1:35 p.m. - 03/04/03
yeehaw, edaw.
I just felt a need to preserve what I wrote for EDAW. You've probably already read this.

MONDAY:

~

TUESDAY:

BILL OF RIGHTS

You have the right to need anything at anytime.

"The healthy and strong individual is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he's got an abscess on his knee or in his soul." -Rona Barrett

You have the right to use your voice.
�You have the right to remain silent; you also have the right to be heard.� -Young Playwrights, Inc.

You have the right to be safe at all times.
�I found the secret to life: I�m ok when everything is not ok.� -Tori Amos

You have the right to feel and express any emotion.
�Without emotion there is no beauty.� -Diana Vreeland

You have the right to love and be loved in a manner that nourishes you.
�You�ll be given love/ you�ll be taken care of.� -Bjork

You have the right to love yourself.
"You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. �Buddhist expression

You have the right to add to this list.
�Learning what�s going on inside you can be difficult, but it�s also invigorating, and the rewards are enormous. You can do anything if only you know what it is. And you�re about to find out. �Barbara Sher

~

WEDNESDAY:

(after a short explanation of how exhausted I was, my excuse for plagiarism...)

You're Aging Well
Dar Williams

Why is it that as we grow older and stronger
The road signs point us adrift and make us afraid
Saying "You never can win," "Watch your back,"
"Where's your husband?"
Oh, I don't like the signs that the signmakers made.

So I'm going to steal out with my paint and brushes
I'll change the directions, I'll hit every street
It's the Tinseltown scandal, the Robin Hood vandal
She goes out and steals the king's English
And in the morning you wake up and the signs point to you

They say
"I'm so glad that you finally made it here,"
"You thought nobody cared, but I did, I could tell,"
And "This is your year," and "It always starts here,"
And oh... "You're aging well."

Well I know a woman with a collection of sticks
She could fight back the hundreds of voices she heard
And she could poke at the greed, she could fend off her need
And with anger she found she could pound every word.
But one voice got through, caught her up by surprise
It said, "Don't hold us back, we're the story you tell,"
And no sooner than spoken, a spell had been broken
And the voices before her were trumpets and tympani
Violins, basses and woodwinds and cellos, singing

"We're so glad that you finally made it here
You thought nobody cared, but we did, we could tell
And now you'll dance through the days while the orchestra plays
And oh, you're aging well."

Now when I was fifteen, oh, I knew it was over
The road to enchantment was not mine to take
'Cause lower calf, upper arm should be half what they are
I was breaking the laws that the signmakers made.

And all I could eat was the poisonous apple
And that's not a story I was meant to survive
I was all out of choices, but the woman of voices

She turned round the corner with music around her,
She gave me the language that keeps me alive, she said:

"I'm so glad that you finally made it here
With the things you know now, that only time could tell
Looking back, seeing far, landing right where we are
And oh, you're aging, oh and I am aging,
Oh, aren't we aging well?"

***

Phenomenal Woman*
Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much

But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

*of course, we're happy to celebrate with, and raise awareness for, phenomenal men as well. ;)

***

"I'm ok at the right sort of angle/ and you're ok, in the right sort of light/ and we don't look like pages from a magazine, but that's alright." -Ani DiFranco

"i got more and more to do/ i got less and less to prove/ it took me too long to realize/ that i don't take good pictures/ cuz i have the kind of beauty/ that moves." -Ani DiFranco

"The quest to be beautiful is not worth the beauty of a human life." -Stephanie Lewis

~

THURSDAY:

I needed a voice.
The ed told only the minimum. It showed people I wasn't safe, but I didn't have to risk saying how.
Recovery taught me how to know what I need, who to speak to about it, and how. It made sure I communicated what I wanted to communicate, in a way that didn't hurt me.

I needed to feel safe.
The ed taught me to control my world through my food, which numbed my feelings so I could feel in charge of my situation.
Recovery taught me that trying to control life only brings anxiety, that the feelings my ed kept numb could help me understand myself and my needs, and that having such understanding would keep me safe in a much truer way. Recovery taught me I am powerful no matter what the situation.

I needed support.
The ed drained me of my strength and endangered my emotional, spiritual, and physical health, worrying those around me. The people who came to my aid were concerned, often desperate, and knew only that something needed to be fixed. Often, they missed the mark when they tried to help me.
Recovery taught me how to take care of myself, which includes reaching out to others when I need their aid. I learned how to articulate what I needed when, so that those caring people in my life could truly help me. I learned to ask for what I need.

I needed to deal with my feelings.
The ed said, "your feelings are big and scary and will overwhelm you. They are more than you can handle." The ed taught me to "deal" with my feelings by suffocating them.
In recovery I learned that feelings come in cycles. The wave of a feeling may crest and feel like it will drown me, but- if I stay with it and let myself feel it- eventually, things will calm down again. I learned that my feelings are part of my power, that I lose strength when I numb them. I learned new ways to feel safe no matter what else I was feeling, and I practiced using them.

I needed an identity worthy of attention.
The ed gave me a reason to be noticed; having an illness was unique and drew attention.
In recovery, I learned to recognize the negative attention my illness drew- how inconsistent it was, how it kept the focus on my illness and led people to forget me, and how my illness and others' concern kept me from being myself. I learned, very slowly, to trust that my quirks were not defects, my needs were not weaknesses, my feelings were valid. I connected to the essential part of myself that keeps me peaceful at all times. I found I had no reason to hide.

I needed to trust myself.
The ed taught me that I could not be trusted, but that I could trust my illness to restrain me, so that I didn't do any damage.
In recovery, I learned that shame was a feeling I learned with good reason, but that reason had nothing to do with reality. I learned that everything I am is connected to goodness, and I don't need to silence myself to stay safe. I learned that I am nothing of the badness I believed myself to be, and that I can trust myself to do the best I know at all times.

I have needs.
The ways I tried to meet them, in desperation, left me in more pain.
In facing that pain, I am learning about myself, my life, and my own way of finding peace. I believe wholeheartedly that anyone, no matter where they've been, how they see themselves, or what they are up against, can find this same peace. I believe that there is still more to discover.

**

"Turn your wounds into wisdom."
-Oprah Winfrey

"I have woven a parachute out of everything broken."
-William Stafford

"Challenges come so we can grow and be prepared for things we are not equipped to handle now. When we face our challenges with faith, prepared to learn, willing to make changes, and if necessary, to let go, we are demanding our power be turned on."
-Iyanla Vanzant

~

FRIDAY:

(this may look a little familar)

[IT'S NOT/ IT IS: THE EATING DISORDER]

It's not an eating disorder; it's a shame/ control/ power/ scarcity/ abandonment/ identity/ inferiority disorder that plays out- in part- through my food.

It's not about food or weight or calories; it's about safety and emotions and self.

It's not about trying to self-destruct; it's about not knowing how to stay safe.

It's not about being controlling; it's a lack of understanding my own power.

It's not about judging others; it's an ingrained tendency to judge myself.

It's not about looking like a fashion model; it's about what I see when I look at myself.

It's not ignorance about the danger of this disease; it's not knowing how to deal with urgent, everyday danger.

It's not thinking I'm better than anyone else; it's trying to be anywhere near that good.

It's not having glorified thinness; it's having dehumanized myself.

It's not that I don't need your help; it's that I haven't learned how to feel safe having needs.

::

[IT'S NOT/ IT IS: RECOVERY]

It's not struggling because life or illness is too hard; it's struggling because I refuse to quit fighting until I've won.

It's not falling back into old behavior; it's examining the past with new wisdom.

It's not doing the same things over again; it's feeling the emotions that come after a trigger.

It's not going easy on myself; it's believing I, too, deserve to be treated gently and with love.

It's not pushing people out of my life; it's choosing to advocate for myself and let them help me the way I most need.

It's not taking too much from others; it's allowing those who love me to show it.

It's not being a bad friend; it's being honest about my own needs.

It's not about having no way to cope; it's about choosing to do nothing until I know a better way than what has failed me in the past.

It's not about whether or not I'm eating; it's about whether or not I'm feeling, whether or not I'm safe in every sense of the word.

It's not about the number on the scale, the nutrition information, or the test; it's about the sum of everything I am. It's about beauty which cannot be enumerated.

::

"To have an Eating Disorder is to have a disease of the self-esteem, and to have a broken coping mechanism. Eating Disorders are about being addicted to a behavior that makes it easy to temporarily forget problems and feelings of depression and self hate, stress and anxiety, guilt and pressure. Just like alcohol is a symptom of alcoholism, food is a symptom of Anorexia, Bulimia or Compulsive Overeating. The real issues are hidden away in each sufferer�s heart and mind." -Amy Medina (co-founder of www.somethingfishy.org)

"There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken. There is a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable. There is a sorrow beyond all grief which leads to joy; and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength. There is a hollow space too vast for words through which we pass with each loss, out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being." -Rashani ~ SATURDAY: this one starts off more than a little disturbing. it's two parts, the first of which was written in the deepest valley of my illness. so please please, if you would rather not go there right now, don't. often, I'm better off not going there either. ::huggle:: ... there are so many confusing gray areas in recovery, which is hard for someone as accustomed to black-and-white, all-or-nothing, dichotomous thinking as I am. for instance, how can I be grateful for recovery when I hate the illness (from which I recover) so much? I wouldn't be in recovery if I hadn't gotten sick. or how about the "did it save my life" issue. I lost all but the physical part of my life to this illness, but I don't know how else I would have survived with the minimal set of tools I had at that point. lots of gray. so in the midst of that, a very little clarity is much appreciated. the one bit of clarity I have is that I am so much better off now than I was then. that is something almost impossible not to recognize. the following two poems represent my thinking when I was very sick, and my thinking a few weeks ago. :) again, reader discretion on the first one is advised.

...

ATrophy.

it's quarter to two on a sunday morning
and she's still thinking in terms of saturday night
weighing fatigue against famine and trying to determine
which one is the reason she doesn't feel so alright.

she slips off her sandals, runs her hands through her hair
watches the dust that floats in the air
wonders where she's going
(she's forgotten she's home)
forgotten she's too real
to fit into a poem.

tonight as she stood near a corner clothes rack
in a store with few people and fewer selections
she found herself staring at a girl whose size 0
painfully magnified her own pale reflection
hypnotized by the structure of shoulder and shin
engaged in her competition of bone against skin
ruled by a game that explicitly stated
that no matter how much she lost-
she'd never quite win.

the stick-figure champion holds a hanger to the light
unaware that she's winning this invisible fight
and for a moment, her audience wonders
how much pain sculpted that rib cage
and if the heart within it feels alright.

still sunday's drawing nearer, so she slips into her car
drives to the apartment that's more near than far
turns off the engine and locks every door
tries to forget the demigod of that
particular department store.

she slips off her sandals, runs her hands through her hair
wonders if her bones ever cause others to stare
if she's ever the object of envy,
the trophy of disease
remembers she's better off if nobody sees.

after half a diet soda, she crawls into bed
pleading with the voices who ravage her head
she ate too much and too little to let herself feel alright
and things always look worse in her bedroom at night.

too sick and too healthy, too heavy, too light
she's never quite sure which pain hurts which night.

...

When I wrote this, I had very little sense of identity beyond the idea of myself as worthless, poisoned, no good. I couldn't even write in the first person. The part of this poem which really hits me, and the reason I chose it in particular out of a few contenders, is that it tries to show the real battle one feels inside an eating disorder. The ed makes lots of promises about how life will be better on such-and-such a condition. You'll be fine so long as you do this. You'll be happy as soon as you... et cetera. So outside, I had people telling me, "You won't be happy until you recover" and inside, I heard, "You won't be happy until you [reach a certain weight/ eat less/ purge/ exercise more etc]." I was left extremely confused. What I can see now is how empty the ed's promises are (no pun intended.) You'll always be ok after one more skipped meal, one more purge, one more hour on the treadmill. You never get to look at why you aren't ok right now. You never get to believe in yourself. Oddly enough, in recovery - which you might think would focus on what you can become (and to some extent, does) you end up giving precedent to what-is-right-now. You look at how you feel, how you are, who you are in that exact moment, and the focus on change is not to fix yourself. It's to fix all of those things which keep you from being yourself...

...

So who am I? As of a few weeks ago...

Paradox.

I am not a statistic
I'm not decidedly dystopian
or obviously optimistic
I invite investigation
introspection, mystery, change.
I am not a static being
I rearrange.

& at any moment I am
innocent, intimidating
fierce in my courage
and curiously captivating
I entertain new territory
dare my definition to stay still
I balance bravery with boundaries
and throw myself off center
solely for the thrill.

and yes, I've come so far
in a time so short, I'm forced
to reexamine clocks-
I leap, lift, linger, land
crawl and kick-box
I won't stand for stagnation
I won't endure your attack
could be I am a meteor
magic from a distance
and brutal on impact.

or possibly, I'm mild
loyal, calm - a curiosity
I won't be domesticated
but I don't attack a being
solely for approaching me
could be, I'm wiser than
I'm given credit for-
no matter how much
I tell you of myself
there's more. there's more.

I contradict the same rules I impose
I shapeshift into someone no one knows
although, I'm always recognizable
I'm not concrete.
I'm perfect in my defects, whole
and incomplete.

...

Between the two, not a hard choice to make, hey? :) Of course, this life is as always a work-in-progress. Speaking in writer's terms, I still have quite a bit of the first mindset to revise.

�Oh, she takes care of herself/ She can wait if she wants/ She's ahead of her time/ Oh, and she never gives out/ And she never gives in/ She just changes her mind.� -Billy Joel

check out: That I Would Be Good

~

SUNDAY:

It's the last day of (the US) Eating Disorder Awareness Week! So of course I'm going to tell you that you can fight ignorance all year long. Promote real understanding of this illnes, dismantle stereotypes, offer love in place of stigma. It will mean more than I can articulate to more (people) than you can know.

...

In the journey for self-healing and -discovery, there are many teachers, wise ones, and gurus to whom we can choose to lend an ear. Not all of them make their way onto the self-help shelf. Today's mail is in tribute to one such individual, Mr. Fred Rogers, with great gratitude for his hand in my own developmental process. I do believe his words on life and growth are as important now as they were when we heard them as children. (All quotes found at pbskids.org - which also has a section where you can send a letter in tribute, in case anyone is interested...)

...

Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we aren't perfect.

As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has�or ever will have�something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.

If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.

Something we all need in order to feel the fullness of life: It's not only a sense that we belong on our planet, but also that we belong in other people's lives�that we are loved, lovable, and capable of loving.

A friend of mine made a calligraphy scroll that I have framed in my writing room. It reads: "The greatest gift one can give to another person is a deeper understanding of life and the ability to love and believe in the self."

We'd all like to feel self-reliant and capable of coping with whatever adversity comes our way, but that's not how most human beings are made. It's my belief that the capacity to accept help is inseparable from the capacity to give help when our turn comes to be strong.

People have said "Don't cry" to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is "I'm too uncomfortable when you show your feelings: Don't cry." I'd rather have them say, "Go ahead and cry. I'm here to be with you."

Feelings are "mentionable," and whatever is "mentionable" can be more manageable. Whether we're children or adults, adding to our emotional vocabulary can often add to our ability to cope with what we're feeling. Using words to describe what's inside helps remind us that what we're experiencing is human...and mentioning our feelings to others can make those feelings more manageable.

Often, problems are knots with many strands, and looking at those strands can make a problem seem different.

When you combine your own intuition with a sensitivity to other people's feelings and moods, you may be close to the origins of valuable human attributes such as generosity, altruism, compassion, sympathy, and empathy.

I recently learned that in an average lifetime a person walks about sixty-five thousand miles. That's two and half times around the world. I wonder where your steps will take you. I wonder how you'll use the rest of the miles you're given.

It's not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It's the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff. That's what makes growing humanity the most potentially glorious enterprise on earth.

...

Thanks to all of you for letting me share my part of that enterprise this week. It's something quite wonderful, to have a voice and people who will hear it. Take care, all of you!

~

chord

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