Forever is so short

Facebook reminded me yesterday that it was the one year anniversary of us being “facebook official”. Yesterday was the day I left. My heart broke again when I saw the reminder and I burst into tears, sitting at the stop waiting for the shuttle to take me to the airport.

This last week I was in California with my fiance. A few days ago, he started hitting me. At first, I tried to shake it off. But by Thursday afternoon I couldn’t anymore, and I bought the first available ticket home for Friday. Yesterday morning, I left before he woke up, sneaking out, afraid to tell him I was leaving. I left my ring on the dresser.

Sometime on my trip home, he figured out I wasn’t coming back because he blocked me from Facebook. Total travel time, between the uber, the shuttle, my delated flight, and driving home, was over 14 hours. It was a long day filled with many tears. I am heartbroken. Even though I know I made the right choice, I still love him. It still hurts to have the broken promise of a future with him. I went from having my whole future planned out to having nothing. I’m lost, alone, and wounded. I feel foolish. I feel used. I feel like I’ve done something wrong by leaving him. I’m so confused right now.

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Relief, Disappointment, and Grief

It’s Easter Sunday. Gone are the days of Easter baskets filled with candy, and I can’t say I’m sad. As a recovering bulimic, a basket of candy would just be asking for trouble. However, I at least expected my family to get together today.

I tried several times to firm up plans with my family to get together today for at least part of the day, and everyone reassured me they wanted to get together, but no one would actually commit to anything. I feel disappointed. I feel relieved that I don’t have to worry about an Easter dinner, but disappointed that I am not with my family today. It makes me miss my late sister and her kids even more than I normally do. She always got everyone together for holidays. She planned elaborate get togethers. She had a knack for planning and getting people together. I don’t have that. And I miss her today. And I miss my family today. And it makes me both want to binge and purge.

Values

On Monday, in individual therapy, I went over my values cards. It’s pretty neat, you have a stack of like 100 values and you start by sorting them by “very important,” “sort of important,” and “not important”. Then you get rid of the sort of important and not important stacks. You take the very important stack and sort it into “problems,” “shoulds,” and I can’t remember the other stack. Then you discard the problems and shoulds and start over with the other stack sorting into “very important,” “sort of important,” and “not important.” There are more steps, but I don’t remember them all. Anyway, you get down to 7 most important values, then 5, then 3 core values, then your single most important value.

My 7 most important values are: (in no particular order)

• family
• friendship
• growth
• connection
• love
• discovery
• spirituality

My 3 core values are:

• spirituality
• love
• discovery

And my single most important value is love.

I think it’s good to know your values as they can act as a compass to guide your actions throughout the day. Am I working right now toward one of my values of family, friendship, growth, connection, love, discovery, or spirituality? If so, I’m probably on the right track. If not, I may need to reassess. And is my overarching direction in life moving me toward love? Love of others, love of nature, love of my Creator, love of myself, love of learning, love of growth? If not, I’m going the wrong way.

I can’t believe you said that

 

For evening snack Friday night, I had a challenge snack and at a half cup of ice cream. Earlier that evening, my dad had, I thought jokingly, told me I couldn’t have any ice cream until I moved a lamp he wanted me to move. The lamp isn’t in a place I normally see, and he always reminds me when I’m in the middle of something else.

So when he saw I had eaten ice cream, he asked if I had moved the lamp. I said no. He told me to go to the bathroom and stick my finger down my throat and throw it up. I was in complete shock, and didn’t know how to respond. I already wanted to purge the ice cream. And my dad knows I’m bulimic. He knows I’m in treatment for bulimia. He takes me to and from treatment every day!

I went to my room and texted my mom, in tears, and told her what happened and how I wanted to purge and how his comment just kept going through my brain. She told me that she knew my brain was probably being really loud, but to try knitting or watching something and distracting myself. So I did. I got out my knitting and I put on Parks and Recreation and I just sat in my room trying to pretend me father didn’t exist and I distracted myself for the next couple hours until I eventually went to bed, purge-free.

Bouncing Back

As I sit here, early in the morning, snow covering the world outside, sipping the coffee that is not part of my meal plan, I can’t help but think back to yesterday where everything seemed to go wrong.

The day started out fine. I started out following my meal plan. I started out studying for my test. I drew intestines for school (see below). Then, around 12:30pm, I went over to my sister’s for some sister time and to see my niece and nephew for their second birthday. Only, when I arrived, my sister wasn’t there. She had taken the kids to a late lunch. During the time we had scheduled to get together. So, for an hour and a half, I sat in her empty house, all by myself.

She got back right before I had to leave. I got to say hi to the kids and give them hugs, but then I had to go. No sister time, no play time. Just a passing hello. I was frustrated to say the least. So, to deal with my frustration, I went to Ihop and ordered an omelet and pancakes and ate it all, and then purged. Unfortunately, this started a pattern of binging and purging that lasted the rest of the day.

I did get my test taken, and I got a perfect score, so there was one bright spot in my day yesterday, but mostly I felt terrible and engaged in behaviors and I had to write all those behaviors down and my team is going to know about it and talk to me about it and I don’t want to.

So today, I feel rotten. I feel guilty and ashamed and like shit. I don’t want to follow my meal plan, but I’m going to try. Why? Because when you trip and fall, you don’t just lie there on the ground afterward going “I fell, I guess I’m stuck here.” No, you go, “that hurt, but I’m getting back up now,” and you do, you stand back up and you keep going. So today, I’m going to stand back up and I’m going to keep going. Even though the fall hurt and it’s hard to get back up. Even though I hate my meal plan. I will try to trust it. I will try to follow it.

 

Telling

My intake assessment for the eating disorder clinic is tomorrow. I’m nervous as heck.

Since it’s tomorrow, I thought it’s probably time I should tell someone in my life that I’m seeking treatment, so I told my mom. It was HARD. I told her I had something I needed to tell her, but then it took a good 5 minutes before I could work up the courage to actually tell her what’s going on. I cried.

My mom said she suspected I was struggling, but wasn’t sure. She said she’s glad I’m seeking treatment.

I don’t like talking about myself with people. I don’t like telling people I’m going into treatment. It’s hard and uncomfortable. I think I’ll hold off telling anyone else until I know whether or not I’ll be admitted.

Coping

Yesterday, as you may know, was US Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is hard for people with eating disorders, and it was hard for me.

Don’t get me wrong, there were many things I enjoyed. Seeing my family. Playing with my niece and nephew. Playing board games together. Sitting around and talking together.

But there were things that were hard. The large amounts of food. Eating in front of a large group of people. Listening to my sisters and brother-in-law talk about their diets and weight loss efforts. Feeling watched and judged while I ate. Feeling absolutely stuck.

I didn’t purge yesterday, but I did use a boat load of laxatives yesterday and again today.

This morning I ate 3 pieces of pie for breakfast, followed by a handful of laxatives.

Hypocrite

As I try to coerce two almost-two year olds to eat their dinner, I can’t help but feel like the hypocrite I am. I want them to eat, but refuse to myself. What a horrible aunt, what a terrible role model.

I failed twice over

This comic has nothing to do with this post.

I planned to fast today. I did, until dinner. Then, my parents insisted on buying me dinner and watching me eat it. I couldn’t think of a good excuse not to, since I’m “recovered”. So I ate it, then purged.

I had planned not to purge during the 3 weeks until I go back to see my surgeon about how my nose is healing, but that obviously didn’t happen. So not only did I eat today, I purged. But I couldn’t eat on a fasting day and NOT purge.

All I can think of is how I’ve doubly failed. I am twice the failure.

Learning to Live in my Wise Mind

I have a tendency to live in my “Emotion Mind”. Impulsive, emotion=fact, difficult to see logic. I may not seem like it from my writing, and maybe I do. How do I know I live there? I live in my eating disorder and I don’t question it. I hear it say “don’t eat” and I don’t. I hear it say “binge and purge” and I do. I hear it say “you are fat and disgusting” and I believe it. I hear it say “you are worthless” and I know it’s true.

What my DBT group has been working on the last couple weeks is living mindfully, or living in your Wise Mind, the melding of your logical brain and your emotional brain. The area where you make wise decisions, using both reason and emotion, living intuitively. It’s difficult. I am learning, though.

Today, I was living in my Emotion Mind when I didn’t eat dinner. However, I was able to tap into my Wise Mind for a brief moment when I didn’t take laxatives also. I used a technique called effectiveness. I was able to think about what my goal was (babysitting tomorrow without being sick) and think about what was effective for bringing about that outcome. I also used a pro con list of being effective and not, and the combination helped me to tap into that Wise Mind to make a wise choice to not take laxatives. At least for tonight.