Extraterrestrial Forensic Portrait Catalogue

Busy, busy, busy morning so far! This time of year it feels like there is always so much more to do than the rest and I can never catch up with everything.

This afternoon I’ll be spending some time replacing the coolant thermostat on my car. It’s an older model and I’m thankful that I can usually do most repair work myself or with some help. It’s a little extra stressful because the inspection is due by the end of the month and I’m just now able to get to the repair. Fingers crossed it will be the final issue that would block a pass on that. Then there’s getting the money together for the vehicle tax but I’ll just have to figure that out after Thanksgiving.

On that note, I’ll be going to visit my parents and I’m very much looking forward to it. I haven’t seen them in about a year and my Dad had multiple health scares and surgeries this year but is finally feeling better and up for an extended visit. It’ll be worth the financial strain of missing work to go and spend time with them.

I’m excited to be fully in charge of cooking for them this time around. They both don’t cook very often anymore and I want to treat them to a really nice meal with leftovers that will be good for awhile. I really enjoy cooking and feeding others so take every opportunity to do so. I’ve been a pescatarian for 27 years now (wow, I’m old) but Ive gotten really good at cooking meats for everyone else. I enjoy the process and looking at it from a more scientific viewpoint really helps me to get it right every time.

I do have multiple eating disorders which can make feeding myself difficult. I had a number of years where they weren’t so overwhelming but in the past year they’ve come back with a vengeance and it’s been a big struggle that I’m slowly working through with the support of my friends and therapist. The biggest struggle at this point is getting enough nutrients from the food that I do eat. I’ve always preferred vegetables (especially fresh) over any other foods so that really doesn’t provide enough proteins and such to sustain me without supplementing in other things.

As a practically middle-aged woman I really didn’t expect this to hit me so hard and it’s been extremely difficult when others are always complimenting my weight loss and not knowing that it was fully unintentional and detrimental to my physical and mental health. I have always been very confident in my body image at a variety of sizes over the years but with this onset of disordered eating and the outside views of others I’ve become more uncomfortable despite appearing healthy and fitting more-so into what is pushed as more appealing by society. It’s a complicated issue and I’m sure there are so many people out there going through similar struggles.

It has been a bit difficult for me to find support from others who struggle with these issues as the motivations behind mine are not the standard body image based struggles, but more so exclusively food that I have to intake and the processes that are problematic for me. I want to be very clear that none of these are invalid struggles and we should all be here for each other but it’s hard to not have some comradery from someone with the same views versus just the same diagnosis. I hope that makes sense.

Anyways, I am still working on this and I like to be very transparent about it so that others know this is something that many people go through and take that into consideration when commenting on physical changes. There’s not only one way of addressing it and there’s not only one source of causation. Your struggles are just as valid as mine!

Stay curious!