Food Abuse

Let me ask you something. If you found yourself in an abusive relationship, would you put up with it? I would run away--no one can treat this precious daughter of God like that! (Sadly, I have had to run away before...)

Follow-up question: would you volunteer to go back to your abuser? By show of hands, who wants to put up with an abusive significant other? And also commit to be with them all day every day for the rest of your life?

Anyone?

Wait, NO ONE?

Well, what if your abuser was food?

And you had to eat it three times a day, 365 days a year? And every time you do, it batters you and whispers lies to your mind about how weak and incompetent you are at feeding yourself, dealing with stress, what a burden you are on others, threats to hurt and destroy you...

This is what it's like.

There is no manna in sight. No way to plug yourself in for a charge at night like your phone. Just you...and food. It used to be so kind and enjoyable, but now you hate the fridge; you loathe the pantry. The grocery store is a hopeless spiral. You wish all your food could be made instantly and to order so you didn't have to think about it ever again.

It cramps your guts after every meal, makes canker sores in your belly, and has been narrowed down to such a small variety of what should be considered nutritious, healthy foods that you find yourself just opting out some days instead of eating the same old hash again.

You don't allow yourself to get full because when you do, you get sicker.

When your belly reacts, you blame yourself (abusers make you feel guilty).

The food you eat is eaten because of obligation and function, not pleasure.

Abusers are isolating. And any food traditions you established as a healthy person are completely obsolete. Food-centered holidays depress you. You wonder if you'll ever taste your mom's stuffing again or be full at Thanksgiving dinner. You're not allowed to eat Easter ham because of the curing agents. If you think that you can break the rules just once, you will hear about it and get beat up overnight and for the next two weeks.

You don't eat out because of bad experiences that had horrific ramifications (one time it was a colonoscopy). Contamination or blatant lying about ingredients can make you ill for two weeks. You must live in food purity for fear of being kicked in the guts otherwise. You hate being "that" person with "special needs" and don't want special accommodations or attention drawn to yourself. You don't feel worthy of it.

You don't do potlucks. You bring your own food everywhere you go (if you remember, and if there is something easy to grab like a piece of fruit).

You don't eat at ward dinners because you have learned from experience that people feel uncomfortable eating in front of you and apologize profusely for doing so. You eat at your sister's wedding luncheon or extended family dinners from a pyrex dish that raises eyebrows and questions, and you don't feel like talking about your illnesses with every passer-by. Meanwhile, delicious smells and decadent desserts mock your limitations and your growling belly.

You stare down at your pyrex, with its meat and vegetables. It's so few calories compared to the heap on others' plates. There are no starches to make you full and satisfied. 

You take your digestive enzymes at the end to derive some nourishment from what you just ate....plus supplements. Lots and lots of supplements.

And you wonder why you keep this relationship up at all.

Insensitive people mock your food choices (as if you had a choice) and say it looks weird, or take a look at your no-cheese cheesecake and ask, "Does that even taste like cheesecake?" You blink back tears and admit it doesn't, but it sure is healthy. The food doesn't defend you; it just lets you take the heat.

You wonder if you'll waste away. Your BMI is 16.8; you haven't weighed this little since before you got hips. You feel your brain shrinking. You remember how much you loved your softness and curves at 18 weeks pregnant and wonder if you could ever support another life inside of you again. You go to bed with a growling stomach and can't comfortably feed it again until around 11 AM. 

You trust the blessing on each meal but can't see the results. You'd rather just eat your favorite Paleo cookies, but don't have the endurance to get up and make them, or anything else. This relationship is controlling, domineering, and psychologically damaging. You want to give up and run away, but when you try, you come crawling back for calories after you can't take the hunger anymore.

Worst. Ever.

Contrasting to the abusive food relationship is my adoring, attentive husband who loves me and know my "special needs" better than anyone. He defends my belly with the ferocity of a lion protecting his lioness. While I sheepishly wait for a verdict at a public eating setting, he inquires about ingredients in the chicken or the salad. He does our grocery shopping and food preparation and reads every food label. I trust my husband completely; he has protected and provided safe meals for me a thousand times at least. I couldn't function without him.

I am in the process of fixing this attitude. I know God could have given us manna or a charger to plug in, but He wants us to figure this out and to enjoy it. I have no joy in food, but I want to. I know this hard experience is for my good and that Heavenly Father will lead me in the way I should deal with this. I am starting on a course that I hope will help. I want to chronicle where I started so I can see my progress.

I'll end the post here. I'm praying for help. if you have helped my family food-wise in any way, THANK YOU.

The Virtue of Awkwardness

"This lady...I've seen her on this news show before. She keeps touching her bangs. They get in her eyes. I kind of want to reach through the screen and help her out."

I thought all this, then realized my folly...

...because I feel like I am the EPITOME of awkward hair.

I became a pixie haircut girl when I was a mom and started working full time as a nurse on top of that. The pixie has truly suited and delighted me. It's ridiculously easy yet consistently polished. 

But I have also grown out two pixie haircuts, and all of you who know me in person have gotten to enjoy viewing such fabulous phases as the Bieber, the Bobby Brady, the mullet, the flapper, and Edna Mode (my current style, yay?). 

So who am I to look at the nice news lady and want to correct her bangs? Maybe she's in the process of growing them out like me, or maybe she loves them that way and I should let her love them. "Not my circus, not my monkeys!" (Polish proverb.)

People deserve space to be themselves or to change without judgment. They also deserve to like things that are different than what I like. Look at it on the small scale or big scale, but it's true. 

It applies to others AND ourselves. Did you ever think about that? Like, I'm not cool with being Edna Mode right now or ill 100% of the time, but I allow myself space to be awkward and transitory, and I look for the good. 

Like, hey, my straight hair is full of surprises every day and even has a little body because it's short. And bonus, I work on that bed head ALL night, and it is IMPRESSIVE and FANTASTIC! 

With regards to my healing, this deliberateness means my body isn't taking shortcuts; it's doing a thorough, complete job. (Hm, sounds just like my personality: deliberate, thorough, and perfectionistic.)

Rushing that which is out of my control is probably rude. So rock on, body, rock on. And hair, you do your thang, and keep on surprising me (I expect more bed head masterpieces from you). 

Transitions are healthy, and awkward phases mean progression. I'm on my way to both vitality and mermaid hair, plus amazing, eternal things. 

You're on to something great too, so let's be awkward together. 

Don't Try to Be a Hero: Wheelchair Edition

It was a treatment day, but I put on my big girl dress and hit the town. I enjoyed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert and the lights on Temple Square with my family. It was exceptionally awesome to have our children there. All of us piled into the wheelchair for the ride to the car. :) 

My taller half is also my hotter, buffer half.

*I flex for you*

If you're weak or sick or get sapped of energy by walking across the house (on a treatment day, like me), get a wheelchair for long distances. No, seriously. I got it for outings just like this one. Gotta get out, you know! Embrace it. Let people push you around. Don't try to be a hero. I'm tired of not spending my energy wisely.



"Hot wheels leading the way!"

Space Age

That awkward moment when you send a message all the way to outer space and back to your husband who is working in his office across the house...

...and that message says,

"Judge me and call me lazy, that's ok. But will you please come unlock the front door?"



He'd never judge or call me lazy, ever, ever, ever...

...even though I was closer to the front door than he was.

Our schoolgirl made it inside ok, but it wasn't without a lot of work and satellites and typing and stuff.

---
Hashtag EW, hashtag tEWsdays, hashtag attached to this mattress, hashtag do not remove under penalty of law, hashtag I'm working hard on getting better, hashtag laugh at yourself, hashtag am I doing the hashtag thing right?

Midnight Cheer

Rah rah rah!
Give a cheer!
We're so glad that nausea is here!

IV's done,
Still you stay,
I can't make you go away! So,

Rah rah rah!
We're not done!
Who knew insomnia was so much fun?

Yaaaaaay, this stuff!!!

(Might as well be *cheer*ful about it!)

"How Are You, Really?"

"How are you?"

What do you think of this question? Do you wonder about the sincerity, interest, or motive of the person asking? Do you think about what to share, and to what depth? 

I love to ask this question out of real interest, because I love people and rrrreally want to know them well. 

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin spoke often of his sweet wife Elisa whose trademark question was, "How are you, really?" I think this says a lot about her, and I hope her question and my "how-are-yous" sound alike. 

People ask how I'm doing frequently. I used to say I was fine, no matter what; but I am as candid as I want to be now. I realized that I matter. 

I generally respond in one of four ways, with each answer getting a little deeper. 

"How are you?"

Number one: "OOOO-kay," I say enthusiastically with a cheesy swing of my fist. No facts. No explanation. Just two exaggerated syllables. I'm obscurely just ooookay. Take it, leave it, ask further, or hear me out. 

In the olden days, the question and answer were exactly the same: "How do you do." A statement, not a question, this was often just a polite greeting. 

I think we have modernized the greeting, "How do you do?" into the greeting, "How are you?" 

I wish it could always be asked as a sincere question like Elisa Wirthlin's. But if it is only a greeting, I have number one as my automatic response. Although, ready or not, I could be getting warmed up for number two, three, or four. 

Number two: (scripted and changed from time to time) "I'm seeing small victories. I'm still on the downswing. Lyme gets worse before it gets better, and I haven't started the upswing yet. But I feel like I'm on the right path, and I feel good about where I am."

I.e. This is dang hard, and I feel like death. But I can't discount the miracles and tender mercies that are happening; they're awesome, and I'm so grateful. I'm holding onto hope with both hands and white knuckles, and man, it's hard. Did I already say that?

This answer is probably used the most. It is also the answer to the common question, "Are you feeling better now?" 

If I feel too yucky or it doesn't feel right to get deep, choice two is my go-to answer. It covers the question and reports on my progress without making me get wrapped up in my feelings. 

Number three: "Actually,...[I think I'll bear my soul to you now]...."

The details, facts, and figures are varied depending on the day or phase of treatment or mood or hunger or whatever. They are regurgitated instinctively based on the person's approach: body language, eyes and eyebrows, a squeeze of my arm, a hug, desperation for their own direction, or duty. The Holy Ghost tells me what to say. 

Words are my medium--the giving and receiving of them. I appreciate deep conversation (classic introvert quality). You wanna know? I'll tell you. And tell me about you too! Let's be besties. 

But if my offering of number three is met with a stare and no words, I feel like I wasn't careful with my pearls--my wounds, sorrows, pain, hopes--and I won't soon be getting to number three with that person again. 

People hopefully, generally, instinctively, VERBALLY reciprocate: empathize, share stories, give well wishes, ask follow-up questions, etc. This give-and-take of deeper conversation is the stuff that makes people caring, relatable, and vulnerable in a beautiful way. Realizing mutual vulnerability can knit humans together. That perspective can instantly inflate our own feeble strength into newfound greatness and solidarity. 

It's important to talk deeply with people and provide insight into your personal life so you can relate to each other and realize how strong God made us to be. We are neat, Heavenly stuff. 

Number four: This level is deep, deep, deep: the deeply personal, the spiritual. It is reserved for times I don't mind people seeing me rejoice with tears or bawl. 

I don't use this much. I write an exorbitant amount outside this blog and talk my husband's ear off. Some things I keep inside an internal storehouse. They are wrapped in delicate tissue paper so I have to consider whether I want to go to the trouble of disrupting the paper covering that dream, hope, hurt, memory, whatever, so I can look at it. Moments of enlightenment are lamps I turn on to see my packages in the right light. Some I unwrap and display as a hope or goal. Some are caustic memories that seep through the paper; sometimes I keep them. Sometimes I'm able to throw them away. But the rare number four's response requires me to go into my internal storehouse and take out packages. 

I hope you'll think about your "How are you?" questions and answers. We are meant mourn with, comfort, and rejoice with each other. We are meant to reflect on that question ourselves too--"How am I?"

Remember, the two great commandments involve three parties: God, others, and self. 

"Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

"This is the first and great commandment.

"And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

"On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:36-40)