A Letter To My Body: ED Poetry And Writings

A Letter To My Body

Dear Body,

I can find nothing about you

to celebrate
besides my children
and it hurts.
Your betrayal haunts me,
and all of the rage that I feel
is taken out on you.
My silent hunger screams
inside of your skin,
but no matter how empty,
the heavy weight of you
will not let go.
You only remind me to feel ashamed.
Touched and taken with such hate
that I find it hard to love you,
and for that, I am truly sorry.
You have nothing to apologize for.
You should not have to ask
for permission to exist.
I'm still learning to let you
take up the space that you deserve.
The fullness and discomfort that I feel
makes me want to crawl out from under you,
but I will try to stay until...
you become a part of me.

By: Angela Minard

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Read more about Angela Minard: Conversations With Claudia, The Voice Of An Eating Disorder

Be sure to visit Angela Minard's blog: Here and Now ~*~ 4 Angel "Poetry and thoughts on my journey toward healing and unlocking the silence within. Words are magic. Words have the power to heal, so find your voice, and fly!"


picture source:deviantart.com

Other Voices: Eating Disorders and Body Image

"Food is nourishment. This is an obvious fact. But eating disorders aren’t about nourishment, at least not nourishment for the body. If you have an eating disorder you eat too much or too little or of types of food that provide little or no physical sustenance..."
Read in full: Eating Disorder Recovery And Nourishing Your Right Hemisphere:
By Joanna Poppink, MFT

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"This may be the most difficult task of all: keeping your eating disorder at bay. Even when you’re doing well, it always seems to be there lurking, doesn’t it? ..."

Read in full: Keeping It At Bay: by Arielle Becker

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"This Mask I Wear"

"Only revealed in shadowwith steady gaze
the bare reflection
guarded
flesh
pale and colorless ..."

Read in Full: This Mask I Wear: By Angela Minard

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"HB 1432 will strengthen the Illinois mental health insurance parity law by providing fair and equal insurance coverage for those suffering from anorexia nervosa and bulimia..."

Read in full: Illinois House Bill 1432 To Provide Fair and Equal Coverage For Eating Disorders: By OhYeahBabe

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Information on Very Low Calorie DietsRead in full:Research on Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD) Risks: By A Pinch Of Health

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Age 22 "I've always had the puppy fat, and it didn't bother me until, when I was about 9, my body became a target of bullying. So I started hating myself. My mum kept telling me it was puppy fat and it would go, but it didn't. I was teased. I was called ugly. Kids jeered at me from across the playground. I hated myself..."Read in full: The Body Image Project


Sources:
http://stopeatingdisorders.com/eating-disorder-recovery-and-nourishing-your-right-hemisphere
http://www.lookinggood-feelinggreat.co.uk/LatestNewsnbsp/Anorexia-increasingly-affecting-older-women-/tabid/54/articleID/18589448/Default.aspx
http://tearstowords.blogspot.com/2008/04/keeping-it-at-bay.html
http://hereandnow4angel.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-mask-i-wear.html
http://kimorexia.blogspot.com/2008/05/illinois-house-bill-1432-to-provide.html
http://www.apinchofhealth.com/resources/lowcarb/VLCD-Research.html
http://thebodyimageproject.blogspot.com/
picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelrhys/40428909/

Conversations With Claudia: The Voice Of An Eating Disorder

I was very fortunate to come across the blog of Angela Minard recently: Here and Now ~*~4 Angel~*~, "Poetry and thoughts on my journey toward healing and unlocking the silence within. Words are magic. Words have the power to heal, so find your voice, and fly!"Angela's blog feels like a comforting embrace with it's music, art, poetry, and honest, open disclosure about her recovery. She describes herself as "Living in the here and now. I can't change the past, but I am in control of my destiny. I'm taking back my life, taking back my power, and learning to spread my wings and take flight."

Her journey is so inspiring and well worth reading for yourself.

Conversations With Claudia/How Writing Has Saved Me
"Who is Claudia? She is not my friend, but she has been a part of my life for a very long time. She is the voice of my eating disorder. A voice that over time, has crowded out my own thoughts and beliefs. I'm hoping that someday I will leave her behind," began the first entry of Angela's myspace blog entry almost a year ago.

"I have an amazing therapist and also a nutritionist who thought it would be a good idea to give my eating disorder a separate identity from myself. It would be a way to delineate between my own voice and the voice of the eating disorder. I'm finally beginning to see how often Claudia talks to me. She is bossy, demanding, snide, snotty, and degrading. She is also the one with the control most of the time, but I know that needs to change if I am to survive." "I remember the first time she spoke to me. I was seven years old, sitting in church, and looking down at my thighs as I sat in the pew. "Your legs are so fat,"! She said." "Why did she choose that moment to begin her torment? I'm not really sure. My mom, grandma, and two aunts were constantly dieting and discussing their weight. I'm sure that their conversations wormed their way into what I began to also believe about myself."

"Being raped at the age of eleven was the real beginning of my self loathing and hatred. A secret that I held inside, suffocating my voice, and letting the shame eat me alive. Puberty began soon after, and with it, the ultimate betrayal of my own body." "I'm hoping that writing down some of the conversations that I have with Claudia will help me to find my own voice, and hopefully, someday, my voice will be louder than hers."

"It feels wonderful to read this again, just to see how far I have come," she says. "Is my voice louder than the voice of Claudia's? Yes, I think it is, and damn, it feels good! I believe that the writing saved me. I began writing blogs, writing poetry, writing in my journal, writing my thoughts in e-mails to my therapist. I couldn't seem to stop writing and more than that, I felt such a strong desire to share what I had written. First with my therapist, who encouraged me with compliments on the poetry that I would share and then I started blogging; Sharing with strangers about things that I had kept secret for most of my life. Through writing, I found the freedom to unlock the silence, and begin the process of healing." By Angela Minard

Blog: http://hereandnow4angel.blogspot.com/
Article source: http://hereandnow4angel.blogspot.com/2008/03/conversations-with-claudia-how-writing.htmlPicture source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/86272503@N00/6414710805/