All EDs must be checked at the gate prior to boarding the flight to "HEALING HAVEN"

For over three weeks I’ve been using all the dental work as an excuse not to eat…it was an easy and convenient excuse. The dental work is now complete so I’ll need to come up with another excuse to offer up to DH for my food avoidance. I know the real reason I won’t eat…not the ‘psychological self destructive/self-invalidation’ stuff –which I have heard the same phrases uttered over and over throughout the years.... Grace doesn’t eat because Grace doesn’t deserve food and it is another way to punish Grace. Yes, it’s very easy to move from one self-destructive behavior pattern to another. And no one can understand my irrational thought processes and distorted thinking…so I don’t talk about it to anyone IRL.

The strong relationship I have with my friends Ms. Starvation and Ms. Purging (despite not eating) have been around for as long as I can remember. We can be apart for a long time but when I look for them they are never far away. I can easily find them, with their trusty helpers (diet pills, diuretics & laxatives) right by their sides. I haven’t eaten in days and if I feel hungry and I fight that hunger and win – it’s a small victory for me. And the longer I go without eating – the longer I CAN go – if that makes sense.

On Monday, we had an executive visitor in our office and as we usually do, we had lunch catered in for him and the management staff. I sat there, watching everyone eat, but I didn’t eat or drink. Typically people are chit-chatting and being social and no one pays attention to who is eating what, but the manager sitting next to me turned to me and said, “Grace, aren’t you going to eat?” I told her I was cold and I would eat later – and excused myself a few minutes later to take a conference call. I was cold??? Does even make any sense? You can’t eat when you’re cold?

My friend LG and I try to go to lunch together once every couple of weeks, and last week she looked at me directly and said, “You do realize that you’re not fooling me while you sit there and push food around on your plate.” I told her I wasn’t hungry and would take it with me and eat it later. I’m sure she didn’t believe me.

I don't talk about it to people IRL because it isn’t something they understand and even if they were to try to help me, it typically comes out as an invalidating statement which I internalize as, “Grace, you’re being ridiculously stupid and stubborn!” Years ago, in college, I was talking about my eating issues with a friend and she said to me, “Grace, you are starving yourself and there is no reason for it. Just eat 3 meals a day – it’s simple and you can do it.” This advice was uttered to me by a friend who is a recovering alcoholic, and if I were not a compassionate woman, I would have stuck a bottle of grey goose under her nose, and said, “Just have one drink, and only one drink, it’s simple and you can do it.” CLEARLY – you do not understand. It is NOT that simple to fight that part of me who won’t allow food. Food is on the bad list right now. It will not be allowed.

And the thing is…this isn’t something I can talk about with dear therapist. She is maybe 5’2”, small framed and thin (like, Holly Hunter tiny). And as far as I can tell she has always been thin – and has normal eating patterns - How the heck can I sit my fat size 8 ass on her couch and tell her I’m having problems eating when she is no bigger than a bar of soap after a hard days wash!

I feel like I want to just go into hiding. Everyone wants to control everything I do! Can’t I just have that for right now? I haven’t cut myself in over a month ~ I have not had any desire to drink…I’m basically behaving myself – with the exception of some dissociation some nights and the insomnia. Anything else you want to yank away right now? Anything else I should immediately ‘check’ at the gate that is not allowed on the plane to *Healing Haven*? 

I need to control this piece of my life for right now. Can I just have this for now?