Monthly Archives: February 2013

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Are Men and Women the same when it comes to eating disorders?

I’ve been reading about men and women and eating disorders.  I know that some of this all comes at the beginning from a want to “look” a certain way as society expects you to.  But having read some of the male issues, I’m wondering.  We, both genders, suffer from physical issues, but more so we also suffer from emotional issues, which are, in my opinion, the reason that an eating disorder grows into something more than just physical.  It becomes mental.  I don’t mean that in a mean way, I mean it as it becomes a subconscious search for why it is that the transformation of our body becomes so important, and so negative.  Why would a man who was so physically fit decide to not eat and lose all that weight?  Why would a woman who is so beautifully well endowed decide to lose all that weight.  Marilyn Monroe would not lose that weight, neither would Elizabeth Taylor.  Their beauty was based on their womanhood.  I can’t really think of anyone today to equate that beauty to, but I can equate The Rock not wanting to lose his weight, or my wonderful love of my life in movies Billy Crystal.  But you look at Justin Bieber and wonder why he needs those abs to make women like him?  Or any other guy who not only has the abs but is underweight!!  Are women coming back and telling the men that now they need to have a six pack to equate to their size “0”?  Interesting.  This type of competition is pathetic and the media still feeds it to the young, and the older.  Please do tell how many 50 year olds are on television without either botox or some kind of fixing up that is not done just naturally.  Unbelievable world we live in.  Wish I lived in the time when Ruben painted the most beautiful women, and the men didn’t care about their six packs.

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Long Time of Lows

I mentioned earlier in one of my posts that I cried a lot over the past few days.  A lot.  I suppose some people cleanse with diets, mine seem to come with tears.  Tears for everything I have done wrong to others, to my children, to myself.  Tears of awareness.  I sometimes feel as though when these lows are happening I will never pull through.  Then suddenly it’s like my last post.  An Epiphany!!  A realization that this is what I needed to do to mourn my frustrations and anger, pain, sorrow.  During the time of mourning it becomes so real and so required to face up to.  After 10 days of mourning, I feel better.  Maybe because I wrote it out, maybe because of my angry friend, maybe because of the music I have been listening to that is empowering rather than depressing.  Maybe… because in my last post I realized for once I didn’t go back to my eating disorder for answers, but rather chose to write.  Maybe, just maybe, I needed to do this.  Cleansing my soul of whatever was disturbing its peace.  I am sure I will go through more.  I didn’t allow my spirit to feel for so many years that it now comes out in not just waves, but title-waves.

I realized too that I don’t have an answer to anything that becomes the consequence of my choices or behaviour.  All I know is that I love me such that the only way to get over the criticisms, the judgements, etc. is to make sure I look in that mirror every morning.

Found a funny today on Facebook.  It was about wanting to kiss someone so much that the pressure of the kiss broke the mirror.

Don’t let others make you feel weak, old, ugly, stupid, crazy… etc.  Their words can be like swords… but then you have to go straight to that mirror and kiss the one who loves you most… you.  And then it all becomes okay.

I forgot about myself over the past few days and focussed on others again, like I’m good at doing… Saw their pain, frustration, anger… and took it all in.  Took me 10 days to cry them all out.  I don’t want to do that again.  It’s painful.  I don’t want to shut them out, but what I do want to do is remember… and I’ll say it again… to kiss that beautiful woman in the mirror every morning and tell her she is beautiful and will be with me ’til death do me part.

 

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Epiphany! Love that word. Now time to move forward! Put the Petals Back On The Rose… My Rose. Me.

Although this is not the version I would have made, I do have to give accolades to the person who created this video. To me, however, I would be standing before a mirror and putting my petals back on my rose… me.

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500 Internal Server Error – Have you ever felt like this?

It’s a mystery to me why I can feel so grateful for so long, then one day, the wall falls down.  I’m an optimist, so I believe I can take the bricks and place them back, but then again, at my age, I sometimes feel the 500 Internal Server Error.  I fail to pull through in that moment I need to the most because my internal server has failed.  500?  that is a small number of failures compared to those in my life.  Try agains and making up for those are thrice that number, if not more.  I write today in a state of depression.  Yet, in elation that this has not brought me back to my eating disorder.  It has been more of an internal (yes… server error) that is trying to piece the pieces of my life puzzle Ever Feel This Waytogether.  I’m tired.  I fear for my future that has no existence at this point, but that when I look ahead, I can’t even see the light of a train on a railway track.  I can’t see anything but today.  I don’t understand my daughter who has the “whole world in her hands” at 19.  I believed I could conquer anything then.  But at 50 I’m tired.  At 40 even I had the will, and the resistance, but not now.  I’m over my mid-life and heading down a hill to I don’t even know to where.  Feels like death is at my door and really the only thing I bring with me anyway is the love I have felt on this earth.  I was a “success” and lost it all, more than twice.  I don’t think I want that anymore.  I want normalcy.  But I can’t seem to find the last thing I want before I die.  So I’ve been crying a lot.  A lot!!  And I have friends, but not worth sending this message out to.  I don’t like depressing people around me, so why would I burden them with my depression at this time?

I’m trying to find positives.  My friend wrote me, when I explained I feel this:

“I feel like a failure to my family, to my parents, to my friends,… and although I have the spirit to keep going within myself, I’m still embarrassed about my failures. I try not to think about them… but it’s so complicated. I try to look forward, but I have fears. I have nothing to sustain myself with. ……”

She wrote back:

“No fucking way I’m going to accept you as a “failure”! No freakin’ way! First of all you are probably the most talented girls I know in every way! You play the flute, you write poetry like its as easy as breathing, you’re super smart, you know a lot about everything, good in math and science, can sew, paint, doodle, draw, you’re funny, beautiful, and incredibly loyal!!! There’ s more I’m sure but you better get the point and get you act together! You really did get dealt a shitty hand I know that…I really do. But you are all those things I said and you have to believe that and get the strength to climb out of the ditch. There’s no way with all your brains and talent you can’t do it!! I say this with love and anger”

It was then I realized I cannot explain the pain nor the ditch I’m trying to dig out of.  No matter how I want to describe it.  I once thought the “pen” could reflect all the internal turmoil one feels in life at any one time and then release it having been able to “pen” it.  But I’m not so sure anymore.  I understand her anger… but yet that does nothing for me.

Truth be known I feel as though I am becoming my daughter.  As strange as that sounds, I feel as though I am taking on her burden and the feeling of what she is feeling and it is devastingly painful.  I just hope she placed her pain on me and is released of it herself.  I am old, I’ve lived a full life.  She has yet to.  She should not feel this way.

No compliments from my friends, or parents, or children can make up for what I did wrong.  Bullimia ruined a huge part of my world.  It was my choice.  I made that decision and today I am paying for it within my soul.

Good news is, I turned my back to it through period of self reflection and pain and tears.  At one time I would have gone to it for solace.  But alas, it is the enemy that haunts me today….

Have your ever felt like this?….

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Lesson – Writing from 1986

Building up self-esteem means first

you must admit it is low.

This is your choice.

Building up self-esteem is a

matter of learning to believe in yourself,

your potential, your life.

This is your choice.

Building up your self-esteem means

looking at yourself in your own eyes

not others.

This is your choice.

Building up self-esteem means

setting realistic goals for yourself,

realistic demands,

and letting go of ultimate perfection.

This is your choice.

to choose the above is to choose to

build self-esteem and ultimately you

are…

choosing life.

What better reward could one ask for?

This is your choice.

For someone who could write this at a young age of 24 and only head her own advice at 49, interesting.  Maybe we should be reading what we write everyday for those of you who write and are younger.  Obviously some words from our youth are wisdom for our future.

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Writing From 1986

From a circle with “dieting” in the centre – I was 24…. and this came from the bubbles that were circled around it.

Not every woman has beauty in her house,

In soft December, slim Monicamas.

American beauties, tall and trim,

but holding the torch of unnatural surroundings and shapes.

Strict hellish diets, with their

meagre caloric consumption.

Blown out of proportion, by the media of the day.

Torch-diets of the skinny era,

malnutrition’s dark shadowed blaze.

Dark shadows of disorders,

eating disorders,

giving off influences, darkness,

upon the health of children.

Give me a torch!

Let me guide myself to the shadow,

forked torch of the unnatural.

Down the darker and darker stairs,

where shadows are darkened on shadows.

Down the emotional way, just now,

in food-rich December.

To the sightless realm where

depression is married to depression

and media itself emits

idol sights, as a bridge to beauty.

A visible influence enfolded in

the deeper shadows

of the arms of death, as it

ravishes the woman once again

and pierces her esteem with

passion of the utter shadow

among the splendor of skinny models,

shedding fathomless shadows on the bridge.

Give me a diet on a plate,

three small meals,

for I cross the bridge, and shall be

influenced by the deadly disorder,

born from dieting and false

desires this side of the bridge.

Lucky for me I burned that bridge before it took me down!  But it wasn’t an easy journey.  Who could not see from my writing what I was going through?  Doesn’t matter anymore, but how many out there are writing poems like this without a hand reaching out and pulling them back from crossing that bridge?

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Poems from 1986 #1

I am tired of being treated like a child, a criminal, a mass, incompetent, undisciplined, under the parental rigidity of government… “I Am Tired Of”

There is a fear of matrimony, a cutting of the wings of freedom, a vulnerable path to pain, an ink blotted contract of love, a locking of one’s self to another by a binding chain … “There Is Fear”

I had a song, but no melody, I had a poem, but no ebb, I had a painting but no subject, I had talent, but it was never complete… “I Had”

In some of my worst nightmares I have been molded by society, refused self expression, forfeited part of my being, lost my identity and individuality under the rigid hand of parental guidance, government rule, and marital constraints.

In some of my best dreams I have commanded my own destiny, acquired self worth, attained self-acceptance, believed in and followed my dreams, developed a positive attitude and in standing up and stepping out, I have gained a reason for being and loving life… “Nightmares and Dreams”

I found these tonight while going through my writings during my Journalism course.  This book is my creative writing… I have several binders I still have from those years of my courses.  I found it interesting that the “best dreams” are the ones that followed my “worst nightmares”.  Was this my destiny that I wrote 23 years ago?