New Counselor and an old friend

I saw a new counselor today. Since I’m switching to outpatient, I have to switch to an outpatient therapist. I feel like I’m starting over.

This was also the third time in a week I’ve had to go through the details of my eating disorder with a new person. (Once at the hospital, once with the county behavioral health guy, and again today)

My new counselor is ok. I didn’t instantly click with her like I did my IOP counselor, but we’ll just see how it goes. She gave me a lot of homework for this week. She also wants me to do some art this week. I don’t do any at home, only in art therapy, which I don’t have anymore.

I also (!!!) got my scale back!

Naturally, the first thing I did when I got home was weigh myself.

I ate 360 calories today, which I purged. It was really nice to have a break from binging and purging. I think my body and mind both needed that.

I understand that 360 calories is not enough, but I’m having a lot of trouble convincing myself that it’s ok to eat outside my binges, so at least it was something.

Tomorrow I am going over to my brothers’ place for the weekend. I am not looking forward to foodness. Especially since my family is having another picnic on Sunday. Bleh.

Art Therapy

I got my art from the art therapy group from the intensive outpatient program I did. I wanted to share it with you.

Week 2
I made a sarcophagus with thick walls. It is what binds me, what holds me together. It’s a stoic outer shell, a wall of protection. Inside is chaos and confusions. The black circle with the tendrils is my eating disorder. It is a dark, heavy tar that pollutes my heart and controls my thoughts and actions, thus the tendrils extending up into my brain and body.

 

Week 3
This is me. This is an image I get in my head a lot. It’s basically what I want to do to myself much of the time.

 

Week 1 & 4
The first week, I made the heart and a cover for the heart with a lock on it. The heart is sort of bowl shaped and it has a tear inside because it’s a container for my tears, for all the pain and hurt. The over with the lock was to symbolize how I try so hard to lock my heart away, and with it the pain.

On Week four, I decided I wanted to paint them. I had put the cover over an upside down container to help it dry in the right shape. However, when I went to take it off, it broke into several pieces.

At first, I was upset about this. After thinking about it for a couple minutes, I realized how symbolic it was. Through the course of the IOP, I had grown a lot and opened up significantly. I had made myself vulnerable, and shared my heart, and much of my pain, with my fellow patients.

So, I grabbed some foam board for a base and glued the pieces to it, then painted it.

 

Week 5
I was having a really hard time in general, self-harming daily and feeling suicidal. My counselor had given me a smooth…something (I’m not sure what it was, exactly) and rubbing it helped me to self-sooth and stay grounded. Unfortunately, it fell out of my pocket and broke. It was very sharp and I accidentally cut myself on it when I picked it up, so I gave it back to my counselor so it wouldn’t be a temptation for me.

The next day, I decided to make stones to have the same purpose and effect. I made mostly smooth ones, but a couple of textured ones. The bottom of each stone has a word like “calm” and “believe”.

I want to paint them.