You mean nothing to no one but that is nobody's fault.

"I had a lengthy discussion about The Power of Myth / With a post-modern author who didn't exist
In this fictitious world all reality twists / I was a hopeless romantic, now I'm just turning tricks"

In our last conversation she mentioned the word "empowerment" as a way to get through life

i had heard it and read it in all this therapy/recovery stuff. empowerment. It's like sometimes you skim

the words that can't apply..(which is why i always have to re-read.) It is an Action word. something you have to DO.

Move. Act. Change. Being really avoidant,...well its a problem. I'd almost rather be terrified, frozen, prepared and

ready to fight this imaginary THING. You can't see it and i almost always can't see it but I know it is there and I have to obsess and do all these THINGS to like starve, for instance, and count and place things and cover them (ocd what have you)

suddenly you drop all that and go join an Animal Rescue Program. And you are thinking that you neglecting a small dark world that

is SCREAMING and begging for you to return but you say NO. I am putting on normal clothes and brushing my teeth and going

to pay a bill. or sign up for a class. or join an acting troupe. or actually make a friend and hang out with them and drink tea and NOT

become codependent and twisty and obsessed with their past and present and soul and brain. I am being normal. this is normal. great. now i am obsessing about being normal.

So, you know, what better way to be empowered that to be an activist for this thing you are recovered FROM?

Well, you know what? It is really hard to be an activist for a condition that no one believes you have. or had.

it is really hard to be surrounded by people who say they love you but when you form words your mouth is just

numb bc you cant make words that covey the slightest accurate portrait of what is inside you.

so you draw it and you paint it and your parents can't bear too look bc the painting are painful and 

most of the time i don't even think my therapist believes me. Anxiety. i have anxiety and i have fear.

Oh. Sorry. I thought it was God. (i really did)

i don't understand how anyone can love me if they don't know me. and i don't feel known.

i don't want to die unknown, but then in another way i kinda do. just crawl up and disappear. go away as if i never was.

that kinda sounds okay sometimes. That last love, he said, "you cant leave me bc no one knows you but me"

and it sounds like some controlling bs but the thing is, he was right. It was true. So sometimes he called me crazy but sometimes he

said My god there is nothing wrong with you. he said it so much. i got angry. i stopped taking my medicine. i stopped all of it. i didn't tell anyone. after a few months my skull was a living torture chamber for my brain. I tried to tell him what was going on.

"ohmygod see this is the shit you don't need to say. to anyone. this is the shit that is gonna get you back in the hospital.and you need to stop it bc there is nothing wrong with you. i'm going to call your parents... do they know how you are"  

i got back on my meds eventually but, like, i think everyone just kinda thought i was lame for doing so. So after that i just you know shut most people out except for my few obsessions. and he moved on and all which is great bc he was an amazing human being even though the was, of course, not equipped  with the skills to handle what the hell ever ever was wrong with  me. (NOTHING)

i "recovered" i eat. i got a job. it has been years now, since i recovered from nothing.

 i look an my paintings and  cry. i am numb and no one knows who i am.

Maladaptive Universe. congrats on yr starving!?!

Will power is continuing to paint when you know you suck

Continuing to write when you know you are not a writer

And continuing to eat when you think you are big enough

But you know there are people counting on you to keep going.

So yeah, I am working on this watercolor. Practice.

Non stop practice, it feels like.

So yeah, Im like, this is stupid. And pointless.

Buti keep going, I am still in that mode.

My moods, they don’t come and flash and go

They come and they settle and stay a while.

And I drink. And I smoke. And I paint.

Its bad, yeah. I know.

But the thing about addiction… is THIS. Don’t congratulate yourself

For your willpower when it comes to E.D.  – AN specifically.

Don't congratulate yourself for starving..when you LIKE it. when you are addicted to it.

Does anyone congratulate a drug addict for snorting all THOSE LINES???

or an alcoholic for drinking THAT MUCH??? no. NO. But it is the same thing.

resisting food is not -

NOT about having a strong personality..when it is something you are addicted to.

jesus. Does this society's love affair with thin NEVER end? really though.

I LIKED IT.

just like i like struggling to be a good painter..when

 i know...there are only a handful of good ones.

oh well.

its the struggle, right? the struggle for balance and for health.

"No Struggle.

No Progress "- (frederick douglass quote.)

hmm this painting is just a copy from a magazine. i do that sometimes for practice. but it kept looking more and more like me as a confused kid than as a fashion model in  NYLON. so i let it go and be that. ugly dress and all. then i made a butterfly with mis matched wings out of a different kind of paper and sewed that on. MALadaPTIve uNIVersE.

photosynthesis

fish wish whispers

Sometimes I say I am going to lay off the eating disorder topic and sometimes its all i want to blog about/read about it bc so many of my thoughts go to food and eating and size and shape and the weight of the space AROUND me as it presses down against me. Could it be physics? Really, maybe my e.d. was caused by the SPACE AROUND ME pushing in on me. riiight. Oh wait, that is anxiety.

crackers for breakfast• crackers for lunch• crackers for dinner.

no protein. I neeeeeeeed protein. I need it, I get cranky and depressed and exhausted w/out it but my god it is hard to eat it. ...but sometimes i can do it. (chew chew chew swallow don't think, don't dont't don't THINK..chew.)

But..I'm cat-sitting for this really cool lady, right. Well, I have to feed her cats canned food...and it makes me NOT want to eat...for the rest of the day. Really my brain just makes all these icky connections and the best i can do as far as eating is only eat really bland things. Okay, then, brain...we will EAT crackers. great. CARBS. really? ugh.

I don't know why it is soooo complicated....i just get so disgusted by the nature of food - what it really IS.

 I don't know why

and part of me doesn't care! i will stay strong -  even i have to drink meals. 

This is all very NEW. This never happened in the earlier more severe parts of my bizare food neurosis. There was no repulsive connections between food and meat or death or gross things.

There was just RESTRICTION.

So maybe parts of my mind are fighting against me being well.....??

I tend to do that. Fight against myself. Don't we all...?? in some way or another.

Anyway..the damn cats. I LIKE the cats. I have a dog. I'm a dog type-o-person. and i like fish. but i dream that i have to eat fish. and that sucks. bc the fish whisper to me.and they ask me not to eat them!!!!

OrANGE IS NOT for ADD Addled brains

I have some dumb fantasy that if i get some ADD medication that i will be able to salvage my life. I'm sure that is not true...for instance, I thought the same thing of cymbalta and that was a WRECK and night sweats and prozac is doing just dandy right?
So why am i all jumbled up and why do i feel like the transmission in my brain is BROKE like i cant shift gears and all my thoughts get jumbled and then I schedule five appts for the SAME time and try to leave the house w/out shoes on the coldest day of the year but i was IN a hurry....

and i supposed i will continue to be misunderstood and way too sensitve but really im beginning to think that everyone ELSE is just as senstive as me. i insulted 8 people in one blog - a blog that was totally self absorbed and all about ME.
or maybe it was the babykilling joke. yeah i'm sure that was totes lame. Sometimes i joke about things bc they are too horrid to deal with otherwise. Like when i told my dog that i would hate to drag around a mushed puppy patty so she better stay back off of the road. And then i laughed about plastered puppy patty all day bc I LOVE MY DAMN DOG. okay god, back to work. im totallly LOVING ORANGE TODAY

Another Tattered Torso

Healing humor healing imagery

healing oil, incense, church and bone.

However we heal...

however we recover

together or alone

soul serious singing

laughing earth in unision

we are.

Blogability...

i don't think i have it. Blogability that is. ..Not that i will stop but i am not so good with words or maintaining a coherent train of thought. I am enjoying blogging, though, bc written words AND PICTURES are so much more conducive to the way i EXPRESS things..than the SPOKEN world. But, alas, i am no writer. Plus I'm not sure what i wanted this blog to be. I originally set it up so i could vent about the  media, mental illness,eating disorder issues and the more "real" meaning of my art without divulging to much info on myspace. I suppose i wanted to spare my friends the more nasty parts of my reality. Then i started reading other mental illness/eating disorder blogs and i found that to be helpful however,i didn't want this blog to just be about THAT. It is true that I struggle with things of that nature, but that is by no means all that I am or that I want to share with people.  Anyway, I found some common bonds with other bloggers and i enjoy getting outraged with the people over at Mamavision but one thing i have noticed is that my food issues are most certainly NOT about vanity and I would never in a million years judge another person based on my own food weirdness. (I don't even really judge meat-eaters and I am veg) I read a review of the movie Disfigured (I posted about it earlier) and i was kind of horrified to learn that the anorexic chick totally insults other women's bodies and that is a stereotype that i hate - the stereotype that "not eating" is about vanity and being thinner than anyone else. It ISN'T - not for me. Bc I rarely think about other peoples bodies and generally I am attracted to women who have healthy bodies...I'm not saying that body image has nothing to do with it or that it is totally about control but when i feel super Anxious or depressed or out of control the first thing I want to do is restrict food in the same way a stressed out former alcoholic may want to reach for the bourbon or what have you. And one way i deal with that, now that i am much healthier (and have a kick ass therapist) is through ART and PHOTOGRAPHY.  And that is one reason for this blog. However i reserve the right to blog about silly awesome goodwill finds and the cutest little thing my dog does...