A Change of Heart

This week has been, well...WOW. I have no words, and I always have words. I think the best way to sum this up is with a giant no tale tells all post. Here is an email I sent to my therapist and CC'd to my mom just this evening:

I am in the depths of humility right now. I've been doing some serious thinking this week, mostly spurred by our therapy session. I've realized a few things:

I have been lulled into some serious complacency by Satan and my anorexia. Because my eating disorder patterns and behaviors have changed from what they used to be, I thought that my eating disorder was gone, and that I was fine. I truly believed (you must know I had myself thoroughly convinced) that I was doing well in recovery. I sincerely believed my body just "wanted" to be at the emaciated weight it's at, I really did. And if you don't think you have a problem, how can you fix it?

Along with the email my mom sent me imploring me to gain weight that I sent you, Brandon sent me an email this afternoon while I was napping that has had me in tears. He talked about how much he needed me to recover, to put recovery into action and not just words. He said that "...as time passes, I get a little nervous because I can see that I get more and more numb to having feelings of sympathy and empathy for you and your eating disorder, and closer to trying to forget about what is going on and hoping it will just go away. I don't want to be like that, it scares me." Brandon is tired. He's exhausted and worn out from my eating disorder, and it's taking its toll on our marriage. I've been very quiet today, very prayerful, very humble, and I've been doing a lot of thinking. I've realized that I keep waiting to get the tube or to gain weight when I'm not scared to, or when I can see that I'm too skinny, or that when my health is in dire circumstances. I allowed myself to realize tonight that I'm never going to see those things happen, (withstanding the potential health dangers) and that I just need to take action and DO IT.

I saw my bishop tonight, and my heart was so full I could barely speak. I want to be an equal and loving wife, and a mother who can look back and say that she did everything in her power to raise her son in a healthy and loving and RIGHT environment. I want to live to watch my child grow into a man, shaped by his mother's love and steadfastness in what is right and true. And this isn't true; not what I'm doing. I'm living a broken, hollow, pathetic version of a life, and it's time I try something else.

So, I'll get the tube. And I'll even go to work with it. My biggest concern was that I didn't want my coworkers to look at it, and think, "Oh wow! Brie has an eating disorder! How scandalous!" But upon telling my friend Alana this, she pointed out something to me that was so obvious, I wonder how I had ever missed it. She said, "Brie, everybody at your work already looks at you and knows you have an eating disorder because you're anorexic and look extrememly thin. Duh! At least if you have the tube, they can see that you're trying to get better." And that made sense. I allowed it to ring true. So I'll go to work with an NG tube if need be. I'll swallow my pride.

I'll gain weight. I've been at this extremely low weight for soooooo long, I'm not under any illusions that it'll be easy. But if I want to save my life and my marriage, I've got to, I think. As long as I can count on [dietician] to deal with the weight thing, and you to get me through the yucky emotions of inadequacey and the deeply ingrained feelings of how bad I am, (why can't I ever let go of the past?) and that I don't deserve food, then I think I'll be okay. If I can accept that I'm not a bad person, then I can maybe learn that I do deserve life and happiness and food and health (and vitamins and mammograms :).

Okay, I'm sorry this is long. I wanted to get this epiphany out before I forgot it, or before I changed my mind.

Brie

So there it is. Tomorrow I am going to make an appointment to see a gastroenterologist to see if he/she will put a G-tube surgically in my stomach, (my doctor who is a brother says this is a very feasible, very doable option) but if that can't/won't happen for any reason, I'll still get the NG tube. I've got to do it. Soon. Before I back out. I'm scared, but who really gives a shit? I apologize for the shady language but come on, Me! It's time to move on, scared shitless or not.

No Tale Tells All #5

Too little too late.

I'm such a jerk.

No Tale Tells All #4

Exactly a year ago, I was enduring inpatient treatment at Center for Change, trying to kick my anorexia for good (again). I was not happy to be there. It was the third time I’d dutifully packed my belongings and left my family and friends to “recover,” and I was tired of it. And this time...well…I had to leave my baby. My Cade, who was only four months old at the time.

I was quite a little deviant (not a compliant loser – haha Racher!) and did what I could to bend the rules. From getting in screaming matches with the care techs, (What do you mean we can’t watch King of Queens?! So what? There was like, a few fat jokes, and now you’re going to change the channel?!) to getting in trouble with my therapist for “talking and laughing too much” and not focusing enough on my recovery. She ended up making me wear a sign around my neck that said, “Please do not laugh at my jokes.” Ha! How can you not laugh at my jokes? I can’t help that I’m fricikn’ hilarious.
I mean, really.
And how do you get in trouble for laughing too much? Was I in a cushy treatment center that cost over a grand a day, or was I in a Nazi concentration camp? You tell me.

I reflect back on all that, and yeah, some of it is hilarious, like when Whit and I named her tube Fatty McButter Pants and got in trouble, or when Whit, Savannah, and I were just wickedly tickled when they served chocolate covered bananas for evening snack that looked like, well…can I be honest here?
They looked like dildos.
C’mon, people! Serve us something that isn’t teeming with sexual jokes. Our therapists weren’t too pleased with that one, either, were they girls?!

But as much fun (er, I mean un-fun) as I had, and as much as I learned, I’ve finally grasped the concept that there’s nothing better than working at recovery and staying out of that prison where they serve way too much food:

Me (to tech): Um, I was just given three pieces of cheesecake and a huge glass of chocolate milk. Everybody else got like one piece or even half a piece. Are you sure this isn’t some gross miscalculation on the cook’s part?

Tech: No. You’re not allowed to ask questions about what you’re served. You know you’re on weight-gain, so try not to worry and just eat it. (ha! As if!) Now bend over so I can wallop your rapidly growing butt. (Okay, that last part didn’t happen, but it does quite often in my dreams.)

And now, here I am, a year later, working a steady job (without having to ask frequently for days off because I’m so sick from starving myself or am too anxious and/or depressed to make it). I’m currently chowing down on Chex Mix and a sugar cookie, (kind of a sketchy combination, but it’s totally working for me) and I'm not feeling paralyzing guilt for eating and am not overly worried I'll gain thirty-seven pounds for having a snack. I have the coolest kid in the world that I get to laugh with and play with and tickle and hug and kiss and love every single day. I have the most amazing hubby ever, who has never once wavered in his love and dedication to me throughout all this. I almost couldn’t be happier. Wow. I never thought I’d say that!

So here’s to never going back to treatment again! Here’s to being imperfect and a bit uncomfortable in this skin of mine. Here’s to quitting modeling, here’s to sticking around for my husband and son, here’s to thriving. Here's to life. Damn. I so wish I had a glass of sparkling cider or something. I think a major toast is in order!

No Tale Tells All #3

I'm so dissatisfied with my last post. It didn't adequately express the frustration and anger I was really feeling, and I know that a great deal of that is because I didn't have the patience to make it just right, exactly as I wanted. This blog has turned into an outlet for me, a way to get out my frustrations or joys or laughs. But when I don't make it just like I envision, it makes me angry, and that's not what this is supposed to be about, right? Isn't it supposed to be fun or something that brings satisfaction and peace? I need to go back and reclaim that. I'm expecting too much of myself. Why do I care anyway? It's not like that many people read my blog.

Today blows. We had a death threat at work. I mean, talk about having a reason for why today is weird. My last post on the subject can't touch this. So now I'm sitting here; they say that we're all safe, but I'm paranoid that some psycho is going to come barreling through the door with a semi-automatic. I swear I'd be like the first person to get shot. Some 400 lb man with no legs in a wheelchair said he bought a gun over the weekend and was going to come to our office and shoot us all until he got approved for a gastric bypass. Okay, so he might not have legs, but I'm sure by now he's way too sprightly with that wheelchair of his. I mean, if you can dream it, you can achieve it, right? So apparently he's in police custody, but I can't concentrate. I can't stop thinking I'm next on his hit-list. And I don't feel well. I was sick over the weekend, and I'm not 100% today, but I had to come into work anyway. And I'm hungry. And the piercing on my nose hurts. And I feel ugly. And I think my breath smells. I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet, like, one US dollar that it smells pretty sketch.

Wow. Time to go. I didn't want this to turn into a Whiner Moment, though clearly it has.

No Tale Tells All #2

Who am I?
I know the question is so cliche, but really, who am I?
Tuesday was my last sesh with my therapist. She maintains that I don't need therapy so much as "spiritual guidance." And I do agree. (At least I think?) I mean, my spirituality is a big part of my life, and I would like to strengthen that area - I do agree with her that it would help in the whole recovery aspect.
But for me, living without therapy is like a fish trying to survive out of water. Being Anorexic Brie, the girl who's always in treatment centers, the emaciated girl, the girl who's always in therapy...as sad and pathetic as it sounds, that's who I was (and maybe still am).
That was my identity. That hopeless, fragile shell of a person was what I knew, was all that I thought I had to offer this world whose idea of a beautiful woman is an emaciated woman.
I know that it's time to grow up and shed that old, tired me. I want to be somebody new, real, vibrant, beautiful.
But I'm scared. What if the Brie I find down the road does not fill me the way my anorexic self did? What if I can't find anything else to be good at?
So, wow.
It's time to try being...well, normal.
Is there even such a thing?
Is there such a thing as me living in this world without my eating disorder?

No Tale Tells All

I keep my posts vague. On purpose.
I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of any one person knowing too much about me.
Two years ago I burnt every single journal I had ever written.
I was so disquieted by the idea of being remembered.
After I'm dead, I want to have never existed.
I want people to think that perhaps I was a figment of their imagination, a fleeting moment of deja vu whispering in their memories.
You see, nothing I have ever done is worth remembering.
And it is my insignficance in this world that frightens me, devastates me.
And
already I feel as if in this post, I am revealing too much.
It scares me. So
I must go.