When I start justifying

I’ve noticed an unfortunate trend in myself the last several days. I’ve been thinking to myself, I have 3 more weeks of program, then I can stop following the meal plan. Or. I have 3 more weeks of program, then I can go back to restricting, but I won’t binge and purge anymore. And I’m perfectly ok with thinking these thoughts. I justify them. I tell myself how much better I’m doing now than I was 7 weeks ago and that this means it’s ok to “restrict a little” when I finish the program. After all, I mostly wanted to stop the constant binging and purging, and I’ve gone 2 whole weeks without doing that. I could probably go the rest of my lifetime, right? I will never again slip up, even if I stop following my meal plan, even if I go back to restricting, I’m sure I can keep those behaviors at bay now.

Also, the last couple of days, I have been contemplating halving my meal plan. If it says 3 proteins, I’ll eat 1 and a half. If it says 2 starches, I’ll eat 1. I haven’t done it, but I’m justifying in my head why it would be ok. And I have a feeling the longer I continue to justify it, the more likely I will be to actually do it, even while still in the program. Besides, it’s not like they care if I restrict. I’m fat, so it’s not a problem for me. This is the vibe I get from my therapist. Just like I can’t have a problem with exercise. She knows I workout at least twice a day, and she commended me for it. Thanks. She didn’t bother to ask what my motivation for working out is, whether it’s compulsive, whether it’s increased since I stopped purging, I can’t have problems with exercise or restriction because I don’t fit into a certain mold. Well, fine, my eating disorder loves that, and uses that to justify all sorts of things.

So yes, I am having a problem with justifying. I know it’s going to get me into trouble. The problem is, I sort of want that.

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To Destroy the Butterfly

A few weeks back in art therapy, I drew my eating disorder. One main feature of my eating disorder was the butterfly it dangles in front of my face, which represents the beautiful lies my eating disorder tells me. The promises it makes me. The things that make me want to keep my eating disorder around. Today, my head was LOUD with those lies. I couldn’t get past them and ate only an apple for breakfast and carrots for lunch.

Tonight, at treatment, I struggled through dinner, but I was able to finish. However, after, my therapist could tell I was really having a hard time so she pulled me into her office to talk for a few minutes before art therapy. She reminded me of the reasons I had given her that I wanted to recover and some other things and it really helped me to refocus.

When I got to art therapy, I decided I was tired of the beautiful lies my eating disorder tells. I’m sick of getting caught up in them. I hate how easily I get pulled into their web of deceit. So, in response, I made a large clay butterfly. When it dries, I want to paint it so it looks pretty, to represent how alluring the lies are. Then, I want to take it outside and smash it with a hammer!!

A large part of me still wants to not eat, to not follow my meal plan, but I’m going to try tomorrow to follow it. I went grocery shopping on the way home from treatment because I didn’t have what I needed in order to follow my meal plan, so to set myself up for my success, I went grocery shopping and filled in the blanks of my pantry. I may hate fighting this on so many levels, but I’m going to beat this. I may be emotionally and mentally exhausted, but I’m going to keep trudging.

I did it!

My team gave me a lofty goal to go one week behavior-free. No restricting, no binging and purging. I haven’t done great in the no restricting department. However, I have achieved a personal goal: I went all weekend without binging and purging! That’s a first for me! Yes, it’s only 3 days, but that’s 3 days that I was binging and purging in before and now I’ve managed to NOT binge and purge for all three of those days! It might sound small, but it feels HUGE! It’s actually been a week and 2 days since I binged and purged last! Yes, I’m still struggling with restriction, but for a bulimic to go over a week without binging and purging, that’s a big deal!!

Now to just work on following my meal plan. I meet with the RD today. I am going to ask for a lesser meal plan, I think mine is too much food. I have no idea whether she’ll comply, but I’m going to ask either way. I have to meet with her because I’m still having to boost consistently at dinners and my therapist told me to meet with her to see if she can help. I don’t see how she can, but I’ll ask anyway.

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.

I’m still here

Sorry for not updating lately. I’ve been super busy this week. I know I left my blog on a down note. It’s been a hard week, but I’ve been trying (with varying success) to follow my meal plan and stay recovery focused.

Last night in treatment, we had art. I decided I needed to work with clay because I wanted to worked with something 3D and tactile. I found I didn’t really like the clay because I wanted the objects to be smooth and pretty and I couldn’t figure out how to get them that way no matter what I tried. However, I’m happy with what I made.

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you may remember when I was dating the boy, and how he told me he didn’t actually love me and that he was only in a relationship with me because he was afraid of not being in a relationship. How I felt so used and broken. Well, the boy and I stayed friends since I broke up with him. I think because we were together for 5 years and I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it in some capacity.

However, I realized last night that by staying friends with him, I’ve been holding onto a hope that we would eventually get back together. That at some point, he would truly love me. I realized last night that I need to let go. I need to start moving forward. I need to have an open heart to what’s going on in my life right now and what can happen in the future and by doing that, my heart can grow, and can be open to something new.

I have a date for Valentine’s Day. I realized that even though I’m starting to move on, I was still holding onto the boy. I need to let go of him to fully embrace the new things that are happening. It’s not fair to the new guy and it’s not fair to me if my heart isn’t fully in it. So here’s to letting go, being open, and growing into new things.

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.

 

Trying to follow my meal plan

I weighed myself this morning and I gained. Not much, but it was still a gain.

It’s so hard to follow my meal plan as it is when all I want to do is restrict, let alone when it’s making me gain weight. I feel like my meal plan is the guy in the blue shirt in the comic above and I’m the one in the green shirt. It’s not content to punch me in the stomach (keep me from restricting) it has to rub its butt in my face (make me gain weight) as well.

Canceled

I was supposed to have physical therapy this morning. Their office called me this morning and said my therapist had a family emergency and had to cancel.

Just now the eating disorder clinic called and said they’re cancelling program tonight because of the snow.

My stomach turned when I heard this. It was a hard weekend and I have been looking forward to being back in the safety of treatment. Yes, treatment is HARD, but it is also safe. Now I’m left doing it all on my own, still. I haven’t eaten today because I ate 100% of my meal plan yesterday and that was ridiculous hard and overwhelming and I just can’t cope with more food right now. I don’t know whether I will eat dinner or not. I was supposed to have dinner at treatment, so I was already planning to eat, but now I feel like I have options. Right now I just want to take a nap and forget about the world.

Today I will:

Yesterday sucked. I binged and purged and didn’t follow my meal plan at all. I was left with a lot of guilt and shame and disgust.

• So, today, I will follow my meal plan 100%.
• Today I will NOT binge and purge.
• Today I will focus on recovery.
• Today I will take time for self-care.
• Today I will let go of the past two days of failure and look to my future.

Day 4 and the Weekend

Yesterday was day four of treatment. Before treatment was rocky between entering my food into the school software that calculates my calories, trying to follow the meal plan, stopping laxatives, and flushing my laxatives. By the time I arrived at treatment I was absolutely frantic and couldn’t eat dinner. I cried through the first group, which was dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). After DBT was proccess group, where I was able to talk through my day and process everything that had happened and get advice and feedback from the group.

Process group was sooo helpful. I felt so much better after processing my day. I was able to eat and finish my evening snack.

I am still working on increasing my intake to get up to my full meal plan. I’m supposed to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day. Today I’m going to try to eat 2 meals and 2 snacks. It feels overwhelming. Especially since I no longer have laxatives and I’m trying not to purge.

All the changes I’ve made this week have been hard and exhausting. I wish I could just have something magical happen and I just be recovered! Why does it have to require so much work?