Oh this is just not easy......

They call it a mental illness for a reason- it simply doesn't make any rational sense. Someday I will post more about treatment during pregnancy, and how deep I was in the disorder, and how for some reason I was completely petrified of gaining weight, but yet I did understand I needed to do that, even if I needed serious help accomplishing the six time a day decision to nourish myself and my daughter. The reality of the situation, was that Piper grew and flourished. It was I who suffered dizziness and nearly fainted from excessive exercise and crashing blood sugars..... That's because she took the calories I was eating and I, well, starved.

Anyway. Fast forward to the present moment, where I am 10 months postpartum and my beautiful girl thrives on both breast milk and solids. And I'm underweight. I've been sold on the concept of not losing any more weight. I mean, once I started losing, it was like this rapid descent into hell that I could not stop if I wanted to. The road to anorexia is like a bit of snow landing on the ground. Oh that snow is pretty and soft and you hope a few more flakes will fall and join it. And they do. And the next thing you know this giant, out of control snowball is sliding down the hill, straight where you live, right for your home, picking up more and more snow until it smashes into you and yours and takes you down. That is the disease. It is a soul-sucking, mind-numbing, emotionally blunting, hauntingly terrifying and yet sneaky with how alluring it can certainly be. Who doesn't want to be fit? Healthy? Most people, but no one, and I mean no one, experiences the drive for thinness like an anorexic. It's like a lifetime goal for us, and if the disorder had its way we would starve ourselves straight to death and it would still never be enough.....

But. You know what? A little treatment team intervention with the hubs made me realize that the eating disorder wasn't going to win because no one was going to let it. So I ate the meal plan and waited to get fat. And gained..... Nothing. My needs at the moment are apparently quite high. I have gotten myself to a physical state in which if I eat a normal amount of calories I will actually lose weight and right now I'm eating a hell of a lot and barely maintaining my weight. I am really really scared of what I am going to have to eat in order to actually gain anything. Because in reality I can't understand why I have to do this at all! Ok, I stopped losing. I'm not dying or anything. Why can't we just leave well enough alone?

Or what if I dig a little deeper, and I leave behind the urge I have to always be the story teller, and stop fixating, for a moment, on numbers and behaviors like restricting and exercise, and ask myself why? Why is it that when I agreed to gain this weight that I haven't gained, I went crazy orthorexic and started making literally everything I was going to eat myself, in order to know what was in it, precisely? I was in the kitchen, cooking and freezing stuff, and ensuring my status of fruits and vegetables consumed was optimum, all with a baby on my back. Exhausting. And there I go again, focusing on what really doesn't matter.

So I am taking these baby steps in which I forge a life where the ED is not a comfortable friend (who has borderline personality disorder and really wants to take me down, but I have Stockholm syndrome and keep coming back for more)..... I am trying everything people! I distract. Anthony and I are now into Parenthood. We're totally addicted. We watch like three episodes a night as we are trying to catch up to the current season. I do stuff with my kids that is fun and doesn't always involve the gym. I am mindful when I exercise, ok not really, but I try. I stay off all the damn ads proclaiming how to lose more fat and what ten foods to never eat on Facebook. I am trying to be more social, but dude, I have anxiety. I'm failing at this. Next I am going back to church to try and reconnect spiritually. God got me nine years of sobriety, he can possibly get me to maintain a normal adult weight and eat like a normal human again too, right? Although honestly, divorcing myself from wine was a hell of a lot simpler than this six time a day decision I have to make. Eat. Eat healthy, but not overly so. Exercise. But not too much. Just because a little bit is healthy doesn't mean a lot is healthier. Good god my head is spinning. I am also trying art journaling. I love art, and I love writing. Let's see what happens when we put them together.

Digging deeper still, beyond the obvious fact I have control issues, and food and exercise are very safe things that I can try to control, and that I have a lot of dysmorphia regarding my size, it is very hard to let go of the ED. It's the one thing in this crazy, child-centered, stressful, chaotic life that is 100% mine. Kid refuses to nap? Start adding up the day's calories in your head. Financial problem being thrown in my lap? Whatever, I'll swim the English Channel and skip my evening snack. And in the morning I'll feel thinner. It's difficult to be an extremely emotional person who is not comfortable with emotion..... And then there are four kids with birthdays all in January, one with a birthday in December, and a couple of holidays sandwiched in for good measure. A normal person would take this opportunity to gain weight and run with it (not, ahem, die of anxiety over like two bites of cake.)
I'm trying to plan stuff to make them feel special without killing the budget, which will be awesome and spectacular. Because this time I am going to do art projects with Jules, and bake really cool birthday cakes, and swim for the joy of it. I'm going to write letters to my almost 11 year old while he still loves reading them, and run and play with my toddlers. And I am going to cuddle and nurse this baby girl for as long as she'll let me because she is our last. Once in a while I take a snap shot of the precious times with my brain, because I know someday they're  all gonna grow up and Anthony will have our calm again. But right now we have little kids that love us so much yet stress us almost to our very limits.

But I got this. I got this mommy thing. And I do it a hell of a lot better when I'm not hungry.