disorders-shmismorders: part 2

As said in the first post there are many theories as to why an individual may develop an eating disorder. The one I tend to adhere to the most is a theory developed and coined by Peggy Claude-Pierre. This is CNC - Confirmed Negativity Condition. She says that this disorder is the underlying cause, it is a complex thought process that plagues the mind. In fact, the eating disorder is to CNC what a rash is to the measles. It's a symptom, but not meant to minimize the severity of an eating disorder.
I suppose the best way to explain CNC is like a civil war within the mind. The predisposition for CNC begins early in life, though just because one might have CNC does not mean one will develop and eating disorder. Keep that in mind. Other manifestations from CNC can include depression, agoraphobia, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or somatic disorders. An individual can have any or more of these manifestations without actually having an eating disorder. But some can often coexist with an eating disorder. An example of that might include being very agoraphobic and being anorexic. Also, when healing from an eating disorder one might replace said disorder with another manifestation.
CNC tends to precede the disorder and is the root of it. It is like a parasite that attempts to consume all rational thought. She calls us and our rationality the Actual Mind. Milton said it best in Paradise Lost:
       "The mind is it's own place, and in itself,
        Can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven."
But there is much more to understanding CNC. In order to getting into the mind of someone with CNC you must realize that certain types of people are far more susceptible to to the "negative mind" than others. The people that are most at risk are the ones who are essentially altruistic and does not want to be a burden on her family or society by reaching out for aid. Moreover, victims of CNC tend to assume they are not wanted, they feel unworthy and feel like they are being excluded from things because they are any negative adjective they can think of.  
I have tried to explain CNC before and it never comes out sounding right. Some don't quite understand. It's as if there is a voice in your head always telling you that you are fat, worthless, pathetic, etc. And the voice is relentless; beating down on you almost every minute. Even now whenever I eat I need to be watching or doing something in order to distract myself and the negative thoughts from what I am doing. But the sad thing is that I shouldn't need to distract myself. And this is how a lot of eating disorder sufferers go through.
A big part of what some people with eating disorders do is collect "thinspiration". This is basically a book or folder full of photographs, quotes, or "dieting" tips, as well as other little tricks to prevent weight gain and encourage weight loss. Here are some examples from my former thinspiration notebook:
       1. Eat on a blue or black plate since darker colors make you feel full faster.
       2. Always wear a rubber band around your wrist and snap it when you feel hungry.
       3. Chew sugar free gum whenever you feel hungry, but don't eat too many as they are about 5 calories per piece.
       4. When craving something make a list of why you shouldn't eat it and read it over 20 times or so. The craving will pass in about 20 minutes.
       5. Make a meal plan to limit your food intake.
       6. Look at supermodels and other thin people to remind yourself what you want to look like.
       7. Move as much as possible! Exercise whenever you can.
       8. Pinch your fat. Always remember there is something to lose.
These are just some of the many crazy things I wrote down to keep my weight down. Anna Faris was a body type I emulated a great deal. I'm watching a movie starring her right now and it's hard not to compare myself and feel down. At the height of my disorder in high school, my senior year to be exact, there was one book that helped me identify. It is you remind me of you by Eireann Corrigan. It is a poetry memoir about a girl who has an eating disorder and all the other issues of her life that impacted her. There is a particularly powerful scene, it reminded me of my father and something he might do had he known;
     After I fell asleep doing sit-ups on the family room,
     floor, he carried me upstairs to my bed and he must have been
    cursing you the whole heavy trip. And later 
    when they caught me hiding food, when my mom
    would stand behind me on the scale and cry at the numbers --
    Those mornings, when I would bundle up at five to run
    he'd creep behind me in the station wagon in case I fell
    and didn't get back up. Sometimes I'd make it 
    home just to faint in the shower and my dad had to 
    listen for that tumble and rush in to swing the faucet
    from hot to cold.
This is just one of the many excerpts from the very moving book. I suggest anyone with eating disorder issues read this.        

But CNC is just part of the problem for people with eating disorders. There are still other factors to discuss. to be continued....



sources:
The Secret Language of Eating Disorders by Peggy Claude-Pierre
The Thin Woman by Helen Mason
The Eating Disorder Sourcebook by Carolyn Costin, M.A., M.Ed., M.F.T.
you remind me of you by Eireann Corrigan

Edna St. Vincent Millay

An Ancient Gesture
I thought as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron;
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.

And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture, - a gesture which implied

To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.

He learned it from Penelope...

Penelope, who really cried.

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 - October 19, 1950) was an American, lyrical poet. And a personal favorite of mine. And when I say favorite I mean it. I only obsess over two poets and they are her and T. S. Eliot. I find her work exceptional and incredibly moving. I mean, the flow and prose is simply wonderful.

She was born in Rockland, Maine and her mother was a nurse while her father was a school teacher. Where her name is derived from is intersting; apparently her middle name - St. Vincent - comes from the name of a hospital where her uncle's life was saved just days prior to her birth. Later she insisted on being called "Vincent", she thought it plain.

Her parents divorced in 1904 which resulted in her, her mother and her sisters (Norma and Kathleen) moving from town to town. And despite being poor and in nearly constant motion her mother was never without her truck on literature that she often read to her children, this collection included William Shakespear and John Milton. Eventually Millay and her family settled in Camden, Maine.

Here is where she wrote her first poem.

Her literary career really began in 1912 whe she netered her poem Renascence (I'd post it if it weren't 214 lines long) into a poetry contest in a magazine called The Lyric Year. This actually ruffled up quite a controversy. It was widely recieved as the best submission but it was ultimately placed 4th in the contest. Even the first place winner (Orrick Johns - who I encourage you to also read up on) felt Millay should have won. Almost immediatley following this strange ordeal for Millay her poem was recited at some sort of banquet that so impressed a wealthy woman; Caroline B. Dow, that she paid for Millay's college education at Vassar.

In 1923 she won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry and was the first woman to be honored for this. This is when she gained a lot of popularity in America, though her reputation was soon damaged when she wrote poetry in suport of the Allied effort during WW2.

During her time in college she was a bit...promiscuous. This was with both men and women, and this influenced a great deal of her poetry. But in 1923 she married Eugen Jan Boissevan, though their marriage was an open one with both taking many lovers. One of her lovers was a fellow poet George Dillon, she wrote several of her sonnets about him. Such as -

Sonnet II: Time does not bring relief

Time does not bring relief, you all have lied

Who told me time would ease my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year's bitter loving must remain

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.

There are a hundred places where I fear

To go - so with his memory they brim.

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, "There is no memory of him here!"

And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

Her husband died of lung cancer in 1949, and then she was found dead at the bottom of her stairs in October, 1950. The cause of the fall was unknown. Her work is still widley celebrated and she is considered on of America's greatest female poets.

Her most famous poem is First Fig from A Few Figs From Thistles.

An intersting bit is that mathematicians recognize her sonnet Euclid Alone has Beauty Bare as an expression of mathematical beauty.

To me her work respresents something quite beautiful. Every time I read An Ancient Gesture I feel an acheing in my chest. I tend to overlook her somewhat risque love life as it influened some of the most beautiful poems I have ever read. I feel as though her words twinge and tug at my heartstrings. They both agonize and writhe with lust, love, and a dull, throbbing heartache. I am often at a loss for words when I try to discuss her work.

Its just so wonderful.