haven day 03

(041719)
I've gotta say this-- Aurel is so pretty.
"Handsome" is a word I haven't quite defined but geez, what a look. I've found I gravitate towards that sort of look-- the graying hair, the lined face, the vertical-formed figure. Very much a softened edge, but steadfast look. Brian is real pretty too. He has these downward-turned eyes & a weathered look, and this small & thin but strong build. And he always wears tight but wrinkly jeans like a cowboy. I think that's the vibe I love about him-- it's a feeling of weariness after a long wandering, and a steadfast hope in the face of hard work and struggle, yet not in the same sense of "hard work" that a burly big guy carries (which I ALSO love to death). No, Brian's vibe is a sort of emotional labor, weirdly. Again, the cowboy feeling. He's not doing hard labor but he's still exerting physical strength, yet it's somehow outweighed by inner strength, evident in his lined face and tanned-tight skin and lean yet powerful yet oddly fragile build. I really like that look. Going back to Aurel, though, that's a different sort of vibe entirely-- that of age and grace and strength. Yes, we all fall apart when we get old, but right before that, some folks hold the aesthetic glory of elderhood with the remaining punch of youth and it's just fantastic. It's that same vertical stature as the "cowboy," but without the wildness or wandering or wistfulness. No, Aurel's vibe, the silver vibe, is what my boss Mr. Sandman exemplifies. It's this stunning sort of indomitable hope. It comes from living that long and seeing so much and knowing that whatever else life's got, God's grace will get you through, because you're almost at His gates anyhow!




(041719)
Resist the lying siren songs!!

RITUALS= help willpower preservation!
-Literally remove as many external obstacles as you wisely can
☆Intense "wants" are FIGHT OR FLIGHT response analogs!!!
☆Fatigue depletes self-control!!
-Do the most important thing first in the mornings= highest energy
☆Small portions more often; energy rich foods!
-Do one thing at a time! Systematic; patience. Break into doable steps.
-"Work in sprints"; 90m cycle of effort then recharge.
☆YOU'RE USING RITUALS AS BREAKS BECAUSE YOU DON'T LET YOURSELF RECHARGE DURING WORK. You plow into it like a freight train and end up running off the tracks because you go for hours and end up utterly exhausted. So your brain is desperately clinging to food rituals JUST TO GIVE YOUR BRAIN A REST.
☆Resist temptation! "What do you stand for?" NON-NEGOTIABLE. Grounded in Core values.


MUSIC IS A GREAT MOTIVATOR!
I keep wanting to apply music to self-analysis? Why do certain people like certain styles & genres? Why do certain moods vibe to the same styles/genres? What causes cognitive dissonance in this respect-- i.e., changing from major to minor, utilizing certain sounds & speeds, doesn't fit the music sometimes. Why?


"Be bamboo, not an oak-- you need to be able to bend when the storms hit"

Breathing= CREATIVE force; microcosm of birth/death
☆breath in STOMACH??? "bowels" in Bible?


DISCHARGE PLANS
☆We cannot have a "set schedule" at home-- we can only have GUIDELINES. Go with the flow!
☆Try to get 5 meals in a day, but SMALL. We have to make eating wise, healthy, habitual, & incidental. We cannot sacrifice our time & attention to overeating. We must practice frugality!
☆Establish a fluid "group" system-- a list of activities we can allot to freetime in an intuitive manner. And MAKE SURE IT IS ALL HEALTH-ORIENTED, as well as CHRIST-CENTERED.
☆DIE TO THE WORLD, BUDDY
☆DON'T DUMP YOUR TROUBLE ON THE FAMILY. They don't have the emotional capacity, mental resources, or professional resources to deal with it. Go to LAURIE and your docs/therapists, and GO TO GOD TOO. You need to be prudent about what load you give what people to carry. This is compassionate to all parties and will prevent frustration & despondency on all parts.


North Carolina= I failed myself.


"I don't have a problem with you-- I'm just having a problem handling your symptoms."

haven crisis plan

MY WARNING SIGNS:
1. Staring stiffly into space
2. Closed body language
3. Talking fast, "babbling"
4. Agitated body language, esp. arm/ hand waving

MY TRIGGERS & STRESSORS:
1. Sustained loud noises, lots of movement
2. Being given performative public instructions, like in charades (i.e. "do this, like this, and let others watch")

COPING SKILLS I CAN USE:
1. Going outside to breathe
2. Prayer/ Bible study
3. Listening to choral music
4. Writing
5. Translation work
6. Exercise, esp. running
7. Go for a walk in the woods
8. Look at childhood artwork
9. Go sit in the basement & calm down
10. Read a favorite book

haven day 03, part two

(041719)
I just visited the med window & the nurse told me, "make sure you wash your hands before you eat dinner, because your room will be locked afterwards!" I asked if that was because of maintenance, as they've been working in that corner for a day now, but she said, smiling, "No, it's so you don't throw up."
…I thought I had left all of that behind, here.
But no, there it is, like a returning cancer after the chemo is over.
This time at HAVEN has been so vital to my recovery. No one ever even mentioned eating disorders. I was the only person to even refer to it in passing, as something I had passed by-- truly, as something I had passed on from, as a dead end I had died to. I felt reborn here. I felt free. I felt unhindered and trusted and innocent and capable and hopeful and brimming with goals for my new future. Eating disorders were far from my mind.
And then that unknowing nurse threw me right back into jail.
I'm sick of bulimia hell. Let it rot in the past where it belongs. If I'm trying to rebuild my life, I refuse to use rotten wood to do so. But as long as the people around me keep bringing it up I will NEVER be able to move on because they keep throwing handcuffs back on me.
I want to cry. I want to punch a hole in the wall. Part of me even wants to skip dinner-- proving that I won't purge because I'm empty. But I'm sick of being miserable and bitter over it. It's exhausting. If I want to abandon the eating disorder, then I need to just let go.
I have to see this as what I feel it truly is-- persecution by the evil one. I have to think about what Saint Paul probably went through. Imagine if he was in my place. Here he is, recovering & growing & learning how to be ever more kind & loving & gracious, innocent in his reliance on Christ's healing power… and then suddenly, one day, he walks up to the med window & they tell him, "make sure you bring lots of napkins to dinner because you won't have any utensils." He replies, "oh, is there a shortage on this unit?" Friendly, innocent. And then the reply, with a smile… "No, it's so you don't use them to attack any Christians."
…You see why this hurts.
It is a work of the evil on because it is BLATANTLY based on an utter lack of trust in Christ. In that reply, both Saint Paul and I are being told, "I know how evil you were before you came here. I am not taking any chances with your behavior. Because if I truly trusted in your recovery, in your rebirth, I would give you the utensils, I would leave the door open. But no, no. In my eyes, you still look like a bulimic and a murderer. You both look like agents of wanton destruction. Yes, you claim faith in Christ, and in His power to heal you. But I don't have faith in that. So I will take my precautions."
…This leaves me with a very important fact, a choice I must make. The fact is: I have faith in Christ's ability to heal me. But the world doesn't. The world CANNOT have faith in Him. So it'll never trust His work in me.
But it's not about me anymore, not truly. I must realize that this persecution is an opportunity to testify TO Christ, in the face of all opposition. Since the world cannot trust Christ's working in me, I must EXPECT opposition. I must EXPECT distrust and accusation and all sorts of trials. The world will NEVER see me as recovering, let alone recovered, unless IT is responsible. It cannot accept any Savior but itself. But that's impossible, and my life is proof. No doctors, no surgeries, no hospitals, no therapy, no meds, no magic, no manipulation, nothing will "cure" me because nothing CAN cure me except Christ, because He IS the Cure. He IS health and joy and trust and wholeness and rebirth. And for His sake, for the sake of testifying TO Him and His essence and His power in my life, I must not despair. Earlier I wanted to vomit out of spite but THAT IS EVIL and it would only "prove the world right." And I cannot, will not, do that. No. Christ is deserving of uncompromising honor and through His Grace I MUST give Him that. I must eat wisely, and continue to keep it all in even when I'm sick and scared. The world wants me to fail because it wants Him to fail. Therefore I am being called to a sort of martyrdom over this.

(later)
I have to admit this. I gave in. Dinner hurt too much to eat and I felt awful saying "no thank you" to all the donated vegetables when I knew that otherwise they would all be thrown into the trash bin before my very eyes. But eating that much-- treating myself, effectively, as the garbage bin, as ironic as that is in contrast to my motivation-- was so excruciatingly painful that I honestly could not bear it. So therein was my conflict of mercy. In showing mercy to the food, and the good motives of my fellow patients, I neglected mercy to my own soul. Saying "no" would not harm my fellow patients in any real way, but… they wanted so badly to see me eat, they didn't want me to starve, they didn't understand that a "no" on my part was not an indication of total relapse, and honestly I enjoyed experiencing their care and concern and generosity and gratitude and support and joy when I did eat another mouthful so much that the thought of saying "no" to ALL of that in connection with the food that enabled its expression was unthinkable. And so I failed to even consider the possibility of adverse consequences on my part as a result of saying "yes." It seemed impossible.
And hey, isn't that just what we're learning about trauma? Survival instinct comes first. When your idea of survival is skewed in the moment, you pick the wrong option. You sacrifice physical health if it means your heart might escape without any more scars. You're so desperate for the survival of a relationship, for the survival of human connection, even if that connection is founded on something utterly unstable, that you prioritize it over all else in the moment. Dissociation makes it worse, when you've learned to kick your own body under the table so often and quickly that you forget it's even yours anymore, and that you have to live in it once the other person leaves the room.
I cared so much about finally feeling hope from these people about my health, that I-- irony of ironies-- sabotaged my health just to keep them smiling. Just to convince myself that I was "being a good girl" in their eyes, in the mind of the unit.
And yet that one nurse stands as a terrible testimony to the underlying truth of it all.
Only God's judgment matters.
The world will eventually stop believing in me. But I don't care about that. I can't care about that, because you're not SUPPOSED to believe in me. No one is, not even me, especially not me. Either I believe in Christ, either you believe in Christ, or we don't believe in anything at all. So in the end, who cares if the nurse and the unit see only failure in me? If I am anchored in faith in Christ, their opinion cannot change His Truth. It's not my truth-- God knows I doubt everything I do and think and say the way it is. But that's not what matters. I must have faith in CHRIST, working IN ME. It's HIS POWER. I must abandon myself to it utterly. That's the hard part-- that last step of totally dying to oneself. But it's the only thing that's going to get me out of this trauma pattern. I need to remember this.