The Cage Called Anxiety

Let’s talk about the prison that is anxiety.

I have spent the bulk of my life in a cage of my own creation – a safe and small space – a barrier between myself and a world that is too vast and terrifying. A world where I am not in control. The cage grew smaller and smaller with each passing year – less light shining through, less room to move. Everything was so unsafe. I couldn’t cope – so I isolated myself more and more.

We all have areas in which we feel most comfortable – some larger than others. No two comfort zones are the same – but there is one element to them that is universal.

The inability to step outside of your comfort zone reduces (and sometimes even completely eliminates) your ability to grow. Life is growth – each day you are a different person than you were the day before. If you are not growing, you’re dying.

My cage of comfort is monotonous, isolated, and unfulfilling – but it is safe.

Still, can you call that living?

When I was eighteen, I decided I was going to not only poke an arm or a leg through the bars of my cage – inching out into the real and scary world.

I was going to going to light it up with dynamite.

I decided that I was going to be a new person – a person that was everything but myself. I moved over 1,000 miles away, I lived in a dorm room with two other girls, I joined a sorority, I majored in science.

And then I promptly fell apart.

It was unsafe.

**I can only write from my own personal experience – and that is one where the world has always terrified and overwhelmed me to the point that I can’t breathe. My fight or flight response is always in high-gear, and I bet you can guess which of the two is my go-to.

Since my panic and anxiety disorders date back to my very early childhood, I can’t speak for anyone who is neural-typical, one who doesn’t struggle with anxiety. One of my biggest fears around writing about the topic of mental illness/mental health is that of sounding like the dreaded “special-snowflake.” I don’t know how anyone’s brain works but my own – however, I do know that, no-matter what, every single one of us struggles in some way.**

Okay, back to comfort-zones, anxiety, and other fun topics.

When you are dealing with severe anxiety – regardless of the type – the wall that you put up to protect yourself from anything and everything that makes you feel even slightly uncomfortable tends to be thicker than that of others. It’s not just a matter of “Oh, X makes me nervous,” but instead it is that of complete, paralyzing, and all-consuming terror – terror that is, more-often-than-not, disproportional to the situation.

Some fun and not at all embarrassing examples from my own life include:

1. While in CVS, I accidentally bump into a woman as she is turning around. She snaps at me, “Are you an idiot?” (to this day, not sure how bumping into someone is related to intelligence.. but hey). I apologize, with a very embarrassing amount of tears already filling my eyes, and then promptly begin shaking so violently that I need to sit down… in the office supplies aisle of a CVS on Lexington Avenue. I cry, curled up in a ball, on the floor, while my brain yells as me. You’re an idiot. That woman thinks you’re a rude, bratty kid now. That woman hates you and you will never be able to maker her not hate you. You should die. …That escalated quickly.

I then, still shaking, pick myself up and, buy a mini-stapler. That CVS is now unsafe. I will never enter it again.

2. I dropped my phone – the screen cracked. Now everyone will think that you’re irresponsible! Why are you crying right now? It’s a stupid phone. You are a disgusting child. You should probably die. 

3. *While conversing with anyone ever* “Hello,” says the person. How do I respond? What do I say? No, that’s wrong. No no no no no. They probably hate you anyway. Crap, they just introduced themselves and you already forgot their name? You’ve just been staring at them for at least ten seconds now. Why are you so awkward? No, you can’t answer yet, you’ll say the wrong thing. You should probably die.  

4. You left your phone off of airplane mode while you were sleeping last night – you’re going to get brain cancer now. There’s nothing you can do about it. You have destroyed your entire life. Your head hurts. No, now your chest hurts. Heart-attack? Probably. You’re going to randomly drop dead at any moment. You need to prepare yourself. How do you prepare? Oh my God, I’m going to die. Wow, I’m being crazy. Everything is so scary. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Stay home, it’s safe here. Wait, how does staying in your house prevent a heart attack. Ssssshhhh. Just go with it. Oh, you probably shouldn’t try to talk to anyone either because you’re awkward and they hate you. Wait, how did I get from leaving my phone on to here? 

5. This is my personal favorite -*Cannot find specific spoon* There are many spoons that look just like this spoon, but this spoon has a tiny scrape on it and if I use any other spoon, I’m going to die.

Obviously, I can find a lot of humor in my anxiety – I know that I’m being ridiculous, I’m aware – but that doesn’t make it any better.

The thing about any form of mental illness, or any other form of disorder, is that they’re well…  disorder. Your brain doesn’t function the way that it’s supposed to. You can’t cope the way that you are supposed to. You are in sensory overload all the time. And you (or maybe I should say I… Don’t want to speak for ya) want so badly to be understood, to be comforted.. But how can a healthy brain even begin to understand thoughts that are not inherently natural to have? It’s no one’s fault that they can’t understand, and it is unfair to treat anyone as such.. Still, I do believe that is our duty as humans to at least attempt to understand others – no matter how “crazy” you feel they are.

Here’s the thing… there are many times where I feel like if I go to class, or a certain store, or talk to someone, I will die. This may sound ridiculous to you, and you would be right. But that doesn’t change the very real emotions that I am experiencing.

Any and every true feeling that a person experiences is valid – it is not up to anyone else to deem whether or not the feeling is warranted.

Even if the thoughts aren’t true – the all-consuming terror that they create it. Remember that.

You know when you’re watching a scary movie and you know that something bad is about to happen? You feel your heart skip a little, maybe you clench your fist or your jaws, your senses are heightened.

Imagine feeling that all the time.

When it comes to mental illness, both the sufferers and the allies have responsibilities, this is important to remember. Those who do not struggle but wish to be allies are responsible for attempting to understand, to not pass judgement, to comfort.

What they are not responsible for, however, is pandering.

This is where the responsibilities of those struggling come in. The world is unsafe, trust me, I get how terrifying it is – I pretty much live in isolation because it’s all too much.. But I’m working on it.

The world is not responsible for bending itself to fit what makes us comfortable. The real world is filled with triggers, and it is our responsibility to learn to navigate these triggers. Now, this isn’t to say that you just need to “suck it up”.. not at all. The goal is to learn to handle things… slowly. The fight and to try, but also to be kind to ourselves and to know our limits. It’s easy to just completely turn in on yourself and lock yourself up in a glass castle all by yourself where you can be in total control, you can be “safe.”

But that’s not living.

It’s also easy to guilt yourself. To listen to the voice in your head that is tell you that you’re just making excuses for yourself, that you don’t actually have an issue and are just making this up because you’re a lazy loser and poor excuse for a person, that you are making this up to get attention (you say to yourself as you are alone, curled up in a ball, hysterical, on the floor of your dorm room because going to class is too scary). This can lead to some bad situations, damaging ones where you push yourself to the point where you are more than uncomfortable. You are unsafe – not physically, but mentally.

Me moving to Florida in a desperate attempt to “cure” myself (aka, escape being me) was more than uncomfortable. It was unsafe. It’s like jumping into a burning hot bath without first inching yourself in bit by bit so that you can get used to it and not scald yourself… It doesn’t end well. I wound up having severe panic attacks every single night. I relapsed into my eating disorder.

As with most of the things that I write here, I’m not really sure what the point is that I’m trying to get across. I just think that it’s important for those who don’t deal with these things to hear about them, even if that means sharing the very shameful contents of my mind when I’m having an episode. These things are real and we need to try and understand each other. People aren’t meant to be alone, we are social creatures – and dealing with a mental illness, especially ones where you isolate yourself (which often leads to pushing away your loved ones or often flaking on plans with friends until they no longer talk to you) can make a person feel more alone than they ever thought possible.. and os they continue to spiral downward. It is also important for us, the people who deal with mental illness, to meet our loved ones half-way, to push ourselves, to want to recover. To communicate how we feel, what’s going on, what your limits currently are.

Maybe if we all help each other, everything will be a little less scary.

Bumps Along The Way

*small note before reading - I don't know if
 any of this post is coherent in any way, 
shape,or form... so I apologize in advanced. 
Well... Now that I've totally talked this 
thing up, let's get readin'!

 

A year ago today I did something that was, arguably, the more terrifying thing I have ever done.

A year ago I hit publish on my post Disappearing Act where I opened up about my eating disorder. The opening up wasn’t the scary part – I tend to have a bad habit of sharing way too much via the internet. No, the terrifying part was that, for the first time, I hit the “share” option that allowed the post to be seen by people that I knew in real life. Upon hitting the publish button, it felt like I was forever changing the way every person who has ever met me sees me. All of this being said, publishing that post is one of the best decisions I have made. The intention behind the post was to not go on and on about my insignificant self (which I have been doing for almost 150 words not…yikes), but to let those suffering know that they are not alone, and to educate those who don’t understand eating disorders in a way that would allow them to view these very real diseases in a more understanding and compassionate way.

So here we are a year later. What’s changed?

I can’t say that I remember what I covered in “Disappearing Act” (I kind of just typed it and hit publish without re-reading it, i.e. talking myself out of posting it), so I’m not sure where I left it or how much I shared about one of the most universal occurrences in recovery.

Relapse.

The road to recovery, regardless of what from, is not a straight path. You don’t just decide to recover and that’s that. No. Mental illness is mental illness, just as an addict is an addict – just because you are no longer practicing harmful behaviors does not mean that you are no longer sick. No.

Something that they don’t tell you about recovery is that it is an ongoing fight. You can be weight-restored (if being underweight was a symptom of your illness… remember, weight does not an eating disorder make, weight is merely one of the many symptoms of eating disorders) for years and still fighting at every single meal – every bite, every calorie.

I know it sounds overdramatic, and there are exceptions to this rule – but by going off of my own person experience and the experiences of others I know, but it’s true.

And relapse doesn’t always present in the same way. Just because I’m not eating X amount of calories every day like I used to does not negate slipping backwards. One may no longer restrict as low, yet their intake of food starts to slowly get smaller and smaller. “I’m fine,” they can say. “Remember how bad I used to be? This is nothing. Everything is fine.”

And sometimes we really and truly believe that.

Have you ever heard of the concept of the “transfer of addictions”? You stop restricting your calories as low, but begin to spend hours upon hours in the gym. “I want muscle now!” You’ll explain. “I’m healthy and fit. I’m lean not sick.” You’ll say as you weigh out every gram of food you  eat as you need to track your macros.

That is not recovery. More often than not, a person will begin to recovery – really try – and then jump ship. They won’t know they jumped ship though, and most of the people in their life won’t either. There are so many cases of a person recovering anorectic developing a binge eating disorder – which is, by the way, a completely valid and dangerous eating disorder. It can take such a long time to notice these new unhealthy behaviors – you need to gain weight, you need to eat a ton of calories. This is fine.

This is just one of many examples of invisible relapses.

One of the scariest parts about relapsing (or never  really fully committing to recovery – just convincing yourself that you are) is how much it feels like failure. Recovery is a very scary place to be – you are fighting so hard, but the fight is in your own head. The people around you say that you’re doing so well. You’re healthy now. You’re so much more fun than when you had your eating disorder.

All of this is being said while you scream in your head BUT I’M NOT OKAY! PLEASE HELP ME! – You never say this out loud of course. You smile. Everything is okay now. Pretend everything is okay. These people are counting on me. I can’t let them down.

I can’t be a failure. Not again.

I don’t know if there is ever a time that a person is more fragile than when they are in recovery. Being in recovery is like slowly thawing after being frozen for such a long time – it takes a long time to thaw, but it doesn’t take much to crack the ice and have it all fall apart far before you are ready.

Okay, that analogy sounded way better in my head… What I’m getting at is that a person in recovery is essentially made of very thin glass – the smallest touch, even an accidental one, can cause the whole thing to crash down.

Only this time you ‘don’t look sick anymore’ you’re ‘recovered.’ I find that the relapse, or even just the minor bumps in the road to recovery are far more difficult to handle than the full-blown anorexia was. As deadly as anorexia is – it actually develops as a way to keep yourself safe. You get to live in your own little bubble of self-destruction. You think about nothing outside of your disease, you feel nothing outside of your disease. It is a comfort of misery. Hey, I’m falling apart – but at least I’m too numb to really care.

Now I’m not numb anymore. I’m in sensory overload. My exoskeleton has been ripped off, exposing the rawness underneath. Every little touch hurts – you feel everything. The entire world becomes a trigger. It’s too much. I’m scared. I can’t handle this.

So you turn back to what you know – your safety. You romanticize being at your sickest in the most twisted way – you know it was horrible.. But you also miss it.

Now you are in limbo, not quite recovered, not quite relapsed. This is where I am right now, and to be perfectly frank, it sucks. It’s all too much and I hate myself and I’m scared of everything and I can’t look in mirrors and I don’t want to go outside – I also can’t return to the way that I used to be. I know better than that. I don’t want to die and I know that, with an eating disorder, you either recover or you die. Yes that sounds morbid and dramatic, but it is the complete truth. Always remember that when you feel yourself slipping – regardless of what it is that you are recovering from.

Wow.. I don’t even know what this post is really about. I wanted it to be about relapse in recovery and how falling backwards  does not make you a failure.

Recovery is a lot like the myth of Sisyphus*. You have this impossibly large burden to carry with you (your illness), it doesn’t just go away, you keep it with  you and fight every day to keep pushing forward – to fight the distorted thoughts from the sick mind – you push and push and push until you get to the pinnacle – recovery.

And then the boulder rolls right back down the hill.

But you try again. You let yourself fall with it a bit. You’re so tired and you have been fighting for so long. You tumble down. You relapse. You feel like a failure – too sick to exist but not sick enough to get help.

Well here’s the thing – if you’re reading this right now, it means that you’re still here. You have hoisted that burden back up onto your shoulder and have started up the mountain again.

This is recovery – this is strength.

*If you don’t know the story of Sisyphus, in a nutshell – basically he betrayed the god Zeus. Now, if you know anything about mythology, Zeus has a sick sense of humor. You don’t want to mess with him because he will destroy you. Sisyphus disclosed on of Zeus’ secrets, and for that he was condemned to push a massive boulder up a hill – once he reached the top, the boulder would roll back down the hill, hitting Sisyphus on the way down – over and over again for all of eternity.

 

When You Feel Like You Are Sinking…

One of the biggest lies that childhood cartoons (that’s right, I’m looking at you Looney Toons) taught me was that at some point in my life, I would encounter quicksand.21 years later and the closest that I’ve gotten to quicksand was seeing it in that sub-par Indiana Jones movie with Orlando Bloom. 

Still, though I’ve never found myself slowly sinking into quicksand while walking the streets of New York – I feel myself sinking. We can call it mental/emotional quicksand. It feels like everyone is moving forward in life while I am stuck in place.

And the more I try to fight it, the deeper I sink.

Excuse me for the melodrama. 

The thing with writing the blog is that it feels incredibly egocentric. Why would anyone care to take the time out of there day to read about my feelings? There is no good reason – and I do not expect any person out there to take any particular interest in my life. The thing is, sharing the inner workings of my mind is not exactly my favorite thing – it is terrifying and feels shameful. But with that comes the thought that if, by talking about all of the craziness that goes on inside this head of mine – if one person can see something and resonate with it. If one person can feel that they’re not alone in thinking or feeling the way they do… That is all I want. And the best way I know to do that is by putting it all out there, warts and all, and hoping someone who needs it sees it.

Okay. Back to the whole quicksand thing.

I’m not that self-centered as to think that I am the only person who feels as if they are falling backwards in life while those around them are moving forwards. Tell one person that you are essentially having an existential crisis and they are likely to tell you, “No one knows what they are doing in their 20’s (or teens, or even 30’s these days). You’re not supposed to.”

Then why does it feel like everyone has a grasp on what they are doing but me? Why is it that while I see people getting into medical school, landing careers, getting their first apartments, etc. that I, seemingly, can’t even make a simple phone call to schedule a doctor’s appointment for myself without my voice shaking to the point of it almost being unintelligible from anxiety? Why is it that I am overwhelmed to the point of complete and utter collapse over my college coursework when there are people who work full-time, or even part-time and take more classes than me? Why is it that other people who suffer with anxiety can hold a job while I can’t work a simple part-time job without having a panic attack in the middle of my shift and having to quit in complete and utter shame (mind you, this was a job I honestly really enjoyed). 

I know, I know. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” I get that… But this goes beyond just falling into the comparison trap.

This is about disappearing for a little while.. Losing time… Thawing. Waking back up.

I often have trouble accepting the age that I am. Not because I think that 21 is particularly old, but because, to me, being 21 makes no sense to me. A majority of my life beginning in my sophomore year of high school (when that eating disorder I mentioned in a way-too-much-oversharing post earlier this year first got bad) through my senior year of high school.. i.e. the bulk of my teenage years.

It’s hard to explain this feeling to someone who hasn’t experienced it, but I know that there are many out there who have. One of the best descriptives of this feeling (phenomena?) that I have heard was said by author and musician Mishka Shubaly and my favorite podcast, The Rich Roll Podcast. Both the host of the show, Rich Roll (super inspirational and aspirational ex-lawyer and author of Finding Ultra) and Mishka are both recovering alcoholics and, in this episode, they were having a conversation about addiction. Here, Mishka (a man in his 40s I believe) was talking about how he felt like he was the age he was when his alcoholism first took hold of him. It was as if he had been asleep for a long time and was just waking up and needed to experience life starting at the age where he was last truly alive. 

Now, to the skeptical mind, this may sound like a simple excuse to get out of growing up, accepting responsibilities, etc. Honestly, when applied to myself, I feel it to be an excuse. I often question whether I actually have an anxiety disorder or an eating disorder or PTSD (this diagnosis is the one I doubt the most), or if I’m just trying to get out of doing things that I don’t want to do. Logically, I know this to be false. I’m not the kind of person who lacks drive and motivation. At least… I think I’m not. 

For so long, I feel that I have been asleep. Frozen. That any and everything that made up “Erin” was shoved into some box in the back of my subconscious while mental illness came to the front and took over. For so long, my identity has been “anorexia” or “anxiety” or “depression.” They became who I was. All I was. I didn’t (and still sometimes don’t) want to let them go and heal because I don’t know what I am without them. 

I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I’m like. I don’t know what I like. 

I know being afraid of people. I know being afraid of food. I know feeling empty. I know being obsessive about exercise. I know being somewhat reclusive. 

Think of the mind like The Upside Down from Stranger Things – only here, there is no demogorgon. Instead, there is a whole different monster – this monster is mental illness. This monster is what has consumed all of what made you, “you.” This is the monster that has stolen away all of your light. This is the monster that has trapped you. This monster is anorexia. This monsters is panic-disorder, this monster is PTSD, this monster is depression. This monster is any and everything that has stolen the true, beautiful, and crucial “you” from this world and has hidden you away. 

But you know what this monster isn’t?

This monster isn’t you.

I feel like I am only just waking up. I feel like I am only just becoming ‘me’ again. The thing is, I have no idea what constitutes being ‘me.’ The last time I was ‘me,’ I was 15 years old. 

I have a lot of catching up to do.

When years and years of your life have been taken from you by whatever it is that consumed you – it is not your fault if you feel that you are falling behind. You are not there yet, and that is okay. 

In all actuality, you really are still that little person that felt so scared/alone/out of control that they had to retreat to the back of their subconscious and let something else take over. Protect them. Act for them. Exist for them.

I can see skepticism or chalking all of what I am saying up to the perceived laziness/entitlement/immaturity of the millennial generation – and I can completely understand that mentality. This feeling of losing time only to wake up one day still the child that you were when you first disappeared, unable to cope/function in an ‘age-appropriate’ way, is a feeling that is inexplicable (though I’m trying really hard here with this way too wordy blog post). 

But just because it doesn’t make sense to most people does not mean it is not real.

Just because you are not where society deems that you are supposed to be at any age does not make you a failure.

Just because you feel lost and scared and alone and unable to ask for help out of fear of being told to just ‘grow up’ or that ‘you’re an adult now’ doesn’t make your feelings and troubles invalid.

Of course, with all of this and my saying that you need to be gentle with yourself, be patient with yourself, and allow yourself to go through the phases of growing up that you were “supposed to” have gone through years ago – you, we, still need to put ourselves forward.

However, you can push yourself forward without dragging yourself down. You can move slowly, tread lightly.

The more you thrash about. The more you beat yourself down. The more you try to run and catch up with the others faster than you are able to..

Will only cause you to sink.

When You Feel Too Much

Let’s talk about feelings.

Each and every one of us experiences emotion in different ways. Yes we all feel the basics: happy, sad, angry, excited, nervous, etc… But the ways in which we experience these emotions and how we react to them vary greatly.Same goes for the world.Each and every one of us lives on the same planet. Yes our environment greatly impacts the way in which we experience the world – but we still all live in the same one. Again, the way we see and react to the world on us varies greatly.

So here we are, all of us humans bumbling around on the earth, feeling all the feelings – going through life, some of us like to keep our feelings to ourselves, some of us wear their feelings on their sleeve. Regardless, who a person is, their mentality, their heart… No matter how hard they try to keep it in, it seeps through their skin. It surrounds them. I know that talking about a person’s aura is completely woo-woo and ridiculous to a lot of people, but whether you believe or not, it’s hard to deny that we have an instinctual sense of a person before we even speak to them. If a person is sad, we can normally tell, or if they are worked up. If someone is generally not a good person, we tend to get a bad feeling about them – and if someone is a good person, we tend to feel safe around them without even really knowing them.

Some people are more sensitive to this – these auras are whatever you want to call them – some people are entirely consumed by how big the world is and how much is going on in it. Some people feel everyone else’s “stuff”, they take it in, let it soak in through their skin, they let themselves be consumed by the troubles of others. They want to take all the pain away from everyone in the world even if it means completely destroying themselves.These are the types of people that I want to talk about today.These are highly sensitive people (also called Empaths if you’re into the more out-there hippy-dippy stuff.. which I am).

Some of us, myself included, from the time we were old enough to have any awareness of the world around us, could feel the “stuff” in the world around us in such a way that it becomes a part of us.. It’s hard to explain.The best explanation of a highly sensitive person (and an extreme situation of it) is found in the book/film The Secret Life of Bees. In this story, one of the characters, May, is a bit of a mess. When she sees the news and something bad is happening in the world, when someone around her is experiencing pain, she completely breaks down. When describing May, he sister tells the story of how May was originally a twin. Her twin sister, April, and she were so connected to each other that they legitimately felt every bit of joy, pain, etc. that the other did. Her sister even tells of how when their father would take a belt to April, welts would rise up on May in the same places April’s did. Eventually, April died. When this happened, “the whole world became May’s sister.”

I remember the first time I heard this line in the movie, it felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Wow! I knew that feeling! I knew what it was like to feel all of the pain in the world to such a degree that it would cause me to physically break down. It was the first time that I felt less like an over-sensitive freak show who was too pathetically emotionally involved in everyone and every thing in my life to even function properly. Beyond just feelings all the feelings, there is another (destructive) part to being a highly sensitive person – see, when you care so deeply about others that their pains become your own, you tend to become the go-to person for everyone to come to with their problems. You sit with them, listen to them, cry tears for them,  their pains become yours and you will do anything to take those away from them.

You’ll overextend yourself to others – giving away all that you can possibly give just to make sure the people around you are happy. It is wonderful – but it is also exhausting. It is exhausting to live in a world where your entire life is consumed by trying to bare the weight of the entire world.

You will break down sometimes, shut down, it will all be too much. Of course, the people around you won’t know this. You are their go-to person. You are the one to talk to. You can’t be sad or struggling. You need to be strong for everyone. If you’re not strong, you can’t take care of everyone, if you can’t take care of everyone you are a bad person, if you can’t take care of anyone, you are nothing.

And so you develop these crazy semi (or, let’s be honest, completely) codependent relationships with every single person in your life. They are using you as their rock, what keeps them steady (and sometimes an emotional punching bag if the person kinda-sorta sucks) all while you are using them to help you feel like you deserve to exist in this world. Being the one who cares about everyone and loves deeply and helps everyone – that is who you are – if you fail to be that person to the degree that you are, you are nothing. You don’t exist.

Here’s the thing though, no one human being can hold the entire weight of the world on their shoulders forever, nor does any one human need to (the crazy part of my brain would argue this… no! the whole world is good and I am bad! I need to take all the pain away from the world because I am the only person in the world who deserves pain… yeah, not egotistical at all).

Eventually, your legs will buckle and you’ll fall. And no one will be able to catch you.Because suddenly you are not the person with the smiling face and the never-ending capacity to love and listen and care. Suddenly you are breaking down. You can’t hold anyone up at all anymore. You push people away because you don’t know what else to do. You are no longer good and helpful – and because of this, you deserve nothing. No love. No friendship. Nothing.

When you are no longer good and helpful, you no longer exist. Still, you feel the entire weight of the world – only this time you are unable to do the one thing that made you feel even the smallest bit worth something -Helping others.

Fact of the matter is, taking on the weight of the entire world is really just a way for us to avoid our own emotions.. To face ourselves. Oh! I have no time to think about my own problems! I’m fine! Honest! Do you need to talk? I’m here for you. Always. We take on everyone else’s stuff in a desperate attempt to stuff our own struggles down. However, no matter how far down you shove it, like a floatie in a pool, it’s always going to rise to the surface. You’ll have to face yourself. You won’t want to face yourself. You’ll shut down. You’ll maybe even self-destruct. Collapse in on yourself.

It’s all too much.

I feel too much.

Why do I care this much?

This isn’t normal.

Why does no one ever care about me as much as I care about them?

I need to turn my mind off for a little while.

Eventually, you will need to seek out some sort of help. This is hard for you – you are used to giving help, nor receiving it. It’s uncomfortable. It’s unsafe. You’re not worth it.You were light.. But bit by bit, you gave your light away to everyone else. You gave away everything you had and was left in the dark.

It’s all about setting healthy boundaries – something that I, after 21 years of crying because a tree is going to get cut down or something equally absurd, am only just learning how to do. You need to learn how to put your hands up sometimes and say sorry, but you have to take care of yourself for a little while. You can still be the person who helps everyone. You can still be the person that people sit and talk to even when they barely know you because they “just feel safe.” You can still be all those things, but even more.

Because now, instead of giving away all of your light, you’re keeping it. You’re using it to better not only others, but yourself. You are realizing that your worth goes beyond your ability to help others. That is just a part of you, it is not all of you. You are worth existing just for the simple reason that you do exist. Just by existing in this world as you, the whole you, is enough. It’s more than enough.I wish I could say more about this magical place where you learn to use how deeply you feel things to be there for others in a way that many can’t all while also protecting yourself. How you can live in this world and take it all in without feeling like the walls are closing in around you because the world is too big and you are too small.

I’m not there yet.

But I will be

.

On Heartbreak

Let’s have an open, raw, and borderline-humilating conversation about something that is weighing very heavily on my mind right now.

Heartbreak.

I am the kind of person that probably sets myself up to be heartbroken. I love way too much. Get too emotionally invested. This kind of “you are my heart and soul my world revolves around you I would die for you” love is great in books and movies, but in reality… It’s probably not so healthy.

And so when you feel too much, too deeply, you set yourself up to get hurt.

I tend to find a certain person in my life and make them my entire world. I tend to devote my entire life-force to one person, one specific person. I tend to live and breathe for one specific person. I tend to base whether or not it is a good day on the amount we speak on that certain day.

I tend to make a person my everything.

Then that person leaves without warning.

And my entire world comes crashing down around me.

It’s not fun.

As someone who deals with mental illness, I’m no stranger to pain, depression, anxiety etc. I have been working very hard in therapy for years, gaining new understandings of the way that my brain works and learning ways of coping with uncomfortable feelings and intrusive thoughts. I can handle mental illness, maybe not well, but I can handle it enough to function.

Pain surrounding losing someone?

I don’t think anyone can be prepared for that.

I have never really given much thought to the concept of a “broken heart.” I have never really had any reason to. I saw heartbreak in movies and read about them in books – but in my personal life, I never experienced true heartbreak.

Sure, I had had my heart broken before. Who hasn’t? But the kind of heartbreak that I had experienced in the past – the “oh no my ‘first love’ (i.e. – 13 year old puppy-love) is breaking up with me the sky is falling” kind of love.. But never this. What I feel now, it’s indescribable.

When you have your heartbroken, whether it be through the loss of either a romantic or a platonic relationship, you have no control. Here was this person, this amazing, incredible, person that you loved more than you even knew was possible. The person who made you believe in something again. The person who made you feel safe and loved. The person who made you feel like you were actually worth something. This person meant the absolute world to you. They had you, all of you. They had you believing that “always” really meant always.

And then, out of nowhere, they are gone.

And your entire reality, everything you have every thought or felt or believed, begins crashing down around you.

And all you can do is watch.

There is no feeling more painful than that of being totally helpless. When there is this pain, this excruciating, indescribably pain, this pain that is all consuming that is tearing you apart from the inside out and there is nothing you can do except sit with the feeling and wait for it to pass… Well… It’s terrifying.

There is nothing more painful than loving someone with all of your heart and soul and believing that they felt the same only to discover that not only do they not feel the same, but they do not care at all. There is nothing you can do to make them care, and there is nothing that you can do to make yourself stop loving them. Again, all you can do is sit with the feeling and wait for it to pass. Again, this is terrifying.

There is the flood of confusion. How is this happening? How is this possible? No. It can’t be. You were my forever person. We said we would always be here for each other. How did we go from talking about seeing X movie when it comes out one night to you completely deciding that I am worthless the next? Nothing makes sense and it’s all so wrong. Nothing feels right. Being in a world that no longer involves this person doesn’t feel right. How is this happening? How do you go from telling someone you love them one day to treating them like dirt the next? There are too many questions and not enough space in your brain to process them all. Your head will go fuzzy. Your body will start shaking to the point that your teeth are chattering and you can’t stand up without collapsing. You will want to, simultaneously, throw up and scream and cry and collapse and disappear. You will think about never seeing the person’s face again. You will picture their face and it will make you smile for a moment, only to then cause you to collapse into sobs. You will think about having your arms around them, and their around you. You will think about the feeling that you got – that one that made you feel safe and warm and loved. You will think about how you will never experience that again. You will feel like there is ice running through your veins.

It’s all just too much.

You will feel like you’re dying. You will truly feel like you are dying… Only you won’t die. There is no relief from the pain you are feeling. All you can do is sit with the emotion.

You will reach out to the person. Your person. The person you love with all of your heart and soul. You will write long, frantic, and passionate messages to them and you will send them without thought (because any semi-rational person would never send all of these messages), you will beg and plead, you will apologize for things that you probably shouldn’t be apologizing for, you will beg for an explanation, a conversation. Closure. You will text and call and text and call until each and every ounce of your dignity is gone and you have not only completely humiliated yourself, but have also gotten your phone number blocked.

All you wanted was a conversation. One more time. Face to face. An explanation. A way to move on.

Because you can’t move on. When someone who you made your entire world abandons you without any warning or explanation, you can’t just move on. Especially when you’re a sensitive person (which I would expect many of you who read this blog are, given I talk so much about mental illness and other subjects that pertain largely to sensitive people). You need closure. You need to know why. If you don’t know why, you will obsess. And when you obsess, you will be unable to function in every day life.

You will be unable to be alone. You will shadow family members in your home. You don’t need to speak to them, you just need to make sure that they are there. That you are not alone. When you are alone is when you fall apart. When you are alone you get to think of how everything is your fault. How the best thing to ever happen to you, your person, hates you. You are worthless. It is all your fault. Look how easily you were replaced. You never meant anything. These thoughts will take over the entirety of your mind when you are alone. They will have distinctive voices. They will scream. Your entire body will shake. Your skin will burn. You will break out in a cold sweat. You will get up. Pace. Go outside. Run. Maybe if I run, I can get away from the screaming for a little while.

Sometimes you will think that you’re okay. That you’re “over it.” You will smile and laugh and want to dance. It’s okay. It’s all okay. Everything is great. Then you will see something – a TV show that you watched with your person, you will hear a song that you remember blasting in the car with your person by your side. You will think about silly things. Laughs that you shared. Special moments. You will think about how special these moments are to you. You will think about how your person, more likely than not, isn’t thinking about these moments. Your person isn’t thinking of you at all.

Back down into the void you go.

You will try to rationalize. No. This is impossible. We are meant to be in each other’s lives. You can’t just stop loving someone. This is impossible. There is hope. They will reach out. You two will talk. It will all be okay. Love. Love conquers all. This kind of love is not one that is experienced more than once in a lifetime. This kind of love doesn’t end like this. No. We need each other. Right? Well. Actually.

Your person doesn’t need you anymore.

You will think of your person with a person other than you. Sharing the same laughs, the same mannerisms. Listening to the same songs. Sharing the same secrets. You will feel your stomach turn. You will want to sleep for forever. You will want to run away. You will want to scream. You will want to hold on for dear life.

You will want to be angry. You will want to hate the person. Good riddance. Who needs ’em? You will try. There will be others. This is not the end of the world. This person is not the same person that you met and loved all that time ago. No. Things will get better for you. It will all be okay. Okay. Okay.

You will want to hate this person.

But all you will be able to do is love them.

This is your greatest pain.

 

As always, Grey’s says it best.

 

 

 

The Other Kind Of Perfectionist

I have spent the vast majority of my life trying to deny my humanity.

I have fought day in and day out to keep up this guise (that nobody’s buying) that I am something *more than.* Something above an beyond. I wanted the world to believe that I was the kindest, most well-mannered. I wanted the world to believe that I never got angry, never had an “off-day,” never cursed, never failed, never lied, never put myself before others. No. Not me. I loved each and every being unconditionally and would destroy myself day in and day out to make sure that everyone around me was okay.

I lied.

Never in my life have I identified as a perfectionist. I couldn’t be one, it was impossible. I had friends who identified as Type-1 personalities; perfectionist. They were impeccably neat and tidy with color-coordinated closets and perfectly symmetrical handwriting. They played instruments and sports and practiced each hobby for hours every single day without fail. They stayed studying up until 3 in the morning the night before exams and any grade below a 95 was unacceptable.

I was not one of these people… I wanted to be, but I wasn’t. My closet had more items on the floor than on actual hangers, the bottom of my backpack was filled with important papers and if those papers did happen to make it into a folder, it would be an unorganized one. I played sports and music but I didn’t practice as often as I should have. I valued sleep over studying and was perfectly okay with getting a B on an exam.  I was always scattered – dabbling in anything and everything. I was decent at it all, I could kind-of draw a picture, I placed at swim meets and got to do more challenging routines in dance class. Still, I was never truly talented at everything.

And I couldn’t handle it.

One of the main reasons that I was never highly skilled at any one thing was due to the fear of failure. When I would draw, I couldn’t draw hands, feet, or legs. I tried and tried. I read every how-to-draw book, looked up every online tutorial and still couldn’t do it.

So I quit.

I tried to learn guitar a few years ago, something that I have always dreamed of doing. I practiced every single day; strumming the same chord over and over again until I could get it perfect. When I finally got two chords down pat, I attempted to seamlessly transition from one chord to the next. I tried over and over again until my fingers were too raw from pressing down the string to continue.

I couldn’t do it.

Instead of doing what a rational human would do (keep trying every day until I eventually could do it), I stopped trying. I sucked at it. I was the worst. I had no talents. Every person is supposed to have at least one thing that they are gifted at. I had nothing. I was good at nothing. I had always identified as an artistic person – but that was moronic because I was in no way, shape, or form creative. I was a failure.

If I couldn’t do something successfully, I couldn’t do it at all. I could not handle being a failure.

Again, never in my life have I identified as a perfectionist. I liken perfectionists to successful and driven people who work multiple job, have set paths in life, and, more-likely-than-not, don’t have panic attacks where they sit in the middle of the home cleaners aisle at Duane Reade and sob like a 4 year old. Yeah. I’m not perfectionist.

It is strange though. I was, for the first time, explaining all of this to my therapist the other day and she looked at me and laughed,

“You realize that you’re a perfectionist, right?”

I had never realized that there are different types of perfectionists – there are those who have the ability to embrace and utilize it in finding personal success, and there are those (like me) who are torn apart by it, who liken not being perfect to not being worthy of even existing.

Interesting.

One of the biggest questions that is constantly on my mind is that of how and why I developed an eating disorder. I had the ideal home life growing up, I did well in school, I played sports… But I was depressed and disgusted by myself.

Because I wasn’t perfect.

Because I never identified as a perfectionist, I never made the connection between my eating disorder and my need to be more than human. I needed to be pristine in every way, shape, and form. I could never speak or laugh too loudly, I could never say something that could come off as unintelligent, I could never put my own well being before that of someone else, I could never say curse words, I could never feel anger towards anyone (unless it was myself). Ever.

I think that I may have begun to associate thin with pristine. I don’t even mean this in an aesthetic way. I wanted to be a perfect being – not a human. I wanted this body to disappear. My body was a clear sign of my being human – imperfect – impure. I wanted to do away from it.

As I write this, I am completely aware of the fact that I sound like a crazy person. Honestly, I kind of am. I know that in the recovery community, calling yourself crazy is frowned-upon, and I really do get that. I don’t really shy away from calling myself crazy because, honestly, I really can be crazy sometimes. The definition of crazy is literally “a mentally deranged person,” and often that is me… or the mentally ill part of me. My mind is sick, and I accept and own up to that. I think that denying the crazy parts of us can actually impair the road to recovery. Recovery isn’t all about meditating and manifesting and self-love talk. Sometimes recovery is screaming and tearing your hair out, sometimes recovery is wandering the streets at 1am in your pajamas because you’re manic and can’t control your own actions.

You may be thinking – how are those things recovery? Because I acknowledge them and am actively trying to lessen their occurrences. I don’t see enough people talking about the really ugly parts of mental illness. I’m sure that a portion of that is due to the fear of triggering others (I seriously need to write a post on my issues with ‘trigger warnings’), and I get that 100%. Still, I can’t be the only person that actual finds reading about the ugliest parts of the recoveries of other as the most healing.

By accepting the ‘crazy’ parts of myself, I am forcing myself to accept the fact that I am actually a human being. I am not perfect. I have feelings and I am trying to, after all these years, allow myself to actually feel them.

It’s terrifying and overwhelming…

But I really do think that it’s worth it.

 

Hate The Holidays? (It’s okay…ish)

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, the holiday season is officially in full swing. Homes are covered in flashing lights, shops are playing Christmas music, pumpkin scented/flavored products have been swapped out for peppermint ones, and people dressed as Santa are frolicking around at every corner (okay, that last thing may not be a universal occurrence during the holiday season.. But in New York City, there are Santa Clauses everywhere). The air is getting colder, the days are getting shorter, but everyone is too full of pure holiday-induced bliss to care. This is the most wonderful time of the year.

Except for when it’s not.

Listen, I am not bashing the holidays in any way, shape, or form. I am not a Scrooge. I am not going to complain about how the holidays are awful and stressful and blah-blah-blah. I like the holidays… Or at least I want to.

I know that I am not alone in my being in an especially bad place during the holidays. The holiday season is a time of heightened, both good and bad, for almost everyone (who celebrates). But for some, bad feelings are so intense, so all-consuming that they completely overpower and swallow up any joy that may be coming to the surface. What you are left with is total darkness.

The holiday season can be a painful one. When we sit down to Christmas (0r whatever it is that you celebrate) dinner, we are faced with empty chairs where loved ones that are now gone once sat. We remember the way this family member laughed, the amazing stories that they used to tell, or the way that they would always get just a little too-tipsy after dinner and begin to pick fights with anyone and everyone. We remember those famous cookies that a loved one once made, knowing that never again will we be able to enjoy them in the way that we once did. We are forced to come face to face with any fractures in our families, so-and-so isn’t talking to so-and-so so neither of them will be joining us for dinner, uncle something hasn’t spoken to his sister in 15 years and he’s not going to start now, even if it is Christmas time, maybe someone has recently gotten divorced and now must navigate who gets the kids during the holidays and who will be left all alone. It’s hard.

The holiday season can also hurt if you are someone who struggles with any sort of mental illness. As always, I can only speak from my own personal experience, but I know that I am not the only one who feels this way. If you are someone who struggles with anything, whether it be anxiety, depression, an eating disorder, etc. this time of year can throw you into a state of complete and utter dread. Honestly, just being a highly sensitive person (an empath) can lead one into panic when thinking about the upcoming season.

Holidays are hectic, I don’t care who you are, what you celebrate, or where you are. No matter what, you will experience some sort of pandemonium during the holiday season. Traffic is worse, crowds are worse, people are frantic. You are hard pressed to find a single store or public location that is not at least somewhat influenced by the holidays. For someone who struggles with any type of anxiety or panic disorder, this can be a nightmare. The idea alone of going into a crowded grocery store has been enough to leave me shaking and sobbing in my car, too terrified to even get out, let alone step food into the store. Again, I know that I am not alone here. This irrational reaction to what is a (admittedly high-stress) non-threatening situation can cause many who do not understand the diseases of anxiety or panic disorders to roll their eye and write you off as a drama queen. Just suck it up and deal with it. They might say. Just deal with it. You might even be saying these things to yourself.

Listen, I am in no way saying that allowing your anxiety to keep you from accomplishing necessary everyday tasks is the right thing, I’m not even encouraging it. What I am saying is that I understand and empathize with what you are feeling and what you are feeling, though irrational, is completely valid. Each and every feeling that you have is valid, this is an incorruptible truth. I don’t care if you are sobbing over not being able to find a certain dish to eat breakfast off of (I have done this.. often) or something equally as absurd. It is valid. Each and everything that you have ever thought or felt that has caused you any type of real emotion has been valid…

Even during the holidays.

If you are someone who struggles during the holidays, it can be so easy to beat yourself up over it.

What is wrong with me? This is supposed to be the happiest time of the year. Am I really so deeply and fundamentally flawed that I can’t even get my s**t together for a couple of hours to go to this party and pretend I’m happy? Everyone else is so happy and I’m not and that is so selfish!

I could go on.

When you are looking around you and seeing nothing but green-and-red-clad-bliss, it can be easy to feel like a complete failure as a human being if you are struggling.

It is okay. You are okay.

Here’s the thing – this is supposed to be the season of giving. We give gifts and time and love to all of the special people in our lives. But what about ourselves? Do we give anything to ourselves? I’m going to bet that most of us don’t.

So why don’t we try to reclaim this idea of it being the season of giving and truly make an effort to give to ourselves. Why don’t we try to give ourselves compassion? Why don’t we try to be especially gentle with ourselves? Why don’t we, instead of making only monetary investments in gifts for others, make spiritual (or emotional) investments in ourselves? Why don’t we tell ourselves that just because it’s the holiday season, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t allowed to feel our feelings. Why don’t we tell ourselves that it is okay to miss a certain holiday party or gathering that we don’t feel up to attending? Why don’t we allow ourselves to have patience with ourselves, to not get swept up in the holiday pandemonium that we believe we are “supposed to do.”

I know that this is easier said than done. Trust me, I know this all too well. I know that there are certain things that will have to be done for the sake of others at the expense of your own well-being. I know that there will be times where we will beat ourselves up over maybe eating “too much” or not having enough money to get everyone gifts or whatever it is. I am not off floating on some rainbow cloud somewhere where I have no trouble taking care of myself first and where I take nightly bubble baths while drinking overpriced tea. I’m right there in the trenches with you. I am sitting here thinking about “how much I have eaten today” and “how gross it is.” What are these thoughts giving me? Nothing. Still, being aware of the bad thoughts and identifying them as such is, in my opinion, the first step towards real self-care. Instead of sitting and wallowing in these thoughts, I am telling them to all of you and doing something that I love. I love writing, and I don’t do it nearly often enough because I’m “not good at it” (according to the little jerk that lives in my head).. But I am doing it anyway, despite what the dark part of my brain may tell me. It’s not a lot, but it is still practicing self-care and compassion. It is a step forward.

So here is my challenge for you, promise me that you will try your hardest to give to yourself, your soul, this holiday season. Promise me that you will try to practice gentleness towards yourself at least once a day until December 25. Self-care doesn’t need to be elaborate. Practicing self-care isn’t all bubble baths and tea and yoga. Self-care can be cleaning up your room that, while how messy it is has been making you anxious, you have been too depressed to clean. Self-care can be listening to a podcast that makes you laugh. Self-care can be waking up extra early to watch the sun come up. Heck, self-care can be eating two tablespoons of sunflower butter instead of one. Self-care is anything and everything that lifts you up, that creates a little glimmer or light among the seemingly endless dark.

Everything you think and feel is valid…

Even during the holidays.

…If you want to hear more of my thoughts on this manner, I also made a video on my Youtube channel about this topic.

Holiday Fears And Gratitudes

First and foremost I would like to say Happy Thanksgiving to all of you Americans/those who celebrate. I woke up this morning with a strong desire to write. I miss blogging (though can you miss something that you never did consistently?), but, as I have written about previously, the words just don’t seem to come to me anymore. But today is different.

I think a lot about what I want this blog to be. There is a part of me that wants to treat this as some sort of online journal where I spew out my thoughts and feeling for the whole world to see; and there is a part of me that wants this blog to be something clean, professional, marketable.

I have eluded to some of my struggles with mental illness over the course of my (few) posts on here, but I don’t know if  have ever said it outright.

Hey there. I’m Erin. I have an eating disorder

Exhale.

I have fought myself so long on whether I should say that one sentence right there – “I have an eating disorder.” Why? It’s not because I’m ashamed or because I don’t want people to know. It’s because I fear that, if people know that I struggle with an eating disorder, they will not want to listen to what I have to say. But why is that? Does having a mental illness make me any less of a person? Does it make my thoughts and feelings less valid? Does it cancel out any knowledge I have on certain topics?

Does it make me no longer a person but, instead, a diagnosis?

No.

I truly think that the reason that I find myself lacking the motivation to write is because  I have been desperately trying to hide a part of myself from the world. It is true that I am not my diagnosis (though it is not uncommon to begin to see your mental illness as your identity) but that does not change the fact that it is a part of me. A lot of who I am today is a result of my lifelong battle with anorexia and EDNOS.

I so desperately want there to be a place where there can be an open and honest conversation about mental illness. I want there to be a place where nothing has to be so precious. I want there to be a place where people are unafraid to talk about the darkest parts of their minds without fearing judgment or the possibility of being scolded for being “triggering” (a post on trigger-warnings and my feelings about them will soon be n the works). I want there to be a place where mental illness is just a piece of a much larger story, not the center point of it.

Anyway… Thanksgiving.

Now that I let the cat out of the bag about my struggles with anorexia, lets talk about one of the scariest days of the year for those who struggle with this illness – Thanksgiving.

Even if you don’t struggle with an eating disorder (or any mental illness for that matter), the holidays can be an immensely hard time. They are a time where money is tight, stress levels are high, stores are crowded. It can all be very hard to deal with. If you feel this way, know that you are not alone in this. I know that this fact seems like common knowledge, but it is so easy to get swept up in just how “full of holiday cheer” everyone is and then beat yourself up because you are not as “happy as you are supposed to be.”

You are allowed to feel the way that you feel. Even during the holidays.

I don’t think it is a stretch to say that if you have even the slightest bit of understanding of the way that eating disorders work that you know that Thanksgiving is an especially tough day. The holiday is centered around food and food, or the control of it, is the way that you express your illness. Eating disorders exist in an endless amount of forms so it would be silly of me to try and lay out exactly how those who struggle will handle this day. The best that I can do is take my own personal experiences and feelings and lay them out for you to either resonate with or not.

Something that I want to do, and that I encourage you do as well, is create a “Fears and Loves” list. Admittedly, I am stealing this idea from the absolutely incredible podcast “The Mental Illness Happy Hour.” I encourage you all, no matter what your mental state is going into today, to create one of these lists. Sometimes, it takes putting it in writing to actually know how you are feeling.

Please remember that these fears come from a place of… well… fear and that this place is not rational. Fears don’t need to be rational to be valid. If something scares you, it is worth discussing, even if it seems silly to you or others.

My Thanksgiving Fears

1. I fear that I will eat too much.
2. I fear that I will gain weight.
3. I fear that I will let my eating disorder ruin my holiday.
4. I fear that I will let my eating disorder ruin my family’s holiday.
5. I fear that my I will exhibit disordered behaviors at the dinner table.
6. I fear that I will make my family feel uncomfortable.
7. I fear that having so many people in my home with cause me to have a panic attack
8. I fear that said panic attack will lead to my family thinking I am either rude or crazy.
9. I fear that every holiday for the rest of my life will be like this.

 

My Thanksgiving Loves

1. I love listening to my grandpa tell stories of the days long ago while he sits at the table talking with his brother.
2. I love being in a room with all of the people that I love most in the world.
3. I love that I have such a big and close-knit family. I am very lucky.
4. I love that I am about to go for a long run and that I will get to see other runners, happy and excited for the day, out doing their own Thanksgiving miles.
5. I love the house smelling like rosemary from all of the Thanksgiving  cooking.
6. I love the way that apple pie looks when it first comes out of the oven.
7. I love that, while I still struggle, that I can sit and joke and laugh with my family while we eat Thanksgiving dinner today. Even last year, this was near impossible.
8. I love that I am lucky enough to live in a nice warm house with people that love me.
9. I love that I am lucky enough to live on this planet that, every day, I am so in awe of.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

What are some of your fears and loves today?

 

The Bodies Of Others Are None Of Your Business

Today’s post may seem a bit rant-ish (not a word, but I’m going to with it), because, well, I’m heated!

Recently, I have started bringing a book to the gym so that, after I finish my workout, I can hop on the treadmill and walk for a bit while I read. This new routine of mine has been so incredible for me. This past year has been rough for me in terms of being able to focus on… well… anything. I am assuming that this is a result of my PTSD finally catching up with me. Studying for tests became a nightmare. I had to read sentences over and over and over again and no matter what I did, I could not retain anything that I read. I stopped being able to write (this I am still struggling with) without getting distracted and frustrated. All things that I used to find solace and peace in became impossible. Escaping into stories being one of these things, I hadn’t finished a book in quite some time.

I have never been someone with a long attention span. Even as a child, I always had to be doing multiple things at once. I would be listening to the teacher while drawing a picture and whispering to my friend. I would routinely run a lap around the basement while I played Pokemon on my Nintendo 64. However, back then I was actually able to get things done simultaneously. Today, I still have to be doing a million things at once. But I get nothing done. Everything seems so difficult and overwhelming and impossible now. Nothing comes naturally anymore.

But I digress, as this post is not about that.

So I have been reading on the treadmill. I find that if I am walking while I read, I am actually able to focus on the story I am reading and this excites me so much. I am going through books faster than I can afford to buy them, and it is wonderful.

Or it was.

There is a small “Lady’s Only” section of my gym. This area is more private, making me feel a bit more at ease while I walk. Every day, I finish my workout and go over and hop on one of the two treadmills in this section. Funny thing is that, regardless of the fact that I am, for the most part, there at different times each day, this one woman is always there.

This woman is there everyday, plugging away on the same elliptical day in and day out. She is probably in her 50s, and she seems very friendly. She is one of those gym-goers that seems to know each and every person at our gym (or at least those who hang out in the Lady’s Only section) and she is also one of those gym-goers that is quite the Chatty Cathy. Now, this wouldn’t be an issue (though I will admit that it is slightly irritating when people try to speak to you while you are gasping for breath on the treadmill) if it weren’t for the content of the conversations that she strikes up.

“Oh you lost weight.”

“Did you lose weight?”

“Do you think that I lose weight?”

“Do my thighs look bigger?”

“Do my thighs look smaller?”

“I can only lose weight if I starve myself.”

“Muscular girls are disgusting.”

I could go on.

I try really hard to not let her get to me.. But I’m not quite there yet. Maybe it’s due to my experience with an eating disorder, but there is something that is just so deeply disturbing to me about this type of conversation. The questions are typically directed towards anyone who will listen (and are normal responded to in a very uncomfortable fashion) and the comments on other woman’s weigh loss or lack thereof rarely receive much more than a mumbled, “I haven’t lost any. But thank you.”

This goes on every single day, and each day I get a little bit more worked up. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back was one comment in particular.

She was talking to (or at) the woman on the elliptical next to her about her thighs (are the bigger? smaller? the same? I don’t want the to be muscled) and the woman next to her sighed and said, “You don’t want toothpick legs anyway. They are not attractive.” To this, the woman (who initiated the conversation) responded (for too loudly) with, “You’re right. Have you seen that one really skinny blonde woman who comes in here a lot? I don’t think she eats. She must not. She definitely doesn’t eat.”

I had to hold my breath to keep from losing it.

Here is the thing, I have seen the blonde woman in question. She is definitely unspeakably thin, but I never really thought about it. Why would I? In what way does that impact me?

Why on earth are the bodies of others any of your business?

We lived in a twisted culture today that is impossibly obsessed with critiquing the bodies of others. The magazines on the newsstands are clad with huge headlines of, “250 POUNDS *insert celebrity here* HAS LOST ON CONTROL.” “95 POUND CELEBRITY X ANOREXIC AND DYING,” and, my personal favorite, the oh so wonderful “BEST AND WORST BIKINI BODIES,” with huge red circles surrounding the “disgusting rolls” of a woman bending over (because, I mean, skin totally shouldn’t fold over when you bend over) and other revolting commentaries on female bodies. For some sick reason that I cannot quite grasp, people eat this stuff up (not literally though, because women must eat nothing but Special K and low calorie yogurts and 90 calorie snack bars and “sensible dinners”).

I know for a fact that this woman at the gym is not commenting on other bodies to be cruel. She seems to genuinely believe that talking about nothing but bodies and weight and thighs and calories is commonplace. The sad thing? It kind of is.

Yesterday, as I often do, I was browsing Tumblr and came across a before and after photo posted by one of the women I follow on the site. Unlike most before and after photos, the one was not of weight loss, but rather of muscle gain. Below the photo was a wonderful little paragraph about how much better and healthier and happier she felt now. Below that paragraph was a comment.

“I think you looked better before. So much more soft and feminine.”

Obviously this comment lead to a heated back and forth between the poster and the commenter which ultimately lead to this gem of a comment.

“Soooo I like her body one way and she likes her body a different way but he is allowed to say it but I’m not? That’s makes sense 😂”

How does this make sense? Yes, there is obviously a difference between the poster commenting on how she feels about her own body and some random person on the internet commenting on a body that is not her own.

Again, how does what someone looks like impact you in any way?

You never know how what you say about someone can affect them. For my (admittedly skewed) brain, I take someone calling me “healthy” or “normal” as them calling me fat. I know that this is not rational, but it is the way that my mind works and it really can mess with me when someone comments on my body, even if they mean it as a compliment.

I see the way that the women at the gym react when this one woman comments on their possible weight losses. More often than not, they seem more uncomfortable than flattered. Very few people enjoy having their bodies scrutinized (I would say that no people do… But I can’t know that for sure) and sometimes even what are meant as compliments can make someone feel hurt and uncomfortable.

The same thing goes for commenting of what someone is or is not eating. It is absolutely ridiculous to claim that just because a person is thin that they do not eat. This is a result of our messed up diet culture and the ways that the media tells us that the only way to be slim is to “eat mindfully” and use “portion control” and, my favorite, “trick yourself skinny.” Books and magazines and television commercials tell us to enjoy these “guilt free” snacks (because food, the very stuff that keeps us alive, should TOTALLY make us feel guilty) and to eat less and chew gum instead of eating and all of that nonsense that has lead to there being almost no women left who have completely healthy relationships with food.

It is also horrible to comment on what others eat. You may think that you are doing someone a service by complimenting how they, “only eat healthy things,” or, “would never eat xx.” You may also think that you are being helpful when you tell someone how much fat or calories are in what they are eating. You are doing nothing of the sort. You are doing nothing but projecting your own insecurities onto another and making another human begin feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. You are not helping the other person, and you are certainly not helping yourself.

It just boggles my mind to see just how skewed the general public’s perception of what is okay to comment on is. We truly live in a world where people believe that they have the right to offer “helpful” commentary on others simply because they put themselves out there in the world. Surely if they put a photo of themselves online then it is okay to offer your opinions on what is right or wrong about them, right? Surely there is nothing wrong with that.

It’s just insane and this type of behavior has become so normalized that most people barely bat an eye when the conversation turns to being about nothing but weightless or when they begin talking about Aunt Sally’s weight gain or whatever it may be.

Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. What if instead of wasting all of your life-force commenting on what other people are eating or doing or looking like, you take that energy and aim it towards bettering yourself?

Then maybe this world would be a more positive place.

(Late) Introductions Are In Order…

Since I started this blog a few months ago, I have been all over the place in regards to what I want to do with it. I have had a couple of blogs in the past, each of which I ultimately deleted once they began to no longer feel genuine. I have had a healthy living blog (what got me into blogging in the first place) where I tried to fit myself into the “Everything is so perfect! I just ran 10 miles and made a green juice!” archetype that seemed to be the norm amongst the healthy living community that I love so dearly… It was fun at first, I’m not going to pretend that it wasn’t. However, my unhealthy mind and lack of mental health slowly but surely began to creep into my posts until, eventually, it was all I wrote about.

It’s funny how difficult it is to hide your real self, even when you are safely secured behind a computer screen.

Not wanting to be identified by my mental illness, I wiped the blog and started anew. This time, I chose to write about health and fitness still, but I also wrote about everything else under the sun. Again though, I deemed my cheeriest persona and tried to write behind that guise when, in reality, I was slipping. Naturally, I lost interest in writing.

So here we are, the Erin Honor blog. When I created this, my first and largest choice was of what to call it… So I used my name. Now there was no pressure, there were no expectations of what this blog had to be. RunSmileLive, ErinLearnsToLive, SnapbackAndRacingFlats, all of those were created in attempts to portray only fragments of my whole self. I wanted to show the light and hide all of the darkness. I was always very good at pretending everything was alright when it wasn’t.

I can’t do that anymore.

I spent too much of my life trying to pretend that it was all sunshine and rainbows and it left me emptier than before. Now, I’m not saying that this thing here will be all doom and gloom, I’m not even saying that I am a negative person. I’m not. Really. I promise.

I’ve said it before in previous posts and I will say it again; we live in a really cool world. I am so grateful for that. That being said, I have spent the bulk of my life hiding a fog of mental illness. I have spent my whole life fixated on my deep rooted hatred of my body and myself. I have spent my whole life trying to destroy my physical self so that I could be free.

But that’s not how it works, now is it?

You can’t separate your physical and spiritual selves. I have spent so much time truly believing that I could kill my physical self without killing my whole self. Yu can’t do that. It doesn’t work that way.

So where am I now?

I think that is what this blog will be. Every time that I have started a blog, I am ashamed to admit that there was a large part of my brain that was doing it just to be seen. I love writing, I always have. However, I was trying so hard to fit the mold of what the “popular” bloggers were doing because, well, I wanted to be life them. I’m not them. I am me, and I may not be very happy about that right now, but I really want to try my hardest to one day be able to be proud of being me. That is my goal. That is my mission. That is what this blog will be.

I have been frozen for a very long time. I fell into this whirlwind of self-hatred when I was very young. Six years old, to be exact. I fell into the dark, cold depths of my mind and froze. I am now 20 years old, but I still feel like that sad and scared 6 year old girl. I am the little girl who just wants a hug and a kiss on the forehead and to told that everything is okay. I am the little girl who can’t hold a part time job because she has severe anxiety and has had to quit every job she has had after having panic attacks in front of full restaurants. I am the little girl who feels like the world is too big and she is too small. I am the little girl whose cries too easily and loves too much. I am the little girl who has been this way for too long; who has had no idea of how to crawl out of the darkness.

I can’t be that little girl anymore.

This blog will probably be one that no one will read, and I have decided that I will be okay with that. This blog is going to be little more than the explicit mental outpourings of this scared little girl who is trying to put herself back together. Recovery is hard… No, hard is an understatement. I don’t even know how to properly articulate how hard it is. Eating disorders, depression, anxiety, social-anxiety, body-dysmorphia, mood disturbances… these have all been a part of me for almost the entirety of my life. They have, in some sick way, kept me safe. Sheltered. When I am so caught up in my own mental illnesses, I do not have to go out and experience all of the scariness of “the real world.”

But here’s the thing… I want to know the real world. I want to know love and light and happiness. I want to know success and failures. I want to see far places far and near. I want to go as far out of my comfort zone as I can. I want to feel my heart flutter with nervousness and excitement over new experiences. I want to know it all.

More than anything though, I want to finally know my true self.

So that’s it. This blog will be the documentation of my journey towards recovery. This blog will be a place where I can learn to find the joys in life again and where I can rediscover all that I was once passionate about before the monster of mental illness came in and stifled me.

I hope you, reader, will come along with me on the adventure. I am so excited and scared and thankful.