I Am Second

Wow.

http://www.iamsecond.com/seconds/ashley-rawls

Day plans and struggles

Yesterday was an abysmal food day.

Fridays are therapy day, which always makes eating difficult, and my usual place to calm down/decompress/get comfort wasn’t available – this will be true for several weeks. It was unplanned, and only figured out that morning, and it threw me badly. Has been, I am very worried about the next few weeks. I just didn’t want to eat – lack of appetite, angry, sad, responding to my therapist’s questions about whether I want to change the way they are and my ambivalence towards it. Seriously wanting to lose. I hate the side of me that sees losing as perfection, and as a way to speak. It was pretty darned successful last night.

For today I impulsively booked a day trip into the city near me. It’s a distraction, running, but a good way, I think, to deal with unplanned unstructured time – I do horribly with unstructured time. Hoping to do some exploring as well as sitting and writing.

I usually struggle with breakfasts that are big. But I am challenging myself to eat a slightly bigger than usual breakfast to make up for yesterday and fuel my body today. 12 grain toast AND lean bacon, go!

Hope everyone has a great Saturday!

Begging

I feel like a junkie, begging, “Please, can i use your scale just one more time,” and being hurt, angry, desperate when the answer is no.

Priorities

A close close friend of mine and I talked this week over how, if I continue to lose weight, she or I should respond to her kids if they noticed. (They are mostly young, with one almost teenager). And we talked about whether she would be comfortable with me being around her kids at her house if I looked scary thin. She’s not sure. And while I completely respect her decision….that would be a really hard thing for me. It’s one of the best friendships I have ever had, balanced and healthy, and due to the kids we mostly need to hang out at her house. So not being at her house would mean not seeing her much.

She already set a line of, if I am there for a meal I need to model healthy eating, and I’ve been ok with that, I eat well. But this line would be more difficult. And I should be able to eat and eat and eat in order to save this connection – but I just can’t. Does this disorder have my head so twisted up that I am literally poised to sacrifice anything, including important friendships and my place as stability for my nephews, in order to worship it?

Is this my way of pushing people away when they get close and I try to trust them? I know I struggle with boundaries in relationships and getting close yet trusting boundaries will be intact. I have to wonder if this is my way of sabotaging these things that involve closeness and trust. Mine got trampled on and betrayed when I was young, and it’s profoundly affected me.

On another note – does anyone have any ideas on how to deal with kids in this? Like explanations of losing weight? We can’t say the truth, but if we say I am sick they will want to know in what way and if it’s catching and how long I will be and why it makes me lose weight. Curious bright kids. We’re both stuck.

My goal is for the issue not to come up but….it seems that it’s hard to stop.

Fresh veggies!

Thanks for the encouragement, all. i’m not totally isolated – I go to work – but I see fewer friends than I used to. Ok, pretty much one, the one who knows about the ED. I’d like to try to turn it around slowly. I think coffee with my other friend will become a weekly occurrence, and in a week I’ll be visiting another friend who lives not too far away. One step at a time.

The ED voice was pretty loud today. I had a hard day; my friend whose scale I have been using told me that she feels she’s just enabling me by letting me use it to know my weight outside of my therapy and so she doesn’t want me to use it any more. I understand and respect her opinion, but since that’s my reference for whether I’ve gained or lost it’s hard to hear. And in general my head fought eating. I made a pretty good go of it, but it was a struggle, and I feel big. I am anxious about not knowing my weight and feeling like I lost weight, and it doesn’t help me to eat much. I got home from work late and I was so tempted to blow off dinner (I used to do it a lot) but did manage to cook and eat most of it. Took me a long time though. That’s the hard thing – eating takes so much effort.

I’m trying to write down some of what triggers not wanting to eat. Some is interpersonal stress – like a coworker whom I found safe-feeling despite my trauma history suddenly developing a sexual component to his jokes, or family stress. Some is trying to navigate adult romantic relationships. And some is good old fashioned wanting a voice. I need to develop more comfort with sexuality and a better way of expressing my feelings than hurting myself. Easier said than done.

I DID, however, find that my garden is growing some green beans. Those veggies I will have NO problem eating!

 

Aftermath

Last night was a bit of a hissy fit.

I am frustrated. I didn’t want to know anything about my weight when I had to go home alone and deal with it all there.

I want to get better. I know that maintaining and then gaining is the way to do that, but I’m not ready to gain right yet and….the part of me that wants to lose is very loud and insistent at times. And so that part is feeling like a total failure to have not lost even a tiny bit of weight, since my goal has sort of been to lose slower. I’m scared that it hasn’t done what I want it to do. I feel out of control, and that feels scary, and I feel isolated in the out of control because I haven’t been able to talk over it all with someone.

The good news from yesterday is I had coffee with a friend in the morning. One slow step out of isolation. She’s a good friend, so I am contemplating whether to disclose all of this to her for some support. I’m unclear, because I don’t know how to explain how it’s all happened. But although the intensity of this all is new in the past 6-8 months, the more i think about it, I realize this has been lurking for a long time and isn’t the first time it’s been a problem for me. The habit of being sick at greasy foods, or cutting into small pieces and eating small bites slowly, or lying about having eaten, or restricting my intake, is more like second nature than a new thing. I didn’t just learn it, I’ve lived it. so i think I’ve had the behaviors before, just not so dramatically. I guess I could start with….the monster awoke? We’ll see. I’m trying to be less isolated.

The one positive of yesterday was figuring out a trigger – hate myself, starve myself.

Curveball

Had my appointment with the nutritionist/dietician tonight.

Turns out I’ve maintained. My thoughts on this are….mixed to say the least. The ED is disappointed and screaming that I failed, that if I keep eating what I have been this week (slightly more) I will get horrendously fat and I need to cut back my intake NOW.

I didn’t really want to know my weight. And when she said ‘lower end of ideal range’, which wasn’t the number I was thinking I was at, it made me think I gained huge amounts of weight and immediately made me want to restrict again. I want to lose. No number considered ideal is as low as I was last i checked and I just can’t handle having gained weight. I know it’s silly, but it’s true.

So seeing as my no-one-approved small plan has actually maintained my weight and seeing as I have no desire to change it, she decided there is no point to seeing her right now. Win! Except not, because I still need to deal with the idea of maintaining, and the idea of ‘lower end of ideal’, and the idea of when exactly did I gain weight and how do I make it stop. I should have asked her the damned number, if she was going to allude to this range stuff.

On Friday I can use my friend’s scale, the only one that I know a number from, to check. Until then…ED is telling me I failed, and I should try harder, and has me incredibly anxious about anything I eat. And the problem is I didn’t want to know today, when I have to sit at home alone freaking over it instead of being somewhere with friends to distract me.

I’m happy to not have to see her. I don’t like her. But the part of me that wants to maintain perfection and control is thrown out of whack thinking I gained weight at some point. I feel…unsettled. Not in control. Scared. Less than perfect. Upset. Like restricting and exercising. I know I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t be upset by words like ‘ideal range’ and ‘maintained’. But I am.

Off to read, and try to distract.

Worth fighting for

Yesterday was an all out war to eat. The day before I exercised and didn’t eat to cover it, so it set off a momentum of wanting to lose, wanting to restrict, doubting I could ever pull myself out of this eating thing and perhaps if I could prevent it from killing me.

But, in the afternoon my friend asked if the fight wasn’t really about food at all, but about ‘is my life worth fighting for?’. And the answer to that question is, I don’t think so. And I don’t truly believe others think so, I but I can work on trying to believe that. Like my nephews, whom I adore. I am beginning to realize, through their actions, how profoundly my recent move affected them and therefore how important I am to them. Maybe they would agree, if they could understand. I am the closest thing to stability they have and I’d hate to become unstable. Eat for the boys. I could try to eat for the boys. I could try to fight for the boys.

So, I ended the day just at my goal. It didn’t make up for Saturday. It maybe didn’t quite cover 3 loads of laundry (at 4 flights of stairs down to the laundry room then back up). But I hit my goal and part of me was actually ok with it. I don’t want to disappear into this thing.

I am beginning to realize just how profoundly this is affecting me. I’m isolated. I don’t want to go out to eat with my friends and have the questions of why I’m not eating. I don’t want to hang out late because I am trying to eat enough to sustain myself and the only food I will eat is the food at my apartment that I have measured and cooked, and if I get home too late I won’t eat it, so I come home early. I have few thoughts outside food and weight, I can’t concentrate and keep up at work. It’s destroying me.

So I’m going to try. I’m going to get back up to trying to eat more. Trying to beat it. Is my life worth fighting for? We’ll see

Challenges

So determined.

And yet the toast in front of me, my body screams against and I just want to cry.

This is my thing today that scares me.

Resolve and rewards

Yesterday I restricted.

Not terribly, and due to several factors, but I restricted. I was afraid and felt awful about eating all week, I was upset about news, and I just…wanted to.

Then began to freak because my therapist and nutritionist are going to know I’ve lost weight. Because much as I don’t feel it, I have to have lost weight. I don’t know how much, or where it puts me, but I must have. I don’t want to deal with consequences, or their response, or being called on it, or anything.

I told this to a dear friend and she told me she knew I would rather kick this on my own, but I need the outside accountability. I hate that. I hate being controlled by this. I hate the desire to lose weight, I hate that I am slowly destroying myself.

I have a goal. A month of meeting my goals, and I can get my cartilage re-pierced. The clock keeps resetting due to my deciding to restrict. No more. I will not allow this to take over if I can help it. I will fight to maintain. I will fight to resolve my issues.

Obviously eating today will not affect the answers today, in therapy, based on my most recent medical appointments. Likely won’t even affect my nutrition appointment on Tuesday. But will affect the future.

I want that damned earring. I’m going to get it.