Tired

Today is one of those days where I am just tired of recovery. Every day lately has been the ultimate battle of just trying to make it through a full day having consumed every calorie I need to, even with the epic war raging in my head. While I battle with my eating disorder every day, I have also had to battle recovery. It truly feels like a no win situation.

I have woken up lately with insanely high anxiety. It feels like I can barely handle the day ahead of me, because I am anticipating the meal plan that I have to fit in amongst the other crazy in my day. It feels like a chore. I wish I could just get to the point where I just could eat when I'm hungry and not have to obsess about the number of calories it has or if I am going to lose weight or face repercussions from skipping it. Recovery is a full time job in itself; one that makes facing the day to day that much harder, and I am tired.

I am happy being in recovery, because I know that this is where I need to be and don't feel awful every single day like I used to. Recovery has led me to things that I never knew were possible and happiness that I haven't had in a long time. Yes, my ED voice and negative body image are still there everyday, but they are nowhere near as bad as they once were. Recovery is a beautiful thing. It just consumes so much mental energy, but is it any worse than anorexia?

Today, I am tired from the daily focus on recovery; however, I still have more energy than I ever did when I was sick. Even though I am tired of eating when I'm not hungry and what feels like huge quantities every 2 hours, my body has the energy to actually go and do things now. I am tired of thinking about what I need to cook, but it's better than thinking about how fat I'll get from eating that cooked meal. I am tired of my recovery record alarm, but I am grateful that I am still alive today to hear it.

I may be tired of recovery today, but it's only because I was tired of living a miserable life in my eating disorder.

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.

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.

Extreme Anxiety

So, I've been neglecting the blog for a week now, mostly just because I have been extremely busy and extremely anxious. I'm having a difficult time finding the time to force myself to sit down and talk about what is going on, especially because I have been stuffing some really deep things lately. I can just feel everything bubbling up inside of me, feeling like it is on the edge of spilling out, but my twisted mind kicks in and shuts everything down. So, I've been a numbed out zombie for the last week, and the times my emotions have kicked in haven't been pretty.

Last weekend was my brother's wedding, which was really beautiful. Everything, except the freezing weather on Saturday, worked out. I was really nervous about seeing a lot of people, especially when I was having such negative body image all last week. I felt so fat and disgusting for the vast majority of last week. Honestly, I felt okay the day of. It was a lot of different emotions from being nervous that stupid people would show up or pull shit, missing grandma, and seeing this as another life transition for us (finally a good one though). There were just a lot of people in my family with high anxiety levels and lashing out on others, which triggers my trauma, ED thoughts/behaviors, and anxiety. It just makes me shut down. So, I was able to having feelings, but I was distracting from a lot of it pretty badly. It was overall okay, just very overwhelming.

This week, we had a stressful week at work with people visiting from China to check out our program. There were a lot of last minute changes and stressors for what honestly seemed like a meaningless trip. I personally felt like they were here to make sure their kids were fine, but mostly to see America and have fun. It made the last 3 days incredibly frustrating. They are finally gone, so that helps, but my anxiety has been through the roof.

Anxiety is a tricky thing, because not only does it fuck with your mind, it causes your body to malfunction as well. I already have a heart condition, so my heart typically races anyways; however, my anxiety causes it to feel like it is going to beat out of my chest. It would be like the scene in Dumb and Dumber when Lloyd has the dream where he rips the chef's heart out on his date with Mary. My heart would be out of my chest just beating. Everything feels out of control and scary and I just want to go crawl in bed, which is typically what I do. Anxiety is the most difficult level of uncomfort. So, what do we do?

When I have such extreme anxiety, sitting and thinking about what appropriate coping skills are and targeting what the root of my problem are the farthest things on my mind. I just sit and stir until I shut down. Shutting down is just so easy, but so damaging to my psyche. I have been working on focusing on control/out of control. A lot of the things I get anxious about are completely beyond my control. I can't control people not texting me back or traffic or work stuff. I just can't, no matter how much I think I can. My constant need and craving for control will always be a battle. This blog is helping, because it's finally an outlet. Sometimes I don't realize how much I need that...

Now, that my anxiety is calming down, I can move forward rationally. Breathe in, breathe out. One step at a time.

Falling for Triggers

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.

Flashbacks of the Past

To me, one of the most difficult things I have been coping with is memories of the past. It seems like triggers for flashbacks have been everywhere lately. Reminders of the past keep coming up everywhere and unexpectedly. I just feel like crying all day, so it's been increasingly difficult to just sit and work when my mind is in 20 different places. So how do we deal?

My biggest issue this week has stemmed from my most serious relationship,  which ended over 3 years ago now. We got engaged really quickly when we were really young, but it just seemed completely right. We grew together over the years and dealt with some really heavy shit together. Our relationship ended up deteriorating my senior year of college after we suffered a pretty major loss together.  Things were never the same after that. Enough time has passed now that I can look back and know that that wasn't the right relationship for me. I don't miss him or our relationship,  which is why today has been very difficult. 

He has a new son, who was born yesterday. Of the details I do know, I understand that it was with a very different relationship than the one we had, but he is the father that he never got to be with me. It's incredibly strange for me to feel so overwhelmed by this,  because I have been over and done with our relationship for a long time now; however,  it just brings back a lot of memories to what happened with us.

It brings me back to the talks of us having a family together, of getting married, and having that life together that we dreamed of. It reminds me of what we lost and the grief that we experienced in vastly different ways, which ultimately drove us apart. It's those life transitions that you can't avoid but that happen for the right reasons. It's just hard to flashback to those moments when you thought you had that and were set for life. You believe that nothing could ever go wrong, and you can take on the world because that person will always be on your side. And then you lose it...

I honestly and truly believe that things happen the way they are supposed to. I know in my heart that the things that happened in that relationship helped me to grow into a stronger person and cope with things better today. It's just overwhelming when you are sitting at your desk and your mind wanders back 4 years to these moments. They feel so real and powerful.

Today, I am grateful for the ability to look upon my past and current self with kindness. I am allowing myself to feel and mourn the loss of things that could have been and never will be. I am trying to focus on the current and not the past. If it was meant to be, it would have happened. It didn't,  so it wasn't meant to happen with those people or at that time. I move forward with this knowledge and try to take things one day at a time.

Valuing Values

This weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to go up to Milwaukee with my brother to visit our friends and go to a Brewers game, which is exactly what I needed for my mental health. The best part about these weekends is the time I get to spend with my bestie, Liz (BTW, she blogs about being a new mom here) She and I met under really shitty circumstances.  We met the night before the funeral of our good friend, Mike, who had died unexpectedly overnight of a heart condition that no one ever caught. So, we connected in a group of people at the bar and just clicked. We are basically the same person, except that we disagree on Beyonce.  I could not have survived in Milwaukee as long as I did without her. So, last night we were able to talk about our lives and all the crazy shit that's been happening. We ended up talking a lot about feeling unsatisfied right now for various reasons and looking at making major changes.  So, we talked about values.

In treatment,  I had a therapist that filled in on a week that my primary therapist was out of town. This therapist had me doing a lot of identity work. He and I went through my life's timeline. Then, he picked certain words and had me free associate to them on separate sheets of paper. Later, I had to go back and identify my emotions related to them.  The last word he handed me was my name. I drew a total blank. I literally had no idea how to respond to that. He told me that it was because I was struggling with figuring out who I am. He said that the best way to start is to identify my values.

Values are the ideals that we strive to live by. For me, some of my primary values are honesty, loyalty,  friends, family, and independence.  I believe that if we stick to the things we value, all the choices we make will fall into line and we can be comfortable. If something in our lives conflicts with our values, it leads to anxiety.  We know that these things aren't how we want to live life, so it creates this inner conflict. If one of our values isn't being fulfilled, it leads to depression,  because there is a void that needs to be filled. If we don't figure out what value is lacking, we might turn to negative behaviors to cope but don't exemplify the ideal we want to follow. It sounds easy, but like all things in life and therapy, easier said than done.

So what do we do? I have created a list of my personal values and keep it in my journal.  That way, if I start to feel anxious or depressed, I can look at those things and remind myself that if I have those, I am happy. It's not as easy figuring out if jobs, relationships,  or other things fall in line with those values (especially if society goes against them); however, if we set those ideals for ourselves and strive to follow them daily, our identity will fall in line behind it, even if we don't realize it. In the end, our values and journey to follow them will always be remembered more than making the right choice about changing jobs or moving to new places. But if we follow our guts and values, we just might make it.

War in My Mind

What do you do when you are fighting an internal battle all day every day? Every waking moment of my day, I am having all these different thoughts racing through my brain. ED thoughts. Healthy Mind thoughts. Work thoughts. Personal thoughts. More ED thoughts. Negative thoughts. Hopeless thoughts. Fight through it thoughts. Work thoughts. All of the thoughts. All of the anxiety. Every day is like a war in my mind. Those few moments of peace where my brain isn't racing are becoming harder to find. So, what do I do?

Every good soldier comes equipped with tools. As a therapist, I taught clients about their tool kits of coping skills that are all readily accessible. The only problem with this is that you can't always be doing coping skills all day every day. There's some level of coping with sitting with the war, but we all have other responsibilities that can't always be shaken off to focus on a coping skill 100%.  Blogging has become one of my primary coping skills. It has become an outlet for me to put those thoughts out of my head, rather than letting them circle. It's also been really validating sharing my experiences with other people; however, I can't always drop what I am doing to write a blog. The battle continues.

Once I figure out what tool is best for me in that moment, I have to fight the hardest battle of all: challenging the thoughts in my head while using that skill to keep my anxiety at a somewhat manageable level. My biggest struggle is that many of my thoughts are irrational, which stem from irrational core beliefs. My own personal theoretical orientation is Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, which believes that mental health problems stem from irrational core beliefs, which impact our emotions and behaviors. It's full of fun phrases like "Should"ing over yourself (Telling yourself you "should" do something, even if it is damaging to you) and "Musts" ("I must be the best and win other's approval," "Others must treat me the way I want to be treated or they're terrible people," and "I must get what I want. I musn't get what I don't want. But if I don't get what I want, it's terrible.) All of these apply to me pretty well, especially the Shoulding. Most of these are pretty irrational. So, how do I challenge them?

Evidence is really important to challenging my irrational thoughts. I feel like I am doing a horrible job at work, and I am going to be fired, because I am doing such a bad job and can't keep up with it while at treatment. None of this is true. I'm definitely overwhelmed with trying to balance the demands of work and my recovery; however, evidence shows me that my thoughts are irrational. Proof: I got a raise this month. I get praise and validation from my coworkers. I have not missed a deadline on any assignments since returning to treatment. That evidence helps me challenge my irrational thought and become at peace with a rational one. This is a pretty exhausting process though.

The average person has about 40-50 thoughts per minute (Thanks Google). If every one of those thoughts I have is irrational, how much challenging do I have to do? An insane fucking amount. That's exhausting just thinking about it! It does get easier though. The more challenging I do, the easier it gets, especially for repeat thoughts. I have some of the same general thoughts everyday, which are not limited to: "If I eat that, I am going to get fat and be worthless." "That person in the mirror is fat and disgusting." "You're doing such a bad job, because you can't do this work fast enough." "You forgot to schedule these things for those kids, so you obviously suck at your job." "No one will ever love you, because you're gross and ugly." "You clearly can't take care of yourself, because you've let yourself go." "Don't feel happy. You don't deserve that." I could go on forever...

I think the most important thing is to continue fighting the war. There's that old saying that says something to the effect of "You might not win the battle, but you can still win the war." Each day is a new battle. We're never really sure what might hit us at any given moment; however, persistence in fighting each individual battle, even if we lose some, will help us win the war against our eating disorders and continue on a new journey in recovery.

How Being a Military Brat Influenced my Eating Disorder

One of the biggest pieces of my treatment earlier this year was identity work. I have a very difficult time focusing on myself, because I feel very lost and second guess a lot of the choices I have made to end up where I am today. I also have a very difficult time accepting things that make me stay in place for too long, but that's part of being a military brat.

My entire life, I have had very little consistency. Growing up as a military kid, you're constantly moving and adapting to new people, situations, and lives. As a kid, I moved every 2 to 3 years. I switched schools three times in elementary school, twice in middle school, and three times in high school. Granted, sometimes I did end up back at the same school, but it's still change. Even if I didn't have my trauma, that constant change has severely impacted me as an adult.

The military has a funny way of saying, "Hey, guess what? Time to move again." As a kid, when you are settling into a routine and need that consistency in order to thrive, that abrupt change causes a psychological mind fuck. You begin to rely on the only thing that is consistent, your family. That becomes tricky when you have a fucked up family too. Things were never great in my family, but we "maintained" as a unit until my freshman year of college. So, in reality, there was no real constant. So, with no constants and the ever looming threat of moving again, it always feels like you have no control over your life.

That lack of control has left this void that I tend to fill with temporary things: people, alcohol/drugs, eating disorder behaviors, etc. That void drives me crazy. It drives my depression and anxiety to a more severe level. It also was a strong basis for my eating disorder to begin. In some way, it felt like I had some power in controlling my own destiny with visible goals. I could see my control working in the smaller sizes of my clothes, the lower weight on the scale, the more bones I could see. That skinny controlled person became my identity. So what happens when you have to challenge that identity, because it's not healthy?

When I challenged the sole thing that defined my identity, I quickly found that I was left with nothing. Underneath everything, my eating disorder, which made me feel like a person, was covering up my complete lack of identity. I had no idea who I was, what I wanted, or where I belonged. It wasn't until working through my values with a therapist that I had some picture of who I could be. When looking at my military brat upbringing, it had a major impact on my identity. I value change, because you can learn from it. It taught me about resilience, the importance of true friends and family, and that I truly can face anything that life throws at me.

While being a military brat did have a major influence on the development of my Eating Disorder, it also gave me important life skills that are vital to continue on my journey to recovery. Skills that if I didn't have today, I would never have survived the majority of my life without. So, while I am still trying to figure out my true identity, I know that Military Brat will always be a strong part of it.

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.

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.