Puzzle Pieces

I had a dream the other night where I was standing in the middle of a dark room with three puzzle pieces looking around for the big picture to put them in. I groped around aimlessly in the dark for hours, feeling around jagged edges for pieces that might be like the ones I held in my hand. It went on like this for hours (dream hours, I guess)--would you say that's a nightmare?--and I never really found where they went; however, I did find out what my puzzle pieces were as the time went on. They were nonsensical things, and I can't remember it now, but I think the dream is indicative of where I am now. I have all of these pieces and no grasp of what my "bigger picture" is.

I woke up this morning to Arun poking me and demanding that I feed the cat. I was in a dead sleep and it started my day off on the wrong foot. I was very angry that he had woken me when he had been awake and could've just done it, but I got up and fed the cat anyway. I didn't (and couldn't) go back to bed. In the silence of the house, I got to thinking of what I was woken up from and that's when the dream came back to me. It got me thinking about the little pieces I have in my life: my new job, my ED recovery, my bipolar maintenance, my struggling Buddhist practice and Art of Living, and my budding social life.  I have not been nurturing any of these things very well recently... well, if I was honest, more than recently.

For months it seems, my bipolar mania has run my life. I would have weeks of normalcy interwoven with manic hell, where my life would turn into chaos followed by intense psychosis ending in ER visits or, at its culmination, a hospital stay. It made it very hard for me to trust anything about me--I never wanted to commit to anything, even to my own practices, because why bother if I would only throw them into the wind when manic anyway? Amid this chaos and mistrust, I dropped a lot of old habits--Art of Living exercises and morning meditation, for example, but other things as well. Over time, as the mania shed away and the aftermath washed over the shore (the lay-off), I found myself grossly unprepared for dealing with the crisis when normally I would have been. So, I was left to wallow.

But that's not me. I've worked hard through recovery, through DBT, through my value system to know and appreciate happiness--and making my own happiness. For some reason, the DBT/Eastern/Buddhist philosophy that "pain is inevitable; suffering is optional" was pounding in my heart this morning. I was suffering by choice, but what could I do to stop it? I looked down at the puzzle pieces in my hands...

I went to sangha this morning. Sangha is the union of the Shambhala Buddhist community on Sundays for group meditation. It's sitting and walking meditation with opening and closing chanting. I only went for a brief period of sitting, but the meditation was exactly what it needed to be. It was extremely undisciplined, difficult, and distracted. I felt completely untrained, uncomfortable, and unpracticed. I worried the entire time that I was breathing too loud, and kept judging the fact that I had to keep returning to the breath so often. But that's what it needed to be at that time. I recognize that. Some sittings are just like that, as I remember, but it's hard to shake that loud disappointed voice saying that it's me doing something wrong...which is not true. After all, meditation is the act of returning to the breath, which I did over and over again. Also while I was there, I met with the meditation instructor Vicki to talk about my practice. She said that she would be happy to speak with me about it, which make me feel stronger already since she actually taught my Level I course at Shambhala Meditation Center (which included a 6-hour long meditation session, FYI). It was nice to be able to share with somebody that I had fallen off the wagon and not feel abnormal about it. I'm hoping this will jumpstart my practice.

Turning over another piece...

My body image is terrible. I've gained a lot of weight due to medications, binge eating, and general sedentary recovery-ness. I've had to up my clothing sizes, which has scarred me royally and I haven't really gotten passed that, and it has me questioning a lot about who I really am and what I really want to be.

Basically, Mia's voice is just as loud as it was when I was eyeball deep in it. The only thing that's changed is that my recovery voice--MY voice--is louder that hers is. I'm able to reason my way out of the disordered voice every day for most things. It makes me a little sad that the voice is still there and still as loud as it is, because I was hopeful that it was stick but it's not. I still hear all the rules, all the numbers, all the little judgments, nit-picks, and jabs. It's all there. It still makes me question my recovery some days, but for the most part, it's just annoying! And it's taken me a long time to get to that point--where the voice is less "at home" and more "annoying."

My meal plan days have been difficult...not because of the eating disorder, but because I'm just not used to eating by a meal plan. Arun and I have kind of gotten used to eating whenever we feel like it, and I know as an ED-recovered person I'm not the best judge of that, I'm not abusing it. At least I'm not right now. I still eat my meals each day, and I do snack as well. Intuitive eating, maybe? No idea, but I've never tried tracking what I normally eat to see if it matches up to what a dietitian would say A-OK to. I guess it's not something I'm too worried about...

Another piece...

I haven't been doing the best job at creating an active social network for myself. Sigh. I guess I'm running out of possibilities. We'll see how this new job might help with prospects. I was hoping that meetup.com would help a bit, but I haven't been perusing that as much as I thought I would. I guess I could turn that up a bit more. I did like that Bipolar MeetUp group that I went to...

Some of you followers could help with this one! Help me be socially active! ^_~

I've written long enough. I'll end with my letter:


Dear Princess Celestia,


Today I learned that you should never expect something to turn out a certain way just because you think it might bother someone. Sometimes people don't mind going out of their way to help a friend, and that's okay.


Your faithful student,


Starlight Ashe