Trigger warning: passing mention of eating disorders/body dysmorphia
Tuesday night my roommate found me like this: no pants, kneeling in front of our porcelain god, dried charcoal on my lips, and half digested chana masala in the bowl, clouding my reflection.
A typical Saturday night? Nope, try again. (But wait, you say! You noticed that I started the last paragraph with Tuesday. Yes, yes, nicely done.)
Yeah, so basically I had my head in the toilet because of an 8 hour stress-induced migraine. Two kinda screwed-up things happened after I threw up:
Just a moment. WHAT?! Thankfully, my roommate stepped in and told me the obvious, which was I needed to take care of myself/get better and not make myself sicker by trying to do more work.
The end of the story is happier than the beginning: I called in a sick day the next day, and spent the day sleeping and drinking water and when 5:00 rolled around, I felt much more human.
This entire episode felt like a wake-up call, and I actually sat down and wrote out a “self-care” schedule that set boundaries for my day work (9-5 Mon-Thurs) and set aside time for each day for working out, making art, cooking/eating healthy food, and calling far-away friends and family (all activities that had slowly disappeared as I started putting work ahead of other activities – even art!)
Exhibit A: Drawing/sketching. I realized I need to set aside some time every day to draw or carve wood, make any kind of art, to feel whole.
Questions/thoughts I’m still pondering:
Beautifully written Shosh!
Thank you so much Emily!