Sharing is caring, not comparing

Let's face it, we all compare ourselves to others.

He makes more money.

She always gets a better grade.

Why does it seem like his life is perfect?

Why am I not married yet?

I don't have a thigh gap like her.

That last example is usually how I spend my day comparing.  Are they:

Shorter?

Taller?

Skinnier?

Bigger?

About the same?

It's like a math equation.  If her jeans are size 0 plus 2 inches taller minus any body fat equals I need to lose 20 pounds.

Huh?

I'm okay at math, but somehow that equation never seems to compute right...

In treatment one of my challenges was not comparing myself to the other patients.  Everyone is so beautiful and it always seemed like they all had something that I didn't.  I'm sure they felt the same way, although ED loved telling me how much I didn't belong.

If I think this over with my logical mind, I can see that everyone has a different frame and body type.  Just because someone has a smaller frame doesn't mean that I'm fat.  It means I have a different frame.  I can't make myself grow a few inches or push my hips in or thin out my thighs or change my eye color to blue.  

I came with this body and I have to find a way to accept it as it is and not compare myself to how others turned out.  I remember taking a bathroom break with one of the other patients and telling her how much I felt like an alien.  Looking at everyone else's skinny limbs was getting to me.

"You're not an alien!" was her reply.  

This is when I need to remind myself that eating disorders aren't about how we look, but how we think and feel.  If we could all take out the tapes playing in our heads and listen to them one at a time, I'm positive we'd hear the same ideas, doubts, fears, etc.  

ED wants us to feel so alone, but we aren't.

ED wants us to feel so ashamed because we don't look like her.  You know who I mean, the one in class, at the mall, at work, the one who takes her dog for a walk, your neighbor, or even the one in your family.

But the truth of the matter is, I'm never going to look like her.  I'm not supposed to.  Somehow I got the wrong memo about that.  

I'm only supposed to look like the one person I know:

Me

"When in doubt follow the meal plan (Damn it, Janice)"

While in treatment we spent most of our time in the process room, which had comfy chairs and a couch and we did a lot of our group activities in this room.  On the wall hangs a painting a previous group had put together.  It is very colorful and even glittery.  It says:

When in doubt follow the meal plan (Damn it, Janice)

Janice is the dietician at the hospital.  Although we don't really have a problem with her, ED has a big problem.  Janice is there to tell us why food is good for our bodies and that it's okay (more like spectacular) to eat all different kinds of food, even the foods we put on our fear list.

Now I have Sarah as my outpatient dietician and ED is damning her name for a change.  I met with Sarah this week and I found out that I wasn't really following the meal plan.  I wasn't trying to not follow it, but it started to happen gradually.  I slid a little bit and although that's frustrating, it's also a part of recovery.  This is going to happen again and again.  ED is persistent and he's not going down with a fight, which means my weapons have to be sharp at all times.  It means that I need to keep building my army of support.

Sarah told me she was unsure if I was ready to get rid of ED.  And she's right.  I'm not even sure if I'm ready to completely give up this illness.  Once I give it up...who am I and how am I going to deal with life?  That is the big question we all face in the early stages of recovery and we might not figure it out for months or years.  

While in treatment I was very pro recovery and right after I got out I decided I was going to fight!  I got this!  The further away I've gotten from being partially hospitalized to being in the real world, it's become more apparent that this is really hard.  I already knew it was going to be hard, but I thought as long as I keep open communication, as long as I follow the meal plan, as long as I use my coping skills, etc...the easier it will get, the quieter the thoughts will become, the more I will accept my body.  That will come eventually, but I wanted results right now.  

I don't have the results I want.  I've kept things from John (and told him later), slipped up on my meal plan and don't always turn to coping skills when I really need to.  I'm beginning to feel that "not good enough" sentiment all over again.  Today ED told me I am better off dead.  I hadn't heard that one in awhile and it still hurts like it did before.  With these miserable feelings I want to curl up in bed, hide under the covers and never come out again. 

It seemed to work before... 

The problem is it never worked.

Then I visualize the painting in our process room or hear one of the other patients say:

When in doubt follow the meal plan.

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.

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 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.