I Make Myself Sick

I think what I am going to do to try to relay how things have been going before I update you more overtly is to give you a thorough example of my what my thoughts have been like recently. I'll set the scene. It's Saturday night, and I just quickly agreed to go out with friends for a drink the next evening. I knew the real me wanted to, so I said yes and told my ED I would work it into our plan later. Here is how that went:

I said yes. This will be fun! I'm excited to see my friends. Shit. What am I going to order. I know mom is home tomorrow so I can't follow my usual ED rules and limits throughout the day. There are no calories listed on their menu either. I have to figure it out myself, ugh. Check the ingredients they list. Find a safe drink. What if mom makes you eat dinner before they go? You have to resist the urge to eat while you are there. What if you can't? Maybe it will be easier if you don't get anything. Maybe I should just get like a diet soda or something. Can you even do that at a bar? Would it be weird to not order anything? Will I make my friends feel weird if I don't get anything? I don't know what time we are going. I need to make sure we can get a ride so mom doesn't think we are lying about where we are going to just go use behaviors. Okay, oka- wait. Fuck. I also will have a doctors appointment the next day. Alcohol fucks with your heart rate and I can't have it increase before I see her! It will make you look less sick than you are. We are trying to feel valid in our sickness and so we need that low heart rate to back us up since we aren't thin enough. The last time we drank, it took like 3 days to get it back down, maybe that was due to dehydration since we binged and purged later that night? Anyway, it looks like we won't be drinking. That will save us stress over calories anyway. But can we do that? Is that socially acceptable??? Maybe we should just cancel. Yeah, thats a good idea. Shit. But how do we cancel? We need an excuse. Or maybe a rain check? You know what? No. It's your life. You can choose not to drink and just go with your friends. No one can pressure you do do something you don't want to do. Now: what are we gonna do about meals tomorrow? Mom will probably try to force us to eat. Let's come up with the plan. Also, we need to see if or when we can get a workout in. I know weekends are harder for that with both the parents home, but if you don't, you might lose your stamina for next week. Wait, how many calories did we eat today? *does maths* Is that right? Let's add them again just to make sure. *brain calculator*. Again. *again*. I think I'm missing something? (*is not missing something*), I'm gonna write it down to make sure I am not forgetting something. *Pulls up notes app*. Okay I guess I wasn't. I need to get some sleep. What's my heart rate right now? Damn it! Why is it so high?? (*is actually still concerningly low*) I drank my body weight in water today, I didn't have caffeine, what could it be! I can't stop hearing my pule mocking me as I lay here just trying to go the fuck to sleep. It's mocking me saying, "I'm faster as you listen to me because you aren't sick. You aren't sick, you aren't sick", over and over. "Good night, bitch! You aren't sick and nobody will ever care about you until you are, but since you are about to go treatment and undo any work you've done, nobody ever will! Don't let the bed bugs bite :)"

All of that happens in my head within, and I'm not exaggerating, one- maybeeee two- minutes. Back and forth. All fucking day. Given, there are times when it's a tiny bit quieter and not as speedy as others, but generally, it's nonstop. 

I have become a shell of human being, again. I am not interesting. All I have talked about in therapy is my behaviors, my ED thoughts and how I believe so much of what it says. I don't care about my future or my goals. I don't have any pressing ones other than getting sick and being small. I hate myself for it. I feel incapable of expressing emotions other than anger. I feel so angry at the smallest things, but it's not even genuine anger, it's ED anger. My mom wakes me up to have breakfast on weekends: I unleash my furry. Someone looks at me while I am in the kitchen: I storm out of kitchen and slam my door. It's all reactive and after it happens I usually realize I am not even actually mad. I want to go to restaurants and coffee shops and enjoy food. I want to enjoy food and life, and sometimes I still put myself out there and try to, but it just becomes another event I can't really recall because I spend the whole time doing math I my head and coming up with a plan to make it okay for my ED. So I stop trying. Isolation is easier. 

What's the price I pay? Misery, loneliness, and the desperate need for a sense of control. Not to mention the panic when the control is revealed as what it actually is: a lack of it in every way imaginable. I pay all that for a moment of bliss. It's simply addicting when it works. When it doesn't? It breaks you. But your head convinces you it's worth the risk. And it tells you every time that the new goal will feel better. It doesn't. It feels good, but not better. And not for any longer. In my experience it lasts like five minutes. Five minutes until I'm given reasons it's still not far enough or I'm still not sick enough. Still not enough. And I finally think, I think, I am starting to acknowledge that. 

It is that recognition that has led me to hold on to hope. Not a lot of hope, but enough hope to accept help again and accept the level of help I really need, even if I don't always believe myself worthy or sick enough for it. So I am going to residential treatment again. Because after this summer of day treatment, I know that I need total accountability. At least at the start. I cannot give my ED an inch, it will take a hundred miles. Because even the drive home from a day of 10 hours of treatment will be turned into an opportunity to rid myself of dinner, it turns out. So, for a matter of weeks (or months, who knows), I won't even give it that. 

I am scared for this step. There are the usual, but ever present, fears of body changes, weight gain, and the sorts, but I also have another distinct one. I have a fear that my body and my ED will activate this thing I call, "treatment mode". Treatment mode is like this automatic switch that flips once I am have more structured support and am required to eat more. It allows me to cope with my control being taken away, but not in a way that furthers my recovery. Usually my ED surrenders control and commits to a harm reduction approach so that I don't have to actually challenge and work through it and it can survive treatment with less damage through my stay. It accepts the fate of the loss while we are surrounded with support, for it does so knowing that if it doesn't put up a fight then, it will still have it's strength when I am on my own again since I have not actually had to learn how to fight it when it is actively trying to take control. I'm scared of this happening this time, too. I don't want the ED to survive through this. I know it won't completely go away, but I am so tired of going through the motions of treatment and feeling numb the whole time because it's like my ED isn't even actually threatened. It's too confident I will go back to it. I think the best way to try to combat this is by being so, so direct and intentional about doing whatever it doesn't want me to. Still, I feel like by not allowing myself to do that until I get to treatment, I am playing into the game again. Like I am giving myself "permission" to go against it when I am there, but not here, at home. But at the same time, I don't feel like I can or could at this point on my own accord, hence, needing treatment. 

That being said, I feel surprisingly determined so far. Aside from scared, I feel...ready. I don't believe I would be as worried about treatment mode if I didn't actually want this to help me. The fear and anxiety give me hope because I am afraid of not being able to get my life back. I think I want actually want my life back? And that's cool.

Glo