Second-guessing

I have had a lot the think about following the tragedy at my Alma Mater. My biology department was small; so it was inevitable that I knew everyone who died, the injured, and the shooter herself. I am grief-ridden, and I do not how to mend all that has been broken both inside of me and at my school. Yet, unbelievably, in the face of this immense tragedy, I have learned a value lesson about the futility of second-guessing.

I struggled with anorexia when I attended UAH, so I was not able to make my experience as full as I might have wanted. I did not take a lot of the classes I wanted because my maximum workload capacity was diminished due to overwhelming fatigue from starving. I did not work in one of the biology labs at UAH.

I am so glad I didn't.

Up until Friday's shooting, I have hated myself for decisions I made in school. Now, I see that every decision I made was self-preserving in the long term. I almost worked in a killer's lab. I could have worked in the labs of any one of the people who lost their lives and been even closer to the biology department.

I have also regretted graduating in the winter instead of the spring, as I have found myself in a lull before going to graduate school this fall. I could still be attending UAH, and I could easily have found myself forced to reenter the Shelby Center in the aftermath of what happened there.

The point I am really trying to make is that it never does any good to question whether or not you made the "right decision" in the past. I thought for a while that I had made a lot of bad decisions, but now they all seem right. You just never know.

Happiness

I find that happiness is more fragile than unhappiness. When I am really happy, I do not want to piece it apart. I do not want to fully consider why this particular thing brings me joy, or whether it is replicable. Thinking too hard about happiness generally dampens the feeling, and other people can easily steal it away with just the slightest negative comment.

Yet, when I am miserable, I try to dissect the reasons behind my emotional state. I want to understand what has made me unhappy, and I want to fix it. It is very difficult for anyone else to improve my depressed moods, so other people’s comments fail to affect me. Misery is quite a steadfast emotion for me.

Thinking about all of this has led me to the conclusion that, rightly or not, I consider happiness to be illogical and unhappiness to be sensible. I don’t like to ruminate on my happy moods because I believe that doing so will dispel them. Any negative comments made towards me when I am happy I use as “proof” that I have no logical reason to be in a good mood. I believe also that when I am unhappy, it is because I am discouraging myself from engaging in self-deception. If anyone tries to talk me out of my bad moods, I always think they just don’t “get it.”

When I was really suffering from anorexia, I thought that if I tried to get better, it would be because I was hiding from the “truth.” I did not deserve to eat, I believed, so the right and noble thing to do was to starve. I suspected that other people knew I did not deserve to be healthy, but they would just not admit it to themselves. Thus, I considered myself to be a kind of martyr for the truth—the truth being that I did not deserve life.

I am still stubborn for the truth, but I try not to equate happiness with an unwillingness to be truthful. Until I am able to be strong and confident in my happiness, I will just have to be careful with my fragile joys.

Patience

I am not a patient person. I am not patient because I value control above all else. Being patient means that I am relinquishing control to something or someone else--time, circumstance, graduate schools, etc. Another reason I am not patient is that I think that I have always associated patience with inactivity, which I further equate with laziness. If I am not doing something--anything, the thought usually goes-- then I am not being proactive enough. However, I think that after a month of self-deprecation over not doing anything, I have finally realized that I am doing all I can. I have applied to schools, I have applied to jobs, and now the ball is other people's courts. It is up to other parties to decide if and when to contact me. Chomping at the bit is not going to quicken the process, and frankly, I just need to settle down.

Love

It says a lot about the fickle, ever-changing nature of life that the day after I write about abuse, the meaning of love is on my mind. The contrast likely has a lot to do with it, too. Thank goodness for life's surprise blessings.

It is hard for me to say if this is how I've always been, but at least after having had anorexia, I find I am not at all driven by bodily desires. While in some ways I feel cheated, I also feel that being freed from corporeal temptations allows me to discover purer goods. I know that if I fall in love with someone, it really is due to an emotional and spiritual connection, not mere physicality.

The reason I am feeling blessed today is that there is a certain someone in my life who, I believe, feels the way I do. This person (whom I shall call "X") loves me, I am sure, for reasons that far exceed my exterior. X has loved me during all of the difficult circumstances that have surrounded my life recently. X has seen my face awash with teary makeup and loved it just as much as its clearer, brighter version. X has promised to be at my side in a moment's noticed and proved it consistently. I really believe that X has taught me the meaning of love, for he has loved me unconditionally, without asking anything in return.

Abuse

What is abuse, really? I think it's an oversimplified, under-appreciated term used to describe one person's physical or emotional control over another. In my case, it's a pattern I have found myself in again and again. As a young child, I lived in fear of my father and his violent rages against me. He never hit me, but he seemed to be so profoundly disgusted with who I was that I came to believe I was as bad as he said I was. Lately, though, I have come to think that the most damaging result of his treatment of me is that I find it difficult to think or stand up for myself. I learned young that it was better not to have a desire or opinion that he could so easily and brutally deny.

These days, I still struggle with owning my own thoughts. This is why I continue to develop damaging relationships. A certain person told me today, in response to me saying to him that I was scared of him, "Do you want me to give you something to scared about?" He then proceeded to tell me that I was not actually in a abusive relationship but, rather, called "abuse," so to speak, in order to get attention. Not true. I do actually become involved in relationships that I am going to call "abusive" because the abuser in them does not allow me to think or act for myself without repercussion. And I stay in abusive relationships because in a strange and disturbing way, they are comfortable. Abuse is familiar territory for me, and when I am low I crave the numbness that abuse creates. My response mechanism is to just turn off the hurt and stay low. Lock my door, turn on the music, and tell myself it's for the best; I don't really deserve anything more anyway.

Well, guess what, abusers, I am no longer going to cower like some animal. I may not feel like I deserve to be in healthy relationships now, but I am going to protect myself and wait until the day I realize it's what I've deserved all along.

Question for readers

As I was reflecting on my past few entries, I had the concern that perhaps I am not being helpful enough, especially since I have graduated and grown depressed. Writing out my feelings is certainly helpful for me, but is it helpful to readers out there? Let me know if you would prefer different kinds of entries, or even if you are content with my writing style.

School/food restriction reward mechanism

Forgive me, but this posting is going to be very convoluted as I struggle to make sense of my thoughts...

Now that my school routines are gone, I am beginning to realize just how much my eating routines were tied in with academic performance. Ever since the onset of anorexia, I no longer respond normally or appropriately to positive stimuli. Every enjoyable, pleasurable sensation I am able to have relies on a directly preceding accomplishment. That is, even though I typically enjoy shopping, for instance, I am numb to enjoying such an outing without having "earned" it. Furthermore, this "earning" process is quite complex. Part of it involves some sort of hardship or personal suffering on my part. This equation will always involve food restriction or denial. The other part of the equation involves accomplishing something with the added burden of doing it while hungry. Thus, while I was in school, I carefully crafted my days to earn a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day. All day long, I would work hard in my classes, all the while extremely hungry and driven to consume large quantities of such stomach fillers as soda and gum.

It was intensely miserable, but the formula worked because at the end of the day, I could actually relax. There are many reasons for this. Partly, I could feel good given the contrast between suffering and then relaxing at home. Yet, I also constructed little personal victories every day. I have always been extremely hard on myself and, for whatever reason, I decided along the way that just keeping a 4.0 GPA in school was not enough to feel good about myself. I also had to suffer while doing it. The added burden of food restriction somehow made me able to feel proud of myself. Somehow, this daily cycle of suffering and allowing myself to let go at the end of the day consumed every basic pleasure I had, so that I could not enjoy anything without somehow working hard or suffering first. I have gotten less restrictive and demanding on myself since school ended, mostly, I think, because much of my restrictions rely on school. It is not enough to just restrict food intake without having to go to school as well, so I just don't feel compelled to rigidly control my eating--the reward feedback is just not there. This is why I am currently left feeling empty and depressed and disinclined to push myself. This leaves me two huge concerns: one, will the closely meshed food-school reward mechanism come back when I go to graduate school,and two, how can I ever again respond "normally" to positive stimuli? This is what I will be trying to figure out in the months to come.

An unfullfulling emptiness

I am now graduated from college, and it is just as bad as I feared. Yes, I am going to graduate school in the fall, and I will eventually find a job, but knowing those things doesn't help. Without a solid routine or daily cognitive workouts for my overactive brain, I am completely floundering. It is akin to my circumstances post-high school graduation, and yet I find I am a much different person. It is after I graduated high school that my anorexia reached its most devastating point, as I searched for ways to add structure and reliability to my new life. This time, however, I find that my old routines give me no comfort and, frankly, I no longer feel compelled to adhere to them. I don't mind when I get up, eat breakfast, go to the gym, or whether I even go to the gym at all. It doesn't matter to me whether I go out, where I go, or when I come home. Maybe all of this sounds typical for a normal young twenty-something, but it is highly alien to me. None of my remaining routines are unhealthy anymore; they just provide consistency. I am torn whether or not to pursue them because even though I feel lost and depressed, I have come a long way from the days where I had to downright breathe on a set schedule.

There is overwhelming silence without anorexia. My mind is just so empty, in an unhappy, restless kind of way. I do not know what makes me happy anymore. I know I should feel proud that I do not feel driven by anorexic urges anymore, but it seems that there is nothing else inside of me now that the rules and rigidity have left. I remember Dr. Anita Johnson telling me one time that no one becomes anorexic without a reason; for some people at some time in their lives, it is the only coping mechanism they know. Well, that was certainly true of me five years ago, but now anorexia offers me no solace. It is an old, faded trick that no longer beguiles me. Yet, I am dying to know, what else is there?

From nothingness to communion

I was thinking today that the things I want are really quite simple. Yet, anorexia--for all of its self-effacing qualities-- is extraordinarily complex. It seeks to gain an intangible numbness and near-emptiness by denying one of the most fundamental necessities of life. Trying to get what you want by denying something it takes to live is quite a task towards achieving fulfillment. I have felt so often that I fiercely strain for what I want, when all that I crave is a certain state of being-- nothing material. It seems bitterly ironic that I should starve myself to achieve my simple desires, so either I am utterly misdirected or my desires are not so simple. Which is it?

I think it is some of both. For one, my path towards happiness has always been self-negating in nature. It has often seemed to me that the more substance I contain--the more I feel, or the more I physical space I comprise--the more unhappy I am. The less of "me" that there is, the better. I cannot condone wanting to diminishing myself physically, but I do think there is some legitimacy to wanting to feel less of myself. I believe this may be related to the underpinnings of Eastern philosophy, which emphasizes universal "oneness" over individual containment. I think I just want to feel like I am part of something, and it is actually draining to focus on myself for so long. Given that our culture is so "me"-focused, however, I think it takes some extra effort to seek harmony with others. I think it is healthy to tailor my desire to be numb from myself towards feeling outside of myself. I think it may be a process of redirecting my energies away from creating nothingness to creating a communion with people and ideas that are around me.

Love the whole me

Yesterday was one of those days that really tests the delineation between sickness and recovery. My boyfriend's parents came to visit for the afternoon, so we all spent the afternoon shopping at a local mall. I had met his parents only once before, so I did not feel comfortable eating around them. I was afraid of potentially marring the entire afternoon at dinner by acting strange, and I desperately wanted to avoid that. Eating in public, or eating in the company of someone I do not know, creates an extremely tense environment for me. I become paranoid that I am being watched and judged-- that my eating disorder is spelled out right on my face. This is something that is difficult for me to resolve, because the simple act of chewing and swallowing can become insurmountable under the right circumstances.

The afternoon at the mall, which began promisingly, did not end well. My boyfriend was of course quite aware of my reluctance to eat with his parents, so I trusted that he would wrap up the day as cleanly as possible. As we were standing outside Best Buy, his parents provided what I thought was a perfect opportunity to say our goodbyes and exit. Yet, my boyfriend suggested that we eat together. I could not believe it. Getting inside the car to drive to the restaurant, I asked, incredulously, "What are you doing?"

As it turns out, we did not go out to eat. As soon as I inquired into his reasoning, he decided to get back out of the car and inform his parents-- in God knows what language-- that we were not, in fact, going to eat. I was completely perplexed at this point. I could not understand what was going through my boyfriend's mind, and now I felt that he had ruined the image I had carefully crafted for his parents all afternoon. I was hurt; he, for some reason, was angry. He said that he had just wanted to spend more time with his parents, and why couldn't I have just gone out to eat with them? Honestly, I thought, do you really not know!?

I don't think yesterday was really ever resolved. Somehow my boyfriend had separated me from my disorder and had wanted me, minus my disorder, to spend time with his parents. He felt that I was just being difficult; that I was petulantly choosing to neglect girlfriend duties. Neither are the case. I am many great things, and some of them, in fact, are due to having experienced anorexia. I don't expect anyone to love anorexia per se, but anyone who loves me has to love the parts of me that are touched by the disease. One of the greatest difficulties in recovery is getting people to understand that nothing about anorexia is black and white. I am not completely overtaken by the disorder; nor am I entirely anorexia-free. I need people to love and accept the whole me, as I am.