...But Don't Forget The Sarcasm
So, the new roommate is moving out. I guess in hindsight, the writing was on the wall. But I’m still super annoyed because, in my head, things were going well and back to normal.
So I’m super pissed, and I know that any heightened emotion is bad news for me, so I’m trying to regulate. But it’s hard because I take her moving out as an attack on me. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I do.
Ugh. So annoyed.
I had another good talk with J yesterday, though I kept breaking off into tangents.
It’s always good to be honest, and honesty doesn’t usually go hand in hand with an eating disorder. However, we both told eachother we had mixed emotions about living together. As our dietician has told me time and again, it could end up being a great thing, or it could be a sh*t storm.
My weekend was not great. I felt out of control and completely in my eating disorder. I didn’t know how to get out of it. Once the work week started, I went back into “recovery mode,” as structure is good for me.
My therapist called me yesterday afternoon to check in, and I told her I felt better about recovery, but still apprehensive about living with J. This whole situation sucks: her body composition triggers the heck out of me, yet we have so much in common it’s inevitable we will become friends. So except for the whole ED thing (which of course is a big deal), it’s the ideal roommate situation.
Ugh.
So I sent J an email, suggesting maybe we check in once a week with how we’re doing, and what support we might need from each other. She agreed, as long as we have the usual parameters of abstaining from talk about calories, weights, workouts, and foods (well, the food part is hard since we cook together sometimes, but you know what I mean.) So it’s a start. Time will tell, I guess.
Last night, I cut up some old collages I had made in treatment, and fit them into frames. I read a couple of homework assignments that were stuck in my drawing pad. Wow, I have come a long way (baby). I can’t believe it has been a full year since returning to work and leaving intensive treatment.
Treatment was the best thing to happen to me. I was in a desperate place back then, and the only solution was to shell out a good amount of money and go to residential, partial hospital, and intensive outpatient therapy. I am a blessed, blessed, blessed individual to have that kind of money at my disposal (thanks partially to my shellshocked parents) and to have an employer who allowed up to four months of medical leave at full pay.
Residential treatment attacked the purging and (lack of) eating. Though insurance only allowed me to stay ten days, I needed that exact amount of time to prove to myself that I could effectively live a life eating an adequate amount of food without purging. I had never gone that long before. It was hell, but an amazing time of growth.
PHP (Partial Hospital Program) continued to attack the food and purging, while attempting to get at the root of why I had an eating disorder. My relationship with my parents was addressed time and again. I routinely was threatened with being put back in residential because I could not last but a few days without purging. Finally, I got through a weekend without eliminating my food prematurely, and THAT gave me the confidence. It was my breakthrough. I suddenly felt that I could actually recover.
I left my residential and PHP program after a total of two months, and returned home. I attended an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) nearby for 4 hours every weekday and some Saturdays. The rest of the time was devoted to being acclimated with living without an eating disorder. I cooked. I ate. I exercised much less than I wanted to. This rhythm helped me prepare for the impending “real world” which would include work. When I was in program, we worked on my self esteem, prior traumas, and what work would look like. How would I eat? Where would I eat? What would I say if coworkers noticed my weight gain?
Each stage of my treatment was necessary… for me. Some people I know only did one of these types of treatment. Others did only two. Still others found recovery with weekly dietician and therapy appointments.
The key is to be open and honest with oneself. If I’ve learned anything in the recent weeks, it’s that personal recovery is absolutely essential. Living with any speck of an eating disorder is no way to live. Improved energy, physical health, clarity, self esteem, and meaningful relationships are only some of the fruits of recovery, and recovery is only possible with at least some level of treatment.
Yesterday, I ate over 100% of my meal plan.
I did not feel guilty for doing so.
Dinner was hard to eat, but I got through it.
Today, I’m on track for 100% again.
Things are looking up.
Last night, I had a fashion show for the roommates. I have a wedding on Saturday and a bridal shower tonight, and I have the fashion sense of a dead ant (read: none). They showered me with jewelry, shawls, and girly shoes. They told me what I’d look better in. There was much laughter and shouting and whatnot.
When I lived in a (two bedroom) condo (with five other girls… oh, the memories) during my outpatient treatment, we all handled things so well. We cooked together. We shopped together. We ate together. We participated in anything revolving food… together. And we all grew and learned and encouraged and received encouragement.
But, we were patients in a treatment program first, and roommates second. This is not how I want to relate to J. Unlike the girls in the condo, I see a potentially lasting friendship and, er, roommate-ship with her. So talking about food and exchanges and exercise plans and meal plans and therapy nonstop is not ideal.
But, sometimes that’s what I want. There is no one else in my life (besides a few friends from my support group, but neither of them deal with restricting) who lives in the same proximity who GETS it. sometimes I crave the ability to relate.
So, finding a healthy balance for both of us remains to be seen. But the cool thing is, I can feel myself getting into a good rhythm of casually mentioning ED and recovery type things, but above all being myself and just acting like a goofball.
I’m on track to eat 100% today. Actually, more than that, as I ate double for my snack just now. In Jess’ words, “I’m hungreeeeee!”
Mixed reviews have come in regarding the living situation. Therapist still thinks it will work, but will only give me till Halloween to be fully back on track. If I’m still struggling, I need to move out or as J to leave.
The girls in my support group think it’s a horrible idea to live with her (though in my defense, I had NO IDEA she had an ED when A and I asked her to move in. If I’d known, I’d never have wanted her as a roommate), and they think I should move out immediately.
My thoughts? I think it will work. Granted, yesterday sucked in the eating department, but today is a new day. Yes, I think it will be harder with her around, but not impossible. We get along so well already, and I think the prospect of moving out of an otherwise great environment will help motivate me to get back into gear.
What do you think? What safeguards should I have? Or should I call it a wash and move on? Why?
Last week was hell.
Besides being constantly hungry and sick from a plethora of caffeine and next to no food, my mind was playing insane tricks on me.
Living with an anorexic is hard, when one is trying to resist anorexia.
I had emergency sessions with my therapist and dietician. I tried to eat but couldn’t get above 40% of my meal plan. I was going downhill.
Time for reinforcements in the forms of my best friend and boyfriend.
I came up with a goal. If I was not FULLY back on track by Thanksgiving, I would move out. I have no idea where I’d move, but the goal was to provide motivation, and not actually have to relocate.
The prospect of moving has propelled me to eat. 60-ish% on Saturday. 75% yesterday. And I’m aiming for 100% today.
Let’s get this straight. I don’t want to eat. I want to starve. I want to “be thin” (whatever that means). I want to look like her.
But I can’t always get what I want.
Thanks for the encouragement about my sudden unwillingness to eat. I haven’t been so terrified to consume certain foods since before I went into treatment.
I figured that, though I’m not willing to eat much, I *am* willing to reach out to people. Though I want to be thin, I (thankfully) want to recover even more.
I texted and emailed my treatment team. I let my bff and bf know my obsessive thoughts. I see my dietician tomorrow for an emergency appointment (which, of course, is right before my roommate’s appointment. Oh joy.)
I… don’t know what else to write. I’m struggling. I’m drowning. I’m terrified of food.
I’m hungry.
I haven’t done much posting in a while, eh? There really hasn’t been much to report. I have rarely even thought of my ED, and if I struggled, I quickly got myself out of it (“it” usually being unhealthy ED thoughts.)
But life has definitely changed. The boy and I made it official and are “in a relationship” according to Facebook. I’m happy to be dating him. A week after we decided to be all cute and happy and call eachother girlfriend and boyfriend, I told him about my ED, treatment, recovery, all that.
He handled it amazingly. All positive. All encouraging. All supportive. Gah, he’s rad.
So that’s definitely a new change. Having a boyfriend. Also new on the life front is that I started school. Again. See, I never graduated from college. I worked my way up at my job to a position that usually requires a masters degree, and am now finally getting my undergrad done. On my company’s dime. Not bad.
Also new is the roommate, J. A and I have been living with psychoroommatefromhell, and we finally decided to kick her out. We were nice about it, and psychogirl was cool with it because she didn’t like us anyway.
So now we have J. She moved in a week ago.
She’s super sweet, and has a personality similar to A and I, so we knew it would work. But, there could potentially be a problem.
Long story short, J is in the beginning stages of recovery for anorexia. We randomly discovered that we both saw the same dietician, which outed both of us since she only sees clients with eating disorders. She’s also in therapy with an ED specialist.
But, as you and I know, recovery is not easy. She struggles to eat enough, and usually doesn’t hit her caloric goal.
My first thought was that it was awesome she and I were living together. Built in support, when needed. Someone to relate to. But since talking in-depth last night, all I can think about is restricting.
I am fully set on restricting again, and can only assume it’s because J is very thin and I want to look like her. I want to be at my initial recovery weight, not my current weight. I want to go back to my romantic view of my ED, not the reality of the hell I was living in. I want to lose weight, and lose it quickly.
This can’t end well.
I’ve been seeing a different therapist for the past few weeks. My regular therapist is on maternity leave, so she left me in the care of A, one of the therapists from my old IOP treatment center.
I love A. From the minute I met her a year ago, we clicked. She is funny, intelligent, and real. We went to a ropes course one day in treatment, and we were partners. A cried like a baby, she was so afraid of heights. That’s when I knew I liked her – she.is.real.
A is also honest. I have no reason to doubt the validity or truth of anything she says.
So it makes it hard to process what she said to me today.
She said I was thin.
A few months ago, it was not difficult to admit that I was on the slender side. But since gaining a few pounds, the world seemed to have shifted and I can’t imagine that anyone would call me “thin” or, well, anything positive. I feel overweight. I’m not overweight according to any chart, but I feel it.
Because of that, I feel… gross. And unworthy. And a host of other feelings that are rather negative.
I know I need to somehow leave that place of thought. Because there is no way to lose weight in a healthy matter; this is a set point. Because my weight does not equal my worth; aesthetics have nothing on personality, intelligence, or other characteristics.
Because my recovery depends on it; I cannot live a healthy life while hating my looks. Because it will only make me hate myself
As the title of this post suggests, I have not been feeling so hot.
It started a week and a half ago, when I completely lost my appetite. And when I did eat, I was nauseous. At first I just thought it was the heat, but it kept happening.
Turns out, I have ulcers.
I had them last year (along with a slew of other health problems) but they vanished (thank you, drugs) by February. The thing is, I had no symptoms last time. This time around, I hurt. A lot.
My mindset towards ED recovery is positive. It could be a total mindf-ck, as I have been cleared to eat less than usual. But I’m trying to consume as much as my ulcers will allow me. I haven’t purged for a week, which has been the best I’ve been for over a month.
I’m going to win.
