A day in my shoes

In memory

2011-10-21T23:05:00.000-07:00

Emily Elizabeth Roe
1988-2011

May you find solace in the arms of God, my dear sweet girl.

You could have changed the world.

Rest in Peace

2009-05-19T01:00:00.001-07:00

In memory of an old friend, Melissa Avrin.
After fighting for years, she finally lost her battle with her Eating Disorder.
Rest in peace, sweet angel. The world misses you.

Melissa Rose Avrin
Dec. 1989- May 2009

Full up

2009-02-09T21:38:00.000-08:00

I want to play my guitar right now. I want to write a song and begin playing to my heart's content.
But I can't because I'm full.

I ate a good healthy dinner tonight, and I ate until I felt full. I hate feeling full. I fell uncomfortable with myself and on edge about everything. All I can really think about is how much I want to go get it all out right now. When I'm full, i think it's safe to say my self-confidence drops to a 0-1, no matter what it was before. I can't play my guitar because it freaks me out right now. I'm going to mess it up and hate myself for it. There is this impending sense of doom- Like wherever I go, whatever I do or say, I'm going to cause destruction. I'm going to cause some unknown tragedy, even if it is simply the murder of a song on my guitar. Usually playing it calms me down- but when I'm full it suddenly becomes this unrealistically overwhelming task I dread.
Is this what full is supposed to feel like? I somehow doubt that this is the norm.
So, here is my question for you- (Yes, you!)
How does full feel? Is it uncomfortable? Is it soothing? Is it a relief? Is it a stress?
Or is it perhaps just a meaningless word which happens to coincide with food?

Comment. I would really like to know everyone's thoughts on it. Thanks!

Avacado Abuse!

2009-01-21T17:21:00.000-08:00

I think I'm becoming an avocado abuser!
[With that in mind, I can be fairly certain you all think I'm insane (Which, granted, is true.. but still!)]

Anyway, I'm totally serious. I'm abusing them.
Maybe I'll give you the low-down on them..
You see, I am very allergic to avocados. Oh, my taste buds love them dearly.. But my body, not so much.
When I eat avocados, I get very sick. Not anaphylactic shock sick like cinnamon makes me, just SICK sick.
With Avocado, if I have a minuscule slice I get a massive headache and get very dizzy (and sometimes a bit disoriented), my body gets really shaky, I get the worst never-ending-stomach ache, and last (but certainly not least!), I vomit violently for hours. Even when theres nothing left in there TO throw up, my body still tries.
Now to a NORMAL person, all of this would probably make you steer clear of avocados.
However, to a person struggling with ED.. Well, you can imagine. I HATE being sick. Truly, I do. So WHY do I keep eating it??
I think a part of me likes that I don't have to make myself purge, the avocado does all the dirty work. It's like my own ipecac syrup, only it's not as likely to cause massive heart attacks. So as ridiculous as it sounds- I am abusing avocados. BAD Emma. I know. ...And yet I continue to do it. I'm an idiot, and I want to cry after I eat it because I just feel so sick it's almost unfathomable. Like you can't even imagine. My body does NOT like avocado.
Ed loves it though.
What in the heck am I supposed to do?? I know I need to stop, and I keep telling myself I'm not going to do it again, only to freak out after I eat something and take a little bit of avocado when it's all in my face. It's all I can think about after I eat!
Alright. I suppose that's all. And yes, I realize there is nothing anyone can do or say to help except myself. But does anyone have any suggestions on how I might go about getting out of this mad cycle?
I suppose I'm mostly just trying to hold myself accountable right now. I feel slightly less likely to do something if people know what's up. Thanks for letting me rant and ramble.

Oh, PS- I totally wouldn't normally say what thing it was I was 'abusing', but in this case I'm fairly certain no one else can get any avocado-abusing ideas from me... lol

Into thin air

2009-01-18T21:22:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like im falling,
So fast that it's impossible to breathe.
At times, I can bare it-
Until I look down into darkness
and the panic takes over again.
Sometimes I wish that someone
would notice me becoming distant,
because i'm moving further away.
When the day comes that I finally disappear...
...Will anyone notice i'm gone?

Introductions

2009-01-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

My name is Emma Wiseman.
Actually, it's not. Emma was my elementary school nickname, and Wiseman is my mother's Maiden name, which I used to go by when my parents first got divorced.. I want to be able to post as myself without reservations, so i'm not going to post my full name. Just call me Emma. :)
I'm 19. I am a certified phlebotomist, but I currently work as an Elementary School Coach. I LOVE my job. Those kids are so amazing, I just don't know what I'd do without them!

I was born in Moscow, and lived there until I was two. We then moved around for a while, mostly in California and NV (Las Vegas area). I've lived in Magna, UT for almost eleven years now, and I just love Utah I grew up being the third of six siblings, then at about age 12, I got six step-siblings as well. I converted to the LDS church at age fourteen, which my family still reserves issues about.
The gospel has helped me out SO much in my recovery, there are just no words to describe it. I truly love my church.

I think my ED developed differently than most. When I was in Elementary, I was very small, in both height and weight. When I finally started growing in about fifth grade, I was still fairly low in weight. Teachers and the school counselor were convinced that I had an Eating Disorder, when in fact I had absolutely no problem with food- after all, food tastes good AND gives me energy to run around and play! What could possibly be bad about FOOD??
The school counselor decided to help me overcome this non-existent "Eating Disorder". She called my mother multiple times, but my mother rightfully denied it. The counselor started taking me out of class a few times a week to visit, in an attempt to help. She showed me pictures of severely anorexic girls, and asked me if I wanted to look like THAT. Nope, I sure didn't. That was gross.
She would explain that thin girls are so much more miserable, and how, like cars need gas, WE need FOOD to keep running.
How could this be? I thought happiness had nothing to do with weight!
After a little while, I started looking at people, trying to see if people ever really looked that way. I started to notice that I was thinner than most other people- and I knew I didn't look like those gross looking girls that the counselor had shown me.. Was everyone fat? I started noticing that the "bigger" people seemed a lot more sad than the thin ones. How could this be? I was just told by an ADULT that skinny people are sad. Needless to say, I was quite confused at this point.
My mother had always stated how she used to be cute and tiny like me when she was young and could eat whatever she wanted without worry, and how one of these days I'm going to start getting a tummy and flabby arms like her. This suddenly started to bother me greatly. 'I don't want to be fat and sad!'
And it was true. I didn't.
I started to be frightened of getting fat, and trying to eat less than I wanted, since I usually ate more than everyone else anyway.

In seventh grade I passed out on the side of the road while running because I hadn't eaten in so long. In eighth grade, a teacher was telling me how her old roommate would purge and how she would always say "I can hear you throwing up in the bathroom!"
I acted interested in her old friend, and inquired
"She can make herself throw up on command? That's not even possible, is it? Does she have some sort of disease?"
(As I truly did not understand how that was possible)
"No, she just stuck her fingers down her throat like a normal person. She wasn't sick, she just MADE herself throw up." (or something to that effect)
That night I purged for the first time.

It just kept going from there. In ninth grade I had a "bad experience with a boy" as I like to call it-- the worst kind, if out get my meaning. After that it all went rapidly downhill, and I turned to purging and eating (or the lack, thereof) whenever anything went wrong.

By 10th grade, I was using laxatives, green tea & hoodia pills, and every other weight loss pill you could think of-- excessively. It got to the point where I would go days without sleep, and be exercising 9 hours a day, on top of school. My straight A's turned into straight D's & F's. My passion for playing cello began to fade, as I didn't have time to practice or energy to play. My love of theatre suffered, as I didn't have the stamina to act in such roles as I used to.
12th grade I started adding this weight-loss gum and mass amounts of diuretics to my diet of five diet Mountain Dews a day.

In October of my senior year, I overdosed on Asprin. I wasn't trying to kill myself, I just wanted to FEEL something. Everything was a blur, and I wanted to make SOMETHING change-- ANYTHING.
I was rushed to the hospital and was in multi-organ failure. I was soon sent up to the ICU, where the doctors had me say goodbye to my family. There was about a "1 in 100 chance" that I was going to make it through the night.
I stayed in the ICU for a week, then I was sent HOME.
Now, normally the crisis worker will send overdoses to inpatient. This was not the case with me. I was supposed to fly out to Boston for my father's wedding the very next day, so my mother convinced the crisis worker to let me go.

A few days after I got home from Boston, I was admitted the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Unit, where I stayed for a month. The average stay is four days.
The rest is history. I've been trying for recovery for almost two years now. Sometimes I feel like I'm in the same place I was two years ago.. but when I think about it, I realize how far I've truly come.
And I can't help but feel proud of myself.

Hope?

2009-01-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

Dear World,
Sorry to be selfish, but I need to ask you for something.
I need someone to fight in my corner.
I need someone who can love me without taking parts of me away.
Someone who won't disregard parts of my soul by treating them callously. You are wasting it away, there will be none left. I need some of it safe for me. I thought I could trust you with things like that, the little quirks that make me who I am. Guess not. So I will just stop telling you anything.
I need someone to love me at my worst.
I need someone who knows that sometimes I can't help the anger or the tears.
I want someone who will call me beautiful.
Who will tell me I'm their miracle.
I want someone who will give me one white rose, instead of 12 red ones.
I want someone I can show my scars too and not be ashamed.
Emotional and physical.
I want someone who can help me understand my past, and come to terms with it.
And then let it go.
I need someone who doesn't judge me.
But this is too much to ask.
So I won't ask for any of it.
I will just ask for hope.

Letters to God

2009-01-07T16:55:00.001-08:00

Dear God,
I feel so alone.
I feel invisible.
Abandoned. Cold. Afraid.

Dear God,
I am lost.
I am confused.
I am in a tunnel of darkness.
And I do not see the light.
The light you promised me

Dear God,
I am frozen with fear.
I am paralyzed in my steps.
I am a girl who cries
When all the world wants to see is a smile

Dear God,
I feel numb. Listless. Unaware.
All warmth has fled
And I chill to the bone.
..I feel so utterly alone.

Dear God,
My heart aches for love
The love I lack so much.
I feel empty inside
--a wide gaping hole--
..a void that waits to be filled.

Dear God,
I want my friends back.
I want my life back.
I want myself back again.
--The girl I once knew--
..She has long been forgotten.

Dear God,
I need rescue.
Perhaps your rescue is best
I need to be recaptured by this wonderful thing called
--LIFE—-

Dear God,
take me by the hand.
Carry me on your shoulders.
I know I have become too weak to do this on my own.
I need a friend. Please, God; be my friend.

Dear God,
I am at a loss of words now.
There's not much else for me to say.
My thoughts and feelings..
They have evaporated me now..
I'm tired and sick
and sick and tired of being sick.

Dear God,
I feel alone.
Perhaps a gentle reminder
From you that I am not..
Is well-needed now

Dear God,
Please help me.

"Have mercy upon me, oh Lord God, for I am in distress;
my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
my soul and my body with grief.
My life is consumed by anguish
and my years by groaning;
my strength fails because of my affliction,
and my bones grow weak...
...I am a dread to my friends---
--those on the street flee from me.
I am forgotten by them as though I were dead;
I have become like broken pottery, a broken vessel
For I hear the slander of many;
there is terror on every side.....
...But I trust in You, oh Lord;
Thou art my God
My times are in thy hands.."
---Psalm 31:9-15--
(excerpt)

Freak-Out

2008-12-30T09:11:00.000-08:00

I am having a really hard time. I was supposed to find out if I can see my therapist and/or doctor again yesterday, and they said they are behind schedule, call back in a month.
I can't WAIT another month. I am NOT okay. I have lost a quite significant amount of weight in the past few weeks, and I just can't stop. I'm trying SO hard, but I seem to continue to fail. I'm already below the weight that my doctor had set for hospitalization, I'm just lucky I can't afford to see her so she can't. What she doesn't know can't hurt her. Only me.
I am so frustrated. I want to be able to live normally. I want to be able to pay attention to normal things- like Christmas, the joy of giving, the birth of our savior- instead of how much time I have to spend out of the safety of my loft, and how much food is going to be around. I feel like I'm going insane. Scratch that- I feel like I AM insane, and it's only getting worse. Now, to make things that much better, I was on Facebook a moment ago-

For those of you on Facebook- you know how when you are on your home page it has a "People you may know", with three pictures and names of people of whom it's likely you know? (Sorry, that was a bit of a run-on sentence!)
Yeah, well it's pretty good. It certainly DID find someone I know... or knew, I suppose.
It was a lovely picture of him and his pregnant wife, their cute little family.
The cute, blessed, perfect little family of the man who raped and beat me when I was fifteen, and again when I was sixteen.
Both times on Valentines day. Uh, happy Valentines day? NOT.

What a perfect looking family, what a perfect little picture. What a great life they seem to have.
What a terrible person I must be to make such a perfect man inflict so much pain upon another.
Logically, I know it is never the persons fault. I can continue to pretend to believe that if I choose to.
Actually, I DO believe that. But with me, it's different. I knew the guy from church, for heaven's sake. He's a good man, he holds the priesthood, he has a beautiful loving wife, and they are now starting a family of their own. He never even missed a day of church, not one Sunday I can remember. He was- in every respect- a good man.
I was always just that weird convert that comes to church all by herself and is too quiet for her own good.
Such a good righteous man, and such a painfully naive girl.

What would make such a great man do such things? A terrible person would. Apparently, I would.
Perhaps that's what I get for hating and defacing what God has given me, perhaps it was to teach me to be more righteous. Or perhaps I just deserved it because I am me. I suppose that's good enough reason.
But I have to wonder why a God so loving and understanding would use such cruel and painful forms of punishment, and why, even though I was trying so hard, going to church and Yong Women's every week, had just gotten baptized.. Why is it never enough? Why can i never be good enough, despite my extreme efforts? Why do I fail at everything? Why am I being forced to live this cruel life where I can never seem to keep up? Why did that picture and name have to show up, bringing back flooding emotions of self hatred, fear, and a loss of all control, a loss of myself?

Why?