What if I Fail?

Today I am going back to school by beginning summer classes at a local college. It's been over six months since I've been taking classes, so this day is provoking a lot of anxiety in me because it's been so long. The questions are dancing around my head like crazy this morning. What if I've forgotten how to study? What if my brain can't handle learning new things just yet? What if I relapse into more intense depression or ED behaviors? 

What if I fail? 

I have a huge fear of failure. Failure, to me, means that I am not good enough, not worthy, not smart enough, not talented enough--not enough. I define my success in the academic world by how high my GPA is and how many As I get, but even that does not quell my anxieties. My high standards continually get in the way. School fuels my perfectionism, and my perfectionism fuels my eating disorder. 

And then there's the question of how I am I going to manage being in school again? I can't resort to the habits I picked up the year and a half I spent at Gettysburg because those obviously got me nowhere. How do I manage the stress? What if it gets too overwhelming? What if I'm not smart enough? 

What if I fail?

Ultimately, it all comes back to that one question. This time, it seems there is so much more put onto my successful completion of my summer courses because they are my test of whether I truly am ready to return to my education full-time come fall. If I fail at this, then I fail to be a student, fail to be who I truly am, and it seems, fail at life. 

My identity has always been so wrapped up in my education that when I left school for treatment, I had a hard time separating who I am from my life as a student. Now that I am returning to the academic world, my identity is once again starting to become my test scores, my grades, my success in the classroom. If I fail, who then would I be? 

The other thing causing me great anxiety is stepping into a room full of unknown people. The questions will be racing through my mind. What do they think of me? Am I okay? Do I fit in here? Do they like me? Will I make friends? Will I say something stupid in front of them? Are they judging me? These are the same insecurities I have always felt on the first day of every school year. 

My summer classes are going to test my abilities to really control my perfectionism and my eating disorder. I need to remember that failing is okay, that not having all the answers correct is okay. I need to remember that I am not my education, my GPA, or how many answers I get correct. I need to remember that this is about learning and progress and not about perfection. I need to remember that what other people think of me is none of my business. I need to remember to stop asking "What if I fail?" and to ask a different question.

What if I fail?  
What if I succeed? 

Happy First Day of Summer Classes! 

The Truth About My Body

A couple days ago, I posted this picture and the following message on my Facebook page: 

"For the first summer in years, I am at a healthy weight and today, I was able to feel confident and attractive in a bathing suit for the first time in years, which is huge. I am not fully comfortable with posting this photo for my friends to see, but tonight I am saying "Screw you!" to my eating disorder and all the lies that tell me I am not attractive or good enough. This is me (and my favorite, most supportive brother) and this is my body. My body is perfect and beautiful and awesome because it is healthy and it keeps me alive. 

Sarah: 1

Eating disorder: 0"

My anxiety was crazy high when I posted this because, well, I am not happy with how my body looks. It would be a lie to say that my body image has miraculously switched from feeling like shit about how I look to loving every inch of my skin. I do not. 

Earlier that day, I had felt attractive and even sexy in my bathing suit. I felt so good about myself. And then I saw this picture and began to critique every flaw I saw. I took a picture from almost five years ago and sat for hours comparing my eating disordered body to this photo, almost crying because the difference is so unreal to me. But I took a chance and posted it to Facebook... 

The support I received was unbelievable. 

"You go, girl! You are gorgeous, inside and out, and a true inspiration!" 

"I am crying reading this Sarah- I had such a horrible body image day and your beautiful words have really touched me! I am am SO SO SO proud of you!!" 

"You are an inspiration to everyone including myself who struggles with image. I love you, my pretty friend!"

"You are a doll, Sarah. And you do look beautiful. Really proud of you to step out, for we all need to think more like you do. Hugs."

"So very proud of you missy!! You ARE beautiful in every single way! You are on the right path. Xoxo"

"I loved reading this post Sarah! It's a great picture! THANK YOU for posting it! I'm sure that posting this will help you and it will help others struggling with the same issue. You are a Beautiful, Brave, AND Intelligent woman."

"Confidence = beauty! You are both! Stay strong Sarah, you are amazing!"

"You are such an inspiration in so many levels! Proud of you for coming this far, and knowing you will go further! you look wonderful!"

"Your message is beautiful. You are beautiful. And most importantly, you're confident! Love everything about you, my dear! You inspire me every day." 

"Hell yeah! You are beautiful, Sarah. The voice of that eating disorder is a lie. It does not exist. You are Sarah and you are a soldier. Very inspiring!"

These are just a few of the comments I received from friends and family. No matter how many times I read it, I still can't believe it. I have amazing and supportive friends and family, who bless me every day with their love for me and encourage me on my journey. I still am completely blown away by this. 

But I wasn't feeling better... Until one comment hit a nerve. 

"You deserve all of this and all of the confidence and positivity you are receiving. I love you girl."

In my mind, I don't deserve any of this love and support because I am not enough for it. I am not deserving of it. I disappoint people, I screw things up daily, I don't perform as well as I should. I'm finding it really is true that "We accept the love we think we deserve." I struggle to accept it because I am not yet sure I deserve it. 

This is okay. I am allowed to struggle with this. 

I read in a book once that "The truth doesn't have to be known, or believed, to be true," and that line has stuck with me because of the inherent rightness that exists in it. I don't have to believe I deserve any of this love, positivity, and confidence for it to be true that I do deserve it. I don't have to believe the words of my friends and family for them to be true. 

But I know the truth. 

The truth is that my body is healthy. 
The truth is that my family and friends are proud of me. 
The truth is that they think I am beautiful and an inspiration. 
The truth is that my weight and shape in no way affect whether I am beautiful or not. 
The truth is that my weight and shape in no way determine who I am as a person. 
The truth is that I have worked hard to get myself back to a healthy weight. 
The truth is that I deserve all of the love and encouragement and positivity given to me by my loved ones. 
The truth is that I deserve to be confident about my body because it is freaking beautiful how it is now--healthy. 

Maybe one day I will believe all of this as truth. But for now, I am glad I have supportive and loving family and friends to speak truth into my life. 

Sometimes I forget I have depression...

Sometimes I forget I have depression.

Not because I've suddenly recovered from it or it's miraculously gone away, but because most of the time, I am so focused on the fact that I have and eating disorder and I need to recover from my eating disorder. I never really, truly think about recovering from my depression. 

When I think about recovery, I always think about it in terms of eating disorder recovery. I guess that's because it's so easily tangible, whereas depression recovery is not. With eating disorder recovery, I can see the recovery by seeing records of my following my meal plan, by being told by my doctor that I am in my weight range, by no longer being orthostatic or bradycardic. But with depression recovery, it seems like the only thing defining recovery is the ambiguous 'feeing better.' 

I guess depression recovery can be measured by how much more I am leaving my house, how much less I am isolating, how many times I reach out to friends, but none of that seems to signify recovery to me. My depression is this all-consuming feeling of drowning, of being suffocated in this endless pool of hopelessness and pain. It is like being in a cave full of only darkness, where there are absolutely no exits anywhere. It's continual grieving for something that you never knew existed. 

Depression is not so much behavioral as an eating disorder--more mental and emotional, but it is so much more complicated than that. All that depression is becomes so mangled and tangled up inside of my head and interwoven into my life that operationally defining it is not something I can do. I know people have done it--professionals--but defining and explaining it for me, as someone who experiences its intricacies and quirks day in and day out, nothing seems adequate. 

It wasn't until recently I actually noticed I've been completely forgetting about my depression. I obviously know it exists... It crosses my mind every night when I take my antidepressants that, "Hey, Sarah, you have depression and if you stop taking these drugs, you'll soon feel like shit." But other than that, it's hardly ever a thought. 

A little over a week ago, I spent my part of my night/early morning in the emergency room because for the first time in months, I had selfharmed and I was worried I may have gone a little too far. A friend decided I needed to go to the hospital, whether I wanted to or not--I was definitely on the side of not, and so we went. I spent that early morning and the days following trying to figure out exactly what had happened, what had triggered me to do what I did that night. And no matter how much I thought about it, I was not able to quite discern what happened (usually it is fairly simple to see a causal relationship with my behaviors). 

It's slowly come to me that I used selfharm as a way to cope with the overwhemingness of the depression that I was feeling inside of myself that night. Nothing happened to trigger it, just like nothing ever happens to trigger it. It just is, sudden and suffocating. 

I guess lately that I've just been tuning out my depression, focusing on the tangible aspects of my eating disorder recovery, seeing everything I was feeling as an effect of no longer using eating disorder behaviors, and ignoring the fact I have a dual diagnosis of an eating disorder AND depression. 

I've realized I can't treat one and just ignore the other. Recovery does not happen on it's own, and although eating disorders and depression can share similar symptomology, they are not the same illness. I have to work on recovering from both. So now it's time to focus on both maintaining the progress I've made in my ED recovery and learning how to manage and live with my depression. 

Because even though I sometimes forget about it, I do have depression and it does highly impact the qualitiy of my life. 

Saying Goodbye to Julie

Goodbyes are really hard for me--always have been. I remember leaving to go home from visiting family and being absolutely miserable because I wasn't going to see them for another few months. Every summer, saying goodbye to my campers and staff was always the hardest part; I missed them almost immediately. And when I graduated high school, I said goodbye to many close friends who I loved dearly and we all went our separate ways. Some of these people I rarely talk to anymore. 

The past few months have been a time of farewells for me. In September, I said goodbye to my PopPop when he lost his battle with cancer. In November, I said goodbye to Gettysburg to come home and get treatment for my eating disorder and depression. In January, I said goodbye to day treatment and IOP as I transitioned to outpatient programing, leaving behind wonderful staff and supportive friends. In February, I officially said goodbye to Katie, the nurse practitioner who had worked with my ED doctor; she was my salvation in high school as I fought against Maudsley therapy and she saved my life in the most literal way. And today, I had to say goodbye to Julie, my dietitian, who is one of the most wonderful women I have ever met. I didn't know she was leaving until today. 

I originally met her in day treatment. She would fill in for Christina on the days Christina wasn't available to check meals. I loved her for how laid back she was about everything. She was really responsive when I told her that standing behind me made me nervous, and when I hadn't seen her in a while, she gave me a hug on a day that I really needed it. When I asked Julie if she would see me for outpatient, she was so excited to work with me, which made all the difference to me. In her nutrition sessions, I learned so much about why dieting is bad, why all foods are good foods, and what normalized eating looks like. 

Working with her in outpatient, I learned so much about how to take care of myself and I was always supported by her in everything. In one of our first couple of sessions, she told me that she thought that my brain had caught up with its health, but that I just hadn't decided to be kind to myself yet. She took the time to explain what that meant--being kind to myself meant being my own friend. How if I was talking to a friend, I would tell her not to use diet pills because they don't work, only give false hope, and are bad for her heart. If I was talking to a friend, I would tell her she needed to eat because food keeps her alive and functioning. And Julie told me that I would tell a friend all of her good qualities and say she was beautiful inside and out and she should accept herself the way she is because she can't change who she is. She can't change the body she was given. And in that conversation, I could tell how much Julie meant all of those things for me and how much she wanted me to believe them. 

"I came to love her the way you love someone who saves you from drowning."

It was always so easy to talk to Julie, even when things were hard. She let me talk about my body image issues, which are really hard for me to even talk about with anyone. And she was really comforting in those moments. She reminded me that I am stuck with the body I have--my shape, my height, my hair color, my skin complexion, etc, and that I might as well accept it and love it because its not going to change. She reminded me that I was more comfortable in my ED body than my weight restored body because I was comparing myself to a 12-year-old's body. She encouraged me to start loving my body now becase it is going to keep changing as I get older. And she was always really honest about her own body image struggles, and Julie always stressed how important self-care is in helping her on those days. 

But there were also times in outpatient when I was really angry with her, like in February when she told me that I basically needed to get my shit together or she was going to not see me until I was more willing. I was so angry with her about that. She told me that she can only do so much for me and at some point, I have to make the choice to listen. Julie also said that she gets offended when she spends time working with clients and they don't listen to what she's saying. I was really upset about this because I felt like she was just giving up on me, even though she told me that she cares about me, worries about me and wanted to keep working with me. She could be really harsh when I needed it to get back on track... Like the week that she threatened to send me back to day treatment for two weeks. 

As harsh as she was when I was struggling (and when I really needed a kick in the butt to get me back on track), Julie was incredibly encouraging and gave lots of praise when I was doing well. It always made me uncomfortable when she told me I was "rocking it" or some other compliment because I never really felt it, but I have no doubt that she believed it with all her heart. Today, after she gave me one last hug, she told me that she had complete faith in my ability to recover and stay healthy. She told me that she believed I could do anything that I put my mind to and that I was going to do great in college. Julie told me that she does not doubt my ability to succeed in anything. 

I don't know how to say goodbye to someone who has challenged me and changed my life forever. I don't know how to express my gratitude for everything that she has done for me or how to tell her how much I'll miss eating snacks with her or looking at pictures of her kids. 

I have no idea how to say goodbye to this woman who has helped to save me from myself.

Goodbyes are hard. I wish this one didn't have to happen, but I know it was inevitable. In a few short months, I'll be saying more goodbyes to people who saved my life and have changed me for good, and I'm not sure how I'll manage it.

How do you say goodbye to someone who you basically owe your life to, knowing that you'll probably never see them again because that's just how these things are? How do you let go? How do you find closure when the relationship ends? And how do you be okay when someone who saved your life is suddenly gone? 

Sunday Sermons: "Life After 'Welp'"

I am the worst at posting these on Sundays, but I will get to it one of these days. My notes from May 11th will be up soon!

**Note: I did not write the sermon. Pastor Jeff spent time on it, so please don't plagiarize and steal the sermon from my notes.

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"Life After 'Welp'"
May 4, 2014
Grace UCC, Pastor Jeff Nelson

Scripture:

Acts 2: 14a, 36-41
Luke 24: 13-35

• The expression 'welp' is used to show fatalism, acceptance, resignation
• Usually about something beyond one's control
• One usually would have rather it happened otherwise; not an ideal situation, painful
• Trying to move on
• For example, 
• A ball is fumbled on an important play--'Welp'
• Someone hits a home run off the best pitcher--'Welp'
• Apply this same spirit to more serious matters--natural disasters, loss, end of relationships, etc. 
• Similar to saying 'What are you gonna do?' 'That could have gone better,' etc
• Gives a collective voice to resignation, pain, and the struggle forward
• In Luke, the disciples walking are in their collective 'welpness' because of Jesus' death
• There were two certainties in that time: 
• Death
• What Rome wanted to happen would happen (ie. Jesus' death)
• The disciples were resigned and in 'welp'
• Stranger comes along, who is actually Jesus, but the disciples cannot see him
• Asks what the disciples are talking about
• The disciples tell the story of Jesus and of how the women went to the tomb and found that he was raised
• They are trying to understand
• The stranger (Jesus) talks of a different suffering Messiah
• They get to where they are going and Jesus walks on, but the disciples invite him to stay
• All of them sit down to share a meal
• Jesus breaks bread and the disciples see him as Jesus
• The disciples realize that Jesus has been with them the entire time in their 'welp'
• The disciples go back and tell the story
• "It is true!" 
• Jesus was with us the entire time
• Ignatius of Loyola wrote a meditation on how God is present in all things
• Not just the good, the easy, the feel good, but the things that upset us, that hurt, the things that make us cry out, the 'welp'
• God is actively loving, creating, sustaining, etc in all things
• When we celebrate the sacraments, we remember that God is with us in all things, even though we can't see him walking with us
• It happens in moments when people come together and this is how our 'welp' becomes 'It is true.'

My thoughts: 

The other day on Facebook, I posted an image that now seems more relevant than ever. It is reminiscent of the poem "Footprints in the Sand" and relates very well to this sermon. 

I have a hard time believing that God is with me even in my state of 'welp.' I struggle to see how God is actively loving, creating, and sustaining me in times of pain and hardship, in times of struggles and relapse. In those times, I just feel like I am being dragged along by someone who wants me to suffer, instead of carried. And there's moments when I get a glimpse and am able to say 'It is true!' that God is with me always--an evening spent in conversation with a friend, the smile and laughter of a child, words of encouragement from a mentor, and so on. But for the most part, I don't see it. I'm in my state of 'welp' right now, not in the part after it. 

Set Point Theory

Two days ago, I sat in my doctor's office waiting to see her for the first time in a month. I'd had my weight and vitals checked two weeks prior, of course, but never actually got to see my doctor. Finally, I heard the faint knock on the door which signaled her entrance into the exam room and saw her all-too-familiar smile as she opened the door. Before I could forget, I handed her paperwork and asked if she could fill it out so I could return to college in the fall. 

"Sure... As long as you get back into your weight range." 
"I'm not in my range?" 
"Nope. You're out just by a little bit... X pounds."
"Why?" 
"I don't know. You tell me!" 

Inside I was pissed (and I still am)--how the hell am I out of my weight range? I've been following my meal plan for the most part... I don't understand. Followed immediately by the frustrations of doing everything 'right' and how I'm supposed to, yet still being 'wrong.'

Then there was the conversation with my doctor about what my dietitian said last week: 

I don't care what your weight is as long as you are following your meal plan.

My dietitian's rationale was that if I am eating and exercising appropriately, my weight is going to fall where it is supposed to be because there exists a weight my body naturally wants to be. My doctor's reasoning, on the other hand, has to do with my not having been in recovery long enough for my brain to be able to regulate things like my natural weight; she says it can sometimes take over a year for your brain to get back to normal once your body has been restored to an effective weight, which is why it is important to stay in a certain weight range. Going outside of one's range may make one more vulnerable to relapse. For example, when I returned to school this past fall, I was slightly under my weight range and I slipped and then relapsed--HARD. She said she wants me to have a bit of a buffer so if I start to struggle again, I won't fall as hard. 

My doctor and my nutritionist at first glance, appear to have conflicting professional opinions, which is why I did some of my own research when I went home. My research found that both my dietitian and my doctor are speaking to the same concept--this thing called 'set point.' 

Carrie Arnold defines set point weight as "the weight range (usually around 5 to 10 pounds) your body will maintain comfortably without any external input from you--that is, without calorie counting, food restricting, excessive exercise, or purging."

Mirror Mirror, an organization dedicated to educating about eating disorders, has a very good article on set point theory, which you can read in full here. I just want to hit some of what I found relevant--

"Everyone has a set point and just like you have no control over how tall you will be, or what color your eyes and hair will be, you also have no control over what your set point will be. Your body is biologically and genetically determined to weigh within a certain weight range. Set points vary for each individual person. That is why it’s not a good idea to go by the weight charts that you see in medical books or hanging in your doctor’s office."

Read: Weight is biologically and genetically determined; you can't change it. Also, BMI charts are crap.

"When you go below your body’s natural set point, your metabolism will react and start to slow down to try and conserve energy. Your body will start to sense it’s in a state of semi-starvation and will try to use the few calories it receives more effectively. You may start to sleep more, your body temperature will drop, which is why you hear so many anorexics complaining of being so cold, and after too much weight loss many women experience the loss of their menstrual cycle. Basically their reproductive system shuts down because their bodies probably could not handle a pregnancy. Many people that are dieting also experience uncontrollable urges to binge. That is because your body is telling you that it needs more food than you are providing it to function properly.

"Just as your metabolism will slow down when you go under your body’s set point, it will also increase if you go above it. The body will try to fight against the weight gain by increasing the metabolism and raising the body’s temperature to try and burn off the unwanted calories."

Read: Your metabolism will adjust accordingly to keep your body as close to your set point weight as possible. 

"If you have been dieting for years, it can take up to a year of normal eating for your body’s metabolism to function properly and return you to the weight range that is healthy for you."

Read: It takes time for your body to figure out it will be regularly getting appropriate amounts of nutrition, so your metabolism will not start functioning properly as soon as your start eating. It takes time to adjust--sometimes up to a year!

I guess what I took out of all of this is the idea that my body has already genetically and biologically determined what the most effective weight is for me. There is nothing I can do to change my weight. And while what Julie said is true--as long as I am following my meal plan and getting adequate nutrition and exercise, my weight will take care of itself--however, I am in recovery from an eating disorder. In layman's terms, my brain and body are confused and unstable so even missing a single snack or getting in a 20 minute walk can cause my fragile metabolism to shift. Therefore, I need to trust my doctor and stay in my weight range until I am more stable, and then my body will be able to take care of itself. 

(But really, someone remind me of this tomorrow. And today. And every other day. Because although writing about it helps me understand it, the writing doesn't make me believe it any more than I did before.)

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To read more about set point theory, check out these articles: 
"Set Point Theory" by the Centre for Clinical Interventions
"A Hunger Artist" by Emily Troscianko, published on Psychology Today
"A Thigh of Relief" by Jenni Schaefer

Sunday Sermons: "See for Yourself"

I've decided I'm going to start a new weekly series exploring my faith on my recovery journey called "Sunday Sermons." (Yes, I know it's not Sunday, but eventually I will actually get it posted on Sundays!) Basically, I'm going to include my sermon notes and then some of my thoughts on what I got out of the sermon. 

**Note: I did not write the sermons. The person who did spent a lot of time on it, so please don't steal the sermons from my notes. 

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"See for Yourself"

April 27, 2014

Grace UCC, Pastor Jeff Nelson

Scripture:

John 20: 19-31

1 Peter 1:3-9

• ​Think about an embarrassing moment and/or a moment when you've been the only one to give voice to a different perspective 
• ​Sometimes others have defined you by this moment
• This isn't fair
• ​Doubting Thomas is how we know him
• The name is because on the evening of the empty tomb, Christ appears to the disciples and they rejoice, but Thomas wasn't there. When the disciples tell Thomas what they saw, he is skeptical​.
• Christ reappears to them all a week later and Thomas believes because he's seen with his own eyes
• Jesus says "Blessed are those who have not seen and believe"
• ​This is read as a scolding
• ​However, other disciples probably would have reacted the same way
• How would we have reacted if we were told this had happened? 
• As people, we tend to want to experience things for ourselves
• There is a temptation​
  ​
  ​ to see confirmation as the end of everything, as if there's nothing left to know or explore
• ​This is false. 
• We need to explore, learn, and ask questions so that new things can emerge
• We need to claim the promises and beliefs for ourselves
• ​Bottom line: Our faith is never finished--there are always new things, so we need to seek our own experience, not just take the word of others. 

​My thoughts: 

This really hit home for me as I've been struggling in my faith lately. I know the Bible and I know Christianity and what I'm supposed to believe and say and do and all of that, but I really need to claim the promises for myself. I need to claim the beliefs for myself and figure out how they fit in my life. I need to be more like Thomas and ask the questions that ​

​aren't yet fully formed in my mind so that I can grow in my faith and really develop a personal relationship with God. 

The last bit I totally related to recovery. I have a hard time believing in true freedom and true recovery because I haven't experienced it for myself or even watched someone recover (although I've met people post-recovery). And that's okay. I need to question, doubt, explore, and learn so that I can figure out exactly what recovery is for me, because it's not the same for everyone. Also, just like faith, recovery is never finished. There's always something new to experience, so instead of taking the word of others about what recovery should or should not feel like, we need to seek it for ourselves. 

It's kind of cool (and extremely frustrating) how recovery and faith can go so hand-in-hand. This message really challenged me to re-explore what both of these things are for me, personally, instead of just relying on the word of those around me as to what I should believe, think, do, feel, etc. 

I guess it's time to start/continue figuring out what faith and recovery REALLY mean for myself!