I haven't been writing in this blog as much recently, because I've hit one of the bumps in the road. Behaviorally things are still exceptional in comparison to where I'm coming from, and while I've had slips - as I've previously noted is, for most people, pretty inevitable in recovery from an eating disorder - I continue to get back up as quickly as possible, and move on. That's been very important. I believe now that I am on the path to recovery, though that belief waxes and wanes. Recently, I've felt somewhat more hopeless than I have in the last month or two, which has been discouraging, but I've continued in my behaviors to do what I need to do while I seek and am gifted with things that help with hope and a conviction that I'm going to make it through this. That said, I've also come to recognize and accept that recovery is a loooongggg process. It's bizarre - sometimes I'll find myself having made enormous strides in a very short period of time, and sometimes, like now, it's slower than I (or the people who love me) would like. Of course, no one wanted this to happen in the first place, did they?
Anyway, I came to this blog tonight hoping to reassure others who struggle, particularly with Bulimia; I have suffered from all different types of eating disorders, but primarily Bulimia, and so most of what I can offer is in relation to this particular subtype of eating disorder.
If you've suffered from Bulimia, you'll likely resonate with the moment(s) I'm about to describe to you. The urge to binge, or the compulsion to eat whatever is in front of you more quickly than is healthy or helpful, to stuff something down without even really tasting it, or to drink wayyy too much coffee far too quickly, the compulsion to put a hell of a lot more salt or splenda or what-the-fuck-ever in your food/drink...etcetera, etcetera. I myself struggle very much with each of those things. Tonight, after the day was over at my program, I decided to hop on over to World Market to look around and pick up a few things. One of the things I wound up purchasing was Pumpkin Spice flavored Hot Chocolate. I was excited about it - I haven't allowed myself to have anything resembling hot chocolate in a very long time - and thought I could have it for the evening snack that is a part of my meal plan, before bed. It didn't occur to me at the time what a difficulty it was going to be to have the hot chocolate in the apartment.
There was a time that having any food in this apartment (I'm staying in an apartment that my program, Eating Recovery Center, owns) was an enormous trigger for me. I'm proud to say that I can now live in the apartment and keep some food around and not have it rob me of the ability to think about anything else - I've slowly adjusted, but there are still certain foods I do not bring into this apartment, because while it's important to push yourself out of your comfort zone, there's also such thing as being just plain stupid and pushing yourself too far too quickly. As far as meals go, I don't cook yet, because typically when you cook you buy foods that lead to leftovers; if I were to, say, want to make myself a sandwich, the rest of the loaf of bread would be there afterwards. I'm not quite there yet. While I've come a long way, I'm still early in and protective of my recovery. I also tend to steer clear of keeping very sweet foods around, which brings me to the hot chocolate.
I try to wait until I'm hungry to eat my snack. Sometimes I eat it very early, which is sometimes because I'm going to bed very early that night, and sometimes compulsive. Sometimes I don't get hungry at all and I'm tempted to skip it, and I've had slips in that way too, but it's important to follow your meal plan as best you can when you are in early recovery. Your dietitian has tailored it specifically to you, your body and its needs, and it will not "make you fat". Often times, in early recovery from an eating disorder, your body's hunger signals are all screwed up. You may think you are hungry when you are not, and you may not be able to feel hunger, or even know what hunger feels like. This is often the case for me at this point.
Back to the hot chocolate. From the time I arrived "home" to the apartment, my mind was racing, my pulse had quickened, and all I could think about was - you got it - the hot chocolate in the cabinet. Which led to thinking about the other foods that I have here, which led to thinking about binging. I sensed this anxiety, this almost manic state that I have learned from experience makes me more vulnerable to binging and purging early on and went straight to my journal while I pulled up a TED Talk that a former dietitian I love performed today, which I felt I benefited from greatly and thought might be able to help center me. I journaled while the talk loaded, and then I watched some of the talk, which did help to calm me and center me a bit, and then I wrote a card for a friend's birthday tomorrow.
I can't say this enough: It has been my experience that a) planning ahead so that you aren't predisposed to strong urges in the first place, and b) catching the compulsion to binge in the very early stages are extremely important and helpful.
I managed to wait until the time I generally like to have my snack around, and writing this entry has helped me to not gulp it all down more quickly than is "normal", or healthy.
I won't lie. I didn't much enjoy the hot chocolate: at this point, certain foods still cause a lot of anxiety for me, and I still struggle with being dissociated from the experience of eating. A lot of the time, if not most of the time, I still find myself at the end of a meal or a snack and realize I hardly tasted it. I believe this is very normal. Binging is for a lot of people similar in some ways to being unconscious. In my experience, binging was a form of dissociation. It was like I'd knocked myself out for a few hours at the end of an episode - eat the food, very quickly, for my timed 30 minutes, and run to the bathroom, get it all up, go back to the food, do it again, get it up again, back to the food...and so on, and so on. It makes me sad to think about it, because it's sad. My discovery that food could do this - provide me with a sense of numbness - happened when I was very young. I don't remember the exact moment, and I'm pretty certain it was unconscious. But it clearly happened, and led to a very dangerous illness that is painstakingly difficult to recover from.
Because I want for a moment to speak directly to the person who is lost in the struggle with Bulimia - the person who has been labeled "Chronic" and feels hopeless, that their predicament is unresolvable - to the person who, like me, has many times considered suicide as a way to end this nightmare - I'm going to be very honest. I believe that I am in recovery. My recovery is not perfect, nor am I naïve enough to assume it would be - anymore. For a long time, I believed that I needed to stop all behaviors at once, and that if I had a lapse, it meant I had failed. It meant I could not recover. It was evidence that I was once again failing...and then I'd give up. I do not use lapses as an excuse to relapse fully any longer, nor do I allow them to go on once I have "woken up" from the slip. Do I still feel hopeless sometimes? Absolutely. Lately it's been more consistent hopelessness, which has been discouraging, but I have learned slowly that no matter what - no matter WHAT - it is my right and my duty to get back up. Even if I feel jaded and disillusioned, even if it feels like recovery is going to take twenty years. Now, I hope to hell it doesn't take twenty years, but I've come to accept that full recovery might take years for me. And how would I rather spend twenty years - recovering from an eating disorder while living life as fully as possible, or running in circles and getting nowhere, blinded by misery and hopelessness, isolated and desperate? I will not spend another twenty years with this eating disorder. I don't really believe I'd make it another twenty years. Eating Disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, and while many of us who have been labeled "Chronic" have put our bodies through an absurd amount, and it is miraculous that we have survived, they can kill very quickly.
There have been times when I thought I was not lucky to have survived, but cursed. I wanted so, so badly for this pain to end, and I resented that I was still alive. Just my luck.
Today, I sometimes still feel this way, because of both the eating disorder and the Bipolar disorder, usually the depression. I don't want to lie and say that everything is perfect because I don't want the reader to expect that their path won't be rocky, so despite my anxieties that some of my loved ones will read this and feel disappointed in me, because I'm not recovering fast enough, I'm going to be to the point and honest. I still use a lot of behaviors. I still use too much artificial sweetener (which feels insulting, but I still do it - there will come a day that I don't, purely as a testament that I do not have to). I still drink a lot of diet soda. I still sometimes eat a meal far too quickly, or compulsively drink coffee in the morning before I go in for the day of treatment. I still "body check" - which means looking at your body in the mirror or another reflective surface - and hate it, sometimes. I still count calories a lot of the time.
I stop myself from doing these things a lot of the time, and I do them much less than I used to, and I am building and utilizing my awareness of when I am doing or want to do these things - but I still do them. I'm not "healed" or recovered or anywhere near it, and I won't claim to be. But I am shocked by how much progress I have made. I know it might not sound like it to you, when I name all of these residual behaviors, but eating disorders are insidious, mine was severe, and they are composed of millions of little behaviors, not just the obvious ones. I suspect that they often take a very long time to fully recover from. But we can't compare our journeys - some people will recover faster than others, and that's okay. We all just have to do the best we can, in this moment, today. I don't love the quote "Tomorrow is a new day" much - a) because it's bland and b) because I think it's important to get up right after you slip, that same day if possible. If you have a slip that lasts a few days, get up whenever you can. Get up however you can. I've learned that the longer you allow it to go on, the harder it is to get up, and if you have an eating disorder and have tried to recover you know how quickly it can take over again.
I guess I'll probably not sound as optimistic as you might expect sometimes, but I want to be realistic and honest. I do believe in recovery, and I believe in hope. I also think it's instrumental to be realistic with yourself.
That's it for today.
