Can you hear me??

I’m honestly sick and tired of feeling unheard. Can you please just stop and listen, hear what I am saying? Can you just STOP and LISTEN?

Lately I have been feeling ignored or unheard. I’ve been trying to say no, or set specific boundaries with my treatment team. And I just feel like no one is listening to what I am actually saying. Sometimes, I simply don’t want to be weighed. Sometimes, I just want to share that I had a slip, without writing out a chain about why it happened and what I could do differently. It just happened. Okay? All I wanted was to be honest, be heard, and move on. But lately all I feel like is a patient, or test subject, or even like I don’t have a voice anymore and I am getting so upset about it I keep crying.

Seriously — I’m human and I am in recovery from a damn eating disorder. That includes slips. Sometimes, I don’t want to break every single piece of that behavior down. I just wanted to not feel alone in the fact that I messed up. Just listen.

To be honest, I’m not reluctant to even share anything related to my eating disorder because it feels like it always backfires. Do this, do that, how do you feel? Well — I feel like shit to be honest. Even writing this I feel like I am not going to be able to stop crying. I feel like I’m going to cry and cry, and I’m getting so angry and frustrated that I need to scream. And if I scream, it’ll come out silent.

In the rabbit hole

Today I feel like Alice in the rabbit hole, spiraling down into the dark of the unknown. Like the well-known classic, Alice is faced with many options that impact whether she grows, or shrinks and comes across many characters who are mad or insane. With trippy aspects of that creepy cat and then the evil Queen of Hearts there is a similar story to be told in my life.

I am at a place where one year later, almost, I reflect on the past year. In mid-July, it will have been a year that I stepped on that plane to travel across the country. I didn’t know what to do, where I was going and how I’d manage. The rabbit hole.

This past year I have learned what it is like to feel things, how to manage emotions. I’m not there yet.. I still get hit with an overwhelming feeling I have yet to experience or address. But for the majority I’m feeling things and managing and it’s scary. But it’s progress.

I stopped purging, for the majority. With the occasional few slips the past year, I can honestly say that in a year, I have not purged more than 10 times. Holy shit! I was so sick last year that I was purging day in, day out. All hours of the night, I was in that endless cycle. Today I get angry – I get mad that I can’t have the same effects purging gave me when I am abstinent.

It pisses me off that I hate my weight right now and that I’m still not even close to my target. But I choose not to purge. Today, I am constantly battling, to grow or shrink. What will I eat, I can’t eat that, I won’t eat that, I must eat that, insert that self-loathing guilt.
So now I am lost in wonderland trying to figure out this piece of my recovery.

Exposed: My Story (Update)

Eating. Drinking. Smoking. Snorting. Weighing. Hurting. Burning. Cutting. Starving.
Purging. Praying. Stripping. Weighing. Binging. Dying.

These are words are verbs, actions. These words are not who I am, but things I have done. These things don’t make up a person or even describe a person. They are things that people DO. Why? (Read more…)

This angry girl is driving me mad

Today I feel distant. I’m in this thought process of being in my body while eating, and seeing my body, after eating, and constantly thinking about food.

Since I began to follow my meal plan as close to 100 percent as possible, about a week ago, all I think about is food. I don’t want it, then I want it, then i don’t, then I do, and it raises these intense urges to binge and purge — I haven’t binged in about nine months. In the past six months, I have only purged three times. This is all amazing.

However; every since journaling, I tend to tap into my younger self, my angry girl, that I wrote about yesterday. And it’s not a fun experience. Along with her mentality, the ED mentality is glued to hers. So then it becomes this battle of me being in recovery, trying to eat and then simultaneously I have this screaming voice and mind and it’s physically paining.

Last night, in this three-people argument, I couldn’t do it. I just could not manage all the thoughts, and sights, and feelings, and I collapsed on my floor, pulled myself into a fetal position, protecting myself from flashbacks, sobbing, gasping, and I could not breathe.

In the midst of this, I tried being in touch with my therapist through it, but that just led to feeling lost, alone, angry, and stupid. Throw some embarrassment in there and we have a winner.

In all seriousness; I kept saying “You’re expecting too much from me in this moment,” and “I need you to realize you can’t push me that hard in THIS moment,” because I could hardly manage it. I know that my “angry girl” says that I didn’t matter, but I tell her back that no, I did matter, but I was misunderstood and pushed too hard.

I also felt alone in it, with no heads up. I almost feel like it would be helpful to just know ahead of time (only if possible) that the conversation will have to end soon, or something, so it’s not a feeling of me asking not to be left, while I am experiencing what I am, but being abandoned in it.

I know factually that is not the case; but it is how I feel. And I am feeling like I just don’t care. But the problem is I do.

So that leave me here, today, feeling like apparently, medically, my weight is almost to where our compromised goal is, but I feel like I have gained way more than what I may be. I also feel like I’m not comfortable with how things look. I also know that I am in this boxing ring with my angry girl and I don’t want to knock her out, but I feel like she is knocking me out. I really don’t know how to feel right now, and I know the world isn’t ending, but, hell, it’s my right to validate myself and feel like the world is ending and that I’m completely disoriented (maybe, if the numbers say so) while I don’t see things accurately. And that really pisses me off.

My Angry Girl

My angry girl — that’s what I call my 19-year-old self. She is the girl who learned about drinking the hard way. She’s the one who was sexually assaulted and she is the one who was heavily engaged in her eating disorder. She is the angry one; who spent her days living off of broccoli and mustard, carrots and mustard, lettuce and lemon juice and pepper and spent her nights consuming pasta, pizza, bread, french fries, chocolates, cakes, and then throwing up into trash bags, doubled up in her bedroom. She did this until 4 a.m. or unless she was physically exhausted before. In between she chugged beers and wine and smoked out of her window.

This is my angry girl. Sometimes, something in my brain snaps or clicks and she comes around. She’s stubborn and protective of her eating disorder. She goes off spouting about how being honest and reaching out for help makes her fat, and she screams about how her body is becoming disgusting, and the way to fix that is to stop everything, drop everything and retreat. There is no negotiating or reasoning with my angry girl.

I was journaling last night about one of the worst time periods with my anorexia and binging and purging. And suddenly, after tapping into that, my angry girl came around. I know she’s angry, and she’s sick, but I cannot function arguing with her and usually, she’s louder.

So I am trying to manage following this meal plan and yet, I can’t help but mentally freaking out. I am trying to manage me, and her, and it’s just a constant war zone right now. I’ve retained another pound, so I am up two pounds since my struggles this month, and while that happens, I can’t help but freaking out. It’s overwhelming, and I am just tired of talking about weight, calories and food. But, this is recovery, I guess.

Where’s the upswing?! (Update)

I would have really liked to update my blog sooner than today because it’s been a very intense week. So much has happened and I am trying to keep afloat. The last time I posted, I had expressed what happened at the club.

I am in the process of talking things through with my therapist and I am openly working through that and doing exposure on my stripping incident and my sexual assault. It’s very, very painful to do and I am trying to keep my head above water, keep the faith, and continue to trust my therapist and myself. It’s terrifying. This is probably one of the top hardest things I have had to do in a while. I am pretty sure it falls just under leaving everything for treatment in Arizona.

So; I met with my therapist in a new office. I’m am so, so grateful that things are working out to continue with her. Regardless of a new environment, I know she is dedicated which pushes me to want to keep trying. I’m pretty sure she is one of the only people who has never given up on me. I thank God for that. During our session, we talked about a lot of heavy duty stuff: the club incident, briefly about stripping, the need for me to layer my clothes, and my late night cleaning compulsions. There was brief talk about the assault, and being able to connect and openly talk about my experiences. Then EMDR came up and I believe I am willing to try that along with this hard work.

Additionally, I found out on Monday that my brother is an alcoholic. But, he said that he “was an alcoholic this summer-but was better.” Here’s the thing, I guess I am learning that addiction is a trend in my family and it’s the most unpredicted situations ever. My brother also has gambling issues and his manager is a coke dealer. So… yeah, we can see why this is troubling. But as I have shared in meetings and talked with friends in AA. I can only lead by example and be his support. Hopefully his bottom is not him ending up in jail. Because he has a tendency to provide alcohol to minors and he IS a minor.

Other than that, today I found out definitely, that I will no longer be seeing my doctor that I have worked with for the past year as a patient. At the end of December, I will have to find a new doctor. Luckily, my former doctor who I used to see more than a year ago when I first started getting treatment will hopefully see me so the transition won’t be too bad.

I guess the hardest part is trusting that my doctor will remain in my life; and I need to remember that she never left when i went away, so she won’t leave me now. I guess it has just been an overwhelming week. Not to mention I had a slip last night and purged. I just have to remind myself that three slips in more than half a year is amazing. And recovery is not a straight path. But it does suck.

I am ready for the upswing… where is it?!

Detox

I’m exhausted. I found myself curled up on the floor in my single apartment this late morning. I woke up angry today and cursing at nobody in particular as I rushed over into the building for individual. For some reason, I just was not in the mood for therapy.

I had this realization that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, exhausted of having appointments throughout the week, every week, for the past several years. Fighting my anorexia is brutal and while I have accomplished so much, especially this past year, I am finding that I am a little weary because I know I still have such a long way to go. Who wants to be in therapy that much?? Not me.

However, I do enjoy the specific women on my treatment team. Without having them in my life today, I would have never flown out to Arizona and gone inpatient. Perhaps, I would not even be alive today spilling further words of my life story into cyberspace for all with a “google search” can find my life.

I couldn’t imagine my life without regularly working with or even just being around these women frequently. To take someone out of your life, or dramatically shift after almost, now, three years…you just can’t. It’s scary to me. I know I have been told people will always be in my life, actively, but I don’t know how to feel emotionally, without seeing someone for months at a time for the remainder of my life. So, I pray about it, pleading for God to heal that piece of my broken heart.

Perhaps that has a lot to do with my struggles this past week. Right now, I am dealing with the consequences of abusing laxatives for a week. I am struggling to not go buy more. I turned in my stash, again, today to my therapist. So now, I guess you could say I’m sort of “detoxing” from laxatives. And I’m in pain and let’s just say my body is very, very mad at me right now.

On top of that, I just don’t feel well. My stomach feels nauseated and I don’t have an appetite. And I need to put my 2 pounds back on because I dropped that within the past week. My eating disorder is such a bitch.

So with that, and my slip yesterday, I am trying to bounce back from it. I guess I am in the process of letting go and bouncing back. It just sucks. In all honesty, recovery is beautiful and inspirational, but the process is painful, like skinning knuckles across the concrete. But I have to keep trying… even if I am getting exhausted.

Trying to stay afloat and away from denial—recovery struggles

Denial is not necessarily a struggle for me as much now than it was throughout the past several years. I don’t really understand denial, lately, for it’s not that I am denying things happened or that things are a problem—I am kind of just negating the fact that certain behavior is not so healthy.

This past week, I have found myself using laxatives. I have never been a laxative abuser, almost my entire eating disorder life. I had tried them in the past, but found that they didn’t work for me. But lately, having more education on certain things that help regulate the body, and using them for a week, I find it not only working, but find myself hooked to it.

It’s not that I am trying to lose weight, or I can see myself losing weight. It has a lot more to do with feeling confident that knowing what I am eating is coming out within the 24 hours I consume it. It’s this fear that my food won’t digest and that it’ll just sit in my body and turn to fat, or something.

I know that this fear is a ritualistic one, that tied into my anorexia.
It’s strange for me, not to get too much into labels, that I can say my bulimic behaviors have ceased and that I truly do struggle with anorexia.

I am not as bad as I was before, regarding fasting and not eating, but my specifics are more condensed to same foods, measuring, and not eating enough as I should. I know this isn’t great, but I have been worse before with behavior. Or maybe I was just unstable, and couldn’t keep any food in me. Perhaps this laxative dependency that has started to develop is a new addiction that has developed in my eating disorder, that I didn’t necessarily struggle with before.

And this is what concerns me: It feels right using it and that it would be a massive struggle to give it up. But the scary part is, while i feel like it is OK, I find myself getting chest pains, and figure I am getting dehydrated from it, perhaps. Or even, the fact that last night was the first time I used it twice, from once a day, to twice a day. That’s an addiction on the rise. I just don’t know how to manage it.

Because I am not trying to lose weight, but I am also not trying to gain weight, and I am starting to focus on my body so much more and if weight loss happens, I’ll be completely triggered.

I don’t know why this is so much to digest (no pun intended), but it’s hard for me to think about, and deal with, which is why I started this entry with “denial.”

Transition and PTSD

I still struggle with the concept of post traumatic stress disorder. In fact, often times, I don’t believe I have it. I just think I am high-strung and overly emotional or sensitive to situations. But according to my treatment facility (post discharge) I am diagnosed with PTSD (not to mention that my therapist who I have been seeing for more than two years diagnosed me with that a year ago (about-I don’t really know). So I guess technically I have PTSD. Give my background, I have a difficult time accepting that I was sexually assaulted. I often don’t think I was. Or I block it out and try and forget about it. But if I was sexually assaulted, then I guess that makes sense that I have PTSD.

Oh, upon my other diagnosis upon discharge, I learned that I have panic disorder (I didn’t know that one) and anxiety disorder (knew that one) and major depression (didn’t know that-I thought I just got really sad sometimes). Oh, and anorexia nervosa, but we knew that because I have this blog.

I wasn’t really sure where I was getting at with this post. Perhaps I just needed to start posting again because I started this blog to anonymously share my journey of progress, relapse, and recovery (or as they say in AA: experience, strength and hope). Yeah, the AA statement sounds much more flowery.

Since being home from treatment, I have been staying with a kind family. They have blessed me with a home until I get back on my feet. That’s gonna take forever (I almost feel guilty. No, not almost, I do. A lot of guilt) but the Lord blessed me with a second family, whom I love dearly. From there, I am back to working full time, and also part-time at the bookstore. I like it. It’s nice, but something just isn’t connecting well with me.

I feel lost. My bulimic tendencies have been under control for more than two months now. Hooray for purge-free life that I never thought was attainable. However, I’m not gonna lie, the urges to come sometimes, very intensely, but I reach out and get through them. I would like to hope that I am in a place where I can say good-bye to purging. My starving however; I am eating, which is amazing. And I have maintained the same weight since I have been home from treatment. I do still drink one 2-cal a day plus I eat three times a day plus snacks. Only thing is, I eat the same things everyday or a similar variation: waffles, sandwiches and cereal.

Maybe I strayed a little but I feel okay. Healthy. Stable. Something I haven’t felt for four years. The only problem I have now is that aside from all the other life-situations that are here from when I left and obviously, they don’t go away by a geographical trip.

I do take my nighttime medication–which puts me in a sleep coma, but I fight it. Because I don’t like to close my eyes. I don’t like to be in the dark with closed eyes. I don’t like not being able to see or know what is happening around me. I do eventually pass out, but I fight it. I have very bad panic attacks and flashbacks and I find myself getting afraid and having physical reactions to memories (okay, I am stubborn, perhaps it is PTSD). But I just get to a point where I have doubts. What if I cannot get through it and get to a point where I truly stop blacking out, dissociating or losing time. It scares me that I may never live a normal and happy life, so I need some reassurance. Probably from myself but I am simply lost, wandering, confused.

I am tired and I rub my eyes; trying to fight the night. It consumes me.

What. A. Night.

After yesterday’s session, I was forced to come to an acceptance that not only do I struggle with eating disorder behavior, but that I have an eating disorder. I could say that because I consumed food today, that I don’t have anorexia or bulimia. I could also say that because I haven’t thrown up today, i don’t have bulimia or anorexia. And honestly, it genuinely feels that way. Having a day that consists of consuming food, keeping the food down, mindlessly nibbling, snacking or whatever you want to call it is almost worse than having a day of full restriction or binges and purges.

The only reason I say this is because on days like today, I feel like I don’t have a problem. But, after last night, it would makes sense that I’ve blocked out that possibility today.

After session yesterday, and engaging in ED behavior, I was swarmed with an overwhelming amount of emotion. I felt the reality really sink in that I once again, was more than struggling. I then felt fear of losing my battle with this eating disorder. I want to be free of it, mentally, emotionally and physically and when the ED has such a hold on me, it’s difficult to recover.

Last night I got home from work and was overcome with a physical need to binge and purge. It was not an emotional need, that I believe, at all but merely the withdraw of the eating disorder. I don’t remember the last time I physically felt like I was withdrawing from the purge earlier that day and the need to eat food, lots of it. I cried for an hour, went online to an AA chat room, talked about my struggles, reached out for the first time in the past four weeks to fight the urge, cried more and then found my self standing in the kitchen crying.

I was fighting so hard but I physically could not get away from the withdraw. I collapsed on my kitchen floor for about 15 minutes, crying, just laying there in desperation to engage in ED. It was painful and physically difficult to fight, even with the support. After three hours of holding out, fighting, trying to get through the urge, I gave in and then I went to sleep.

When I woke up this morning I was discouraged, but also motivated to try whatever I could do to make myself eat for I had thoughts last night of starving, and fully not eating for the next several days. I wanted to be empty… and it was as if the anorexic mind was fighting to take back control of the bulimic mind.

With the risk of sounding crazy, I sure as hell felt crazy. But today I reached out to several women in my eating disorder recovery circle to help me stay accountable to eating and keeping it today. I have hopes that going one day without purging will help me to break the cycle. The only thing is, I have the restrictive mind completely lurking, waiting for the bulimia to take a hiatus.

I have not given up, and I won’t because I want to survive this. It just really sucks struggling back in the middle of relapse.