No bling, no ring-a-ding-ding

Today, SIECUS, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States released their review of sexuality education and abstinence until marriage programs in the U.S.

I've had a chance to skim the sucker and here goes:

First off, I have to start with the fact that I have been raging against the wrong machine. I have no problem with abstinence. Confession here -- I am abstinent. It is my choice and a good one for me at that.

There are two key words missing from what I have been talking about in these previous posts and those are "until" and "marriage".

Problems I have with abstinence until marriage (AUM - ironic isn't it...):

1. Some of us aren't going to get married. The AUM groups believe that you should never have sex.

2. Some of us cannot legally get married. These are the sodomites and lesbos and perverted queers who are many of my favorite people, not to mention probably your hairdresser. And I'm speaking to you, Leslee Unruh - cute haircut.

3. Why be abstinent until marriage? Here's where (I think) it gets interesting.

All programs that receive AUM funds must adhere to the definition of abstinence education which specifies, in part, that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of all human sexual activity” and that “sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.”

I would like to direct your attention to the part about "standard of all human sexual activity".

This statement indicates that homosexuality is abnormal and of all things, unexpected. (OMG, Johnny is queer!). Not only is it deviant, as our definition informs us, but it is also dangerous.

And here, I am going to agree. Sexuality is dangerous.

• You might get your heart broken
• You might get herpes
• You might have a terrible time
• You might get taken advantage of
  

But you might do these things in or out of the sacred bonds of marriage. Check your local rags. Britney, Jeri Ryan, Pam Anderson, Reese Witherspoon, your neighbors and friends and on and on and on and on.

Abstinence until marriage is not the panacea that Muffy and Bobby are being led to believe. Abstinence until marriage will not guarantee you the perfect life partner or a happy marriage or disease free life. Furthermore, daddy cannot protect his baby from any harm by having his daughter pledge her purity to him at a dance where you eat wedding cake while signing virginity pledges. Yet, the Abstinence Clearinghouse, a major resource for those receiving federal abstinence until marriage funding, distributes close to 700 “Purity Ball Planner” booklets a year and points out that the tips in the booklet include “printing out the vows on beautiful paper” and “serving wedding cake for dessert.

In 19 freakin' 48, Alfred Kinsey wrote:

"The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects."

So, if we are not just sheep and goats, perhaps we are not all heterosexually oriented and doin' it in the missionary position starting exactly on the day we pledge our undying love and obedience to some idiot lovely individual we met 10 months ago at a purity ball. But that is not what the Bush administration and his gang of (neo) cons wants for their God-fearing America.

What they are not telling us is that 80% of them did it before the ring was firmly slammed shut onto their fingers. A recent Guttmacher Institute study showed that premarital sex has been universal for decades and that among those turning 15 between 1954 and 1963, 82% had had premarital sex by age 30, and 88% had done so by age 44. (Accessed 6/27/07).

Hypocrisy perhaps? Or just wanting better for their children than they had? Or perhaps they hear dollar bills falling like snow in Aspen.

Between 1996 and federal Fiscal Year 2006, Congress funneled over $1.5 billion dollars (through both federal and state matching funds) to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. (SIECUS)

“All of a sudden, abstinence is a business,” Unruh told a reporter in 2002 as she noted that more than 900 new abstinence-only-until-marriage organizations emerged in the last decade. (accessed 6/27/07).

According to research done by SIECUS, a cadre of national abstinence-only-until-marriage speakers, charging anywhere from $1,000–$5,000 per presentation, are at the fingertips of school districts, local county health departments, faith-based organizations, and others who have hundreds of thousands of federal dollars to spend every year. Whether receiving federal funds themselves or not, many of these entrepreneurs advertise to federal grantees that their products, presentations, and novelty items meet the federal government’s requirements for use in abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.

Meanwhile - over here in reality-land, these people show a total disregard for sound public health practices and responsible spending. They are using the facade of public health to promote religion (most specifically, Christianity though not entirely), marriage with no other options presented, anti-gay bias, anti-choice politics and distortions about actual scientific public health issues.

SIECUS' analysis of the issues is incredibly thorough and I could go on and on but read the report for yourself. I highly recommend it.

Safe spaces

I had an enormous revelation last week. Needless to say, it was preceded by some fairly maladaptive behavior, but if I'm paying attention, I learn from my idiotic mistakes.

For a long time, I thought that the reason I didn't do certain things was because I was being lazy. It's not that I didn't want to go to the market after work to get a nice, healthy dinner - I just didn't go - I didn't feel like it. Then I'd go home and binge. I'd put off or avoid other situations too.

What I've learned this week is - often it's because I don't feel safe.

Usually not unsafe like, "I might be attacked in the parking lot." although sometimes that may be the reason. Usually it's a feeling of not having the energy to put up the big wall around me that says

"Motherfucker - stay the fuck away from me."

without ever uttering a sound. It's a skill but sometimes I'm too depleted and I can't make myself face the bad guys.

I've had a few bad guys in my life.

Strangers, acquaintances and family members have been bad guys and it gets kind of hard to trust people, which is why I leave my bed every morning with an enormous shield around me.

The big bright spot in my world is my husband. Sometimes he's clueless. Sometimes I'm just not giving him any clues to go on - but he's done a pretty good job of making my world a safer place to live in.

At Passover this year I was telling my family about the house and all of the work I've been doing around the garden. Someone asked, "Well, what does Michael do?" I told them, "He pays for everything!" It shut everyone the hell up (and is a lot easier to understand than he makes me feel safe). Whether he pays for everything or not, he makes me feel like home is a good place to come to.

• I don't feel like my mistakes are going to be thrown back at me.
• I don't feel like I'm going to have to justify my existence.
• I'm not afraid that he's going to be unpredictable when he gets home.

Safety is such a huge thing for me. I'm not sure if the whole concept makes much sense to others - it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me before I started therapy. I know now that I have never felt safer in my life.

It's damn near blissful.

It wasn't always like this. Jeff died 7 months before we got married. I wasn't sure of anything except that I was there to support Michael. About two years later, after moving my grandmother into assisted living, starting a business, and leaving my job, Michael and I started to realize something was not right on Planet Faith.

I went through some very scary stuff, most of which involved me feeling like the world was slipping out from under me. I think one of the things that got me through was the night Michael showed up in my room and said, "I'm not going anywhere." Basically, he informed me that I would have to leave if we were going to split up. It was the beginning of finally feeling like I had terra firma.

At the time, I didn't know that I needed him to say that, but I believed him there and then, and I have never doubted it a moment since.

My husband may go play in Chicago and Palm Springs and Calgary (shout out to the Canadians!) and then he comes home. I may have friends in New York and Palm Springs and from one end of Los Angeles County to the other, but there is something that Michael provides that I don't get from them.

He's far from perfect (and I'm no June Cleaver) but we've got this relationship thing down pat.

Sometimes we'll tell people about our relationship and they'll say, "Oh, but you're not really married."

I just have to look at Michael - it doesn't matter what other people think about how "really married" we are or are not - we know.

My name is Faith and I'm a blogoholic

It's my bloggiversary today and as such, I would like to thank my blaudience. You have all been just blogtastic. I'd also like to invite all of you blurkers to come out of hiding.

In the last two years I have participated in a blogswarm, posted over 200 times, had readers from every state in the U.S. and almost every continent. I have hosted a carnival and been posted in at least 3 carnivals throughout the blogosphere.

While I haven't yet become a blogebrity, nor do I consider myself blogerati, I've been through a few periods of blogstipation. Thankfully that's all blover now as I seem to be posting blalmost blevery day - not quite to the point of blogorrhea but it has led to a severe period of hitnosis. The blognoscenti will agree, I am over my blogophobia and this blargon post has to end.

This is just to say, I appreciate all of the commentariat out there.

Thanks!

Hat tip to QuickOnlineTips.

Body ambivalence

I am 36 years old. I will be 37 in six months and 1 day.

For all of the progress I've made in the past two years, especially since I didn't even start recovery until after 17 years of on and off bulimia, I've gotta tell you, there is a huge part of me that feels so damn stupid.

Despite knowing a community of intelligent, thoughtful and strong women with eating disorders, I still have a voice in my head saying EDs are for Nicole Richie and your sorority sister. Not smart, funny women like us.

So often when I disclose, people say things like, "I had a period of bulimia in high school." or "I had anorexia in my freshman year of college."

How juvenile do I feel as a 36 year old married woman, with a house and a job and all the responsibility that goes with it, sticking my finger down my throat.

When things become stressful in my life, I binge and purge. The last couple of years were more than a little stressful. My bulimia went into full raging lifestyle trend. I know it's my coping mechanism and I know it worked for a long time. It's not working anymore. For one, I do feel like an idiot. Am I still going to be throwing up at 40? 50? How completely ridiculous will that be? Is it any more ridiculous than at 36?

I am so honored and amazed at the women in the eating disorder recovery community. Most of them (though not all) are younger than I am and they are figuring it out. They are taking care of this demon, this obnoxious monster in our heads before their 30th year. I am truly so impressed by them.

I feel as though in many ways, throughout my life, my body has betrayed me, and yet, in many ways throughout my life, my body has done all kinds of things to protect me too. This is an important lesson I am just recently learning. The hatred for my body has been so intense, there hasn't been (isn't really) a whole lot of room for loving it.

Tattooing my body is one way I am trying to love it better - learning to even look at it. I am turning my body into a work of art, even as it starts to wrinkle and the lines made by bedsheets last past when I arrive at work in the morning... I am choosing the artwork and how it is done.

I am choosing this body of mine. Which is a step in a direction. Which is better than sinking.

By the way I love this book on writers and tattoos.

Secrets, lies and more inanity

“EVERYTHING in your life you have attracted—accept that fact—it's true.” The Secret

Truth is a funny thing. First off, there is still quite the disagreement among philosophers as to what truth actually is. Just because something may seem logical does not necessarily make it true and vice versa. Truth can change throughout time based on new technology or new ways of understanding.

Erich Fromm wrote that the dichotomy between 'absolute = perfect' and 'relative = imperfect' has been superseded in all fields of scientific thought, where:

"it is generally recognized that there is no absolute truth but nevertheless that there are objectively valid laws and principles....Scientific knowledge is not absolute but optimal; it contains the optimum of truth attainable in a given historical period."

So to say that it is true - that we have attracted everything into our lives - is such arrogance, I can barely breathe.

Regarding this truth - that we have attracted EVERYTHING in our life - I would like to direct the various authors of the secret to talk to a Holocaust survivor, an 8 year old molested by her father and a woman in India living with AIDS with no access to clean water much less medication. I would like for each of them to explain how they attracted EVERYTHING into their lives. I would like to ask them to visit Walter Reed to visit a soldier home from Iraq missing something he left with and a mass grave in Darfur. I would like them to talk to the Princes of Wales, to sex slaves in Estonia and to each woman in every domestic violence shelter in the nation. I would like them to explain how they brought all of this on themselves.

The entire premise of The Secret is an anti-intellectual screed designed to make billions off of superstition and promises of silver bullets with no need, in fact no right to even ask, for corroboration. If you do, you clearly are not believing and you are bringing negativity into your life. Rhonda Byrne can just wish you away into the cornfield.

Rhonda Byrne offers that, "When I discovered 'The Secret' I made a decision that I would not watch the news or read newspapers anymore, because it did not make me feel good." Ooh ooh! I want to be a blithering idiot!! Mee toooo!

No seriously, she thinks that if you throw your weight behind trying to stop war or poverty you bring more negative energy to it...seriously.

"Imperfect thoughts are the cause of all humanity's ills, including disease, poverty, and unhappiness."

Imperfect thoughts. I would say so. But not in the way The Secret moralizes. According to The Secret, a person who is killed by a drunk driver brought it on by their own thought patterns. It couldn't have had anything to do with the "imperfect thoughts" of the drunk driver - could it?

The disease of dis-ease is not new. I personally remember the big Hay rides of the 80's and 90's where Louise Hay spouted the same absurdity about AIDS. Rhonda and her cohorts suggest that not only should you not think about getting cancer, you should "not observe" those with cancer because the energy from their "imperfect thoughts" that brought them cancer might come and infect you.

Rhonda told ABC that she wouldn't even get a flu shot because "if you're feeling good, how can you attract any illness to you?" Hmmm. I don't know Rhonda? I think with all of your positive energy and perfect thoughts you should travel to a third world slum, don't observe any of the suffering people and see if you can avoid malaria or schistosomiasis.

"Disease cannot live in a body that's in a healthy emotional state," Bob Proctor says in the film. I want to see Dr. Proctor's medical license. Stat.

And then Rhonda clarifies, "How does it work? Nobody knows. Just like nobody knows how electricity works. I don't, do you?"

Over 5 million people are reading this drivel. While some people are taking the good (positive thinking) and tossing the idiotic, I have to assume that some of them are reading it like gospel.

Some references from Salon.com accessed 6-19-07.

The sound you hear is the bullshit bell ringing in your ear...

It's the craze that is sweeping the nation! The Secret is the repackaged, lipsticked for 2007 version of every positive thinking program that has ever existed from Eckhart Tolle to Norman Vincent Peale.

Personally, I have no beef with the power of positive thinking. I think positively now that the Prozac is flowing steadily through each and every little capillary of my brain. I know that when I was thinking that the world was shit, indeed, the world was big stanky piles of shit. Not a wonder I spent a good 85% of my time under the covers.

Here is where my personal bullshit bell starts ringing. Rhonda (the contriver of said Secret) starts talking about your body and positive thinking, which would be just ducky if she talked about loving your body for what it gives you right now, etc. and she does give this motif a cursory once over but her solution for losing weight is the following:

Let go of all those limiting thoughts. Food cannot cause you to put on weight, unless you think it can.

The definition of the perfect weight is the weight that feels good for you. No one else’s opinion counts. It is the weight that feels good for you.

You most likely know of someone who is thin and eats like a horse, and they proudly declare, “I can eat whatever I want and I am always the perfect weight.” And so the Genie of the Universe says, “Your wish is my command!”

Hmmm. This has worked for how many people in what clinical trial? Also, in my opinion, the definition of the perfect weight for me is about 10 lbs. under my lowest healthy weight. Am I magically going to become 115 lbs if I imagine it? Rhonda? Anyone?

I realize that what she is trying to articulate is that focusing on your goal is a good way to get to the body that is healthy for you. But that's not what she says.

And then folks, it gets bad. Really, really bad. And stupid. And irresponsible and all kinds of other words that I can barely type.

Make it your intention to look for, admire, and inwardly praise people with your idea of perfect-weight bodies. Seek them out and as you admire them and feel the feelings of that-you are summoning it to you. If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it.

I'm sorry. Inwardly praise people with your idea of perfect weight bodies and do not observe overweight people? Are you fucking kidding me? Is this the tripe that millions of people have been spending their earned money on? Oprah has been feasting on?

I am calling bullshit. Here and now.

I love Kaiser

Say what you will about Kaiser Permanente. I will say to you naysayers that every hospital in this country has been sued at least once, there are bad apples in every bunch and even the good apples have bad days. Frankly, I love Kaiser. Here's why:

• I was born at Kaiser and have never had any other insurance.
• Growing up I had severe asthma involving a period of 5 hospitalizations and weekly (no exaggeration) races to the emergency room as I turned blue in the backseat. Also, one episode of scarlet fever, one episode of anaphylactic shock and many, many broken bones
• As an adult, I have been diagnosed (correctly) with polycystic ovarian syndrome before anyone really knew about it and I have been treated for bulimia, gallbladder disease and had a technically perfect breast reduction surgery of which you cannot even see the scars.
• Although I have had my fair share of doctors, nurses, social workers and others with heads firmly planted in asses, most of my experiences have been exceptional.
• I have the best therapy team in the entire world.
• My physician is awesome and makes me feel so incredibly comfortable even though I really, really hate doctor's appointments.
  

Today I went in for some blood work. I knew over the last couple of months, Kaiser was transitioning to a paperless program. This has resulted in far fewer reams of paper for each of my therapy appointments but otherwise, I hadn't really benefited from the program.

This morning I rolled over at 7 a.m. and called Kaiser for a "same day appointment". Although my physician was not available, there was an appointment with someone else at 8:20 a.m. I arrived at 8:05. I was seen at 8:15 by a completely competent guy who listened to me. On my way out, he gave me his card in case I had any questions or had another episode. I went downstairs and waited in line for the phlebotomist and was in my car by 9:30. I got to work at about 10 a.m. When I checked my email, I had a message from Kaiser Permanente. I logged in to find my first set of results (completely normal). Throughout the day, as more labs have come in, I am able to go on and check my results.

I love Kaiser.

By the way, I love the fainting girl picture! I think it looks a little like me.

Don't you hate it when...

You have a weekend of activities planned but you end up on the 405 freeway for 2 hours, nearly missing throwing up on a homeless vet at the VA hospital, making it to your friends party in a barely conscious and somewhat disoriented state (thanks for taking care of me Allison!)?

I do.

I figured it was just from not eating, but then it happened again the next day.

I went to the Dr. this morning. So far, a little low blood pressure, otherwise, everything seems painfully normal.

More updates soon.

You're it!

Remember when we were kids playing the "it" game and if you didn't want to be it you would scream "noddit, noddit, noddit!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Just a weird moment.

Anyway, I've been tagged. I don't think I've ever been tagged before and I'm apparently far too lazy to go back and look. Suffice it to say, I don't remember getting tagged, but this morning I was tagged by Ms. Em. The tag - 7 things that you probably don't know about me. These are not particularly profound but they are integral so, here goes:

1. I was born on my great grandmothers 70^th birthday. Her name was Isobel and she would send my mother articles on child abuse because my mom wouldn’t let us have any sugar. Oddly enough, now the first thing my mother does when a new baby comes into the family is try to feed it whipped cream or ice cream.
2. My name was supposed to be Manon but my grandmother threatened my mother and so she changed my name. Manon is my middle name but actually, part of me wishes it had been my first name.
3. I went into anaphylactic shock one Passover when I was 9 or 10 and when I was asked what I wanted to eat after I woke up from the coma my dad told me my choice wasn’t kosher for Passover and I should choose something else. I chose an orange soda.
4. My great aunt was a contortionist and I can still (at age 36!) get my legs behind my neck (but apparently I can’t do a cartwheel anymore – and I have a huge bruise to prove it because on a total whim, I tried it on Monday. Yeesh. I think I may need to increase my strength training.)
5. I love listening to the Beastie Boys. I know they’re sexist and they can’t sing but damn they are having fun. And they’re all such nice Jewish boys. Their music reminds me of every good time I had in high school. The fact is, at heart, I’m a real headbanger. Ask my husband. He shakes his head in shame as I swing my hair to the likes of Ratt and AC/DC.
6. The thought of going back to school scares the ever lovin’ crap out of me (both financially and mentally) and yet, I don’t think I’ll be content until I do it.
7. Before I became what I am today (whatever that is) I wanted to be an artist, a marine biologist and a rabbi. Unfortunately, I made these decisions before I learned that I would have to have artistic talent, math skills and belief, so, needless to say, none of those things worked out.

OK - there it is - comment at will. Now, I tag Allison and Frank!

Noddit!!!

Public Service Announcement

If you or someone you know is in the medical field and has medical textbooks or journals, the UCLA Medical Alumni Association has started a project to improve medical education in Iraq.

Iraqi medical schools and doctors are in serious need of textbooks (especially covering anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology) but also could use journals, review books, and other helpful reference materials. Anything published since 1994 is considered current! Also, apparently all medical courses in Iraq are taught in English and have been since before this problematic incident we are currently engaged in.

Unfortunately, I won't be at Stitch n' Bitch for the next two weeks as my sister's store is having their grand opening tomorrow night and next week I have a work event but please let me know if you have anything and I'll figure out how to get it from you.

Thanks so much!

Say it Loud!

I'm Prozac-ed and I'm Proud!

I haven't read Prozac Nation yet. Or any of the other 11,699 books that Amazon has listed when Prozac is put into their search engine. I've heard anecdotes about how people don't feel like themselves or feel cut off from reality. I believe them, though I've never had these side effects.

I do, however, have personal experience with the drug and frankly, I'd like to share. I've been on Prozac now for about 3 years. They have been the best three years of my life.

I started at a low dose. At first I had really hideous dry mouth but I started to have entire days where I didn't cry once. I could engage Michael in an actual conversation without feeling like I was being attacked, belittled or pandered to. By the way, he didn't change a bit. My therapist remarked that I no longer seemed "catatonic". This, I assumed to be a good thing.

I was doing ok, but we decided to up my dose. Soon, entire weeks would go by without feeling like I had to get in bed before 5 p.m. This was astounding. I took a walk. Then another one.
I got into an argument with Michael and it didn't feel like the end of the world. It was just a disagreement. What the fuck?! I was still having little crying jags for no reason but I could firmly understand that they were for no particular reason.

We decided to tweak my dose upward again. I started writing again. I started concentrating better. I started to feel like I could bring up a problem I was having without feeling like my entire world might fall apart. Un-freaking-believable. I had absolutely no sex drive but frankly, I never particularly enjoyed sex before and so this was not something I spent a great deal of time in mourning about.

One more tweak. Here we are. I did my last tweak about a year ago. It's been the best year of my life. I have never felt better. I am not delirious but I find joy. I don't even know that I knew what joy necessarily was prior to this year. I often hear others concerned about going on psychoactive drugs worried that they won't feel like themselves. That they'll turn into a zombie version of themselves. I don't feel less "myself", rather, I feel like I am meeting myself for the first time. I can articulate what I want, which was nearly impossible just 3 years ago.

I do not feel zoned out, nor do I feel restless - I've given myself epinephrine shots before - so I know restless. I have written more than I ever have, and I can access my thoughts better than ever. Sometimes I feel like exercising, sometimes I feel like cleaning. Sometimes I feel like sitting on my couch reading a magazine and smiling at the wonder that I can do that and not hate myself. Sometimes, I can even tell someone what I want, or what I don't want. Which is an entirely new thing for me to experience. And if that's not authenticity, I'm not sure what is.

More switching

So, my light switch post garnered some of the responses that I expected, both in comments and in personal emails.

What are the words? I want to know the words! (Give me the magic bullet!!!! NOW!!! Before I reach down your throat and rip out your lungs!) - OK - these are not direct quotes, but close enough.

The truth is, my light switch isn't going to work for you. For instance, my last light switch was the one that said, eliminate all flour and sugar from your diet and you will stop binging and thereby stop waking up every fucking morning hating yourself.

I don't recommend the flour/sugar elimination for anyone. It just happened to work for me. Maybe it won't always work for me, we'll see. This current switch will probably have little more, if any relevance to anyone else and their needs.

My light switches don't even work for my sister, who is genetically related and grew up in the same restricting, 6 oz of cereal weighing house that I did.

Ultimately, I think it takes searching. It takes reading everything you can get your hands on. It takes (for me) journaling, going to a support group, seeing a therapist and doing my assignments.

It takes work. I didn't believe it when I started this whole process, but it actually works.

7 little words

You know that whole "lightswitch" thing we all talk about? You know, the one where we say, I know all the right things to do, I just don't know why I can't do them...I feel like I can't find the lightswitch!"

I have said this many, many times.

My theory is that it is a combination of support, practice and luck.

I am nearly nightblind so this is an excellent metaphor for me.

I'm in a dark room that I've never been in before. People keep telling me there's a lightswitch in this damn room and that to be happy, I need to find the lightswitch (actually there's more than one, but we'll get to that later).

I start by feeling around on the walls. Sometimes I trip over desks, piles of books, stupid skateboards and things in my way from the people that were in this room before me.

I get disoriented and have to go back over the same damn wall again. Sometimes, I cover a wall and figure out that the lightswitch isn't there and I can avoid going back to that wall.

Sometimes, a supportive person, a therapist, husband or friend, says something that helps me get so much closer to this lightswitch.

Sometimes, an idiot at Trader Joe's will say something stupid and I will forget that I ever was looking for lightswitches in the first place.

Sometimes the supportive people in my life are reminded that I need to find the lightswitch by myself and let me grasp around in the dark because I will feel more accomplished if I figure out where it is on my own.

Are we over the lightswitch metaphor yet?

Sometimes, a few words, written on a blog, in a book, said in passing - not meant as "help", not meant for me, specifically, will become so important that it will lead me directly to my lightswitch.

I found one of my lightswitches about a year ago when I cut white flour and sugar out of my system. I don't get migraines anymore and I don't crave sugar and bread anymore. Therefore, I am so much less likely to binge and purge. I eat fat, I eat fruit, I eat carbs -- potatoes, corn tortillas, all kinds of carbs, but I can't seem to manage white sugar and flour and I feel so much better for figuring it out.

Anyway, I think I might have found another lightswitch. It's just luck and being open to hearing it but it made a huge impact on me. It may not be your lightswitch or anyone else's for that matter. I'm excited though.

Yesterday I read 7 little words and I think they're a lightswitch. I'll let you know how it goes.

EDIT: OK. My math inadequacy has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. There were 9 words. Whatever.

Assignments

When I was in school I hated homework. It took me away from things I loved like reading in my closet a.k.a. my secret lair (I started early).

Anyway, since therapy has entered into my life, I am all about assignments.

It's interesting what a little Prozac, some perspective and some introspection will do to help one's mental health.

I've done hundreds of assignments, most of them I have done willingly, even eagerly.

A few of them I have done kicking and screaming.

Of course, these kicking/screaming assignments tend to be the ones that move me so much further in terms of my sanity and figuring out all of this stuff. I should have known...

The one where I wrote a letter to my body, which I was sure was going to be a totally dorky assignment and not worth my precious time...turns out was incredibly enlightening into some of my so-called "behaviors."

I'm also one of those brown-nosers who does extra credit. If I'm given an assignment to come up with some goals, I have to come up with BIG GOALS, little goals and 101 things I want to accomplish before I die.

I'm at #55.

I'm stuck. If you have any suggestions for any of the 101 things I need to do before I'm dead, other than write a will, let me know will you?

I've written "read Faust".

It's getting pathetic.

xo