Episode 2: "Be Good" - E.T.

Part One

At my treatment facility, incoming patients arrived just in time for lunch. After a morning of blood draws, vital measurements, and suitcase searches, you were seated at a kitchen table and a menu was placed in your hands. There were four options to choose from: peanut butter and jelly, pizza, veggie burger, or grilled cheese. My treatment team, my parents, and the other patients ominously hovered around the table to observe my eating, which is a little Twilight-Zone-esque. No really, I felt like an earthling who was captured by Martians and they wanted to see what this Human-Dinner-Time-Thing was all about.

That first meal placed me at quite the crossroads. Being good was (and is) very important to me, and it had been for a very long time. Being good meant you followed rules. You practiced four hours a day. You got good grades and did your homework. You didn’t have sex. You didn’t do drugs. When you wanted to act out and test the limits, you practiced piano instead of violin. You definitely didn’t inconvenience anyone, and you waited for the walk sign before you crossed the street.

Being a good anorexic was very important to me. Good anorexics adhere to a strict set of rules, many times curating a list of banned foods that grows and grows as the disease progresses. I poured over and over that lunch menu, trying to make a selection that held to my commandments. However, nothing on that menu met my dietary regime.

Being a good patient was also important to me. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time or money. I didn’t want to squander the health insurance my parents had fought so hard for to cover the $1000-per-day hospital tab. I didn’t want to make the people sitting around that table mad or bothered by my inability to choose a meal and eat it.

Eventually and in resignation, I settled on the grilled cheese.

The entrée appeared, accompanied by a sliced apple and a bowl of tomato soup. On a certain level, I wanted to eat that meal, and part of me was ecstatic that I had permission to do so. But my brain was inundated with shoulds and my desires to be good at everything conflicted with one another.

My desire to be a good anorexic told me I shouldn’t eat a meal so rife with banned items. Even though I was hella hungry, I stopped after every bite to complain; I was uncomfortably full and could I please stop? Meanwhile, my desire to be a good patient and a good daughter compelled me to eat, not to waste time and money. On top of this, my actual body was like, I LOVE THIS I AM FREE PLEASE YES HECKIN’ SANDWICH I AM SO HUNGRY.

I swallowed my food like a good patient. After each mouthful I begged to stop like a good anorexic. But when the doctor finally let me abandon the half-eaten meal, my body was left in a state of disappointment.

In that instant, I pleased everyone in the room except myself. I was pleasing my doctors and my parents by eating, I was pleasing the anorexia by restricting my caloric intake. But my actual self, body and soul? I wanted the sandwich. And the apples. The soup was kinda bullshit, tbh.

Part 2

Balancing my own needs with my desire to please, or perhaps my repulsion at the idea of inconveniencing, another person is something I struggle with to this day. This is not an uncommon underlying hang-up for those who suffer from an eating disorder, and it’s a topic we worked on regularly during the treatment process.

For a group exercise one day, we were tasked with compiling a list of our needs. More specifically, this was to be a concise catalog of the things our bodies need for health. Perhaps you can predict the outcome, but my list was devastatingly unrealistic. It included things like “this body only needs *insert unhealthily low amount of calories* to eat per day and *insert a unhealthily high number of hours” of aerobic exercise per day. Also this body only needs four hours of sleep but definitely needs six hours of studying and four hours of practicing per day. A minimal amount of social interactions is fine, but not encouraged.”

We were then paired with a partner. This partner was charged with creating a list of bodily needs for me, and I was assigned to do the same for her. Lo and behold, the inventory I wrote for my friend looked like a frickin’ USDA approved checklist for a balanced and healthy lifestyle: this body needs 2000 calories a day balancing fruits, veggies, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates; this body needs thirty minutes of exercise per day, this body needs water; this body need friendship and sunshine; this body needs eight hours of sleep each night. Surprise! My partner’s list, created just for me, was equally healthy and balanced. Telling, right?

Reading through this, I bet it resonates with you on some level. Maybe you don’t deprive yourself of food-based needs, but there are other needs I see folks in our society swipe under the rug on the regular. And I bet you would advise a friend to do just the opposite. I’m thinking about our culture’s obsession with and glorification of busyness. How often have you put your need for alone-time or with-people-time on hold in order to be busy?

I’m extremely guilty of this. In some ways, my people-pleasing, needs-ignoring flaw has become an asset in our society, particularly when it comes to my career. As a freelance music performer and educator, I live in a world where things are unpredictable. If an orchestra’s fiscal year ends in the red, my work for the next year could be reduced in an effort to balance the budget, and my paycheck with it. If a student enrolls in lessons but quits mid-semester because they don’t want to practice as much as I want them to practice, my paycheck also quits. If I say no to a contractor too many times, he’ll start asking someone else.

In order to assuage the fear that accompanies my role in this fickle industry, I say yes to a lot of things. I accept the student into my studio even though I’m nearly full; I play the recording session for the composer who isn’t good at music but has a lot of money; I travel out-of-town to sub with the orchestra a state over even though it means a re-scheduling nightmare for my students. All of this yes-saying means a bit more financial security for me and, better yet, it means I get to spend the bulk of my time doing the very thing I love: teaching music and making music.

Unfortunately, here too is the potential for me to ignore my needs in favor of progressing and sustaining my career and/or bragging on instagram. This can result in physical injuries like tendinitis or back pain; it can result in mental injuries like straight-up burn out; and it can result in social isolation as I ignore my partner, friends, and family. Thus, it is essential that I sometimes say no to music.

To help me with this, I follow the Rule of the Three Ms. I was introduced to this concept by a friend and I take no credit for its invention! The 3 Ms are: Music, Money, and Mates. Any gig worth taking must satisfy at least two of the Ms. The repertoire (music) is amazing and you get to play it with your friends (mates) but the pay (money) isn’t great/existent? Take it! You’ll get paid but the music is awful and you’ll have to deal with catty colleagues? Pass.

In addition, I use a bullet journal to carefully plan my life. Some might call it obsessive but again, I feel like I’m justified in re-purposing my various mental illnesses into helpful habits. With my bullet journal, I can plan things like practice sessions, homework-grading shifts, date nights, meditation sittings, AND MEALS in advance. When a job offer appears, I can more effectively see if I have time for it.

How about you? How do you ensure that you are prioritizing your needs, both mental and physical? How do you recognize the moments in which you prioritize the needs of others over your own?