Fighting to Win or Maintain

So, this week, in one of my many battles with my therapist, we discussed the idea of fighting. In recovery, there are a lot of things we fight, good and bad. The bad things are easy to list: cravings, triggers, urges, etc. But what about the good things? Why is it that we fight so many of the things that are good for us when going through recovery? One answer: to maintain the eating disorder.

I've been incredibly guilty of fighting to maintain lately. After being sick, it's been difficult to get back on track. Even though I wasn't actively restricting, I still was from being sick. That allowed my eating disorder thoughts to come in full force, which when already feeling under the weather, doesn't help. I've also had an increase in my anxiety and PTSD symptoms in the face of upcoming trauma work that have also made my need for control even higher. So, I've been allowing that voice in ever so slightly, but it's enough to make a difference.

In discussing this with my therapist, a few things were highlighted. My anxiety about facing my trauma has always been bad, but now that we are getting closer to it, it's even worse. I have always been fairly uncomfortable with deep or strong feelings, especially when they're negative; however, connecting that emotion to my trauma is a bigger hurdle. It's one that I rarely have faced throughout my life. This is primarily because I've spent more than half my life using eating disorder behaviors to cope. So, by letting that voice back in, it's the start of a return to a past, very dangerous cycle of relapse for me. Here's the wise quote from my therapist this-

"You fight so hard to keep that trauma and those negative feelings away that it's exhausting, and your eating disorder is there to help maintain that disconnect. If you fought even half as hard on processing them, the eating disorder might actually go away."

Well damn. She's right. I have spent countless days and weeks using eating disorder behaviors instead of just sucking it up and dealing with my trauma. Granted, I have to be in the right place to do my trauma work, and those have been far and few between throughout my life; however, I've been there for a while now. There is just this overwhelming, crippling fear that prevents me from ever truly going to those dark places; the ones that no one, not even myself, knows what's really there. That's where the fight begins.

I know that I will never have complete recovery if I do not do my trauma work. I will not stop using behaviors unless I go to that dark place, feel the pain from those events, and learn to accept and move on. I will not stop hearing those disordered thoughts unless I stop shutting down. So, baby steps are the most important part of this. There are multiple traumas that I have to face. The first step is determining what will be "easiest" and hardest and make a list of what order to face them in. By building my tolerance to emotions in the "easier" levels, I'll be better equipped to handle the hardest. From there, I stop living and fear and choose to begin to feel how angry, upset, hurt, and scared I truly am instead of numbing out.

I make that choice to fight to win.

Stalemate

If you don't change, nothing will. Random messages from my therapist will pop up in my head at seemingly opportune moments when I am struggling. This is a message that's been replaying a lot lately.

Since I started seeing my therapist during IOP at the end of September, I really honestly haven't made too much progress. It's not that I expect to make these huge astounding changes, but I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked at this point.

One of my biggest struggles continues to be meal plan fulfillment. To me, I'm not consciously doing it. The thoughts of "You need to restrict" are no longer incredibly prominent when I am planning a meal. Part of it is honestly just laziness. Following my meal plan is such a daily chore. It involves prepping, (sometimes) cooking, reading labels to check that I am getting all my calories in, actually eating, and then recording my thoughts/feelings/food on my phone to send to my dietician. Rinse and repeat 5 times a day. It's exhausting. Combine that with my stomach issues, and meal plans become dreaded chore. So, I have been skipping some, mostly snacks. It's not every day and it's rarely multiple times in one day; however, it's still not doing what I am supposed to be doing. If you don't change, nothing will.

Then, I look at my therapy sessions. I've been really stalling on the emotional component of my trauma work. As I've talked about before, I have a really difficult time feeling and expressing any type of emotion. It makes me feel very uncomfortable, so I just try to avoid it. My therapist is pushing this aspect more than lately. Part of me is ready to do it, because I actually really hate when I shut down, especially within certain relationships. It causes me to become very detached and isolate, which is not helping my depression right now. The other part of me is flat out terrified to do it. I have a difficult time trusting that my emotions are real. I sometimes worry that, when I go off irrational thoughts,  I will express things that aren't real. They're feelings based off of false knowledge. If it's not irrational, it's foreign. It feels like sharing these emotions will ultimately lead to more pain, because I've opened myself up that much. It's not that I don't trust the people in my life, but I've experienced enough times of my feelings not being validated that I just don't express them. If you don't change, nothing will.

I've had this voice inside of me that hasn't been able to come out in 15+ years. It's something that has so much to say, but no idea how to express these things. Even more so, it's worried that what it has to say isn't important. Rationally, I know that that isn't true. I know I have people in my life and the support of my treatment team that it would be okay. It's overcoming that huge obstacle of my fear to getting there. That's not an easy task. But it has to be done.

If you don't change, nothing will.

I'm ready for a change.

Transitions

The last week has been insanely difficult for me. After doing my trauma work on Wednesday, I have been left reeling. The nightmares every night have come back. The flashbacks have kicked up a little too. I have been isolating and just trying to move past the thoughts, but that is always easier said than done. It has also slightly derailed my meal plan, but I am working to get back on track one moment at a time; however, I am quickly approaching another transition in my life: discharging from IOP.

I am voluntarily discharging for multiple reasons. 1) My therapist is being transferred to another section of programming, so I would no longer be able to see her and would have to start again with a new therapist. 2) I am having increasing difficulty in balancing the schedule of my work demands with those of treatment. 3) I think it's time to sink or swim. That doesn't mean that all of this isn't terrifying though.

At IOP tonight, I spoke with all 3 members of my treatment team about the idea of discharging. All 3 were supportive as long as I have follow up care; this was not set up on my first discharge. My psychiatrist is offering to go through a provider list for me and help me pick someone who is not heavy handed with medication. My dietician gave me referrals, including one to the dietician I met with during PHP who had since left. But it was my therapist who did something amazing.

First of all, let me just say how much I love working with my current therapist. She really pushes me to connect to my emotions and push through when I want to shut down. She takes things at a much slower rate, so I can actually begin to process them rather than sweep them under the rug. I also have a strong level of trust with her, because I know that no matter what fucked up shit from my life I share with her, she isn't going to back down from it. It has been really beneficial for me. So, the thought of working with anyone else is really difficult right now, especially with the trauma work we have just begun.

Tonight, my therapist told me that she was willing to see me at her other outpatient clinic at a time that she fit in her schedule for me and a rate I can afford. I just started crying, because it was so amazing of her to do that for me, but it was the reason she told me that made me feel even better about it- "You have just been so brave about going back to these dark places in your life that I know you have never truly, emotionally discussed with anyone else. I think that that takes remarkable courage, and I can't release you to a new therapist to start over when you're working so hard to get through these things. I know I need to keep working with you, so I will do whatever I can to ensure that that keeps happening." And then, I cried more.

Sometimes when I am stuck in the negative thoughts of my trauma, I can forget that there are still good people in the world whose main purpose is not to hurt or abandon me; it's to help me. This was a huge reassuring moment for me, and I feel so much better about continuing on in my trauma work. It's still gonna suck, but I know I have strong support to go through it with.

So, I am transitioning out of IOP on Friday, but I am feeling ready. There are always those nerves, because you have to figure out life a little more; however, I am feeling confident that I can move forward and maybe let go of some of the darkness in my past to have an brighter tomorrow.

Prepping for Trauma Work

One of my main reasons for going to therapy is to work on the trauma that I have experienced in my life. For me, I am the type of person who has stuffed every negative feeling and event so deep within me that I have become emotionally disconnected from it. This causes nightmares, flashbacks, dissociating, anxiety, and more; however, in order to stop all these things, I have to unleash all of those things that I have stuffed; the things that are creeping up when I don't want or expect them to. So, how do we prepare for trauma work?

As I have mentioned before, I am currently going through my timeline, which has been no easy task. As we have gotten closer to my high school years and beyond, I have had this impending sense of doom and high anxiety knowing that my most severe trauma is coming, and I will have no choice but to talk about it. If I don't,  all of the bad things will continue, which would ultimately impact my ability to live in recovery. Now, I am at that point.

Tomorrow, we are beginning work on one of my biggest traumas. I spent a lot of time in PHP talking about it, as this event has had a profound effect on my ability to cope and what I choose to cope. I even did an hour long psychodrama, because it was the 9 year anniversary of that day in March. So, I have been mentally preparing for this moment over the last week or so through positive self talk ("I talked about this before. I can do it now") and telling myself that it is necessary for my recovery. It's just knowing how deeply angry and sad I am about this that terrifies me.

Here is a sparknotes version of this story, as I am not comfortable sharing all of these details on such a public platform. My sophomore year of high school, I had just moved to Maryland after a few years in Wisconsin. In March, 4 months after I had moved, someone I was close with in Wisconsin committed suicide after his battle with mental illness had gotten too hard. In hindsight, there were obvious signs that were clearly ignored by his parents. At 14, I knew something was wrong but didn't have the capacity to do anything about it, especially from another coast. This was my first major loss, which also kicked off the horrible trend of many of my friends dying way too young (He was 18). I had no idea how to cope, but that wasn't what made this so bad; it was the fact that his parents blamed for it. In their eyes, I was the reason he committed suicide.

Most people hear this story and automatically say, "What the fuck was wrong with them?" As an adult who has lost more friends to suicide since, I honestly feel like they were looking for a reason, as most people do in these cases. People always look for the reason that this person has chosen to end his or her life; however, we rarely find that answer. But 10 years ago, that insight wasn't there. At 14, I had no ability to cope with a death, let alone the responsibility for it as well, and I held onto the blame for his death for years. The worst part is that I never showed that guilt and pain. I had learned that it is wrong to show emotions, so I stuffed it deep inside me where I wouldn't have to deal with it. Then, I chose eating disorder behaviors, alcohol, and drugs to feel numb.

The thing about unpacking these feelings and trauma is that it is a tedious and delicate process. It's like unpacking that box of your grandma's china. You are so careful to unwrap each little piece, because even the slightest rushed movement could cause it to break. You can't rush through it; you have to do it one piece at a time. If you don't, everything could be ruined. Trauma is the same way.

I can honestly say I rushed through this event in my treatment the first time around. I spent 3 days talking about it and feeling that pain for the first time in 9 years, but after that, everything switched off again. This was also due to other things that had come up; however, without giving this trauma the time and care it needed, it got repositioned and packaged back up in that china box. A piece or two came out, but most of my trauma set is still there.

I think the best thing we can do when preparing to talk about trauma is to approach ourselves with kindness and compassion. These things have had a major impact on our lives, and they can't be fixed overnight. That is one thing I have to continually remind myself of. As much as I hate feeling things long term, if I don't continue to feel them, the negative effects will be worse than the feelings. Trauma happens to us. We do not cause them. We do not have responsibility for them. We should not blame ourselves. While all of these things are much easier said than done, they are important to recognize. Trauma occurs to some degree in most people's lives; however, it is our ability to discuss and work through it that helps us succeed in this journey towards recovery.

Boundaries (aka Things I Suck At)

Boundaries are these things that we sent in place mentally, physically, and emotionally to protect ourselves in a variety of capacities. There are so many different uses for them, but most of us kind of suck at actually putting them in place and sticking to them. Personally, my biggest issue with setting boundaries is with work.

My issue with setting boundaries with work has existed almost as long as I can remember. My therapist pointed out that this is a result of my trauma.

When I was in 7th grade, I was severely bullied at school. I was being pushed down flights of stairs, being spit on, having my things taken from me, and more awful things. I was 11 years old and had no idea why these were happening to me. The worst part about it? My parents and I reported it to the school, and their response was, "Well, that's just what middle school kids do. You must be provoking them somehow. So, we are setting you up with your history teacher to do extra work." Then, that history teacher took advantage of that situation. He was grooming me for inappropriate things that teachers should never do. Luckily, that grooming never paid off, but it was still terrifying.

So, the school was teaching me that by throwing myself into work, I would be safe from many of the physical things happening to me. If I am working, I can't get hurt. I have clung to that idea for the last 12 years. It helped me in a lot of ways. I was in the top 5 of my class. I completed college in 3 years, and I received my Master's degree at 22. It helped me get ahead, but it also helped me compartmentalize all the bad and pretend that it never happened. Now that I am unpacking all of those things finally, it is incredibly painful.

I still also don't know how to disconnect myself from work very well. Work had always been a huge distraction from my feelings. So, when I start to feel upset, I turn to work to not deal with things. Tonight, I found myself feeling a little overwhelmed, so I went to check our messaging system. From all the messages, I just got more and more frustated. There were things going on that I had no clue about. Kids being argumentative and debating every rule. I found myself getting more and more annoyed.

Then, I thought to myself, "What the fuck am I doing? I don't get a lot of downtime, so why I am getting annoyed with work when I am off the clock?" So, I shut off the system, but I am still itching to get take care of it because my emotions just make me so uncomfortable. I'm basically crawling out of my skin right now with how uncomfortable I feel. But then I remember that I have very fluid boundaries with work and it has always served a purpose for me. So, now what?

Rationally, I know I need to set a firmer boundary with work. I need to not check my email or my messages once I leave work unless someone calls in an emergency. Emotionally, I am still not sure I am ready to do that or can. I am learning to accept emotions that do come up, even though I am still very disconnected from them; however, I know that if I continue to push emotions away, I will never become comfortable with them. So, I need to set my boundaries and stick to them. Otherwise, I am going to continue to push away my emotions, which results in pushing away people. I will become completely enmeshed in work, and that just sounds terrible. I think boundaries sound way nicer :)

Is Fat a Feeling?

Almost every day, I hear someone in my life or surroundings saying, "Ugh. I just feel so fat today." It's such a common expression in American culture: feeling fat. In eating disorder treatment, they drive home the fact that fat is not a feeling, but rather, it is what we are labeling feelings that we cannot identify or are using eating disorder rationale to discuss emotions. Regardless of what the ED experts say, I know myself and others in recovery really struggle with giving up this idea.

Most days lately, I do truly wake up and say, "God, I feel so fat today." The reasoning changes day to day. It could be that my clothes aren't fitting how I want them to or my jeans are a little tight or seeing my recovered body in the mirror.

Honestly, I still am not used to my recovered body. When you put on 15+ pounds in less than 3 months, it's a shock to your system. The refeeding process is horrifically painful. You have to eat past the point of feeling full, sit with stomach pain and GI issues, and it's time to eat again. Imagine the fullest you have ever been and having to push yourself past that point at least 5 times a day.  To this day, I still have stomach issues, which is what makes this recovery journey that much harder for me. That overly full feeling makes me feel fat.

Rationally, I know that when I am "feeling fat," it's my eating disorder getting into my head. Labeling my emotions as "fat" is a hell of a lot easier than admitting I'm sad, angry, anxious, etc. I have always been pretty disconnected from my emotions, so this is just one more way to keep me that way.

Irrationally, my eating disorder feeds off of this "feeling." ED begins to tell me that that feeling is right. That I am fat, which means I am worthless, unlovable, and all the negative core beliefs I have about myself. It spirals to skipping snacks, not taking my meds, and going from there when I am not in treatment.

Thankfully, I am in treatment. I have the opportunity to discuss these things with my team and others in IOP. I am learning how to truly identify my feelings for what they are. They have been held behind this wall of my eating disorder to keep me "safe" for so long.

Deep inside me, I know there is someone who is so angry at the world and upset with a lot of the things that have happened in my life; things that are honestly truly unfair to any human being. Unfortunately, I don't think I am quite there to let all that out. So, in this moment, I am going to focus on accepting emotions as they come and to try to have compassion towards my new, healthy body.

Selfish vs Selfless

Today in group at treatment, someone talked about being selfish versus being selfless. These two words hold significant weight in the way that we think, feel, behave, etc towards ourselves and others. Selfish is when we are totally focused on our own needs, and selfless is complete focus on the needs of others. In an ideal world, everyone should have a balance of both. We need to focus on our own needs, but also look at the needs of others in order to maintain relationships. My eating disorder completely clouds this.

When I am in a full blown relapse, I tend to be very selfless in a selfish way. How is that even possible? I become very selfless in order to escape the battle in my head. Basically, I am using my selflessness as a way to be selfish. I do it to fulfill my needs, because I cannot handle what is going on in my life. So, I turn to others as a way to be selfish. It doesn't mean that I do not care about others and do not genuinely want what's best for them; however, I do tend to become enveloped in other people's lives and focused on them 100%. Most of my relationships have started in the midst of relapses, because I wanted to give someone else all of the attention in order to not have to focus on myself. This is something I have had to be mindful of in this process. I have found myself running to online dating as a way to take the focus off of myself. So, I have to monitor myself when meeting new people. As the great movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind said, "Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?" Change woman to man and that's me. 

Using others to help me cope with my issues is potentially one of the most selfish things a person can do. It leads to an extreme amount of guilt and difficulties in my relationships, because I don't realize how much I am hurting others by using them for my coping. It also tends to push people away, because I become dependent on them to the point of unbearable. I become too much and people walk out. If they don't walk, I push them away by becoming clingy and then shutting down when a response is given. None of my needs can ever be fulfilled by others, even though I wish they could be. I become selfish, because even though I am attempting to fulfill their needs by doing anything I can, I am not taking care of my own needs, which causes everything to fall apart. So, how do I break this cycle?

In a lot of ways, I have to become selfish for the right reasons. I need to focus on my own personal needs and self-care in order to become a person capable of being selfless with no expectations in return. This involves a great deal of therapy and commitment to incorporating self-care. I have to let myself take breaks and process things. I have to take on only what I can handle and step away from things I cannot. I must take better care of myself and that includes following my meal plan. So, what's my biggest first step that I need to take?

I asked my new therapist to begin going through my timeline and actually talking about it in great detail. I did this the first time I was in treatment in 2 ways. The first was with my individual therapist, but we only hit the highlights and overlooked a lot of the smaller issues, which add up. The second was in a group; however, I have a really difficult time allowing myself to feel the events that have happened in my life. It feels like I am telling someone else's life like I am giving a biography report in school. I try not to connect on it, because my life is exhausting with the amount of trauma I have experienced. To feel all that trauma again is awful. That's the purpose of my eating disorder: to serve as a wall between me and all that crap. Without my eating disorder, all of that comes back and becomes so overwhelming that I shut down and relapse. Unfortunately, it's not enough to have insight as to what happens. Something has to be done about it.

It's time to move forward. It's time to allow myself to experience all the feelings I stuffed down deep inside, because they were too much to bear. It's time to accept that these feelings are okay. They are not bad, just scary. It's time to take away the blame of the things I don't deserve to blame myself for. It's time to heal. It's time to tear down the wall of my eating disorder and create a new whole self that can process the pass and emotionally heal.

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.