Too little energy to care

I’ve reached the point of restriction where I become very calm. I don’t think it’s because my demons have gone away, rather I think it’s because I have too little energy to be anything other than calm, flat, emotionless, zen. I have hardly moved today. I sat on my sofa and took a final exam, then I sat on my sofa and watched Christmas movies. I haven’t even used the bathroom today because I’m severely dehydrated. I don’t think I’ve left my couch since I got up this morning. I just don’t have the energy. I frankly, I just don’t care. I don’t anticipate moving until I go to bed. I look forward to sleeping. It seems so welcoming. When I’m eating well, I hate sleeping because I have too much I want to do, too much to get done to sleep. Now, I just have Christmas movies and sleep because I have no energy for anything else. I’m ok with this. Like I said, I have reached my zen.

I was looking at my Christmas tree earlier. It has candy canes on it. I wanted to taste a candy cane. Not eat it, just taste it. But I didn’t have the energy to cross the room to get one, and I’m too afraid the sugar will digest in my mouth and I’ll consume calories by licking it. I like being completely calorie-less. Maybe I won’t go back to treatment. They want me to eat there. I don’t want to ever eat again.

Advertisement

Conflicted and Hungry

I’m in treatment, but I’m struggling. I haven’t been eating outside of treatment meals, which is dinner and HS snack Monday-Thursday. Before I started treatment, I was binging and purging all day long and I went back to the EIOP to help get that under control. Well, I have for the most part. And for a week or two, I mostly followed my meal plan. But as I’ve explained to dietitians in the past, following a meal plan feels like restricting, which triggers me to restrict more and more. And that’s exactly what has happened. To the point where I’m just not eating at all outside of program.

I dream about food every time I sleep. I’ve taken to watching Food Network. Right now, they’re playing Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives back-to-back. The food looks amazing. And I know my body is hungry, but I can’t bring myself to eat. Nor do I actually feel hungry. Or maybe I do and I’m ignoring it hard enough. I’m not sure. I’m definitely not focusing on my finals the way I should be. Today I took a nap because I just kept thinking about eating but I knew I couldn’t let myself eat, so I took a nap to take up a couple hours of time where I wouldn’t have to think about it, or feel weak and in pain. I dreamed I ate all kinds of things. Luckily, I didn’t actually eat any of those things.

I can’t get warm. It’s 36 degrees outside, but I have the heat on. Even with the heat, a jacket, slippers, and gloves, I’m still cold. I’m listless. I can’t concentrate on anything. I’m so bored. Nothing sounds interesting. I just watch the food on the tv and long for what I won’t let myself have. What I can’t have. What I don’t deserve. I want it all. All at one time. And that scares me. And now I’m just rambling.

Art Dump

At the treatment center where I’m getting treatment for my bulimia, we just moved to a new building. This means a new art room with clean, fresh walls. So, the art therapist decided to turn one wall into a recovery wall. She is having all the patients paint a symbol that means recovery to them. The anatomical heart above is what I painted on the wall. I chose a heart because I wanted to symbolize courage and to me, courage comes from the heart. I used red to symbolize the blood pumping through your veins when you are doing something courageous. I used yellow to symbolize life because recovery is about reclaiming your life.

The picture above is what I did in art last night. I wanted to try to process a little the trauma I’ve experienced in my past. This was a HARD  piece to do. I cried throughout it, and I had to take a break at one point, but it was a good experience, very therapeutic. I used black to represent the feeling of oppression that the trauma gives me. I used the red slash marks to indicate the wounds to my body, spirit, and soul that the trauma caused. Then I wrote words that the trauma brought and things that I felt I lost because of the trauma. Next week I want to either paint something pretty over it or on the back of it to acknowledge that the trauma will always be there, but it doesn’t need to control my life or be my focus, I can still build a beautiful life for myself.