But, you think that everything going on in So Cal this weekend is all the ol’ fun debauchery you used to have and you’re bummed you’ll be missing out– Bad thing

Here’s the Real thing….there is actually a ton of fun things you can do this weekend that don’t require you to get blazed and go bar hopping in bunny ears and lingerie. Check it:

Friday, October 29th

Day of the Dead – Art Exhibit, Mexican Food and Lecture

 The Long Beach Playhouse

5021 E. Anaheim St. Long Beach CA

www.lbplayhouse.org

$20 Adults $18 Students

For all you Day of the Dead and Art aficionados! Gregario Luke, the former director of the Museum of Latin American Art tours all around to Harvard, Yale and now So Cal and will be giving a lecture on the history of The Day of the Dead and it’s traditions. Along with the lecture, the Playhouse will present a collection of altars designed by local artists. Show up early for excellent food by Lola’s, the much-loved Mexican restaurant on Long Beach’s 4th Street!

Saturday, October 30^th

Art Show + Costume Party

Tim Rusmiel Gallery

31766 Los Rios Street, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675

www.timrusmiselgallery.com

Cost: $10

The gallery will be showing work from over a dozen Vegan artists in a silent auction fundraiser for the Animal Acres sanctuary. (www.animalacres.org) There will also be a costume party and vegan treats in the gallery's courtyard

Sunday, October 31^st

The Museum of Latin American Art

Dia De Los Muertos Celebration

7^th Street, Long Beach CA

www.molaa.org

Cost: Free

For you party animal Artists out there! Face paint is our friend! The Museum of Latin American Art is the bomb! Come check out altars on view, vendors, face painting and art workshops where guests will make calaca masks, paper flowers and sugar skulls. Performance by the Jesus Mejia  Dance Company

Monday, November 1^st

The Gypsy Den

Open Mike Night

Santa Ana Artist Village, Santa Ana

www.gypsyden.com

Cost: Free

Come and hear local artists bust out their tunes and sonnets! Hey, why don’t you bust out some of your own tunes yourself? You know you got it!

Tuesday, November 2^nd

Strike at the Tustin Legacy

Monday Night Strike

The District, Tustin

www.thedistrict.com

Cost: $17

You like tunes? You like bowling? You like people? Then cruise over to the Tustin Legacy with your peeps and rock out while you bowl to some awesome tunes!

Wednesday, November 3^rd

The Echo

Marnie Stern

1822 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles

www.attheecho.com

Cost: $12

A night out in LA! Heck yes! The New York City singer-guitarist Marnie Stern is a one-woman force of nature. She would be impressive just for her dazzling guitar technique, in which she casts out blurry flurries of intricate solos that are often layered with loops of heavy sound effects. But she's more than just a flashy guitar hero, writing interesting, multidimensional art-prog-punk songs that are distinguished by dense arrangements and crazed vocals.

I hope to see you guys around the OC and LA this weekend! Remember that abstinence and sobriety can be fun, you just have to be creative with it. Yeah CREATIVITY! Boo Eating Disorders!

Spook ya later! 

Irvina

Conquering an Eating Disorder is one of the most difficult challenges a human being can be dealt. Once the physical, emotional and spiritual elements are balanced in ones life everything else becomes easy...... SOOOOOOOO WRONG! Yeah, okay so once you stop the binging, purging, stealing food from grocery stores and the obsessive thoughts of wanting to kill yourself fade away it really seems almost like you’re on cloud 9.... that simply just being freed of the Eating Disorder disease itself is a priceless gift in and of itself. The only catch is that being someone with an Eating Disorder classifies you as an “Addict” and addicts are people with addictive personalities that need to watch their behavior in all elements of their lives. Facebook being one of them.

Surprise element aka “Log-In”

 The addictive element of checking facebook is its “surprise” element. Much like the addictive element of gambling. Do me a favor and imagine yourself playing the slots in Vegas, sometimes you don’t get all the little watermelons in a row and sometimes “Yeah baby!”  You sure do! Cha-Ching! Cha-Ching!  It’s the times you hit the lucky strike of fruit slots that makes you excited to keep playing, because “just maybe this next time I’ll get more!” The “pleasure” hemisphere of the brain aka hypothalamus is triggered and dopamine is released aka the player becomes addicted to the feeling the dopamine chemical puts off. Now instead of imagining yourself sitting at the slots in Vegas, imagine yourself sitting at the computer in your room. Waiting to log-on to facebook…you see the little red icons in the far left corner. The number of friend requests/ messages/ comments are simply the facebook way of gambling they are your “Cha-Ching” in cyber form if you will. It’s all same feeling, same endorphins, different addiction.

Connection aka “The number of friends number” 

If I remember back to my Eating Disorder …oh such a long 2 and half years ago…. I had no friends…well I had “friends” that liked to go to the gym, starve, binge, starve and steal each others boyfriends, but I wouldn’t really consider them “friends” they were the illusion of friends while I pursued what I thought I wanted: World domination of Thinness/Hotness/Crazy Chick ness! …Yes, I was scary…. And equally as scary is how similar this is to my connections on facebook. So lets say I put a comment out there, in my case it’s usually something that I consider witty and funny. Then someone else comments on it or “likes” it. This gives me the illusion that I have “connections” I have “friends” it makes me feel as if the person who commented cares about me and wants to interact with me. Maybe they do, but maybe they also have 500+ other people that they are commenting on who are also saying witty things as well. The fact of the matter is what I consider “bonding” and a “connection” really isn’t there; it’s false (especially since all of my connections with my friends on facebook are in a very bright, “witty” light) The problem with that is what happens when I really do have an issue that I need to talk to someone about? Who will my friends be? I have a feeling that like in my Eating Disorder I won’t have “real” friends just fake ones that expect me to be witty and funny.

Cry for help aka “The Like Me Button”

So what do you think happens when you are addicted to setting off the dopamine in your brain, have a disillusionment about who are your “friends” are and find yourself depressed and lonely one day from a bad breakup….you’re probably going to post some sad love song lyrics on facebook (Yes, I’m guilty as charged.) But, then after that doesn’t get the “Like” button what else will you do? You might just go around posting mellow dramatic yet serious posts like, “I hate my disgusting body.” “Men are dogs.”  “ I want to die.”

Can anyone find the “Issue” in one of those three posts?

Hmmmm…..the first one for me is that it’s a friggin’ post! When you’re upset you call a friend, you go on a walk, you meet up for coffee. You don’t post it in an open forum and expect help! But, that’s what we have learned about addictions right? They possess us and they make us do things that make no sense at all. Addictions are all rooted in the same button; “Like Me.” Please “like me.”

Conclusion aka “Log-off”

No, I’m not gonna suggest you boy-cot facebook and delete your account. I am gonna ask you to watch yourself. You have an addictive personality. You have a brain that wants you to find anything in the world to distract you and give you the illusion that people like you. Be aware of that, check in with yourself and ask yourself, “Why does this feel familiar” and when you see something that is familiar to our good for nothin’ Ex-Boyfriend ED than Log-off in that suckers face!

Loggin’ off, but I still love you!

Irvina

“Why bloody me?”

“Why bloody me?”

To maintain Eating Disorder recovery is like training for the Boston marathon…except you’re expected to run the bloody thing everyday. The lifestyle of recovery (training) is spiritual, mental and physical and quite intense…here’s a little re-lay for ya…

6:00 am Prayer – (Good morning God! Thank you for the recovery I have from this mind numbing, soul killing Eating Disorder! Have a nice day!)

6:30 am Freehand Journal for 3 pages (helps get all the neurotic thinking out on the table)

7:00 am Moderate exercise (Yeah for endorphins! We need ‘em!”)

7:30 am Abstinent breakfast + Vitamins + Anti-depressants/Meds

8:30 am Work (Cause we are participating members of society!)

12:00 pm Abstinent lunch

12:30pm Check in with sponsor

2:30 pm Alert! Alert! Crazy ED girl at work triggers us by excessively talking about dieting, how fat she is and her need for plastic surgery on her hook nose

3:00 pm Make an outreach call to a girl in recovery for mental clarity and how to block out the sad ED girl voice at work.

3:15 pm Go to car to find ear phones for iPod

4:00pm Abstinent snack (I love apples and peanut butter!)

5:00 pm Free from work!

6:00 pm Abstinent dinner with amazing friends

7:00 pm Recovery meeting (Yeah, for girls who get me!)

8:00 pm Reading and some good tunes

9:00 pm Journal.

10:00 pm Bed.

After a day like this, one can turn off the light at the nightstand and take one of two routes on the way to dreamland…….

Route G4 – As in “Grateful 4”

 This route takes you to: A Hawaiian luau where you are singing and swaying to the ukelele thanking God/Higher Power for relief from the participation in the deadly Eating Disorder disease today. Gratitude that at least there was no binging, purging, lying, stealing, hurting, screaming and chaos making that hurt you and other people. Route G4 is a great route…it’s quite a “noble “ route…the more “evolved” route if you will… but most of the time I don’t take this route… Nah…I choose to instead hang out with the bottom dwellers on ….

Route “Y” – as in Route “Why me?”

 As in “What gives?” or “Why the hell did God give me such a pain in the ass disease that makes a slight conversation in a cubicle send me into a neurotic mess that only 4 phone calls and the voice of reason can fix? Why on earth do I have to journal, attend meetings, take little pink pills, see therapist and go to bed on time all to just balance the damn chromosomes in my brain and keep food in my body? Why on earth am I on this hell hole of a journey and when the hell can I leave?”

Deep isn’t it? Profound. (Great script writing too if I do say so myself) Yes, this is the route I take. It is self-deprecating, narcissistic, neurotic and nauseating (even to myself.) So the question remains… “Why me?” The common answer to this question is the bland robotic answer of: “I don’t know.” Or “That’s life… buck up!” But, I don’t care for answers that consist of only 4 syllables. (I know… I’m so difficult!) So I have come up with my own answer for Route Y…

I choose to believe that the life I live isn’t simply a physical one. It is spiritual one. That actually as C.S. Lewis says, “You don’t have a soul. You are soul. You have a body.” If I lived as if this statement were true I would believe that when I experience physical pain and humiliation it’s not that bad because it is taking me to the next level of the spiritual evolution of my soul.

Maybe all of my physical feelings of peace, harmony, exhaustion and pain are secondary to my spiritual well being. My spiritual well-being brings psychic revelations that trump every painful and joyful physical feeling I have. Realizations I have are that even the painful experiences serve a purpose. (I know it’s a far out concept. But, here me out) Maybe, there is joy in pain and struggle is that I get to realize that I survived it. That I walked through fire and that now I am actually stronger, bolder and taller. It builds my character, it makes me a strong woman, a survivor and someone who is deep and sensitive and able to relate to others. Struggle teaches me how to problem solve, how to accept life for exactly the way it is. Struggle teaches me how to be creative with what I have. Struggle teaches me how to budget my money and my emotions. Struggle has taught me that even when I’m at my lowest in the trenches of a mental disorder that even when the world isn’t loving me I still have the ability to love it. That I can still muster a smile, a hello, a hug and a very small, I love you too.

“Why me?” is a great question with a great answer.” My answer is:  Because you deserve better. You can do better. Because you can go to far greater more colorful places once you’ve been through this. When I was a little girl I got Nintendo Mario Brothers for Christmas. I was mediocre at it. But never got passed level 7. A friend of mine came over one day after school. She dominated Mario Brothers. She knew all the secret passageways, all the trick moves to kill the bad guys and within 20 minutes she was in the palace fighting the evil Bowser and trying to rescue the Princess. When she got to the end she handed over the controller to me so I could have a shot at winning the game and saving the Princess. Within 3 moves I was out. She tried again, she let me give it a shot at an easier level, but still it was too advanced for me to win the game.

The fact of the matter is we can’t rescue Princesses, travel to distant places or even come to know who we truly are behind the palace doors until we take our own journey in stride and battle it out, play by play, then we can move on arrive at the palace. But, then you arrive at the palace and you save the Princess and what do you know… the game is over. Life hurts sometimes. There is good, there is bad, there is joy and there is pain, but this is life it’s about living, experiencing, surviving for the end all goal of saving the Princess which ends up being yourself......