The Purge Cycle (TRIGGER WARNING)

TRIGGER WARNING:

This post discusses purging. 

For the last 4 months I have been struggling with a really difficult relapse. And just when I think I have a handle on it, something happens and I go back to my old coping mechanisms and once I begin the cycle, it is incredibly hard to get off that spinning circle. 

I've written before about how I have learned that people are made up of different parts of ourselves. And, as I do with all things, I took the idea and went with it and then developed it into something that I could understand and work with. For me, that meant exploring my psyche, naming my parts, and drawing them. 

This morning I emailed Nosy Nora to attempt to explain what has been going on. She suggested that I share what I wrote as a blog post. I must admit that I had already been thinking that it was something I could post here. 

I'm not sure I like talking about myself as if I am different people. But I'm going with it so that I can explain the purge cycle. 

It begins first thing in the morning when Fat fanny stands on the scale and sees if my weight is above or bellow the do-not-pass number. 

Then, based on the number, she chooses to eat something like junk food for breakfast. 

Hateful Harriet sees all this and tells Fat Fanny that she is fat and stupid and tells her that of course she's fat because she makes such stupid choices. 

Punishing Penelope overhears the mean things being said and wants to join in ...

And when she finishes berating Fat Fanny, she tells Purging Polly what happened and pokes at her. 

Purging Polly doesn't want to know anything. She wants to be left alone. Punishing Penelope keeps telling her all about Fat Fanny and Polly starts to get overwhelmed and upset. She can't stop the hateful, mean, ugly words and doesn't know what to do with those feelings, so she makes herself throw up. 

Afterwards, Polly feels shame and stupidity and crawls into bed with Scared Susan. The two of them whisper to each other in the dark. 

Susan tells Polly all the things that are going on in her head. All her fears. Everything that she is afraid of. Polly whispers that she is afraid of the others. That she doesn't know what do when they get angry. She also explains that Fat Fanny chooses what goes into my body and Polly can take control to choose when and what gets expelled.

And then Fat Fanny hears their whispers, tucks them in, and decides what happens next. It might be sleeping, crying, hiding, or eating another kind of junk food which repeats the cycle. And then within that cycle, it starts to not matter what she eats. It can be soup or salad or cucumber or melon. Once the cycle has started, Hateful Harriet and Punishing Penelope just keeping telling Fat Fanny that she's worthless and ugly and a stupid pile of shit. And then they report to Purging Polly and call her horrible names until it's easier to throw up than to listen. 

Yesterday, while climbing into bed, Fat Fanny was listening to Hateful Harriet who was telling her she didn't deserve to feel pleasure .... And out of nowhere, Sexy Sasha poked her head out and said "well maybe ..." And she took over until I fell asleep. The cycle started up again after I woke up from my nap. I ate raspberries. And I didn't deserve them. So I immediately threw them up. 

It's way more complicated than that, obviously. Throw in all the chronic physical pain I have been experiencing, and external stressors and all the things that suck in my life. But I think it's the clearest way to describe what happens. And to explain the ways in which it is a cycle. And to demonstrate that there are ways to break the cycle, if I let parts like Sexy Sasha take over. Or even to call on Morning Myrtle, who finds pleasure in reading, write my, drawing, and cups of hot tea in bed. Today I allowed Myrtle to take me for a walk. We walked 6 km in the gorgeous sunshine. It felt so good. I came home and drew. 

And then after dinner, the cycle began again. 

I keep thinking that Polly is having a tantrum. But I do t know anymore. I think that she is being provoked. 

Tomorrow is a new day. 

Be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

Learning to be Second

somewhere in my childhood, i was taught that i was not first. 

i wasn't entitled to be first. wasn't worthy. was not deserving. 

someone taught me that i don't matter as much as everyone else. 

and i believed it. i have always been good at learning. i have always been good at paying attention to what i am being taught - to the overt and unspoken messages being given to me. 

for as long as i can remember, i have always put everyone else ahead of me - other people's needs in front of my needs. it doesn't matter if it is my partner, my friends, my family, my students, my colleagues, or even strangers. 

i have very few memories of feeling like i mattered. 

i never chose what game we were going to play, what movie we would watch, what we would have for dinner, where we would go, or any other "easy" decision that people make hundreds of throughout the day.

a pivotal moment in this process was my 9th birthday. that day has stuck with me for the last 30 years. 

my cousin CP is my best friend. she is 16 days older than me, so she has literally been in my life since birth. there were stretches of years where we were completely inseparable. we continue to be inseparable through the wonders of technology despite so many provinces separating us physically. 

for our 9th birthday, we celebrated at our Gram's house. We were given Barbie-style rockstar dolls. Mine had curly red hair and i thought it was the coolest most beautiful doll i had ever gotten. CP had a matching doll but it had blue hair. 

i was really excited about my doll. The red hair was beautiful. and i imagined the different stories that we were going to act out with our new dolls. 

we were also given plastic hoop earrings. CP got a pair of turquoise earrings and i got a pair of purple earrings. purple was (and still is!) my favourite colour. 

these gifts were awesome. i couldn't wait to put the earrings in and i took out the ones that i was wearing.

this next moment shaped my relationships for many years. not just with CP, but with everyone, and with everyone to come. 

i am not sure that much has really changed.

CP asked me to trade. 

she said that she liked the one with the red hair better. i didn't really like the blue-haired doll. it was the runner up. but i liked CP. i loved her. she was my best friend. and i was terrified that if i didn't do the trade, that she would be mad at me. disappointed me in. that maybe she wouldn't like me anymore. i was scared that i would be left alone with no friends. 

in that moment, i set up the pattern that would follow for the next 30 years. 

so many things went through my mind. i asked myself, did it matter that the blue doll was second best? did i deserve the better doll? was i worthy of keeping something that i liked. 

i loved CP more than i loved myself. 

it was mere seconds before i made my decision. and in that one decision, i gave away more than the doll; i gave away the idea that i was worthy of having something that i wanted. 

then it was time to put in our new earrings. i was ready to show off my new purple accessories and was happy that people knew that purple was my favourite colour. CP looked at my earrings, and then at her turquoise earrings and told me that purple was her favourite colour. and she asked if i would be willing to trade.   

of course i agreed. and i didn't simply give away the purple earrings, i gave away the last vestige of any self-mattering. 

i talked to CP before writing this post. because i know that she has sad feelings about that day. sad feelings about asking me to trade. 

i don't blame CP for the choices that i made that day. because that's what they were: choices. i could have said "no" if i hadn't learned that my wants and needs were secondary to everyone else's. i could have said "no" if someone hadn't taught me that it was more important to keep everyone else happy at my own expense. 

i was so scared that if i said "no" and kept my own things, that CP would no longer be my friend. that she would see me as selfish and mean and rude. so there wasn't ever really a question of whether or not i should do the trade. she asked, and my brain jumped to the thought of losing her a friend, so i said yes. 

over the last 30 years, i have given away so much. not only items but pieces of my very self. 

i always take the smaller piece of whatever food we are eating. i will also always take the burnt piece, or the piece of pie that fell apart, or the drink that is less bubbly. 

i tell myself that i don't care. that i don't need to choose what movie to watch because i don't care. i hate making decisions. 

but i do care. i care a lot. 

of course there are things that i like and things that i don't like. but my fear of being disliked, or being left, overrides my desire to have my way - my desire to make a choice. 

i don't want to make a decision for fear that that decision will lead to judgment and that that judgment will lead to being abandoned. 

it's odd to look back at that photo of my 9th birthday as our 39th birthday approaches us in a month. i remember being happy to be celebrating my birthday with my best friend. i remember how important it was that CP be my best friend. and i remember how scared i was that if i didn't give her what she wanted that she would stop being friends with me. and it was easier to give her my doll and my earrings that it was to take that risk. 

i didn't understand then that it in fact wasn't easy at all. 

it feels so much easier to say "i don't care" than it does to assert what i need or what i want. it is so much easier to let everyone else decide. it is so much easier to believe that i am not worthy of having what i want than it is to try to believe that i am deserving of anything at all. 

my feelings of self-worth haven't changed much in 30 years. 

i would rather help everyone else than help myself. i would rather give away what i have and end up in debt than be seen as selfish. i would rather drive back and forth across the city for someone else 3 times in one day than be seen as lazy. i would rather say yes when all i want to say is no, for fear of being disliked. 

my fear of judgement overrides my instinct for survival. 

i want to change. i want to learn that i matter. i want to learn that i am worthy and deserving. 

people tell me that i am. and i sometimes believe that they actually think they what they are saying is true. 

but what i want to learn, is how to believe it about myself. i want to learn how to believe that i am worthy of putting myself first. of making choices. of saying no when i want to. of learning to know WHAT i want, and expressing it to others. 

it's a process. one step forward and 73 steps backwards. at least, that's how it feels. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

 

  

Research

It has been quite awhile since I have written anything on my blog. I have been on a leave from work and just trying to stay afloat and get through life. To sort through stressors, anxiety, and the chronic pain issues that I have been experiencing for the last 6 months.

This last week I decided to give myself a project - something that I had been thinking about for awhile. I wanted to do research and write an academic article on the potential of using self-pleasure as a replacement for self-harm behaviours in disordered eating (or Eating Disorders: ED).

I tried google first and found it to be less than helpful. I'm sure you can imagine the types of websites that pop-up when using search words such as "pleasure", "self pleasure", "sex", "sexuality" ... not very helpful.

I then discovered that the Toronto Public Library has public access to 2 search engines for academic journals. It was a treasure trove of information. I dove into the archives and read academic articles from the last 50+ years about the history of masturbation, the history of women's sexuality, different theories on ED, ED symptomatic behaviours, ED treatment, self-harm, self-harm treatment, and the health benefits of pleasure.

My digging led me to some really interesting studies, some of which had nothing to do with the topic but the titles popped up in my search and compelled me to read them. Things from the sexual activities of monkeys and their relation to that of human development, to the history of knowledge around orgasms. It has been quite the adventure thus far.

I became completely immersed in the research and writing. The article is currently in draft form and is 17 pages long!

I am stuck on some pretty weird theories posed by Sigmund Freud that I truly don't understand. I am working through trying to understand what the hell he was talking about when he wrote about a phallus baby as being the reason for bulimia. I even turned to my friend Dr. M, who is a psychiatrist. He said that he doesn't understand what Freud was saying! When I saw my psychiatrist today I asked him about it. He coincidentally works with Dr. M and knows that he is my friend. After explaining my Freud analysis issue, my psychiatrist suggested that I speak to Dr. M about it, saying that he is well versed and supervised my doctor's reading of Freud!

So no one seems to understand what he was talking about, except the academics who wrote about it who are even more confusing to read than Freud himself.

Perhaps his theories on eating disorders are too antiquated and entirely unnecessary for my writing.

As you can see from my babbling on and on about it, this project has consumed me.

I didn't realize how much I truly miss academia. In 2002 I was accepted into a Phd program that I had to turn down because of money. The program was in Sheffield, England and the fees for foreign students were exorbitant. The estimate was that I would need $100,000 per year to attend the program. That same year, I was offered a scholarship to Dalhousie in Halifax, Nova Scotia. So I accepted the scholarship and my life took a different path.

I often wonder where the Phd would have led me. It was in the field of geography, specifically human geography. And I was hand picked by a woman that I call "my academic crush." I have read everything she has published and am always astonished by her brilliance and the theories she works to prove. It still makes me sad that I had to turn it down.

Stupid money.

This project has made me feel alive. It is feeding my soul and allowing me to feel pleasure. To explore areas of research that I was unaware of. It is opening my mind to new ideas and new areas for exploration.

I can't wait to see what topic I think of to work on next!

This is my last week being on sick leave. Next week I return to the real life of having to go to work every day, of having to bring work home, of having to put my energy into my career. My intention is to carve out time for this process that I am so passionate about. Even if nothing ever comes of my reading except my own happiness.

I hope that all my readers can find something that brings you as much pleasure and passion as my project has for me.

Be kind to yourself,

xoxo

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