Disordered Thoughts

When you are in the midst of an eating disorder, the entirety of your thoughts are consumed by it and it's desires. You could spend an hour walking up and down Maine street, pass an afternoon ambling through the woods, or an evening watching your favorite shows, and not really take in a single thing. Instead those seconds, minutes, and hours are lost inside a constant cycle of thoughts about food. What you last ate, what you'll eat next, when you'll eat next, what foods you are allowed to have, and what you sure as hell won't touch. You're thinking about the workouts you'll need to do before and after eating so you can "earn" the calories you consume and then burn them off after. Your body screams with every step that it's hungry, that it's dying, but you're helpless to listen because your mind responds with it's beautiful lies and promises of peace, all you need to do is eat a little less, lose a little bit more.

And when you do get a chance to look outside yourself, all you can really look at are others. You observe what they're eating, if they're exercising, what they look like. You compare yourself with them in each category, a benchmark to measure just how well you are doing. You see the foods they eat and are horrified at the thought of eating something so unhealthy,  disgusted with the idea of polluting your body in such a way. You pride yourself on having so much more self-control than they do. Yet, a part of you - the healthy part - wishes for their freedom. If they exercise you find out how much and then force yourself to do more in order to prove your worth. You secretly chastise them on their days off, or for rests due to injury or illness, because as you and your disorder know - to stop for anything means you're a failure.

In the end, everything you've loved about life gets taken over by a disorder who twists that joy into a warped viewpoint, one where all that matters is how that thing you once loved helps you to succeed in your eating disorder - or threatens that success.

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I recently went out walking. Along the way I saw a man across the street navigating the sidewalks and crowds on a unicycle. I saw a new 'Help Wanted' sign posted in the door a a favorite shop. I saw two squirrels acting much like my two cats when Faelina wants to pounce and play and Synge is having none of it. I saw a single raven walking slowly atop the grass lost in avian thoughts. I saw old leaves skittering across my path on their way to more exciting places. What is so wonderful about this, is that I didn't just see those things, I registered that I did. For so long I went through each day seeing things only through a lens focused on food and exercise. For anything else to penetrate was a rare and special gift. I wonder now just how much I failed to take in during those dark months, how much I didn't see.

These days my thoughts are not all consumed by those of food an exercise, although they are more than I would like. If I could I would erase the necessity of thinking of food from my mind altogether. I eat because I have to, but I almost never enjoy it. This saddens me because I did so used to love food - and eating. This past week I've eaten what I was supposed to and some days weren't too bad, a couple were actually really good. But other days (like today), my self-confidence takes a serious dive, I feel uncomfortable, frumpy and fat; my stomach hurts, my head hurts, and my heart and mind are tired. I wish so badly I could just break free from this physical self and spend the rest of my life floating through the world carefree and shapeless. That will of course never be possible. What is though, are more moments like my walk. More experiences and adventures where I am truly living in this world rather than walking as a mere shadow behind it. I know it is going to take a long time for those days to become the norm rather than the exception, but I also know I can get there. I just have to remember that her promises are lies, while this promise is truth - is life.