oh what i would give to be asleep

we are survivors - it's time to stop selling ourselves short

Someday Melissa

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/fashion/22Melissa.html

An article worth reading.
Melissa Avrin died of heart failure as a result of her eating disorder. Her mother in making a documentary to raise awareness.

small sample of items for the fundraiser!

Pine needle bowl made by Maggie's mother

Bowl made by English professor Dr. Trousdale

Knit Hair bow

Felt Scottie Dogs

Maggie - my friend in need

As you may have read from Mallory's blog post I just reposted here, my dear dear friend is in need of help.

Maggie is a beautiful, intelligent, funny and vibrant young woman from Appleton, Wisconsin.
She is 24 years old and has a heart that yearns to make others smile. Maggie has been struggling for most of her life from physical and emotional trauma. Due to her Anorexia Nervosa, her body is no longer functioning properly. Along with heart complications, low blood pressure and a dangerously low body weight, Maggie is currently dying of kidney failure.
At the moment, Maggie does not have the financial means to pay for the medical and psychological treatment, and her insurance is refusing to cover the inpatient treatment she desperately needs. The company even refuses to pay for the treatment her kidneys need in order for her survival. Without help Maggie’s body will continue to shut down.
Insurance companies are fairly notorious for not covering treatment for eating disorders. They are seen as self-inflicted and harmless. It is as if insurance companies don't think they are serious issues. When I entered treatment for my eating disorder in the summer of 2008, my insurance company did not want to cover my treatment at all. In fact, the day I arrived in Philadelphia I was informed that my insurance would prefer not to cover me until I weighed 7 pounds less. Following my admittance they tried to drop me every 3 days. The only reason I was able to stay in treatment for as long as I did was because my parents basically camped outside of our governor's office asking for help. I will forever be grateful for the 5 weeks I had at Renfrew, it is quite possible that they saved my life.
Eating disorders are serious. Anorexia Nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Maggie and I both lost a very, very dear friend this year. Julia was only 16 years old and the pain of her eating disorder was more than she could handle. Julia committed suicide on July 1, 2009. Even worse, Julia is not the only young woman I know who was lost to an eating disorder this year. Melissa Avrin and Hannah McKay also passed. Eating disorders are not harmless. They are life threatening, all consuming illnesses. Too many women and men die from their eating disorders, and I refuse to let another friend go now or anytime if I can help.
With the help of friends, I am holding two fundraisers in Maggie's honor. Next Friday at Agnes Scott College from 11:30 to 5 we will be holding a craft fair. Students and community members can come make and buy crafts and art made by students and supporters.
We will also be holding a silent auction in our campus's student center. The items that are being auctioned have been graciously donated by friends and family of Maggie as well as numerous students and individuals who want to help Maggie win this fight.
Additionally, money can directly be donated to Maggie Lang- Recovery Support Fund
3313 N. Casaloma Drive Number 98, Appleton, WI 54913
Maggie is studying to be a dietitian so she can help girls like herself recover from their eating disorders. Maggie is amazingly talented and kind, she just needs a chance to heal so she can share her story and show the world that recovery is possible.

From a wonderful friend's blog - Mallory Kathleen

This one is for Maggie

Oh yeah, it's just Hollywood. And the rest of us have nothing to do with Hollywood. It's not like we pay their salaries or anything with our patronage...

Hi all you unfortunate people who have somehow been coerced into/accidentally stumbled upon this blog,

I very much regret further polluting the internet with yet another blog from yet another self-absorbed person (that’s me!). You can blame my sister. You may commence stoning now.

In (relatively more) seriousness, though, I think I’m starting this blog to help start a dialogue, raise awareness and share my story of mental illness, in the hopes that it may help someone in the future. Our culture and society still have some pretty fucked up ideas about mental illness, and maybe if I can talk enough about my own experiences we can change some of these ideas and the fucked up consequences they have for people with mental illnesses.

A perfect example of someone who has been screwed over by our society’s complete lack of education about mental illnesses is Maggie, the person who mostly inspired me to start this blog. I don’t know Maggie personally – she’s a friend of a very, very dear friend of mine – but by all accounts she is a wonderful, sweet and bright young woman who means a lot to many, many people. Maggie has an eating disorder and has been struggling with it for years. Despite her efforts, Maggie is, right now, at 24, dying. She has heart complications, severely low body weight, low blood pressure and…oh yeah, she’s dying of kidney failure.

But guess what? Her insurance company isn’t paying for any of her treatment! They won’t cover her dialysis which is currently keeping her alive and they won’t cover the inpatient treatment she seriously needs. I’m not an expert on it, but apparently it’s very common for insurance companies to refuse to cover treatment for eating disorders, being under the impression that sufferers “did it to themselves.”

It’s bull shit, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Hopefully I’ll have one or more guest posters coming soon who are eating disorder vets themselves to tell you what it’s like to have an eating disorder, what recovery is like and what it’s like to try to get your treatment covered.

I think in general our schools, parents and even the media have good intentions about eating disorders. But as a culture we’re still pretty “bipolar” about the issue (sorry for the joke…I am bipolar, but we’ll get to ME later). On one hand, our cultural aesthetic embraces thinness and it isn’t uncommon to spend your life as a woman trading diet tips. On the other hand, every once in a while in the grocery store check out aisle I see one of those celebrity magazines like People or Us Weekly flaunting a cover full of gaunt celebrities with headlines that boil down to: “OMG ANOREXIA = TERRIBLE!” Next time you see one of these, look closely at the wording and the way these women are demonized. Or take a close look at the episode that happens once a season on America’s Next Top Model wherein Tyra solemnly hears accusations of a contestants anorexia. These people do not seem to feel that they are complicit in this situation at all. On one episode, a model will be lectured or even dismissed for suspected bulimia, but in the next a woman already far thinner than the average woman who will be a consumer of the products she endorses is coached into losing more weight. Cue the hypocrisy rant.

But the somewhat shallow way we talk about eating disorders and body image is hurtful to people who seek treatment for this illness. We want to believe that you can condemn a celebrity on a magazine cover for being anorexic and that will somehow help. Further, we want to believe that if a person knows they deserve love, their body is beautiful, etc., they will be okay. That’s strikes me as similar to the “snap out of it” attitude that people with depression often meet. it’s complicated. It’s an illness. Illnesses require treatment.

I think this post has already gone on too long and I’ve already bored most of you, so I’ll get to the point and wrap up. Without some financial help, Maggie will not get treatment and she will probably die. I would like for this to not happen, because I think everybody deserves a fair shot at a nice, decently long, reasonably agony-free life. So a couple of friends of mine and I are putting together a fundraiser at our college, Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia, to raise money for Maggie. It’s an arts and crafts fair and silent auction, and we are still looking for donations of the art, craft or monetary variety, places to advertise our event, attendees, etc. PLEASE HELP US!

The first thing you can do for Maggie is to RE POST this on your wall, your own blog, send it to your friends, family, co-workers, etc.! Maggie really needs all the love and support she can get.

Here are some other ways you can lend a hand:

1. If you are an artist or a craftsperson, you can donate an item(s) to be sold or auctioned!

2. If you live in ATL, you can volunteer to help with planning/running the event!

3. If you own a business or organization in ATL, you can allow us to advertise at your location (you can even donate an item or money in exchange for having your business’ name listed as a sponsor of our event OR on this blog- a great advertising opportunity!)

4. If you have disposable income of any amount, you can donate directly to Maggie’s Recovert Support Fund (contact me for details)

5. If you live in ATL, you can ATTEND our awesome event!

Much more will come on this topic, but in the meantime PLEASE re-post wherever possible! I don’t want to emote too much, but…this woman needs our help.

the way things are

i'm going to try to be better about posting more regularly. i think that blogging is good for me. alex explained it well by saying that although writing in my notebook is helpful, sometimes i need to get it "out there," into the world. not that i want everyone to read or know what i have to say, i guess i just need to release some things.
this new semester has already been characterized by ups and downs. familial drama is something that is hard for me to handle. the situation itself is ridiculous. basically i'm borrowing money from my grandmother and all my mom's siblings flipped their shit. money makes me uncomfortable, and i wish very much that i didn't need her support, but i do. it's sad to think that the family i loved very much could treat me and my mother so negatively, let alone treat my grandmother as if she is an invalid (which she certainly is not).
once again, my wonderful sister stood up for me (quite fiercely). i'm grateful to have the wonderful immediate family that i have. they've put up with my through all my shit and still uphold the "don't fuck with my sister/daughter" attitude.

i want this year to be better. i suppose that there isn't much i would change about the last year, it was long and at time difficult and painful, but in retrospect, many wonderful things came out of it. of course there are things i regret -- i wish i had talked to/seen julia more, i wish i had gone to her funeral, i wish i had the energy to be a better friend -- but there are a lot of things that i am grateful for.

i pray that in this new year i will grab ahold of healthy opportunities and that i can learn, at least a little bit, that how to cope in healthier ways. i know that i'm not going to change, that i'm not going to wake up happy, and that it will probably be a long time before i appreciate my body. but maybe i can take some steps towards being okay with myself.
moreover, i hope that this year will bring good things to the people i love so dearly. i know too many people who are struggling. i wish so much that i could help.