Well, it didn't take long for me to mess up. Yesterday my family went into the city for a dinner celebrating my sister A's 26th birthday. I didn't go because I was feeling depressed and suicidal and I had binged and purged earlier in the day and felt fat. Then today I have been restricting (not eating very much).
My therapist from the treatment center called to check in on me today and I told him about the isolating but not about the eating disorder behaviors; I'm afraid that if I tell him what happened then I will never be able to discharge before school starts again in January. I know I am making a bad choice but I refuse to do anything different. I feel terrible about myself and ashamed-- I couldn't last 5 days without engaging in behaviors. What is wrong with me?
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Home Pass Days 1, 2, 3 & 4
Greetings readers! I am currently on a home pass from my treatment center, meaning that I will have to go back after twelve days. I was hoping to be ready for discharge by now but it does not seem to be going that way (although discharge shouldn't be too far off). A lesson for the kiddies out there: recovery from an eating disorder is DIFFICULT. And even though I am currently working on it and have met people who are in recovery/are recovered I'm not 100% certain it's possible. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try.
Treatment has been... interesting. I spent the first two weeks there bawling every night because I was so suicidal it was scary. I'm not sure if it was finally getting food on a regular schedule that turned things around, but after that I have started to feel less mood-swing-y. I think what would happen when I was home was that I wouldn't eat for days, get ravenously hungry, feel suicidal, binge, feel guilty and disgusting, purge, feel suicidal, self-harm, fall asleep, rinse and repeat. Now that I have been eating regularly I still feel depressed and suicidal (although it's not as severe), but at least I don't have the intense dips that lead to many of the posts that you have read here. That's an improvement, right?
[I'll talk more about treatment throughout my home pass, but for now I'll move on to the the first four days of being home.]
Days 1 and 2 consisted of me arriving home and Thanksgiving lunch/dinner. The holiday was held this year at my sister's apartment in NYC and we had a vegetarian meal (my two sisters and I are all vegetarians). I think I did a really good job at sticking to the meal plan prescribed by the dietitians at the treatment center, and seeing my sisters was really nice.
Days 3 and 4 have consisted of seeing a few friends. I saw my friend ES yesterday (the one who went to eating disorder and drug rehab in the spring) and she isn't doing well. She is very thin-- it was really hard for me to see her because all I did was compare my body to hers (my body image is terrible). I also think she was on drugs because she was slurring her speech and making very little sense. I am concerned; her mom is threatening to take her out of college and although I want her to have every success in life I think she needs more care.
Last night I was supposed to see my "friend" S but reverted back to my isolative pattern. I guess isolating is still easier for me to do than see other people sometimes.
Today I went to brunch with another "friend" (however the quotations are there because I don't really like him, not because I spent the whole summer sleeping with him) AB. He is the kind of person that just makes me feel bad about myself because he always seems to do everything perfectly-- he's a straight-A student at Harvard who is currently applying to MD/PhD programs (unfortunately he is applying to my school and although I know he will get in I really hope he gets in some place better so he chooses not to attend). When I'm around him I just feel inferior and fucked up. Having gone to treatment twice and missed three semesters of college I feel like I'm the one from my high school class who has messed up her life the most. That's not a title I'd like to have.
But readers, I want you to know that you all have been in my thoughts and I have been wishing you well. I'll be around until December 6th, so I'll be writing to you until then and then it's back to rehab. I appreciate you reading and supporting me-- it means the world to me. You are all exceptional.
Treatment has been... interesting. I spent the first two weeks there bawling every night because I was so suicidal it was scary. I'm not sure if it was finally getting food on a regular schedule that turned things around, but after that I have started to feel less mood-swing-y. I think what would happen when I was home was that I wouldn't eat for days, get ravenously hungry, feel suicidal, binge, feel guilty and disgusting, purge, feel suicidal, self-harm, fall asleep, rinse and repeat. Now that I have been eating regularly I still feel depressed and suicidal (although it's not as severe), but at least I don't have the intense dips that lead to many of the posts that you have read here. That's an improvement, right?
[I'll talk more about treatment throughout my home pass, but for now I'll move on to the the first four days of being home.]
Days 1 and 2 consisted of me arriving home and Thanksgiving lunch/dinner. The holiday was held this year at my sister's apartment in NYC and we had a vegetarian meal (my two sisters and I are all vegetarians). I think I did a really good job at sticking to the meal plan prescribed by the dietitians at the treatment center, and seeing my sisters was really nice.
Days 3 and 4 have consisted of seeing a few friends. I saw my friend ES yesterday (the one who went to eating disorder and drug rehab in the spring) and she isn't doing well. She is very thin-- it was really hard for me to see her because all I did was compare my body to hers (my body image is terrible). I also think she was on drugs because she was slurring her speech and making very little sense. I am concerned; her mom is threatening to take her out of college and although I want her to have every success in life I think she needs more care.
Last night I was supposed to see my "friend" S but reverted back to my isolative pattern. I guess isolating is still easier for me to do than see other people sometimes.
Today I went to brunch with another "friend" (however the quotations are there because I don't really like him, not because I spent the whole summer sleeping with him) AB. He is the kind of person that just makes me feel bad about myself because he always seems to do everything perfectly-- he's a straight-A student at Harvard who is currently applying to MD/PhD programs (unfortunately he is applying to my school and although I know he will get in I really hope he gets in some place better so he chooses not to attend). When I'm around him I just feel inferior and fucked up. Having gone to treatment twice and missed three semesters of college I feel like I'm the one from my high school class who has messed up her life the most. That's not a title I'd like to have.
But readers, I want you to know that you all have been in my thoughts and I have been wishing you well. I'll be around until December 6th, so I'll be writing to you until then and then it's back to rehab. I appreciate you reading and supporting me-- it means the world to me. You are all exceptional.
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