Cats and other things

I am sitting here on the floor with my cat, petting him and thinking. Petting an animal, or even being in the presence of one, can make a lot of things better. There is nothing quite like the purr of a contented cat. As I observe my kitty his ears got back and his tail starts to twitch indicating that he might not be in the mood to be touched or pet. In this moment I am jealous of him. It may seem weird and stupid to be jealous of a cat but who among us has not been jealous of some animal at some point in our lives? Cats are in tune with their emotions and it shows in their body language. That is something that is soooooo hard for me to actually do, and honestly it's not always safe for me to do. Cats are also really good at being selfish, another thing I often struggle with. I am so concerned with other people, their emotions and emotional well-being, being liked and taking care of others and not hurting people that it sometimes gets in the way of my needs and my recovery. While I recognize this, changing it is so hard. I am slowly learning, or trying to learn, to trust my instincts and intuition because it is often right and to allow myself to have needs and do what is best for myself. It's been a long and hard road to get to this point and I know I have a long way still to go but the point is that I am traveling that road at all, something I would not have done a few years ago. I know that there are certain things that are out of my control and that other people's actions are included in those. As I learn and walk this path to recovery I have gone back over memories and realized that not everything is my fault, despite what some people may say. It is such a relief to know that I was not the source of fights and other people's actions/reactions.

As I grow and learn more about how to take care of myself, I take tiny steps in my recovery and towards being my own person. This is a wonderful and terrifying thing. I don't really know who this person within me is. I know my eating disordered self very well, we have been extremely intimate for years but I don't know this healthy self and this fear is holding my back. I need to find a way to get past it so I can move on and not cling to my eating disorder, something that I have been really struggling with lately. It's hard when there is a constant tirade going in my head saying "i'm fat, ugly, stupid, worthless, unlovable, mean, evil, a bad friend/sister/daughter/student/girlfriend/person/human; i'm evil; i don't deserve recovery, to live, hope, happiness; people would be happier without me around; i'm a burden, a nuisance, a bore, annoying; i don't deserve anything; my life is meaningless; i wish i was dead; i should die; i have nothing worth living for; lose weight, lose weight; just a few pounds; food is evil and i don't need it; who cares if i ever eat again; am i really going to eat that/this; do i really need all this food; life's too much; this is too much food; i'm obese; no one will ever love me....." It's so hard to fight this all the time and keep my head up, to challenge and ignore it, to just function. I know I need to and I have a cheat sheet that I can look at for reframes and challenges but it's so hard to believe. Yes I can challenge and reframe these thoughts but I don't know how often I actually believe them and that is the most important part. I wish this was easier. I wish I had never relapsed. There is so much I wish but wishing will get me nowhere. I have to work hard and push through this. I have to have hope and trust that I will be alright in the end. I have to have trust that my team knows what they are doing and will not make me fat. I have to be open and honest and true to myself, whoever that person is. I have to be willing to change and face my fears. I have to accept that I will have days where I may not be okay or follow my meal plan or engage in other behaviors but that does not mean that I have to do so the next day or the next. I have to be strong and determined. I know that I am a very stubborn person and I can and will use that stubbornness and determination to my advantage. I need to accept that this may not be the last time that I go to treatment but it may also indeed be the last time. I will take it one day at a time because I cannot know the future and worrying and obsessing about it will do me no good. I do not need to worry about the next possible relapse right now but get through this to recovery. I will focus on this moment now and getting through this one rather than obsessing about the next and that way I will get where I am going, find out where I want to go and take the next step to get there.  

I Have a Name And It Is Not ED/Ana

I have a name and it is not ED, Anorexia, or Ana (though I am an Anna, two n's  not one, and not THAT ana). I have a name but I am not always that person. As I am continuing to work on recovery outside of treatment I find that it is much harder. There is no one around to watch me, no one to notice if I do not follow my meal plan, no one to check on me every hour, no one to stop me from exercising. Freedom is wonderful but it also means that I have the freedom to "engage in behaviors." (On a side note, I hat that term but I don't know how else to put it.) This freedom is a big responsibility. It means that I have to take charge of my recovery and that is an exciting but terrifying thing, partly because I don't know how much I really trust myself.

I know that in the past I have been a very good liar, both with myself and with others. If I want to get away with something, I will find a way to do so. However, I don't really want to get away with my eating disordered behavior and I KNOW I will not get away with fully engaging in my eating disorder. So what about just kinda, sorta engaging in it??? No. I know that I cannot do that either because there is no kinda, sorta engaging in it. There is no "just a few pounds," no "I'll just go back to it for a few days until I get where I want to be," no "I can just cut a few things," and no "forgetting" to have something or to follow my meal plan. These things are all signs that I am headed back to the dark place that I have worked so hard the past 5 to 6 weeks to change and overcome. Life now may suck because of my thoughts and moods but it is nothing compared the despair and hopelessness I felt before and the catch-22 I was in, nothing compared with the lose of self I experienced, nothing compared to the pain I was putting my loved ones in. So I keep working on reframing my thoughts, keep telling myself that I want recovery, keep on trying and sitting with the pain and discomfort. Because what else can I do? Yes I could engage but that would be pointless as I said. So I see my team and work on my issues to try to get back to who I really am, my values, my interests and learning and growing as a person. I am hoping that as I grow and learn who I am, things will get easier, slowly easier and maybe one day I will be happy and healthy and confident in my recovery and body.

Treatment Days

I'm sitting in the computer room at treatment on a website I'm not supposed to be on. I don't care. I have missed my blog and the sense of release and the ability to type out my feelings. Yes, I journal while here but for someone who is used to having her laptop whenever she wants it, not being able to blog is a huge adjustment on top of all the other adjustments I am having to make in my life. I wish that I could have my computer but I understand why we are not allowed to do so. Being back in residential treatment has been a difficult adjustment but I have settled in and met some amazing girls here. Yes there are the annoying and frustrating ones, the girls who engage in behaviors and trigger everyone else. There are the girls who do not follow the rules and the contraband smuggled in. However the overall feel here is nice now. Some major drama players have either been transferred or discharged and the place has settled into it's normal routine. While I am able to follow the meal plan and gain the weight they want me to, I am still having so much difficulty accepting the need for this weight gain and the changing body I am experiencing. I grieve for the body I once had, though it was unhealthy and unattractive, according to others. It is so hard to get past these feelings of self-hatred and loathing I have for my body. I know it will be a long process and it will be hard. I just hope that while I continue to work on feeling better about myself and my body I am able to remain on the track that I have begun and not slip back into old ways. 

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. 

Imbolc, Purification and Re-Dedication

To those who do not know, I am pagan and tonight at our pagan/wiccan collective meeting we celebrated one of our sabbaths a day early, Imbolc. It is a time of cleansing, purifying and dedicating oneself. As I have been struggling through the past few (or more than a few) months I have been uncertain of my desire for recovery. I have become so entrenched in ED/Ana that I could not see where I ended and they began. With the reality check of the possibility of needing treatment and the realization that this could not be done while working part time and remaining a full-time student I have had to confront this demon head on. Over the break my doctor and I made plans for when I would come back to school that were delayed due to the fact that during our J-term, a time which has traditionally been a time to take fun classes, non-academic classes and such, our health center was closed. This provided the perfect opportunity for ED/Ana to step into overdrive. And so I found myself at the health center meeting with my doctor who was talking treatment ideas and the possibility of doing IOP. Still reality did not fully hit me until yesterday when I had my first appointment with a nutritionist since the beginning of college almost three years ago. Reality dropped on me last night and after a few panic attacks I was still unsure of how this was going to go. I knew what I had to do, I know what I have to do, but was still uncertain that it could be done. Well tonight the night before Imbolc I am cleaning out my head and dedicating myself to recovery.

"I will give myself the chance, the choice to live. I will give my body a voice, the words to speak its needs and take the time to listen. I will not allow myself to be drawn in to being with another but will make my boundaries known. I will allow myself to need and to satisfy those needs. I will be present in my body without judgment or critique. I will be seen, heard. I will give myself permission to exist, take up space and have a presence."

These are the words I wrote during out ritual and with these words I dedicate myself to recovery. I say good-bye to the demon that has made my life hell, turned me into a liar and taken over so much of my time and energy. I will not allow myself to suffer at its hands anymore. I may slip up. I may have bad days. I will make mistakes but that comes with being human. I will not allow a slip up turn into an excuse to go backwards. I am done starving myself to death. I do not want that life because it isn't a life. I have goals, plans, things I want to do, passions I want to pursue. None of this can be done with ED/Ana in my life. I am ready, I think, to embrace life again. I will start by doing all I can to follow my meal plan. Whatever it takes I need to do because there is too much at stake to allow room for failure. Failure happens only when you give up the fight and I WILL NOT stop fighting. I can't, my life is at stake and there are people who love me and care about me whom I cannot let down. I am a stubborn person, one way or another I will find a way to follow the path of recovery and take my life back.