First of all, it's completely amazing to me that last weekend I was in such a happy, hopeful, loving place and a short week later I'm drastically on the other end of the spectrum. This is when I wonder if I'm bi-polar but I know I'm not...this is life.
The week turned downward for me after a trip to the doctor in which they weighed me and I saw it. Not only that but they printed out some instructions for taking care of the wound I now have and at the bottom of those are my vitals including height and weight. Normally I would prepare myself, face the opposite way on the scale to avoid the number. It didn't dawn on me that they would weigh me in order to remove a lump of skin from my neck. Lesson learned! That bastard of a number plagued me like a beacon in my head. That number told me I'm disgusting, ugly, huge and unlovable. That number made me change my values. Certainly the number doesn't have a brain or a mouth to actually degrade me or talk me out of values I'm trying to live by, that's me. I'm doing that to myself. Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps it is my co-conspirator ED the eating disorder that's trying to make me feel like shit so I'll take him back, eat with him like old times. What an asshole.
The feelings around my weight are too heavy to go into right now. Today I am focusing my energy on not wallowing. Doug and I discussed my urge to wallow last week. Wallowing provides me comfort. He says that it makes sense that I would want to do that as it's familiar to me and has provided comfort in the past. Is wallowing effective in my recovery? No. I need to find other ways to comfort myself without wallowing, eating, shopping. Geez, what's left!? I'm kidding. I know there are healthier ways to comfort myself. It will just take some effort to do that. He says I should focus on effectiveness and compassion. I think effectiveness will be the easier of the two. I'm too angry with myself right now to be compassionate. I'm really pissed off that I have put myself where I am emotionally in life. I suppose compassion would play a pivotal role here but I can't call it up just yet.
This was a sincerely painful episode. I worry when I'm going through it that I'm not handling it properly. I really want to understand what it is I'm feeling and why I'm feeling it when it's happening. I think there is a fine line between intentionally looking at my emotions in an objective manner and getting stuck in them. I think there was a bit of both yesterday. I did try throughout to pay attention but sometimes the pain was so great it was hard to be objective, easier to feed into the judgments.
I think I handled this better than I would have six months ago. I did not binge (although restriction played a small part). Historically for me though, the binging doesn't have to take place immediately after the event. Generally the binge will be a couple days later (permitting there have been gaps between binges at all). So I need to keep in mind that I'm not out of the woods yet. I'm particularly vulnerable to using symptoms now and probably for the next few days baring any further trauma. I feel better today, I've released a lot of sadness and I feel like I've learned from my recent experience.
One positive thing from my doctor's visit is that my blood pressure is lower than it's ever been. It's really good! I'm pretty confident I have my meal plan with it's evil fruits and less evil veggies to thank. To me that was concrete proof that my meal plan is working.
I am so eternally grateful to those of you helping me through these difficult moments. I know reaching out is really beneficial to my recovery and I'm just so insanely thankful I have such amazing people to grab onto when I need them. Thank you!!
On a housekeeping note: Comments to my blog can now only be posted if you're a member of the site (which is free). Most of you have my personal email address so it isn't much of an issue. I was getting comment-spam for various pharmaceuticals - super annoying!
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