The Face of God

This post has been going around my social media outlets. A few people have posted it on Facebook and Twitter. It's a great post that basically gives a counterargument to the phrase "God never gives you more than you can handle." It's a good post...I probably would have given a bit more of the middle finger to that phrase than the author did but I love where she was going with it.

I used to love that: "God never gives you more than you can handle." And I think it's true in lots of respects. Stress at work? You can handle it. Kids acting up? You got this. No time for relaxing? You'll be okay. Yes, those are all very important things and can be very big things in life--but that phrase comes in handy on those "this too shall pass" kind of moments. But tell that phrase to a woman who has just lost her child...or who has just lost another child. Tell that to someone who isn't sure that their marriage to someone they truly saw spending the rest of their life with is going to make it. Tell that to my little sister the day she found out that her best friend was murdered. God may not "give" you more than you can handle but more than you can handle can sure as heck show up in your life--and I think the last thing we need to do is tell someone in one of those situations that they are expected to be able to "handle it."

A few weeks ago, my pastor gave a seat-of-the-pants sermon when the guy who was supposed to preach that day had to call in sick. The sermon wasn't the greatest thing I'd ever heard but he off-handedly talked about a theory he'd stumbled upon in some theological book making its rounds in the Christian community. I feel bad that I can't give credit where credit is due and give the name of the author but I have no idea who or what it was. But the concept really stuck with me.

Here's the thing: right now, things are okay. After a couple of really rough years: watching dear friends go through some hard stuff, losing a friend in a mass shooting you think could "never happen to you", losing two babies through miscarriage, dealing with personal issues with some of the people who I loved most in the world, life felt a whole lot more like Sure, I'm "handling" this if "handling" means breathing and going through the motions but this is NOT a life! and a whole lot less like God, I got this! Thanks for not giving me any more than I can handle! But right now, even with spending three full days a week in the hospital every week, even with health concerns, even with the uncertainties of what February will bring and whether our little baby will be okay, things seem like they are back on track. But while my life seems okay in this moment, I have so many friends and acquaintances whose life is anything but. People who have lost their children, friends who are watching their once-happy marriages crumble before their eyes, loved ones who are literally watching the world they believed in come crashing down. I can't really put into words what this does to my heart: watching these wonderful people deal with such terrible things. And how do you respond to that in a Christian, loving way? Other than sincerely praying for them, what in the world do you do? 

It's also been bothering me lately when I read things about "My prayers were answered!" I realize how ridiculous this sounds but I remember reading things like that after bad things happened to me or people I love. I'd read about someone in the exact same situation and see that their prayers were answered...so why weren't ours? So many people talked about how "God was protecting so-and-so in Aurora!" and "Praise be to God! He saved this person from danger!" and all I could think was, "Well then where was He with our Jessi in the very same theater?"  When it originally looked like our baby was not going to be okay only to find out all was well, I found myself hesitant to say, "Our prayers were answered!" because all I could think about were those who prayed hard for their baby to be okay...and it didn't work out. I thought about how hard I prayed to save our last baby when it looked like I was having a miscarriage...and it didn't work out. I considered all the prayers of an entire nation to let the children of a school shooting survive...and nothing. So I found myself hesitant to praise God in my situation when He seemed absent in the situations of others. It just didn't seem fair. 

But then I heard this sermon. Essentially, our pastor talked about the Biblical idea that if you see the face of God, you will surely die (Exodus 33:20). The concept is basically that the face of God is just so incredible that nobody could look upon it and still live on this earth. If you grew up in the Christian church, I am sure you have heard it before: God is so incredible that you can't even handle it--even just seeing His face would cause you to perish. I've heard this many times before and hadn't ever really given it much thought...mostly because I didn't think I was going to be blessed with the opportunity to see God's face so I never really dwelt on what that meant for me or my faith walk. The interesting thing that my pastor brought up though is a reverse theory of the Face of God. Basically, a theory that perhaps this works a bit in the other direction too.

Okay, let me back up a minute: If God is truly "with us" and dwelling with us, then he surely experiences everything we do. This is something I've always believed: as hard as it was to lose our babies, as empty as I felt sobbing on my floor after Jessi died, as sad as I've been knowing that I am helpless to help my friends who are going through a hard time, I have always believed that God is right there next to me and to those going through terrible trials, He is sitting in the trenches with us and is crying, hurting, longing right there next to the broken.  I may be so angry at Him that my prayers are littered with curse words rather than adorations but I still believe that my God is not one who sits on high and watches as I hurt--He hurts right along with me. Even if I am angry as hell at Him for not stopping it, I do believe that He understands my grief and that He mourns with me.

So the idea behind this reverse "Face of God" thing is that maybe that kind of grief, the rip-your-heart-out, unable to breathe, how will I ever be normal again, kind of grief is akin to seeing the Face of God--that God is so close to us in those moments, grasping our hand tightly and lovingly as our heart crumbles into a million pieces...and that He is so closely tied to us in those moments that it is like seeing the Face of God. And maybe that is why it feels so much like death, so much like you will surely die rather than go on living this life that's left for you...because why would you want to?

And maybe that's the answer: because God is here. Because He is here with you and He will hold your hand as you step out of that darkness and slowly He will teach you how to walk again on your own. In doing so, you will come out of that grief little by little until you feel like yeah, things still suck but at least you aren't constantly battling against the idea of how you could ever be normal again because at least there are short glimpses each day of a life that maybe you'd be okay living again. 

There's no real fancy way to tie up this post. I just can't help but think that in my life, I will be faced with more challenges that leave me wondering how I can ever go on...wondering why I would ever want to. In those moments, I hope that I can remember that I am not alone...even if it feels like I've never been more alone in my life and even if I want to run as far away from God as I can for letting me experience such pain. And I hope that this post will remind me that when I am facing those heartaches, that my God is standing right there next to me, holding me up and telling me it will be okay...even if I want nothing to do with Him at the time. So yes, God may give us more than we can handle but at least we can take comfort in the fact that we don't have to handle it in the depths of our loneliness because He is there with us, even if it feels like he's never been further away.

Teaching Mine to Love

Dear Son,

Yesterday when we got home from school, I pulled your daily report out of your backpack. I realized that I hadn’t read it since last week and that on Friday, you did something that you hadn’t done since you were a baby: you bit a friend. Now, you would have gotten in trouble for this on any day but yesterday especially, you were in the hot seat. I realize that a 3 year old’s attention span leaves a bit to be desired so perhaps it wasn’t my smartest move to make you sit with me for a good ten minutes, talking about love and hurt. I kept repeating the same things over and over, trying my hardest to ensure that you were truly listening and understanding what I was saying...why it is not ever okay to hurt someone else, no matter what you are feeling or what they did to you. By the end of the conversation, you were exasperated. You buried your head into my lap and wailed, “Mommmmyyyyy!!!! I won’t bite anymore! Mommmyyyyy!!!” I kissed your head and sent you back to help your daddy get ready for bath time. But I didn’t follow you. Instead, I just sat on that cold kitchen floor and thought about it all. I thought about how this world has changed so much from the place I thought it was when I was your age. I thought about how sad I am that you have to grow up here, in a world where hate has so much power to change things--to shake every day people from everything they thought they knew. And I thought about how helpless I felt over all of it. 


Child, I have had so many plans for things I wanted to teach you. I wanted to teach you to be hardworking and successful so that you would never have to worry about how you would pay your bills. I wanted to teach you to find someone who will make you happy the same way that your dad and I make each other happy. I wanted to teach you about all the things that will bring you a good life. And while all of those things are fine, yesterday I realized that if I can only teach you one thing, I will and I will teach it well. I will teach you love. 


There is so much hate in this world. Virgina Tech, where people trying to make a better life for themselves were taken six years ago today. Aurora, where we lost our Jessi. Newtown, where parents lost their babies who hadn't yet had the opportunity to grow up. Boston, where a day of triumph turned into a day of terror. And all of this, all of it because of hate. Child, I will teach you that every single life is unique and precious. I will teach you that every single person is so very loved and has a network of friends and family who will find it hard to breathe without them. I will teach you that hurting other people and choosing hate over love does nothing at all to make you happier or feel more triumphant. I will teach you that the only thing that can truly combat and ease your fears is love. Child, all I can do is teach you love. And so I will. 


Your mom is afraid. It's hard to watch these kinds of things happen in our world and not be affected by them; not think about the possibility of it happening where we are. It's hard to lose someone in something in this way and still think, "It could never happen to me." or even, "It could never happen to me again." I have spent so much of my life worrying. I worry about you and about your dad. I worry about my family and my friends. I worry about me. And the worrying has done nothing. It hasn't stopped anything. And I realize now that I am absolutely, completely, devastatingly helpless over all of this. I cannot stop any of these terrible things from happening and that is just such a sickening feeling--to be sitting here, waiting for the next thing to happen, knowing that there is absolutely nothing that I can do.

But that's not entirely correct, Jack. Because there is something I can do. Something that if every parent did, we wouldn't be in this situation. So yesterday, I made a decision. Our family will choose love. We will not choose worry, it does nothing. We will not choose sadness, it does nothing. We will not choose fear, it too does nothing. Instead, we will choose to teach you how to love every single person you meet. Deep, sincere, respectful love. Maybe if someone had taught those other people about that kind of love, our world wouldn't be where it is today. And maybe I can't go back in time and teach them the things they should know but I can teach you, and you can teach your children and your children can teach their children. Because the one thing I know is that hate will not win. Love always, always wins. And it will win this time too. 

Because all I can do is teach mine to love. And suddenly, I don't feel so helpless anymore. 

Love,
Mommy

NEDA Week 2011: Part 5

When my baby was first born, he had some health issues. He has severe food allergies and a reflux disease. This combination caused him extreme pain and made feeding next to impossible. Inside of me, I had created a safe and healthy environment for him where all the vitamins and nutrients he needed came in a safe and painless form. At two weeks early, he was well over 8 pounds. In short, I created a fat little baby. Once he came into the world, he had to start eating like the rest of us do--through his mouth. Eating actual food, or milk as the case may be, ended up being next to impossible for him due to the complications from his health issues. The fat little boy that I had nurtured inside of me began to lose much of the weight I had helped him put on during his development. As I watched his sweet little rolls disappear, I was so sad to be losing my fat baby. Once we got his health issues under control, he began to pudge up again. Now, he has rolls EVERYWHERE--his legs, his arms, his wrists. He has two chins and some of the chubbiest cheeks out there. And I'm sorry to say this just in case it's being taped and he'll one day hear this--but do you know what that amazing little baby boy has on his cute little baby butt? Cellulite! My baby has cellulite! And it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. It's funny that I want and love nothing more than this fat, fat baby. I look at his rotund stomach and I'm proud. I am so very proud of how well he is chunking up because I know that it means that he is healthy! On the days where he doesn't eat well, I fear that I will lose some of those rolls that we worked so hard to get back on him.

It's funny that I can recognize that it is so healthy for him to be fat. Yet the slightest bit of fat on me seems foreign and wrong. It never ceases to amaze me how much a 7 month old can teach me.

I'd like to say that I've hit a point of total recovery and that I feel wonderful about myself every single day. But that just isn't true. As a matter of fact, as I stand up here today, I am having a particularly difficult week. I feel fat and I am mad that 7 months later, my body is more like my post-baby body than it is like the Heidi Klum post-baby body that strutted down the Victoria's Secret runway just six weeks after giving birth. I hate that I can't run as far as I used to and that my pre-baby jeans are still packed away in a box and are nowhere near close to fitting me. But the difference between this girl and the girl who felt this way before is that this one knows that there are healthier ways to deal with this anger and emotion than starving myself to happiness. Because let's be honest. That wasn't really happiness. When I was asked to speak here today, I wanted to stand before you and say look at me! I went through recovery and I didn't get fat! Then I had a baby and I lost all the weight in a healthy way and I feel GREAT about myself! You, too, can have it all! 

Well, part of that is true. I did go "through" recovery. And I didn't get fat. Yes, I gained weight. But I did not get fat. But guess what else? I had a baby. And I did NOT lose the weight over night. Heck, I didn't lose all the weight over 7 months. I'm still hanging onto a good portion of that weight and it honestly makes me feel like crap some days. But recovery has helped me learn something very, very important: recovery itself is a process. The girl in that story was in recovery. She was not recovered. This girl that stands before you is recovering. She is not recovered. Every single thing that happens in our life will change our recovery story. Getting pregnant years before we planned to have children put a HUGE wrench in my recovery plan. But I dealt with it. Mostly by giving into every pregnancy craving I had. Now I am dealing with the inevitable baby weight that follows carrying and providing for another human being for a full 9 months. And I am learning that I will never feel good about myself 100% of the time. But that's okay. I am able to say, "I feel fat." And be done with it. There. I feel fat. There's nothing I have to do about it. I don't have to go starve myself or wake up at 4 am to work out before I head into work. I can just feel fat until the feeling goes away. Or even better, I can focus on things that really matter. My job, my husband, my son. Yes, my recovery story may be ever changing. But the one thing that stays the same? For the rest of my life, I will probably never be the skinniest girl in the room again. And I'm okay with that.

NEDA Week 2011: Part 4

The days leading up to my next appointment were long and dark. I cried all the time for fear of what recovery would bring. I mourned the loss of the naivete of that girl who just thought she was doing what any skinny girl did. Now I knew the truth: this was not normal. Just because I ate did not mean that I didn't have a problem. Eating a cheeseburger was not "normal" if I fasted for 2 or 3 days afterward. 500 calories a day was not normal. I was not normal.

Recovery was a long, slow process. I remember going to my second appointment thinking, "Okay! They will give me the magic word and I'll get better in about 2 months. 3 tops." A year and a half later, I was still on that couch crying about how I didn't want to change. My treatment included seeing both a dietitian and a therapist on a weekly basis. The dietitian taught me how to reframe my thoughts about food. Fat was not fat. Fat was energy. And I needed energy if I wanted to be able to study. The therapist taught me how to reframe my thoughts about myself. I was not fat. I was just me. Defining myself as fat took away from all of the other things that SHOULD be defining me. Of course, that explanation of my treatment is nowhere near what should be said. There are really no adequate words to describe what treatment is like. I imagine that it is unique to every situation. But the one thing that really shocked me was how long and hard it was. I feel like for a good year or so, I had my toe in the recovery pool--testing the waters just enough to say I was trying--but I never really dove in head first.

About a year into treatment, I realized that I was moving away in a matter of months. If I was going to do this and really get better, it was now or never. I needed to equip myself to take care of myself on my own--outside of my current city and outside of my support system at Children's. If I didn't, I was going to be on my own out there and I wasn't sure if I could take care of myself the way that I needed to.

There was a point where I just decided, "Fine. I have spent way too much time, money, effort and emotion on this treatment thing. I either need to go all in and really get better or stop wasting everyone's time." I chose the first option. I think that was the real turning point in my recovery. I decided that I honestly, genuinely wanted to get better. And I listened to my therapist and dietitian and took their advice and assignments to heart. I didn't just let it go in one ear and out the other just for them to repeat the same things the next week.

By the time I was preparing to move, I knew that I was in a place where I could remember what they taught me and use those tools to stay better. When my husband and I moved states after I graduated from law school, I was scared of being a thousand miles away from the people who had helped me get healthy. Before, I knew that if I relapsed, they would be there to push me back to a healthy place. Now here I was and I didn't have that same support system. I was studying for the bar exam--perhaps the most stressful time in my entire life--and although I had a great support system in my family, it was hard knowing that the professionals who knew my little tricks and habits--weren't there.

I knew that I had to tread lightly on my newfound recovery. I knew that any huge changes would be a catalyst for a relapse. I figured that if I just took baby steps, I could ease into this new me and life without therapists and dietitians watching my every move. Well, I tell you what--there is nothing that can put a hiccup in the recovery plan of someone with eating and body image issues quite like an earlier-than-planned pregnancy.

My husband and I always knew that we wanted to have children. We decided that we would wait until I was out of law school for a few years and we knew that I was healthy enough-mentally and physically-to handle what pregnancy would do to my body. Well, as my dad put it over and over the night that my husband and I found out we were going to be parents, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." As I stood there holding that positive pregnancy test, I was terrified that I wasn't ready to take care of this baby. I was so afraid that my old habits would sneak back into my life and I would do something to harm this innocent little life all because of my selfish disorder.

I have to say--I underestimated myself. You see, the one thing about my eating disorder is that I never thought it affected other people. And I never wanted it to. Even in the deepest parts of my anorexia, I was always making sure that my husband was well taken care of--had enough to eat, had a clean home, had what he needed. I wouldn't let this baby be any different. My eating disorder was about me. It was not about my baby--and I wouldn't let this sick little disease come anywhere near him. Luckily, my pregnancy hunger didn't let that even come close to being a problem. For the first time in a long time, I couldn't have restricted my eating even if I wanted to. The bottom line? I was just too darn hungry. And it wasn't the kind of hunger I had when I was deep in my eating disorder. This wasn't the kind of hunger I could shut up with a tall glass of water or the vision of being skinnier. This. Was. Insatiable. I was starving nearly every second and if I didn't do something about it, I would get physically ill. Pregnancy, ironically enough, was the best thing for me. I HAD to eat because physically, I couldn't avoid it. And mentally, I couldn't deprive my baby. Now, I am not advocating that everyone with an eating disorder go and get knocked up. I am just so grateful that for me, our sweet boy came in God's perfect timing and not in ours. I am not sure how I would have handled this first year away from the support staff at Children's hospital had it not been for the unexpected blessing of this pregnancy. It was a physical and emotional catalyst to stay well. Plus, I couldn't worry about what all that eating was doing to my body because I was SUPPOSED to be gaining weight. After all, I was growing a human being inside of me.

I will admit that I was pretty terrified about how I would react after the baby was born. Sure, I could keep things in check while he was inside of me because I had to care for him. But what about when my body went back to being my own? Then what? Would I restrict again in order to get my pre-baby body back? The book "Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?" has a great take on this: media today is obsessed with celebrities getting their "pre baby" body back. And getting into their "pre pregnancy" clothes. Pre Baby. Pre Pregnancy. Both of these things imply that you want to somehow go back to before the baby was around. But to do this discounts the whole reason why you lost that pre baby body: to gain a baby! To be obsessed with the body you had before the baby is to discount the fact that you...well...had a baby! I realized that if I was going to obsess about getting back to my "pre baby" body, then I needed to embrace everything that pre baby lifestyle embodied--and that pre baby lifestyle did not include well, my baby. I'm a mother now. And a life without my sweet child is not something I want to return to. So on those days where I am disappointed about not being able to fit into the same jeans I used to be able to wear, I remind myself that the reason I have all this extra weight is because I brought another person into this world. My body will NEVER look the same again. Even if I somehow ended up in my pre-pregnancy jeans, my body would still be different than it was before I had my child. So I can either embrace that or be miserable. Because there's no going back. And that's okay.

NEDA Week 2011: Part 3

People laugh when I tell them that law school is a lot like the movie "Legally Blonde." No, it's not that exciting. And no, nobody EVER would get to be counsel at a high-stakes murder trial during law school. However, the part where professors make a fool out of you when you can't answer questions on the spot? The competition of coveted internship positions and class ranks? The backstabbing classmates? Real. All so very, very real. For the first time in my life, I was thrown into a pool of kids who were just as smart, just as hard-working, and just as dedicated as I was. And I was drowning. I always loved the line by Winston Churchill, "We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glow worm." My whole life, I had been a glow worm.

One of the smarter kids. And if I wasn't smartest? I made up for it with hard work. Well here I was in classes with all these freaking glow worms! And they were all way glowy-er than I was! And there was just NOTHING I could do about it. I would work work work. But someone else could work harder. I would read read read. But someone else would read further. I would study study study, but someone else would study more. And I'm not sure when or why it happened, but I somehow realized that there was something that I could do better than all of those little overachieving glow worms. I could be the skinniest of them all. Ha. Take that.

And so it began. It was a competition. I had to eat less than my law school classmates. Because yes, Andrea may be getting a better grade in Property. But I was having a smaller lunch. And yes, Ashley may have gotten that internship that I would have killed for. But I wore a smaller size. At the end of the day, we were ALL going to be lawyers. But only one of us could be the skinniest. And that would be me.

I was still in Weight Watchers at that point but I just kept dropping my goal weight more and more. When I finally reached the point where they told me that I wasn't allowed to drop my goal weight any more, I got a fellow law student who was also medical doctor--showoff--to actually write a doctor's note to the organization to tell them that in his professional opinion, I was fine to lose 5 more pounds. So I did. And then some. I remember being in class one day and a friend walked by me and said,"You look really, really skinny." I remember smiling and just saying, "Oh, thanks!" I was just beaming with excitement at the compliment. It's funny because now I look back on that and I can see her face, clear as day, and I can see that it was not a compliment. Her comment was dripping with concern for me. And I didn't hear it. In my defense, I didn't hear the concern because I didn't think I was skinny at all. In my mind, I was still fat. A "cow" as I heard over and over. I would just stare at myself in the mirror and think, "cow." If my jeans fit even a bit snug, I was a cow. Never mind the fact that they were size 0s, a truly skinny girl wouldn't have ANYTHING pinching--even in size 0s. I was clearly a cow.

Understandably, I was taken aback when my mom's best friend told me that she was concerned that I had an eating disorder. Her daughter's friend had gone through the same struggle and she said that she recognized the same things in me. I was pretty shocked when she told me that she was concerned. But mostly? I was proud. If someone thought I had an eating disorder, that must mean that I was skinny! Yay me. When she encouraged me to get help for my problem, I did NOT think I had an eating disorder. However, I knew that I clearly didn't see myself the way other people did. If everyone else seemed to think I was skinny and I thought I was a cow, obviously something was wrong. So after much debate and conversation with my husband, I decided to call the number I had been given. Not because I thought I had an eating disorder, but because I thought that I may get one eventually if I wasn't careful. Plus, I was fairly certain that they would turn me away as soon as they saw me. they would take one look at my thighs and say, "No no, this must be some mistake. You are too fat to have an eating disorder."

So imagine my surprise when at my first meeting with the Eating Disorder/Behavioral Health program, they told me that I was clinically anorexic. I'll admit, my first reaction was sheer joy! I had made it! I had made it into the club of anorexic girls! I was one of them. My second reaction? If I have an eating disorder, that means I have to get "better." And "better" can only mean one thing: fat.

NEDA Week 2011: Part 2

In order to understand where I am today, I guess it's best to look at where I started.

Sometimes it bothers me to hear people talk about eating disorders in the context of control. I remember hearing talk shows and magazine articles about how eating disorders aren't really about the person wanting to be thin--they are about the person wanting to be in control. I always thought that was crap. Because for me, it wasn't about control. Unless we are talking about controlling the ever expanding size of my waist. For me, it was all about being thin. At least in the beginning...

When I was in middle school, I began to gain weight. I think it was a mix of puberty and well...eating. A ton. I was extremely unhealthy and I remember calculating one time that my daily calorie intake was somewhere around 3,000 calories. But I really attributed it to puberty and growing up. Of course my jeans size was getting bigger each year. I was a kid! Kids grow up. When I went away to college, I decided that I didn't want to miss out on the true college experience. I too needed my very own Freshman Fifteen! I remember seeing girls on campus who were super tiny and I'd see them head to the gym before class every morning. I tried that a couple times but when I didn't lose 25 pounds after a single work out, I decided it was more trouble than it was worth.

The summer after my first year of college, I was a nanny all summer. Chasing a 4 year old and a 7 year old all summer would cause anyone to drop a few pounds. When I went back to school in the fall, I got all sorts of compliments for my tiny little weight loss. And I'll tell you what, it felt good. I loved hearing people ask, "Did you lose weight?" So I started watching what I ate just a bit more carefully. Then the next summer, my mom joined Weight Watchers when I was home. I decided I'd join too so I could lose 5 pounds. Honestly, at that point I was still a little overweight so it was actually a healthy decision.

Let me just say that I think that Weight Watchers is a great program and when followed properly, can really help people. And it did. My mom and I both lost 10 pounds that summer and felt great. But you know what makes people compliment you even more than if you lose 5 pounds? If you lose 10 pounds! Going back to school that next year was like going to a party where you're the guest of honor and all eyes are on you! Everyone told me how good I looked and I loved seeing that number on the scale drop more and more every time I got on it. By that point, I'd hit my target weight loss goal. But hey, what was 5 more pounds?

For about a year, I was a healthy, confident, thin girl. No, I wasn't the skinniest girl in the room. But I wasn't comparing myself to every other person so I didn't even notice. I just felt good. When my now-husband proposed to me at the beginning of my senior year of college, I decided I wanted to lose just 5 more pounds so I could look the best I could on our wedding day and I would finally feel confident enough to wear a bikini on our honeymoon. On our wedding day,I was 120 pounds and I felt beautiful.

Does anyone in here read the website "Post Secret"? I remember reading one a few years ago, before my eating disorder really evolved into what it became, that said something to the effect of "Law School Gave me the Discipline to Perfect My Eating Disorder." I never really understood what that meant until 1) I went to law school and 2) I perfected the eating disorder that had been planted inside of me every time I saw the scale drop just one more pound. Yes, my eating disorder didn't start out about control. But it certainly ended up being about it.

NEDA Week 2011: Part 1

It’s that time again…the time when people tell me that my blog gets depressing because I talk about eating disorders for a full week. But guess what folks? It’s my blog. And could talk all about feline AIDS for a week and there’s nothing you could do to stop me! Plus, once you’ve been through an eating disorder (or any sort of personal struggle), it’s important to examine where you’ve come from in order to be proud of all you’ve accomplished in your healing.

NEDA Week is important to me because I truly think that if I realized that my disorder was just that: a disorder…sooner, perhaps I wouldn’t have had so far to climb back up.

In October, I was asked to speak at an Eating Disorder conference. This week, I plan to post my speech in chunks. If you read last year’s NEDA posts, you know the story. Nevertheless, I am taking this week to “Talk About It” because I think it’s important to realize that this disorder affects so many more people than you think it does. It’s not a sorority girl disorder, it’s not a celebrity disorder, heck, it’s not even a woman’s disorder. I can promise you that I’m not the only person you know who has struggled with an eating disorder. If I can help one person understand what it means to go through this and to get healthy, I’m happy to have “depressing” posts for a week.

Keep in mind that I gave this speech in October so some of the information is outdated. Also remember that I wrote it just as I’d be speaking it…so some of that may not translate to paper. Nevertheless, here goes…

I am not the skinniest girl in this room. And for a very long time, that would have made me crazy. By now, I would have compared myself with every single person in this room and done a little line up in my head comparing myself with each and every person's body. And if mine wasn't the tiniest, there was only one explanation: I was fat, fat, failure. Because clearly, the size of my hips, the width of my stomach, and the girth in my thighs was the best barometer for success. Never mind the fact that I had a fantastic husband, an amazing family, a good education, wonderful friends. None of that mattered if I wasn't the skinniest person in this room.

My name is (withheld). And just a few years ago, I was sitting on a chair in the Behavioral Health center of Children's Hospital fighting back tears as I waited for my new therapist to call my name for our first appointment. I knew that if I listened to her and did what she told me to do, there was only one way this could end: I would get fat. I would be "recovered" like my husband and family wanted me to be, but I'd be fat. Well, here I am, 3 years later. And I can honestly tell you that the reason I have a pudgy stomach has much more to do with the 7 month old baby sitting in the back of this room than it does with me following her advice.

When I was asked me to speak at this conference, I honestly thought I was completely ill-prepared to stand up here and speak about my experience with Anorexia. First of all, I didn't ever really view myself as a "bad anorexic." I don't really know what that means—since the fact that I wasn't a "bad anorexic" somehow implies that such a thing exists as a "good anorexic." But nevertheless, I never got below 100 pounds. I never had to be hospitalized. I never even lost my period. So in my mind, I never fully succeeded at the whole eating disorders game. So when I was presented this opportunity, I kind of felt like a fake telling her that I would share my story. I pictured myself standing up here and having all these men and women who had been the "bad anorexics" or "bad bulimics" look at me and think, "She doesn't know what she is talking about." But, I accepted anyway. And as I sat writing this speech wondering what to talk about, I kicked myself for telling the presenters  'yes.' You see, when I accepted the invitation to speak here today, I had just given birth to my son. I thought, "By the time October rolls around, I am sure I'll have some wonderful insights on how recovery, pregnancy, and new motherhood can all work together for good and how if you just love yourself enough, the weight will melt away and your baby will sleep through the night and you too can have it all!" Well. Guess what? It's October. And I still don't fit into my pre-baby jeans and I woke up at 4 am to a hungry baby. So. I guess we'll just have to improvise.

NEDA Week 2010: No. 5

There’s not really a nice little bow to sum up this week’s posts. I left treatment in May because I moved to Texas. I had reached a healthy weight for my body size—still on the low side of healthy, but healthy nonetheless—but I had only been constant in that weight for a couple months. Although I had finally found success in treatment and weight gain, I was still struggling with my body imagine—still convinced that I wasn’t thin enough (the difference now was that I accepted it: this was my body now for better or for worse). I moved down here and knew that I would have times where I was triggered to return to my old habits but I also knew that I had all the tools I needed to overcome it. I would keep our home scale-free and would rely on healthy eating and healthy exercise and continue working on listening to my husband's truth about my body rather than relying on what I saw in the mirror to dictate what I could eat or how I could feel.  I had no idea that a test of my recovery would come so soon. There’s nothing more trying for a recovering anorexic than to get pregnant (especially unplanned). I had finally accepted my body for what it was and then BOOM! time to pack on the pounds and there is nothing you can do about it. I have gained alot of weight this pregnancy—probably a mix between really “letting myself go” and focusing more on the baby’s health than my own weight. I’m not eating junk food every day but I have allowed myself to do things that were always so hard for me: eat fruit, drink juice, have milk. I would be lying to you if I told you that I wasn’t terrified of the post-baby body. I am confident that I am strong enough to lose the weight in a healthy way but I am also being realistic that Ed has a pretty easy in back into my life. I always knew that I could never be on a diet again and yet here I am already thinking about how I’ll lose the weight. I stare at my “skinny jeans” and get honestly angry at the possibility of me not fitting into them again.  I guess the difference now is that I’m telling people about it—I refuse to go through this alone because going through it alone the first time is what got me in the pickle I was in. My husband knows how I feel and he knows the signs to look for. The one thing that is interesting is that for the first time in my life, I can look at pictures of myself and think, “I looked good.” Note that a few sentences ago, I called them “my skinny jeans.” Well, 10 months ago when I was wearing them, I still felt like they were too big. Now I look at pictures from May and think, “I looked good” (and get this, sometimes I even think I looked too thin…that’s progress like you wouldn’t believe). If nothing else, I can finally let myself trust those around me—why did I constantly think that everyone was lying to me and telling me I looked fine just because I felt so big? So although I AM scared about the post-pregnancy journey, I think I’m finally ready to accept that when my husband tells me I look good, I need to listen to him. Because clearly I don’t see the same thing he does.

I started reading this book last week and it’s been pretty insightful. It’s written by two women who have struggled with eating disorders and how those experiences relate to pregnancy. Nevertheless, I think it has some good insights for any women dealing with body image issues that come with pregnancy.

So I guess I don’t know how to wrap up these posts. I don’t know how I’ll handle the post-pregnancy body. I don’t know if I’ll ever fit back into my old wardrobe. All I know is that I’m hoping that, despite the fact that I was best friends with Ed for so long, my sweet little boy’s face will tell me that I am so very good enough—flabby tummy, stretch marks and all.

NEDA Week 2010: No. 4

My 2nd year in law school, we joined a Bible Study at church. Our previous one had disbanded when our leaders moved away and we were invited to join a new one. It just so happened to include my mom’s good friend who I saw a few times a year. She hadn’t seen me in a few months and when she did, she “knew.” Her daughter’s friend had struggled with an eating disorder and she was fairly aware of what to look for. After a couple months of seeing my behaviors at Bible Study dinners and whatnot, she informed my mother that I had a problem. My mother then informed me that I was going into treatment. At that point, I was so sick of the constant worrying about what I put in my mouth that I think I had just resigned myself to the idea that treatment may be a decent idea—not because I HAD an eating disorder, but because I probably had it in me to eventually develop one if I kept on going the way that I was. Repeat: I still was sure that I didn’t have an eating disorder—I just wanted to nip it in the bud before it got to a point of being a problem.

I don’t really have any “pre treatment” pictures of myself. This is the best I can do. At this point, I had been in outpatient therapy—seeing a dietician and a therapist once a week—for 11 months. I had already put on about 10 pounds. Yes, this is the face that my sisters and I regularly make in pictures. We are hot.

I didn’t tell anyone I was entering treatment though because I knew that they would all think it was silly—after all, it was clear from looking at me that I didn’t have an eating disorder: I wasn’t skinny enough to have an eating disorder. In fact, I remember being terrified to go to that first appointment. I was sure they’d look at me and think, “Who is this girl kidding? She is nowhere near thin enough to have a problem.” I sat in that waiting room sure that every single girl in there was thinking that I was too fat to be there. Ridiculous.

That first appointment, they did a bunch of tests: height, weight, blood pressure, etc. The therapist crunched all the numbers, looked at some charts and graphs and said it, “Well, you’re clinically anorexic.” I remember laughing to myself. Clearly, she wasn’t looking at me. I wasn’t anorexic:

a) I ate. Anorexic girls don’t eat.

b) I wasn’t the skeletal girls you see on TV warning about the dangers of anorexia. If anything, I was too fat to have an eating disorder.

Nevertheless, I agreed to see her and a dietician because I figured they had some magic button or phrase or something that would make it easy for me to just accept my body for what it was and stop feeling so down on myself. I truly thought that within a month or so, I’d be cured from all my sad thoughts and all would be right with the world. If you would have told me then that a year and a half later, I’d still be in treatment, I probably would have walked out the door and never returned. I sincerely thought it was going to be easy.

Life Without Ed

One of the first things I was told to do upon entering treatment was to read this book: 

This book was probably the most important part of my recovery. Every page was a different tale of things she’d done or thoughts she’d had and I remember thinking (aside from the bulimia parts), “Holy crap! I do that!” I was sincerely shocked to learn that this stuff was not normal. All this time, I had convinced myself that my behaviors were normal and it was just what everyone did, the secrets of being thin if you will, so reading this book and really realizing that these behaviors were the behaviors of someone with an eating disorder was the first step to me accepting the fact that I did have a problem and that I needed to fix it.  The way that her therapist approached treatment was also important—it was about not beating yourself up for having these “you’re fat” thoughts…instead, realize that it was Ed (Eating Disorder, get it?) that was telling you all those things. You begin to hate Ed instead of hating yourself. It sounds super new-age-y but I’m convinced it saved my life (or at least saved me from getting even worse—to this day I don’t think I’d have died from my eating disorder. Isn’t that funny? Through all of this, it’s still hard for me to think I was ever “that bad”. I never got under 100 pounds so I am convinced I would have been able to stop myself. Silly Silly.)

Treatment was not easy. I would gain a pound or two and then stay stagnant for months at a time. I would get angry at the stuff they made me eat. I remember standing in the granola bar aisle the week that my dietitian assigned me to eat one granola bar every day between meals. I stared at the different options (she had made it clear that I was not allowed to get any of the low fat or low calorie ones) and just started crying. There I was in the flippin’ granola bar aisle crying! A man came up to me and said, “I know. Sometimes there are just too many options to choose.” Cute, sweet old man. Anyway, I had lots of moments like that when I was assigned new foods or given new caloric minimums. It was hard. But throughout it all, I remember being really proud of the progress I was making. My wonderful husband constantly told me how strong I was and how beautiful I was. He left notes on the mirror and my computer and my Bible and my text books—everywhere—telling me that I was more beautiful than ever and that he loved me and that I could do this. He admitted that he had no idea what I was going through but that he was there with me every step of the way. He was, in short, the perfect recovery partner.

My other recovery partner was obviously God. I was still reading the Bible daily and praying and going to church…but I never asked Him for help in healing because, frankly, I don’t think I wanted it. Healing meant getting fat. I was convinced that if I let myself really succeed in treatment, I would go back to that girl from high school. It was so silly but I know that’s what most ED patients think. So I wasn’t ready to let go of this and give it over to God. Nevertheless, He stood there holding me the whole time waiting for the moment I was ready to let Him in. My therapist used to tell me that I had one foot in treatment and one foot out the door. I think that’s true: I was following treatment just enough to keep me from losing weight but I refused to go all in…I refused to throw myself into the ring and really do everything they told me to do. I just didn’t want to reach that moment where I would be okay with gaining weight, where I would be okay with not weighing myself on a daily basis. That moment came one night when I went to an ED speaker at a local church. He made an analogy that I still think about to this day:

As Christians, we believe that our bodies will be resurrected with Christ in Heaven. We will have perfect, heavenly bodies. Who knows what that means—will we all look the same? Will we all just look the best we ever did? Will we just finally accept what it is we look like? Whatever, that’s not important. All that’s important is that we will think they are perfect. Now say that there is a caterpillar. This caterpillar thinks he is fat and lumpy and ugly. He’s always down and depressed about how ugly and gross he is. What would you tell him? Of course, you’d tell him all about how he is going to be one of the most beautiful creatures in the world—that in just a matter of time, he is going to be a beautiful butterfly whose beauty rivals all other creatures on earth. It’d be inevitable that the caterpillar would start to act a bit more like that butterfly; if the caterpillar truly believed what you told him, he’d start looking forward to that day of being so beautiful and his mindset would change. He’d start loving himself more because he would be looking forward to what he was going to be. It’s the same principle with Prince Charles—He knows that one day he will be king. So he’s started acting like a King now. Similarly, I am going to have this perfect body when I am resurrected with my God in Heaven. If I truly believe that, why am I not accepting that now? Why am I not believing that I am beautiful now? Of course I had heard all the “Your body is a temple” stuff but none of that stuck. I still felt ugly. I still felt like God had messed up my temple. For some reason, this caterpillar analogy stuck for me. 

That night was a turning point for me and I remember going to my appointments that week and going all in. After almost a year in treatment, I was FINALLY ready to do exactly what they wanted me to do and really beat this thing. I was ready to win.

NEDA Week 2010: No. 3

Over the course of the previous few years, people had seen my weight loss and complimented me on how good I looked. At a certain point, people stopped mentioning it—this was just the new me…there was no point in them constantly asking me, “Have you lost weight?” I think maybe I missed the attention or I missed seeing the number on the scale go down every week…so I decided that I could stand to lose a few more pounds. I can honestly tell you that I have no idea how the spiral started; I don’t ever remember thinking, “I’m going to be tiny.” I think that I just wasn’t ready to see the number stay stagnant.

And so it began…I remember watching some effed up episode of Oprah where she had famous super models on talking about how they stayed in shape.  One of them said that she got on the scale every morning and if the number had gone up by even a pound, she wore her tightest jeans to remind herself all day to eat healthy. WTF??? Seriously! Who thought that was a good thing to air on television? It pisses me off so much right now just to remember it.  It clearly didn’t piss me off at the time though because after I saw that, I would wake up every morning and weigh myself. If that number had gone up at all, I knew I had to restrict my caloric intake. It started out with little things like a smaller portion at dinner. By the time I was really “in my eating disorder”, a higher number meant eating nothing coffee, a lean cuisine for lunch, and a chicken breast with carrots for dinner. But here’s the thing: I was still eating…so I couldn’t have an eating disorder, right? I was 100% convinced that what I was doing was nothing more than what skinny girls did—this was normal behavior for anyone who was thin. All women in the world did this.  It’s also important to note that that number on the scale dictated whether I was allowed to be happy or sad that day. If the number was the same as the day before, well that was pretty unremarkable. If it was higher, I restricted and was depressed all day—I was a failure. If it was lower, well…if it was lower I was a champion! And of course I wanted to restrict MORE so that I could feel this sense of accomplishment again tomorrow. You’re probably reading this thinking, “Your weight fluctuates on a daily basis based on all sorts of things. It could have just been that you had more water weight that day.” Um, yeah. Logic wasn’t really winning out here. But again, Oprah’s little model told me that this was an okay thing to do.

Just for the record, my husband worked really weird hours so we rarely ate meals together and he truly had no idea none of this was going on. He knew that I was skinny and that I always talked about how fat I was…but he was more concerned that I had body dysmorphic disorder than that I had an eating disorder. He, too, figured that since I ate, there wasn’t any way I could be anorexic. Plus, I wasn’t puking so bulimia was out of the question. He wasn’t wrong, by the way. I think that all women and men that struggle with EDs have some sort of BDD—they have to: they are skinny skinny yet they continue this weight loss because we look in the mirror and TRULY see something different than what you see. One time I pointed to a girl in the mall and said, “I wish I was as thin as her.” He just grabbed my hand and said, “Are you serious? You’re like 2 full sizes smaller than her!” I just laughed—who did he think he was kidding?

So here’s the thing I was someone would have told me: just because you eat (even if you eat burgers and fries) does not mean that you don’t have an eating disorder. Every once in a while, we would go to Red Robin and I’d get a huge cheeseburger and eat like 2 baskets of fries. Every time I went out to dinner with friends, I could always convince myself to order regular food. Anytime I came home for holidays, I had no trouble (aside from the guilt) eating just like everyone else. CLEARLY, I didn’t have an eating disorder. Nobody with an eating disorder would eat like that.  What I chose to ignore was that for the next few days, I would restrict my food intake to make up for that “indiscretion.” It started with me skipping breakfast. Then it evolved into just eating really “healthy.” Finally, even at the core of my ED, I’d still eat a cheeseburger and fries but the next couple days would be 0-400 calorie intake days.  But it’s not like I wasn’t eating…I was just eating things with little to no calories: steamed veggies, salads with lemon juice for dressing, broth and vegetable soups…so it’s not like my friends and family were stupid and just ignored me not eating. I WAS eating—I just learned WHAT to eat that didn’t have any calories (or nutrition, for that matter). I also had learned how to make very similar meals with way fewer calories. Where my husband would have butter on his bread, I would have “I can’t believe it’s not butter.” Where my husband would have potatoes, I would have steamed broccoli. Where my husband would have cheese, I would say, “I don’t like it like that.” I was eating and I refuse to let anyone say that my family was stupid for missing it—I hid it well. I was a good anorexic. The main tipoff that, in retrospect, they should have noticed was the giant bags under my eyes, the constant tiredness, the depression…but they didn’t. I was in law school: all of those things come hand in hand with getting a JD. If my husband was worried about me falling asleep at 8 pm, it was because I’d been studying hard all day. I was depressed because I hated studying all the time…there were excuses galore—and very valid ones at that.

NEDA Week, 2010: It's Time To Talk About It

**reposted from our private blog, originally published Feb 2010

My posts this week are not really the typical “Considering Public” post…but it’s very important to our family and I sometimes think that maybe I would have avoided the struggle I went through (at least to the extent I went through it/will always go through it) if I had realized that my behaviors were not normal.

I debated a long time about whether or not I was actually going to blog about this. NEDA week is important to me for obvious reasons. I hate that when some celebrity comes out and says they have/had an Eating Disorder that it’s all over the news and tabloids for weeks. People are either so proud of her for telling her story or grossed out by her selfishness. Either way, it’s a focus. Listen, 1 in 3 women have or have had an eating disorder…this should be something that we are more aware of and more committed to shifting focus away from self-worth associated with body image (thanks Hollywood!) and onto self-worth based on personality, kindness, happiness. Every body is different. Some women could starve themselves to death and still never be a size 2, so why is that the “ideal” right now? Yet our society has just kind of accepted that this is the way it is—that we have to look at these women and these ad campaigns and accept those standards of beauty. I think NEDA week is important because it exposes the flaws in this and admits that it DOES have an effect on the people who are exposed to it. But I still didn’t think that I was ready to talk about it for myself.

It’s embarrassing, first of all. It’s completely embarrassing to me that I let myself get so wrapped up in something as trivial as my appearance that I let it hurt me and my husband so very much. It’s embarrassing that I hold myself out to be this strong, independent woman and that I let a stupid number on a scale dictate my life for so long. There are people out there with REAL problems—cancer, infertility, financial troubles, AIDS—and I am worried about being skinny? I focused my days on whether I was the skinniest person in the room and if I wasn’t, I was a failure (and by the way, I could NEVER always be the skinniest person in the room. So that was a good yardstick for success. Way to set yourself up for disappointment.) It’s truly embarrassing. But if I have learned one thing in recovery, it is that I am far from alone in this. I am a statistic. So many people struggle with this issue and I thought that maybe if I made my story known, other people would realize that they (or someone they know) have a problem and can fix it before it gets unfixable.

For the record, I know that to someone who has never struggled with this, eating disorders seem extremely selfish. I’m not disagreeing with you. Prior to developing one myself, I always thought that people with eating disorders were selfish and that all they would have to do is start eating. Yes, at their core, eating disorders are selfish—they are about control and being the best and worrying about yourself and your looks more than anything else. But they are NOT as easy as “just eat.” You would never think that treating alcoholism is as easy as “just stop drinking” so I’m not sure why people think that it is that easy with eating disorders. So forgive me for being so slow in my recovery—but it was hard.

The Beginning 

So I guess I’ll start from the beginning? I was a nice chunkster in High School. Not a big old fatty but I had some girth to me. It was my own fault: I ate french fries and cheese sticks for lunch every.single.day. I had breakfast tacos multiple times a week and ate a ton at one sitting for dinner. I was just unhealthy. When I went away to college, I remained unhealthy…college food sucked and the only thing I liked in the cafeteria was grilled cheese and french fries…for every meal.

Then, for some reason, I decided I wanted to lose weight. My mom and I started Weight Watchers. For the record, I think Weight Watchers is a FANTASTIC program that really focuses on healthy weight loss. I did, in fact, lose a healthy amount of weight and at the point where I reached a healthy weight, they told me to stop losing weight. I just didn’t listen. So anyway, over the course of 1-2 years (junior & senior year of college), I lost about 40 pounds and was really feeling good about myself:

Then that sweet, baby-face boy proposed to me. And I decided that I wanted to lose just a couple more pounds before the wedding. I remember counting calories very closely but I never went without eating—I just ate as healthy as I could. For the most part, I was just in shape that day:

I had spent the summer working out with a trainer so that I’d be nice and toned on my wedding day. I look at that picture now and I remember how proud I was of how I looked: I had worked hard and I finally felt really, really pretty. If only I could have frozen that moment in time and left it at that.

NEDA Week 2010: Being an Anorexic’s Husband

…no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it…
                                              -Ephesians 5:29

**originally posted to our private blog, Feb 2010

It’s National Eating Disorder Week.  My wife decided she wanted to do something for it on the blog, to raise awareness and tell her own story.  She wrote four posts, but after finishing them she decided she didn’t want you to see them.  Scared that the posts would come across selfish, place her family in a bad light, and share details of her life that she worked so hard to keep private, she thought it might be better not to tell the story.

For a long time, as she struggled with her eating disorder, I asked myself why it was happening.  Why was it happening to her?  To me?  To us?  It didn’t quite seem fair that a couple that had been only married for 12 months would be forced to go through something so strange and difficult.

I came to one conclusion of why God would let it happen.  I always thought that maybe he didn’t prevent her (he never afflicts) from getting it so that she could tell her story and hopefully prevent others from feeling these same terrible things.  Therefore, I was excited when she was writing and worried when she said she wasn’t going to post them.  For that reason, I decided to post first.  Hers are all written, so tomorrow’s post is supposed to be the first one.  Consider this the prefix.

The words she writes to you are so important.  Know that she’s spilling stuff out that a couple years ago, only she knew.  Some stuff in these next few days, I didn’t even know.

The best way I can explain anorexia for people is that it’s a disease where the person is addicted to losing weight.  The eating (or lack thereof) is only secondary to the main goal of losing weight.  Therefore, an anorexic will eat, but they will do so in a way that feeds their addiction.  When the scale reads a weight lower than yesterday, it’s a success.  Eating, working out, restricting, not eating – all feeds the addiction.

As anyone who knows someone with an addiction, it’s difficult for them to listen to reason.  Try to reason with an alcoholic about how it’s the alcohol.  Tell a gambling addict that the bets are ruining their life.  They’ll all find excuses, stories, reasons around their addiction, and unless they’re ready, they’ll refuse that they have a problem… even if it’s all too clear to everyone else in the world.  This is where I was with her as she entered into recovery.  I knew there was a problem.  I didn’t know what it was, but however I reasoned with her, there was always a way around it.  It usually ended with complete refusal.

She is much better now than she was just two years ago.  She’s an amazing woman.  She’s absolutely stunning.  Yes, even pregnant!  However, there are still struggles with it and I think there always will be to some degree.  Please listen to her words and please forward them to anyone you think might have a problem.  It might just save their life.