A Fifty Dollar Note and Two Twenties - There's Your £90

You'd think that planning a wedding would be horrific for someone who has trauma surrounding weddings. You'd also think that wedding planning would drive a woman into an eating disorder (KE Diet, anyone? -- that's ANOTHER blog). But the truth is, I have never been happier, healthier, more in love, more giddy. I love this whole wedding planning thing.

Alex -- Life makes sense with you in it, pancake. I have tried to convey to you how you make me feel numerous times, but I just can't find the perfect way to say it. I don't know how to formulate sentences that describe how perfect for me you are. Every girl imagines her dream wedding and with that her dream husband. You put my dream husband to shame. I couldn't have imagined someone as perfect for me as you are. Since we started dating, I have never had a doubt in my mind that you and I were meant to be together forever. You do things for me and say things to me that no one has ever done. You let me be me, and you love me as me. I know I have said it before, but you make me feel like a person again. People took so much away from me when I was younger that I was without -- without choice, independence, rights, ideas that were worth listening to, a voice... That was all taken away, and when you don't have any of that, the fundamental qualities of being a person are taken away. You lit up my world, showed me where all the things I had lost were, and encouraged (and still do) me to seize everything I had lost.

Thank you for making everything so easy. I love you :)

Old Draft Finally Published & The Puzzle Theory & Alex

I took a vacation to Virginia. I planned this for a total of 60 minutes before piling into my Camry with a suitcase. This is who I am. I am the girl who gets an itch to do something and does it. I like to do what I want, within reason of course. I don't like to be controlled; I spent too much of my life being controlled... but that's another blog.


I went to Spotsylvania, Virginia, which I feel happier when I call it "Spotsy"! It's a quaint little town, and I didn't come here for the tourist appeal. I came here to see a friend, someone I haven't seen in nearly five years. I'm sitting on his couch while he works the night away at TGI Friday's, and even though he isn't here right now, I'm so thankful to be here. I get a bit stir crazy, and I need to get away. Coming here was a great idea. My friend knows everything there is to know about my eating disorder. He knows more about my past than most of my oldest friends do, even the ones who lived through it with me. Most importantly, he genuinely cares about all of this. He genuinely cares about me. When I haven't eaten, he gives me this look, a look that lets me know he notices what's going on and he's wanting to be sure that I'm okay. He laughs at my silly quirks (when I first arrived he burst into laughter when seeing my need to turn around all of the nutrition labels so that they were not facing me -- then, he proceeded to turn around the labels on three different boxes of cereal!). He can sense when I'm weary about food, and he...

----------

I wrote what is found above at the beginning of March. I kept it as a draft, planning on publishing it in time. I never really got around to doing it though. The friend I went to visit soon became my boyfriend. Not long after that, we got engaged. Alex and I are the happiest couple in the world. Never have I met someone I am more in sync with.  We mesh perfectly.
For a long time I considered myself damaged goods, something that no one would want for a long time, just to tide them over, help them get their fix, and have them move along. I once told my therapist at Castlewood that being a victim for so long gave all my future boyfriends a free pass to beat the hell out of me. I called this "the puzzle theory".
The puzzle theory works like this: imagine a puzzle on the floor, a child has been working on it for months. One day, the child is careless and loses a piece of the puzzle. Then, he spills some soda on the puzzle. Slowly, the puzzle becomes more broken and less appealing. The child keeps working on the puzzle though, trying to make it beautiful. The child's dog eats a piece or two. Eventually, the puzzle becomes so mangled that the child doesn't care at all. It reaches a point where no one would even notice if the puzzle had any damage beyond what had already happened. That's where I was -- I was beyond the point of being put back together. Because of how broken I was, like the puzzle, no one would ever realize if more damage was done. This, in my mind, was like a free pass for every person I would ever let into my life to beat the ever living hell out of me.
Somewhere in all of this, I opened up enough to Alex to let him know the horrific happenings of my past. I've told him harrowing tales that once defined me, and he never saw me as the destroyed puzzle. He saw an ornate, beautiful, and intricate puzzle, one more fragile than most. He soon assumed the job of holding up a mirror, showing me what he saw, showing me that I was beautiful and I had not been destroyed by my past. He became my protector while always giving me room to fly and understand my independence.
Our engagement happened after 19 days of dating, crazy I know. But I know he is my world. He will never leave or forsake me. I know it's cliche, but I just know that this is God's plan for me. This is the man I have been praying for, and God brought him to me. I can't imagine my life without him. We speak the same language -- finishing each others sentences, making the same jokes with each other, and our communication is stronger than that I have with anyone. The way we communicate reminds me of how well my parents communicate, and that means so much to me. People might raise an eyebrow to what's happening between us, but I don't care. I'm finally focusing on having a happy and healthy life -- and being with Alex makes me happier than I have ever been, and he brings out the healthiest side of me!

Pure Goodness in Humanity

I lost some friends. I thought this would kill me, but it made me stronger.
I gained some new friends. I grew closer to old friends. I thought these friendships wouldn't last, but in a short period of time, these friendships have taught me what real friends are.
Because I have been strong enough to keep the mean friends away, I have (for the first time in a long time) started to trust, respect, and even love these new people in my life. Not only that, I feel that I deserve to have these people in my life. After treatment, I had a hard time loving people -- not just loving people in a romantic way, but loving anyone as a human. I had lost a lot of hope in humanity, and was afraid to put any faith, in anyone let alone care enough to love someone. The mere fact that I am starting to see pure goodness in people amazes me. Liking what I see in someone is something new, something I haven't let myself see in a very long time.

I thought it was easier just to assume that all of humanity had the capacity to hurt me and would if given the chance. I thought living life that way was safer, and safer was better. I don't care if it's safer. I like believing in the goodness in people. I like liking people. It's scary and it isn't what I'm used to, but I am starting to believe in a pure goodness in humanity.

New Steps

This is my detailed plan of action. This plan came about after having severe internal conflict about continuing with my current dietitian. The purpose of this plan is to help me construct the greatest post-treatment environment I can to protect myself and my recovery. I am making this plan open to my team, my family, the girls from EDA, and my friends so that they may voice their concerns, suggest alternatives, and help me maintain the most healthy lifestyle I can.

First and foremost, I have decided to stop seeing my current dietitian. The reasons for this are…

-          I have left every appointment in tears

-          I believe her style and mine do not mesh well

-          I would prefer more encouragement as opposed to criticism

-          I feel that my current meal plan is creating more eating disordered thoughts and actions

-          I feel that I have gained a great deal of knowledge from my dietitians and nutritionists since July of 2011, and I can implement this knowledge in my everyday life

-          I currently have a great mindset about weight gain, recovery, and food. I fear that continuing with my current dietitian will make me hyper-vigilant of my intake and hinder my growth in recovery.

-          My dietitian has stated that she does not trust me, and I am under the impression that she does not believe what I tell her.

-          I do not have the money to continue seeing my dietitian.

So that I do not relapse, I am committing myself to these promises…

-          I will continue to go to EDA

-          I will eat three meals a day at “normal” meal times.

-          I will eat two “Castlewood sized” snacks or one “Castlewood sized” double snack a day.

-          I will go to the grocery store at least twice a week, more if necessary, with a friend or family member (to keep myself in check so that I don’t buy fat free cheese or stuff like that)

-          I will continue to eat meals both with my family at home (not isolating during meals at home) and eat alone in public (something I’ve been trying to challenge recently)

-          I will entrust a doctor (probably Dr. Gomez if I like her, or Dr. Herrmann if I choose to remain with her) to monitor my weight. I will not weigh myself.

-          I will continue to see Thom weekly

-          I will continue to keep daily logs of all the food I eat. I will make comments about my meals/snacks as I currently do for my dietitian

It is my purpose in doing this to keep myself healthy. Personally, I don’t think that having anxiety around food and seeing my dietitian is helping my eating disorder. I am very comfortable with eating now. I like my current relationship with food. I see myself changing, and I love it. I am realizing that a large part of my disorder is my perfectionism. My perfectionist qualities are linking themselves so tightly with my meal plan that I am getting hooked on this idea of perfect recovery, which is just killing me. I do better with food and meals and getting in my minimums when I am not forcing myself to be as hyper-vigilant over my food as my dietitian would like (or what I perceive her to want from me). I am not saying that I will not ever see a dietitian again, but I would like time away from a dietitian to see if it is what is best for me. Different things work for different people, and there is no single way of recovery that is right for everyone. I really feel that I can do this without a dietitian at the moment. If I can’t and my family, friends, or team see me relapsing, I would immediately reconsider going to a dietitian and going about all of this in a different way. I just ask that people support me in my decision to work through recovery as I feel in my heart is best for me. 

A Letter to the Insurance Company

I am currently going through an appeal, hoping that my insurance company will see the error of their ways and reimburse my family for some of the money they paid out of pocket for me to remain in residential treatment. Below is one of the letters I wrote in my appeal.
*Trigger Warning, as always*

Even though my eating disorder began at the age of four, it took seventeen years for someone like Dr. Hermann to confront my problem. She referred me to The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders in June of 2011, because I had gone from weighing above 135 lbs to below 110 lbs in a very fast amount of time. My percentage of suggested weight and my restrictive eating habits were more than reason enough for her to send me to specialists dealing with eating disorders. At Renfrew, I had a two hour long intake with Dr. Cooper who immediately recommended residential treatment, saying that I was “too sick for a lower level of care”. When I mentioned possibly doing an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), Dr. Cooper told me that I was too “medically fragile” for that level of care, anything lower than residential treatment was not going to be offered to me by the Renfrew Center. This was on June 20^th of 2011.

I started to try recovery on my own. I was seeing a dietitian and a therapist on a weekly basis while working full-time at a magnet school teaching middle and high school Latin.

In October, I taught all day feeling as if at any moment I could have a heart attack. After school, I saw my dietitian, Katherine Fowler, who immediately sent me to the Vanderbilt ER. I was admitted into the emergency room with dangerously low potassium levels and low magnesium levels.

Even after missing work for a life threatening situation, I still did not make the progress in recovery that one would hope. It was after this, hitting rock bottom and knowing it, that Dr. Herrmann and my dietitian decided that I must go into residential treatment. My life depended on it.

Jenni Schaefer makes a very profound statement in her book Life Without Ed, a book about eating disorder recovery. She says that she was at a seemingly “normal” weight when she was the deepest in her eating disorder, when she was restricting, bingeing, and purging the most. The same is somewhat true for me. What many people look at when they see an eating disordered patient are the numbers. The phrase, “But you don’t look sick” comes out of their mouths more often than not. If my exposed collar bones, my clearly evident scapulae, and my countable ribs were not enough to make me sick enough by the standards of an outsider, then I would encourage them to dig a little deeper. What about restricting to only 300 calories a day? What about forcibly vomiting a minimum of forty times a week? What about bingeing on Taco Bell, Sonic, and ice cream only when my body was so deprived that I needed something to stay standing only to forcibly remove the food from my body within two hours of consumption?

Not only did doctors and trained professions urge me to seek residential treatment, but I also saw the horrible nature of the life I was living. My only hope is that the insurance company sees that too. 

Rules

Every time I talk about treatment, I mention some of the crazy rules or nuances of treatment. These normally get me a "wtf face". I decided I will compose a list of the craziness of treatment. :)

This is a work in progress, much similar to my recovery :)


1. You cannot break your cookie. You must take the entire cookie, raise it to your mouth, and bite into it. It does not matter if the cookie is stale and is too hard for you to bite. The only exception to this rule is if you are at Panera.

2. When you have cereal, you must make sure that all the flakes of cereal and all the almond slices are cleaned from your bowl. You cannot have any food particles remaining in your bowl. If you leave almond slices or cereal flakes in your bowl, you will be redirected to take your spoon and get all the remaining pieces before leaving the table. This sometimes will result in you having to spend about five minutes working on getting tiny slivers of food from your bowl, but that is not what is important. What is important is that you are not acting on your eating disorder.

3. If you are having cereal, you can have Raisin Bran and yogurt. You can have Cherrios and yogurt. If they are out of Cherrios, you can have Frosted Flakes with yogurt. If it is any other cereal, or if you do not mix your yogurt into your cereal creating some weird somewhat gelatinous substance then you must put milk in your cereal. This rule gets very complicated, so I will subdivide.
a) You cannot have yogurt with cereal unless you mix the cereal with the yogurt.
b) If you don't have yogurt, you must have milk. If you have milk, you must put it in your cereal. You cannot have dry cereal and drink milk.
c) Frosted Flakes cannot be mixed with your yogurt if Cherrios are available.
d) You can put extra raisins into your Raisin Bran as your fruit component.
e) You cannot put raisins in other cereals if it "doesn't make sense" to the dietitian. This subdivision of a rule is up to the interpretation of dietitians and online staff.
f) Having dry cereal is "eating disordered".

4. You cannot put your Mini Wheats or Frosted Mini Wheats in the microwave even though the commercials and the box tell you to do so for a "warm cereal during winter months".

5. You cannot put salt in your oatmeal, including non-flavored, original oatmeal, even though it says on the instructions to add salt.

6. You can put fruits in your yogurt if they are fresh and cut up or if they are dried and bite size. Prunes (even if cut up) cannot go into your yogurt. Dried apricots, though much larger than bite size, can go into your yogurt. Apples, bananas, strawberries, plums, etc. all can go into your yogurt and can be cut into insanely small pieces to fit into your yogurt container. Preparation of the fruit + yogurt combo can take up to fifteen minutes. I've seen this happen.

7. You cannot put apples and peanut butter on your bagel, but you can put bananas and peanut butter. Duh, that's so less eating disordered...

8. You cannot make your bagel into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by having peanut butter and getting jelly.

Proposals

Before my nineteenth birthday, I had been proposed to three times: once by my high school sweetheart and abusive boyfriend when I was eighteen, once by a street vendor in Monaco when I was sixteen, and by Ed when I was four. I refused to recognize almost all of these as proposals until I was in my twenties, particularly Ed’s proposal. Some things are just better left forgotten, or so I believed. While all of these proposals were insanely strange, I suppose I shall start with what I still consider to be the strangest of all.

I was eighteen, a college drop out, and in a relationship with Daniel. Daniel did not have a job, and he had been homeless for the majority of our relationship. As you can imagine, his proposal was not very elaborate. It was what I refer to as the “Hey, I’m going into the military, and there’s a possibility you might be pregnant, so let’s do this thing” type of proposal that was all too common around my hometown. As we stood in my parents kitchen, Daniel threw his class ring at me, still engraved with the initials of his ex-girlfriend, and he said, “So… Yeah… You know… What do you say?” I said no, and we broke up a few weeks later.

My proposal in Monaco was not really a proposal, but I group it in here with the others because it is the happiest of the three. I had just fed a crepe to a seagull, and I was meandering the alleyways of Monaco with some close friends. The menagerie of Lamborghinis and other expensive cars caught our attention until a young man and his father in a street side shop called out for us in French. I, speaking only Latin, could only pick up a few words. Beautiful. Ladies. Something about a boy or his son? I turned to my friend travelling with me, who translated for me. “Beautiful ladies! American women! My son! You marry? You marry?” Next thing I knew, the kid was on one knee. I ran away giggling with my friends as any scared American would.

 Finally, the proposal I remember least vividly. It was the summer I turned four. I was at my maternal grandmother’s house. Somewhere along her hallway lined with mirrors, which I often compare to the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, Ed proposed to me. I accepted without hesitation. Who’s Ed you ask? Ed is my eating disorder. Ed is the man who saved my life and nearly killed me a few times along the way. Ed and I are currently in the process of filing paperwork to finalize our divorce.