| Written by Diana, on 25-03-2007 20:54 |
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I don't know if anyone watches the show Shalom in the Home on TLC; it's on in the US, I'm not sure about other countries. On today's episode with the The Meiskins (Sunday @ ... 7pm EST I think and again at 2am EST) the eldest daughter, age 15, has anorexia. I would have died to be as gorgeous as her at 15. Isn't life fair? Her disorder is different than mine, for different reasons I mean & with a different family, she has a different background but I totally agree with her description, especially this part: "people treat it like a cold and it's more like cancer." There's also the show Intervention and the most recent episode was about a woman named Kim who also has anorexia. It's funny that both of these shows are airing within days of each other. They're difficult to watch. It doesn't scare me that I could die if my disorder was as serious as theirs, or that HBO documentary Thin. They make me feel weak and pathetic is all.
I'm watching Shalom in the Home again, to tape it, and I always hear people referring to the eating disorder as another voice inside their head, drawing pictures and giving names to this "voice." I don't know why that bothers me so much. It's not a "voice" to me. It's ME. If I felt like it was a voice you could potentially say "work on not listening to that voice." It's not that way, I TELL MYSELF I'M FAT, and I believe it, without a doubt, no matter what anyone says. No one sees what my clothes hide, so THEY DON'T KNOW. I've been overweight and if I let down my guard, it's very likely that I'll get to that point again. I over eat too easily. I never binge, in the clinical sense but it's enough food to cause me to gain weight rapidly. Unlike those who binge and make up for it by purging, I don't purge, so there's no way to make up for it, I just gain the weight.
In this show, Shmuley tells the daughter a story of a girl his daughter knew who, five days ago conveniently, died of anorexia. It's just a little too convenient, and you can tell the daughter is either thinking the same thing or is bothered somehow. She looks VERY angry while he's telling her the story and it looks like she's trying to figure out how to cry while he's finishing it, or is she figuring out how NOT to cry on camera. Now, whether this is truth or fiction doesn't matter but the reaction of the daughter, if sincere, does. Somehow his story makes her break down crying even though she thinks that if she wasn't around, her parents wouldn't be burdened. Hopefully she hadn't thought it through to that point and it actually opened her eyes to the end consequence. In fact, at the end of the episode, she agreed with Shmuley to do a public service announcement on anorexia. Do you have to have been in it long enough to not be affected by that story? Do you have to have an overall feeling of hopelessness, sans eating disorder, to not be affected? Or, after watching this show, are any of us REALLY affected? I think I'm partially envious, partially so over "life" and "suffering," and partially "that won't happen to me" which is just a small part. I know that cutting, starving, taking pills, all this can kill me without even being underweight but the stubborn part of me and the part that's sick of living, doesn't care, "bring it on."
There's obviously a feeling of control and/or self-worth that goes along with it. Having to give up ever hoping for a Ph.D. is obviously difficult, it was never NOT a goal for me. Having to give up my horse and competing and all that I regret on a regular basis even though it wasn't completely my decision but it was a HUGE part of my life that's gone. School and my Show Jumping career were the only things in my life and now they're gone. It's how I escaped my anger and loneliness and self-hatred. I don't even read anymore and I used to get bored and pick up some really boring book that only a college literature major would consider reading, I thought of it as a positive achievement. It made me feel better.
I hate when my parents argue. It's not because I'm afraid they'll divorce or anything like that, I'm not sure I've ever had that fear. I hate it because I'm afraid it will be taken out on me later. My father gets short with me and my mother, after my father goes to Santa Barbara for the week, takes her shots at whoever gets in her way. It's how life goes for me. When I was young, if my sister did something wrong but wasn't around to take the heat, it was "you guys never do what I ask," "you guys make my life so difficult," always said in anger to me. I'm always the one who's around when she's angry, always the one to take the heat for someone else's so-called wrong-doing. Odds are it's a perceived wrong-doing and not really anything to be angry over. Perception is the key. Normally, she is the only one who believes that it is so, whatever IT happens to be at the time.
I don't think, even after residential treatment, years and years of therapy, that I'll ever be comfortable with myself. Sometimes I'm happy with how my hair looks which is a new thing, but there is little else that I can accept. Will has nothing to do with it. I can't look it the mirror, consciously sit with myself and be accepting of anything I see or feel. WILL requires actual acceptance. I see nothing positive about the way that I look, will plays no part in that. In recovery, do you learn to just live with the thoughts of disgust or do those thoughts actually go away? Maybe you find other things that allow you to feel in control of something but how do you continue to live with a body you hate? Any amount of excess is unacceptable and that's all there is, excess.
Sometimes I want to cut, not for the feeling because that's all gone, but because without being anorexically thin, it seems like there's no way to express anything. I look fine, I must be fine? If I'm thin, that's one less reason to hate myself. "Or so I believe." I don't enjoy anything anymore. I'm afraid to go out in part because I feel so fat right now, I can't show off how "in control" I am if I'm not IN CONTROL of my food. I can't get anything accomplished because I'm always either feeling hopeless or worthless or whatever I'm calling it that day. I don't study for certifications because I'm "bored" but I'm not bored, I'm feeling hopeless for the future or worthless and undeserving or like "what's the point? I'll only fail at it." It can be boring, reading a lesson book from cover to cover but there's hope in it. Hope for a positive future and possibly lucrative career. There's hope in it; however, I don't sincerely believe that enough to go pick up a book and start studying. I feel like all I've ever done is fail at school when in fact up until my second semester at Occidental, I was quite successful without much effort. It just took SO MUCH EFFORT after that, maybe because my fairytale life disappeared, maybe because my anger finally took over and I could no longer mask it with anything, maybe because therapy wouldn't let me. Regardless of the cause, I'm still so angry, so overwhelmed with hatred and self-doubt that I can't find anything "positive." Nothing is safe. I'm always waiting for someone to yell at me, someone to hurt me, someone to let me down. That fear is always with me.
Last update: 26-03-2007 01:58
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