Blame

Last week's drama has subsided. I journaled through the whole painful episode last weekend and now looking back on what I'd written, I see it was SO dramatic! I am not belittling what I was going through at the moment I was going through it. I believe that when I was journaling, I was truly as wrought with emotions as I had written. It was a lesson to me though, the intensity will pass...the emotions will normalize.

While I was journaling last weekend blame came up. I believe I touched on this last week - blaming myself for being in this situation with my eating disorder. This was a topic of therapy with Doug this week. I asked him if I should be taking responsibility for putting myself here. If that is so, then I should prepare myself for radical acceptance, step up and take responsibility. Doug pointed out that when I was using the word responsibility, what I was really getting at was blame.

Should I blame myself for my eating disorder? Should I blame others for my eating disorder? He and I both agree that blame gets a person nowhere. Nothing positive comes from blaming. I have never thought to blame anyone but myself for my ED. I feel like I should blame myself because I'm controlling my actions that are part of my eating disorder. When I think about that though, it's almost the case of the chicken and the egg. Do the actions cause the ED or does the ED cause the actions. I think the latter...I mean, that makes the most sense to me right now.


Doug says that many things played a part in my developing an eating disorder as a coping mechanism. He believes that anyone with the same set of circumstances could have comforted themselves in the same way. He says some people recovering from an eating disorder need to know why they have one. I don't believe I'm one of those people. I'm content knowing that I should not blame myself. Blaming takes up energy that can be better used toward recovery.

This week has been better but I've felt willful, like I don't want to comply with my meal plan. I would love to binge but this is a different urge - it's more defiant - I don't wanna write this down, I don't wanna have to record everything. I wanna eat whatever I want and not have to think about it. I suppose I better review my group handout on being willful. There was overeating yesterday which I felt could have led to a binge but it didn't. I am trying today not to be too upset with myself for the overeating.

I am losing weight on my meal plan but not nearly as fast as I know I could. Of course that rate of weight loss would not be healthy and would be counter productive to therapy. I am struggling with this. Doug says the rate at which I am losing is completely normal and healthy. I understand that. So how do I deal with that - overeating...makes sense, huh? Ugh! No. This whole thing gets so very tiresome at times. I think I've lost touch with being in the moment...I'll have to work on that today, now.