About these meetings

I am really excited to be organizing the first EDA meetings for CT. This assumes you have recieved information ELSEWHERE or I referred you to my blog after you contacted me.

I am not a therapist, I am in solid strong recovery and am motivated strongly to reach out to others and provide a safe place to meet and connect with others. Recovery can be very lonely, but it doesn't have to be. I was frustrated during my time in counseling that there was nothing like this for me. I commited to myself that once I was strong enough in my own recovery I would find a way to offer this kind of opportunity to others.

I will be helping facilitate it, but the goal is for each individual to find their voice and for the group to eventually guide itself. We will be using the meeting guidelines published by EDA which I will provide at the first meeting. I will always help with the meeting location and any logistical problems the group encounters. But remember, you own your recovery and your behavior!

EDA uses religious language in the 12 steps, each individual is free to interpret this as a higher presence or even their own internal source of guidance.

Anyone who is currently suffering from an eating disorder is free to attend. As the facilitator, I will be very clear that anybody who feels that food, eating or weight obsessions is something for which they want to receive help from peers in exploring is welcome to be with the group: This includes anorexia, bulimia and bingers/overeaters, and those "not otherwise specified"- (like me ya'll!) Sometimes this requires a stretch into zones that we are not familiar with, but trust me, there are commonalities and we can connect in deep and meaningful ways.

Let me say again how excited and proud I am of you, and how much I am looking forward to meeting you!

A year from now

A year from now
I want to be me

I see myself and I am strong
smiling and proud
because I had the dignity and the grace to get through it all
and did not fall
I may have stumbled here and there
but picked myself up
and learned as I went along
and shooed the boogie men out of the shadows
and found the friends I had been missing all along
and I will know that I grew and became the woman I was meant to be
myself-Amy-me

But as someone recently said
no future tripping
I can not be her yet
there are puzzles to be unpuzzled
and crevasses to be plunged
and wounds to be slowly healed over
but at least I see where I want to go
and it is so nice to say
I want to run
to me
and my arms are wide open

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"The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity."
-- Erich Fromm

on coming out to people

Lately I have become so accustomed to being a Recoverer and reaching out to people as a Recoverer, that I have more and more become used to bringing it up and mentioning it to people. Yet I have forgotten perhaps how startling it is for people. I am at a crossroads in figuring out how to deal with this. Last night I mentioned it to an acquaintance over drinks as it was important context for a broader story I was telling. And I didn't really wish to go on a tangent and reveal more than the fact that I was "an eating disorder recoverer". Yet for her, I could see the surprise, discomfort, alarm and tentative curiosity. She danced "gently" between probing and avoiding. I think we have to continue to remember others comfort levels.

However, what I have decided is that I do not necessarily have to make peace with my past (in so many ways) but i do have to make peace with my present. And my present and my future is this- I am an Eating Disorder Recoverer. This is a real label that right now I wear. It is an important part of my soul and a guiding part of my future endeavors. As another friend repeatedly tells me, if I am ashamed and look down on myself, and model this through my words and actions, how do I expect others to treat me and those who suffer.

We are everywhere, we are your sisters, your teachers, your daughters, your friends, your colleagues, your mothers, your wives and lovers.

Noticing the small things...

I have noticed that as I have recovered small things in my world have been able to reach me and touch me in deeper ways. The less buried we are in our eternal-internal dilemmas, the more we are able to notice and receive the small blessings given to us by the world around us.

Walking my dog this morning, I laughed as he and I skated across the frozen tundra that has become CT. The crows too were calling to us in their merry way from the naked trees above. And the slick frozen landscape sparkled and shone in the bright morning sunlight. Not every moment needs to be heavy with worry or care. It feels good to breathe the cold air and laugh with the crows sometimes.

It reminded me of Robert Frost.

Robert Frost is a "master" American poet known for appreciating the small, simple but poignant features of the American landscape and life. As I have matured and aged, poets like him, (and painters like Norman Rockwell, and composers like Aaron Copland) have begun to speak to me more. Our ability to capture these fleeting moments of truth, beauty and relevancy in our lives is something we miss if we are too caught up in our internal melodrama of food and weight and self hatred.

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Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

-Robert Frost
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I'd like to add as a footnote: My absolute favorite aspect of recovery is having my mind and my mental energy back. The fact that I can pull out a favorite poem from my memory banks is not a small feat. The mental fatigue, the confusion, the irritability, all of that is gone. I always tell people, my brain on food sometimes feels like being on crack! The Amy who eats is very different from the Amy who doesn't eat.

More to life than this...

I met an artist recently and it reminded me of the importance of art, expression and things of beauty in our lives and in our world.

We become so fixated on creating ourselves as things of beauty and perfection that we forget the real reason that art and beauty exist in the world. They exist to allow us to explore our emotions, to allow humans a way to express their natural creative urges, to challenge and extend ourselves, to surround ourselves with aesthetically pleasing and/or unique and stimulating objects and environs.

Art is a uniquely human act and fulfills a uniquely human need.

Art exists for arts sake. Art exists because it MAKES US FEEL GOOD.

Having beautiful things, or eating delicious food, or enjoying beautiful music are not necessary for survival, but they too exist to make us FEEL good.

Does our eating disorder really serve any of those purposes?

Life should not hurt so much. Bringing good things to ourselves is not selfish, it is not gluttonous, it is a powerful and smart way to live your life.

I wish everyone a beautiful day today.
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"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."
--Pablo Picasso

The twelfth step

The 12th step in EDA- is to carry the message to others.

Apparently they will come... my advertising so far has been successful, in less than 24 hours I have requests for information coming.

I am so thrilled and happy and excited to be giving back and spreading a message of recovery. If only TWO people come to the first meeting, that will be AWESOME.

We are part of a greater universe than the microcosm of our little minds. We must always strive to be a part of that greater universe.

no longer treading water

I wrote this two years ago:

Treading Water

I’m nine
The evening sun is sinking over the lake
Pleasure boats head home and give up the water to the evening fishermen
“Amy!” calls Grandma from the house
“It’s time to come in”

The blue black water laps around me
Peddling and pushing my scrawny arms and legs,
Keeping the water moving,
Keeping me still amongst the currents
The waves splash around my neck and chin
Spitting out the water
Breathing in
Breathing out
Keeping my limbs moving

Instinctively in training
For what would be my life

Every girl should learn this skill
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I am no longer treading water. I am definitely moving through the water now. The meetings are scheduled and have been advertised. If you build it they will come?

I am proud of myself today.