creating a safe space

Being home alone is dangerous for me. An eating disorder feeds on secrecy; time alone in my apartment used to mean Ed's time. That association is difficult to break. So, I am slowly relearning how to be healthy while I'm alone.


My apartment has a small loft area. This space had been collecting clutter since Tyler and I moved in. Once in a while it served as a guest room, but mostly it served as storage space. When I came home from residential treatment, I wanted to create a safe place for myself -- somewhere I could go to be calm, alone with my thoughts, and away from danger. While it is still a work in progress, this weekend the space finally became usable. Now, when I'm afraid of falling into disordered behavior, all I have to do is climb the stairs to my safe haven.

Fighting Ed

I've been laying low for almost a week now. I haven't been perfect. I've been depressed, and I've acted out on eating disorder symptoms. I thought that if I wasn't optimistic about my recovery, or moving forward every day, that I shouldn't be posting on this blog. After all, I want to give you hope that recovery is possible. But, the depression hasn't lifted, and the fight against my disorder has continued to intensify. I kept telling myself that I would feel better tomorrow, and I would post about my progress tomorrow. But tomorrow kept turning into today, and I was still depressed. I felt like I was losing the battle, and I didn't want to write about it. But, if this blog is going to help anyone, it has to be honest. And, recovery isn't perfect. There are bad days; there are days when I'll lose a battle. But, losing a battle doesn't mean I've lost the war. So, today, I'm choosing to write about the hard stuff, the times when I haven't felt optimistic about recovery, and the times when I've slipped up. Let me just say this: relapse is not a requirement for recovery. But, for me, lapses have been part of the journey. The important thing is to learn from the mistakes and keep fighting.

Yesterday, I gave in to my eating disorder, but it was different from any other time I have acted on symptoms. Oftentimes, people refer to their eating disorder as "Ed." Before treatment, I thought it was silly to give my disorder a name, a separate identity from myself. But, I've found that it's the best way to describe it. In my head, there are two people: Lily and Ed. For a long time, Ed got to tell me what to do. I didn't know how to stand up to Ed, so I did whatever he suggested. In treatment, I learned techniques for fighting Ed. Now, I know that he is wrong, but knowing that that doesn't always translate into disobeying him. Yesterday, I won the mental battle, but lost the physical one. I knew that Ed was wrong, that I didn't need my eating disorder to cope with depression. But, I did what he said anyway. I was so exhausted from fighting a mental battle, that I didn't do anything to stop Ed from controlling my actions. Looking back, I know I could have won. I could have called someone and asked for help. I think the reason I didn't was that I let myself believe that nothing would make me feel as good as giving in to Ed. Of course, giving in only made me feel worse. Next time I am exhausted from fighting, I will reach out for help. I know now that there will be days when Ed is stronger than I am. On those days, I will call for reinforcement.

"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose." -Mary Shelley

For as long as I can remember, my life has been driven by striving to achieve a greater goal. What that goal is has changed over time, but the process of reaching for something has always kept me moving forward.

For the past 5 years, I have been driven by my dream of a successful career in the magazine industry. I majored in communications, and minored in business, to learn the basics for both editorial and publishing. My summers were spent interning. The summer before my senior year of college, I had an opportunity to work in London. Instead, I interned in New York, one more time, to be certain that I wanted to work in editorial, as opposed to advertising. Within a month of graduating, I had moved to the city and was working as an assistant editor. I loved my job; it was everything I had been working towards.

Then my eating disorder took over, and everything I had been working for came crashing down. I resigned from my job to focus on my health. Now, back from residential treatment, I'm floating. Many of my dreams are the same, but the path I will have to take to reach them is very different. My tendency to live in the future made changes in the present devastating. My future shattered, and my future was the purpose of my present. But, treatment taught me to balance my dreams with my reality. I still need a purpose, but I try to look at unexpected changes as detours, instead of road blocks. Every day, I am doing everything I can to pull myself out of a depression by finding something to reach toward. What I'm reaching for today might change tomorrow, but what matters is that, whatever the goal, it's propelling me towards tomorrow.

i am not a number

Since the day I learned to count, numbers told me how good or bad of a person I was. A 99 percent on a test meant I was one percent less than perfect. Anything below a 4.0 GPA meant I was not as smart as I should be. If the scale showed more than 100 pounds, I was fatter than I should be. There were no shades of grey when it came to evaluating myself--only perfect and imperfect. And I was rarely perfect. If I did reach an ideal number, there was always a new perfect. A 4.0 GPA one semester wasn't good enough, because my cumulative GPA was only 3.8. A 100 on a test was not enough if I missed the extra credit. Or, if there was no extra credit, it only made me a good person that day, not the next. When I reached 100 pounds, all of a sudden only double-digit weights were acceptable.

I don't think I'm completely to blame for my obsession with numbers. For the most part, children are taught that high grades are good, and low grades are bad; that high amounts of fat and calories are bad, and low-fat or low-calorie is good. I learned that above a 1400 on my SATs would give me a shot at the ivy leagues, and that a 1390 meant I just wasn't good enough. (Even my 1460 wasn't good enough for me; it wasn't a 1600). Popular culture has taught me that smaller numbers in some areas of my life, and larger numbers in others, are the key to happiness. Lose 10 pounds. Earn 1 million dollars. Be a size 0. Lower your cholesterol, raise your credit score, then you can be happy.

Not anymore. I will no longer be a slave to numbers. I will be happy with less than perfect. Today, my mission is not to be the right weight, it's to accept who I am with all of my imperfections. There will always be room for improvement, and there is nothing wrong with striving to be better. But, I've realized that there is no such thing as perfect in an imperfect world. And, if there was, I wouldn't want to be it.

table for two

Brunch used to be my favorite part of the weekend. It was summer. My best friend, Tyler, my puppy, Mars, and I would walk down Columbus to our favorite spot. We would grab a table on the sidewalk, get a bowl of water for Mars, and light up a couple of cigarettes. Mars and I always had the same thing. I would get eggs benedict with the ham on the side--eggs for me, ham for Mars. Our weekend tradition made Sunday my favorite day of the week.

But, meals were never just meals for me. They were a battleground. Eating disorders are perpetuated by a basic cycle: restrict, binge, purge. How much of my meal could I eat without gaining weight? How much was a binge? Did I need to purge, or would I just restrict later in the day? Although I loved sitting outside, soaking up the sun and sharing a meal with Tyler and Mars, my mind was never really there. I was in my own prison, barred off from the rest of the world, deciding what this meal would do to me, what I would let it do, how I could fight it, and how I would win. I loved the tradition and the time spent with my little family, but I didn't enjoy the meal. I was happy that Tyler and Mars got to have brunch, and I got to be there to watch.

This morning, for the first time since I've been in recovery, Tyler suggested we go to brunch. My initial response was that I would be happy to go sit with him and drink coffee, but that I needed to eat my normal breakfast at home. Then I took a stand against my disorder. I can eat a well-balanced meal wherever I am. It is the knowledge of how to feed myself that protects me; it's not eating "safe" foods out of marked containers in my kitchen that keeps my disease from being in control. So, we went. As we walked down Columbus, I thought about what I would order. A bagel, cream cheese and some fruit. None of the foods would be mixed so I would know exactly how much of what I was eating, and it would be the same as eating at home.

We sat down. I saw something that caught my eye. I hadn't been planning on having a sandwich. I had figured out my meal already, before we even left our apartment. Eating disorders leave no room for spontaneity; but, recovery does. I enjoyed a chicken, avocado, bacon and green bean sandwich. It was exactly what I wanted, because I chose it in the moment. I couldn't tell you exactly how many ounces of chicken were in it, whether it was exactly 1/8 of an avocado, or more, or how many carbohydrates were in the bread. But, I can tell you that for the first time I can remember, I truly enjoyed brunch.

had a bad day again

The nature of bipolar disorder is that the good is followed by the equally bad, or worse. But the biggest struggle is not the ups and downs, it's knowing, while I'm feeling on top of the world, that I am being set up for a debilitating crash. The cycle is predictable and completely out of my control. Medication can soften the fall to some extent, but pharmaceuticals cannot change my brain chemistry. I am, and always will be, manic-depressive.

Last night, a friend said to me, "There will always be bad days. But, that's today. Tomorrow could be a good day again." One of the most difficult aspects of depression is the lack of perspective. When I am in a low, I often feel that I will never be happy again. The ability to recognize that the storms will end as abruptly as they set in is what allows me to weather them. No one can survive utter hopelessness forever; but, knowing that it's not forever is what allows me to survive.

look both ways

Since childhood, I have had trouble accepting the existence of a Higher Power. I have always had a logical and factual approach to the world, sometimes to a fault. Although I realize that humans are not capable of hearing, seeing or understanding all things, the concept of a God has never resonated with me. I have, however, grown to accept the power of positive and negative energy--in a word, karma. I have experienced the difference between exuding positive or negative energy in my every day life. When I "get out on the wrong side of the bed," it's because I allow difficulties early on to destroy my perception of the rest of the day. Today could have easily been one of those days.


In a rush this morning, my wallet fell to the floor of the cab I was riding in. Before I realized it was missing, the cab was long gone. Already late to a 9 o'clock appointment, I panicked. What could I do? Not much. I filed a lost property report with the city, cancelled my credit card, froze my bank account and kept breathing. At this moment, I had a decision to make. I could catastrophize--"I lost my wallet, everything of value, my life, and certainly my day, is ruined." Or, I could accept the situation and move forward.

I know that I cannot control my world. But, I have total control over how I respond to it. You know the phrase, "let go and let God?" Well, God or not, I let go. I certainly didn't hope for the best, but I didn't waste energy expecting the worst either. Proving that there are good people in the world, despite an economic recession, my wallet was returned with everything, including cash, in it (less than 8 hours later!). I still have a hard time believing that my positive energy, and the prayers of others, were the reason my wallet was returned. But, by accepting that I could not predict or alter the outcome of this situation by obsessing and panicking, I enjoyed my day and got my wallet back.

Higher Power or not, I'll be checking the seat and floor of every cab I ride in from now on.