Criminal

Guilt. Shame. A pair of life-suckers, and they are surely no strangers to me. Every day, at some point, I am likely to feel guilty about something, regardless of whether I have actually done something wrong. I am likely to have a visceral gut reaction to anything that tries to refute my shameful, guilty identity. It's the whisper in my mental ear each time someone tells me I'm OK, I'm beautiful, smart, helpful - the whisper of "You don't deserve that. That isn't really you. You are bad, you are wrong, you are flawed, through and through". A constant stream of accusation about my body, my accomplishments, my disorder, my failures runs through my minds like a liquid stream of poisonous mercury, slowly making me sicker and sicker.
Then, today, something shifted.
It wasn't what I expected. I'd been wishing and dreaming of liberation. Sort of a magic bullet, a pass to freedom. I wanted an out. I wanted to say the prayer, get the intense emotional experience, and then walk away with no desire to ever return to my disastrous behaviors. To clarify - my wish was, and perhaps is, for God to remove my eating disorder and all it's associated messes with a wave of his invisible hand, and absolutely nothing done on my part.
I am not implying that God does not take away whatever is hurting his child in a nanosecond. I think he can. What I mean is that I am lazy. I don't want to struggle and feel pain in order to grow. I want effortless. I discovered that I have been playing the helpless victim role. My mental dialogue goes a little like this:

Me#1 You really shouldn't binge eat and then throw that up.
Me #2: I can't stop myself.
Me #1: Oh really?
Me #2: Yes. Really. I am emotionally and spiritually wrecked. I need this. People have hurt me. I need to medicate.
Me #1: So ... what about all those people willing to help you?
Me #2: I have to ask them to help. That's hard. I'm too weak. They probably are too busy and have written me off anyway. I'm all alone. I have to give in now or I'll just die. I need this, just one more time.
Me #1: Right. Let me know when you want to call quits on the pity-party.

And so on. Man but being a victim gives you an out.

And then, revelation - or whatever you care to call it. I am only the victim if I choose to keep running away from God. And it is a choice, fear-based and lie-based though it be. I have chosen to hang on to those false beliefs very tightly, believing they kept me safe, intact, and insulated. It suddenly came to me - I am guilty, yes. Very. Worthy-of-death guilty. But it isn't my disorder, or my lying or my failures that are my deepest sins. It is pride, victimising myself, passing blame, and running from the truth. I have refused to see my own part in creating the mess I have become. I have denied my stubbornness and my unbelief, blaming it on something outside myself, believing it was not in my power to choose any longer. I felt I was a robot, directed by malevolent programming- but I am not.

Here is the crux, and the beginnings of release - I learned today that admitting guilt, truly feeling and owning my complete messiness, is actually the beginning of freedom. Which experiences the greatest relief and gratitude when finally pardoned-  the criminal who is convinced that they are the product of circumstance and they are not to blame, or the criminal who knows full well how completely guilty she is of her crimes? I think the latter. I am now becoming (I hope) the latter. I felt, for perhaps the first time, the sadness of knowing I'd been wrong. By my own choice, no matter how I was mislead, I ran headlong away from God. I tried to fix myself and blamed God and others for my failure.

But the funny thing is, the freeing truth is ... once I admitted that, I could beg for mercy and forgiveness. I could feel grateful for a gift I didn't deserve. I couldn't be forgiven of a crime I wouldn't let myself admit to.

Metrics

I don't know if I was born with this measuring rod inside my head, but for as long as I have memory, it has been there. You may have one also - I hear many of us humans do.
The metrics on it are peculiar. Sometimes, yes, you may find inches or pounds, miles or minutes, but this is always accompanied by annotation. More often than not, there is simply a name etched in the wood. And I never quite know if today's markings will be the same as they were the day before. They move around, and sometimes they fade to near-illegibility, while a new one is freshly gouged in over it.
I'm referring, you see, to the incessant, addictive, almost automatic comparisons I make - me versus the the rod, me relative to the rest of you.
I have marks for my siblings there, their grades and their accomplishments, how pretty they are and how many friends they have, how much money they have and how obviously they worship God. Many of my friends have left little marks too. There is a particularly troublesome metric I am always trying to pin down - it moves all the time. That one is weight, and sex appeal, and my body when I am getting dressed and nothing, nothing, nothing looks or feels right to wear. It likes to hang around the dots that measure what I ate yesterday and how much, the ones that tell me if I should feel guilty and gross. There's another sort of measurement that, while I try to ignore it, is a constant niggle in the back of my mind. I guess I would call it religiousity, or maybe just acting good. It looks at how I pray, and what I feel, and whether I talked about God or read the Bible or went to church. That one likes to be buddy-buddy with the Mom Metric. God how I hate that one. It moves more than any of the others. You'd think it would settle down - I mean, it's been around longer than anything else on the measuring rod. Yet I still find it in the oddest places. And of course, I have my How-much-money-do-I-make mark, and the good-god-why-are-you-so-dumb mark ...
So you get the idea. The weirdest, most frustrating part of this whole measuring rod thing is that when I lay myself up against it, trying to figure out where I am relative to ... well, relative to everything, I'm pretty much a midget. Extra short. See that mark up there - no, look higher - the one that says "Good Enough"? I never reach it. Sometimes I can stretch and reach to "Sort of Maybe Decently Adequate (for Now)", but not that often. The Overachieving Sibling mark? Never got that high. The Perfect Body/Weight? Never once. Way out of my league. The Good and Godly Evangelista? Ha. Right. Not with my conversion stats and sin-o-meter going. Don't even ask about the Making Mommy Happy and the Accepted and Loved for Being Me metrics. My measuring rod isn't even long enough for those ethereal markings.
I don't really know how to get rid of this measuring rod. I try sometimes to sand out the more irritating metrics, maybe write in a few that are kinder. But like I said, the damn thing changes almost every day anyway. I'm told that being close to God can help the ruler shut up. But all that thought does for me now is make the distance I am below the "Good Christian" mark all the more glaring and painful. I know people who seem like they have, if not a lesser need to compare, at least a greater ability to tell the comparisons to shove it. Being around those people, having them tell me what matters and what sort of doesn't, can tone things down. I just have to wear selective earplugs so I hear them over the nattering babble.

Caucaphony SUCKS

There are three names in the title of my blog. They all live in one body, but believe me, they don't act the same -- it's like living in an apartment complex with thin walls and the upper neighbor plays death metal while the lower neighbor sings classical opera, and all I want is better insulation.
You know how I mean. I never seem to have just one thought at a time. I'm like, uh-oh, I did something pretty stupid (or whatever -- insert unhelpful adjective). ED jumps in, like, well, of course you did. You're a worthless fuck-up. What did you expect? Why don't you just hurt yourself until you can't feel anything anymore? You deserve to be miserable and alone. God waits, and as ED pauses to catch a breath before spewing out more criticism, he interjects. You know, sweetheart, I don't love you any less that I did before. I'm not saying what you did was right, and it made me pretty sad, but I'm not throwing you out with the garbage. I'm still here -- I miss you, and I wish you could trust me to help you with your hurts... And I'm full of doubt and questions, terror and hope, and ED's screeching  at me, and God is like the bass undertone for a different song playing at the same time. But enough of that metaphor. To carry it any further I'd have to bring in about five separate music festivals.
The weird thing is I know, I know I know, which voices are the ones that I should listen to. I know which ones are truthful ... but the others feel so familiar, so right. It's like when I wake up at night and go into the kitchen, and I know what I'm doing and that it isn't right, that it's gonna hurt later in so many ways, and still I'm opening the cupboards and the refrigerator. Still I'm running to the bathroom instead of running to bed, where my boyfriend is ready to wake up and hold me until the crazy passes. And then I'm done, and I know what I've done but I want to forget it. I want to hide it and pretend it never happened, I want to forget that I failed again. And I can't. I want to confess what I've done, or better yet call for the help I need before I do it. And so often I listen to the despair, the fuck-its, the accusations, whatever. The worst one is the belief -- no, the conviction -- that if I confess my failure or ask for help in my weakness, I will be deserted. They will decide I am not worth loving after all. They will leave, and never come back, and I will be empty, and alone, and too scared to end it all. I am told I am loved, without bound, without conditions, and I want badly to believe it. I want to trust it. I feel so close sometimes to letting it in ... but then the screaming comes back, the fear comes up, the despair covers and I shut the doors. I think I need a bellboy and a doorstop... 

Grieving ...

I was inexplicably, extremely sad this afternoon. Oftentimes I am quite depressed, but usually am able to circumvent it somehow, whether in a healthy way or not. Today, I wallowed. I crawled into my bed at four in the afternoon, cancelled my ride to the 12-step meeting I was supposed to be at, and ignored phone calls from my parents for hours. I dozed and nursed my sadness. I wasn't sure where it came from. Sometimes I just get feelings, seemingly out of the etherworld. I guess I have shoved them down so long, they don't know when it is appropriate to come up any longer.
The sadness has led me to think about grief and loss... I have a lot of that in my life. Most of it is self-inflicted. My illness has cost me greatly. I don't like to think about this. It makes me feel sick, shameful, and guilty, not to mention extremely depressed. But maybe it is necessary to feel the loss in order to change. They say that pain is the impetus to make change. So. I have lost my health, my strength, friendships, opportunities for friendships, romance, opportunities for romance, relationship with God, relationships with my family members, multiple jobs, schooling, a lot of money, living situations, stability, joy, love, emotions, the ability to cope with life normally and functionally... I am pretty sure there is more to the list. My life has become very small and narrow. I have to name each of these things, mourn them and repent of what I have done to cause their loss. And I must change, and work to move on and regain what I can, and seize the joy that is offered to me should I choose it.

Grateful?

I worry a great deal, especially lately. I worry about money. How will I make rent, pay my phone bills and utilities, buy groceries and still save up for a car? I worry about my health. Have I lost or gained weight, are my electrolytes OK, will my doctor approve of what I am doing or am I in trouble and heading to the hospital again? I worry about my eating, incessantly. Did I eat too much, too little, the wrong thing? Will I get fat? Will I look alright if I eat this? Will I feel full? I worry about my relationships. Should I call, am I being annoying or clingy, or too distant and isolative? Why am I so lonely? Does anyone like me? Will I ever have romance? Will my family and I ever be reconciled, or have I done too much damage?

So I worry a lot. My head spins, out of control, and I want to numb it out. Quickly.

Then I read in my devotional this morning (which I admit that I only read because I didn't know what else to do -- I rarely read it, which is a sad confession) that I need to go about my day trusting God and being thankful. Crap. I have been so busy worrying and numbing that I completely forgot what I do have.

So ... I am grateful.

I'm not in the hospital or treatment. I have a good care team who are watching out for me. I purged less this week. I have wonderful loving parents who practice boundaries, most of the time. I have a job, which pays the bills even if I don't love it. I have an weird and quirky and wonderful family. I have a few friends who have stuck with me through all my mess. The sun is warming up my section of the planet. I'm finally figuring out my medication. I get to take a really cool class on anthropology.... and my list will continue. There's always something to be grateful for, even amidst my worries.

Self-centered

I wonder, sometimes, if I am capable of real love. I am so selfish most of the time, so self-centered. And most of the time, I don't even realise it. I tend to think that I am the center of the world I live in, that everyone's thought's center around ME. I walk up the stairs at work in front of me and wonder if the person behind me thinks my butt is cute. I go to talk to my family and find all I talk about it my problems, my day, and it never occurs to me to think of asking, how are your problems, how was your day? Humanity makes us egocentric, and addiction even more so.

So I wonder again ... am I capable of that selfless love? That un-selfconsciousness that allows one to care about another human being? If I am I certainly haven't been practicing it. But maybe even the awareness of that is a way to start...

Mad

I'm still seething. I mean, I am angry. This is uncomfortable for me. In fact, I hate being angry, especially at someone, even more especially at someone I love. I have spent years, years, supressing my fury. It is finally coming up in a way I can recognise as anger. Prior to today, I didn't really think I was upset that much. But my whole eating disorder has a horrible vengeful quality that I couldn't face. I still don't know if I can face this. I hate being so mad! It feels crazy, it feels undeserving, unjustified. I don't have a right to feel this. Yet. Yet I feel it all the same. I'm angry .....