Pitfalls

It's been an incredibly challenging week. That's the tricky thing about recovery: when things seem to be going well and you are beginning to feel comfortable with where you're at, all of a sudden pitfalls begin to appear to try and set you back. This week has been full of them.

First of all, a very unwelcome person decided to try and re-enter my life via LinkedIn. This person has not been a part of my life in quite some time because of the choices he made, ones that hurt me very badly. So, I made the decision to stop contacting him but I have never been ready to truly say I feel in order to officially end things. He has been blocked on all other types of social media; however, when I joined LinkedIn approximately 2 weeks ago in order to help support my job search, I did not think to automatically go block this person there. So, when I got a message from him asking me to add him, it was all total bullshit.

This was very triggering for me. My phone number and e-mail address have not changed in 10 years, but he could not make the choice to contact me there? And LinkedIn of all places? What the fuck? It just brought up a lot of the anger I have tried to shut out for the last few years. I had had it. Finally, I found myself with the courage to finally send the "Go Fuck Yourself" e-mail that I have never been able to do. I was always worried that, because it would be the final nail in the coffin of our relationship, it would ultimately backfire,and I would become a more damaged person from it. As I have learned in recovery though, this is not the case.

Because I kept holding onto that relationship, I was staying a damaged person. I was not able to truly process and grieve the loss like I needed to, which resulted in my constant state of being shut down. This set off my eating disorder behaviors and the vicious cycle continued. Every time I would become upset about the issue, I felt that damage more strongly than I had before. Each time I pushed it down, it simmered and grew. All the time I spent "protecting" myself was wasted on unhappiness and pain; however, I wasn't ready to do it yet. It took me a long time to get to this point, but I finally reached it. So, I hit send.

There's nothing more validating than finally telling the person who hurt you to fuck off. Those small words mean so much, because it means I'm no longer allowing him the occupancy in my heart or mind. I will no longer allow him to continue causing me pain, especially when he is no longer a part of my life. I will not allow my eating disorder to creep in and say that I need to use behaviors to cope with this loss. I am my own person who is deserving a life with only people who love and support me, not those who use me to make themselves feel better. I am taking back my life from my abuser, something that I have never been able to say until now.

One of the most important steps for me after sending that e-mail was to write a goodbye letter for myself. I waited until the next day and put myself in the position where I could do it. I used a picture of him and my journal to sit and write all of the things that I never could say. These will be things that I never will say to him, because he doesn't deserve to hear them. I did this for me and surprisingly, I didn't shut down. By giving myself the space to write the letter and using the picture, I cried for the first time in 7 years about the pain he's caused me. I cried for 45 minutes, which is something I haven't done in years, and it felt good. I even made my therapist cry when discussing it, so that's pretty damn good. The next (and most dreaded) step will be processing the letter in therapy though, which is going to be the most difficult thing I will ever have to do. Pitfalls at their finest.

The other major issue this week has been with my license. I found out last night that my counseling license is actually NOT valid in the state of Missouri, which is overwhelmingly frustrating. I have thought that I would be fine, which I clearly looked at the wrong information. So, I quit my job to return to a field that I love but cannot currently practice in until I take another graduate class. With it being the middle of the semester, I am going to have to wait until at least summer and maybe fall in order to do so. So, the internship I just started has no benefit for me and I just feel very stuck. With my stuckness came the possibility to shut down; however, for the first time in our relationship, I actually sat down with my boyfriend and cried... a lot. I've teared up and cried a little, but nothing like this. It was a really great moment, because it shows that I don't need to shut down and I am safe being vulnerable. Rationally, I know that, but it's still very uncomfortable for me to experience emotions. I am the luckiest lady to have such an incredibly patient partner.

So, now what? This is a question I don't really know the answer to at this point in time. For now, I'm just going to try and figure out a plan B. The one thing I have to keep in mind is that pitfalls will pop up everywhere. Whether it's a bad body image day or a major life changing event, life isn't perfect. Neither am I. The best I can do is rely on things outside of my eating disorder in order to keep moving forward. Even if I do use behaviors, it's better to take one step back and get up swinging than to fall back to a full blown relapse. All I can do is one day at a time.

New Beginnings

When I first entered treatment, I was wondering what my life would like like afterwards. I had 2 options: Return to Milwaukee and try to resume the life I was living without using behaviors OR I could stay in St Louis for a while and try to figure things out here. I’m really glad I chose option 2.

Although things haven’t been perfect or easy, I have a pretty peaceful life now. Milwaukee was chaotic and fueled with memories and bad choices. There, if I began struggling with behaviors, I could easily get away with them. I wouldn’t have as much accountability there and would also probably return to my hard partying ways to cope with all the changes I had just undergone. I would have been back to square 1 and probably on another train back to St Louis.

I think new beginnings are important after going through such huge personal growth and change. If we go back to the familiar but remove the eating disorder, it will always feel like something is missing. It makes the mourning period for the loss of that identity longer and harder. Also, the strength of that progress seems diminished. You’ve busted you ass in 12 weeks of treatment to go back and maybe have that work go to the wayside as the day to day routine comes back into play. New things lead to new routines.

Had I returned to Milwaukee, I would have returned to my case management position. This required me to visit clients, deliver medications, and work on paperwork. The vast majority of my work day was in my car, which made it so easy to restrict. If I had a scheduled time to meet with a client, I would make sure I didn’t have time to stop. If I just kept going, I wouldn’t be able to feel how tired or weak I was. It’s not that I didn’t love the position, because I did, but it would have been difficult to balance the requirements of my meal plan with the job specifics. However, this also happened in St Louis.

After being promoted at my last job, I relapsed. Even though my apartment was literally down the hall from my office, I found excuses to skip meals and stayed in my office to avoid eating. I got back into IOP pretty quickly, but still. New beginnings are not without their challenges.

Now, I have accepted an internship program at a private practice in order to finally begin working on my licensure hours again. I’m finally moving forward in my career, and I feel ready to do that. After leaving PHP, I knew I wasn’t ready. I needed time before being able to give therapy again, but it’s time.

While I know that this will come with its own struggles, including learning how to incorporate my meal plan into this schedule, it’s the next step in the new beginning I’ve been waiting for.

All good things come to those who wait. Be patient.

After working incredibly hard the last year on myself, I’m happy to say that those good things are coming in all the time, and I am very lucky.

I Had No Idea

The theme of this year's NEDA week is "I Had No Idea." Sometimes, we have these cookie cutter ideas of what eating disorders are and how they can impact a person, but there's so much more to them than just a label.

I Had No Idea:

• The level of distortion I had when looking in the mirror.
• I was so cold all the time, because of ED.
• How much hair I would lose.
• I would end up with a chronic heart condition.
• Eating a meal would continue to cause stomach pain and issues, even in recovery.
• There are no good/bad foods.
• How hard it is to begin eating again- physically, mentally, and emotionally. 
• My thoughts were covering up so much more underneath.
• Using behaviors would give the high that cocaine once did.
• Wanting to be thinner wouldn't make me any happier.
• How quickly dieting turned into disorder.
• Seeing the size on my clothes get lower would cause me to push harder.
• Not everyone constantly beats themselves up mentally everyday.
• How much my self-worth would become dependent on size, shape, and numbers.
• A bad body image day would impact my ability to do anything.
• Skipping work would happen so frequently from being sick from behaviors.
• That I punished myself with restricting.
• I would use self-injury.
• Other mental health issues contributed to my ED behaviors.
• Anorexia would be closer to me than many friends and family when I'm sick. 
• The impact of my behaviors on my ability to perform well at work.
• Lying would become a part of my daily routine.
• I wasn't very good at hiding behaviors, even though ED told me I was.
• EDs have a major influence on how your brain works and performs.
• I had no clue who I was without my eating disorder.
• Anorexia would become my identity.
• The negativity of my core beliefs.
• How strongly my trauma affected me without restricting.
• Talking about my issues would be and continues to be the hardest thing I have to do.
• The amount of support I needed and continue to need to stay in recovery.
• Comparing myself to others would cause me to lose self-confidence.
• How amazing the community of people fighting EDs is. 
• As a therapist, I wouldn't know all the answers to help fix myself.
• I wouldn't be able to bring myself to dance again.
• People don't spend 2 hours in the grocery store to get a basket's worth of food.
• I have the ability to take care of myself and other people. 
• Suicide would be an option I would ever seriously consider.
• My behaviors could have killed me.
• Hunger cues would go away, and Fullness cues take time to adjust.
• That I would continue to fight anorexia 10 years later. 
• Just how sick I actually was.
• I would have to give up my job, relationships, friendships, life in order to go to treatment.
• I would lose everything to my eating disorder.
• You have to hit rock bottom before you can build yourself back up again.
• Even skipping one meal in recovery would put me off track. 
• Insurance coverage is solely based on numbers, not on actual mental stability.
• Letting go of behaviors would be this difficult.
• How hard it is to stay in recovery.
• I could feel so good without using behaviors, being a certain size, or a number on the scale.
• Treatment would be the hardest thing I would face, but it was absolutely worth it.

 I could go on and on, but eating disorders are so much more than a DSM diagnosis. That's why weeks like NEDA Awareness are so important. Without educating, many people may not understand or receive the help that they need. Spread the word!

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.

Dance- How I Lost My Dreams to Anorexia.

This is probably the hardest blog I have written so far. It's very painful for me to discuss or even think about, which is why I don't talk about it often. But with it coming up more and more, I need to talk about it. If you know me, dance has been such a huge part of my life. It was one of the only constants I ever had growing up. Every time we moved, I was always involved in dance or something similar from city to city, state to state, country to country. Today, I came to the harsh realization that I haven't danced in over a year, which is something I don't think I ever would have thought would happen in my life, but here I am. I'm not dancing.

When I came to St Louis for treatment, I literally picked up and left everything behind. I was in such a bad headspace that I grabbed a pile of clothes from my floor into a bag (none of which even formed an outfit to leave the house in), got on a train, and tried not to look back. I left behind my job, my friends, my apartment, my car, everything. I ended up losing most of those things because of my eating disorder. To me, none of those things matter as much as dance. Losing that has been one of the hardest things for me to face. I can accept losing everything else, but this is has been really painful.

Last year, I was offered the contract of a lifetime. After so many days of auditioning, last minute trips to New York, and blood, sweat, and tears, I had finally done it; I was offered a contract to be a Rockette in New York City. It took me a few days to think about what to do. Had I taken that contract, I would have had to pick up and leave Milwaukee to move to New York City for a few months. I would have had to work another job to make it by, but it was something I had dreamed about since I was 5. I would be on stage at Radio City Music Hall. I chose to turn it down for two very big reasons- 1) I knew I would have to work a 2nd job just to make ends meet and 2) I was so deep in my eating disorder that I didn't think I would physically be able to do it. Two months had passed since my last audition, and I was down 15 pounds. I was barely able to work everyday, let alone dance a 90 minute show multiple times a week. So, I said no.

Things happen for a reason though. The show I was offered a contract for ended up being delayed, so I would have moved to New York for a few weeks of rehearsals and then, nothing. It ended up being the right choice. Little did I know that 2 months after that decision, I would ultimately lose everything anyway.

I haven't actually danced in over a year. The last gig I did was Mondo Lucha in Milwaukee, which was ninja hip hop and so much fun. For the first time in a long time, I was dancing just to have fun again; not to impress anyone or get a job. It was just for me, and I haven't gotten myself to dance since. Even in treatment, we had dance therapy, and I rarely participated. If I was in group that day, I would always sleep or zone out. It was too painful to accept that I wasn't allowed to really dance at that point in time. All I could do was eat a fuck ton of food and sit around in order to put back on all the weight I had lost. It was torture.

Even now, I haven't been able to bring myself to dance for so many reasons, which my eating disorder has a big part of. Being in front of mirrors for an hour where you have to body check to make sure your body is in the right position is incredibly trigger for me right now. All I see is fat and a body that I don't recognize when I look in the mirror. I have never been content in the way that my body looks weight restored. It makes it incredibly difficult to look in a mirror. Also, my eating disorder tells me that I can't go back to class, because I am out of shape, have no stamina, and won't be good anymore. It would be a failure for me to go, so I just avoid it. Finally, I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect in class. Dancing has always been an outlet for me, but it also has been a downfall. When I dance, I can't even describe the feeling. It feels like home; however, I feel like since I had been the best in class before, I have to live up to that in my mind, which is completely stupid. Dance is for me, not anyone else, but I still can't bring myself to do it.

I shudder in my mind to think that I won't ever dance again. Part of me truly believes it while the other can't see my life without that. Recovery has been a really painful journey so far. I have had to look at a lot of aspects of my life, past, and identity. Dance fits into all of those things, so I know in my heart that I need to reincorporate it. It's just a matter of how and when. I'm still not sure I can, but I don't think I or others would recognize me without it. So, it's sink or swim time. My challenge to myself is to take at least one class this month, because I know that I need to to prevent from going insane. I end this blog with this quote, because what is my life without dancing? Not as good as it could be.

Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free

Wake Up Call

Throughout my time in treatment and in talking to people who have successfully had longer periods of time in recovery, everyone has said that recovery is like a light switch. One day, you'll wake up and realize "What am I doing to myself?" and that's how you transition to focusing on recovery. In some ways, I agree with this; however, I don't know if I have ever truly experienced it.

The last time I was in treatment, it was my time in the hospital away from treatment that was the catalyst for my recovery. Being away from treatment made me realize that maybe I could successfully do things on my own. I didn't need to be there 6 hours a day, 7 days a week anymore. Also, being around others who were deeper in their eating disorders than me was incredibly triggering at that point.

This go around in treatment, I've been pretty stagnant. While I have been making good progress in my individual therapy, I haven't really done overly well with my meal plan or battling my eating disorder thoughts. Being of my stomach issues, I have days where I just generally give up on trying to follow my meal plan and focus on making it through the day; however, by restricting more, my body only gets worse, not better. I have more days where I am doing better on my meal plan, but I honestly don't think I have had a day where I have successfully completed all snacks and meals since I re-entered at the beginning of September. It's just trying to figure out if IOP is really helping?

Then, I received an e-mail from my therapist yesterday saying that they are threatening to discharge me because of my lack of progress and the number of days I have missed treatment to stay at work instead. I understand that. I fully admit that I have not been the most committed to treatment lately, but it is not because of my eating disorder. I think I might have had my wake up call.

In the days I have actually gone to IOP, I haven't found them the most effective. I have had more success with my individual sessions rather than the supported meals and groups. It ends up being more of a chore to go each day rather than providing the benefits that I need. So, what do I do?

Today, I feel more clarity in my mind than I have in a few months now. My eating disorder voice is quiet today. For the first time in 2 months, I have actually exceeded my meal plan, and I don't feel that guilty about it. I challenged myself by going to Target and actually spending some time in the grocery section. I attempted to avoid looking at labels and calorie counts, but still did on a few things. I bought a variety of foods that I can actually eat over time, rather than just a week. My stomach finally doesn't hurt today, even though I was sick most of last night. All in all, this is the first good day I've had in a long time. Nothing amazing has happened. Nothing has really changed. It's just a good day.

Maybe the wake up calls don't always come in when we expect them to, but it could be that the come in right when we need them, even if we don't realize it ourselves. I am a firm believer that everything in life happens for a reason, but it doesn't always make sense in that moment. Eventually, it always does. Maybe this wake up call is going to lead to bigger and better things and a healthier journey on my way to recovery.

On Track and Giving It All Away.

Things have been really intense lately. After going through the trials and tribulations of Tuesday, I have been trying really hard to get back on track, which hasn't been easy. Once you start restricting again, your body absolutely hates you when you try to put food in it again, which is why it's so easy to stay in that pattern of restricting once you start. My gastroparesis has flared up big time. My stomach doesn't really know what to do with food right now, so that's been difficult. Every time I eat, I either get full or stomach pain really quickly. The physical part of my eating disorder is only one small portion though.

The mental part has been increasingly difficult with the more trauma work I do in therapy. On Friday, I spent a lot of time discussing the year that set the foundation for everything else in my life: 7th Grade. While I did experience trauma prior to this year, this year was the basis for the majority of my core beliefs, coping, and how I view myself. So, spending 45 minutes talking about that trauma is emotionally and physically exhausting. My therapist had a lot of really solid points though; things I had never thought about, which was awesome. All I can do is take things one moment at a time.

This week has made me really look at giving. I'm starting to learn that I give myself away without really giving anything away at all. I have the ability to give away my feelings, thoughts, and behaviors to others without revealing anything about myself. This is such an ingrained, internal process that I often don't realize I am doing it anymore. I typically I have given myself away to so many people and things in my life that didn't deserve me at all. In my head and my heart, all the space is occupied by others, and I don't leave space for myself. I literally give all of myself away.

I have given my heart to people who don't deserve it. I have given my thoughts to negative things. I have given my time and energy to things that I never needed to, because they make my life worse. I have given love to those who could never give it back to me. I have given my everything to things that don't truly matter in life. But worst of all, I have given everything to my eating disorder, because it was the one thing I felt could keep me going and helped me from not giving everything away. I have successfully done all of this while keeping my trauma in a private room at the back of my heart. I have never truly given myself away, because no one in my life knows all that's back there. I'm not even convinced that I do anymore.

I'm starting to learn that I need to be more careful about who I give myself to. I am realizing that I give things to those who don't deserve them or who don't match what I want. I am giving my everything to work, because it helps keep going. I continue to give myself to my eating disorder, even though I know it's wrong. I just give and give and give, but I hold onto the things that destroy me.

So, time to stop giving away myself so easy. I am at the point where, when I do give, I am losing everything, because it feeds my eating disorder. We all know my eating disorder destroys everything. I think I am starting to learn what parts of myself I am willing to give away. Because I am learning to accept and embrace the things that have happened to me rather than blame myself for them, I am more comfortable giving those things to others. I am learning that maybe giving those parts of me to other people are way more powerful than giving the version with a wall around her heart. Maybe that's how I get to have a more fulfilling life and get away from my eating disorder.

How Important is Recovery?

I have honestly been really struggling lately. It is making me wonder how worth it this whole process is. Is it worth spending 10 hours a week in therapy? Is it worth being watched for 3 meals a week and having to talk about how I feel about it afterwards? Is it worth unleashing all this trauma in me that has never been dealt with? Is it work spending 3 nights a week in therapy when I could be doing other things? Is it worth having feelings? Is it worth having to document everything I eat for my dietician to look over? Is it worth going on medications for? What is recovery really worth? When I get really discouraged, I often want to say "Fuck It" and just move on. I would quit treatment, have free time at nights, and just live with my ED.

My body image has been horrible this week. I went out with a coworker last night and had to change 4 times before I was okay with leaving the house. She finally had to say, "Stop. You get to change one more time and then after that, we need to leave. You look fine." I just look in the mirror and see stretch marks from weight restoration, stomach fat, lines from my clothes where they don't totally fit anymore, and just feel disgusting. How do you even get over that mental hurdle? I hope that one day my brain can see that I am human and that my body shape is fine, but I really don't think it ever will. Then, I just am so overwhelmed with my trauma and anxiety that it makes me want to curl up in a ball and just shut down. I can't handle thinking about it anymore. Anticipating treatment and having to talk about these things every night is making my anxiety unbelievably high. I have started shaking again and have had panic attacks. It's been really difficult. So, why not just give up? How important is recovery anyways?

Even when I have these awful days, I try to recognize the positives in recovery. I can't always see these things as positive or even that important, but they still exist. Recovery is worth it, because:

• I have enough energy to make it through a day without having to take a nap.
• I can better focus on things I have to get done and accomplish.
• Long term goals seem possible.
• I'm not isolating from friends and family.
• I am not passing out everyday.
• My hair has stopped falling out and my nails are growing. 
• I am not always doubled over in pain when I do eat something.
• I don't have the body of a small child anymore. 
• I can enjoy the little things in life a little bit more.
• Clothes look better, because they're not hanging off of bones. 
• I don't feel the need as much to turn to drugs or alcohol to numb out.
• I don't feel so empty all of the time. 
• I sleep better.
• I have less anxiety.
• I don't have this obnoxious voice screaming my negative core beliefs in my head.

I could go on and on about all of these. There are so many reasons why recovery is important, but the most important one will always be:

• I have my life back.

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.

Gratitude

When I was working as a therapist, one of my favorite/most powerful groups with my recovering addicts was a discussion and activity on gratitude. America has such a work yourself to death type attitude, which is something I have adopted as well, with serious costs. So, sometimes we need to take a step back to look at the little things we miss when being so busy. It helps us to gain insight that things might feel crazy and out of control, but we really do have good things in our lives to be grateful for.

In this group, we would talk about gratitude: what it is and what it means to us. Clients would often say that these things got lost in focusing on their recovery, especially because the things they were grateful for would often be the things that they were most terrified to lose if they relapsed. It led to the realization that we sometimes are so anxious about losing these things that it leads to us pushing them away. So, we can take a step back to say what we're grateful for in order to appreciate what is always there through our struggles. I would have clients take a brown paper lunch bag and 10 slips of paper to list the things they were grateful for. We would then go around one by one to share some of the things we listed. So, in dealing with my anxiety today, I am listing my 10 things:

1) My family. They drive me completely and totally batshit crazy sometimes, but honestly, I would never have gone to treatment without their support. They allowed me to pick up and leave everything to come to St Louis from Milwaukee. They helped cover my rent. They communicated with my job to figure out my time off. They actively participated in family days to learn more about how to help me. I am grateful that we are a close unit, which wasn't that way for the majority of my life, and how they look out for me regardless of circumstances or how much I screw up.

2) My friends. The people who keep me most sane. I am very lucky to have developed the friend group I have in my adult life. It is made up of so many unique crazies, but I wouldn't have made it through most of my trauma without them. Honestly, their love and support has kept me around for as long as I have. In my darkest nights, I have talked with friends who have listened to me cry, freak out, and process what has happened. They have also given me wonderful memories, laughter, and happiness. I consider my friends my second family, and I wouldn't be able to get through all this without them.

3) Therapy. I am grateful for the opportunity to be on the other side of the counselor/client relationship. That hour of time every week to help me actually say the things I have stuffed for so many years has been life changing. I try so hard to not feel emotions that it is comforting to have a safe outlet where I can share them when I am ready. Some days, I really hate it. I hate being pushed to actually share my feelings, because it makes me very uncomfortable to experience such strong emotions; however, I know in the long run it's helpful.

4) Work. I am lucky to have wonderful coworkers and a job that allows me to leave every day to go to treatment. It has also given me a place to live independently and be on my own again.

5) Traveling. In moving so many times, I am lucky enough to know people all over the world. So, I can travel to go see these people or just to get some time on my own. My study abroad experience was one of the most life changing opportunities for me. I picked up and left Wisconsin by myself to spend 4 weeks in Madrid where I knew no one. Traveling either with friends or by myself allows me to take risks and help build my identity.

6) Music. One of my primary coping skills. It is such a powerful thing that can be used for coping, memories, parties, and so much more. I am grateful for something so simple that I can just put on and take a mental break from the world.

7) The past. While I really hate reminders of the past, especially at shitty moments, it has truly shaped me into the person I am today. I have learned that while I can't change it, I can take those life lessons and adapt them to current day situations. History repeats itself, and if we don't learn from it, nothing changes.

8) Love. I truly wish that everyone can experience love in their lifetime, because there are so many different types of it. The love we have for friends, family, relationships, life, etc. changes a person. One of the core beliefs of my eating disorder is that I am unloveable. One of my best challenges of this is looking at the outpouring of love I received through my journey in treatment and continue in my daily battles. Even though I might not be "in love" now, the opportunities are there in due time, and I am optimistic for what may come.

9) Education. My education is very important to me. I worked very hard to get my Bachelor's in 3 years and at 20 and even harder to get my Master's at 22. While I am not really using my degrees at my current job, it is something that no one will ever be able to take away from me. I earned those degrees and can celebrate that accomplishment. It may just be a sheet of paper, but it symbolizes a part of my identity that I hold very close to me.

10) Life. At 23, I have come close to successfully taking my own life multiple times, even as recently as this year. While life has not been the easiest, I am grateful to have one, especially when thinking of the friends I have lost theirs too soon. I am grateful to have the opportunities to learn from my mistakes and figure out this life one day at a time. Losing it to my eating disorder can't be an option anymore. I think I am learning that being thin doesn't mean life is better. If anything, my eating disorder makes my life worse, because I take all these things for granted.

Today I chose to be grateful and remember that life with my eating disorder makes these things that much harder. I am grateful to be on this journey in recovery, even though it isn't perfect. It's life.

Eating Disorder: 1; Heidi: 0

My eating disorder thoughts are kicking my ass this week. I just feel very overwhelmed with racing thoughts and negative self-talk. It's been causing me to over analyze meals and monitor my intake/calorie count. My urges to undo have also been strong. I haven't, but it's been a little overwhelming. I hate how you can go from peace of mind over the weekend to complete chaos during the week.

I've had a lot of negative body image this week too. I just put on clothes and feel completely gross. I wonder why anyone would ever look at me or touch me. I feel very overweight and fat. I see nothing but fat in the mirror, and that makes it really hard to connect with anyone. It's a really hard concept for others to grasp, so it causes me to isolate. I am trying not to do so by going out with friends, but it's been hard to completely engage.

Last night, I put on clothes to go to karaoke with some coworkers, and I just felt awful about myself. The guy I was with said that I looked great, but those eating disorder thoughts kept getting louder and louder. I finally had to change into something different, because I couldn't handle the noise in my head. It's completely and totally exhausting. 

I hate these weeks where it feels like the only option is to completely succumb to those thoughts and restrict until I waste away on my own. It just feels shitty. All I want to do is go take a nap and not deal with anything.

One day, one hour, one minute, one second 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.