“Erin, YOU need to learn moderation.”
People have been telling me that my whole life. No exaggeration, that message has been delivered to me over one thousand times by many, many different people.
Being harped on and nagged to be different is demoralizing and annoying, but people telling me that isn’t the worst part.
The WORST PART is that for a very long time, I felt like they might be right.
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When I was a kid one of the best and most exciting times of the year was my family’s annual, summer vacation trip to Grandma’s house. These days by car the trip can be made in just over five hours, but back then the trip took more than seven. Mom would pack our last-school-year’s lunch boxes full of snackie food surprises, we’d take books and paper and pens to stay busy, and I lost countless travel checker-chess-trouble-connect-four games to my younger brother.
The trip was made in my mom’s Toyota Camry. It is a smaller car, particularly small for three nearly-adult size kids in the back seat. Dad, true to his Viking roots, stands at 6’3″ tall and had to jam the driver’s seat as far back as it would go in order to wedge himself inside the vehicle. My brother, sister, and I would argue about who had to sit behind him and which one of us got to sit behind Mom, who is purebred Japanese and not even five feet tall in shoes. Usually the shortest person sat behind Dad and the tallest behind Mom, which for many years put me smack in the middle of the back seat.
Summers in Eastern Washington are HOT (it’s practically the effing desert). My brother puts off heat like a space heater and tolerates ALL forms of discomfort insanely well. My mom and my sister I’m convinced are both part desert lizard, and flourish in the heat. My Dad was raised in a pretty drastic culture of poverty, so using the a/c in the car was tantamount to DEATH for wasting fuel efficiency, plus his internal thermostat has a comfort range of about 60* up or down (anything between 23* and THE SUN is tolerable to him).
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I am my father’s first born son.
Not kidding.
Before you exit this post and look for a photo of me, I’ll confirm for you that YES, I am female. That does not change what I said, though. I am my father’s first born son.
Now don’t get me wrong. When I say “I’m the first born son” I don’t mean in a lesbian-y, gender-identity-crisis, or “I have dangly man bits” kind of way. I mean it in every other possible way. I exist in a female body, but I am a masculine energy, raised by male methods, taught to think in a gender-neutral-but-mostly-masculine way.
And wow. That has really been an obstacle to overcome.
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Let’s pretend that you and I meet on the street.
It’s a gorgeous day, the sun is shining. You’re having a good day. You’re walking to or from somewhere, having just said goodbye to someone or meeting someone soon, heading to work-school-gym-coffeehouse-library-mall-grocery-store. In your moment of “normal” I approach you, look in your face, smile, and hand you a black canvas bag.
Inside the bag is $750 million. SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY MILLION SMACKERS.
I have voices in my head.
I think that makes me weird, and honestly I’m okay with that. The Voices keep life interesting. Their presence also makes me somewhat unique, if in no other way than the voices themselves are unique.
For a long time I thought there was something wrong with me. I never really mentioned the Voices for fear of judgment, worry that no one will believe me, and (the biggest issue) lack of trust that anyone could possibly understand. I don’t talk about the Voices with friends or at parties. I don’t tell anyone that “the Voices helped me figure this out.” The fact I HAVE Voices is permanently added to the list of “things you do not mention on the first date.”
It’s an act of consideration, really… I try to be fair and not creep people out. Most would have a hard time understanding that my “sitting quietly and thinking” time is less like a single chair in an empty room, and more like a family meeting. With eight people attending. And they all have strong opinions, they all “know what’s best,” most of them dislike one another, and most of the time they’re fighting about something stupid.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve become more comfortable talking about the voices. I think partly that’s due to being more comfortable with myself, my reality, and the cards I’ve been dealt, but even more than that my comfort level can be attributed to realizing just how much The Voices are a part of who I am. I’ve learned a lot about myself and the world while listening to their dialogue. They also help me to analyze all sides of a problem, to see multiple perspectives. I’ve solved COUNTLESS problems that seemed impossible to resolve by letting The Erins argue it out during my otherwise preoccupied hours.
Over the last couple years I’ve learned to distinguish and identify the voices. I read somewhere that having voices in your head is fairly normal, and you’re not really crazy unless you NAME THEM. I totally named them. Label me as you see fit because of it, but having named them helps me a lot to understand from which part of myself the thoughts are coming from. I’m able to identify WHO is talking, to decide how much weight to give what is said, and what thoughts to dismiss when I hear things that aren’t productive or uplifting.
And now I’d like to introduce you to them.
I am what you’d call a people pleaser. A giver. A grace-giving, loving, hospitable servant of others. A person that gives to others physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
It sounds braggy and self-inflating, but it really isn’t. I really am all of those things, and I come by them honestly. I was raised in a family that believes in “others before self,” the kind of family that, without being asked, helps you tie 300 bows on custom made cards at 4 am because you failed to plan ahead very well (or at all). I had the mom that everyone knew because she baked for EVERY bake sale, and volunteered at EVERY event, and sold snacks out of the concession stand or sat in the bleachers for EVERY game of every sport we ever played. I had the dad who hosted every party for every family gathering and every class reunion for as long as I can remember. I was raised in a culture of giving, and service, and kindness. I was taught that the best way to love others is through acts of wholehearted grace. I was nurtured to consider every person’s feelings, extend every possible courtesy to everyone involved, to always give attention to the desires and goals of others when making a decision that might affect them.
EXCELLENT LESSONS. I am glad I learned them. And I do still believe those things to be true.
The trouble came when I took “others before self” too far. Trouble comes when I TAKE it too far, because I still do that. I do it without thinking, and for the wrong reasons.
This is a photograph of me taken in 1997.
….and I thought I was FAT.
That’s SIXTEEN YEARS AGO. Looking at this picture now I think to myself “huh, maybe I WASN’T fat,” but at the time I was struggling with my second serious bout of anorexia and FAT is all I ever felt. I weighed 112 lbs in this picture, if memory serves, and I’m inclined to believe that’s true. One thing anorexics accurately know at any given time is their weight.
In this photo I was wearing a pair of jeans, size 5. They were a little big, as you can see, but that’s how I liked to wear my clothes. “Maybe people won’t notice my size if I wear big clothes.” Looking at this photo now I don’t see how anyone could NOT see I was starving OR how I could feel so fat, but hey. Delusion is part of addiction. I apparently got a good helping of “fantasy” when Ana was passing it out.
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This is Notre Dame d’Amiens, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens, located in Amiens, France.
wow.
Amazing, isn’t it? AWESOME. Literally inspires AWE. To put in perspective the size of the building, please note the HORSES standing out front. They’re one quarter the height of the front door.
At the time it was built, the architects of the era were in a “whose thing is bigger” contest to see JUST HOW BIG IT COULD BE. Constructed between 1220 and 1270 (yes you read that right, it took FIFTY YEARS to build it), Amiens Cathedral is the biggest completed cathedral in France.
The building is gorgeous and inspiring from the outside, but you don’t see the stunning, almost completely unbelievable, “oh holy shit” part until you’re on the INSIDE.
Well, it’s time.
I’ve been putting it off, finding reasons (excuses), staying busy, and telling myself that it doesn’t matter “no one will care anyways,” but it’s time. It’s time to post a picture of ME.
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH…
For as long as I can remember I’ve hated to have my picture taken. Toward the end of any party or family gathering I would get antsy and flighty because I knew what was coming.
Dad: “HEY, gather everyone up and go stand over there so I can take your picture.” (Please notice that was a command, not a question.)
Having been born into a family with a photography-as-a-hobby father and a Japanese mother (the “oooh, tay-koo peeek-cha?” stereotype of Japanese tourists is totally accurate), I had my picture taken a lot. I had my picture taken WAY more than I was comfortable with. In fact, I have had my picture taken no less than 1000 times and I hated it every single time.
A bulimic giving up binging is a big deal.
I can’t speak for every bulimic out there, but for me this is a REALLY big deal.
This is like alcoholics giving up the booze. Or drug addicts giving up their favorite way to turn off the world. This is like hoarders emptying out of their house all their things and sending them to the dump, a religious extremist giving up their Bible, a doomsday prepper giving away the keys to their bunker, a social-hermit-agoraphobic throwing open all their doors and windows and walking out to join the circus.
This is like a child giving away their very favorite, passionately loved, had-it-since-in-the-womb blanket.
Giving up the binge for me is like all of that put together.
Feeling worthless and empty?
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