A safe place and a trigger

Last night was day 3. Dinner was hard and I barely finished, eating my last bite right as time was called. Right after dinner was art therapy. We start art with a visual check-in. We have 3 minutes to draw how we are feeling. I was overwhelmed from dinner, so I drew a sad, crying face surrounded by a bright pink circle that represented my anxiety that was enveloping me.

The art teacher suggested that for my first night in art therapy I try creating a safe place. A place I could imagine and go back to when I was feeling overwhelmed. I decided to work with colored pencil and chalk pastels and made the above image. I chose fields because I feel calmest when I am out in nature. I chose a solid tree because they make me feel safe to be under. I put a swing on the tree because swinging makes me feel relaxed. I put mountains in the distance because I love to look at the mountains. I didn’t have time to give the sky color, but I like the way my picture turned out. And in the process of making my safe place, much of the sadness, overwhelmingness, and anxiety left me and I was much more calm for the next group.

I’m also taking a college course right now. I’m taking a prerequisite for the nursing course I want to get into: Human Nutrition. This class is fascination, and triggering as hell. One project I’m working on right now is a diet analysis. I have to track my food intake over a number of days using their diet tracker software and it automatically tracks the nutrients I am consuming, including my calories, vitamins, and minerals. I am not supposed to be tracking calories while I’m in treatment, and I find this software very triggering. I find myself wanting to not follow my meal plan because I have to submit my diet analysis to my teacher and I don’t want her to see me eating all this food. I see the calories listed in the breakfast I just ate and I want to go vomit. I really need to talk to my team about how to handle this because it’s been really hard on me.