it’s kind of miraculous that I’m even alive.

2012/01/24

I’m not really an app junkie, not that you’d know it from looking at my iPhone. I have apps for everything: sending a FedEx, making a Skype call, simulating the sound of an audience laughing, and buying expensive video equipment. But, I mean, the only apps that I actually USE are Facebook, Twitter, and Zynga Poker. I keep the rest around “for fun” – aka “for when I’m bored”.

Predictably, the other day, I was bored. I was also bored of my apps. So I decided to install a NEW app, one to help me on my way back to skinny jeans. It’s called “Lose It!” (exclamation mark intended) and it’s essentially a digital version of the little calorie notebook I kept in high school except ten times more awesome. It knows the nutrient stats for eating three and a half swedish fish, for example, and how many calories are in one ounce of Triscuits. This is beneficial in two ways: 1) fuels my odd penchant for metrics /and/ 2) accommodates my strange eating habits.

However, I’m beginning to see the dark side of “Lose It!” as well. It’s one thing to be like, oh yeah, OK, today I ate a hamburger, some nachos, a stick of celery and three glasses of red wine, but it’s quite another to see it all there totaled up for you – HAMBURGER (FAST FOOD) NACHOS (FAST FOOD) RED WINE 18oz – and be like, that’s what fueled my body today. Well, sweet.

If America runs on Dunkin’, I must run on saturated fat. Or alcohol fumes. One or the other.

 

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Posted in eatin', i hate technology | 1 Comment »

Lost Weekend

2012/01/21

Most people think of a lost weekend as a drinking binge. Something hedonistic, something wild. But a lost weekend can happen with depression, too, and it’s a lot less fun than you think. I know, how fun could it be, right? It’s depression! But trust me, it’s less fun than that.

I’m tempted to start at the very beginning – the trigger, in shrinkspeak – but I won’t. Let’s just say that a confluence of unfortunate circumstance caused me to retire at 9:30 Thursday evening and not emerge until 8 on Friday night. That’s how I deal, sometimes. Sleeping. I managed to stay up for a few hours, long enough to watch a movie, before trudging back to bed to read Mashable on my iPhone. I didn’t want to sit up, even, all my limbs were heavy and my chest felt like a lead brick. So I lay there, pinned, until I fell asleep.

I guess it’s Saturday now, and I’m up. We can thank the quasi-anorexic in me for that – I only got out of bed so I could go to the gym. But then I ran some errands and installed a new hard drive in B!’s MacBook. I did these things because they are What I’m Supposed To Do, they are supposed to Make Me Feel Better. And I guess they have, kind of. But when things are as they are, all we can do is keep trying… and wait for the storm to lift.

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Is a black girl in a white, white world.

2012/01/16

It’s cold in Massachusetts right now. Not North Dakota cold, but pretty cold, nevertheless. And, as I’ve mentioned, my old winter coat is no longer a viable option. Not only am I too big for it, it’s also ripped at the zipper and been sent back to North Face for repair. A normal person might just tell me to buy a new coat and soldier on, but that normal person might not know how broke I am / how much I love my North Face. It might not be surprising, then, that I’ve managed the winter thus far with just a fleece jacket, the one with the cigarette burn in the left arm that vents like an ice luge right up my sleeve. I’m nothing if not determined.

It was ten degrees when I pulled up to my parents’ house this past Sunday, clad in an equally inappropriate winter garment and with wet hair to boot. My mom, being a mom, kind of freaked out. Midway through our visit, she disappeared into the basement and returned, some fifteen minutes later, the proud bearer of a lightly-used (by her), puffy, white coat.

White. WHITE!

w h i t e

There are seven hundred and fifteen pictures of me on Facebook, and the only ones where I’m wearing white were taken on my wedding day. Other than that, in twenty-something years of dressing myself, I’ve never voluntarily worn white. I’m really more of a black girl: black tank tops, black socks, and, yes, black underwear. I bought a tan sweatshirt a couple months ago. That was branching out. So the idea of wearing white ANYTHING, much less a GIGANTIC WHITE COAT, is just about as appealing as sporting my skin inside-out.

That said, it’s really been pretty cold here. So I took it.

Seriously, I feel like a cross between the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Pippi Longstocking. It’s like having some other person’s body, or trying to cook in somebody else’s kitchen. I mean, God, I love my mom, but this coat is like the worst thing I’ve ever worn in my life. North Face! Hurry back with my jacket! I promise to be slim enough to wear it when it comes!!

Posted in fashion, I enjoy being a girl, personal hell | 1 Comment »

Things I learned while my boyfriend was away:

2012/01/14

B! has been gone since Monday. Here are eleven things I found out.

  1. I’m more social when I’m single
  2. Filling ice cube trays is for the birds.
  3. The cats? They really poop a LOT.
  4. Taking out the trash is not my strong suit.
  5. I eat like shit when left to my own devices.
  6. I also don’t sleep properly.
  7. BECAUSE I’M TOO BUSY BEING AWESOME
  8. Gossip Girl really starts to slack midway through season 2
  9. Kale is an incredible vegetable
  10. Doing dishes is actually not that bad.
  11. But I still hate it.

 

Posted in anecdotal, how i am awesome | Leave a Comment »

2012/01/09

I called my shrink today. My insurance changed effective January 1 and, me being me, I’d put off calling my treaters until the last possible minute. (Our appointment was the following morning at 8:15.) She actually picked up, which threw me off guard a little, and brought up a very good point: with new insurance, I’d have a new deductible.

A new DEDUCTIBLE – not a new COPAY.

So I hopped on over to the insurance website and, sure enough, there it was right there in the sidebar. $900. Hey! $900! And three medications to refill this week! Now, that’s a way to really ring in 2012.

I mean, I’d just forgotten about it, the whole deductible thing. I guess I never had one before last year, and, we’ll remember, that was no picnic either. So I don’t know, I guess I’m just bad at being a grownup or something.

But, nevertheless, I counseled myself, breathing deeply and trying to keep my heart rate down, I’m very lucky to actually have the money at this moment in time. Like, barely have the money, but still. One could also say that I’m lucky to have insurance at ALL – even though not having it is just not an option for me anymore. So I’ve got a number of things going for me, here, on what would seem to be an inauspicious start to 2012.

I nixed the appointment with my therapist (needlessly, in hindsight – my medication will more than reach my deductible), and she was gracious enough to accept the late cancellation.  The other piece of good news? She takes my new insurance. Thank God.

Posted in Depression, money, therapy | Leave a Comment »

And another thing, while I’m on a roll here,

2012/01/06

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-truth-about-borderline

This article, found through a Twitter feed I follow at work, made me at least 6% less productive on Tuesday. I remained devoted to my job, turning my attention back to more relevant Tweets, but something about it stuck with me long after the day was done.

Now, let’s be up front. I’ve never been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I have a lot of other official diagnoses, but BPD is not one of them. However, they did teach Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a treatment schemata for those *with* BPD, in The Bin while I was there. I found the techniques very helpful: mindfulness, awareness, cultivated skills and concentration. I’m not saying it works every time, but, really, it’s not supposed to. Emotions are normal, and, we learn, they come and go.

The horrible thing about depression is that it seems to NEVER let go. Being depressed is like being trapped under a heavy, moist, 1-ton bale of stinking farm hay, and not even having the energy to wedge yourself out. And when you’re treating someone depressed, I’d imagine, the first order of business is to lift up that load and help the person stand. So in the hospital, every bit the picture of classical depression, it’s no wonder that they diagnosed me thusly.

So I’ve not been depressed lately. But I haven’t been great, either. Where my moods were once a one-note hum, they’re now a jazz arpeggio. Like, that kind of crazy jazz I hate. I’ll be fine one minute, just OK the next, and then feel myself slipping over the edge into something dark and mushy. Sometimes I’m able to catapult myself back out – sometimes I’m not.

None of this is like depression. But a lot of it is like borderline. Although I’m able to maintain relationships, it has more to do with my resolve to stay healthy and the infinite patience of my companions. Although I’m usually able to compose myself, I generally feel just on the verge of going technicolor. And impulse control? Let’s not even talk about all the ways I venture to excess.

I feel bad about it, really. I feel like I conquered one horrid beast only to be faced with another, more jostling foe. And anyone can tell you, the worst thing about feeling bad is feeling bad about feeling bad. But this article, instead of bringing me down, gave me some measure of hope and self-forgiveness. It’s exhausting to manage these moods – the euphoria and the depths – and since I’ve now been trained to bring awareness to every flicker, each movement is obvious to me.

So maybe it’s OK to be exhausted. Maybe it’s OK to be sad sometimes. And maybe it’s OK that my on-off switch flips at the speed of a strobe light. Maybe this is just the new me, and now I just have to learn how to handle her.

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Posted in charming neurosis, confession, Depression, manifesto, personal hell | 2 Comments »

Next thing, I’ll be telling you all how much money I make.

2012/01/05

THANKS A LOT, NEW YORK TIMES.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?pagewanted=all

I’m just sitting around, minding my own business, recovering from my New Year’s party and then WHAT? Here’s the Times talking about weight  - how once it goes on, seriously, it never comes off. The lengths to which people go to keep it off. Now, I may or may not have drunk a Big Mac’s worth of champagne the previous night and I may or may not have had buffalo wings for breakfast, but either way this is not what I want to be reading as day fades to evening and late lunch becomes an early dinner. Not one bit.

I put it out of my mind. I had some cereal, went to bed, and, by morning, the bad news was far from my thoughts. Except, it wasn’t. It never is. I weighed less than 100 pounds when I was in the hospital. And, though I did gain a little during my early recovery, I lost even more while I was living by myself through early 2010. I’d never been skinnier, and I loved it. (Let’s be honest, I still love it.)

Then the numbers on the scale started creeping up. Slowly first, so I almost didn’t notice, and then faster. Now I’m afraid to weigh myself because I would probably be near 130. That doesn’t sound like a lot, maybe, but consider it in context: I gained 30 pounds in two years, I’m not all that tall, and I have an eating disorder. So that weight in this body can never be far from my mind.

But So I’m driving home from work today, and effing Tom Ashbrook comes on On Point with thishit:

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/05/keeping-off-the-fat

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR OF THE GODDAMN NEW YORK TIMES PIECE. And, like a martyr, I’m listening to it and feeling all crappy about my prospects. I mean, I totally screwed up my metabolism with all that starving and purging BS. I haven’t eaten like a normal person since I was 14, so what makes me think that 16 years later, I should be able to feast hearty and not pay the piper? People get older, metabolisms slow, and we can’t seriously expect to wear that little black dress forever. Cheer yourself up, I thought! But I couldn’t.

Then, the author, Tara Parker-Pope, started talking about her OWN weight. Her OWN struggles. And I can’t remember her exact words (I was driving, you know) but she exhorted the audience to be healthy in the bodies they’re in. And the way she said it, I was like, damn. That makes a lot of sense. I couldn’t cheer myself up. But she did it for me.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Resolves to:

2011/12/31

- stop using her driver’s side door well as an ashtray.

- resist the urge to eat blueberry muffins every day of the week.

- get back to the gym.

- continue enjoying turkey sandwiches with coleslaw and russian dressing.

- remove the two trash bags of empty Diet Coke cans from the trunk of her car.

- keep on keepin’ on.

 

Posted in anecdotal | Leave a Comment »

Baloney.

2011/12/28

So Christmas came again. The run-up was the usual mix of meditation and insanity, and the holiday went faster than I would have liked. I worked through Thursday evening, celebrated my sister’s birthday on Friday, then stayed at home with my family (and B!) until Monday afternoon. It was awesome.

But being at home? It gives you all these feelings. Mostly good feelings, of course, but also feelings about how life used to be, and how that informs your life as it is now. And also feelings about where you are now, and how what you came from makes you feel about where you are now versus where you thought you might be or, in some ways, where you ought to be. Get it?

No? 

Me neither. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. It’s kind of like mental Twister.

I always kind of hated that game.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Has conflicting feelings about Pinterest.

2011/12/21

I want to love Pinterest. And I do. I mean, lots of pictures of pretty things, LOLcats that really do make me LOL, and the occasional (but increasingly frequent) Bible quotation against a pastoral / beach-themed background. Luscious recipe hints aside thinspo underwear models. Who can’t identify with a lusting for both?

But what’s been getting me about Pinterest lately are all these “bucket list” pins. “Throw a dart on a map and travel wherever it lands” or “Own a Cadillac”. “Meet Taylor Swift”. Not that there’s ANYTHING wrong with wanting these things, working for these things, or hoping for these things, it’s just… a little…

Well, let’s face it. My bucket list is like, “Have a clean kitchen floor for more than 2 days running”. “Own a doublewide, because a house is totally out of the question”. “Wear matching blacks”. Not exactly what one might call “aspirational”, but, sometimes, just as unattainable. It makes me kind of sad and nostalgic, these wishes from girls out there in foreverland, dreaming of things I realize I will likely never have, and it makes me think about how I used to frame the world. Perhaps, how we all once framed it. Full of opportunity and ripe for the picking.

What happened, and when did it become so? And why did we think we were ever so entitled in the first place?

Posted in I enjoy being a girl, i hate technology, money, progress? | 1 Comment »

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