Overheard

I was standing in line at the DMV and the lady next to me was renewing her license. She was asked to look over her information.

“It’s correct except I don’t weigh 50kgs anymore.”

My ears started flapping, but I prevented myself from turning to stare at her. No one wants to be gawked at like a freak on a Tuesday afternoon.

“Ok how much do you weigh now?”

“I think, maybe 60kgs?”

She doesn’t look self conscious. She doesn’t giggle shyly or hang her head ashamed. No one can say for sure, but to an onlooker it seems like she gained 10kgs and that is just fine. Normal. Unremarkable. Not noteworthy.

I have never put my correct weight on my driver’s license. I always lowball – within REASON.

At ballet school we were taught to subtract 10lbs from our actual weight when asked for an audition. As a rule of thumb I have continued to do this because it seems REASONABLE. Reasonable to lie about my weight because no number is ever really acceptable.

Today I went to get a cup of coffee in the mall and a shop employee was hob nobbing with the barista. No one can say for sure, but she looked like she was afflicted with the rex. I had admired her skeletal like arms as she handed me my coffee with trembling hands and a smile that lit up her pale, hollowed out face.

The shop employee was showing the barista his lunch. She looked at it like a maniac. Like she was fascinated and revolted at the same time.

“I’m not going to eat all of it now,” he informed her and her co-coffee worker. “I guess I’m telling you so that you don’t laugh at my fat ass.”

The other barista comments on how she likes to tell herself she will save food for later and then eats it all in one sitting instead. I’m stirring my coffee slowly, deliberately eavesdropping.

The rexy barista hasn’t moved. She is in the same spot still transfixed by this lunch that has wandered in to high jack her shift.

He gets his coffee from skinny and skinnier behind the espresso machine and looks at his lunch with unbridled delight.

“I’m only 15lbs away from my goal weight anyway.”

I pick up my coffee and stroll out into the banal abyss of mall. I take my extra 15 pounds of “baby” weight with me. My extra 15 pounds of sleepless nights, more calories for breastfeeding, anxiety, bad day with the babies, hormonal, postpartum, non exercising excuses, sneaky glasses of wine and a few too many chocolate binges of baby weight.

Undefined

I am triggered by everything:

A photo of dancers I used to idolize when I was 16 and starving, desperate to be even half as skinny as they were and still are. I scroll past them. My brain does a double take. I back track. I scrutinize their emaciated arms, their collar bones, their sunken cheek bones. They are all smiles, superior in their anorexia, mocking me. Twenty years have gone by and they are still thinner than thin.

I see my reflection in an unsafe mirror…so that’s what thighs and hips and stomachs look like after two babies in quick succession – well mine anyway. A vast, mass of undefined lard, rolling and oozing and overflowing, fleshy like raw dumplings, doughy like unbaked bread, ever expanding…never ending. Never ceasing to amaze me in horror to fascinate me as I stare. “Is that really me?” I don’t recognize myself, this untamed, unmanageable, out of control lump. I don’t fit into my clothes or my brains neatly, compartmentalized boxes: bulimic ballerina has been replaced with fat stay-at-home-mum. Fat, frumpy, fleshy, unfit to be a mother or an anorexic.

I read an ED memoir a friend lends me. I stop. I put it away on a shelf where I cannot see it. I pick it back up a week later. It makes me remember that I used to purge just as easily as I breathed. After this long, would I even notice if it crept back in? If I slipped a couple of times that were more intentional than unintentional? After all, there are days where I seamlessly substitute my calories as I go. Latte? No, americano. Vegan mayo? No, mustard. Salad dressing? Not necessary. More pasta? No, more veggies. Two slices of toast? No, three quarters of one slice is more than enough for breastfeeding two babies. I shake so much, so often from hunger. I don’t get any thinner.

I don’t want to think of the other bad days where I unintentionally eat two muffins instead of one. When I eat half a bag of chocolate chips and then wonder why I’m carrying this “baby weight” 7 Months later. I’m surprised when these things happen. Half a packet of digestive biscuits later I am unsure where I went wrong. But I’ve never pretended to know so why start now?

Postpartum Take 2

I had another baby.

A year after our first baby, we welcomed another baby girl. It’s been a whirlwind journey. I had visions of continuing this blog after the first baby, but took an unplanned hiatus. I didn’t have anything to say some days. Other days I had so much to say, I was too overwhelmed to know where to start. Every time I tried I couldn’t find the words.

I wanted to express what it was like to be pregnant, to give birth, to become a Mum, to breastfeed and raise a baby while trying to beat ED into submission.

I hope to tell those stories from not one, but two pregnancies now. I made it through both of them without restricting or bingeing or purging. They were both so different and I can’t pretend that I was ED free entirely because the running dialogue in my head throughout reminded me that in the shadows it was lurking there, in the bright moments, the extreme joyousness, the overwhelming and the trying times, I was never far from it. Even now it dogs me.

I will begin again to speak of it. I will tell the story, the dark parts that I wish my daughters will never know.

Back Again!

I never meant to not write for seven months. Seven months…it sounds so much longer than it has been. I had so much to say, too much really, and in the end I couldn’t find the words so I stayed silent. It is hard to chronicle a pregnancy with an eating disorder. I wanted to, but I will have to write about it in hindsight instead.

My daughter is here. We are both well. That is all I wanted to say for now.

Hello From Both Of Us

After a little hiatus, I have decided to write again. I am pregnant again and have made it to the second trimester, so we are sharing our news with everyone. After the miscarriage, this pregnancy seemed tenuous and frought with anxiety. There was nothing anyone could say to put my mind at ease that this baby would stay with me on earth.

In November we discovered some medical complications that resulted in a surgery. The last 2 months have been a whirl of hospital visits: surgeons, radiologists, obstetricians, enodcirnologists, nurses, doctors and of course myriad tests: ultrasounds, x-rays, MRIs, blood tests, weight, blood pressure, heart rate…

The list goes on, but nothing measured the anguish and suffering in the mother’s heart.

Today I am recovering from surgery which went well. Baby is thriving from what we can see on ultrasounds. Through all of this, I have continued in the ED recovery program where I see a case manager, medical doctor, nutritionist, psychologist and occupational therapist. As much as I want this child more than anything in this life, I cannot describe the distress of gaining weight as someone with an eating disorder.

Since we confirmed the pregnancy, I have not once binged, purged, restricted or over exercised. The desire is there constantly, but I felt that I could not do that to my unborn child and live with the consequences. It is strange that not taking care of myself has never concerned me, but I cannot hurt my unborn child by continuing with my ED.

Obscenity

After a day of restricting and over exercising, I came home and cut up vegetables for dinner: half a cauliflower, a cucumber and some cherry tomatoes.

An hour later I mentioned to my boyfriend that I was still hungry.

“But you ate an obscene amount of vegetables for dinner,”He told me.

Obscene. Not “a lot” of vegetables or a “huge amount”. Obscene – like it was offensive or appalling, because it isn’t already hard enough to eat when you have an eating disorder.

Miscarriage – Why Don’t We Talk About It?

The statistics are sad: 1 out of every 4 women will have a miscarriage. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was someone, or several people, that you know.

No one talks about it.

We all suffer alone.

Of course, I didn’t tell anyone I was pregnant except my boyfriend, my mum and a couple of close friends. I planned to wait out the 12 weeks and then share the news. Miscarriages often happen in the first trimester so no one knows you are pregnant therefore no one knows you miscarried. You suffer the physical and mental anguish alone. I did.

Now a couple of months on from the miscarriage, I have got around to telling friends. There is just never a good time to say the words: “I had a miscarriage”. When do you bring it up? At a dinner party? A birthday? A weekend trip away?

One of my girlfriends I told at my birthday because we never have alone time. I figured it was my part so if it was a downer then it was only on me. We were standing on the verandah watching her son play outside. I had a few too many drinks. She asked me where I got my necklace – the one with the angel wing and birthstone from the month my baby was due. I told her.

She was pregnant at the time and couldn’t bring herself to share that news as I told her about my miscarriage. A week later she text me from hospital as she was losing her baby. She asked for details. I relived my miscarriage for her. When we met for coffee a few days later, she was grey and miserable. We cried together and laughed and hugged each other and cried some more. If I hadn’t told her, she wouldn’t have reached out to me; she would have suffered in silence.

I finally told 2 colleagues at work. They were shocked and saddened. I told them that when it happened, I could barely function. I didn’t have the strength to talk about it 2 months ago without having a breakdown. In hindsight, a few strategic people at work knowing might have saved me a lot of angst. I was emotional and distressed and anxious. I was dealing with pregnancy hormones, lactating and feeling physically weak after the miscarriage. I kept my mouth shut and suffered alone at work. I closed my office door and sobbed in between ballet classes. I was dizzy from blood loss, in pain from contractions and on edge the whole time. I struggled to balance work stress without losing my mind. I couldn’t find a way to balance work and my mum’s visit at the same time. Had I told someone, there might have been some support or understanding. I wish now that I had done that.

I wish more women talked about it. When I finally decided to talk about it instead of treating it like a shameful secret, I heard the same refrain over and over: “me too” or “my sister had one” or “my friend just miscarried”. Then I found there was no judgement  – only tears and strength found in solidarity.

Maybe Moving On Or Getting Back to “Normal”

I finally got tired of my reflection. My boyfriend posted photos of us from a weekend away on social media and someone had the audacity to ask me (not-so-subtly) if I was expecting. I know I have put on weight since the miscarriage. I am guesstimating 7-10lbs from how I look and how my clothes don’t fit. Honestly, I am too terrified to step on my scale until I have dropped some weight.

After the weekend and the hurtful comments, I looked at my pudgy arms in the mirror while I was applying eye liner. They have become soft and shapeless like my heart after I lost the baby. “Enough,” I told myself. “It’s enough now.”

I’ve been back to gym 3 days in a row. There was no shoe shopping involved or sandwich motivation (where I buy myself food for going to workout). I felt more energetic, less depressed. Perhaps this was the turning of a corner? I don’t want to get my hopes up too soon. I have found that this grief knows no end; some days I am fine and others I am broken.

I have binged once and purged once. I have actively restricted a few times. I knew that eventually I would get back to “normal”, but so far it hasn’t been so vicious. Part of me wants a healthy body to have another baby and part of me just wants my agony to show itself in bones.

The truth is, one day I was pregnant and my life had changed forever. A few weeks later I was no longer pregnant and my life could not go back to what it was before. There is no normal after that.

hey fatty…

This is how I wake myself up: 

 

Catching Up With Life

It has been 2 months since the miscarriage…actually more, but I try not to count the days since my baby left.

I finally went back to the ED recovery program and saw my case manager today. She had started to call to see why I had disappeared. I filled her in on the miscarriage and she suddenly understood why I had taken a hiatus from my life. She acknowledged the severity of my loss and the depth of my grief. She actually had some powerful thoughts to share with me. It made me glad that I had gone back because I really do like her.

I was ready to shut my case file and to tell her that I am wasting her time. I wanted to tell her that right now I cannot focus on ED recovery because I cannot function. She came to that conclusion without me having to say so. She was in happy disbelief that I am not actively bingeing or purging or restricting. She told me that without a doubt, the loss of the child I wanted has refocused my mind onto what is really important for me. Blaming myself aside, she said that being able to give up ED behaviours the instant I knew I was pregnant, told her that I was ready to leave this part of me behind for a greater cause. As far as she is concerned any step forward is progress.

As I sat there and wept, she told me that she felt God had sent this baby to save me from my ED. She said that the spirit of this baby was here to make me well. She said that baby would say to me, “mum, I need you to be healed for me”. The more I thought about it, the more profound it seemed.

At the end of our session she gently reminded me to make new appointments with the team at the clinic and to continue to see the doctor, dietician and psychologist regularly even if I felt like my ED was in limbo. More importantly, she offered to help support me through this and to leave the ED out of it if all I want to talk about is my baby. She told me to allow myself the right to grieve: to be alright with being sad or tired or depressed, to be fine with not wanting to go to the gym and go shoe shopping instead, to make peace with the fact that this is a process I have to go through instead of fighting against it.

I went there today to thank her for her time and to walk away and instead she gave me an incredible gift.