really, NEDA?

I normally have no problem with NEDA or the National Eating Disorders Association, (hey, i even went to their NYC walk last year!) and I respect their work as a central kind of force in the ED world. But the email I got today was just ridiculous.

Rachel Roy Personal Appearance & Fashion Presentation at Neiman Marcus Short Hills Neiman Marcus, Short Hills, NJ Bunny Johnson Vice President and General Manager, Neiman Marcus,Short Hills and Deborah Q. Belfatto Board of Directors, National Eating Disorders Association Invite you to join us for cocktails and a benefit fashion presentation, as designer RACHEL ROY presents herRachel Roy New York and Rachel Roy Signature Collections for Fall 2010. Wednesday, August 18 6:00 pm Fine Apparel, Level Three, Neiman Marcus 1200 Morris Turnpike Short Hills, NJ 07078 Tickets are $75.00. All proceeds benefit NEDA. Purchase Tickets Online Rachel Roy’s collections will be available for viewing following the event and on Thursday, August 19 until 4 pm.

i mean, really now?
And I went to the designers website and the page that comes up is just pictures of catwalk models looking sick and angry, as per usu.


i don't even think I have to write much more to explain why I think this is ridiculous and ironic, but holding a fashion show to benefit an organization that is supposed to be fighting eating disorders?
REALLY, NOW?
I'm really not going to get into my two cents (or twenty-two) on what effect the media/society has on eating disorders. The media/fashion industry are not to blame for  the existence of eating disorders. Eating disorders aren't caused by any one thing. Yada yada yada. They are highly genetic but also environmental, and while our society's obsession with thinness as a virtue does play a large role in the high incidence of eating disorders (and disordered eating), it is not the "cause". This is a discussion that I could spend months writing a blog post on, but it's not the time for that now.
I just wanted to share how ludicrous I think that email I got today was.
I think it takes some serious nerve for NEDA to hold a charity fashion show. That seems to me like raising money for diabetes research/awareness by having a donut eating contest, it just doesn't make sense.

my mantra right now

I wish it wasn't the case, but since it feels like it is, I guess I'll take Mr. Churchill's advice.
My dad would be overly pleased to see me gaining insight from his favorite historical figure :P

smart people, un-smart posts

Something that gets to me a lot is the way in which Maudsley advocates boast about the approach.
I understand the Maudsley treatment method. I understand how it is implemented and why it seems to work. I also understand is that, to date, it is really the only treatment method that has been well-researched in the ED science field and actually has been proven to be effective. What i do not understand is why people who advocate for the Maudsley approach seem to become so attached to the idea that Maudsley is like a freaking miracle, god-sent treatment and speak (or write) about it as though there is nothing else that could possibly be effective.


This pisses me off.


I really do respect a lot of the people (bloggers, mostly) who advocate day-in, day-out for the Maudsley method and I think they are smart individuals with valid points and good intentions. What I would like to pose to them, however, is a reminder, that "The aim of an argument ... should not be victory, but progress."(Joseph Joubert) 
Recently, whenever i read a post by someone who is advocating for Maudsley, they always seem to be trying to win some argument against the world. They always seem to somehow frustrate other readers by implying that Maudsley is the ONLY approach that works, just because it is, so far, the only approach that has actually been well-researched. Effective and researched are not synonymous. 
I also, personally, get frustrated because there really are so many pitfalls in the Maudsley approach that just seem to be ignored. First of all, I would like to see any individual with a diagnosis of BN rather than AN actually successfully be treated by Maudsley. I honestly think that this would be a freaking miracle because all of the studies on Maudsley have been done on AN, and the two are very different disorders (especially in terms of how the individual relates to their family, which is a key component of Maudsley) and, knowing the way in which those with BN tend to act with their families, I would be astounded to see anyone with that diagnosis have a successful Maudsley treatment.
Let's be clear here. I know professionals who like to say that for adolescents with bulimia, purging is like puking up the family. Purging is like a f***-you to the rest of your family who you are angry, resentful at. Often, with AN, this is not the case. Most adolescents with AN tend to not have the same experience of rage and resentment to their families. Most girls i know with anorexia suffer the sweet, well-behaved, "good-girl syndrome". They often seen as the "golden child", and while this is not to say that they are not angry with their families, or tyring to convey something with their ed behaviors, it is often quite a different experience than that of someone with BN. 
And secondly, aside from diagnosis, lets just take a look at the multitude of families who CAN'T for either personal, emotional, physical or financial reasons, in any way,shape or for, ever conceive of using Maudsley. Some parents  are clueless, and couldn't give a shit about their child's eating disorder/ recovery for that matter. Some don't have the financial resources or the time to invest so much energy in feeding their child. Some are just emotionally unavailable or unable to be a support to their children in this way (if a parent rarely sets any kind of boundaries for their child (homework, curfew, friends, etc) there is no way that they are going to either A. Be interested in bothering to set boundaries around food + eating or B. be able to have any kind of authority over their sick adolescent). 
I guess one of the reasons I am so touchy on this entire subject (and hence am writing this massive, bitchy post) is because it really just frustrates me that my family couldn't (+ most definitely wouldn't) ever do Maudsley. The idea of my family trying to implement the maudsley method is a joke. Sometimes I laugh when people suggest that it's a good treatment for the majority because, um, I think i know about four people in the entire world who have families that would be suitable/able/available/willing to do Maudsley(if it was ever needed). I imagine my mother and father cooking me some "nutritious" meal, telling me to sit down and eat, and then offering to have some sort of "family activity" afterwards to keep me from purging (as is suggested by Locke + LeGrange) and i have to roll my eyes at the absurdity of that image. 
Basically, I often find that people can be a little freaking self-righeteous when it comes to Maudsley and it bugs the hell out of me (for both personal and general reasons).
I really do think that for the most part, yeah, it's great and i love when people advocate for well-researched, fast, safe, effective care for eating disorders as others would for any other possibly-fatal illness, but i really do wish that people could be a little more understanding and far- sighted, and just freaking get it through their brains that it can't work for all of us, and that maybe, just maybe, it's okay to try something else!


Sorry if this post is ranty. Just needed to get that off my chest. 
Phew.

lets be real here

all i could write in my (personal) journal tonight:

lost lonely hopeless sad gone sad wrong alone deserted defeated left miserable somebody help me please

that is all.

sorry for the downer post.

"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 "

And the best insights always come early in the morning

i fell asleep at around 9:30 tonight.

And then woke up at around 2:15, confused about what day it was.

Lying in bed, I started thinking about bingeing&purging loss.

Well, for the sake of full disclosure, at first I started thinking about food, naturally.

I thought "What's in the kitchen? I want food!" and then "Am i really hungry? What do i actually want?"

And my honest answer to myself came easily this time:

I want something to fill the fucking ginormous hole inside of me. 

I feel hollow.

I feel like there is a huge fucking hole in my chest where people used to be.

I literally feel like a walking void.

I have lost so much.

I think I am finally, really really clearly able to see how & why I am so accustomed to just filling this void with food. 

An excerpt from my journal tonight...

"So here I am left with a hole in my chest and all I want to do is fill it with food. Well..chests aren’t made for food but I guess they can be confused with stomachs sometime. Basically, it’s not going to solve the problem. It could trick me into thinking that it has solved the problem, cause a filled(and then consequently, of course, empty) stomach could be easily mistaken for a chest full of love, however, it’s not going to do anything for the long run. But I guess the struggle is sitting with this empty chest. This really just sucks. I don’t know, I may or may not go into the kitchen now, but either way, I feel like it finally makes sense, and it feels a lot like loss."

All of this loss and pain recently finally makes sense. 

All of the pain that i felt about losing R when i left MNV ( & I'm lYk $O tRendy w/ My SYmbolz) was really just built up pain of all the loss that i had experienced before. It's not ONLY about her. It's about the multitude of people who i feel I have lost in the past. Except before, I was actively bulimic, and so i never really allowed myself to feel the pain or the weight (pun intended...) of those losses. This is an unknown, unfamiliar pain. 

{So, it's kind of like being hit on the head with a ball- it hurts the same amount as it would if i knew beforehand that i was going to be hit with a ball, but it's just more shocking this way (without warning), so the pain feels worse.}

I hate to admit it (and by hate, I mean, like...it basically goes against my religion to admit that the therapists are actually right sometimes...) but my relationship with R really was like a microcosm of all my other relationships!(shocker...eh?)

I'm not going to go into it here but I really have had a lot of loss in the past few years. Most of these losses were friendships that were really dear to me, and I never really was given the chance to grieve them, because I was too intent on being bulimic and avoiding actual ingestion of food feelings at all costs. 

So here I am, left with this emptiness. I know what I used to do with it. And I know that eating to fix my loneliness is just about as effective as brushing my teeth to "help" my anger- it wont actually address the problem and, in the end, i'll probably just fuck up my teeth. I also know what I can do with this. I can choose to just sit with this emptiness and feel the hollowness and know that this just comes from years and years of loss, and only now am i able to feel it. I have a choice to make.

Aside from that though, it's nice to feel that things are making sense. Everything has felt so chaotic in my mind recently , and it feel like a relief to have my pain at least make sense, for once.

I'm feeling poetic, so here goes:

And the best insights always come early in the morning

or, as some would have it, very late at night.

The matter is, i finally understand this feeling

and, to describe it, well, - it feels a lot like loss.

xxx

Rose

Photography!

Some pictures, courtesy of my beautiful friend Ava, from the weekend that she visited me! :D First , we ate Tapas and drank some awesome spanish cocktails on the UWS....  

I dipped my toes in coolphotographer-hipsterland and tried out her camera, by taking a pic of myself (not narcissistic at all, i know!)                                                                             We ate some sure-to-cure the hangovers pb sandwiches for breakfast...      

And, last but definitely not least, Ava officially became the first person in history to ever successfully capture a cute picture of my dog {the reason for this being that he is crazy about light, (on top of everything else) and when ever someone picks up a camera, he starts running around being mad...}

Hi, Willy!

xxx
Rose