recovery without knitting? how dare you.

When I was 7, my gramma taught me how to knit. I had little half-completed projects hanging off needles all over the house. I didn't have the attention span for the length of a scarf, let alone anything much more involved. Little did I know that this skill would play a huge role in my treatment from a life I wouldn't even see coming for another 11 years.

I always joke that recovery isn't possible without knowing how to knit. If you don't know how, don't worry, you can still recover from an eating disorder. That doesn't mean I don't highly recommend learning, though! Every treatment program I went through, most everyone was knitting or crocheting. There was even a boy when I was on Alcott who really wanted to learn because everyone else was doing it, so a few girls taught him. He spent the rest of his stay on the EDU knitting with extra yarn and two pencils. How no one had a spare set of needles for the poor boy is beyond me.

There's something amazing about knitting to me; it is the one and only activity in my entire life that I can do and not pay attention to it. I can keep my hands busy and pay full attention to other things going on around me and, above all else, not be anal about it. Mistakes and slipped stitches make it "all the more special" and counting rows takes the fun out. For really intricate patterns, I'll write them down so I don't have to keep thinking about it, but for the most part, I just go with it. That's sort of a huge deal for me considering how I beat myself up for everything else I do, from my artwork to washing the dishes correctly.
It also calms my anxiety which, in turn, calms one of my worst OCD habits. By keeping my hands busy, I can't use one of my worst behaviors. That was also a great excuse to be allowed to knit during groups.

Today, I stumbled over a really cute blog run by a group of recovered / recovering knitters. They have chosen to take their skill and use it to encourage recovery in a really adorable way. I love what they're doing and I would love to get involved with a project like this. Check out their blog here.

So, here's a little audience participation for ya:

it's that time of year.

It is dark, dreary, and the daylight hours seem to taunt us with their very limited presence. And with the freezing temperatures sweeping in, the holidays are upon us. Family, food, and - for many of us - poking and prodding in very emotional ways.

It is no coincidence that treatment admissions are crazy right now, nor that my inpatient and residential admissions both fell in this season. So, is bottoming out avoidable? Well, yeah, of course. If you know that this time of year is difficult and possibly triggering for you, you have to face it prepared. DBT skills are huge if these months are as rough for you as they have been for me. Make sure you have some prepared if you know what works best when you're getting overwhelmed or anxious.

Also, there are some great tips from NEDA to keep you grounded and well-prepared for the holidays.
Just click on "How to Negotiate the Holidays" under Holiday Tips.

There's a lot to be thankful for.
Hope everyone has a fantastic holiday :)

the great facebook outting.

In about a one hour time span, I receive an e-mail from my brother with the link to the following Newsweek article, and my Google Reader informs me of two new posts by Rachel and Jezebel about the same article.

[Click here for full article.]

In short - as you can read the article for full detail - what used to be a very secretive and underground community is now becoming very public in an almost "flaunting" nature on one of the largest, most popular social-networking sites: Facebook. Groups are being produced where people can join and share tips and "thinspiration" in what is commonly known as a Pro-Ana community.

The controversy seems to be in whether or not it's better to have it out in the open rather than so secretive. I, myself, am a member of one of the more popular Facebook groups to ban this kind of behavior, as it is, in fact, against their terms and conditions; the groups promote self-harming behaviors to themselves and others.

To the common, logical thinker, the immediate reaction is most likely that this is a disgusting and disturbing situation that needs to be closely monitored and banned wherever possible. It is, don't get me wrong. However, I find myself torn.
I did it. I know a lot of girls I was in treatment with did. We knew the sites, we had the notebooks, printouts of tips and pictures of hauntingly emaciated celebrities and models. It's terrible, especially to people who have never felt so lost in their own mind and so uncomfortable in their own skin that you felt physically imprisoned in your own body. People who have never experienced an eating disorder, first hand, don't know that feeling. The people on these Pro-Ana/Mia webites.. they got it. Please note, I am NOT in any way shape or form condoning these behaviors or promoting these websites. I am just saying I understand why they're out there. It's a support system, when some people have nothing, no matter what they promote.

Is it better to have a harmful support system than to feel completely alone? I know just as well as anyone who has fought an addiction that you cannot get help until you are willing to receive it. What can you do until that point? The world of an eating disorder is tricky.. fragile.. pressuring.. and fucking lonely, support or none.

Do I think that community should be public? No. I have a problem with it being so easily accessible, especially in a predominately high school and college setting where self-esteem and body image are constantly gnawing at these age groups in every day life as it is. Talk about vulnerability. More often than not, Pro-Ana/Mia supporters stand by the fact that eating disorders are a lifestyle, not a disease. It has a very strong, cult-ish vibe. If you ban them, yes, they will still exist. But if they are public, you're just pouring gas on the fire. It's enabling.

This is not a lifestyle. It is one mindfuck of a disease. And I am torn because.. what can you do when people feel like they have no where else to go and don't understand what their own brain is doing to them?

treating from experience.

Over at GreyThinking, an interesting topic has been raised. Here's a little summarizing excerpt from her entry:

How do you feel about being treated by someone with an eating disorder history?

I’ve always felt very strongly AGAINST seeing a therapist who had an eating disorder herself. I think part of that is related to the competitiveness of the eating disorder (not that I think SHE will be competitive, but that I will be), but I also think part of it is about objectivity. I don’t know if you can be completely objective having suffered from the same thing yourself. I’ve never really wanted empathy. Maybe this is weird of me? I just have a thing about people with eating disorders guiding others with eating disorders. It’s the blind leading the blind. I want to work with someone completely removed from the eating disorder world.

Before this, she raises the obvious point that a large part of our community is hugely interested in pursuing degrees in psychology and nutrition (guilty). This, of course, is based on the fact that we are drawn to what we are exposed to.

Now, my therapist is absolutely incredible. I don't know what it is about him; he has never personally struggled through an eating disorder, nor did he ever imagine that he would even be in the field. He was just lucky he had a psych degree to fall back on after his first career choice [in sales] did not pan out.

However, there were two women that really played a huge part in my recovery. One was my best friend from college, who had recovered herself. Her role was very important because I was unable to fully accept recovery until I could see that it was possible, which she showed me while sitting on my hospital bed one night last fall.
The other was a counselor at one of my treatment programs. I knew, long before she was able to tell me, that she had recovered. Many of the counselors were very good, but she knew how to communicate with us on a different level than most of the other doctors. She knew how to talk and how it felt and how to word the things she said, as she had experienced it all. Nothing was more comforting than being able to talk to someone who really knew what it was like.

I am hoping that's how people will feel when I am able to get more involved, personally, with others' recovery. I want to be in treatment, but from the other side because I feel like I could make such a huge difference having gotten through it. Patients have such a difficult time trusting doctors as it is; I think it would be easier if they knew where they were coming from. No matter how good of a therapist you may be, you can never get into someone's head. Someone who's already experienced it is already there. That is as trustworthy as it can get.

Now, GT raises the point that treating patients may be risky to both the patient and the provider based on how recovered s/he may or may not be. I do not believe that anyone who is not absolutely fully recovered should be treating anyone, as I would think it would be detrimental to both parties' recovery and treatment. I assume that goes without saying. You cannot help anyone until you receive the help you need, first. I would hope employers would double check information like this before hiring treatment staff? I don't know how that works, but wouldn't any treatment center - eating disorder, drug, alcohol, etc - check for a background history of behaviors before allowing someone to treat others for it?

What are your thoughts on it? Would you prefer to be treated by someone who has never personally had ED in their life, or someone that totally gets what is going on with you and the way your brain works from the inside?

my favorite week is in the making.

I know, I know.. it's about 4 months away, but the planning has begun and I'm trying to get a head start. I didn't do anything for NEDAW last year because I tried to get something together too last minute. I don't have a clue what to do this year, I just know that I definitely want to get involved.

The cool this is that by the time the week (the final in February) rolls around, I will be volunteering for MEDA. So, more or less, I will have to be directly involved, which is awesome. I can't wait to see how I can help.

What have you done in past years to get involved?
Any thoughts on what you would like to do for NEDAW 'o9?

unite ED bloggers, part ii.

I'm being asked these two questions a lot and I figured I should probably just put the answers out where everyone can see them. So, here ya go!

1. The group is secret. It does not appear in search results, nor will it be seen on your profiles. For those of you who aren't ready to "out" yourselves as an ED blogger (or an ED connection, in general), I can absolutely respect that and you will be safely anonymous (besides, of course, to the other group members).
   
   
2. Friend me to join. As the group is secret, I don't believe the link on the previous post works. Therefore, you will have to find and friend me on Facebook (as well as send me a message with your blog address) and then I'll invite you. I can be found on Facebook by searching Emily Sam. I don't think there are many others, but I'm CDIABU '1o.

Any other questions, please e-mail me so I can easily get back to you. I'm really glad there's so much enthusiasm about this group! There is currently rather low activity, but I'm hoping we can all use this group in the way that I'm intending it. I suppose we will see.

Thanks, guys :)

the goal: unite ED bloggers.

I have created a group in the one place that is almost guaranteed to house the majority of the computer-owning human race for us to group up: Facebook. I thought it would be nice to associate a face with the writer and content, and to be able to communicate with each other about what we write, what projects we're working on, and what we're doing for the community outside of our blogs.

The group currently consists of myself (obviously), Carrie, Laura Collins, Harriet Brown, and my love, Kiersten. It is a closed group, so please request an invite and either leave me a comment on here or shoot me a message on Facebook with your name & blog. I will, obviously, not accept anything but blogs written in a pro-recovery nature.

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