Originally written in Pittsburgh, about September 2010. In many ways this still expresses my efforts (though the struggles are different now), but enough time has passed that I feel alright sharing it. Tread lightly, speak kindly.
things are changing so quickly and yet so sluggishly, too. it's hard to believe how the time has gone by and pushed me to the brink of change. I've come a long way, but I'm still struggling with so much. not least because I'm just now becoming truly aware of what I've been struggling with.
last week I had my last appointment with my therapist before I leave my semi-permanent residence in utah valley for a graduate city life in the east. it was sad. partly because she has helped me through a lot of things and really helped me to change my life for the better and it's sad to say goodbye. partly because it's so frightening to contemplate trying to make it without her, or a therapist in general.
it was more than a year ago when I started having my first panic attacks. I didn't have that many actual defined attacks, but there was a period of about a month when I was constantly panicking, just barely keeping it under control, kind of like silent seizures. I went to an honors seminar lecture that talked about the psychology of overcoming fear - it was really great and I learned a lot, but just thinking about feeling fear, even positive thinking, triggered it. it was a constant spiral of anxiety and panic, of grasping for control of my own mind.
I managed, but barely, and I decided then that I would get help when I came back in the fall - there was no reason to go through something so awful without help. I was not going to go through that again.
after school was over, things evened out and I went to france to have fun. but I was in love. in love with a boy who didn't really realize it or what he was doing to me. in retrospect, I can see that I was actually in love, more obsessed really, with this idea of who I thought he was. but the emotion was genuine. I was ready to do a lot of drastic and brave/stupid (aren't they the same) things on that emotion. (and I did). it made for a rollercoaster of a year, a heart-breaking, excruciating year. that's the backdrop for april through december.
during my internship in france, after study abroad was over and I left all my friends, I found myself in toulouse, completely alone, depressed and heart-broken, working with poor, handicapped old people : pretty much all I thought about was death. and the boy. yeah, it was really healthy.
enter the food troubles. I had been gaining weight steadily since the beginning of the school year, especially in the winter. I had certainly gained some weight since coming to france, but it wasn't the end of the world - mostly from eating lots of good food all the time, since, let's be honest, if you're in france, you eat good food and you don't feel bad about it. but in my solitary, depressed state, food became the only thing to do. it was compulsive and automatic and I had never felt so out of control. and it was kind of numbing. a relief.
and I ballooned. I had only gained 15 pounds, but wow, it made a big difference on my miniature frame. when I came back to school in the fall, I was just as heart-broken and depressed, except instead of having almost nothing to do, I was the busiest I had ever been in my life. so I didn't eat. I simply didn't have time to eat. my appetite became non-existent. and all of the weight went away. which didn't convince me to change my non-eating ways because, well, it worked.
looking back, that's scary. looking back, that could have turned into something very serious very quickly. it was absolutely a case of thought-action fusion where the brain is incapable of distinguishing between the actual thought and the subsequent action. you think you are helpless to resist a thought. if you think about eating, you will eat. if you say you will only eat three cookies because you know it is bad to eat the whole box, yet you think about eating the whole box, you will eat the whole box. and I did. lots of boxes.
the same thing happens with my skin - if I think about messing with my skin, I will. I tell myself I will not touch my face today, but if I think about it, I end up in front of a mirror doing what I promised I wouldn't. it's getting better - I'm working on strengthening my brain against the habit, waiting 5 minutes after the thought before acting, or 10, or pushing it to 15. but I can be standing there after who knows how long, hating what I'm doing to myself, feeling so scared and helpless and say - stop it now. turn around. go away. go to bed. stop. - and I can't do it. I can't stop. and it scares me shitless.
you know how people tell you to build up your self-esteem? how you're supposed to stand in front of the mirror before you walk out the door in the morning and tell yourself - you're beautiful. you look amazing. go have a good day and be happy because you are simply smashing. - most of the time I feel pretty. sometimes I feel simply smashing. I'm ready to embrace this body of mine for what it is and stop wishing I was 16 again.
but when my skin is bad, it's the only thing I can see. when I finally stop, a long while after I try to make myself stop and can't, I look in the mirror at what I've done and I hate myself. I do what you're not supposed to do. I look at myself and say - good job. see what you've done? you look like shit. what the hell is wrong with you? you look. like. shit.
happily, I had more time winter semester - I ate better food and more meals and exercised twice a week. I was healed from the heartache, found closure, and took joy in the life I had - it was a miracle. and gratefully, these issues all seemed to disappear.
I am happy. and stable. and working on learning how to feel feelings without judgment, without fear, without needing to control them. otherwise, feeling things leads to anxiety which leads to feelings and more anxiety and an inescapable circle that feeds into panic. when I first went to my therapist, I was so worried about the compulsive eating and the obsessive damage I was doing to my skin - I wanted to work on that. I'm glad she had the insight (I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she's good at her profession) to know what was really causing those things.
it's a little scary to think that I never actually overcame those problems - they went away because their emotional causes went away. so it worries me what could happen again when life gets hard. but I'm actually overcoming them every day as I'm allowing myself to feel things and not being afraid of feeling and giving up my control over emotions. when I am unafraid of feelings, I don't need to numb them with binge endorphins or hours in front of the bathroom mirror.
I'm working on it.
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