Urges and Behaviors

Today royally sucked. I felt like I was on a roller coaster of urges. I think that for the first time I actually went through a binge/purge cycle. As someone who has always restricted this is extremely hard to admit and the shame of seeing my weight go up and down several pounds or more only made things worse. As I approach the time when I will enter treatment (still not 100% sure when but soon), it seems like ED tries harder each day to keep his hold on me. While I have stuck to ED behaviors the urge to wander into other possible addictions also leaves me wondering what is going on. Wave after wave of thoughts and urges leave me exhausted and confused. While the binge/purge behaviors take over my thoughts also wandered towards alcohol. While I am still several months under the legal limit my parents have enough alcohol in our house to do some serious damage. Only once or twice before in my life have I had the urge to drown everything in that "wonderful" poison, alcohol. I know that with my issues with addiction seeking solace in the bottle is out of the frying pan and into the fire as the saying goes.

Years ago, when my brother was dealing with issues related to alcohol, I made a promise to myself that I would not develop the same issues. Thankfully my stubbornness and that promise kept me from touching the stuff,  both in the past when I have had urges to over do it and today. I only hope that I will be able to use my stubbornness to help deal with ED urges in the future. However, it is this stubbornness that ED also uses to his advantage. It is interesting that the qualities we have can be used to help us and hurt us. I know I still have a lot to learn about myself. I also know now that I have to be constantly vigilant because ED is a tricky bastard and even when I think I know every trick he can play, he still has a few up his sleeve that I do not know about yet. I also know that behaviors will increase when I am home and around my parents.

This house is toxic for me. Tonight I came to understand my eating disorder and what helped create it a little bit more. It is interesting what can click on that light and open our eyes so we have that "ah ha" moment. Tonight I watched my parent fight, not an uncommon event in our household. However what struck me was the fact that meal time was used by my mother as a way of getting back at my dad. She was mad at him for reasons I will not go into and so, though she had already decided that she did not feel well and so was not going to have dinner (a topic for another day and another post), she refused to sit down with him while he ate. My dad, being the guy that he is, was rather oblivious to the motivation behind my mother's lack of a presence at the table until I asked her if she was coming and then if she was mad. The whole situation was stressful and frustrating. Yet it was also eye-opening and has made me grateful that I no longer live here full time. School may be stressful and difficult at times but at least I am able to be in a healthy environment of my choosing. As I grow as a person and continue on the path to recovery I hope to be able to learn how to remove myself from situations that only hinder my recovery and health. 

Struggling and Thoughts

So it comes as no surprise to me that having a scale is a bad idea which leads to much unhappiness, however I cannot seem to part with the damn thing. I am constantly stepping on and stepping off. My day or night is determined by what that number is. If it goes down it's good, up is bad. So as I start to eat in preparation for treatment my weight goes up. It does not matter how much or little it rises, each time it does I feel that self-esteem I already have so little of fall a bit more. I would give anything not to care about weight or how my body looks in the mirror. I would give anything to be free of this obsession. I do not know how many hours, days, weeks, months, years I have spent thinking about food, weight and my body. It makes me sad that I am so consumed with these issues. As a child I used to have fun and have a life. Now I find myself unable to enjoy times with friends and family because I am so self-conscious and food is part of every meeting. I think about how I can make it look like I had more than I actually did, if there is a way to get out of eating. I always scan the table to make sure that I am the one having the least. There is a running count in my head, a table of body types. If I am the skinniest one there I can feel good, if I am not then I am a failure. All I want is to be normal but try as I might I keep being drawn back into this pattern. Now it is time to get help to work on this but even though I know deep down that I need to go and get help, I am still fighting with myself constantly because I do not want to go. I am scared and sad. I don't want to miss my summer but I have no choice. I need to spend this time focusing on me and my needs and I need to learn that that is okay. While in treatment I have many goals but I still plan on working on things for the outside world. I will bring my GRE books. I will continue to write and journal.  I will do reading. There is so much that I want to do and I will find a way to do it. I know that by bringing things to do to treatment I will have a chance to practice balancing what I need/want to do and what I am able to do. I will be able to test my boundaries and limits in a secure environment and this is something I am excited and scared to do. At school, I constantly seem to be running from one thing to another and I need to learn balance. I cannot do everything all the time. I need to learn to say no and speak up when I am overwhelmed and most importantly, I need to learn to ask for help and advocate for myself. The first step in this, I believe, is doing something about the nutrition information that is posted on all food in the dining halls and the Vermont laws that require restaurants and chains to post calories. This is my next step of advocating for myself since I know that if I go back to school and have to face the caloric content of every item all the time I will relapse. It sucks but I know I am not the only one with this problem and someone needs to stand up for us all. 

"It's Time to Take Action Boys!"

Okay, so while Gaston may not be a great guy in Beauty and the Beast, he does have some catchy lyrics which work for this situation because it IS time to take action, time to rally the troops so to speak. Well, the troops have already been rallied actually, my treatment team is working, minus my psychiatrist who will be changed soon hopefully. Calls have been put in and I am not the list for treatment. I received a call today asking if I could come down on Monday after which I promptly freaked out because I am not ready to go, I just got home from school and haven't dealt with all my laundry yet. Also there is my parents' schedule to think of. So it looks like I will be trying to go down the next Monday. This leaves me time to pack and prepare, to get labs done, to find out what I will need to bring, to get any questions I have answered, and to breathe and not freak out. This last part is really important to me because while at school I entered a program and it happened too fast for me and I think that really affected the effect of the treatment. So I will be spending the next week preparing.

Today I had a really great therapy session. Not only was it GREAT to see my therapist from home/high school but I was able to really take time before hand to think about treatment and what I want to get out of it and out of this summer. As someone who usually is so concerned with helping others and how others feel, who likes to be a people pleaser, this summer is going to be about ME. This past semester was hell and I really need to take care of myself and if people have a problem with that well too bad. I could say that what I am doing is selfish but that would not be me talking, that is ED telling me that spending time on myself is selfish and that SHOULD not do that. When I hear that "should" I know that it is coming from outside of myself. At this point in time I may not be able to see myself as worth much or worthy of this attention but at least I know that I am not seeing with the eyes I was born with, with eyes that are clear and unfiltered. This summer I aim to learn to separate myself from my ED and learn to recognize ED's voice and presence before it gets out of control. I aim to explore the question: who am I. I feel like I developed my ED as a way of dealing with the stress of my mother, school and the unspoken pressure to be perfect. ED replaced my mother as the task master in my life and I need to know, need to feel what it is like to have myself as the driving force in my life, to have my needs and wants made my priority. I want to make mistakes and be okay with it. I want things to get messy and not freak out. I want to learn to deal with my emotions and not have a panic attack or feel the need to restrict or have my emotions so strong that I literally get sick. I want to learn to live, not just exist. I want to be able to eat a piece of cake and think of nothing but what it tastes like, how the texture feels in my mouth, how much I either like it or don't like it. I don't want to be thinking of the calories, to be calculating the desire to have the cake against the panic attack that comes after and the probability that I will not be able to keep it down. I remember how many times I had dinner with my friends this semester, and with one particular friend (if you are reading this you know who you are) and how envious I was of her ability to have a piece of cake. How messed up is that?! It is so frustrating that I am missing out on so much of life because of this disease and it is a mixture of guilt, shame and anger and hatred that comes up with I think about it. I need to learn to turn that anger and hatred towards the real perpetrator, ED. This is difficult though because, while ED has caused all of these problems in my life, ED has also served a purpose for a very long time and I need to learn to separate that part that wants to help me deal with stressors from the part that wants me to deal with stressors by turning to an obsession with food. These are all things that I want to work on this summer while I am in treatment and when I get out and they are things that I will probably be dealing with and learning to embrace for the rest of my life. As my wonderful therapist said who I am changes and that is okay but first I have to find out who I am without ED running my life. There is so much more I want to work on as well as this is just the beginning. But as I type these words I am thinking to myself, maybe there is hope. Maybe, just maybe that light at the end of the tunnel is the sun and maybe I can move on with my life.


"At twenty years of age
I'm still looking for a dream
A war's already waged for my destiny
But You've already won the battle
And You've got great plans for me
Though I can't always see

'Cause I got a couple dents in my Fender
Got a couple rips in my jeans
Try to fit the pieces together
But perfection is my enemy
And on my own, I'm so clumsy
But on Your shoulders I can see
I'm free to be me

When I was just a girl
I thought I had it figured out
See my life would turn out right
And I'd make it here somehow
But things don't always come that easy
And sometimes I would doubt, oh

'Cause I got a couple dents in my Fender
Got a couple rips in my jeans
Try to fit the pieces together
But perfection is my enemy
[. From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/f/francesca-battistelli-lyrics/free-to-be-me-lyrics.html .]
And on my own, I'm so clumsy
But on Your shoulders I can see
I'm free to be me and You're free to be You

Sometimes I believe that I can do anything
Yet other times I think
I've got nothing good to bring
But You look at my heart and You tell me
That I've got all You seek, oh
And it's easy to believe even though

'Cause I got a couple dents in my Fender
Got a couple rips in my jeans
Try to fit the pieces together
But perfection is my enemy
And on my own, I'm so clumsy
But on Your shoulders I can see

I got a couple dents in my Fender
Got a couple rips in my jeans
Try to fit the pieces together
But perfection is my enemy
And on my own, I'm so clumsy
But on Your shoulders I can see
I'm free to be me and You're free to be You"
-Free to be Me by Francesca Battistelli

Reflections Before Bed

Wow. So I have been really bad about posting here. I guess I have had a lot going on which explains why I have been lax in my blogging. A lot has happened since I was on here last. For starters, I have finished the semester. I made it! There were times when I was not sure if I would but I completed the year and just in time. I have been slowly and not so slowly slipping since I was discharged from Walden. While the time I spent there probably kept me able to be in school, it did not help me get back on track with recovery. I could say that I had so many external factors going against me this semester and that these were the cause of my relapse but that would not be entirely honest. I don't' think I ever really was able to deal with the issues that helped create my eating disorder. I was able to deal with the behaviors but the thoughts and feelings never went away. In someways it feels like this relapse was a ticking time bomb that was just waiting to explode. My low self-esteem, a major contributor to my eating disorder, was talked about but I never actually changed the way I think and feel about myself. It doesn't matter that people say that I am a good person or that I should feel good about myself, the plain fact is that I do not like myself, I barely tolerate myself. If someone asked me why this is I don't know that I could answer that question. There are many times, in fact most of the time, I cannot stand being in my body. This is a common feeling among those of us who struggle with body image issues and eating disorders so the knowledge that this is an issue for me is nothing new. What I want to know is why I feel this way and the fact that I cannot answer that question is frustrating. So, although I finished the semester, I do not feel that it was an accomplishment or that I should be proud of myself for that. The fact that I was able to remain at school is just something that I know I had to do and there was no option of not finishing. Tonight my dad said to me that I am a judgmental person; I disagreed with him. But if I look at the way I talk to myself and the standers that I hold for myself especially, and for others at times, I'd have to say that I am. So, armed with this knowledge I approach a new chapter in my life. Once again, I am going to residential treatment for my eating disorder, this time as an adult.

My labs and vitals indicate that, currently, I am medically stable. This is good news, though surprising news, for me and my team. While I am medically stable, I am in the worst place I have every been with my eating disorder in terms of weight and thoughts. Being at school granted me the freedom to do whatever I wanted. There was no accountability and so I could get away with anything. Except I wasn't really getting away with it, I was just postponing the inevitable and now I have to face myself and really look at the way I talk to myself, treat myself and view my body. I cannot hide any longer. Although my eating disorder is constantly trying to convince me that I am okay, that I do not need treatment, that I do not want treatment; objectively I know how much I need it. I keep thinking, well no one can force me. My parents don't have that power anymore. But really who am I hurting by refusing treatment when I know I need it. I would only be making life more difficult for myself and everyone who cares about me and loves me. As scared as I am, I need to face the truth: I need help. Admitting that is frightening and difficult. As someone who likes to be in control, who is the caretaker not the caretakee, someone who does not like to be told what to do, I know it will be difficult giving up this control and trusting my treatment team. I also have to realize that I am not in control anymore, I don't know if I ever was. All I have is the illusion of control and a body that will start to shut down, if it hasn't started already. Tomorrow I see my therapist I saw in high school. I know that it is going to be difficult. I am ashamed to return to her worse off than I was when she first and last saw me. I am afraid that I will disappoint her even though I know that that is not the case and the person I have disappointed is myself. I cannot help but feel that I chose to return to my eating disorder, that it is my fault. I do not know what this obsession with placing blame is a result of or why it is so strong, all I know is that it is there. The standards I hold myself to are unrealistic and impossible to achieve so why do I hold myself to them? Why do I clearly set myself up to fail? Again, I do not know but these are questions that I need to explore in therapy so that I can accept myself and start to move on with my life. There is so much more I want to write and say and do but for now I need to get some sleep. In the morning, perhaps I will see with new eyes. Perhaps I will be magically better. I smile and think to myself, 'If only it was that easy.' Although tomorrow is a new day and a fresh start, I know that the weight of today (no pun intended) will be there tomorrow, pulling me down, keeping me locked in a seemingly endless battle of wills with myself.