With the exception of while I was at my eye exam, I spent the whole day binging and purging, as has become my norm. My last purge was especially violent and I feel weak and shaky and too tired to keep binging and purging, even though I have a few more hours left in the day to pass. I don’t want to not binge and purge. When I’m not binging and purging, I start thinking about my ex and I start feeling and I can’t handle it and I start feeling suicidal. I just want to stay numb.
Now that I start treatment in just a couple days, that old familiar doubt is starting to creep in. The doubt that says, maybe I really am not sick enough for treatment. Maybe I don’t have an eating disorder at all. Maybe I’m making this all up. Maybe it’s all in my head. What if I get there and they tell me I really don’t have bulimia? What if they tell me I’m not sick enough for their program? What if? Maybe… … … …
Doubt is sinking in…
I am tired. I am weary. I have been so busy this week. Between appointments, spending time at the hospital with my dad, treatment, pre-surgery stuff, helping out around the house, plus we have been going through our storage unit trying to get rid of as much as possible so we can stop paying an extra $200 a month on a storage unit to store a bunch of stuff we don’t need. That’s physically exhausting between the fibromyalgia and the rheumatoid arthritis. I woke up this morning fatigued, tired, ready to sleep another night. My body aches and my brain feels like cotton. I have another day of looking through boxes and moving furniture and then spending time with my dad at the hospital.
I’m grateful to be able to spend time at the hospital. But I feel guilty if I take time to myself because he’s there 24/7 alone, bored, restless, in pain. I know I need to take care of myself too, and I’m trying, but finding the right balance has been hard. Today is a week since we ambushed him. A week he’s been in the hospital. He’ll find out more tomorrow about when he can come home.
After my dad was admitted to the hospital, I spent the night and next day with him, keeping him company, making sure he had everything he needed, listening to the doctors to make sure we knew what was going on, advocating for him. It was a long couple days, first in the ER, then in the hospital the next day. Last night I came home and slept. I just showered and I feel refreshed.
My dad’s infection spread into his muscle. The doctor said if he’d left it much longer, it’d be in his bone, and he’d had lost the leg. I’m relieved and so thankful that my family ambushed him and made him go to the hospital. He’ll need several surgeries and lots of strong antibiotics. He goes in for his first surgery today.
My sister is taking today’s shift. I wish I could be there for him, but I also know I need to rest today. I’m very sore, my fibromyalgia is flaring up from the hospital chair I spent the last couple days in. Even with my frequent walks I didn’t escape its cruel consequences.
I talk to my dad via Facebook messenger (because it doesn’t use his data since it’s over the hospital’s wifi) often. He’s, naturally, bored and restless. The next time I go up to see him (tomorrow) I’m taking cards and we’ll play cribbage.
A bit ago I wrote about my dad’s infection in his leg and how he’s believing for faith healing and refuses to see a doctor for it.
Well, my siblings, mom, and I talked yesterday. We talked about how worried we are about him and his health, and how we’re worried about losing him. So, we have staged an intervention for tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it. I hate confrontation. I don’t want to confront him on this. However, something needs to give, because I’m terrified of losing him. So, I’ll be a part of this intervention if it give more weight to the event. I assume the more people who come together the more seriously he’ll take it.
Here’s hoping he doesn’t just blow us off.
I had 2 lunches today. A friend asked me to go out with her this morning to the spice shop to replenish her holiday spices so she can do fall baking. I agreed. After we finished at the spice store, we were just around the corner from a great sushi place we both like so she invited me to lunch. I knew I had a family lunch later, but I agreed anyway because I love sushi and rarely eat it. So, I went with my friend and I got sushi.
I then came home, purged, and hurried to lunch with my family, where I proceeded to eat a second lunch. I have a problem.
I went to see the ENT (ear, nose, and throat doctor) today because I can hardly breathe through my nose, and that’s a problem.
I sat waiting in the exam room for quite a while by myself with nothing to occupy my time except my own thoughts. That’s dangerous. I began to think about my body, I began to feel like I was expanding, filling up the whole room. I felt loathing for my body. It disgusted me. I wanted to gouge my face, it was hideous. I wanted to claw at my skin. My body was revolting.
I caught myself thinking these thoughts and grabbed my phone and started playing puzzle games that would require me to think of something else.
Eventually, the ENt came in and gave me an examination, asked me lots of questions, and sent me off to get my hearing checked.
It turns out I have a deviated septum and my sinuses are swollen. He prescribed a couple medications to hopefully open up my nasal passages so I can breathe. Hr wants to see me again in 4 weeks.
**Note** I never thought I had cancer, it was a reference to this blog post, posted the day before I went to see the ENT, which was eerie timing.
I didn’t throw away the laxatives. I took some last night. And some more this morning. More this afternoon. Again just now. Yeah, that escalated quickly.
Right after I finished taking the last batch, I saw on Facebook that a friend is going back to eating disorder treatment. Instead of (just) being worried about her, my mind began to play the “I’m not sick enough” tape. The “if I up the amount of laxatives and start purging again, I can be sick enough again” tape. The “why did you stop in the first place, you idiot??” tape. The “your friend is better than you because she needs treatment again already” tape. On and on and on, my mind plays them.
My weight has plateaued. Plus, it’s at the same weight it was at before I started losing weight, which makes me think I wasn’t actually losing weight at all. Arg!
In other news, I spent much of the last couple of days in bed, sick. I still got in my workouts, but most of the rest of my time was spent horizontal, sick and nauseous. Partly I think it was too many laxatives, but partly I think it was just sickness.
Tomorrow I’m going to hang out with a friend. While I enjoy hanging out with her, I always get such high anxiety before going out with anyone.
I got a call this morning from the mental health clinic. My last psychiatrist left, so I had to start seeing a new one. I was supposed to see her on Thursday. However, I was told this morning that the new one quit so I can’t see anyone right now. What?? They have other psychiatrists, but I can’t see anyone? Not anyone at all?
So between the weight, the anxiety, and the psychiatrist, I’m very frustrated today.
I woke up from a dream at 5am, sobbing.
After calming down, I noticed I still felt sick. I didn’t know if it was a continuation from yesterday or from the laxatives I took before bed, but it made falling back asleep difficult.
I finally fell asleep sometime after 6:30 and my “don’t ever sleep past this time” alarm woke me at 9am. I was crying again.
I was down (weight) again, so I let myself eat breakfast.
a2eternity 