Triggers

What are triggers and why does it matter?

Life is good, the day is beautiful.  The sun is shining.

Then the mention of weights, of highest and lowest body weights in a room, numbers are thrown around, numbers I recognize, and suddenly, my entire being is swirling in fear.  Not explainable, not shaken off with a mere thought or prayer.  Not passing after a moment's breath.  This is palpable, deep-seated, lung-collapsing fear.  My breath gone, my body quivering, I try to focus on the current task, head down, panic-stricken.  All the material seems suddenly 10x harder, deeper, more confusing.  Because my brain has captured those numbers, and try as I might, they won't go away.  They are a plague.

So how can we be mindful of triggers?  We can recognize our audience: a room in which 90% of the people are young women? In a conservative environment?  Weight is a bad idea.  Should I be speaking of waist size or the number on the scale or abuse statistics?   Can we not refrain from talk of obsessions and beauty?  Of our perfections and imperfections?

Because statistically, I was not the only one affected.

What other things should we be aware of?  How can we protect those around us, those we love, with our choice of words, of topics, of examples?

You tell me.

A Bulimia Update

Trigger Warning - ED behaviours.

So I've been thoughtful and vague for a while, and I do enjoy writing that way, but I think it's high time that I write a true recovery update, to face where I'm at and what's happening on the journey.

I'm still bulimic.

Working on recovery, yes.  Every week looks different.  Every day, actually.  Has progress been made?  Certainly!  Just a few months ago I couldn't see to the time I'd be able to go 4 days purge-free, and now that's common.  There have even been a few times where I went a week or two.

Some days I don't have any desire to binge, nor purge, and everything seems almost easy.  The next day might be fraught with all sorts of urges and yet, somehow, the will to fight.  Yet other days go by in a mist of depressive thoughts and yet bulimia does not rule my day.  Other days are bright and beautiful and yet I find myself full to bursting, and the eventual forthcoming of said food.  Completely blindsided.  Sometimes you just don't know it's coming.

Or perhaps some brief yet stressful season passes through - tests, conflicts, quizzes, projects, worries - and the healthy coping strategies fail me.  There is no intellectual desire to binge or purge, yet it happens, sometimes again and again, unstoppable, painful, horrifying, humiliating.

So slowly, tearfully, when the numbness wears off, I get back up, brush off the dust, run to Christ for the strength to keep struggling, to keep trying, to keep working hard to put this behind me.

Yeah, I'm making progress.  Yes, there is hope.  It is possible to overcome.  But it's a journey, it's not just a single step.

Pressing on.

Published!

Too exciting not to share:  I'm officially published on NEDA's www.proud2bme.org. 

I Will Not Remain Silent - Post on Proud2BMe.org

Activism!  Yes!

- Sheila

Breathing

We all start out so small, so insignificant to the world, yet so hopelessly important to two people.  This irony of existence, beginning before we begin ourselves, it calls for a mind far greater than mine, yet here I am, trying to explain it.  Before I was, I existed in a heart, a mind, a thought.

And now the entirety of my existence, of yours, hangs on the experiences we have had, on the heartaches we have born, on the creations of moments that hang suspended in my soul, and in yours.  We watch painfully, as the days float by, waiting for the place where we can breathe again.

When I breathe, I find myself shocked at the life-giving force in the air which rushes through my being.  Is it just air I'm breathing, or am I breathing in life?  Am I breathing in spirit, renewing my mind by the transforming grace of the God I live for?

Perhaps that's the majesty of the moment, of existence itself, that it's not about dealing with the moment, about the problems we face, or the chaos of current events.  It's the grace for existence, that we are all still here, still breathing, still alive, and we barely even chose it.

So we write love.  We hope life.  We create stories by breathing.

Are you breathing?