Gaining

Every body is different. Thats something that I have to remember. We all gain and lose in different places and the skin we wear is suited to fit each of us perfectly. I say the now as a reassurance because lately I have caught myself thinking more and more about how this recovery looks on me. I have to call it that – Its not weight, its health that I’m regaining. I know, too, that when I look in the mirror, what I see may be the common view but I interpret it differently than others would.

When I look in the mirror I try to point out the good things about where recovery is working its wonders. My waist, for instance. In my eyes it is all settling around my waist there is scads of logic and miles of reasoning to rebuke that. Its a fact that in the refeeding process the initial weight does seem to amass in the abdomen. This is because of a few things such as your stomach, not used to food, is digesting slower. It makes sense. Your body, not knowing when it is going to be deprived of food again, tries to hang on to what it does get for a longer period of time than normal.

Its also a fact that, when a person starving themselves of the nutrients that supply energy, the body takes that energy that it needs from internal things in a certain order. Fat goes first. When it has used that up the energy stored in muscle is the new target. Those get used and limbs start looking gaunt and thin, and so it goes down the line. Eventually the energy needed starts getting taken from some organs to keep other, more vital, ones working. Organ mass is lost and shutdown of different ones can occur as your body does its best to keep the two most crucial, your heart and brain, going as long as it can. Thus, when your body is gaining everything back, it regains first what it last took from and things in your torso get replenished before arms and legs do.

All of this comforts me when my mind starts to wander into the questioning black hole realm and I know that what I see around my middle will disperse through the rest of my body in time. I also know that I am going to gain differently than some of the other girls here by comparison for one very BIG and important (and cute as can be) reason. Reese. I have had a child and most of them have not. My amazing, now 8-year-old, son is the driving force behind so much of my work here and there will never come a day when I would choose a flat stomach over him.

We are all different, in all unique shapes and sizes, and if defined by no other label, I am ME.

United diversity

The conversation with Benji and Cora had gotten me thinking. There is so much about this illness that so many people don’t understand, and the stigmas surrounding it don’t help in the least. Even I, before all of this, upon hearing the word anorexia would automatically jump to the image of popular highschool cheerleader just trying to get the guy. I have since learned that that ingrained mental picture is terribly wrong, but still the education of the public on the true nature of eating disorders remains at a minimum. There is so much more to it than the flimsy stereotypes and it took actually realizing that I was anorexic myself to actually understand that. Laura, who has been living with this for more than 10 years, frequently states that she wouldn’t wish and eating disorder on her worst enemy.

Diane is a good example of the diversity surrounding this. She is the new patient. Since her arrival yesterday she has done little more than sit with her head resting in her thin arms and her small frame bundled in multiple sweatshirts. Exhausted doesn’t even begin to describe how tired she looks, but it’s not a sleepy sort of tired. Diane is the perfect picture of being stretched too thin, taking on way too much in life. She looks so delicate – as though poking her with even just the tip of a finger would cause her bones to just separate and fall to the ground with a breath of dust that radiated relief.

At the age of 47 Diane is officially the oldest among us. We learn that she has 6 children ranging in age from 21 down to 8 and, looking at the differences between us, I almost can’t believe we have sons the same age. Topping off raising 6 kids she has spent her life going to school for nursing and working full-time as well as avid volunteer work in various areas. She is slightly shorter than my own 5’4″ stature and her husband’s shadow completely engulfed her when he accompanied her at check-in. With her gaze trained to the tiled floor her short blond highlighted hair falls forward hiding her face. Beneath her sweats and slippers she nervously fingers a string of pearls that hangs from her swan-like neck.

Tonight was the fifth meal since her arrival that she has joined us at the table for but she does little more than just that. The previous meals she at least ate a little, although it was a visible struggle for her, she would get about half down each time. Tonight though dinner was apparently out of the question. With her frail hand at her forehead to shade her eyes she didn’t raise her gaze or eat a single bite.

I had thought that having someone near my size come in and not eat would hinder my own progress because thats what happened at Remuda. Others not eating was a huge trigger for my own eating disorder tendencies to jump in. This time, though, it was different. The only thing that Diane not eating made me feel was a boost of determination. The conscious refrain of “I don’t want to end up like that” silently urged me on as I finished one of the biggest meals I have been faced to here to date.

Part of me was mad at her for not taking advantage of her situation here but maybe shes just still adjusting. Everyone comes in here with a different attitude towards recovery and there is plenty of potential for things to get better for her. We’ll just have to see how she does. Its all about time.

Ready, set, settle in!

Early Monday morning and its one week down. The lazily comfortable weekend will be counteracted in a few hours with the return of all the docs, resident students, and various weekday groups. I’m looking forward to it though. It’s a good balance. The last 2 days were just enough down time and now I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. Rumor has it that we will be getting a new patient today as well but we wont know for sure until it actually happens. With the entering of someone new though there is and underlying sadness because it means a bed is opening up and someone else is leaving. This time its Sofie.

I don’t know how else to describe Sofie other than that she is a true free spirit is many many ways. Virtually the opposite of me in social aspects she is a boisterous, enigmatic, outgoingly hilarious actress who lives here in New York. I couldn’t be more happy that this, although short, amount of time here overlapped for us. I have the feeling, and her words to back it up, that we wont be seeing the last of each other once she steps through those doors on her way home today. Especially, if nothing else, she has promised that she’ll be around if I want company on one of my many upcoming passes to go out into the city. She’ll be one of the only people I know that lives around here when my time to explore rolls around so I’m definitely looking forward to accepting that olive branch.