I am sitting on the bed wondering what happened. How did I get to this point, again? I was moving forward, doing well. I define, "doing well" by having no ED behaviors. I've been doing well for about 7 months. Given, 6 of those 7 months were spent in treatment, but I've done it so I know I can do it again. I should be able to do it again. That 7-month period should have been the hardest time in my recovery, considering its temporal closeness to my lowest point. Or should it have been? Was I just in the initial gung-ho-I'm-all-about-recovery period? Was it beginner's luck?
It's interesting because I was very depressed until about a month ago, but I was having no behaviors. I was doing well. About a month ago, I started taking my meds again because the depression was getting to be too much. Now I'm happy (still uneasy about that word) and more emotionally stable, but compulsively exercising, bingeing, and purging almost daily.
It could be the fact that I have a 3-week break from work, but that only accounts for last week when the break started. What about all the weeks before that? What was going on then? I know. Things were beginning to be too normal, too mundane, too boring. I need to live in the black and white. I crave it. I am drawn, and used to the chaotic, extreme hour-to-hour, day-to-day living. I don't know how to be comfortable in the grey. When things start to be too normal, I feel so much anxiety an pent up energy to stir things up, usually for the worse.
"I have been in treatment. I know better.", is what plays in my head over and over. It has passed the point of being encouraging, and is now only discouraging and mocking. I have been in treatment, I know how therapy sessions are going to go, I have all the insight I need. Then why am I sitting here writing about these things? Why have I taken so many steps back? Why do I still need to write in order to let the urges pass? Why do I still have urges? Why can't I eat without dissecting the ingredients and counting calories? I know better.
I just had a cobb salad with less dressing than was in the package (370), toast (110), ice cream (90), m&m's (50). 620. The entire time I was eating, I was debating between whether or not I should binge/purge. I thought about all the food I don't have at home, and that while I'm cooking or buying food, the calories I've already consumed will be absorbed. I thought about how I have more than enough time to b/p before going to support group. I thought about how shitty I'd feel telling my boyfriend I b/p'ed yet again, and about the pain and exhaustion that comes from purging. It was the most mindful I have been in a long time. Yesterday, the same debate happened, except I actually b/p'ed. Today, I am able to listen to the con's and make them outweigh the pro's. One pro is that I will lose weight. Another is that I will get to eat everything I want without gaining weight. On a point system, those 2 have a greater total than the con's combined. But, somehow, I am able to stop myself in my tracks and put an end to my ED voice.
The urge has passed and I have 1 hour until I leave for support group. I'm proud of myself.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Sunday, December 15, 2013
..........
"The tendency toward excess veered out of control into bulimia, that state of fear and desire, that violent crashing back and forth between hunger and the abortion of hunger, between taking in and throwing back what is most needed and instinctively desired: food...Fearing the constant thunder in the mind that bulimia brings, I turned toward the silence of anorexia. Afraid of the explicit passions of bulimia, I sought out what I mistook for the passionless state of starvation." (Marya Hornbacher, Wasted. Pg. 94)
I don't know what happened. I was doing so well when I was in treatment, but gradually, I've been having behaviors. Frequent behaviors. I've been restricting, binging, purging, body checking, compulsively exercising, negative self-talking. I met with a therapist for the first time in a long time, and for lack of a better word, it was depressing.
Therapist: You think you're defected. You think no one can help you.
Me: Well, yea. I do think I'm defected. I've had therapists tell me that they can't help me.
T: You know, you might be recreating the situation for yourself.
M: If I am aware of that possibility, why would I let that happen. Why would I let myself recreate the situation. I don't like being like this. I want to be helped.
T: Why are you here [in therapy]?
M: I want to want to get better.
T: That has to come from you.
M: [DUH] I know. I guess, I just wanted to be able to talk to somebody without judgment, with no strings attached.
T: Can I be completely honest with you?
T: You are so far from being connected with your body, you are so far from being in touch with yourself.
M: ......
T: It is unethical for me to see you every week and try to help you while I watch you self-destruct.
M: ......
T: Have you considered going back to treatment?
.........
T: Do you want me to refer you to another therapist?
So what does this mean. I want to go to support groups so badly, but they take place during my work hours. I desperately want to meet with my dietitian, but she takes appointments only during my work hours. I can't afford to lose out on a whole day's worth of pay, so my only choice is to wait until school is on winter vacation. But even when I do meet with my dietitian or go to a support group, what will I gain from it? What more insight do I need? Insight doesn't get you anywhere; It's the actions that make the difference. But if I have the insight on how to recover, know what actions to take in order to recover, but still desire to engage in behaviors to reach my goal of getting thinner, what can I possibly gain from therapy? Will I ever get better? Yes, I do think I'm defected. And I sound pathetic and like a complete self-loathing crybaby, but I honestly can not see myself living a "normal" life, let alone having the mentality of a non-eating-disordered person.
I can't imagine myself looking at my meal without seeing numbers. Counting calories is so second-nature to me, I can not imagine shutting off that part of my brain. I know how many calories my meal plan calls for, and if I go over that number, even by the tiniest bit, my fear of gaining weight would outweigh all other rational thought.
This blog doesn't reach many people, but to those that it does, any thoughts?? Suggestions?? Anyone there??
ANYbody??
I don't know what happened. I was doing so well when I was in treatment, but gradually, I've been having behaviors. Frequent behaviors. I've been restricting, binging, purging, body checking, compulsively exercising, negative self-talking. I met with a therapist for the first time in a long time, and for lack of a better word, it was depressing.
Therapist: You think you're defected. You think no one can help you.
Me: Well, yea. I do think I'm defected. I've had therapists tell me that they can't help me.
T: You know, you might be recreating the situation for yourself.
M: If I am aware of that possibility, why would I let that happen. Why would I let myself recreate the situation. I don't like being like this. I want to be helped.
T: Why are you here [in therapy]?
M: I want to want to get better.
T: That has to come from you.
M: [DUH] I know. I guess, I just wanted to be able to talk to somebody without judgment, with no strings attached.
T: Can I be completely honest with you?
T: You are so far from being connected with your body, you are so far from being in touch with yourself.
M: ......
T: It is unethical for me to see you every week and try to help you while I watch you self-destruct.
M: ......
T: Have you considered going back to treatment?
.........
T: Do you want me to refer you to another therapist?
So what does this mean. I want to go to support groups so badly, but they take place during my work hours. I desperately want to meet with my dietitian, but she takes appointments only during my work hours. I can't afford to lose out on a whole day's worth of pay, so my only choice is to wait until school is on winter vacation. But even when I do meet with my dietitian or go to a support group, what will I gain from it? What more insight do I need? Insight doesn't get you anywhere; It's the actions that make the difference. But if I have the insight on how to recover, know what actions to take in order to recover, but still desire to engage in behaviors to reach my goal of getting thinner, what can I possibly gain from therapy? Will I ever get better? Yes, I do think I'm defected. And I sound pathetic and like a complete self-loathing crybaby, but I honestly can not see myself living a "normal" life, let alone having the mentality of a non-eating-disordered person.
I can't imagine myself looking at my meal without seeing numbers. Counting calories is so second-nature to me, I can not imagine shutting off that part of my brain. I know how many calories my meal plan calls for, and if I go over that number, even by the tiniest bit, my fear of gaining weight would outweigh all other rational thought.
This blog doesn't reach many people, but to those that it does, any thoughts?? Suggestions?? Anyone there??
ANYbody??
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Welcome to my mind.
Do 40 minutes on the treadmill like yesterday. Yesterday was a good first day back at the gym. How many calories did I burn yesterday?
I beat myself up for not remembering.
Let's do 45 minutes just for cushion.
"The Biggest Loser" is on TV. What a shitty show to play at the gym. Subtitles read, "I burned enough calories to eat a cookie". Go to hell.
Start off walking at 1.5 incline, 3.7 speed. Run at same incline, 6.0 speed. Walk 5, run 5, walk 5, run 5.
30:00. 277 calories. Portia de Rossi wrote in her Unbearable Lightness, that she ran at 6.0 on a 1.0 incline for 30 minutes. I feel good already. Almost past my day's intake. Let's break 300 for the banana I ate before the workout.
35:00. Walk at 3 incline at 3.7 speed. It's a little tiring, so I grab the handles. Then I think, moving my arms back and forth has to burn more calories than grabbing the handles.
44:00. 377 kcal. Back at 1.5 incline. Want to break 400 even if it goes past my earlier decision to do just 45 minutes. A nice round number, 400. 48:10. 400kcal. I reached my goal. I can stop now, but what kind of number is 48:10. Might as well go to 50:00. Why stop at 50 when I can go to 60?
54:20. Feel so powerful. People coming and going on the machines on either side of me. I feel stronger, more intense, more superhuman than those people who give in to their body's signals (there are too many parallels here to my food behaviors). I tell myself, today is the only day I will exercise like this.
55:00. Walk these last 5 minutes. 55:43 470 kcal. Want to break 500. Will this ever end?
59:33 488 kcal. So close, keep pushing. Increase incline to 3.0 because it burns more calories faster. 61:38 500 kcal. Take that, Portia de Rossi.
It's only 8:55PM. Too early to go back home and do nothing so might as well stay and burn some more. Move on to the bicycle. Cigarettes in my bag look so tempting and rewarding. My tendency to delay any sort of gratification, tells me that waiting is going to make them that much tastier.
Damn. 2:46 16 kcal. What is this. Shit, I forgot to suck in and tighten my stomach.
Got a call to open the front door of my apartment. Thank goodness it's only half a block away. I get off the machine. But wait, I forgot to read the kcal burned. I panic a little. Get back on to check and am relieved to see that resuming the workout will show where I left off. 35 kcal. Total of 535 kcal for 1.5 hours. I run to apartment to continue workout. Why walk when I can run? This feels like it's about a 5.0 incline. Open door, run back. I deserve a cigarette, and damn, the wait did make it tastier.
Get back in the gym on to the bicycle. 3:15, 16. Reading my beloved book, Wasted, by Marya Hornbacher. Who the hell reads a memoir about eating disorders at the gym. I do. It reads, "We speak as if there was one collective perfect body, a singular entity that we're all after. The trouble is, I think we are after that one body. We grow up with the impression that underneath all this normal flesh, buried deep in the excessive recesses of our healthy bodies, there was a Perfect Body just waiting to break out. It would look exactly like everyone else's perfect body. A clone of the shapeless, androgynous models, the hairless, silicone-implanted porn stars...As Andy Warhol wrote, "The more you look at the same exact thing...the better and emptier you feel." (p. 47)
19:02, 95 kcal.
"Recent research suggests that an extremely strong desire for academic achievement may be as significant as sexual maturation, if not more so, in the development of eating disorders in young women. There is a combination of...a family that has high expectations of achievement...a child who is prone to excessive self-imposed pressure; and a child who exhibits unusual levels of academic ability and intelligence. The combination often results in mental paralysis.The child may defect from expectations - her own above all else - and take refuge in an entirely antirational set of behaviors that have, in fact, a highly organized structure." (p. 54)
Marya Hornbacher: she is my hero. It's called Wasted. Everybody should read it, whether or not they have an eating disorder. It's a great parenting book.
25:00 126 kcal.
28:30 147 kcal. Need to break 150.
Pedal harder.
30:00 151 kcal.
686 kcal not including the run to and from my apartment.
Time for some arm exercises.
Get on the fixed pulldown. 40 lb (pitiful). 5 sets of 15. I wish these had calorie counters.
I walk to a more open area to stretch and do some crunches. It feels good to be at the gym.
2.25 hours, around 700 kcal burned. I don't want to exercise like this again. Too many memories. But, if I don't do it again or even raise the bar next time, I'm going to feel mentally weak and physically larger.
I am starving.
I get back home, take an amazing, long shower, and I feel weak, shaky. The hot shower leaves me even more hungry, and I contemplate not eating anything to keep up my caloric deficit. I catch myself getting caught up in my old ways and grab a banana. I think bananas are literally the quietest foods, from the peeling, to the chewing, to the disposing of peel. Well, I guess yogurt and pudding are similar in noise-level. I'm not a big banana-lover, partly because it's not juicy at all, partly because it's so dense and has so many calories. But I think, "I burned enough calories to eat a banana" and try to eat as quietly as I possibly can. This takes me back to my bulimic days when I used to binge in the kitchen when everyone was asleep, trying to make as little noise as possible.
But this time I don't purge.
Because I already did.
I beat myself up for not remembering.
Let's do 45 minutes just for cushion.
"The Biggest Loser" is on TV. What a shitty show to play at the gym. Subtitles read, "I burned enough calories to eat a cookie". Go to hell.
Start off walking at 1.5 incline, 3.7 speed. Run at same incline, 6.0 speed. Walk 5, run 5, walk 5, run 5.
30:00. 277 calories. Portia de Rossi wrote in her Unbearable Lightness, that she ran at 6.0 on a 1.0 incline for 30 minutes. I feel good already. Almost past my day's intake. Let's break 300 for the banana I ate before the workout.
35:00. Walk at 3 incline at 3.7 speed. It's a little tiring, so I grab the handles. Then I think, moving my arms back and forth has to burn more calories than grabbing the handles.
44:00. 377 kcal. Back at 1.5 incline. Want to break 400 even if it goes past my earlier decision to do just 45 minutes. A nice round number, 400. 48:10. 400kcal. I reached my goal. I can stop now, but what kind of number is 48:10. Might as well go to 50:00. Why stop at 50 when I can go to 60?
54:20. Feel so powerful. People coming and going on the machines on either side of me. I feel stronger, more intense, more superhuman than those people who give in to their body's signals (there are too many parallels here to my food behaviors). I tell myself, today is the only day I will exercise like this.
55:00. Walk these last 5 minutes. 55:43 470 kcal. Want to break 500. Will this ever end?
59:33 488 kcal. So close, keep pushing. Increase incline to 3.0 because it burns more calories faster. 61:38 500 kcal. Take that, Portia de Rossi.
It's only 8:55PM. Too early to go back home and do nothing so might as well stay and burn some more. Move on to the bicycle. Cigarettes in my bag look so tempting and rewarding. My tendency to delay any sort of gratification, tells me that waiting is going to make them that much tastier.
Damn. 2:46 16 kcal. What is this. Shit, I forgot to suck in and tighten my stomach.
Got a call to open the front door of my apartment. Thank goodness it's only half a block away. I get off the machine. But wait, I forgot to read the kcal burned. I panic a little. Get back on to check and am relieved to see that resuming the workout will show where I left off. 35 kcal. Total of 535 kcal for 1.5 hours. I run to apartment to continue workout. Why walk when I can run? This feels like it's about a 5.0 incline. Open door, run back. I deserve a cigarette, and damn, the wait did make it tastier.
Get back in the gym on to the bicycle. 3:15, 16. Reading my beloved book, Wasted, by Marya Hornbacher. Who the hell reads a memoir about eating disorders at the gym. I do. It reads, "We speak as if there was one collective perfect body, a singular entity that we're all after. The trouble is, I think we are after that one body. We grow up with the impression that underneath all this normal flesh, buried deep in the excessive recesses of our healthy bodies, there was a Perfect Body just waiting to break out. It would look exactly like everyone else's perfect body. A clone of the shapeless, androgynous models, the hairless, silicone-implanted porn stars...As Andy Warhol wrote, "The more you look at the same exact thing...the better and emptier you feel." (p. 47)
19:02, 95 kcal.
"Recent research suggests that an extremely strong desire for academic achievement may be as significant as sexual maturation, if not more so, in the development of eating disorders in young women. There is a combination of...a family that has high expectations of achievement...a child who is prone to excessive self-imposed pressure; and a child who exhibits unusual levels of academic ability and intelligence. The combination often results in mental paralysis.The child may defect from expectations - her own above all else - and take refuge in an entirely antirational set of behaviors that have, in fact, a highly organized structure." (p. 54)
Marya Hornbacher: she is my hero. It's called Wasted. Everybody should read it, whether or not they have an eating disorder. It's a great parenting book.
25:00 126 kcal.
28:30 147 kcal. Need to break 150.
Pedal harder.
30:00 151 kcal.
686 kcal not including the run to and from my apartment.
Time for some arm exercises.
Get on the fixed pulldown. 40 lb (pitiful). 5 sets of 15. I wish these had calorie counters.
I walk to a more open area to stretch and do some crunches. It feels good to be at the gym.
2.25 hours, around 700 kcal burned. I don't want to exercise like this again. Too many memories. But, if I don't do it again or even raise the bar next time, I'm going to feel mentally weak and physically larger.
I am starving.
I get back home, take an amazing, long shower, and I feel weak, shaky. The hot shower leaves me even more hungry, and I contemplate not eating anything to keep up my caloric deficit. I catch myself getting caught up in my old ways and grab a banana. I think bananas are literally the quietest foods, from the peeling, to the chewing, to the disposing of peel. Well, I guess yogurt and pudding are similar in noise-level. I'm not a big banana-lover, partly because it's not juicy at all, partly because it's so dense and has so many calories. But I think, "I burned enough calories to eat a banana" and try to eat as quietly as I possibly can. This takes me back to my bulimic days when I used to binge in the kitchen when everyone was asleep, trying to make as little noise as possible.
But this time I don't purge.
Because I already did.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Dear Body,
I am in a much different, much better place than when I last wrote to you. I still consider my eyes "distorted, conniving lenses". That's never going to change. Just because I am in recovery doesn't mean I'm going to like you. It means I'm going to learn how to look at you in different, more positive ways. Rather than seeing you as a flaw that needs countless fixing, I see you as a thing that moves me and enables me to accomplish tasks. At least, I'm working on it.
I'm learning how to be comfortable in you. I stop to appreciate the warm smell of books. I listen to songs that are soothing to my insides. I mindfully enjoy my dogs' kisses. I enjoy the taste of sugary things without feeling like I've lost total control. My arms don't feel weak anymore when I brush my teeth. I can walk up flights of stairs without getting chest pains. I don't get fainting spells anymore.
Like I said, I'm probably not going to like you, but I can like what you allow me to do. So often, I wish I could regain the space between my thighs. I wish my thighs were the size of my calves, but I am thankful that they allow me to walk long distances without getting weak. I wish my arms didn't look so gelatinous, but that means I can hold my dogs for much longer. I wish my belly didn't protrude so much, but that means there's more to protect what's inside it.
Even though I acknowledge, logically, what you can do for me when properly nourished, I have been slowly tip-toeing back to my old ways. However, I know that I will be OK because "recovery is a process, not a destination." Sometimes, my mind gets the best of me and I don't make pro-recovery choices and it's scary how instantaneously a switch can turn on/off in my brain to get caught up in a behavior. Honestly, I can not envision a life where I don't count calories or not feel like a complete and utter failure when I grab seconds at a Thanksgiving dinner. I can't imagine myself eating out at a restaurant and just ordering whatever sounds good at the moment, instead of choosing the least-caloric meal on the menu. I can't conceptualize giving up my measuring tools, and I definitely can not visualize a life where I don't weigh myself. I wish I could be like those who eat whenever and whatever they want without worrying about their weight.
I have betrayed and deserted you for 11 years, so I understand that it will take a while to earn your trust back. But I will not give up just like how you did not give up on me.
Sincerely,
Liz
I'm learning how to be comfortable in you. I stop to appreciate the warm smell of books. I listen to songs that are soothing to my insides. I mindfully enjoy my dogs' kisses. I enjoy the taste of sugary things without feeling like I've lost total control. My arms don't feel weak anymore when I brush my teeth. I can walk up flights of stairs without getting chest pains. I don't get fainting spells anymore.
Like I said, I'm probably not going to like you, but I can like what you allow me to do. So often, I wish I could regain the space between my thighs. I wish my thighs were the size of my calves, but I am thankful that they allow me to walk long distances without getting weak. I wish my arms didn't look so gelatinous, but that means I can hold my dogs for much longer. I wish my belly didn't protrude so much, but that means there's more to protect what's inside it.
Even though I acknowledge, logically, what you can do for me when properly nourished, I have been slowly tip-toeing back to my old ways. However, I know that I will be OK because "recovery is a process, not a destination." Sometimes, my mind gets the best of me and I don't make pro-recovery choices and it's scary how instantaneously a switch can turn on/off in my brain to get caught up in a behavior. Honestly, I can not envision a life where I don't count calories or not feel like a complete and utter failure when I grab seconds at a Thanksgiving dinner. I can't imagine myself eating out at a restaurant and just ordering whatever sounds good at the moment, instead of choosing the least-caloric meal on the menu. I can't conceptualize giving up my measuring tools, and I definitely can not visualize a life where I don't weigh myself. I wish I could be like those who eat whenever and whatever they want without worrying about their weight.
I have betrayed and deserted you for 11 years, so I understand that it will take a while to earn your trust back. But I will not give up just like how you did not give up on me.
Sincerely,
Liz
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