Long Story Long
It may seem like I transformed into a completely different person from when I left Houston a year ago. From the outside it might appear that the once-dean's-list-university-student suddenly ended up on the wrong side of the road. It happened in the blink of an eye, but it also has been in the making for longer than anyone, including myself, could have imagined. I do wonder what those that were present in the duration of the year saw from the outside. Was there a flip of a switch at some point? Did I just gradually seem to disappear? Or did nothing seem out of the ordinary at all? According to my mom, when she heard the news, it came out of nowhere.
Nowhere is subjective, I guess. It did seem like nowhere from my perspective, too at first. Then I started making some connections that showed how long it had been festering inside me. I remember as early as eighth grade, giving away my lunch I had packed from home at the beginning of the school day so I could make certain I wouldn't eat it. This plan failed when I would essentially binge at lunch time on the school cafeteria food and anything else I was offered for the rest of the day. These thoughts and behaviors usually accelerated before the highly anticipated "beach day" field trip at the end of the each year. Everyone in my dance class would do pilates with an emphasis on getting "six-packs for beach day". These disordered patterns weren't the end-all-be-all, though. They could have turned around. But that sadly wasn't the case for me. By the summer after my sophomore year of high school I had gotten a job as a lifeguard and used the long shifts to only eat specific foods at specific, pre-designated times. Needless to say, by the end of the summer I had lost a noticeable amount of weight. Once school started again I almost immediately gained it all right back. I felt a loss of control when around food at school and in any social environment, never able to turn it down. This infuriated me and only fueled my thoughts about my weight and body.
I'd be lying if I said the rest of high school was miserable because all I could do was think about how fat I thought I was. There were good times, good friends, and great memories made in those years, too. That's what made those years in my disorder tolerable. Knowing this, you can likely see how the move to college slid out the last weight-bearing block of my Jenga tower. The first semester of college being those few seconds of swaying and gasping before the whole thing comes crashing down.
(I am going to steal the next segment of this story from my autobiography I wrote and shared while in residential treatment in California this summer)
"I graduated on May 27th, 2017 and gave the commencement speech at the ceremony. I worked as a lifeguard over the summer and I left for college at the end of August. Going into college I knew I wanted two things above all else: Good grades and to "get fit" so that people back home would notice a difference. This was no less than a recipe for disaster. I went to the gym and showered before my 9am, ate what I considered a safe breakfast and spent the rest of the day going to class, calculating calories and doing homework. In the evenings id I finished my homework I would go to practice for the gymnastics club I joined for the hell of it, because why would I turn down another workout opportunity? The real problem was nothing felt that wrong- I wasn't attempting to restrict "that much", I was eating about three meals a day and I was maintaining "healthy" exercise habits! If anything, my relationship with food had improved, had it not? I was also getting involved with a student org, Longhorns for Christ, during welcome week. The people were very welcoming and engaging so I didn't feel afraid of them or what they thought of me. It felt as if I had really grown since my freshman year of high school and conquered many of the anxieties I had then lived with. Everything in this new college life of mine seemed to be going according to plan. I was happy, everything was fine, right? But then a month went by, two months went by, and this mentality that I had began to break down. In LFC I had become friends with the regulars of the group but being around them would constantly leave me feeling anxious and overwhelmed. I beat myself up for not knowing what to say, saying too little, saying too much, etc. Not only were my perceived social abilities deteriorating, but all the energy I was devoting to working out and eating "healthy" wasn't paying off the way I wanted it too, either. I was always exhausted, always thinking, rarely at peace."
Pause. I have decided to refrain from using the rest of my autobiography due to it's graphic nature and the hope that maybe one day I will actually have the courage to share this post to more people than just my therapist.
Essentially during Christmas break I finally succeeded at a new method. A method that would soon make my life a living hell, but I was also convinced it was just one episode and I was not sick. Things got really bad, really fast once I went back to Austin in January. I tried to commit back to a rigorous workout schedule and a rather restrictive diet. This only lasted a few weeks before weeks of engaging in binging and purging induced. These only lasted until guilt and shame overpowered the urges and I could proceed back into the exercising and restrictive elements of this disgusting and humiliating cycle. By the end off February I was unable to function as a normal human being. Schoolwork was being half-assed and isolating from social obligations ensued. It took my disorder maxing out my debit card for me to realize that I couldn't wait any longer to ask for help. I went to the Counseling and Mental Health Center at UT to do an assessment and set up an appointment with the Mindful Eating counselor. Unfortunately she was booked. For the next month. So I took the appointment reminder card, stuck it in my phone case and put all my will into surviving until that appointment. I did, barely. Behaviors accelerated in every way and I was going to extreme measures to get my "fix" of food. Before the wait was over, I went home to Houston for spring break and, to my ignorant disbelief, wasn't able to put the behaviors on hold. This led to lots of lying to and manipulation of those I love in order to hide what was going on with me. Not to mention distancing, lots and lots of distancing.
I made it back up to school and, finally, to my appointment; My foot was in the door. I was prepared to take that foot right the fuck out as soon as the counselor started mentioning things like, "telling my parents" and "higher levels of care". All I wanted was a quick fix, something to help me slow down the urges so I could be on my happy way. The week until our next appointment was the longest week of my life leaving me with so much to contemplate. I was also instructed to make a visit to the medical doctor on the eating disorder team at the school. It had appeared that somehow, I had apparently signed up for plunging into the world of treatment and recovery. We decided to hold off until school got out to admit me to a higher level of care, giving my eating disorder a deadline, and boy, it loves those. In those last weeks before school got out and I signed into treatment: I lost weight, I stopped socializing with everyone except my roommate, I went to work at the Rec Center, I went to class (most of the time), and more than any of those combined I engaged in my eating disorder. Above anything, it was miserable. Rewarding and fulfilling? Sure. But above all, miserable.
I started Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) at Center for Discovery on May 17th, 2018. I was a day after I got home from school. It was crazy overwhelming. On your admit day you do a lot of talking and answering many invasive questions asked by strangers. I remember going into my first group and feeling like I was stuck in a teenage lifetime movie. That feeling went away pretty quickly and I'd say by my third or fourth day I felt like I was starting to get familiar with the routine.
I enjoyed the camaraderie that I developed there in the next three weeks. I liked being able to have a therapist within 20 feet of me at almost any time, even the bathroom. On the other hand my eating disorder didn't like that so much. It also didn't like the fun new meal plan my dietitian and I came up with. It became very loud and left me with not much will to be compliant with my treatment team/plan. However, I was honest with them about my behaviors. I remember one thing the counselor from Austin pleaded me to do in our last session was to be honest about my behaviors with my treatment team in Houston, that they couldn't help me if I wasn't honest. They could only do so much before having to refer to me to a higher level of care. Ah, yes. A Residential Treatment Center (aka "res").
My eating disorder was both thrilled and pissed at this new information. It applauded me for being "sick enough" to deserve res (even though it also told me my treatment team was lying to me and that I wasn't and didn't deserve it). It was also furious at me for telling the truth about my behaviors landing me in a position where I would soon have no control over food at all. Aside from the ed voice, I was sad to have to leave the outpatient center I had found a comfy place in after wiggling around a bit. There was a part of me that was hopeful and ready to take on the ed with full force in res. It was a small part of me, but enough of me to convince my parents, painful as that was, that this was what was best for me at this time. This was a hard buy in for them, understandably so, because their are no adult residential treatment centers for eating disorders in Texas. My team was looking at houses with openings in California. And so, about two weeks after the initial conversation about potentially going to res, I was on a plane to Fremont, California with a plethora of coloring books, journals, and thinking putty for an undetermined length of stay.
Upon admitting, I was under the (false) impression that residential was going to be basically like PHP with a few more rules and breakfast. Boy was I wrong. My first journal entry while I was there went like so:
"What a wild 18 hours. When I first got here all that was going through my head was like, 'what the fuck did I get myself into...!' I am still thinking that but only slightly." I continued, "It's so much more intensive then PHP, especially the actual medical stuff." Pause. The next portion of this journal entry should send up about every red flag to anyone familiar with the ways of eating disorders knowing that when you give them an inch, they take a mile. I wrote, "It was weird though, the dinner; they gave me food that felt super restrictive. Like compared to the huge ass meal plan I was on the past three weeks. Maybe it's because all the snacks. I don't know, I'm just happy I won't be gaining that much I guess".
As you can see, my eating disorder was fighting back with full force against all the treatment I was receiving. I spent the mere three and half weeks I was granted there growing, plotting, and listening to my ed. I developed some really good relationships with other clients, but I wasn't able to become truly vulnerable in that setting which set up another barrier between myself and recovery. I discharged from residential once insurance would no longer cover me because, according to them, I had not attempted to engage in behaviors and I was within my ideal weight range. The former not being totally true (unbeknownst to anyone at that time), and the latter being a incomprehensive criteria to determinate state of recovery for someone with bulimia. I wasn't ready to give up the eating disorder and my therapist in res could see that. So we decided that staying there in California was not going to benefit me much more than being in PHP so might as well go back to the familiarity of my hometown and try taking on recovery again from that vantage point instead. It made since at the time in my head. But really my eating disorder was just all over this new plan. It felt like it had won a major battle in this war. It could take control back home just as it had done before, but it would be smarter this time.
On my discharge date for residential there were some highs and lows. It was the forth of July so our daily schedule was slightly altered and there was some time set aside to decorate for the holiday. We finished putting up the decorations with plenty of time to spare leaving me with about an hour before I was heading to the airport. The other clients and I had requested googley eyes to put up around the house and in my last hours we did just that. Let me tell you, there were very few objects in that house that we didn't grant with the ability to see by the time we were done, including the stool chart. I remember that sheer joy and pleasure I experienced while doing that simple act with the other clients. I felt like I was contributing to something, even if it was just some potential laughs for others in the future. Not long after that gimmick did I say my goodbyes, receive well wishes and head off to the airport. Ah yes, the airport. I was literally leaving the most sheltered place I had ever been in regards to food and headed straight to a place where you can't even walk ten feet without inhaling seventeen distinct fast food aromas. So of course, while sitting there in my terminal with my packed lunch and about an hour to kill, urges came up, and they came up strong. I tried to resist. I tried to talk back to ed but all he did was scream, so I have in. I gave into urges before I even made it on the plane heading home from residential. I felt like I had failed so badly it was comical.
I was determined to hold up my front, however. I was not going to "rat myself out" (otherwise known as being honest) about my actions to my treatment team or anyone at that matter. I was determined to lie through the grit of my teeth, get out of treatment as fast as possible, move back to Austin and have my eating disorder to use at my will.
I started back in the same program I had left three and a half weeks prior on July 5th, 2018. Returning to PHP was weird because everything was pretty much the exact same, even most of the clients. I felt as if those three weeks could have been three years, but I think I was the only one. The atmosphere of the milieu had shifted in the time I had been away, but I was able to adjust more or less. About a week into the program, and for me, a week into bullshitting my way through the program, I had my first family therapy session with my parents since I had been back. They pretty much outed me to my therapist about the truth regarding my behaviors right after closing the office door. I was surprised, slightly, that they knew, but it definitely caught me off guard in the way it all went down. I was at a loss for words. I was devastated. I was actually going to have to give up my ed, which to me was all I knew. I had not begun to mourn it's loss because I didn't believe I would be letting it die without a revival. But this was the beginning to it's end. An end that will take a while but is in the making. The ending of ed is it's own story, its own novel with an ever-thickening plot.
It has been two months since then. I'm in a different place for sure. Whether it's backward or forward, well, who's to say? Not I. I am still learning and still waiting. I try to keep hoping as well but it's a dark road I am traveling on and the bright stars seem to be few and far. Nevertheless, I will keep on with this venture in whatever direction, shape, or form it takes, I will keep on.
Glo
Nowhere is subjective, I guess. It did seem like nowhere from my perspective, too at first. Then I started making some connections that showed how long it had been festering inside me. I remember as early as eighth grade, giving away my lunch I had packed from home at the beginning of the school day so I could make certain I wouldn't eat it. This plan failed when I would essentially binge at lunch time on the school cafeteria food and anything else I was offered for the rest of the day. These thoughts and behaviors usually accelerated before the highly anticipated "beach day" field trip at the end of the each year. Everyone in my dance class would do pilates with an emphasis on getting "six-packs for beach day". These disordered patterns weren't the end-all-be-all, though. They could have turned around. But that sadly wasn't the case for me. By the summer after my sophomore year of high school I had gotten a job as a lifeguard and used the long shifts to only eat specific foods at specific, pre-designated times. Needless to say, by the end of the summer I had lost a noticeable amount of weight. Once school started again I almost immediately gained it all right back. I felt a loss of control when around food at school and in any social environment, never able to turn it down. This infuriated me and only fueled my thoughts about my weight and body.
I'd be lying if I said the rest of high school was miserable because all I could do was think about how fat I thought I was. There were good times, good friends, and great memories made in those years, too. That's what made those years in my disorder tolerable. Knowing this, you can likely see how the move to college slid out the last weight-bearing block of my Jenga tower. The first semester of college being those few seconds of swaying and gasping before the whole thing comes crashing down.
(I am going to steal the next segment of this story from my autobiography I wrote and shared while in residential treatment in California this summer)
"I graduated on May 27th, 2017 and gave the commencement speech at the ceremony. I worked as a lifeguard over the summer and I left for college at the end of August. Going into college I knew I wanted two things above all else: Good grades and to "get fit" so that people back home would notice a difference. This was no less than a recipe for disaster. I went to the gym and showered before my 9am, ate what I considered a safe breakfast and spent the rest of the day going to class, calculating calories and doing homework. In the evenings id I finished my homework I would go to practice for the gymnastics club I joined for the hell of it, because why would I turn down another workout opportunity? The real problem was nothing felt that wrong- I wasn't attempting to restrict "that much", I was eating about three meals a day and I was maintaining "healthy" exercise habits! If anything, my relationship with food had improved, had it not? I was also getting involved with a student org, Longhorns for Christ, during welcome week. The people were very welcoming and engaging so I didn't feel afraid of them or what they thought of me. It felt as if I had really grown since my freshman year of high school and conquered many of the anxieties I had then lived with. Everything in this new college life of mine seemed to be going according to plan. I was happy, everything was fine, right? But then a month went by, two months went by, and this mentality that I had began to break down. In LFC I had become friends with the regulars of the group but being around them would constantly leave me feeling anxious and overwhelmed. I beat myself up for not knowing what to say, saying too little, saying too much, etc. Not only were my perceived social abilities deteriorating, but all the energy I was devoting to working out and eating "healthy" wasn't paying off the way I wanted it too, either. I was always exhausted, always thinking, rarely at peace."
Pause. I have decided to refrain from using the rest of my autobiography due to it's graphic nature and the hope that maybe one day I will actually have the courage to share this post to more people than just my therapist.
Essentially during Christmas break I finally succeeded at a new method. A method that would soon make my life a living hell, but I was also convinced it was just one episode and I was not sick. Things got really bad, really fast once I went back to Austin in January. I tried to commit back to a rigorous workout schedule and a rather restrictive diet. This only lasted a few weeks before weeks of engaging in binging and purging induced. These only lasted until guilt and shame overpowered the urges and I could proceed back into the exercising and restrictive elements of this disgusting and humiliating cycle. By the end off February I was unable to function as a normal human being. Schoolwork was being half-assed and isolating from social obligations ensued. It took my disorder maxing out my debit card for me to realize that I couldn't wait any longer to ask for help. I went to the Counseling and Mental Health Center at UT to do an assessment and set up an appointment with the Mindful Eating counselor. Unfortunately she was booked. For the next month. So I took the appointment reminder card, stuck it in my phone case and put all my will into surviving until that appointment. I did, barely. Behaviors accelerated in every way and I was going to extreme measures to get my "fix" of food. Before the wait was over, I went home to Houston for spring break and, to my ignorant disbelief, wasn't able to put the behaviors on hold. This led to lots of lying to and manipulation of those I love in order to hide what was going on with me. Not to mention distancing, lots and lots of distancing.
I made it back up to school and, finally, to my appointment; My foot was in the door. I was prepared to take that foot right the fuck out as soon as the counselor started mentioning things like, "telling my parents" and "higher levels of care". All I wanted was a quick fix, something to help me slow down the urges so I could be on my happy way. The week until our next appointment was the longest week of my life leaving me with so much to contemplate. I was also instructed to make a visit to the medical doctor on the eating disorder team at the school. It had appeared that somehow, I had apparently signed up for plunging into the world of treatment and recovery. We decided to hold off until school got out to admit me to a higher level of care, giving my eating disorder a deadline, and boy, it loves those. In those last weeks before school got out and I signed into treatment: I lost weight, I stopped socializing with everyone except my roommate, I went to work at the Rec Center, I went to class (most of the time), and more than any of those combined I engaged in my eating disorder. Above anything, it was miserable. Rewarding and fulfilling? Sure. But above all, miserable.
I started Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) at Center for Discovery on May 17th, 2018. I was a day after I got home from school. It was crazy overwhelming. On your admit day you do a lot of talking and answering many invasive questions asked by strangers. I remember going into my first group and feeling like I was stuck in a teenage lifetime movie. That feeling went away pretty quickly and I'd say by my third or fourth day I felt like I was starting to get familiar with the routine.
I enjoyed the camaraderie that I developed there in the next three weeks. I liked being able to have a therapist within 20 feet of me at almost any time, even the bathroom. On the other hand my eating disorder didn't like that so much. It also didn't like the fun new meal plan my dietitian and I came up with. It became very loud and left me with not much will to be compliant with my treatment team/plan. However, I was honest with them about my behaviors. I remember one thing the counselor from Austin pleaded me to do in our last session was to be honest about my behaviors with my treatment team in Houston, that they couldn't help me if I wasn't honest. They could only do so much before having to refer to me to a higher level of care. Ah, yes. A Residential Treatment Center (aka "res").
My eating disorder was both thrilled and pissed at this new information. It applauded me for being "sick enough" to deserve res (even though it also told me my treatment team was lying to me and that I wasn't and didn't deserve it). It was also furious at me for telling the truth about my behaviors landing me in a position where I would soon have no control over food at all. Aside from the ed voice, I was sad to have to leave the outpatient center I had found a comfy place in after wiggling around a bit. There was a part of me that was hopeful and ready to take on the ed with full force in res. It was a small part of me, but enough of me to convince my parents, painful as that was, that this was what was best for me at this time. This was a hard buy in for them, understandably so, because their are no adult residential treatment centers for eating disorders in Texas. My team was looking at houses with openings in California. And so, about two weeks after the initial conversation about potentially going to res, I was on a plane to Fremont, California with a plethora of coloring books, journals, and thinking putty for an undetermined length of stay.
Upon admitting, I was under the (false) impression that residential was going to be basically like PHP with a few more rules and breakfast. Boy was I wrong. My first journal entry while I was there went like so:
"What a wild 18 hours. When I first got here all that was going through my head was like, 'what the fuck did I get myself into...!' I am still thinking that but only slightly." I continued, "It's so much more intensive then PHP, especially the actual medical stuff." Pause. The next portion of this journal entry should send up about every red flag to anyone familiar with the ways of eating disorders knowing that when you give them an inch, they take a mile. I wrote, "It was weird though, the dinner; they gave me food that felt super restrictive. Like compared to the huge ass meal plan I was on the past three weeks. Maybe it's because all the snacks. I don't know, I'm just happy I won't be gaining that much I guess".
As you can see, my eating disorder was fighting back with full force against all the treatment I was receiving. I spent the mere three and half weeks I was granted there growing, plotting, and listening to my ed. I developed some really good relationships with other clients, but I wasn't able to become truly vulnerable in that setting which set up another barrier between myself and recovery. I discharged from residential once insurance would no longer cover me because, according to them, I had not attempted to engage in behaviors and I was within my ideal weight range. The former not being totally true (unbeknownst to anyone at that time), and the latter being a incomprehensive criteria to determinate state of recovery for someone with bulimia. I wasn't ready to give up the eating disorder and my therapist in res could see that. So we decided that staying there in California was not going to benefit me much more than being in PHP so might as well go back to the familiarity of my hometown and try taking on recovery again from that vantage point instead. It made since at the time in my head. But really my eating disorder was just all over this new plan. It felt like it had won a major battle in this war. It could take control back home just as it had done before, but it would be smarter this time.
On my discharge date for residential there were some highs and lows. It was the forth of July so our daily schedule was slightly altered and there was some time set aside to decorate for the holiday. We finished putting up the decorations with plenty of time to spare leaving me with about an hour before I was heading to the airport. The other clients and I had requested googley eyes to put up around the house and in my last hours we did just that. Let me tell you, there were very few objects in that house that we didn't grant with the ability to see by the time we were done, including the stool chart. I remember that sheer joy and pleasure I experienced while doing that simple act with the other clients. I felt like I was contributing to something, even if it was just some potential laughs for others in the future. Not long after that gimmick did I say my goodbyes, receive well wishes and head off to the airport. Ah yes, the airport. I was literally leaving the most sheltered place I had ever been in regards to food and headed straight to a place where you can't even walk ten feet without inhaling seventeen distinct fast food aromas. So of course, while sitting there in my terminal with my packed lunch and about an hour to kill, urges came up, and they came up strong. I tried to resist. I tried to talk back to ed but all he did was scream, so I have in. I gave into urges before I even made it on the plane heading home from residential. I felt like I had failed so badly it was comical.
I was determined to hold up my front, however. I was not going to "rat myself out" (otherwise known as being honest) about my actions to my treatment team or anyone at that matter. I was determined to lie through the grit of my teeth, get out of treatment as fast as possible, move back to Austin and have my eating disorder to use at my will.
I started back in the same program I had left three and a half weeks prior on July 5th, 2018. Returning to PHP was weird because everything was pretty much the exact same, even most of the clients. I felt as if those three weeks could have been three years, but I think I was the only one. The atmosphere of the milieu had shifted in the time I had been away, but I was able to adjust more or less. About a week into the program, and for me, a week into bullshitting my way through the program, I had my first family therapy session with my parents since I had been back. They pretty much outed me to my therapist about the truth regarding my behaviors right after closing the office door. I was surprised, slightly, that they knew, but it definitely caught me off guard in the way it all went down. I was at a loss for words. I was devastated. I was actually going to have to give up my ed, which to me was all I knew. I had not begun to mourn it's loss because I didn't believe I would be letting it die without a revival. But this was the beginning to it's end. An end that will take a while but is in the making. The ending of ed is it's own story, its own novel with an ever-thickening plot.
It has been two months since then. I'm in a different place for sure. Whether it's backward or forward, well, who's to say? Not I. I am still learning and still waiting. I try to keep hoping as well but it's a dark road I am traveling on and the bright stars seem to be few and far. Nevertheless, I will keep on with this venture in whatever direction, shape, or form it takes, I will keep on.
Glo
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