Save Sofia, Save Ourselves.

does anyone remember this lovely girl?

it's okay if you don't.
i forgive you. 
just go read my post: How to Save a Life. 
For those of you who weren't around or don't remember, this is Sofia.
Sofia has an eating disorder. 
She needs our help. 
Badly.
Back in October, I asked you guys to check out her fundraising page because she was trying to raise money  to get into treatment. The same treatment facility that I trust because I, personally, was able to find a peaceful place to being my recovery there. 
Starting today, I'm doing a Momofuku giveaway (scroll to the bottom of this post for details), and begging you to donate.
You see, after she did some fundraising and after Sofia's father took out money from his savings, Sofia was able to go into treatment like we all were hoping she would. Phew.
But her insurance cut out super early again. Big Surprise there, right? 
She also is still in the appeals process. It's kind of a bummer. 
Sofia has worked so hard and come so far, even in the midst of her debilitating mental illness.
Here is some of Sofia's wisdom about recovery that I think you all deserve to hear:

                                             “it was then that I realized, my moment of clarity wasn’t 

 going to come. That moment in movies where the heavens part and the addict wakes up and realizes their illness is 

going to kill them and it scares them into changing their behavior. I mean I’ve had little moments like that. Where I saw the reality of my situation and it terrified me. I’ve had moments where I come out of it enough to realize the insanity of my behavior and the seriousness of my medical status and the very potentially fatal consequences of my actions…and this is part of why I realized that I needed to reach out and find a way to come up with this money, because I will die before I'm just startled  enough to just stop."

[she is implying here that she needs proper treatment, she understands that she can't do this on her own]

And you see, all of this is why Sofia inspires me. She's a fighter.

She sets off a spark in me. 

She makes me think of this quotation:

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela

I wouldn't ask you all to take a moment of your time, and possibly a cent  from your wallet if this didn't mean something. Sofia means something. I know it. 
But she's just one person, right?
What's the point of giving money to just one person?
You might be asking yourself this question. 
I know i did.
Here's the thing, though. While physically yes, Sofia is, in fact, just one person in this universe of ours, she means more than that. 
really, she does. 
Don't believe me?
I see myself Sofia. 
I also see you in Sofia.
Yes, you, you, the one  reading this right at this very moment. 
Sofia represents all of us when we are at the very bottom of our ropes. the end of the line. desperate. pleading. needy.
this, my friends, is not a fun place for anyone to be. But we've all been there. 
I have. I will again. 
You have. And you probably will again, too.
Your low and my low probably don't look the same. 
Maybe the last time you were at the end of your rope, it was because a loved one was sick. Or your dog was lost. Or maybe you lost a job, or a friend, or maybe you just spilled some coffee and stubbed your toe and just wanted a shoulder to cry on.

Was somebody there to help you up?
Really, think about it.
Or did you do fix it, get better, get well, become happier, yourself again all on your own?
Was it the smile of a kind stranger that knocked you back into reality? Or maybe a husbands' firm hug?
Whatever it was, I hope you were not alone. I hope that somebody helped you. I hope that that inspires you to help Sofia. Sofia is in all of us. We just need to see it. 
The question then is, really, will you help yourself?


here's the link to her fundraiser: http://www.giveforward.com/stillfighting


and one last quotation from Sofia:

                       "I really don’t know what more I can do but be totally honest and be persistent…and not 

                       worry about what people think about this persistence [to raise money], because the 

                       persistence is for my life…I can tell you about my passion to help the world, I can tell you 

                       that I understand that I am just one person, no more or less important or special than the 

                       next, but that I also believe we are all worth saving."

with love and gratitude,

Rose

EDIT:
GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED, AS THE TECHNICAL FUNDRAISING TIME IS OVER. If you still feel compelled to promote or donate please, by all means, go ahead. That would be what they might call noble. ;)

use your words & eat your food

DON'T eat your words and use your food. k?


I wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. Your words helped me more than you know. 
I've hopped back on the recovery bandwagon and am feeling much better because of it.
I'll post more later, after i go out to dinner & hopefully write my religion essay but i wanted to share this poem that i wrote with all of you. 
I had to write a poem based on Allen Ginsberg's Howl for Carl Solomon for my english class.
If you haven't read it, Howl is a great poem. Ginsberg writes about the suffering he experienced and it speaks to the "outcasts" of American society (those who are more focused on love and meaning in life, rather than material "success") and he does it beautifully. We had to write a poem "to someone who understands" (you). I wrote to to a dear friend of mine who i met in treatment. I changed the name for the sake of her privacy, but i thought you all might appreciate it.

Whisper

For Sarah Halper

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by hunger,

Fakeness, lonesome, searching for something beautiful.

Abandoned and unloved, they paint their mouths shut with silence.

Whispery silhouettes run down the sidewalks of insanity,

And stop to glare at grotesque fun-house mirror projections

Of fat and tired limbs,

Glistening with the sweat of hate.

Shells of women who sit on concrete

Smoking endless cigarettes, burning up their lungs

As payback for continuing to swallow air

Organs stubbornly gripping to life

Even when a fragile heart patters like early rain

It beats at the wrong

Moments.

They damn their stupid hearts

For beating at all.

They drink whole pots of coffee

Black liquor, free of sins.

Poured into sad paper cups

During early hours of black mornings

When the rest of the population

Finds solace in quiet minds, minds that

Have not forgotten how to rest, to dream.

Sleepless with self-loathing and malnutrition

They grip fire-hot mugs

Blue-boned fingers, numb and cold

Sipping freedom liquid.

Girls who spend all the seconds

Of melancholy

Photographing mental x-rays

Of beauty beyond their grasp.

Who look at dirt and see holiness,

God and redemption incarnate, sad skeletons.

Twenty thirty and forty-somethings

Trapped in the pain of adolescence

Who never found their way out

Of uncertainty and un-belonging.

Stuck in a sea of mental agony

Riding waves of want

Trampled by harsh, un-caring waters

Hitting the ocean floor over and over again

Choking on salt, gasping for breath

They flail their arms in vain

And No-one sees them drowning.

They hunger for love and affection

Skip lunch, dine on crackers and wine.

Or gorge themselves on cakes of saints,

Stuff themselves to the gills with counterfeit care.

The rumble of their bellies, the pangs in bed at night

Fails to make loneliness seem less Encompassing.

Sarah, I’m with you at midnight

When the crack of light dawns on your kitchen floor

And all before you, you see breads and soups and chocolate

The beginnings and end of your love.

I’m with you in Colorado,

When you play houseguest as your Norwegian father

A connoisseur of disaster

Offers you the finest cheeses,

Not knowing that all you wanted was a second glance.

I’m with you when you read my words

And your mind insists they don’t apply to you

That nobody knows you, that you are not one of us.

I’m with you in Los Angeles

Where hippies disguise themselves as buddahs

And bow down to vegan, soul-less gods,

Chanting the words that will save you.

I’m with you in Santa Monica

Where you hide from yourself

And look to better women of the past

Who might teach you how not to need, not to be so much.

I’m with you inside heavy- closed doors,

When you cry salty tears,

Asking anyone to make you less.

I’m with you in Agoura Hills

Where hypocrisy and beauty made us sick to our stomachs

And we were terrified, tranquilized, frozen in time.

What is beauty? You will ask.

Beauty is the warmth of your cheek

As you embrace my shaking body.

Beauty is the flash of your teeth when you laugh.

It’s the crackle of the fire near my chilled feet.

Beauty eludes us, dear Sarah,

In our search for something unconditional.

It’s a receding horizon, a firefly we’ll never catch.

A glow we can only see in front of us

Never to be held, contained within a see-through jar.

If beauty is love

And love is food

Well then, we are screwed, you say.

I bite my tongue before I suggest

That perhaps, you should come for supper.

But we're all mad here, right?

do you ever feel like your brain is about to explode with thoughts?

A drawing by my good friend Lauren.Isn't it awesome?
It shows freaking exactly what i'm sure we all feel like sometimes.

sometimes, and i know that i've mentioned it before, as other bloggers also do sometimes, i feel like there are days when i have so many things in my head that i want to share/get out, that sometimes it becomes too much and i just can't express any of it. Black and White thinking, much? Yep, i know.

Today when i got out of therapy, all of a sudden i felt really sad. And intimidated...ya know...by the girl in the waiting room going in after me. I hate eating disorder treatment sometimes. I think that kind of "competitiveness" (aka when you and another person kind of size each other up in a not-so-discreet-lets-see-who-can-give-the-most-deathly-stare-i'm-so-cool- way) is part of high school just generally, but i think when you know that someone also has an eating disorder, that kind of weirdness is sort of intensified. I hate that. It just sort of pushes my metaphorical knife (sorry lol i'm in such a weird writing mood) of self-dislike further and further in, and i hate that awful kind of insecurity. 

I bet other people feel this just with other bloggers even. Perhaps at foodbuzz, which i've been reading a lot about? Yes? No?

Anyway, so i came out of therapy feeling weird/sad/shaken up for some reason. Or for a few reasons.

And then i put my ipod on and got on the train and was just thinkingthinkingthinking and before i knew it i wished i had a journal with me because i had all these thoughts that i didn't want to lose and that i wanted to share with you. And i hate it when i feel like my brain is exploding.

Am i making any sense here? Maybe i'm more sleep deprived/caffiene jazzed than i really thought.

Enough self-doubt, i'm gonna keep writing.

What i wanted to say was this. When i was on the train and feeling confused/sad/whatever, i kind of started saying cheesy things to myself in my head. Things like "I like myself" or "I can do anything i set my mind to" ...(in normal person speak i think these would be called affirmations ;) )

I automatically felt better. Saying these random affirmations to myself, even though i didn't believe them kind of helped. And then i realized something. 

I think that's one of the things that's so great about blogging. When i read the comments that i get on my posts, i instantly feel so loved/supported and i'm just so grateful and i just feel better about myself.

That's because, often times, you guys say to me things that I can't yet say to myself. 

It reminds me of when I was in treatment and i felt really supported, because my friends and I would all kind of root for each other, until we eventually, little by little, learned to root for ourselves. I guess that's what's so great about this. Is that hopefully, someday, after hearing it enough times from our friends/whoever is nice enough to give a damn, we will be able to say encouraging things to ourselves, and then, possibly, live out our lives in ways commensurate with those positive thoughts, etc.

Make sense? i hope so.

alright, well, if you made it through this weird/rambly/non-sensical post, i congratulate you tremendously and will personally send you a cyber hug ;) oh, sometimes i wonder how i even have friends. if you met me and i was being this weird wouldn't you jsut want to beat me up and throw me in a trash can or something? Don't answer that. :P

shutting up now!

xo

thank you all for just being amazing readers/commenters/inspirational people who keep me going :)

-rose

failed promises

i'm sorry, my dear readers, that i'm such a poop. <---(and so eloquent)

i didn't post on sunday or yesterday, grr! I'm sure i'm much more upset about this than anyone else actually is, of course, but i'm just mad that i didn't meet my self-made challenge. I'm gonna try to tack on two extra days (this coming saturday and sunday) to make up for it, so i can see "consequences" (not that writing a blog post is a punishment, of course) for my actions. I just want to take some responsibility and keep to my promises to myself. 

This is one of my nasty-ass cupcakes from this weekend.
It might not have tasted good....but at least it looks yummy?

Anyway, how are you all today? Yesterday and sunday were kind of uneventful, but today was slightly awful until about thirty minutes ago. You see, for some reason I just had a really rough day after I woke up from a dream about someone who I really, really miss and kind of have a complicated/broken past with and then my day kind of just spiraled down from there.

I went to Dean and Deluca w/ my pops on Saturday.
Check out the fancy (and expensive!!!) hot chocolate...
18 dollars for a box?! I'll stick with my Swiss Miss French Vanilla, thanks.

I need help! I've been so messed up about my food today (and it's kinda been building all week), and I really don't like it. (Well, part of me likes it, but we'll get to that.) 

I baked brownie/cookies last night from (recipe taken from this lovely site) and could barely even get myself to taste one. Then today, when I brought them into school, I had a bite of one of my friends(we all baked stuff for an english class 'party') and i immediately freaked out and decided i needed /wanted to purge. I couldn't though, thank goodness. Then at lunch, I ate but not really enough and I didn't have any type of snack and the day was just generally bad food wise as I was spinning in my head for most of it and almost came to the conclusion that I was going to b/p after school. (I didn't). But yeah so then I had an appt with my dietitian, without whom i would be nowhere, and that went okay. Except for the end when she weighed me. I always get blind weighed, and I can always usually tell by her reaction (i've known her for three years) whether i've gained, lost, maintained, etc. Today when I stepped on the scale though, i got really nervous all of a sudden and started rambling because I could just tell by the way it felt to step on that I had lost, ya know? That's weird for me. It's not like I'm used to "hiding" my weight from professionals or anything, since, being bulimic, I never lost a significant enough amount of weight that it was really the issue, the focus was usually much more on the purging, etc. 

Um yeah I was bored so I took a picture of some toothpicks. Don't judge.

Whatever I'm rambling. But i just wanted to say that. That I'm having a hard time. Because a really large part of me right now is glad that I lost weight. (Even though it's definitely a miniscule amount). That part of me wants to keep restricting/effing with my meals, etc. It's not okay. I'm not going down this road. But i want to. No, i don't. My eating disorder wants to. Gah. 

This. Is. Frustrating.

One step at a time. I can do this. I ate dinner tonight (a good amount) and I actually just had one of my cookies (it was good!!!). Okay. Tonight is good. I'm on track with my work (can you believe i'm doing well in school- wow actually being able to focus& not being distracted by my stomach growling all the time  is really great! ;) ) I'm going to be okay. I can do this. I want recovery. 

okay. 

breathing.

The toothpick picture got me thinking about color...so i tried to take a picture of my
bookshelf...which is nerdily color-coated. This is only like two out of 8 shelves and the lighting is bad...
but sometime i'll try to take a better one cause it is actually kinda pretty. :)

love you all. no more failed promises. I promise to keep going forward in my recovery & to keep blogging about it.

xo

rose

Autumn: Neda Walk, Hot Cocoa & Comfy Sweaters

Hi Lovelies!

I hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Yesterday morning I decided to see what all the fuss was about and make myself some Oatmeal! Everyone in the blogosphere seems to be obsessed with oats, so i decided to jump on the breakfast bandwagon ;). I decided to make my own recipe which I will call Hot Chocolate Oats.

Doesn't it just LOOK delicious? It's amazing. I finally decided to try a more
natural (&more expensive! Eek!) alternative to my trademark Nutella. 

I also just wanted to share this loveliness. I had never seen a container of Fage
this big before! It's a heaven send. I mean, I literally go through the medium container in three days- so
clearly this was made just for me!

I wanted some chocolate in mine, b/c i love chocolate in EVERYTHING,
but i didn't have any plain cocoa powder, so I just used a swiss miss packet.

At one point i got worried that it was never going to cook...jeez  it is a long process! 

But no worries, eventually it worked!

And the finished product...

added some walnuts, Fage, dried blueberries & Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter. YUM!

Was craving some brussel sprouts around lunchtime today...

Steamed and then grilled with some olive oil, balsamic & honey. Delicious.

Homemade turkey burger w/ chipotle sauce, fresh mozzarella
& tomato on a whole wheat sandwich thin.




One of my favorite things about autumn? The clothing! I love scarves and big comfy sweaters. I went shopping with my dad yesterday (it was supposed to be for him but he's picky and didn't get anything) I got two sweaters and a pair of shoes...

Cashmere & Cotton. The camel is from Calypso & the Grey is H& M. The grey
one was originally my dad's but I pretty much inherited it when we walked out of the store and I told him I was cold...

shoes! Note: Yes, the bottom is already filthy...I might have (shamelessly) worn them out of the store..

In Eating Disorder news...

I went to the 2nd annual NYC Neda walk today

This is when the walk finally started. It was freezing out, so I was relieved!

It was a really great event, I'm so glad I went! A lot of the speakers were really touching. Lynn Grefe, the head of NEDA spoke really well. Judy Arvin, of Someday Melissa, spoke, as she did last year only five months after her daughter died from a hard struggle with bulimia. Jenni Schaefer spoke and sang a song for us "It's okay to be happy". A few other people spoke, and I have to admit, I cried at a couple  of the stories

I caught up with some of my friends from  treatment (not the last place I was at), which was nice. I don't feel all that connected to a lot of the girls, like i was last year. Its nice to see people, but its also really great to know that I've come a long way since  I last was with them, I feel like a different person now than the person that they knew (in a very good way)  :)

Me (on the right)and my friend Sammy -who  i still see /talk to pretty often, mostly b/c
i see her in the waiting room at my dietitian's office pretty frequently ;) 

I was had a really hard day yesterday. It was so good to get out, enjoy the new October chill ( I LOVE Autumn weather- couldn't you tell?) I almost didn't go, but I'm so glad I got my butt out of bed and made myself go. I am so glad that NEDA exists and is growing and working hard to help all of us fighting this awful disease. We all deserve recovery. I need to remember that on days like yesterday, I need to fight for myself ,because there are men & women who can't any longer.

Finally, Willy wants to say hi & congratulations for getting through this monster of a post!

Excitedly licking peanut butter off of a spoon, of course!

xo,

Rose