Disordered Thinking

When I was in recovery for my eating disorder(s), I read a lot of books about trying to make peace with a body that I couldn't make meet my unreasonable expectations. Some of the books were recommended by my counselor, some were recommended by others in recovery, and some I just stumbled upon when I ran out of other books to read. For awhile, I devoured these books (pun completely intended). But a little while after that, I decided the best approach to recovery would be for me to bury all these books away somewhere and pretend that my problem had disappeared. This actually sort of worked. I know it's a bit counterintuitive, especially considering that I turned out to be a counselor and as such I know that denial is not exactly the healthiest approach to a cure. But for me, I actually found some balance when I stopped focusing so much on myself. Balance for me turned out to be where I started. At my most anorexic, I was 50 pounds lighter than I am today. At the height of my binge eating, I was 30 pounds larger. Once I decided I was done with recovery and that I was all better, my weight actually returned to where it is now which is the same place I was when I started back when I was 14. Even last year when I couldn't workout for 6 months because of my knee, I didn't gain any weight. I lost muscle tone and fitness, but my size remained unchanged. In the world of eating disorder recovery, the experts would call my current weight my "set point" since it's pretty much where my body naturally hangs out when I'm not in state of disordered eating.

Anyway, I say denial "sort of" worked because even if my body is at my set point, my mind can still get pretty crazy pretty often. As much as I enjoy denial, the fact is that I am not all better. I don't understand why not, really. When I was going through an ED moment last year, panicking about my softening lines, a colleague assumed I was stressing because John had said something negative about my body. Not so at all. I managed to land a husband who adores me and married me at this set point even if it's still a higher point than I want to be. Of course, John's feelings for me have nothing at all to do with the jiggle in my thighs or size of my jeans, but that fact alone is enough to baffle a body-obsessed woman. You would think that if denial didn't work, unconditional love and acceptance would. But not so much. That's because my craziness isn't about a search for outside approval, it's about a need to find approval in myself. This could be as simple as me wrapping myself around the probable truth that I may never be "better" as long as I am on this earth. My condition may be the thorn in my side that God will leave me with to remind me of His grace and my helplessness apart from Him. Maybe I need to stop raging against the thorn--not to put it back into the denial closet, but to learn to walk with it and stop trying so hard to pull it out. The fact is, after all, the God doesn't always choose to heal. And if the healing of my emotional/mental/physical disease is not His will, then I need to start pursuing that which is His will--peace in the midst of turmoil, strength in the face of spiritual war. If God won't blast through the mountain in my life, He will show me a way over it. I can't claim to be an overcomer if I have nothing to overcome.

Crazy?

Turns out I may be crazy. Of course I suspect that those who know me best already knew. Have I been in denial? Or did I know, too? I certainly didn't realize I was so far gone that my physical being was now affected. Anxiety is a funny thing. It seems to have attacked me when my back was turned, when I thought I was choosing the path of greatest security. And least resistance. The greatest resistance has become myself. A roadblock to my own dreams. Choices I have made to move me further away from who I am and closer into who I "should" be. But what if who I think I should be is not who I should be at all? What if I should have just lived my favorite line from Hamlet and to my own self been true? Instead I selected to be true to my own vision of who my own self should be. To the detriment of all of me! Not only spirit but body, too? God created me as me not as someone else. Have I denied Him, too, in this denial of self? How do I dig myself out of the hole I've spent so many years creating? I'm not crazy. Or even anxious. I'm just not myself anymore.

Or maybe I am. Maybe my seemingly aimless wanderings have led me to a place where I can finally feel the freedom to be myself. Maybe what seems like a mess to me makes sense to God. Will I understand someday? Does it matter if I understand? Life is not meant to be understood. At least not to us. At least not while we're living it. Vainly we try to make sense. To fit our stories into neatly bound books. But what if there is no order? All random. All chaos. And the hole that is impossible for me to get out of alone could be exactly where God wants me. It is here where He proves His mastery of the impossible (Matthew 19:26). It is here where He takes my choices and even my mistakes and works them for good (Romans 8:28). Anxiety followed me here. Six feet deep. Six feet under where it will stay, where it could stay. Resting until it finds me again. In another hole. Further down the path.

Something Left Behind

Memory is a funny thing. Life changes and we move with it, but, barring any mental defect such as amnesia, we cannot completely delete the memory of where we've been. We may try to outrun our past, but it follows us in our aching scars. Or, we may try to pursue our past, not because it is better, but because we want to hide from our anxieties of the different present. And some days our past startles us, leaving us with a dazed "just seen a ghost" expression on our unsuspecting faces.

Do our memories live in us or do we live in our memories? I have walked down many paths. Some windy and overgrown, others straight and clear. I have carried a piece of each path with me, and I have left a piece of myself on each place where I have trod. I have been known to confuse the past and the present, thinking that old friendships on which I used to lean are still there for me or that old habits on which I used to rely for a release will still work. Then I remember that I am not who I was, they are not who they were, and time and life can warp so much that people and things no longer fit together as neatly as they did before.

I don't know if I walk the roads in my mind for learning or longing or comfort or simple nostalgia. I don't know if I choose to walk through the past, or if the past seeks me out and gives me no choice but to remember. I do know that somehow we find each other in song lyrics, old photographs, and too much thinking on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

I also know that the tool of memory is crucial to our spiritual growth and walk with God. While He remembers our sins no more (Jeremiah 31:34), God calls us to remember Him. In Revelation 3:3, we are warned, "Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you." If we are always looking back, we fail to make the most of the present for God's glory. If we never look ahead, we may not remember that He will return and hold us even more accountable than our memories do for everywhere we've been.

Vision of the Future

A friend sent me this picture in an email because she thought it was funny. I didn't laugh because I have a haunting feeling that this will in fact be me someday:

Too Gentle

Joseph Smith, the man who raped, brutalized, and strangled an 11-year old girl in Florida will likely be sentenced to death with the jury's recommendation. The deceased girl's mother is happy with the jury's decision because she wants this man to die. I cannot imagine her pain, but I have to agree with the defense attorney (as I do in most death penalty cases) that killing off Joseph Smith is not going to make her feel better. The man is more than disgusting and deserves punishment for his nauseating acts, but lethal injection is more like a relief than a punishment. If I were in his shoes, I would prefer the death penalty to life in prison because inmates do not take kindly to men who harm children. He would suffer more and be brutalized longer himself if had to spend his life without parole in prison. While I know many people are pro-death penalty because they say it saves tax-payer money and it is fitting for certain crimes, I tend to fall on the side of pro-life for all forms of life, even the scummy ones. This man is going to die a gentle and humane death. If the mother really wants an eye for an eye, then the death penalty is not what this man deserves. An eye for an eye would be brutalization and a violent death, like the kind of death that his victim endured. Of course, even if she herself inflicted pain on this man, nothing would make her own emptiness and pain go away. Her daughter is gone. What happened to her daughter will not change. She wants to avenge her daughter's death by making sure that her killer dies, but no punishment on this earth will satisfy the mother's anger and aching. It's human nature to want vengeance, but we are left even emptier when we realize that vengeance is futile in relieving us because vengeance will never restore what was lost. The man deserves punishment, I am not arguing that, and he deserves his punishment to be severe. What I am arguing is that the death penalty is not severe enough.

I definitely do not hate you because you're beautiful--better you than me!

Back before my site had to be reconstructed, I had written in regards to another stereotypically beautiful woman (blond hair, blue eyes, slender) who had disappeared in a probable kidnapping, possible rape and/or murder case. I had written how happy I am not to be stereotypically beautiful myself because it keeps me safe from prowlers. Well, yesterday as I was walking around the same lake that I wrote about walking around early last month, I realized there are even more advantages to not being beautiful than I had previously considered:

*Even if per my previous post I don't feel completely secure as a woman walking alone after dark, I am much less likely to be abducted or harmed than a stereotypically beautiful woman. This gives me some sense of ease and security, even in shady areas.
*Because I did not really date in high school or college (not for lack of wanting, but for lack of interest on the part of the male population in my school), I was able to focus on developing my intellect.
*I did not worry about dieting or exercising before my wedding because I knew that even doing so would not guarantee hot photos. I am so far away from stereotypical beauty, that I saved myself a lot of pre-wedding agony by skipping the whole sham of losing weight just for the "big day."
*I rest assured knowing that most of the men who have expressed an interest in me over the course of my life were most likely not showing interest simply because of my appearance.
*I rest assured knowing that I am hired for jobs based on my qualifications rather than my bra size.
*I am perfectly comfortable being the only woman in the weight room at my gym. I do not have to worry about being bothered by some lecherous men while I bench.
*I never had to worry much about being hit on by sleazy men in bars. I actually remember a couple years ago going to a bar in Annapolis with a friend from high school and being told by a sleazy bar man that he was interested in my friend and not me. As if I cared! My friend is the tall, leggy blond of stereotypical beauty fame.
*My lack of stereotypical beauty has made me more empathetic with my female students who have listened to society's lies that without blond hair, blue eyes, and long, slender legs, they have no value. I can better help them understand that a person's worth is far deeper than outside appearances because coming from a stereotypically beautiful person, that message would sound like a bunch of BS.

The Machine

Yesterday, John and I signed up to join a new gym that is opening up in February near where we live. This gym sounds like everything I've dreamed of--plenty of equipment, plenty of parking, plenty of natural light (windows!! oh, how I've missed those since I graduated from Maryland and left their gorgeous gym behind), and extensive hours of operation (24 each day, to be exact). My current gym is a dungeon-like daughter of the large gym I went to when I lived in Bowie. This new gym is everything my current gym is not--clean, bright, expansive. In spite of this, I can't help but feel a twinge of guilt. I have long-standing connections at the Bowie hub of the gym I currently attend, and I feel as if I'm somehow betraying them by picking a new place to workout. Beyond those personal ties, I feel some ethical guilt. I'm leaving a small business in favor of a national one. I'm buying into the advertising that new is better and that bigger and better services will make me happier. I'm supporting the machine of Capitalism that runs small bookstores and small grocery stores out of business in favor of superstores and small gyms out of business in favor of large ones. I'm falling for the razzle-dazzle advertising schemes that promise new life and great happiness. I'm oiling the cogs that keep the big machine running and running over the small folks. This nationally owned gym will cost John and I a mere $10 more per month than the locally owned gym that we currently attend. To me, just having that natural lighting is worth the extra $120 a year, and that doesn't even factor in the free towel service, free evaluative technology, and free magazine subscription that the new gym offers. But my guilty conscience still nags me. I may have been getting less service at the other gym, but I was supporting the "little guy" of local business. Ultimately, I suppose I expect to get over my guilt when the new gym opens its doors on February 3 and I see the sun pouring through the windows. In the meantime, however, I am going to be extra nice to the front-desk workers at my current gym in order to make myself feel better for planning to leave them for--literally--brighter horizons. Hey, big businesses need love, too...don't they??

Naptime

My heart pounds with increasing quickness in my chest. The more I try to catch my breath, the more it eludes me. Laying on the couch, I'm trapped in a state of semi-unconsciousness. I want to wake up, but I can't force my limbs to move or my vocal chords to work to get John's attention. "Is it too late?" I wonder, as I lay there helpless and still. I just had another nightmare about demon possession. These dreams have been recurring over the past several weeks since my mom and I went to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose on its opening night. I comfort myself with the light that pours through the slidng glass door. It's not 3am, so I tell myself I can't be possessed. This is little help for me since I'm sure the unseen world is not bound by time, no matter what a movie tries to tell us. I still can't move or speak. Frantically, I pray a silent prayer for protection and deliverance. I know I should be praying before I reach this level of desperation.

John's nap is untroubled. He refused to see that movie. Now I understand why.

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For more information about the true story that inspired the movie that has traumatized me, go here and here. For Biblical support of the unseen world, you can go here, here, and here, as well as to numerous other passages in the Bible that refer to demons, spirits, and other forces that we humans do not understand.

Sore Loser

I don't lose well. I don't like to lose, and I don't often lose gracefully. When I was growing up, the game Monopoly was actually banned in my household because of the level of stress it created in my entire family when the game wasn't going my way. I am a rare breed of person who would actually cry hysterically like the world was coming to an end if on any given day anyone in my family was more successful than me at Monopoly. This characteristic led to high levels of tension between me and my also ultra-competitive father. It also, however, led to an understanding between us. My competitve nature is what drove me to push myself so hard in school. I wanted to be the best at everything. My father knew this about me, and instead of pushing me harder, he'd encourage me to back off when I was setting the bar unrealistically high.

But in spite of my father's best efforts, some things never change. I am no longer a 10-year old girl crying over Monopoly; now, I am a 27-year old woman who can barely contain her tears when the team of 14- and 15-year old girls that she coaches loses. Especially in games like tonight when we lost to a team we should have beaten. We lost tonight because my team played awfully. Even my best players who haven't had a bad game all season looked terrible tonight. I tried my best to boost them up during the desperate time-out that I called and during halftime. But my best efforts were to no avail. I could not play the game for them, and I ran out of things to say to make them play better. So after we lost the game in an overtime that we shouldn't have even gone to if my team had been playing at their potential, I found myself struggling to muster some composure so that my frustration with my team and ultimately with myself as a coach would not come wailing out of me the way it so often wailed out of me when I was sitting around a board game with my family. See, while I recognize that my team did not play their best, what followed me off the field was a frustration that stemmed from that same self-competition that my father tried to soften when I was a student. How could we lose to a team who is clearly less skilled than us? What did I as a coach do wrong for it to come this with only one game left in the season? I wasn't upset with my girls, I was upset because I felt that I must not have done enough. The team's failure was not theirs, it was mine.

When I stop for a moment I realize that almost unfathomable level of arrogance that I must have in order to take such responsibility on myself. Arrogance was a trait I often sneered at in my father, but maybe it is the same in me. I set the bar so high that I must on some level be deluded into thinking I am actually capable of reaching it. Could it be that my desire to win actually has root in some belief that I am capable of winning at all? Or, instead of arrogance, is it the opposite--do I simply see no value in myself beyond outward success? It's as if I push myself so hard in order to prove to myself--even more than to everyone else--that I am worthy of life. Since self-confidence has never been my strong suit, I'm more inclined to view my competitiveness in the latter, almost more pathetic way. Without an inner belief that I am worthy, I need the outward acknowledgement to motivate myself to keep going.

So then the counselor in me asks how do I address the competitiveness in myself? Do I treat the behavior and ignore the roots hoping that by changing the behavior, I will sever the roots? Or, do I seek to destroy the roots in the hope that the behavior change will follow? Regardless of the methodology and/or ideology that I subscribe to, I realize that I must change. As a 27-year old, I need to learn how to handle failure with Audrey Hepburn-like grace. Crocodile tears over a loss are no longer cute, they're immature. Success, after all, is not about never falling; it's about how well you pick yourself up after a fall. That is cliche for the sheer reason that it is true. Beyond the immaturity aspect, my competitiveness is bad for my health. I am alredy half-convinced that my stomach problems the past two days are due to an ulcer I've developed over the course of this field hockey season because I get so tense when we're not winning by several goals. I need to change if I'm going to live to see 65 or even just next field hockey season. Maybe losing is good for me if I treat it as a life lesson. I need to learn humility, and I need to learn that I am valubale within more than without. If these are lessons that only losing can bring, perhaps I should be a grateful loser instead of a sore one.

The Darkness

After field hockey practice today, I decided to take my dog for a walk to enjoy the warm evening. I went home, picked her up, and drove to a nearby lake that I enjoy visiting. Even though she is a miniature, my dog loves to walk and has a surprising amount of endurance in her tiny legs. The path around the lake is two miles. She jogs along the whole way and still has enough energy to wrestle with my cat as soon as we get home. In addition to the energy expenditure, my dog particulary enjoys walks around the lake because there are so many people to get attention from and so many other dogs to greet.

My dog, unlike me, has no concept of time. This truth was evident again tonight when I found myself becoming increasingly uneasy as the skies became increasingly darker while my dog continued to bounce around without a care in the world. As dusk fell over the lake before we were even halfway through our walk, the crowds on the path started to diminish. I found my mind replaying years of Fox News stories of young women abducted, raped, and murdered. Maybe I've read too many of those stories, maybe my imagination is just too wild, or maybe it's a combination of the two, but I saw new headlines tonight: "Young woman disappears in park. Car found abadoned in parking lot." "Small dog floated to the top of a lake." "Woman's body surfaces solving a year-long mystery." I could also hear John repeating to reporters on national TV the conversation that we had just last night: "She said last night that she didn't feel safe walking by herself after dark because of the dangers. I don't know why she would be out here the very next night."

It's sad that I can't enjoy a walk by myself at dusk without any uneasiness. Maybe I am just buying into the mass hysteria that the media sells us at bulk rates. Even though I could tell myself that I'm being unreasonable and that the area where I live is safe, that doesn't mean that I would be wise to go out by myself after dark as a woman. It's the safe areas where people are always taken by surprise; its the safe areas where crime still makes the national news. And it's those national news stories that ring clearly enough in my head to make my paranoia seem legitimate in our world today.

As the news stories about my untimely demise were reeling through my mind, another thought entered my head--in a few weeks, this 7:30 light will be 6:30. Daylight savings time is a curse on a working woman who wants to exercise outside and has no exercise partner (or no pepper spray). Fortunately, I am a working woman in education, so once my coaching season ends this year, I will still have a few more hours of daylight. With a miniature dog, I'll need those extra hours if we're going to take any more walks by ourselves. She's not big enough to be intimidating to a predatory man. So for the safety of us both, I must keep us out of the darkness. Sorry news folks.