Hope is a dangerous thing

6 years ago I taught a class of 4th graders and we became a family.  Many I had taught in 2nd grade and most of the rest were my intervention students from 3rd grade.  Basically my class had the least chance of ending the year on grade level and passing the state standardized test.  They worked harder for me than they ever had and in return I invested in them more than I ever had of my personal time and more than I ever have again.  There were few weekends and nights that I didn't have a birthday party, football game, soccer game, gymnastics meet, recital, etc.  That group still considers me their favorite teacher and they all still keep in touch not only with me but with each other.   

Thursday I received an email from H, one of those students who keeps in touch often to let me know how things are going at home and at school.  She asked if she could come meet with me at school.  Those kids are all sophomores in high school this year so when I told coworkers she had news for me they all sent my anxiety up assuming she was pregnant.  The email did seem weird and it felt like something big, but she was never the type to get into a situation like that. 

So Friday afternoon I was in my boss' office and I mentioned I was nervous about the upcoming visit.  My AP walked in and said I had visitors.  I asked if it was a high school student and she said yes and what looked like her family.  Immediately my blood pressure spiked because I know her mom well and the fact that it was a family visit was not good.  My AP mentioned I might be adopting a baby after all as I walked out to meet them. 

We made small talk and caught up on the way to my office and after we sat down and they kept asking me about myself, I stopped them and asked what the news was.  H looked down for the first time and said, "Well Ms. it's not good.  M (her best friend from our class) shot herself and is the hospital but they can't remove the bullet from her brain."

I haven't felt that way since I was 15 the day my dad sat me down to tell me my friend had died in a car wreck.  Completely caught off guard with the wind knocked out of me.  I spent the rest of the meeting quietly crying but holding myself together so that I wouldn't break down.  After all if my 15 year old student could brave coming to see her favorite teacher to tell her this terrible news so I didn't have to read it in an email, the least I could do is hold it together. 

Sweet, beautiful talented M had been battling depression for at least 2 years.  Shortly after her family moved her to a small town 60 miles away, she attempted an over dose and had been in therapy.  Over the winter break it seems she found a gun at a family members home and earlier this week she waited until she was alone and shot herself in the temple. 

She survived the shot until Thursday when she crashed and had to be put on machines.  She was not brain dead though.  The worst part of the meeting was that H and her family are very Christian and H was so sure there would be a miracle.  I know crazy things happen against what science says are in the odds but the level of hope they had in the name of a miracle... That was also heartbreaking. 

M gave in and finally got her wish later that night.  Her body was intact and ready for about 100 transplants (so I was told).  There will be a memorial this week I think, and I will see all of my kids for the first time.  I thought that event would be two years from now at their graduation.  That was how it was suppose to be. 

I lost my faith that day when I was 15 in large part due to all the words people spoke thinking it made me feel better.  It's not our place to understand the greater plan of our maker. 

I'm one of the only people in M's life who actually understands where she was the day she pulled the trigger.  The hardest part is I know the level of emotional pain she was feeling and it hurts me to know that she was feeling that.  I wish so badly I could have talked to her and told her that I knew for a fact that it would get better.  It wouldn't be easy, but it would get better. 

She wasn't a teenager who was bullied or who had a terrible home life.  She was someone who had a chemical imbalance who felt too embarrassed about the stigma of depression to even admit to her best friend why she was in therapy.  There was no one she felt she could reach out to.  She was me at 15 but no one in my family ever had a gun around. 

Status Quo

"However people know things about themselves...I knew this.  And I was afraid.  Yet I wanted it more than anything."

This is where one splits between bulimia and anorexia.  I'm almost there again.  I know I focus a lot on how terrible the bulimia is (because it is) and how addictive, but once you cross the line it's just as addictive.  Maybe more so because you want it.  You know it's bad but you want it so much anyway.  You know that you can't live your entire life as an anorexic (unless it's a short one) but you so desperately want to try.  You're addicted to bulimia because it alleviates the fact that you ate when you didn't want to so let's get it out.  It let's you react with food and then erase.  But to not need it?  To just not eat?  To be so so so thin that people notice? That's the goal from the start when you were probably first able to walk.  Let's be honest. 

I don't think I can put into words what I feel when I think of the times in my life that I actually met diagnostic criteria for anorexia.  It's actually pretty sick how proud it makes me that I ever did when so many are 'only just' FEDNOT (or EDNOS).  It's sad that I hate thinking I'm 'only' one eating disorder over another. 

I fantasize about being anorexic again.  It slipped into being a goal once more... though if I'm honest it never stopped being the goal, I just took a break for outside factors.  I say it's the relapse, it's the stress and it's because it's easier or I'm addicted.... but maybe it's simpler.  It's the status quo.  I have lived more years in this fluctuating state than anything else.  It feels more normal with a constant war inside than to be without.  Dr. M once was helping me because everything was calm and easy in my life and I was more anxious than ever before.  She ended up telling me that I unfortunately had conditioned myself to only feel normal when I had an over full plate and more on my to do list than I could ever handle.  I think I may be the same with health.

The healthier I am, the more off and anxious I am and then anxiety and insecurity pair and game over.  I don't want to count how many relationships have ended due to that friends, family and guys.  Life just is easier when I just embrace it all.  Just say whatever happens happens.  Have faith I will never take it all too far.  Because life was never better anytime I lived my life according to everyone else's rules of health. 

So back to secrets by omission.  I won't lie if anyone asks.  It's been a really long time and no one wants make be feel bad by suspecting but it'll come soon.  I wonder how it will play out this time.

Secrets

I tend to follow a certain pattern.  I try very hard to be 'normal' or 'recovered' and then I throw in the towel for one of many reasons and I start relapsing or regressing depending on your definitions and then I start rereading Wasted.  It's the only novel I have read more than 3 times... this is probably close to my 10th or more.  I tend to read it at the beginning of a relapse/crisis and then toward the end.  The end I think in order to remind myself of how messed up it all is and to remember why I should not want to live this way.  The beginning like now?  I think it's because even though I know I am one of millions, I feel so very alone and not normal. 

I could be obsessive about exercise and healthy eating and find dozens to talk to and it be socially acceptable.  I could over eat, eat terrible and be over weight and find dozens to talk to and it be socially acceptable.  Not so much for someone who is stuck uncontrollably purging what they eat to the point that starvation is really preferable.  People in my boat are out there in lager numbers, but you can't just talk about it. 

I lucked out in a way finding J when I did because I truly knew I wasn't alone and I could really attempt to talk about my feelings with someone I thought understood.  I'm alone again though because she has been recovered from a much milder case than mine for 6 years now.  I have to keep how I'm really doing to myself from her now or risk triggering her.  I won't mess with someone else's progress. 

So I'm reading old faithful again because no one has published something I can relate to more than Marya.  "I had a secret.  It was a guilty secret, certainly.  But it was my secret.  I had something to hold on to.  It was company.  It kept me calm.". This struck me tonight. 

I miss being 'sick'.  I miss hiding it.  I miss justifying it.  I miss is defining me.  In the 2ish years I attempted (more than ever before) to be recovered and healthy, I felt so empty.  It was like I was having an identity crisis and I tried desperately to define myself in many different ways (including a very dysfunctional relationship).  But I missed the identity of eating disordered.  I missed wearing the badge.  I missed people knowing or wondering.  I guess it's just been such a part of me for so long.

I'm restricting because once again the bulimia is out of control, but really I can't wait for restriction to take hold and I also, sort of, can't wait for people to take notice.  I'll hate it when it happens but it will mean I achieved something on some level.  And no matter how many ways I achieve, that one always seems to mean more to me.