White Houses

alright guys, in keeping with my mission to try to teach myself to break habits that i don't like,

i decided to rattle off a post today, even if it's not going to be the greatest or most exciting, just because i don't want to get into an anti-blog rut ;)
Well i got my camera back which is exciting because i have some photos to share with you...
first of all check out what came in an urban outfitters package in the mail today for me

my Diana lomography camera! I asked my brother for it
and i'm so happy it's here. How cute is it?!

He ordered the special redscale film from Amazon too. swoon.

i know, i know. you all must be getting sick of hearing about my birthday by now. 

it's almost over i swear it's only been going on for two weeks! ;)

here are some pictures from my b-day dinner with my fam. We went to the restaurant of my choosing, Flex Mussels. It's amazing. It's like all these different ways you can have mussels and then the desserts are to die for.

One of the deserts we got were the Flex Donuts. They are delicious
and each come with their own filling : fluffernutter, pb&j, chocolate, lemon...
Oh and they had this incredible vanilla bean dipping sauce that i would've
just eaten on its own had their not been doughy goodness to go with it

                                                                                   

Check out that little face! Isn't he adorable.
That's Noah, my nephew, aka the cutest little man alive.
And see those chocolatey fingers? Who do you think he learned that from?!

Anyway so that was my birthday dinner on friday night. I was exhausted as I always am on Fridays and ready to just go to sleep but I did have a pretty good time and the food sitch wasn't too anxiety-provoking or anything considering it's basically just delicious mussels and some dessert to go with it.

This weekend I was dragged out to my country house with my parents.

It actually wasn't really that bad. The weather was beautiful and I really just had a good time relaxing. Took the chance to take some pretty photos...

I don't actually like apples (never have, i was a weird baby)
but i thought they just looked so autumnal and pretty.

                                                  

hot cocoa, obv.

and since it got really cold at night we had to put the fire on.
so cozy, right?

anyway i really need to go eat dinner and get my history on because i have this huge paper on the american revolution due at 12am tonight (wtf...why did i leave it till the very last minute- yep that's going on the Rose's Habits She Wants To Change list..) and i need to get cracking on that because i really don't know very much about the Boston Tea Party and all that jazz and i need to re-learn how to do footnotes so i'm thinking it might take me a little bit.

Before i go though...

Do you ever do that thing where you hear a song for the first time and fall in love with it and absolutely have to have it on replay for like the next, say, month or two of your life?

Well, i do.

And that song, a few years back was Vanessa Carlton's White Houses. I re-discovered it last night and was feeling inspired and added some of the lyrics to a photo that i found on Flickr that i thought is beautiful and sent it to a friend of mine who i knew would appreciate it... thought i'd share.

xo

rose 

                                                                                      

I can't tell you what it really is

I can only tell you what it feels like.  

This is my general problem, always. I blinded by my emotions over and over again.

When I'm sad, it's like i'm wearing special glasses and all i can see in the world is worthlessness and hate.

When I'm happy, I have no doubts, no fears, no inhibitions, and everything seems to have meaning.

I get so frustrated with this.

Sometimes I just wish that I could be more level-headed- and see the world as it really is (not just through some tinted lens of emotional highs and lows) for once.

I'm not gonna lie- I LOVE the days when life is grand and I'm in my deliriously happy-no one can stop me- world at my fingertips type frenzy. But i'm not sure the highs are worth it when the other half is full of gloom and doom and no way out.

I was thinking about all this the other day when I came across a post written by Lesley over at Fatshionista and she was writing "To the sixteen-year-olds of the world"

I think it at least makes light of this whole up & down-ness that is my life, and sheds some seriously needed insight.

Everything to you right now is vivid and surreal and overwhelming. Your life is like a film you’re composing with bandaged hands and serious case of writer’s block. Everything is open to you, though, and little is impossible now, and this will eventually change, so embrace it.

The older you get, the quicker time will pass, like a microcosm of the universe that is expanding faster and faster as everything flies away from everything else. Today things that are a month away seem impossibly distant, but when you are twice your current age a month will become a devastatingly brief period, surely not long enough to do everything you need to do before then, surely not. At this future time you may look back on these days wistfully, longingly; or you may look back and think, “There is no amount of money in the world that could compel me to be 16 again, not for a day, not for an hour.” Either way your experiences and choices now will have profoundly shaped the person you become.

You will, slowly, cease to feel everything so acutely. Pain will hurt less, but joy will be more fleeting. Injustices that once seemed outrageous and blinding will fade into the grey background noise of life. Some of you will be relieved to leave this behind; some of you will fight ferociously to chase after your enthusiasm and your rage and to not let it slip out of view over the horizon.

Do not forget your friends from these days, but do not let them be the only friends you keep over your life. Someday you will look back at the people you knew and the things you did and shake your head with sheepish embarrassment, but hopefully with sympathy for your younger, stupider self. It is okay to be stupid. It is okay to not know what you’re doing. It is sublimely okay to make mistakes and cause catastrophes, so long as you learn from them.

Do not hate yourself. Have regrets, engage in second-guessing, be insecure, scared, desperate, lonely. But do not hate yourself. Do not hate your body, because whatever about it bothers you today will seem patently ridiculous years from now. Do not punish yourself, mentally or physically, for failing to look a certain way; for not striving to be an athlete or a model; for being socially awkward; for never quite living up to the expectations others set for you. Do not punish anyone else. Even the most confident and popular among you struggle with insecurities and pressures, no matter what you say. Be kind.

This is a magical time of your life. I don’t mean a sparkling Disney magic, but a cataclysmic wrath-of-god magic. Everything is changing, all of the time, but years from now it will seem nothing is changing, ever, and change will only come through a whole lot of effort, or with resistance, or with crisis. In the meantime, eat ice cream, listen to music that speaks to your soul, go on long pointless late-night drives to nowhere with your friends, windows down. Walk in the rain. Wear whatever you want, even if people stare. Have fun. Be safe. Most importantly: have fun.

I think a lot of this roller-coaster-ness is really normal in recovery. Even for those who are no longer the "sixteen-year-olds" of the world- eating disorders delay maturation- when you give it up, you are essentially making up for all of those years that you weren't really living, or really feeling, anyway.


Sorry for not posting for so long! I was on vacation with my familia in the wonderful City of Angels in CA- and I was so busy and excited that I didn't have time for the blog world but I'm back and happy to be in my own bed again. (Willy is too- his smelly, unwashed-dog-self is conked out by my feet, ensuring that my favorite purple blanket isn't lacking in the fur department)
I forgot to take pictures on my trip (GRR- I'm so mad about this!). But I think i'm going to go buy an actual (read: not my phone) camera tomorrow - so get ready for excitingness. :)
Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well, and enjoying the last few days of summer. Here's to tomorrow, and to hoping that we can see beyond our glasses, or we at least get rose-tinted ones.

"And here we go again..."

Quoting a Paramore song for this post
it seems appropriate...i'll post the whole song at the bottom.
So, the eating disorder behaviors have gotten kind of out of control at this point.
It needs to stop now.
I talked to L yesterday and I agree with her that we need to fight this immediately and aggressively.
I've been bingeing and purging (not exactly bingeing...it's all semantics anyway though) way too much lately and it has just gotten out of control. It has been two weeks I think since I started purging again and it just needs to stop now. It has spiraled out so so fast, and it's really scaring me.
At first, I have to admit, it was sort of a relief.
It felt nice. The purging gave me a release, it numbed the pain that i didn't want to feel and it was that quick fix that i had been looking for.
But it really has gotten ridiculous so quickly and it's not going anywhere good and it feels awful already and so I'm going to fight it.
Never, in the past, would i have understood or agreed with what L said in my conversation with her yesterday. But i have a lot more knowledge of the disease now, and the proper treatment of it, and I do respect and understand (finally) that this is a serious issue, and real disease, and i know that we must be aggressive in the treatment of it. L said we have to treat it like it's cancer. You wouldn't wait for an already seen tumor to get bigger and bigger before bringing someone in for chemo. You would deal with it effectively right there and then.
That being said, I'm just trying to get my symptoms under control at the moment, and accepting that that is what i have to focus on right now.
I have a lot of other shit going on in my head right now (i literally feel like a there is just a messy knot of issues and problems and worries growing inside my brain right now) but I am going to just focus on the behavioral for the moment, regardless of what else might be "in there"
Because of all this, I really having nothing insightful to say right now, I'm (needless to say) having a really really really hard time  right now and feeling quite awful, so I'm just gonna end now with the lovely Paramore...


"And here we go again
With all the things you said
And not a minute spent
To think that we'd regret
So we just take it back,
These words and hold our breath
Forget the things we swore we meant
I'll write you just to let you know that I'm alright
Can't say I'm sad to see you go
Cause I'm not. (No I'm not) Well, I'm not.
And here we go again
With all the things we did
And now I'm wondering
Just who would I have been
To be the one attached
At all time to your hip?
Forget the things we swore we meant.
I'll write you just to let you know that I'm alright
Can't say I'm sad to see you go
Cause I'm not, no I'm not.
Well, I'm not. (No, I'm not, no I'm not).
I'll write you to let you know that I'm alright
Can't say I'm sad to see you go
Cause I'm not (no, I'm not)
Well, I'm not (no, I'm not)
I'm not, I'm not.
And here we go again
With all the things you said
And not a minute spent
To think that we'd regret
So we just take it back "

The Weepies

"But in the end the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself"

-Can't Go Back Now, The Weepies

This weekend on our drive out to the beach house, my dad let me play my ipod in the car.

He was trying (sweetly) to engage with me about my music and asked what the band name was of one of the songs and i said, The Weepies! He said "Oh, yeah, they do sound a little weepy"

Ha, He's a cute man when he wants to be.

That's not the point of this post though.

I want to say a couple of things. 

First is that that song "Can't Go Back Now" makes me wonder--- Have the people who have written that song been in residential treatment!? It certainly sounds like it. I can relate to that song in so many ways, and it just really resonates with my experience of being in residential treatment for my eating disorder and then having to leave and do my recovery on my own. I posted it below for reference, because aside from the song sounding great, the lyrics are phenomenal. 

The next thing is the quote I put up there. Today, was a really big step, I think, in terms of my recovery.

After my slip last night, I really was having a rough time, and, after one of my close friends kind of slipped away this afternoon and didnt follow through with our plans, I was feeling really shitty and planning on bingeing and purging. My thought process was: Hey- I have the house to myself till tomorrow night, I have money and I feel like shit- so why not?! 

I was really going to do it. I texted R, and she is on vacation so told me she could not talk, to call MNV instead. Psht. I texted two friends of mine, who were both really helpful, but I was still feeling pretty willful. 

Then I left my friend P's house and walked slowly to the supermarket, which I knew (because I had deviously checked earlier) , didn't close until 10. I stood outside the supermarket for like 20 minutes, on the phone with a therapist from MNV, kind of half listening to what she was saying, and half thinking to myself how I was going to b/p anyway. I got off the phone, stalled for a bit, smoked a cigarette, emailed my dietitian, but then just jumped in a cab. 

It felt liberating.

I felt really accomplished, for the first time , ever really.

I felt like I had given myself permission to b/p and then I really fought the battle and made the choice not to, to do the right thing, and that feels good. 

I'm proud of myself. 

I think this does feel like it really matters, because I do truly feel like I for once had the strength to do it, and although I had some help from my friends (winkwink) , i know that it was something I did by myself.

One of the things I was saying to myself while I was in the cab was "it's okay baby, you can go home and just cry if you want to, it's okay, you can cry if you need to"

I gave myself permission to cry, and that felt good. I knew that b/ping was an attempt to escape from those feelings, but I gave myself permission to feel- to have "the weepies" ;) . 

Gratitudes

1. L and K, my wonderful friends, without whom i would be nowhere

2. Music 

3.E, the therapist I talked to today, who when I was at MNV, was far from my favorite person, but really was so wonderful today on the phone, and i really really appreciate her caring.

The Weepies: Can't Go Back Now

Yesterday, when you were young,

Everything you needed done was done for you.
Now you do it on your own
But you find you're all alone,
What can you do?
You and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now.
You know there will be days when you're so tired that you can't take another step,
The night will have no stars and you'll think you've gone as far as you will ever get
But you and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now
And yeah, yeah, go where you want to go
Be what you want to be,
If you ever turn around, you'll see me.
I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
But in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself
And you and me walk on
Yeah you and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now
Walk on, walk on, walk on
You can't go back now

Make The World Brand New

My first blog post! I'm so excited.
So, this is, i guess, a record of my journey through recovery from an eating disorder.
I've been so lucky up until now with all the support i have received. I am finally home now after spending four months in residential treatment for my bulimia and i am now determined to lead a life bulimia-free.


I always thought people were exaggerating when they said that "everyday is a struggle" during recovery.
I kind of realized (laughingly, of course) to myself today that yeah, everyday IS really a struggle.
That might just be how i'm feeling right now, since it has been a rough week, probably the hardest i've had in the month that i've been home from treatment.


Anyway, I'm determined to keep moving forward in my recovery and to do whatever it takes and since i love writing and i also love reading other's blogs, i decided today that why the hell should i not make one?!


So here i am, typing away and i will be shocked if anyone reads this- but also greatly flattered.


So here's to recovery and the long road ahead. 
xo
Rose