Well, it's been an interesting few days to say the least. I have found myself on another precipice to another major life transition, and it happened much faster than I thought it would; however, it is at the sake of keeping my recovery intact, which has to be the main focus of my life. If it isn't, I'll end up back in partial hospitalization or residential treatment in no time.
I made the decision to put in my 2 weeks notice at my job this week. While I love my coworkers, the actual work I was doing felt very tedious and mindless, and ultimately, it went unappreciated by many people. It felt very monotonous going into work every day, and I could feel the restlessness creeping in. I just have not been happy doing this unfulfilling work of making schedules and dealing with student demands everyday. It ultimately came to a head when I was told I would be facing a pay cut with no notice and shaky rationale. It was my breaking point, because I know that, for my own mental health, I cannot continue to work for this company; however, I have no plan.
The idea of up and leaving a job with no plan when you have bad anxiety is unsettling, to say the least. I had been thinking about leaving for about a month, so I had at least started to apply for other jobs and had 2 interviews back in December; however, nothing really had panned out. So, I went on an application frenzy, attempting to find any job in my career field that would be more fulfilling. As of today, I still have no real plan; however, I did have a second phone interview for a position today, which I am hoping will turn into an in person interview and maybe even a job. So, I have no plan, but I have a lot of motivation to keep going, which is a big change from previous situations.
Ultimately, the stress and unhappiness in this job led to more struggles in my recovery. When my mood is low, I tend to restrict, which ends up derailing my meal plan for the rest of the day. The worst part is no matter how hard I try, I can never quite make up the missed calories before going to bed. Sometimes I'll come close, but it's still hard to tell if it's my full day's worth. Also, with feeling unappreciated, it feeds into my negative core beliefs of "You're worthless" and "Why would anyone reward your work? Clearly, it's not good enough, because you're not good enough." Dealing with these thoughts in my head all day on top of mindless work has been difficult to manage. So, ultimately, I have decided that it was best for me to protect myself and move on.
If I have learned anything in my journey over the last year, it's that if you don't take care of yourself first, everything around you may remain stable for a while, but it will ultimately fall apart. When I'm eating my full meal plan and taking the time to destress, I am at my personal best in those moments. While I recognize that not everyday in recovery is easy, having more bad than good days catches up with you. Sometimes, we need to make the hard choices in order to keep ourselves happy and healthy. If I don't, I will ultimately relapse, and that's a life I don't wish to live anymore. Put yourself first, and the rest falls into place.
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
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.
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.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
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.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
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.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Connecting to Support
I have had a very difficult time connecting with my support system lately, which is part of my relapse. I have been isolating quite a bit, because I just do not want to admit to others that I am struggling. My ED mind also doesn't want people to see how fat I am. I have been stuck in my brain fighting this battle day in and day out, which has prevented me from speaking to others. This isolation has only allowed my ED behaviors and thoughts to get worse. So how do you break the cycle?
I have been working hard to try and leave my comfort space more and more. My living situation is unique as I live in the same building where I work. My office is literally 10 doors away from my apartment. So, when I am working a lot, there are days I literally don't even leave this building. Going to treatment has helped alleviate this a little bit and allowed me to connect to others more; however, IOP is a weird situation, because everyone has different days on/off, which leads to little cohesion. So, I have typically just been in my office and my apartment, only interacting with coworkers minimally. I have been consciously trying to accept more invitations from friends and family to leave my building. Otherwise, I just lay in bed most of the day when not at work. Yesterday was a really powerful example of how much better connecting with support can make you feel.
I ended up going to my mom and stepdad's for the afternoon and dinner, because they have been pretty concerned about me. My brother and his fiance went as well, which is always helpful, because they serve as a buffer from triggering comments for me. It was nice to have the support through a meal, and even when my stomach felt like it was going to shred open, they were able to distract me from it. Also, my brother and I decided to take a spontaneous road trip to Milwaukee next weekend, so I cannot wait to reconnect with my bestie, favorite girl, and friends, even if it is only for a day.
I also skyped with my best friend of 10 years. She is one of the few people who was by my side while much of my trauma was happening. We hadn't talked in a bit, because life has been insane for both of us; however, every time we talk, it feels like no time has passed at all. She is one of my biggest support systems, and reconnecting with her reminds me why I came down to treatment in the first place; so that I would have the ability to be that happy person that I could be in between my traumas and relapses. That girl is still in there somewhere.
My day ended with a reunion of some ladies I was in treatment with. These ladies are some of the strongest, most wonderful people I know. They have been with me through it all, so it always feels comfortable with them. They're also not afraid to call me on my ED, which is super helpful, especially right now. Talking with them about having to go back and dealing with my ED was awesome, because they have been there. It's also nice to go back and laugh at all the crazy shit that happened at MP, because what fun is it to go crazy if you can't go back and laugh about it? We also decided to take a road trip to visit one of our favorite ladies at college in a few weeks, so I absolutely cannot wait for that.
It's important to connect to support, because it makes you feel less alone in the world. While your ED constantly tells you that you're not good/pretty/thin/lovable/smart/etc enough for anybody, your support system is there to tell you that you are. You're more than good/pretty/thin/lovable/smart/etc enough for them, and they are there for you unconditionally. So, when you feel alone, connect with your support, because they're the best rationale to fight that irrational ED.
I have been working hard to try and leave my comfort space more and more. My living situation is unique as I live in the same building where I work. My office is literally 10 doors away from my apartment. So, when I am working a lot, there are days I literally don't even leave this building. Going to treatment has helped alleviate this a little bit and allowed me to connect to others more; however, IOP is a weird situation, because everyone has different days on/off, which leads to little cohesion. So, I have typically just been in my office and my apartment, only interacting with coworkers minimally. I have been consciously trying to accept more invitations from friends and family to leave my building. Otherwise, I just lay in bed most of the day when not at work. Yesterday was a really powerful example of how much better connecting with support can make you feel.
I ended up going to my mom and stepdad's for the afternoon and dinner, because they have been pretty concerned about me. My brother and his fiance went as well, which is always helpful, because they serve as a buffer from triggering comments for me. It was nice to have the support through a meal, and even when my stomach felt like it was going to shred open, they were able to distract me from it. Also, my brother and I decided to take a spontaneous road trip to Milwaukee next weekend, so I cannot wait to reconnect with my bestie, favorite girl, and friends, even if it is only for a day.
I also skyped with my best friend of 10 years. She is one of the few people who was by my side while much of my trauma was happening. We hadn't talked in a bit, because life has been insane for both of us; however, every time we talk, it feels like no time has passed at all. She is one of my biggest support systems, and reconnecting with her reminds me why I came down to treatment in the first place; so that I would have the ability to be that happy person that I could be in between my traumas and relapses. That girl is still in there somewhere.
My day ended with a reunion of some ladies I was in treatment with. These ladies are some of the strongest, most wonderful people I know. They have been with me through it all, so it always feels comfortable with them. They're also not afraid to call me on my ED, which is super helpful, especially right now. Talking with them about having to go back and dealing with my ED was awesome, because they have been there. It's also nice to go back and laugh at all the crazy shit that happened at MP, because what fun is it to go crazy if you can't go back and laugh about it? We also decided to take a road trip to visit one of our favorite ladies at college in a few weeks, so I absolutely cannot wait for that.
It's important to connect to support, because it makes you feel less alone in the world. While your ED constantly tells you that you're not good/pretty/thin/lovable/smart/etc enough for anybody, your support system is there to tell you that you are. You're more than good/pretty/thin/lovable/smart/etc enough for them, and they are there for you unconditionally. So, when you feel alone, connect with your support, because they're the best rationale to fight that irrational ED.
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