Anger, Pain, Passion....

And extremely mixed up dreams….

Oh the joy of feelings and emotions!! And boy, I am feeling a lot right now! 

Some very positive; Passion, excitement, happiness and some not so; Anger, sadness and pain.

But you know what? I’m feeling! And that in itself feels great!

You see for so long I was numb and cold. I couldn’t feel anything except the hunger in my stomach and the bitterness in my throat.

At times I wanted to but it all just felt like too much. It was as though I couldn’t handle what us as human beings go through so instead would turn to my eating disorder as a way of escape.

But as I’m coming more into life, and into my body, I’m finally starting to ‘thaw out’ and open the floodgates to emotions locked away for far too long.

The anger I feel is very much directed at my eating disorder.

The sadness I feel is over time, love and life lost 

and the pain from suddenly being so aware of all this.

But at last, the anger is toward my eating disorder and not myself or those I love. 

Yes I’ve lost a lot of time through being ill but I still have so much time ahead of me. 

Love may have been lost too but I’m opening myself up to so much more now.

 Starting with love for myself. 

And yes, it’s painful to become aware of all this but it’s a drive to keep going too... 

There is no way around, only through.

I’ve also been having some extremely mixed up dreams, full of the past, present and future. They have been very vivid and incredibly strong. But I’m actually happy to be dreaming again! My nights have been void of dreams for so long and if there have been any, they would normally be food/anxiety related. 

These ones are bold and beautiful!

~

When you are open, so is life and all its opportunities.

Feel all you need to feel. 

Allow yourself to experience all that comes with recovery, with coming back 

to life!

With much Love, Smiles & Support,

Hanna xx

identifying feelings

I keep on missing my posts and for that I apologize. I also apologize for this post in advance... it's not very... well... it's just not.

I found out my grandfather was in hospice this past Saturday due to an accident and he passed away late Sunday night...  Consequently, I haven't had words for awhile now.



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I saw Laura on Monday, as she offered to let me see her off-schedule, and during her session I realized I couldn't even pinpoint my feelings... and sitting here right now, I'm not certain I can either. When I fill out my DBT diary cards.. that last section is often always empty - except for the occasional, "tired" or something similar. Laura wound up sending me the link to a website with lists of emotions... RIGHT HERE

Little did Laura realize (or maybe she did), but this was actually a topic of a recent DBT group... we were given a sheet that gave a lot of different emotions (sadness, fear, happiness, etc) and stated their purpose.

"Sadness is a healthy response to loss that signals a need to be consoled, and leads us, if we heed it, to seek comfort from another person. 

Anger is a healthy response to betrayal or violation, and leads to setting boundaries. 

Fear is a healthy response to threat, and signals a need to escape danger, and can guide us to run or to engage in appropriate safety behaviors."

Seeing all of these emotions in list form on that website was an interesting experience.... because I realized some of the words I could sort of remember feeling like at some point in the past, but couldn't recall the "when." I imagine (since this is often present in DBT) that a part of being able to do this is, or start to, relates to mindfulness.

Emotions are a key part of being human. Having this ability to feel. Definitely something to work on getting back.

What do you feel right now?

Emotions

I mentioned something to a friend yesterday (the lovely Kat) that got my mind churning. Before my eating disorder began and during it, I had trouble with emotion. Sometimes I wouldn't feel anything (especially in response to big things happening--like moving far away from my home) or explode at the smallest thing (especially after I moved). It seemed like my emotional barometer varied from empty to full at lightspeed. Would it be too much of a stretch to relate this to my eating habits at the time?

Anyways, flash forward to now. I've been through hours of therapy with professionals I've mostly hated, until I hit the jackpot. The woman I currently see (but haven't seen since returning from a few trips) I really seemed to connect with. She felt for me. I would venture to say she helped me relearn to feel, to connect with my emotions. I would tell her a sad story, and she would look sad, get teary eyed. I would tell her a story back from when I was a kid, and she would get pissed off. I would sit there, wondering to myself while talking why she felt so much about me. I was, after all, just her client.

I started to notice, though, she really did seem to care about me as a human being. She showed these emotions because she was receptive to how I must have felt at the moment in these stories, and how I might feel about them now. Expect--back up--I usually don't feel very much. It occurred to me that the problem wasn't that I didn't feel--it was that I literally would not let myself feel. I would not think anything that would lead me to feel, and I would berate myself when I did feel anything. When I would go home from sessions like these, I would let myself feel full force. I would think about her comments, how it must have been unfair, upsetting in this story's experience, or how relieved or happy in this experience. I would be seriously grateful for turning things around with my mom, or truly sad about how I grew up separate from my blood-brother. I would just steep myself in the emotions, both fearful of them and amazed by them.

I noticed at the same time it started becoming easier to be emotional in the moment, instead of later. I could get upset when treated unfairly, or express joy to people I cared about. I could relate a story with emotion rather than a bland rationality (that probably seemed sort of eerily stoic, in retrospect). It's sometimes hard to feel the shitty emotions, but it's so real, so true to the situation, that I can't help but be grateful for re-learning this skill that comes naturally to most people.

Feeling.

I feel anxious about decision I have to make regarding my ex.
I feel nervous about my upcoming GRE test.
I feel happy that I discovered family that I really like.
I feel relieved that I finally took care of some chores I needed to take care of.
I feel accomplished for being published recently.
I feel jittery from the excedrin I took earlier for my headache.
I feel amused that I can sit and write all these emotions out in this blog entry--which would have remained blank just a few years ago.

And so much more.

How are you feeling? No, really think about it. How is your feeling? Do you avoid your feelings? Embrace them? Somewhere in between? Let me know how it goes!

Love love love,

Ashley

So that’s what it feels like!

My theory is, when we starve and abuse are bodies we in turn starve and abuse our minds. And when we starve and abuse our minds, we rid ourselves of all emotion & feeling and are left with only a feeling of emptiness.

We can become almost numb.

For a long while this is how I existed and if I’m honest with myself, this was how I wanted it. I didn’t want to feel any of the pain I thought would come. I didn’t believe I would ever feel anything like happiness again so why on earth would I bother?

Okay, depressing start right. Maybe, but it gets better, I promise!

Because I’ve also found that when we once again begin to nourish and take care of ourselves, we start to ‘fill ourselves up’ once more.

And boy is this difficult. All of a sudden you get a rush of emotions you may not have felt in years. Or they can be really sporadic, catching you off guard when you least expect it and sometimes in the most ‘inappropriate’ of places.

And oh so very random!

Right now for example, as I sit here writing this I’m feeling a little anxious, saddened yet optimistic. I’m also feeling very tired but having been up since 6am, this is to be expected.

But that being said, exhaustion is another ‘feeling’ I’m experiencing a lot of recently. Fact is, recovery is hard and it is exhausting. But before I wasn’t ‘allowing’ myself to just stop for a minute. I was running on autopilot whilst running on empty. Now that I’m finally starting to listen to my body and give it what it needs, it’s so very grateful yet oh so tired.

But that’s okay. I can deal with that.

And what follows tiredness and hard work is irritability and often sadness.

No fun for those around me or myself!

~

So, the emotional gates have started to open once more and this is where extra support is needed. It’s all very well (and positive) to be feeling again but you cannot deal with it all alone. Luckily I have found a new therapist who specialises in eating disorders and all the ups and downs, feelings, frustrations and emotions that come with them.

It’s going to be intense and it’s going to be difficult to finally feel and deal with those again but it’s going to be worth it.

But of course not all of what I’m feeling again is negative.

Far from it.

The past few weeks I have been taking giant steps in my recovery and with that comes feeling of great triumph, hope, optimism and yes, happiness.

The more I move forward, the more I challenge myself and defy my eating disorder, the stronger I become.

I am also working with a nutritional therapist who is helping me to regain a healthy body through nutritious foods, advice, guidance and reassurance. Very challenging but also very needed. And I’m actually really enjoying a lot of varied foods once more!

~

So I leave you this week with a feeling of great pride in that I’m once again able to feel what I need to feel. And do what I need to do.

Allow myself to feel & heal.

And of course, as always, a feeling of great love for you.

With much Love, smiles & support

Hanna xx

Allow yourself to feel but always keep yourself safe. Seek the support you need and never push yourself harder than you feel comfortable.

And remember it's okay to cry too!

the "a" word -- anger -- {{ self discovery word by word }}

 (image credit: Ashley from NTS)

I know.. I know... I reference Ashley's blog.... Nourishing the Soul... a lot. today is no exception. She started the Self-Discovery Word by Word series where each month a word is chosen to write about... (this month it's hosted by Big Girl Bombshell) I've never participated, telling myself various reasons why not to... however, this month a word popped up that left me feeling unsettled... what was this month's word?

anger.


This word came up this last week during my weekly Laura (which was last Wednesday) and also appeared quite a few times when I was in IOP.

It's a word that scares me. Something about the shape those five letters can take when personified.

When I was a kid, I saw anger. true anger.. and frequently. I'm not saying I never saw love, but I am saying that I saw, heard, and dreamt about what I still believe was an extremely raw form of haunting anger.

Some of those things still scare me and thus I say that anger does.

I was in IOP this time last year (I cannot wait until that phrase will no longer be able to escape my lips... or pass through my fingers via the keys they touch) and Cathy (an amazing art therapist) led us outside with a scale to bash. There were only three of us at this point and outside we went into the back parking lot, laughing along the way at one of the girls' habit of coughing every time she sees a smoker - that walk being no exception as we passed a group taking long drags in the cool summer breeze.


We got out there and the other two started taking the turns with the hammer Cathy brought... I wound up only being able to watch from a distance - standing on the curb near the grass in my dress... the whole situation scaring me and making me feel extremely unsettled. Just watching the others take hammers to these scales I almost started crying, resorting to hugging myself to prevent it... the anger was just so visible. Cathy wouldn't let us go back inside until I had hit the scale with a hammer, but I could barely muster tapping the already broken scale - but I needed us to go back inside the building. Inside where people were more composed. Where things felt more in control. Cathy didn't press the issue further after my love tap to the scale so inside we went again, thankfully

It wasn't the way they were acting outside that had scared me, it was the realization that no one that spirals out of control in rage, starts their rage out of control. It's a seamless transition... one I've witnessed too many times. Recently I felt incredibly hurt by some things... intense emotions... I became so fearful I would act out in anger or mixed emotions and hurt people (emotionally) that I apologized and then isolated myself from them... The whole thing terrifying and upsetting me in multiple ways... fearful that I was dangerously close to trespassing into the land of rage.

Through the years I've held in emotions, even in places I feel secure such as Laura's office, but no emotion have I held in to the degree that I have anger - to the point of mellowing it out so that I honestly don't know if I am experiencing it or anything... only a brief thought that maybe I should be angry.

I've cried and shown up in her office in a daze... but I've never let myself be angry. Truly angry. I've always said there was no point in it. The closest I've come is being pissed off (which as those that know me in real life... takes a lot -- or for me to feel extremely hurt/injured by people on an emotional level as I mentioned earlier)... I'm terrified of hurting others with that anger... I hate hurting people in general, which is another reason why I can and often do abruptly withdraw or shut off after experiencing high intense emotions.

I've held the fear (odd side fact: they say that fear and anger are inversely related) of getting too angry dear for quite some time. Curled up with it. I think the wall I've built with it is finally starting to crumble though.

Reading several case studies has taught me that this is quite a common reality for those with eating disorders, this "thwarted anger" -- with cutting, purging, starving, and other behaviors being ways of getting rid of that anger.

I think becoming more secure with yourself grants you some greater ability to validate your own emotions. To be able to sit with them, because they are yours... and feelings aren't right or wrong, they just are (or so someone I know once told me) - telling yourself that you're not angry, that you're not sad, that you're not anything is invalidating yourself... and you're worth more than that.


what do you do to sit with your emotions in a healthy way? or what can you choose to do?

 day 3: Favorite television show? My So-Called Life... closely followed by Little House on the Prairie (yes, Melissa Gilbert dressed in Calico running down a field Little House on the Prairie). Oh recent you say? Well, I don't have cable.. and have yet to really turn on my television (except for the second or third day in my apartment to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's) so all the tv shows I watch, I watch via Netflix... and I'm going to say In Treatment or Project Runway when it's in season...

I'm okay. I'm fine. I feel fat.

 (photo credit to nobody-but-me)

Okay, so I had absolutely NO idea what to write about today (for tomorrow)... and I decided I would go for a run. It started sprinkling half-way through my first iPod song... I kept running, when I got about to the halfway point it started pouring,  right when Ray LaMontagne's "Trouble" started making its way to my ears my shoulder popped (I've had two shoulder surgeries and so running is a touch and go sport), and by the end of that song it had popped again resulting in walking. It was at this point when it was still pouring that a police officer driving by asked me if I needed a ride and I told him that magical phrase, "I'm okay"

Let's think about this. It's pouring rain, it's thundering, I'm about a fifteen minute walk from my home and my shoulder keeps popping every time I try to run. Yet, I'm proclaiming that I am okay to a police officer who offered me a ride.

This phrase also commonly shows up at the end of my therapy sessions (actually, if I'm being honest, I'd say nearly every session) - "I'm always okay. seriously."

So what did I really mean when I said that to the police officer? I was telling him that I didn't actually have a problem (aka I'm not weak), that I didn't need help (aka I can help myself), and that I did not want to impose on him or put him out.

In saying the phrase a lie is forming - not only between yourself and who you say it to... but also to yourself. You're burying the problem at hand.. ignoring it... hoping it will solve itself - refusing to deal with the issue.  (I also think the phrase can mean that we wish for help to seek us - that we want to know who really cares based on who will challenge that statement)

This burial will present problems later on (me having to walk 15 minutes in the pouring rain) as it will undoubtedly come to a head... Worse yet? These constant lies impact relationships. If you're "always okay" then people assume that you can get through things even when you do muster the courage to approach them with a problem.... this can be devastating... here you need people and are willing to admit it and are being dismissed...

or they know you're not okay and don't know what to do since you won't discuss it. Do you see how this could be frustrating? You're doing X,Y, and Z and yet you're saying everything is okay... repeatedly.

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I feel like I can't complete this topic without addressing "I feel fat" --- "I feel fat" is really suppressed emotions and feelings in the same way that "I'm okay/fine" is suppressed problems. You're not "feeling fat" - you're feeling things that fat represents to you. You're feeling those uncomfortable things. Whether it be frustrated, sad, angry, disjointed, confused, forlorn, exhausted, whatever... you're feeling. and that can feel, unsettling. Especially if you don't have words for those feelings - just that you are... and at that moment fat seems like a tangible stand in.

Next time you say that you're okay, you're fine, or that you feel fat -- take a moment to try to think what you really mean by that -- try to realize what all is going on inside of you and identify those emotions/feelings/etc - I think it can also probably help on the "be here now" front as you're trying to figure out what is happening within you in that moment


Try to get to know yourself, try to get to know those feelings, they are yours' after all.



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which brings me to something I'm going to start doing on here... to get to know myself a bit better. I know that might sound odd, but I think self discovery can be a grand thing. Arielle actually inspired this via Facebook --- also, I think this could be a good opportunity for anyone that reads to get to know me so I can break away from this mysterious Wednesday poster persona...


Warning: this may bore you, so I'll always put it at the end of my posts ;)


DAY 01: A PICTURE OF YOURSELF WITH 10 FACTS

10 Facts about Me:

1) I love pretty food... a lot --- make it pretty and I'll eat at least some of it (see the amazing chocolate easter bunny picture)

2) Really big turtles scare me... or rather creep me out - even pictures of them. When I went to Disney World in college, we went to Epcot's Coral Reef restaurant and sat next to an aquarium wall.. unfortunately there was a massive turtle right next to me the whole time. No bueno...

3) I was born in Upper Heyford, England (aka Oxfordshire) and have since lived in Mississippi, Washington state, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Arkansas, Texas (2 locations back to back), Illinois, and am now back in Missouri.

4) In the fall, I try to eat something pumpkin every single day.

5) I want to work in a group home some day

6) I have a weird habit of dropping coins on the ground -- I remember how much it would excite me as a kid to find money

7) I only listen to CDs, talk radio, or country radio in my car.... why? I like consistency and I can guarantee the ability to listen to any of those three in any state.

8) I know how to make balloon animals

9)  I keep peppermints in my car for when I see homeless people... I try to give them $1 and a peppermint candy --- when I worked in downtown Indianapolis I remember sharing pizza with my father and a homeless man and how the homeless man told me he hated always having bad breath - I also fully believe in having open hands

10) I honestly think I'm in a better place than I have been in a very long time (and no I don't just mean, because I'm in my amazing bed eating a banana)

lessons from childhood (and dr seuss)

When I was younger...

i believed my father was a superhero

i believed it when i was told i could be anything i wanted to be.

i tried anything despite not being qualified - that word had no meaning to me. if i tried something and failed it just meant i would get to try it again.

i was fearless -- we're talking roller skating down a hill that could rival some of those in San Fran

i didn't think about my body in any way other than that it was what let me do cool things

fear foods were foods that looked gray and splumped onto the cafeteria tray

i thought my mother was beautiful not in spite of her differences, but because her differences were what made her my mom

i knew the power of friendship and trusted it wholly

weight was wait -- and its only association was when you had to wait your turn

i believed in sharing and caring

all of life's problems could be solved by reading a Sweet Valley book

rainbow brite protected me in my sleep in the form of a blanket and when i was scared helped me feel secure by being wrapped tightly around me

feelings weren't right or wrong - i just felt and it was okay to do so

i would get excited to hear the ice cream truck

i was addicted to the game candyland and the idea of that forever happy place that existed even if my house was not happy -- it gave me a sense that there was someplace happy in the world- someplace good where people were truly good - i consequently felt that hope could be found in a board game --- or in anything

dr. seuss taught me that "unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better it's not,"  that I would succeed (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.), and that “sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple" which would help me ask the right questions to get to the honest answer.

the world was my playground and it was my job to explore it - finding things other people were too busy to see and overlooked- "You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut."

i neglected grammar and believed putting a heart next to my name made any apology letter better

i thought that hugging was giving another person a piece of you -- the harder you hugged the more you loved them

i listened to my body cues. when i was hungry i ate. when i was tired i slept.

i knew that exercise was meant to be fun

i believed wishes were magic and that it was possible for dandelion seeds to carry dreams and wishes away

i believed that dandelions were flowers too

i got excited at the simple things like discovering the goldfish cracker character has a name (it's finn and his girlfriend is Brooke --- oh wait, that may have been my adult self...)

i was mindful -- very much aware of that moment in time. if i was there with you - i was there with you rather than thinking of something else. if i were playing soccer, i was focusing on that.

i dreamed of the day when i could grow up and eat dessert every night like my father who would have a pb&j sandwich and a bowl of ice cream every night before bed, but after doing a couple of sets of one armed push ups.

i believed in promises and trusted people

my dinner plate was colorful... and i ate bread which obviously didn't kill me

and probably most importantly... i loved myself... i didn't know how not to

oh what my younger self could teach me...

what could your younger self teach you??

p.s... major hugs and well wishes to Ashley (she knows why)