Diet Day 3

It’s Day 3, so 250 calories. Today for lunch, I’m going to eat a salad. The salad dressing and cheese will bring me right up to 250 calories.

This morning in therapy we did a chain analysis on my restricting. I started crying when we figured out that that I’m restricting because, since I can’t purge right now, the calories scare me and I just can’t handle them right now. I think I cried because of how much calories are scaring me right now. I just can’t do them. It’s too overwhelming. My therapist recognized that and didn’t make me commit to eating more. She did give me skills to use if I felt like I could handle trying to eat. We’ll see. Right now I just can’t.

Planning to succeed

 

Day 2, 200 calories. I found a Luna Bar in my purse that my sister gave me yesterday. It’s 190 calories. That’s my food for today. I’m going to eat half for lunch, half for dinner.

 

***Update***
This is my 600th post!! Crazy!

Starting New Treatment

Tomorrow is the first day of my orientation for my year-long DBT program. I’m so excited, but also very nervous. I am hopeful it will be helpful. I also am unsure what to expect. Plus, I’ll be doing this program with the same people for a year, so here’s hoping we all get along well.

I meet with my therapist before the orientation, and then have orientation, then I’m going over to my brother’s for the remainder of the day to work on my Magic: the Gathering Commander deck and play a little Magic.

On the agenda for today: pack. Did I mention I’m moving? I just have no idea where to yet.

I’d love to stay and talk but it’s almost 8 o’clock and I haven’t got the time

After binging and purging for a couple hours, I decided today needed a do-over, and I went back to bed and slept for two more hours. I woke up less teary and less grumpy and less wanting to binge and purge, and more wanting to knit and play video games simultaneously (hard).

I might run errands this afternoon. I need to pick up my half-functioning bipolar medication at least. I am working on a couple knitting projects that I will probably work on today.

I also got a call from my rheumatologist. She said it sounds like the rashes on my hands are from my immune deficiencies and that there’s not much they can do about them, but she wants to see them in person, so there’s that.

I also left the pro-ana Facebook group. I feel good about that. Relieved, I think.

So while today started on a bad note, it’s looking up and hopefully it’ll end up being productive and positive.

Operation: Don’t Keep Anything In

Apparently today I decided that I’m not keeping anything down, that everything must be purged. I don’t know what happened, it was like something clicked off in my brain and suddenly I needed to purge everything I eat.

Maybe it has something to do with the pro-ana group I was added to yesterday. “What?” you ask. Yes, a friend, and someone I went through residential treatment with for several months back about 5 years ago, she made a pro-ana group on Facebook and added a bunch of people we went through treatment with, and then some of her friends. I was shocked. The only eating disorder related posts I ever make on Facebook are recovery-focused. I have never posted anything that might indicate I am pro-ana. There’s a reason. I am not pro-ana.

I know I am not always actively working toward recovery, but I don’t want people actively living in their eating disorders either. I will always advise that you seek help, because whether I’m in the mindset to do it myself or not, I always believe that’s the best option.

So here I was, minding my own business, when I get the notification “So-and-so has added you to the closed group pro-ana”. I went into a state of shock for quite a while. I didn’t know what to do or how to respond. I haven’t left the group. It’s like that car crash you can’t look away from. I know I should leave it, but I am curious as to what kind of posts it will elicit. However, I know it’s having a negative effect on me. The group information basically says “it’s ok to engage in your eating disorder” and that it NOT what I need to hear right now.

Clearly, my brain was listening, though, because it decided that nothing stays down.

What Eating disorders are Really About – This Resonates

“It’s not about food or weight…It’s about feeling unsafe in the world. It’s about feeling like we can’t trust anyone, not even ourselves. The Eating Disorder becomes “the reliable one”.

It’s about the feelings we can’t verbalize, that can’t be expressed through words so we try to “say” it with our bodies.

It’s about an extreme, intense feeling of being inadequate.  Like nothing we do or say or feel is “right”. “Not thin enough” often means something more painful to admit. That we are not enough. full stop.

It’s about feeling overwhelmed by life. Like nothing makes sense. Nothing is simple. The Eating Disorder gives us a sense of calm…to an outsider our life may look like it is in absolute chaos but it gives us the false sense of security we so desperately need. Problems that seem too big and complicated to deal with, feelings that are uncomfortable to sit with; the Eating Disorder provides us with simple, concrete answers to our distress. Our bodies are the problem and we need to fix the problem by losing weight.

It’s about needing to feel loved and comforted but feeling unworthy of real love and comfort. It’s about hating having needs and desires. For some of us, needs make us feel greedy and selfish. For some of us, having needs means we can easily get hurt if those needs are not met. For some of us, we don’t believe we deserve to have our needs met. We try to convince ourselves that we don’t need anything by avoiding food, one of our greatest primal needs.”

Read the rest here.

Reunion

The girls (women) I was in treatment with earlier this year are planning a reunion at the end of the month. They want me to come. I don’t want to. I was already the largest, and now I’m sure I’m rven larger. I want to see everyone, but I don’t want to be seen. 

Anti-eating Face Mask

Wherr do I buy this?? 

When you don’t look sick

blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/11/27/but-you-dont-look-anorexic

Searching for motivation

I was thinking this morning about checking out a local eating disorder support group, but then I began to wonder why I wanted to go. Was it because I want to work toward recovery again? 

No, that wasn’t it. 

I think my true motivation was that I feel so disconnected and isolated right now that I just wanted to connect with someone, in person, who gets it. 

Then I wondered whether it was appropriate to attend a recovery-themed support group if you don’t actually want to recover. 

I don’t know the answer to that. 

I also began to wonder how I could find motivation to want to recover. Or whether I even want to want to recover. 

I don’t know. 

I considered this morning pursuing treatment again. Again, though, not because I wanted to recover. I miss the community feel of being in treatment. I miss the bubble of being consistently around others who understand what it’s like, who laugh at my morbid, ED-related jokes, who can relate to the fears and irrational thoughts. 

Part of me feels guilty that I don’t want to recover because I feel like I’m “supposed to” recover. Like it’s the morally right thing to do, abd therefore I am morally wrong for not doing it. Not even that my actions are wrong, but that I myself am wrong. 

Anyway, I should wrap this up. I’m in the chair at the dentist’s office and I want to publish this before he comes in.