The Tipping Point

I seem to have reached a tipping point when it comes to my wardrobe. All of a sudden, I can’t stand wearing the same T-shirts I wore 55 pounds ago. I’ve changed out my pants several times, but my T-shirts always looked and felt just fine to me throughout this process of losing weight. But now, just like that, they’re too big.

What’s funny is that it seems like this is the same point I came to the last time down the scale- the point where I went and bought a whole new wardrobe. This “whole new wardrobe” is the one that has been waiting for almost 3 years in storage bins in my closet.

So I took down the bins and tried everything on. Most things actually fit. Some are still too small, or at least they seem that way to me now. And then a few things I just can’t imagine ever wearing again. When I bought those clothes, I was shopping the women’s department, not thrifting men’s pants on Ebay. So some things will go: the skinny jeans (two size 10 pairs in addition to the size 12 ones I already decluttered) and some boot-cut yoga pants that no longer look right now that everyone just wears leggings.

The T-shirts and tops seem fine, although there’s some question about my beloved silky camisoles. There’s something quite different about the shape of my back and chest, probably due to the weight-lifting I’ve been doing for the past year and a half now. This makes the bras questionable as well: they just don’t lie flat against my sternum, and they move around even on the tightest hook.

No one’s really wearing bras much at this point in history anyway, so I’m not too concerned about buying new ones. But I did discover that the bra I purchased 6 months ago is way too big, despite my weight not changing much at all. I tried on my black men’s pants and they’re too big, too. My men’s leather belt won’t hold them up either since it slides down even on the last hole.

Wearing pajamas and gym clothes exclusively over the past months, I’d taken more notice as to the fit of my gym/pajama tees. Four grey and four blue Old Navy size XXL T-shirts have been going strong for at least two years now. The grey ones started sprouting holes a couple months back, but I continued to wear them anyway, especially since no one would be seeing them. But then suddenly, just this week, I started hating them. They made me feel sloppy, slovenly, like a slob, just all over the place. The necklines kept shifting around when I would exercise or move around in bed. The armholes looked ridiculous anytime I caught sight of them in the mirror.

What happened this week? What changed? Was it some subtle amount of weight that I lost? Was it the new sweatpants that just fit me better? I can’t be sure, but something made me cross over into feeling like my clothes were just too big. I decluttered the gym/pajama tees and some tank tops that were just as big and unsightly. I know, I thought. I’ll just take all my regular T-shirts and reassign them to gym/pajama T-shirts. I took them off the hangers, folded them up, and tucked them into the drawer. But then I tried exercising and sleeping in those T-shirts and they seemed just as bad.

It was at this point that I realized I just needed smaller clothes. I needed the stuff in storage I’d been waiting so long to fit into. I thought this moment would feel like a great success, like validation for all the hard work I’ve put into dieting and exercise. I thought it would give me back the confidence I had when I bought that stuff.

But I was taking Adderall back then. The weight was falling off and my energy was through the roof. I was spending long hours scouring thrift stores for clothes to sell on Ebay, tirelessly walking the aisles, my arms flicking through rack after rack. I felt confident because I was making money from all that shopping, high on retail therapy to boot. I was full of energy, and I was thin. Now, I’m just thin. I don’t feel energetic or confident or even okay. I’m struggling with the depths of depression every day, crying in bed and wishing I’d just disappear. And being thin isn’t helping.

Now being heavy was definitely harder- I couldn’t stand how I looked back then and it fueled my self-hatred and suicidal thoughts. I felt like a slave to bingeing on donuts, potato chips, and ice cream. The Seroquel made me less violent but it also made it impossible to feel full and so I just couldn’t stop eating. So there’s some relief in not having to deal with those problems now. I don’t have to wonder what to eat or whether to exercise anymore. It’s all set in stone and I do it no matter what.

And being thin- yes, I get to wear “straight-size” clothes, fitting into a large or extra-large, so there are more options than there were in plus sizes. Yes, I can stand to see myself in the mirror without becoming filled with self-loathing. But does being thin really help? Not really, no. I’m still stuck with this illness, still fighting it every day.

And no matter how passionate I am about my silky camisoles and my super-wide-leg pants, they don’t take away the pain of depression. Sometimes I lie in bed thinking about my clothes- what fits and what doesn’t, how many pairs of pants I own, where I can get a new belt. And it helps me get through that moment; it helps me forget the pain. But it only lasts for a few minutes. I’m still left with myself and my illness in the end.

I Just Want to Feel Good

My actual brain.

I can’t laugh at myself today. I can’t make self-deprecating quips about my lack of productivity and post links to all the best sweatpants in size XL. I can’t even come up with something modestly hopeful like exercise and cleaning routines. Today I feel like I am living out a nightmare.

My life has become what I always feared the most: total paralysis. I’ve always been very driven and equally dramatic, so the worst thing in the world to me was always the idea of doing nothing. And here I am.

I’m lucky in many ways in my life; I am well aware of that. I have a devoted husband and a loving family, I own a house with a lovely apartment to live in, and my small disability payments are supplemented by my husband’s income. We are physically healthy. We don’t suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction, severe debt, or legal trouble, and our lives aren’t complicated by having children. I know I should be grateful.

I’ve been keeping a gratitude log in my bullet journal and I’ve listed all the things I’m grateful for every day: Matt made me my meals, Matt rubbed my feet, my parents are healthy, etc. But thinking about these things only seems to make me feel guilty. I know the whole idea with this is to feel happy and content with what you have. But instead it makes me feel guilty that I’m so taken care of, that I’m free of so many burdens other people have. And I don’t think that’s what the gratitude log is supposed to do.

Matt read an article recently that said studies show that daily gratitude practices don’t help with anxiety or depression. I could have told them that. So I stopped writing these things down. I already thank Matt for everything he does for me when he’s doing it. I don’t need to keep a running tally of everything I need to feel guilty for.

But gratitude log aside, what I wanted to say was that I know I’m lucky, and to many people it seems like that should be enough to make me happy. But I can’t appreciate any of it. I can see good things and know that they are good logically, but emotionally I am unable to feel good. Like I said, I feel like I’m living out my worst nightmare.

It could be worse, I think. I could have cancer, I could be physically disabled, I could be alone and unloved. Those things seem much worse to me, but they would also be clear and apparent and not my fault. The illness I’m stuck with always leads me to think that this nightmare is my fault. It makes me think that I didn’t try hard enough or long enough, that I made bad decisions, that I failed in some way. I try to tell myself it’s not true: this is a chemical condition, a disability the government recognizes as rendering me unable to work to support myself. I tell myself I’m doing my best, and that I’m going to keep getting better.

But every day I scream at myself inside my head that I’m stupid, that I’m a pathetic piece of garbage and I should just die already. The screams tell me that my life is over and that my brain has turned to mush after all these years of being depressed and useless. This torrent of rage directed at myself is relentless. It keeps me pinned to the bed, unwilling to do anything for fear of doing it wrong, for fear of getting my hopes up and then suffering devastating disappointment.

It’s even hard to distract myself with meaningless things. Watching TV or even reading books makes me think I’m wasting time and that my life is pathetic and sad. So I’m back to trying to get something done, failing, and screaming at myself again.

Every day when I wake up, I’m surprised by the cold, grey reality I’m faced with: the harshness of the light, the distance I feel between me and my surroundings. I feel some relief in my dreams- there’s a warm closeness, a snug malleability to everything. It’s such a contrast to the hard rut I walk into when I wake up.

I lay in bed today thinking, I can’t stand being like this anymore. Today I’m just going to be totally different. The world will open up and I will have a choice in the matter. I will have a say in what I do and how I feel. And then I got up, and it was the same as it always is.

I’m barely clinging on to the pathetic routines I have in place. Matt and I went to start our home workout today. I had had my three cups of coffee and three hours of sitting around to get my strength up. I went down for my first push-up and I couldn’t do it. I started crying and curled into a fetal position. I laid on the bed, Matt brought me a Klonopin and some water, and I cried for a while.

And then we tried it again. This time it worked. I did my push-ups and my squats and whatnot and walked on the treadmill for 10 minutes. And everything snapped back into place. Eat breakfast, check box. Wash dishes, check box. Cry some more and get a foot rub.

As I write this, I think that I should be grateful. I was able to get the exercise done. I should be grateful I’m able to keep to my simple routines. I should be grateful Matt helps me so much every day.

Then I think, this is all I get? The way things are for me right now- this is it for me? It doesn’t get any better? And I’m angry. And I’m screaming at myself again that I should be getting more done, that my daily routine is pathetic. And I want more than anything to just disappear, to get to start over and do it right this time. I want more than anything to be able to wake up and for things to be different. I just want to feel good. I want to feel content wiping the kitchen counter and taking a shower and reading a book. I want to feel satisfied with myself, with what I did today. But my brain won’t let me. It won’t let me feel good.

Cha-Cha Chocolate

It’s been well over six months since I bought any new clothes, unless you count replacing my running shoes a month or two back. But what with the current state of the world, I decided to indulge in some new lounge pants. I received some GAP joggers in the mail yesterday- just about two weeks after the day I ordered them. Their free shipping is somewhat slower then usual, I’m assuming due to COVID-related delays. Both pairs of pants are super soft, made of a thin, silky material- a modal/spandex blend. The size L Pure Body Modal Joggers in charcoal are fantastic. They have a high waist and scoop front pockets and I’m wearing them now. The size XL Truesleep Modal Joggers, also in charcoal, were too big, so I returned them. I printed out a free return label and scheduled a free USPS pickup (no post office visit required). I immediately went online to see if I could get a second pair of the size L Pure Body ones, but they only had size M left. While browsing, I realized that they had restocked the Truesleep ones in charcoal and black in a bunch of sizes. I pounced on a pair of black size L. This style has a drawstring waist and a slightly different cut, but are made from the same lightweight, silky material. There was no longer a 40% discount at this point, so I had to settle for 20% off and paid $27.20 for this pair (with free shipping).

It’s pretty surprising to me that I’m down to a size large, but I think GAP stuff tends to run a little big. I have no idea exactly where my weight stands at this point- the last time I was weighed in at the psychiatrist was Feb. 24th (2020). I clocked in at 168.6 lbs, down exactly 1.4 pounds in six weeks. Last week I had my first tele-medicine (video call) appointment with my psychiatrist, so there will be no more weigh-ins for the foreseeable future. I don’t own a scale and don’t have access to the one at the gym, plus I have no way of comparing another scale to the one at my doctor’s office, so I’ll be in the dark as far as any weight loss is concerned for some time. I’m definitely past the point of flying through pants every few weeks since my weight has barely been creeping down over the last several months. Plus it’s hard to say if my clothes fit any differently since all I wear are pajamas.

Without the structure of real pants, I’ve been trying to implement structure in other ways. I’ve deemed Sunday, my day off from exercise, my official cleaning day, and I have to say I really like it. It takes the pressure off all the other days, kind of like the scheduled weigh-ins took the pressure off of constantly wondering about my weight. So now on Sundays I wash sheets and towels, scrub the stove and kitchen sink, wash the dining room table, and give the toilet a good thorough cleaning. There’s something about cleaning a toilet that makes you feel like less of an invalid and more like a grownup. It’s quite therapeutic, if you can get past it being somewhat disgusting. I also do my own laundry and fold it up into little Marie Kondo squares and file it away, ready to start the new week. Finally, I fill up my pill cases and take stock of all my pill bottles and vitamins to see if I need to order more of anything.

It’s only been a few weeks of this, but it’s very satisfying to check off each task on my new-and-improved habit tracker. I’ve expanded from a one-page chart to a two-page spread in my bullet journal, leaving space on a third page for any specific events or accomplishments that need to be written in. I’ve gotten really explicit with all the little things I do every day or every week, from squeegee-ing the shower to wiping the crumbs off the counter after each meal. All the tasks are listed in the approximate order in which I complete them, which helps me stay on track throughout the day. I’d been feeling a lot like I was washing and drying dishes all day long and then wondering where the time went, so writing it all down makes me feel like I “get credit” for everything.

In creating this current incarnation of my habit tracker, I’ve also developed a more specific and fruitful “morning routine.” This term isn’t really accurate when you sleep until 1 or 2 in the afternoon, but bear with me. Once I wake up and check my phone to see what time it is, I immediately start making the bed (Matt’s already been up and working for hours). Once that’s complete, I open up the curtains and blinds to let the light in. Then I put on some socks and a sweater and turn the thermostat up to a normal level (I get really hot when I sleep and need the heat turned down to 64 at night so I don’t keep waking up sweating). I head to the bathroom and brush my teeth, then go straight to my pills and swallow them with a whole bottle of water. This is all before I even say “Good morning” to Matt in his office, just to make sure I don’t get distracted. This all may sound like a no-brainer to most people, but for me it’s a really proactive way to start the day.

The real sense of accomplishment I feel comes from brushing my teeth. Brushing twice a day and not just for a double session at night has been a real struggle for me for years, and a source of deep shame and self-loathing. The humiliation of not being able to take care of myself properly has weighed on me for a long time and I’ve only just this week found a way around it. Matt and I had to cancel our 6-month dental cleanings, and he expressed concern for my dental health while in quarantine and felt he had to encourage me to brush twice a day. His saying that really hit a nerve and I shut down the conversation for two days while it ate away at me.

Once I got past the shame and humiliation it brought up in me, I realized that my main issue with brushing in the morning was that the taste of minty toothpaste absolutely ruins the taste of my morning coffee, one of the great pleasures in my life (I spend hours drinking three cups to get my energy up for exercise). When I explained this to Matt, we went online and ordered three kinds of non-mint flavored toothpaste and it’s proved to be a miraculous solution to what seemed an insurmountable problem. We bought Tom’s of Maine Cinnamon and Clove toothpaste, a pediatric brand’s Cha-Cha Chocolate, and some dubious Italian brand created in 1905. The cinnamon is the clear winner here as it doesn’t interfere with my coffee enjoyment in the least and is far preferable to brushing your teeth with what tastes like a mouthful of hot cocoa (I know it sounds good in theory, but in practice it’s pretty gross). So every morning I get to check that “Brush Teeth” box on my chart, and for me, that’s a big deal.

I'm Not Even Remotely Working

Let’s see. Well, we last left off when I was feeling pretty terrible. Since then, we’ve entered into a global pandemic. Not great.

I am, however, in the rather unusual situation where my lifestyle has barely changed since we’ve been instructed to shelter in place and practice social distancing. The only parts of my routine that have been disrupted are going to the gym and occasionally visiting a coffee shop.

Matt and I have substituted a home workout for our usual weight training, implementing an assortment of water jugs, soda cans, hand weights, and a backpack. On the plus side, I’ve discovered that I can do thirty push-ups— the real kind of push-ups, not the ones on my knees. On the negative side, the “workout area” in our living room is a lot closer to the couch than the gym was, so I tend to lie down between sets.

In terms of coffee shop visits, I am missing them, especially since it was the only way I could get any writing done. While it may not qualify as actual work, I have been finding it absolutely impossible to write a blog at home. I don’t know if it’s the stress of the pandemic in general, the incessant disinfecting of groceries and doorknobs, or something else altogether, but I’ve been battling some serious writer’s block.

I think part of it is feeling self-conscious that I’m not as hyper-informed as most people are on the current state of the world. I find it so deeply disturbing whenever I expose myself to the news that I mostly avoid it.
Another part of it is definitely feeling extraordinarily depressed, corona virus or not. And then part of it is not wanting to engage in the snow-day pajama-party atmosphere that many people are invoking as a reaction to having to stay home. I realize we all need some escapism right now, but there is a point where there is a blatant disregard for the fact that thousands of people are dying, and millions have lost their jobs. If I read one more blog post about improving your productivity when working from home, I’ll scream.

Obviously, working from home is a major adjustment for those used to commuting to an office, but I really don’t think it’s going to be easy for most of us to keep up the same schedules we had pre-pandemic. I have definitely been putting pressure on myself to keep up with what I was doing before, and by some small miracle, the strict diet and exercise regimen I normally keep has remained in place. But I’m finding it difficult, not only to write, but even to read or watch Netflix. I’m having a major meltdown at least once a day, usually screaming at myself in my head for not “getting more done.” But then it occurs to me that I find it difficult to accomplish much under normal circumstances, never mind what we’re all going through now.

So in order to help you feel better about your own productivity (or lack thereof) in these unprecedented times, I thought I’d share my quarantine schedule with you:

1 pm: Wake up
1-4 pm: Drink coffee and watch YouTube, dreading exercise
4-5 pm: Exercise and shower
5 pm: Breakfast
5:15 pm: Lie down and despair
7 pm: Lunch in bed with Netflix
7:30-10:00 pm: Have a meltdown, get a foot rub
10-11 pm: Dinner and clean-up
11:00 pm: Watch HULU and Amazon Prime
12:00 am: Snack with pills and get ready for bed
1-2 am - Like awake in bed and despair
2:00 am - Sleep

But let’s move on to the real issue here: loungewear. I was already at the point where I showered and changed directly into a fresh set of pajamas before all this happened, so I’ve just continued with that policy. The problem with wearing pajamas 24/7 is that they wear out a lot faster than if you wear normal clothes every day. I have two pairs of navy Ralph Lauren cotton joggers that I’ve been wearing every day, in rotation with a pair of pink wide-leg pajama pants by Two by Vince Camuto (it is still unclear whether these are maternity pants). The pink ones are actually faring pretty well, but the navy ones, not so much. They’ve reached a state of pilling and clinginess where even wearing them around the house is just depressing.

So I started a search for some new pajama pants, checking a number of ethical/sustainable brands first. Blue Sky Clothing Company’s website has these Clair Pants, but it’s hard to say whether they’re lounge pants or not. Miakoda has sold out of their high-waisted joggers in my size. PACT no longer has their reasonably priced drawstring lounge pants in larger sizes. So I found myself eyeing up a pair of joggers on People Tree that got a great review from a YouTuber. The thing is, they’re $86, which is pushing it considering Matt’s probably out of work for the foreseeable future. I found some jersey lounge pants on KOTN for $45, so less pricey, but they only have my size in pink, and I don’t know how I feel about having more than one pair of pink pajama pants. Plus the care instructions say “lay flat to dry,” so I can’t really get on board with that. I dutifully looked at ThredUp for secondhand options, but Matt reminded me what secondhand sweatpants usually look like, and I nixed that idea.

So then I started with the mainstream brands. Lands’ End Serious Sweats are great quality (Matt has some) but they’re made with some polyester, and are heavier than what I want. J. Crew has some great Dreamy Pajama Jogger Pants in a wide range of sizes, but they’re still pretty pricey at $69.50 (no promo codes). So I ended up ordering two pairs of grey lounge pants from the Gap. One style, the Pure Body Modal Joggers, were only available in L. The other style, the Truesleep Modal Joggers were only available in XL. So I really don’t know if either one will work. But they had 40% off and free shipping, so they were the ultimate winners.

And there you have it: I’ve managed to turn this into a little pajama party of my own, deadly virus or no, which I guess is just a way of coping with our hideous reality right now. Clothes have frequently been my go-to coping mechanism when dealing with mental illness. Why not now?

Feeling Bad and Blaming Myself

I’ve been putting off writing this because I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed that my mental health has been really bad lately. Things were seeming a bit better when we got back from Germany, but I’m afraid I’m back to the same routine I was in while I was there. I force myself to do my daily exercise after a couple cups of coffee, but then after my shower, I go straight back to bed. I keep feeling like things are bound to get better soon and I should be able to write some kicky posts with tips on how to improve your mood, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Instead what happens is that I fall back to sleep and wake up around 7 or 8pm. This is after sleeping 10-12 hours and dragging myself out of bed around noon.

Some days I wake up at noon and start sobbing at the very thought of having to exercise. Then after the strain of pushing myself through a workout, I let myself off the hook and go back to bed. I lie down and cry, or think of things from the past. In general, my brain feels foggy and confused. I find it impossible to hook into doing anything.

Back during those few weeks when I was doing better, I worked on filming and editing (and re-filming and re-editing) a “closet declutter” YouTube video. But once it was finished, I realized I didn’t want to post it. I hated the message it sent about weight loss and felt like it went against everything I intended to say. So that project stopped, and I haven’t been able to pick up with anything else.

I’ve stopped going to coffee shops to write, partly because our usual spot is packed with students lately, but now also because of the Corona Virus. We’re trying to keep our distance from people (and food service) as much as possible, which is just adding to my isolation and tendency to go back to bed.

I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about my depression, but trust me, no one is more sick of this than me. I keep trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong. Am I focusing on the wrong things? Should I be planning my day differently? Does it put too much pressure on me to have a set schedule? Am I timing my coffee and my Klonopin correctly? Should I just be pushing myself more?

I keep trying to blame myself. I keep trying to maintain this fantasy that this illness is under my control and if I just “change my habits” or “think positively,” then I won’t be depressed and I’ll actually be productive. But unfortunately, that is a fantasy. It’s a popular one that fuels many a self-help book. (Don’t even get me started on the few I’ve picked up lately- I mean, how can these people say that cancer is caused by negative thoughts? That’s just batshit crazy and I have to keep myself from getting sucked into it.)

But total bullshit theories aside, I do recognize that there’s some element of neuroplasticity involved with mental illness. My brain chemistry has skewed my thinking to the point that it’s in a bad rut, and supposedly the right drugs will help get it out of that rut. But I want to help that process along as much as possible, and I’m desperate for a way to do that. I mean, there must be something that’s under my control.

My psychiatrist tentatively suggested that I might try to be less self-critical, to be easier on myself, and I flipped out. I felt like he was echoing what all these self-help books have been saying: that I’m thinking wrong, and I would feel better if I thought differently. But honestly, I’m trying as hard as I can to think differently, and it just doesn’t take.

I imagine a world in which I’m not screaming at myself about how I’m wasting my life and I’m actually engaged in various activities. A world in which I have a cheerful disposition and find myself curious about trying different creative projects. A world where I’m content doing household chores and getting dressed (not in pajamas) every day. A world where washing my hair is simple and achievable, and maybe even pleasant. But this world continues to elude me and I have no explanation other than a Mood Disorder NOS (not otherwise specified) or Bipolar II diagnosis (take your pick).

So I’m considering cutting back on my coffee intake from 3 cups to 2 and delaying my Klonopin dose so I don’t fall asleep all afternoon. We’ll see if I can at least get back on track with my writing, or even with planning another YouTube video. I’m not optimistic. It feels like there’s a magnetic pull to the bed lately and it feels like torture to resist it.

Once in bed, I’m usually flooded with past regrets or filled with frustration at all the things I want to be doing but I’m not. I’m stuck with all this energy that I could use to get something done, yet I’m too panicky to focus on anything. If I calm down or take a pill to take the edge off, I lose all motivation to do anything except continue to lie in bed. Matt might rub my feet or read me a crossword puzzle to distract me from this daily tragedy of effort, but every day it starts all over again.

I drag myself out of bed, dreading the day’s exercise, down some coffee and force my way to the gym or onto the treadmill. Relieved once it’s over, I push myself a little further to take off my clothes and quickly shower (rarely taking the time to wash my hair). I go to my closet and have the passing thought that maybe I should put real clothes on, but I quickly decide against it and get into comfortable sweatpants and socks. Breakfast is another hurdle; most often Matt makes it for me. I strategically navigate my apple slices, taking great pains not to eat any brown spots. And then, bed. Why fight it? I always end up there anyway.

My MInimalist Car, and Flow

I was recently given a car by my family. Up until this point, Matt and I have only owned one car for the two of us. But it was time for my brother to upgrade to a company car, leaving his trusty 2010 Toyota Corolla up for grabs. The car wasn’t worth very much, so it ended up coming to me. One reason I was the chosen recipient is simple: the car has a standard transmission, and I know how to drive it. For those of you who have no idea what that means, perhaps you’ve heard the term “stick shift” as a certain type of car that has slowly been phased out by cars with automatic transmissions.

The reason my brother opted for the “standard” has to do with his notorious intolerance for negotiating with car salesmen. Instead of considering all the upgrades and “options,” he literally asks for the cheapest possible model of the car. This means no power locks; you actually have to put a key inside the lock on the door and turn it to open it. It also means no power windows; you have to actually roll down the window with a crank on the inside of the door. And of course it means a standard transmission.

I always found this lack of features hilarious, like antiquated quirks I haven’t experienced since high school, driving around in a death trap of a 1984 Dodge Omni. Another not-so-surprising quirk is the lack of USB ports, and the presence of a CD player of all things. Since I no longer own CDs, I’ve opted to just drive in silence instead. And yet, I love this car. I refer to it as “minimalist” for its utter simplicity, as well as the fact that I keep nothing in it, wanting to maintain its recently detailed interior.

But back to the standard transmission. I’ve been driving Matt around in my “new” car, and despite my thorough explanations of all the mechanics involved, he has outright refused to learn to drive it himself. Perhaps the most intimidating feature is the clutch. The clutch is for your left foot and must be used in combination with the gas and gear shift. Basically, the clutch must be down when you shift gears, moving the stick shift from gear to gear as your speed increases or decreases. Beyond that, it’s a tricky thing to explain if you’ve never learned how.

My mom always drove a standard when I was in high school and college, so she insisted on teaching me and my brothers how to drive it. And due to the present circumstances, I’m grateful she did. Driving my brother’s car makes me feel like I have a rare and valuable skill, and that gives me a little boost of confidence.

It reminds me of making lattes when I was working at a coffee shop- you’ve got both hands going, navigating the mechanics and timing of pulling espresso shots while at the same time sensing the subtle temperature and consistency of the steaming milk. When Matt witnessed me making coffee, he remarked that it looked like I was operating a 19th century steam engine, and driving this car is a lot like that. I like finding that sweet spot in first gear, releasing the clutch at the same time you gently step on the gas, and then finding a smooth transition through the gears, carefully judging when to shift and what gear you need to be in. I’m not used to it- it does require some concentration for me- but it’s just enough of a challenge without feeling overwhelming.

I recently read An Edited Life by Anna Newton of The Anna Edit blog, and she discusses how to achieve a “flow state” in your work. It’s a state described as being totally immersed and engaged in what you’re doing, resulting in maximum productivity and creative satisfaction. She includes a list of 6 requirements for achieving a flow state, all of which match up with driving that car:

1. You know clearly what to do (check)
2. You know how to do it (check)
3. You’re able to sense how well you’re doing it (check- the car is constantly providing feedback)
4. You have freedom from distractions (check- no CDs, remember)
5. You perceive the challenge as high (check- it’s been years since I drove a standard)
6. You perceive your own skills as equally high (check- I know I can get the car from point A to point B without disaster)

I can’t say for sure that driving gets me into a flow state, but it does help my self-esteem. I’m able to do something fairly easily that many people seem to think difficult. In recovering from mental illness, I think finding tasks like this can be transformative. Blogging has really been like that for me: the writing, of course, but also the uploading of content and photos to my website, formatting everything, editing, adjusting colors, adding links, etc. It took me some time to learn it all, but now that I’m able to do it and still find it relatively challenging, it makes for a good task to feel engaged in.

I’ve been working on some other projects lately, but am having a hard time “hooking in.” I feel overwhelmed and easily distracted, often procrastinating getting started. And the reasons for that seem fairly simple: I don’t know how to do these things, I’ve never done them before, and am often not even clear on what needs to be done. It helps to understand these obstacles, but it still means I get really frustrated at my piddly output lately.

Just when I’m getting really down on myself, it dawns on me that I have a weekly blog to write, and I actually know how to do that. And somehow I get hooked in and start writing. I head to the cafe in my new car, confidence building on the drive there. I take out the designated notebook, the designated pen- those decisions have already been made- and get to work. After a morning of struggling to exercise, to shower, to eat breakfast- to do these seemingly “easy” things that everyone else seems to do without thinking- I finally feel this glimmer of self-worth when I get to the harder things (the driving, the website). And that’s invaluable.

My self-worth has been so low for so long, it has often felt like there was no coming back. I thought I would continue to decline for the rest of my life, becoming less and less capable of taking care of myself. I’m still not up to making all my meals, still need to talk out loud to myself in order to get on the treadmill. But there’s something about these more challenging tasks that takes me out of myself, that makes me lose track of time and feel completely absorbed in what I’m doing. So maybe that’s where to start when you’re trying to come back from the depths of despair. Maybe it’s not the easiest things that happen first- maybe it’s feeling you can do something special, something other people might never attempt, and succeeding. Maybe that’s the way back to finding yourself again.

Everlane Update and Klonopin Chronicles

View fullsize

View fullsize

Well, after my rant about my Everlane T-shirt hem coming undone, I decided to calm down and actually try contacting them to see if they offer any kind of guarantee on their products. I didn’t feel like getting all worked up again, so I sent them an email with the segment of my blog where I went off about it.

Much to my chagrin, they were very apologetic, polite, and simply asked for a photo of the hem to see what the problem might have been. I sent them the two photos from the blog and they kindly offered a refund or replacement. The rep reassured me that this was not a widespread issue and he truly believed I had received a defective product. All this kindness despite the fact that my order was placed several months ago and I had used a referral credit to pay for the shirt in the first place. They promptly Fed-Exed the new T-shirt to me and I’m wearing it now.

I am still a little bit skeptical of the quality for two reasons: One, there were some loose threads at the neckline on this new shirt, though there seems to be no danger of anything unraveling. Two, the fabric still feels kind of cheap and almost scratchy; I had to wash it before I could wear it. At this point I considered the idea that perhaps I had not properly cared for the original T-shirt and checked the care instructions. The tag said to wash it in cold water and- get this- lay it flat to dry. A T-shirt. It was safe to say that I had not followed said instructions. Who lays a T-shirt flat to dry?

So I washed this new one on cold and threw it into the tumble dryer on low, which I think is all that could possibly be expected in terms of caring for a T-shirt. This is how I care for most of my clothes, save some gym wear that I line dry or wool sweaters that I flat dry. And so far, so good. The fabric has softened up a bit and as of yet, there’s no unraveling from the T-shirt or from me.

But all this did get me thinking about the care instructions on my other clothes. First I checked an ASOS T-shirt tag: machine wash at 40 degrees, turn inside out, no tumble dry, iron on reverse side. Okay, this sounded almost as unreasonable as the Everlane tag. I tried a Gap Factory T-shirt: machine wash cold/gentle, tumble dry low, cool iron. This was better, but still, cool iron? Then I checked a J. Crew T-shirt: machine wash cold, tumble dry low, warm iron. Finally, one that sort of made sense. But even that I’d say is erring on the side of caution.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

When I was selling clothes on Ebay, I often found that the care instructions on clothing were overly conservative. I hand-washed and line-dried many a “dry-clean only” item with excellent results. Lined wool blazers and dresses did get dry-cleaned or simply sterilized with a straight vodka spray, but most things that didn’t get chucked in the washer and dryer got the cold bath/line-dry (or flat-dry) treatment. And despite laundering literally several hundred garments, there were only two items that were total failures: an Armani viscose dress that shrank to the size of a tube top, and a Pendleton wool sweater that upon coming into contact with water, released a cloud of horrible chemical smells that could only have been caused by multiple dry cleanings.

Which brings up something else I wonder about: is dry-cleaning really the safest option, care-wise? I often hear of beloved designer sweaters shrinking up at the dry-cleaners, and I myself had a devastating incident with a lined vintage velvet gown that came back as crushed velvet.

So how is one ever to know which way to go? In my experience, anything lined is best left to the experts- except for velvet, for which I have no solution. As for wool, I’d contend that a hand wash in cold water and a flat dry is the most delicate way to go. But cotton? Cotton I’m tossing in the dryer. If I really don’t want any shrinkage, I might opt to line dry instead. But the only items I lay flat are sweaters. Sorry, Everlane. I understand erring on the side of caution for the care instructions, but I have to draw a line somewhere in the realm of practicality.

Onto another subject: my latest medication adjustment. For years now, I’ve relied on Klonopin for anxiety attacks and sobbing fits. It takes up to an hour to kick in, but it’s been the only anti-anxiety medication to do the trick for me. I’ve worked my way up from 1/2 mg dose at first to 3-4 mg a day at some really bad points. I’ve been taking 1 mg at bedtime for quite a while, despite knowing it is not a good long-term solution for sleep problems. I recently switched it out for some Benadryl, as I still need something both for sleep and to fight off any akathisia from my nighttime Latuda. But last year I was consistently taking 1 mg Klonopin at bedtime and 1-2 mg for anxiety in the day/evening. Most recently I started taking 2 mg at once for anxiety, having built up such a tolerance over the years- a situation I have often worried about.

My current psychiatrist has often suggested taking 1 mg before anxiety symptoms set in (as they do every evening), but I always failed to do so, wanting instead to “save up” my daily allotment for when I really needed it later on. But after my last appointment where I made the same complaints I’ve been making for months, I finally took his explicit instructions to take a half mg at 2pm and another half mg in the evening. I blithely thought, what good can a half a Klonopin do?

Well, apparently a lot, when taken at the right time. This 1 mg, split into 2 doses earlier in the day, has been all I need lately- and that’s down from a solid 3 mg a day. I’ve started keeping a “meltdown chart” as part of my habit tracker, rating my level of meltdown each day on a scale of 0-10. And the results have been quite impressive- I’m honestly shocked at how frequently I’ve gone meltdown-free these past couple weeks, sometimes for several days in a row. My worst two days have hit a 4 on the scale, and I did take an extra 1 mg during those episodes, but overall there’s been a huge improvement.

My theory is that the small dose at 2pm is enough to take the edge off my anxiety and help me engage in something productive, which then helps with the nighttime depression and anxiety. When I’m able to get something done, I have a lot less negative self-talk, and that helps my mood enormously. A larger dose during the day is enough to put me right back to sleep, so in this case it seems that less is more.

The best thing is, the results have been immediate, since Klonopin is an anti-anxiety medication and only does its work for 1-4 hours. This means I don’t have to wait weeks for it to build up in my system like with my other psychiatric meds. I’m just so grateful for my psychiatrist’s seemingly infinite patience with me and my moods. I’m hopeful that this simple, subtle change in dosing and timing will continue giving great results. I still have days where I struggle to get anything done, and there are times when I surrender to the struggle and go back to bed. But I think I’m finally getting somewhere, if even just a little bit.

Planning to Plan

As the year came to a close and the pages in my bullet journal started to dwindle, I decided it would be a good time to start fresh. I went online and found the official Bullet Journal notebook- it has page numbers and an index so you can find what you’re looking for, and a guide for all the little symbols and what they mean. I imagined I would put all my written information into this one little notebook this year; in the past I’d only kept certain random lists inside, along with my habit tracker and calendar. But this year I wanted to go for it. I listened to the audiobook, The Bullet Journal Method, and really got into it. I decided I’d keep to-do lists, calendars, brainstorming sessions, song ideas, blog entries- all of it- inside my bullet journal. I experimented with the pages at the end of my old bullet journal. I started by “rapid logging”- jotting down every random task or idea that was on my mind next to a bullet, getting it all down on paper.

Well, that list was totally overwhelming and I couldn’t put a dent in it any which way, especially since some of the items were huge projects with many smaller tasks involved. I divided the list by topic, placing a letter next to each item that had been moved to another list: H was for Household Projects, V was for Videos, B was for Blog, etc. There were “Life Administrative” tasks, songwriting stuff, workout information, medical to-dos, and on and on. I ended up with so many different lists that I couldn’t fathom staying on top of them all on a daily basis. I also couldn’t figure out a good way to break down the bigger projects. Once an item had been “migrated” to a more specific list, I thought I’d put a page number next to the bigger tasks. That would tell me where to find the breakdown of steps for that particular project.

I tried explaining this customized system to Matt, whose head I could practically see spinning, and grew less and less confident in how helpful all of this was. I tried to tell myself that this was the simplest way to keep track of everything- using the method and symbols of the official bullet journal, conceived by Ryder Carrol of BulletJournal.com (and author of the aforementioned book). I explained to Matt what all of the little dots and arrows and slashes meant, all the while growing more and more aware that this wasn’t going to work.

I thought about how my current system for blogging had been working just fine, and that there was really no reason to change it: I keep a running list of blog topics in my Notes app on my phone, handwrite my first drafts into designated notebooks, then type the entries into Notes when I finish. Sometimes I outline ideas on scratch paper when I need to organize my thoughts. I thought about how my habit tracker had been working just fine; it allows me to keep records of my daily activities for reference when I’m changing medication or just want to remember a timeline. I thought about how much room I need to sketch out a project, and how often I need to write and rewrite lists in order to wrap my head around them. And I realized that if I really wanted to put everything into a bullet journal, I’d blow through a journal every month. As a minimalist, that sounded like a nightmare of records to store and keep, and constantly transferring notebooks sounded like way too much trouble in general.

I decided it was time to let go of the bullet journal idea and embrace the vast and complex systems I already use, improving upon them where I could. The thing I really felt like I was missing was a way to break things down into smaller steps. I looked into some organizational apps- Things, Evernote, and Trello. I watched YouTube tutorials and evaluated their usefulness. I settled on Trello as a good solution to my list-within-list problem. In Trello, you have “boards”, each of which has a general title. Within each board, you can name a “list” which consists of any number of “cards.” Within each card, you can keep a running “checklist” of to-dos. This allows me to keep lists within lists within lists- exactly what I was looking for. I created 4 boards. Life Admin, for example, has several lists inside: Medical, Household, Shopping, etc. Each list has a card for each task- under Shopping, for instance, I have a card that says, “Buy running shoes.” Then on “the back” of that card is a checklist of each step involved with buying said shoes: wear old shoes to running shoe store, ask for similar shoes, try on shoes, etc. This may seem like a level of micro-tasking that most people wouldn’t find necessary, but for me it takes an overwhelming task and turns it into something smaller and more manageable. So that’s Trello- my dream to-do list app.

Next I went into my Notes app and made several folders: Blog Topics, YouTube Ideas, Books, Ebay, etc. Each folder contains lists which never really go away. I have a running list of blog topics, a list of books I’ve read or want to read, another of Ebay selling information. These are not tasks to be checked off, but references I can always keep with me and add to as things come to mind.

Next is my bullet journal. I decided to keep the best parts of my bullet journal as a kind of permanent record. I keep four “spreads” in there that continue every month. First is my “habit tracker,” which I’ve mentioned before. I check off when I’ve showered, when I’ve done laundry, when I’ve written a blog, etc., making note of any specific events or tasks. Then there’s a gym calendar to track my workouts, a pill calendar to track my meds, and also something new: a gratitude page where I write down 3 things I’m grateful for each night. I’m attempting to stifle my gag reflex on this one since I’ve heard this can significantly impact mental health and might actually be a worthwhile endeavor.

Okay, we’re up to 3 systems- stay with me. In addition, I have my blog notebooks for handwritten entries. I have my “scratch” notebook for brainstorming. And then there’s my songwriting notebook where I jot down song ideas before they get entered into my computer. That’s a grand total of 6 systems.

Now I love my bullet journal, but one of the first rules of bullet journaling is to find what works for you. And so far, my 6-system method is working great. I feel like I finally have room for everything in my head. And I feel like I get credit for doing every little task involved with my bigger projects. On those inevitable days when I feel like I “got nothing done,” I can always find something to check off in Trello or on my habit tracker. Sometimes I even go backwards and add a task to Trello after I’ve already done it- I just feel good checking it off. And everything on there goes into an “archive” I can always look back on if I feel the need to pat myself on the back.

If failing to plan is planning to fail, I think I’m out of the woods. I find it’s planning to plan that’s the hardest part. Are there simpler ways to keep track of your life? Sure. But it’s only by spreading things out and getting specific about the nitty-gritty that I’m able to tackle any of it. And when I’m not sure what to do next, I can just look over my lists and pick something small.

Maybe It's Not My Fault

It’s no secret that I’m not doing well. I’ve barely written anything in the past few weeks. I gave up on meditating some time ago. I’ve been having daily- sometimes twice daily- meltdowns that seem to start earlier and earlier in the day. Usually I can at least get through working out before I start crying. Not so, lately. In terms of actual logistics, I have managed to cope with a lot. I actually managed to attend opening night of Matt’s opera production. I navigated the busy post-show lobby, saying hello to members of the cast and the production team. (I wore my black men’s pants, black silky blouse, logger boots, and some round blue glass stud earrings.) Pictures were taken and posted on Facebook, and I wasn’t completely horrified by my own image.

The morning after opening night, we had to move out of the Hobbit House apartment and into an Air BnB. We had to pack everything- including all the stuff we’d ordered on Amazon- into bags and suitcases and store them downstairs in our hotel’s little office until we could check into our Air BnB at 3pm. This left us with a good 4 hours to kill. We went to a coffee shop/brunch place and stayed as long as we could before they asked for the table back. Then we went to the train station to find me some food because, oh wait- I didn’t mention it was Sunday and supermarkets along with almost everything else were all closed. So finding food with caloric information on it was no small feat. I ended up with a chocolate milk from a convenience store in the train station that had enough calories to cover me for breakfast.

At long last, it was time to pick up our bags and catch a cab to our new apartment. We met the housekeeper on her way out at five minutes before 3. Once inside, I was ecstatic with the place- it was like a luxury hotel with a huge kitchen and living room. We’d be there for 3 days before we had to head back to the airport to fly home. Despite this vast improvement in our living circumstances, I was a mess. I sobbed and sobbed, freaking out about packing again, only leaving the apartment to go to the gym (luckily, Matt had found a place in walking distance to our gym). In the midst of this breakdown, I missed an opportunity to have coffee with Matt and his friend whom I had yet to visit with— and really wanted to. I just couldn’t do it, and I felt as frustrated as ever.

We finally managed to get all our stuff into the two suitcases, leaving behind our kettle, kitchen scale, fluffy towels, and blanket. We weren’t sure the suitcases were both underweight, but we could still re-arrange at the airport hotel, where they did, in fact, have a luggage scale. We lugged our luggage onto the train and into our next accommodations: the Sheraton at the Frankfurt airport. Not only is it attached to the airport, but there’s a supermarket right inside the terminal, so food was no problem. Finally, we reached the morning of our flight and spent much of the day on a layover in the Dublin airport. The final flight to Boston was fairly miserable, as I subsisted on Mars bars, popcorn, and Coke Zero. I managed, though, with only a little extra anxiety medication and my Marie Kondo audiobooks.

Once we were home and unpacked, we expected my mood to greatly improve. We’d been blaming my decline on the stress of the trip: getting colds before we left, packing, traveling, jet-lag, speaking German, and just generally feeling out of my element. But my symptoms have not improved. I’ve only ventured out to a cafe once, and that was with Matt doing the driving and the ordering. Otherwise, it’s been sobbing before exercise, sobbing after exercise, and then sobbing on and off for the rest of the day.

With things staying so bad, Matt finally had the brilliant idea to question my most recent medication change. I’d gone up on Latuda a couple of weeks before the trip, and hadn’t noticed any change at the time. But what with getting sick and prepping for the trip, any changes might have gotten lost in the shuffle— and then lost in the travel, the jet-lag, the sense of displacement in Germany. What we had blamed on Germany might actually be a medication failure. I felt a glimmer of hope: maybe I wasn’t on a downward trajectory for the rest of my life. Maybe I was just having a negative reaction to the medication change. I went back down on my Latuda dose last night, and pray that things will start to improve. I’ve been blaming myself this whole time, desperately trying to get my routine on track. I read a book about how to change your habits, and I tried to analyze my behavior, searching for some fatal flaw in what I’ve been doing. Yesterday was the first time it occurred to me that maybe this just wasn’t my fault. That when I wanted to do something but just couldn’t, maybe it wasn’t something I was doing wrong. Matt kept telling me it wasn’t my fault, but I just thought he was being kind. Maybe, hopefully, he was actually right.

Routine Adjustment

We got home from Germany a few days ago and despite a pleasant lack of jet lag, things are feeling a bit tricky with my routines. We managed to get to the gym the morning after we arrived, and food is actually a lot easier here for me, so it’s been good so far. And when I had my psychiatrist’s appointment yesterday and got weighed in, I was pleasantly surprised to see the number: 171.2. That’s 4.8 pounds down from my pre-trip weight of 176. My expectation had been that I might stay the same weight or even gain a bit due to the reverse dieting (I’m up to eating 2,000 calories a day now), but hopefully it’s actually working and my metabolism is speeding up.

Another major factor in my weight loss has to be the increase in exercise since going to Germany. I had just recently switched my weight-lifting days to full body workouts instead of splits and I continued that way for the whole time we were there. In addition to adding more weights, I was walking a lot more there than at home. I walked 10 minutes each way to and from the gym every day, plus I upped my running time to 20 minutes on Saturdays when I would run in the park. So I guess it’s really no wonder that I lost weight with all this extra exercise, but I was still prepared for disappointment at my weigh-in and was happy with the result.

The problem is, now I have to figure out what I’m doing all over again. I’m going to continue reverse dieting, increasing my calories every 2 weeks by 50 calories a day. I have no reason to believe that it’s a total disaster, so I guess I’ll just assume it’s working and carry on. And having 2,000 calories a day to work with certainly made our travel days easier. The only problem I ran into was having trouble eating enough the first 2 days we got back. But I’m trying to plan my meals better so I don’t get too full at night and I think I’m back on track.

In terms of exercise, however, I feel I’m in a bit of a pickle. Ideally I could maintain my increased exercise here at home, but I’m not sure I’m up to it. First of all, it’s freezing here- much colder than Germany- and walking outside is wholly unappealing. It’s also not very pedestrian-friendly where we live in terms of having a destination, so I’m pretty sure outdoor walks are off the table. But those extra 20 minutes of walking 6 days a week really added up, and I don’t want to stall my weight loss by not continuing.

The treadmill is apparently my best option, but it’s so absolutely boring that I find it hard to stomach an extra 20 minutes a day of walking on it. So for now I’ve settled on doing an extra 10 minutes of uphill walking on the treadmill on cardio days, and running for 20 minutes straight instead of doing my run/walk intervals. But now I feel like I need to add walking on my weight-lifting days, and that might be the tipping point where I just want to forget exercising altogether. It was just so easy in Germany, taking an easy walk with the gym as my destination, listening to an audio book on the way. But here it just doesn’t seem feasible, even cutting the time in half from 20 minutes to 10.

I feel like I finally got into a good routine in Germany, and was able to get out of the house relatively easily every day. And now I have to change everything up again, and don’t know what to expect of myself. I want to lose more weight, so that’s some motivation, but I also have to deal with the reality that I struggle to exercise at all, never mind for 30-40 minutes a day. Today, facing a 20-minute jog and a 10-minute walk on the treadmill, I just wanted to go back to bed. I guess I feel like that most days when faced with the prospect of exercising, but this latest development definitely makes it harder.

I might have to just go back to the status quo, let go of this extra walking business, and focus on my shorter, more manageable workouts. Maybe if I just keep at it, the reverse dieting will be the key to weight loss. If I can get my maintenance calories up high enough, I could start dieting again, reducing my calories temporarily, and with my increased metabolism, lose more weight. Whatever happens with the exercise, the most important thing is to just keep going. I can never go back to doing no exercise at all. So even if it’s not exactly what I was hoping for, just continuing is the key.

The Other Side

I was thinking some more about that quote: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end- which you can never afford to lose- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” —James Stockdale

I realized that maintaining this paradox in my mind was not only something I applied to my career, as I talked about in my last blog. It was also the way I approached my emotional process. I used to believe that no matter how terrifying a feeling was, if I faced it head on, I could process it and get to the other side. So I trained myself to dive deep into despair, believing wholly that I’d come through it completely and be rid of it. And it really seemed to work for me. There was a stretch of time in my twenties when I took on every emotion with my full body and soul and sublimated it into art, usually songs, but also poems and paintings and sculptures. I saw this ability to be fully honest with myself as my greatest attribute as well as a practiced skill. I knew it would see me through any trial, any struggle. I had unerring faith that I would come out the other side.

Around the time of my 30th birthday, I was suffering from my worst depression to date. I would sob and sob, trying to talk it through with my best friend on the phone, or write about it in my journal. I’d try to work through it by working a 12-step program for overeating (OA), by sharing my experiences in meetings and trusting that it would help. I tried to fall in love, and laid my problems at my boyfriend’s feet, believing that if I were simply honest enough, I’d overcome my deep depression.

I’d never committed to taking psychiatric medication up to that time, believing all my problems could be solved through this “emotional processing” I’d honed over the years. I channeled my torrent of emotions into my acting classes, my singing, using my pain as fuel for art. But there came a breaking point.

I was working, performing in a musical in Philadelphia, when my depression nearly immobilized me. I never missed a rehearsal, a show, or a cue, but offstage I was sinking quickly. My now-husband befriended me, saw how deeply I was suffering, and helped me seek medical assistance. This took some time and a lot of convincing, but eventually I found a psychiatrist back in NY and started taking medication. And in doing so, I admitted that this time I would not come out the other side. I admitted my depression was a bottomless pit, a black hole, and no amount of diving in and “facing myself” would get me out of it.

This was the most difficult reality I’d ever had to face: the reality that my depression had no “rock bottom,” that it would continue infinitely if left to its own progression. I was beyond self-help books. I was beyond yoga and feng shui and affirmations. I was beyond daily exercise and clean eating (I was running 40 minutes a day and eating a sugar-free, wheat-free diet including lots of vegetables and flax seed at the time). I was beyond bodywork and acupuncture and herbal remedies. I was clinically, chemically depressed with some symptoms of psychosis (originally diagnosed as Bipolar II). There was an extensive history of mental illness in my family and I could find no alternative treatment to relieve my symptoms. I had to start taking medication.

Now, medication is not perfect, but I believe it’s kept me alive. It’s kept me from falling so far into that bottomless pit that I acted on the desire to take my life. No amount of facing my feelings in therapy was going to get me out of this one. And so I stopped believing in my “practiced skill.” I could no longer rely on my honesty and authenticity to keep me sane, to keep me alive. This was a great loss for me, the loss of that innate self-knowledge as my lifeboat. I still find myself taking those deep dives into my worst feelings, but I no longer find myself on the other side. I find myself right where I am, right in my own brutal reality of mental illness.

So now I have to retrain myself to stop diving. I have to learn to lean into the light instead of the abyss. I have to learn that diving deep only gets me in deeper. And I don’t want to accept that. I want to believe that the truth sets you free, that honesty is the best policy. I want to believe that no one is chemically flawed, that there’s no such thing as mental illness. I want to believe that if I think certain thoughts, my depression will go away. But that’s not the case for cancer, it’s not the case for diabetes, and it’s not the case for my disease. If there was any way through this thing, I’d have found it. But there comes a point where self-help no longer helps. And that point is mental illness.

So my fantasies of having a yoga healing journey are gone. My dream of a diet that relieves depression is done. And my long-term commitments to acupuncture and Rolfing are over. I’ve had to accept that I have more than a situational depression, that I have more than emotional problems. But the thing I still need to believe is that “faith will prevail in the end.” I guess the end just looks a lot different than I expected it to.

The truth of it is that I no longer know what to expect in the end. But I do have to get there. I have to find a way to keep confronting the “most brutal facts of my current reality” without losing that faith, because I cannot afford to lose it. I’ve already lost so much- my career, my independence, my ideals and beliefs. But I have not lost myself. I’m still alive, still living. So maybe I’m already prevailing. Or maybe this isn’t the end.

My Blogs Have Been Getting Bleak.

My blogs have been getting bleak. Real bleak. I seem to have come to an impasse and I don’t know what to do next. There’s a quote from one of my favorite books, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, that says, “…many types of depression are caused by a higher part of your consciousness stopping you doing what you have been doing because it is time for you to do something else.” I like the fact that Karen Kingston says “many types of depression” as opposed to depression in general, because god knows I have some serious chemical depression going on that can’t be cured with feng shui. But I’m also open to this idea she presents when it comes to those components of my depression that are circumstantial.

A year ago, I started writing this blog, and it’s been good for me. But the blog was never the endgame. I always knew I’d want more: maybe a YouTube channel, or maybe getting back to songwriting. But every time I try to even think about doing either of these things, it feels like my brain explodes. I cry a lot, get mad, take Klonopin, and end up staring lazily at the YouTubes. So I know it’s time to take on something else. I know I’m tired of just sending blogs into the void. And I know it’s making me depressed. I just don’t know what my next move is. I don’t know how to get started.

I heard a reference in a YouTube video to something U.S. Navy Vice Admiral James Stockdale once said: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” And I realized that I used to have the ability to do that. I just naturally had this belief in myself, that things may be hard now, but I would prevail in the end. This was especially true when it came to my career. The whole time I was performing in theater and training in opera, I held this utter conviction that I was going to succeed. I worked tirelessly to improve my skills, but I never expected or intended to fail. I knew the odds were not good. I’d heard all the advice about having a backup plan. But I also had constant encouragement from teachers and directors and voice coaches telling me that I was the exception to the rule, that I was going to make it. And I did work- I did long runs of musicals and plays many, many times, and I did plenty of opera concerts in NY and Boston.

But somewhere around turning age 39, I started losing faith. I had left theater behind years ago in order to pursue opera seriously- singing Wagner, no less- and I just couldn’t catch a break. I didn’t realize my voice was so heavy until I was already 31, so I had to learn all new music and train in a new way. I didn’t get a lot of auditions (partly due to my age) and the few I could get didn’t go well (even when I performed well, it didn’t lead to a job). Despite practicing alone in my apartment, traveling to NY every few weeks for a lesson and a coaching, and making new contacts in Boston, I eventually lost faith. I started crying every time I’d try to sing. I started judging myself every time I opened my mouth. And I started having suicidal thoughts while forcing my way through scales and arias. My mental health was already in a downward spiral as medication after medication failed to help me, and the conflation of circumstances broke me. I no longer believed that things would work out for me in the end. And I haven’t believed it since.

But maybe now, if I can just believe that I will overcome whatever obstacles I encounter despite the brutal reality of my life, maybe I can get somewhere. I’m not saying opera is necessarily in the cards for me. I’m 41 and that ship has probably sailed. But there are plenty of other ships out there. There are books to be written, videos to be produced, music to be composed. If I can just pick one thing that I really, truly want, and then find that unerring faith that I will in some way succeed, there’s hope. Right now there’s no hope, and I’m having a hard time getting through the day. But if any part of my depression is my higher self telling me to do something else, I’m all ears. If I can tune in and figure out what my next endeavor should be, I think I can get that faith back again. I think if I can commit to something new, I might be able to believe I will endure the struggles and come out the other side.

Panic Attacks

I’m trying to better understand my afternoon/evening mood crashes since they have been worse than usual here in Germany. They seem like panic attacks, but I don’t have the classic symptoms of a racing heartbeat and trouble breathing. I just feel overwhelmed, cry, and have to lie down. But when I really break down the whole trajectory of these “attacks,” they seem more complicated than that.

They start out by my feeling overwhelmed. I start feeling depressed and lost, like I don’t quite know what to do with myself. At this point, activities come to mind or are suggested to me by my husband. As I think of each activity in turn (going to a cafe, writing something, working on blog photos, organizing my mess of a hard drive, songwriting), my mind struggles to hook in, to wrap around an activity and get started. This is the point where I really feel like I’m having an attack- like an outside force is preventing me from doing what I want to do. My brain cannot latch on to anything, and I find myself saying, ”I can’t do anything right now” or “I can’t go anywhere right now.” I feel paralyzed, yet at the same time have a strong desire to do things. I don’t feel “typically” depressed, listless and apathetic. I very much want to do things. But my brain won’t move. It keeps circling back on itself, keeping me paralyzed.

This scenario becomes incredibly frustrating- this utter helplessness despite my great motivation. And then I start to get mad. I become enraged that I can’t get started on anything; even the thought of each task makes my brain seize up. I feel so angry that I want to punch the wall. I want to break things and scream. At this point I’m already crying, but then the real despair starts. I think of all the times in the past that I’ve been able to do so much. I think of the earlier part of the day when I managed to go to the gym, shower, make breakfast. And it doesn’t make any sense: What’s the problem? How can I have the will and motivation to engage in life and yet can’t get my brain to work right?

After some time thinking about the past and my current failure to achieve anything, I take a Klonopin and lie down. If Matt’s home, he’ll talk me down and rub my feet. The medication kicks in and I feel calm. But after expending so much energy through my “attack,” I’m absolutely exhausted. I’m tired and I don’t care anymore about getting things done. Sometimes I fall asleep. Sometimes I watch YouTube videos. Sometimes I just stare into space and bask in the relief. And then the conflict is over. I don’t do anything and I don’t care.

This whole sequence of events has been happening just about every day lately. Sometimes it starts at 4pm, sometimes 6 or 7. Inevitably, in order to relax on my own, I watch hours of YouTube. Videos where nothing happens, where people clean or declutter or show what they bought on their last shopping trip. Back home in Rhode Island, my favorite time of day- my best hours- were at the cafe. I enjoyed reading or writing and feeling productive. But here, it seems like my best time is going to the gym. It goes like clockwork (knock wood): coffee, get dressed, walk there, work out, walk home, shower, more coffee, breakfast. And then I’m in free fall. I feel overwhelmed at the thought of going to a cafe, so I lie down for a minute. A minute turns into “until Matt gets home.” And by the time he does get home for his break, I’m usually already in a state.

So the hours I’ve spent on YouTube during this trip have been ridiculous. I mean, I watch it first thing in the morning, while I’m doing cardio, while I eat breakfast, and then often, for the rest of the day and night. I’m often fighting the urge to binge. I manage my food so that I don’t binge, spreading out my meals and snacks, always trying to delay eating as long as possible. With this rather dismal schedule, I don’t always get dressed in “daytime clothes.” Sometimes I know it’s hopeless and I go right from gym clothes to the shower to pajamas. If I do get dressed and venture out, I’m always back in 2 hours or less. It seems silly to have even brought so many daytime clothes with me- foolishly optimistic.

Matt tries to cheer me up, saying how we only have a few weeks left and then we’ll be home. But I’m not looking forward to going home to more of the same. To barely getting by and feeling like I’m supposed to be grateful I’m not in the psych ward. To Matt not having work and needing to look for some kind of day job. To the suburbs. I honestly don’t know what to look forward to. I’ll still have to go to the gym and be on a diet and struggle just to take a shower. I’ll still be sick every day.

YouTube Friends

I’m not bingeing, but I want to be. I feel like I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t think of anything to write about. I feel too insecure to go sit at the cafe, and it just seems to make more sense to stay home. While I did manage to get to the gym today, I haven’t exactly accomplished anything else. I made my breakfast, coffee, and lunch. I actually meditated, so there’s that. But ultimately, I took an afternoon nap with Matt and am now sitting down to watch 3 hours of YouTube while he’s at rehearsal. While watching the last video on productivity, I found myself thinking about cookies and whether or not I should have some. I decided I will make tea instead of eating cookies. I’ll put creamer in it and that will make me feel satisfied, I hope.

Matt left for his rehearsal a little while ago, and in the hour leading up to it, I could feel myself gearing up for a meltdown. I felt the downward slope sneaking up on me, dragging me down to stare into the abyss. I knew I would cry and carry on about the usual- not knowing what I’m doing with my life, feeling like I’ve wasted 20 years on singing. I could feel the momentum gathering but I knew Matt didn’t have the time to listen to it, to rub my feet and explain to me that I’m a worthy human being. So I thought about going to the cafe, did my meditation, changed my mind about going to the cafe, and settled into the couch for some quality YouTube time. I made my tea. I added a tablespoon of heavy cream and a tablespoon of whole milk- my approximation of half-and-half. It’s a little weird with peppermint tea, but it’s way too late for regular coffee and we don’t have any decaf.

This strange little concoction was actually pretty good, but I still want to binge. Maybe if I backtrack to when exactly the urge to binge first struck, I could address the underlying cause of why I want to eat. I was watching this girl on YouTube talk about how she always films 5 videos at a time for maximum productivity. I hate that she is this efficient. I hate that she knows how to make videos so well that she can actually plan ahead like that. I hate that she already knows how to make videos when I have so much to learn. And I hate that her generation actually struggles with spending less time on social media while I’m so baffled by social media that I can’t even get started. And most of all, I hate that YouTube is really just my way of having imaginary “friends” without the actual pressure of participating in a friendship.

I really feel like the YouTubers are my friends- I know all these mundane details about their lives and keep tabs on what’s going on with them. But when it comes to real friends, I’m too afraid of screwing it up to keep up any actual connections. I have a couple of dear friends with whom I communicate via text or email, but even the thought of a phone call gives me so much anxiety that I find it hard to breathe. Here in Germany, I’ve spent a bit of time with Matt’s colleagues in person, and for some reason that’s easier. But I still worry that I won’t remember things we talked about because my memory’s so bad. I still worry about saying the wrong thing or getting timelines and details confused, or retelling a story I’ve already told. And I still hide from people when I go out to the cafe, checking with Matt to see who’s there before I go, or else I just go to a cafe where I know I won’t run into anyone. All this even though I’ve had some lovely spontaneous interactions with these women and like the idea of doing it more. But somehow, my YouTube “friends” always win out and I retreat to the safety of my phone or laptop.

I’ve never even “commented” on a YouTube video- I just like to watch people living their lives, explaining exactly how they do it. I love seeing what they wear, what they buy, what skincare routine they do, how they get out of bed and shower and eat breakfast. I like to see how they organize their cupboards, how they clean their bathroom, what they keep in their purse. I feel like I’m watching instruction manuals on how to live, and I love that because I always feel like no one ever gave me one.

I remember the first “lifestyle” video I ever saw- it was a closet tour by a woman who only wore black or white clothing. I was enthralled. And from that point on I found myself talking things through like she did, as if I were in my own YouTube video: First I take the shampoo and squeeze it into my hand, about this amount, and then I rub it into my hair, etc. I still do this to help me motivate when I’m feeling stuck. Today I said to myself: First I take the stickers off the apples and then I turn the cold water on. I rinse the apples, and put them on the cutting board…. You get the picture.

But I love watching these videos where nothing really happens. Most of the time I feel like even TV and movies are just too stressful to watch, but I always love my YouTube. It comforts me, and makes me feel like the little things in my life matter, too. And a lot of days, the little things are all we have.

Hobbit House Tour

I thought I’d give a thorough tour of our little rented apartment here in Würzburg, Germany, which we refer to as the “Hobbit House.” The place is rather quirky and aesthetically challenging, but we manage to make it work.

On our last trip here, I desperately fought against the ugly decor, hiding things away and buying organizational supplies at the Euro Shop. I tend to rearrange all of our temporary accommodations in whatever city we travel to for Matt’s work, sometimes rearranging furniture, often just focusing on putting away our supplies and suitcases and keeping the clutter under control. But this always seems to make things worse for Matt, who is an “out of sight, out of mind” type of person. He prefers to let his necessities scatter across the apartment, finding things more quickly this way than if they were tucked away. So this trip, rather than fight against his instincts, I’ve tried to embrace the situation and allow for some organized chaos. Matt’s working so hard here and is so pressed for time that he needs to keep things where he can see them.

I’ve also decided to surrender to the hideous decor. Despite my best efforts last time, I was never satisfied with the way things looked anyway. It’s hard to see such a potentially gorgeous apartment filled with offensive decorations, but apart from disassembling the whole shebang and throwing it out the window, I just don’t see any way around it. So this time, I didn’t buy any little baskets at the Euro Shop, I left the homemade paintings on the walls, and aside from hiding the ugliest things, just let it be.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Heading up to the apartment is a steep staircase; the apartment sits in the eaves of the building’s roof so it’s a four flight trek up to the top every time you come home. Once inside, there’s a very practical coat rack to your left which holds a myriad of coats and shopping bags which are so necessary here (we stash our bottles from drinking water here, too, since you have to turn them in at the supermarket). Next to that is a closet, also very practical as it fits all of our clothes and even hides away our suitcases. The right side has a little bench where dirty laundry lives.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Moving on to a grand sweep of the place, you’ll see two grubby, slightly futuristic and suspiciously IKEA-esque couches, coffee table in between. The coffee table has been the location of a lot of sprawling clutter, so I’ve attempted to contain it into the little cardboard boxes that our apples come in. I’ve also repurposed a tissue box to hold my pill bag and my headphones. There was an area rug here, but I dropped a drinking glass on it and the glass shattered. With no vacuum cleaner to tidy up, I just rolled the rug up and shoved it under one of the couches. Needless to say, I don’t miss it. Oh, and there was also a pillow in the shape of a rabbit (see photo); I threw it straight onto the top of the wardrobe upon our arrival.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

To your right is a beautiful spiral staircase with a hideous TV cart under it. The bathroom just beyond it has a rather shocking choice of tile going on, but also has sufficient storage between the counter over the sink and the shelves behind the door. I don’t bother tidying up in there since entropy always wins out anyway. I figure if I need something, I’ll go looking for it, so I haven’t even emptied my travel bag- it just sits on the shelf above the towel rack where we hang the bath mat to dry.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Next to the bathroom is the little spare room where we keep most of our food and other supplies. I stashed some dried flowers in there along with a gross kettle, an ancient hairdryer, and a toaster that smells like burning plastic when you try to use it. Note the only curtains we didn’t manage to remove, as well as one of our TK Maxx towels drying on the chair (it’s really just the only place for it). There’s a clothing rack which is great for airing out clothes that aren’t quite ready for the wash. And then there’s the infamous little bed where I hide from the world almost every day at some point. This is where I cry and nap and where Matt rubs my feet when things get particularly bad.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The real coup de grace is the “kitchen” where you really can’t do much cooking. It’s equipped with a microwave, toaster oven (that seems to slowly dehydrate food as opposed to toasting it), the kettle we bought on Amazon, a small sink, and a mini-fridge. With so little fridge space, groceries must be bought every day, a task Matt usually takes on first thing every morning. I did manage to clear out a single drawer for some of our food when I went on a tear and sterilized everything in the kitchen.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

There’s a nice-sized dining table with very dirty cushions on the chairs where we eat our meals, and where our second towel dries. From here there’s a view of one of the offending pieces of art- I hid it last time, but this time I just got over it. There are always bits and bobs on the table along with our fruit and my food scale (Amazon again) for weighing out exact portions. You might notice that there are no curtains on the kitchen and living room windows. They were so dusty and depressing that we elected to take them down and stuff them in the back of the closet. The views out the windows are actually not bad if you can see past all the dirt, and due to the angled walls, you don’t have to worry about anyone seeing you in your underwear.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The last stop on this little tour is the loft bedroom. The bed is composed of two twin beds with separate twin comforters, plus a blanket from Amazon that we try to share. I usually end up squished up against the wall and Matt ends up between the two mattresses. I find this little nook in the eaves comforting, but Matt gets a bit claustrophobic despite the lovely view of a nearby cathedral. This room got the biggest makeover: I removed a sharp-cornered shelf from the bed area and then stashed a bunch of crap at the other end of the loft. There are some gold and glass end tables, a wicker chair, a fake ficus, and a very, very dirty rug.

And that about sums it up. I’d say I can’t complain, but I guess I already did. I’m really trying to practice acceptance of this imperfect reality. Because what else is there?

Wearing Sweaters and Loose Skin

I’m finally wearing sweaters. Würzburg has cooled down quite a bit this week and I’ve worn 3 of my 4 sweaters already. The thicker pink cashmere one has come in really handy around the apartment with my pajamas, the grey one is making regular appearances at cafes, and the black non-cashmere one survived the trip here and just recently went over to our friend’s apartment. In terms of pants, I’ve worn each pair at least twice, so have yet to feel the need to put any in the wash. Right now I’m wearing my blue skinny jeans with my belt and it’s causing me some serious muffin-topping, so I may put them on the back burner again. I do tend to gravitate towards them though, especially for the walk home from the gym after a shower.

Before leaving for this trip, I switched to my smaller wedding ring which is a much more delicate band than the original (the original is actually a thicker men’s ring, since apparently plus size wedding rings have yet to hit the mainstream jewelry shops). But this thinner band is digging into my finger a bit, which keeps it from falling off, but makes me feel kind of chunky.

Speaking of muffin-topping and feeling chunky, I’ve been obsessing over the view of my inner thighs in the bright natural sunlight in our apartment. It’s got me worrying a lot about loose skin. If you’ve never lost a bunch of weight, you may be fully unaware of this concept, so let me enlighten you. When your skin has been stretched by weight gain, pregnancy, etc., it doesn’t always snap right back when you lose the weight. Magazines and weight-loss enthusiasts always fail to mention this potential side effect, but most people who lose significant amounts of weight in their adult years will suffer from this issue. I’ve been lucky in the past and only suffered from a jiggly belly when thin, but my weight had never reached its most recent heights. Now I’m afraid my legs are joining in the jiggle. But since the only solution is cosmetic surgery (which I have no interest in), I’m going to have to learn to accept it. Maybe all this waltzing around the ladies’ locker room completely nude will help me find that acceptance.

Now I am rather self-conscious waltzing my way to the gym in leggings. I rarely see people wearing leggings here, and I feel like people are staring when I do. Maybe it’s something about how skinny my legs are in comparison to my top half, or maybe not, but I do feel weird. It has dawned on me that people might think I’m pregnant, and if they see me lifting heavy weights at the gym, might be concerned for my health. But I feel like I get the most stares on the street. It doesn’t keep me from wearing them though, since I really have no choice- they’re all I brought to work out in.

I’m also self-conscious about my hair. My hair has been a bit of a disaster here due to the extremely calcium-rich water (we have to de-scale the kettle every couple of days). It just doesn’t curl like it’s supposed to, and I have to use a ton of conditioner. But aside from hair products, my toiletries have been holding up just fine. I’m pleased to report that micellar water is brilliant for removing sunblock, although now that I think of it, I haven’t been wearing my sunblock enough. The issue with it is that I try to use it like a moisturizer in the morning and it tingles and burns when I do. I’ve got a lead on an actual moisturizer with SPF so I’ll be sure to report back with my findings. The other issue with sunblock is that I get confused with walking to and from the gym since I often shower there. Do I put sunblock back on after I shower? And do I bring the micellar water with me? The answer to both these questions is obviously yes, but that has only just occurred to me.

My major concerns have been making sure I get my routine into place, and then taking pains to ensure that I don’t binge. It’s been just about a week since the dinkel-puff binge and my exercise is now truly consistent (our first week here I only walked around town for exercise on my cardio days and that didn’t feel quite right). So while there have been days where I could feel my routine slipping right through my fingers, I’ve managed to get back on track and power through. Today I overcame a great hurdle when I walked all the way to the gym and saw that both treadmills were occupied. Not satisfied with the walk there and back, I hiked it to the park and ran for ten minutes there.

In terms of getting out of the house, my nemesis seems to be the little bed in the spare room that calls to me after breakfast. It seems that if I heed that call, I tend to stay home all day and despair over how I’m not getting anything done. And while some days I’ve managed to rally and do something in the evening anyway, I still feel that that little bed is dangerous territory for me. So today I made sure to get dressed and ready right after breakfast even though it was almost time for Matt to get home. I think for now I have to ignore his schedule and just focus on my own, even if it means he spends his break out with me having coffee. I always want to spend as much time with Matt as possible, but I’m often conflicted about imposing my cafe time on his afternoon break. He always insists that the better I’m doing with my own stuff, the better he feels about everything. So in order to keep him happy, I have to make sure I put on my own oxygen mask first, so to speak. It definitely helps that he’s being really clear about his expectations (or lack thereof) for me. Sometimes I imagine he wants me to attend an event or do some shopping or dishes or whatever, when he’s really fine with whether I do it or not. So he lets me know regularly that I’m “off the hook,” but that I’m always invited. And the less pressure for me, the better.

Reverse Diet

Well, I’m officially starting a reverse diet. It’s all the rage with the body-builders and fitness gurus online, and I’ve finally decided to take part. I’ve alluded to the idea before, but it’s basically a method of slowly increasing your calories over a period of weeks or months so that your body adapts to a new level of caloric maintenance. So by increasing how much you eat slowly enough, you don’t gain weight and you get to eat more. The reason I’ve decided to do this is that I seem to be at the end of the road with my current diet of 1,800 calories. My weight barely changed over the 5-week period before my last weigh-in, and my clothes are still not getting any looser.

Apparently this is what happens to everybody when you’ve been on a diet for long enough: your metabolism slows down. Your body adjusts to taking in fewer calories and you stop losing weight. So in order to get things going again, you need to teach your body to burn more calories. (This means I won’t see any weight loss any time soon, but that seems to be the case anyway.) Theoretically, if I can get my maintenance calories high enough, I can eventually start dieting again and lose more weight. At that point I’ll try a more strategic approach to dieting- taking “diet breaks” every few weeks- so that my metabolism doesn’t slow down again.

But the first step is to add 50 calories to my daily intake every week or two. It’s such a small amount that it’s hard to even measure accurately, but since I have my handy little food scale with me here in the land of grams and milliliters, I should be able to do it.

Complicating all of this is the fact that I’ve changed my weight-lifting workouts a bit. Instead of having “back and biceps day” and “chest and triceps day,” I’m just doing a full body workout 3 times a week. I do 5 machines: Lat pulldowns, chest press, leg press, triceps, and biceps. Since I have rest days in between weight-lifting workouts anyway, it makes sense to take advantage and potentially get stronger by doing a little more. On alternate days, I’m still doing my 20 minutes of uphill walking and slow jogging on the treadmill. In addition to the new workouts though, I’m walking more here in Germany than at home. The gym here is a ten-minute walk away, so there’s an extra 20 minutes of walking 6 days a week, in addition to walking down to the shops here and there.

All of this change in exercise seems to be making me very hungry. I’ve been trying to distract myself with coffee and getting out of the apartment, but I really don’t think I should feel this hungry all the time. Especially since there have been two incidents with some minor bingeing lately, I think that increasing my calories in a controlled manner seems like a good approach all around.

The really weird thing I wanted to mention was that while I was jet-lagging and traveling, I kind of lost my appetite because I was so tired all the time. I couldn’t even get in my full 1,800 calories on several days. That was happening when I first got sick with my recent cold, too. So maybe my body is extra hungry now to try and make up for those times I was eating less. I don’t know.

I just know I need more food. Hopefully if I’m proactive about doing this properly, I won’t end up bingeing and gaining a bunch of weight back. That would be disastrous after all this hard work (I’ve been on a diet for over a year now and have lost 48 pounds) and especially bad for my mental health. As much as I try not to base my self-worth on my size, being heavier in general has led me to some really negative thinking and even suicidal thoughts.

And that is what’s utmost in my mind as I make these food-related decisions. When I was losing weight consistently, I imagined having the luxury of going out to eat once in a while and just estimating my calories. But at this phase of the game, I’m really frustrated with not losing weight and that frustration could blow this whole thing up. And so I always have to eat at home, weighing and measuring every little bite, now getting even more precise so I can inch my calories up over time. It’s really hard. If there were another way to do it that worked for me and my particular situation, I might have a choice. But at this point, I don’t think I do.

And I’m used to having a lot of limitations in my life. I’m used to having to go to the gym, eat the right food, take all my pills, take my Latuda with 350 calories right at bedtime so as to avoid akathisia, never drink alcohol or eat takeout, and get out of the house enough but not push myself too hard. It’s exhausting. But it’s working. So I do it.

Milchreis and Hyper-Palatable Foods

I didn’t tell you the whole story about the dinkel-puff binge. I’d already had a scare week ago, also on laundry day. Matt had gone to do the laundry himself, since he was taking a cab and wouldn’t need help carrying everything. Alone in the apartment, I had my usual chicken sandwich on “graham brot”- a really dense, healthy bread- with spicy mustard. When I was done, I craved something sweet. I had recently bought some yogurts in “dessert flavors”- chocolate, vanilla, etc.- as well as some individual rice puddings called “milchreis.” These also had flavors, some with a layer of chocolate pudding on the bottom. I ate one of the little yogurts- tiramisu flavored, I believe it was. But then something clicked and I couldn’t stop. I ate both rice puddings without checking the calories beforehand. I was sitting there with this pre-determined decision to eat all the rice pudding. Once it was decided, there was no going back. I ate both pudding cups and then made a frantic dash for the calculator app on my phone.

I had enough calories left for dinner and my nighttime pill snack, so I was safe. But I felt the need to confess to Matt when he came home and I told him I couldn’t buy those little dessert yogurts or puddings anymore. It would have to be plain from now on, maybe with a little honey mixed in. I thought it was the food that was the problem- something too sweet for me to handle, so just not worth eating. I thought I was in the clear. But the whole dinkel-puff incident proved me wrong. It wasn’t the type of food that time. It was an emotional trigger, not a food one.

I do feel there are certain foods that are “hyper-palatable” for me, foods designed to make you keep eating beyond satiety. There’s something about particular concoctions of sugar and fat that make me want to keep eating all of them until they are gone. Donuts, for one. Kinder-schokolade here in Germany, Hanuta as well (chocolate hazelnut wafer sandwiches that led to my demise on our last trip here). I’m learning to accept that these foods are engineered for bingeing and I just can’t handle them. But dinkel-puffs? Puffed spelt? These seem relatively harmless- no fat really, only lightly sweetened. But there’s something about the volume of them per portion that makes me drawn to them when I’m in binge-mode.

Because in this case, the binge-mode precipitated the dinkel-puffs. So one incident with some hyper-palatable puddings is one thing, but going on a mission for binge food tells me something else is going on. I recognize that the laundromat incident triggered me somehow, but I still wonder why this is happening now. Is it something about all the supermarkets being closed on Sundays that leads to a sense of deprivation and scarcity, and sends me into a binge? Or is it just that the food here is so bad in general that I feel desperate for anything that tastes good and has the number of calories on the label?

Because aside from excellent coffee and fresh bread, the food here is practically intolerable. I’ve settled on plain yogurt and fresh fruit for breakfast, though finding good fruit can be hard. Lunch is my pre-packaged deli chicken on whole-grain bread. And for dinner, we’ve finally found a good regular meal by taking fresh rotisserie chicken (from the takeout window of a nearby restaurant) and combining it with broth, sesame oil, soy sauce, scallions, broccoli, and kimchi, all from the Asian market, to make chicken soup. It’s very tricky to get everything hot enough at the same time, but we’ve managed to get it right by using 7 bowls, the kettle, and the microwave. Snacks have been muesli, toast with butter, yogurt with honey, or oat cookies (which for some unknown reason don’t trigger a binge for me).

Aside from these regular meals, I honestly shudder at the typical offerings of schnitzel and leberkäse (liver cheese?) that everyone here seems to enjoy. The day-old, flat rolls with cheese melted on them (maybe meant to represent a pizza?) are inedible, as are the prepared sandwiches at bakeries that feature only a thin slice of salami and one sharp piece of lettuce for garnish. And the worst of it has to be “curry-wurst”- chopped up hotdogs with ketchup squirted all over them, served with fries. We can’t afford the Italian restaurants that have decent food (pizza and pasta) and I can’t be bothered to guess the number of calories involved. So maybe feeling so limited in terms of choice is part of the problem and could account for why I’m having binge-scares all of a sudden.

My real concern, though, is whether it’s just the restriction of dieting that has me wound tight like a spring, just waiting to be set off into a binge. I worry that now that I’m not losing weight on my diet, I’m rebelling against it and having these mini-binges. There are so many reasons that could explain why this is happening now, but I don’t know how to address any of them. I’m trying to get on track with my routines and not push myself too much, but I’m also feeling better sometimes when I do push myself. I’ve actually socialized a little bit with and without Matt there, and I’ve been really proud of how well it went. But then on laundry day, I pushed myself again and things went awry. So finding the right balance between pushing and not pushing- that seems important. Keeping myself from feeling deprived also seems key. (Maybe adding some bulk to my lunch would help curb the snack cravings- some cole slaw or something?) But the really crucial issue seems to be coping with my anger in some way other than eating. How, I have yet to figure out.

The Dinkel-Puff Binge

I binged yesterday. I just scraped by, keeping my daily tally to 2000 calories, but it was a close one. I was tired, worn out. I was at the laundromat with Matt and a friend of ours and I started stirring myself into a rage. There was a large family with noisy children, a lot of shouting, a lot of banging around and taking over the whole laundromat, smoking cigarettes at the edge of the door so it filled the place with smoke, and finally, men taking their shirts off in public. While Matt and our friend were working, I was trying to listen to a book that required some concentration, and while I hung in there for some time, I finally cracked. I started doing this thing where I complain about people loudly (and of course, in English) in hopes that they will overhear and get their shit together. This never works, so I finally decided to walk home.

On my way home, I was furious. I was furious at everyone on the street, especially the people in my way, and I’m sure I wasn’t hiding my anger very well. I was on a tear, and I wanted to eat. I became fixated on some puffed spelt cereal I had seen at the DM (the “pharmacy” without a pharmacy where you buy your shampoo and stuff). It was in this little health food section in the back and I made a beeline for it. I was disappointed to see that the “dinkel gepufft” had more calories than I expected. I knew I wanted to eat the whole bag. I was looking for volume. I was looking for transgression. I bought the dinkel puffs and stormed my way out of there, back to our hotel and up the 5 flights of stairs to the safety and privacy of our apartment.

When I checked the calories again, 373 per 100 grams, I decided to just have muesli instead for 351 calories per 100 grams. I weighed out the muesli on my little food scale I had ordered on Amazon and ate it with some almond milk. Unsatisfied, I opened up the spelt puffs and weighed out 50g of those. It filled a cereal bowl, so not bad, I figured. I wolfed them down while watching a Youtube video about makeup. And then I weighed out serving after serving until I’d eaten the rest of the bag, the momentum of the binge a force all its own. I had set this trajectory, and it would not be stopped until I had done something “wrong.” I ran out of almond milk on the last bowl so I added a splash of whole milk that I use in my coffee. Once the bag was empty, I stopped eating. I nervously took out my phone and opened the calculator app to survey the damage.

• Breakfast 350 calories

• Coffee creamer 80 calories

• Dinkel puffs 746 calories

• Almond milk 50 calories

• Whole milk 64 calories

• Muesli 351 calories

Total: 1,641 calories

This left me 159 calories for my 350 calorie nighttime snack that I need to take with my Latuda in order for it to work. Extending my daily allowance to 2,000 calories instead of 1,800 brought me to just 9 calories under my limit. I had squeaked by, provided I didn’t eat anything else until bedtime.

Matt came home and I confessed. He suggested I focus on just getting back on track tomorrow and trying to take care of myself for the rest of the day. He gave me a foot rub and I fell asleep for a few hours. When I woke up, I didn’t know what to do, so I watched some Youtube and got ready for bed. I ate my 350 calories of oat cookies and took my pills.

I felt defeated and scared. Is there something about Germany that makes me binge? This little episode was dangerously similar to what happened on our last stay in this little apartment, the time when I started gaining weight and couldn’t stop. The time Matt had to rub my feet every day to distract me from the mental and emotional agony I was in. The time I had to go home early and get my medication changed by my doctor.

I don’t want to go home this time. I don’t want to be alone in Rhode Island. But I also can’t start bingeing again. And today, the morning after, I feel scared. I feel like I’m starting over. I feel like I “blew it” and I’m no longer going to have any control over my eating.

This morning, I somehow managed to put my gym clothes on, to pack my bag, and since Matt had some rare time off, he came with me to the gym. We came home and I had my usual breakfast- fruit and plain yogurt. I got dressed to go to the cafe, and Matt came with me again.

But this feeling of failure still lingers. This feeling like I don’t know how it happened. If I trace it back, the trigger was feeling like people were being assholes, I was in the right, and there was nothing I could do to rectify the situation. This is exactly what happened many months ago when I had a screaming match with my Trump-supporting neighbors and I binged on candied nuts. It’s the same feeling I have when I think about current U.S. politics, when I think about how there’s no point in getting upset about it when the bad guys always win.

Maybe I can learn from this. Maybe I can recognize the danger of these types of situations for me and find some way to disengage the momentum of the binge. But I’m scared. I felt out of control. I felt full of rage and indignance. I felt like the binge was happening and I had no say in it whatsoever. So how do I keep this from happening again?

Germany Trip Updates

With so much going on on this trip to Würzburg, Germany, I feel like I have a few things to catch you up on. There’s not a great deal of culture shock, especially having visited Germany many times before for Matt’s work, but there are always certain adjustments to deal with. Here are some of the highlights (or lowlights):

1. Jet Lag and Church Bells. Jet lag lasted a full week once we arrived in Germany, and no amount of sleeping or napping could cure it. In addition to the trouble of my internal body-clock, there were the church bells. Our apartment is right across the street from a church which rings its bells every 15 minutes, with long, elaborate songs played several times a day and a giant cuckoo-clock type wooden-figure parade sometime in the middle of the afternoon. In addition to these disturbances, 7am is apparently “Bells O’Clock” where every church in Würzburg rings its bells wildly, shaming anyone who feels the need to sleep past 7. Not helpful.

2. The Hobbit House. This is our nickname for our little apartment at the top floor of a medieval-feeling hotel which caters to guests of the nearby theater. Here I should mention the bizarre decor lining the walls of the stairways: there are innumerable portraits of bedraggled teddy-bears dressed in little outfits and posed outside various castles and monuments. I have no words.

But back to the apartment. It’s situated in the eaves of the rooftop and the walls are lined in real hardwood planks. There’s a stunning spiral staircase (also wood) up to a second floor loft where the beds are. As is typical in Germany, there are two single beds which we push together and constantly fall between during the night. This apartment could be really beautiful if you removed all of the decor and gave it a deep clean. Instead it is very dirty with home-made paintings on the walls and no stove to cook with. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the toaster oven had been replaced, but as expected, the kettle had not. Thankfully, we had already ordered one on Amazon and stashed the disgusting one away in a cupboard. One day, in the midst of my jet lag, I drank some strong coffee and scoured the entire kitchen. I poured boiling water on all the silverware and scrubbed every useful plate, glass, and mug, laying paper towel down on the shelves of the cabinets. I sanitized the drawers and their contents and even the mini dustpan and brush that I use to “de-crumb” the table. This means we no longer have to guess which forks are clean every time we reach for one, and don’t have to wash out every mug before using it.

3. Towels and Pillows. I can’t explain the extreme issue with towels and pillows here. Towels are always thin, rough, disintegrating rags, seemingly starched when washed. I bought us our own plush bath towels from TK Maxx and we just use those. Why no one else seems to do the same is a complete mystery. Pillows are also a mystery. Fluffy, large squares that your head goes right through, we have yet to find a German pillow you can actually sleep on. We joke that it’s like having a bag of soup cans under your head at night, except that those might actually keep your head off the mattress, and so would be an improvement. TK Maxx had identical useless bags of fluff, so we’ve been sleeping on the couch pillows (which are completely normal) with pillow cases on them.

4. Grocery Store Checkout. For reasons unbeknownst to me, when the cashiers at the supermarkets here scan your stuff through, they throw your fruit and yogurt onto a tiny shelf from which you must rescue your food before it falls on the floor. There are no bag boys, and there are no bags. If you remember to bring your own bag, you can sometimes catch it all and quickly stash it away before fishing for exact change, which all cashiers here seem to demand. If you have a whole cartful, however, you must simply dump everything back into the cart after scanning and then go over to a little shelf at the front of the store to bag everything on your own time. I will never understand.

5. Finally, I have yet to tell you about the gym. We were lucky enough to find a gym that would give us 2-month memberships and let us pay for them in cash. The gym is very nice, quiet and clean, and has appropriate equipment for us to complete our thrice-weekly, full-body workout. There are only two treadmills in the place, but no one ever seems to be on them when we’re there, so I’ve taken the 10-minute walk there just to do my 20-minute uphill walking and slow jogging. The real mind-boggler here for me was the group showers. I was excited by the prospect of washing my hair at the gym where the water pressure is excellent (our water pressure at the apartment is non-existent). But I was quite surprised by the group showers in the ladies’ locker room. In the U.S. in my experience, the standard is to have private stalls, each with a tiny ante-room in which to dry off and get dressed. Apparently in Germany, it’s not. So I had my first public naked experience on my first day at the gym. I was obliviously washing my hair, soaping up, when another woman walked in to shower. She barely got wet and was on her way out when she started telling me something in German. After multiple hand gestures and confusion, I realized I was supposed to use this giant squeegee on a pole to push the water down the drain since the shower floor is flat. I frantically did so, completely nude and apologizing in German. The ultimate mind-boggler at the gym, however, is the co-ed sauna and relaxation area. Men are just walking around, penises swinging, showering and squeegeeing, lying in the sauna, drinking tea on the recliners. So far I have yet to see another woman in the sauna, and I can see why. But I’m also determined to get my money’s worth and take full advantage of the sauna, so I do go in there when Matt’s with me. Usually we both get weirded out in 5-10 minutes and retreat to the locker rooms.

Well, this pretty much sums up the culture shock so far on our trip to Würzburg. A good friend of Matt’s is here working with him for the first time and it’s alternately hilarious and terrifying to hear about her own experience of the culture here. I have to say, it’s great fun having a witness to some of the oddities and unexpected twists. But I also feel embarrassed for Germany sometimes when she encounters baffling, creepy, and even offensive behavior by her co-workers and the public at large. That said, I’m enjoying my coffee at a lovely cafe and no one is bothering me despite my sitting here for hours writing. I had a peaceful workout (and shower) at the gym today. And people are generally very understanding when you tell them your German is terrible and could they possibly speak in English? I feel especially lucky that Matt has so many more work opportunities here than in the States. And the more often I come here, the more I understand.