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March 24, 2006
A Mean Stranger
Sometimes lately I have trouble containing all of the horribleness inside. I feel like there's someone inside my head screaming obscenities, someone who just wants to destroy things, someone who wants to get into a car, drive away, and never come back.
This is especially something I struggle with when I am tired...when my children have woken me up several times a night for days on end. I start to feel a little insane.
It is compounded even further when I am unable to escape a cute but sometimes beastly three year old child screaming in a high-pitched whine-squeal. One who follows me around from room to room.
Isn't that a form of torture in some places? Being deprived of sleep and then screamed at? It's gotta be.
Anyway, lately I have just been struggling with so much inside of myself. It's always a dark place, but I can usually keep it contained and keep it from affecting other people. But for the past few days, I have been having trouble being kind to my family. I am easily angered, frustrated, scary.
I have been going to therapy for two and a half years, but I have also been actively working since I was 18 on becoming a healed person inside. What I want more than anything is to be a safe person. Especially for my children. A mother who will be consistently kind. One they can trust with their hearts. I'm not trying to be perfect. Just not...kind when it's easy and then every once in a while--unexpectedly-- completley scary.
Have you ever had the experience of someone turning on you? Someone you trusted with all of your heart? Just all of a sudden, they get a look in their eye...and it's not the same person inside anymore. It's a mean stranger in the body that used to belong to a safe and trusted person.
For the past couple of days, as I have struggled, my daughter Lyric has become more and more distant. Like a sullen teenager. Talking back more. She wouldn't let me come near her. Finally, tonight I said, "Are you upset because of how grumpy I have been for the past couple of days?" and she started wailing, like her heart was broken. She said, "It wasn't you anymore. You were acting like a mean stranger." She just sobbed and ran into my arms.
It broke my heart. I don't want to be a mean stranger, but I feel like sometimes the mean stranger takes me over. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with the responsibility that is on my shoulders....these two small people are looking to me to create reality for them for a while, while they are in their formative years.
I feel unqualified for the job--a lot. I just want to be consistently safe for them. More than anything in the world, I want to be a safe person.
Again, all I can do is continue with the process. Of trying to become whole inside so I have wholeness to give them.
So that some day there will be no room at all for the mean stranger.
Posted by darby on 09:05 PM | Comments (8)
March 23, 2006
Confession, Part II
Living on 200 calories a day did not go well. i would eat a half cup of dry bran flakes for breakfast, and then for dinner and lunch I would eat a 50 calorie hot dog, no roll. I remember standing in front of the microwave in my dorm community room...counting the seconds until my allotted hot dog was done.
When the bell would ding, I would carefully take it out and eat it, miniscule piece by miniscule piece, savoring every bite.
All I could think about was food. Every minute of the day. But I had to fit into one of my dresses from high school. And that thought would keep me going, through the hunger pangs and the growing agitation.
My vanity and self-hatred kept my gluttony in check. Gotta love that.
Finally, the day of homecoming arrived. I could fit into the dress I wanted to wear. Not quite as I did six months earlier, but nevertheless. And that very day, I went out and bought bags of candy. I would eat them the next day, when it didn't matter as much anymore. I needed to celebrate fitting into my homecoming dress.
And what better way to celebrate successful anorexia than with a Halloween-candy binge?
This has been my pattern of eating ever since 1992....binge, starve, binge, starve. Except, not when I was pregnant with my children. No, at that point I ate. And ate. And ate. Food tasted better than ever.
I even had a dream that I gave birth to a baby ham and cheese sandwich (and was trying to nurse it and got very frustrated.) And I had a dream that I had a magic bottle of syrup, and wherever I poured it, the ground beneath me would turn to waffles and french toast, and it would be all mine. Right before I woke up, I was standing overlooking a vast field, anticipating all of the french toast and waffles I was about to eat. I was so upset to be awakened!
Then, to my surprise, nursing babies burns 500 calories a day. I lost the nearly 60 pounds I gained pretty quickly. Wow, with 500 extra calories being burned a day, I wanted to nurse my children til they were full grown. (not really, that is a disturbing thought.)
But I have been wrestling with this problem, this food problem, for my whole life. It's always been too big of a deal. Why can't food just be food? There's a problem if I eat too much. There's a problem if I eat too little. It is like a drug. But a drug I have to learn to live with and face every day.
I eat to soothe the self-hatred inside, and then feel so much self-hatred when that food shows up as fat on my body. It's a cycle, as anyone who has struggled with this issue will tell you.
As I go through therapy, I am trying to deal with the extreme self-hatred in other ways. It's slow going. Sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night and find myself downstairs in the kitchen eating. Now, that is totally unfair--I didn't even enjoy those calories!
I try so hard to overcome this, mostly for my children. I don't want them to be affected by my issues.
So I'm trying to find balance, which does NOT come easily to me. I'm very extreme usually. I'm trying really hard, and I'm making some progress by trying to find comfort in other things. And i go to the gym with my friend Jessica, and we both hate working out, so it's fun, and it never, ever has been before. We pretty much laugh most of the time. And although I don't look forward to the exercise, I always feel so much better when I walk out of there.
So this is new for me. I still slip up. But I'm trying to get to the root of what I am trying to comfort. And I am trying to eat like a normal person. Not too much. Not too little. This is a first. We'll see how it goes.
Posted by darby on 07:47 PM | Comments (7)
March 18, 2006
A Confession
I don't think I've ever had a normal relationship with food. When I was a child, if I encountered food that tasted good or made me feel better inside, I would eat it until I was nearly sick. We weren't allowed to have much sugar (and being a mom now, I can understand this), but every Christmas we would each get a pound of chocolate--a Whitman's Sampler. I kid you not, I would eat the entire thing on Christmas morning.
Same with Easter morning....almost an entire basket of candy, down the hatch. I'd jump out of bed at 4:30 or 5:00 am and start gobbling candy as fast as I could.
Maybe so far this behavior is normal for a kid. But then I would actually mark time according to when I might encounter tasty food again...and I pretty much lived for those days. Not much hope in May or June, unless I got invited to someone else's house. And if I did happen to go to someone else's house, I would stock up like a bear preparing for hibernation. Usually other kids had some kind of awesome cereal for breakfast...Fruit Loops, Fruity Pebbles, Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Puffs, or Cinnamon Toast Crunch (my first taste of that was at Laurie Folke's 8th birthday slumber party, and it still makes my mouth water to think about it.)
The Fourth of July might hold a glimpse of hope, if we went to our grandparents'--they usually had Pepperidge Farm cookies, Fritoes and other kinds of chips, Triscuits and Easy Cheese. August was my birthday...I could count on cake and ice cream, for sure. I had to make it through September and October til Halloween. We weren't allowed to Trick or Treat, but we were allowed to have some candy on that day, and we usually had a harvest party at school....which meant candy corn, at least. And probably a cupcake with orange frosting.
November meant Thanksgiving, so there would definitely be good food on that day. And from sixth grade on, the day after Thanksgiving meant gingerbread houses...a tradition which is filled with so much goodness, it still gives me a thrill to think about it. We were allowed to keep all the candy that we could fit on our house. So I would open the roof, dump as much random candy inside as I could, and then plaster the outside with all kinds of good stuff.
Then Christmas would come, and you know the hope in that. The Whitman's Sampler. There was not much treat action in January, unless, of course, I could get myself invited to some kind of birthday party. Which, incidentally, brought about a whole new scheme. I would go to the party just for the food, even if I didn't like the kid. Doritoes, pizza, combos, soda, potato chips, cake, ice cream. And my M.O. for slumber parties was this: I made sure to get up long before everyone else and stuff my pockets with candy from the night before, while all the other normal little girls slept soundly in their sleeping bags.
February brought Valentine's Day, which meant conversation hearts and possibly some chocolate. And then March was Merry's birthday...more cake, more ice cream. Which brings us back to Easter.
That was my Year In Treats.
I would often daydream about going to a world where everything was made out of delicious food, and I could eat as much as I wanted. My sister Merry and I shared a bed when we were little, and we would lie awake at night and talk about the candy we wished we could get. I remember one day our great aunt sent us each a dollar, and Merry and I stayed awake long into the night discussing our plan...I would take our money to the school store (she was too little to be in school yet) and buy as much candy as I could afford. Then I'd bring it home and we'd divide up the loot. I think this brought us much more joy than it should have. The next day, I spent so much time in the school store carefully spending our two dollars, I totally missed my mid-morning piano lesson and totally got in trouble for it. But it was all worth it when I took that candy home.
In high school, I was such a nervous wreck that I really didn't eat much at all. I would skip breakfast, throw away my lunch, and sulk through dinner, pushing everything around on my plate. I didn't know about eating disorders at the time, but remembering back, that's when a whole lot of new trouble started. I remember liking the feeling of being hungry, of not eating. Because it was definitely something I could decide for myself, unlike most other things in my life at the time.
Then, the summer before college, I went into a deep depression. I didn't realize that's what it was, but I was filled with despair and dread and I didn't want to live. I had a horrendous job at the Disney Store, which at the time was across the hall from the candy store, Ooo La. Once again, I slipped into my childhood obsession with treats. I would stare at the candy and think about all that I could buy on my break. I would go in and fill my hideous polyester Disney sweater pockets with all kinds of candy, and I would sneak it into my mouth when the manager wasn't looking.
I started packing huge lunches for my lunch break. And then...the kiss of death. I made a daily habit of going to Cinnabon and eating a whole Cinnabon by myself. Every day! Needless to say, by the time I entered college, I had already gained 10 pounds.
In college, I had freedom for the first time. I lived on campus. And I had a meal card with a wonderful system of points. They were like dollars. So I could go into one of the school food stores and order as much junk as I wanted. Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, Snickers, Doritoes. I was going through an inexplicably difficult time psychologically, which I can explain another time...but this kept me in my dorm room and afraid to go to the dining halls. So I would order a large portion of fried chicken fingers every night and eat them all by myself, trying to drown my sorrows in Honey Mustard sauce.
After a few weeks in school, my clothes got tighter and tighter until they didn't fit anymore. I had to go back to my high school homecoming in a few weeks, and I didn't want to go looking like I did. So, I stopped eating so much.
I allowed myself 200 calories a day.
And here's where I will have an intermission in this story.
It is already so long, but there's so much more to go. So I will give you a break from reading, but check back sometime soon if you want to know how life on 200 calories a day went.
Posted by darby on 07:20 AM | Comments (8)
March 14, 2006
Mouse Trap
Two years ago, when we lived in our townhouse, we had a mouse. I couldn't bear to kill him, so when we caught him in a glue trap, we let him go.
(Some people think glue traps are inhumane, but the way we do it, it's very humane indeed. After the mouse is stuck in the glue, you take him somewhere far away, put some olive oil on his feet to loosen the glue, and let him go.)
However, after a while of trying to take care of the problem this way, we had an infestation. I think it was because we lived in a townhouse and even if we got rid of our mice, our neighbor may not have. These mice were soon coming up onto the counter, and of course that totally freaked me out. One night, I put a glue trap on the counter behind my new coffeemaker, and in the morning when I went to make a cup of coffee, it wouldn't work. I looked behind the machine, and there was a mouse, stuck to the glue trap, chewing through the wire. I started to get mad.
I had tried to be humane about it, because I don't like to see anything die. But these mice were soon becoming bold. I would come into the kitchen and there would be three of them, sitting on my counter, eating my food. And when I would come near, instead of scurrying away, one would flip me the bird and the other two throw mouse droppings at me.
It was obvious that soon they would start setting traps for me. They had no respect. And sadly, I knew that it couldn't go on like this. There were so many of them, I had to call an exterminator.
I was very happy to move from the townhouse a year and a half ago. And there were no mice in this new house! That is, until recently. I saw the dreaded mouse droppings on the floor of my cabinet under the sink. And then, I noticed that my secret stash of chocolate had been infiltrated. Little mouse-sized bites taken out of the choclate bar, and little shreds of the wrappers all over the place, mixed with droppings.
This meant war.
This time, I wasn't going to mess around. I put a couple of glue traps under the sink. And yesterday, there was the culprit, stuck in the glue, scared to death.
But...when we looked at him, we just couldn't bring ourselves to sentence him to a slow and terrible death on the glue trap. So Jason took some olive oil and went to the 7,000 acres and let the little dude go.
I know, I know.
I'm just hoping he was the only one. I'm hoping we don't have a reputation in the mouse community as the people who not only will not kill you, but supply you with chocolate, and take you in their car to a bright new world.
I'll let you know what happens.
Posted by darby on 07:22 AM | Comments (16)
March 09, 2006
Something New
I begin this simply because I want there to be something new to read on this blog. But I have no idea yet what I am going to say.
I used to journal obsessively. I think that's why it's hard for me to just start writing . When I write in a journal, I know I'm the only one who will ever read it. So I say whatever i want to. But sometimes when I sit down to write on this blog, I feel like I'm trying to come up with an essay for my 9th grade English class.
I am so glad...immeasureably glad...that high school is over for me. Ugh. All of that homework every single night of my life for all of those years. All of those exams...chemistry, trigonometry, algebra...the thought of it makes me feel ill. But most of all, the social stress was just incredible.
I actually am relatively introverted and shy--if I'm going to be honest. But I act like an extrovert a lot because that's what I've always done. I used to act a lot more outgoing than I do now. When I was a new girl in school in 9th grade, it was almost a full time job to keep up this persona of an extroverted, very happy girl. I figured that I was more likely to make friends if I was friendly and outgoing. And I had been so lonely in junior high that I decided I never wanted to be lonely again, and that I would become whatever I needed to become to make sure that didn't happen. And I did make friends. But I expended so much energy at school that my mom says I didn't talk at all when I came home in the afternoon for the first three months.
Then when I went to college, I was basically a hermit. I was just completely burned-out from high school. I was so terrified of people that I sometimes wouldn't go out of my dorm room even if I was hungry and needed to eat at the dining hall. Most of the time I still feel that way, but since I have a family, I need to go out. I've told friends before that I wish I could go out in a burka. I'm not saying that I think anyone should be forced to wear one of those things. But I think it would be very handy to be able to hide even while walking around.
i guess if I was the only one wearing a burka around on a regular basis, pretty soon everyone would figure out it was me.
I'm going to now post this before I change my mind and erase absolutely everything, which I have done a number of times before. Ta ta all, have a good night's sleep.
Posted by darby on 08:31 PM | Comments (11)
March 07, 2006
The Most Difficult Question
Last night Lyric (my six year old daughter) woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach virus. She felt so terrible, she was either throwing up or writhing around whimpering all night long. She gets really terrified of throwing up, and it is the most pitiful thing in the world to watch a little child gag and dry heave while crying.
She kept asking me to pray for her. And I would. At one point, she cried in a small voice, "God, if you can do me just one last favor, please will you make me feel better?"
And later in the night, when she was even worse, through tears she asked, "Mommy, why isn't Jesus helping me??"
I know many theological answers as to why God doesn't seem to help people when they are suffering. But none of them bring comfort to a small child. And this is also my own problem with God. Why is this world so painful for so many people? I am still that small child inside.
My heart is in the same place as a sick child in the middle of the night. I'm in no place to hear intellectual answers. The fact is, there really is no answer that brings me any comfort at all.
There are so many books written on the topic. None help. When someone is truly suffering, they don't want to hear about how sin came into the world because personkind can only truly love God if s/he has a choice not to, and with that choice, we brought in sin and suffering and an imperfect world.
And most people follow that up with, "and then God, in his love, sent his only son into this painful world and took all of the pain upon himself and broke the curse, so that in eternity there will be no more pain."
But that just brings me to yet another problem with God. I hate the fact that Jesus suffered. That doesn't bring me comfort, it upsets me even more. WHY did he have to die such a brutal death? WHY was all of this sin and destruction and crucifixion, etc. part of God's plan? I understand that it wasn't his original plan, but he's God. Seems like he could have gone about it all in a different way.
Now, I'm not claiming to know what that way might be. But it doesn't seem fair...if God really is good...to create people to suffer. To give them such a capacity for pain. And not much of a capacity for comfort.
In the midst of desperation, you get to a point where it doesn't seem to matter that there is a good reason that God allows us to suffer and that we just can't understand that reason at this point, but some day we will.
When my kids are afraid at night, I don't know what to tell them. Lyric will say, "I prayed, and praying doesn't help. I'm still so scared."
I give her a hug. But in my mind I think, "Exactly, Lyric. That's how I feel exactly."
Posted by darby on 01:22 PM | Comments (9)
March 06, 2006
Guilty
Yes, I feel extremely guilty about how long it's been since I've written.
I will give no excuses, and I am very sorry to anyone who has checked this site over the past two weeks and has not found a new post.
I have to admit that it's really exciting that people come to this site often and want me to write something. I don't know why that makes me feel special. I have a strange complex/paranoia that people don't actually want me to talk...that when they listen they are doing ME a favor. Whenever I talk, especially in front of people, I have this overwhelming feeling that everyone is just thinking, why doesn't she just shut up already? And writing a blog is kind of like talking in front of people...so when a few people asked me to write again, I was more excited than I probably should have been.
Anyway, it's hard to know what to write, and that's part of the problem. I find myself wanting to write as if I'm writing in a journal, but at this point in my life, my journals are filled with all kinds of things that might offend some of the people who visit this site. And I don't want to offend anyone, and I also don't want to write about anything too personal...and wake up tomorrow and think, Why did I write what I wrote? Who saw that? Who knows about it? What was I thinking?!!
If any of the people who asked me to post again have any topics they'd like me to write about, just give me an idea. That would make it so much easier!
And now I will leave you with the lyrics to the song Siren, which hopefully will be recorded and put on this site soon.....
There's a beautiful siren who sings from the deep
She calls out my name and she whispers of sleeping forever
She's pulled me and grips me the most
In these hours I swear that I'm only the ghost of a girl
Tell me that I'll be alright
If I make it through this night
I know I will see the light
Of day
And I'm painting the pictures of death and of life
And a ghost from my past holding on to her knife
And I'm thinking of you and I'm thinking of me
And I'm wondering what does it cost to be free
If I pour myself out, will you clean up the floor
I know I'm not the girl they all used to adore
Will you pick up the pieces and put me away
Don't say a word cause there's nothing to say
Baby, will you tell me
I will be ok
Baby, will you hold me
Can you keep me from slipping away
And although this must all come as quite a surprise
Can you unwrap my darkness and untwist my lies
I'm so sorry I'm sick
And i hate that I'm mad
But closing my eyes is the dream that I've had
Will you sing me a song to keep me awake
And tell me of places you're going to take me in
Springtime of life, when my winter has passed
And we'll finally be free from this illness at last
Baby, can you tell me I will be ok
Baby, will you hold me
Can you keep me from slipping away
***********************************************
Love to all the kind people who check this site on a regular basis...I'd love to know who you are...I hope anyone feels free to post on here
Posted by darby on 10:26 PM | Comments (15)