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.
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