It's been a long time since I've posted, and I feel like a lot has happened over the year or so that I have been absent. A lot of hopeful things and a lot of things that have left me feeling defeated. I want try to refrain from rehashing the last year unless it directly relates to what I am feeling in this moment.
Since February, I have been bouncing from treatment center, to psych ward, to treatment center, and so forth. I initially went into treatment feeling hopeful, feeling like this might be the time, this might be the LAST time I ever have to do this, this will be the time to not just learn, but to acquire the skills needed to maintain recovery. And then boom, three days into treatment I got taken by ambulance to a "Behavioral Health Unit" within a medical hospital. That was a pretty deep low for me, especially because at the time I could not recognize how bad things were. But looking back, even to just a few weeks ago, I apologize in advance for the language but I have been in a pretty fucked up place both behaviorally and emotionally.
Since then, I was forced into treatment, signed myself out against medical advance, was obligated to go into treatment again with the consequence that if I did not go I would lose my outpatient team, and then asked to leave after five weeks because the facility was ill-equipped to address my mental health concerns. And yes, they were concerns.
The most recent stint in treatment, I felt like I was well prepared to come out and "face the world." I knew from past experience that I can do treatment REALLY well, and still struggle at home. I had no doubt that this was a replication of the past. However, the difference this time is that I had received such inspiration from the small community I had become close with, that recovery could be possible. I became self-aware of the areas I needed to work on in my personal life. And most importantly, I had so much to lose. This fall will be my internship, and I can't risk ever having to go back to treatment; that would put my career at jeopardy. Because of what I had at stake, I felt like that would give me the motivation to make recovery work at home.
NEWS FLASH: Motivation isn't everything. I have written about this topic before, so I should know this. I got home and I crashed the first day. I have no doubt if I let this consume me that I will not be able to successfully make it through my internship. And I have no doubt that one small slip will really fuck up my world. But being motivated doesn't stop me from being afraid to eat all 8 starches on my meal plan.
Motivation gave me the ability to make a shopping list that contained all the exchanges I needed to meet my meal plan. Motivation helped me go to the store and put the items I needed in my cart. Motivation inspired me to label all of my foods with the product's exchanges so I would not have to go back to weighing out and measuring food that did not need to be weighed or measured, or obsessively counting calories. But motivation did not rid me of the debilitating fear of meeting my meal plan, or calm me down when I panicked and became frantic after consuming a "normal" dinner; motivation did not halt me from purging.
It's so discouraging to have the tools that seem to help others in their own recovery, to have practiced and succeeded at using them in treatment, and to come home and not be able to access them. It's discouraging to feel confident that I am prepared to do recovery outside of a facility, only to come home and crash and burn. It's discouraging to know that my passion is on the line, and to not have that stop me. It's discouraging that my summer is now going to be me going back into treatment, and that I am once again going to miss out on opportunities with my family and relatives.
It's hard for me to view recovery as sustainable. Right now treatment feels like merely "Crisis Mitigation." That is, I can be in a scary place both in my eating disorder or in my emotional health and go into treatment and be saved, but it will never completely take me to the staircase needed to get out of this hell. Maybe, just maybe, I can reach a happy place in recovery for a few months, but it is inevitable that I will always be susceptible to relapse. And it it inevitable that just the right concoction of triggers and stressors will set me down the spiral again.
Why I do not Participate in Thanksgiving
I have a natural tendency to dramatically explain how much I hate
Thanksgiving. There is a slight lie behind that - I don't hate thanksgiving, I
hate the thoughts and feelings that Thanksgiving stirs up, I hate that I miss
out on so many memories and traditions, I miss the joy and excitement that used
to lead up to Thanksgiving, I miss the late night (we are talking 4am) skipping
through the neighborhood with my cousins, I miss the close relationships I had,
and I grieve Thanksgiving. I don't hate Thanksgiving, I just hate what it
brings up for me.
In addition to the anxiety and fears associated with
Thanksgiving, there is so much guilt behind it. I have not participated in
Thanksgiving since 2008, and that makes me feel like a horrible and a selfish
person. I have shared tidbits here and there about why I don't participate, and
these reasons have definitely transformed over the years. In 2009, I was
terrified of being seen and interrogated on my weight, and then having to
sit at a table and eat (or not eat) in front of people who would obviously be
curious and judging everything on my plate. It's 2016, and my reasons for not participating are
different.
Let me just clarify, I do not hate Thanksgiving, I wish more
than anything that I could find the strength again to even welcome myself into
the house during the holidays. I do not hate my family, I miss the strong
relationships I used to hold with them, and the laughter we shared, and I still
do love my family more deeply than ever. I have changed and transformed into a
different person than I was 8 years ago. I am stronger in many ways, I am self
aware, I am insightful of what I'm thinking, I am open and honest, I am compassionate and loving, and I challenge
myself where I can. Yet in other ways I feel more lost, especially when it
comes to the holidays.
To help you understand, I am going to try to explain some of
the reasons that the thought of even being PRESENT during Thanksgiving makes me
physically sick and terrifies me.
- We will start with the most trivial of them all - Food. We always say eating disorders are not about food or weight, but let's be honest, food is definitely a component of an eating disorder, you can't deny that. If I could choose exactly what I was going to eat (and it had nothing to do with Thanksgiving food), prepare it without anyone in the kitchen surrounding me, and eat it in the privacy of my room, maybe that would ease the anxiety. Being in an environment where EVERYTHING is about food, socializing over preparing meals, the family's "oyster" traditions, talking about food non-stop, the continuous aroma of foods that freak me out. I honestly can not handle that. Several years ago, I would have pinpointed it to not being able to be seen with food, and while I still have some anxiety about eating around others, it is not nearly as debilitating as it used to be. I can eat in front of people, but I can't imagine eating in a chaotic environment surrounded by 40+ people, nor going through a line and having to choose IN THE MOMENT what to put on my plate. Decisions like these are extremely anxiety inducing.
- Another trivial one - Talk and Comments. I think my family has gotten more considerate about what they say around me, but let's be real, you can't completely avoid the diet/food talk. When conversations about weight, calories, diets, and good/bad foods come up, it is overwhelming and triggers so many thoughts. In my mind, everything you are saying is wrong. I want to scream at you and tell you, "There are NO BAD FOODS!" and "Everything is okay in moderation!" Talk likes this makes me want to tear my hair out, so I feel inclined to leave the room. And then there is the fear of comments. The "You look so good," or "I'm so proud of how well you're doing." I completely understand that there is nothing but good intentions behind all of these, but I can not even tell you the whirlwind of irrational thoughts it triggers.
- Associations. I have so many bad associations with Thanksgiving over the past few years, mostly brought on by my own behavior. Memories of locking myself in my room all weekend with the lights out while shoving dressers against the door out of fear that my existence would be noticed. All the Thanksgiving's I have missed out on. All the memories of the thoughts that swarmed through my head during holidays. Those still haunt me, and those same thoughts start to take over.
- Relationships and Engagement. Things have changed, let's be real. I am definitely a happier person than I was X years ago, I have pride in the person I have created myself to be. That does not change the fact that I have broken many of those relationships, and they will never be what they were before. I have no doubt that my immediate and extended family still loves me, and I still love them, but the free-spirit and energy in our relationships has shifted. And there is so much sadness and loss that I feel surrounding these relationships, because seeing my cousins over Thanksgiving in the past was the highlight of my year. This could be my perception, but I feel like there is a lot of walking on eggshells. "What can we say to Sarah?" "How is Sarah doing?" "She looks good, is she going to sit down with us for Thanksgiving this year?" There are a lot of questions unasked and unanswered.
- Regression. It's hard to explain, but whenever I am surrounded by people who knew me or had experienced me at my worst times, I naturally begin to regress to that memory they had of me. It's like a natural instinct to conform to their expectations (which is silly, because I sm not who I was then, and they probably don't even have any expectations of me). My past experiences take over, and begin to define me. I feel the need to sneak around after everyone is in bed so I can pour that cup of coffee, or hide away some food to get me through the next day. I again can't be seen, especially in the kitchen or the presence of food. It's weird, because I can be with several extended family members, and I'm okay. But the holidays bring it all back again.
I know all of these reasons mentioned above seem minimal and silly, but I
can't even explain the anxiety that consumes by body even beginning to think
about Thanksgiving. In addition to the above, there's the guilt of not being
able to participate, and this fear that feels so real that I will never again
be able to participate in Thanksgiving because I can't create the strength in
myself to push through my fears and anxieties. It honestly seems impossible to
me.
I'm not looking for encouragement or "You can do
it!"s, I honestly just want to be heard, and maybe provide some understanding
that I'm not as selfish as I may seem. I want people to know that I don't hate
Thanksgiving, even thought I say I do on a daily basis. And most of all, I want
people who I love and care about to understand that my inability to participate
in Thanksgiving has NOTHING to do with lack of desire or not loving my family.
Identity
I realize it's been a while since I have last posted. I honestly don't know who even reads this anymore, or if this post will even be read. I have thought about posting over the past several months, and nothing has really stood out to me. Are things going well? Are things going poor? But why do I even want to share that publicly?
It's recently become more clear to me that I have found my identity less and less in my eating disorder. Yes, I still struggle with the whole identity piece because many of my closest friends are people I have met through treatment, and a lot of people I currently know do know about my history. It is definitely something that's always a "fall back" in my mind. I struggle with an eating disorder, I always will struggle with it (I know that's debatable, but I personally believe this is something that I will struggle with for the rest of my life). If I'm lost and feel hopeless in life, my eating disorder is who I am.
But over the past year, while there have definitely been times where I have been deeply immersed in my eating disorder, I have slowly been able to distance myself from that identity. I have ambitions in life, I am passionate about a career in helping hospitalized children, I have a very planned out timeline of where I want to be a year from now. While my ED still lingers in the background and is still a struggle, it's not something I feel that I need (or even want) people to know about me.
During my volunteering at Children's National Medical Center, and during my application process for practicums, my ED was something I definitely tried to keep on the down low. I used to be very open about my struggle and my recovery, and while it's not necessarily a "secret," it's not something I choose to share unless the conversation leads in the direction of me appropriately sharing. And even then, I share it as a "past struggle," and try not to focus on current presence of it.
Today I had a conversation with another student at my practicum, and the conversation came up about how I really struggle being home around Thanksgiving. Without going into every single detail of the conversation, at first I had no intention of sharing why. I did not want that to be how I was viewed, or something that triggered a red flag. But eventually it just felt natural to share that I previously struggled with it. The conversation wasn't long, but it was somewhat relieving to have a brief conversation with someone who had a close friend who also struggled with this, and wasn't ignorant to the impact it has on someone.
All this being said (I know I tend to get wordy with my posts and go on tangents), lately it's become very evident that I do not want to be known for my eating disorder. Yes, my eating disorder, my struggle, and my accomplishments through it is a HUGE part of who I am today. Sometimes it's hard for me to accept simple comments such as how I seem natural talking with people without them knowing that 3 years ago I couldn't even acknowledge or make eye contact with my own immediate family - because there was a lot of work that was put into my current [amazing] relationships that I now have with them.
I'm learning to accept who I am now as I am. Yes, I had to create who I am now. Yes, I still struggle with self worth and confidence. Yes, I still have flaws. Yes, it took me a long time to get to the point of where I am now. But I do not need validation from others to recognize all the hard work I put into who I am now. Clinging to the ED identity, or even the "recovery" identity is an easy identity to fall back on. But I'm realizing there's so much more than me than that. That is a simple part of my story. Every one of us has a story as to what made us who we are now. We all fought different battles. We all still struggle with different demons. We are all a work in progress.
Living in the moment and accepting who I am now, and accepting my strengths in getting to where I am now, that's what makes me feel fulfilled. I have a long way to go, and I think we are always going to be growing through fighting our trials. But trying to hold on to an identity that kept me miserable and kept my world very narrow limits my ability to thrive.
So to put it short. I am NOT my eating disorder. I am not just someone who is struggling to overcome her demons. I am just like anyone else. I have struggles that will always be there, but I am also strong in many other ways. There's no harm in recognizing where I need to improve, but I have found that letting go of labels and identities is what truly lets me be human and live my life fully.
It's recently become more clear to me that I have found my identity less and less in my eating disorder. Yes, I still struggle with the whole identity piece because many of my closest friends are people I have met through treatment, and a lot of people I currently know do know about my history. It is definitely something that's always a "fall back" in my mind. I struggle with an eating disorder, I always will struggle with it (I know that's debatable, but I personally believe this is something that I will struggle with for the rest of my life). If I'm lost and feel hopeless in life, my eating disorder is who I am.
But over the past year, while there have definitely been times where I have been deeply immersed in my eating disorder, I have slowly been able to distance myself from that identity. I have ambitions in life, I am passionate about a career in helping hospitalized children, I have a very planned out timeline of where I want to be a year from now. While my ED still lingers in the background and is still a struggle, it's not something I feel that I need (or even want) people to know about me.
During my volunteering at Children's National Medical Center, and during my application process for practicums, my ED was something I definitely tried to keep on the down low. I used to be very open about my struggle and my recovery, and while it's not necessarily a "secret," it's not something I choose to share unless the conversation leads in the direction of me appropriately sharing. And even then, I share it as a "past struggle," and try not to focus on current presence of it.
Today I had a conversation with another student at my practicum, and the conversation came up about how I really struggle being home around Thanksgiving. Without going into every single detail of the conversation, at first I had no intention of sharing why. I did not want that to be how I was viewed, or something that triggered a red flag. But eventually it just felt natural to share that I previously struggled with it. The conversation wasn't long, but it was somewhat relieving to have a brief conversation with someone who had a close friend who also struggled with this, and wasn't ignorant to the impact it has on someone.
All this being said (I know I tend to get wordy with my posts and go on tangents), lately it's become very evident that I do not want to be known for my eating disorder. Yes, my eating disorder, my struggle, and my accomplishments through it is a HUGE part of who I am today. Sometimes it's hard for me to accept simple comments such as how I seem natural talking with people without them knowing that 3 years ago I couldn't even acknowledge or make eye contact with my own immediate family - because there was a lot of work that was put into my current [amazing] relationships that I now have with them.
I'm learning to accept who I am now as I am. Yes, I had to create who I am now. Yes, I still struggle with self worth and confidence. Yes, I still have flaws. Yes, it took me a long time to get to the point of where I am now. But I do not need validation from others to recognize all the hard work I put into who I am now. Clinging to the ED identity, or even the "recovery" identity is an easy identity to fall back on. But I'm realizing there's so much more than me than that. That is a simple part of my story. Every one of us has a story as to what made us who we are now. We all fought different battles. We all still struggle with different demons. We are all a work in progress.
Living in the moment and accepting who I am now, and accepting my strengths in getting to where I am now, that's what makes me feel fulfilled. I have a long way to go, and I think we are always going to be growing through fighting our trials. But trying to hold on to an identity that kept me miserable and kept my world very narrow limits my ability to thrive.
So to put it short. I am NOT my eating disorder. I am not just someone who is struggling to overcome her demons. I am just like anyone else. I have struggles that will always be there, but I am also strong in many other ways. There's no harm in recognizing where I need to improve, but I have found that letting go of labels and identities is what truly lets me be human and live my life fully.
Overdue update
It has been over three months since I've posted, and I feel like after my most recent less than thrilling post on life, anyone who actually reads this thing deserves a little bit of an update. I'm going to try my best to keep this brief, but we all know how I am with that... so we shall see how that goes.
I am honestly doing so much better than I was a few months ago. January (and all of winter break to be honest) was pretty awful in many aspects, that post wasn't an exaggeration. Although I will admit that when things are bad, my mind tends to be completely oblivious to any thing that could possibly be positive in life. I don't know exactly what happened, and it doesn't really matter anyways, but I somehow turned things around. I guess lack of structure is pretty debilitating for me, so going back to school added the structure that I needed. It also gave me some motivation to break out of the self-destructive cycle I was in, as I do desire to successfully complete school and work towards a career that I am passionate about. And while I used to be able to be productive and manage daily tasks while I was actively engaging in my ED, my brain just can't deal with that anymore and even remembering what I was thinking two seconds ago is impossible when I'm not nourishing myself properly. Basically long story short, somewhere towards the beginning of February I managed to dig myself out of a hole that I had been digging.
That's not to say that things have not been difficult. I think I went through a bit of a honeymoon phase during most of February, where yes, doing the whole recovery thing was hard, but it was also somewhat rewarding because I wasn't constantly isolating myself from everyone and ruminating on how much I'd rather be dead, and I could enjoy things that "normal" people take for granted. That's since worn off and I've been hit with the reality of how much recovery actually sucks (while not ignoring the fact that life really IS better when I'm meeting my body's needs). But I'm not going to beat around the bush, living in my body feels like a nightmare, and I'm constantly second guessing everything I consume ("do I actually NEED to eat this carb for dinner? I had oatmeal for breakfast...."). And making good decisions for myself is difficult, because there's no one telling me I have to do it (I'm no longer seeing a dietitian, and I only see my therapist and physician once a month). In the back of my mind, I'm constantly debating whether all this is worth it, because in the moment it never seems like it is. I have to keep looking forward and realizing that maybe life has the potential to be fulfilling if I keep trying to fight this battle. I'll never really know if I give up.
In writing all of this, I feel like I'm oversimplifying what's going on in my mind. There's a lot I'm not sharing because a lot of my "ED thoughts" are pretty disturbing and I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I think a lot of the things I do. But in short, none of this has been easy, every day I battle with the "need" to restrict. I have bad days, and very bad days, but I also have a lot of good days.
As a quick update on life - I recently applied to multiple Child Life Practicums at hospitals in Maryland. I had no idea how competitive it was, until I got turned down (without even an interview) by all but one location (which I'm still waiting to hear back from). According to one of the Child Life Specialists at the hospital I volunteer at, one of the places I applied received over 40 applicants and only selected one. It's pretty discouraging being turned down repeatedly when I know this is what I want to do. The only thing I can really do is continue to build up my experience, revise my application answers and resume, and reapply for the fall (to more places this time). I feel kind of bad asking my references again for letters of recommendation and to re-fill out forms.
Right now I'm incredibly busy with things. Which in some sense is good, because it keeps my time pretty structured and I have little room to dwell on negative things in life. I'm taking two classes at UMD with an anticipated graduation date of May 18, 2016. I also just recently started an online Child Life program and am taking a class online, which has kept me pretty busy. In addition to education, I'm working again at State Farm four days a week, and am also continuing to volunteer at the Children's hospital. I do enjoy everything I've been engaging in, even though I'm constantly tired and my only down time is when I'm driving from place to place. But it keeps my days structured, and structure is what I thrive off of.
So that's basically my life right now. Much more than I had planned on writing (called it), but I guess that's what happens when you ignore your blog for 3ish months.
-Sarah :)
I am honestly doing so much better than I was a few months ago. January (and all of winter break to be honest) was pretty awful in many aspects, that post wasn't an exaggeration. Although I will admit that when things are bad, my mind tends to be completely oblivious to any thing that could possibly be positive in life. I don't know exactly what happened, and it doesn't really matter anyways, but I somehow turned things around. I guess lack of structure is pretty debilitating for me, so going back to school added the structure that I needed. It also gave me some motivation to break out of the self-destructive cycle I was in, as I do desire to successfully complete school and work towards a career that I am passionate about. And while I used to be able to be productive and manage daily tasks while I was actively engaging in my ED, my brain just can't deal with that anymore and even remembering what I was thinking two seconds ago is impossible when I'm not nourishing myself properly. Basically long story short, somewhere towards the beginning of February I managed to dig myself out of a hole that I had been digging.
That's not to say that things have not been difficult. I think I went through a bit of a honeymoon phase during most of February, where yes, doing the whole recovery thing was hard, but it was also somewhat rewarding because I wasn't constantly isolating myself from everyone and ruminating on how much I'd rather be dead, and I could enjoy things that "normal" people take for granted. That's since worn off and I've been hit with the reality of how much recovery actually sucks (while not ignoring the fact that life really IS better when I'm meeting my body's needs). But I'm not going to beat around the bush, living in my body feels like a nightmare, and I'm constantly second guessing everything I consume ("do I actually NEED to eat this carb for dinner? I had oatmeal for breakfast...."). And making good decisions for myself is difficult, because there's no one telling me I have to do it (I'm no longer seeing a dietitian, and I only see my therapist and physician once a month). In the back of my mind, I'm constantly debating whether all this is worth it, because in the moment it never seems like it is. I have to keep looking forward and realizing that maybe life has the potential to be fulfilling if I keep trying to fight this battle. I'll never really know if I give up.
In writing all of this, I feel like I'm oversimplifying what's going on in my mind. There's a lot I'm not sharing because a lot of my "ED thoughts" are pretty disturbing and I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I think a lot of the things I do. But in short, none of this has been easy, every day I battle with the "need" to restrict. I have bad days, and very bad days, but I also have a lot of good days.
As a quick update on life - I recently applied to multiple Child Life Practicums at hospitals in Maryland. I had no idea how competitive it was, until I got turned down (without even an interview) by all but one location (which I'm still waiting to hear back from). According to one of the Child Life Specialists at the hospital I volunteer at, one of the places I applied received over 40 applicants and only selected one. It's pretty discouraging being turned down repeatedly when I know this is what I want to do. The only thing I can really do is continue to build up my experience, revise my application answers and resume, and reapply for the fall (to more places this time). I feel kind of bad asking my references again for letters of recommendation and to re-fill out forms.
Right now I'm incredibly busy with things. Which in some sense is good, because it keeps my time pretty structured and I have little room to dwell on negative things in life. I'm taking two classes at UMD with an anticipated graduation date of May 18, 2016. I also just recently started an online Child Life program and am taking a class online, which has kept me pretty busy. In addition to education, I'm working again at State Farm four days a week, and am also continuing to volunteer at the Children's hospital. I do enjoy everything I've been engaging in, even though I'm constantly tired and my only down time is when I'm driving from place to place. But it keeps my days structured, and structure is what I thrive off of.
So that's basically my life right now. Much more than I had planned on writing (called it), but I guess that's what happens when you ignore your blog for 3ish months.
-Sarah :)
Stuck in my cycle
I really do not know what to even say, or where to begin. Other than that things have gone downhill real fast over the past two weeks. Forgive for being vulgar, I just have a lot on my mind that I have a hard time articulating without using unnecessary profanity. But basically, I feel so fucking out of control right now.
I do not know what to do with myself. I have been ambivalent about recovery for basically the entire time I have been "in-recovery" (whatever the fuck that means). Kind of one foot in, one foot out. The idea that "I can always go back" circling through my mind. There have been phases (such as right out of treatment) where I have been on a "recovery high," things are well, I feel joy, I want to get better, I feel like I have a life, etc. But then that high wears off, and my hope or desire towards recovery dips. It is like a spectrum, I am constantly climbing up and down it. I am doing well, I have hope, my desire spikes, or I am doing well but reality hits me and I start freaking out because life is different without my eating disorder (not necessarily a bad thing, but a terrifying thing), or I am struggling and I lose hope entirely and give up. The last couple of months I have been on the lower end of the spectrum, but still hanging in there by a few threads.
I do not know what happened. The holidays came (lots of "scary" or "triggering" foods, stress of being surrounded by people and having to make an attempt at being social), not having school as a motivator to keep pushing forward, not having structure and isolating more which feeds into my depression, going off my meds, grad school application deadlines and literally having NO motivation to do anything but sleep all day, feeling hopeless about getting into grad school because I literally can not get myself to move forward in that direction, hopelessness about the future in general, feeling inadequate because I am almost 26 and still dependent on my parents and still not having my shit together... basically all these things, if not more, just triggered me to fall back into using my eating disorder behaviors.
I had been struggling already with mostly heavily restricting my intake, but then the holidays and holiday food came into the picture and that pretty much triggered a monster in me. I went into the holidays pretty confident that I was going to be okay, I always do (I don't know why I don't just learn from history repeating itself, but even if I did I'm not sure how that would prepare me). Usually when talking about my behaviors I talk about restriction as the main behavior I struggle with, but I go through patterns where I will start purging, which triggers me to restrict my intake of pretty much everything (because I hate purging, everything about it), which leads to binging and purging. I literally have not gone a day without binging and purging multiple times a day in 10 days. It makes me feel gross to admit that, because it is atypical of my disorder, but it happens and can last a few weeks to a few months. When I get into the cycle I can not get myself to stop. All I can think about is fucking shoveling every thing I can into my mouth and getting rid of it. Every day I promise myself I will not eat "trigger foods" (because there are some things I pretty much can not eat without knowing I will end up purging it), that I will stick to my safe foods, maybe I will even eat enough if that means not binging and purging. But then the intense desire to consume and consume and consume kicks in. I don't even taste the food anymore (I do in the beginning). It kind of comes as a package, eating everything and then getting rid of it. I hate every single part of it, but I can not stop.
Sorry if that was too much information. I feel really ashamed of binging and purging, but I am not going to sit here and pretend that I just restrict my food because that would be a freaking lie. The only way I know how to get out of this cycle is simply to not eat. Fill up on coffee, diet sodas, zero calorie energy drinks. Eat less than 500 calories a day. Only eat specific items which are precisely weighed out. Take an hour to pick apart a fucking clif bar, which I may or may not purge. Binging and purging literally scares any desire to eat out of me. This is how things got out of hand the first time my family recognize there was a problem, binged and purged for months until I was so scared of eating that I literally starved myself until I ended up on bed rest in a treatment center.
All of this is making me feel so out of control and hopeless, and making me lack motivation to recover completely. I do not have a desire anymore to keep trying and setting myself up for failure. Why try when I can only get so far before I fail? I feel like I can not live a life without my eating disorder. I know what kind of life (or lack thereof) my eating disorder brings me, and it is terrible in ways that I do not even know how to describe. It is dark, lonely, depressing, scary, but also filled with emptiness. It completely ruins my relationships with everyone. But I keep getting pulled back to that. It is so much easier to live like this, and I do not know why. I always see the quote floating around, "recovery isn't as hard as living a lifetime with an eating disorder." I call bullshit. Recovery is actually the hardest thing I have ever attempted. Every fucking day I have to re-make up my mind that I want to recover, and even then there is the challenge of actually being able to do it. WANTING to recover is a challenge in itself.
I made a pretty bold move and decided to stop seeing my dietitian. I just do not feel like there is any point to seeing her when I do not even know if I want to recover anymore or if I am even capable of it. I feel like I am throwing money away. I do not think a dietitian can be helpful unless I am motivated, and right now I am not. Plus, I am pretty sure I irritate the crap out of her because she is constantly giving me recommendations and I do not follow through with them. Or I will hit my calorie goal for a few days, and then completely fuck it up. I have not quit the rest of my team yet, but I feel like it is really pointless to see them right now when I just do not have any desire to get better anymore. Who knows, maybe they will spark something in me and help me pull myself out of the current cycle I am in.
I do not know what to do with myself. I have been ambivalent about recovery for basically the entire time I have been "in-recovery" (whatever the fuck that means). Kind of one foot in, one foot out. The idea that "I can always go back" circling through my mind. There have been phases (such as right out of treatment) where I have been on a "recovery high," things are well, I feel joy, I want to get better, I feel like I have a life, etc. But then that high wears off, and my hope or desire towards recovery dips. It is like a spectrum, I am constantly climbing up and down it. I am doing well, I have hope, my desire spikes, or I am doing well but reality hits me and I start freaking out because life is different without my eating disorder (not necessarily a bad thing, but a terrifying thing), or I am struggling and I lose hope entirely and give up. The last couple of months I have been on the lower end of the spectrum, but still hanging in there by a few threads.
I do not know what happened. The holidays came (lots of "scary" or "triggering" foods, stress of being surrounded by people and having to make an attempt at being social), not having school as a motivator to keep pushing forward, not having structure and isolating more which feeds into my depression, going off my meds, grad school application deadlines and literally having NO motivation to do anything but sleep all day, feeling hopeless about getting into grad school because I literally can not get myself to move forward in that direction, hopelessness about the future in general, feeling inadequate because I am almost 26 and still dependent on my parents and still not having my shit together... basically all these things, if not more, just triggered me to fall back into using my eating disorder behaviors.
I had been struggling already with mostly heavily restricting my intake, but then the holidays and holiday food came into the picture and that pretty much triggered a monster in me. I went into the holidays pretty confident that I was going to be okay, I always do (I don't know why I don't just learn from history repeating itself, but even if I did I'm not sure how that would prepare me). Usually when talking about my behaviors I talk about restriction as the main behavior I struggle with, but I go through patterns where I will start purging, which triggers me to restrict my intake of pretty much everything (because I hate purging, everything about it), which leads to binging and purging. I literally have not gone a day without binging and purging multiple times a day in 10 days. It makes me feel gross to admit that, because it is atypical of my disorder, but it happens and can last a few weeks to a few months. When I get into the cycle I can not get myself to stop. All I can think about is fucking shoveling every thing I can into my mouth and getting rid of it. Every day I promise myself I will not eat "trigger foods" (because there are some things I pretty much can not eat without knowing I will end up purging it), that I will stick to my safe foods, maybe I will even eat enough if that means not binging and purging. But then the intense desire to consume and consume and consume kicks in. I don't even taste the food anymore (I do in the beginning). It kind of comes as a package, eating everything and then getting rid of it. I hate every single part of it, but I can not stop.
Sorry if that was too much information. I feel really ashamed of binging and purging, but I am not going to sit here and pretend that I just restrict my food because that would be a freaking lie. The only way I know how to get out of this cycle is simply to not eat. Fill up on coffee, diet sodas, zero calorie energy drinks. Eat less than 500 calories a day. Only eat specific items which are precisely weighed out. Take an hour to pick apart a fucking clif bar, which I may or may not purge. Binging and purging literally scares any desire to eat out of me. This is how things got out of hand the first time my family recognize there was a problem, binged and purged for months until I was so scared of eating that I literally starved myself until I ended up on bed rest in a treatment center.
All of this is making me feel so out of control and hopeless, and making me lack motivation to recover completely. I do not have a desire anymore to keep trying and setting myself up for failure. Why try when I can only get so far before I fail? I feel like I can not live a life without my eating disorder. I know what kind of life (or lack thereof) my eating disorder brings me, and it is terrible in ways that I do not even know how to describe. It is dark, lonely, depressing, scary, but also filled with emptiness. It completely ruins my relationships with everyone. But I keep getting pulled back to that. It is so much easier to live like this, and I do not know why. I always see the quote floating around, "recovery isn't as hard as living a lifetime with an eating disorder." I call bullshit. Recovery is actually the hardest thing I have ever attempted. Every fucking day I have to re-make up my mind that I want to recover, and even then there is the challenge of actually being able to do it. WANTING to recover is a challenge in itself.
I made a pretty bold move and decided to stop seeing my dietitian. I just do not feel like there is any point to seeing her when I do not even know if I want to recover anymore or if I am even capable of it. I feel like I am throwing money away. I do not think a dietitian can be helpful unless I am motivated, and right now I am not. Plus, I am pretty sure I irritate the crap out of her because she is constantly giving me recommendations and I do not follow through with them. Or I will hit my calorie goal for a few days, and then completely fuck it up. I have not quit the rest of my team yet, but I feel like it is really pointless to see them right now when I just do not have any desire to get better anymore. Who knows, maybe they will spark something in me and help me pull myself out of the current cycle I am in.
Painful Memories
You. You hurt me and killed a part of me that I will never get back. Yes, you. You, who are not reading this, and probably never will. You, who have no part in my life, yet I still crave you. You, who don't give two shits about me, yet I still care so deeply about how much you hurt me and how much pain you caused me. You, who probably do not care about how deeply you affected me.
Jesse died 9 years ago today. This is probably the hardest thing I'll ever post on here, but I'm so angry. And hurt. And I am so freaking selfish for writing this, and I have so much hate towards myself that I am this angry and selfish. Because I am not angry that Jesse died. I mean, I am. But I am more sad than angry, and I have accepted that. I feel like such a horrid person because I am just so terribly selfish for feeling how I feel.
Part of me does not know why I am posting this publically, because it is a pain that is so deeply ingrained in my heart that I do not want others to see, and I do not want others to see through me, how selfish and awful of a person I am. But part of me is posting this for closure, because that is something that I have struggled with, is wanting closure on this. I do not know if it is bad to want and to seek closure, especially when done so selfishly.
I have typed this out multiple times, editing and re-editing it, to make sure my words portray what I am trying to share. But I do not know that I can accurately explain how deeply painful the experience (accident, and months following) were to me, without sounding selfish and childish. Like I should "grow up" or "get over it." But it is not that simple. A quote that comes to mind as a type this is, "When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don't get to decide that you didn't". -Louie, Cop Story. Because I feel like the people who hurt me, if they read this, will feel defensive, like they did not do anything wrong. And maybe it was not intentional, I have accepted that, but that does not change the pain that it caused me. Whether it was intentional or not, I was still wounded, and that still chains me down.
But I am angry at the people in my life that should have been there. I am angry at my siblings for getting more attention than me. I am angry at my "friends" who I thought I had, who were not there for me. My church was supportive of my family, but I felt neglected in every way as an individual.
Sometimes I wonder if my memory is selective, like I am missing pieces to the story. But this is what I remember and what is still instilled in my mind. When we were welcomed at the hospital, everyone surrounded my siblings, making sure they were okay. Josh, and Andrew, and Jacob, because they were seriously injured. The little ones, because they were adored by the church. My parents, because they lost their child. But me, only one friend and her mom approached me to make sure I was okay. I stood by the side and observed everyone else getting welcomed home, and being hugged, and being asked if they were okay. While I was not okay, but I pretended like I was.
Jesse's viewing just kills me. I can not wrap my mind around it. It was awful. The same friend and her mom who approached me at the airport also talked to me at the funeral, but that is it. I do not remember any of MY "friends" showing up, people who I thought cared, other than the one friend and her mother. I sat on the couch at Jesse's viewing, giving back massages to my cousins, while everyone gathered around my parents, my siblings in wheelchairs, and my younger siblings. Even the people who I thought I had some connection to, not quite friends, but acquaintances, did not approach me.
That was all so painful for me, and still is. I was 16. I was hurting because I lost my brother. I was hurting because I just gone through a traumatic situation. One that that so many people dismiss as "just an accident" but still haunts me to this day.
I can not even put into words how terrifying and traumatizing it is to wake up in the pitch black woods, not knowing if you are dead or alive, and turning to your right to see what appears to be a lifeless body lying next to you. Hearing your dad scream "where are my children?" Being kissed on the forehead by my dad as blood streamed down his face. Paramedics counting off my siblings, trying to find everyone, but not Jesse. Hearing "where is Jesse? We can't find Jesse," over and over again. My brother screaming out profanities as he could barely breathe with his collapsed lung. Lying in pain, unable to move, yet trying to lay a hand on Josh, who I was not close to at the time, as a way to try to comfort him. Lying in the ambulance next Jacob, and hearing the paramedics panic at the rate of blood he was losing. Lying in the hospital bed, alone, for what felt like hours, wondering where my family was. Were they okay? Was Joshua alive? Was Jesse alive? All these questions running through my mind. I hardly noticed the pain I was in, because there was so much going on, my body could not respond to it.
I was hurting because I did not have the friends I thought I had. I am still hurting today. Today, I feel worthless, unlovable, selfish, excruciatingly lonely, like a terrible person. I am mad at everyone. I am mad at myself for being angry at people I love. I love my family, but I am angry at them because they got more attention than me. I am angry that I am so selfish, that this is what hurts me so much.
When my parents get flowers in the mail on the anniversary of Jesse's death, I want to feel grateful, but I am not. I feel selfish. Because I think, "what about me?" "Do you not know everything I lost through this? My brother, my friends, my value as a person, my hope for myself?"
I know people are going to judge me for posting this. I know people are going to know how selfish I am. Or that I am weak, or needy. Attention seeking. Whatever. Yes, I am sad that Jesse died, and question all the time why he had to die. But all my pain from the accident is from so much more than just Jesse dying.
Physical vs. Mental Illness
Photo Source: BuzzFeed Health https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedHealth/
Like seriously. There is so much STIGMA behind mental illness, and people don't take it seriously. When the symptoms of mental illness are actually also PHYSICAL, debilitating, and real. Oh yeah, and life threatening.
Also, THIS. With an endless amount of other emotions.
Like seriously. There is so much STIGMA behind mental illness, and people don't take it seriously. When the symptoms of mental illness are actually also PHYSICAL, debilitating, and real. Oh yeah, and life threatening.
Also, THIS. With an endless amount of other emotions.
