Waiting for the next step

I’m supposed to start PHP on Monday, but I haven’t heard back on whether my insurance has approved my treatment. I haven’t heard back from the business office about whether I can stay in their apartments. I am basically just waiting for the next step.

And it’s killing me.

My anxiety is through the roof. The waiting. The not knowing. The anticipation.

So I’ve been coping the most effective ways I know how: laxatives and binging and purging. Unfortunately, the laxatives meant I got hardly any sleep last night, so now I’m exhausted on top of everything else. It’s a terrible cycle.

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DBT Skills Group Week 4: TIP

 

 

 

I didn’t actually go week 4, but I picked up the handouts last week so that I wouldn’t miss this skill. Now, I’m sharing it with you.

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.

Diary Cards

 

This is the front and back of the diary cards I use with my DBT therapist. The front goes over urges I have for things I’m struggling with, things like cutting, binging and purging, and not eating, as well as emotions that I have, both positive and negative, and finally which urges I actually act on. The last column deals with whether I thought of using any skills, tried to use them, and whether they were effective.

On the backside, it lists ALL the DBT skills and I just mark off which skills I used that day. So far I know the skills in the first section labeled “Core Mindfulness”. The next module we’re going into I think is Distress Tolerance, so I’ll be learning those next. That’s a 6 week module.

I am supposed to fill it out each day, so I set an alarm on my phone to remember, because otherwise I don’t.

 

DBT Skills Group Week 2: The Rest of Core Mindfulness

 

I’m a little late posting this week’s DBT skills. This week we went over the rest of the Core Mindfulness module and learned about Observing, Describing, Participating, Nonjudgmentalness, One-Mindfulness, and Effectiveness. Yeah, we went over a lot of skills this week. And we have to practice ALL of them this week. That’s our homework. It’s a little overwhelming. However, they’re all good skills, so I’m trying to remember to practice them.