosen today to be the day that I bring food into work. I carefully counted out 20 baby carrots, measured out 2 tablespoons of powdered peanut butter to mix when I’m ready, and plucked 4 strips of red bell pepper out of my pre-cut preserve. It is now in my refrigerator at work… and I already don’t want to eat it. My brain is so used to thinking that my stomach is always full that even that small amount of food – in the middle of the day – seems like so very much. It is 95 calories. It is NOT too much. It is NOT ENOUGH.

Now I have a snack. In the refrigerator. That I have to eat. Before I leave today. A healthy snack. A delicious snack. And at 12:15, I will eat it. And because it is Friday, I will not be able to measure myself tomorrow, or Sunday. I don’t want to follow these rules, but I want to get healthy. It’s like I tell my kids – you don’t have to like the rules. You don’t have to question the rules. But you WILL follow the rules. I will follow the rules. Because I am a fucking adult. Lead by example, right? I hate this.

It is NOT too much!

Okay. Dinner is one of my biggest stress points. My boyfriend and I eat dinner together most nights, and the question I always dread is, “What are you thinking for dinner?” My answer is always, “I can’t even think about food yet. It’s so far away.” What’s even worse is when he asks for my preference on the NEXT dinner. Rarely do I know what I want to eat – WHEN IT’S TIME TO EAT!! And of course, on the two or three nights every other week when I don’t have him there to make me feel like I MUST eat…. I don’t. And, As mentioned before, not eating is not good.

So last night, we had a rare night without the kids. In the middle of the day… I get the question. “Are we going out tonight, or do you want to stay in?” We discussed this for hours. Me, going back and forth in my head about what I could and could not eat. Thinking about which restaurant would have the ‘healthiest’ option. Wondering if I wanted to take a night to ‘cheat’. And then, we decided on a place to go get gyros (we hadn’t had a gyro in years due to our area). I HAD to go back to work, Google the shit out of the restaurant, and figure out if it was ‘okay’ for me to order what I wanted.

This is behavior that I recognize is definitely not logical.

This next bit is where the Atypical part particularly sucks. I decided on exactly what I was going to order. I plugged it all into my handy dandy calorie tracker – using the closest thing I could possibly find as this restaurant did not have any nutritional information anywhere – and I was determined.

After one appetizer, one little spanakapita, I was full. But then my gyro came out. My giant, greasy, fantastically delicious gyro. I stared at it in disbelief – am I REALLY going to eat that entire thing? The numbers were already in my tracker, and I had already determined that – Yes, Vim. You are GOING to eat that.

So I tucked in. After about half an hour of taking awkward bites of this huge Fair Food gyro in a sit-down restaurant…. I had done it. I had eaten the entire giant, greasy, fantastically delicious gyro… And I felt disgusting. I felt like crying. I felt like I needed to get out of that place where everyone was staring at me eating this awkward hand food in my work clothes. I looked at my number again. Sitting there, feeling inundated with grease and meat and tzatziki sauce, trying not to get sick… and my number for the day was a whopping… 710. It is NOT too much. It is not enough.

I was disgusted with myself. I felt terrible. Like I was one good cough away from my stomach getting rid of all my progress. I felt like I had eaten way too much, and I was beating myself up for hours. But I kept it down. And eventually, I felt like I wasn’t going to get sick. And THAT is a victory.

I am happy to say that I even had a little (I’m talking 50 calories more) snack in bed. I CAN do this. I WILL do this. At this point, I don’t have a choice. Any small victory is a giant step toward becoming healthy. And I will become healthy. Eventually. It just sucks.

I told my boyfriend that I had wanted to stop after the appetizer, and he, being logical and all-knowing, said “But you knew that wouldn’t be good”. Duh. So I told him that obviously I did, but I kept eating for him. He had an issue with that mindset. But let me tell you what. Sometimes – a LOT of times – it’s difficult for me to do something specifically for me. So if there is anyone else I can make a difference for – him, my children, my friends – I will latch onto that as my “reason”. I am tricking myself into thinking healthy by thinking that I’m doing it for the people around me. But… It’s okay to want to do something for me. It’s GOOD to something just for me. That’s a hard thing to get used to.

I am NOT healthy. This is NOT a diet. This is NOT something I can just think through logically. And this is why it’s called an Eating DISORDER.

It is not too much. I am not disgusting. I didn’t gain anything overnight from indulging in one meal. I will be okay.