2014: A Transformative Year

If you had asked me one year ago today what I would have expected 2014 to look like, I wouldn't even be close to telling you what actually occurred this year. I probably would have told you that I expected to continue working towards my counseling hours, spending time with my then boyfriend, and going out and partying most nights in Milwaukee. Well, none of those things happened for more than a few weeks. This year has been very unexpected, but a lot of the choices I made helped save my life.

I started the year living in Milwaukee and quickly on the path to total self-destruction. I had just taken a new job and was learning quickly that I missed doing actual therapy, but case management wasn't terrible. I was also spending most of my free time in a very enabling relationship. I was encouraged to lose weight and get blackout drunk more times than not during the week. My eating disorder and alcoholism were quickly becoming my main priorities, and everything else fell into place around that. It all came to a screeching halt at the end of January when the relationship ended, which I didn't expect, and I spiraled for 3 days until I hit my breaking point.

February 1st, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life. That morning, I woke up feeling emotionally and physically worse than I had in most of my adult life. I spent the morning figuring out what to do and decided that I needed some help. That day, I grabbed a pile of clothes off my floor, threw them in a bag, and went to the train station bound for St Louis to be with my family. I called work to tell them I was going on leave and texted friends who needed to know. That 6 hour train ride might have been the longest of my life. I got to St Louis to try and figure out what I had to do.

The first 2 weeks, I slept and tried to determine what to do about work (I was only given 30 days unpaid leave), treatment, and the life I had up and left in Milwaukee. After the first week, I went to go intake at an IOP program, but I had such a bad feeling about the therapist that I never went back. She had brought up a name, McCallum Place, that did more intensive treatment. So, I had an intake scheduled for the next week.

My intake at MP was one of the most overwhelming experiences I have ever had. I was forced to discuss issues that I had buried deep inside me for years. I finally had to admit what I had been doing for years to destroy myself, but I was in pretty deep denial about how bad things really were. I requested 6 hour days, because I felt like I didn't need 10 hours every day. I wasn't that sick. Boy was I wrong...

Anyone who goes to treatment will tell you that day 1 is always the hardest. Most people just cry the entire day. That's what I did. I had to meet with 3 people: therapist, dietician, and psychiatrist. With each person, I had to retell my story, so that they understood why I was there. Plus, I had to sit for my first lunch and PM snack. I had no idea what to expect or how everything worked. I was so grateful for 3:30 that day.

My first 2 weeks at treatment, I was pretty adamant that I would be returning to Milwaukee and work by the beginning of March. I felt like I just needed a little kick; then, I would be fine. That idea drew some skepticism from both my treatment team and fellow patients. By the end of that first week, I stepped up into 10 hour days and made the decision to quit my job and start a new life in St Louis for a while. I called my job and said I wasn't returning and turned my focus onto recovery 100%.

Partial Hospitalization was the hardest thing I have ever done. Over a 12 week period, I spent 10 hours every day at McCallum, and the rest at my parent's house sleeping. It was emotionally and physically draining. For the first time, I had to confront what was really underneath my anorexia and figure out who I was; a concept that I had never even thought about. During this time, I created wonderful relationships with some of the strongest, most bad ass people I know, and started to learn that I was okay as I am. In March, I went to Milwaukee to pack up all of my things in mine and my brother's cars, said goodbye to my friends and my life there, and left to begin a new life in St Louis, because I knew that returning to Milwaukee right away would have been a dangerous decision. By the beginning of April, the weight of all of these decisions and having difficulty with learning all of this new information became so overwhelming that I went down fast. My insurance had dropped me down to 6 hour days and was threatening to discharge me any day. I had started medication that made me hallucinate and lose control, so I spent a week in the hospital to refresh and restart, but it ended up being my downfall.

The day I was released from the hospital, my insurance dropped me down to IOP, because I hadn't lost any weight while I was inpatient. So, in 2 weeks, I had gone from 70 hours a week to 42 hours to 15. That jump from 6 hour days to IOP is ridiculously difficult. I chose not to go to IOP and said I would find my own team. Well, that never happened.

I spent the next 6 weeks working on getting out of my depression and figuring out what the next step would be. I started applying for jobs all over the place, and eventually, I found one in mid-June. The extra benefit was that it came with an apartment as well, so I would finally be able to go back to being independent again. I accepted and moved out and was doing very well for 2 months. My eating disorder voice was still there, but it was no longer screaming. This lasted until things got crazy at work.

At the beginning of August, my job had a lot of major changes, and I ended up being promoted in that; however, with no training on how to do this new position, I ended up losing myself into work and got extremely off track. In 3 weeks, I had gone from the higher end of my goal weight range to out of it completely on the lower end. I didn't want to lose my job, so I went back to McCallum to intake for IOP.

I started IOP at the end of August. It became a juggling act of work and treatment, but it was exactly what I needed to get back on track. I spent 12 hours a week working on what had caused me to relapse and how to incorporate recovery into my outside life; something I had never had to do before. I had my struggles, but I felt very comfortable with my team and worked hard to ensure that I didn't go back to PHP. During this time, I was able to return to some kind of balance of a personal and a work life. I was getting back on track. It also helped that I had met this very cute, tall, bearded man through my coworker who came in and instantly became supportive of this journey and helping me when things get bad. It was a very welcome change from my last relationship where my eating disorder had been encouraged, not my health and well being.

By the end of November, I was feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilities at work and trying to leave early 4 days a week to get to treatment. Also, my therapist was being transfered to a different site, so I felt it was time to leave. The biggest difference this discharge was that I left with a team in place. I maintained my therapist and regained my dietician from PHP. I felt positive about leaving.

Over the last month, I have been mostly able to balance recovery and life. I do have bad days, but I have far more good days. I've continued to work hard in therapy and on the insane meal plan my dietician has for me. I feel that I am in a very healthy place in my recovery and emotionally at the end of this year.

This entire year has been about my eating disorder recovery. I spent a total of 6 months at McCallum Place and another 5 working on my recovery outside of it. As I am ending this year, I feel very optimistic for the first time in a long time. Things have been going remarkably well, and rather than sit here and be anxious about what bad thing is going to happen next, I am going to focus on being happy in this moment, because I deserve it.

Every month in 2014, I used the song "This Year" by The Mountain Goats, which has the primary line of I am going to make it through this year, if it kills me. This line has rung true as I would have never guessed that I would spend so much time working on myself to get better. I made it through. It didn't kill me, but it did make me stronger. To celebrate that, I get to ring in a new year of love and happiness with my man, and I could not be more grateful.

I would not have made it through this year without the support of my family and friends who continuously reminded me that, even though treatment sucks, I was doing the right thing. I made it through 2014 one day at a time, and that will help make 2015 that much better.

My resolution for next year is to continue working on this journey in recovery and to continue living in each moment. One day at a time.

Happy New Year, my loves!

Meal Plans and Vacations

I think I learned that meal plans and vacations don't go together. I just spent a weekend out in Washington, DC visiting some of my dearest friends from high school, which was a fun weekend, but learning to go off schedule on my meal plan and without calorie counts was overwhelming.

Ever since I've learned my counts, I feel like I have slipped back into some bad habits. Counting was like a religion to me when I was really bad. I counted and measured every single calories that entered my body and punished myself by compensating if I went even 1 calorie over. Now, I still obsess over my calories in hopes to get to a level my dietician and therapist are okay with so I can get on a maintenance meal plan for a while. I currently hate how my body looks and feels, but I am trying to remind myself that this is what I need to do for this moment. But now, I can't seem to function without counting every calorie again; it's just on a bigger scale.

So, going on vacation is no easy task. I have my regimented 10, 12, 3, 5, and 7 eating times. Everyday at those times, my recovery record rings on my phone, and I am prepared with something to eat. Not that simple when you're out doing things and trying to relax. It's even worse when you have more limited options and unknown calorie counts for your meal plan. It's just really hard.

So, I just did what I could. I feel like I didn't really lose any weight, which I guess is a good thing, but I feel very off track. I know rationally, I'm probably not that bad, but to go back on my regimented schedule feels terrifying today. It's back to that total control, which I spent so many weeks in therapy trying to let go of. All I want is to eat normally and not feel like a crazy person if I don't know the calorie counts for one snack.

I have a really difficult time with this in recovery, because I feel like there are so many contradictory statements. We're supposed to let go of the control of restricting, but we still have to monitor every piece of our intake to report to our dieticians and figure out what meal plan is best. We aren't supposed to obsess a out food, but we have to in order to stay in recovery. We can't exercise, but it's worse for our body image and health if we don't. I constantly feel like I am in a Catch-22 and a no win situation. How do you solve that?

I'm becoming increasingly more frustrated with this whole process. It makes me not want to see my dietician any more, because I feel like it's more damaging to my psyche to continue to go; however, my therapist won't continue to see me without her. Again, another no win. I just can't help but think that this might never get easier, and I will have to fight this every single day for the rest of my life, which might be the worst feeling of all.

Coming Undone

It's been an incredibly frustrating time since my previous blog. Between my therapy appointments, which are only becoming increasingly more painful, and my dietician making major increases at each appointment, I feel like I am losing my mind. I know recovery is difficult, but I'm starting to feel like I am never going to catch a break or just have a moment where I am not completely overwhelmed with anxiety.

My last therapy session was probably one of my most difficult to date. After starting EMDR at my previous session, we started discussing my biggest trigger, my father. I don't feel the need to go into all of the details here, but in summary, I have not had a relationship with my father for a few years now. Leading up to and following my parents' divorce, my father became someone I didn't know, let alone had any respect for. At that point in time, I felt responsibilities to too many other people to try and process this major loss and transition for myself. In the years following, my relationship with him became more and more strained as a lot of completely heartless bullshit happened. For me, this has always been one of my most painful things to discuss and process in therapy, especially with events of the last year or so.

So, I had my session on Sunday afternoons as always; however, knowing that I probably wouldn't see my therapist for 2 weeks due to me being out of town, I expressed that I was really concerned about opening all of this up too much right before leaving. My session went on, and it was really difficult. Then, my session kind of ended abruptly as we discussed my next appointment. I left feeling very unsettled, a feeling which has continued through today. It's my anxiety crazy high and has not helped me get anything done lately. I feel so distracted by the thoughts in my head that I am having a difficult time focusing on the day to day things I have to complete. I feel like I need an emergency session before I go, but with the holiday, that's just not possible. Then, I saw my dietician on Monday.

TRIGGER WARNING- I am going to talk about numbers, because it is critical to see how insane my meal plan is. So, if you are triggered by numbers, please skip over this next 2 sections:

So, the last time I saw Erica, we adjusted my meal plan so that I could have smaller meals and more snacks in order to help my stomach when my gastroparesis flares up. It's also more manageable for me mentally. I have never done large meals, even when I was healthy, so to try and do so now is brutal. So, last week, I did really well with this meal plan. I felt really comfortable with it and was confident that I could continue to do this moving forward. I could tell I was gaining some weight, which is terrifying, so I felt like I would stay on this plan and then reduce it after I hit somewhere in the middle of my range to weight maintenance. I recognize that I have been under my goal weight range, but it has never been more than 5 pounds outside since I left PHP in April. So, with last week, I felt like I had probably put on about 3 pounds. I am pretty good at figuring out my weight and fluctuations after focusing on my body for so long. Knowing my weight from my doctor's appointment last week, I figured with 3 pounds, I am officially back on the very low end of my goal weight range. I recognize that they want me to put on a little more weight in the event that I struggle with doing the trauma work and lose some. I feel like, cool! I gained 3 pounds in a week. That sucks, but I know that my meal plan is at a good level. So I went into my session anticipating that meal plan wouldn't change. Boy was I wrong...

Erica ended up adding the calorie equivalent of another meal to my meal plan. I'm having a hard enough time doing the amount of calories I had to do on last week's plan, which totaled a crazy 3000 calories. But now, I'm up to 3500 a day and still on exercise restrictions, which blows my fucking mind. I get that I need to gain weight, but wasn't 3 pounds in a week good work? Why do we need to accelerate this process? In addition to that, why are we adding another full meal? My stomach can't handle that. What are we doing? I do not like it.

END TRIGGER WARNING

The trickiest part of my dietician appointments have been accepting my meal plan and recognizing that yes, I still need to weight restore. I'm close to where I need to be, but not close enough for my team to be comfortable with my range. I know that this is a good thing, but it's really difficult to deal with. I have so many days where I feel like I'm doing a good job, but it is never enough for my team or those around me. It feels like a Neverending cycle of "You're not working hard enough at your recovery," which is a really shitty feeling. I just feel like I am now consuming a heinous amount of food and not being allowed to do much movement. Yes, I do want to compensate for it in some way, which is my eating disorder voice, but I just don't feel like eating a fuck ton of calories and sitting on my ass all day is a healthy way to weight restore. When I do start being more active, my body is going to freak and either decide to be in pain when moving or over compensate the intake. It's a no win situation. Between this and my unresolved therapy this week, I'm frazzled.

Do you ever just get the feeling that you're constantly climbing uphill with no downward slope in sight? That's where I'm at in recovery right now. Life always has times of peace and of struggle. That's what makes it life, but you have to keep going. Recovery is not an easy process, but you have to go through the struggles to get to the beautiful side.

Survival Story

I recently was tipped off to a blog on the Internet that the writer shared that she was working on a project with Buzzfeed and asking people for their survival stories. Through social media, someone who has been reading my blog suggested that I share mine. I did, but I think it's important to share here as well. So, here we go. My essay on my ED Survival Story:

Surviving my eating disorder has not been an easy task by any means. The first time I restricted, I was 13 years old; a scared little girl who just wanted to use her voice that had been stuffed away for so long. Growing up a military brat, you have no control over your life for the length of your sponsor's contract. You go where the military tells you to go and often will little notice. As a kid, it automatically kicked me into survivalist mode, because if you got too emotional or attached, leaving was that much harder. You have no control or stability, which lead to these insane unfulfilled needs. Couple this with abuse from a variety of sources, I felt like my only option for some control or using my voice was to use food. Restricting became my source of survivial, both physically and emotionally.

My battle with anorexia only got worse as I entered high school. I was faced with a mountain of adversities, such as: a deployed father, multiple moves, the deaths of multiple friends, and the suicide of my high school boyfriend, which I was blamed for. My need for control turned into a need for comfort, support, and some positivity in my life. Anorexia became my everything, because it filled every need I never knew I needed. It became my friend and gave me a voice when I was struggling so deeply. After a 3 year battle, I fell into my first true supportive group of friends who helped me turn my life around, for a little while anyways. After more years and more trauma, I relapsed severely in the summer of 2013. By the end of the year, I was barely surviving on a restricted diet of 500 calories a day and a flat affect. Nothing mattered but my eating disorder, even though I could never see how much it was killing me. To me, I could only survive day to day by punishing myself for all of the horrible things that had happened in my life, none of which were truly my fault. Then, on a night when I was blackout drunk trying to numb my pain even more, I hit rock bottom and called my mother to tell her what I was doing. The next day, I up and left my job, apartment, friends, and entire life to get on a train for 6 hours to a new life; one of recovery, even though I didn't really know what I was going into.

Entering treatment in early 2014 saved my life. I would not have survived this year without making that decision. My journey in recovery began with individual/group therapy, meals, dieticians, and medications for 10 hours a day over 12 weeks. I was in hefty denial when I entered treatment, but with time, the idea of having a life without my anorexia became feasible. I left treatment determined to succeed. I lasted 3 months before returning to intensive outpatient, because returning to a "normal" life of working full time and living on my own again was completely overwhelming, and I returned to using restricting for control. After 3 months of IOP, I am finally back on my own with weekly appointments with my therapist and dietician, my modes of survival in the real world.

Today, I still have struggles. Because of my anorexia, I now have a heart condition that I have to take medication for daily. I have stomach issues that may never go away. I have emotions that I still am not really sure how to deal with. I have my trauma that I still get reminded of time to time. I don't believe I will ever wake up and say, "I survived my eating disorder," because I have to make a conscious decision to continue in my path of recovery multiple times a day, every single day. Recovery takes an incredible amount of willpower. Anyone working on staying on that path deserves a medal. For me, surviving used to mean being able to manage my trauma and emotions by not allowing myself to heal and becoming more damage in the process. Today, surviving my eating disorder is making choices to be compassionate to myself, using food to help support me in all aspects, and letting go of all the blame and negativity that I have held onto for so long. Surviving means living the best life I can, because I am deserving of it. The best part? Anorexia will have no part in it.

I do not know if this will get chosen; however, surviving my eating disorder is such a huge focus in my life right now. We don't survive by being passive. Only the truly strong survive with hard work and dedication.

All of the Trauma, All of the Food

This whole process of getting better is really rough. There are so many days I wish I could wake up and just be free of the eating disorder thoughts, have the ability to feel, and eat all of the food. Unfortunately, this isn't that easy, which I guess makes it a good life lesson that I can use to reflect back on in my old age when I finally get to the point where I can do all of the things I listed above. Til then, I keep on going with all the appointments.

I started EMDR with my therapist yesterday, which has just left me kind of reeling today. Just going through and beginning to work on all the bad stuff and bringing up all of these feelings has been brutal. We started to do prep work before actually diving into my trauma, which will start next week. We talked about the fear of letting go, which I discussed in my last blog. She got me to a point where we were discussing what I am truly most afraid of and determined it's another form of the fear of the unknown.

My biggest fear is uncovering what is truly behind that wall of my eating disorder. I know that there are very strong emotions that have been buried for a long time. The strength of those is probably more than I really recognize, which feeds into my feeling of a loss of control if I truly let every emotion go. I hate losing control, so that's a huge internal battle. So, really allowing myself to feel is going to be a major step.

The other large fear also deals with the unknown. There is a very significant portion of my life that I have no memory of. My first real memories don't start until middle school for me, and even then, I don't have many vivid memories from the last 10 years. I know a significant part of that is due to my trauma, but it leaves a lot of questions as to what some of the things I don't remember are. I have had nightmares of childhood trauma for 15 years now but very little actual memory of it happening. In doing EMDR, I am scared that all of these memories will come out, and I will be left as more of a broken person than I have ever been. It's a risk I have to take though. All of it had been pretty overwhelming.

In addition to that, I learned my weight for the first time in 3 months on Tuesday,  which is never great.  I have been having all kinds of stomach issues on and off since going to treatment early this year. So I finally went to go see my primary care doctor to see if she could help.  That turned into 45 minutes of me crying about how low my weight was,  even though I feel like I have been trying really hard to do my best and follow my meal plan.  It's just so discouraging.  It's hard enough when my brain doesn't cooperate,  but for my body not to as well?  It's enough to make a girl go crazy.

This lead to my dietician appointment tonight where we discussed all of this.  So since I am continuing to float around the same weight,  which is just under my goal range, I received the gift of major meal increases today. Every snack and meal increased. Then,  I got my calorie count.  This is the first time I have requested to know my calories ever since before going to treatment when I counted and obsessed over every single one.  It's 6 times the amount I was restricting a year ago. If that's not a mindfuck,  I don't know what is.  I know it will help me Hey back to a healthy weight,  but it doesn't make it any easier.

Overall, recovery is such a difficult journey.  Every day has different challenges, but with them come the new beautiful things in my life.  So,  I am choosing to contribute on this path and try to figure it out.

Fear of Letting Go

Therapy is hard... Tonight was my first outpatient session with my therapist. I still can't say how much I enjoy working with her, as she pushes me to really confront a lot of the issues and feelings I have spent years avoiding. We have been working through my timeline slowly but surely, but we're at a pause point in order to do some prep work before beginning EMDR.

Tonight, we were discussing my life outside of IOP, which I think is going fairly well. She asked how often I had been restricting and if it has been full meals or just components. Most days, I have been completing very close to 100% of my meal plan. Others, I skip snacks, but not meals. Every day is a little different. So, my therapist posed an interesting question, "Why are you so scared to give up your eating disorder?"

At first, I was pretty taken aback by this question. My thought was "I've already given it up. That's why I spent 6 months of this year in treatment. What do you mean why am I scared?" Then, I took a reality check. In some ways, I am ready to stop living with my eating disorder in control, because it's ruined almost half of my life; however, there is SOME part of me that is absolutely terrified to give up all of my eating disorder behaviors, which is a terrifying thought in itself.

One of my biggest fears of letting go of restricting is having to tear down and rebuild the wall I have spent the last 10 years building up. ED for me has functioned as the threshold for emotions and attachments since I was in middle school. I learned from an early age that people always leave and that emotions don't do anything but make me uncomfortable. While both of those beliefs aren't true, I have functioned on those assumptions for years. It has protected me from many things but kept me from figuring out and showing my true identity as well. So, the idea of letting go of restricting, allowing myself to feel things, and let people see that side of me is a really difficult thing to overcome.

My next biggest fear is an inability to cope. My main coping skill is skipping a meal to help me feel better. It's my go to quick fix. While I know a plethora of other coping skills from my training as a therapist, I have a difficult time turning to them, because they don't have that same instant gratification. So, what am I supposed to do? Sit with my feelings? Don't be crazy. That would be a normal thing to do, and I have rejected the idea of normalcy. So, I am holding on to restricting just in case I get too overwhelmed.

Finally, my biggest fear is living a life that is eating disorder free, because I haven't done that since I was 12 years old. The vast majority of my memories are from periods where my restricting was present (because, of course, the bad memories are most prevalent). I do not know my life without my eating disorder, which is the scariest thing of all. I have to learn how to cope, feel and acknowledge my feelings, AND figure out who I am? Excuse me while I just go lie in my bed. Seriously, this is a massive undertaking.

So, I find myself asking, "Do I really want to give up ED? All of this other stuff seems like a lot of work, and I would just like to stay in my bubble. It's safe here." Then, I mentally slap myself in the face and snap back to reality. Have the last 10 years really been that great that I want to repeat them? That's a big fuck no. I have put so much work into getting to this point in recovery that I would be throwing it all away by choosing to hold onto these behaviors.

While I recognize that I cannot change my three major obstacles over night, I can dedicate myself to working towards these goals. If I can start to incorporate other coping skills, I can reduce the amount of restricting I do. If I can allow myself to begin accepting that it's okay to have feelings and actually feel them, I might be able to create stronger relationships with others and live a more genuine life. If I can continue to figure out who I am, I will be able to dictate the life I lead and keep the people that want to join me on that journey. That's what this journey in recovery is all about; facing our fears and being willing to accept change. If we don't, we continue to stay in these patterns and be miserable, and no one deserves to live like that.

Happiness

Happiness;  easy concept, difficult to achieve.  Anyone can come up to you and ask,  "What makes you happy?" and you will probably be asks to list off a number of things. Many of these things might make us happy, but it doesn't mean we have achieved total happiness with our lives.  So if things don't makes us happy,  what does it takes to get there?

For me,  my idea of total happiness consists of feeling fulfilled in what I an doing every day,  finding an activity that stimulates me mentally and physically,  being surrounded by people who love and care about me,  and being able to help other people.  I feel like I have had most of these things at some point in  at my life.  I have had moments of being truly happy; however, with most of my life being clouded with trauma, they have been fleeting and bringing my walls up higher. I get very weary about it.  There's always this little voice in my head that tells me it won't last,  and it's normally right. 

I have had a pretty negative outlook on my life with many moments where I have doubted that I could ever be happy, but staying in that negative headspace only reinforces that I probably won't be. It has taken me a long time to accept my part in my depression.  While I do not have control over the things that have happened to me,  I do have control over my reaction to them.  For years,  I have been the victim and have done nothing to get out of that identity. My eating disorder didn't help that either. I became very dependent on other people and expected them to take care of me and make me happy. My internal processes did not match my independent, strong exterior.  When those people left,  so did my happiness.

It has taken me until the age of 23 to figure out that I am in control of my own life and letting in or removing things that make me miserable. I also can make myself happy without the assistance of others.  After years of chasing people and things to try and make my life fulfilling,  I learned that that's not what life is about.

Maybe happiness is one of those things that we shouldn't chase.  Maybe it's something that, with a little patience and living in the moment, will come naturally to us. For me,  after spending 10 years of my life hating myself and beginning the journey of recovery,  I have finally found myself in a place of being truly happy with how things in my life are going. It has been a long time, and I am always terrified for the next bad thing in my life to happen. But for now,  I choose to live in this moment. If I don't, I may miss out on my main goal- to live a life in happiness.

Choices

Tonight, I had a long talk with one of my students about choices. In life, we are faced with more options than we could possibly count everyday. These can range from minor (What shirt should I wear today?) to major (Should I move to a new city?). Regardless of what type of choice it is, they can have some pretty major impacts on our daily lives.

Tonight, we were talking about choices in how we act in response to situations. For me, I have this battle every day. When I am faced with a difficult minor or major choice, my eating disorder voice always gets louder.

For example, tonight I met with my dietician for the first time in outpatient care. It was really comfortable, especially since she was seeing me twice a week in PHP and knew many of the struggles I had then. She also knows about many of my traumatic experiences; therefore, it's already an advantage for my care. So, we caught up on where I was at now and transitioned to talking about my meal plan. Going in, I was pretty aware that my meal plan was definitely on the lower side of my calorie range and that my weight is currently at the lower end of my goal weight range. So, I was kind of expecting some kind of change to be made in terms of my meal plan. What I didn't expect was the number of changes and increases.

I rationally know that these are necessary, especially if I slip up on behaviors as a result of the trauma processing in therapy; however, it doesn't make my eating disorder voice happy, and I am being bombarded by messages in my head telling me I am going to get fat. So, this leads to a choice; follow the meal plan or my ED voice.

My gut reaction to this is to choose ED. That's my go to coping skill. I know that restricting makes me feel less anxious and more in control of situations in my life. Also, with the trauma work I am doing, my ED is the wall that makes me feel safe. I know that I cannot get hurt when I restrict; I am protected in my anorexia bubble. Luckily, my rational side has kicked in more and more while I have been in recovery. I have the choice to fight those negative voices and to complete my meal plan to the best of my ability day to day.

The choice I make is going to pretty major. If I do not choose to do the meal plan, I will lose everything and end up back at McCallum all day, every day, which I have enough motivation to prevent that. Just like that, small choices we make can amount to major impacts. Choosing to skip one meal or one snack can be a the first step on a downward icy slope, which is all it takes.

Choices are incredibly difficult, especially when we have past experiences that dictate what one to pick based on consequences and rewards received as a result of those decisions. But if we choose to make rational positive decisions,  even if they are extremely difficult to follow through with,  that one choice may prove to be enough to change our entire lives.