Addicted

Food is my addiction.

I'm sure I've known this for awhile, but today it seemed like a revelation.

As soon as I was finished eating, all my troubles came rushing back at me, full speed. And then I realized that while I was shopping for food, bringing the food home, eating the food.... all I thought about was the food.

And afterward, it was like the worst crash you could ever experience. Everything came back, and I almost couldn't remember eating at all. The memory, the feeling, was just out of my reach.

All I wanted to do, at that point, was eat something again. Numb myself. Focus, completely focus, on one single tangible thing in my life.

Is this what heroin is like? Am I a junkie? Of course, I mean that last bit without any hint of the humor it so glaringly implies.

How do you break an addiction that you need to survive? How do I give up food?

I don't even care about losing weight anymore. I just don't want to be that girl who needs her fix, a sugary fattening fix, to get through the day.

I don't want to think about food. I don't want it to solve my problems for a few minutes while being its own problem all together.

Someone please tell me how to detox from one of the few things I need to keep me alive.

What time is it? Berlin Time!

I went to Poland for what was supposed to be a lovely holiday last week.



Then there was the plane crash. That was sad but it was interesting to see the country's reaction.



NOW Iceland decides to blow up the day I'm supposed to come back home. So now I'm stuck in Europe until next Wednesday when I can get a BUS back to England from Berlin.



Berlin for 5 days! I think I'm getting sick. Stress and all the indoor smoking in Poland I think. I have no appetite.



Thank God for small favors.



If any of my readers are Berliners and would like to meet up for a Tasse Kaffee I would love that. Send me an email (savory1sick@gmail.com). Love for at least some happiness to come out of this mess.

Any advice on awesome Berlin things are appreciated as well :)

Time to go practice my German.

xxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXxxxxxxxx

A Proclamation

I declare that today shall forever be known as

Savory Day

A moment for fasting and reflection
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Give your heart to starvation.

Ouch.

I have just seriously messed up my arms and shoulders from tensing up while dry heaving. My inability to purge is a blessing and a curse.

Lessons from the Second Great World War

Conversations in Passing

Sometimes, most of the time, I don't take seriously the gravity of my situation.

I'll be watching a television program or movie with and adorable little elderly couple. Or see them on a park bench squabbling. And I smile to myself and turn to TR.

"Do you see us growing old together?"
"Yes."
"Sitting on a little porch laughing and bickering?"
"Of course."
"Who do you think will die first? Me or you?"
"You will."
"Why do you think that?"
"How many times have you already come close to dying?"

I live in a world where my partner doesn't actually see me sitting with him on the little porch. In a life where it will be a success just to survive the times. I'm not in a third world country. This isn't a time when there isn't proper medical care.

I live in my own private Hell. It is slowly killing me.

Pet Peeve

So facebook keeps suggesting this fan page to me: "Not saying 'gay' as a synonym for 'stupid' "

Aside from the really poor wording choice, I have several problems with this campaign. Note, I do not use the word gay to mean anything other than homosexual. Major movie stars are making public service announcements about this like we're talking about getting tested for chlamydia (the silent epidemic!).

Who is making campaigns about using the word "retard" ? Here's why I find that word more offensive. People who are mentally deficient can't always stand up for themselves. Most people know that 'gay' doesn't actually make sense as a synonym for stupid, just like 'wicked' doesn't actually make sense as a synonym for something amazing or impressive. They are just cultural appropriations of our lexicon.

But retard or retarded IS a word meaning lower IQ, less able to function normally, impaired cognition. The "insult" is making a juxtaposition by comparing someone who is obviously not mentally retarded with their behavior which may be reckless, careless, thoughtless, or impulsive. I know many individuals who have adapted to homosexuality but I can't think of anyone I know (and I do know many) that doesn't have a lower quality of life with mental and behavioral deficiencies. And their family suffers even more.

For that matter, how many of your friends get corrected when they say "Why are you acting so crazy?" "Are you insane?" And we know how often people joke about eating disorders. Who is standing up for those minorities?

People might respond to this argument with the case that homosexuals have been persecuted for centuries and it is only within recent history they are not regarded as diseased. But many people don't know that the mentally retarded and disordered people were also sent to concentration camps to die. That until very recently (and only in 1st world countries) psychiatric facilities were prisons, sites of experimentation, and places to die. People with mental disorders were killed for being witches or possessed by Satanic forces. And they are still regarded with suspicion.

The homosexual community, while still marginalized, has made significant strides within the past few decades. People with impaired mental capabilities are still treated as if it's medieval England. Sure, we may know that masturbating or the moon don't cause people to develop mental illnesses... but we don't treat people with schizophrenia as victims. We treat them as possible perpetrators, individuals that will harm us if we let them. Eating Disordered individuals can't speak out about their illness unless he or she is in recovery because we can't expose our children to that kind of perverse thinking. They might just catch anorexia and become infected too.

I understand when my gay friends complain about their co-workers or family members using "gay" with little regard to their feelings. But I don't understand how someone who knows persecution can't see the suffering of people in the same situation. A situation worsened by the fact that the majority of us can't even talk about this major aspect of ourselves. Our families are ashamed. We might get turned down for a job. Rejected for health insurance. And those of us who know someone with mental retardation know that you don't need to say anything. People just stare.

It is the silent minorities, suppressed by the times, that can't help themselves nor expect sympathy from others.

Law of Diminishing Returns

"We are always in danger of overeating, if only because we cannot escape from the idea that if one portion gives pleasure, two portions will give twice as much pleasure and four portions twice as much again. Alternatively, we imagine that the delight of the first mouthful - or first drink - is infinitely repeatable. Even when we have direct sensory experience to the contrary, we cannot be disabused of this seductive idea. Sometimes the search is less for repeatable pleasure than for an imagined pleasure that eludes us. We eat a second orange in the hope that we shall this time taste the warm sunlight it promises, feel the color orange in the mouth rather than the slightly acid sweetness we crush out of the slices as they die between our teeth, our palate and our tongue. The pleasure may be entirely in the idea - in the anticipation. I remember as a child looking forward all day to the Sunday evening roast dinner, my anticipation being wound up by the delicious aroma pervading the house, and then finding the pleasure I had looked forward to proving curiously elusive. Each mouthful was a mini-disappointment, that sent me on to the next mouthful in pursuit of the experience that eluded me. For Gustave Flaubert this was at the root of his commitment to art: 'wine has a taste unknown to those who drink it'. Taste can be savored only through art."
Raymond Tallis Hunger pg 54

Sigh.

My life is infested with ants.
This is not a metaphor whatsoever I am sad to say.

It's a sign. I'm sure of it. Nature is saying to me, "Savory, if you bring even one bakewell tart in here, we will make your life miserable. Ants will crawl all over you in bed to remind you of your earthly sins."

I missed a party to clean out drawers and squish bugs.

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So here's some requests I have for people who are interested in contributing to a website.
- Photography or graphics
- Short fiction or prose (your choice... just nothing overwhelmingly gushy you'd find on fanfiction.net)
- Articles (these can be on a wide range of subjects as long as it's intelligent, makes some sort of argument/position and relates to something like mental health, popular culture, gender, medicine/science, consumerism, or related etc)

It would be great to have a section similar to the Post Secret type thing, where people can anonymously submit short worries/fears/secrets/desires/concerns to share. Anyone who has ideas for setting that up, let me know.

I'd also like some kind of "Dear Abby" feature.

Anyone with ideas other than what I've listed definitely contact me as I have a limited imagination :) I've found a good company to do the hosting so I just need to research into buying a domain name.... and find the money to invest in it!

Cheers,
Savory

savory1sick@gmail.com

A "zine"

Here is how the website is evolving and taking shape in my mind.

The way I'm imagining it being successful is sort of a web magazine. I'll be the "editor" but the site will rely on outside contributions, creating a multi-vocal experience. I say magazine because the content will change, but at an orderly interval (once or twice? a month? With interactive aspects/forum/etc to keep the visitors returning).

Ideally, I'd like to have a photography, poetry, fiction, and personal account as the main sections. It would be lovely to have an advice column as well, with 2-4 consistent individuals responding to written in questions (about life not tips or tricks).

The content doesn't need to be ED focused, but rather this will be a place where disordered individuals feel they can lower their normally heightened defense, be his or herself, in a supportive non-judgmental environment.

Because I'd like to make sure this is feasible before I invest in domain purchases and web hosting, if anyone has content they'd like to contribute or an idea for something, please send it over to me so I can begin to compile the foundation. Of course, your personal blog will be linked and your online persona appropriately credited.

I would really like to see this work out, so please spread the word and let people to get in touch with me: savory1sick@gmail.com

All my love!

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Frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital, sphenoid, ethmoid. Mandible, maxilla, palatine, zygomatic, nasal, lacrimal, vomer, inferior nasal conchae. Malleus, incus, stapes. Hyoid. Scapula, clavicle. Sternum (manubrium, gladiolus, xiphoid process). Rib. Cervical vertebrae, thoracic vertebrae, lumbar vertebrae. Humerus, radius, ulna. Scaphoid, lunate, triquetral, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate. Coccyx, sacrum, coxal. Femur, patella, tibia, fibula. Calcaneus, talus, navicular, medial cuneiform, intermediate cuneiform, lateral cuneiform, cuboid bone. Metatarsal. Proximal phalanges, intermediate phalanges, distal phalanges.