Quasi-Book Review: "Secret Slave" by Anna Ruston

Oh man, I don't think I have words sufficient to describe this books or my thoughts after reading it.  But I'm gonna try, anyway.   Secret Slave is "a work of non-fiction, based on the life, experiences and recollections of Anna Ruston, who is using a pseudonym."  The author retells, in graphic detail, the horrors she endured as a sex slave (and human punching bag) from the age of 15 to the age of 28, when she was finally able to escape.

As I mentioned, Ms. Ruston does not shy away from detailing the physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse that she endured not only at the hands of her sadistic kidnapper, but his family as well.    I cannot imagine how the author found the will to continue living, day after day, for 13 years, through insurmountable torture.  I could not stop reading and finished this book in less than a day.  I cried, I got incredibly angry, and  I finally felt relief and hope as Anna detailed in the epilogue what her life looks like now.

I will never understand how one human being could commit such horrendous acts against another human.  But what really got to me the most about Anna's story was the amount of people she came into contact with throughout those 13 years...doctors, nurses, home health care workers, even policemen, who did nothing.

I truly think this should be required reading for anyone in the medical and human/social services field.  Every warning sign was there.  She had several hospitalizations.  Several miscarriages.  Several severe injuries explained away as clumsiness.  She was not allowed to speak to the doctors and nurses, her captor always answered for her.  She was not allowed to be alone, there were always 2 or more of her captor's family members with her at all times.  She was not allowed to remain at the hospital unless absolutely necessary, and even then she was smuggled out a few times.  And yet, all of these hospitalizations, all of these doctors and nurses and aides that came into contact with her, that saw all of these warning signs, and no one helped her.  No one did anything.  They either saw and didn't act, or choose not to see what was very plainly in front of their eyes.

Just imagine if the first doctor she ever saw did something. Or the second. Or the third.  If someone, at some point over those 13 years, helped her.  But no one did.

Don't be the person who chooses not to see.  Don't be the person who sees and doesn't act.  Educate yourself. Know the warning signs. And if you see them, act.

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

[Desmond Tutu]

-AA

How not to talk about food...

Trigger warning: this post deals with disordered eating patterns and contains content that may be triggering for anyone struggling in that area.

How many of you are excited that Thanksgiving is just a couple days away?  I absolutely LOVE this season.  From now until New Years, my days are filled more than usual with fun, family, friends and so much love.   I am so blessed to have a wonderful, albeit crazy, family that is extremely close and celebrates each holiday with a big family meal, and lots of time spent talking and laughing together.  BUT...holidays that center around food can be really difficult to navigate for people who struggle with any form of disordered eating.  For people like me.

Real talk, you guys.  In my last post, over a year ago (what?!?) I shared that I have been trucking through the recovery process from disordered eating and exercise addiction for awhile now.  And it is not easy.  Some days are victories, like the other night when I added more whipped cream to my hot chocolate 3 separate times and ate it with so much joy, quickly squashing ED's voice in my head.  And some days are really difficult, like when I log every single thing I eat to see my calorie count, or make myself skip lunch because I didn't work out the night before.

So a lot of times, those of us with unhealthy relationships with food, despite our best intentions, tend to have anxiety about group meals, whether it's going to a restaurant with friends, lunch with co-workers, special events or family gatherings.  It can be really hard and uncomfortable to know how to navigate the situation and hopefully avoid the awkward glances or, even worse, the questions.

Let me tell ya a story that happened to me a few weeks ago, which inspired this post.  Dylan took me to this super fancy event, called The Fur Ball, which was a benefit for our local animal shelter.  I got this amazing dress, Dylan looked quite dapper in the dress shirt I picked out for him complete with his signature suspenders, and we were all geared up for a fun night. I knew that a meal was going to be served, and was hoping that it would be buffet-style so I could at least have some control over what I was being served.  On top of having disordered eating habits, I am also an extremely-picky eater.  The two go hand in hand for me.  I legitimately get anxiety attacks over trying new or unfamiliar foods.  Which makes navigating an unfamiliar food/eating environment extremely difficult.  My typical defense is "eat before you go" because I never know if I will be able to eat what is being served.

Fast-forward a little bit. We're settled in at our table for the evening, sitting with some lovely strangers and making the obligatory small talk.  Then it was time for dinner, and I realized that it was a served meal, and not buffet-style as I had hoped.  The waiters started bringing around the salads.  I don't eat salad. At all. Never have. I get that from my dad. So when the waiter got to me, I politely declined, which prompted the lady sitting next to me to lean over and ask "are you on a diet?"  I wanted to roll my eyes and say, "Are you kidding me? It's a salad, lady."  But instead, I responded, "Oh no, I just don't like salad."  I had a feeling things were just gonna go downhill from there.

When the main course was served, I knew that I wouldn't be able to eat it.  Although they served chicken, it was covered in mushrooms and peppers and an unknown sauce, and so I just sat there picking at the roasted potatoes on my plate.  Dylan, who has been walking beside me through this recovery journey for quite some time now, didn't even have to ask what was wrong.  I looked at him and whispered "I can't eat this" and he responded, "That's fine, love, we can stop wherever you want and get you food on the way home."   But no one else at that table knew of my food issues and anxiety.  As they all cleared their plates, they kept glancing at me with awkward looks, until finally a gentlemen across the table asked me why I wasn't eating.  I tried to end the conversation as quickly as possible by simply saying that I was a really picky eater.  But at that point the damage was already done; I felt so uncomfortable the rest of the time, until the plates were cleared away and another activity of that evening began.   But that wasn't the end of it.  A few times throughout the evening, the same gentleman would comment about me not eating, and at one point even told Dylan to order me a pizza because he was worried about me.  I know he meant to be kind and joking, but I just wanted to yell "enough, already!"

I tell you that story to give an example of things not to say.  I know none of the people who made comments to me that night meant to be hurtful or harmful, but they were.  Because what the lady who asked me if I was dieting didn't know was that because my dress was form-fitting, I spent the entire week battling ED, who was telling me that I needed to eat as little as possible that week to quickly drop a few pounds so I didn't look "fat." What she didn't know was that I put my dress on several times throughout the week, second guessing whether I should wear it simply because of the lies ED was telling me.  What she didn't know was that her one simple question reinforced the lies that I had been battling all week.

So as you are gathering around with friends and family this holiday season, please be mindful of the way you talk about food.  You may think "oh, no one in my family struggles with disordered eating." Maybe they don't.  But you don't know.  We can get really good at hiding it.

Here are some pointers to help you be a friend to the ED community, specially when centered around a meal:

1. Please don't comment if we are not eating.  We know we aren't eating.  We know it's awkward that everyone else is eating, but we aren't.  You pointing it out just makes it so much worse.  So please, just don't.

2. Please don't talk about dieting/restricting food or calories.  Or that this or that food is so bad for you.  Again, this just reinforces the lies that ED tells us.

3. Please don't talk about gaining weight from eating a dessert/starch/carb/etc. or needing to work off the calories.  This is a big trigger for us, especially those of us who battle exercise addiction alongside disordered eating.  For us, it isn't a joke.  That is the exact lie we are trying so hard to overcome.

4. Please don't comment on portion size.  We are doing the best we can.  We used to say "mind your own plate" in our house growing up, and that is a good rule of thumb.  It's not up to you to decide and comment upon if I have too little or too much food on my plate.

So what is ok?

1. It's ok to check in with us.  Simply asking "how are you doing today?" can help us feel accepted and understood, and ease a lot of the tension we feel about mealtime.

2. It's ok to ask us if/how you can help.  Sometimes we just need to know we have someone in our corner.

3. It's ok to comment on how good the food is!

4. It's ok to offer us food, but don't press if we turn it down.  If we say no to a piece of pie, just move on, people.

To my family friends, thank you for walking beside me in this journey and continuing to be a support system.  And to my friends in the ED community; we got this! We can continue to learn and grow through recovery, even in difficult situations.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

-AA

So I got a new tattoo...

I celebrated my 27th birthday last weekend.  It was a great weekend filled with love and fun with friends and family.  Oh yeah, and a new tattoo. 

This tattoo, as with all of my tattoos, is really significant. This tattoo is a symbol of strength and fighting.  This tattoo is a symbol of life. The lotus is a widely known and used symbol that has many meanings.  For me, the lotus represents strength and stamina.  A lotus flower has to fight it's way through the mud and murk of a lake to reach the sunlight and continue to grow and bloom into a beautiful flower.  The stem of this tattoo is the national eating disorder recovery symbol.  And that is what my life has been for the past several months; recovering from an eating disorder.  

I don't want to get into the nitty gritty details for two reasons.  First, I don't want to trigger anyone reading this who may have similar stories.  Second, that is not my story anymore.  My story now is one of hope and healing. And a lot of fighting.  Some days are really easy, and the lies about food/exercise and its relation to my body are easily silenced.  And some days are really hard.  Some days I truly have to fight to make it through the day. But I do fight, because that is what it means to be in recovery, and that is my story now.  

And so I got this tattoo. To remember on the hard days the reason that I fight.  To be a visual reminder to me of where I've been, how far I'm come and where I hope to be someday. 

So here's to anyone fighting. You can fight and you can live in recovery. 

-AA 

Embrace the Small Things

Chick-flicks have sold us a pretty big lie: for something to be a romantic gesture, it has to be grand. If there aren't flowers and sunsets and big gestures, can you really call it romance?  Our facebook feeds and instas are filled with people showing off the "big" gestures from their significant others. And I am just as guilty as everyone else.  But I'd like to offer an alternative view.  That's a bunch of crap. Now I'm not saying that bigger romantic gestures aren't important.  Especially if your significant other's love language is gift-giving/receiving. I enjoy a surprise bouquet of flowers for no reason just as much as the next girl.

What I am saying is be careful to not overlook the seemingly small things.  It's time that we acknowledge that those things, too, are romantic gestures and signs of love and commitment, maybe more so than the big things.  Anyone can buy flowers for someone.  In fact, I buy flowers for people on a somewhat regular basis.  In one of my past relationships, I received flowers on exactly two occasions over the almost two years that we dated: once on Valentines Day, and once after a really big fight about how he never did anything to show me he cared about me.  But it takes truly loving the person and real relationship for your significant other to do the small things.  Those little ways of showing he cares about you and your relationship.

I moved into my first apartment last weekend, and spent basically the entire month of March freaking out above every little decision (thanks, anxiety) that went along with moving.  I am positive there were so many times my boyfriend wanted to bash his (or my) head against the wall, especially when I would ask his opinion on yet another coffee table. But no matter how many times I would say "what about this one?" or send him like 30 pictures in a row when he was at work (I promise I'm not that psycho all the time. I just don't handle big things well.) he would always pay attention, actually look and give his honest opinion on what I was showing him.  When I needed to go back to the furniture store 3 times and discuss couch options before spending the money, he was there and engaged in the discussion with me.  When my couch was getting delivered, he spent his entire day off at my apartment so I didn't have to take off work, and could celebrate a friend's birthday in the evening.

My point of this post isn't to brag about my boyfriend.  It's a call to all of us to remember, acknowledge and celebrate the small things.  It's so easy to get caught up in the fake chick-flick world of romantic gestures and miss, or fail to acknowledge, the beauty of the small day-to-day gestures of love.  Maybe it's time we use our social media bragging about our significant others to highlight all those little things they do out of love.

Maybe you love coffee, and he surprises you with a freshly brewed cup.

Maybe he opens the car door for you.

Maybe he rubs your back when you're feeling crappy.

Maybe he does whatever "little" thing he knows will speak to your heart.

I know so often I need to remember to not take those things for granted.

Appreciate those things.  Acknowledge those things.  Because he is doing them solely because he loves you.

For the redefining of the phrase "romantic gesture,"

-A.A.

Gratitude

Have you ever stopped and taken a moment to think about 

how much complaining you do in a day? Sometimes from the moment that alarm goes off (like 25 times if you hit snooze as much as I do) to the moment we drift off to sleep at night, our entire existence revolves around complaining. We tend to live in self-centered, self-serving little bubbles, and are so vocal when things don't align with what I want or how I think it should be. 

I was recently reminded through the book that we are studying at Bible study that I am not the center of the universe. There is so much more to this world than me. Which got me thinking about how much I complain about things, because complaining is, essentially, me saying that my comfort, my ideals, my everything is the most important thing in this world.  

The opposite of complaining is gratitude. Being thankful for things that we so often take for granted.  With these thoughts swirling around in my head, I found a Pinterest post called "30 days of Gratitude." Each day is a simple question to answer about something you are grateful for.  I texted my girls and asked if they would want to do this exercise with me. Each morning I text the question of the day in our group message and all four of us answer it.  It's such a great way to share things that we are grateful for, to spend a few moments each day connecting on a deeper level. These questions can be used as a journal prompt, as a group discussion like we are doing, as personal reflection, as prayer.

In case any of you are feeling the same way I do, that I complain way too often, and am not nearly grateful enough, here are the 30 days of Gratitude questions. Feel free to answer any of them here; I would love to hear some things that you guys are grateful for! My friends and I are on day 5, so I will share my answers for the past few days, too. 

30 Days of Gratitude

#1. What smell are you grateful for today?

Clean laundry. 

#2. What technology are you grateful for?

Grocery stores/refrigeration, so we don't have to hunt and gather on a daily basis. 

#3. What color are you grateful for?

The fiery oranges and pinks of a sunset. There is just something so magical and peaceful in the colors of a sunset. 

#4. What food are you most grateful for?

This one isn't most grateful like the one food I love in life more than any other food, but for the moment of answering this question, I was most grateful for a healthy cereal that I found that was really good and also really good for me. 

#5. What sound are you grateful for today?

My dad singing.  Going through treatment after his cancer surgery, a radiation pill got stuck in his throat and damaged his vocal chords.  I grew up hearing my dad sing, but after his vocal chords were damaged, there were several years where he could barely preach an entire sermon, and singing was out of the question.  God miraculously healed him about 2 years ago, and he could/can sing again.  I choke up every time I hear him. 

#6. What in nature are you grateful for?

#7. What memory are you grateful for?

#8. What book are you most grateful for?

#9. What place you most grateful for?

#10. What taste are you grateful for today?

#11. What holiday are you grateful for? 

#12. What texture are you grateful for? 

#13. What abilities are you grateful for?

#14. What sight are you grateful for today?

#15. What season are you grateful for?

#16. What about your body are you grateful for?

#17. What knowledge are you grateful for?

#18. What piece of art are you grateful for?

#19. What touch are you grateful for?

#20. Who in your life are you grateful for?

#21. What song are you most grateful for?

#22. What story are you grateful for?

#23. What tradition are you grateful for?

#24. What challenge are you grateful for?

#25. What moment this week are you most grateful for?

#26. What form of expression are you most grateful for?

#27. What small thing that you use daily are you most grateful for?

#28. What small thing that happened today are you grateful for?

#29. What friend.family member are you grateful for today?

#30. What talent or skill do you have that you are grateful for?

Let's practice more gratitude, and less complaining. Let's practice acknowledging that Me is not the center of the universe. Let's work on this together. 

-AA 

The Beauty in Openness

My inner (non-family) circle consists of 3 amazing girls, without whom I seriously would not survive. Unfortunately, one of them lives several states away right now, so we aren't as connected as we would like to be. (Love and miss you!!)

We actually sat on this bench right here.

Last night, the three of us who still live in the same town got together and just shared our hearts; being open and honest about things going on in our friendship, things that we've kept bottled up for various reasons, things that needed to spoken, but that we had been avoiding like it was our job.  And while not everything shared was easy to hear or easy to speak, it was a beautiful time in our friendship, and all three of us walked away feeling refreshed, renewed, and like a heavy load had been lifted off of our trio.


Now I'm not sharing this to puff myself up. I am a bottler by nature, and in fact one thing I shared I had kept bottled up for the past 6 months. Other things shared were a little more recent, but all were necessary and important to be spoken and released.

This conversation prompted this blog post for one reason: I was reminded last night that being open with the people who truly love and care about you is a beautiful thing.  As I said, I am a bottler. I am independent to a fault. I hate admitting that I need people, and I hate having to lean on others for things. The very thought of letting someone know that they hurt me (aka that I'm not as tough as I pretend to be) makes me cringe.  But our conversation last night reminded me that we are meant to live this life in community. We are meant to be open and honest with those who treasure our hearts, and to bring beauty to each others' lives through that openness.

After our conversation, we spent the next two hours grocery shopping for our weekend away with our larger circle of friends. Nothing exciting or spectacular, yet you could feel the sense of peace and renewed energy in our little trio.  I am so thankful that these girls pushed us to be open with one another and share our hearts.

I feel like I'm rambling a bit today.  Maybe that's because I'm watching the clock waiting for vacation weekend to officially start. Maybe that's because I run on caffeine. Maybe it's some of both.

Regardless, my point is this.  Openness is beautiful. Being able to share your thoughts and feelings, your hurts and joys, is a beautiful and necessary part of our humanity.  Now, I think we definitely need to be careful about whom we are sharing those inner parts of our heart with.  But when you have people that you know without a doubt have your best interest in mind and are helping to guard your heart, openness and vulnerability are so beautiful.



Even when you're a mess.

Even when you know you're being dumb, but it's the way you feel, anyway.

Even when you don't know exactly what to say so you just word vomit for a while.

Even when you feel like you're the broken friend in your group and everyone else has there crap so much more together than you.

And that openness is so difficult.  We build up walls to protect ourselves. We bottle up our feelings and hurts and emotions and make ourselves our most likable versions to present to others. We pretend that we are made of armor and that we don't get hurt or have emotions. (Please tell me I'm not the only one that does that...) But living like that is exhausting. Always being in defense mode. Always feeling like you are on your own.

Life is not meant to be lived like that. We are meant to live in community. The very God who created us imago dei has community within his personhood of the Trinity.  We are not meant to be alone.

And an integral part of not being alone is being open with those who hold your heart.

There is beauty is openness. Embrace it.

-A.A.

Beauty in Brokenness

When I think of something that's broken, beauty isn't the first thing that comes to mind. Usually when something shatters into pieces, that item gets tossed out. It is no longer useful when it is fragmented. 

But when it comes to us as human beings, brokenness can be beautiful. 

I was reminded of this concept of the possibility of beauty in brokenness earlier this morning. To make a long story short, I was looking at pictures of mosaics, and thought about how amazing they are. All of these tiny pieces of broken material, shaped and formed into something beautiful. And as I was looking through all of these gorgeous pieces of art, it hit me. We are mosaics. Sure, we are broken and fragmented, but those pieces are forming together to make a masterpiece.  We might not see it; looking up close at the pieces in a mosaic doesn't show you the true beauty formed by those fragments.  But when you step back and see all of those shards and pieces put together, beauty unfolds.  

You might be in a season of complete brokenness, as I am.  There are days when all I can see is a single, fragmented piece of glass, and I have no idea how things are possibly going to get better or work out. I may be broken, but that brokenness is beautiful.  

Sometimes that beauty is brought by those in our lives.  The more people to whom I open up about my current season of brokenness, the more I am surrounded by love, help and hope. And that is beautiful.  

Sometimes that beauty is intrinsic in minor victories. Those moments where you can clearly see yourself fighting; you can see your own strength. And that is beautiful. 

And sometimes that beauty is in external things. a thought that hits us at just the right time, a song that we needed to hear, a quote that gets us through the day. And that is beautiful. 

There is beauty in brokenness. We may not understand it, and we may not always see it, but our broken pieces are being formed into something spectacular. 

-A.A.