My best friend and I went to the beach yesterday. We hadn’t had a chance to really hang out together in a long time, and it was a lot of fun to catch up. So much so, in fact, that it was late in the day before I perceived the constant subtext to our outing…the subterraneous dialogue underpinning every step I took and every place we visited. “She’s thinner than you.” “Look, she’s thinner than you too.” “There are a lot of people here thinner than you.” “You must be pretty fat.”

It got to me for all of two seconds before I realized that I wasn’t upset about this at all. But my ED was!

And I quickly decided that I could live with that. I politely turned my back on it and went on about our wonderful day – I walked up and down the beach in my bathing suit PROUDLY, reveling in the wind and the water (even Galveston brown is still beach to me) and the seagulls (best birds on earth) and the sand and the surf…

…and as we walked, I let the sound of the waves washing up and back across the sand drown the ED out. I don’t care what it has to say. Its opinion doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t get a vote anymore. It doesn’t matter.

And I DO. Yesterday I discovered another reason why I love the beach. It always has more to teach me. And I always have more that I can gratefully learn.

This has been a particularly heinous week as far as stress is concerned. If I find it stressful, it has found me – without even breaking a sweat. My apartment produced another sprightly batch of little brown critters - will they EVER go away?!? A longtime association with a local college’s high school outreach program was surreptitiously dissolved when the college restructured its programming, leaving me scrambling both emotionally and financially. A business associate expressed frustration with just about everything I do – and who I am while I’m doing it – and there are no easy answers for how to fix it. A friend announced her engagement – provoking not just joy on her behalf, but worry that I may never have that same wonderful news to share.

And through it all, I ate. What’s more, I ate RESPONSIBLY. I ate when I was sad. I ate when I was angry. I ate when I felt depressed, lonely, forgotten, misunderstood. I ate morning, noon and night, reasonable portions, reasonable choices, reasonable reasons. I ate because it was time, and my body was ready, and when it comes to food, my body gets the last word now. I ate because today, eating makes me feel stronger, not weaker. I ate because when I eat, I remember that I have the power to overcome ANYTHING I put my powerful mind and will to do. And I ate because, when I eat, I gain the strength to wait out the tough times until they finally just get tired of hanging out with me and go away!

Post-eating disorder, I have finally discovered that (big shock) life does not always produce the experiences and results I want, when I want it. This week I learned that sometimes it even produces the direct opposite of what I have been working for, hoping for, praying for.

But through it all, I can produce RECOVERY.

Current score: Stress – 0. Recovery -100.

Take that, stress!

If you have ever watched late night television commercials, you will know exactly what I am talking about when I say that jogging is to my thighs the way water is to a chia pet. They just keep growing, and growing, and growing…..no long, lean, sinewy Pilates thighs for me. Oh, no. I am like twin tree trunks, rooted firmly into the earth.

In an earlier post I mentioned that it has taken me three years to be ABLE to start jogging again. When I first started back, I had completely forgotten about this unavoidable side effect. After three blissful, glorious, empowering weeks of jogging, BLAM. It hit me like….well, twin tree trunks. This is the price I pay.

It took me a couple weeks more to realize that, far from resenting or fearing the consequences of my three daily miles, I LIKED it. My body feels strong, good. I am proud.

A week after that realization, I also realized that what I DON’T like is now having to wriggle into all my formerly comfortable pants, shorts and skirts.

In the past, this would have made my ED mind CRAAAZZZZZYYYYY. So imagine my surprise when, as I lunged towards another pair of the dreaded now overly-snug jeans, to catch myself thinking, “You know what your problem is? You keep buying the wrong-sized clothes!”

Talk about recovery. That is Recovery. RECOVERY. Recovery with a capital EVERYTHING. Sometimes I still don’t realize how ‘recovered’ I really am.

Until I do.

A few months ago I moved into an adorable new duplex. From the moment I saw it, I fell in love. My imagination quickly suggested to me that this might just be the adult’s version of the popular childhood “treehouse.”

After I moved in, however, it only took a week or so for me to notice that I wasn’t the only occupant who was enjoying a treehouse lifestyle. I had forgotten one very important fact – where there are trees (in Texas at least) there are also tree roaches. Not to mention that EVERYTHING – and I do mean everything – is bigger in Texas.

Today, after roach-proofing my kitchen for the third time, I began contemplating which I was more afraid of – the voice of my eating disorder, or the next tree roach sighting. I realized that the tree roach had a strong insider’s chance of capturing first place. I am just as scared of them now as I was many hundreds of roaches ago when, as a child, I used to find them each morning in our bathtub. The only thing a tree roach loves more than a treehouse is, apparently, a bayou (which ran behind our house for miles.)

Yesterday I had bread for breakfast. Bread for lunch. Bread for dinner. I had protein and greens with my bread, even a few healthy fats, but at each meal’s end all my ED voice was aware of was BREAD. All day long, while having fun with friends and generally giving off the appearance of enjoying myself thoroughly, I was also battling back against an inner voice that suggested I might want to survey myself in that window over there just in case I’d gotten any bigger since breakfast.

Each time it happened, however, I was quickly and easily able to put that voice in its place – thanks to years and years of training. I knew how to make sure the ED voice didn’t spoil my day, or my self-esteem.

But years and years of training have done absolutely NOTHING for my roach phobia. I saw one in my kitchen last night and couldn’t sleep all night long. I remember when the anorexia used to cause the same insomnia. Not any more.

I have come far. I still have ‘bread fears’ and ‘fat fears’ just like every other recovering anorexic I know. But they don’t make me tiptoe like an intruder in my own house, or jump in the night at the slightest eerie rustle.

Today was a bad day for tree roaches. But it was another GOOD day for my recovery.

About four years ago I was diagnosed with mononucleosis at age 34. I was pretty convinced I was the oldest person on the entire planet to ever catch mono…I was also the most exhausted. The illness hit me like a hurricane (which I would know all about, being from Texas). It decimated my immune system. Forget exercise. Forget jogging, yoga, lifting weights….even walking was a dim dream in my memory banks. Two years later, at age 36, I started walking a few times a week. That didn’t last long. I tried again at 37. This time I was stronger. A couple of months ago, I finally started back jogging. I LOVE how my body feels!

But last week I was getting dressed for a casual party, and slipped – or should I say tugged – on a pair of long shorts that are my favorite. When I got to my friend’s house, it was all I could talk about. I was heartbroken. Here I was, finally jogging my favorite local park daily, feeling wonderful, mood improved, appetite stabilized by all the fresh air and exercise, and sleeping deeply at night….and there are side effects!

Finally, near the end of the evening, I had had enough of myself. I told myself sternly, “Imagine for a moment that you have never seen yourself. You have no idea what you look like. You can only go on FEEL. What would you choose then – to jog, or not to jog?”

The choice was as clear as the dawn sky the morning after the hurricane has passed through. I would choose to JOG.

I went jogging again last night after work. Afterwards, I ate a healthy, lovely dinner, did a bit more work, read a novel a friend loaned me, played with my pet cockatiel, Pearl (who doesn’t have ANY self-esteem issues, let me tell you!) and went to sleep.

I am teaching myself to make my choices from the inside out, not the outside in. As Bob would say in ‘What About Bob?’ “I feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful.”

And I really DO.

I was contemplating my hero, John Nash, today. I have been in Santa Barbara, California, for over a week now. The trip started out with work and ended with a mini-vacation…long overdue. I had one whole half-day free to do anything I wanted to do – everything I wanted to do. I strolled along the wharf, shopped on State Street, convinced the world’s most photogenic birds (seagulls of course) to pose for me, went wine tasting, and just generally had quite the action-packed day!

So imagine my consternation when I began to realize I was being triggered by the seemingly endless supply of toned, tanned, decades-younger blonde beach-goers all around me. I guess I’ve been too busy with work this week to really notice them until today.

So I applied a ‘Nash-ism’ to once again set my course firmly upon enjoying this RARE vacation opportunity. When asked how he resisted re-engaging with the voices in his head that continually arise as a lingering reminder of his thirty-year battle with schizophrenia, Nash said, “I refuse to indulge my mind’s love for patterns.”

I, too, refused to indulge. I bought some wonderful new summer clothes and jewelry, had a strawberry smoothie, walked on the beach with the sand between my toes, stopped at a wine bar and, after sampling the varietals, ordered a lovely cheese and tomato sandwich for a take-out dinner. Then I returned to my hotel room and ate it while looking out at the setting sun. As I slowly made my way back, I smiled at every person I saw – I forced my mind, myself, to look PAST the reflection my eyes perceived, straight through to their innate humanity.

And I forced my eyes to see ME – to see me in the midst of all this, utterly unique, appreciated by absolute strangers for her warm, GENUINE smile and her ability to embrace the joy of such a pristine summer day.

This is today’s ‘day in the life’ of recovery from anorexia and bulimia. It was wonderful at times, really tough at times, and ultimately another day I would not have had, if I had let my ED even for a minute gain the upper hand. 

Recovery. It IS worth it.

I have lost count of the number of people who have asked me, “What is it like? How do you know you are really ‘recovered’?”

I have also lost count of the misconceptions of recovery I have heard over the years. My favorite (or most appalling, depending on how you look at it) was, “Well, I didn’t think I was recovered because I thought ‘recovery’ meant you would totally lose the desire to return to the ED again!”

Not so much….although I wish this was the case. But no – recovery is much, MUCH more basic than that. It is also much less glamorous….which, ironically, makes it much more satisfying as well.

This is my personal blog. I will share my daily struggles, triumphs, failures and redemptions for one reason, and only one reason - to demystify the recovery process, and make it REAL. Here, I will attempt to paint a picture of REAL recovery, for REAL people – like ME, and YOU.

Feel free to share your stories as well – and comment away! We will get through this the only way we can, the way we always do – TOGETHER.

Shannon