Burden

I absolutely HATE being a burden on other people. I understand that there are people to whom I can talk, and those to whom I can’t. A lot of times, I rely on the people who can’t understand why I need to talk… – which is stupid of me.

I have a very close personal circle. Two girl friends and whoever their dating at the time, and my boyfriend. Everyone else in whom I confide is pretty much ancillary in my life until I decide to make them a deciding factor on one thing or another which no one close to me can understand.

Regardless…. I start to feel like a burden. Whether it’s on my personal friends, my co-workers… Because I’m not 100% honest…. about anything. And when I try to be honest… they think I’m kidding – and with that, I try to roll. Any excuse for me to be in denial.

Actually, a huge reason why I started this site…this blog?…this thing. . . was because I just wanted a space to be open without causing distress on my friends/family/normal life people.

If you’re reading this, and you feel the same way… feel free to reach out. Sometimes it takes a stranger to know a stranger..

If you’re in no way related to this, and you ask a loved one you fear is going through the same thing… good luck, and be patient. Eating disorders like to hide in the darkest recesses of the brain, and denial is their best friend. But don’t give up, just be gentle.

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.

Sick Enough

So here I am. Making a public blog about something about which I may still be in denial. Totally normal. No one at my job knows. A grand total of three people in my personal life know. And now, anyone who reads this will know. I, Vim, have an Eating Disorder. I have been diagnosed with Atypical Anorexia Nervosa. For anyone who doesn’t know what that is… it’s Anorexia Nervosa that hides inside the brain – never quite ‘bad enough’ to be a ‘real problem’. At least… that’s what I’ve told myself for the past 15 years of my life, and what I still find myself thinking a majority of the time.

I mean… How ‘sick’ can I really be if I made it to 26 without being diagnosed? I’ve never really been UNDER weight, so I can’t possibly have an Eating Disorder… But here I am. I talked to my doctor about my concerns over my eating habits after my kidney health declined over the last year, and now my liver is taking a bit of a hit. Did I mention I’m only 26? That is not normal, and neither is the way my brain thinks.

I like to think of myself as a relatively intelligent person. I know the logistics behind the right way to lose weight and exercise. But for some reason… my brain just sometimes seems to hit a wall. I understand not eating is not good. I know that in order to burn calories, I need to eat calories. But I also know that when I start working out, I will see a more immediate result if I don’t eat as much. There’s still some logic to that statement. That logic goes away when I don’t eat ENOUGH.

So Here I am. One day closer to being healthy. One day closer to accepting that I do have a problem. I will have set backs. It will not happen over night. But I am here. And I’d like to stick around for a bit.