Okay. It’s not white and snowy up here yet, but if you’re beneath the 49th parallel, Canada is definitely north and in many ways, great.

For one thing, today is Canadian Thanksgiving, a national holiday that always corresponds to your Columbus Day, and a great season for thanksgiving, too. Harvest Time.

All over my neighbourhood, walking my two Dandie Dinmont Terriers today, I’ve encountered people harvesting or clearing out their gardens, a little prematurely placing Hallowe’en pumpkins on their porches and celebrating the splendour of the autumn colours. You have to see them to believe them.

This Thanksgiving Is My Happiest Ever

Last Thanksgiving, I was starving, skeletal and anxiously waiting to start an eating disorder program.

The most wondrous thing about my dogs is their innate “cuddle-ability.”

Riley and Lucy love nothing more than to be held and petted. They beg for it. And who can resist a face like Riley’s?

My dogs have “cuddle-ability”…

This is a Dandie Dinmont Terrier trait. They so love to cuddle that at all our Dandie Dinmont Terrier Club of Canada public events we have a special “Cuddling Parlour” where anyone can sit down and “cuddle a Dandie.”

What is so magical about cuddling a dog?

It’s no secret that petting any dog or cat, for that matter, creates a magnificent neuroscientific reaction in the person doing the cuddling and petting. A bonding hormone is produced called Oxytocin, the same hormone nursing mothers produce when they are breast feeding their children.

It’s also called the hormone of love.

There’s a mysterious, somewhat strange-sounding convention in psychiatry, I think. I’m not sure. I’ve never imagined it would apply to me, so I’ve never bothered to investigate it.

I’ve steered far away from. It scares me.

Leaving therapy…

Here’s how it was explained to me at the Eating Disorders Outpatient program I just completed. And remember, an eating disorder is a psychiatric illness.

For a minimum of two years, I was told, I could not go back to see my social worker, dietician or any of the practitioners who helped me begin eating normally for the first time in my life.

A follow-up might be possible, but now I have a psychologist to help me.

I suspect psychiatrists work in similar ways. I don’t know…

Once you say good bye. Once you receive your psychiatric “seal of approval.” Once you have your psychotherapeutic “walking papers.” Once you leave, is that it?

Do you venture off into the world on your trembling feet, vulnerable, alone? Independent?  Do you never see your therapist again? Or at least for a minimum of two years? That never seemed to be the case with Dr. Bob. It seemed he would always be there for me.

We all long for unconditional love, but what about unconditional worth?

Musing on this question will take more than one blog post, so consider this a beginning.

Glenn R. Schiraldi, Ph.D. concisely describes this concept in The Self-Esteem Workbook and when I first encountered it, to be perfectly honest with you, I was stunned.

A new concept…

I’d never considered it before. Perhaps it’s a new concept for you, too.

So I thought I’d share some of Schiraldi’s wisdom, research and insights with you today because just reading about unconditional worth made me feel better about myself.

In February, my family doctor began cautioning me about my obsessive dieting.

She explained that eating disorders are psychiatric conditions, mental illnesses. She used the “A” word. Anorexia.

I thought she was out of her mind…

I am not thin. I’ve never been thin. Certainly never too thin. I feel I need to lose more weight. To get thinner.

She began monitoring me, monthly. By May, overly concerned about my inability to perceive myself realistically and my relentless determination to lose weight, she said this was related to my “mania” ~ my bipolar disorder.

She sent a note to my psychiatrist.

He referred me to an Eating Disorders Clinic…

Last month, my kidney transplant specialist expressed similar concerns. He didn’t want my electrolytes to go out of whack. When I diet, my sodium levels plummet.

When these three doctors, the team that keeps me alive, showed such alarm, I decided to investigate eating disorders myself.

Yesterday, in my Leadership in Society class, the second last class of the term, my students discussed change.