We all grow up with fighters inside of us; we all learn from a young age how to assess our current state of endurance, and then push this boundary in order to gauge our strength.
Me – I’ve always been an all or nothing girl. This is what I like to call it, but the preferred family variation is ‘obsessive compulsive psycho.’ This is a personality trait that has at times been beneficial, but has mostly made it difficult for me to feel comfortable in that middle ground that is supposedly a balanced life. Some of these idiosyncrasies are harmless ones that I have accepted will never leave me; while others will involve hard work to ensure that they do not overlap into one extreme realm or another. I do not foresee my obsessive cleaning and immaculate bed making as being detrimental to my wellbeing, although I think perhaps cleaning the linen closet in the middle of the night might be a step too far. However, sometimes this ‘all or nothing thing’ mentality – when translated into food, control issues or general attitude in life – starts to unhinge your mental state and send you spiralling into a gyre that is difficult to extricate from.
Both my mental and physical health has taken huge hammerings from this type of behaviour. I pushed myself mentally and physically, always trying to get a step further, but unfortunately it reaches a point where the disorder takes over from you and shoves you violently past this brink and even further than you ever imagined. It is at these low points where it is easy for me to crack when somebody tells me that they wish they were as thin as me. I have been in that situation, wanted to be thinner (oh to be thinner!) but believe me, when you have pushed yourself too far into the danger zone, you lose all control and all you want is out.
My danger zone is 41 kgs: every time I push myself to eat less, exercise more, and binge and purge to the point where I am 41 kgs, I suddenly panic. This is the point where there is no turning back: where 41kg’s too easily becomes 40kg’s, and then 39 kg’s. You are unable to see how sick you look, you are not listening when people are telling you not to wear a bikini because you scare them … and the disease just keeps pushing you further and further. The same can be said about bulimia – there are times when it can start ‘recreationally’ and then transpire into an all consuming incubus that takes up every inch of your head space and the majority of your day. Both are full time jobs, and if one could be paid per hour for misuse of the body … well I would be retired in Majorca.
I have great respect for boundary pushers like athletes, whose tenacity and mental strength is unfathomable, but the trick is to do it with discernment. Now my priority is to make sure that I set realistic and healthy boundaries for myself to obtain a balanced life, and am certain that the only one I will be pushing in the near future will be the skydive on my next birthday.
Tuesday 28 October 2008
Wednesday 22 October 2008
No Lunatic is an Island
‘No Man is an Island’ they say. ‘The Only Thing Worse than One is None’. It is true that we need people around us for social interaction, support, intellectual stimulation and, well, because that is what a society is: many different people living together. However, this system of working in unison towards certain purposes or goals, building relationships, sharing experiences, knowledge and feelings seems futile when individuals (like yours truly) are consciously choosing the path of the one man band.
I decided to take this route alone a long time ago: shutting people out, shielding myself from possible turmoil and rejecting support from the many who offered it to me in favour of the rationalisation that Almighty I would somehow McGiver myself out of the darkest times alone. Not foreseeing that isolating myself would induce feelings of loneliness and solitude that resembled the worst scenes of Cast Away, was definitely one of my less insightful moments, with of course many more nonsensical ones to follow suit.
It has taken many years for me to realise that, like immigrants, no matter how many barriers are put up, bad things and bad people will always find another way in. So I finally made the intelligent decision to let people into my battered world; to let them help and support me no matter how co-dependant it made me feel. Now that the plan is set – to develop my one woman island into a thriving metropolis of people, alliances, and support networks – I find myself wondering if people will want to join, or if the cynics will predict a solo performance from me once again. They have reason to believe this, but I guess all I can do is come up with a guest list, send out the Facebook invitations, entice them with promises of good times and many laughs, lots of punch … and hope that they will join me on my island.
I decided to take this route alone a long time ago: shutting people out, shielding myself from possible turmoil and rejecting support from the many who offered it to me in favour of the rationalisation that Almighty I would somehow McGiver myself out of the darkest times alone. Not foreseeing that isolating myself would induce feelings of loneliness and solitude that resembled the worst scenes of Cast Away, was definitely one of my less insightful moments, with of course many more nonsensical ones to follow suit.
It has taken many years for me to realise that, like immigrants, no matter how many barriers are put up, bad things and bad people will always find another way in. So I finally made the intelligent decision to let people into my battered world; to let them help and support me no matter how co-dependant it made me feel. Now that the plan is set – to develop my one woman island into a thriving metropolis of people, alliances, and support networks – I find myself wondering if people will want to join, or if the cynics will predict a solo performance from me once again. They have reason to believe this, but I guess all I can do is come up with a guest list, send out the Facebook invitations, entice them with promises of good times and many laughs, lots of punch … and hope that they will join me on my island.
Friday 17 October 2008
Endorphin Junkie
While to me the notion of bungee jumping, micro-lighting off a mountain or worse still, jumping out of a plane seems utterly preposterous; I am sure that extreme sport devotees will perceive starving oneself, or spending an afternoon with your head in a toilet bowl, as about appealing as a session of non anaesthetised root canal. Yet, we all have our little highs that make our brain feel giddy: be it chasing the adrenalin or endorphin rush, or to just simply seek five minutes of a pleasurable feeling that we immerse ourselves in.
The danger of my eating disorder lies in the fact that I become obsessed and addicted to the high of control, and addicted too, to the release of endorphins. These behaviours and dependencies are as dangerous and malignant as drug addictions. And although I am in no danger of injecting Class A’s into veins between my toes, stealing from a needle dispensary, or losing a limb – I am in the same danger as these addicts as losing my mind in the continuous chase of a high, and the contradictory craving of the numbness that will subsequently follow.
I remember in my worst times of anorexia, the euphoria of extreme hunger pains. The exhilaration and power I felt, believing that each cramp was one step further to control over myself and my emotions. Logically, when our bodies are telling us that they are in pain – we treat this pain and try to relieve it, which in this case would be a meal to keep the acid from screaming up your throat like a toxic waste geyser. But whoever said eating disorders were logical.
Similarly, few may know that in fact, one of the addictions to bulimia is the chemical release of endorphins during purging. In many parallel ways to anorexia - with the ultimate goal being intoxication and numbness - bingeing and purging will produce an escape from reality and a high so powerful it is surprising that Keith Richards hasn't given it a whirl.
The harsh reality is that sometimes reality is harsh. But once we start using little highs as a tool to escape the real world and numb ourselves into a comatose state, we run the risk of never seeing this fact, and consequently never seeing the fact that sometimes - and I hear from well adjusted sources that this can be rather frequent - reality can also bring many natural joys that are just as exhilirating, but much less detrimental to your teeth.
The danger of my eating disorder lies in the fact that I become obsessed and addicted to the high of control, and addicted too, to the release of endorphins. These behaviours and dependencies are as dangerous and malignant as drug addictions. And although I am in no danger of injecting Class A’s into veins between my toes, stealing from a needle dispensary, or losing a limb – I am in the same danger as these addicts as losing my mind in the continuous chase of a high, and the contradictory craving of the numbness that will subsequently follow.
I remember in my worst times of anorexia, the euphoria of extreme hunger pains. The exhilaration and power I felt, believing that each cramp was one step further to control over myself and my emotions. Logically, when our bodies are telling us that they are in pain – we treat this pain and try to relieve it, which in this case would be a meal to keep the acid from screaming up your throat like a toxic waste geyser. But whoever said eating disorders were logical.
Similarly, few may know that in fact, one of the addictions to bulimia is the chemical release of endorphins during purging. In many parallel ways to anorexia - with the ultimate goal being intoxication and numbness - bingeing and purging will produce an escape from reality and a high so powerful it is surprising that Keith Richards hasn't given it a whirl.
The harsh reality is that sometimes reality is harsh. But once we start using little highs as a tool to escape the real world and numb ourselves into a comatose state, we run the risk of never seeing this fact, and consequently never seeing the fact that sometimes - and I hear from well adjusted sources that this can be rather frequent - reality can also bring many natural joys that are just as exhilirating, but much less detrimental to your teeth.
Thursday 16 October 2008
Fight or Flight
We all know that the conventional way of dealing with stressful situations is to fight it out; to put on our Big Girl knickers, muster up our so called inner strength, and battle it head on. Unfortunately (and I think I speak for other eating disorder sufferers here), there are recurrent times when the disorder seems to hoover up your fortitude, and then cunningly start sucking your reserve tank as well.
And so I find myself, in contrast to the expected Fight Club way of operating, admitting that I need help to combat my demons, that I do not possess the tenacity and vigor of Brad, and that sometimes I just need somebody to hold my hand and help me take the baby steps.
I frequently feel that I have let myself down by not conquering this myself, but then I realise it takes more than well formed muscles to fight this out, that the ‘flight’ modus operandi of coming back to South Africa for help will give me the support I need to slowly pull those Big Girl knickers on tightly. I hope that they fit.
And so I find myself, in contrast to the expected Fight Club way of operating, admitting that I need help to combat my demons, that I do not possess the tenacity and vigor of Brad, and that sometimes I just need somebody to hold my hand and help me take the baby steps.
I frequently feel that I have let myself down by not conquering this myself, but then I realise it takes more than well formed muscles to fight this out, that the ‘flight’ modus operandi of coming back to South Africa for help will give me the support I need to slowly pull those Big Girl knickers on tightly. I hope that they fit.
Friday 10 October 2008
It's Sham(e) Really
It is an arduous task keeping up pretences; the deceit, the lies, and cunning plans involved are no easy feat. I felt ashamed and scared that somebody would find out that I had relapsed into my old bad behaviours, and so I disguised all of this with a duplicity that was as disturbingly well planned as the operations of a sniper rifleman.
With a wealth of knowledge behind me from ten years of anorexia and bulimia, I familiarised myself with the little tricks of the trade – I became, and am still, an eating disorder connoisseur.
This inside knowledge is categorised in my head (by my OCD personality) into many complex groups and volumes; it is no wonder I feel that there is no room left for real information, or for - God willing - wisdom. And so the knowledge is practiced and manufactured into a secret ritual that I think will never be revealed. Unfortunately, as is often the case, this ‘secret’ is as visible to my family and friends as Paris’s underwear. In the case of being anorexic, my deflated and skeletal body is usually a dead giveaway that I have not, as claimed, been eating toasted cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches every day. Similarly, they will know when I am bingeing and purging, by the taxidermal glaze my eyes get, and yes – the fact that I will have polished off three helpings of dinner, 'have a very weak bladder', and tend to get red faced from my 'smoker's cough.'
The lying and betrayal is one of the hardest parts of this disorder to come to terms with. I value all my relationships - with my boyfriend, friends, colleagues and dysfunctional family members - so dearly that it destroys me when I think how many times I lied about food, and pretended to be well, when in fact I had long since missed the Well Adjusted Express.
With a wealth of knowledge behind me from ten years of anorexia and bulimia, I familiarised myself with the little tricks of the trade – I became, and am still, an eating disorder connoisseur.
This inside knowledge is categorised in my head (by my OCD personality) into many complex groups and volumes; it is no wonder I feel that there is no room left for real information, or for - God willing - wisdom. And so the knowledge is practiced and manufactured into a secret ritual that I think will never be revealed. Unfortunately, as is often the case, this ‘secret’ is as visible to my family and friends as Paris’s underwear. In the case of being anorexic, my deflated and skeletal body is usually a dead giveaway that I have not, as claimed, been eating toasted cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches every day. Similarly, they will know when I am bingeing and purging, by the taxidermal glaze my eyes get, and yes – the fact that I will have polished off three helpings of dinner, 'have a very weak bladder', and tend to get red faced from my 'smoker's cough.'
The lying and betrayal is one of the hardest parts of this disorder to come to terms with. I value all my relationships - with my boyfriend, friends, colleagues and dysfunctional family members - so dearly that it destroys me when I think how many times I lied about food, and pretended to be well, when in fact I had long since missed the Well Adjusted Express.
Keep you chin up and your food down
I read somewhere that you can only conquer the voices by knowing how to get them out of the subconscious part of your mind, and that willpower alone will not do it. There a lot of things like this that I read about eating disorders, most of which sound like a bad Celine Dion song - lyrics that attempt to elicit feelings of deep emotion and poignancy, but which more often than not end up eliciting a gagging reflex.
However, ten years of living in this Dawson’s Creek reality of being expected to talk incessantly about your feelings and anxieties, my cynicism has evolved into an acceptance that there is in fact, no way to live with an eating disorder without embracing your serious side and learning how to have that elusive ‘deep and meaningful conversation.’
I takes a lot of time and work before you can truly open up to people and talk about the real distress of living with these disorders, largely due to the fear of it sounding like an acceptance speech. Once you learn how to talk to your family and friends openly and in a matter of fact way about your problems, you tend to find that they are actually listening, that they actually care, and that they will not – as dreaded – remark with a comment about you being a cheeseball.
Living by my slogan of ‘keep your chin up and your food down’, just does not seem acute enough anymore. While it is possible - and at times very necessary - to make light of the problem, there reaches a point (probably somewhere after the fifth year, or 500th purge) where the immensity of the disorder becomes very real.
Real enough that the thought of living with this for the rest of my life violently shakes my core, terrorises me, frightens me, controls me and overwhelms me in ways that Celine Dion lyrics cannot.
However, ten years of living in this Dawson’s Creek reality of being expected to talk incessantly about your feelings and anxieties, my cynicism has evolved into an acceptance that there is in fact, no way to live with an eating disorder without embracing your serious side and learning how to have that elusive ‘deep and meaningful conversation.’
I takes a lot of time and work before you can truly open up to people and talk about the real distress of living with these disorders, largely due to the fear of it sounding like an acceptance speech. Once you learn how to talk to your family and friends openly and in a matter of fact way about your problems, you tend to find that they are actually listening, that they actually care, and that they will not – as dreaded – remark with a comment about you being a cheeseball.
Living by my slogan of ‘keep your chin up and your food down’, just does not seem acute enough anymore. While it is possible - and at times very necessary - to make light of the problem, there reaches a point (probably somewhere after the fifth year, or 500th purge) where the immensity of the disorder becomes very real.
Real enough that the thought of living with this for the rest of my life violently shakes my core, terrorises me, frightens me, controls me and overwhelms me in ways that Celine Dion lyrics cannot.
Control Pants/Control Issues
I know that the common misconception of an eating disorder is that one begins with weight issues, and then these begin to manifest into an obsession and subsequently an obsession with food, or the lack thereof. I think in my case there is about as much truth in this as there is in a bulimic eating an entire chocolate cake (followed by lemon cheesecake) because she is just rather hungry.
I was, in fact, an emaciated ‘alien’ when my problems came knocking on my boarding school dorm door. And so, despite the fact that I did not worry about being too fat to fit into my 24” Levi’s, I still developed the same problem that those ‘chubby’ girls did. It was a case of craving control, not control pants.
However it is true to say as well, that even though it was not the start of my problem, I have still succumbed to being one of those clichéd anorexic/bulimic girls who obsess about weight and dress size, and inches and BMI, and grams and cellulite rolls. I am a rational, independent – and sometimes I like to think smart – woman, yet think the most irrational thoughts about how disgustingly huge I am, that I am revolting in every way, and not far off from looking like Pavarotti sans the moustache and beard. Victoria Beckham is on the front page of nearly every ‘reputable’ (for UK girls) newspaper and when I see a picture of her bony frame, I still think how easy it would be if I could get back to that weight. I can see and understand that this is crazy - that the woman looks like she could hardly give birth to a hamster, let alone 3 decent sized human beings – and yet in the boxing match between rational Roberta, and Eating ‘Tyson’ Disorder, the latter always has the punch.
I was, in fact, an emaciated ‘alien’ when my problems came knocking on my boarding school dorm door. And so, despite the fact that I did not worry about being too fat to fit into my 24” Levi’s, I still developed the same problem that those ‘chubby’ girls did. It was a case of craving control, not control pants.
However it is true to say as well, that even though it was not the start of my problem, I have still succumbed to being one of those clichéd anorexic/bulimic girls who obsess about weight and dress size, and inches and BMI, and grams and cellulite rolls. I am a rational, independent – and sometimes I like to think smart – woman, yet think the most irrational thoughts about how disgustingly huge I am, that I am revolting in every way, and not far off from looking like Pavarotti sans the moustache and beard. Victoria Beckham is on the front page of nearly every ‘reputable’ (for UK girls) newspaper and when I see a picture of her bony frame, I still think how easy it would be if I could get back to that weight. I can see and understand that this is crazy - that the woman looks like she could hardly give birth to a hamster, let alone 3 decent sized human beings – and yet in the boxing match between rational Roberta, and Eating ‘Tyson’ Disorder, the latter always has the punch.
The Expert
With my xenophobic tendencies, taking advice from a Spanish therapist called Juan Carlos did not seem like the brightest idea. However he told me in our session that he is the expert on psychology and therapy, and I am the expert on me. These were wise words from a foreigner, and to my surprise, behind the annoyance of bad English, lay more interesting and - more importantly - thought provoking knowledge.
This took me by surprise. As much as I would like to think that I know myself very well, I do not, in fact, have a clue about the millions of different facets of my personality. It is true that I know more than most about Roberta Kate King, but this is far from a comfort, knowing that when I screw up, I only have only myself to turn to for answers.
And so, this is the proverbial journey to get to know myself a little. This is something that is about as exciting to me as getting to know George Bush, but I am hoping by the end of it I might even think of taking myself out for coffee, if not for the full fat cappuccino, then hopefully for the stimulating conversation.
This took me by surprise. As much as I would like to think that I know myself very well, I do not, in fact, have a clue about the millions of different facets of my personality. It is true that I know more than most about Roberta Kate King, but this is far from a comfort, knowing that when I screw up, I only have only myself to turn to for answers.
And so, this is the proverbial journey to get to know myself a little. This is something that is about as exciting to me as getting to know George Bush, but I am hoping by the end of it I might even think of taking myself out for coffee, if not for the full fat cappuccino, then hopefully for the stimulating conversation.
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