On our walk: January 13, 2011, midday

Last night I  joked with myself, figuring that
If I live another month
Within that month
Surely I’ll lose a tooth.
It’ll come out by itself
And hopefully this won’t happen in church.
Maybe more than one tooth.  Maybe several.

I felt each of my teeth, wiggling each
With my fingers, trying to guess
Which one of them would come out
But none seemed to give me any answer
Any peek into the future.

I bent over and picked up Puzzle’s poops
With a flip-top Baggie.
This I did twice on our walk.
I am thankful for such simple tasks.

Where does this surge of energy come from?
Not a calorie in sight.
But today
The sky, the moment.

This morning, I know
I must try to keep my mind sane.
My insanity protects me.
But today I am going to send an e-mail
To my favorite undergrad instructor
Whom I went to hear read
Not long ago.

I’ll tell him how much I cherish his words
The influence he had on me
Just thank him
And tell him that whatever happens
Well, you know, mixed
There will always be mixed
But basically I am okay with it.

Before leaving on our walk
I checked weather dot com
Power lines may be down
Well, so be it.
I brushed her teeth.
I brush her teeth every day.

I hooked up her leash.
I had a thought.  A fleeting notion.  I knew
There doesn’t need to be any logic to it
It doesn’t need to make intellectual sense.

I put on my headphones.
Just for old times’ sake, Bruce Springsteen
Louder than I could stand.

Down the hallway.
Puzzle is eager to get out and sniff.
She tugs on the leash.
The front door opens and I pass through.
I step into the strong, strong wind
And at that moment I know for certain
That my feet still carry me
That although I thought that I had lost my faith
God has been in my heart
And held me tightly
All along.

 

Fever-breaking

Because I am not the religious zealot type, I do not hold some claim to special knowledge of the nature of God or anything of spiritual nature.  The only exception to this is that my late boyfriend, Joe, has appeared to me a few times in dreams telling me that Heaven is a rather decent place.  He spoke of it enthusiastically, saying I had to see it for myself, and said the food was “terrific.”  To see that boyish smile on his face I knew so well, and his voice as if he were describing the highest point of a baseball game, convinces me that every meal every meal is truly delicious, served on the best dishes.  Is there an afterlife?  I’m going to butt out of it and stick to things that are a bit more concerning to me, but I do know that Joe right now is really doing okay.  Is this is a delusion my inner mind has created to comfort me?  I don’t care.  Delusions, after all, are correct in the heart.  Boy, have I learned this over the past couple of weeks and months.  Maybe I have always known it.  Maybe I should also add that I do like to think that there is a Doggy Heaven in my tears.

But this is all.  I grew up Jewish.  We  were told there was a God.  Sometimes, yeah, God.  Sometimes, the existence of a God made no logical sense to me.  It didn’t add up scientifically.  It never, never, never made any sense to me to assume that God was male.  This was a resentment that began in me as a sudden jolt when I was booted out of my brother Ned’s bris simply because I was a girl and not a boy.  It made no logical sense in my six-year-old mind that a bunch of old guys wearing scarves would sing Holy songs in a language I didn’t understand to an invisible Holy Male God in the sky, and these old guys in scarves were crowded around the crib of my baby brother, whom I owned and was given by my parents so that I could personally protect and care for, and these guys–these men–in scarves were going to seriously harm my brother.  Yes, I was only six, but I knew from that very moment on that the world was male-dominated.  Especially in my given religion.  So, like I said, I have, at this point in my life, no real right to make any real claims about the existence or non-existence of God as any entity or being whatsoever, or to instruct you as to what you should think in such matters.

However, I do know what I truly believe in my heart right here right now.

Tonight, I do not know what time, I noticed that I was developing a fever.  It began kind of in my jaw area, and then spread around to my eye sockets, and then to every single tooth, and my entire mouth.  My head had that all-around ache you get when you have a fever.  My body had that bone-ache, but not a lot, not to the point of discomfort.  I decided to have a bit of water, not a lot, and then head off to bed.  Who knows.  I had a flu shot.  The flu, though, you can get anyway.  On the other hand, it could have been some result of malnutrition.  I often feel kind of weirdly sick.  It comes and goes.  Sometimes, I feel this overall crappiness and want nothing but to stay in bed.  I headed off to the sack as quickly as possible.

I lay in bed.  I found that I wasn’t all that tired.  This sometimes happens.  I had a lot on my mind.  I have mentioned someone I fancy, in my craziness, hanging out here in my apartment that I have named Michael the Man with Wings, to whom I carry on a one-sided conversation at times.  Well, I began one such lively conversation while I lay in bed.  It went on and on.  I began to laugh.  It was getting hilarious.  I imagined developing Compulsive Square-dancing Disorder temporarily, burning shitloads of calories, going to bed, waking up, and then weighing myself only to discover I’d lost a whole bunch of weight.  I began to completely crack up.  Then I settled into a deep satisfaction and warmth of feeling, a natural curve of smile on my face.

Then it hit me.  I had a fever.  Laughter.  True joy like a rare gift I had not felt in a long time.  Even an effortless smile.  So many people would give anything to die like this.  Laughing and with a smile, just simple joy.  It could happen.  I felt  thankful that this moment had now come to me, almost like a gift.  It could be a few hours, and I was very aware of the possibility that I could be way, way off base.  But I felt close to prayer.  Fever.  Hot waves rose from my forehead, almost like I could see them, though my eyes at this point were closed, a smile still on my face.  And I knew now that if I uttered a prayer, whether silent or aloud, I would ask God to take my life from me.

I began to weep.  Just a bit at first.  Then, sobbing.  How can I do this?   There are people I would hurt.  I want to be in church on Sunday.  It’s only Thursday night.  Only today, I reached out to my college friends on Facebook.  They wrote back.  What am I doing?

Then I thought of one specific person who had written: my final semester advisor, Darrah.  Dang.  I had worked just so hard that last semester.  I remembered all the hours at the library, toiling over my thesis.  I remembered the trek to the post office, wondering if all those thesis pages would fit into a flat rate envelope.  Every packet I received back was like a birthday gift I opened with the suspense I felt as if I were a little kid untying magic ribbon.  Then I remembered: Darrah always called me “Kiddo.”  That made me feel so wanted.  Darrah, of all people…How on earth could I do this to Darrah?

I cried for a long time.  Fleeting thoughts and emotions mixed with my tears and wrapped around and around me.  Mostly, I was sad.  I asked myself if everyone who was dying, in their knowledge of their own impending death, was saddened by it.

I felt something, a change just then, an urge in me, to kick off my blanket.  I was still weeping, crying aloud.  I was lifted, or rather, was helped to lift myself, from the bed, and stood.  The fever was gone.

A bunch of hours have passed since then.  I didn’t know what I was going to do with what had happened.  I didn’t know if I would tell anyone.  I didn’t know if I was going to record what happened, but then I decided that it needed to be told.  I am telling you now.  Maybe it all sounds like it was written by a very deluded soul in a feverish, starved state.  This is in fact true.  But it is written.

I thought I hadn’t prayed at all.  But you know, I think that in fact, at that moment, I did.  When God is in my heart, God is in my heart, right there.  I was answered.  I was put where I needed to be.  Maybe not for much longer.  Maybe just for a few more hours.  But I didn’t die in bed.  I’m one step closer to tomorrow, one bit nearer to staying right alongside those that care that I stay right here with them.

You can’t predict when you’re going to die.  Some die with a smile on their face but most probably don’t.  After all, it’s not scientifically likely.  You’re not born smiling, or so they say.  As to whether I smile in Heaven, like I said, I don’t really believe in any afterlife, and it’s not what I’m worried about right now.  I guess I am thinking that I want to write one word after the other, keep on writing,  and not write too much about God.  Rather, I’d like to keep God very quietly and passionately in my heart.

 

I’m home!

….and….

Wow.

If you have listened to my audio posts, you might have a clue how I feel right now.

Or maybe you don’t.

Before I left the hospital, I took some time alone and just stood by the window and looked out.  I looked out over the parking lot and up at the sky.  It’s decent out.  Not raining for a change, not even overcast on my day of discharge.  I put my things together so that I could easily get them into my suitcase when the staff got it to me.  It suddenly dawned on me that I had brought with me very few belongings, and had lived on very little material possessions of my own for a month in this place.  All had been provided for me.

I began to weep.

Yes, all had been provided, and more.  I came into the hospital determined not to let anyone or anything take my eating disorder away from me.  No, no one took anything from me.  There were no thieves there except for an occasional caffeine-starved patient who took my tea off my tray when I didn’t show up for a meal on time.

I came to the hospital wanting a quick fix.  I wanted to stop the binge cycle and then go right back out and starve myself again.  I wanted to lose all the weight I had gained from bingeing, and then keep on losing even if I died.  But I wasn’t thinking in those terms.  I had no hope, no future.

Today, leaving the hospital is just the beginning of that future I didn’t think I’d ever have.  I believe that this relapse that began in 2008, over three years ago, the worst bout of anorexia nervosa I’ve ever had in my life, has finally turned a corner.

I do this for me.  I had to do it to save my own life.  Nearly dying in July didn’t stop me.  But while in the hospital this time I reached a level of insanity that brought me to the point that the doctor told me I required long-term care in the state hospital.  If any of you have ever been in a state hospital, you know that those places aren’t really hospitals at all, but prisons.

That, readers, was The End Of Life As I Knew It.  Because many people with anorexia might feel as I did, or might understand why I felt the way I did: that I’d rather starve to death than to have my life taken from me by incarceration in a state hospital.

One of the staff told me that I had to fight back. Then they all said the same thing: You Can Do It.

So at 4:30 in the morning on September 15, I walked up to the night staff sitting at the desk, and with a tremble in my heart, mustered up all the strength and courage I had, and asked:  “Can I have a glass of orange juice?”  Believe me, it was a lot easier drinking it than it was asking for it. And that was just the beginning.

This morning, I had my last meal at the hospital.  I had two pancakes.  I asked the staff to give me some peanut butter.  I had special privileges to get anything out of the kitchen that I want (I had to get a dr’s order for that).  I spread the peanut butter on the pancakes, then spread applesauce on top, then sliced a banana on top of the applesauce, cut everything up into pieces, and ate it up without a thought.

And no, it isn’t always that easy.  I asked the staff not to expect too much of me.  So they didn’t.  They watched me eat, and wrote down what I ate at every meal.  I got used to it.  Sometimes, it was a comfort.  I also got accustomed to having to sit right by the video monitor in the dining room.

When I started eating again, I chose to take myself off the meal plan.  This way, I could make choices that were more palatable to me.  Otherwise, I would have had to eat scrambled eggs every single day for breakfast.  The staff weren’t too pleased that I’d done this.  After that, I got real creative with the limited selections on the menu.  If you’re going to stay 26 days in a hospital and still eat, you don’t have much choice.

Before I left, I wrote a grocery list for myself.  On the way home, I stopped at the stores I needed to go to so that I would have the things I needed to make meals for the next couple of days.

I will be satisfied.  I will no longer be empty of life and joy and hope.  There is no point in burying myself in my eating disorder any longer, because I choose not to.

And yes, I fight off the urge to starve myself and lose weight constantly throughout the day and night.  I fight off the urge to skip meals or cut back on my food.  I had to fight it at the hospital and I imagine it will be doubly hard here at home.

But it’s over.  It’s over.  It’s over.  I stepped into daylight for the first time in 26 days this morning.  I know I have a huge task ahead of me now.

Come, follow me into the light.

Wow there is so much to tell you

I wrote so many papers while I was in the hospital that I need to copy over and share with you.  One is very long, 25 hand-written pages.  Several are from my previous admission to the hospital.

I unpacked my suitcase this morning.  Completely.  I feel pretty good.

I have appointments every day for the next week and a half.  Wow.  Two of them are scheduled for the exact same time, so I have to fix that.

It’s great having Puzzle back.  I feel like finally, finally I have my life back.

I see my T today.  I’m expecting a huge argument.  Well, maybe not.

Would you believe Dr. P actually wanted me to go to “residential” after the hospital?  Is she kidding?  My insurance (Medicare/Medicaid) doesn’t pay for a single residential program in the Boston area.  I suppose she didn’t really look that far.  And I haven’t a penny left to pay for Puzzle’s boarding.  I took out a cash advance on my credit card to pay for her this time.  I had to lie about my income to get it.  Dang!

Not that I would want to go to one of those fucking places.  The ED program at the hospital, where they fucking controlled my food, watched me in the bathroom (I don’t even puke), and–

Get this: It was within an hour of discharge.  They said I still had to follow “ED protocol.”  Such bullshit.  So I sat there and ate.  The whole time, I ate everything on my tray.  This time, I put the juice and water in my pocket, telling them I was going to drink them on the bus ride home.  Well, they said I couldn’t do that.

“What?”

“Drink them NOW!  You can’t drink them later!  Eating disorders protocol, remember?”

“Well, I’m not going to.”  I poured myself some diet ginger ale.  We are not supposed to have soda.  Another no-no.

“Give them back or we’re calling SECURITY!”

They actually called Security.  I’m not kidding you.  Those Security guys must have been laughing their eyeballs out.

So was I.  I told the guy from the kitchen who delivered trays and he was cracking up, too.

I laughed all the way home.

Hey, I’m going to have a good walk with Puzzle and not think about this shit.  Just listen to the loud, loud music and have a great walk.  We’re leaving as soon as the sun comes up.

I can hardly wait.

Spice

I may not have hope, but for now, I can spice up my life.  I can wear a different shirt every day.  I can rearrange my tiny apartment to suit me.  I can write many e-mails to people around the world.  I can write to my dog.  I can write to God.  I can write to myself.  One of these people might write back.

Although I eat very little, I can season my food differently each time I eat it.  My food is colorful.  I arrange it pleasingly on my plate.  I garnish it.  I eat with a fancy napkin.  I have several tables in my apartment, and I can eat at a different table at each meal.  I can choose to heat my food, or I can eat it ice cold.

Though it is a very small town, only four square miles, there are many streets here to explore.  I have lived here nearly 25 years and I have yet to see all the nooks and crannies of the neighborhoods here.  But every day, my dog and I take the same route.  Why?  Why not spice it up?  Well, I am a person who likes regularity, and they say that dogs like to do the exact same thing every day for some reason.  So we take the same route.

But I listen to different music each time we walk.  The weather is always different.  My thoughts are always different.  Whether I am feeling hopeful, sad, depressed, or full of anticipation for the day ahead, each walk is vastly different from the other.  Yes, our walks are spiced up.

Although I do not have hope, I can do things to spice up my life.  I can knit using colorful yarns with varying textures.  I can make dog sweaters.  I can make hats for myself to match.  My dog and I can go in style.

And going in style we do.  Because every day, when we walk down the street, I say to myself, “This is my dog.  This is my creature, that I care for, that I love and cherish, that each day greets me with a wag and a sniff awaiting a treat.  And I brush this dog’s teeth twice a day every day and she’s got the most shining smile in town.

I may not have a shining smile to match hers, but we go in style.  I may not smile at all.  I may not have a drop of happiness in me.  But I know how to spice up my life.  So I do so.  And this simple task is a comfort to me.

I am alive

Sometimes, I wonder about my life.  My life has been so sad.  I have endured so much, probably more than most people have had to deal with in their lifetimes.  I am 53 years old now.  Sometimes, this feels very, very old.  So much has happened.  It seems like there is so little left and nothing to look forward to.  It feels like I might not have much time left.  But maybe I’m wrong about this.  No one can predict the future.  No one.  Well, maybe I’m wrong about that, too.

I have been ill for 31 years.  I can’t recall a single moment that I have had healthy thinking about food since age 22, and I can count the number of years that I have eaten “normally” on a couple of fingers, probably just a fist when I think about it.  I have been hospitalized for my psychiatric condition over 50 times.  I have been legally disabled for my psychiatric condition since age 26.  I have taken a multitude of medications, all of which have side effects.  I currently am experiencing the permanent condition of tardive dyskinesia.  I lost all my friends very abruptly and dramatically more than once during the course of my illness.  I was abused and neglected by my mother.  I was force-fed by my mother while both parents held me in a chair.  I was abused and enslaved by a classmate and trapped in that relationship for four years in high school.  My brothers, at this time, have little to do with me.  I was raped in 2008 by a neighbor and also at the age of 18 by my boss.  I was raped at 21.  I was widowed at the age of 45.  I attempted suicide twice.  I am deeply depressed.  I am currently suffering a relapse of anorexia nervosa and see no end to it.  I am experiencing a multitude of medical conditions that are the consequences of having eating disorders for a long, long time.  I woke up this morning wishing I was dead.

But:

I am a survivor.  After 18 years of mental illness, I earned my bachelor’s degree.   I earned my master’s degree, too.  I wrote two memoirs.  One of them was accepted for publication, came out as an e-book, and will be coming out as a paperback soon.  I wrote two novels.  I wrote a collection of short works, published on-demand.  I wrote a journal I plan to prepare for publication.  I am a self-taught, competent computer user.  I write daily in my blog, the currently has over 100 regular visitors (as far as I can estimate).  I am a self-taught knitter, design my own patterns, and have knitted 17, maybe more, dog sweaters for my dog and matching hats for myself.  I can run, and ran a 5k race at the age of 52.  I can walk long distances.  I once walked the Boston Marathon route for the Jimmy Fund.  I am a two-time National Novel Writing Month winner.  As a young person, I performed in prominent roles in musical plays.  I was a whiz at linguistics, and won the linguistics contest for my elementary school when I was in the fourth grade.  My intelligence is close to genius level.  I played lead trumpet in many bands and orchestras.   I had a musical composition of mine performed by an orchestra.  I was a live-in nanny at the age of 20, taking care of seven children.  I hitch-hiked around the country with my dog in 1979.  I once rode my bike 100 miles.  I quit smoking.  I took up stand-up comedy, and performed in a bar.  I had a wonderful love relationship with a man for 17 years, and we were only separated by his death in 2003.  I am currently in a relationship with a terrific, loving man.  I have a wonderful dog, a Schnoodle, and have raised four others.  I. brush. Puzzle’s. teeth. twice. a. day.

I have experienced joy.

And:

I am still alive.

That is, essentially, what matters.

My running is improving

I ran five miles again today.  It wasn’t hard.  It very well may have been 5.25.  When I got to three laps, there was a possibility that it may only have been two, so I added a lap at the end, making the total 21, or possibly 20, depending.

Life is good.  The weather is fabulous.

I am getting stronger.
I can run faster.
I can run farther.
My weight is improving.
My eating is improving.
I am taking better care of myself.
I have a life filled with love and goodness.
I look to the future with hope in my eyes, and joy in my heart.

Frank and I will have our cupcake party soon.  And celebrate.  I have a lot to be thankful for.

Happy Easter

Party!

Frank and I are having a party.  We are having cupcakes.  He is baking his chocolate cupcakes from a mix at his place on Maui, and I am buying a chocolate cupcake from Kick Ass Cupcakes in Davis Square, Somerville, MA. I will bring the cupcake home, and then we will eat our cupcakes together at our respective homes.

Frank has always wanted me to eat chocolate cake when I celebrate something.  He had suggested it for my birthday, but that didn’t happen.  I was in McLean Hospital on my birthday this past January.  My birthday sucked.  Even the staff at McLean forgot to get me a cake.  Not that I would have eaten any.  Actually, when they finally remembered the cake, days later…nope…I didn’t eat any.  And no, it wasn’t chocolate, not that that would have made a difference.  I have spent a number of birthdays in hospitals.

But now, we are celebrating something new and special: Frank is legally changing his name.  He is keeping Frank and changing his middle and last names.  The name change should go through very soon, and when it does, we will have the name-change cupcake party.

It is also the beginning of spring, of rebirth.  Snow is melting, and in case you were wondering: yes, it does snow in Hawaii.  Even though it hasn’t dipped under freezing very much lately, we still have a huge pile of snow back in the patio where I can see it from my living room window.  What a view.  It will take till mid-May to melt it all.  But now, the time of the name-change, can be the starting point of this melting.

It is the time to welcome in a new, fresh way of seeing the world, to cast off old ways, and to step into the sun.  It is the time to be strong and healthy.  It is the time to run like we’ve never run before, whether the wind is behind us or against us, because it is always within us.  It is the time that our age will not stop us from living our lives.  It is the time to be happy.

I am not going to worry about how many calories are in the cupcake.  I will set my eating disorder aside.  I will set aside all negativity I have around “junk food.”  There is no “junk food.”  There is good food out there.  There is food in every flavor you can imagine, some food in interesting shapes, food wrapped up in boxes, food with candles, food with funny names you can’t pronounce, food you drink or slurp, food that melts in your mouth, and food that melts everywhere and gets all over your clothes and makes you laugh.

So why should “fattening” come into the picture?  What creep invented the fact that if you eat certain foods in certain quantities, you will “gain weight” and “get fat”?  What a concept!  It is time to change the name of “Diet” to “Die.”  Let’s just kill it, okay?  Maybe we should change “Weigh In” to “No Way In.”  Because very, very soon I’m going to barge my way into Kick Ass Cupcakes and buy that chocolate cupcake and bring it home and eat it with Frank.  And we are going to have a grand celebration.

A bit of anger left out of the box?

Maybe I relished in the anger.  Maybe I enjoyed it–a little.  Am I still feeling it?

Well, I do feel sorry that it is possible that what I did last night may–or may not–have been a consequence of the remainder of the anger.

Yet, I do not feel any anger.  Not the least bit.  I feel as though I neatly and efficiently put all of it into the box.

I was, actually, very neat and efficient about everything yesterday.  It was part of feeling myself again.  I vacuumed the floor and took out the unbelievable amount of trash that had piled up over a period of…was it weeks?  All the trash.  Not just the large kitchen bag.  The empty boxes, the one by my desk, and the two little ones as well.

Good for me.

I felt myself again after, over a period of a mere two hours or so, I felt the binge-urge drain out of my body.  I felt it leave through my feet and spill onto the floor.  It seeped through the parquet floor and out of my life.  I rejoiced.  I rejoiced for a long time.  I rejoiced into the night.  So maybe I was so distracted by this joy that I forgot my bedtime meds.

Or was it a teensy bit of anger?  Naw.  Naw.  I do forget my bedtime meds now and then.  Puzzle reminds me to take them at 7:30; however, I no longer take them at that time.  At bedtime, I was too busy rejoicing.  I was too busy being excited that I was free!  Free!  Free at last!

And, incidentally, I saw no reason to stay up into the wee hours, though I could have.  My day was done at 11.  I felt full and satisfied.  Satisfied?  Yeah.

This morning, I awoke, a bit early, with heaviness.  Of course, this could be for any reason.  There were too many factors.  I checked my med container to make absolutely certain that I hadn’t put the Effexor into it by accident.  But it was then that I realized my mistake.  It was early.  I phoned the pharmacy.  Long story short: I did what the pharmacist told me.  Pharmacists are smart.

I will allow the heaviness to cover my body now.  I will cry, just a little, remembering yesterday.

 

Off Effexor: Day One

Without the binge-urge, I am free.
Free!  Free!  Free!
No longer enslaved to a craving so cruel
That it would take my life
Along with it
Even if I didn’t die
It would have all of me
In its grips
And life
Would have been as useless
As crushed chewing gum
On the pavement
Left there to die
By some careless boy
Who didn’t bother to wrap it
And carefully toss it
In the trash
No longer of use to anyone
The gum would just sit there
And get stepped on
Until ultimately the road
Got chopped up in construction
As inevitably all roads do.

Free!  Free! Free!
Now, I have saliva
No more dry mouth
Yet the antidepressant effects
Have not yet worn off
I can say that I feel truly myself
Which is rare these days.

I felt myself in the hospital
A couple of times
An afternoon here and there
It didn’t last long
And I don’t expect this will, either,
Cuz I know
I have a long way to go.