Flashback

 

This time last year I sat in the waiting room of my new doctor’s office. A doctor I had yet to meet, while my mind did mental gymnastics debating if I should stay or run out the door like I so desperately wanted. This doctor was going to determine my fate, the one who decided what exactly was going to happen to me. Continue seeing Jamie or be hospitalized, and I didn’t have much hope that I’d be allowed to continue with Jamie. I had weighed myself a few days before and tipped the scales at 96-freaking-pounds, aka hospital weight. Thankfully, or not, depending on which part of my brain you ask, I stepped on Dr. Lapidus’ scale weighing in at a total of 101lbs. Relieved and sad and angry don’t even begin to cover the thoughts racing through my mind. I was lectured about gaining and then sent out the door with an order for blood work that would be the final determining factor in my future.

Well, it’s been almost a year since that doctor’s visit and I have so far managed to avoid inpatient. I’ve gone from 96lbs to 108 to 110 to 106 to 104 and now I currently weigh around 112. And my weight is still not something I can comfortably handle. I want back down to 96, or lower. But my relationship with food is on the mend. I can somewhat comfortably consume 1,000 calories in a day without wanting to throw myself off a cliff. Unfortunately this is quite a bit less than the 2800 I’m supposed to be taking in. I have a meal plan that I’m supposed to follow but by lunch I’m over it. By lunch the voice that starts the second I wake up is tired of being ignored and just gets louder. And since I don’t like being yelled at I tend to obey.

While I did manage to avoid inpatient I did land in intensive outpatient. Though, thanks to insurance that’s ended. So now I see Julie and Marlena for individuals once a week. I went from 5 days of support and therapy to being almost completely alone, at least alone in ways that I need right now. But I’m contemplating a letter to the insurance company regarding their refusal to cover more treatment.

The hardest part of this year was also saying goodbye to Jamie who had to move on for school and could no longer see me as a client. It’s been a weird adjustment, not that Julie and all of the ladies at my treatment center aren’t great, but I had to leave a relationship I had spent over a year building. I still get to talk to Jamie sometimes and thankfully we live in such a small town I know it’ll only be a matter of time before I bump into her somewhere, especially since I work at one of her favorite restaurants.

Sitting here thinking about this past year brings up so many emotions. Because I recovered and relapsed and now hang somewhere suspended in the middle unable to decide which side of the rope I’m going to cut. I just know that whatever happens, and for better or worse, I am not in the same spot I was in this time last year. And despite my struggles, that’s something to celebrate.

Wolves

Just because you're not eating doesn't mean you aren't feeding something. Things like eating disorders, depression, and anxiety don't need calories to survive. They live and thrive off of the thoughts that make you not eat.

Julie talks a lot about the wolves. And she asks me constantly which wolf I'm feeding, more often than not I'm feeding the bad wolf. I fed the bad wolf by letting the anger I felt for being fed so much sugar in a short amount of time, just consume me. And I let it carry and fester and suck me in so much so, that I didn't eat for 42hrs. 

The seconds ticked by and as the anger, fear, and sadness grew bigger my appetite got smaller and smaller. And I paid dearly for feeding the wrong wolf. Because when I got so desperate and unable to control the wolf I ran to Marlena. And in order to make the wolf less scary that meant I had a lot of eating to do.

So that's what I've done today. I made up 42hrs worth of calories in 7hrs. And it's awful. It makes me want to start all over. But what does that accomplish? Nothing. Because if I have another moment like that the consequences could be much much worse. 

So somehow I must let those emotions out, the ones that feed the bad wolf. I have to learn how to feel those emotions instead of filling myself up with the emotions instead of food. From now on, I must feed the good wolf more than I feed the bad.