It seems fitting that this is one of this week’s Postsecrets. I connect with this confessor like an echo.
My blood pressure is finally starting to settle down around 135/98 (best it’s been in months).
All I feel is Her teeth gnawing at my ankles.
Her dry and stale breath washing over my face when I close my eyes.
Her hissing words vibrating in my chest. Stop eating. Stop smelling. Stop looking. Stop tasting. You don’t deserve any of this.
It has settled around the time of my birthday, which I would think is strange except I realize this is a time where I feel friends and family trying to fatten me up like a farm animal. Just in time for the county fair.
Fat pigs need to starve
I’m not sure if I can step away this time. I felt a taste of Her will a couple months ago and managed to shake it off. But this time…
This time does feel like coming home.
Like I’ve been lost and cold for so very long. There is finally a comfortable hearth I can settle in front of of and warm this aching chill.
I can trade the time intended for consuming that lumpy fat others call food. I can trade it for sleeping. For daydreaming. For running. For hiking. For all the things in the world that will make me strong and clean and empty.
This advertisement floored me when I saw it a couple days ago for the first time.
More than a number? It may seem like simple advertising techniques to a marketing excecutive.
“Oh women are always concerned with weight and sizes. What if we just made sizes flattering names instead?”
What I don’t think they realized is the impact it would have on someone who struggles with ED.
The whispers of my ED were stunned into silence after seeing this commercial. It was terrified of a world where it couldn’t dictate to me to get down to that size. To the winning size.
How could the whispers possibly hiss and bully without the elusive 00 goal?
In this beautiful boutique the commercial paints; all sizes are merely empowering descriptors.
It’s a deep, dark struggle to tell friends or partners “…now I’m a size 7.”
But wouldn’t it be beautiful to tell a friend “Now my size is fabulous! What about you?”
The hissing and bubbling and bullying would be forced to cower and grumble in disappointment. It’s hard to make words like Stunning, Confident, Courageous, or Charismatic a punishment.
I like radiant myself
I think Special K has made a surprisingly strong (and perhaps unintentional) message to not only the general self image we are obsessed, but the size focus a lot of eating disorders and other mental-health diagnoses struggle with.
I’m ready to re-label all our sizes! Let’s do away with numbers! It’s time for some positive change!
The Goddess Ana and Mia can only crumble before these heroes. I imagine these modern heroes fighting just as bravely as the famous Greek ones of mythic lore.
Meet Radiant: A fiery redhead who in the past would rather sleep than do anything. Now she uses her two powerful short swords to slash at the black curtains of depression and self-harm that these hateful goddesses erect daily.
Meet Charismatic: A smiling blond whose song can stop a truck. She used to sing the blues but now she rocks out with all the energy of hope. She loves it even more when she can get others to sing with her. Her friends and family comment how much her smile lifts their spirits and how glad they are to see it again.
Meet Fabulous: This brunette used to stay in the bathroom, bogged down by the whispers and tormented by what she thought was her own desire for death. But now she stands strong and using a mirror shield, reflects the goddesses own images and nasty words back at themselves.
These are today’s heroes. They want nothing more than to drive away the black hole that only sucks and sucks. To replace it with the shining light of hope, healing, strength, love. To show you that you are a beautiful person.
And you can be a hero too.
What new size do you like the sound of?
Disclaimer: I don’t work for or with Kellogg’s in any way. I haven’t received any compensation. I did this post merely because their ad struck me on a personal level. I actually don’t even eat cereal.
I just downloaded it and haven’t had a chance to explore it thoroughly, but what I read so far on the description and reviews has me excited.
Here’s something that may manage to let me track and log like my brain likes to do; but keep it as positive and guilt-free as possible. Perhaps avoid too much triggering and encourage some better eating habits.
Please let me know if any of you have already tried it and have opinions or if any of you happen to try it out here soon and want to let me know what you think!
Remember; you are beautiful and braver than you realize! Be gentle with yourself!
This weekend has me dwelling. I hate dwelling. It never accomplishes anything. Ever. Except wasting time.
I got into a conversation with my massage therapist about eating disorders and she was floored when I shared the fact that I struggle with mine daily. She said she wanted to know more, to understand.
Can anyone truly understand?
It is technically an illness, but unlike something like pneumonia, I don’t think the cause or symptoms are always the same.
I guess, for me, the bottom line is not only the skewed self-image, but the beauty of control. My life can be chaos a lot, especially dealing with the DID.
I wake up and it could be Thursday and the last thing I remember is driving home from work on Tuesday evening. Usually nothing awful has happened during that blank. But sometimes…
Of course, that makes the control of my intake hard. My struggle with anorexia is different than most, I think. I wage war with parts of me that think the whole “eating issue” is “bullshit” (no, it’s fucking ridiculous). I could spend all of Saturday making sure I don’t put anything but ice cubes into my mouth, only to have the whole struggle compromised on Sunday when Midori bakes a platter of cookies. Then her and Armes devour the whole thing.
This is good, in the long run. They help me stay alive. That’s always been their purpose.
And despite my issues, our internal wars, my blanks of times, my memory problems, my mood swings, my depression, my eating disorder… The devils you know are better than the ones you don’t. _______________________________________________________________
“The devil that you know Is better than the one you don’t
And so it goes… Like lonely ghosts, at a roadside cross We stay because we don’t know where else to go
The places, our old haunts Will miss us when we’re gone We can never move on
So like lonely ghosts, at a roadside cross We stay
The devil that you know Is better than the one you don’t
Like lonely ghosts, at a roadside cross We stay because we don’t know where else to go We stay because we don’t know where else to go” –“Lonely Ghosts” O+S _______________________________________________________________
I couldn’t find a good YouTube video I liked…it’s a hauntingly beautiful melody though. I wish someone would upload one that would do it justice.
Trigger warning for a more in-depth discussion of my eating disorder issues and mentioning of my (stupid) perusal of pro-Ana websites.
I do not want to encourage any eating disorders. That is not my intent with this post at all. Please let me know if you find it “pro-eating disorder” because I am not in that mindset, despite my struggle.
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This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness week. Unfortunately, what it’s done for me is just made me more aware of mine and the fact that I am no where near a stable recovery (though I am trying).
I slipped up today in my perusing of eating disorder blogs. Usually I’m good and just read the strictly supportive/recovery based ones. The ones that do not encourage Thinking Thin or Thinspiration or any of that harmful talk. I found a couple new ones yesterday that were absolutely lovely and gave me all sorts of smiles.
Today I stumbled across a pro-Ana (a term for anorexia) blog. I didn’t realize it at first because it wasn’t overt like some. I won’t link it here because that just perpetrates the cycle of harm and I will not be a part of that.
What bothered me was the way the blog talked about the Goddess Ana. Personifying a disorder into this figure of anti-eating, rib-showing, thigh-gap encouraging “deity” they could pray to for assistance. I am horrified. I hate that I immediately got an image of what this goddess would look like. And she would be cruel. She would demand constant sacrifice; the blood, sweat, tears, and pounds of her worshipers.
I thought we were past the old days of sacrificing young women to appease the gods.
Apparently not.
We’ve merely moved on to a darker strain of sacrifice. Instead of a quick knife or even a pyre of flame- it is a slow torture of starvation. It is giving that little piece of you daily to a tall, impossibly thin and icy eyed woman who says it is neverenough. Just a couple more pounds. Always just a couple more. Her mouth is a black hole and it devours your strength, your health, your sanity with gulping force, the sharp teeth glittering in a border of poisoned words.
And words have power. I give this goddess power merely by encouraging this descriptive personification. I can’t help it. But I will not let such a cruel goddess rule me. I line my personal angels and guardians up around me. I do not look into her eyes or step anywhere near that gaping mouth. I will not dedicate myself to a goddess who demands such a high sacrifice.
I will not.
And I can only hope that other women and girls (and men and boys) will find the strength to turn away. To know that they are beautiful just as they are. They were beautiful all those weeks ago before they heard the call of the Goddess Ana. Before the siren’s song started.
We are stronger than we know.
Be gentle, be loving, be strong. You are worth it.
Note: I purposely put some tags that may seem slightly “pro-Ana” in hopes that someone will stumble across this post when looking for tips or encouragement. And I hope this encouragement of a different sort, of a truly positive sort, will start the healing process.
Happy National Eating Disorder Awareness week.
pen, paper, and crazy 