I like to talk. To anyone who knows me, this is not news.  From the time I was in elementary school, to my parent’s dismay, my report cards consistently informed them that I needed to stop talking so much in class.   Some may say that I talk too much, others may say that I am hyper-verbal.  Any way you frame it, the bottom line is, I am a very chatty person.  Being verbally outgoing has its advantages.  I meet wonderful people in strange situations where if I wasn’t comfortable initiating a conversation, I never would have made their acquaintance.

People who know memay consider me to be a “healthy person” but in reality, most of my adult life I’ve teetered near the point of death, both literally and figuratively. Some might argue that what pushed me to this point was my battle with anorexia. In the past I would have agreed with them, but the more years I put between me and my disorder, the more I realize that my poor health was the result of a larger battle with myself – the eating disorder just served as the mask. 

One writes to capture and crystallize one's joy, but also to disperse one's gloom.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh, War Within & Without: Diaries and letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1939 – 1944

CRYSTALLIZING JOY

When I want to spice up my writing, I turn to Kathleen Adams'  Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth.  Adams writes in the preface, “...this book approaches journal writing from the standpoint of techniques—different ways to write that will not only add variety but can also help maximize the clarity and effectiveness of the journal.”  Using the List of 100 technique islike taking an elevator a few layers down inside me, where the doors open into surprising new ideas. 

LIST OF 100

About ten years ago, I got intensely interested in the complex world of eating disorders after reading a newspaper article about a teenage boy with anorexia—which shocked me, because I’d had no idea boys or men could even get eating disorders.  Of course, this was only my first shock.

I dove into the subject and read everything I could get my hands on—novels, nonfiction books, articles; I watched personal accounts on YouTube, and met with doctors and their former patients.  What I found was something that kept coming up again and again:

The voice in your head.

Christmas can be one of the toughest times of the year, and not only because you get carried away by the commercialism spin and spend too much on presents. The true meaning of Christmas is wonderful, of course, but the other warm and cozy aspects of Christmas - food and family, can fill some of us with dread.

I hated holidays when I was in my eating disorder. I felt like I was in a minefield of panic. I would tip toe through the eating disorder detonators only to have to deal with worried family.