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.

Making It at Home after Discharge

Well, I did it. I survived life at Klarman and have returned home. It's not the smoothest transition nor the easiest. Being back in the environment I was when I was still sick is hard and I have had a few slips but I am moving forward. Yes it is hard but I have done this before so I know that I can do it and this time I have my boyfriend. Sure he is not living in Vermont anymore but he is my main source of support outside my treatment team and I know I can reach him if I need to and just knowing that he cares helps. While behaviors have changed drastically since I was last home, my mind is still the same prison it has always been. I find myself hating this body more than ever and morning the lose of my eating disordered one. I wish there was a switch I could flick to turn off my brain but sadly there is no such thing. I work and work on reframing my thoughts but I just keep doing the same thing over and over. I wonder if I will ever be "normal," but what is normal anyway?

Looking through my journal from treatment and before I do see the progress I have made and it gives me hope. I did a lot of very hard work in treatment and I know that I need to continue that work if I want to truly recover. Some of my first steps in treatment were to make sure that my scale was removed from the house and other methods of body checking were disposed of. The scale was the hardest thing to get rid of but I felt so much better after doing so. I still have moments of regret associated with relinquishing my hold on a means of monitoring my weight but I know it was the right decision. If I had my scale, I would be quickly back to where I was before treatment. As it is I have to resist the urge to purchase a new one. I feel so torn. Within me I have two sides at war and I am pulled between the two. I can't get my eating disorder to shut up or leave me alone. Since entering my range everything has just gotten so much worse. The notion of "just losing a few pounds" is so strong but I know what it leads to and I don't want to go there. I don't want to throw away all the work that I have put into getting to where I am. I keep trying to stay positive but some days I just want to hide from the world and disappear all together. Fighting that urge is sometime the only thing I can think about. I feel like I am losing energy to keep pushing through and I am hoping that I can get to a better place before I do.

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. 

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.

Drink Me

In Alice in Wonderland she drinks the potion that shrinks her. I was reading Alice in Wonderland last night before bed and thinking about this. What is this obsession with shrinking and growing? Why does everyone want to be so small? Why do I want to be so small? Why do I want to disappear so badly that I am willing to starve myself to do so? I do not understand it. I just want to be happy. ED says that I can be happy if I lose weight I will be happy, but I know he's a liar. I know that he is a liar and yet I listen, why do I listen? Why do I believe him? I don't want to believe him. I don't want to do what he says and yet I do. Life is waiting for me and ED is standing between me and life. So what do I do? Well for starters I put together my team. I get a nutritionist, contact school nutritionist on to-do list; I see a therapist, contacted and seeing; I contact and see my psychiatrist, done; I see my doctor at home, also done; and I see up weigh-ins at school, again on to-do list. Okay so I have my team in place but ED has called for back up. He's go his favorite weapon, the Scale, which I can't seem to give up yet. Then he's got Ms. Perfectionist, Mr. Self-Doubt, Ms. Depression and a whole crew of others. It's a battle between the two teams and what are we fighting over? My life. So that little bottle that says "Drink Me," well I started drinking it. Now I have to ask myself if I am willing to put the bottle down and take a bite of the cake that says "Eat Me" and honestly I do not know which way it will go right now.

I want to do my best. I want to fight. I am trying. I want to live my life and be happy. Life is waiting for me and I and want to live it. I don't want be like this but the anxiety of eating is so bad. I hate how I feel even without eating but when I eat it is even worse. I look at myself in the mirror and hate every inch of my body. I need to learn to stop being so critical but how? I guess I should cover the mirrors in my room but it's so hard because I know how much ED loves the mirror. I want to return to recovery this year. I want to make this year different from last year. Life is going to be different. I am going to be different. I am. I am I am.

Negative Energy and a New Year

"Through the Goddess, we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions." Starhawk

I know that I have just used this quote in my last post but I would really like to take some time to reflect on what this means. In struggling with my eating disorder I am denying myself more than just food and the nutrients that comes with it. I deny myself the energy to get things done, to have fun, to  live my life. I deny my needs and say that they are not important, that they can be set aside as easily as one casts away junk mail. I am denying my very right to exist. In not eating and working my body beyond the point where it can safely maintain itself I am seeking to disappear, to become unseen, unnoticed, invisible. I have to ask myself why, why is it that I allow myself to continue down a path that I know deep down holds only pain, betrayal, anger, frustration and so much more. What is going on within me or in my environment that has fostered the right condition for such self-hatred? Growing up Catholic I was always taught that we are made in the image and likeness of God, with the capital g, and as such are we not god-like ourselves? But no with the sin of two people we were supposedly cast out of paradise and made to live a harsh life. I do not claim to be a theologian but this does not seem like the act of a loving god. The old testament, actually, shows an angry, vengeful god who deals out punishments to his people for disobeying his laws. I think that this punishment is what I really took away from my religious education classes and this is what I experienced at home. As a child I was filled with so much fear that I hid things and did things in secret so as not to be punished for being myself. I do not seek to criticize any religion but for me, I need to work on my relationship with the goddess. I think that I have allowed the daily difficulties of life to get in the way of time spent in reflection. This is not wholly my fault. There has been a lot of negativity this past year and that is what I need to work on first.

Negative self-talk is a major problem. I can never seem to shake the critic in myself. I do not use the same critic when talking or thinking about others so why am I so hard on myself. I do not know the answer but I would like to make a fresh start this year. I am going to try to reduce this negative self-talk. I am going to work on staying positive and not letting myself get bogged down when things get difficult. This past year I had to deal with a lot of shit and I need to work on cleaning up the wreckage that was left in it's wake. Included in working on the negative self-talk, I need to start taking a step back from other people's lives. I love my friends but I seem to make friends with people who have a lot they are dealing with and I have learned that, though some day I may become a therapist, at this moment I am not equipped to handle all of the worries and trials of my friends. I need to learn to set boundaries if others are unable to set healthy boundaries themselves. I need to learn that it is okay to say no and that I need to take care of myself before I can even think about taking care of others. I have known this for a long time but this year I am making it a goal, a priority to carry the knowledge into action.

Boundaries themselves have always been difficult. I never seem to be able to have healthy boundaries with friends. I need to be able to say no, to define what is and is not appropriated in a friendship. So this year I am going to work on boundaries. Already I have been trying to set up strong boundaries with my mother. In the past we have had a lot of issues and I have felt that she is often invading myself, my very being. I have felt crowded by her and have been working to not let her get through my defenses. I have to do this before I can get better along with many other things. This is just the beginning. I know I have a lot of work to do and a lot of reflecting to do. I am going to make a commitment to take time each day to reflect and grow closer to my goddess and to myself.

"What the caterpillar calls the end the of the rest of the world calls a butterfly." Lao Tzu

Looking for Inspiration

“Spirituality leaps where science cannot yet follow, because science must always test and measure, and much of reality and human experience is immeasurable.” Starhawk

“Through the Goddess, we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions.” Starhawk

“As women, however, we need to look very closely at these philosophies and ask ourselves the hard-headed, critial question, "What's in it for me?" "What does this spiritual system do for women?" Of course, the gurus, teachers, and ascended masters will tell us that, even by asking such a question, we are merely continuing in our enslavement to the Lords of Mind; that it is simply another dodge of the ego as it resists dissoulution in the All." Starhawk

I know that my body is not a place to carry out my war on the world or my family. It is not the ground for my struggle with any opposing force. I have been through the therapy and know these things rationally but it is difficult to apply rationality in daily life. As a human I am not just a rational being but an emotional being as well and right now my emotions are just crazy. Life is just crazy and I have really been struggling. I am trying to look for the things and reasons for to get better and stay in recovery. Currently ED is very loud and resistant to leaving me alone. I have seen my doctor twice in two weeks. I see her again in a week. My weight has been stable for the past two weeks. My vitals are beginning to be affected. I know I can't keep going on like this but Can't seem to stop either. 

My doctor describes ED as a chronic disease which it is. I will have to live with this constantly and struggle with it. This knowledge makes me feel so hopeless about the whole thing. I don't want to be constantly battling my eating disorder. I don't want to have the comments constantly running through my head. I don't want to be thinking about calories, exercise, food portions and weight all the time. I spend too much time focused on numbers but I want to be more than just a number. I want to be more than my eating disorder. But at times I forget this or don't believe that it is really what I want. ED gets in my head and tricks me. I have a hard time distinguishing between myself and him. He convinces me that he knows best but I know he is wrong, so why does that not make ignoring him easier? The worst thing is that I know logically that it is bad and wrong but I keep using behaviors that will kill me if I do not stop. I do not know how to deal with this. I love my friends, family and boyfriend and do not want to cause them pain but I cannot explain what it's like to them. They will never understand, ever. They cannot understand unless they have been through it. They don't know how to support me in recovery and I don't know how to get support from them because I don't know how to make things better. 

I have a hard time remembering what it was like before ED. I don't remember that child-like wonder and self-love. It seems to me that I have always hated my body and been filled with self-hatred. I guess the depression started before the eating and the depression reduced my intake then I started losing weight and loved it. Right now I'm not losing weight and I don't like it. I want to be skinny. People tell me I am skinny but I have so much trouble believing them. I wonder what is wrong with me and just become more depressed. The problem right now is I don't know how deep I am in which probably means that I am in too deep and need to get out and will need help to get out. But I don't know if I want that help. I am acting like I do to my treatment team but I am just so filled with doubt. I find myself doubting everything. Yet if I continue I will lose everything. and I don't want that. I just want to be beautiful. That is partly how this started but now I don't know how to finish it but it may finish me. 

I don't want to die but I know that if I don't start getting better I will end up permanently damaging my body. I do not want this to happen, though it may already have happened. I need to work to find the motivation to get better. This seems so wrong that I have to work to eat and find the motivation to eat. Eating should be something that is natural. What happened to the world that this has become such a major problem? How did this happen? Life used to be so simple and now every day is a major struggle. I don't understand how this has gotten so bad. All I know is that ignoring ED seems impossible.

First Day of Classes and Fear

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end." -Seneca

Today was the first day of class. Overall it wasn't bad. I had three academic classes and the introductory class for my T'ai Chi class. Going through today made me realize that I can't take a fifth class. Life is crazy and I can't make life any more complicated than it already is. I need to have time to breathe and relax. I need to learn that it is okay not to do everything. I think that I need to give up one of my clubs. I am doing too much and I know that starting an Active Minds chapter at Mount Holyoke would look really good on my resume but I have to think about my emotional and mental well-being. I am getting chest pain more often now which makes me think that it is probably stress and anxiety. I am going to try to contact my psychiatrist about maybe getting something more for my anxiety. I just really haven't been doing too well lately.

I am really excited about my classes but it is going to be a lot of work. I am taking two 300-level English on the same day which means a lot of reading. I am hoping that I can handle it but I'm really nervous about it. I am terrified of failure and hold myself to high standards. I need to learn that a B+ or B is not the end of the world.  It is okay not to ace every class. Perfection is not a realistic goal. I know this but I still try to hold myself to those standards and when I inevitably fail then I am a horrible, worthless person, or so I tell myself. This year I am going to try to work harder on that. Maybe I will try to purposefully do something imperfectly and work through it, telling myself it is okay. Life will not end if everything is not perfect. My perfectionism keeps me from even beginning something because I am too afraid that I will mess it up so I don't even try. This is not okay with me. I do not want to be holding back on life because of fear. I used to say that I was afraid of nothing. I now see how big of a lie that was. So now I will work on conquering my fear. However the paradox is that fear of failure to conquer my fears makes me not want to try. So I guess step one is to work on my fear of failure and go from there.
"Do the thing you fear the most and the death of the fear is certain." -Mark Twain

Classes, classes, classes

Well it's that time. Classes start tomorrow and I am already planning on overloading myself. I talked with a couple of friends today. One of my friends had overloaded herself and I was talking to her. She almost had a mental breakdown last semester. So I took some advise from her and am dropping my 8 o'clock pilates class. I still have T'ai Chi at 9 but she recommended against back to back gym classes especially early morning ones. I guess that is a good idea since I have issues with over doing exercise and stuff. Plus I promised friends that I would work out with them so I guess I should be careful. I really want to do everything but I know that it is not possible.

I am still having trouble with ED. At least I am eating three meals a day so far but they aren't the biggest meals and I don't want to eat. I haven't been to the gym yet but T'ai Chi is tomorrow, however I think that T'ai Chi will be good for working with ED. It sounds like we will have time for meditation and I think I need more of that in my life. On the plus side I have not done anymore self-harm. I have wanted to but my boyfriend took away my razors for one and I don't want to break a new one. Last time when I burned myself it was more circumstantial. With the power outage, depression, and a burning flame it was just too easy. I am trying not to put myself in positions where it would be easy to hurt myself. I don't need to add that stress to my life.

I am going to make an effort this year to not over do it. I may have to drop a club. I'm not happy about it but three clubs is kind of a lot especially when I have leadership roles in all three. I am going to try to stay away from drama but it seems to follow me wherever I go. However I am not going to let it get me down. Life does not wait. I am going to go out and live it and take every opportunity. That said I have to learn when it's an opportunity that will enrich my life and learn to say no when it may just add stress. Sigh it's so confusing but I will work on my need to be perfect and do everything.