Decidedly Un-Groovy

“Ba da, Ba da, Ba da, Ba da…Feelin’ Groovy?”   

Sorry Simon and Garfunkel, but me? NOT SO MUCH.

I am most definitely anti-groove. Decidedly un-groovy.

What I AM feeling is the absence of groove.  I want my groove back.

I have spent the past week feeling so YUCK. I’ve smiled, yeah. But I’m not feeling like myself.

I am lonely — lonely to the core. This makes me want to isolate because, if I do venture out there, the inevitable return to my apartment, my self,  my lonely existence feels even worse.  I am being crazy-stupid about food — which is both caused by and contributing to my mucked-up moods. I feel closer to being “in disease” right now than “in recovery.”

Being “in disease” has lost it’s ”charm” (not that it ever had much). I mean — it no longer works for me as a crutch or a coping mechanism. I can’t numb out and lose myself in the ED Insanity without KNOWING THE WHOLE TIME how much it SUCKS and how WEAK I am being.  

Add a generous heap of low energy, numbness, lack of sleep and boredom and what do you get?

The opposite of GROOVE.
Hmm….A BUMP. Maybe this is just a “bump in the road.”

The worst part, the scary part, is my lack of motivation or energy to do anything to help myself right now.

I just. Don’t. Care. (For now…)

God? I need a swift kick in the butt.

 So….what to do, what to do?   I HAVE to take action so I can find my way back to the sunny side of life and …..

 

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“Don’t Call it a Comeback….”

If I am to be honest with myself–  and being honest with myself is VITAL to my recovery — I have to face the fact that I am …..

Misbehaving.

Call it what you will: slipping, back-tracking, losing focus…just not RELAPSE.

Relapse would mean a complete 180 back to the darkness.  I am still making a lot of good choices, going to meetings, praying for recovery…etc. I prefer the term misbehavior to describe what I am experiencing.

I can’t ignore these BEHAVIORS of mine that started after losing my appetite a few weeks ago.  I can no longer deny that they SCREAM  “EATING DISORDERED.”

I have been behaving very badly. Not on my best behavior. Bad Girl.

In an effort to deal with this in a manner akin to writing sentences on the chalkboard or wearing the DUNCE cap in class… I have decided to capture these behaviors on my blog – an attempt to virtually simulate  a time – out.

“Go to my room, think about what I did, and not come out until I’m ready to behave.”

I am not going to punish myself…recovery is a process. I have no reason to feel “bad” or “guilty” about a bit of misbehavior — a little funny business. I’m a work in progress! I have to learn from my mistakes.

Without further delay here it is. The ugly truth of what I have been up to.

• Weighing myself. It started innocently enough, because I had not weighed myself in … 9,10 months? I needed gauge where my weight is. Seeing the number was highly alarming, actually.  So…why I have done it since? Am I still alarmed or perversely amused? Hmmm…bad, bad, Missy. This should, fortunately, be easy to resolve. Weighing myself was never the full-blown, consuming obsession I have known it to be in other anorexics.  I  managed to avoid the rabbit-hole to that particular wonderland.  (thank you God).
• Eating far too many egg whites because they are just easy and safe for me right now and telling myself “after all, I just have no appetite.”  I must admit I am NOT eating, because 1/2 cup egg whites does not a lunch make.
• Dousing my food with mustard, hot sauce….almost as if I don’t want to taste it. I am not talking about normal amounts. I’m talking — embarrassing, shameful amounts. Anyone  witnessing this behavior would surely feel sick to their stomach. 
• More than a few trips to the store that entail purchases of 4 different types of mustard and 3 different hot sauces –even when I have some at home. Then proceeding to check-out with little else in my cart besides diet soda, maybe. Straight up freak behavior. 
• Lots of caffeine. And enjoying the way it makes me workout like a maniac. Yes, I enjoy feeling all the endorphins when I have a fantastic swim, but lets face it. This is bad behavior.
• Eating and craving pickles, mustards, hot sauces, olives like crazy! This is 1). An anorexic behavior of looking for food-alternatives/substitutes. 2) A primal yearning for salt — a sign of dehydration. 
• KINDA-sorta feeling the ISOLATING tip. I had been feeling lonely lately — disappointed that all my plans kept falling through. I adopted the mindset of just entertaining myself and hoping social activities would find me rather than search them out. I fear this is not a good sign. I’m not concerned if I spend any time with another person this weekend. Last week I was feeling so alone! 

These behaviors alarm me because they are ghosts from the past….I did all of them (to a greater degree, with reckless abandon, and no self-awareness) when I was “in the trenches.”

You can’t BS*** a BSh***er….ya know? I know this is bad stuff.

So…..deep breath.  “Mommy can I come out now? I promise I’ll do better!”

(0;

Coincidentally (if you catch the pop culture reference in my title)

“Mama Said knock you out.”

 That Means YOU…stupid anorexia.

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Bueller? … Bueller?

On Monday I decided to take a Personal Day off work. I was  exhausted because a *shudder* sewer emergency kept me and all my neighbors busy until all hours of the night. I will spare you the details except for one little gem….

I totally pulled an Amy Poehler in the movie Baby Mama. Never seen it? This should suffice.

Me + sink + roll of toilet paper + bottle of bleach = FUN TIMES

Yeah, I went there. What else was I gonna do? The entire complex was crawling with people or I would have gone alfresco.

Anyway, as soon as I gave my boss the news,  I quickly realized I really NEEDED some quality ME time. I have been running around goose-on-the-loose style; being social and active and attending meetings and suddenly –  I just wanted ME. Solitude.

This was new — because I was not isolating. It’s normal to want some alone time. It can be productive, in fact. Constructive.

I decided to do some serious thinking and contemplating that day. I brushed my teeth, got my swimsuit on, gathered some books and headed to the pool. Ahhh……….

Did I have any deep thoughts? Profound insights? Ah-hah moments?

Nanny,Nanny Boo Boo.. I’m not at work…whatcha gonna do?

I had some serious work to do…but also finished up “Bitter is the New Black” by Jen Lancaster. It was so quiet.

My rings Say “Be Brave Love Life, Believe, and Love

This? Was a G-O-O-D idea.

 Here are some of the thinks I thunk:

The good, the bad and the ugly.

• I am too thin. Scary thin. /0:
• I have mixed feelings  *LETS GET REAL* I think a part of me (the ED) is quite happy about this — which makes me sad.
• I started a new book called “Woman, Food and God” by Geneen Roth which my Mom gave me and it has me thinking A LOT! Can all my beliefs about who I am and what I believe be represented by what and how I eat? I think she is on to something!  
• I need a meal plan. BIG TIME. Even if I have to hammer one out myself. I am simply not eating enough.
• I am definitely doing the right thing by going to these meetings; Anorexics & Bulimics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, and my treatment center’s alumni group. I think I am ready to start gathering literature and get to work.
• I need MORE God in my life.
• I don’t want to work — I just want to play in the sun all day.
• I need to do this ME time more often! (0:

So….I guess I’ll get to work. First step? A closer look at my food/meal intake and what I may be able to improve.

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Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone…..

Enough is enough. You see, I had decided that the most painful and frustrating part of going around being a sad-hag is because basically I am not a “wah-wah-wah, doom and gloom” kind of girl. It’s just not my nature. I like butterflies and rainbows and clouds and drawings of honeybees. I love Jesus. 

  I like being ridiculous. I like to eat peanut butter and pickles. 

All you need is Love. Peace. 

So I was going around like….what is wrong with me. Where is my “me”-ness?Sheesh. 

So I developed the brilliant plan to just “give in”  to the depression rather than trying to fight it.  

I scripted a new inner-monologue. 

“I’m not okay and I’m okay with that ”…. “I have run out of pretend”….I like to just sleep all the time and numb myself out in my apartment. That’s my “happy place.” 

Problem is, I’d be feeling like a cruddy, dirty, grey slug and then all of the sudden I find myself making little jokes with my neighbor and smiling or thinking happy thoughts or something. This is really incongruous with what is going on in my life, but I can’t help it. It is not fake. It’s me. 

I am sad happy girl. Or happy sad girl. Is there a word for a happy sort of sad or a sad sort of happiness? Not ambivalence…. 

Maybe I am like the sunshine peaking out of a cloud. Or — my favorite time of day -twilight- when the world gets really glow-y and everything is oddly illuminated.  It is pretty rare and when it happens it feels like magic. 

See what I mean? I am the girl who goes outside and says “Yay! It’s twilight…it’s like magic!” and yes, when there is a rainbow in the sky I want to let everyone in my vicinity know about it (for instance – a complete stranger in the parking lot). 

But I’m also a big, fatty-fat pants failure who can’t get it 

My avatar?

 

 together. 

 See what I mean?

 

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Cocoon

Main Entry: ¹co·coon

Pronunciation: \kə-ˈkün\

1 a : an envelope often largely of silk which an insect larva forms about itself and in which it passes the pupa stage b : any of various other protective coverings produced by animals
2 a : something suggesting a cocoon especially in providing protection or in producing isolation

Because I choose to believe that complete transformation is possible, I consistently latch onto the symbolic metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly — which I also liken to the caterpillar’s journey into becoming the butterfly. Because there is work involved.

The whole scenario abounds with metaphor….the caterpillar confined to the leaf and then undergoing a true soul-transformation into a creature full of color and light and life. A creature that can fly toward the light.  But first the caterpillar must face the darkness of the cocoon…go within itself until finally it is ready to begin the beautiful struggle and fight the darkness…..you get the picture.

So, this sort of malaise I find myself in of late, while extremely painful and disturbing, also feels quite functional. I don’t have the energy to run away from my issues right now. I have sunk to my knees in the sand and just watch as the water washes me over and recedes again and again.

Cocoon “any of various other protective coverings produced by animals….something suggesting a cocoon especially in providing protection or in producing isolation”

So as I slink home, preparing to bury myself in a novel and make a sport of sleeping just to avoid being awake, there is a sense of comfort. That I am doing something that I need to do. I am in a transition period right now. It’s scary and dark and confining and so lonely but perhaps that is exactly where I need to be.

Just a thought.

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