"Let it Go" Eating Disorder Parody

About four years ago, I finished outpatient treatment for my anorexia.  Miraculously, I made it through with all my teeth and a decent BMI.  When I started, there were some issues with my heart, to put it mildly, but now it's alive and ticking!

I love connecting with other people who have an ED, and one of my online friends told me that the song "Let It Go" is a great description of our struggle.  I'm in a good place for the most part, but I still get the odd rough patch.  Tonight I was really struggling with operation: insert food into face, and I pulled up a subtitled video of "Let it Go".  I let the lyrics sink in as I slowly munched on bread and Nutella.  I connected with it, but I had plenty of my own words to say, so I sat down and wrote this parody in one shot.  

I will make a video of it at some point once I decide whether I want to do it a cappella or if I want to go through the to-do of using someone's piano, since I don't currently have one.

Disclaimer/cover-my-butt:  I do not own the lyrics to "Let It Go", nor am I making any money with this parody.  The lyrics to "Let It Go" are owned by Disney.

“Let it Go” Eating Disorder Parody

Staring at the scale tonight

I don't want to be seen

A kingdom of starvation

And it looks like I'm the queen

The lies are raging, I'm destructing deep inside

Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I've tried

Don't let them in, don't let them see

Be the skinny girl you have to be

Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know

But someone must know

Let it go, let it go,

Can't fake it anymore

Let it go, let it go

I've been wounded to the core!

I don't care

What the devil may say

Let the lies rage on

The darkness never bothered me anyway

It's funny how the truth

makes the big things seem so small

and the lies that once controlled me

can't get to me at all

It's time to see what G-d can do

to smash my limits and break through

no black and white, no chains for me,

I'm free

Let it go, let it go

I am joined with G-d Most High

Let it go, let it go,

it's okay to cry

Here I stand

and here I'll stay

let the lies rage on

G-d's power flurries through the air into my heart

My lifeblood's stirring and I'm getting a fresh start

And one lie crystalizes like an icy blast

I'm never going back

the past is in the past

Let it go, let it go

And I'll rise like the break of dawn

let it go, let it go

that skinny girl is gone!

Here I stand

in the light of day

let the lies rage on

the darkness never bothered me anyway!

Movies That Have Helped Me Heal

We love good movies because they are driven by good storytelling. We identify with them. We identify with the characters' humanity and dilemmas. I've compiled a list of movies and documentaries that have played an important role in recovery from my package of unfortunate life events.

I'm listing potential triggers in my synopses, but if you have PTSD I encourage you to check out the content advisory on IMDB before watching a movie. Those advisories tend to be pretty thorough. (For those of you who don't know much about PTSD, some people are triggered by certain scenes in books or movies, and the advanced warning beforehand can be very helpful.)

Movies:

1.) Hope Floats (1998) starring Sandra Bullock, Harry Connick Jr, and Gena Rowlands

Do yourself a favor and actually watch it before you write it off as an overrated chick flick! It happens to be amazing. Birdie (Bullock) goes through a journey of self-discovery after her husband has an affair and files for divorce.

2.) 28 Days (2000) starring Sandra Bullock, Dominic West, Ashley Johnson

Alcoholic Gwen (Bullock) is charged with a DWI and spends 28 days in court-ordered rehab. She meets a handfull of interesting characters and learns that she has the power to make positive decisions about her life. The scene where she is stuck wearing the “confront me if I don't ask for help” sign made me laugh hysterically because I know there are times when my loved ones wish they could make me wear a sign like that, haha!

Trigger warning: Heavy drinking in a few scenes, as well as a couple scenes in which characters are found dead after suicide and alcohol overdose.

3.) No Reservations (2007) starring Cathrine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Abigail Breslin

Kate (Zeta-Jones) uses her job as a gourmet chef to escape from her background of neglect and broken relationships. Her budding friendship with a new co-worker (Eckhart) and becoming the legal guardian of her niece (Breslin) force her to make peace with her past and herself.

Documentaries:

1.) Depression: Out of the Shadows (2008), produced by PBS

Depression is a very misunderstood condition. If you live with clinical depression or are close to someone who does, you need to see this one.

Trigger warning: The scenes in which people describe their experiences with severe depression might be a bit upsetting for those who have struggled with it or are currently struggling with it. The documentary also talks about ECT, better known as shock therapy.

2.) Forgiving Dr. Mengele (2006) starring Eva Mozes Kor

Eva Mozes Kor and her twin sister were survivors of Mengele's experiments during the Holocaust. On the outside, Kor got her life in order after she was liberated. She emigrated to Israel and then the US, got married, had kids, got a job, and lived a “normal” life. On the inside, unforgiveness turned her into a very sad, angry person. She didn't embrace the power of forgiveness until she was older, but when she did, it changed her life. Unlike many faith-based books on forgiveness, this documentary actually gives a straightforward definition of what forgiveness means.

Trigger warning: Contains footage of Auschwitz and Mengele's lab during the war. Eva has a flashback during an eye exam.

That's my list of movies that have helped me heal. I'm going to work on a list of books and hopefully post it sometime in the next week or so. If that doesn't end up happening, it's not that I don't like you all. I'm dealing with a lot of life events right now and I just need more hours in the day!

Fasting From Self-Loathing

I have a love-hate relationship with the Lenten season, to be honest. I don't hate it, and most of the time it's spiritually meaningful to me. But I'm starting to have serious issues with this whole idea of giving something up for Lent. Maybe giving something up can be meaningful for some people, and if it is, I have no judgment against that. But are we giving these things up because G-d is leading us to, or because “everyone else is doing it?”

To be honest, giving up the things that most people give up for Lent (or, in some cases, try to give up) would not enhance my life or my spirituality in any significant way. I am a recovering anorexic, so any type of food fast would be a HORRIBLE idea. I run an Etsy shop, so fasting from the internet is out. I don't drink coffee that often, but on days I need it, you don't want to be around me until I've had it. So there goes that.

This year I was trying to discern if/how G-d was leading me to observe Lent this year, and He had an idea that blew my mind.

G-d asked me to give up self-loathing.

And I'll be honest: most of the time I'm simply trying to give up self loathing, but you know what? It's already life-changing. I can stand to be around myself. Heck, I actually like myself some of the time! I'm not plagued with that feeling of “Ugggh, I'm everywhere I go, I can't get away from myself!”

Now I'm not going to lie: Giving up self loathing, ok, trying to give up self-loathing is Freakin'. Hard. It's not as tangible as giving up coffee or the internet. It's as counter-cultural as you can get, and boy will you feel that. But this is important, because self-loathing is both extremely common and fatal. Think about it. You don't become suicidal if you love yourself.

After I posted on Facebook that I'm giving up self-loathing, a friend suggested the idea of taking something up for Lent, not just giving something up. I decided I'm taking up self-love.

Or rather, I'm trying to! ;)

Living With Both Eyes Open

I've mentioned several times on this blog that the past year and a half has been a rough season. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that there has been more pain in the last 18ish months than in the last ten years of my life. And those of you who know the more nitty-gritty details of my life know that that is really saying something.

Last summer I posted about leaving the conventional workforce and focusing on my Etsy shop. The hope was that my husband and I would be able to move out to a hobby farm this year when our lease is up, at which point I would have to be able to stay home full-time to keep everything running. Well, that depended on my husband breaking into the field of tech support and getting a better paying job. And while the job market for tech support is fairly decent in our neck of the woods, things still haven't been exactly happening on our timetable.

This led to a lot of frustration as well as a depression and anorexia relapse. I didn't talk much about it at the time, but this past fall was really tough. I was performing in my church's production of “It's A Wonderful Life: The Musical” but in all honesty, I didn't feel like I had a wonderful life.

Sometime around Christmas, I realized that I needed to make some changes, both in my attitude and my home environment. Since there is the very real possibility of living in my current apartment for at least another year or two, I needed to make it feel like more of a home. Since we're not allowed to paint the walls, this meant decorating. I got out my old books and handouts from when I was in rehab for the eating disorder and got my diet back on track. I also made the decision to go back into childcare on an extremely part-time basis, both to generate a little more income and to give myself a reason to actually get out of the house.

I've been trying to figure out how to explain where my mind is at right now. The only analogy I can come up with is having eyesight restored via surgery after being blind since birth. Being able to see would be awesome, but think about what an adjustment that would be. You'd have to learn when to turn lights on and off. You'd have to remember to bring sunglasses. You'd have to learn how to drive and maintain a car and heck, even filling it up would be a learning curve. You'd have to learn how to read print. If you hadn't been able to see color, you'd have that to get used to. It would cause serious changes in your life. It would be equal parts awesome and terrifying.

That's where I'm at. I'm so glad I'm back in recovery mode, but at the same time, the sheer magnitude of food choices and the world outside my apartment is a huge shock. I'll get used to the “new normal”, but it won't happen overnight.

List of Battles

If there's one thing humans are good at, it's believing things that aren't true. I could go on and on about how the internet has enabled the perpetuation of BS to reach disturbing heights. But that's a different post for a different day.

Today I'm going to address the misconceptions that I battle just about every day of my life. I'm an odd duck, I admit it. I cover my head. I juggle numerous physical and mental health issues. I'm wired differently and have some places in my brain that just don't “click” like everyone else's. That combination of stuff leads to a lot of misconceptions.

Here are just a few of the misconceptions people have had about me. Yes, people are really this ridiculous:

Myth: I struggle with depression, anxiety, and PTSD because G-d wanted to punish me
Fact: I struggle with all of the above because genetics and environment can suck, and because people have the unfortunate capacity to make choices that screw up other people for life

Myth: Since I cover my head, I must be rigid about gender roles
Fact: yeah, no. Not really. Quite the opposite, actually. (There are so many misconceptions about head covering. I really need to do a separate post about this.)

Myth: Since I am white and have a middle class background, I don't have any problems.
Fact: Ha. Yeah. Right.

Myth: People with learning disabilities just don't think.

Fact: Have you ever been inside my head? I can't shut the darn thing off! Please let me know if you find the off switch so I can catch a break!

Myth: Since I'm a Christian, I'm “anti-gay.”

Fact: Based on my intepretation of Scripture, I cannot accept same-sex attraction as “natural” and therefore do not identify as a “GLBT ally”. However, if your definition of “anti-gay” is turning all Westboro Baptist Church on people who are GLBT, I am not anti-gay, and I most certainly do not condone hate crimes of any kind. I have lost a lot of Christian friends and received some horribly vicious emails due to this radical notion that we are all human beings, and that none of us are a be-all, end-all authority on something as complicated as sexuality.

Myth: Since I'm a Christian, I want all my beliefs to be enforced by the state and national government.

Fact: I've never thought that, and I think it even less so after watching “Persepolis.”

What about you? What are some misconceptions you battle with?

Balance

There are no words to describe how much I hate the concept of “new year's resolutions.” Let's be honest. They're a load of bunk. They don't work. No one keeps them. They're like the self-help version of fad diets. That's why I was intrigued when I stumbled upon this OneWord365 challenge. It wasn't exactly rocket science trying to figure out which word to choose: balance. Everyone needs balance, but I need it like a diabetic needs insulin.

I've wrestled with so many strongholds. Anorexia and codependency are the top two contenders. These two addictions are the enemy of balance. Heck, any addiction is an enemy of balance. In the past several months, I've gone to significant lengths to try to achieve balance. I left the conventional workforce. I took a sabbatical from my Etsy shop last summer. I've got a pretty good understanding of what I need to do to achieve balance in my life, and I've been trying to do it for awhile. This year I need to continue in my quest for balance.

The issue of codependency impeding balance isn't discussed anywhere near as often as it should be. As I continue to heal, I hope to write more about this, because it's huge. That's why I'm creating a “healing” section of my blog. It's not going to be an easy subject by any means, but it's so important. If even one person reads this and starts pursuing balance and healing, that's more than enough for me.