You can get MBTA “alerts” about bus, subway, elevator service, etc sent to your cell phone, and how this relates to how I’m feeling today

Go to the mbta.com site, “rider tools” section and you’ll see the feature you can sign up for.  You can get these notifications–which have been refined according to rider requests–sent to your cell phone or pager, etc and/or your e-mail.  It’s not difficult to sign up.  I signed up for the  #70/70A routes and the #71 (these two routes I mentioned to you in previous posts as they come out of Watertown and were affected by the power line disaster in the square October 18).  I take these buses frequently, and it will be nice to know ahead of time if there are delays on either one.  This will influence my decision as to which route I’ll take to get to therapy.  I can take either.

Today, indeed, I am going to therapy.  But I have received no alerts.  This means smooth sailing on both routes, and I am free to choose either according to my whim.

Today is smooth sailing in my life as well.  Puzzle has gone to the vet and her sore will be okay.  She is taking two pills for it and the situation will be solved.  She is not in pain and she no longer finds the area irritating to her.  I am not pleased about the increased credit card balance due to the vet bill, though, but I am not going to worry about it.  So many people are a lot worse off than I am.  I have a roof over my head, after all, clothes to wear, and a dog.

In DBT, which stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, there is discussion of intense emotions.  Some people cannot handle intense emotions and they cope poorly with them by doing destructive things.  They react angrily, or do cutting, or their eating is affected adversely, or they lash out at others, or they gamble, or abuse substances, or otherwise make themselves miserable…a host of destructive reactions…instead of just letting the emotion go.  DBT teaches you how to cope properly with intense emotions.

My therapist and I are going through a DBT workbook right now.  I have mixed feelings about doing this workbook.  I sort of can’t relate to it. I have been looking back over recent times that I have felt intense emotions, and just about every time, I handled these emotions well.  I turned my feelings into constructive action.

It’s not what you think.  Let me explain.  Most the time when I felt angry, I did writing.   I poured my emotions out onto paper or keyboard.  When I felt intense positive emotions recently about my experience at church–wow, this was very, very intensely positive…I was so incredibly moved–I came home and sat and wrote.  There were other incidents…I wrote.

This is not my only way to cope.  The other way is through my tears.  I cry easily.  It’s not a bad thing, especially since about 75% of my tears are happy tears.

My eating disorder…emotions, or thoughts?  I told my therapist, not in our last session but a few sessions ago, that I think I do destructive ED behaviors, restricting and bingeing, because of very, very skewed thinking.  I cannot seem to stop these thoughts, cannot get them out of my head.  Thoughts are not the same as emotions.  These thoughts repeat themselves, not over and over like broken records, but enough to not make sense.  These thoughts are illogical to begin with and anorexia nervosa and eating disorders in general are incredibly illogical.  I learned at the hospital that alcoholism is also illogical.

As a person who has had anorexia on and off for many years, these thoughts have been stuck in my head just about the whole time for 31 years.  I must learn to cope with them and try to keep them from influencing my behavior.

Emotionally and mood-wise today, I feel smooth and okay.  No alerts.  I rolled out of bed on the correct okay side.  I have been operating efficiently.  I have been sleeping better lately….finally.  I worked on my Nano outline this morning.  I’m even thinking about names for my protagonist (these I’m still not willing to reveal).  I made an apology to someone for being inconsiderate and selfish.  It had been weighing on my mind that I had acted inappropriately.  It feels like I am–in a way–cleaning out my mental Inbox.  If only I’d clean out my e-mail Inbox!  It’s still got some stuff in it from September’s hospitalization that needs to be deleted.  I need to catch up on my life.

I have a lot of catching up to do, a lot of thinking.  I plan to do that today, alerts or not.  I need to pack my stuff for therapy, and I’ll be sure to remember my cell phone, just in case.

An open letter to my T, my blog, and the world

I need to make this writing a priority this morning over a number of other activities because I need to get this off my chest.  It does not take priority over certain things that are vastly more important.  I have walked Puzzle.  I need to make sure she can get groomed tomorrow.  So I need to stop writing at some point and remember to call Pooch Palace to get her scheduled.  Hygiene–hers and mine: essential…but today I haven’t showered yet and writing takes precedence.  I’ll make time to brush my teeth again.  My hair…yeah, I gotta do something with this mop before I go to therapy.

I need to say some things.  I need to be straight with my T about certain things.  About a week ago I realized that I don’t have much time left on this planet.  I thought about things realistically and figured that my 54th birthday is in January and I’ll probably make it to that, but the chances of making it to 55 are next to nil.  My body won’t hold out.  I see the statistics and it’s amazing that I’m still alive.  The statistics are different depending on the source, but by far the majority of patients who end up with anorexia nervosa don’t make a full recovery.  A small portion do.  Many do, and deal with it for the rest of their lives.  A portion die.  A portion suffer a great deal for the rest of their lives.  A portion commit suicide by other means.  And so on.  The younger you get it, the worse your chances are.  The longer you’ve had it, the worse your chances are.  And so on.  You can interpret the data a number of ways but it’s a fatal illness no matter how you look at it and no matter how you look at it, it’s clear that this illness is the most lethal mental illness.

Dear T: The truth is that I want you to just go along with this.  Quit trying to stop me and quit trying to change me and quit your assumption that I am trying in any way to get better and change and grow.  It is useless.  I gave up on myself.  Just let me die and keep me company.  A week ago I decided to self-starve because I have no will to live.  I am not trying to make myself die I am just trying to lose weight.  If I die I don’t care.

Okay, I’m tired now and I’ll take a t0-minute nap and come back.

I’ve been permanently sleepy for a couple of days now.  Back.

As you know, I get these breakthrough binges (you I’m sure are bored of hearing about this) and I have binged a few times but get right back to starving and continuing to lose weight.  I don’t think I lost anything over the weekend and I haven’t been able to get anything like an accurate reading with a belly full of food.

I have had a couple of instances of drinking high amounts of zero-calorie liquid (water or zero-calorie sports drink, occasionally diet soda) very quickly and then peeing it all out.  I can’t seem to stop myself when I do this.  I’m not trying to hurt myself.  It is automatic.  Maybe I am just thirsty.  I drink to the point of physical discomfort.  I looked up on the Internet how much you have to drink to get a serious problem and I’m reasonably sure I’m not in the danger zone.  When this happens, my pee is bubbly afterward.

I believe the last couple of times that I binged, my food wouldn’t go down my throat.  It got caught there.  I got some water and pushed it down with the water.  I found that I was able to stuff food down faster than ever.  At 53? weird.  Maybe I’m just remembering wrong.   I have some junk food in the apartment right now that I should probably get rid of.

For a while, when I binged, it “showed.”  Oh, no, when I binge it shows anyway.  Duh.  Stomach and intestine overload.  I have heard that your stomach or intestines can burst from this.  A doctor once told me that this was the truth but I looked it up and there have been cases. Of course you don’t survive that at my age.  When I say that it showed, I meant that my ankles and legs and entire body swelled up.  As of sometime yesterday, this stopped happening.  They’re fine.  My torso is huge and full of food but the rest of me looks normal.  I have to wait until I poop it all out.

Okay, back to life.  But the body changes again.  I am making all kinds of spelling errors and am falling asleep…again.   Something’s horribly wrong that I have to sleep all the time.  Another ten-minute nap and I’ll be back.

I woke up two minutes before the alarm.

I sleep…I don’t sleep…well, duh…I play with food and it messes real bad with sleep.  Real bad.  Serves me right.

I don’t know why I do all the stuff I do but I can’t make it stop.  Losing weight…it is just ridiculous.

My DMH person seems to think everything’s hunky-dory with me.  Whatever.  It’s her job to make sure people shower and get to their appointments and fill their prescriptions.  I don’t think they have people with anorexia in their program much.   I dress with my shirt right-side out and she looks at me and figures I’m fine.  ADL’s.  That’s “Activities of Daily Living,” meaning, again, showering, taking meds, brushing teeth, getting to your job, cleaning the house, laundry, paying your bills, taking public transportation…I do everything but one: eat.  A big one.  I guess that one’s a given for most of her people.  And sleep.

I don’t even sleep responsibly anymore.  Night blends into day which blends into night.  All a blur.

There are things going on that are very good right now and I thought I’d mention them.  My relationship with Frank.  My relationship with L.  Puzzle.  Puzzle’s walks.   Puzzle’s walks have been a little crazy and driven because I think about death while I’m walking her.  I enjoy myself anyway.  I keep my appointments and that’s a good thing.  Church is just a fabulous addition to my life.  Absolutely a fantastic thing I’m doing.  I’m going to print out what I wrote yesterday and bring it into today’s session.

Okay, here’s another thing I haven’t made public but I will.  I ran it by my T Friday and she feels it’s a very positive step I’m doing to help myself.  I’m taking a trip to London to attend a seminar my publisher is putting on for its writers.  The trip will be in a month.  I can’t believe I’m doing this.  It will give me a sense of purpose and I don’t want a sense of purpose but it’s weird because at the same time I really want to meet my publisher and get to work with him, and I assume get to meet the other folks at the publishing house as well.   I won’t be gone long.  I made the plane reservations and hotel and am all signed up.

This was in fact very difficult to do.  My bank decided that whatever transaction I did was suspicious activity, and shut down my credit card after I made each purchase.  This started with the transaction with my publisher, because it was a UK transaction.  My bank doesn’t take chances.  I appreciate this.

I have been spending the month of October working on my outline for November’s National Novel Writing Month.  National Novel Writing Month probably won’t happen for me because of this trip.  I’ll be gone for four days but it’s going to zap much of my energy for November.  It was a sacrifice I had to make.  I will still create the outline.  Why?  I’m excited about the book.  I think Nano is doing another Nano later in the year.  Nano got so big that they do one in a month other than November now.  So I’ll have another opportunity maybe.  I haven’t talked much about this outline.  I will.

I’ve run out of energy and there’s more I wanted to say.   Later.

Coping with my eating disorder while Hurricane Irene bears down

I am a person with anorexia nervosa who was recently hospitalized for severe malnutrition and dehydration.  When I went in I was in pretty bad shape.  I was in a medical ward for ten days and spent a few days “upstairs where I *belonged*” in the psychiatric ward, which was hell for me.  I was then released and spent eight days on the worst streak of binge eating I have ever experienced.  I went back in voluntarily, spent 24 amazing hours in the psych emergency room, where I did a lot of healing, then went “upstairs” again for a few days, and was released.

I have been pretty much okay.  I am delighted to be out.  Hearing of the storm was just another challenge for me.  In New England we’re due for something I’ve never experienced before.  I’ve seen bad rain, sure.  I think everyone living in the East has.  It can come down in pellets even in the heat of the summer.  It can be dry and hot one moment, and then, 20 seconds before the bus arrives, the sky can open up, and I’m soaked by the time I get on.  Sometimes, an umbrella is just the thing to bring on a bus trip into Boston.  Other times, an umbrella isn’t quite enough because it’s either too windy, and the umbrella turns inside-out (grrr) or the rain is so thick that nothing will protect against it.  On those days, it’s best to leave your laptop and electronics at home.  Some insist that they only need a hood to protect themselves against the rain.  I have never understood this thinking.  My little Puzzle wears one of the 17 or 18 (lost count) wool sweaters I have knit for her.  These are naturally waterproof.  Her fur isn’t.  I, in turn, wear one of her matching wool  hats and we go in style, even in the middle of summer.

But this will be different.  It’s like those winter emergencies we have all the time here in Boston, only it’s summer and we don’t get emergency weather in the summer except for a couple of days when it’s a bit hot out.  I have never been evacuated from my home.  Being a person with a psychiatric disability, that is, I do not have a mobility problem, but what some people call a “brain disorder,” I still end up spending a lot of time at home even though a physical problem isn’t what’s keeping me here.  My home is my home and because I’m here a lot, I cherish it more (I think) than someone who just finds it a place to sleep at night and store food in the fridge.  I haven’t had what folks think of as a “job” for a long, long time.  When I had “jobs,” they didn’t agree with me.  I guess when you think of things you value, “job” isn’t one of them for me.  Work is.

They say mental illness can’t be seen.  Sometimes, on public transportation (here in Boston called the “T”, which, by the way, will be closed Sunday and Monday) you see posters of smiling faces and on the poster is says, “What does autism look like?” or, “What does schizophrenia look like?”  Actually, anorexia nervosa is often a very visible illness because of the person’s extreme thinness.  But you don’t see that on the posters, just in the fashion ads in magazines.

I got online and read all the experts’ advice on how to prepare for the storm.  I’ve done what I can within reason.  Also, I have my own brand of common sense.  There are things they don’t tell you about that you just have to figure out for yourself.  They tell you to stock up on diapers, but they don’t say anything about toilet paper or “feminine” supplies.

Now is the time to think about what “things” I value most and might want to protect from harm at this time, or bring with me if Puzzle and I are evacuated.  Some things that immediately came to mind were my degree certificates, some of the best sweaters that I knitted for Puzzle (I can’t bring all of them), and a few of my old handwritten journals I have from years past (there are over 20 of these and I’m just going to have to pick a few to bring) that will be lost forever if I don’t take them with me.  As a memoirist, I find journals an important tool for writing and remembering.  I also find them useful when I want to learn about my life years ago, and about the onset of my eating disorder.  I have maybe 700 books here, some are quite expensive reference books, that would be destroyed if this place flooded.  There’s nothing I can do about that.  My friend recently gave me a wall quilt she made for me, that is quite lovely and easily packable in a suitcase.

I asked myself: If I have to go to a shelter, I won’t be able to weigh myself, what do I do…I might fly into a panic!  I dared myself to pack the scale.  No, I am not really packing, just packing mentally, but I dared myself anyway.  Instead, I took the scale off the floor, wrapped it in plastic in case this place floods later on Sunday (it’s Sunday already on the East Coast) and put it in the closet. Now, I will see how long I can leave it there, even after the storm is gone and left us, till I take it out again, step up on it, and admonish myself for not being as thin and starved as I’d like to be.

They told us to stock up on food and water.  I have water.  Food, that’s another story.  It’s a tough thing for someone with an eating disorder to deal with food, natural disaster or not.  Even when faced with a life-and-death situation, food is an issue…why?  Because eating disorders, for you idiots out there that don’t know, are fatal illnesses, that is, you can die of them.  Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of all the mental illnesses including bipolar disorder and major depression, both of which carry suicide risk.  It’s not just about being skinny and it’s not about vanity.  If it was vanity, I’d toss it aside in a natural disaster.  Let’s say I’d be capable of putting it on the back burner while Irene passed through.

But I couldn’t.  I did heed the experts’ advice, though.  I bought a couple of cans of stuff.  I bought things that felt safe for me.  For the most part yesterday, I didn’t eat much.  But then I started in on the diet soda, and I couldn’t stop drinking it.  I don’t know what got into me.  I just started drinking it and drinking it.  It tasted pretty good, actually.  I drank some water and some milk, and more diet soda.  It was easily two gallons.  Suddenly, I was very, very full.  And scared.  I am not supposed to be doing this.  It’s dangerous, very dangerous.  It can screw up your electrolytes and it can screw up your kidneys.  I was scared because since I have had this disorder for a long time, my system has kind of slowed down, and I know I’m not necessarily peeing right.  I sat there with my belly sloshing around wondering why I had done this dumb thing.  Nothing was coming out.  I figured I’d either pee real soon or throw it all up.  Nothing.  So I waited around.  Nothing.  My stomach kind of hurt.  I lay down and tried to think of other things.  I thought that what I had put into myself had to come out somehow.

Yeah, it did.  A bit later, I was shitting my brains out into the toilet.  I feel much better now.  I could feel better but letting go of it felt kind of liberating.  My stomach doesn’t hurt anymore–well, it does, but I can think straight and not be distracted by it, anyway.

I am 53 years old, no longer in my 20′s.  I can’t do this at my age.  No more mucking around with dangerous stuff.  You can die of this.  You can die of anorexia nervosa.  You can die anyway but it’s stupid to do mean things to your body.  I guess that’s one essential part of eating disorders that’s hard to overcome, the self-meanness part.  It’s kind of built in.

This on the eve of Hurricane Irene’s strike on Boston.  In 12 hours, winds will exceed 30 miles per hour, maybe 40 miles per hour, and at that point, vehicle travel is just plain unsafe.  If you’re going to have a medical emergency, forget it, you’re on your own.  Or that is what I heard.  So now, of all times, is not a nice time to be mucking around with my electrolytes.  Now or anytime.  Ever.

You know something?  I’m thirsty.  I don’t understand why.  I just am.  Maybe deep down inside, I thirst for something else, and can’t put a finger on what it is, and that is why I feel so empty inside, and why life seems to have no meaning to it.  I’m going to go have a drink of water at this point because I know it won’t satisfy or fill that longing even though my physical sensation is very real, my body’s sleight of hand, I guess.

I do remember feeling this way at the onset of my illness, that I’d lost something and was desperately searching for it, and that it was so lost and so deep-seated that I had lost sight of what it in fact was or that it even existed or had existed for me.  I just felt this void, and a deep hunger.  Whatever I had had, I wanted back.  Desperately.

I don’t think you get back things you had when you were 18, or 21, when you’re in your 50′s.  It’s over 30 years later, and life doesn’t work that way.  Maybe I’m wrong.  I’m not going to find it, whatever it was, now.  Whatever I find now, though, was unreachable then, because I was only 21.  So I should consider myself fortunate that I have lived this long.

I want to wish everyone peace during this hurricane.  Just take a moment during your preparations to remember loved ones who have passed, to enjoy cherished memories, to care for your children, to feed and hold your pets nearby.

I am managing as best as I can.  Later, I will call a friend in a different time zone, zone out, and sleep I hope.  I had my modem replaced today (for free).  That’s communication, after all.  Faster.  Better.  More efficient.  Wow.  I should be writing this at lightning speed, maybe running the Marathon next year.  Since getting out of the hospital, I’ve realized that soon, National Novel Month will be approaching, and I would like to get the ball rolling on my paperback preparations and get all that done by the end of next month.  So you will have a bit of hard copy to read next year I hope.

Irene, Irene, Irene.  I think I will share a bit of my chapter, “A Forgotten Line,” from my memoir, which focuses on the character, Irene, in a coming post.  See you then.

I am resigned to the fact that my anorexia isn’t going to go away anytime soon

I am resigned to the fact that my anorexia isn’t going to go away anytime soon.  Or should I say I am resigned to the fact that my anorexia most likely won’t ever go away.  Or mostly, I realized today the fear I have in my heart that my anorexia will kill me.  And although this emotion, which I’ve felt before in various forms, hasn’t always been sadness, I have felt sad all day.

Walking Puzzle is generally a joyful activity for me.  I can feel incredibly high while I’m in synch with my dog and we’re zooming down the sidewalks at top speed every morning and evening.  I get out before the dreaded vertigo starts, before the drudge of the day begins.  The vertigo wears off in the afternoon, and is gone by her afternoon walk, but I’m often not up to snuff for that walk.  It depends.  But the mornings are awesome.

This morning, however, was different.  I was listening to Evanescence.  This was not the best music to have on, it turned out, because it was what I listened to at the time that I was raped in 2008.  Whether I wanted it or not, I was brought back to this time, the time that the germ of my relapse was implanted into me, if you will, and life was never the same after that–I was dirty, contaminated, damaged goods.

I thought of my character in my novel, I am So Cold, and Hungry in My Soul, May, who tosses out her clothing after she is raped.  I did the same damned thing.  I scrubbed myself over and over in the shower to cleanse myself of the horror of the deed.

So I was thinking these things, walking Puzzle, just getting sadder and sadder about my life, while Aimee Lee sang the songs, “Lithium,” and “Lacrymosa.”  The music pushes and pulls against itself and twists and turns.  Her voice is full of turmoil.

You couldn’t say what I felt was turmoil this morning.  Just sadness, a deepening feeling that my life isn’t going to go on the way it would if I didn’t have anorexia, that I am already past the edge, and I am falling, falling into an abyss that I can’t get out of.  I see all the Fourth of July celebration around me and this makes me feel even sadder.

Last year, I walked past barbecues and drooled because I was so starved.  I am starved this July as well.  Now, though, I think the smell of burgers would make me gag.  I haven’t smelled any, though.  Guess I instinctively avoid big yards with  grills and picnic tables and toys and coolers full of beer of all types, and bags of chips, bags of corn-0n-the-cob, bags of burger patties, hot dogs, paper plates, cups, punch, coke, burger rolls, pickles, ketchup, mustard, spatula and tongs, and charcoal and lighter fluid.  Guess it’s any trace of family, friends, and celebration that I avoid.  Or should I say, someone else’s family, friends, and celebration.  I don’t want to see it, smell it, or taste it.

Yesterday, I went to a Staples store and shopped up a storm.  I put it all on my credit card.  I had coupons and a Staples card.  I carried it all home in my rolling backpack.  I bought mechanical pencils, two little boxes to keep things in, a three-ring binder, a little notepad, ink for my printer, a pencil box, a box nicely shaped for knitting needles, wipes for the computer monitor, and a box for 4×6 note cards.  I stopped at Petco for necessary dog toothpaste, three tubes of it, and three toothbrushes for Puzzle.  I bought a bunch of produce.  And this morning, after Puzzle’s walk, I was at it again, online, at Staples.com.  I went to CVS this afternoon and got two bottles of mouthwash, two thingies of soap, and dental floss.  I’m all set for financial ruin.

It was a comfort to me to have these little things.  To be a hunger-gatherer in this big, scary world.  Yesterday when I came home from my big shopping spree, I went on another spree: I cooked.  I cooked a zillion things that I didn’t eat.  I put things in tiny containers and labeled each container.  I think I spent three hours doing this.  Afterward, my apartment smelled of onion and peppers.  Everything I cooked was made only of vegetables.  When I chopped and stir-fried the onions, I cried.

As time goes on, I am becoming so organized, so compartmentalized.  I write down everything that I’m going to do for the day, and then I do it.  I write these things on a spreadsheet.  I write down everything I eat.  After the day is over, I print out the spreadsheet.  I write down how well I starved myself.  Of course, there’s a special place on the spreadsheet where I write my weight.  I thought about this, and I thought about the boxes I bought, and I thought about the databank watch I’ve owned for years, and I thought about the pop-up reminders I’ve set up on my computer for everything, and the labels in my refrigerator, everything organized, the post-its telling me exactly what to do, the way I get upset if I don’t follow my routine perfectly, how I eat what “normals” wouldn’t call meals but I do at the same time every day….This is getting damned scary.

Who am I becoming?  I think about my anorexia all the time.  I think about it from the moment I get up until the moment I go to sleep.  I thought about it the entire time I was walking to CVS today, and during the time I was shopping at CVS, and for the entire walk home.  I think of it while talking to people.  I even think about it during my joyful walks with Puzzle.  It never, ever leaves me alone.

I don’t remember this happening in all the years that I have had this illness.  I remember forgetting about it and thinking about my studies. I remember, even during this relapse, thinking about my thesis.  Now, I am lost, buried in it, and I can’t get out.

I am afraid that I will blurt it out.  I was afraid that I would tell the pharmacy person, while paying for my prescription today, “I am anorexic.”  I was afraid that I would lose control and say this.  I held my lips tightly shut.

When I see my T on Wednesday, I will tell her about this writing.  Maybe I will read some of it to her (not all of it–or should I say I won’t read the majority of it).  I will tell her that I am going to die of this disease and that I may not make it to my next birthday.  Of course I don’t know this.  No one knows.  But it is her job to disagree with me.  It is her job to not let me die or resign myself to dying.  It is her job to help me find the will to live.  It is her job to help me find a way out.  I wish she wasn’t going to bother trying, though.  It isn’t worth it.  I am too far gone.

So I will see her  Wednesday, and tomorrow is the Fourth of July, and the next day is the fifth, and then Wednesday.  It seems far off because she’s been on vacation.  She’s been on vacation and I have lost weight.  Guess when the cat’s away, the mouse will play.  On a treadmill going nowhere.

Committed to R.E.C.O.V.E.R.Y.

Okay.  So far, so good.  I have only been out since Wednesday morning.  But I feel good.  Really good.  Positive about life.  I felt good about leaving the hospital.  I knew it was time to leave and I knew I was very much ready and prepared to face the outside world.

I definitely am committed to staying alive and living as joyfully as possible.

No, there wasn’t a turning point.

Yes, there was.  The turning point was when I recognized that I am just plain terrified to gain weight.  I realized that I had been so scared in my gut that I had been driven to make myself die rather than gain even one pound.

The surfacing of the fact that I would die for thinness shook me to the core.

Of course, hadn’t this been the case all along?  Didn’t I know that if I kept all this up, I would eventually collapse?  Such idiocy!

So, boom.  My therapist had slapped a contract on me February 17th.  I had flown into a panic.  Realizing that this was the reason for it all was a huge relief for me.  I wasn’t a bad person after all, just a person who reacted in an extreme manner to something that had to be done to preserve my health.  I had panicked.  I had stuffed my feelings inside.  I had not allowed myself to feel them.  They pushed their way out.  I had expressed them in a grossly inappropriate manner.  And I realized this a week ago last Thursday.  I have been on the upswing ever since.

Progress does not happen in a straight line.  Progress does not happen in a straight line.  Progress does not happen in a straight line.  Notebook, I make no promises.  I cannot promise the future.

Once I got out of the hospital, I felt excellent.  Getting Puzzle back was fabulous.  We zoomed home.  We’ve been zooming around on our walks and listening to loud music.

I’ve resumed work on I am So Cold, and Hungry in My Soul, the novel I wrote for National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) in November.  It took me 17 days to write that first draft.  It’s damned good for a first draft.  I’ve been spending long hours at the library and long hours here at home.

Here are the details:  Calhoun, the villain, is the strongest character to whom I want to make the fewest changes.  May, my protagonist, however, is a weak character who doesn’t do as much as I’d like.  She’s too passive.  I’ve planned out things for her to do.  Exciting things.  She’s going to get bold and shock the reader.  She’s going to have guts.  She’s going to express herself in a more active way from now on, in every chapter.  Like when Susie, her sister, goes into Starbucks to get coffee and leaves May alone in the car, May is going to get into the driver’s seat (she has never learned to drive) and drive the car by pure gut instinct down the street.  I haven’t decided just how far she’s going to get or the consequences.  Each character’s role is going to change slightly.

And like my characters, my role in life is shifting, slightly, gradually.  I am committed to recovery, weird as it sounds.  I am actually eating more now.

Yeah, Notebook, you’ve heard it all before.  You’re probably damn skeptical.

I have set up a strict schedule for myself.  Very strict.  Down to the minute.  It’s incredibly difficult to follow the schedule perfectly so far.  I did this before, though, my last  couple of semesters of graduate school, and it worked.  Right now is my It Notebook/blogging time.  I am approaching the end of my It Notebook session.  At 1pm I will arrive at the library to work on my novel.  The library closes at 5.  My finish time at the library is flexible.  Puzzle walk time is sunset-dependent and weather dependent.  “Telephone time” is 7:30.  I have set strict limits on when I can use the computer.  It must be shut off at other times.  Period.  Bedtime is 10:30.

Okay, It Notebook session over.  Tomorrow.

Nano: Finally daring to look back

National Novel Writing Month–November, 2010.  I was so happy then.  From November 1st until November 17th, I wrote an entire novel.  It’s hard to believe.  During this busy time, I still ran at the gym nearly every day, and maintained my usual social contacts.  I even had time to take care of myself and prepare meals and eat. I realized that I needed to keep my body in shape in order to write well, and eating was part of taking care of my body.   Writing a tragic book about a 50-year-old woman with anorexia was perhaps one of the most difficult writing projects I have ever undertaken, and to do the entire thing in 17 days made the experience extremely intense for me.  I remember all this with amazement.  I did it. There was Nano, and there was the 5k I ran, almost exactly a month later, both incredible accomplishments, and sandwiched between the two was saying goodbye to a therapist I’d worked with for two difficult years, and starting up with a new one.  Wow.  And running, running, running.  Maybe getting sick was a way to run away from it all.

Last night, I glanced back.  I went to Staples yesterday afternoon and bought a new ink cartridge, in case I needed it, and some printing paper.  I printed out the entire manuscript to I am So Cold, and Hungry in My Soul, my Nano book.  This is the very, very first time I’ve even looked at my Nano book since I finished writing the final words, “And another,” on November 17th.  Last night I read the book cover to cover, and loved what I saw.

I know this now: I wrote a book about a woman with anorexia with the understanding that only a sufferer knows.  I saw a character, a middle-aged woman who grieves the loss the life she once knew many years ago.  I watched a woman with anorexia lose a beloved pet.  I saw her grieve as her sisters abandoned her.  I saw her cling to a man to whom she is forced to turn when she believes he is the only ally she has left: the man who raped her.  I felt her intense sorrow over the suicide of her best friend, also anorexic, and the rage at the ones who ultimately drove her friend to choose that path.

Yeah, the book needs a lot, lot, lot of work.  But I am saying that because it needs work.  That is, it can be worked on, and will be worked on.  What I am saying is that I don’t need to chuck the book.  What I am saying is that it is a decent book that is worth salvaging.  It’s more than a decent book.  It has a lot of potential.  There was some really nice, poignant stuff in there.  Much of the book made me cry.  Maybe someday a lot of the book would make a lot of people cry.  See, I’m going to revise it, right here right now.

So right away I signed up for an online novel revising class recommended by a Goddard grad I know.  The course works well for Nano novels, it turns out.  It is a five-month, intensive course.  I know I can do this.  My “confidence level,” as my T puts it, is 100 percent.

This is the time, and this is the place.  I can write.  I can concentrate.  I can read.  I found these things out last night.  As for It, well, I can work around It.  I have motivation, I have will, I have desire, I have motivation, I have skill and talent.  And I have a damned good first draft.

All I have to do now is to stay out of the slammer.  That means eating.  Hear that?

And maybe, over the next few months, I’ll be glancing back more and more at those happy few months I spent eating and taking care of myself and doing things I loved, and asking myself what I did right, and what I could have done better, and why it all fell apart.  Maybe I need to carefully examine December and January, and see what I could have done differently, so that what happened–the falling apart, the months following, the heartbreak, the loneliness, the tragedy of it all–won’t repeat itself.   There are misunderstandings, sheer ignorance of what could and may happen to us–what could happen to anyone, in fact–and we do learn from our mistakes so that we don’t repeat them.  Or at least if we are good, patient learners who have truly lost ourselves and don’t want to lose again, we don’t repeat our mistakes.  I may be stupid, but when it comes to another, I am cautious and caring enough to know better.  And in the end, when all is healed, there will be no need to apologize, as no wrong has been committed, and love and forgiveness is a given.

A week of post-race blues wiped me out…and gave me a new idea

Sunday the 19th: the race.  I was tired afterward.  A little sore.  Overwhelmed.  Flooded with emotion.  I certainly didn’t have the words to describe, here, what I felt, so I waited a while before writing to you and telling you the whole story.  Monday came.  Then Tuesday.  And I crashed.

I didn’t tell you the whole story, and now I will: I started bingeing again.  I’ve stopped now, but it lasted a full week.  By the end of it, I was utterly despondent, and in my desperation, wished myself dead.  That’s what bingeing does to me.  In a mere week.

The first time, my body was overwhelmed.  I became dizzy and nearly fainted.  My heart pounded, too.   For the past several days, my ankles have swelled up very badly.  Only in the past several hours have they come down to almost normal size.  It is a good thing that I didn’t binge on sugar.  Nope.  Nothing sugary.  Otherwise, I do not know what would have happened to me.  Seriously.

As Frank and I always say, “We are too old for this.”  But trust me, eating disorders are dangerous at any age.

Meanwhile, I was very depressed.  My T suggested that this may have been the cause of the bingeing.  I also spoke with Dr. P during this time, and we all agreed that post-race blues had a lot to do with it, as well as losing my old T, the fact that my foot was hurting and I had to take a couple of days off from running, the fact that it is winter, and cold out, and my new T being on vacation, and the “holidays,” which I always spend alone, but this year have been blessed to spend, via skype, with Frank.

Let me digress for a moment:  It is difficult hearing about how others decorate their trees, and have their friends and family visiting, and photograph their grandchildren with Santa.  It is difficult to hear Christmas Carols blasting in the stores when I am Jewish and don’t care to hear them, and Christmas decorations that mean only sadness to me and sad associations.  But most of all, and I say this with immense anger and grief, it is very difficult for me, knowing that my brothers spend every Christmas with their in-laws and have not once invited me to join them, even though they know I am alone for the holiday.  There, I said it.

Okay, back to subject: Frank was immensely helpful to me during this horrible time.  It is such an amazing thing to know someone who has been through the same things that I have, who I can relate to, and say, “Yes, that’s happened to me, too!”  So many times, we are in synch, we have this understanding, we “get it” in a way that no one else can.  We even have our own code words for things.  When you’re in a special relationship, you tend to get this way.

Frank was very patient with me and always is.  I can’t believe he put up with me the whole time.  I cried a whole lot.  I was scared.  I was needy.  I depended on him too much.  He gave me a good talking-to, and made a number of suggestions.  And I took him very, very seriously, listened carefully, and heeded all his advice.

As I said, it took a week.  Finally, I’m out of it and doing okay.  I am no longer depressed and I have stopped bingeing, and dare to eat solid food today.   I am still bracing myself for the worst, but this is diminishing.  I must say, though, that I no longer live in constant terror.

You know something, though?  I’m crazy as a loon with this ED.  Today at the gym I was running and did something real dumb.  There is a fine line between exercising for fitness and exercising to burn off calories and lose weight when I don’t need to (overexercising).  Well, today it was the latter, I admit.  I was running on the treadmill and last week’s bingeing kinda got the better of my body and I had to move my bowels.  Did I stop running?  No!  I felt the urge around .3 miles, and kept going.  Around .5 miles I was getting worried that I would lose control of myself.  Around one mile, I was reasonably certain that I was indeed letting loose.  A mile and a half went by, then two miles, and I was convinced that I had gone to the bathroom in my underwear.  Did I stop?  No!  This is the insanity of my ED.  Finally, I stopped the treadmill at 2.3, walked quickly to the bathroom, and checked myself out.  I was fine… no accident whatsoever.  Good.  Then: back on the treadmill for another mile.   I must have been really desperate to burn some serious calories.

Let me back up, though: One thing that helped me during that tough week was my decision…drum roll…I AM DOING ANOTHER NANO IN FEBRUARY!  end of drum roll.  I am doing this one on my own because February is not National Novel Writing Month.  November is.  I will spend January writing the outline and February doing the actual writing, just like I did for Nano 2010.  I made this decision a few days ago, and it has helped me knowing that I am going to have some grand purpose, some reason to go on after all, some project to keep me going.

Agreeably, I have one heck of a lot of revision to do at this point.  The heck with it.  I will leave the revision for another time, and write something new.  I am doing this for my sanity, after all.

I have no title.  I do have ideas.  The book will be about running.  About someone who runs.  There will be a race involved.  The book will be sad.  Sorry.  I am determined to write a sad book, because you’d assume a book about running a race would end up with the guy, or gal, winning the race.  Well, not mine.  You’ll see.

My T suggested that I begin working on this book immediately, and not necessarily on January 1st.  So I started today.  Yeah, today.  I got out of the house and went to the library, sat down with Book in a Month by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, and jotted down some story ideas in a notebook.  Also, I put in requests at the library for some books on running to use as references.  I’ll let you know which of these I find useful, and why.

I am not going to tell you much about what will happen in this book.  No, not yet.  I hope to get a title soon, though.  It is helpful to have a title to “frame” the work.  Or a “working title.”  I learned this from Bea Gates, one of my advisors at Goddard.

On your mark, get set, GO!

What I sent to the Nano people

The folks at nanowrimo.org wanted some feedback on our experiences with National Novel Writing Month.   Here is what I sent them:

I am 52 years old.  Last year, I was a Nano rebel.  I wrote a memoir about my hitch-hiking trip across the country in 1979 with my dog Hoofy.  While I was writing this book, I starved myself.  You see, I have anorexia nervosa.  The January following last year’s Nano I was finally hospitalized for my anorexia, and again in March.  It did no good.  By August, I was starving myself to death and no longer wanted to live.  Then, I met Frank.  Frank also has anorexia, and he turned my life around.  I told him about how I really wanted to do Nano again, but that I felt hopeless that I’d ever be able to do it.  Frank and I began eating together.  Bite by bite, I found that I no longer wanted to die.  Whereas in August I was staggering around the house, barely able to stand up, by October I was walking my dog, Puzzle, longer and longer distances, sometimes for miles.  So I planned out my Nano book, and wrote it.  I am So Cold, and Hungry in My Soul is about a woman with anorexia nervosa.  It is the saddest book I have ever written or even read.  Writing this book brought back memories of last year’s Nano book, of sitting in the library, writing about hitch-hiking with Hoofy, writing while weak and starving, word after word, and then feeling so weak that I could barely walk home.  It is memories like these that fueled the writing of I am So Cold, and Hungry in My Soul.  But there are bits of humor in the book, too, and joy as well.  Some days–not many–I just cried.  I finished the book, just over 50,000 words, on November 17th.  Meanwhile, Puzzle’s long walks had inspired me to try running, and with Frank’s encouragement and wisdom, I began running daily, increasing my mileage.  See what my strong body can do!  I am proud to say that yesterday I ran my first 5k race–ever.  I am So Cold, and Hungry in My Soul is about a woman who loses everything.  I wrote the book because I have gained everything.

A two-time NaNoWriMo winner!

I should feel wicked proud of myself.  But right now, I’m not.  I’m really, really depressed.  I feel worthless and ashamed.  Ashamed of the freak that I am.

Our college reunion (Goddard PT) is coming up and right now I don’t feel like going.  Too ashamed of myself and embarrassed to be there.  I know everyone is kind and forgiving and loving but that won’t make me kind and loving and forgiving to myself.

The only time I feel decent is when I run, so I run a lot.  It is the only way I can keep this depression in check.  I wonder how much longer this will go on.  I wonder how much longer I will have to keep running away from it.

I promised myself I would stop being mean to my body.  Did I keep this promise?  No!  I should just chop off my head because it does me no good.  If I chop off my head, I would lose about eight pounds….maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea.  Guess I’ll keep my ugly  head.

Today is Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be thankful for.  I should be happy and thankful, but instead, I want to jump into a ditch and get buried by a tractor.

I think I will go back to bed now, and sleep.  Maybe get some rest and wake up feeling terrific.  Yeah, sure.

My Therapist is Leaving

This we foresaw but didn’t know was definite.  Now, it is almost a certainty.  My T is not going to be able to continue working with me after the end of the month because the clinic is closing, and she’s been unable to find another clinic position.

This is turning out to be a sad month.

My Nano book is sad.  I am sad that Nano is over.  I am sad that Frank isn’t right here right now, that I have to rely on the computer all the time instead of being able to touch him for real.  I am sad that winter is coming.

I am sad because throughout Nano, I was reminded of last year’s Nano, when I starved myself, and went deeper and deeper into Anorexia Hell.  This is what Summer in November is about.

Summer in November is also about the body. I am sad because still, after all these years, I feel such hatred toward my body.  I feel sad because of the way I have been treated by men in the past, bad, bad men.  I feel sad that my feelings of hatred toward the men that have hurt me in the past sometimes poke at the deep love I have for Frank.

I am sad because without my starvation, a big part of me is gone.  I am sad because I have to say goodbye to being ridiculously thin.  I am sad to give up one helluva lot of “stuff” to do with all that.

I am sad that at one point I was about to turn my back on Puzzle and everyone who knew me.

I am sad because not long ago I believed deep in my heart that there was nothing before me, just darkness, and now there is light and life–everything!–and I have to deal with all this time before me–what do I do with this new life I suddenly have?

What DO I do with it?  When I turned 40 and the Evil Being called The Thing left me, I immediately wrote a dumb novel (at least I wrote it) and then went back to school and finished my degree.

Well, what have I done?  I wrote the novel.  Probably one that isn’t as dumb as the one I wrote when I was 40.  Now….well, I have written a number of books now.  My first novel isn’t even listed in the sidebar.  It was called, Tilting The Thing. Yeah, I wrote about The Thing.  Couldn’t resist.  It took me eight months to write.  I wrote for about seven hours a day.  For godsakes, what was I doing those seven hours?  I wasn’t working nearly that much on I am So Cold, and Hungry in My Soul. I guess the combination of eating and having an MFA pays off.  And the “deadline” factor of National Novel Writing Month.  But what next?  What goals can I set for myself?

And I don’t mean “mental health” goals, either.   I mean real life goals like running this 5k race (it’s the “Winter Classic 5k” in Cambridge, MA on December 19th).  I mean like revising manuscripts, getting more stuff published, getting This Hunger Is Secret out there (once it comes out in paperback), maybe getting back into stand-up a bit, too.

Let’s keep the mental health goals in therapy and let them stay in therapy.  I am a real-life person, and life isn’t therapy.  I do not center my life around my therapy or what happens in my T’s office.  I try not to depend too much on my T.  But to tell you the truth, it is going to be really, really tough to say goodbye to her.

This month is like a chapter ended for me, saying goodbye to so many things.  It is fitting that the month should end with Thanksgiving.  My mother invited me over for the holiday.  I refused.  I’d rather spend it skyping with Frank.  I don’t know what we’ll eat, but I’m sure it’ll be halfway decent, and I’ll be thankful enough.