Finish this and you get a medal!

... a journey through my mind!

Here's a fun fact from work.... Bagging groceries is intense. For one it absolutely ruins your cuticles. As an experiment I painted my nails black before coming to work. What would have lasted about a week was ruined within a couple hours. When I see someone approaching with a cart loaded to the brim with groceries I think Please don't come into my line! PLEASE don't come into my line!!! .... Then they do. Most customers are friendly and help you bag their groceries. The worst and most annoying thing is when a person has an overflowing cart and just stands there just watching as you panic trying to bag 500 pounds of food and wrangle the two tubs of detergent they've stuck under the cart. In my head I alternate between ruminating over the karmic punishment in store for those who don't bag their groceries and wondering what this person could possibly do with so much food... Are they throwing a party? Passing out groceries to every homeless person within a twenty mile radius? I really don't know. Anyways, bagging is intense. I was whipping open a paper bag with my usual finesse and grace when suddenly the bag snapped my watchband in two... It literally tore the watch off my wrist. Apparently this isn't uncommon. A full timer said in the past year she's had to get replace her watch twice. Who knew that paper was so powerful? I sure didn't. 

Afterwards my wrist felt so weird. I'd worn the watch every day for the past three years and felt so naked without it. My watch was very tied with my eating disorder, both in terms of it/time playing an integral part in most of my food/exercise rituals and because I've worn it through multiple inpatient stays. In a way I was relieved though. I'm glad an outside force "made" me take the watch off, because don't think I'd have been able to make the decision to stop wearing it myself.

I feel similarly about an experience from the past as well. I haven't talked about it due to sensitivity regarding the subject. But anyways. Let's go. Hoorah. I used to have intense OCD. The compulsion which I struggled with the most was having to have my hair in a braid at all times. We're talking from second grade until I was eighteen. To this day I still don't know why, which was and is incredibly frustrating. Unlike people who believe if they step on a crack their mom's back will break or something, I knew that if I wore my hair down nothing would happen. There'd be no giant volcanic eruption, no tsunami, etc. I'd feel anxious and very uncomfortable, but that's about it. However my fear of feeling those things was unspeakably powerful and my every move was motivated by trying to avoid those feelings. I was SO terrified and didn't want to experience the anxiety and discomfort, my equivalents to a giant tsunami or natural disaster. 

Considering the fact that my compulsion supposedly kept at bay anxiety and fear, it's crazy how scared and miserable I was. I constantly felt the braid to check if it was "okay" and felt anxious about sleeping over at friends' houses or going on trips because only my mom could braid it "right." It sounds ridiculous and so embarrassing to say now, but I was ashamed and embarrassed back then too. People referred to me as "the girl with the braid," a label which upset me to no end. Although everyone probably said that because it was an easy way to identify me, in my mind the braid was synonymous with being a freak and abnormal. It "outed" me as different. Even while inpatient I felt so ashamed and like an outsider. I have vivid memories of standing in front of the mirror crying as I, livid and enraged, yanked fistfuls of hair out of my head. I was so frustrated with myself for being too weak to fight.

Now things get interesting! One day I went to get a haircut. The salon's shampoo and conditioner had a chemical reaction on my head and suddenly my hair started burning, fusing into a charcoal briquette like object. 

I seriously had an Amy Winehouse-esque mound of hair substance on my head.

All the stylists were trying to poke at my head with fro picks and stuff, but nothing was working. In fact, the more they tried, the closer to my scalp the burning/fusing action rose. They told me that they were going to have to cut off all my hair (I accidentally typed head instead of hair haha) and I wasn't upset at all. The fact that I was heavy duty restricting may have played a part in the calmness though. They could have cut off my hand and I would have been chill. If anything I was happy, because I was literally going to be cut loose. Freed. 

Three or so years later, I'm cool with my hair. I don't love it or hate it. I just feel normal about it, and that absence of a strong emotion makes me really happy. When I feel hopeless in terms of my eating disorder I remember how AWFUL things were with my hair. The fact that now it's not a big deal gives me a lot of hope that maybe my relationship with food/my body/exercise one day will be normal too. ... But here's the thing. I didn't choose to take off my watch. I didn't choose to cut my hair. Both instances were out of my control. And unlike those other two examples, I don't think a paper bag or bottle of shampoo can take my eating disorder away. It's like the ultimate battle (final level of Donkey Kong status), and one which I have to face alone. I have no confidence in my ability to be strong, decide to change and fight through it myself.  I wish I could go to the future for a minute just to see, to know that I will be okay. That I will recover, be happy and safe. 

I know I'm still afraid to feel out of control, anxious, uncomfortable, scared, etc. and that's keeping me stuck in terms of my recovery.

Dear self who is remaining stagnant in order to avoid those feelings and making decisions from a place of fear, 

Think of all the horrible feelings you've held inside yourself in the past. Shame, guilt, fear, anxiety, etc. all spread out as far as the eye can see like slick moss on an endless lake. While it is sad to acknowledge all the "bad" feelings I/we've experienced, they didn't kill us! I/we can survive feeling uncomfortable and anxious. So DO IT.

....Now the problem is me being lazy and scared, not wanting to have to survive them in the first place. Aaah.

Congratulations!! You finished this amazingly long and rambly word vomit of a post! So where's your medal? Whoops, I meant metal, not medal... The age of the nose stud has ended and been replaced by the era of the nose ring. 

Let the wild rumpus start!

Questions:

1. Say whatever you want!

2. What gives you hope? Do you have faith in something?

3. How do you keep from letting fear hold you back? In what ways are you letting fear keep you from moving forward?