Update
This morning my mom woke me up around 7:30am and told me I had five minutes to get out of my bed and either go with her to a workshop and sit in the coffeeshop in that building or go to another coffee shop on my own. Of course I wasn't particularly obedient and waited about 20 minutes before getting in the shower. I packed up my backpack with my almost-dead laptop and cell-phone and an assortment of charging accessories. This mandatory coffee shop stop was established a day prior per my Dr's orders. Yes, a prescription Starbucks run. Now before you question the credentials of this "doctor" I speak of, they are a specialist in treating the medical side of eating disorders. They knew that in the preceding weeks, mornings have been increasingly a deadly battleground with ed. So now I am sitting in Starbucks, attempting to organize the chaotic mess of thoughts in my head into a blog post, all while trying desperately to ignore the fact that there are two perfectly private bathrooms within twenty feet from where I sit.
Rewind to my last post when I mentioned the uncomfortable session I had dealing with insurance fuckery and my confession of my behaviors to my therapist. Thinking back on it, these feeling could not have just evaporated by talking about them once and writing one post on them. I pretended they did, however, which allowed them to slowly simmer and act as fuel for urges and behaviors to erupt. Their eruption caused me to feel a lot of guilt for what felt like breaking the "rules of recovery". But the behaviors also resulted in an even greater sense of validation of my illness. A feeling that I was in need of support and of being cared for. After a Monday session following the doomsday weekend, I had taken it upon myself to not use ed to cope with my loneliness and loss that ruled over me in the mornings without ed when I have the whole house to myself. I was successful. I ate breakfast without behaviors on Tuesday morning. I felt the need to something though. I have heard the term "behavior swapping" being used before, and this is what I did. Despite knowing that I had contracted to go to res for any self-harm behaviors, I decided to use them. And use them I did. It scared me a little, what I had done. I think it had been one of the most severe episodes I had experienced, not in quantity, but quality. Nevertheless I went into program that day for family night, waited until my mom left, and after a very distracted dinner, went reluctantly to see my therapist.
I went in with two of my good friends just to "ask a question", where I was really trying to prepare myself to make the segue to tell her what I had done that morning. I was just scared. As she iterated to me later, I had experienced something scary and I wanted to tell someone I trusted about it. Once my two friends headed on their way I asked for a minute of privacy with her and explained what had happened while burying my face in my hands. I told her I was scared that they might need medical attention, but I wasn't sure if that was the case, nor did I want it to be. My breathing was shallow; I couldn't look at her. I was mortified. I felt like I was asking for attention. She assessed the damage and asked if one of the dietitians could look at it because she too couldn't quite tell me if I needed to get them looked at. The prognosis unfolded to requesting me to go to an urgent care to err on the side of caution. I told them that there was approximately a ten percent chance that I would actually get in my car and go there by myself, and I was not about to call my mom (sorry). They weren't exceptionally pleased with those chances. Our new plan was to call my friends that had left maybe 15 minutes before to see if they could come back and go with me. This was a scary phone call. Hell, this whole night was filled with entire new levels of fear and humiliation for me.
They came back. They drove me to the urgent care. My head felt like it was gong to explode in the car ride. I shut my eyes tight, clenched my fists, and tried to imagine it all wasn't happening. The doctors and nurses were very kind and compassionate when I explained to them what the events were leading up to the incident. They didn't ask too many question or pass any form of judgement which made me feel a little more at ease. Even still, I shut my eyes at any given opportunity I could to escape reality. They gave me options of stitches, glue, or nothing with their recommendation on the stitches. With the encouragement and support from my friends, that is what I did. About an hour later, I left there that evening with seven stitches and a three hundred dollar copay in my name, awesome.
The following day is fuzzy. It was a typical Wednesday restaurant night as far as I can remember. That is, until right before I plated my meal when my therapist called on my to check-in with her, and, to my surprise, walked us into the program director's office. Now, hear me out, I was very aware that by sharing what I did with my therapist the previous and the whole affair that took place, I was sharing it indirectly with the whole treatment team at CFD. What I wasn't as prepared for was that this information had been shared with the doctor whom which had given me the self-harm ultimatum. It was hard to be mad. They kept telling me it was okay if I was mad, but I wasn't mad nor did I lose their trust. I understood exactly why they did what they did and I would have been surprised (yet relieved) if they had decided to go forward any other way. Having to talk about it all over again prompted me shut down, so when the discussion turned into the residential conversation again, I wanted to disappear. What this also would mean was that my mom would need to know about the ER visit sooner than I anticipated on telling her. I was feeling every emotion at this point and my thoughts would not slow down for even a second. We decided after dinner I would call my mom and in addition to unveiling to her the events of the night before, to make sure someone was keeping an eye on me that evening.
Half of me wanted to fuck it all and give in to every urge I was feeling. The other part of me was already mortified enough and didn't want to seem like I was seeking attention even more than I already felt I was by hurting myself again. But by not harming myself, another part of my brain was screaming back at me that everyone was going to forget about me if I didn't act out as a cry for help. I was stuck above all else between these conflicting motives all from the same origin: fear. I called my mom that night in my therapist's office after I struggled to finish my dinner. The following day, Thursday, it was told to me that my team was all on board with the recommendation for residential treatment. A bullet I saw coming but could not dodge this time.
I went home and went right to my bed that night with little intention of budging. And I didn't. Not even for the forty-five minutes my mom spent standing, staring, and talking at me in my room and I lay there in my bed in 90% silence.
I know she means well. She handles this thing way better than I ever would in her shoes without a doubt. At this point it's hard to find anything to say to me that isn't the wrong thing. But a lot of the things she said in the heat of the moment stung. I had so many things going through my head that I froze. I even laughed from time to time because some of the things she was saying felt so drastically unhelpful. Some of them had some truth value, others did not, but again, very little was actually getting through to me at all by this point, so she had reached a level of desperation that I can validate. While what was said was important, what is more important was how it made me feel. I was angry. I was angry and shocked and disappointed. I felt like a captive in my own home, so after sharing with my friend what had happened and hearing she was in the ER waiting room for a busted knee, I instantly got in my car to go join her for the night.
I had planned to babysit on Friday (the next day), but for some reason in the few hours before I was scheduled to go into program at 4 that day, I became incredibly anxious. I didn't want to babysit, I didn't even want to go into treatment, which is never the case, and I felt like if I got out of bed something terrible was going to happen. I couldn't stop rocking myself in my bed and alternating between holding my breath and breathing very heavily. I was too anxious to text anyone or do anything so I just waited until I found myself capable of at least getting out of bed and getting dressed. I knew at this point I was going to be late and I still had to get gas before I could go. I gathered myself and reached out to someone about those overwhelming feelings I was experiencing and perhaps how to reduce their intensity. Meanwhile, I was able to muster up the energy and control to make it into treatment and even my babysitting job afterward.
I had a few babysitting gigs that weekend (which was last weekend). I enjoy babysitting, but once the kids go to bed and I am left with only a kitchen to myself and my own devices, things get really difficult for me as you could imagine. Babysitting, anxious thoughts, and my bedroom ruled the majority of that weekend. It wasn't exactly enjoyable and I was really ready to go back to treatment by the time Monday rolled around. I wished that by the grace of God I would have my session on Monday, but this would have to wait one more day, which I could bear. What I couldn't bear was allowing myself to talk about all the things I had going on involving my treatment plan, my family, and how I was feeling about it all in group. It felt petty. I felt like I also had been asking for too much support and my unhealthy self was telling me I needed to start "preserving" people's compassion and empathy again by withdrawing for a bit. Thus, I didn't talk in group. I said I didn't have anything to process, but really I just didn't know how to put everything in my head into words.
On Tuesday I had my session. I was feeling so much and I was really anxious the whole time. I didn't really know what to talk about, I said. I had to send off two of my good (maybe even best) friends going on a vacation for a week and a half. This scared me and still does because with all the ambiguity with treatment and where and when I am going, I am not positive I will still be here when they get back. I feel like I worked myself up too much over this slight possibility, but it really affected my mood for a bit. My friends in treatment have kept me sane for the past six months, especially with those who I have shared the majority of my time with there and being apart from them is scary. I guess this is good practice for when I do have to leave to wherever that may be. I am not looking forward to that, though.
People keep using the words "in limbo" to describe my situation right now. I hate it. It sucks. It makes me feel unsafe and lonely. I am tired of fucking waiting. I am tired of my insurance fucking up my treatment options. I am tired of my life being so far out of my control. But there is nothing I can do about it except the few things I can control. This means stopping behaviors when I can, and not beating myself up when I can't. It means telling my support system I am struggling when I need help and not feeing guilty for doing so. It means trying to keep my head above water in the meantime, because that's all I can manage. And I am trying to let that be okay.
Glo
I went in with two of my good friends just to "ask a question", where I was really trying to prepare myself to make the segue to tell her what I had done that morning. I was just scared. As she iterated to me later, I had experienced something scary and I wanted to tell someone I trusted about it. Once my two friends headed on their way I asked for a minute of privacy with her and explained what had happened while burying my face in my hands. I told her I was scared that they might need medical attention, but I wasn't sure if that was the case, nor did I want it to be. My breathing was shallow; I couldn't look at her. I was mortified. I felt like I was asking for attention. She assessed the damage and asked if one of the dietitians could look at it because she too couldn't quite tell me if I needed to get them looked at. The prognosis unfolded to requesting me to go to an urgent care to err on the side of caution. I told them that there was approximately a ten percent chance that I would actually get in my car and go there by myself, and I was not about to call my mom (sorry). They weren't exceptionally pleased with those chances. Our new plan was to call my friends that had left maybe 15 minutes before to see if they could come back and go with me. This was a scary phone call. Hell, this whole night was filled with entire new levels of fear and humiliation for me.
They came back. They drove me to the urgent care. My head felt like it was gong to explode in the car ride. I shut my eyes tight, clenched my fists, and tried to imagine it all wasn't happening. The doctors and nurses were very kind and compassionate when I explained to them what the events were leading up to the incident. They didn't ask too many question or pass any form of judgement which made me feel a little more at ease. Even still, I shut my eyes at any given opportunity I could to escape reality. They gave me options of stitches, glue, or nothing with their recommendation on the stitches. With the encouragement and support from my friends, that is what I did. About an hour later, I left there that evening with seven stitches and a three hundred dollar copay in my name, awesome.
The following day is fuzzy. It was a typical Wednesday restaurant night as far as I can remember. That is, until right before I plated my meal when my therapist called on my to check-in with her, and, to my surprise, walked us into the program director's office. Now, hear me out, I was very aware that by sharing what I did with my therapist the previous and the whole affair that took place, I was sharing it indirectly with the whole treatment team at CFD. What I wasn't as prepared for was that this information had been shared with the doctor whom which had given me the self-harm ultimatum. It was hard to be mad. They kept telling me it was okay if I was mad, but I wasn't mad nor did I lose their trust. I understood exactly why they did what they did and I would have been surprised (yet relieved) if they had decided to go forward any other way. Having to talk about it all over again prompted me shut down, so when the discussion turned into the residential conversation again, I wanted to disappear. What this also would mean was that my mom would need to know about the ER visit sooner than I anticipated on telling her. I was feeling every emotion at this point and my thoughts would not slow down for even a second. We decided after dinner I would call my mom and in addition to unveiling to her the events of the night before, to make sure someone was keeping an eye on me that evening.
Half of me wanted to fuck it all and give in to every urge I was feeling. The other part of me was already mortified enough and didn't want to seem like I was seeking attention even more than I already felt I was by hurting myself again. But by not harming myself, another part of my brain was screaming back at me that everyone was going to forget about me if I didn't act out as a cry for help. I was stuck above all else between these conflicting motives all from the same origin: fear. I called my mom that night in my therapist's office after I struggled to finish my dinner. The following day, Thursday, it was told to me that my team was all on board with the recommendation for residential treatment. A bullet I saw coming but could not dodge this time.
I went home and went right to my bed that night with little intention of budging. And I didn't. Not even for the forty-five minutes my mom spent standing, staring, and talking at me in my room and I lay there in my bed in 90% silence.
I know she means well. She handles this thing way better than I ever would in her shoes without a doubt. At this point it's hard to find anything to say to me that isn't the wrong thing. But a lot of the things she said in the heat of the moment stung. I had so many things going through my head that I froze. I even laughed from time to time because some of the things she was saying felt so drastically unhelpful. Some of them had some truth value, others did not, but again, very little was actually getting through to me at all by this point, so she had reached a level of desperation that I can validate. While what was said was important, what is more important was how it made me feel. I was angry. I was angry and shocked and disappointed. I felt like a captive in my own home, so after sharing with my friend what had happened and hearing she was in the ER waiting room for a busted knee, I instantly got in my car to go join her for the night.
I had planned to babysit on Friday (the next day), but for some reason in the few hours before I was scheduled to go into program at 4 that day, I became incredibly anxious. I didn't want to babysit, I didn't even want to go into treatment, which is never the case, and I felt like if I got out of bed something terrible was going to happen. I couldn't stop rocking myself in my bed and alternating between holding my breath and breathing very heavily. I was too anxious to text anyone or do anything so I just waited until I found myself capable of at least getting out of bed and getting dressed. I knew at this point I was going to be late and I still had to get gas before I could go. I gathered myself and reached out to someone about those overwhelming feelings I was experiencing and perhaps how to reduce their intensity. Meanwhile, I was able to muster up the energy and control to make it into treatment and even my babysitting job afterward.
I had a few babysitting gigs that weekend (which was last weekend). I enjoy babysitting, but once the kids go to bed and I am left with only a kitchen to myself and my own devices, things get really difficult for me as you could imagine. Babysitting, anxious thoughts, and my bedroom ruled the majority of that weekend. It wasn't exactly enjoyable and I was really ready to go back to treatment by the time Monday rolled around. I wished that by the grace of God I would have my session on Monday, but this would have to wait one more day, which I could bear. What I couldn't bear was allowing myself to talk about all the things I had going on involving my treatment plan, my family, and how I was feeling about it all in group. It felt petty. I felt like I also had been asking for too much support and my unhealthy self was telling me I needed to start "preserving" people's compassion and empathy again by withdrawing for a bit. Thus, I didn't talk in group. I said I didn't have anything to process, but really I just didn't know how to put everything in my head into words.
On Tuesday I had my session. I was feeling so much and I was really anxious the whole time. I didn't really know what to talk about, I said. I had to send off two of my good (maybe even best) friends going on a vacation for a week and a half. This scared me and still does because with all the ambiguity with treatment and where and when I am going, I am not positive I will still be here when they get back. I feel like I worked myself up too much over this slight possibility, but it really affected my mood for a bit. My friends in treatment have kept me sane for the past six months, especially with those who I have shared the majority of my time with there and being apart from them is scary. I guess this is good practice for when I do have to leave to wherever that may be. I am not looking forward to that, though.
People keep using the words "in limbo" to describe my situation right now. I hate it. It sucks. It makes me feel unsafe and lonely. I am tired of fucking waiting. I am tired of my insurance fucking up my treatment options. I am tired of my life being so far out of my control. But there is nothing I can do about it except the few things I can control. This means stopping behaviors when I can, and not beating myself up when I can't. It means telling my support system I am struggling when I need help and not feeing guilty for doing so. It means trying to keep my head above water in the meantime, because that's all I can manage. And I am trying to let that be okay.
Glo
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