Houston, We Have a Problem

The world is full of paradoxes. While it's wisest not to read too far into these situations (as the Jewish say, l'chaim) a certain paradox in my own life has demanded my attention for the past week. I'm intent on discerning its traits and alleviating its burden. This paradox lies in my (in)ability to communicate well.

It may seem odd that I am unsure of whether I am an extremely skilled or skillfully atrocious communicator. Take a moment to read the following selection of comments regarding my communications, taken from the last week, and you may understand wherein the confusion arises:

In an interview, after a sales role-play: "That was really good. So few people know how to hold a conversation with a stranger. It's shocking how many people just clam up, but you jumped right in."

In an interview at a restaurant: "You need to learn how to talk less. The general consensus here is that you talk too much."

From a client: "You're ability to communicate and network is really your greatest asset."

From my EDA group: "I know that you want a dialogue, but this really isn't appropriate here."

From my family: Nothing. Because I barely communicate with them at all.

Sometimes my outspoken nature and articulate self-expression are applauded, sometimes inappropriate. In one instance it almost landed me a job; in the other it sent me one step closer to claiming Unemployment. I can ask too many questions, or not the right question, or just the right question, or no question at all. And while all of these aspects are valuable communication methods, I can never seem to use them in the right place, at the right time, or with the right audience.

While shy people are often misidentified as being rude, talkative and aggressive people are often believed to be confident and socially at-ease. For me, this is far from the truth. One of the reasons that I have such a difficult time communicating is because I'm thinking about it. Sure, I have the confidence and imagination to strike up a conversation with a stranger. And I am adept at dialoguing with acquaintances for hours at a time. But I spend most of those conversations engaged in a second mental discussion, trying to determine what sorts of questions to ask next, how the person is responding to me, whether I'm asking too much or too little, and any other number of variables. Rather than helping facilitate my communication these thought processes actually deter from my listening and the fulfillment that my partner may experience. It causes me to interrupt the other, to jump from one topic to another, or to act just a little distracted and bizarre. I want so badly to connect with the person across the table from me that I end up barely connecting with them at all.

I struggle very deeply to deal with this habit. Conversations can become so stressful to me that I end up being asocial or making sure that my social time is spent "doing something" with the other person, offering an endless stream of things to comment on or the ability to hide behind the stimulation. I also think it may be the reason that I act so aloof around my family; I'm wary of starting a conversation because I know I'll feel drained afterward. I know that this issue has kept me from more than one opportunity to create a new personal connection, land a job, or get to know my friends and family better. I want very badly to be able to relax socially, say nothing at all, or laugh without foreshadowing it.

Of course, when I'm underfed or obsessing about food my ability to communicate gets exponentially worse. I can't begin to tell you how distracting it is to try to have conversation with one person while listening to the little man in your head obsess about what to eat/ how to eat/ when to eat/ feeling hungry. I become anxious, acting and feeling like a chipmunk stuck in a spinning wheel. When I'm hungry and disordered, efficient communication is my last priority in energy expenditure.

A few weeks ago I decided to practice one patience activity every week. The first activity I chose was "Pick Your Battles." After one week I happily acknowledged that it was one week too short and that to really practice patience I needed to be patient. So I've extended those activities to bi-weekly alterations. The reason I decided to keep "Pick Your Battles" around was because I found it helped in my communication. When I catch myself poorly communicating I almost immediately jump to judging myself for it: Why can't you just relax? Why did you cut them off again? Are you actually listening? Why do you talk so much about yourself? Why do you ask so many questions and not talk about yourself more? Picking my battles allowed me to say, "I'm not going to judge myself for that. I'm just not going to cut them off again." It gave me the permission not to worry about what was happening and to stay in the moment: the battle outside was enough.

Still, I could use more work on communication. I'm not sure how to handle it exactly. There's so much involved: self-consciousness, lack of self-awareness, genuine and uninhibited curiosity, a desire to avoid talking about myself and an inability not to try to insert my own statements as a means to connection. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them. For now I'm going to search for my next patience activity with this dilemma in mind.

People keep telling me that it's part of being young. That's fine, except for the fact that I haven't gotten a paycheck in 6 months and am sick of going to lunch as my primary means of socializing. I'm about to land on the moon and I've still got no idea how to speak Martian.

The Right Bank for Me

The mafia is now Italy's #1 bank, according to Reuter's online. What threatens the demise of every other organization in the country provides limitless success for the mafia.

Sorry, Wells Fargo; looks like I found just the bank for me. I'm giving up on the corporate world. Need an "Independent Contractor?" I'm your gal, no 10-99 required. All I request is a giant stoagie, a sweet hat, and $1,000 in cash. That's not too much to ask, right?

Sign and date the dotted line, please.

A Great Example

In my last post I discussed pursuing things that I'm afraid of, despite the fact that I'm afraid of them. Last week I was honored and horrified to find myself at the pinnacle of this paradox.

While I was in outpatient treatment last Spring I noticed a few people touring the facilities. Prospective patients regularly toured the facilities but it was rare to see healthy-looking people walking around with notebooks and cameras. They didn't speak with any of the patients; I assumed that they were part of the media and that they hadn't been granted access or were unsure how to approach us. After a little sleuthing I learned that the Managing Editor of 5280 was writing a story on the ERC. I got in touch with her and found myself being interviewed, one week later, about the story.

The editor was interested in my blog and spent some time looking it over. She deemed it worthy of a special section in the article. The Health Issue was released the first week in January, with a brief article on my story, my blog, and an excerpt. The article online can be accessed here:

Obviously, I wanted to tell my story and wanted, in some way, to be recognized for it. I offered to be interview and offered the link to my blog. I had to approve the story and send her a picture to include with it. And I wanted to keep blogging because I was aware that more people might log on. Still, it's nerve-racking to know that strangers might now tune in to the things I'm writing. I worry that they'll think my discussions are insignificant; after all, people are dying from terrorism and I'm agonizing over whether to eat a cupcake or an apple, run a mile or 10. Truly, I know that the things I deal with here are larger than food and exercise- the point is that eating disorders have very little to do with food. But everything I stress about can seem so useless in the grand scheme of things.

There are more worries. What if they think I'm a terrible writer? What if they like it and call me and offer me a book deal and I become Carrie Bradshaw? What if I think things like that and become totally dejected because they never happen? What if I don't have anything to write about?

My choices are clear. I can run away from this publicity, allowing my fears and hopes to overwhelm me. Or I can keep writing because I enjoy it, it helps me to notice the funny and beautiful things in my life, and because someone, somewhere, might be touched by my story. It's a way of communicating with the masses as much as my own parents; I know that they've read things here I'm too embarrassed to say to them directly. This blog serves a purpose and I'm grateful for it, no matter how many or how few people read it.

Being afraid and doing it anyway. Write on!

Being Afraid of Everything and Doing it Anyway

I was pondering my patience practice of the week ("Pick your battles") and got to thinking about the term "battle." When I went in to treatment it was really a way of escaping the daily battle of my life. I created such high expectations and felt so inefficient that I fought with everything that came my way; I squeezed and pushed and tried to make everything perfect and felt horribly dejected when it wasn't. Quick reminder: perfection is impossible. So giving in to the compassion of others allowed me to stop fighting everything around me. It allowed me to relax a little.

I am proud to say that I no longer drop-kick the daylight out of every day. I noticed that prioritizing and making decisions comes much easier than it used to. When I was sick I obsessed about every decision, always trying to pick what was "best." Now, my priorities are more than clear; they're a part of my mindset. For instance, I recently picked up a job serving tables. I agonized over taking the position: I had sworn off working in restaurants after my last two ED-laden disasters. I also had to admit that my current pursuits simply weren't paying the bills.

However, it was without a second thought that I told my manager I needed three nights off a week: two for my Eating Disorders Anonymous meetings and one for the Spanish class I recently enrolled myself in. Actually, it wasn't until I walked out later that night that I realized what a milestone that was.

It feels nice to step out of doubt and into a little faith. I know I can get everything done that I need to, I know I can be healthy, I know things will fall into place. After discussing faith with people in many different walks of life, it seems to me that faith generally corresponds to having less fear of the unknown or of failure. Unfortunately, some neuron in my brain blocks this rule because I am afraid of everything. And I do it anyway.

That's where my battle lies: not in the doing it, but the freaking out about it all the while. While I can pick my battles I can't stop myself from getting really scared. I'm that soldier standing at the front line, warpaint on my face and stick in hand, wishing that I was wearing panties under my kilt because a little yellow trickle is running down my shaking knees.

I'm afraid of everything and its' reverse. If I get a new "normal" job than I might lose all the exciting independent business pursuits I'm following. But I'm afraid of pursuing them because I'm under-qualified. I'm afraid of going to the Peace Corps because it will take me away from the safe life I've built, but I'm afraid of not going because then I'll be stuck in this damn city. I'm afraid of missing an opportunity and afraid of taking too many. Exercising too much or too little. Eating too much or too little. Being too nice, too mean. Doing everything or doing nothing. Afraid, afraid, afraid.

And yet, I keep doing it. Why do I rush into this battle? Not because it's better than standing in my own puddle. No, it's because I've got this Russel Crowe Gladiator man championing my way. Who is that man? It's me. It's my conscience and my gut, telling me to have a little faith and keep doing what feels right.

So I'm the solider. I'm the Gladiator. Who's the enemy?

That's right: I am my own enemy, too. I have every tool I need to push myself down and employ them often. The greatest tool is fear, that puddle below the pleats. I am the reason that I cannot go to battle but I am also the reason I can win. And realizing that I am all players guarantees one indispensable truth: I WILL always win. Unless of course I cower, don't move at all, and continue to water the grass.

That's simply not an option.

The glorification of a battle won:

Jumpin' in a Junker

A few weeks ago some poor fellow attempted to break into my car. Why, I can't really be sure. In the darkness they must not have noticed the broken front headlight, the dented front and back bumpers, the mess of the interior, or the fact that if you lift your leg high enough you can basically step right over the thing. The alley must just be that dark.

To get in, they removed the lock from the driver's side door. I'm not sure if they succeeded and then came to their senses, deciding not to take the car (or the homemade CDs inside, the only thing of value on the whole vehicle). But they took the lock with them.

Rather than pay 3x the value of the car to get the lock replaced, I've taken to shimmying across the passenger seat to get in the car. And, boy, is it a riot! When it snows I carefully tap my toes together, dusting off the wet in a very Dorothy fashion. When I'm wearing a skirt or dress things get creative. I've found my yoga ability has strengthened with this daily twist-and-tuck practice. Finally, it's totally satisfying to watch people's confused faces as I bail out of or plunge into the passenger-side door. Gas stations can be particularly comical.

You only hope you'll get to see this circus, my friends.

Patience Exercise of the Week: Pick your Battles

Fittingly enough, I got this patience exercise from "Power to Change," some sort of Christian website. It seems God is pretty gung-ho about the whole patience= acceptance= love thing. I'll take a leaf out of his Book, then. Here's the excerpt:

"Allow others to fail you. Like cats petted backwards, impatient people tend to attack others when things aren’t done right. But Proverbs 19:11 advises: “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.”

Realize people are like jigsaw puzzles – sometimes they don’t fit together perfectly. We tend to be leaders, doers, cheerleaders or watchers. Through the strengths and weaknesses of each personality type, we develop patience.
Pick your battles. Major on the majors, like relationships. Dora liked a tidy house but her roommates didn’t share her standards. “God knew I needed to learn flexibility,” she admits. “I got something better than a neat home. I learned how to really care for people.”"

This feels especially important to me in reflecting on my actions over the last week. It is with incredible shame that I admit I've been an ogre to live with. I've felt ungrateful, which makes me feel guilty, so much so that I can't figure out how to be patient, compassionate, or even crack a smile. When I get this way I have a hard time looking my family in the eye because I think they'll somehow see right into the dark interior of my confidence-less thoughts. I've been snotty, irritable and aloof.

Rather than apologize, I'm going to practice patience. To me, this excerpt means choosing what I want to get aggressive about. Do I need to snap at my sisters for leaving their dishes around, or my Mom because she didn't warn me that she'd be making popcorn? No.

More importantly, it means picking my battles with myself. The reason I war externally is because I feel insufficient, anxious and any other myriad of emotions internally. If I better choose what thoughts I want to command my energies, I will create a more positive external environment.

I commit now to consistently NOT choosing this battle: trying to exercise more and eat less because I "didn't get enough of a workout." That's been a pretty consistent battle over the past few days that really just doesn't serve me. Damnit.

Wish me luck.

The Meaning of Holidays

You may have noticed (and I'm afraid to admit) that this blog has laid relatively untouched during the holiday season. One might think that during such a stress-laden time I would have chosen to write more frequently, to address the many stressors of the season- after all, blogging is one of my favorite coping mechanisms. If New Years celebrations bless us with the opportunity to reflect, than my first evaluation of the past few weeks brings me to the conclusion that yes, blogging would have been helpful and yes, I will continue to do so.

So what was it, then, that incited me to shirk from expression at a time when it may have provided some valuable insight? Holidays are a generally difficult time. With an eating disorder lurking in the shadows they can be downright dangerous. The act of blogging forces me to admit, explore, and hold myself accountable to my emotions. It asks me to shed light on that which causes me guilt, fear and embarrassment. It separates emotions from my thoughts and, at the very least, shows me how not to act on them. It is an active and aggressive way to connect with my own mind, something that my treatment at the ERC would support. But, it's in no way a vehicle to avoidance, which was my chosen tactic for coping from November 24th to January 1st.

I decided to "cruise control" the holidays when I realized that I had beat myself down last year by working up ridiculously high expectations about them. Last year I was so sick. There's a picture of me from Thanksgiving, cutting into the tendon of the turkey that looked oddly like the tendons in my forearm (picture below). I wanted the holidays to be perfect: I would live in the comfort of my parent's home, eat whatever treats came my way, and rid myself of my guilt by expressing my love, indebtedness, and gratitude to anyone that came my way.

What became of the last holiday season? I was a mess, and it wasn't hot. An incessantly spinning dradle, and I'm not even Jewish. Every day I woke up anxious, trying to predict what hazardous food might wash down the Grand Canyon of possibility before I could grab a veggetable life-raft. Daily scheduling was a struggle. I woke up lacking the energy to exercise and trying to strategize when and how to do it by drawing the least attention to myself and eating at the optimum time to work it off. I became emotional at the slightest provocation, especially when an activity ran contrary to my hopeful expectations.

I spent New Years at a 2-hour yoga clinic, feeling faint the entire time and trying to force some sort of divine awakening from it. Afterward, my ribs shaking from cold, I went to buy my first celebratory cookie in months. I ate it in my car, hiding, and went home to pass out. The next morning I woke in the bathroom with stomach flu and didn't leave my parent's couch for the next six days. I was sick and alone.

As this year's holiday season approached I remembered, swearing that I'd never live another holiday like that one. However, I had no idea how to live this one. I was cautious to create an intention around the season, wary of habitually dramatizing these sorts of events. My dilemma was that I constantly made the holidays more important and meaningful than they needed to be. Really, the holidays are a beautiful and enjoyable time, but they didn't matter all that much. I wasn't doomed to a horrible year if I had a regrettable New Years. The presents that I gifted weren't tangible evidence of my devotion. So I decided to ride the holiday wave by choosing a careful neutrality that I hoped would help me to weather the storm.

It worked. Thanksgiving went well and Christmas went well. I had a blast buying presents for many of my cousins on my grandparent's behalf. I went to holiday parties, inviting new friends as guests, and was very, very social. I ate lots of pie. I worked out too much (a combination of lots of time and even more nerves), but I did manage to take a couple days off.

So it worked, in a way. Except for the fact that in this last week, I felt myself graying and fraying around the edges. I had the week off and set my alarm in the morning to get up early so that I could tackle all the little tasks that had fallen by the way-side. I wanted to move forward on the many initiatives that have come to fill my often empty time (my job is unstructured and insecure, to say the least). But somehow my finger kept finding the way to the snooze button. My hands found the way to novels, coffee shops and errands, rather than to my never-ending list of tasks.

After a few apathetic days I admitted my lack of motivation. I honored the funk. I kept sleeping in, napping, lunching with friends, and immunizing against the cold that lurked in the depths of my nasal cavities. I was positive that the New Year would bring new busy-ness, motivation, and opportunities. I promised to let myself rest through this last week and then greet the treasures on the New Year with renewed vigor.

Last night I found myself sitting on the floor of an Indian-themed apartment, having my tarot cards read by a new friend, her girlfriend, and some of their friends. I had planned on partying in Breckenridge but high winds and power outages sent us scurrying back to Denver. It seemed divined that these friends would ask me to spend my most feared holiday in the safety of their home, reading astrology and tarot cards to forecast my year to come. I was positive that the cards and horoscopes would reveal everything I expected about 2012: that it would be a new, opportunistic, life-changing year, the final separation of the demons of 2011. Good riddance.

Regardless of the dubious validity of tarot card readings, I think it's an excellent way to draw one's mind to new ideas and ask those difficult, unacknowledged questions. Plus it's totally fun. As my cards were laid in front of me and their meaning detailed by my friend, my heart slowly found its way to my spleen. They told me that this year was a time of hard work with little return. That this good fight, which had led my thumb on "snooze" and my mind to cruise control, wasn't over yet. The miraculous change sure to rise with the 2012 sun would not happen. My task was to keep moving forward, one day at a time, patiently. Another card instructed me carefully acknowledge and respect of my emotions. The battle was not over, and if I didn't pay attention to my emotions, it's old "superficiality" would ensue.

What a downer. As I mulled over my situation and sipped champagne, it seemed that every little bubble enlightened my inner depths, until finally I sensed that these tarot cards were exactly what I needed to hear. I had built up unreasonable expectations about 2012 without realizing. I wanted so badly to be rid of the daily grind that had come to characterize my life: searching for jobs, working the ones I could find, taking steps further away from my ED, trying to be a positive member of my parent's household, etc. But January 1, 2012, is a day like any other. I was still the same Emily, in recovery and transition. It was exactly the realistic caution that I needed. Somehow (champagne aside) I felt the gears in my soul turning, clicking into 3rd, ready to keep climbing this noble hill.

People who've been in treatment or rehab don't set "resolutions;" for anorexics, it's usually not resolve they lack. We set "intentions," giving ourselves space to falter. After this year's warring and last night's revelations my intention for 2012 is to practice one exercise in patience a week. I will let you know what my exercise is, practice it every day, and slowly become a little more flexible and forgiving. Or at least gain a little awareness. Let's get real.