Keeping Busy

So what have I been up to?
- 4 doctors appointments each week
- Volunteering at the ferret rescue shelter at least twice a week
- Practically living at Starbucks looking for work (in the process of coordinating an interview for a   manger position at Enterprise, keep your fingers crossed)
- Re-wrote and posted my resume on countless recruiter sites, green sites, general work sites, etc
- Studying to take the Associate Environmental Professional certification (some day I'll be able to afford it)
- Researching environmental and green collar jobs (consulting?)
- Brushing up on my environmental science, sustainability and environmental law skills
- Trying to find ways to pay the bills (not going well....)
- Reading the free text books I downloaded on environmental technology, management, planning, etc
- Trying really hard not to snap at people who tell me they "know how I feel" or "understand what I'm
      going through." Really You do? Have you cried over a rice cake? How about weighing yourself
      50 times a day and recording it religiously in a notebook? Or do you stand in front of the mirror
      pinching yourself a hundred times a day? No, you haven't done any of those things? THEN SHUT
      THE HELL UP!!! Basically I avoid everyone at all costs, I like being alone anyway.

My insurance company decided to cover my nutrionist after all, mixed feelings about that. I'm sure my treatment team was involved in this considering the fit they through when it happened, blargh. I was told by the team that they want to keep me on a "tighter leash." Like they don't control almost every aspect of my life as it is?

Still as angry as ever.

Who Say's Eating Disorders Are Dangerous?

Dear insurance company- F you!

In the eyes of insurance companies eating disorders are no big deal, so many of them deny coverage. I've been told they will no longer cover my nutritionist and they might cut back on the number of times I can see my therapist. If I want to go into a treatment center it must be an in-patient hospital like setting, no residential or IOP treatment. And they make me leave as soon as I'm "healthy" enough in their eyes, which translates to hardly being medically stable.

It's really frustrating and scary.

Break Time

I'm going to take a break from this because I really feel like I need to be alone for awhile or I'm going to lose my mind. If I could be completely alone I would.

Someone please hold me and tell me it will all be OK....

Fears

I have gained a lot of weight very quickly over the last week (I'm guessing my body isn't hyper-metabolic anymore) and I'm terrified. Two of my biggest fears are that once I start eating I won't be able to stop, and if I stop showing my pain outwardly, people will forget that the pain is there at all.

The first fear seems kind of silly, but it's already proving true. Breakfast is my "safe meal," so I usually eat in the morning. The problem lately is that I don't feel full in the mornings, so I will eat bowl, after bowl, after bowl of cereal. My dietitian said I could only have two bowls a day, but I don't feel full after only two bowls so my stomach will hurt. Occasionally I will eat until I get sick, I don't purge, I just literally fill myself up until my stomach can't hold anymore. I'm terrified of becoming a binge eater.

The second fear seems to be a pretty popular one with people who have ED's. People tend to assume that if you've gained weight and look healthy, you must be OK. That is so far from the truth. Yes, right now I look healthier, but I'm still malnourished and I am angry and in pain (mentally) ALL THE TIME. The pain doesn't go away just because the pain can't be seen physically; looks can be deceiving.

I have other fears too, that the voice will never go away, that I'll be in and out of treatment all the time, that my distorted thinking will never get better, that I'll be "recovered" for a long period of time and then relapse, and that I'll never be able to live up to people's expectations. The fear leads to shame, which leads to anger, which leads to guilt, which leads to sadness, it never seems to end.

Enough

I don't think I'll ever be enough of anything, for anyone.

I Don't Know How to Do This

In therapy and at the treatment center we talked about how I've never really developed a sense of self, I have no clue who I am. I feel very detached from myself, like I'm constantly walking through a thick fog; it's a horrible feeling. People keep telling me how lucky I am to be able to start from scratch, be whoever I want to be. I don't consider that luck. To me, my sense of self is just one more thing that I lost to my eating disorder.

How do you know who you are supposed to be? I'm thirty years old, I'm too young to be "starting over." How do you learn to just sit with yourself and be OK with it? How do you learn to be happy? Where do I begin? Part of the problem is that part of me is still that fourteen year old girl, she never developed so she never went away. She's still there seeking peoples approval, wanting to feel loved, wanting to feel like she's good enough, wanting to be seen and heard even as she tries so hard to disappear. That's all I've ever known.

I never thought that the recovery process would be more painful than the disease.