Don’t Want To

Recovered. Although I have been out of treatment for a year now, I still hesitate to use that word in relation to my struggle with anorexia. It sounds so final. Like I have kicked the disease to the curb and can now look back at it as a thing that “was”. Nope. Not yet.

I have made progress, but there have been times in the past year I have taken my eye off the ball. Gotten complacent. I have, on several occasions, found myself falling back into old habits. Exercising when sore and tired because I “should” and not fueling my body sufficiently, avoiding the “full" feeling I dislike so much. Like trying to hula hoop on a paddle board, recovery requires balance. And doing what needs to be done even when I really don’t want to.

Five years ago, about eight months into Project Ten Pound, my weight gain plan had shown progress. Four pounds. Four exhilarating, terrifying, confusing pounds. Weight gain I obsessed about everyday as I approached the scale. Hoping, as I stepped on, I had gained a half pound and crying, lacing up for a long run when I did.

“Looks like you have gained a few pounds,” my dad said to me one day as we were headed into my son’s basketball game. I had shared my project with my parents, as I knew they were worried about me. I wanted them to know I was working on it. I knew in his “Rod way" his comment was meant to be supportive.

“Yep, I’m trying dad,” I said with feigned enthusiasm, cringing at the words and pulling my oversized sweater tighter around my body as if to cover it from scrutiny.

My parents. Oh, I hated how much I was making them worry. My hope is my mom, who passed away four months before I went into treatment, is breathing a little easier up there. I’ve got my eye on the ball mom.

I should have been happy, he noticed. That was the goal, right? To gain weight. To stop people from staring. To be able to wear clothes that fit. To be flexible with food so I could eat out with my friends. To stop living in fear that my undernourished heart might stop beating at any moment.

To be normal.

The bottom line. Gaining weight scared me to death. I had spent the majority of my life trying to LOSE weight. The pathway in my brain that told me eating food and gaining weight was not only okay its was absolutely necessary did not exist. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Four pounds was one thing but another six? Oh hell.

I began to rationalize. My anorexic brain and my healthy Sherri brain once again began bickering in my head, like two siblings in the backseat of a car on a very looooong road trip.

AB: You have gained four pounds. See Sherri, you CAN gain weight.

SB: But I promised myself ten pounds or treatment. I think I better get help.

AB: Because of those four pounds, your weight is back into triple digits.

SB: But my BMI is still in the danger zone. I’m not healthy.

AB: Be careful. You don’t want to gain TOO much.

SB: Your right. Maybe four pounds is good enough for now.

God, my brain was tired. The hours of thinking and negotiating every bite, every mile, every pound. Obsessive thoughts that whirred through my brain on an endless loop that never shut off. It made me tense and anxious. I needed to find relief from it all.

Speechless

Eat a Sandwich. That was almost the title of my blog site. It is a phrase that has been hurled at me more often than I care to remember . From a homeless man in Bend while on a walk. A woman standing outside an AA meeting as I ran past. And a lady at my son’s lacrosse tournament as I strolled by, with ironically enough, a sandwiching my hand. Then there is my brother in law. He was known to toss that line my way on more than one occasion.

Pictures like this remind me not to let the comments from others taint the positive memories. So many good ones. ( Lacrosse tourney, Palm Springs, 2014)

“I want to tell them to F*%k off,” I often vented to Karen during our therapy sessions. “The guy sleeps on a park bench and yet he’s concerned about my carb intake?” I snarled, my words dripping with sarcasm.

“So, what stops you from responding?” Karen asked calmly, trying to keep me focused.

What does stop me?

Anyone who knows me is aware that behind my friendly, witty (and humble) demeanor, I have a temper. An Italian/Scottish one that can be sparked without much warning. Although I manage it much better now, back a few years ago, at the height of my illness, I was unable to control my emotions effectively. I would stuff them until something like a crusty cereal bowl, traffic, or poor service, set me off. So, when a comment was made about my body by a random stranger, one might think it would ignite a response.

But it didn’t. Despite the increased frequency of comments made about my appearance, whenever I was struck with one, it caught me off guard. When I got, “honey, you are too skinny” from the women in a spa dressing room, I made me beeline for a bathroom stall. And with “you should get off that treadmill and go get a burger,” from an elderly guy at the gym, I suddenly became engrossed in the infomercial on the big screen above, pretending not to hear. I was rendered speechless. I was incredulous on how my body became open for public comment. From perfect strangers, no less. Why? How?

Don’t get me wrong, I am totally guilty of judgmental thoughts about other people. What I think they should or shouldn’t be eating, wearing, or saying to their kids. But to say it out loud? To someone’s face? To a person, I know nothing about? I just wouldn’t. So, when I found myself on the receiving end of such words, I froze. Only when lying in bed at night or in the shower would I fantasize about what I could have said;

Get a job.

Back away from the fries.

Botox much?

Nice hair. What’s left of it.

“I want to say SOMETHING to these people when they stare or comment,” I said to Karen, anger welling up inside of me. I was tired of feeling ashamed. Like I was doing something wrong by being out in public.

So, during our sessions, we practiced. Role played. Brainstormed responses, I could whip out of my pocket quickly, like a gunslinger in an old western. Don’t think, shoot. I couldn’t see myself saying some of the things we came up with, but damn it felt good saying them in that office.

“Bottom line is these people are not saying anything I don’t already know; they don’t’ have to tell me!” I said frustrated.

I Know, right? (With my friend Fred, Bend, 2014).

“So, say that,” Karen said softly.

And with her words, my body eased, and my mind cleared, revealing the response that fit perfectly.

I know, right?

I Noticed

“I think he is hitting on me,” I said to my friend Polly, referring to the guy sitting a few tables over. We were grabbing a bite to eat on our spring break road trip from the University of Oregon to a friend’s cabin in Lake Tahoe.

Friends since freshman year in college, these guys have put up with a lot, you know, with men hitting on me and all. (1994)

“Of course, he is, because you look really amazing right now,” Polly replied, sarcastically referring to my travel attire of mismatched sweats and a greasy ponytail. Apparently, we had been in the car way too long together.

It had been a running joke between us for years. I’d often say things like that to get a reaction from my girlfriends, but I have to admit; usually, I meant it. Despite my ongoing love/hate relationship with my body, during the years between college and pregnancy, I knew I hadn’t exactly been hit by an ugly stick. So yes, if I caught someone looking my way, I often times assumed they either found me attractive, or they were admiring my shoes. Either way, I thought it was positive.

By 2014, nine years into my eating disorder, people were still looking at me. However, I was well aware it was different. There was the the woman who quickly looked away, blushing, when I caught her eye in the produce section of the grocery store, making me want to hurl a tomato at her. The lady who elbowed and whispered to her friend as I passed by the window of the coffee shop, causing me to feel like the outcast in middle school. Or the little boy who craned his neck as I passed by him at Home Depot, looking at me with innocent curiosity the way kids often do when they see someone who looks different.

The day I saw the coffee shop girls whispering and staring. Yes I noticed and I remember the feeling like it was yesterday (2014).

“People are staring at me,” I told my therapist Karen, tears streaming down my face, “I know I am thin but really? What the hell is wrong with people?”

“Are they staring at you?” She asked, getting a bit emotional, too, ”or are you noticing because of how you feel about yourself?” Hmmmm, I had become self-conscious about my appearance. I could not ignore the obvious, but after careful consideration of her question, I was even more convinced. They were staring.

For years, as a result of the after-school specials that were popular when I was a teen, I thought I understood what anorexia was about. The ultra-skinny girl standing in front of a mirror, her ribs jutting out, staring at the “fat” girl starting back at her. But that was not me. I knew I was too thin, I crunched the numbers, I saw the pictures, and in no way, did I think I was overweight. Still, my brain, my hungry, shrinking brain could not see just HOW thin I had become. So, when I caught people looking at me, some with concern, some with curiosity, and many with a glare of anger, it pissed me off. It put me on the defensive, but deep down, it just hurt. I am a good person, I am someone’s daughter, I am a loving mom. Stop looking at me.

But the not so subtle glances did not stop, in fact, they were the just the half of it.