numbers are just...well, numbers.

i think the above statement is pretty obvious.
(it also reminds me of when my SAT tutor was trying to explain some probability problem to me and she ended up just saying "well, cause one...itself, it's one"  :)
but it's also one of my mantra these days. probably one of the most important things for me to remember at this point in my life.

why, then, if this is such a simple statement, is it so hard to remember???
why is it so difficult for me to see a number below, say, a 90 on an essay, and to just be O.K.?
why, is it so difficult for me to see a number one the scale slightly higher than it was a few weeks ago and just, be O.K. with that, too? (what about numbers of blog posts per month?! <---- i kid, i kid. kinda.)

what's the deal here?

perhaps this study on set-shifting difficulties in people with eating disorders can help explain this a little bit?
{if you don't want to read it....
Conclusion. Problems in set shifting as measured by a variety of neuropsychological tasks are
present in people with eating disorders }

this issue with set-shifting makes a lot of sense.
numbers get stuck in our heads very easily, no?

This does not however, explain this NUMBER IRRATIONALITY quite enough.
if you google "brain and numbers" or "brain numbers attachement" or "brain numbers dysfunction" or any combination of random terms having to do with this, there is very little satisfactory material that comes up.
how extremely frustrating when google doesn't have all the answers. Right folks? (i mean what year is this, anyway?)


i certainly do not have all the answers. neither does Google, apparently. (thats news to me!)
but this was just a little remind for all you out there to not keep the focus on numbers so much. Really guys, go crazy, f*** the numbers!
 Life live on the edge for once.... lets switch our focus (as hard as that may be for those of us with set-shifting difficulties ;) ) to other things in our lives, like friends, sunshiny springs and... chocolate. (who knew i was going to say that last one?) but really, do we have a deal?
deal.



or as the italian say, Kapeesh.

in denial about being in denial? say wha?

so i have a few things I want to say, but i was stalling because up until a few seconds ago I didn't know how I was going to say them.
here goes nothing. (what does that even mean??? more like here goes something.)
I think i've been lying to myself. <---i'm resisting the urge to put the phrase "a little" at the end of that sentence. lies are pretty black and white. you either lie or you don't. period.
i think i've been "messing with my food". (again, resisting the phrase -urge)
Carrie just wrote a really great post on "needing a gps" and how we kind of need a "gps" in recovery.
i think i just realized that she's right.
today was a little bit of (ah, shucks, gave into the urge, sorry!) a wake up call for me.
i was sitting in therapy and then i started talking about my food and somehow we got to the place where D was like "Are you messing with your food, Rose?"
I was all like "um, well, no i just---"
                     "What just happened to your voice?"
                     "My what?"
                      "Your voice. Your voice just completely changed. You're messing with your food,                             aren't you?"
                     "No, i mean, i'm not. I'm just not hungry. I'm really, truly not hungry. I don't eat when i'm not hungry. that's normal. "
                       "You need to eat. Does L (dietitian) know about this?"
                       "Yes. And so did you. L knows, she weighs me for gosh sake."
                       "I did not know about this. I thought you got over that little period of time a few months ago, you didn't tell me about this"
                      "I didn't because it's not a problem, i'm not doing it intentionally"...blahblahblah rose's eating disorder continues to fight a losing battle with her therapist for a good ten minutes of a 3/4 of an hour-long session
Eventually my brain kicked ED out for a few seconds of clarity and I realized that I have been lying to myself, and to all of you for a little while.
(I say "to all of you" because I feel that as a recovery blog, I have an absolute obligation to reveal when I am struggling, so as not to let my eating disorder lurk anywhere in these pages.)
Here's the deal. I cut back on my food a little over a month ago because my anxiety was getting super bad (i've now switched meds) and my stomach just couldn't handle a lot. That kind of triggered a little bit of restricting that I thought I had put an end to but it has still been trickling in.
I thought I had totally kicked ED out when, this weekend, i basically had a food fest and just ate tons of delicious food at every meal and was totally chill about it. (pictures of said deliciousness to come, no worries)
But then on monday and yesterday and then again today my food has been kind of off.
It took my therapist getting pretty effing angry at me for me to realize i had fallen off track. And i was in denial. And i was also in denial that i was in denial. woah there.
so, there. i said it. and it's awkward and weird (especially because my parents read this from time to time and that thought just embarrasses me a little bit but i'll get over it)
just now I ate a bagel (after solemnly eating a proffered [more like irritatedly insisted upon] balance bar in my therapist office, and i'm going to get back on track. (i hate that phrase. can we come up with a new one, perhaps one that doesn't rhyme quite as cheesily?)
i'm grateful that Carrie posted about a recovery GPS because it really helped me put this whole thing into perspective. I just needed my therapist to be my GPS, I needed someone to tell me that i was lost, so i wouldn't spend the extra hours roaming around before I realized I was going south instead of north.
That being said, it was also a really icky feeling to have my therapist be "mad" at me back there. I didn't like it one bit. I think that's almost a reason not to restrict in itself.
A reader recently emailed me and told me how much my blog has helped her. I love hearing that. And for that reason also, I know I need to keep going, because if there's one thing I want to do in this world, it's help people, and I only have a shot at that if i can help myself first.

PHEW. now wanna see some #MomofukuMadness???
now that all of that is taken care of, wanna see some photos of deliciousness?
sure ya do!

went to Momofuku's Milk bar with my daddyo

i was immediately drawn to the crack pie, of course.

they also have all these weird milks...i think they have something called "cereal milk" too...

the goods:

the compost cookie. uh-mazing. very possibly the best cookie i've ever tasted.
and i know my cookies, ladies and gents.

last but definitely not least, the famous Crack pie.
it's a drug no doubt. thought it's definitely cooler than crack, i assure you

thanks for listening to my rambles!

xo

rose

you don't know how lucky you are.

 i was talking in therapy today (isn't it just darn comical when people start their sentences [or blog posts] like that?) about how i am always jealous of girls who are sicker than I am, or was.

I've always kind of been curious about this phenomenon, as it, being related to eating disorders, has always kind of seemed different, or somehow more complex than just your standard, run-of-the-mill jealousy.

i'm pretty sure this is a  common theme in eating disorders...jealousy/competitiveness/whatever you want to call it. It's kind f the source of a lot of tension the "ED world", so to speak, because most people with an ed do not think they are "sick enough" or as "sick" as the next girl (in the waiting room, the dietitians office, the doctors office, on the street, etc). 

(Source: Samantha Conlon)

some quotations...

18036) My best friend is my trigger.

18126) I secretly wish that all the ED girls who I follow will have a bad day, so that I can feel even better about my good day.

(from Confessions about Eating Disorders (i'm only posting the link b/c i have to for copyright reasons--but don't visit this site if you're easily triggered, please.)

so...what the hell is up with us? 

What's with all the competition and jealousy? 

Anyway, so i was talking in therapist about how
yes, i, too, still get really upset/jealous/whatever when I see girls who are visibly very sick, or when girls who I know relapse. I was talking about how I hate that they get more attention than I do.
D (my therapist) asked how I know they get more attention. I said, in my experience, they just do. 

And i, being bulimic, i have always felt that I do not warrant the same kind of attention as a super-underweight anorexic. (see this post for more on that)

(Source: 1000 nightmares)

I was saying how I "hated" the girls who came into treatment, kicking and screaming and ridiculously underweight, usually between the ages of 14-18, forced by their parents or doctor. I said I hated them because they didn't know how lucky they were. how lucky they were to have people who noticed early. How lucky they were not to have to take responsibility for choosing treatment. How lucky they were to be in the position of stubborn, sick, anorexic girl who needs lots of care, attention and coaxing and support. 

How lucky they were to still be stuck in the oblivion of their eating disorder, making the rest of us miserable with their stupid comments about how "this place just wants to make me fat", and not having to worry or  think about recovery because, in fact, they didn't care.
I talked about how I'd always wanted to get out of my chair or off my couch in the group room and scream at them, lungs full and face red you don't know how lucky you are, you skinny fucking bitch!

But then D said something really smart. (lol, look at that, Rose-a therapist said something insightful!) She reminded me of something I had totally forgotten. she said, I think you want to tell them how lucky they are in general, but you're just minimizing it down to food and body-weight and ed-stuff.

true, true or true?

I pick all three. 

I forgot about this.

I forgot about how eating disorders do this.

How we feel something very strongly but then we make it all about food and weight and ed-related stuff. 

just cause we're programmed like that. or cause it's easier. I don't know.

but when I thought about it, and I mean really thought about it, I realized D was right.

What I really wanted (and want to) say to all those girls (and not only the very sick ones, but also my friends from school and many people in my life) is you don't know how lucky you are. 

Because, at times,  I feel unlucky.

Whether that is depression, anxiety, teenagerness, ed-ness, or circumstance, I don't know. But I assume I'm not alone in this. I think we all envy others when we are feeling down ( I know i have days where i'd rather be the homeless man on Fifth Avenue than be myself), and I think those of us with eating disorders just attribute it to weight/degree of sickness or acuteness/ ed-related attention, etc and so forth. 

I'm not really sure what the remedy for this is. I think for those of us with eating disorders, it can simply be remind ourselves that it's about more than what that girl weighs, or what you weigh. 

(Source: Tumblr Photography)

And it's about more than how she is still "allowed" to starve herself, etc, etc. And for all of us, I think it's about being grateful for what we have. Even if it feels like not a lot sometimes. I know my ability to be thankful for the things in my life changes from moment to moment, but i think no matter what, i can always find something, even if it's just a blanket or a cup of tea, to be happy about. 
What are you grateful for today?

And can you relate to any part of my crazy-jealousy?

 Let me know in the comments :)

Cloud Cookies and Lingering Reminders

Before you read this post, if you haven't already entered my amazing giveaway by donating to, tweeting, facebooking or emailing Sofia's fundraiser, go to my last post : Safe Sofia, Save Ourselves and do so immediately! 
phew. ok, now that that's out of the way...
wanna see some pictures?!
yesterday, I met my beautiful friend Kitty for brunch at Le Pain Quotidein.
Neither of us had ever gotten their semi-famous "bread basket" before, so we decided to take the big leap and go for it. 
it was frickin huge!

this picture (obviously) doesn't do it justice so you'll just have to trust me on this one.
there were multiple pieces of delicous bread that were about 2X the size of my face

as requested, it came with lots of awesome spreads. they were all delicious!

kitty developed a quick addiction to this here decadent breakfast condiment.
i don't blame the girl.

and my personal fave...

guess its fitting, since i'm a brunette.

unsurprisingly, after we acquired quite large food babies, we were happy campers.

kitty may very well murder me for putting this on the world wide web,
but i think it's adorable. she's my favorite "blondie" ;)

my last (on the fly)comment about "food babies" reminds me of what else i wanted to talk about in this post: lingering reminders of my eating disorder. 

As many of you may know, my official diagnosis was bulimia, which was fitting for the most part. In that vein, i was stick-thin or emaciated, despite my rather drastic weight fluctuations, i always looked pretty normal (aside from the huge bags under my eyes, the chipmunk cheeks and my lovely smelling breath, ya know, i was normal.) 

{intermission}

yo, check it, MORE BLONDIES!!!

i went to the birthday party of a very special six-year-old yesterday.
that's her adorable little bro next to her.  my niece and nephew are just too cute. 

happy sixth birthday, sophie! i love you!

{end intermission}

people couldn't tell just by looking at me that I had an eating disorder. 

This used to make me super angry, but now I really don't care at all, in fact, i'm happy to be normal! 

how pretty is this kale? I made my parents kale last night, it was delish!

Nowadays, even if people followed me around with a camera for 24 hours, they would have no idea that i used to have an eating disorder. Mostly everything I do is totally normal. mostly =) . 

Today, i wanted to talk about the lingering reminders, the things that still are on my mind and that bother me in terms of the Ed.

(in no particular order):

1.) Food Babies

I mentioned this above. I hate being super super full. Back in my ED days, I got to the point where if i my stomach was ever less than growling-crazy- starving- empty, i would run right to the bathroom. Now, of course, things are different, and i really appreciate the satisfaction of a good meal. But food babies and being super full? Not so much. I know most (normal) people don't enjoy being overly full, but the difference is that for a lot of people with eds its more of an emotional issue than a physical one. It's the thoughts and feelings that are triggered by feeling a heaviness in my stomach that bother me, not the heaviness itself.

this chocolate has truffles in it. O.M.G.

2.)Fat Talk

I hate fat talk. a lot a lot a lot. Conversations like this totally set me off. I think my aversion to fat talk runs a little deeper than just plain old anger, to be perfectly honest. I think my problem with it is not only that its just rude, mean, unhelpful, not constructive and none-of-your-ffing-business why that kid is pudgy, or why that popular girl ate some extra cookies over christmas break, its more about my perception of myself. I think my hatred of fat talk stems from a deep-seated fear/belief that i have that when people are talking about that chubby kid on the street, they might as well be talking about me because, hey, i'm fat too.

I know this is wrong. I know i'm not overweight. That's not the point here. The point is that, emotionally, i feel as if people are (or might as well be) talking about me, because in my mind, no matter what, i feel fat. This certainly still bothers me.

                                          **************************************

strawberries

plus...

=

best. snack. ever. 

*******************************************

3.)"unhealthy" foods

whether or not my sometimes avoidance of "unhealthy" foods is eating disordered is debatable in this day and age (especially near this corner of the blogosphere) . i know that for me, however, my drive to eat "healthy" "pure" "unprocessed" foods is semi-dangerous and that I can't take it too far. I need to know that if i want a freaking milk chocolate bar rather than a vegan 99.999% block of fucking cocoa, then that's okay. I need to keep a handle on myself and know it's okay to bake with All-Purpose Flour, that it's not the devil and it won't rot my brain. I don't always have to drink Kombucha or eat perfectly fresh fruit, and hey, if i want a bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast (not that i really do...) is that really so bad?

perhaps i'll continue this and make it into a series of sorts if any more lingering reminders pop into my head, but for now that's all I wanted to say about that. 

Now for the real reason your reading this post: 

 Cloud Cookies.

remember back when I got this book?

well, i finally put it into good use.

um, guys, i have to tell you, these are the best things i have ever baked.

no joke.

since i didn't have sliced almonds, i heated these up and chopped them by hand.
totally fine, except that i nearly chopped off my thumb. 

oh, the things a girl will do for a cookie.

why, yes, dear reader, that is an 8 dollar hunk of Valrhona chocolate! 

fucking scrumptious.

they're light, slightly crunchy, have a delicious nutty/praline-y taste.

check out those cracks!

those air holes? totally amazing. (totally supposed to be there!)

ahhhh.

Cloud Cookies

(adapted from Sarabeth's Bakery cookbook)

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

11/3 cup granulated sugar

11/3 cup light brown sugar

16 tbsp (2sticks) butter

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs (room temp)

2 cups all purpose flour (!!!)

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 cups (8 ounces) toasted sliced(or chopped) almonds (i used less than this, about 7 ounces)

2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (or chunks)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line three cookie sheets with parchment paper. combine sugars in medium bowl. set aside. Beat butter until smooth, about 1 minute. Gradually add sugar mixture, then the vanilla.
Beat, occasionally scarping the bottom and sides of the bowl, until the mixture is pale yellow and light-textured, about 5 minutes. Gradually beat in eggs.
Sift the flour, baking soda and salt together. With mixer speed on low, add the dry ingredients in three additions, mixing just until each is incorporated. Add almonds and chocolate chips and mix until combined.
Using a 2-inch diamater spoon/ice cream scoop (i used a tablespooon), portion out batter onto the prepared pans. Using the heel of your palm, slightly flatten each ball of dough. Bake about 10-14 minutes (for a slightly crunchier, crisper cookie, bake for up to 18 minutes). During the last 3 minutes, rap each pan on the rack. the cookies will deflate and their signature cracks will appear. Cool on pans and store in airtight container for up to 5 days.

xo, rose.

In which I am honest

So, most of my posts lately have been more general about recovery and semi-vague.
While this was not intentional, I'm realizing that my blog is VERY vague and doesn't really cover my day - to- day struggles at all. I don't have a problem with this fundamentally, but I do know myself well enough to pitch a guess that I have done this subconsciously, so that I don't have to talk about my struggles.
They need to be talked about. 
I really am great at avoiding answering questions about my health/ed/symptomage (WHICH SHOULD, BTW, TOTALLY BE A WORD! ;) ) directly. Even with my closest friends who I always feel comfortable talking with, I tend to find ways to spend our phone calls talking about them or about all the things I have been doing rather than all of the issues I am having. 
So, I'm going to try to avoid falling into that pattern on here. 
This blog needs to be a place of freedom and truth. It's a respite from the real world, from all the mistakes that I normally make. It's a place to improve myself and reflect, and learn how to grow. So, for the sake of full disclosure, here we go.


I have been having a really hard time symptom-wise. It has definitely been up and down. Some days are great and my food is fine and I feel totally okay about it. Other days I am stuck in my head, with my ED torturing me until i break down and purge or restrict or binge or whatever. So it's hard to say exactly where I am. Because it changes constantly. Bulimia is a fucking roller coaster and it's never stable, hence it's very difficult to describe. 
I've been totally honest (as I always am) with my treatment team about everything that is going on. And I really do feel like I am moving in the right direction. My ultimate goal is still to be ED symptom & thought free, and I don't feel like I'm headed downward- I just feel all over the place.
Yesterday was rough. I had an appointment with my dietitian. And all of the sudden, as I was leaving (and thought i was getting away unharmed!) she was like "let's get your weight." bugger. 
I think the past week has been a mixture of chaotic eating & random purging and I was feeling really really bloated and heavy yesterday. so totally not a day that I wanted the scale pulled on me. Not that I'm allowed to see my weight when she weighs me, but, it doesn't matter in terms of the damage done. Just stepping on the scale fucks me over. Add that to the fact that I can tell by how L reacts whether I've gained or lost or stayed the same. Really, I can. And I knew that I'd gained. So i basically felt like shit all day yesterday. And then today I woke up, ate 2X a normal breakfast, and went to the gym. Note: i hate the gym. I hate the gym so much. It's my least favorite place in the world. It makes me so miserable. Whenever I'm at the gym I spend the whole time berating myself in my head, staring at all the people who are thinner than me, and being frustrated that I am so awful, ugly, fat , _insert mean word here__. 
Of course, at the gym, there is a scale. I weighed myself this morning. What a disaster.
Then, afterwards, I went to yoga. I did feel a little bit of peace during my yoga class, which was a huge relief, but as soon as we were in shevasana, my head was spinning again.
Just now I had to go to lunch with my family and a bunch of guests who are at our beach house this weekend. I was ravenous and totally overate. Then on the way home, I  got in a fight with my mom about how she always thinks of me as this incompetent, lazy girl who she has to prepare for the realities of life (...more on that later, in a different novel post) And then i purged. 
I'm feeling terrible. Weekends are so hard. 
I have nobody to call. Except my therapist...and that's a different story...


At least I'm being honest here, and with myself?! 
Hope everyone is having a better weekend than I am!
xxx
Rose

The Hardest Part

The hardest part of recovery is not the food. It is not eating three meals (and some snacks) every day.
It is not choosing whether or not to have cereal, a bagel, or oatmeal in the morning. It is not deciding whether or not to go for that extra walk, to push yourself hard, even when you're exhausted.
It's also not body image. It's not trying to love myself as I am right now in this moment in this flesh, and not X amt of pounds lost from now. It's not calming myself down when I see someone thinner than I am, who I want to look like.
The hardest part of recovery is facing the truth. It's facing the reality of the situations that brought you to the eating disordered hell that you are trying so hard to escape. It's taking a good, long, almost-blinding look at the painful things that food, exercise & body image were distracting you from.
The hardest part of recovery is looking life squarely in the face, seeing it for what it's worth, and accepting it as is, unconditionally.
For me, that truth has a lot to do with the love that I haven't gotten from the people around me. The pain that I am avoiding with food and weight obsessions is the pain of knowing that sometimes people don't love me the way I want to be loved.
It's the reality that sometimes- no-  most of the time, life is not exactly what we want it to be. People aren't who we want them to be, and our choices are not always the best.


Recovery is looking disappointment square in the face, and then eating and keeping your fucking food anyway.

"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 "