"Do you want to order a salad?”
My brother, Robert, posed this question last week to a group of us, a collective you, and yet I interpreted it as being directed only to me. We were having a chill, relaxed game night. We were going to order pizza, we decided, and so Robert was asking which toppings, what sizes, and then, the dreaded mention of a salad. My face flushed, my heart thudded, my shoulders reach-reach-reached toward my ears. And when silence filled the room, I darted my eyes around, landing them on anything but eyeballs, because I just knew there’d be questioning gazes directed my way, wondering whether or not the anorexic was going to restrict herself to salad instead of indulging in pizza.
This story I told myself—that Robert was only asking me if I wanted a salad because I’m a diagnosed anorexic—is not true. Typing that now feels obvious to say. Anorexics are not the only ones who eat salad. And I think I’m the only one who’d refer to me as “the anorexic.” And pizza is not indulgent. And non-anorexics’ brains aren’t nearly as consumed with every single syllable spoken ahead of, during, and after a meal, so his question was actually as simple as it sounds. He was asking if anyone wanted a salad to go along with their pizza. Pizza places offer salads because they are great compliments to cheesy bread. It’s devastatingly simple to me now.
And yet, after some grumbles of ummmmm and someone speaking up to say, I don’t need a salad, I asserted with force, “Nah. Just the pizza is fine.”
As I reflect on this moment, I’m wondering who the hell I think I am answering for everyone. I’m also wondering why I lied. I did want a salad. I desperately wanted a pile of lettuce, tomatoes, olives, even cucumbers—though I don’t usually love them—and any other vegetable this pizza joint could muster coated lightly in oregano-heavy Italian dressing. After a week and a half of pillowy potato rolls and canned soup casseroles and an endless supply of Christmas cookies, my body was telling me it needed some veggies.
And that makes sense to me now. As I sit in my quiet apartment with a mug of coffee, a belly full of peanut butter granola and blueberries and plans to take my German Shepherd, Babs, for a walk here soon, I’m able to access my voice and what is true for me more easily. It makes sense that my body might have been craving vegetables, not because I don’t love pizza or because I regretted eating big bites of green bean and sweet potato casseroles (sweet p casserole recipe in the previous post), but because I hadn’t had many fresh vegetables over the two weeks I was traveling for the holidays. I hadn’t been in my home with my mugs and my coffee and my granola. Thrown out of sorts, it seems reasonable to me now that I might have been craving a little something to center me, a little balance, a little something delicate amidst the abundance, however joyous that abundance might have been.
What I also know is that I am still practicing not just listening to, but trusting myself. Eating disorders are often personified as Ed, and I have a lot of complicated feelings about this that, if you keep returning to my writing, you’ll hear more about, but I do see some of the merit in this label. Living with an eating disorder feels like your brain has been hijacked by a cruel, relentless bully. And that person feels like you, except it also doesn’t? Sometimes, it feels like an experiment gone wrong because parts of you beneath Ed are there to say, is this really true for me? But Ed is always there to reassure you that whatever he says is your truth, he is you, he has your best interest at heart.
I felt this viscerally for years, but since I started the process of recovery a decade ago, my experience with my eating disorder has slowly shifted. Now, I go through many of my days without a peep from Ed. Right now, with Babs at my feet pleading for my attention, I feel like I might go get a warm up on my cup of coffee and on the way, grab a piece of peppermint bark, and there’s no voice saying that is gluttonous and gross of me. But there are times when that quiet peace erupts into a screaming match between Ed and anti-Ed. I describe it like this because the voice fighting against Ed still doesn’t feel reasonable, doesn’t feel like me. She stands for choosing the most calorically dense, the cheesiest, the richest versions of foods. She always wants dessert, and she always wants a little something extra with her meal. When the screaming match gets going, it feels like I’m in a tiny closet and there are two big screen TVs and one is playing CNN and one is playing Fox, both at max capacity so that nothing is coherent, and it’s hard—if not impossible—to find the truth.
These two sides are so diametrically opposed and they’re so loud that I get overwhelmed and wind up quickly choosing one over the other. More often than not lately, whenever the noise escalates, I’ll go for excess. I’ll opt for french fries as my side—add cheese if you have it—and even if the burger startles me at first with its size, I’ll eat every last savory bite and lick the beef fat from my fingers when I’m done. What this means is that I’m often thrown into a disastrous tornado of shame once I’ve finished my meal. Not only because my stomach feels like an inflating air mattress because that’s not what it wanted or needed, but because the loud Ed part of my brain is now even louder.
When life gets extra challenging or when the restaurant is out of the dish I planned to order so I have to pick one on the spot or when I’m thrown out of my routine and traveling for the holidays, I still struggle to find and trust myself. After years of therapy and reading about eating disorders and other mental health diagnoses endlessly, I know some strategies that work. Breathing, mindfully noticing parts of my body that are connecting me to the ground, closing my eyes and noticing the sounds in the room. But when my brother asks if “you” want a salad, the voices swoop in swiftly and forcefully so that I can’t hear myself—my real self—begging me to breathe, to slow down, to notice. All I hear is one voice screaming “salad is for sick people” and another saying “don’t you want to be sick?”
The truth is that I don’t want to be sick and salad is not for sick people. I see that at this moment. And I get better at noticing this truth, my truth, with each time I reflect on these moments when I abandon myself. Reflecting helps me notice how that one moment was the culmination of many abandonments. I left my home and my mugs and my coffee. And that’s okay! I want to travel, I want to see my family, but I don’t have to give up everything to do this successfully. What if I’d still taken Babs for a walk that morning or brought my favorite granola for breakfast or taken five minutes alone in my room to breathe? What if I still took my vitamins instead of rushing to get ready and get downstairs to be with everyone? Abandoning the plans I perceive from others—which, as with the salad question, are usually still stories and plans of my own mind’s making—might well have helped me not abandon myself when, inevitably, life makes its own plans.
I had a therapist early in my recovery who I villainized for a long time because of a single comment she made. I was telling her how I felt bad because a coworker made me peanut butter cookies, but I just didn’t want to eat one. She didn’t ask me why, she simply said, “You don’t always have to eat the cookie.” It infuriated me. I was seeing her to treat anorexia. I didn’t need help not eating cookies—I needed to eat cookies. I never saw her again and told all of my friends how terrible she was.
I’m sorry, now, for all of the ill words I said about her. I get it now. Eating a cookie or not eating a cookie is not what helps me recover. Eating a cookie out of spite for Ed is still eating it for him. Eating pizza with no salad because I want to prove to everyone—and, one more time, these people are not paying attention as much as I think they are—that I’m not sick, is still sick. Or at least it’s not me being honest. It’s not me listening to me.
So here’s a salad recipe, or rather a salad guideline. In the spirit of listening to yourself, you'll find the recipe is rather vague—and I think that's okay. I genuinely love salads, especially the kind with some warm ingredients that melt into the cheese and make them feel gut-warming year round. My friend and former roommate, Emily, used to call them “hot salads,” and I used to hate it but…that’s kind of what this is. If you’re feeling like a salad, I hope you try making one. If not, that’s okay, too.
Hot Salad
Makes one hearty salad
In a 425 degree oven, roast some vegetables. I like butternut squash—especially in the fall and winter—but you can roast nearly any of your favorite vegetables. Sometimes I do red peppers and cauliflower, broccoli and sweet potatoes, zucchini and cherry tomatoes—just some ideas. For one salad, I use roughly a cup of veggies, toss them in olive oil, salt, pepper, and a dash of red pepper flakes (you don’t have to), and roast them until they’re nicely browned and extremely tender.
Now, make some grains. To be really easy on yourself, you could use some of that microwavable brown rice or quick-cooking quinoa. I have a minor obsession with farro, so I went with that today. I use anywhere from ¼ to ½ cup (how hungry are you?). I also like to use this opportunity to add more flavor, so in my farro, I add a generous pinch of salt and a thumbnail of ginger. Do as you like.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, mix up a vinaigrette. I add maybe half a teaspoon of dijon, an equal amount of honey, pinch of salt & pepper, and a couple tablespoons (maybe literally two? I like an acidic vinaigrette) of vinegar or lemon juice. I prefer apple cider vinegar with the squash, red wine vinegar if I’m using tomatoes. Whisk this all together and then add olive oil in a slow, steady stream. I would venture to guess an equal amount to your vinegar, but I just add until the mixture emulsifies. Toss this with your greens of choice: spinach, kale, baby kale, arugula, a mixture of all of them. I think iceberg might not hold up against the warm ingredients, but shoot your shot if that’s what sounds good to you.
Now assemble your salad. Toss the grains and roasted veggies together. I like to add some chopped, toasted, and salted nuts (I used walnuts this time, just a small handful) and—with butternut squash particularly—some raisins or dried cranberries or dates. If you scowled here, please do not add dried fruit to your hot salad. Now toss this all with the greens. Garnish with cheese—I love goat or feta, but I’ve also enjoyed shredded parmesan a time or two. Enjoy right away to get the best of the bright, fresh greens and cozy veg and grains.
Comments