It's OK

I tested this out on my Facebook earlier and my friends were very patient and supportive, but I want to revise and it post it here too.  I want to live my life honestly.  I don't want my life to look dishonest by seeming hypocritical.  "Oh look at her! She just woke up one day and started eating right and exercising and became happy and perfect!" Haha, no! There is a danger in hiding your false starts and your emotions and trying to make the world think you didn't fight your way to the top like everyone else. And there is a danger in thinking you must always be happy and perfect to be alive.

I said all that to say this.

My life got out of control again.

Gotta love anxiety. It took hold of me full force in December, culminating in me sobbing my eyes out all day Christmas Day because I couldn't handle getting out of the house. I wouldn't say it was my rock bottom or anything, and I did end up eventually throwing on some clothes and hanging out with the inlaws all night.

I got scared.  I didn't know where my life was headed anymore, and I was afraid I was wasting time being miserable instead of living my life, as if it is impossible to live your life if you are not completely happy and thrilled every second of it.

And I said to myself, "OH MAN SCREW THIS." I said this because I have been there before and was determined not to stay like this.  After seventeen years of therapy and medication, I had expected to be fine.

I told myself I would be fine.

I would be fine.

And I told myself all the things I would do daily from now on to turn this around right away. I set all kinds of wonderful goals I found while reading books on nutrition and diseases.  I was determined to beat this and tried to make all the changes at once. I started drinking water, eating a crap ton of vegetables, working out, cleaning, trying to be perfect so I would feel like I deserved to be happy and would have all the answers.  Sure, I knew intellectually that I didn't have to do anything to deserve to be happy.  However, I wasn't in a good place emotionally.

It is a mistake to try to make too many changes at once, and I relearned this lesson quite well. I would usually fall short of my expectations and then spend a lot of time worrying and feeling like I failed.

So I quit. It was not some dramatic action, quitting.  It was so easy to just order pizza, not attend class, go to work with my hair wet, wear the same clothes without washing them, and not pick up after myself. I dropped out of school for a bit, stopped doing my hair, stopped doing laundry, let the house get messy, and went back to trying to eat myself to death.

At first things felt a little better as I shrugged off all of my responsibilities and retreated.  Soon enough, that horrible feeling I felt in December returned full force and ate me alive, without my consent.

I observed it happening in fits and starts.

I would have a panic attack the minute anything changed, like if a friend came by on short notice or if I ran out of milk.

My mom said that she noticed the only time I wasn't a miserable person was when I sang.

My relaxation tapes stopped working.

I let my mind wander and didn't focus on my breathing and worried the whole time.

I still have anxiety.

It will never go away.

I will always have anxiety.

I will always generalize with always and never statements.

I still am in that, "I don't know who I am or what I'm doing or what I believe in or why."


That late twenties-early thirties panic.

That so-called crisis.

This is more than that.

Or is it?

I cannot even write paragraphs as I can only handle one sentence at a time lately or blocks of text.

Is that what defines me?  I'm a letter or a novel?  One extreme or the other?

All or nothing.

I am everything or I am nothing, and therefore I am nothing, right? (Wrong.  I am not nothing.  Nor am I everything.  Nor do I want to be any sort of extreme.)

It was like I was telling myself with every breath that my life is this big dramatic event where each action I take is an urgently high priority and I must be perfect or everything will fall apart.

Sometimes when we are overwhelmed we can fail to prioritize.

On April 15th a family member of mine lost his battle with cancer. He was 72. I sat back and watched my parents fall apart in extreme sadness for a few days.  I just sat and listened in tearful conversations and beautiful words and screaming, to all of the ugliness and the sacredness. And I also sat and watched as a few days later they began the attempt at piecing their lives back together.


I was not ready. I wanted to eat, and keep eating. Chinese buffets. Fried chicken. Macaroni and cheese. Chocolate. Soda. And on and on, while laying around in my pajamas and watching marathons of television.  Through all this, I only gained 1 lb back from my initial weight loss of 12 lbs earlier this year, but my insides were beginning to scream.

A few days later I had heart burn so bad that in the middle of the night I begged my husband to run to the store to get medicine because I was sure I would die. I slept sitting up, terrified that acid would pour into my lungs and that I would asphyxiate. This was the sixth night I had heartburn and the night before I actually had choked on stomach acid in my sleep, burning my throat and mouth.

I made a list of all the things I would do if I felt better and had the chance to be alive the week before all of this happened, as at the time I wasn't exactly thriving. I would like to tell you that it was this big dramatic bucket list like sky-diving or rocky mountain climbing or whatever. Instead it was more like renewing my lease and going back to school and get my oil changed.

More of a to-do list than a bucket list.  Maybe I had learned my lesson about extremes?

I wanted to nurture myself, not with food, but by living.

The beginning of April I began washing my face with honey.  A week later, I began moisturizing.  Last week I began making sure my hair looked good daily, blow dried and styled. This week I began adding sunblock to my routine, drinking my water, and exercising on my lunch break to burn off stress.  The changes became easier. I registered for school.  I even cooked a few times, mostly because there aren't a lot of things I'm allowed to eat while my throat heals that I can keep down besides whole milk, english muffins, scrambled eggs, bananas, yogurt, peanut butter, chicken, avocado, and mushrooms.

It has been a week but I am slowly beginning to get better at taking care of myself. I registered for school. I actually cooked a few meals. I'm drinking my water. I go for walks at lunch. I'm brushing my hair. I'm repeating these things because I'm pretty damned impressed, especially at the hair part.

There are plenty of things I'm still worrying about, but I have to keep telling myself that I am not doing anything wrong and that I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be all the things to everyone. I don't have to know if I'm a Christian or an Atheist before I hang out with my church friends or my atheist friends, and I don't have to eat only bananas.

I might not make it and I might relapse again and we might go through this over and over before it takes hold.  That is all part of the process.  I am not afraid.  I'm learning, slowly, to expect it.

But for now I have clean hair.

And a cat!