The Valley

Two months is a long time and it's been a busy, crazy journey. Most importantly my beautiful sister got married! I'm so so happy for her and her new husband, my new brother-in-law! There were a couple bumps in the wedding day but really, it was wonderful. Everyone had such a great time and seemed so happy.

The past couple months for me have been sort of up and down. Lately, very much down. The few days around the wedding were very high energy, keeping me on alert. When the wedding was over I pretty much crashed. Doug says it makes sense because I spent X number of days high high high and then X+ number of days low low low. It was a pretty rough period of time that included extensive symptom use, a terrible trip to the doctor for a change in my medication and a suggestion of IOP - the Intensive Outpatient Program at the Emily Program.

IOP is used to interrupt symptom use, regulate emotions by learning different coping skills, and gain a more normalized routine with food. I am not opposed to this program but the time commitment is overwhelming to me - 9 hours per week on top of my regular appointment with Doug. Thankfully I'm on an upswing now. I'm not really sure what did the interrupting, perhaps an increase in my meds. Whatever it is, I'm thankful for it.

It's a moment to moment struggle right now. I'm not really sure what's getting me through but baby steps seem to be helping. I'm trying not to get down about the weight I've gained, how much I can't stand how my body looks and how angry I am with myself for allowing myself to slip. Right now is not a good time to be thinking of such things so I'm trying to keep the negative thoughts away until I can deal with them without getting attached to them.

It's time for me to start preparing myself some dinner now. It's important to eat before I get too hungry because that could very easily lead to a binge right now. I've been doing better the past few days and am glad I feel the desire to keep it up.

Ed strikes again

Ed is still hanging around this week. He can be so annoying, he just doesn't get the hint sometimes - go away Ed! Another binge this week. This has been the roughest time I've had with symptom use in a long time. The more symptom use, the worse I feel about myself and that just feeds the monster and the cycle continues. I've been back on track for the most part but I'm still struggling.

I'm trying to pay more attention to Ed. Like I'd want to right? I've noticed that I've sort of been ignoring him and in doing so he's been doing what he wants instead of listening to me - since I haven't been telling him what to do. So I've been trying to journal daily and ask myself "Where's Ed at, what's he telling me, what does he want?". I feel like I'm playing Where's Waldo. This helps me keep an eye on him instead of allowing him to sneak up behind me or sit quietly next to me.

Doug also wants me to ask myself when I'm feeling urges to use symptoms - "How can I be more effective?". Meaning, how can I approach this situation so that it has a more effective and adaptive outcome. To be effective I am plugging in my skills such as staying in the moment, being non-judgmental and probably using whatever distress tolerence skills I need to get through the difficult moment (distraction, making a list of pros/cons of the behavior, and self soothing).

So why the bump in the road? Why has my symptom use increased? Well there is a situation - a nice situation but a stressful one in the works. It's happy but anxiety provoking at the same time and it has sort of flared up my judgmental inner dialog about myself lately. I'm kind of irritated that this particular situation is effecting my eating disorder as it is. It makes me feel weak and incompetent, like I can't handle it. Doug has rationalized with me why I would feel the way I'm feeling and has suggested for me to use radical acceptance because part of the situation is completely out of my control. I need to radically accept that fact so that I can let go of it and allow the situation to work itself out in its own time. There is a major lesson in patience here - I'd like to say I'm a patient person but in many instances, I'm not.

Sorry to be so vague about it, I'm not prepared to share all the details here. But I have to accept that this does have an effect on me (even though I'd rather not) and I need to pay better attention to that fact and do what I can to be mindful and effective.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty good - anxious but good. The nicer weather sure helps things too. I wonder if there was much coincidence to the last binge and that mind-blowing snow fall on Monday. Thank goodness spring is here!!!

I missed a week of blogging. If I don't get to it Saturday or Sunday, it just doesn't happen during the week. The last time I wrote I was having problems eating all the exchanges in my meal plan. That continued through the rest of that week and the food obsessions and anxiety did not wane.

Friday that week it sort of all came to a head and the restriction gave way to a weekend of poor food behavior, an all out binge Friday night and overeating over the rest of the weekend. There was no particular situation that triggered the use of food. Well not exactly anyway. I should say there was no traumatic event that triggered it but what seemed to get the ball rolling was our potluck at work. There weren't any foods I deemed acceptable or good for me so I told myself to go ahead and try a little of the things I wanted. Normally this would be a pretty adaptive approach but I think because I'd been so judgmental about my foods being good or bad, I just sort of let go and went for it after I allowed myself to eat those "bad" foods.

After lunch I sort of decided to give myself permission to binge when I got home that night, it was nearly planned (short of a special trip to the grocery store). I felt so disgustingly full and ashamed afterward. Saturday morning with the expected binge-hangover I felt crappy. I was super anxious and really would have paid money to curl up into the fetal position in my bed and cry all day. Of course I was at work so no deal there. I didn't plan lunch that day so I was very unsatisfied with what I did end up eating which was really more of a snack. The feeling bad about the previous night's binge and not being prescriptive with my meal plan that day lead to some overeating or as I called it at the time, a "mini-binge".

I was pretty amazed at how quickly and comfortably the cycle came back. It was so easy to fall into and so hard to get out of. This was the biggest binge I've had in months. I was completely being willful about eating. I had been so obsessed over what I was eating, what I judged good and bad that I ended up being so frustrated with having to plan and think and care about what food I'm eating I just decided not to care for a day (or so). There were plenty of pauses, opportunities for me to plug in my skills and I ignored those pauses. I knew they were there when they were happening. I knew while I was in the binge that I would have to discuss all this with Amy and Doug, that I would most likely gain weight, that I would feel physically and emotionally terrible after and yet I gave myself full permission to go that route and end up feeling really horrible about myself.

I have stuck to my meal plan since Monday last week. It's been difficult because I feel some guilt for eating what I feel is too much or "bad" even when what I'm eating fits into my prescribed meal plan. I see how important it is for me to stay on my meal plan even though I still want to eat below my exchanges because I feel totally desperate to lose weight. I hate my body.

Doug and I have been discussing body image and basically reprogramming how I talk to myself about me and my life. I will be starting a new group in a couple weeks that deals solely with body image. Once I start that I won't be attending the DBT group anymore. I'm totally freaked out and scared to be in a group discussing ANYTHING about my body. It is so so hard for me to believe there is anything at all good about it. I'm totally ashamed of it and am really not looking forward to concentrating on it with people I don't know. As scared as I am I know this is necessary. It's timely and very important and hopefully I'll be singing a different tune when the group has finished but right now I just can't fathom feeling anything but disgust and hatred for my body.

Geez, this stuff is just so much fun! Ha. I learned a bit from the binging weekend. Staying on my meal plan helps keep me even, balanced and definitely less anxious. I suppose it's worth it to stay with it - I know it is.