The trouble with triggers

Yesterday I saw a post on Facebook about the most recent Biggest Loser winner.  Her weight loss started a controversy since the public eye thinks she took her weight loss journey too far.  The article was about her response to all the backlash.  I shared it with a friend.  Later in the day I was having issues with my thoughts and my friend said, don't read about the Biggest Loser!  I wasn't even thinking about the Biggest Loser at the time, but he pointed out that I still triggered myself by reading the article.  The article frustrated me and even though I was passionate about how this woman probably didn't lose all the weight in a healthy manner, I still triggered myself.  Even though I was looking at it logically, there still was the emotional side that couldn't quite handle knowing she got down to 105 pounds.

Before I went into treatment I loved watching the Biggest Loser.  See people lose twenty pounds in a week!  Damn, don't we all wish we could do that....or maybe it's just me.  ED loved watching the show as well.

ED: Look!  You can do the same!  You just have to follow my instructions.  You don't want these contestants becoming smaller than you, right?

But ED doesn't just get excited about weight loss shows.  He gets excited about magazines, diet fads and fitness crazes.  Today I was at the chiropractor and sat in a random chair in the waiting room.  Lo and behold, there was a magazine next to me.  I looked at the cover and laughed.  

So let me get this straight...I'm supposed lose weight so I can look pretty and polished then talk myself into a better mood to relieve stress which will lead to me baking hot new cookies and brownies and afterwards take care of my vision problems so I can check out an airbrushed Amy Poehler and obsess about how I don't look as thin or as beautiful as her (and since I ate those naughty cookies and brownies I will have to lose some more weight and become stressed all over again).

Right...  

Anyone else see a big problem with this magazine cover?  I used to open those magazines so fast:

A new fantastic magical diet?!  I need to read this!  

Today, I didn't even open to the first page.  I can stand back and see that this is all about making money and body shaming:

Let's make sure you hate yourself so you'll buy our product!  

Nice try, but no thanks.  I have a dietician to tell me what my body needs and encourages me to do moderate exercise.

Does this kind of magazine cover still bother me?  Of course it does!  And it shouldn't just bother me, but it should bother all of us that we are being manipulated to believe in all this crap.

Does this kind of thing trigger me?  Yes.  Right now I don't feel triggered, but just like I learned yesterday, I may start feeling anxious with all the negative thoughts later.  If that happens I know I can turn to my support system and talk it out.

Another trigger in the chiropractor's office was this flyer:

For now let's just ignore the fact that this was meant for December 2013.  All I can say is this breaks my heart that a dietician is running a program like this.  Our diets should be about giving our body the nutrition it needs and not about losing unwanted pounds or having the flattest abs.  Everyone's body knows what to do with all the necessary food groups, which can include a slice of pie or a couple Christmas cookies during the holidays.  Do you want to eat these kinds of treats all the time?  Of course not, your body will know it wants something different, something that is more dense nutritionally.  We have to learn to trust our bodies.

Let me say that again so I make sure everyone read that sentence:

We have to learn to trust our bodies.

Yeah, weird coming from me, right?  But that's what I work on every day.  Do I trust my body?  Not really...but every day I successfully follow my meal plan the more and more I will trust my body.

This is what my blog is all about, fighting ED and the media and taking back beauty.  It's our turn to define what is beautiful, not people who sit on a computer manipulating models and celebrities or critics who like to body shame people in the public eye so we all can hate on ourselves. 

It's time we accept ourselves just as we are in this very moment.  We are so much more than a number on the scale or a clothing size.  Those numbers have nothing to do with who we are as people.  Our bodies are our shells for life.  We all have one and many of us don't like what we received, but we can change that.  

I'm starting a war.  I'm taking back beauty.  Now the question is:

Will you join me?

The black sheep of the family: EDNOS

Before I went into treatment I had to go to the doctor so they could record my vitals and do an EKG.  The doctor had to fill out some additional paperwork and this is what happened:

Doctor: Do you struggle with bulimia or anorexia?

Me: Oh...um...I have EDNOS.

Doctor: What's that?

Me: ...um...Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.

And then I went into an explanation as to what this disorder is as she stared at me blankly.  My heart sank.  I already feel like the black sheep when it comes to eating disorders, but for a doctor to not even know its existence furthered my belief that EDNOS gets the short end of the stick.

You see, there are two pretty, colorful, glittery boxes called Anorexia and Bulimia.  These are the disorders that you hear the most about.  I couldn't fit into either of those boxes, I wasn't special enough.  Instead I was thrown into the very big ugly dumpster called EDNOS (now called OSFED or Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder thanks to the DSM V).

You may think my description is a bit dramatic, but this is how I truly view the different diagnoses.  

EDNOS is diagnosed by what it's not.  It's basically a catch-all.

I don't fit the criteria for anorexia because I'm at a normal weight.  Thankfully the new DSM changed one criterion that always bothered me.  Before I also wouldn't have qualified because I am still getting my period, but now people who are at a low weight, still menstruate and fit the other criteria can be diagnosed with anorexia.

I don't fit the criteria for bulimia because I don't binge and purge on a frequent basis.  I have binged before, but every person's binge is different.  For bulimia a binge means consuming large quantities of food, which I have not done.  I have purged, but mostly it's after eating a normal or less sized portion of food.

Another type of eating disorder is Binge Eating Disorder, which wasn't listed as a diagnosis until DSM V.  Before this, binge eating disorder was sitting in EDNOS' dumpster.  I am very glad to see the progress within the new DSM.

And that just leaves me.  It doesn't make sense, but I wish I was anorexic.  For me, it was the coveted disorder because it meant I had willpower and was strong.  (Side note: please don't confuse this with me actually wanting to be sick or choosing to have an eating disorder.  Once I was in ED's world he would throw the anorexia carrot in my face so I would keep moving forward, promising me I could achieve it if I worked hard enough.). Anorexia also shows on the outside that you are sick...and me?  I don't look sick.  I look healthy and normal.  I did all this "work" and I have nothing to show for it.  Because I don't look "the part" I feel like I don't deserve help, that I'm not even worthy of being diagnosed with an eating disorder.

When society thinks "eating disorder" and aren't well informed on this mental illness, they most likely will visualize a young white female who is emaciated.  But this isn't a real picture at all.  People with eating disorders can be any shape and size, male and female and come from any background.  What we have in common are the thoughts and feelings we have about food and our bodies.  What we have in common is we all deserve help.  I still struggle with the idea of deserving help, but really...that's just ED playing another trick.

Regardless of all the labels we all are fighting for our lives and hopefully others are as lucky as I am to have such an amazing support team.

In the near future I hope I can let go of how I view my diagnosis and not worry about labels and glittery boxes.

I almost relapsed

Today I wanted to talk about the EDNOS diagnosis, however I need to address what happened yesterday.

It actually started with Sunday night.  I sometimes go on my iPad before heading to bed to play some games or skim through Facebook, but instead of doing either of those I ended up Googling some rather unhelpful websites.  These websites are not pro recovery.  I don't recollect having a solid thought that I wanted to trigger myself, but there I was looking at triggering images.  I closed the internet down quickly after I got my senses back, but I had already done damage.  

ED was rather excited about my mistake.  He was telling me all sorts of things like: I don't really have an eating disorder (that's one of his favorites), I don't have to follow my meal plan exactly as it's written,  I just need to lose a few pounds and skip meals here and there.  When he gets a good hold of me I start to feel a pain in my chest.  I don't know how to exactly explain, but it's not uncommon for people with mental illness to feel physical side effects.  I've gotten so used to this pain that I realized I kind of missed it.  I had thought before going to sleep that maybe I should skip lunch on Monday.

Then morning came and I ate my breakfast before going to work.  During my shift I was struggling with the idea of eating lunch after being triggered by coworkers so I reached out to various people.  They all encouraged me to have my lunch and to not skip, but even with their encouragement I trusted ED more.  It's just one meal, was ED's reasoning.  And I agreed, it is just one meal, people accidentally miss a meal here and there all the time, it's not a big deal.

When I arrived home around lunch time I busied myself with other things.  I wasn't going to eat lunch.  I told a couple friends that I couldn't eat, that I was afraid of gaining weight.  Again they wanted me to follow my meal plan.  One even said, you're going to undo all that good work you just did and be right back where you started.  That definitely hit a chord, but ED immediately had a response for that: there is nothing wrong with skipping one meal, you can't eat normally or else you'll gain weight.

Since time had passed I started getting that heady feeling when you don't eat and I realized I missed that feeling too.  Eating disorders are addictions and I was getting my "fix".

Then John came home.  I had my snack out and I was eating it when he came inside.  I smiled to myself that I would get away with this.  See, I'm eating my snack!  So that means you can't question if I had lunch because the snack comes after lunch.

Although I thought I got away with my trick, John told me later he sensed something was up.  He asked on our way to the grocery store if I was doing alright being home alone.  I'm a terrible liar so I told him the truth, that I skipped lunch.  We talked about my day and how/why I came to this conclusion of not eating lunch.  

We both knew what the next step was: I had to make up what I missed.  This is the hardest part of recovery.  I wanted to starve so bad and almost got away with it, but my logical side knew what was right and John wasn't going to put up with any of ED's shenanigans.  At 3:00 pm I finally ate my lunch in HyVee.  It was a miserable experience because I wasn't hungry and it seemed like I was served a lot of food.  But the important thing is I ate my lunch and followed the rest of my meal plan.

Today I'm in a better mindset and I've been following my meal plan.  Recovery is not perfect and definitely not easy.  There will be another time when I won't want to eat a meal or a snack or my whole meal plan.  I have to remember how miserable I felt yesterday when I followed ED's instructions and how it just didn't affect me, but also the people who care about me.

I want to thank John, Hanna, Emmy, Matt, and Patrick for being there for me.  ED tried his best to defeat all of us, but we won in the end.

"I'm fine"

Yesterday marked the start of eating disorder awareness week and I want to address various topics that hit home for me and might resonate with others as well.

Last night I socialized in a group setting for the first time since I was admitted into treatment (and maybe even before then because I was isolating).  People now know what's going on if they have Facebook and read my blog.  I was rather anxious last night before I arrived at the theatre to help with costumes.  I didn't know what to expect or what people would be thinking or what they would say.

I received hugs and that made me feel good.

People asked, how are you?

My reply, I'm...okay...

Usually my fallback response is I'm fine.  While in treatment I learned I wasn't the only one having troubles figuring out how I felt.  If you asked me right this second how I am and I answer honestly my response would be I don't know.

I really don't know.  Sometimes I'll throw in I'm a little tired or I'm good.  I want to appear normal.  There are many times I will appear happy and giggly and laugh and smile, but I don't even know if I'm happy.  Most likely I'm burning off my anxious energy.  I'm playing the role of the good friend, the obedient daughter, the helpful acquaintance, etc.  I can't let anyone know that I am having a bad day or that my life isn't perfect because something terrible will happen and I don't even know what that terrible something is.

I don't believe my thoughts, feelings and problems matter.  Do other peoples' thoughts, feelings, and problems matter?  Yes.  Even my accomplishments I don't like sharing because it seems odd, conceited, and selfish.  If one of my friends or family members had something to share whether it was positive or negative, I'd drop everything and pay attention to them because they matter.

If someone is having a hard time I want to fix it and sometimes fixing it means restricting or purging or using self harm.  Does that make logical sense?  No...but for some reason it makes sense to me.  There are plenty of situations that I don't have any control over, but by manipulating my food intake and focusing on being thin somehow I am in control.

I believe that losing weight will control how people see me.  By being thin people will love me, respect me, want to be my friend, think I'm beautiful, smart, funny, and talented.  I would feel confident and everything would fall into place.  ED says this is the only way, once I starve enough and lose enough weight THEN I am deserving of friends, of love, of acceptance, of anything really.  I don't know how I became the exception and why everyone matters besides me.  It just seems like a fact of life.

So next time you ask how I am and I say I'm fine or I'm okay, mostly likely I have no clue.

ED is a talker

It is a rare moment when ED doesn't have anything to say.  He's been saying plenty now that I'm in recovery.  He's persistent too so even when I try to talk back to him he just gets louder and drowns me out.

ED was very excited when I first heard the word discharge.

ED: Finally!  Now we can get back to how it was, just you and me.  At work we can avoid everyone and we can do all the things we used to do.  And you can exercise!  Wouldn't it be fun if we really got you going?  This time you'll do everything right and since no one really knows anything about eating disorders you can get away with anything.

He loves to make himself sound promising.

ED: I really care about you.  I'm the only one with your best interest in mind.  I won't ever leave you and I will help you achieve all your dreams.  You want to sing, dance and act and the best way to do that is skip some meals.  It's not a big deal.  Your body doesn't really need all that food.  Energy comes from willpower not food.

Even though I know this is all a bunch of lies it's still hard to fight off.  Today it took me an hour to finally make my lunch and then eat it.  In the past I would think I could just kick ED to the curb on my own.  Everyone else seems to eat and be normal so I will do the same.  Just will myself to do it.  And maybe I can keep up with eating "right" for a few weeks, but eventually the novelty wears off.  ED whispers in my ear and I believe him and realize now much I missed him.  I've been eating six times a day since early January.  The novelty has really, really worn off.  

There is still a part of me that thinks I can go on with my daily life just perfectly fine with ED in the background. 

I tell myself I've got this under control.

But I don't.

 

Put one foot in front of the other

That's what my recreational therapist told me this past Friday.  We were talking about my discharge and how nervous I was.  Those words are so simple.  Just walk basically and right now I feel like I'm crawling.  But that's not at all what Mary really meant.  She meant to keep moving forward and although crawling doesn't get anyone very far I am still moving forward.

Yesterday was my first day out of treatment and boy, did I put up a fuss with my meal plan (or really ED did).  It was hard to finish anything whether it was a meal or a snack.  That's how it was during treatment too.  Like right now my snack is sitting next to me and I just don't want it.  Why?  Because I'm not hungry.  Because I felt like I ate a lot at lunch.  Because I think it's stupid.  Because ED is angry (that's the real answer).  Will I eat my snack?  Yes...

There were positives to yesterday though too!  My outpatient therapist miraculously had a cancellation and originally I wasn't going to see her for awhile.  Phew!  So glad I got to see her.  We talked about a lot of good stuff (and by good, I really mean hard, tough, and anxiety provoking, but that IS good, means we are talking down deep and not superficial.)  And since I'm not ready to smash my scale she is holding onto it for me.

Then I went to meet my new dietician.  I was more nervous about this appointment, but she is so great!  We discussed some of how much I want to know my weight and it was rather refreshing for her to say, "I don't even know your weight and to be honest I don't really care what is."  Say what?!  She will weigh me from time to time, but as long as I'm following my meal plan she doesn't care what it is.  She says that it's just a number that doesn't really mean anything.  I'm so not at that point of acceptance, but with her honesty and integrity I feel like that attitude will eventually rub off.

And last night I finished the day with beginner yoga!  I've never done yoga before, but I've been cleared for exercise.  My good friend does yoga and the staff has said how awesome yoga is for mindfulness and body appreciation so I tried it out.  It was tough, but I did what I could and I plan on continuing.  The amazing part?  There were times I wasn't even thinking about my problems or worries or anything, I was focusing on what my body was doing and how it could do the various stretches.

Today I went to work.  Super nervous!  But guess what?  My coworkers were so happy to see me!  They do not know why I was gone and they didn't ask either.  I'm back at work part time and wow, four hours was definitely enough for one day.  I haven't forgotten my duties, but focusing was a huge problem.  My supervisor is amazing though and she just encouraged me to do what I could.  Tomorrow hopefully I will be able to focus more.  If not, just do what I can.  This will be difficult because my mind likes to tell what I should do and just doing what I can isn't acceptable.  Shoulds are bad, don't should on yourself!  It will just make you go crazy.  So instead of shoulding today I used my new skill of respiratory control and it did help a lot. 

Final thought for tonight: I feel so overwhelmed with all the support that has come about after I shared my blog.  A good overwhelmed though.  To be honest I kept this a secret for so long because I was so worried about the negative reactions I would get, like losing friends and letting people down or people being disappointed, but that's just ED's bullshit to keep me isolated.  You all are wonderful and I appreciate every comment, message, and like.  All the positive encouragement makes me want to keep moving forward and so I shall.

Tomorrow is D Day

Tomorrow I'm discharging from the partial hospitalization program.  This is a good and bad thing.  It's good because my treatment team thinks I'm ready (even though my insurance pushed the issue) and it's bad because I do not feel ready.

It seems somewhat surreal that tomorrow is my last day.  I've bonded with so many patients and the staff.  For awhile it will feel impossible that I can move on with my daily life without them.  I'm not even sure if I will get to participate in Tuesday's schedule fully and get a good chance to say my goodbyes.  Discharging patients seem to get pulled here and there, which will only make me more anxious about leaving.

I get to take home my most recent art project (made out of clay!) and...my scale.  I turned in my scale to the treatment team when I couldn't fight the urges to not weigh myself anymore.  My scale causes problems and even though I know that I still don't want to get rid of it.  According to staff my weight has remained stable...that's good.  So...what is the number?  And they ask, why is it important?  And my reply, because it has always been important.  It's not a good answer anymore.

A close friend on my support team does not even own a scale.  He has no clue what he weighs and that is so bizarre!  He doesn't value himself as a person by a number.  I'm not at that point yet, but seeing my friend do it without even thinking about it is a good example.

Something potentially therapeutic to do is smash my scale.  Smash it to pieces.  Someone might think that it's a waste of a perfectly good scale when I could just donate it, but it would symbolize so much more if I obliterate it, take it's power away, take ED's power away.

I will be the most vulnerable once I leave treatment.  I can already hear ED planning all the behaviors I should engage in.  What ED isn't bargaining on is I've come this far and I will keep up a good fight.

Cat's out of the bag: I am sharing my blog on Facebook

After I write this blog I'm hitting the FB share button.  I'm really tired of hiding and feeling ashamed, although hitting that button is terrifying, but someone might relate to what I'm going through and then they don't have to feel so alone.

My eating disorder has been ruling my life for way too long.  Sharing with everyone I know might actually be helpful by keeping me more accountable on my road to recovery and allowing my support system to grow.

Do you have to be supportive?  Nope.

Do you have to know anything about eating disorders?  Nope.  (Although if you want to understand what I'm going through feel free to do research.)

Can you ask me questions?  Of course!

Do you have to walk on egg shells?  Nope.  In fact, just continue being the awesome person you are.

For me, I will prefer not to talk about weight, but if it comes up I will excuse myself from the conversation or change the subject if I'm feeling triggered.  If that happens, there is no need to feel bad.

With this blog I'm going to share my road to recovery and other aspects of my life like music, theatre and dance.  I will also touch on topics that mean a lot to me.  I want to take back beauty and redefine what the media considers beautiful.  Our society is so caught up with diet and fitness crazes.  How about accept yourself for who you are?  I'm learning that what I look like has no bearing on who I am as a person.  

Recovery is not going to be easy.  If you read the previous blogs you will see even though I want to recover so bad I still struggle.  It's a daily war.  Like today I don't want to eat anything, but with John's support I have been sticking to my meal plan.

I'm terrible at asking for what I need, but what I need right now is acceptance and support.  Join the fight to take back beauty for yourself, for your family, for your friends, and for anyone you care about.  We don't have to fight alone.

I am being discharged

I'm trying my very best not to freak out that I am being discharged on Tuesday.  I got official word yesterday...and I did a lot of crying.  I knew one day I'd have to leave treatment, but I thought I'd stay a little longer.  I don't feel ready to leave, but there isn't anything I can do to prevent my discharge.  (Radical acceptance.)

My biggest concern is slipping up.  I know it's human nature to make mistakes, but I'm a perfectionist.  The staff at treatment are amazing and they help keep us all accountable.  Now...I have to be accountable for myself without their help.  That's very scary.  I will have an outpatient team so I'm not being thrown to the wolves, but I won't be seeing them on such a frequent basis.  I will also have my support team, but it's very easy to isolate myself from the people who are there for me.  I just hope I can stay strong and use the tools I've learned.

Also, I just don't feel like a whole person yet.  There are certain house chores I can't even do because they overwhelm me so much.  And somehow I'm supposed to face the world when doing laundry causes a panic attack?  In the past I have dealt with anxiety and overwhelming feelings by engaging in ED behaviors, but I can't do that anymore.  I have to sit with feeling anxious and overwhelmed and scared and frustrated and depressed.  That is fucking hard and there are days it seems easier to give in to ED because it "worked" before.

Just typing this makes me want to cry all over again.  Know what my therapist at treatment would say to that?  "Go ahead, cry!"  She gets excited when our emotions become so raw and vulnerable that the only thing left to do is cry.  We have to feel the pain that we've been trying so hard to contain and hide.  If we feel like shit that basically means we are moving in the right direction.  Great...I'll just check that off of the recovery to do list.

I am very grateful for our therapist because she is suggesting that I ease back into work.  That will be so helpful.  At work I got away with a lot of behaviors so easing back in not only will reduce some of my anxiety, but also help me create a new relationship with work, a healthy relationship.

I'm in love with fantasy and fairy tales and today I realized that some of my favorite characters didn't stay at their new found magical place.  Dorothy, Wendy and Alice all went back home.  They learned a lot on the way and eventually they knew they had to return home.  Although I wouldn't call treatment magical per se, I have learned a lot on my recovery journey thus far and now it's time to go home, time to return to the real world, time to see what I'm made of, time to figure out who I really am.

Am I terrified to figure out who I really am?  Oh yeah...

I am struggling

Yesterday I said I was a warrior and I still believe so, but today I'm struggling.  I have no hunger cues and sticking with the meal plan gets tougher.  I'm trying so hard to accomplish recovery that I keep resisting urges to restrict, binge, purge, self harm, exercise...but all those urges just keep building.  The impending discharge doom is hanging over me.  It's very hard not to focus on and all the potential slip ups I might have after I'm released from the program.

I know logically engaging in any behavior will NOT make me feel better, although the thoughts in my head say otherwise.  I may feel better for a split second and then I will just feel as crappy (or more) than I did before.

These difficult days make me feel defeated and I question (really ED questions) if recovery is worth it.  Having an eating disorder is my way to cope with the world.  Now I'm trying to find new ways to cope and it's hard and majorly sucks.  I'm hoping this blog will be one of those new ways to cope.  Other  good coping skills I've discovered are reading, coloring (yeah like a little kid, seriously it's an amazing thing), listening to music, painting my nails, playing strangely addicting games on my iPad, talking to the people on my support team, and list is going to grow.

Crying also works.  I had a good cry on my way home from program today because all I really wanted to do was purge my dinner, skip my evening snack, and just give up.  Once I came home I talked to my husband (while hiding under the covers, still crying) and he was doing his best to calm me down.  After we talked I was so depressed I didn't want to get out of bed.

Guess what?  I got out of bed.  Took some coaxing and nudging and doing goofy things on John's part, but I got out of bed.  I did some necessary paperwork regarding short term disability for my work, painted my nails, listened to Imagine Dragons, texted with my dad (which was so helpful), and now writing up a blog.  At this moment I don't feel as hopeless, but it can change by the hour, the minute, the second.

Fighting ED is one huge war and there are going to be battles I win and there are going to be battles ED wins.  I'm not trying to set myself up for failure.  I'm trying to be realistic since no recovery is perfect.  Slipping up is a part of recovery.  Slipping up freaks me out.  Slipping up doesn't equal a relapse.  Slipping up means I'm human.

As Cesar Millan (Dog Whisperer) says, "It's not about how bad it was, it's about what you do now."  And now?  I'm going to eat my snack that I've been avoiding since I got home.

I am a warrior

As humans we all have something we struggle against and wrestle with.  For a long time I felt alone and ashamed and embarrassed with the war I was fighting.  I'm fighting myself on a daily basis, I look in the mirror and see a distorted image of myself, my day is based on a number presented on the scale below my feet, I try to control situations and what people think about me by controlling my weight...

I have an eating disorder.  I refuse to let it define me anymore.  I am NOT an eating disorder.  I am Emily.

I am a warrior.  Really, we all are warriors.  We are all fighting each day to live our lives and move through our own pain.

Last year I could hardly function.  I have struggled with my eating disorder for at least 14 years and last year I was losing the war.  I felt like I just wasn't trying hard enough.  There were so many others who were achieving their weight loss goals, but I was running out of steam to keep playing ED's game.  My anxiety and depression were at levels I couldn't manage anymore, but I kept hearing if you lose x amount of pounds then you will finally have control and life will make sense.  So I tried and tried and tried, but really all I was doing was digging a grave.  

I couldn't see that I was digging a grave.  The couple close friends I opened up to last year were trying to get me to see that I needed help, but I would continue to be in denial.  You're not an anorexic, you don't qualify to be one, which means you don't have an eating disorder, you just can't stick to your diet.  If ED says it, it must be true...  (But really having eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS) is a real eating disorder, it just doesn't get as much attention as anorexia.)

I had stopped telling my husband what was going on and he was the first person I ever opened up to about my eating disorder.  I wanted him to think everything was fine.  What's wrong with starting a new job, competing on a state and national level with your business group from school, being maid of honor in a good friend's wedding, being in a musical where you weren't good enough to get a bigger part, and buying and moving into a house on top of trying to starve myself and lose weight?  Did I mention that was mostly in the beginning of 2013?

As the year progressed I was getting worse.  I was in an operetta over the summer and although I was all smiles with my faerie wings and wand, inside I was being ripped to shreds.  You're one of the bigger faeries, you aren't graceful enough, you are a joke, they only let you in the show because they pity you.  At first I wasn't sure if anybody actually liked me in the cast.  All I could think was all these people are so talented, what am I doing here?  Even though I was a bit unsure of everyone I started to actually makes friends with many of the cast members.  It was a strange feeling to trust that they weren't going behind my back and talk about how stupid I was.  Eventually rehearsals became my safe haven from my thoughts, but once it was time to go home ED would return and I cried many times on my drive home.  During the summer I met with my therapist for the first time (with much support from my husband and a couple friends) and continued to see her whenever I could.  I have tried therapy in the past, but something would happen that would end it prematurely whether it was in my control or not.

Then August came...and everything got crazy.  I was in a car accident that put me on bed rest for five weeks due to a concussion.  Those were terrible weeks.  Although people shared their love and support in various ways I still felt like no one cared.  It broke my heart when I couldn't be in a friend's wedding and I felt like I was letting everyone down in my life.  All my issues magnified and I was sobbing constantly when my thoughts turned to suicide more and more.  I couldn't stand being in my own skin, I just wanted to die to end the pain.

Once I was back at work I noticed I couldn't concentrate because I was still dealing with concussion symptoms, but then my eating disorder, anxiety, and depression started distracting me every minute of every day.  The concussion can cause sleep problems and when I couldn't sleep I was being bombarded by negative thoughts.

I was able to join the cast of another show and found again that theater was my safe haven.  Unfortunately, I ended up having a complex migraine caused by the concussion and missed two shows.  I was back to resting for a few days and I felt terrible for letting my cast down.  I'm so grateful to everyone in that cast for stepping it up when I could not be there.

When that show ended it was time to get ready for Christmas.  My husband's family was coming to visit and I couldn't handle the pressure of what I was feeling mentally and emotionally and trying to get our house ready for company.  By this point I would come home and just lay in bed.  I didn't have the energy for anything, even if it seemed like a simple task to anyone else, and I had isolated myself from close friends.  

The night before Christmas Eve my husband's family arrived and that night I couldn't sleep.  I was suicidal.  My husband woke up and asked why I was crying.  It took me forever to tell him and he stayed up with me for hours.  I was ashamed to tell him, but it also was a relief to know how much he loves me to be supportive and refrain from judgment.  The following day he spoke with his parents so they were aware and could be a source of support for me.  Unbeknownst to either of us his parents told my parents.  On Christmas Day they had an intervention.  I never thought I could be that bad to be worthy of an intervention.  Now looking back I realize that was the only way I would have sought the next level of treatment I needed and to be finally open and honest with my family.

This is the start of my fifth week in a partial hospitalization program.  My insurance has said the magic word "discharge" and I don't know when that will happen.  What I do know is that I am a warrior and I will continue to fight for me.