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I’ve abandoned any number of writing efforts this month. I hate everything, and that’s a hard mindset to push “publish” with. I can’t seem to find my feet when it comes to thinking, doing, and feeling. It doesn’t help that my motivation is in the toilet. None of this is unusual for me in October – it’s my second least favourite month for a reason – but oddly, I forget that it can be problematic until ennui arrives. Fall is when my depression likes to show up in a big way.

You’d think I’d remember more easily the annual arrival of something so miserably unwelcome, but no.

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I put on Thanksgiving dinner this year (Canadian Thanksgiving falls on the second Monday of October and has absolutely nothing to do with Columbus discovering Cuba), and although I’ve done it before, it felt a little more challenging this year.

l seem to have a lot on my plate all of a sudden. Portions I’ve not requested keep getting added to the dishes I’m aware of. I’m a bit of an overwhelmed mess, at times.

My daughter and two grandsons are living with me for now and that has changed things at home; my dog Suki is a new addition since last year’s Thanksgiving dinner, and her needs have to be factored into the day’s schedule as well, holiday cooking be damned; my son’s partner was recently diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, and can no longer have dairy, which requires some extra meal planning and prep on my part; and the dining room table, a necessary accessory when one is putting on a big meal, especially absent any TV trays, was still in the garage, waiting to be refinished.

It’s back in the house now, so it might be waiting for some time.

I’m not sure where to place my dad on the buffet of challenges. An aging parent is not the easiest of things, even when they’re doing mostly okay. I don’t resent the weight caring and helping manage adds, mostly, but it’s important to acknowledge that it exists.

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I woke up the morning of full of cooking enthusiasm. I was on track for time and feeling good. I’d done much of the food prep over the previous two days, and the table was already set. Happiness is a mise en place. Serving dishes and utensils were also out and waiting. Things looked to run as smoothly as silk, and I was ready to start checking off boxes on my schedule.

That’s not a metaphor, by the way. I write out my dinner plans in longhand, and I’m hella specific. Anyone could run the dinner from my notebook.

Step one for that day was to take out the thawed turkey. I knew it was thawed because I put that four-and-a-half-kilogram bird in the fridge on Tuesday night, and here it was Saturday morning. I’d poked at it a few times in the interim and felt the softening of the flesh, so I figured things were going well from a thawing perspective.

Imagine my chagrin when I put the bird in the sink that morning and peeled off the wrap only to find that the insides were still icy and solid. The giblets bag was still frozen to the rib cage. I went from fine to meltdown at speed Ferrari would envy. I took the failure of my fridge and the turkey very personally.

2

I pride myself on my equanimity. I work hard to stay calm in my day-to-day life. I work hard at not being reactive. I try to not sweat the small things: I try to go with the flow. I’m often successful. People have mentioned on more than one occasion that I’m a restful and soothing presence to be around. It’s important to me that I’m perceived in this way, and I appreciate the props more than they know.

I appreciate compliments on my calm and easy way because sometimes, things go very much in the other direction, especially when my neuroses take over the driving on my particular bus. I appreciate compliments on my now soothing nature because when my eating disorder was in its ascendancy, I was anything but.

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I wish very much that my daughter had not been there when I lost my nut over the frustration of that frozen bird. A turkey not being completely thawed is such a small and fixable thing, but there are no small obstructions when depression comes calling. There are only catastrophes. I have neither calm nor ease in those situations. Depression is all or nothing, and when my brain is rolling that way, things are either perfection or crap.

My inside voice is quite pitiless when my depression perceives failure.

The dinner is going to be a failure. You’re so pathetic. You suck. You failed – should’ve thawed it better. How hard is it to melt something, for god’s sake? Doing family dinners is stupid and pointless. anyhow. They don’t even know you. They don’t care. The house looks hideous, and you’re a mess. The menu is too complicated – why the hell are you doing two meats (I decided to also cook a ham)? You suck at cooking, at planning, and at parenting. You’re too critical. You don’t get in touch with your kids often enough. You’re not there for them. You suck at raising a dog. She should go back. She should have an owner who’s not awful. You’re a joke. I hate this life. I hate being here. I’m so tired. I’m so tired of this life. I’m so tired of this crap. I want to be done. I’m going to cancel dinner. I’ll send a text to everyone, cancelling. Maybe I’ll just get in the car and go?

My daughter tried to interject as I paced around, melting down. I tried very hard to reassure her as I lost my shite. I didn’t enjoy trying to manage other people while in distress. I suppose I could not have, but we are who we are, after all.

One advantage I have when facing these emotional collapses is that I’m not new to this kind of misery and chaos. I’ve been here before, often, and there’s a part of me that remembers, usually, after a bit, that these feelings, especially when they’re reactive (stupid turkey), are transitory.

This, too, shall pass. More problematic is when I don’t remember that dark moods aren’t forever, but that’s a problem for another day. Perhaps. Fingers crossed.

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The signs of depression creeping in are easy to see in retrospect, but somehow, I always miss them on a going-forward basis. So much for my claims of expertise. Perhaps I should colour the October and November pages black on next year’s calendar, so I remember to remember that I don’t roll as well as I would like through the fall months.

I don’t enjoy it when my brain abandons sense and logic: I like it less when there are witnesses to the event, and less still when those witnesses are my kids. Wanting to keep them safe is a habit, and one doesn’t stop simply because they’ve reached the age of majority.

My mother used to say to me, when I’d remind her that I was an adult, that I would always be her baby, and it’s true. It’s not that I don’t know they’re grown up, it’s that I want to protect them from hard things, even when the hard things are me.

Especially when the hard thing is me.

Besides, there’s a part of me that wants to be very nasty to the unfortunates in my vicinity when I’m like this, and I prefer to remove those I like from the line of my fire, if possible.

3.

That October and November are difficult months for me is a little bit frustrating, because smack in the middle is an important anniversary. I really should’ve planned my eating disorder recovery better.

My eating disorder came online at age eleven, though it had been rumbling around for a few years before then. We puttered along for a few years uninterrupted, but I made some changes to my pathology at nineteen. I started actively purging as well as restricting. It only took a few weeks after the first incident for me to be binging and purging on the near-daily. Once I’d pushed play, I didn’t stop regularly binging and purging for thirty years.

It takes a lot to escape from an eating disorder. Far too many don’t make it. It has taken me ten years since my last inpatient stay to get to a point where I feel like I can say that my recovery is starting to feel solid. I feel like I’m headed to a point where I only have the ‘normal’ amount of pathology when it comes to my body and appearance.

What a weird world we live in, where some amount of body dissatisfaction/hatred is seen as normal.

I threw up for the last time on October 31, 2019. On November 1, 2025, I will have six years of sober eating (excluding some restricting: we take the wins we can eke out and celebrate them – it’s a hard life) and no purging to my name. That’s something I never imagined would come to pass.

I fought and I tried, but I’d pretty much settled on the idea that death was going to take me before I managed to escape.

Imagine my delighted surprise, though functioning in a world you never expected to inhabit brings its own set of challenges.

I’m grateful every day that I’m no longer a slave to my bulimia and anorexia. They are a hellscape of epic proportions. It remains surreal to me that I can just eat food and then go on with my life without self-condemnation or some form of punishment. I’m even getting easier with desserts and offerings deep-fried. Juice is still a stretch, however. It’s all good. One step at a time.

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If you live with an eating disorder, you must reach out for help and support. We really can’t do it on our own. If it’s too hard to be honest with family and friends, reach out to one of the national organizations. In Canada, you can contact NEDIC (National Eating Disorder Information Centre) for assistance. Most countries have organizations that can help, although accessing resources can be difficult, and funding remains subpar.

It’s the sexism. Eating disorders primarily affect women. As men start to suffer, funding increases.

An eating disorder isn’t a livable arrangement. You can’t build a life together. An eating disorder has one goal, and it’s not to make you thin and beautiful. Eating disorders are maladaptive coping mechanisms that have taken on a life of their own. Mostly, they seem to want us dead. Don’t oblige them.

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International Eating Disorder Treatment Resources and Information

(header photo: mine)

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