Alcohol, IOP, and What's Next? Regrouping

Yesterday and today have been very trying days. I have really struggled through meals, especially knowing there would be alcohol throughout the weekend. Typically when I know drinking is involved, I do not eat as much for a few reasons. 1) Because I want to numb out. 2) It's empty calories that I don't want to consume. So, it's been a major head battle the last few days.

Yesterday was the bridal shower and bachelorette party for my brother's fiance. I am a pretty anxious person normally, but adding in situations like this are really difficult for me when I am in a relapse. Luckily, everything turned out okay, and it ended up being a lot of fun. Today, I have just been attempting to deal with work and getting back on track. I have felt very off lately, which has made my work suffer. I am attempting to not get fired through all this, and I feel like, with the mass firing of a month ago, I am just teetering closer to that side every day. I really cannot lose my job right now, especially because then I would have to move back in with my parents. I am having a hard enough time without being hovered over. So, it's just a constant state of anxiety and trying to fight my demons, keep everything together, and not break down.

That's where the alcohol has come into play as well. When living in Milwaukee, I was going out all the time, because that was the social thing to do and it helped better manage my anxiety. I have caught myself drinking more lately, and I know part of that is with being social; however, I don't need to drink a bottle of wine in one sitting to be social. That's been happening more lately. Alcohol just helps me relax and gets my brain to slow down a little bit. With everything going on, I have been doing more solo drinking as well. This is a habit that I at least recognize this time. I just need to watch it and enlist the support of others to make sure it doesn't get too out of control. Again, this blog helps keep me accountable, so we'll see.

I've also been greatly debating IOP lately. It is a weird thing to enter treatment at an IOP level. The first time I was there, it was like getting to IOP was finally seeing the exit sign on the highway after being in the car for hours. Entering at that level, there is a random mix of people who are at that point, ready to leave treatment. Then, you have a very small group who are trying to work and keep their shit together to avoid PHP. It just leads to a very strange dynamic. Also, people aren't consistently there. By the time you get to IOP, you get days off. It just doesn't have that same tight knit group feeling that I thrived off of in PHP. I am not sure if this is the right next step. I don't want to get worse and go back to PHP, but I don't feel like IOP is quite right either. I'm not sure what to do right now. One day at a time.

So what's next? I was texting with one of my favorite ladies from treatment today about feeling like I am going backwards and even though I am trying to get help, nothing seems to be working. Her response was "It's not moving backwards, it's regrouping so you can continue forward." Simple, eloquent, and exactly what I needed to hear. I need to take the time to regroup and figure out what I truly want and need to be doing. Without doing that, I don't think I can move forward. I will just keep going backwards, and that's no way to live.

Being Rational

Well now that I am not totally losing my mind in a total freak out, I feel like I can write a rational blog.

Yesterday was a total shit show. It's often days like that when I feel like I absolutely cannot handle anything anymore. Just one thing after another kept adding on to the point where all I could do last night was lay in bed and cry. I have always never been really sure if I meant to live this life I have been given. I'm not sure why I was picked to have all these things happen to me, but I was. There's no rational or human explanation as to why.

One of my clients used to tell me that she knew she had experienced such a tremendous amount of trauma in her life, because God chose her to be a role model and example to others that you can make it through anything. The more I go through treatment, the more I think about her. She truly was an amazing example and leader for her family, church, and community. Even though she had experienced a huge amount of trauma, she tried so hard until her body wouldn't allow her to do so anymore. By the time I started seeing her, she was in her mid-60's but had been plagued with a tremendous about of physical ailments. She was on oxygen and walked with a cane. In the year that I worked with her, she became more and more ill, but still wanted to be that example for her family and others living in her assisted living home. The last 2 months she was my client, she was doing so poorly physically. We transitioned into phone sessions, because she couldn't make it into the office anymore. All of a sudden, I stopped hearing from her. I knew in my gut that she had probably passed away; however, it was still a difficult period of not knowing. Then, after mailing her a letter, our main offices received it back with the word "Deceased" hand written on it. It was a really difficult thing for me to accept, but I knew that she wasn't in pain anymore and gone out as that beautiful role model that she wanted to be.

Whenever I think about my client, I think of how calm and rational she was about everything. She could have been having nightmares and suicidal ideations all day, but she was still able to sit and explain in a calm and collected manner how she was doing and legitimate explanations as to why. She was very insightful. I have always envied this ability in other people. I feel like I am a very rational person. I think things deserve explanations and reasons, which is why I feel so frustrated in my eating disorder.

My Eating Disorder is clearly not a rational thing. The vast majority of my core beliefs that trigger my eating disorder are also irrational. One major belief has always been that I am unworthy of anyone's love, particularly romantic love. Another top contender is that I am undeserving of any good things that do happen to me. Finally, the worst one of all, I am responsible and deserving of blame for all of the horrible things that have happened to me in my lifetime. I can try and give evidence for all of these, but I am typically shot down by more rational answers.

The irrationality of my eating disorder has been a huge struggle point for me. I don't understand it. I hate it. I do not get why I can't just get over it. That battle between my rational and irrational minds are even more difficult than the one between my healthy and ED minds. The biggest battle of all will be accepting the rational and accepting that the irrational will always exist, but there are better things in the world to challenge it with.

... And Then, My Radiator Broke.

You know those days where all this annoying shit happens and just piles up and you just have a meltdown? This is my day today...

Work wasn't bad. I had a very hard time staying focused, because I knew that once 3:45 hit, I would have to leave to surrender myself back to the world of therapists, psychiatrists, dieticians, and talking about food and how it makes me feel all the time. It was nice to walk in and see some familiar faces. No shock like I thought (because I'm pretty sure they all knew I was coming). Just love and support. That made it a lot easier to walk back through those doors.

Issue number 1 of the day came up when speaking with my new psychiatrist. She asked me to describe what my current symptoms were. One of those for me is flashbacks to some serious trauma. So, I am describing in detail what I am experiencing in these flashbacks when I am cut off. She says she has a suicidal client who needs assistance immediately. No wrap up. No conclusions. I got an, "Are you going to be okay?" Which my answer to that is always, "Of course. Sure." Honestly, an actively suicidal client definitely takes precedence. I had no issue with that. It's just that I was left open discussing a fuck ton of shit that I had no future opportunity to gain closure on. As soon as I left her office, I went straight into meal planning group (joy) and discussing the meal outing.

Oh right, the meal outing was tonight. I had about a 15 minute heads up about it, which if you've ever had an eating disorder, you know that meal outings are one of the worst fucking parts of treatment. Granted, for me, this time was a lot different as I have been living in the "real world" outside of treatment for the last 4 months; however, it doesn't make it any less scary or overwhelming, especially when your dietician has no idea what behaviors you've been doing or what you've actually been eating. A guessing game is never something you want to do when it comes to your food. I count calories. I measure things to determine appropriate portions. Guess what portion is good for dinner? I haven't been eating dinner, so I'm not even hungry, let alone trying to determine what's best for me. So, it just made things more overwhelming and more difficult. I ate a little bit, but definitely not anywhere close to what an "appropriate" portion is. Oh well.

Then, on my drive home, I noticed what looked like smoke coming off my car. I didn't pay much attention to it, because I was stopped at a stop sign and thought I might be over a manhole or something like that. It wasn't until I got into my parking garage when I saw more white smoke. I got out and liquid was just pouring out of my engine. I called a coworker to help me, and he was able to find this huge slit in my radiator. Without any coolant in my car, it's undriveable. It was just the one thing I didn't need today.

It's been overwhelming enough having to accept that I need to return to treatment. Then, add in the conversation about my trauma being unresolved. Next, a completely unplanned meal. Finally, my car completely wrecking. I literally can't handle any of these things.

I don't know if this is a sign from God that now isn't the right time for treatment or that I need to struggle some more before I do my actual work. If it is, I am praying for absolution, because I need a fucking break.

Shame, Guilt, and Hating Everything (But Mostly Myself)

My anxiety is completely through the roof today. Here I am sitting at work, counting down the hours til I have to walk through those doors again to accept that I have failed and need help. I still know a few people there, but didn't tell them that I was coming back. So, I am nervous to see the looks on their faces when I walk back on the unit. Same with staff members. The first time I left, I had one staff member say to me, "Please do your best not to come back." Now, I have to. The amount of shame and guilt I have today is extraordinary.

I hate this disorder. I hate that I just can't get the fuck over it. I hate that I wake up every fucking day feeling like this. I hate never being good enough for myself or anyone else. I hate feeling like no one will ever be able to love me for who I am. I hate that I will never be thin enough. I will never be pretty enough. I will never be enough. I hate that I push people away, because I would rather have my disorder and be safe in my own little anorexia bubble. I hate the number of relationships damaged by going to treatment. I hate that I ruined multiple opportunities for my life in Milwaukee, because I couldn't keep my shit together. I hate the radical shifts in my ability to cope with every day life. I hate not being able to cope. I hate feeling like I have let everyone else down, but mostly I let myself down. I hate that all the bullshit in my life happened to me. I hate that somehow I was chosen to be the person to receive all this crap. I hate that I always feel alone in my disorder, which is my own fucking fault. I hate that, because of my trauma, I will never fully be able to trust anyone. I hate losing my hair. I hate the pain in my stomach when I haven't eaten for 2 days. I hate feeling so weak that I can barely get out of bed some days. I hate passing out. I hate not being able to remember anything, so it damages my job and my personal life. I hate that I took on all of this.

But the worst realization of all is realizing how much I hate myself, because that's a realization that I am starting to think you can never work yourself out of.

Intake Round 2

So today, I went back to treatment for my second intake. As I have only been out of treatment 4 months, it took no time at all. I also met with the same intake person that I have a pretty good relationship with, which made everything so much easier. She knew my story and what brought me in the first place. So luckily, I did not have to go into all the gory details of my trauma again.

The hardest part was discussing my current symptoms. My flashbacks have been getting out of hand lately, particularly of my childhood and high school trauma. My childhood trauma has always been there, but something that I have never truly acknowledged. I have no complete memories of these things happening; however, I have nightmares about them all the time. Also, I've moved enough times that it's easy enough for me to identify where they occurred. Thank you, navy brat lifestyle. Just having to go into detail about all of these things happening again is enough to be totally overwhelming. I probably should have taken the full day off from work, but decided not to. Overall, it was a pretty easy transition back in. In some sick way, it almost felt like coming home, which is shitty; however, I have done so much of my own self-exploration at McCallum that it feels like a safe place for me to figure my shit out.

I thought that was going to be the most difficult part of the day. It wasn't. I hadn't told my family, except my brother, that I was going back to treatment. So, tonight at family dinner was my time to share. It went a lot better than I expected, as most of my family had already suspected that I was struggling (damn it), but it was good to just say it. As much shame and guilt as I have about going back, it is truly necessary for me to have any kind of life in recovery.

I'm ending this post with a quote from an article from Buzzfeed found here

"Always I wonder if recovery ever exists. If I’m ever to be rid of this. I feel like it will always be on the periphery, a thing inside of me. It will always be there within me and every day I will think about it as it looks me in the face. It is about food and it is not about food at all; it has nothing to do with food but with things even more primal and closer to the bottom of being human. It is about control and desire and denial and all I can do is wrestle with it."

I truly don't know if I will ever be rid of my eating disorder, but if I don't even try, I will be fighting a vicious battle to the day I die. I am sick of fighting this battle, so the only option is treatment round 2. 

"You don't want to go back to treatment, do you?

I guess I have to. 

How do you know if you have to go back to treatment?

How do I know when it might be time to go back to treatment? What are my signs of relapse and recovery? How do I know when to ask for extra support? What behaviors do I engage in at the beginning of a relapse? What are my triggers that may lead to a relapse? What are my thoughts related to when I am entering a relapse? Who can I call when I am struggling? How will I know that I need to seek treatment again? What steps can I take to get myself the help I need?

I had to fill out a 5 page discharge packet when I left treatment asking me all of these questions above. Lately, I've been looking back at it, because I can feel myself falling into a relapse.

It started slowly. I have felt for months now that the medication for my heart condition has not been as effective as it had been, even while I was in treatment. I saw a cardiologist, who was less than helpful, who recommended that I don't "reinvent the wheel" by changing my medication. So, I just decided rather than pumping medication into my body that isn't really helping, I would just stop taking it. This is typically one of my first relapse steps, as my medication slows my heart rate down from the normal resting rate of 120-ish.

What behaviors do I engage in at the beginning of a relapse?

Then, I caught myself providing excuses to skip meals, especially during the work day. "Sorry, I can't come too, because I just have too much work to do." "I am in the middle of something, so I can't go eat lunch now." "I need to sleep, so I will just skip breakfast to sleep in more." Any bullshit reason that was there I would use; however, I was eating larger meals at dinner of particularly unhealthy food aka take out to make up for some calories and the occasional snack during the day. I can always hear the voice of my last dietician in my head when I skip meals. "Do we need to place a tube?" No really. I would rather feel like shit eating all this food than feel like a failure for having a tube placed. But my ED mind takes over and those words fade away and I feel safe and warm in my restriction. The empty feeling in my stomach is like fuel to a fire to continue these patterns.

What are my triggers that may lead to a relapse?

All of a sudden on Friday night, I found myself waking up to the middle of a panic attack during the night. I had been having a nightmare when it started, and I woke up to hyperventilating, which is in my top 5 most terrifying experiences. Since then, I have been restricting often. I did eat at all on Saturday; however, I knew I needed to try and eat dinner. So, I ordered a sub from Jimmy John's, which feels safe and would be easy on my already anxious stomach. Then, I did something I swore I would never do. I purged. My M.O. has always been restricting. As I once told a psychiatrist who had placed me a 45 minute waiting time after meals before entering my room, "Does a serial killer change their M.O.? No, because it works. I'm not all of a sudden going to become a purger." Well, then that happened and it was totally overwhelming. I had a very difficult time eating all day yesterday with the amount of guilt I was experiencing. So, again, I ate very little yesterday. I don't own a scale, but I can tell I am down weight, and I love it. There's just still some fraction of a healthy mind left that says don't do it.

What steps can I take to get myself the help I need?

Last night, I went out with my brother and his fiance, because I have been isolating so much lately. I told them what has been going on, and they agreed that maybe going back to McCallum Place isn't to worst idea right now, especially with how off track I've gotten and my thought process that's telling me to keep going. So, I spoke with my boss this morning, who agreed to work with my schedule to allow me to do an IOP after work. Then, I made the call that I didn't really want to make. I called the same girl that I had done my intake with to say that I needed to come back and get some maintenance before things get so bad that I need to go back to a PHP like 6 months ago. This is a step that I really hoped I would never have to take.

How will I know that I need to seek treatment again?

When you realize that you're out of control and just can't keep doing this, I know that I need to go.

Body Image- What the Fuck?

Body image is one of those things in eating disorder recovery that most people say is the hardest part to tackle. We can work on changing our behaviors and obsessions with food, numbers, etc, but there's something about the way we view ourselves and our bodies that is incredibly difficult.

One of the biggest issues is society's view of what "beautiful" truly is. I know the media and their unrealistic standards for beauty always come up in every conversation about body image, but it's so true. Growing up in the 90's, I used to look at pictures of Kate Moss and all these stick thin women that I would idolize. Also, as a ballet dancer, I wanted to be as thin and as light as a feather as possible. Photoshop and air brushing have only made things worse over the last 15-20 years, but most everyone, eating disorder or not, compares themselves and others to these standards. In my eating disorder history, my two most severe relapses were my sophomore/junior year of high school and my last one from last summer until entering treatment. The thinner I got, the most people would comment on how beautiful I was. Why do we force these standards on each other? It only makes it worse. It still happens to this day. I will post pictures from my disordered days, and more people seem to respond to those on social media with positive comments. I feel like I need to be a disclaimer on all of those, so people can know that responding positively to those makes my body image go crazy. Also, if one more person tells me how "healthy" I look, I am going to punch them in the face. My rational side acknowledges that they mean it in a positive way that I don't look like a walking skeleton anymore; however, my irrational side says that they are telling me I look fat. "Healthy" has never meant beautiful. "Thin" or "Skinny" is.

Throughout my treatment process and even now in my recovery, my body image really hasn't changed a whole lot. I have hated my body for as long as I can remember which, in a big way, is related to childhood trauma. I have always felt a strong disconnect between my mind and body. I often feel like my body is not my own, because my brain doesn't match it's hideous outside. It's a betrayal day in and day out by your own brain. How the fuck does one even deal with that? Outside of my healthy mind vs ED mind battle every day, the body image issues are always there. Some days I wake up and can't even choose clothes to wear, because I just feel so fat. "Fat isn't a feeling." Yes, I know. You hear that phrase 10,000 times a day in treatment. But the fact that it feels so shitty when you look in the mirror and hate what you see? Fat might not be a feeling, but it causes some fucked up ones. In my weight restoration, I was eating a fuck ton of calories every day and sitting on my ass. Honestly, that was one of my biggest problems with treatment, and one that I still have issues with today. I don't feel like I weight restored in a "healthy" way, which is also a psychological mind fuck. So, over 20 pounds later, it's been really difficult. I can rationally recognize that I am not an overweight or obese individual. I use evidence (clothes sizes, scales, body checking) to validate that on days when I feel terrible about myself. Yes, I realize all of these are risky behaviors, but some days, you just need to know that your smaller sized pants still fit. It's just that feeling of being so completely uncomfortable in my body that the irrational side comes out and attacks that person in the mirror. I will never be thin enough, pretty enough, or good enough for my insanely high standards. I don't believe anyone could love someone like me, because of all of those things either. When my body image is so bad, I can barely face other people, because I feel like they are judging me, even though my view doesn't match theirs.  I definitely can't let people touch me on those days. I just absolutely hate that one thought about how I look can wreck my entire day and relationships with others.

On a positive note, my body image has improved at least a little. I don't wake up completely hating myself and my body. There are many days where I do, but I do have moments where I can say to myself, "Okay. Not too bad today." My tighter dresses and crop tops have been coming out a little more often. I don't feel the need to wear ginormous sweaters over everything everyday, even though I do most days because I am still always cold and I like to be comfy. I can leave my house without make up, because I can sleep at night without beating myself up, which got rid of my heinous dark under-eyes. Finally, I can begin to accept my flaws, because without them, I wouldn't be me, and I can only hope that, one day, my body image will be positive every day.

Ending with a jam from Bastille, because I am obsessed with this song and play it on bad body image days:

Compartmentalizing and Meltdowns

Caution: This is a pretty negative post.

I will never understand how I can go from being completely okay, happy, and laughing to completely breaking down. Today, I honestly just feel like I am fighting a losing battle, so why keep fighting? The battle between my healthy mind and ED mind has been slowly growing. Most days, I stay in healthy mind, but then, days like today happen where ED takes over and wins control of my brain.  It always happens when I get stressed out.

Treatment honestly had one very negative side effect for me. As a workaholic/perfectionist/etc, I have always had to focus on work and getting tasks done, regardless of what other bullshit is happening in my life. When my fiance left me after college, I continued to work 40 hours a week and commute to Milwaukee three times a week for 9 graduate credits. I never took a day off. I stuffed it and kept going. My ability to compartmentalize my personal life was so crucial for me existence that it severely hurt my emotional capabilities, but it helped me succeed in my academic and professional life. Ever since going to treatment and had to process my entire life, that ability is shot to hell. If I get triggered on even the slightest thing, I tend to go into a meltdown, which is completely foreign for me. One, I hate expressing emotions. It makes things really fucking hard for me, because it makes me feel like I've failed. That goes into wanting to use ED behaviors to cope. The vicious cycle continues. Two, I have always had to be the strong person among my family and friends since childhood. That role is the only one I know how to fill. My purpose in life has been to be that person that people can talk to when something happens, but it has rarely worked the other way. I have some very important and amazing people in my life, but I have a very difficult time reaching out when I need anything, because again, I feel like that's failure. Finally, it just overwhelms my brain. As someone who has compartmentalized shit since I was 5 years old, I have never had to deal with a brain full of stress AND emotions/memories. I have a very hard time remembering things now, because my brain is on overdrive a lot of the time. This has had a huge impact at work.

So, since I was moved into the office manager position approximately 2 weeks ago, I have felt like I am losing my mind, because I think I am. I am having a very difficult time balancing work mind, healthy mind, ED mind, and lack of compartmentalizing. It's getting to the point where I get so fucking overwhelmed that all I can do is just vent and meltdown. Luckily, I haven't cried at work yet, but I've come close. I know I have the skills for this job, but my lack of compartmentalizing is making it really fucking hard to continue it; however, in my perfectionist mindset, I feel like I have to stick with it and not let anyone else down. The issue is that I'm letting myself down. 

I've been engaging in some ED behaviors the last few weeks, particularly restricting. Until Monday, I had spent about 2 weeks eating one meal a day. Granted, it was typically fast food or take out or some other unhealthy option as I have just been too tired to cook after working 60 hours the last 2 weeks. I have gotten a little more on track this week, but it's still hard. My body image has been pretty terrible. My mind battle getting worse. I just don't know how to get over this and maintain how I am doing right now.

That's why I blogged. I just need some way to stay accountable tonight and not engage in behaviors. This ED struggle bus is so fucking brutal.

Honesty.

I've been thinking a lot about honesty lately. I have an extreme amount of honesty (to the point of being blunt) with everyone but myself. This is one of the biggest reasons my eating disorder continued to thrive for as long as it did. I never had the ability to be honest with myself about what I was dealing with or the emotions I was experiencing but denying. Even when I first entered treatment, I made it clear to my treatment team that I would only be staying for 2 weeks before returning to Milwaukee to go back to work, as my medical leave would be ending. I was honest about my desire to return to work, but in denial about how NOT ready I was to do so. Eventually, I was dealt a solid reality check by the people who I had begun sharing my life with. The men and women in treatment with me that I can never thank enough for being honest with me about how concerned they were about my return to Milwaukee.

Thankfully, I listened.

Why is it so difficult for us to be honest about everything, especially the shit we feel and have to deal with every day? For me, my experience of carrying my own childhood trauma (that I had never told anyone about until going to treatment) was too overwhelming. So, I stuffed it deep down into the back of my head and my heart pretending it didn't exist, but it was always there. I think I was too scared to be honest with myself, because I was too scared of how much intense pain and anger I was actually feeling, particularly about the major triggers of my eating disorder. It wasn't until I had a temporary therapist while my primary therapist was on vacation that I really ever tackled many of these topics and my complete lack of identity at 22. I mean, no one has their shit together in their early 20's, but I have always felt this compulsive need that I had to be different and figure it out. I was always the one who everyone needed to rely on. That week when I was really diving in on my work, my therapist required me to be honest with myself and gave me another reality check that I harbor blame and responsibility for so many things that are not my fault. Honestly, I still have a hard time accepting that, but it's a day by day process.

Honesty to me is starting to come easier. Last night, I went on a date and found myself comfortably talking about my eating disorder and treatment. Pretty sure the person I was speaking with had a big part of that, because I felt comfortable sharing those things, which is strange for me. I'm normally a pretty guarded individual, but it felt great to be honest about these things.

I have also been avoiding this blog, because it keeps me accountable and honest with myself, but I think if it doesn't come out, I'm going go back to 6 months ago where I couldn't even see the reality in myself. So, maybe there's nothing wrong with being honest with ourselves. Maybe I need to be just as blunt with myself as I am with others. Otherwise, how can we live the honest lives that we are allowed to have? Honesty is allowed and necessary, even if it doesn't always seem that way.

Carpe Diem. Seize the Day, Boys. Make Your Lives Extraordinary.

I've been thinking a lot about suicidality since the passing of Robin Williams this week. He was always one of my favorite actors, and his movies had significant influences at different points in my life. There will always be one that had the biggest though, so much so that I even have lines from it tattooed on me.

Sitting in my high school English class my senior year,  I remember watching Dead Poets Society right before graduating high school. I had such a huge future  planned. I was going to go to UNC and study dance, and move on to a huge professional dancing career.  Through all of those ambitious, I still had an underlying desire to help people. Dead Poets Society taught me that I could still be ambitious and go for those professional dreams while still helping people. That inspired me to pursue a psychology degree as well. Robin Williams' Mr Keating was the right balance of encouraging and understanding. He also encouraged his students to be the best versions of themselves, even if it's not what others expected for them. That's something I have always strived to instill in others. Very few of those dreams actually happened,  but new ones follow those same ideals.

Conventionality has never been for me. Growing up and moving all the time, I was always the new kid who never fit in. So, I just did my own thing of dancing and theatre outside of school.  Even as an adult, I received my Master's degree at 22. Fuck conventionality. Being unique and different has always been something I have worked towards;  however, that need to be skinny, pretty, and have everyone like me has maintained.

My Eating Disorder thrived off of that constant unfulfilled need. It still does. Every time I feel like I am failing, I turn to ED, because he knows me. He loves me. He tells me I'll be pretty when I lose 10 more pounds. He tells me more people will like me then too. Someone else besides him might actually love me at that point. So that constant void gets filled with love from ED, and I will do anything to keep that love, even to the point of ending my own life.

Earlier this year in treatment,  I faced the idea of my own mortality. When doing my most intense trauma therapy and reliving some of the darkest moments of my life,  I had to talk about things to my therapist that I never talked to anyone about or even faced myself. This caused an endless stream of anxiety, nightmares, and flashbacks. It got to the point where there were multiple nights in a row that I held my pill bottles in my hands thinking of how easily I could make this pain stop. My disorder completely consumed my mind, and the medicine made it impossible to even function. I felt like I was crawling out of my skin, and it needed to stop. So after being hospitalized for 7 days for my own safety,  I saw Dead Poets Society on TV, and it was time for my turn around.

It devastates me that Robin Williams could not find that peace of mind to help him through his darkest times; however, I think his passing is sparking a new conversation about the stigma of mental health and the idea of suicidality. Suicide isn't selfish. It's sometimes the only way we now how to end the pain and the daily suffering, which impacts our friends and families as much as the act of suicide itself.

After this year, I have a newfound, yet struggling, healthy-ish mind that allows me to make my new life extraordinary.  So seize the day.

Being Pulled Behind the Struggle Bus

So, I'm not totally sure what to put here. My bestie and soul sister from another mister,  Liz, convinced me that I should start a blog to chronicle the crazy of my life. It's been helpful for her, so I figured I should try it.

I've been in recovery from my eating disorder for a few months. I officially entered treatment in February after having a massive mental breakdown after working 40+ hours a week as a therapist, going through a break up, and drinking to the point of intoxication at least 4 times a week. Going to treatment was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done, mostly because I have always been a "stuffer," that person who says, "I'm fine" with a smile of their face but dying on the inside. I just couldn't keep up the facade anymore. So I cracked. I got on a train to St Louis and walked away from my life in Milwaukee as I knew it. I left my job, my friends, everything to try and put myself back together again.

When I first went to treatment,  I only had planned on going for 2 weeks on a medical leave to return to Milwaukee and go back to work. I was doing 6 hours of therapy, 7 days a week. After about a week, I knew I couldn't go back to Milwaukee, maybe not ever again. So, I transitioned into 10 hours of therapy, 7 days a week to get more intense treatment.

Looking back on all of that now, it seems like such a blur. I honestly have a hard time remembering a lot about that time.  But with where I'm at now, I wish I could escape back to that bubble sometimes.

I have been significantly struggling in my recovery lately. I was recently promoted to a new position at my job, which has been chaotic to say the least.  It has also allowed me to skip meals and stay so busy that I "haven't had time to eat." My rational part of my brain calls bullshit on that,  but that irrational ED part is so overwhelming that I have no idea what to do lately.

"You don't want to go back to treatment, do you?"

I can just hear the voices of my friends and family saying that to me in my head. That omnipresent threat helps to keep me in check most days, but I still wonder if I'm slipping away back into ED. Back to my safety zone. Back to my comfort. Back to the world where I don't have to deal with feelings. Back to nothingness.

"You don't want to go back to treatment, do you?"

No.