Disordered Eating...Living with, Dancing with, and Recovering our EASE.

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Permalink Reply by Laura on January 14, 2008 at 7:52am

Thank you Caitlin.. that is wonderful. I am in the same boat as you and find that raw helps a lot... but I struggle and fall still. It was great in the beginning, but I find that I still have trigger foods... just raw ones. :) All the best to you in your journey and thank you for sharing that!

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Permalink Reply by Melanie on January 14, 2008 at 9:24am

Thanks for posting this. I too have spent about 20 years being "dis-ordered" in terms of food/ eating. I feel that raw helps alot in that I do not have so many cravings. My challenge now is not to beat myself up when I eat something cooked. I am learning how eating cooked food seems to suck you in so it isn't really worth doing at all. Most importantly, I feel that raw is truly the healthiest and purest way to eat; that it is both healing and spiritual. All the best to all of us (it seems like most females I know) to rise above the prison of eating disorders.

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Permalink Reply by Caitlin on February 15, 2008 at 11:50pm

Hello all of you precious warriors! I thought I would add the text of a piece I am currently working on. It is an excerpt of a longer show that I will hopefully be putting up this summer.
Blessings to all and Courage on the Path!
(oh, and I wrote it...so all that copyright stuff that artists don't usually bother with)
blessings, caitlin.


Do you think you might have an addictive personality?
No. um…no. um no.
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
u-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m dot dot dot
no. no why do you ask?
Well…Do you have an addictive personality?
I was caught. No. What do you mean? I have discipline and go-get-em power, resolve, drive. I’m driven. I’m driving. I…
I was shaking, doing that annoying over-caffeinated release of energy out the foot thing, you know the one, back and forth and back and forth on off on off on off on off
I thought of how many calories it burns and how long it had been since I did it last, sophomore year of high school and Stacey doesn’t care if we read out loud how much she weighs from her driver’s license because she is that skinny. I could never dance, not like Stacey. No. Never…not unless.
“this is it” she said “this is the one” she said “this one will work” she said
“can we?” I said “oh please, oh please, can we?”
this is the one:
Metabolife and coffee, fruit and cigarettes, Slimfast between passing periods, the hot dog diet, the Cleveland Clinic diet, Montinac, food combining, the French diet, the no carb diet, the sugar-is-poison diet, the two-meals-a-day-of-Special-K-diet, the one meal a day diet, the coffee and exercise diet, the don’t-eat-don’t-ask-don’t-tell-diet, the fucked up diet and I asked for a bite of her snickers bar “this is all I’ve had today,” she said her eyes wide and sunken, “I have such a headache.”

“Do you have an addictive personality?” she said
and she said it with her eyes as she reached across me, grabbing more potatoes, and I asked her if I should move the plate closer
“no. I like to reach,” she said. and I said oh. and inside I know what that feels like, having to reach because otherwise you’ll starve, having to reach because what will happen if this isn’t happening? Having to reach across another for what my body desires. And it isn’t potatoes at all.
and she didn’t say it, only reached across me again
and I asked her if I should move the plate closer
“No,” she said she liked to reach and it was a necessary reach like breathing like another body has to be brushed on the way to our desires, and I understood.
the hiding pills in drawers diet, the Abs diet, the Eat Right for your Blood Type, Magazine tear-out shopping lists: rice cakes, cottage cheese, celery, nonfat yogurt, fat free popcorn, diet coke, peanut M&Ms—wait how did those get in there? I wasn’t going to eat M&Ms this time—Atkins, Weight Watchers a slice of bread is worth two points, any appropriation of microbiotic/auryevedic/yogic living, monastic living—yes, please let me masquerade morality using systems designed to bring me closer to God to disguise my own refuge in a paradigm of self hatred—whole foods living, vegan living, raw vegan living—save the animals but make sure I can still fit into Victoria’s Secrets size 4 lingerie—fasting—animals fast when they are traumatized. What right have I to be traumatized while millions starve?—the mono apple or grapefruit or grape or cheese or candy diet, the no eating after 5 diet, the no eating before noon diet, the master cleanse. Please just let me be the starving artist poster child, or…What if I just cleansed for the rest of my life?
“No I’m not vegan anymore, I’m just fucked up.”
Do I have an addictive personality?
I am an addict to online diet sites and hide them like they were porn, I get up hours earlier, leave the bed of my lover to stare at web pages and pages of information on calories on counting on logging meals and chat with my anonymous diet buddy who is also a dancer
“my boyfriend is going to break up with me,” I type
“well,” she types,“when he sees you again, you’ll be a ghost, he’ll totally want you back. oh gtg. Let’s check in later.” And the chat box stares at me, 5:47 am, the coffee shop empty.

Addiction is I deserve this.
I deserve better than this.
Addiction is I am this.

Well if I am going to be locked up, I would like a different cage please. Can I have mine in a different size or shape or color please? I would like the US Standard issue Euro-flavor model size 2-4 cage please, with the added options of chiseled abs and a skinny fit jean case and can I get that overnight?
Cages lined up neat in a row, pretty like in the zoo. This season’s corporate media-engineered trademark protected pharmaceutically preserved “Body-Style” Cage will render 97% of women’s bodies invisible. Tough luck, everyone else, just starve yourselves longer next time.
I’m looking out through windows puffy from crying, and even the bars are marked from stretching to hold me in.
I’m sorry I can’t live here.
Staying here, I’ve already died, because we are locked away from one another in these body-style cages.
Suspended in an unnatural staring contest
Away from Nature— Pacing away on a treadmill, my head bowed low.
Heartbeat preserved for the spectacle as fuel for a culture of consumption
running in circles
waiting for the hour when I will expire
not in a final climatic embrace, in the arms of my predator
nor barefoot and wild, throwing myself into the vastness of the elements, no.
I have already died
But Lover…
Be brave. Bring me back.
Resurrect me, and teach me how to rise in widening circles like our hawk sisters who are still free.
Remind me of our dignity, our divinity.
Touch my cheek with your own and let me believe in our power to build cages we can break out of.
In our ability to teach each other what we may only dream that we remember.
Touch me and we will explore these wild habitats together, using them as vessels with which me might
sing
And I am the recipe to lay a feast before the Earth and you remember to fill our cups to overflowing
and it is done
We belong in bodies, not in cages
and I need your help
your perfection of unique design
that has no trademark except for the fact that it fits so brilliantly into mine
our lips pressed closed, hearts beating against each other
and we will tear down these walls together
using the 20 latest best selling diet books to build a ritual bonfire
uniting the magic of our thoughts with the wisdom of our bodies
we will learn how to eat and drink and be parent to all who have been used and forgotten
fueling our flames as we hold on and leap.

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Permalink Reply by Caitlin on February 16, 2008 at 8:14pm

thank you. yes- I feel like little scenes happen like this every day. And so many of them are made invisible to us because we are locked in those cages of the system...cages of fear and shame and an obsession with consumption. thank you for reading, and seeing, and saying so. xx c.

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Permalink Reply by Jenny on February 16, 2008 at 8:14am

don't ever stop the art that is "all you ever do"!!! beautiful beautiful caitlin,
we DO belong in our bodies. . . and i feel like we all belong here as well. . . to keep this incredible support and affirmation swirling through them. . .
xx

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Permalink Reply by Caitlin on February 16, 2008 at 8:15pm

yes we belong here. and I feel so seen by you and your honest comments. I don't think I could stop. You promise me the same. xx c.

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Permalink Reply by rawinspired on February 21, 2008 at 8:51am

Thank You Caitlan! I printed what Dr. Anita Johnston wrote,and will be reading this everyday when I need to find my peace.

Christine

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Permalink Reply by deanne on February 21, 2008 at 9:13am

Thank you Caitlin, truly powerful!

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