the color grey

I wake to a grey fog. 

I drive through the perpetual gloom, tail lights gleaming red before me and stretching out into a long, long line of glaring color that eventually vanishes into the mist. Red means stop, yet we all creep onward. Just like yesterday. Just like tomorrow.

I am tired down to my bones.

....

I remember when I first realized that grown-ups didn't have all the answers. 

It was December 31st, 1999. It was nearing midnight. I was huddled in my bed, clutching the baby blanket I'd long outgrown and waiting. Waiting for what? I couldn't tell you any specifics. It was the end. This thing called Y2K. My parents believed it. They'd stockpiled wheat and sugar in huge white buckets under the house. They'd purchased wheat mills that squeaked as you cranked and cranked and cranked the handle to grind the wheat into rough flour. They'd installed a water pump that I had to pump by jumping up and down and up and down and up and down before water finally came spurting out, icy cold from deep inside the ground. 

What was going to happen? No one seemed to have a solid answer. The vast number of possibilities stretched out before me, but one thing was certain. We were all going to die. 

"Have you heard any news yet?" My mother whispered to the cashier at the movie rental store.

The cashier shook her head solemnly, and they shared a look between grown-ups that children aren't supposed to understand. I stared at the poster of The Spy Who Shagged Me and thought about how I was going to die before I figured out what "shagged" meant. 

So 11:59 P.M. found me there in my bed. The rest of my family was in the living room, but I had slipped away. I wanted to be alone when it happened. I watched the hand of the clock tick down the seconds of my life in morbid curiosity and horror. Would it hurt? Would there be meteors? Would things explode? Would the clouds open up and Jesus appear?

12:00 A.M.

January 1, 2000.

Loud cracks and pops sent me scrambling to my window, but it was only the drunks at the local bar lighting off rockets. I watched the colors explode in the sky and then fade away to silence.

I remember being shocked by how uneventful this was, the end of the world. 

I checked the clock again. 12:01 A.M. 

The New Year was here, and nothing had happened. I was still alive. My parents had been wrong.

....

When do you become a grown-up? Is it when you graduate highschool? College? Is it when you get married? Is it when you have your first baby? Is it when you adopt your first pet? Is there a magical number? You can legally smoke once you're 18, drink when you're 21, rent a car when you're 23. Is it one of those?

Grown-ups should have their lives together. They should have the answers. They should know what to do and how to do it. 

But they don't.

And now I'm a grown-up, but in so many ways, I still feel like a child. I don't have any answers. Does anyone?

....

The fog settles in, makes itself comfortable, and the day stays that way. Grey and cold and wet.

I drink three cups of coffee, then two cups of tea. 

The hours drag their feet. The sun never shines. I chew a stick of gum, and pretend that my boss hasn't noticed that I haven't eaten lunch. Again.

The fog is still there when I drive home, but I am made of air. I grip the steering wheel tight and try to ignore the hunger gnawing on my spine. I can handle this gray world with it's endless possibilities and lack of answers. I just have to stay strong and light and empty.

I am tired down to my bones.

diagnosis: not fitting in very well in the land of the living

I'm laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Normally my eyelids drag down like anchors at night, but lately it's felt like there are springs in my eyes instead. I try to close them, and they pop back open, like a mocking jack-in-the-box. 

So I stare at the ceiling. Until I toss and turn and end up on my side, staring at my nightstand. Next I'm on my other side, staring at the wall over the Mr.'s back. He's breathing deeply. I try to breathe with him. I try to count. I try to close my eyes again.

I stare at the wall.

Let's go back.

Sunday. My Monday appointment was rattling around in my head, making me feel sick. So I crawled back into bed only a couple hours after getting out of it, and I slept.

I slept and slept and slept.

I slept all day long. The Mr. napped with me for a bit, but eventually he got up and did laundry and tidied up the house. And I just slept. And it was so wonderful. I got up for a little while. We watched some tv. Then I went back to bed and slept some more.

Monday I weighed in at 108.4 lbs again. 

I reset the scale. I moved it around. The numbers didn't change. 108.4 lbs. I thought about smashing it into the wall. Like a crazy person.

I tried on a hundred different outfits, trying to find the lightest one possible. Just in case they weighed me again. I landed on a thin t-shirt and a light, airy skirt. I was going to freeze, I knew that. But at least those clothes didn't add much weight to the scale. 

I took the stairs up to the second floor, pretending that this wasn't actually happening. I checked in, and then sat in the waiting room, paging through a journal that patients write in. Most of them were all about how this program has changed their lives, how they're getting better, how there's hope. But there were several places whited out with neat black writing over top: "Reminder: any negative or triggering thoughts will be removed." 

I decided to save them some whiteout and not write down any of my thoughts.

The waiting room was filling up with people. Some were so skinny, I wanted to hide under my chair. Eventually they all filed into a big room where the delicious scent of food was escaping. My empty stomach growled. I guzzled half my water bottle to shut it up.

Finally my therapist appeared. We went back to her office, where I curled up in the sun on a couch. I love her office. There's blankets you can wrap up in, and it's always so warm. I know they do that on purpose. I was actually comfortable, but my poor therapist was sweating. 

So we sat. And the appointment began.

The tests I had taken were compared to several different polls of people. One group was people without eating disorders. One group was mixed with people with eating disorders and people without. One group was only people with eating disorders. 

My results were pretty clear. I definitely have an eating disorder. 

I wasn't surprised, but at the same time, it was kind of sobering to see it there in all the graphs. 

I was surprised though when she compared my answers to people with eating disorders. Apparently many of my answers were actually elevated. Which means, I have a more negative reaction to some things than the average person with an eating disorder. I wasn't expecting that. 

Then the personality test. She pulled it out, and I couldn't help it. I just started laughing. She asked if I'd taken it before, so I told her the story. About how I'd taken it in the hospital and it'd come back invalid. She grinned and showed me the papers in her hands. 

No invalid this time! I guess I do have a personality! 

The results of that test were pretty sobering as well. In summary, as my therapist put it, it's pretty clear I'm having "a shitty time." In every category my answers were well over the line of "average people." Some were right up against the "ceiling," which is as high as you can possibly go. Suicide ideation was one of those. Surprise surprise. Her diagnosis was that I have severe depression, which is funny since the hospital diagnosed me with Dysthymia, which is a longer occurring, more mild form of depression. I never really agreed with that diagnosis, so seeing these results was almost relieving. 

As for the eating disorder, she said I am right "on the cusp" of Anorexia, but because I have compulsive exercise behaviors, that lands me in the Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified pool.

I've done some reading, and I think that diagnosis was also influenced by the fact that I still have regular menstrual cycles and am within a "healthy" weight for my size. 

Here is how my brain has processed this information:

You failed. 

You're a shitty, weak, pathetic person. You're not strong enough to be anorexic. I told you so. You just had to keep stuffing your face with food, didn't you? 

I don't know why getting the official diagnosis of Anorexic is like winning the lottery or being crowned Miss America. It just is. And I failed.

My results qualified me for an intensive outpatient program where you go in 3-4 times a week for three hours each time. However, I will be starting DBT at the ED treatment center, and since I've never had any sort of treatment before, my therapist thought that would be really overwhelming. I agree. So instead I'm starting out with a therapist and a dietitian once a week (I think?) and DBT twice a week.

I didn't know that the ED treatment center offered DBT, and I readily agreed to do it there instead of the other counseling center I'd been planning to go to. I think it's the best choice. I hate having to explain my issues with food to people who aren't used to dealing with eating disorders. So often they just don't get it. And fuck, I don't know how to make them understand. I'm self aware. I know it's fucked up, but I don't want to stop. I can't stop. You try explaining that.

So I went home with all these facts and numbers and words whirling around in my head. And I was starving so I ate. I ate celery. Then I ate a spoonful of peanut butter. I nibbled on some cheese. I made smartpop popcorn. I ate some of those stupid addicting candy corn pumpkins. Then I felt sick. I promised myself I wouldn't eat dinner. Then I ate an apple with more peanut butter. 

Sickening.

So then we're back at the beginning. The part where I laid miserably awake in bed for nearly the entire night. 

I weighed in this morning at 110 lbs again.

Fuck.

Everyone keeps telling me that I'm strong and brave and they're so proud. And I force a smile, but inwardly it feels like a lie. 

I don't want help. I just want to be skinny. I just have to be skinny.

there is no silence before the storm

My third appointment at the ED treatment center is tomorrow. This is the appointment where they tell me what they, the professionals, think is best for me.

This appointment has unfortunately coincided with the poison of Prozac finally leaving my bloodstream. I don't think the Zoloft knows what to do with me, and I'm pretty sure the Klonopin has just given up.

Now I'm personifying my medications. Like a crazy person.

I haven't been sleeping very well.

I wake up in the darkness right before dawn. I toss and turn and half doze into strange dreams that leave me disoriented and panicked.

My mother is on the phone with the ED treatment center. She's trying to put me into an in-patient program. She thinks I can't hear her conversation, but I can. I want to get up and run out of the house. I want to scream. But I just sit there in a wooden chair, my hands gripping tightly to the seat.

I get an email, reminding me about an appointment. I can't remember what the appointment is. There are so many of them, too many of them. I can't remember. What is this appointment? Is it a trick? 

I start eating something, and then I can't stop. I eat and eat and eat and eat...

I forgot to order more of the aforementioned Zoloft, and I woke up this weekend to an empty bottle. I tried to call the hospital pharmacy, and that's when I found out they're closed.

I spiraled into both panic and excitement at once.

I can't face this weekend without meds!!

I have an excuse to not take my meds!!

I finally got a hold of another pharmacy in the hospital. They made an exception to access my files and fill my prescription, leaving me both relieved and angry.

The Mr. tried to talk to me about his weight and eating habits. Like normal people do. But I am not a normal person, and I spiraled again into a panicky dread.

He hates himself. He's copying me. I can't let him. I can't let him follow me down this rabbit hole. I can't!

I wanted to shake his shoulders and scream at him to run. Like a crazy person.

He finally got me to spit out the tornado of frantic thoughts in my head, and I watched the guilt flash across his face. He promised not to talk about his weight and eating habits anymore.

I wanted to break something.

There's another thing he can't talk to me about. To keep from upsetting me. Like a crazy person.

I hate myself. I shouldn't hate myself. I have so much when others have so little. I have no reason to be hating myself. I hate myself for hating myself. The cycle continues in a downward slide.

The Mr. and I picked up my newly filled prescription. I went straight to the nearest water fountain and shook out a pill. The Mr. stopped me, alarm on his face. He thought it looked different. We looked at the label. Same thing, but he was convinced it was wrong.

"It looks different than it did before!" He kept insisting.

I didn't agree, but I also didn't really give a fuck if it was wrong.

"Why are you mad at me?" He asked, frustrated.

"You're stressing me out!" I said, too loud. People were glancing in our direction. I took the pill. He glared at me.

We went back home so he could look at the old bottle. That's when I got a text from my mother, who has taken it upon herself to text me "helpful" advice. They usually include quotes from her pastor, who she practically worships. They always infuriate me.

The Mr. did some research and decided that my new prescription was ok. He apologized for stressing me out. "I just didn't want you to take the wrong thing." He said, soft. "I was worried."

I sat silently on the hard floor of my livingroom, still dressed in my shoes, coat, and hat, stared at nothing and hated myself for hating myself. Like a crazy person.

He sighed

"Can we just restart today?" He finally asked, sadly.

...........

I weighed in at 108.4 lbs. 

I felt frustrated.

I want to see 107 lbs. But I know what will follow. Then I'll want to see 106. Then 105. And when will it stop? Will it ever stop?

I don't want to go to my appointment on Monday. I don't want to hear what they'll say.

I'm so fucked up. There's nothing wrong with me.

I don't need to lose more weight. I'm not skinny enough.

I'm out of control. Everything is fine.

an addendum

The blog has a new look, if you haven't noticed. :)

I also put up links to some of my favorite books. I'll probably do one for music sometime too.

breathing underwater

Nights are days
We'll beat a path through the mirrored maze
I can see the end
But it hasn't happened yet
I can see the end
But it hasn't happened yet

Is this my life?
Am I breathing underwater?

Yesterday, my post was so positive. It had been sitting in my drafts for a while, and I finally decided to finish it. So I did. I posted it. 

But then I turned it over and over in my mind all day, and it left me unsettled. 

Things get better. I do believe that. But at the same time, is this better? Some of it is, clearly. The outside of my life is so much better. So why, why is the inside of me still poison?

I weighed in at 108.6 lbs this morning. 

Last night I dreamed that I ate half a jar of peanut butter. I woke up, panicked. 

Have you ever thought about safe foods? Why they're safe? What makes other food so dangerous? The easy answer is that I am afraid these dangerous foods will make me fat, but I think it's more than that. I think I call them safe foods because they keep me relatively safe from myself. It's not the food I am afraid of. It's me. It's me and it's not me. It's this thing other people call an eating disorder. I am not schizophrenic, but sometimes it feels that way. I know why people call her Ana or Mia. I know why they personify her as a being. Because in a way, she is one. She watches every bite I put in my mouth with her sharp hawk eyes. She punishes me for those dangerous foods. She punishes me for too much safe foods. Sometimes she punishes me for any food at all, and I end up locking myself in the office bathroom and doing hundreds of jumping jacks until my legs and arms scream in exhaustion and pain.

But in the end, she is not some other being that has taken up residency in my head. She is me.

I mentioned that feeling and emotion has been creeping back. I looked it square in the face yesterday and realized it looks suspiciously like depression. 

In a way, it was like the return of an old friend. Familiar. Comforting, in it's own twisted way. 

But everything is different now. People know.

The Mr. told me last night that he feels like I'm slipping away again. I could hear the fear in his voice. 

"Do you feel out of control like you did before?" He whispered.

I laid there like a log and tried to find an honest answer. Do I feel out of control? How do I feel? How do I feel?

I could feel his worry, his concern, his fear growing with my silence. I'm supposed to be getting better, aren't I?

"I feel tired." Was the only honest answer I could find. "Tired. Not sleepy. Tired. Worn. Overwhelmed."

"Overwhelmed" is a trigger word for people. They latch onto that word. "What is making you feel overwhelmed?" They want to know.

This question makes me immediately irritated. The most honest answer I can give to that question is everything. Everything is making me overwhelmed. Literally everything.

But people don't like that answer. They want to know what specific things they can remove from my life or help me with in order to fix this. 

I can't give them specifics. 

It'd be like if you walked into your house at night, tried to flip the light switch and nothing happened. So you're standing in the darkness flipping that switch when something, something that looks vaguely like your worst nightmare, starts coming at you from the shadows. And you don't know what it is, but you know it means you harm. So you start running, calling for help, and you're terrified because this thing is after you. 

And that's when I stop you and ask you very calmly, "Well what is it? I can't help you if you don't tell me exactly what it is." 

But you just grab me by the shoulders and scream at me to run. Why am I asking you such stupid questions? There's no time! You can't look back at it and tell me because you're terrified. 

It feels a little bit like that. 

an open letter to my thirteen year old self

Dear thirteen year old me,

Hey. We're still here.

I wanted to tell you a few things. Things I wish I could travel through time to tell you in person. I'd find you in the woods, our sanctuary. You probably wouldn't recognize me now, but I would know you. You'd stare at me from behind the glasses you despise, your hair sloppily highlighted with a homemade kit. You'd be wearing something that arrived at the house in a large black garbage bag stuffed full of clothes. Something happier, wealthier people dug out of their closet and contemplated throwing away. Instead they donated it to charity. That's you. You're their charity.

I'm sure what you're wearing is something straight from the early 90's. I know you only have a couple outfits that are "cool" enough to keep the other kids from mocking you. And you can't waste your good clothes on the woods. The trees don't care what style of jeans you're wearing. I know. I get it.

Outwardly, we look nothing alike. Inwardly, we haven't changed a lot.

That's probably weird to you, right? I mean, to you, it would look like I have my shit together. Like I grew up and learned how to wear our hair and conquered contacts. I know you were hoping that someday things would be better, and I will tell you that in a lot of ways, they are.

You're crying, right? That's why you're out here. To cry. Because you feel like you're drowning. So you escape to the place where no one can see you so you can cry and cry and cry. Maybe our mother said something to you, maybe one of your friends did. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it's just that crushing sadness that labels you as "melodramatic" and "ridiculous."

You pray every night to a silent God that someone new will move to this tiny town. Someone who could be your friend. But no one does. The people you once called friends laugh at you and run away. You have never felt so alone.

I'm here to tell you that things get better. See, sometimes I forget that myself. I get stuck in my own head in the here and now, and I can't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Everything is dark. The darkest black. The kind where your eyes never adjust, the kind where you just stay blind.

So I wanted to come back to this moment. This time. Because things get better. They really do.

I have friends that have become family. They love me for who I am. They are there for me when I fall, and I have fallen hard. They stick with me, even after they discover all the ugly things in my head. They don't leave.

I know your heart longs for love. I know your dreams of love feel hopeless, but keep dreaming, little sad girl. You will meet him. He even has the curly hair you love. And eyes so blue, they look like the summer sky. He will make you laugh. He will kiss you so gently, that night he asks you to be his girl. He will cry when you walk down the aisle in your wedding dress. He will hold you when your entire world is falling apart and you have no idea how to put it back together. He will tell you every day that you are beautiful. That he loves you. That you are perfect.

Things get better.

But they also fall apart.

You can only bend so far before you break. And you will break. You know this. We knew for a long time that someday we would break. Somewhere in the back of our mind we waited in anticipation and terror.

But I promise, no one will leave you. No one will run in the other direction. And there is a beauty in that. When the pieces of your life are scattered around you in sharp, ugly shards, the people you love will be right there, helping you pick them up.

So maybe this is a two way street. I wanted to tell you that things get better, but I needed you to tell me the same thing. Things get better. We will get better. We will be ok.

Keep going little sad girl. Keep going.

Love,

Me

of feelings

I'm sitting on the examining table, a shivering grey raincloud. The quieter I become, the wider the nurse's smile grows. It looks almost painful, as though it could swallow her whole face. She talks and talks and talks as she moves around the room and takes my vitals. She's cracking jokes that I'm too worn and nervous to smile at. I'm not sure who is more uncomfortable, me or her.

I want to ask her if this is what she wants to be doing. Was her dream as a little girl to work with sad, broken people stuck in a pointless war with themselves?

She sticks gooey patches to my ankles, my wrists, and all across my ribs. I have to pull up four layers in order to bare my stomach. My ribs stick out like triangles, and all I can think is that she's probably surprised at how not skinny I am.

The doctor comes in next and shows me the strange peaks and valleys of lines that is my heartbeat.

My heart keeps all my secrets close.

I am healthy as a horse.

I knew this would happen. I have a terrible immune system, but other than that, my body is resilient. I've never even broken a bone, despite several tumbles down flights of stairs. Maybe it's the Irish and German and Czech blood that runs through my veins. Maybe it's the eight years of ballet as a child and teenager. Maybe it's the clean mountain air I breathed every day growing up.

See? There's nothing wrong with you. You're just being pathetic. You don't need this. You don't need help. 

The doctor asks a lot of questions, many the same as what the therapist asked a week ago. I am not prepared for that.

I'm getting so tired of questions.

I rattle off my answers. She tells me I shouldn't exercise too much. No more than 30 minutes.

I wasn't expecting that, but she is insistent.

They stick a needle in my arm and drain out four vials of blood. I have never been squeamish about my blood being drawn, so I watch impassively as she fills each one, listening to my blood pouring into the plastic containers.

"There's a good chance that your lab results will come back normal." The doctor tells me. "But I'm more concerned about how you feel."

I try to hide it, but I am surprised. She looks at me, and I look at her, and I feel as though she can see straight through my four layers and down to my bones. She is not fooled by my normal EKG reading. She won't be fooled if my blood test comes back with an A+.

How I feel?

How do I feel?

.........

I weighed in at 109.6 lbs this morning.

And I felt happy.

things of the heart

The office thermostat reads 74 degrees.

I am wearing long underwear, jeans, a t-shirt, a sweater over the t-shirt, a thick knit scarf, and my jacket. 

I am so cold.

I curl my fingers around my coffee mug, desperately trying to warm them. My boss laughs. "Staying warm enough?" He teases me. 

Cold is a color, and that color is the palest of blues. 

This afternoon I will go back to the ED treatment center so they can attach tiny electrodes all over my body and watch my heart beat beat beat. I've never had an EKG reading and I am both fascinated and terrified of what secrets my heart will tell us.

Will it reveal that the room spins every time I stand up? Or confess about the pain that occasionally stabs beneath my breastbone? 

I was supposed to meet Bill yesterday in a second attempt for tea. He sent me an email in the morning apologizing for having to cancel again. It hit me harder than I expected. I've been really needing to talk with him. To just sit with him and know he understands. 

Emotion has been slowly creeping back into my chest, into my bones, into my brain. I was so frightened when it was gone, when I felt nothing. Now it's return has frightened me all over again. 

"On a scale of 1 to 10, I am a marble statue in the ruins of a sunken ship, looking in vain for faint strains of sunlight in the dark water." I told Bill in an email. 

He sent me back a beautiful picture of a lone diver in the deep sea, surrounded by the vibrantly dark blue water.

Depression is a color, and that color is the darkest of blues.

I ate things like pizza (1 slice) and a grilled cheese sandwich (whole wheat bread, lowest calorie cheese) this weekend. If I had to do the stereotypical ED treatment exercise and draw how I view my body, I would draw a hippopotamus. 

When I was a child, I used to look up at a telephone wire and spin and spin and spin until I was so dizzy, I fell down. Then I would lay there in the damp grass, laughing, as the world continued to whirl around me even though I was completely still. 

I feel like that now. The world is whirling. Am I going forwards or backwards? I don't know.

Maybe my heart will tell us. 

stuck

My littlest sister got engaged tonight.

My sister-in-law just told us that she's pregnant with her second baby.

These are two things that I should be so excited about. I should be jumping up and down. I normally would.

So I don't know why they hit me like a wrecking ball.

I tried to sort it out all weekend, tried to sift through my feelings like the muddy floor of a California river. But I never found any gold. Just a lot of mud.

The closest thing I could come up with was that it's hard for me to watch life moving on for other people. I felt stuck before, but I almost feel more stuck now. Maybe because it was easier to pretend I wasn't stuck when I was the only one who knew how fucked up I am. Now that everyone else knows, I can't really pretend anymore.

I'm stuck.

I am twenty-six years old. I have a college degree. I have a husband. I have a house. I have a car. I have a full time job.

I am depressed. I have anxiety. I don't eat.

I am getting help.

I don't want help.

I am taking medication.

I hate my medication.

I already had my major breakdown, so why do I constantly feel like I'm on the verge of another one?

I went to a little party celebrating my sister's engagement tonight. Crushed into the corner on the arm of an over-sized thrift store armchair, I felt lost. My sister's friends are all young, beautiful, and loud. They have a sort of brash, honest, openness that my sister has and I do not. I sat in my corner, sipped at an Arnold Palmer, and ignored the table loaded with cupcakes and chips and cake.

I know some of them know things about me. I know my sister freaked out when she found out I was in the hospital. I know she was with some friends when she got the call.

So now I'm the crazy, broken older sister in shabby thrift store boots and tired eyes. The one who tried to kill herself. The one in treatment for an eating disorder. That one.

On the way home, my mother called. I thought she wanted to talk about my sister, so I answered. I was wrong. She wanted to talk about me. She wanted to know how I was. She wanted to know how my medication was working, if I had any upcoming appointments. My Dad wanted to know if we would come home for Christmas if they bought us tickets. Any day. It didn't matter. But the decision! It needs to be made! Oh, and how was my assessment? How do I feel about going into an eating disorder treatment center that I still haven't told my mother about?

The call caught me off guard and left me feeling like a human pin ball, careening, overwhelmed.

I hate that I can't be honest with my parents, and I hate that they expect me to be.

I have two adorable nieces and one adorable nephew already. I don't get to see them very often. Casualties of having moved 1,000 miles away from your family in a desperate attempt to stay sane. I love them, but they don't know me. I am the aunt who lives far away. I want them to love me. I want to have a close relationship with them, but they're just little kids, and I'm a stranger.

Now there will be another one.

And I am happy for her. Very. She's wanted a second baby for a long time. I'm happy to have another niece or nephew, but for some reason it also just makes me feel so tired. So heavy. Another piece of life to worry about.

Another reminder that I'm twenty-six and still not suited to be a mother.

Another reminder that everyone else is continuing on with their lives. Growing up. Getting married. Having babies. Graduating college. Moving to different states.

And I am curled up on my bed in a crippling panic, furious at myself over eating too much celery.

Stuck.

of Katherine

My grandfather's grandmother's name was Katherine.

Irish through and through, she had flaming red hair and drove a trolley in New York City. As the story goes, once when a male passenger harassed her, she simply knocked him out.

When I close my eyes I feel like I can almost picture her, strong and brave. I can see the way her jaw squares, the fierceness in her eyes.

My grandfather's grandfather's name was Edward. He was from Czechoslovakia, and he played the violin in the Czechoslovakian National Orchestra. I don't know what he looked like, but I can picture him too. In my mind he has dark hair, lovely eyes, and a soft, gentle face.

The orchestra traveled to New York City to tour the United States of America. And there, somewhere in the grimy, noisy streets of the city, Edward met Katherine.

Was it love at first sight? Did Katherine hear him play? Did Edward hop the steps into her trolley, violin case in hand? In my imagination, they are fire and water. What drew them to each other?

Regardless, they fell in love.

Katherine became pregnant. She had a baby boy. They named him Joseph.

The Czechoslovakian National Orchestra stayed in the United States for a long time. Long enough for Katherine and Joseph to travel around with them. Did Katherine give up her job? Did she leave her family? Did Edward promise her marriage? A respectable life?

I don't know. All I know is that at the end of the tour, Edward returned to Czechoslovakia without them. He had another family there. A wife. And children. A family he had kept secret.

So perhaps his face wasn't so gentle after all. Perhaps he was tall and arrogant. Perhaps he was irresistibly charming. Or perhaps he was simply an imperfect human being, drawn to Katherine's fire like a moth to a flame.

So Katherine raised her son by herself in New York City. She gave him Edward's last name, even though they had never been legally wed. I can see her, standing on a street corner, holding the hand of a tiny, dark haired boy. She is tired. She is a scandal. She is a single mother in a time when single mothers were regarded as whores. She is Irish in a time when the Irish where regarded as barely human. But she is determined. I can see the way her jaw squares, the fierceness in her eyes.

.............

We are driving through the city at night, windows rolled down despite the icy chill in the air. The Mr. is next to me, his arm extended out the window, laughing. My friends are in the front, and I can almost see the ghostly breath of their laughter in the cold air. Fall is quickly coming to an end.

I am wearing five layers, but I am still cold. Or at least, I think I am. The night has become a blur of whiskey and laughter, and my head is too light to worry about things like the cold. 

Or food.

I lean my head back against the seat and smile at them, these three people. They are three of the people I love most in this world. Their laughter is the best kind of medicine.

My gaze drifts to the window. I watch the people in their cars. The people on the street. I see homeless men and women, huddled in doorways, bleakness in their eyes.

They remind me of people I met in the hospital, and suddenly all the laughter in our car seems very far away. 

I wonder what their stories are. Where they came from. Why they stand there now, leaning against the closed doors of Barnes & Noble. Do they have family? Does anyone worry about them? Does anyone care?

I lean my forehead against the cold window and watch them fade into the distance. My head doesn't feel light anymore. It is heavy. Heavy like a millstone tied around my neck. 

You stupid fucking bitch.

I try to focus on the laughter again, but I feel so defeated, so worn. What has triggered this, this instant? Was it the reminder that I have everything? That I should not be anxious or depressed or broken? Was it seeing those people, so alone, when I am surrounded by people who love me? Was it the reminder that I still cannot love myself? 

You stupid bitch. You stupid fucking worthless bitch.

This echoes around in my head for the rest of the drive home. For the rest of the night. As I lay awake in bed, the whiskey haze slowly fading, it only grows stronger and louder. It makes me list all the food that I have eaten that day. It fills me with shame, with regret, with self-loathing that turns to hatred.

You stupid fucking bitch.

I am so easily shattered into pieces. 

I am nothing like her. 

one rainy thursday

I am sitting alone at a small wooden booth for two. The warm air is rich with the scent of exotic spices. I tuck my shabby thrift store boots under my seat and sketch a tree on a loose piece of paper I found in my purse. A paper explaining what DBT is.

It has been exactly one month since I was discharged from the hospital.

I'm supposed to meet Bill here for tea, but he is thirteen minutes late. So I am just a girl, sitting alone at a small wooden booth for two.

I buy a chai tea with almond milk. It is somehow both creamy and spicy hot, leaving my mouth tingling. I start making a list of reasons why Bill might be late.

1). He wandered through a wormhole and is now standing on a dark hill, gazing at a sky glimmering with broken hearts.
2). I am in an alternate dimension. We are actually both sitting at this table, waiting for each other, but unable to meet because all of space and time is between us.
3). He's been kidnapped by koalas.

"Are you Kay?"

I look up, startled. A tall, thin man with a messy ponytail is standing next to me. I've never seen him before.

"Um. Yes?"

"I'm Brandon. Bill's friend. Did he tell you about me?"

I remember now. Brandon. He works here, at this tea shop. He's Bill's friend. I smile and he smiles back. He waves his phone and tells me that Bill texted him. He can't make it. He told Brandon to look for a "dark haired beauty who is probably drawing" to deliver his message.

I look down at my paper full of sketches and laugh.

Brandon asks me how I know Bill. I hesitate for one nanosecond before telling the truth. "We met at the hospital." I say softly.

Understanding and surprise mix on his face. I don't need superpowers to read his thoughts. He knows why Bill was in the hospital, but why was I? I'm too young, too pretty, too [insert reason here] to be crazy, right?

I get Bill's number and text him that I'm sad he's not here. And that I'm glad he didn't wander through a wormhole. He texts me back that he misses me and thanks me for making him laugh.

Around me people talk and laugh and argue. I sip my chai and stare at my reflection in the window, the solemn reflection of the girl sitting alone at a wooden booth for two.

...........

I'm at work when an Explosions in the Sky song comes on Pandora. A hundred different songs by different artists have played before this one, but this one reaches out and grabs me. It leaves me shaking.

I go home. I find Explosions in the Sky on Spotify and play every song they've made.

I sit at my computer, staring blankly at the screen, the music flowing through my headphones, into my head, and slowly filling the hole in my chest.

"Are you ok?" The Mr. looks down at me, worry in that space between his eyes.

"I'm sad." I whisper.

He blinks. Hesitates. Tilts his head. "Do you want to be sad?"

"Yes." I say softly. He looks more confused, so I try to explain. "I feel something."

...........

The internet is a graveyard, and I keep finding ghosts. Beautiful blogs. Words spun like magic. I am spellbound, but they are just fading echoes.

Some have been silent for years, but I read them anyways. I cannot help myself. They are full of the heavy sadness I know far too well. They ask the same questions that rattle around in my head and keep me awake at night. They use words like I do, to try to understand, to make sense of all this.

Where are you now? I want to ask them. Did you find the answers you were looking for? Are you happy? Where are you now?

in the morning

I wake up to the quiet.

The dim light of early morning is peering through the blinds. Beside me, the Mr. sleeps, his curly hair tousled, his cheek pressed against the pillow. Peaceful.

I close my eyes again and curl into him. In his sleep, he shifts, drapes his arm across my bare, bony ribs, and pulls me closer.

The alarm breaks the illusion. He shifts, throws the covers off, and gets up to hit the snooze button. When he returns to bed he pulls me close again, his warm breath against my ear. I try to pretend again, that we can stay this way forever, but that alarm still rings in my head. It's morning. It's another day. Another battle.

Because getting up in the morning is like going to war.

The alarm keeps going off, and eventually the Mr. doesn't return to our warm nest. I'm better at pretending, so I stay curled under the blankets, eyes closed tight. I feel the bed shift beneath his weight as he sits next to me. I crack my eyes open, and he smiles. He hands me my water bottle, silently. I take it and close my eyes again, clinging to my lingering pretend world.

The rattle of pill bottles forces my eyes open again.

The Mr. patiently hands me each pill, and I feel like a baby bird as I obediently swallow them down. Pills to keep me from being sad. Pills to keep me from being anxious. Pills to keep me from feeling sick. Pills to keep me from having a baby.

A baby. I've imagined this baby for a long time, but she is fading from my memory.

Maybe someday. I keep telling myself, but it feels like a lie.

I give up and get up, trying to blink the exhaustion from my tired eyes.

"Do you have baby names picked out, just in case you ever have a baby?" My friend asked last week. 

I paused, a sort of bitter hurt encasing my heart like stone. "Yeah." I finally said.

"Are they secret?" My friend teased, grinning.

"No." I smiled, but it felt sad. "I would name her Eloise."

I stand in the shower with my lover, my husband, my best friend. He has his arms wrapped around my bare shoulders. My cheek is pressed against his bare chest. We stand that way under the hot water, quietly together.

He would be the best father. Of that, I have no doubt.

But I am broken. A reluctant replica of my own mother on a path of self-destruction. 

There is a dull ache in my chest, but my eyes stay dry. Because I take pills to keep from being sad.

glimpses

I see her sometimes.

Brief glimpses caught in storefront windows and elevator doors and the glass displays in the grocery store.

Skinny. She looks so skinny.

It always hits me the same way. Like a bullet in the chest. I look so skinny. That's me. I'm looking at myself.

But then she's gone.

I never see her when I stand in front of my mirror examining my body from every angle. My legs aren't skinny. They are massive tree trunks. My stomach isn't flat. I shouldn't have eaten today. My arms are flabby. I should workout more. My face is round and fat like a baby's. I can't see enough of my cheekbones. 

The more weight I lose, the more I gravitate towards big baggy sweaters. Clothes way too big for me. I want them to make me look even smaller, but I also want them to hide me.

I look for her everywhere I go, but she taunts me until I hate her. Until I am so sick of her, I'm ready to stuff myself with food to taunt her back.

Then she shows me. There! In that reflection. There she is again. Skinny and beautiful.

If you just keep going. If you just lose a little more weight, that will always be you. You will always be her. Just a little more...

of assessments and little sisters

It's done.

My initial assessment at the ED treatment center.

I was so anxious getting ready this morning that I thought I was going to throw up. Which only made me more anxious.

I ended up asking the Mr. to drive me there because I was a wreck.

It was a nice place. Carefully decorated to be calming, welcoming. Everyone was very nice. I was the skinniest person in the room, until a tall, rail thin girl walked confidently in. I shrunk into my chair.

My therapist had a few extra pounds on her. I know that sounds horribly mean, but I notice these things in a very removed way. I did not look at her in disgust and think, Gross. She is so fat! Not at all. The only selfish thing I thought was that I was glad I was skinnier than her. By a lot.

The hour long session went ok. She had a lot of questions through the interview. Thankfully many I could answer with a simple yes or no. Like, have you ever binged? Do you ever use laxatives? Some required more detail. Often I had to rate things from 1 to 10.

I thought of Bill and pictured him rolling his eyes.

The hardest questions were when she asked me how I was feeling. I explained a little about the medication and how I didn't really know. I think I also tend to retreat to an emotionless place when talking about these things as a defense mechanism. I did that in the hospital before they gave me any pills. It's like my brain decides that if we're going to have to talk about (insert traumatic thing here), we're not going to feel anything.

She weighed me. With my clothes on I was 111.8 lbs. Which was a little hard. I know it's just because I was wearing my clothes, but still. I really wanted that scale to say 110, like mine at home did this morning.

Then there were tests. Five paper tests. One computer test. And guess what?

The computer test was the EXACT test I took in the hospital. You know, the one that I failed? My personality test that somehow came back invalid? I almost laughed out loud when I saw the first question. Thankfully this one was computerized and 300 questions shorter.

Although I am very curious to see if I pass this one this time. I'm not sure what I'll do if I get an invalid twice in a row. Probably go to coffee with Bill and tell him so he can laugh and make me feel better.

All in all, it was ok. Most of what I talked about, I've been talking about, so it wasn't so hard to get the words out. I think the appointment where they tell me their recommendations will be much harder.

I also have to go back next week to get an EKG reading and a blood test done.

After my appointment, I was so relieved it was over.

And then I was hungry.

Hungry for hamburgers and french fries and bread and pasta.

I decided to be careful. To compromise. I could make a grilled cheese sandwich. I went to the grocery store and bought whole wheat bread and the lowest calorie cheese I could find. I drove home. I put the grocery bags on the table. And then I panicked.

What was I thinking? I can't eat a sandwich. I can't eat bread!

I made some smartpop popcorn instead.

Then I had to tackle the text message I had gotten from my little sister last night.

I didn't see it until late. It said:

"I want to look like you. I feel so fat and ugly next to you."

My heart broke. I felt sick. Anxiety choked me. I couldn't respond to it last night. I was already close to panic about my appointment.

So I sent her an email this afternoon. I poured my heart out to her. I told her how brave and strong she is. I told her that I am fucked up, and that there's nothing glamorous about it. That most of it was misery. That I couldn't even be happy about losing weight because I just wanted to lose more and more. I told her that our mother is sick. That she cannot listen to her. I told her she is beautiful. Because she is. My beautiful little sister. It kills me that she sent me that text. I am not a role model. I am a disaster.

Maybe I am getting help, but I still don't want to let go of this. I can work on my depression. On my anxiety. But my relationship with food is much more complicated. I hate it. I love it. I want to be sick. I want to be so thin that people wonder if I'm deathly ill. I am terrified of changing my eating habits. I am terrified of gaining weight.

So I don't know what I'll do when these therapists start asking me to change.

the 100th post

I'm fidgeting in the lobby of the bar and grill, restlessly pacing. My limbs won't stay still. I feel the eyes of my family watching me.

"I'm cold." I finally say, wrapping my arms around myself. It's something to say. A reason for my nervous movements. 

I don't know what I'm going to eat here. I don't want to eat. I'm so hungry. Everything in this place is full of fat. Fat fat fat. I can't eat here. I can't. I want to eat so badly. 

"That's because you're just skin and bones." My mother says in a tone I know but cannot place.

I start doing pirouettes in the middle of the lobby to keep from screaming. To lock away those words she just spoke. I can't face them. The hostess gives me a look. Mad, bitter laughter bubbles up in my throat. I look crazy. I feel crazy. I am crazy.

..........

I go to a birthday party. It's the first time I've faced these friends since I've been in the hospital. They know vague details. They know just enough to make them insatiably curious. I see it, in their eyes. The questions they want to ask. I hear it in the careful way they speak to me. The overly large smiles. 

What happened to her? What happened?

They treat me like I am glass, like I might shatter. But I am made of concrete. I don't feel anything.

So I tell them. The story is so familiar to me now. I've told it so many times. To people I love. To strangers with a long string of impressive sounding medical degrees. To nurses with kind faces.

They cry when I tell them. 

I don't.

Finally one of them laughs. "I like you so much better now." She says. "You were so happy and optimistic and perfect all the time, it drove me crazy."

..........

My thoughts circle round and round and round in my head until I am dizzy. I try to focus on one of them. I try to understand it. How do I feel? 

I don't know. 

It's a simple question. But my emotions stare back at me with blank faces, and I don't recognize any of them. They are puddles of bright colors that have swirled and mixed until nothing is left but a dull, ugly brown.

This morning I weighed in at 110.4 lbs. 

I reached my goal weight. 

Last night, the Mr. made nachos. He used reduced fat cheese, somewhat healthier chips. I convinced myself it was ok. I could eat nachos. I ate a small portion. I felt ok. 

For maybe five minutes.

Then I panicked. Why did I do that? Why did I eat nachos when I have to be 110 lbs by Monday? Why? I'm so stupid! So fucking stupid!

I took two laxatives. Their sweet coating left a pleasant taste in my mouth. Then I got on the treadmill for the first time in months. I speed walked up that eternal hill for twenty minutes. When I got off, sweat was dripping into my eyes, rolling down my collarbones and between my breasts. I climbed the stairs on shaky legs. 

I felt so weak. But I finally felt ok.

I woke up at 2 am and stumbled to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet, miserably hunched over, my stomach cramping painfully as the laxatives did their work. 

This is my 100th post.

I am 110.4 lbs. 

How do I feel?

I don't know. 

of numbers & songs

This morning the scale said 111.6 lbs. Today I bought a new pair of jeans. Size 1 because my Size 2 jeans were starting to get too loose.

1.6 lbs to go to reach my goal weight.

110 lbs. It feels like a magical number to me. I know I need to get that out of my head. It's not magic. I won't be magically happy or cured or fixed or glued back together at 110 lbs. I know that.

But it feels magical.

The last time I saw 110 lbs, I was eighteen years old. My first boyfriend had dumped my unceremoniously right before graduation. I was miserable. I was suicidal. So I stopped eating. I started exercising. And I wasn't even doing it to lose weight. I just....did it.

We didn't have a working scale at my house. So one day I was in a friend's bathroom when I noticed a scale. I stepped on it. 110 lbs. I was shocked, but then I was happy. I remember that moment clearly, staring down at the number, a mad grin crossing my face. I was happy.

When I reach 110 lbs, I will have officially lost 32 lbs. since December 2012. I will have lost almost 40 lbs from my highest weight, which was probably in the summer of 2012.

.........

"Sometimes I'm afraid this is how you think of me." I said to the Mr. one afternoon.

I was referring to the song, Lost Cause by Beck which I was currently playing. It's not a happy song, but it's how I view myself. It's how I'm so afraid the Mr. will view me. 

There's a place where you are going
You ain't never been before
No one left to watch your back now
No one standing at your door
That's what you thought love was for

Baby you're lost
Baby you're lost
Baby you're a lost cause

I'm tired of fighting
I'm tired of fighting
Fighting for a lost cause

He wrapped me in a hug and told me firmly and emphatically, "NO."

The next day, I was driving to work when a new song by a musician I love came on the radio. Tourniquet by Jeremy Messersmith. I listened to the lyrics as I drove, and they went straight through my heart. I got to work, parked, and sat in the car to listen to the entire song even though it made me late.

As soon as I got into the office, I emailed the song to the Mr. and asked him the question again. Is this how you think of me?

His response?

YES.

YES. A MILLION TIMES YES.




When you feel like dying
Think you won't be missed
I will be there in an ambulance

When there's nothing left to do
I will pull you close and wrap my arms around you.

Today had ups and downs. I laughed. I hated myself. I felt calm. I felt like a worthless, hollow shell of a person.

But I have him.

I will always have him.

And so tonight, I am thankful. I am so incredibly thankful for this smart, funny, sexy, and loving man who sticks with me despite my crazy fucked up mess.

My dark thoughts like to convince me that I am alone, but I'm not. I'm not alone. I am loved.

How often I forget that.

treatment is a scary word

Less than a week before my assessment appointment at the ED Treatment Center.

I've realized that the closer I get to the appointment, the less I eat.

Yesterday's intake? 50 calories worth of Special K Protein Plus, a few roasted vegetables, and a beer.

I would by lying if I said I hadn't been planning on fasting yesterday. I didn't eat anything until dinner. And I only ate the Special K because we were going out for a friend's birthday. Which is where the beer and roasted vegetables came in.

The Mr. wasn't very happy to learn I'd skipped lunch.

I brought a lunch to work today. Cherry tomatoes and 1/2 cup of fat free cottage cheese. The thought of eating it makes my stomach flip upside down.

We went out to a bar and grill the last night of my parents' visit. I ordered a burger because I wanted to look normal. I ate about 1/4 of it. And then I felt sick. And panicky.

The next day the scale said 114 lbs.

And I freaked out.

Today I'm back down to 112.6 lbs.

Five days.

I just want to hit my goal weight before then. Maybe then I'll feel better about this. Maybe then I'll be ok.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

of bitter fragile things

The scale said 112.8 lbs this morning.

A new low.

I saw my mother last night.

"You're so skinny!" She said for exactly the second time in my twenty-six years.

My spirits soared. Victorious!

Then they crashed. Furious at myself for even caring. For playing her game. For falling right into her trap. For following her damned footsteps.

I talked a little bit with my parents about what happened. It started innocently enough. What medication am I on? Is it helping? How long will I need to take it?

Then they started asking harder questions.

What happened?

How long have you felt this way?

I told them I've been depressed since I was 10 years old and they were shocked.

They wanted to know if something triggered it.

My Mom kept hugging me.

I wanted to scream. In the middle of the restaurant. In the middle of my sister's house in front of all her roommates.

Do you not remember my entire childhood? You don't remember how you treated me?

And I know I'm not, but I feel so crazy. Like I've made up this horrible world in my head. One that I lived through. One that doesn't exist.

And I don't know what to say.

Clueless. They are so clueless. Conveniently remembering bits and pieces. And I am such a coward. Unable to speak the truth.

They're coming over soon. With more questions that I can't answer.

............

The other night, I was laying on the couch with the Mr. We were listening to a record. I suddenly asked him what he would have done if he'd come home and found me dead.

See, I've forgotten. I can think about killing myself, about dying, in such an emotionless, removed way. It doesn't effect me at all. But I forgot that I'm alone in that.

"Why?" He asked, alarm on his face.

"I don't know." I said, sort of honestly. I didn't really know.

He was silent for a long time.

"I would have held you and cried." He finally whispered, and his voice cracked. "I would have...have tried to make you kiss me back..."

His voice completely broke. "Do we have to talk about this?" He demanded, hoarsely, horrified.

"No!" I quickly assured him, holding him tightly. And his sorrow just overflowed. His pain at even the thought of losing me. It was too much for him to hold back. And I felt horrible for doing that to him. For making him even think about it.

"That first week you were in the hospital." He finally managed to say. "I had that exact nightmare every night."

And that's when I realized. I think I needed to see how much it hurt him to think about it. Like some sort of fucked up, numb robot, I needed to see how a normal human being would react.

So we held each other in the dark, and we both cried. Him because he loved me so much. Me because I still didn't feel anything when I thought about dying.

I want to want to live for myself. But for now, I will keep living for him.

in which I talk more

I had my first therapy appointment today.

I'm starting a special kind of therapy called Dialectical Behavior Therapy. My psychiatrist in the hospital strongly recommended it.

Rabbit trail. This whole recommendation started off on the wrong foot because in my overwhelmed state, I thought he said "Diabolical Behavior Therapy."

And was immediately offended.

But no. Dialectical. And I have to admit, after researching it a little and then speaking with the therapist today, it sounds like exactly what I need. Not what I want, necessarily, but what I need.

Because there is a part of me that doesn't want to change. As fucked up as that is.

If you want to read about it, you can do so here.

My therapist was really nice. Her name is Sue. She was pretty easy to talk to, which was a relief.

At one point I mentioned something I did as being dumb, and she stopped me and gave me a little talk about negative self-talk.

Oh, Sue. If only you could hear the horrible things I say to myself every second of every day.

In other news, I ate like (what I would consider) a normal person today.

I think I'm in that weird oasis in the desert that is an eating disorder. Sometimes it lasts an hour. Sometimes it lasts a day. Sometimes a week. It's that time where you eat, and you tell yourself, no, this is ok. And maybe your brain is just tired. On hiatus. Given up. But it's like, sure, whatever. And so you eat.

But it always turns out to be a mirage.

And the downhill slope is steep.

They are going to laugh at me at the treatment center. I just know it.

Did you see that girl? She ate a salad for lunch and an apple and celery with peanut butter for dinner! And chocolate! She ate chocolate! And she thinks she has an eating disorder!

I see my mother in two days.

I'm not skinny enough.

Not skinny enough for treatment.

Not skinny enough to be happy.

Not skinny enough to be able to eat.

Not skinny enough to see my mother.

What is skinny enough?

I don't know.