The After Math
I arrived home on September 3rd, 2012. I was so excited to see my family and friends but terrified of the journey ahead of me. I got home late, visited with my family and a close friend and then went home and crashed. It felt so good to sleep in my own bed.
The next morning I woke up, went to the bathroom and low and behold there sat the scale. I was so angry that my parents forgot to hide it. Weighing myself is a huge trigger and I will probably never be able to weigh myself again....maybe in the far future. So I couldn't resist the temptation after not being able to know how much I weighed for a whole month. After seeing the number on the scale I went into full blown rage. I stormed down stairs and started making my breakfast. After seeing the number the last thing I wanted to do was eat, but I'd come so far I couldn't let that number dictate my life anymore. So I sat and ate my cereal in disgust.
The next thing I did was another spit of rage. I actually kind of scared my parents. I went upstairs and got the scale I then went into the garage and got a good size AXE! I took the scale into the back yard and slaughtered it, with every blow I felt empowered. It was a very emotional experience, but was necessary.
The next step was to find an outpatient program to continue my recovery. I had one already in the works and started it the next week, but after going to one day I was discouraged because the program they offered was not very beneficial to my recovery. I went home saying I was not going back. I felt very distraught having to continue my recovery without going to outpatient. I started looking for a therapist, dietician, and anonymous meetings. I did find many therapist and miraculously one of the therapist I called was the director of another outpatient program 15 minutes from where I live. I was so thrilled to have found a program. I went for an assessment and after hassling my insurance company for them to pay I finally got approved.
Before I got approved I had found a dietician. It is very important that I have a dietician that specializes in eating disorders. This dietician reassured me she did. So I went to meet her and get started. After the first meeting I was questioning whether she really was a specialist in eating disorders. She didn't offer me a very structured meal plan and gave me a goal weight...two things NOT to do. After being told of a goal weight I had to meet my eating disorder flared up and I lost sight of recovery and was obsessed with working out , eating as healthy as possible to get to this goal weight sooner than she had planned for me.
This basically put me back in my recovery. Thankfully I met with my therapist and got back on the right track. Recovery is not easy, it takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and will power. I am basically fighting between my rational "healthy mind" and my irrational "eating disorder mind" which is in fact my disease working its schemes as it would have. It's a 24 hour battle I face everyday. Blocking out my eating disorder thoughts that wander my mind endlessly and replacing them with rational substitutes. While someone without an eating disorder would think just don't think those things, just ignore those thoughts...it's not that easy. If that was the case...I wouldn't still be struggling and recovery would me easy. It's more than ignoring these thoughts. After listening and being convinced these thoughts were true for so long I am basically having to retrain my mind. It's like growing up believing something is right and then one day a bunch of people tell you it's wrong and show you the "right" way. Would you really just say, "okay, yeah you're right" and just change everything you believe? I highly doubt it. After believing these things for four years in my life it's not just a matter of ignoring thoughts. It's teaching my mind the difference between truth and lies because right now that difference is extremely blurry.
With the help of my therapist and others I will soon know the difference, it's going to take time and dedication but I believe whole heatedly it is possible.
I finally got my eating behaviors under control just to stumble upon another hill to climb in recovery. Body Image. Body image is how sufferers see their bodies. Usually people suffer from body distortion.
Body
image distortion is a brain condition where the person is unable to see
himself or herself accurately in the mirror and perceives features and
body size as distorted. The image the individual
perceives may be huge despite an actual size. The
distortion affects touch as well; sufferers may physically feel that
their arms, thighs or stomachs are many times their actual size.
Well this is absolute HELL, I'm not exaggerating. It is pure HELL. Imagine waking up every morning and feeling absolutely grotesque, looking in the mirror and despite what other people tell you, feeling huge and disgusting. Now just to clear the air, I nor do most sufferers judge the size of others, we only prey on our own bodies. Just because we feel gross and disgusting does not mean we project these judgments on others. These feelings keep me from leaving the house. I feel trapped in my mind and extremely depressed. Feeling this way about yourself is no way to live. Thankfully my therapist says its another process to recovering and that we will work on exposure therapy. Basically I will start to go in public in low-risk situations, where I feel most comfortable and work up to places I feel the most uncomfortable. Right now I'm terrified to go to restaurants, groceries stores, and the mall. I'm hoping this phase will pass soon because it's definitely having an impact with my eating behaviors. Feeling this gross is the easiest way to lose my appetite...of course ED is having a hay day with this one. But I am committed to staying strong and following my meal plan as hellish as it feels.
So this is where I'm at now.
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