Thanksgiving: an anorexic's favorite holiday

Maybe today would be an appropriate time to give thanks to those who have helped so much.

So, first off...

Thank you for putting things in perspective for me when he had twisted my thinking so much. And thanks for being tough on me and allowing me to see the insensibility of my actions.

Thank you for trying to ignore the problem when it seemed as though I needed you the most. You knew coddling my "disease" would have only made things worse.

Thanks for letting me cry and forcing me to look deep inside Megan and know the difference between her thinking and his. And for defending me against those who don't and shouldn't understand. Thanks for letting me feel halfway normal and for knowing how to handle people like me.

Thank you for introducing me to food again, in a friendly way of course. And for reteaching me how to treat myself. Thanks for allowing me to see myself as more than a number on a scale.

Thank you for being as crazy as I am at times and understanding that life never turns out the way we wish it would. Thank you for laughing and making me feel comfortable with my flaws and reassuring me that I can overcome them even if I don't believe that I can. And for always having advice even if I only wanted to listen to him.

Thank you for loving me. And for not giving up on me. And for getting angry with me when I wasn't being rational. Thanks for countering him and telling me I'm beautiful and perfect. Thanks for reminding me that I'm more than just a body, fat or skinny; that there are so many other things to love about me.

Thanks for taking his abuse so gracefully. And for continuing to do what is necessary, for not listening to him anymore. And thank you so much for forgiving me. Thank you for being strong when I was not.

And finally, thank you for turning me into this so I can find the strength to fight it and become a better person in the end.

I'm only crying because I got three hours of sleep

"A wise man once said that you can have anything in life, if you sacrifice everything else for it."
-a quote of a quote from Grey's Anatomy



Tonight I went with my mother to a Pizza Hut right around the corner from my house for dinner. Ed, disgusted at me already, told me that the only way he would allow me to eat such trash was to go for the lesser evil-"The Natural" made with all-natural ingredients and a multi-grain crust.

That would be perfect! See, and you're indulging. And you say I never let you indulge, Ed said and we took off to our dinner destination with high hopes.

Unfortunately (for Ed mostly) it turned out they didn't offer "The Natural" anymore. Instead, I was forced to order a normal...white crust...hand-tossed pizza. Ed was mortified.

For the better part of our ridiculously long wait, Ed was screaming in my head, What the hell?! Are you actually going to eat a real, fast food pizza?! It's FAST FOOD, Megan! I hope you realize this. Think of all the extra oils...and the grease and-

Leave me alone. I'm not going to get fat, I tried to make myself believe.

Oh really? And who told you this? People who don't know you at all?! People who don't care about you the way I do?! Ed snapped back.

People who love me, I said and the pizza arrived and I ate it and I waited to hear what terrible things Ed would say. But he didn't say terrible things. In fact, he didn't say anything at all. For the first time in my relationship with Ed, I waited, prepared to face his criticizing attack, and got silence instead.

I was, in no way, able to silence Ed on my own. Oddly enough that beautiful, seemingly impossible accomplishment was the work of no nutritionist, or therapist, or even psychiatrist, but of someone not in the least bit qualified for any of these fields.

But he can speak to me like no one else can. He can entrust confidence in me even when Ed is inevitably knocking it down. He makes me feel as though I am the most beautiful person in the world wearing sweats and a T-shirt while Ed ridicules my naked body in the mirror every night.

He loves me. He wants to see me happy. All Ed ever wanted was pain and anguish on my behalf.

And now I'm finally realizing what's really important. Should I be consumed trying to please an evil, superficial voice in my head that will never accept me no matter how hard I try, or should I be happy with who already adores me for who I am?

"Screw Ed," he says, "You're perfect."

Maybe if I concentrate on that long enough I'll start to believe it myself.

And a banana clip

Car rides almost always relax me. I love the gentle hum and vibrations that engulfs its passengers in such a comforting rhythm. I love how the scene changes with lights and pedestrians and other cars passing by. I love how all I have to do is sit back and watch and sometimes wonder where each of them are going and why.

I can count maybe three car rides that I have not particularly enjoyed. My driving test with the hefty middle aged man sitting two feet away, critiquing every move I made, was one. The ride to QuickCare cradling a bleeding index finger where the top of a bean can had conveniently found a clean path across was another.

The third (and probably worst) took place last night.

"Let's go," my father said emotionless. It must have been drained in his yelling and frustration with Ed and me.

Yes, Ed was visiting again. And he was beyond infuriated with my dinner. Ed and I had made a pact earlier in the day to make peace with each other once again. I would get back to my normal, emaciated self, control everything that went into (or out of) my mouth, and all would be well again. Ed had promised me this. And I believed him.

Part of this deal was to resist the temptations of my old friend: the peanut butter. Just don't do it. Not even one piece of toast. Think of the fat. 16 grams! 16! Ed etched into my mind.

I had followed Ed's every command flawlessly until the evening came and with it-hunger.

One innocent slice of peanut butter toast turned into three and four and six until Ed was screaming at me to stop, screaming at me about how pathetic I was, screaming at me until my sobs overpowered his voice and he left me for my parents to devour.

Another screaming/sobbing match later and I found myself in my car, sporting pajamas and a pink bath robe, wishing that it was only a cut finger that was troubling me.

The ride was numbing. I tried to distance myself as much as possible from my father sitting just a few feet away. I was stiff and tired. I tried to distract myself with nighttime images passing by but to no avail. My head was floating in the tension piercing through the air.

I had told them I just needed to be away, that I couldn't stand to be trapped in that house any longer. Now that they had finally listened to my pleas, all I wanted was to be back home where I could escape to my bed and try to put together the scattered pieces of my mind on my own. Alone. Away from all of this.

We rounded one last corner and there stood the sign shining in neon green lettering that gripped my stomach and stole my breath.

I wondered when I would wake up. This had to be a nightmare.

I'm HAPPY, see?

because I'm dead?

Might as well be. Along with the other poor souls who found themselves in her office to seek chemicals to give them the courage to face life.

I was surprisingly nervous to see her. I've always hated hospitals and have a pretty extensive history of panic attacks and anxiety when confronted with such an environment. Even if this visit would be free of needles and blood, I was convinced it would hurt just the same.

As my dad opened the door leading into the waiting room, images of crazed psychiatric patients rocking back and forth muttering to themselves flooded my mind. I held my breath and...

Alas, the room more resembled my family doctor's office, with Wheel of Fortune droning on into meaningless soap operas on a TV mounted on the back wall and a handful of strangers trying to distract themselves with meaningless gossip magazines.

I wondered why each of them were there. Were there some like me? Some that couldn't stand to helplessly ruin themselves any longer? Some that have a complex so deeply embedded into the folds of their brain they're sure no amount of "talk therapy" would ever uproot it? Do they, too, suffer from a voice in their head telling them they're never good enough and if only they'd try just a little bit more maybe, maybe they could be?

"Megan?", a voice came from around the corner of the room, "Come on back."

Her hair, platinum blond and teased, was the first thing that caught my attention. Ms. Nebe? I wondered to myself for a split second and almost laughed out loud but caught myself. This was no time to be laughing.

"Nice to meet you, Megan," she said as she sat down at her desk surrounded with indescribable drawings along the wall. I began to wonder if those were failed attempts by her patients to map out the inner workings of their emotions but she interrupted my thoughts.

"So, why are you here to see me today?"

I couldn't help myself and laughed a little at that one, took a deep breath, and began.

A festive reunion

"Try again," Ed ordered and I stumbled back into the bathroom. He was over for dinner: 6 pieces of toast, organic mac & cheese, rice and beans, apples, string cheese, anything we could find. But our meal was much less appetizing spilling into the bowl of my tiolet, half digested.

It was hard, it hurt. Tears clumped on my eyelashes. But Ed was back and furiously taking his vengeance for my straying behaviors over the past few weeks. I should have known better than to act like that. I should have known Ed would come back in a rage, digusted with me. And he had every right to be.

What is this "middle ground" my nutritionist speaks of? There is no middle ground with Ed. It has always been all or nothing. That, I know, will never change. It doesn't matter what crazy number diet plan my nutritionist puts me on or how strong my own personal desire is to take back control, he always creeps back into my life in one form or the other.

I had never imagined myself battling with the other Ed. I was smarter than that. I knew better than to ruin my body that way. And mostly, I didn't think I would ever build up the courage to experiment with diet tactics of the impulsive. But, not surprisingly, I was at that point of overwhelming frustration and just plain anger at myself, my parents, my doctors, everyone.

And so, I found myself crouched over the tiolet bowl with Ed screaming in my mind about how awful a person I was for sneaking back into the cupboard to grab that second...third...fourth protein bar.

You've lost it, he laughed, I never thought you would give up your precious control. I'm very disappointed, Megan. I reached down my throat again, perhaps trying to find what little self worth I had left. Instead, all that came up were the remnants of mac & cheese...organic...but Ed didn't care.

I will take back that control, I vowed, and I returned to the cupboard even more a slave.

Missed.

I love abusive relationships. They exhaust me, scare me, make me crave more.

But no one else seems to understand or share my enthusiasm for an innocent challenge. At times, I desperately miss the comforts that Ed brought to my life. I miss the control that he allowed me. They say, "What control? He was controlling you!" It never felt that way with Ed, and I still don't agree.

Ed was a defining part of my life and something I could hold on to when everything else around me seemed to be falling apart. He was always there with me offering his criticism-but only to make me a better person, to urge me to be the best I could possibly be. But now that push for excellence and control has been ripped away from me and I'm left scrambling to find a way to keep my sanity.

Don't they realize that I am doing this all for everyone else but myself? Don't they realize that I don't want this at all, that I was so much happier before they intervened?

I want my old life back, the life that I had control of. All I have left is resentment toward the ones that forced me down this path. They forced me away from Ed and, in turn, the life I had wanted. Now, I've changed enough for them. I have become the person they wanted to see me become the entire time. They're satisfied, so now they have left me alone to fight the worst of the battle so far, the part they probably never realized I would sink to.

Should I binge tonight...or starve?

Courtship

"Hello, I'm Master Evans," the dark haired, middle-aged man said, wiry glasses shielding two innocent enough looking eyes.

Master?, I thought, Where are we, Korea? And I shook the hand of the man who would introduce me to hell.

The day I joined Desert Sun Tae Kwon Do, the course of my life changed in a way...in many ways. It was during my time there that I experienced real pain for the first time. Never before had I felt the burn of a workout even days later. It was my first true taste of endorphins. And I was hooked.

Practicing the art of Tae Kwon Do not only pulled me in with its adrenaline rush, but also the new sense of discipline it forced on me. When I stepped onto the mat in the studio I was no longer just a simpleminded girl, I turned into a "robot" (as I would tell myself) eating up every word that jumped from Master Evan's mouth.

"What you do in here will make everything else in your life better," he would say, and we would listen. I idolized him for the wisdom and skill I could only wish to acquire someday. Because of this he was such an influence on my way of thinking. Whatever Master Evans said was truth. Period.

There were times when one of the younger students wasn't working hard enough to the satisfaction of Master Evans. "What did you eat today? Lucky Charms for breakfast?" he would pry.

"Do you know what that does to your brain? Sugar, sugar, sugar," he continued purposely embarassing the child-purposely trying to change his behavior through ridicule. And even this I ate up.

Lucky Charms: off my list, I made note, No way am I ever going to get caught having eaten such a breakfast.

"What kind of push ups are those, Captain Crunch?" he would jab at another innocent child and my list of "evil" foods began to grow.

"Have you been drinking soda?" he would accuse at times.

"Diet, sir... " the exhausted student responded and we were flooded with reasons why one must, at all costs, avoid the evil "diet" foods.

"Sugar replacements..."

"...holes in your brain..."

"...worse than the real poison..."

He went on and on, and I was dizzy with excitement. He was telling me the secrets to eating healthy and having control over my body, right? He especially emphasized the power of exercising intensely to maintain a fit body.

"Do you know what happens to women when they turn 35?" and he would make a gesture with his hands and arms pretending to jiggle imaginary fat hanging under his bicep and we would make sure to do all of our push ups exactly right-or else that imaginary fat would find a way to become a real nightmare.

All of the many things I heard from Master Evans, I took to heart. Little did I know, the "advice" I was being fed was merely Ed working his charms and the excitement I felt was just me falling for it all. The lies had begun and the seeds had been planted.

Limited

“If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed to the world turned out to be a mask…with nothing beneath it?” -Jodi Picoult


Maybe perfect doesn't exist at all. Perhaps it is just like infinity: a mere theory, never proven, never reached, but still idealized by many who can only wish to explore its expansive possibilities. It acts more as a safety net to fall back on when the unexplainable occurs. It is beyond anyone's grasp of comprehension or potential. We were never meant to reach it.

Forever yours...

Random, I know, but in the midst of "recovery" and one of my frequent moments of total despair, almost ready to give up, I decided to write a letter to Ed.

Dear Ed,

Why do you insist on latching on to me-sucking away at any quality my life has left-for as long as possible? Why do you continue to torment me and whisper lies to me with every glance into a mirror? Lies...you live through them-through irrational media and harsh judgment. You flourish in a misguided world of impossible expectations and always try to drag me down into its chaos.
You tell me how imperfect I am, how much better I could be with your guidance. You had me in your grasp, your unforgiving chokehold. You made me your slave and I followed you. I hung on to your every lie and you convinced me that I would be good enough if only I stayed "strong." In reality you were tearing me apart, making me weaker every day.
Nothing is ever good enough for you. No lack of eating or intense work out will ever suffice. And especially not me. I will never be able to live up to your "idealist" standards yet you continue to tease me with ideas and images beckoning me to listen to you once more. You don't like that I've proven you wrong in so many ways already, that I'm learning to break out of your suffocating grip. I am finally realizing how abusive and illogical this has been.
Why are you trying to tell me what's best for me? You know nothing of how a real woman- a healthy woman- is supposed to look. You know nothing of health, nothing of reality. All you know is anguish.

-Megan

And there it was. Crafting Ed into more of a separate being helped me not only by providing something other than myself to blame for slipping into such a mental state but also by morphing the ever present voice in my head into an overbearing, control hungry man making the desire to beat him down even more elevated. If I refuse to be involved in an abusive relationship with an actual guy than I will definitely not tolerate one with my own "Ed".

Welcome :]

I figure that I could use this blog to pursue two different ventures which I currently hold quite dear to me. One being half my journalism grade-which I suppose will bring down my striving-to-be-a-4.8-but-not-quite G.P.A. anyway and the other is to provide a comforting, understanding voice for those many teenage girls across the country struggling with emotional insecurities and pressures brought on by an unforgiving society. I feel so passionately about such a topic because I happen to be one of those girls caught up in the impossibly expectant and irrational nature of modern America.

I know it is not entirely fair for me to hold my high school accountable for the psychological anguish that has plagued me for the past, oh, three years or so. But I cannot help but recognize the innumerable triggers present throughout my history with Clark. I can only assume they can be found in many other high schools throughout the nation and that is enough for me to be concerned for the well-being of thousands of other teens like myself.

Clark, like at least some other high schools I'm sure, flaunts a rather impressive population of National Merit/AP scholar qualifying, straight A earning, overly over-achieving students. And it flaunts them with the upmost pride and encouragement-along with a hefty burden of ever higher expectations. This, in turn, has created an environment of constant competition between already accomplished students to exceed that level of expectation and stand out as "hard-working" or "talented".

The pressure builds to be the best in everything: academics, SATs, sports, and of course looks for many teen girls. This, coupled with outside pressures from our modern, narrow-minded society for women to look and act in specific ways, puts extreme stress on high school as well as college age girls. No one can be perfect but anyone can desperately try to be.

The pressure to balance being, in almost all aspects, perfect can take a toll on any young woman's quality of life and can become a consuming reality for so many like it had become for me. Fortunately, it has now turned into inspiration for me to reach out to others at risk and perhaps a new innovative way to rebel against society's most cherished, distinctive characteristic: judgment.