Eating Disorder Movies: Triggering?

"I'm sorry that I'm not a person anymore, I'm a problem"
-Ellen, To the Bone

Fuck Hollywood's portrayal of eating disorders. The tiny, rail-thin girl who has been to in-patient multiple time and still isn't better. The girl who somehow makes bone-thin look pretty and finds "romance" while she's at the hospital. Fuck that. That's exactly why people with actual eating disorders feel like even bigger failures than before.

"I'm not that skinny..."= I'm not good enough at having an eating disorder.

"I've never been to inpatient..."= I must not really be sick.

"He fell in love with her while she was still sick/in inpatient..."= Being sick is attractive.



I get it though. You can't make a movie factual AND interesting. You've got to keep the viewer hooked so why not add a star-crossed romance in there? Hmm...movie about anorexia? Edgy girl thinks she's fat so doesn't eat...let's have her go to inpatient, make some friends, maybe throw in a boy and then BAM! she starts trying new things and, oh my lanta, actually eats something!, then she relapses but ultimately at the end, she returns to recovery! OH BOY! Fuck that.

Yes, there are definitely truths in these movies. Everybody's eating disorder story is insanely different and unique and seeing the same portrayal over and over again is toxic. You might say, "Then why do you watch them?" Why do you think? It's entirely sick, but we watch them to get ideas. Ideas on how to be "better at being sick." Do you think those disclaimers they show at the beginning are going to deter us from watching? No..if anything, it reinforces the need to watch.

While I obviously completely support getting eating disorder stories, and all mental health stories, out there, I also think they should be done right. That being said...I don't think there's any way to portray any mental health story, especially one about eating disorders, without it being triggering in some way to someone.

Why I Hate Thanksgiving

November 22nd: "Don't eat all day so you can eat tomorrow."

November 23rd, Morning: "Workout for hours so you burn off the calories before you eat them."

November 23rd, Dinner: "How many calories are there in turkey? Bite. Chew. Swallow. Did they use butter in the potatoes? Bite. Chew. Swallow. Why is everyone watching me eat...? Bite. Chew. Swallow. Will they notice if I go to the bathroom after we eat? Bite. Chew. Swallow."

November 24th: "Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. How could you be so weak? It doesn't matter if it was a holiday. So what? You're weak. You gave in and ate. Failure. Fat. Fat. Fat."

Thanksgiving is the hardest holiday for someone with an eating disorder. A holiday revolving around food? Our worst nightmare. You'll go back and forth between guilt and defiance. "I can't eat." "It's a holiday and I'm with my family. I'll eat." "These potatoes are full of butter and carbs." "It's one day a year, I'll be fine." You become stuck in this circuit until you're mentally exhausted. 

And the jokes don't help. "I'm going to have to unbutton my pants after this meal." Why would you ever eat that much? How can you eat that much? "I'm not going to have to eat for a week after this." Ha. Ha. Jokes about restricting are so funny. 

The thing you don't understand is that we've spent weeks, months even, preparing for the emotional turmoil that is the holiday season. So much food and having to eat it in FRONT of people? The constant thought that people are judging your every bite. The questions. "How can you eat potatoes without extra butter?" "You don't want dressing on your salad? Ew." "That's all you're eating?!" 

Please, just take into account that Thanksgiving and huge meals are an insanely tough time for some of us, no matter what stage of recovery we're in. Holidays are hard even for "fully recovered" eating disordered people (I put "fully recovered" in quotes because I don't believe this to be possible). 

Happy Holidays Everyone!!

"I'm Fine..."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm fine."

I've said before that "I'm sorry" is my catchphrase. If so, my second catchphrase would be "I'm fine." I don't like to talk about myself, and more importantly, I don't like to talk about my feelings. This is not a good trait considering last night I nearly had a mental break down regarding the stress that comes with juggling three jobs. I was freaking out and cried multiple times, harder than anyone should cry because of any job. But the thing is I don't believe I was freaking out solely because of the jobs. Most the time when I cry or have these breakdowns, it's little things that have built up over time from feelings that I don't allow myself to feel. I don't allow myself to feel these feelings because, "I'm fine."

The funny thing is that I could spend hours listening to other people tell me about their problems and feelings and be perfectly fine with it and want to help them in any way that I can. But if I spend one minute talking about my feelings to someone, I immediately feel guilty, like I'm taking up their time or that I am a burden and then I apologize profusely and quit talking. I normally end a sentence about myself with, "I'm sorry for talking about myself so much. It's no big deal. I'm fine." I'm not sure what made me this way or why I feel the need to apologize for having emotions. I just don't want other people to have to worry about me or my problems when I should be able to handle them myself. I shouldn't need help with my emotions. I should be able to control them and I should be able to fix myself. I don't know if "fix" is the right word, but it's the only word I can think of right now. The problem with all of this is, like I said earlier, when I tell other people that I'm fine, I'm mostly trying to convince myself of that and in doing that, I don't allow myself to feel the emotions that I should be feeling. This is where the trouble starts. This is with the emotions start to accumulate behind this dam I've built in my brain until the cracks start leaking and the dam finally breaks and what happened last night happens again. 

In group therapy, my therapist used to give us hand-outs on "mindfulness" and "distress tolerance," etc. One of them was called "Cheerleading Statements for Interpersonal Effectiveness," which I thought was incredibly stupid at the time, but now I kind of get it. Two of the statements it lists are:

1. It's OK to want or need something from someone else.

2. Giving, giving, giving is not the be-all of life. I am an important person in this world, too.

These are two statements that I have been trying to frame my life around. I am important too. I am not a waste of space. I am not a burden. I deserve help too.

I'm so mad...

I'm mad.

Pissed.

Frustrated.

Angry. 

Furious.

Mad that I've wasted more than half my life stuck in the grip of ED (eating disorder). I'm always going to wonder how my life would have gone if I hadn't been preoccupied with my eating disorder, and I don't just mean food or weight. I mean that I was preoccupied with being perfect, not taking up too much space, not being a burden...

I wanted to share a journal entry I wrote my senior year of college (about two years ago) after a particularly important group therapy session.

"I'm just so angry. It's as if all of the anger that I've never felt is building up and radiating out of me now. I've never been able to feel angry without feeling guilty about it or feeling like a bad person for being angry. Now that I know what I'm really angry at, it makes it so much easier and honestly, my anger is just picking up momentum. I'm mad at ED for affecting so many people, and I'm mad at him for affecting me and stealing a huge portion of my life that I can't ever get back. I'm mad that he is still affecting me now and that he's probably always going to affect me. I'm mad that people on the outside just don't understand what it's like to deal with ED and there's no way to explain it to them. Honestly, maybe they don't think that way and I'm furious because ED makes me believe that there's no hope. I'm pissed as hell that ED has made me despise myself. I'm pissed that I can't see a reflection of myself without feeling disgusted and I can't see another girl without comparing myself to her or him for that matter. I'm pissed that I can't focus in class. while studying, while I'm with my friends, or while I do anything without thinking about my self-hatred. This is not a life to lead, a life full of anger and self-hatred, of something so unbelievably hard to control and I'm the most angry that it chose me. Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Am I really that bad of a person? That weak that ED saw me and picked me? What did I do wrong?"

It's so easy to be angry at yourself for feeling the way that you do, but remember, it's not you. Get angry at ED. Get angry at your anxiety. Get angry at your depression. NOT at yourself.

"But you don't SEEM like you have social anxiety..."

"You have social anxiety?" 

"Yeah right, you talk so much and are so friendly." 

*Insert eye roll here.*

The truth? I do, in fact, have social anxiety along with the slew of other mental problems. The reason you can't tell that I have social anxiety is partly because I've been taking medication for it since I was 19. That makes five years of taking medication for my social anxiety as well as going to both group and individual therapy. 

Not only does the medication I take help, having social anxiety does not technically mean that you can't speak to people. It means that it's more stressful for you to speak to people or that you over analyze a lot of interactions more than normal people do. So just because I don't seem like I have social anxiety on the outside, doesn't mean that my brain isn't going crazy thinking of all the different scenarios that could go wrong with said interaction.

I read somewhere once that extroverts become energized by social interactions and introverts have their energy drained by social interaction. This makes total sense to me as someone who has social anxiety (which usually means you're introverted). There are times where I need a night or a whole day alone just to recharge my brain. And when I say alone, I mean alone. No friends, no boyfriends, no parents-- alone, where I can just sit and do whatever I want. I can watch Criminal Minds, go on Tumblr and just recharge. Now wanting to be alone isn't because I don't want to be with these people or because I don't like spending time with them, it's purely because for my brain to function properly, I need this time to recharge. 

It's very easy to assume that people don't have mental disorders because they don't act in the typical ways associated with that disorder. Just remember that, that's the point. They don't want you to know that they have a problem and they've probably been working their way to this point for a while. They may be on medication that helps with the disorder or have been going to therapy to help with it. Remember, don't assume, because it just makes and "ass" out of "u" and "me". 😉

John Mulaney talking about having social anxiety is everything:

Sorry...

"Sorry,"

is probably the most used word in my vocabulary. I've even had people tell me that it's my catchphrase. I will apologize for anything and everything, but why? Why do I feel the need to say sorry so much? 

If I talk about myself too much to someone, I say sorry. If I accidentally bump into someone, I say sorry...at least five times. If someone trips while they're walking next to me, even though I did nothing, I say sorry. My favorite is when I apologize for apologizing too much. "I'm sorry I said sorry so much." Yes, this really is something I do very frequently. It's almost a compulsion at this point. One time, when I was a junior in college, I accidentally cut off a mini-van while getting onto the interstate and they honked while zooming around me. I still remember exactly where it happened and the guilt wracked my body and how I wished there was some way to find them and tell them, you guessed it, that I was sorry.

I still haven't figured out what it is that compels me to apologize for everything, but I also know it's not uncommon, especially among females. Some people say that females apologize more than males because they're oppressed and blah, blah, blah (while yes, I am an extreme feminist, I don't want to go into this in this post. If you want to know more, read this). While this may be true, it definitely isn't the whole reason. I've found that I apologize the most when I feel as though I'm being "too much." When I talk too much about myself. When I praise myself or speak about my accomplishments. When I tell someone about my problems, especially when I tell people about my problems. I feel guilty for putting my problems on them when I should be able to handle them myself. 

I still haven't figured out why I feel the need to apologize for just being myself. Sometimes I believe it's because I was called annoying as a kid and I don't want to be annoying. Sometimes I just don't want to be a burden to someone. I tend to live by the mentality that I want others to let me help them with their problems but I'll be damned if I burden someone with mine (I guess that's what I get for being a Cancer). And sometimes I just genuinely feel guilty for whatever it is that happened, even if it is out of my control. 

The funniest part about this whole post is that every time I post a new blog post on any of my social media outlets, I feel the need to apologize for...I don't even know...clogging up your news feeds with my posts? Who knows...but...I'm sorry. 

PS: This is one of my favorite poems by Tyler Ford. It hits very close to home...

"Coming Out": Mental Disorders

Trusting someone enough to tell them that you have a mental illness is one of the most difficult things to do. There's always that fear that they'll think you're crazy or that they'll tell you to just "get over it." So, you keep quiet and go on believing you're in this alone until it eats you alive. Let me be the 10,000th person to tell you, YOU'RE NOT ALONE. I know, I know, it's the most cliche statement and has been drilled into all of us, but it's true. You'll realize this once you start sharing your problems with people you trust...or in my case, the entire internet. Just recently I've been told by people I love and have known my whole life about the troubles they have with mental health that I didn't know were happening. It makes me so sad that they have had to go through it but it also brings me comfort to know that mental illness is NORMAL. 

"Coming out" with your mental illness to your family or friends is a really difficult task and sometimes, depending on the illness, impossible. I know that for me, texting, emails, or notes were the easiest and probably the only way I could have told the ones I love about my problems. Most of the time, I am not able to talk about my problems with anyone. Now, when I say I'm "not able," I mean the words in my brain refuse to work their way out of my mouth. It's as if there's a shield blocking them from being spoken. So, I turned to writing and it has worked the best for me. 

The first person I told about anything was my mom. For me, this was the most obvious choice because she's my best friend. Even then, I told her by text message. I was a sophomore in college and writing my 10th journal entry about how I really wanted to start therapy when I thought, "instead of writing this over and over I should do something about it." So I texted her and told her what was going on. The next week I had a session with my first therapist. Now obviously, telling someone about this stuff isn't always going to go 100% okay, there are some people out there who still think it's all "no big deal" and you can just "get over it." But I'm telling you, a majority of people will understand and want to help you out.

I told my dad by email and he let me know that, while he doesn't understand mental illness, he was still there for me. I didn't have to tell some of my friends, they just knew and understood. My best friend has always just somehow understood that this is the way I am and has loved me anyways...I don't thank her enough for that. I told my college boyfriend about it all by writing him a long note and hiding it in his backpack. When he found it, he sent me the sweetest message about how it doesn't change who I am and that's something I think is really important. Your mental illness doesn't change who you are. You're still you. 

No matter what you're going through; anxiety, OCD, depression, an eating disorder, etc., you're still YOU. Although, mental illness will always be there to tell you that you're alone in this, at the end of the day, the people that actually care about you won't care what kind of crazy shit is going on in your brain, they'll just be there to love and support you no matter what.