I remember when I was first suggested to go to a treatment center for eating disorders. I laughed at my therapist. I’m fine, I continued to reason with myself. It’ll get better on it’s own.

Fun fact: It didn’t. It got worse. Two months into treatment, I can finally see that.

I thought my eating disorder started less than a year ago. Well, that’s a big fat lie. It started so long ago, so slightly, that I barely noticed. And it has just continued to creep into my life until it reached hurricane status, category 5. Now I feel trapped in a house that’s flooding faster than I can get the water out.

When my disorder became more acute last year I went to doctors who listened to my eating disorder symptoms and chose to focus on other things, or tell me that I “really should eat more” and let me walk out of their office and back into my disorder world. Even the first time I saw a dietician, she told me she would rather focus on my GI distress rather than the fact that I admitted to only eating goldfish and vitamin water for the last few months. It was like I was being reinforced by my doctors because of their ignorance about eating disorders. It wasn’t until I mentioned it to my new therapist here in San Diego that I even realized how severe this was. I figured I was just going through something and I would snap out of it eventually. Meanwhile, my body was lacking essential nutrients, my anxiety and depression worsened, and my bone density decreased.

So now, I sit in program every day and have to confront my fears. I have to nourish my body. My wise mind would never tell me to starve myself. It would never trick me into thinking food was not safe. But Sasha, my personified emotion mind, likes to tell me differently.

I am in a constant battle with myself to stay afloat, to keep making progress. But just as quickly as I progress, I sink again. I never thought I would be here. I certainly didn’t think I would be two months into treatment and still struggle every day to eat three meals. Seeing what proper nutrition is- what people who don’t have eating disorders eat- I’m in shock. I have had this disorder for so long without knowing it. Which is why this recovery process has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And let me tell you, I’ve been through some shit in my life. Nothing tops this. I thought it would be smooth sailing. I thought I’d be in and out of treatment in a month. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be wrong.

Even on my worst days, when I have behavior after behavior outside of program, when I can’t complete any of my meals for the day, I somehow see the tiniest sliver of what life could be like outside of this never-ending hurricane. The rain will die down, the destruction will stop, and the rainbow will appear. I don’t know when that will be. On my worst days I can barely tell myself that it will ever stop. It’s just the smallest sliver of light peaking through the wind and clouds. But I know that it has to stop. I just have to keep fighting. As hard as it is, as scared as I am to keep facing my fears and exposing myself to the things that brought me into an eating disorder center in the first place, I have to keep fighting.

I’m scared every day. I’m anxious every day. I fight every day. And I certainly never thought I would be writing this post.

But here I am, sharing my story. Because I want anyone who is reading this that struggles with an eating disorder to know that you are not alone. Treatment has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I know it will be one of the best. You can fight alongside me. Because I can’t stop. I have to fight for my future. For my family to have a healthy daughter, sister, cousin, niece. For my friends to have someone they can invite over for pizza or takeout and a movie. For myself, so I don’t have to limit my dreams.

In the middle of my day at the Del Mar Dog Beach (yes, that is a thing and it is glorious), my friend’s dog Scout (on the left) who is a bit shy, finally got up to explore a few feet from our towels after a couple hours of hiding behind his mom. A few minutes in, another dog approached, but maintained some distance. They looked at each other and then both laid down at the same time. They made eye contact for a while and then accepted each others’ presence, and just lay there enjoying the beach. Pelicans flew overhead, waves lapped, and dogs ran around us, playing with their owners or other dogs. Two shy dogs, putting themselves outside of their comfort zone.

This day reminded me of my long term goals. One of them is to be able to afford a dog of my own, that I can take to the dog beach and watch socialize and put himself out of his comfort zone to make new dog friends and get the full dog beach experience. In order to do that, I need to put myself outside of my comfort zone in treatment and work hard to take back control from my ED.

My future dog depends on it.

Food is everywhere

On Facebook, Instagram, TV

I scroll past it daily

Recipes, photos, how-to videos

Each time a small reminder that

My relationship with food is

different

I am bound by my eating disorder

It consumes me

Even when I will it not to

I hope someday I will scroll through my feed

And not cringe

Recovery road is longer

than I ever expected it to be

I can see no end

Only a dot on the horizon

Yet I keep walking

Each step brings hope I absorb

Like the sun’s rays

Allow me to share a brief lesson in DBT, aka Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I’m pretty well-versed in this modality, mostly because in both treatment programs I’ve been in for various mental health concerns, this is what I was taught.

So, all of us have three states of mind: Reason Mind, Emotion Mind, and Wise Mind. 

Reason Mind is where your logic lies; all of your objectivity, fact-based thoughts/evidence resides here. As you can imagine, Emotion Mind is on the other end of the spectrum- it’s the part of you that hold all of your emotions, your gut instincts, your subjectivity. And finally, Wise Mind is the intersection of both Emotion and Reason Minds. This is the headspace you should primarily reside in, though not completely. When making a decision about moving to a new city or selecting the college you will attend, maybe your Reason Mind takes the reins a bit. When you’re working on a passion project that you’re excited about, your Emotion Mind might jump in. The thing is, if you spend all of your time living in Emotion Mind, you become mood dependent, impulsive, or reactive. Same with primarily being in Reason Mind, you might be disconnected in relationships, be more rigid, or ignore your feelings.

Wise Mind is where you get your intuition. It’s the happy medium where you are the most aware and effective. For folks with mental health struggles- and even those without- Wise Mind can be particularly difficult to access. Wise Mind was first described to me as being deep in a well. And that well is full of trauma, grief, financial stress, relationship struggles, etc. so your Wise Mind is harder to access. And sometimes, using your Wise Mind doesn’t always feel good initially. At the same time, it’s usually the most effective, even if your Emotion Mind tells you it’s not.

This is also tricky because your Emotion Mind is really good at impersonating your Wise Mind. It thinks it’s telling you what you need to hear, when really it’s just telling you what you want to hear. In the end, your Emotion Mind tricking you into thinking it’s your Wise Mind is more reactive than responsive. I had a therapist who helped me with this a while back. She said, “Your wise mind would never tell you to hurt yourself.” Boom. Life changed.

Now, with the lesson out of the way, I wanted to share a bit about my personal journey with the three states of mind. As many artists tend to do, I often reside more in Emotion Mind. She’s a sly one, that Emotion Mind. And she’s gotten so used to being in my head, she set up her own personal bedroom there. Because of this, I personified her, to help myself separate my Emotion Mind from my Wise Mind.

Her name is Sasha. She’s a badass- usually dressed in black with long dark hair, with sass and swag that goes on for miles. Sasha often thinks she is protecting me, or caring for me, when in actuality, she’s creating unhealthy coping habits, difficulty managing mood, and dependency upon things like perfectionism and people-pleasing. In fact, Sasha had a pretty good handle on me tonight; I almost didn’t write a post for today. She told me that no one cared what I had to say, and staying in bed with Netflix was the best thing for me. It took me a while to realize it was her. She loves disguises, that one.

So, here I am, telling Sasha to go back to her bedroom and knit herself a sweater, because I’ve got a life that’s worth living, and a blog that I’m excited about.

Our brains are pretty wild, as are our emotions. Now that I’ve identified Sasha, she’s become a bit easier to spot. And if all else fails, I can always remind myself that my Wise Mind would never tell me to hurt myself. In whatever capacity that may be.

Thanks for trying to protect me, Sasha. But I got this.

I have grown up in a constant state of change. My family moved a lot, so I was forced to adapt to a new city, school, and home every few years. Many people often express pity or apologize that I had to move around so often, but I actually enjoyed it. I got to start fresh, meet new people, and experience more of this country. Not to mention, it gave me a lot of skills that I still use in my professional and personal life.

Whenever I moved, I made friends quickly- another skill, I suppose. (Or perhaps just luck.) It helped that I was usually in school, so finding new friends was easier because I was always surrounded by people my own age. Then, when I moved to Los Angeles after graduation, I got lucky; I moved in to a co-op- an intentional community- where I shared a house with roughly twenty people. The Technicolor Tree Tribe was everything I needed after moving across the country on my own. I had built in friends that I happened to live with! And I loved each and every one of them. They quickly became my family. And once I started working, I had friends outside of my house, as well.

Flash forward to about six months ago, when I accepted a new job and moved from LA to San Diego. Suddenly, my world turned upside down. Everything I had once relied on to find friends no longer worked for me. I became friends with my roommate pretty quickly, but aside from that, I was having a tough time. I have been lucky to grow up with a handful of close friends in every city I’ve moved to. Now I felt empty. Alone. Lonely.

I realized I had never dealt with loneliness like this before. And when I started treatment, I stopped working as much; limiting my opportunities to make friends. Now that I’ve got the feeling of loneliness more or less sorted, I’m not quite sure what to do. How do adults make friends in new places? I have mad respect for my parents, who had to face this every time they moved us to a new place.

In some ways it’s nice, a fresh start. And I’ve learned who I am, and have stayed true to myself throughout all of these transitions. There was no “new city, new me” mentality…I always ended up being who I was, regardless of what a new setting meant. But now that I’m older and no longer in school, I don’t really understand how to do this.

There’s a lot of shame that I experience when I see the friends I graduated with making new friends in their respective cities. I often wonder what I’m doing wrong that I can’t seem to figure it out. And of course, challenging my perfectionism because it isn’t simply black or white.

I love San Diego. More than I thought I would. But the move was harder than I ever imagined. And the loneliness makes it that much harder. I’m very fortunate with the friends I have made in San Diego, and for the friends in LA who supported and encouraged me to pursue my dreams and take the leap down here. Life isn’t completely horrible because I’m lonely. It hurts sometimes, and not so much other times. After all, San Diego is not a bad place to be lonely…

If anyone reading this can relate, or can offer advice on how you made friends in new places, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment or send me a message. 🙂

Happy Monday, everyone!

I wanted to give a preface to what I’ll be doing every Monday on this blog: #MentalHealthMonday! Every Monday I will be exploring/sharing my relationship with mental health.

Why would I do this? Who really cares about my mental health? Good question, Interwebs! I am a huge believer in ending the stigma that surrounds mental health. I’m tired of keeping it hushed up when it plays such a major role in my life. And I hope that by discussing it openly, I can encourage others to seek help and know that progress is possible. I’m living proof.

Mental health is just like any other illness. We need to start treating it as such. I am not any less of a person because of my anxiety or depression. In fact, I think I’m so much more. If you are struggling with mental health too, you are not alone. Even if you think your symptoms are 100% unique…I promise you, they’re probably not. I felt alone for a long time until I realized that so many people have experienced the exact same things that I do. So, welcome to the club!

If there are any particular topics you’d like me to try and tackle, or have a question about the things I bring up in these posts, leave me a comment or send me a message via my Contact page. This invitation extends to all #MentalHealthMonday posts.

Stay tuned for my first post next Monday! Meanwhile, feel free to check out my other posts- I’m here every day.

-K

You led an extraordinary life.

You wrote poems

travelled the world

listened to music

cut your hair

found yourself

lost yourself

found yourself again.

I don’t remember the last time I saw you in person.

The last time we touched, hugged, smiled at one another.

I watched from afar for years.

I watched you run away from home

and prayed with your family for your safe return.

I watched you come home.

I saw the love radiate from your sisters and mother.

I watched you get injured

by a drunk driver running a red light

and prayed with your family for healing.

I watched you fight through your pain

and recover.

I watched you soar,

express opinions,

create art, theatre, photography.

I watched you for years on my 13 inch computer screen

smiling at your accomplishments and

passion for life.

I wish I had watched the real picture.

I watched your sister post about your death.

And prayed with your family for peace and love and guidance.

I wish I could keep watching you.

I wish I could tell you about all of the memories that came flooding back

the moment I heard the news.

Swimming at the pool together.

Making homemade pizzas together

with olives on our fingers.

Playing in the teepee the neighbor donated

for our sleepovers.

Sitting on the sanctuary steps

listening to the children’s message.

The memories tend to blur.

We both have lived a long life,

experienced so much in the years since our last sleepover together.

We didn’t know what direction our lives would take then.

We didn’t know where we would be a year ago,

a month ago,

five days ago…

I wish I had known.

I wish I had held onto you a little tighter.

I wish I hadn’t just watched through the 13 inch screen.

I wish I had talked to you more than twice in the last three years.

I wish I had told you I loved you more.

I wish I had told you how enough you were.

I wish you didn’t feel so much pain.

I wish your family didn’t feel so much pain.

I wish I didn’t feel so much pain.

I wish I could turn back time.

To laugh with you again

with olives on our fingers.

To dream with you again

under the red fabric of the teepee.

To learn with you again

on the steps of the sanctuary.

I miss you so much.

I’ve missed you for a while.

I’m sorry for that.

But I hope you made the right decision

for you.

I hope heaven is full of every happy memory you had in your 22 years.

I hope you no longer hurt.

I hope you have found a sense of calm

a sense of peace.

I hope you are smiling down on your family

warming their souls with thoughts of you

floating through the sky

an angel.

I hope you can see how many people miss you.

You are in my thoughts every day now.

I love you.

 

for Jessica Ellen Hartweg