Does anyone want to know about the Resurrection Plant?

Well if you do, you might not get much from this post. However, to make up for that disappointment, I send gracious greetings to any reader out there, and I also express my wish that in future, the references to viruses and pandemics hereunder seem really, REALLY dated.

The Resurrection Plant, Selaginella Lepidophylla.

This botanical mystery popped into my head just recently, because I was thinking about viruses, which led me to thinking about biology, which led me to thinking about general science, which led me to considering my scientific ignorance, which led me then to recall my history with science classes, which led me, at last, to a failed experiment I once performed, involving a “resurrection plant.”

Despite the failure of the experiment, the plant itself still fascinates me. Here’s the story of my encounter with the plant:

In order to boost our college resumes and overall academic glory, teachers in my high school encouraged extracurricular science experiments, projects that we undertook with local college professors in their laboratories. I was a junior in high school when my chemistry teacher brought up this idea – more like an urgent proposition – to the class. Being academically competitive and worried (naturally) about getting into an Ivy League school the following year, I opted for the experiment. Vanderbilt University offered a program allowing high schoolers to work with professors after-hours on individual experiments. When a student signed up for the work, the University assigned the student to a professor. I do not remember naming a preference for what type of science I would study. I think the University assigned projects randomly.

Whether or not my memory has correctly construed the selection process, today I recall that I received an assignment and thought to myself, back then, “Ehh…”

In general, up to that point, I had not liked science class (of any type) all that much. Freshman year, science class consisted of biology, which had culminated in frog dissection, which had culminated in the dissolution of all my hopes for a future in medicine. Sophomore year – I cannot even remember the required science course, which speaks volumes about my interest in and aptitude for science.

However, Junior year, I definitely remember, consisted of Advanced Placement chemistry. I felt no chemistry with chemistry. Elements, atoms, electrons jumping from shell to shell, equations resulting in solids and liquids and unknowns, experiments involving beakers and toxic matter. Please. Plus, chemistry class that year took place right after lunch. The timing of class was tricky for me, because it occurred 1) later in the day, past my point of exhaustion; 2) after eating my rice cakes, yes, but I was still hungry and thinking about food; 3) at a point when my irritability spiked, on all fronts: anorexia anxiety, restriction regrets, and physical weariness.

Anyway, my assignment at Vanderbilt hooked me up with Dr. Eichmeier. I do not remember his first name, but his last name provides enough information. Dr. Eichmeier’s specialty was [drumroll]: BIOCHEMISTRY! Great. Let’s combine my two least-favorite sciences shall we?

I met with the professor after school ended – somewhere around 4 p.m. – on the University campus. These meetings, to my (again, possibly faulty) recollection, abounded with misery of a lighter sort – hunger on my end, big-time; anxiety on my end, big-time (I wanted to appear smart and from the first moment, this appearance vaporized); discomfort on my end, big-time (I equate slightly off-scent labs with gyms; the two indoor spaces conflate in my head, resulting in overall unease)…etc. I cannot tell you the professor’s point of view, but I assume we both agreed about my overall inaptitude for science.

Dr. Eichmeier at least tried to run an experiment with me, even though I could tell he could tell I had a malfunctioning central nervous system, as well as confusion over what the hell we were doing.

Whatever the case, I remember the gist of what we attempted to do. Eichmeier had a stash of these plants collected from the Southwestern United States, little tumbleweed-type things that look just like that: desiccated, dead weeds all jumbled up into a ball. However, if one immerses the plant in water (the ball has a sort of base on it, but the base is dry and dusty, too), after a few hours, the ball blooms into a green-leafed plant that, when removed from the water and set face-up, resembles a verdant saucer made of leaves. Quite pretty – symmetric rows of lacy leaves spiraling out to the edges.

The plant could exist in the desiccated state for years, and one could assume that after a while, it would actually die. But no matter how many plants Eichmeier (and other scientists) collected, each  plant opened up after submersion in water. When drying out, the plant produced a sugar called trehalose, which combated the salts in the plant as the water drained away. So, in essence, to withstand a long period of drought, the plant made its own sugar.

Eichmeier’s question: he wanted to study the metabolic activity of this thing while in an activated, hydrated state, to discover ways in which the plant might use its own sustenance and stay alive so long without environmental nourishment.

Our experiment: to take samples of the green leaves and run them through assays and see what happened. (Something like that.)

The result: a negative number, which of course made no sense and reflected the fact that I had no idea what I was doing, and therefore had not run proper assays. I remember Dr. Eichimeier scratching his goatee and saying, “Well, we could try another assay.” Yet after weeks of working on this project, in the peculiar-smelling, cramped lab, I told the professor, “No, that’s okay.”

End of the story: I did not enter a science fair that year; I won no academic accolades. I hypothesize (a very scientific action on my part, ha) that I simply did not put my “all” into the experiment because I did not have an “all”; I was starving.

What can we extrapolate from this set of circumstances?

As for the plant: go with the obvious. After submersion in nutrition (the water activates the trehalose and good things happen), the plant flourishes. Full-stop. And I mean FULL SUBMERSION in nutrition for a while. As long as it takes.

As for the experiment: I cannot function properly in life without full energy. I do not care how much you may have accomplished on half the fuel you needed – you could have done it all much better, much more happily, if you had eaten properly throughout the work. In its desiccated state, the plant looks like dead debris. In its hydrated state, when metabolism and photosynthesis have reached maximum function, the plant looks pretty, and a whole lot more content.

As for the metaphor in general: humans are not plants, and we do not thrive in deserts without ample resources. Therefore, when I set off for the metaphorical desert of “eating disorder,” I went where I did not belong, and where I could not fully live. I took that route in the deserted direction because I was afraid of fully living. Yet, I had misunderstood what “fully living” means – I had not considered that I could fully live however I wanted (not as anyone else asked of me) if I gave up restriction.

If those of us in recovery from eating disorders really want to turn the tables on weight, why not put weight on a turntable?

Consider the following: Anorexia and Fear of Weight Gain invade a life like Brain Epstein and The Beatles stormed the world of music. (No offense to The Beatles.) Once upon a time, the Anorexia Management Group detected a blockbuster future in the fledgling fear (i.e., of weight gain) that pervades all of humanity, and together, the two have created classic hits that shape (bad pun) existence.

Anorexia will work with any act available (because of a healthy, ahem, success-rate fueled by the ever-popular Fear of Weight Gain), so I signed on as a wannabe in 1979. In order to attain any kind of success, I had to follow the Anorexia Management Plan, which included fan-worship of Fear of Weight Gain. I did not question this requirement, as I already idolized Fear of Weight Gain. In fact, by that time, Weight-Gain Phobia looped constantly through my personal headset. And since that time, Fear of Weight Gain melodies have spun through my consciousness in a variety of genres.

Anorexia, being an opportunistic manager, oversaw my personal fear of weight gain in many ways. At one point in my life, when I was around 23 years old, Anorexia would allow me to withstand weight gain only on condition that my treatment providers lower my meal plan when I reached a certain number (no pun intended) that was well-below the “healthy BMI [not the record company, but an apt association, nevertheless]” range. In that particular instance, my treatment providers agreed with the demands, and my life revolved around that magic number (sorry, again, no pun) for the next five years. The process of getting to that number (all right, pun intended) from a much lower number, involved a lot of drama and a lot of compulsive movement to slow or contain the process, but ultimately, I “hit” that magic number. I had great motivation to do so: my family had decided to let me attend Stanford University on condition that I gained to that (ridiculously low-frequency) weight. Anorexia huffed a bit about all of this – the treatment and the (pitiful) weight gain – but the disease also had big plans for me in Cali, home of many (Anorexia-managed) celebrities.

I remember attending Stanford at that “goal” weight and feeling a tad odd – feeling as if I looked “normal,” and therefore no one would know I came from a proud history of eating disorder. As sarcastic as that last sentence sounds, I realize that the odd feeling arose from my desire to be special, a star – a status which anorexia demanded of me. Not looking the part proved disappointing, even though I probably looked the part just fine. Of course, I did not contemplate that I would never be a star through anorexia – Fear of Weight Gain is the star; I am merely an ardent groupie.

After experiencing a hefty weight loss (no oxymoron intended) at Stanford, I returned to Nashville (also known as “Music City”). Back home, I found two angry parents and a concerned doctor awaiting my arrival. For the next year, I spent day after day pretending to distance myself from Anorexia Management – at the time, I was an avid member of Overeaters Anonymous, which is a 12-step program that welcomes all eating disorders. I worked all the dials and controls in the 12-step studio except eat the meal plan designed for me by a dietician.

I did not eat the meal plan, because I could not extirpate Fear of Weight Gain and all its classics from my being. Plus, the siren-song of Anorexia Management blandished me at every turn with promises of life-long security.

I followed Anorexia’s recommendations, and I embraced Fear of Weight Gain.

As a result, Weight Loss never bothered me until it bothered others to the point that they got in my way. And if you have not had a chance to read some of my other posts, I will just mention here that when I was in my mid-20s, my parents and doctor committed me through the court system to treatment in Nashville. The only “locked unit” in Nashville by the mid-1990s was a dive-bar version of a 12-step treatment center. The lead psychiatrist there was crazy; I am not kidding. However, when he waltzed into court to argue how sick I was, and how much I needed to stay in his facility, he brought along, for the benefit of the Judge, the Weight Watchers weight-chart that stated the “normal weight range” for a woman of my height. The lowest weight on the chart was 15 pounds higher than the weight I had deemed suitable for myself at the last treatment center, so, naturally, I, with Anorexia Management arguing as a witness, objected to this crazy doctor. He won, nevertheless, and the court mandated that I stay under the scrutiny of this doctor and his treatment facility until I reached that weight and maintained it for six months.

Over the next two years, I sparred with that doctor and fought the higher weight with subterfuge straight from the Anorexia Album of Achievement. Finally, the doctor discharged me back to my home and told my parents to oversee the weight gain; he had done all he could do, quite literally, and still, I was 35 pounds below the court-mandated weight.

Once at home, something inside me – perhaps disgruntlement with my Manager – motivated me to reach that crazy doctor’s higher target-weight, which was the lowest weight on the Weight Watchers weight-chart for females of my height (if I did not make this fact clear a couple of paragraphs ago). This number also happens to be the lowest number on the BMI chart for my height. I thought that maybe, if I got to a truly “normal” – but still skating on the edge of “low” – weight, my life would improve in all ways: I would get my diploma, develop a career, find a partner, know happiness. Even if I had to dispense with the whole idea of stardom.

Anorexia held a grudge against this defiance and did not release me from my contract, and I did not attempt to breach it. Furthermore, I still adored the entire Fear of Weight Gain discography.

During my foray into “wellness,” my parents oversaw what I ate, because I could not follow a weight-gain-oriented food plan without assistance. I was 26-27-28-29-30-years-old during these years, and I still needed parental help in eating to gain. And with their patient (because I could get obdurate) assistance, I gained a lot of weight rapidly and maintained it, somewhat, for a few years. To assist my and Anorexia’s consciences during this time, I joined a gym and started running and lifting weights. The exercise really did not stop the initial weight gain – it might have slowed it somewhat, but my body determinedly put on those pounds. I reached that goal weight in a couple of months, and I stayed near it (well, just below it) for the next few years, all while exercising for “maximum health.”

I remained a fan of Fear of Weight Gain, and Anorexia Management still had me under contract, so eventually, this attempt at a normal life fell apart as I fled back to Anorexia Management time and again, and I turned up the volume on Fear of Weight Gain’s Greatest Hits.

After reading about ten paragraphs here of my directionless existence (by grace of Anorexia Management Company, who took all the needles from my life’s compass and gave them to Fear of Weight Gain and all the radio stations that play their albums), I bet you ask:

Can we change this record?

The record I just described teems with tracks, deeply engrained, of aimless and atonal agony. Forget society and its “Fear of Weight Gain” fandom; forget Anorexia Management with its false promises and utter greed for every bit of my personal budget (literal and figurative).

While I love music – LOVE IT – I cannot stand crap I do not like. I realize now that I do not like this crap one bit. I cannot hang onto Fear of Weight Gain material any longer; it makes my skin crawl. I want to toss every Fear of Weight Gain album like a frisbee into a bonfire of the past. Good riddance.

Right now, I have Curtis Mayfield’s “Keep On Keepin’ On” playing on my personal headset, from the 1971 album, Roots. I will plant the seeds of change here. Eat all that my battered body requests (high amounts) and gain all the weight it wants. Let’s turn the tables on weight, shall we?

Does anyone need part-time employment?

Anorexia recovery IS A FULL TIME JOB, with double-shifts. Therefore, if anyone would like to tag along with me on this journey and help me with the baggage, etc., I would appreciate the assistance. The disease debilitated me quite enough over the past 40+ years, and I find myself weary and rather resentful of the tasks ahead…And to consider the fact that I started this job over two years ago!

I try not to reprimand myself too harshly for the length of my recovery-journey, because – I will just state it boldly – older people have a much tougher time with recovery. In fact, a lot of us may wonder what, exactly, we are recovering? What does “recover” even mean? Cover something back up? Sure, I would like to kick some dirt over the remains of my disease – does the word imply that kind of maneuver?

All right, time for more etymology just to straighten my record: “recover” means to “get something back [health strongly implied].” It derives from old French (a lot of English-language words do) recovrer, which means both to return to something and to gain back something lost. Now that I have clarified this part of the “recovery” confusion, I ask again, what am I returning to, and what am I gaining back? Those of us with long-term restrictive eating disorders know only one way of life: restriction. We believe in only one way of life: restriction. We perceive that the world operates on: restriction, so we champion: restriction, as our greatest triumph.

(When have we felt triumphant over eating pizza? Just a side question.)

Younger people have not spent decades cherishing, reshaping, honing, and finding salvation in: restriction. I cannot stress enough the importance of the difference between decades of restriction and a few years of restriction. To be sure, younger people have full-time jobs, too, in recovering from anorexia, but they can fuel their efforts on hopes and dreams of coming into their full selves.

Older people, on the other hand, often already have “selves,” selves with varying degrees of accomplishments, relationships, memories, more memories, intellectual maturity (a lot of which is sieved through society, just FYI), and on and on. All through these years, we have toted restriction around with us to fortify and nurture our “selves.” Thus, when I declare, “I am going to recover!,” I catch myself wondering, “What do I have to return to?”

In essence, I have nothing to return to. I have, instead, an ENTIRE SELF to recalculate all while staking a claim on the entirely novel. This work presents little appeal. First of all, I do not like math (even though I love calculus, go figure, no pun intended), and, secondly, I fear the novel might prove cheap and, simply, bad.

If the anorexia-recovery pros ever saw this blog, they would huff and puff at my statements. I wager that they would all see my words as a lot of blather and further delay of recovery. I understand their points of view. In fact, getting to my point has not yet occurred, so, pardon me for such a lengthy examination of affairs.

My point: if I have nothing to return to, nothing to gain back, why recover?

Why? Because all of us older people who heavily invested in restriction have lost our life savings. Restriction went bust on us, unfortunately. Some people may have made a fortune on it, but those of us with anorexia went bankrupt. Here we find ourselves, mid-life or near it, finally realizing that restriction took our retirement.

That revelation rather stinks. To thrive, and to look forward to some type of future enjoyment, we have so much work to accomplish! My to-do list looks like the following: 1) do not look back with regret, because I will get stuck in the past; 2) wipe my brain clean of all malware consisting of food rules, routines, movement compulsions, and bodyweight presumptions; 3) repeat #2 constantly; 4) eat loads of food as my body dictates and repeat #2; 5) reinvest my energy in the novel – and pray the novel is a best-seller; 6) since I am already so tired, having run riot with restriction only to lose my retirement, rest; 7) repeat #2; 8) realize I need to repeat #1; damn this list is burgeoning; 9) change a bunch of habits I do not want to change; 10) repeat #1 and #2 and oh, lord, now #9; 11) realize I lost sight of #4 and repeat #4; 12) resist future-casting even though I still pray this novel sells well; 13) repeat #12.

In conclusion: I should consider myself a survivor of a disaster – a stock-market collapse that took everything, including self-esteem and emotional growth. I do not want to die. The clean-up from the devastation and the establishment of new savings entails quite a bit of work. Anyone confronting such a list of tasks and risks needs extra care and love along the way. I extend my care and love to myself; I extend my care and love to all others enduring the same experience.

What would happen if anorexia detached itself from my brain and sat down with me for an interview? Of course, I would have no interest in asking the disease any questions, because I already know far too well how it would answer. Yet, what if these two entities – anorexia and I – decided to separate, and I allowed the disease to pose questions to me? In the following one-act play, I imagine the interview that anorexia conducts with me.

The Interview With Anorexia:

Me:      [With rather false gushing] First off, before you start asking questions, let me just say how honored I am that you decided to detach yourself from my brain for this interview. I feel like such a – a – well, I’m just so happy you’re, you know, there [points away from self]…So, thank you…

A-No:  Yes, yes, fine. I do not have much time, so stop gushing. And for the purposes of this interview, you can just call me “Rex.”

Me:      “Rex”? Oh, you don’t want to sound too imperialistic, do you? That kind of self-entitlement is, shall I say, no longer politically correct? Or, at least, it’s uncool. No, no; let’s keep it more casual. I’ll call you, “A-No.”

A-No:  Whatever, A-No, then. Let’s get on with it. My time is valuable.

Me:      Oh, of course. You don’t mind if I have a snack while we converse, do you? [Pulls out a large piece of cake on a plate] My time is valuable as well.

A’No:  Actually, I do mind.

Me:      Pardon me, then.

A’No:  But I mind.

Me:      So you say. You also said your time is valuable, so fire away with the questions.

A’No:  [Sighs] Fine. First, I want to ask, you do realize that I am lord and master of your brain?

Me:      Not right now, you’re not. And while you’re over there, I seem to be thinking okay. Mostly about my snack. I apologize for any offense.

A’No:  But, when I am actually attached to your synapses and brain matter, you do realize I am your lord and master?

Me:      [Eating cake] Oh, did I forget to mention – this cake is chocolate with peanut butter ganache frosting? That’s what it is.

A’No:  You’re not answering my question: when I am attached to your brain matter, you admit I am your lord and master?

Me:      No, I can’t say that for sure. Doughnuts vie for that position daily.

A’No:  A-ha! But if you keep yourself from eating the doughnuts when you really want them, it is I who controls your actions! I am your lord and master, then.

Me:      [Thinks for a moment] I’ll concede the point. But what if I eat the doughnuts, hm? Or the cake?

A’No:  You defy me, and I get angry.

Me:      You’re always angry, if I may point that out. So, I’m really not surprised. Next question?

A’No:  Why do you eat all these sweets? Why not some salad?

Me:      I want sweets, for some reason. Probably because more than anything, I want comfort, and I find comfort mostly in warmth, coziness, and sweet food. Is there anything comfortable about salad, by the way? Oh, wait, I shouldn’t ask you.

A’No:  But I thought you liked being uncomfortable; discomfort, hunger, weariness – all of these feed you and give you a sense of strength and purpose.

Me:      Interesting idea, and very true for years, when you were attached to my brain. But now that you’re over there, I’ll say again: I prefer comfort. Constant comfort, not the counterfeit comfort of a rest after a run, or a run after a salad.

A’No:  But do you not find your constant coziness slothful? Look at all those people out there, eating only superfoods, working hard, exercising for longevity, for fitness, to look pictures of health!

Me:      What other people? I’m talking to you. As for sloth: [thinking] well, it’s a deadly sin. But in the English language, there’s a cute animal called “sloth,” too.

In essence, I believe human beings are responsible for creating the concept of sloth, and you know how flawed we humans are. For example, we get things mixed up, like creating conflicts of interest by equating sin with a cute animal. As for humanity itself, quite a bit of it is “cuckoo” – which is another example of conflict of interest, by the way. That said, I have no concept currently of what sloth is, or how it should apply to me.

A’No:  Such arguments! Let me get to the point. Don’t you worry about getting fat?

Me:      What’s that?

A’No:  Fat! Your greatest fear!! Think: what is your greatest fear?

Me:      Pink Floyd.

A’No:  What? No, not Pink Floyd. You fear getting fat?

Me:      I apologize, but I am not sure I understand. What is fat?

A’No:  I better speed this interview up, because you’re forgetting the fundamentals already.

Me:      Actually, I am quite comfortable like this.

A’No:  Fine. I’ll ask: don’t you get bored, if you’re not always thinking of food?

Me:      Yes; I do get bored. But when I’m bored, usually something comes along to fill the space. Eventually. Thoughts like, “How did an indie band like Portugal. The Man make it big with a superstar song like ‘Feel It Still’?” You know the song [singing], “Ooh, I’m a rebel just for kicks now…”

A’No:  I know it, and I like it, too. I am a natural-born rebel, rebelling against all of life by conforming to it to the extent that I distort it. Oh, genius!

Me:      Should I be asking the questions in this interview, if you’re that amazing? In the words of Kendrick Lamarr, I might add, “Sit down, bitch; be humble.” Sorry for swearing, but that’s a direct quote.

A’No:  I sense animosity from you.

Me:      Outright hatred would be more accurate at this point.

A’No:  In that case, I should speed up this interview all the more. Do you not fear living without regulation, self-censure, bodyweight suppression, food abstention and food control, perpetual motion as dictated by the laws of Newton? Do you not fear living in anarchy??

Me:      I do not think anarchy is a good thing, no. But guess what: starvation and perpetual motion result directly from an anarchic world. You should listen to yourself and your circular arguments sometimes. It’s quite amusing. By the way, I like Fig Newtons.

[Anorexia gets frustrated and stomps out. End of interview.]

Does anyone out there in recovery from anorexia nervosa, or from a restrictive eating disorder, have a problem with the term “average”? The etymology of “average” reveals that the word originates from Arabic and, later, French terms meaning “harm to goods.” Way back, in the days when transport of wares depended on seagoing vessels, reimbursement for damaged merchandise on ships required a look at the losses and the remaining assets; ship proprietors and cargo owners would come to an agreement on the value of any money owed, and in time, the word “average” came to mean…well, the mean. Yet the word itself refers back to the original harm that befell any assets. (What a mean start to this whole blog!)

Perhaps the etymology of “average” explains why I have always sensed something negative about the word. I especially have a problem with the term “average” if applied to myself. All of my life, I have fought to avoid the average tide. Even before anorexia set in for me at age nine, I craved distinction; as an immature kid, I feared that I could get lost in the chaotic world, and, without distinguishing traits, no one would find me.

A restrictive diet works well with such a childlike mindset. If extreme weight control represents noteworthy asceticism, then pursuing such a goal successfully should distinguish me, at least a little.

After two months of dieting at age nine, I had definitely stepped into the household starlight, because I had transcended average (or so I thought) and put myself into the half-freak, half-poor-thing-so-ill zone. The freakish part bothered me a bit, but the poor-thing-so-ill stuff I could handle.

Over time, however, my loved ones and friends grew weary of the poor-thing-so-ill characterization, and they changed their views of me to obstreperous-devious-troublemaker. While my main goal was (and remains to this day) to be noticed (and preferably liked), the troublemaker hat balanced well enough on my head. At least people knew I existed. I had not quite achieved the “well-liked” status for my food/weight obsessions, but I did forge temporary friendships with the crew of the different hospitals I entered through the years.

As I grew up, I never learned or understood that my very existence was distinctive, period. Each human being is unique; we may share strong similarities, but we all possess one-of-a-kind characteristics that make us our unique selves.

Since I did not believe in or conceive of such a simple – yet true – concept, my desire for overt distinction grew stronger with time. Anorexia enhances any dissatisfactions we feel in life to the point that we perceive them as unacceptable. Once the diet ignited my predisposition for anorexia, the childlike wishes to do things my way, but get noticed for how well I did them, grew exponentially. And over the next 40 years, as I matured, these fundamentals seeped into all endeavors I undertook.

As a student in high school and college, I was way above average, academically. Anorexia actually assisted in my scholarship, despite the fact that I probably would have thought more clearly with more nutrition. I worked hard, with an obsessive-compulsive element to my studying. I delved into every project using all fibers of my being, and in doing so, I often avoided eating.

Unfortunately, anorexia sabotaged any further distinction I could accomplish with career, relationships, and the like, because I repeatedly kept landing myself in treatment centers throughout college, to the point that, at age 30, I just thought, “Hurry up and graduate already!,” and I hastily changed majors without any future plans for myself.

Attempting to readjust my compass and to distinguish myself beyond undergraduate college, I applied to several law schools. I wanted to attend Stanford Law School, but Stanford rejected me. That rejection still haunts me to this day. I felt as if Stanford said directly to me, “Eh, you’re too average. We want brilliant.” Vanderbilt University, however, happily accepted my application, and I started law school there.

However, while in law school, my grades did not achieve the over-the-top excellence I had known throughout undergraduate college. I received “A”s as well as “B”s. The latter caused so much turbulence and anxiety in me that I quit law school mid-way through my first year. “A”s and “B”s meant “average,” and that was as good as “F.”

You can see that I had no idea that I could graduate with an attorney’s degree just as myself, with whatever passing grades I could muster. Unfortunately, many of my peers struggled with imperfect G.P.A.s, too, so I thought my reaction to my own lower-than-usual-G.P.A. fell into the radius of “normal.” Unlike my peers, though, I simply did not have the stamina to continue studying in the face of academic disappointment.

Soon after quitting law school, my primary care doctor admitted me to a local hospital for refeeding. While the “average” stay in law school plagued my self-esteem, I had concurrently (and nearly unconsciously) restricted to very little, and in the space of a few months, my weight plummeted. The weight loss provided me with an excuse of sorts for poor law school performance, despite the fact that I had been able to achieve academically on next-to-nothing sustenance throughout undergraduate days. In my head, I kept repeating to myself that law school proved how stupid I really am. The undergraduate distinction, I told myself, was a sham; my average output in graduate school exposed my failure in life.

Looking back on my history in education, I realize that, either way, whether I achieved academically or not, anorexia anchored the experience. In other words, no matter what I did, anorexia supported and even directed all affairs in my life. These “affairs” included my thoughts about myself. All that gossipy self-talk about my stupidity came straight from a diseased brain. My neural pathways always consigned me to the brig when I faced discouragements or difficulties of any kind. The disease has striven to become my life’s greatest achievement, and it has encouraged all these attempts at distinction while disguising itself as ambition.

If some great scientist one day could figure out why a brain self-destructs in this manner, I would like to know. I can only make an experienced guess about this phenomenon: a true brain disease lies behind all of these complexities, and that disease involves outdated migration instincts, for sure, but also something else – something ineffable that right now is not worth plumbing, but which all anorexics probably understand on a fundamental level. Once set into motion, the disease quickly rearranges the brain to make every sick action/idea/motivation seem necessary and actually quite reliable. Plus distinctive, let’s not forget. And those of us with full-blown anorexia also face a confused world where restriction plays a huge role in human organization. Hmpf! How to recover (and navigate) with all of our broken down parts, in a world that is itself rather rusty?

Certainly, I thought I had successfully combatted (and won against) anorexia plenty of times in the past, with numerous treatments and therapies. None of those methods of recovery endorsed unrestricted eating, however, and all of them, variously, warned against overeating, encouraged target weights in the lower “BMI” range, and praised exercise as both a manner of gaining weight (through “putting on muscle”) and achieving optimal health (“getting stronger” with exercise). In short, all previous methods of treatment had not really addressed the anorexia – instead, they asked that I gain enough weight to count myself as healthy, and, once at that magic weight, to eat only enough to maintain that weight, and to exercise for weight maintenance and strength, as well.

While a lot of the therapists/psychiatrists I had seen in the past wanted to extirpate and quell my anxieties, these practitioners all worked with me at times when I still lived and breathed anorexia. No matter where my weight had ended up in treatment – and I gained a lot (which I later lost) in the many treatments I tried – I still feared weight gain, and I still believed I needed to control food to the morsel. I have now learned I cannot change much unless I am living unrestrictedly; my brain cannot do any kind of work on this “average” problem as long as I am reinforcing the “average” problem by maintaining some kind of “distinction” through anorexia.

Of course, I realize I came into this world with high anxiety and fear of “average,” and anorexia suited my natural disposition. Therefore, as I address the disease with its opposite at this point, i.e., no restriction, I realize that my own being requires a bit of tinkering, as well. Luckily, the requirements for anorexia recovery also confront my inborn, anxious nature.

I will return here to the etymology of “average” that I mentioned many other words ago. If “average” comes from a more negative term meaning “harm to goods,” I have to ask myself, what is more “average” than anorexia, itself? Anorexia provides such a perfect model of “harm to goods.” What a joke for my worn-out body and brain – I have lived a life of average to the best of my ability!

Unrestricted eating, rest, and a boatload of pretense make up my world today. If you have reached this point in the blog without skipping anything, you are a brave, patient soul. All that I have just written rings real and true, but it describes mostly puzzlement and convolution that, frankly, I am too tired now to solve. Anorexia has barnacled my brain and damaged my body in the attempt to outrun average, and here I am, aboard the USS Average. All fears about obesity and weight gain and ugliness and stupidity – those of course emerge from the fogs of a diseased brain. I started with a fear of average, so, now, what better way to overcome that fear than by doing all that I can to liberate myself from the apogee of average (oxymoron, I know): anorexia? And, yes, I must do so in the midst of an average world, bent on doing so much harm – though to be sure, beacons of light await all of us in recovery, if we sail steady on.

Why Isn’t Anorexia Recovery More Fun?

It should be. Because, if you consider the shift from torture to freedom, freedom looks a lot more desirable.

Unfortunately, our brains – not the greater, knowing part, but the day-to-day, functioning part – do not assess the torture as torture, but more as a way of arranging life for maximum comfort (despite excruciating discomfort) in a threatening world.

The freedom from the setup we have created over the years looks nice to the greater, knowing part of the brain, and it appeals to the battered body as well. In short, we feel tired as hell. And we are so damned hungry. Even those of us without appetites want to eat very badly. Those folks are asking, “Where is my appetite?” because, ultimately, they are hungry and have appetites. The torture just has done a very efficient job of burying some appetites underneath layers of denial and abuse.

We embark on recovery journeys when we have reached that point where we think we’ve had enough torture. Eating unrestrictedly are two words that pair magically to those of us who are starved. Furthermore, the idea of sitting down and watching television in our free time, or spending an extra hour in bed in the morning rather than go out and run, appeals to us just as magically.

Therefore, I ask, again, why isn’t recovery more fun?

I say, again: it should be.

However, I find recovery to be so difficult that at times, I fear I cannot go on. In my two years of attempting recovery by ceasing all exercise and eating as unrestrictedly as I can muster (with some failures but a lot of triumphs), I have incurred many physical discomforts, as well as a lot of interior tantrums stemming from the anorexic belief system. That belief system possesses such strength and endurance in my brain that it can insinuate any kind of thought to sabotage the pleasure I may feel at the freedom I have introduced into my life.

Also, the body has undergone such unfathomable damage through the years that it begins to sprout odd-seeming issues that subtract from the pleasantry of “freedom.” For example, a long-term, suppressed bodyweight causes muscle atrophy, thought limitation, low energy, and endocrine chaos. As we refeed ourselves, the awakening of some of these systems, as well as the repair-work on others, leads to a lot of physical discomfort. Some of us feel odd tingling in our hands and feet; some of us have difficulty regulating body temperature and swing from cold to burning hot over the space of 5 minutes; some of us (like me) break out in acne from head-to-toe, and yes, here I am, nearly 50, with the nightmares of adolescence coming back to haunt me.

All these bodily discomforts bring to light a host of difficulties that sap some of the “fun” we would prefer having as we eat all that we want and sit on our rear-ends for the foreseeable future. How dare our bodies interfere with our good times?

Well, I am afraid the anorexic construct in our brains bears responsibility for the extra difficulty bodily changes present. We can circumvent some of this difficulty by ignoring all the perceived inconveniences and discomforts, or pretending these do not bother us, but that pretense, by itself, requires a lot of work, which is taxing and, again, takes some of the fun out of the freedom we urgently chase.

Furthermore, the inability to face gaining past a certain weight poses another problem for most of us with long-term anorexia. We have made ourselves believe, over time, that our greatest fear in life is getting fat. We do not even fear dying as much as getting fat. Unrestricted eating and complete rest often make us gain weight rapidly, and as we watch ourselves grow larger, we simply cannot accept the fact that our greatest fear becomes true right before our eyes. This outcome – the perception that we are in any way over out best-looking weight – is the one thing we have avoided for years.

I want to insert here that what we perceive as our greatest fear: becoming fat, or even becoming a weight that is slightly over what we think is ideal for us, is a false construct, made up by a diseased brain. Of course, we have difficulty understanding that concept. Everyone around us fears weight gain, right? So our own fears are legitimate, n’est-ce pas? But I want to say, again, that no, in our cases, this fear is not legitimate; we have to make it illegitimate, preposterous, and unfair. Anorexia has seized upon a common social issue out there in the world —  bodyweight — and it has used that to its fullest extent in shielding us from other, irrational fears. Since we have invested all of our energy into staving off this one fear, we have hurt ourselves to the extent that this fear needs to depart our systems; like I said, it no longer applies to us.

But of course the fear still sits right there, until we have trained our brains not to think in terms of food and bodyweight anymore. This training takes time, so we live with the fear and skirt around it for seemingly many eternities. This cohabitation with one of our greatest phobias, again, does not generate much fun or levity.

In some ways, I want to invite us all to a pity-party on the difficulty recovery presents. After all, society does not really support our weight gain past a certain point, which furnishes yet another anxiety-provoking hurdle to cross as we continue this path. None of us recovering from anorexia wants to get fat; we fear getting fat so badly. And yet as our weight increases, often beyond where we think we function at our best, we feel not only the fallout of our worst fears come true, but the voices of society behind us saying, “Gee, you have gained a lot of weight. What’s the deal?”

So, we wonder: are we liberating ourselves, or just generating another set of anxieties to juggle? And to add to the pity-party buffet: we already come from tortured backgrounds, so these difficulties in recovery –  we just do not deserve them; we’ve been through enough.

And that’s true: we have been through enough.

Therefore, go back to the original, simple goal: liberation from torture. This process takes some time, during which anorexia bombards us with negativity. But, I ask that you keep in mind that, for God’s sake, eating unrestrictedly and lounging around the house for months on end can be fun. Yes, we may get bored, but almost always something will come along to sweep away the boredom. Yes, we may feel discomfort with weight gain, but this feeling passes. Yes, we have to shut out a large part of society, even some of our loved ones, for as long as necessary, in order to avoid the traps of diet-talk and bodyweight assessment. Yes, we have to carry around our greatest fear and yet pretend it is not there. These acknowledgements mean we are in for a lot of work, but this work only justifies all the more our need to sit and eat tons, for a long time. Our “time out, with snacks” offers the rest and nurture we have craved all along, and we should appreciate it as well as enjoy it.

So, you are in recovery from anorexia, and you ask the question, “Should I exercise?” If you wonder whether or not you should, chances are very great that you SHOULD NOT exercise. Why do I opine so? Because any wavering in anorexia recovery usually means that you should do the recovery-oriented option, not the anorexic, nor the “greater-society’s-judgment” option. And exercise almost always falls into the “anorexic” category. Even further in the case of exercise, I advocate flouting the “medical/scientific-data” option, because we will simply fuel the anorexic circuitry in our brains if we introduce exercise before we are recovered 100%.

While my belief may be radical and bold, I stand by it; from my own experience, I know that exercise too early in recovery – and “too early” means “ever” in the case of older adults who have suffered with this disease for a long time – will only charge the anorexic neurons in my brain. Rewiring all my beliefs about food, body, and myself takes a long time, and it also takes a lot of energy. I can count on my brain being vulnerable for years, and thus I just have to get comfortable with keeping my movement to a minimum for, yes, years. “Idle” connotes a lot of negative images in our anorexic minds, but “idle” is just what we need to be, for years.

Yet, given that you spend years in recovery, and you do a good job and eat and rest for a long time, you inevitably gain weight, and you start to feel rather buoyant and energetic. You may begin to feel antsy with all the sitting and resting. You think, “Years of YouTube and Netflix in all my downtime (i.e., time outside of work or tasks we all have to do)? Surely you jest!” I jest not.

And of course I realize this position will prove very difficult for you. It has, for me: I have gained 40 pounds already, and I am within the “normal” BMI range, and I do feel more energetic (though, truth be told, I have frequent periods of extreme exhaustion, which is a sure sign that my body needs a lot more rest and food), and in this “idle” time, I feel very anxious. I have no idea what to do with myself. In these moments, I can cajole myself with “a nice little walk outside will only benefit me; it will ease the anxiety and take up some of the long hours in my day,” but this kind of inner chit-chat comes from my anorexic circuitry. A “little stroll” on a nice afternoon is another way of convincing my brain that I need to suppress my bodyweight to some degree, or that I actively need to utilize all the food I have eaten. These thoughts, seemingly so innocent, simply underscore my brain’s paranoid, anorexic fears that I am still in the famine that has plagued my life for decades.

I realize that all of the above leaves you, if you are in the middle of recovery, in a bit of a panicked position; you may not have passed the phase of food-obsession yet (even if it has lessened somewhat), and you have not cultivated a passion that is not physical in some way, so, what the heck do you do with yourself? I cannot offer many suggestions, other than to have faith that this tough period will pass. Hang on to your courage and determination. And of course, being the music lover that I am, I suggest watching music videos or simply listening to a song on one of your devices, then look up more songs and spend an hour investigating music. Or do the same kind of thing with books/movies that strike you as interesting.

If you cannot get interested in anything other than your next meal, I understand. And I repeat: this frustrating time will pass. I personally must remind myself that I do have the necessary courage and tenacity to transcend the toughest parts of recovery, like sitting for years, watching my body grow larger. This part of recovery will end at some point. My body will cease to ask for so much food and my weight will stabilize. Ideally, my thoughts will shift out of panic mode and into relaxed, reassured mode. I will not judge my body size (becoming non-judgmental will take a lot of time and rewiring; I need to work on my patience here!), and I will not dream of food all the time; when I want to eat, I will do so with enjoyment.

FOR THOSE WHO FIND THIS RECOMMENDATION TOO DIFFICULT TO CONSIDER:

All of the above outlines the basics of my theory on the “NO EXERCISE, EVER” in anorexia recovery. And yet I realize that many circumstances hamper the simple plan I have described. Sometimes, we live with people who have eating disorders themselves, or who train as athletes, or who may not suffer from eating disorders but who immerse themselves in current diet trends and exercise fads. The get-up-and-go drive in others close to us can osmose right through our skulls, into our anorexically-aligned synapses, and we cannot help but react. Often, our reaction involves a jolt of energy (usually anxious energy) and an inner mandate telling us that we must exercise. Our closest loved-ones thrive on exercise and diets; how can we coexist with such influence and not take part in it somehow?

In my own life, I live with very active people whom I also happen to love. These same people  judge others quite a bit based on weight; this judgment really is not unusual – their assessment of people’s body size is a common trait among all human beings. Whatever the case may be, I sometimes find living with constant diet chatter and constant movement (e.g., my loved-ones’ daily trips to the gym, or hikes on nice days, or training with professionals in the wee hours of the morning, etc., or cleaning binges – that’s a thing – and on and on) overpowering.

As a result, since I have gotten into recovery, I have taken walks with these people on nice days, and I have justified my doing so with thoughts like: “Maybe this walk is ‘wrong,’ but the day is so nice, and I have gained so much weight, and I need to socialize more.” The problem with that thought is the phrase, “and I have gained so much weight,” because right there, my eating disorder tips its hand. My awareness of my weight gain is just a little too present as I analyze this situation; in other words, I am not comfortable with the weight gain yet, and I have not rewired the belief that a person in a larger body should exercise to some extent. The other excuses to go on that walk sound very plausible, and they make sense. However, for a person with my sort of history – i.e., a lifetime of undereating and compulsive movement –  these excuses turn into invalid reasons for joining in on physical activity, when I know inside that I am not yet okay with my size or how much I am eating, nor am I really okay with continuous rest, for that matter.

Therefore, I have to get especially tough here and turn down the offer to join in even on a simple walk. Sure, during recovery we will all have times when we are more physically active. For example, my family and I took a trip to the western part of the United States last year, and we did some walking through the natural wonders we encountered. Yet even during that vacation, I was aware how compulsive movement, instantly, became necessary each day – on the days that we drove more than we got out of the car and snooped around, I felt more anxious and overall worse about what I had accomplished. And these thoughts occurred while I was on vacation!

For those who live with elite athletes, or for those who have been elite athletes; or for those who live in cultures where exercise is almost a form of antidepressant, just know that I understand you face special challenges. The message remains the same, however. If you come from a long, depleted past with a lot of compulsive movement in the mix, you need to still yourself. You deserve the rest, perhaps many years of complete rest. The anxiety might drive you to suicidal ideation (I get that), but you CAN LIVE through this; the anxiety will lessen – I have noticed it with myself – and eventually you will not care that your loved ones, or the culture surrounding you, all expend energy differently than you do. Your energy happens to be well-spent on your body’s repairs. I know you cannot think of what possibly could be so damaged that it takes years to repair, so what is all this nonsense about repairs, but consider yourself a victim of drawn-out, suspended torture: you desperately need a lot of repair. And you desperately need to rest, for as long as re-wiring your tortuous mindset takes.

What do you think about the term “binge”? What do you think “binge” means? What would a “binge” look like to you?

To me, because the term “binge” connotes all kinds of negativity, I hesitate to use the word, period. However, the word pervades our language in many ways, and I now want to address it.

In a nutshell: I do not believe a “binge,” as it is largely understood to be, is dangerous or bad or wrong in anorexia recovery. In fact, in my opinion, eating a load of food in a short period of time sounds quite logical for someone emerging from years of starvation.

In my personal experience, I have checked into treatment many times, and every time, the intake person at the hospital would ask if I had ever binged. This question apparently is important to medical providers, as the answer provides diagnostic data. If I have a history of binges, I may have  a predisposition for binge-eating-disorder, and therefore, I need to watch my food intake for the rest of my life. I need to monitor my emotions with relation to eating, to stave off any dreaded overeating episodes.

I may or may not have such a predisposition, but to liberate myself from the shackles of anorexia, I have to convince myself that voracious eating is perfectly okay. And if one looks at a starved person – a person starved for most of his/her life – rebound-eating, or shoveling food in, for months upon months, seems like a jolly idea.

I have another example of how ridiculous, and even sad, negative appraisal of binges affects us, to our detriment, in recovery. One time when I was in treatment, a fellow patient, a male in his thirties, who was obviously very undernourished, revealed in our therapy group that sometimes, he binged on cereal. And one morning, by goodness, he proceeded to exceed his breakfast meal-plan and eat five extra bowls of cereal. At a loss of what to say or do at the time, the caretaker overseeing our meals, as well as the other patients, stayed silent while this man continued his treks to the cereal boxes and back to the table. However, once we gathered in our therapy group, we spent an hour-and-a-half trying to figure out why he ate all that cereal. What was his deal? What emotions triggered such insanity? These questions seemed important at the time.

The gentleman in question cried all through group, because he had no idea why he ate all that cereal; he just had a compulsion to do so. Why no one considered the fact that his body may have run the show for that meal, or, in other words, his biology overrode his id, ego, and superego, because he was starving, strikes me now as peculiar. I now understand the five bowls of cereal; I understand those better than I do the regimented, titrated meal plans we hated and fought. Inside, all of us in recovery from restrictive eating disorders actually want the whole kitchen, not the tidy meal plan. If we get honest with ourselves, or if we just start eating, the desire to eat everything – “binge” – becomes the norm.

If anyone is triggered by my binge justification, please accept my apologies. However, for those who have decided to recover, but who are panicked because they “lost control” and gulped down the cereal aisle, I want to say, never fear. In the last two years, I have eaten whole cakes in addition to a full day’s-worth of other food. It happens. I was full; I felt weird, but I certainly enjoyed the cake.

Also, I want to add that eating loads of food, what one may call a “binge,” can occur throughout anorexia recovery. You might have tried unrestricted eating over the course of a couple of years, but you still “binge,” or feast-eat, because your body still needs the energy all the food, in that particular moment, provides. Those of us with long histories of anorexia should expect feasts at all stages of recovery, no matter how much weight we have gained. I have maintained the drive to feast over the course of two years; part of the reason why I still want to eat so much originates in my repeated returns to restriction (because of fear), despite the fact that I have gained a lot of weight and am currently within the normal BMI-range. No matter what my weight, or when/where in my recovery, feasting benefits me, if my body asks for it. In fact, I need to do more of it.