The depths of my crazy brain

There's been a massive tragedy in Japan.  HUGE earthquake, huge tsunami, entire villages wiped away, thousands dead, even more missing.

We're all impacted by seeing things like this.  Our brains changed forever due to the seemingly impossible materializing before our eyes on CNN and the internet.  Roll back to Haiti.  Roll back to Indonesia.  Roll back to 9/11.  Haunting and horrible.

There are many common threads of tragedy and triumph through those events. 

I have one too.

I do NOT intend to minimize what's happening.  Clearly, none of these events are about me.  But this post is about how they affect me.  What they do to my messy brain.

When these large scale tragedies happen, I literally feel as though I HAVE to watch every single minute of footage I can.  I need to read every word I can online.  I need to see every single picture I can.  It becomes compulsive and almost manic.

To try to explain it, well, I guess it's two fold.

First, I feel as though I "owe" the people going through the events the time time and effort in witnessing for them.  Like I can somehow will my pain, sorrow, hope, support - SOMETHING to them to make some part of it make sense.  There's just nothing more heart wrenching to me to think that someone may have been alone and terrified.  I can't handle that.  So, it's like I'm trying to be that person to make them not alone and scared.

Second, I feel tremendous guilt.  And this is where the "food" comes in.  I can't eat.  Not because I'm so upset that I have no appetite.  Not because I'm overwhelmed from the emotions I described above.  I feel guilty eating.  I feel like, "Who am I to sit here and waltz over to my fridge and just pull anything I want out, eat it and throw out my bread crusts."  My brain and body physically reject food because they're screaming at me that I'm not good enough to eat when others cannot; that it's just not right for me to eat if others are experiencing such sudden and horrific things.

Battle battle battle. 

Ironically, my "sane" brain knows that I'm being stupid - people hunger somewhere all the time.  Do they count less than those on my TV this week?  So then that feeds my ED with a message that I can't even be a proper, albeit reluctant, martyr.

Needless to say, this has been a LONG few days.  Timely as I have another appointment + a nutritionist intake appointment this week.  I'm glad for it.  I'm terrified of it, but I'm glad.  I suppose I'll have to bring this stuff up.  Look like an egocentric wackadoodle.  *sigh*  But the more I learn about being honest to my life with ED, the more I'm seeing - that egocentric wackadoodle is the ED.  It's what I'm working towards getting rid of for good.  I can live with that.