My Eating Disorder Has Bipolar

Epiphanies are such lovely moments that if realized and materialized can indeed be life changing. Today I finished what was started on Monday when I went to a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. I asked the Universe and even declared on Facebook my intent of gaining tools and not long term talk therapy I have always found of little use at all. Well it’s exactly what I received and yet has taken nearly a week to work out the kinks.

So me being me and not at all conventional took the advice of the therapist literally and if that is not what she meant, well she told the wrong girl to think of her eating disorder not as a part of her (this is dangerous), but as an entity separate and whole from her. Give it a face, a body, a name...and so I did.

I had just a few days before Monday watched the cartoon movie Rise of the Guardians. Which is odd in and of itself since I only watch such films with kids about and have never done so alone, in my basement, and in a not so good mind space. I asked myself often, “what the fuck are you watching this for?” but ignored the question as I laid there like the sloth beast I can be, not caring enough to change the channel. However late Monday night after pondering what the therapist had said, it came clear to me why the fuck I did indeed watch that movie. Her name is Cupcake.

She is a large boyish girl in a tutu who is for a minute or so in the film, a rather unhappy girl. But Jack Frost sends her a magical snowball to the face and is transformed into a happy girl who plays with the other children rather than beating them to a bloody pulp. Or that is how I saw the way her character could have gone, but this is a kid film, not a Michelle film, so no blood. As you can see Cupcake from the movie and Michelle in the 5th grade, well there is some resemblance.

Now I was not a fat girl, I was a big girl. Being half Swedish I looked more football player than dancer, even though I was never good at sports, and actually a good dancer. Which in my twisted mind, makes the tutu fit. And so Cupcake becomes the imagery for my eating disorder...a disgruntled girl who looks like a boy and because of her size, intimidating, but really is kind hearted and innocent.

The rest of my week I start to converse with Cupcake when I wanted more food than was necessary, for which she would pout, and I admit to caving more often than not. This yesterday led to a rather large binge leaving me discouraged and witless as to how this was going to work. Today being what it is, a new beginning. Me not being one to not seize opportunity, communed with cigs, the sun, a very green smoothie and Tori Amos when above mentioned epiphany hit me straight to the…heart.

Earlier this morning I reposted on Facebook a bit about the heart chakra in various forms of dysfunction and was impressed how accurate it was and that I indeed had freed me from a good deal of said symptoms of a closed and or out of balance heart. So when I’m sitting there having a convo with the Sun and listening to Tori, I realize suddenly that the problem with Cupcake is that she is not ‘dark’ enough to be MY eating disorder and yet she fits so well at the same time! I’m running a conversation in my head that leads me right to the perfect imagery. She is not nasty enough to say “FEED ME” carnivorously, Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors is!

Seymour is the dark aspect of my eating disorder and Cupcake is the softer cuter side of it. She is me as a little girl wanting to fit in and Seymour is the end result of wanting to feed the big fucking gaping hole where mother should be.  Then Tori starts to sing Upside Down.

My head swims and my heart opens up (like the Queen Anne Lace flowers I’m starting at) even more because I know I once again found my answers with a tool from a third party and of course…its fucking polarized.

Cue Tori with Crucify.  Yes indeed “… my heart is sick of being in chains”. 

Let's talk about Love...

I adhere to a standard of Love, Respect, and Honor. But this Love everything on Earth is...bullshit. It is simply not possible. In our striving to do so, we do far more damage to our budding psyches by attempting something so many teach in our New Age. Sweetness in Light has a place, but only if it is upon equal footing with Love in Darkness. Because when we fail at this balance, we believe ourselves to be "bad" people. I mean I must be, because I still want to punch a cunt every time I go to the fucking grocery store.

So to that end, I say fuck that and here, an example:

I love my mother, but she is not a part of me, she is a part of this wonderful/horrible world so I respect her as a human. But she is NOT a part of me and never has been. She did not give me life; she tainted it with her narcissistic ideas of mothering.

So am I expected to continue wishing a different result because she adopted me and called me daughter? I think fucking not. I set that idea free so I can be in this world as intended, so I can indeed LOVE freely in my own expressions. And my own expressions include knowing when to walk the fuck away. To honor what has been so I can embrace something new, warm, and supporting rather than stagnant and suffocating.

So no, sometimes we let go and Love another day, another way, and by doing so, we WILL be reciprocated with the Love, Respect, and Honor I spoke of above.  Read the card meaning that I pulled this morning and feel free to express YOUR opinions on my unpopular standard.

 This marker reminds you to show kindness and compassion to all whom you meet on your path—be it a beggar on a street corner, a co-worker, a family member, an animal, or a plant whose leaves need pruning.

This marker asks you to shift perception from yourself as a solitary person on the earth to one who’s part of a living system. Love is what made you, so keep it flowing. Remember to receive love as well. Ask yourself, “Am I blocking love?”

This marker reminds you that you’re as connected to all of life as it is to you, and that you’re responsible to be the steward of the love of the God/Goddess. Love is without conditions—it is respectful, mindful, sees all life as sacred, and acts in accordance. Love reminds you that this very planet is a living being.

Love is the very essence of the Divine in you, and it sees the Divine in others. This is the time to see through the eyes of Love and always ask before you act, “What would Love do?” The answer will always bring you extraordinary power.

This marker is a very fortunate and transformative omen.

Michelle the Geekazoid

Basically for four days my daughter and I have been watching movies with action flicks the highest concentration thereof. My brain is fuzzy and my belly overly full of steak and cheese. I feel geeked out to a level I need a good cleansing and here we are at the badass New Moon Monday to help me move into new and brighter energy! But I enjoyed my time with my kid watching dumb movies like Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters, the last Twilight (thank the gods), and last night…Battleship.

I have a girly hard-on for action films, if they were once a comic book, better still. I did not read comics when I was a kid but I did adore the art. My impatience was clear even then for I would rather make up my own story than read what I never could understand because reading a comic is like reading a soap opera, it’s take several ‘episodes’ before you actually get what’s happening. So like most things in life, I made the shit up as I looked about the pages. Perhaps here lies the origins of my writing, the inner stories I made up from comics, movies, and TV shows. It was never enough these dull stories, I had to ‘flourish’ my ideas all over their asses.

Woah did I get off track. I love action flicks and this is my long winding segue into how I enjoyed watching the film Battleship. Yes I watched a movie based on a game. But let us not forget that a few successful films were created from a Disneyland ride (POTC) and a few off a set of toys (Transformers). 

So with the bar setting on low Kassandra and I sat down to watch Battleship and was surprisingly surprised. It had character and wit and though the aliens made no sense what so ever, I forgive them this because the writers pushed the nostalgia button with the well deployed plot twist of having REAL vets from Pearl Harbor man the battleship into war with it having just moments earlier been resting in the Harbor as a museum.

There were clearly many real vets and active duty in this film and I would sound chock full of patriotism if it were not for the fact that I’m not dumb enough to not notice this is a coordinated effort to make the Navy look badass. I mean Hollywood is clearly making a go at the recruitment film business of late with this effort really being Act of Valor with aliens and a sense of humor.

As I sit here the music from Conan the Barbarian has come to play on my iPod to remind me how much I love that movie, that it is one of my favorite films of all time. Does this make me a major geekazoid? Yes it does, and it may even mean I lost some cool points in the writing of this, let alone the publishing of it. But I think it important if you are to read my blog and then my book that you understand the whole of me, and well action flicks with plenty of amped up gratuitous violence and special effects are definitely a ‘thing’ of mine and one I hope is found endearing. 

Ina The Man

Here is a bit I wrote this morning that I feel I can share (with most being just awful writing) and introduce many to a factoid that few really know about me. I was raised by lesbians. Serious.

Now not all my life mind you, and never thought I had 'two mommies", but it does add interest to my already silly life. As a side note, I must state that Ina was indeed one of the most interesting people I have ever known and I am proud to have been in part badly raised by her. She was a light in my dark little life but in the end, she did nothing to stop the real harm that came to me in the form of abuse by my parents so I kinda hold a wee spot of resentment for her.

Worry not, I will cut that negative thread and all the rest when I am free of the sting, when this book is released to the world.

No one in Spanaway seemed to care as much as Puyallup rednecks did about the love between my mother and Ina. And so it went that Ina gained a new nickname and though I argued and called out anyone who called her this name in front of me, Ina herself thought  “Ina the Man” amusing. Now yes, Ina was a very masculine woman and if not for the ‘butches curse” of large breasts, she would have passed more often than she did, for a man. However when young and not as accepting of this, Ina would shoot any poor idiot who dared call her “sir” a look that could curdle future chances of having children. 

Mommy Dearest Sans the Wire Hangers and Scary Eyebrows

I thought this would be for the book but it started to get a wee bit preachy, therefore a perfect blog post! And yes, a reminder that I do have a blog. A blog that may be as scattered as its proprietress, but still a home for writing about the book or whatevs. One I shall make greater effort to muse all over.

Mother

Her reasons for adopting me were not from her heart but rather from a need of replacement. The son she gave birth to left her womb visibly empty and wounded in an imperceptible way. Much to her surprise and likely humiliation, the Sapiano clan took to her son as though he were the second coming, (clearly ignoring the meaning of the name Michael in the bible, “Like the Lord?”) claiming him as ‘theirs’ and setting out to destroy any connection my mother may have had with her son.

This is where I come in. I have no idea how the conversation went but I do know that my mother told me she wanted a child that was hers, a child that was NOT a Sapiano. So off they go to Catholic Community Services in San Francisco. It is here that an evil (adding the word evil in hindsight of my life) Catholic social worker cons my parents into adopting me instead of the older non-Sapiano child that they set out to. Patricia was interested in a toddler, wishing to bypass diapers, bottles, rashes and such. What she got was an infant undeserving of what was about to happen to her. What she did was adopt a human being to fill in gaps within her that to this day leak toxic energy all over anyone who lingers too long.

I must have seemed an alien to her and therefore a failure first felt within her only later to be transferred to me as I continued to demonstrate how very different from her I was. It was not just my freckles and extreme musical talent, it was that humans are not meant to be the caulk plunged into gaping wounds in other humans, and when this is discovered, a small child can find herself…the villain.

I am not certain that I’m the mistake the haunts her, but I know her mistake haunted me. It’s not a leap of faith to believe this is the foundation for much that went wrong between us. Our history is littered with fallout from our railing, our tears, and our disappointments. Oh there’s that the word…disappointment. This one concept pushed upon me deep into my flesh is likely the foundation for the wrongs I would commit, all my missteps, and the self-ignited hell that I brought to the rest of the world as well. The end result of my mother’s dissatisfaction with me was a life wasted on a deep need for acceptance via rebellion. Here lies my precious oxymoron, I sought acceptance and yet never yielded to what she wanted me to be in order to receive such.  Oh how I am of polarities.

So my origin story goes a little like this: I was adopted, unloved, unwanted, and condemned to abuse and misfortune. But now in my prime I am loved, wanted, and willing to share what I’ve learned from all that I have done, seen, tasted, felt…endured. It’s vital that I remember this book  is not just for my material gain, it’s for all those that sting with the pain of even one of my stories,  that they too can transform. If one person is changed by what I write, I will have done what I lived this life for.

 We are all mutable, we are all magic…deity even.  

Belizean Lotharios, it can happen

I’m cold, like its early fall when the dew leads to fogs and frogs speaking of frosts to come. Only this fog will not lead to frosts, not ever, and I am reminded of this as a large group of yellow and green parrots squawk at each other in the tall palms surrounding my little house. Believe me when I tell you at 6 am, the novelty of those parrots runs dry.

Loving this place is not such a hard thing to manage with it being like a butterfly house, but there is so much to protect oneself from, and it’s not just the BIG ass spiders even if they hop away from you in fear like furry crabs. Oh and as I side note: I killed my first massive roach! I was not scared other than it would get away, which I could not allow that so I smashed it with my plastic container of sugar. Now that’s ironic, roach killed by sugar.

I digressed, where were we? Ah yes, I was talking about love and caution in Belize. Bugs aside, there is an unfortunate plague that has hit the once sweet and laid back Belize. At the core there is simple greed rippling an effect of consequence birthing The Belizean Lothario. With the highest concentration from the Rastafarian community, they are  best known as hustlers but if one is honest, they are most certainly prostitutes. The women (likely white) who participate in these arrangements glide into a false sense of romanticism to make-believe this a give and take relationship. The scales will tip away from her when its realized that the sex is rather nice but not worth the mess a man leaves in his wake of just getting ready to go sell his bamboo wares with you left behind to pay the bill.

There is always a pitch after painfully obvious public displays of interest. The pickup lines are all so sweet and so very Rasta. I know little of the Rastafarian way but intend to learn more as this little entry here is the foundation for an article I am writing as an in depth look at this practice that I see so well practiced on the streets of San Ignacio and Caye Caulker.

Back to the cool beauty of this morning and my doing something novel and not to be done often, but I am to wear a scarf to downtown. I’m sure the Sun will come out to mock me and I will stick  my tongue out and show him I know how to  wear layers... fuck you mo-fo!

Holiday Sadness/Gladness

So yesterday was difficult just as it was certainly always going to be. Kassy got along fine both alone and with her brother Andrew and their family in Seattle. I assume Terri did the same in Colorado and so I wasn't even needed, but I am sure I was missed.

Being missed is far better thing than being needed. When it comes to love are we not in a far better position to love another if need doesn’t have a part in the play? This Christmas marks a moment in time for Terri, Kassy and I as the small family unit we once were, one that was necessary and in the end the healthiest separation I personally have ever witnessed, let alone participated in.

Today I feel the power of that moment and as I write this I am moved to flowing tears, not ones of sadness, but tears of gratefulness to these two wonderful people who I shared much with and were able to say respectful goodbye to a life of positivity and not one wrought with the pain of dysfunction. Ok, we had our moments (many), but that is not how I view our history from this pinpoint in the map.

As I make this decision to leave San Ignacio and move on to the sea, I do so knowing I passed the test of fear and doubt so that I can give love and respect to a life once lived and a new one unfolding before me with no regrets. I do of course possess an ache in my heart for missing those I love but knowing they are doing well…even without my magnificent micromanagement skills!