Learning to ride the wave

Last night in art therapy, I was inspired by my letters to and from my inner child and wanted to give myself a kick-ass surfboard to ride my emotions on. I made the wave to represent different emotions (the legend is on the left). I put the most uncomfortable emotions closest to me in the wave to symbolize embracing them instead of stuffing or ignoring them.

I’m not skillful yet in surfing my emotions. Right now, I’m just hanging onto the surfboard for dear life. Soon, I hope to be able to sit on the surf board. Then paddle. Then stand. Eventually, I hope to be able to surf my emotions like a pro.

Tonight’s dinner was hard and I only ate about half and had to boost. I felt like a failure. I just finished my 6th week of treatment and felt like I should be able to finish all my meals by now. The dinner was a salad with chickpeas, soy chicken, and bread. The salad was so huge that it felt overwhelming and I couldn’t get past it.  I’m also still struggling with thinking that “starches=bad”.

My therapist reassured me that since I boosted, it still counts as completing, and that I need to just take recovery as it comes and not try to compare it to anyone else’s journey. She does want me to set up an appointment with the nutritionist, however.

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What a couple of days I’ve had

I was too distraught last night to post. Yesterday was long and hard. I followed my meal plan yesterday before going in. I got soooo sick on the bus ride.

Yesterday morning, I sent my counselor an email of some of my journal entries that I had planned to show her on Monday, except we got busy talking about other things.

She pulled me aside last night to talk about them because she was concerned, then made me agree to a safety contract.

She’s more determined than ever that I should be in the partial hospitalization program. She also wants me to stay in their dorm for extra support.

Today, I was having a really hard time following my meal plan. I just was hating food and hating my meal plan and hating life. I managed to eat what I had agreed with my nutritionist to eat, and keep it down, but I hated myself all the more for it.

I had very little motivation to go to treatment today, but my dad offered me a ride (meaning no nauseating bus ride) and I allowed him to take me.

When I arrived, I had a random weight check (weights are normally on Monday) and I pretty much freaked out internally.

At dinner, all I could think about was my weight and the weigh in and I couldn’t eat dinner. I had to boost. I drank it during art therapy.

Groups were ok tonight. I got to process some stuff in art therapy, then we had friends and family groups where support people come in and learn stuff.

I’m afraid of being kicked out of the program for non-compliance. My third week is almost over and I’m still not finishing dinner most nights and restricting during the day and binging and purging at night. I feel like I haven’t made any progress. But I also feel like treatment is my one lifeline at the moment and that if I can’t continue, if I get kicked out (whether for my behavior or insurance) before I make so much more progress, I will have no choice but to go back to my eating disorder fully because I feel so out of control and overwhelmed all the time that I feel like if I don’t have treatment and don’t have my eating disorder, I won’t make it.

Tomorrow is the last day I’ve been approved for so far. Hopefully I don’t have to wait the entire weekend to find out the results this time. Hopefully I hear tomorrow or Friday. Hopefully they approve php, because I feel like something needs to give, and that might be the thing to help it happen.

I feel so much turmoil. So much conflict. I feel tired. Exhausted. At the end of my rope.