The End of the Beginning
I consider the last post I made to have been written in my (unfortunately) short-lived honeymoon stage of recovery. I came out of residential on this high of motivation and hope that deceived me in their longevity. There are a lot of things I wish I could say that wouldn't be true. Among those include, "I'm happier than I have ever been", "I am so hopeful for my future", "I am proud of the progress I have made since leaving treatment", and "I am still fighting the fight every day, but more often than not I am winning". I can easily edit the last to more accurately represent my recent experiences: "I try to fight the fight most days, but even when I do I don't usually win". This struggle didn't just begin overnight, it was very slow and calculated by my eating disorder, but there were defiantly a few circumstances that expedited the process.
It's hard to tell, almost impossible rather, how long an individual is going to need at each level of care for their recovery, since it looks infinitely different for each person. That being said, my residential provider and head of treatment team explained to me and my parents that after I left res, it was recommended for me to attend 4-6 weeks of PHP (seven hour a day program) before moving to IOP (three hour a day program). I was in PHP for two and a half weeks before my insurance decided that I was ready to step down despite the recommendations of my treatment team. All it took for me to know that this news was coming was my therapist asking me to check in with her after dinner. I walked through her door asking (but really stating), "I'm IOP now?" with sarcastic enthusiasm. I was expecting this news sooner than later, so it didn't hit me out of no where by any means, but as this fear became reality before my eyes, it felt more unsettling than I had imagined it might. In the moment I did my best to stay hopeful and, dare I say it, optimistic. I meant what I said, too. I was in a better place now to make this transition than I was prior to going to residential and though it was going to be difficult, I did have faith in myself that I could succeed in IOP if I fought to do so. Was I scared? Of course! But I was also grateful, I was overcome by gratefulness from the time I was granted in residential that allowed me to get to the place I was, and I was grateful for the (short) time I was given in PHP. I wanted to do everything I could to make the most of it. So to sum it up, this news alone didn't shake my foundation for recovery that I had built in the preceding months and weeks, but there was an unfortunate alignment of events that followed which began to do just that. See, being in PHP you are given the series of their psychiatrist, so that final Monday that I spent in PHP she increased one of my meds in our session together. This sort of adjustment has been routine as it is for most who regularly see a psych. In my experience, I have never had noticeable side-effect come with these increases or the introduction of new medications. This is probably it why it took some time for me to make the connection between the onset of moderate/severe nausea I had for the next several days to this med shift.
I didn't understand why when I woke up Tuesday, nothing sounded appetizing or even edible. I wanted things to be going well. I wanted to fight my eating disorder, but the physical act of eating was to much. It was extremely frustrating because I didn't know why I was feeling so crappy! I really wanted to follow my meal plan, an less than common feeling for me to come by so the fact that I couldn't fully seize the opportunity to do so was soul-crushing. I thought maybe this was the eating disorder doing it's thing, but I wasn't sure. I didn't think I was making this all up in my head, but of course, I couldn't know for sure. The next several days this feeling didn't budge. It was until Thursday afternoon, right before I went into IOP that I had a revelation when sitting at my desk setting up my meds for the next week. When I looked up the side effects on the medication that I just increased and saw nausea, the relief was overwhelming. A) I wasn't crazy. B) This was either temporary or had an easy solution if it didn't go away. My mood instantly improved and I expressed that to my peers and explained the situation to my team who were relieved to see that the pretty severe restriction that had been going on was not intentional. By Friday, the nausea was no longer much of an issue. It seemed like I would be back on track within a few days and this episode had come and gone. However this undesired restriction was a perfect hook for my disorder to hook onto. I tried to go back to normal eating and doing my best to follow my meal plan the next week. I didn't;t expect to be hit with such intense urges to restrict, but I was. I could hear the voice telling me that if I started eating more again I would gain even more weight and after all, why would I ever go back to eating that much when the past days had showed that I "didn't really need that much food". If I wasn't eating X meal/snack in those number of days, I obviously didn't need it now, right? I knew that was wrong. I knew it in my head, but again, my head didn't;t only belong to me, it belonged to ED, too. To sum up the next number of weeks, I couldn't consistently get back on track. I would have a great day or so where I would follow 100% of my meal plan, but it would always be followed by more days of the opposite. I firmly believe that if I were still in PHP for just even a few more weeks during and following this incident, I would have been able to get back on track. I could have used everything in me to push through the one meal I would have needed to do on my own (breakfast), and been able to use the support of everyone in treatment to lean on through the next three eating times and only be left with night snack to eat with my family. But because of the poor timing, I was having to divide my energy between two meals and two snacks done almost entirely on my own before getting that support at dinner. Dividing that energy and intentionality between all that time on my lonesome just did not cut it. For this I do feel as if I failed myself. That I could have done more to make it enough for me.
I graduated from Center for Discovery on March 29th, 2018, almost 11 months after beginning my journey there last summer. I have tried to imagine what this day would look and feel like almost the whole time. I was leaving at not a great time. But I, again, tried to think positively about the situation. I told myself and others that while no, it wasn't the ideal time for me to leave, it also wasn't the worst timing I've had around these transition periods. I wasn't in grave danger of hurting myself. My body image had, at that point, reached a point of acceptance and even love on occasion. And I was just so grateful for everything I had done for myself over the past year. I was proud of the person I had become through my own hard work. I was not ashamed of the cards I had been dealt in this season of my life and I was more than willing to use my story to help others. It was the definition of a bittersweet departure. I also don't think I could quite comprehend what not being in treatment was going to look like for me, let alone feel like. I had been going somewhere every day of the week to talk about my feelings and hearing others talk about their's for eleven months. The longest I had gone without it was seriously three days that whole time because of holidays or moving down from res. I knew I was going to miss my therapist (which is an massive understatement), but even that didn't really hit me for another week or so. (Yeah, I still cry about that one a fair amount.) I kinda figured that I would dwell on this change for some time and wouldn't be super present in my life when I would usually be in treatment, but to my pleasure, I found this not to be true. I pretty much resumed doing everything I did before hand, after, but with an extra three hours for this to play on through.
I wore this huge smile after discharging. I was just overcome with pride. It definitely was ironic in some ways because I wasn't proud of my continual inability to follow my meal plan. I knew that I still had a lot of work ahead of me, but in the moment all I could focus on was all the work I had already done. It gave me hope to see how far I had come. I was really motivated to be this huge recovery success story and I thought that because I had left treatment on... decent terms, that this was what would come for me. I think I let my ego get the best of me. I thought things would just fall in place and I would just get back on track because that's where I believed I could be. Thriving.
It has been about seven weeks since I have been in outpatient. In those seven weeks I have been having a very difficult time getting back on track. I keep telling myself I will "soon" maybe even tomorrow. But I have seen myself fall from this too many times to finally not be honest with myself. I need to go back to school in the fall. Not only do I want to start my educational career again because I miss it, but I have certain requirements to maintain a scholarship I need that would not be held if I cannot return. I could sit here and tell myself that I have a whole three months to figure things out before I need to be ready to go back, and I will be fine. But I realize that now that this would be doing myself a disservice. I need to learn to be honest with myself and not listen to the claims my ED is trying to give me to stay in outpatient and try my luck on this one. That being said, I think regardless of where I end up in the coming months, things will become more clear to me, including why I need to take action on this with every chance I get. And honestly that can be done no matter what sort of environment I am in.
I am not sure why I have been so stuck in this place. I think it could be because my disorder provides me with a sense of safety that I unconsciously think I need. I am doing a lot of things that would have never previously done. Sharing my story, living more boldly, and allowing myself to dream freely. I think these are things that I was so afraid of doing for so long that simply not doing them was where I found my security. Now that I am putting myself out there more, I think my eating disorder is trying to live on to provide me with a cushion in case this new take on life doesn't serve me in the ways I hope and ultimate leads me to failure. Then at least I will have my ed, at least I would be good at something.
Glo
It's hard to tell, almost impossible rather, how long an individual is going to need at each level of care for their recovery, since it looks infinitely different for each person. That being said, my residential provider and head of treatment team explained to me and my parents that after I left res, it was recommended for me to attend 4-6 weeks of PHP (seven hour a day program) before moving to IOP (three hour a day program). I was in PHP for two and a half weeks before my insurance decided that I was ready to step down despite the recommendations of my treatment team. All it took for me to know that this news was coming was my therapist asking me to check in with her after dinner. I walked through her door asking (but really stating), "I'm IOP now?" with sarcastic enthusiasm. I was expecting this news sooner than later, so it didn't hit me out of no where by any means, but as this fear became reality before my eyes, it felt more unsettling than I had imagined it might. In the moment I did my best to stay hopeful and, dare I say it, optimistic. I meant what I said, too. I was in a better place now to make this transition than I was prior to going to residential and though it was going to be difficult, I did have faith in myself that I could succeed in IOP if I fought to do so. Was I scared? Of course! But I was also grateful, I was overcome by gratefulness from the time I was granted in residential that allowed me to get to the place I was, and I was grateful for the (short) time I was given in PHP. I wanted to do everything I could to make the most of it. So to sum it up, this news alone didn't shake my foundation for recovery that I had built in the preceding months and weeks, but there was an unfortunate alignment of events that followed which began to do just that. See, being in PHP you are given the series of their psychiatrist, so that final Monday that I spent in PHP she increased one of my meds in our session together. This sort of adjustment has been routine as it is for most who regularly see a psych. In my experience, I have never had noticeable side-effect come with these increases or the introduction of new medications. This is probably it why it took some time for me to make the connection between the onset of moderate/severe nausea I had for the next several days to this med shift.
I didn't understand why when I woke up Tuesday, nothing sounded appetizing or even edible. I wanted things to be going well. I wanted to fight my eating disorder, but the physical act of eating was to much. It was extremely frustrating because I didn't know why I was feeling so crappy! I really wanted to follow my meal plan, an less than common feeling for me to come by so the fact that I couldn't fully seize the opportunity to do so was soul-crushing. I thought maybe this was the eating disorder doing it's thing, but I wasn't sure. I didn't think I was making this all up in my head, but of course, I couldn't know for sure. The next several days this feeling didn't budge. It was until Thursday afternoon, right before I went into IOP that I had a revelation when sitting at my desk setting up my meds for the next week. When I looked up the side effects on the medication that I just increased and saw nausea, the relief was overwhelming. A) I wasn't crazy. B) This was either temporary or had an easy solution if it didn't go away. My mood instantly improved and I expressed that to my peers and explained the situation to my team who were relieved to see that the pretty severe restriction that had been going on was not intentional. By Friday, the nausea was no longer much of an issue. It seemed like I would be back on track within a few days and this episode had come and gone. However this undesired restriction was a perfect hook for my disorder to hook onto. I tried to go back to normal eating and doing my best to follow my meal plan the next week. I didn't;t expect to be hit with such intense urges to restrict, but I was. I could hear the voice telling me that if I started eating more again I would gain even more weight and after all, why would I ever go back to eating that much when the past days had showed that I "didn't really need that much food". If I wasn't eating X meal/snack in those number of days, I obviously didn't need it now, right? I knew that was wrong. I knew it in my head, but again, my head didn't;t only belong to me, it belonged to ED, too. To sum up the next number of weeks, I couldn't consistently get back on track. I would have a great day or so where I would follow 100% of my meal plan, but it would always be followed by more days of the opposite. I firmly believe that if I were still in PHP for just even a few more weeks during and following this incident, I would have been able to get back on track. I could have used everything in me to push through the one meal I would have needed to do on my own (breakfast), and been able to use the support of everyone in treatment to lean on through the next three eating times and only be left with night snack to eat with my family. But because of the poor timing, I was having to divide my energy between two meals and two snacks done almost entirely on my own before getting that support at dinner. Dividing that energy and intentionality between all that time on my lonesome just did not cut it. For this I do feel as if I failed myself. That I could have done more to make it enough for me.
I graduated from Center for Discovery on March 29th, 2018, almost 11 months after beginning my journey there last summer. I have tried to imagine what this day would look and feel like almost the whole time. I was leaving at not a great time. But I, again, tried to think positively about the situation. I told myself and others that while no, it wasn't the ideal time for me to leave, it also wasn't the worst timing I've had around these transition periods. I wasn't in grave danger of hurting myself. My body image had, at that point, reached a point of acceptance and even love on occasion. And I was just so grateful for everything I had done for myself over the past year. I was proud of the person I had become through my own hard work. I was not ashamed of the cards I had been dealt in this season of my life and I was more than willing to use my story to help others. It was the definition of a bittersweet departure. I also don't think I could quite comprehend what not being in treatment was going to look like for me, let alone feel like. I had been going somewhere every day of the week to talk about my feelings and hearing others talk about their's for eleven months. The longest I had gone without it was seriously three days that whole time because of holidays or moving down from res. I knew I was going to miss my therapist (which is an massive understatement), but even that didn't really hit me for another week or so. (Yeah, I still cry about that one a fair amount.) I kinda figured that I would dwell on this change for some time and wouldn't be super present in my life when I would usually be in treatment, but to my pleasure, I found this not to be true. I pretty much resumed doing everything I did before hand, after, but with an extra three hours for this to play on through.
I wore this huge smile after discharging. I was just overcome with pride. It definitely was ironic in some ways because I wasn't proud of my continual inability to follow my meal plan. I knew that I still had a lot of work ahead of me, but in the moment all I could focus on was all the work I had already done. It gave me hope to see how far I had come. I was really motivated to be this huge recovery success story and I thought that because I had left treatment on... decent terms, that this was what would come for me. I think I let my ego get the best of me. I thought things would just fall in place and I would just get back on track because that's where I believed I could be. Thriving.
It has been about seven weeks since I have been in outpatient. In those seven weeks I have been having a very difficult time getting back on track. I keep telling myself I will "soon" maybe even tomorrow. But I have seen myself fall from this too many times to finally not be honest with myself. I need to go back to school in the fall. Not only do I want to start my educational career again because I miss it, but I have certain requirements to maintain a scholarship I need that would not be held if I cannot return. I could sit here and tell myself that I have a whole three months to figure things out before I need to be ready to go back, and I will be fine. But I realize that now that this would be doing myself a disservice. I need to learn to be honest with myself and not listen to the claims my ED is trying to give me to stay in outpatient and try my luck on this one. That being said, I think regardless of where I end up in the coming months, things will become more clear to me, including why I need to take action on this with every chance I get. And honestly that can be done no matter what sort of environment I am in.
I am not sure why I have been so stuck in this place. I think it could be because my disorder provides me with a sense of safety that I unconsciously think I need. I am doing a lot of things that would have never previously done. Sharing my story, living more boldly, and allowing myself to dream freely. I think these are things that I was so afraid of doing for so long that simply not doing them was where I found my security. Now that I am putting myself out there more, I think my eating disorder is trying to live on to provide me with a cushion in case this new take on life doesn't serve me in the ways I hope and ultimate leads me to failure. Then at least I will have my ed, at least I would be good at something.
Glo
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