ED has a sneaky way of coming up when you least want it to. Triggers surround us every day in our lives. Even people without mental health problems face them. The slightest things set off memories, feelings, behaviors, etc. For me, triggers have been all over the place this week, and I've done kind of okay at managing them. It's just led to extreme anxiety, body checking, and a lot of ED thoughts.
My biggest trigger this week has been being sick. For the record, there are gross details following. So, if you don't like bodily functions, skip over this paragraph. TMI:
Over the weekend, I could tell I had a UTI, but kind of let it go. I took some cranberry tablets, and drank vodka/cranberries at the bar. Nothing seemed to help. Then, it came to a head on Monday night. I was at cooking class and was in so much pain that I could barely sit, let alone stand. I typically can't stand through cooking class with my heart problems anyways, but this was worse. Then, I went to the bathroom and saw blood in my urine. I spoke with the dietician and off to the emergency room I went. After 2 hours of waiting, I had a 5 minute conversation with a doctor who prescribed me antibiotics and sent me on my merry way. I took off from work on Tuesday to rest, but I could feel increasing pain in my back. By Wednesday, it was unbearable. I worked in the morning, but left early to go see my doctor. 2 hours later, I was in a CT machine getting a scan to see if my kidneys were infected. The next day, I got a call saying they were clear and was given a script for hydrophone to help the pain. About 7 hours later, I was in urgent care again, because I was throwing up and passed out. The doctor did some tests and suggested that my UTI had cleared, but there was probably something on my kidneys that might not have been strong or big enough for the CT machine to see. I went home, threw up some more, and then went to bed. I took off Friday to rest. Today, the pain finally started to go away. Now, I'm just exhausted.
So with all of that crap happening to my body and the pile of medications I have been taking this week, eating hasn't been my favorite thing to do. It's been really hard on my stomach and hard to eat to make up calories after I've thrown up unintentionally. It's a difficult battle. My ED voice says I can just skip all of those, and it'll be fine. Skipping a few meals this week won't hurt. It'll actually help me look thinner for my brother's wedding next week. All the crazy talk.
Trigger two actually has been my brother's wedding. It's knowing that it is going to be a heavily photographed event. These pictures are going to be ones that last forever. I am just so terrified of looking fat in them that I want to restrict to make sure I look the best that I can. Rationally, that's insane, because my dress is wonderful and flowy. It'll hide my least favorite area of my body, so I can rationalize that it'll be okay. It's also just a lot of people with a lot of eyes on me. This will be the first major event since I went through treatment. I mean, I've seen my family, but I am also seeing a lot of people that I haven't seen since before I went to treatment. So, it just makes me nervous. I just keep telling myself that I need to focus on TJ and not myself that day. Maybe that'll help.
Trigger three has been my isolation due to being sick. I have spent a lot of time in my apartment by myself this week. I consider myself an extroverted person. I thrive on being social and communicating with people face to face. When I'm alone, I tend not to eat, because 1) my hunger cues really come and go. They haven't been consistent in a long time. 2) No one to hold me accountable. 3) I have never really been a person who eats when they're bored. Isolation and people not reaching out to me leads me to feeling unworthy or useless, which isn't even close to true. My feelings just get the best of me sometimes.
So, how do I cope? I wrote the massive letter to ED blog yesterday, which was really had an impact on me. I had done similar exercises in groups during my first round of treatment, but always had a time constraint on it. I also don't think I was at the place to be able to do it back then. I would love to expand it for me personally with more details about some of those situations, because I think I need to. It was my way of starting to connect to that story and begin to somewhat feel everything in my life. I'm also writing this blog today as accountability. In addition to blogging, I've been watching a lot of horrible reality television. I learned that Undercover Boss makes me cry like a baby, and Intervention makes me miss my life of being a therapist. I've thought about signing up for dance classes and challenging what might be the most triggering thing for me. That'll probably be a blog in itself one day. I've listened to a lot of music, and taken a lot of showers.
This week has proved to me that I am probably stronger than I give myself credit for. I have strongly considered myself a survivalist for a lot of the crap I've been through, but I have also turned to really negative coping skills in the past. I didn't turn to any of those this week. I thought about having a drink to unwind, but I know that drinking on antibiotics and pain pills is an overdose waiting to happen. So, I didn't. Honestly, I haven't had a drink in over a week, which hasn't happened since the first time I was in treatment. I also don't have the craving to drink anymore. I haven't done cocaine in a while. I didn't try to exercise through the pain while not eating. I even took off work which, if you know me, never happens. I'm a workaholic through and through. I engaged in appropriate self-care. Surprising, I know. I surprised myself with it too. Maybe I am capable of all of this without turning to ED.
Triggers will come up at the most inopportune moments for all the wrong reasons. But if we can learn to engage in appropriate self-care and coping skills, they become easier to manage. Those skills will become a necessary ally in the battle against ED in the fight for recovery. Even though I did engage in some behaviors this week, I know it will be okay. I may fall, but I can always get back up and make the choice for recovery.
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