Kintsugi
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So, not clear on how to give this a prefix, maybe because I’m on mobile? But this is an ED thread.
Anyway, I clicked on this forum to open my own ED thread, but I saw I was in such robust company just on the first page of this forum I decided to take a slightly different tact and invite others to use this as a space for their own struggles as well.
I mentioned in a recent post that I feel I’ve gone fullblown ED with my under eating habit, which, like a symptomatic diamond, was formed under the extreme pressure of working and going to graduate school full time but has now evolved into something far more self-imposed while I’m taking a break from academia.
Last night I tested my sugar for fun with a coworker’s meter. F*ck. It was 152, after not eating for over 5 hours, and before that I hadn’t eaten in... 20 hours? And before that, maybe 24 hours? And all of these meals are fairly feeble, although admittedly carb-y, but Jesus.
So basically my liver is like, YOU’RE STARVING! And it’s dumping sugar into my body like mad. Which is frustrating and alarming; I usually struggle with hypoglycemia. So I sort of panicked.
I contacted my mother, with whom I have an increasingly positive relationship. She is a medical professional specializing in diabetes and nutrition, and like I said, I have a better and better relationship with her all the time these days. So I tell her everything—heightened symptoms, anxiety, my med situation is jacked, I was eating normally, my clothes started fitting better instead of hanging off me as if from a hanger, and I freaked out and started restricting the f*ck out of my food. Everything. I tell her my symptoms being out of control and my med situation being so expensive and slow moving and unhelpful is making me feel out of control. I tell her I think I’m restricting as a means of having control over myself. This is pretty old hat to me. I had pretty bad anorexia about ten years ago, and my eating tends to become highly disordered in little spurts, but this is pretty f*cking chronic at this point: I’ve been under eating for over a full year. Once, last fall, I forgot to eat for over two days. Did not even notice.
And my mother says this thing that really struck me. It never ceases to amaze me when she gets something right about my mental health, because she so often views my psychological illness as a personal attack on her, and by god she’s often the first person to applaud the way I look after a bad stomach virus or anything else that causes me to be forever tinier. But she said, “The control is in the choice and the portion.”
Well, there’s THAT little nugget. It resonated with me. Maybe it will resonate with others dealing with this.
Anyway, here’s a thread for charting your accountability re: nutritional nurishment. I can’t keep f*cking over my body and expect it to just run smoothly. I’m not feeding myself and now my body is in rebellion. I should have known better? The sugar reading was a wake up call. I know it’s not super high, but it’s abnormally high for the circumstance, and it’s DEFINITELY abnormally high for me.
What am I going to do about it? What I always do, Pinkie: try to take over the world! I mean, my diet. I’m going to take over my diet.
First thing’s first. I need to be eating small meals. High fiber. High protein. Low carb. I don’t want to gain weight? Control the sugars, Simon, and the fats. Greek yogurt is my friend. Bananas with peanut butter. Salads with chicken. Vegetarian sandwiches on whole grain toast. I make a world class whole grain pasta salad that deserves to be called salad, y’know—tomatoes and spinach and red onions, olives, artichokes, bell peppers, roasted peppers.
All right, enough planning. There’s an egg burrito calling my name.
I hope others will join me. I am accountable to my body. It needs me right now. And I will always need it. So it’s time to be my own good friend and show some damn hospitality.
Anyway, I clicked on this forum to open my own ED thread, but I saw I was in such robust company just on the first page of this forum I decided to take a slightly different tact and invite others to use this as a space for their own struggles as well.
I mentioned in a recent post that I feel I’ve gone fullblown ED with my under eating habit, which, like a symptomatic diamond, was formed under the extreme pressure of working and going to graduate school full time but has now evolved into something far more self-imposed while I’m taking a break from academia.
Last night I tested my sugar for fun with a coworker’s meter. F*ck. It was 152, after not eating for over 5 hours, and before that I hadn’t eaten in... 20 hours? And before that, maybe 24 hours? And all of these meals are fairly feeble, although admittedly carb-y, but Jesus.
So basically my liver is like, YOU’RE STARVING! And it’s dumping sugar into my body like mad. Which is frustrating and alarming; I usually struggle with hypoglycemia. So I sort of panicked.
I contacted my mother, with whom I have an increasingly positive relationship. She is a medical professional specializing in diabetes and nutrition, and like I said, I have a better and better relationship with her all the time these days. So I tell her everything—heightened symptoms, anxiety, my med situation is jacked, I was eating normally, my clothes started fitting better instead of hanging off me as if from a hanger, and I freaked out and started restricting the f*ck out of my food. Everything. I tell her my symptoms being out of control and my med situation being so expensive and slow moving and unhelpful is making me feel out of control. I tell her I think I’m restricting as a means of having control over myself. This is pretty old hat to me. I had pretty bad anorexia about ten years ago, and my eating tends to become highly disordered in little spurts, but this is pretty f*cking chronic at this point: I’ve been under eating for over a full year. Once, last fall, I forgot to eat for over two days. Did not even notice.
And my mother says this thing that really struck me. It never ceases to amaze me when she gets something right about my mental health, because she so often views my psychological illness as a personal attack on her, and by god she’s often the first person to applaud the way I look after a bad stomach virus or anything else that causes me to be forever tinier. But she said, “The control is in the choice and the portion.”
Well, there’s THAT little nugget. It resonated with me. Maybe it will resonate with others dealing with this.
Anyway, here’s a thread for charting your accountability re: nutritional nurishment. I can’t keep f*cking over my body and expect it to just run smoothly. I’m not feeding myself and now my body is in rebellion. I should have known better? The sugar reading was a wake up call. I know it’s not super high, but it’s abnormally high for the circumstance, and it’s DEFINITELY abnormally high for me.
What am I going to do about it? What I always do, Pinkie: try to take over the world! I mean, my diet. I’m going to take over my diet.
First thing’s first. I need to be eating small meals. High fiber. High protein. Low carb. I don’t want to gain weight? Control the sugars, Simon, and the fats. Greek yogurt is my friend. Bananas with peanut butter. Salads with chicken. Vegetarian sandwiches on whole grain toast. I make a world class whole grain pasta salad that deserves to be called salad, y’know—tomatoes and spinach and red onions, olives, artichokes, bell peppers, roasted peppers.
All right, enough planning. There’s an egg burrito calling my name.
I hope others will join me. I am accountable to my body. It needs me right now. And I will always need it. So it’s time to be my own good friend and show some damn hospitality.