Tag: eating disorders

sober lifestyle

Liberation

jenwielgusjournalism
L: April 2018 – 40 years old; R: August 2025 – 47.

I’m six years (plus three months) sober, but still a big Avoider, and after experiencing all the ways this personality type can harm a person over the past 40+ years, I think I finally found one way that it helps.

I stopped looking in the mirror.

OK, so it’s kinda hard to make that claim, after I clearly invested time in assembling the attached collage ⬆️. That is me, standing at the mirror in our master bathroom, and the “After” selfie was snapped only a few months ago. I’m not sure it’s the best way to illustrate the point I’m trying to make, nor am I sure exactly how to explain the miraculous transformation that’s happened from L to R.

But I can tell you it has nothing to do with my weight.

You’ll just have to trust me when I say: I’ve adopted an “ignorance is bliss” mentality toward my appearance that’s been a total f^cking game-changer. I feel as “recovered” as one can from a disordered relationship with eating and exercise, and more comfortable in my skin than I ever dreamed possible.

I truly have quit body-checking, beyond a quick last glance on business days before I leave for work. This is really a preemptive courtesy to my clients, given my tendency to “save some for later” when I eat spinach, not to mention my rough touch with the mascara brush….

Can’t hold a safe, therapeutic space for folks to let their guard down when you’re out here looking like Elaine after a 6-hour schvitz!
Continue reading “Liberation” →
sober lifestyle

Ability

jenwielgusjournalism

The video was my husband’s idea, and in hindsight, I’m so glad he “pulled over” trailside and took it, because otherwise, I’d have precious few visuals to use with this post. True, it’s a poor representation of the lovely images flashing through my memory of our late Valentine’s date at Elk Mountain Ski Resort. But despite how nonchalant I might seem transitioning between the “Mahican” and “Schuylkill” runs, I was far too focused on staying upright, injury-free, and warm, to go through the trouble of digging out my phone and snapping photos of my own.

The views at Elk were breathtaking, and I mean that literally. In the moments I felt controlled enough to look up and out, I found myself gasping, yelling, “Look at that!” to no one in particular, and smiling so widely and for so long that my face froze, painfully joker-esque. 🤡

Outdoor activities always seem to morph me into a jubilant little kid; I don’t need to be an expert schussing down black diamonds to feel the intoxicating rush of the purest “natural high.” Skiing offers a potent cocktail of freedom, empowerment, possibility, and connection to all that’s “right” with the world.

I mean, when I was an actual little kid tagging along with the ski club at my aunt’s school back in the Midwest, I remember spending entire outings tugging on the tow rope and snowplowing down the bunny slope and feeling the same exhilaration.

Skiing reminds me that the mere ability to move, regardless of skill level, or how I look, is a precious gift. A celebration of life.

Continue reading “Ability” →
sober lifestyle

Representation

jenwielgusjournalism

🚨 SPOILER ALERT: THIS POST CONTAINS PLOT DETAILS FROM THE NEW MOVIE “INSIDE OUT 2.” PROCEED AT YOUR OWN PERIL — AND DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU! ⚠️

When I saw that Anxiety was the new cast member in the “Inside Out” sequel, the feeling in my gut driving me to go see the thing immediately overrode my Anxiety about going to a crowded public movie theater in the summer when school’s out.

That’s not easy to do, in general, because Anxiety (yes, it warrants continued capitalization) has been my most powerful driving force since birth. And these days, during my “time of the month,” it’s basically my entire personality.

I joke that I’m going through “second puberty,” though the hormonal mayhem of perimenopause has hardly been funny. You have to understand: I only recently started feeling my feelings when I stopped drinking to self-medicate Anxiety just under 5 years ago. So while I look mature, I’m kind of a combo teen/toddler when it comes to emotional regulation.

When we walked into the theater last Wednesday, my period was due any minute; consequently, the vigorous heartstring-tugging I expect from all PIXAR movies completely rocked my world this time around. The crying babies in the audience had nothing on me; I had to physically strain to keep my visceral reaction in check. It was so strenuous that I left with a splitting headache.

To quote the Disgust character: “Overreact much?”

“Inside Out 2” review: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 (that’s 8) out of 10. It wasn’t a perfect movie, but its representation of Anxiety as a rabid, relentless go-getter that can completely hijack the personality and dismantle the sense of self (if we let it!) was 100% spot-on. 🎯

Continue reading “Representation” →
sober lifestyle

Permission

jenwielgusjournalism
In the immortal words of Clarence the Angel, “no (wo)man is a failure who has friends” 😇

I formally resigned from my counseling gig on Wednesday, giving three weeks’ notice, even though my departure from the clinic has been a foregone conclusion for a few months.

I’ve felt like a ghost in the halls, or the walking dead — invisible, ignored — and that’s just as well, because “breaking up” with my clients, as my beautiful friend [name redacted] put it in her text message 👀⬆️, has hit me harder than I imagined it would. I’ve been carrying around a lot of grief and sadness, and it seems intent on leaking out, despite my efforts to contain it.

When I got that text on Friday morning, I was sequestered in my therapy office, puffy-faced and sniffly after spending most of Thursday crying in my bed, and I didn’t think I had any more tears left in me, but my phone buzzed, and whoosh! 😭

Guess I won’t be showing much improvement on my final internship eval under “managing emotions.” My lack of a poker face rubbed them the wrong way from Day One, and while I’m never gonna be hip to the blank slate approach, it’s clear that this will continue to be a “growth area” — euphemism for “glaring weakness” — in my next job.

No, before you ask, I don’t know what that is yet!

Continue reading “Permission” →
sober lifestyle

Mediocrity

jenwielgusjournalism

Five minutes into the first class of the final semester, I realized I was done with being in school.

I mean, it was fine to be treated like a fresh-faced noob when this all started three years ago and the experience of academia as a “nontraditional student” was novel; I was so caught up in the adjustment to a full-time job/class/homework schedule that I had no perspective on anything. But to be older and wiser and sitting on achy hips in a plastic chair past my bedtime, dissecting yet another syllabus and engaging in childish icebreakers like, “Tell us what grade you want to get in this class”? 🙄

I at least tried to make this futile exercise interesting. “I’m going to say a ‘B,’ because I used to freak out about this stuff, and now, I’m trying to be more chill about everything.”

B’s, by the way, are the lowest you can go in this Master’s program and still pass, but to suggest that it’s OK to want that was apparently the wrong answer. My professor seemed taken aback, and quickly clarified: she wanted us all to be good little grade-grubbers gunning for A’s! My classmates complied, upping the absurdity ante as they went around the room: “I want an A-plus plus PLUS!” 🙄🙄🙄

The recovering perfectionist/all-or-nothing alcoholic in me wanted to scream, “WAKE UP, YE CITIZENS OF LA-LA LAND! YOU’RE BEING SOLD A LIE!”

Continue reading “Mediocrity” →
sober lifestyle

Validation

jenwielgusjournalism
Source: @dinosaurcouch, another highly recommended follow on the ‘gram

I saved this cute comic to include in an activity packet for the weekly counseling group I run at work. It’s supposed to be a self-esteem group, and as someone who spent 40+ years looking for worthiness in good grades, academic awards, athletic victories, praise from authority figures, attention from dudes, social media “likes,” blog comments and, ultimately, liquor bottles, I could think of no more relevant discussion topic for one of our hour-long sessions than “External vs. Internal Validation.”

But then I found myself Googling “how to do internal validation” and realized I had zero information to impart, let alone strategies and solutions to share, on that subject.

The part of the brain that sends organic approval signals might’ve been missing in me at birth, and I just recently started trying to investigate its absence. So while I could hold a three-day seminar on the dangers of seeking external validation (PM me if interested 😉), when it comes to “WTF do we do about it?” I’d just be standing at the front of the room, stiffly reading off a print-out from Psychology Today.

Continue reading “Validation” →
sober lifestyle

Weather

jenwielgusjournalism

The peaceful calm of Friday morning — I did yoga, attended a 12-step meeting, then took a quick walk around the neighborhood with Christmas classics playing in my headphones — quickly dissipated as the day progressed and the weather intensified.

It was Dec. 23rd, and my husband and I were supposed to drive three hours north for the first leg of our weeklong holiday journey. I sat on the couch, fully dressed and packed, waiting with dwindling patience for him to get ready, and listening with mounting concern as the drip, drip of light rain on the deck turned into the rapid rat-a-tat-tat of sleet against the windows and whoosh of wind around the building.

My thoughts raced: WHAT was taking him so long? Furthermore, WHY was it so important that we leave today, when tomorrow might be safer? Anxiety bubbled up inside me like a runaway train, and I, simultaneously exiting the most challenging month of the year and entering the hyper-hormonal “danger zone” of my monthly cycle, felt completely powerless to stop it…

It’s easy to see, now that it’s Jan. 3 and I’m peering at Christmas vacation in my rearview mirror, how this turned into the most difficult holiday season of my recovery thus far.

It’s clear, in hindsight: Fretting over a storm outside instead of tending to the storm inside can be a recipe for relapse.

Continue reading “Weather” →
sober lifestyle

Recovery

jenwielgusjournalism

Funny GIFs might be the best I can do here, because whenever I try to put into words how recovery feels, what I come up with sounds either far-out “woo woo” or downright dull. Most of the time, I can’t find words at all.

And come to think of it, it’s actually not too far off-base to think of recovery as one day being a (self-centered, hedonistic) newt, under the influence of a wicked spell, and three years later, being human.

A dirty, Dark Ages kind of human, but human nonetheless. 🤣

If I wanted to present my incredible post-alcoholic journey in simple, tangible, social media-friendly terms, in honor of National Recovery Month, I guess I could post a series of side-by-side photos: “Newt Life” vs “Got Better.”

But I’m not even sure this says “DRAMATIC TRANSFORMATION” to anyone living outside my body. 🤔

Celebrating with my little sis at Wrigley Field: June 2019 (one week before sobriety date) vs. September 2022 (38 months after).
Continue reading “Recovery” →