this and that.

I'm currently at the beach on vacation. It is Heaven here. The weather is perfect and I love the beach so I am feeling super relaxed. We are here (my family and I) until next Sunday. Which means I will be spending my birthday here, which I have NO problem with.

Things are a little complicated down here though. Wednsday, the day before we left for the beach, I was diving off the diving board at the pool with the kids. I was a competitive diver for 13 years so it wasn't like I didn't know what I was doing, but it had been a while since I had seriously dived. I was doing a very simple front dive in the pike position, a dive I have done millions and millions of times. I'm exactly sure what happened, but I lost control and was going faster and higher than I intended. My arms flew backward at an awkward angle and I immidietly felt something hurt in my left shoulder. I got out of the pool and was in pretty bad pain. At first I thought I had dislocated my shoulder, but nothing looked wrong and I didn't know what I had done. My hands and fingers began to go numb and tingly and as the day went on my arm felt numb, heavy, and useless, and my shoulder still hurt. I went to an orthopedic urgent care after work and had x rays done. I did not have a total dislocation of my shoulder, however I did have a partial dislocation (also called a subluxation) meaning my shoulder joint popped out and right back in by itself, and I also have a possible torn labrum. I was given a sling and painkillers. I'm kind of bummed this happened before the beach, but at least it's nothing more serious. My shoulder is still hurting me. When I get back from vacation I have to see a specialist and go from there.

I have news. I have decided to switch therapists. I have already had an intake type appointment with one and have chosen to work with her. I really liked the vibe I got from her and I really think she will be able to help me. My current therapist knows not much about this. She knows I was thinking about switching and was looking into other therapists. But she was on vacation this week and so I wasn't able to see her and tell her what's going on. I have no idea how I'm going to tell her. I don't feel bad, I just want to do it the right way. She helped me for almost 3 years and now it's time to move on. I have an appointment with her the Friday I get back, but I'm not sure I want to keep it. I was thinking of emailing her and telling her I no longer need her. Would that be rude? I need opinions here.

I saw my dietitian 4 times in 1 week. I have been struggling majorly with restricting and my weight shows it. It's a very slow weight loss, but still worrysome. I am hoping that while I am at the beach I will be more relaxed and eating will come easier. So far, that's not really how it's going. I mean eating is better, but not ideal to my dietitian. I have major, major anxiety surrounding anything to do with food. It's incredibly frustrating.

My intake appointment with the new therapist brought up some old (but also new) emotions and thoughts. She asked about things that I haven't really in depth talked about in a while, or at all. I have been a little depressed from it, and I'm eager to continue to talk about it with her. I need to get out my journal and write it down.

It's stressful at times being down here with my family 24/7. My dad annoys the hell out of me. I can't seem to get away from it. It's so frustrating. UGH.

Anyway, that's it with me. For now.

Hospital

On Friday I was discharged from the psychiatric hospital. I was there for 6 days. The story of why I went and how I got there isn't that important, just that I knew I couldn't stay safe any longer and that if I didn't go in, then I would definitely take my own life. I chose a hospital two hours away from me, because they had an eating disorder unit that I was hopefully planning on moving over to. In the end, my shitty insurance denied coverage for me to go the eating disorder unit. It was one of the most frustrating and disappointing experiences. I needed the help with my ED, but my insurance company disagreed.

When I found out about that, I decided to come home. I was no longer suicidal or severely depressed. My medications had been stabilized. I came home and while I still have my job (thank God), I am taking this week off because my boss wants me to get myself situated back home and then return to work on Monday. My therapist wants me to go to a treatment center for my ED. But I declined. I have my job, my vacation, and rent to pay. And if I can get myself together while staying at home, then I won't need to go to treatment. I have two treatment centers in mind, in case things don't go as I hope.

So now I am doing a form of intensive outpatient therapy with my team. I will be seeing my dietitian and my therapist twice a week. I'm not sure if I have a time limit as to when I have to be improving by, or whatever. I saw my therapist yesterday and it was an okay session, although I have some doubts about her and I'm not sure who to talk to about that. I see my dietitian tonight, and I am beyond excited because it has been too long since I've last seen her and I miss her bunches. But I'm also nervous for that appointment because I'm sure she will be giving me a meal plan and other instructions, and I have lost weight so I'm worried about the possibility of weight gain drinks.

My parents are pretty much monitoring everything I do, even though I don't live with them. They supply my meals and make me stay at their house during the day. It's hard to get away from behaviors unless my mom has a really busy day at work like she had yesterday and today.

I guess...it is what it is. And I've realized that it's up to me, and only me, to decide to start improving and eating the way I should. No one can make me. Sure, I have tons of support. But no one can do it for me. I have to decide for myself. Which is honestly, terrifying. I have been reminded that I had a good full year of recovery, so that means I can get back to that. I don't know what went wrong or why, but maybe that doesn't matter now. Maybe I just have to get myself together and do what is right.

Anyway, I will try and keep this blog updated. Hope all is well with everyone.

Relapse

Yep. I just used that word, relapsed. I'm pretty sure that's accurate. Over the past year I have had slip ups and lapses, but always held onto hope and knew I could pull myself out of it. Right now I have little to no hope, and I don't see myself ever recovering. Deep down I REALLY want to recover, but I don't believe that I can. It's super frustrating and a hopeless feeling.

I saw my dietitian last night. I lost more weight. She seemed concerned and worried about my health. I felt so bad because she is so nice to me and loves me so much and tries to help me with all her might. But what she was asking me to do last night, to increase my meal plan, was something I felt like I was not willing to do. I hated telling her that, but it was the truth, and I always stay honest. I have been heavily restricting. My biggest fear is that I will lose my job and I will have to move back home. That's a very real possibility, as I lost a job 3 years ago due to my ED. If that happened I would be absolutely devastated. My dietitian is out of town for the next 3 weeks, which scares the crap out of me. So I will only have my therapist to lean on, as well as friends and my second mom. Because I couldn't really commit to a meal plan, my dietitian incorporated Boost supplements into my days. I have to have at least 2, and then we will go from there. I am so hesitant to drink them, because they remind me SO much of treatment and have so many bad memories attached the them, but I don't feel like I can eat solid food right now. My dietitian also suggested I find someone in my life that can keep me accountable with that, and who can eat dinner with me 1-2 times a week. My second mom will be that person. I already called her and asked her and she said yes. I feel so much guilt over it.

Therapy this morning was terrible. I left feeling so much worse. I don't feel like I accomplished anything, which is mostly my fault because I can't seem to do what my therapist is asking of me. She has all these workbooks and yoga exercises and positive affirmations and crap she wants me to do. But I just don't want to, or rather, I feel like I can't. I feel stuck in this nothingness and relapse. Therapy feels so pointless right now. I just don't get anything out of it. This happened a few weeks ago and I took a week off but ended going back and feeling better, and now I'm back where I was. I don't know what the hell is wrong.

Two people on my treatment team have suggested that unless I start eating more and stop losing weight, then I need to go back into treatment. This is a NO for me because I have my job and my house and my family to worry about. I can't just drop everything and go back into to treatment. That should be enough to get me motivated to start doing better right? WRONG. I am still using behaviors, knowing it will get me no where. I am already researching treatment centers just in case. But I seriously don't think anything will come of it.

I have the most intense anxiety going on. It feels like someone is clawing at my chest and stomach. It's almost unbearable. I constantly am trembling or tapping my foot because I just want the anxiety OUT of me. I'm trying to adjust my meds but I feel pretty hopeless about that situation too. 

I have no idea what caused this relapse. I guess the only thing I do know is that recovery doesn't seem to be in my plans. I feel like there is too much wrong with me, too many complicated and unresolved issues, too much work to be done. I'm tired of fighting. There isn't much left. Maybe I just need to be at peace that this is what my life is and always will be. Recovery is not simple, and neither is an eating disorder. But I am seriously overwhelmed by everything I feel like I have to work on. The list to me goes on and on and on. . I feel, mentally, pretty similar to where I was before treatment last year. Which is...deep deep down wanting to recover, but feeling so much of..."I can't I can't I can't."  It's one of the worst feelings...ever.

I left therapy feeling suicidal. I was just like...what is the freaking point anymore? I'm so sick of this. Of making progress and then going back to this miserable hell. If I wasn't going horseback riding tomorrow, then I don't think I would feel safe tonight. I constantly have to have something to look forward to, some means of support or fun in the days ahead of me to feel like I have purpose to stay alive.
I refuse to go to the psychiatric hospital and if I can help it, I refuse to go back to treatment.

I think I might email this blog post to my therapist, because it's a pretty accurate description of how I feel.

I have no idea what is is I'm doing. I just feel like giving up, which I have already started doing

Floating Along.

Things aren't any worse. Things aren't any better. I just seem to be floating along. There is very little fight inside of me. I don't feel connected to life, to anything outside of me. Sometimes it feels like I'm in a dream. That things aren't real. It's so strange.

Depression wise, I mean like I said. It's the same. Yes, I am still suicidal. Yes I am still depressed. I'm also now battling severe anxiety. I wake up trembling, and continue to shake all through out the day. Sleeping has been tough. My doctor increased my medication. It doesn't really seem to be helping. I have group tomorrow night and I emailed my group leader over the weekend and told her that I don't feel comfortable sharing with the group everything that's going on with me. I don't want to upset anyone or scare anyone, and I have found that talking about my suicidal thoughts and depression sometimes makes it worse. My group leader wrote back and said she understood and I didn't have to share anything I didn't feel comfortable sharing.

I'm having a ROUGH time with my eating disorder. It's just not good. Absolutely no appetite. I'm very anxious about seeing my dietitian on Wednesday.

I'm going to equine therapy this Saturday. I am SO excited. I can't wait to be reunited with my horse from Remuda Ranch, and some of the staff. I am anxious about getting there. It's about an hour and a half away from me. I hate driving anywhere I've never been to before. I'm going to try and get my mom to take me, just so I have an idea of where to go the next time.

I put together my own "safety plan" for when I have suicidal thoughts or plans. I found this worksheet online and wrote it down in my journal. I'm obviously going to share it with my treatment team. The only blank part on the sheet is when it asks you where is a safe place you can go. I don't really have one.

I have group tomorrow night, dietitian on Wednesday night, and therapy on Thursday morning. I will update over the weekend.

Crash.

Things are not going well, at all. Well, there are a few bright spots, but overall, I'm hanging on by a thread.

I am still suicidal. My psychiatrist brought up the word "hospital" today but I shot that down right away. And he even said he didn't think it would help. So I'm glad that's off the table. He increased my medication and gave me a few names of some other anti-depressants that he's thinking of putting me on. I'm going to research them.

I've had a lot of close calls with the suicide thoughts lately, but so far have managed to keep myself from going through with things. I was telling my dietitian about it last night and I made her cry. I felt so awful about that. She was so sad and so scared. She loves me and cares about me so much and I feel the same about her and it just broke my heart to see her so sad. I never want to be the cause of her pain. Things are going well with food either. I actually lost a considerable amount of weight. It blew my mind when she told me. Because I thought for sure I had gained weight. My dietitian gave me a plan that she really wants me to try. I did pretty good with it today I think.

I am not able to see my therapist this week, unless she has a cancellation. I was called for jury duty on the morning I usually have therapy. I got my psychiatrist to write me a note to get out of it (which I am still debating on using) but my therapist already filled in the spot that I usually see her. At the very least, she said we could have a phone session. I guess that's better than nothing.

I am going to my new church tomorrow night, to hear one of the pastors speak to the young adult group. I am really excited but also really nervous. I hope it will be good, and I hope I will meet people.

I am meeting my second mom for lunch on Saturday. Honestly I am looking forward to this more than anything. She saved my life last week. She kept me from going through with a suicide plan. I sobbed and sobbed in her arms. I wish I lived with her. She's the kind of person that would drop anything to come and make sure I was safe and help me. I've never had anyone like that in my life. I love her so much. I owe her so much. She and my dietitian are the two people in my life that I feel like care about me the most. I know both of them are sad and hurting to see me suffering so much. I don't want them to feel that way. I want to make them proud. I just have to remember that in the moments of complete darkness.

Sleeping through the night and anxiety continue to be a struggle. It's definitely frustrating. What's more frustrating is trying to figure out why I am struggling so much. No one seems to know, not even me. I don't think I fully came out of the darkness of winter time, and when I celebrated my 1 year anniversary in recovery, I acted like I was happy and healthy, but deep down I don't think I really was. I just wanted people to think I was. "God willing, we will get you out of this" is what my psychiatrist said to me tonight. It kind of scared me. I don't know. I know he really cares about me and can help me, but I sensed fear in his voice. I don't blame people for being scared for my physical and mental state these days. Hell, I'm scaring myself. I just have to take it moment to moment. Really, that's all I can do.
My dietitian asked me if I promised I would tell her if I wanted to kill myself. To ease her worry and fear, I said yes. But that's honestly not an honest statement. I just said that to make her feel better. Ugh, I'm so horrible.

Anyway, next week starts a full time schedule with babysitting. 9:30am to 5:30pm every week day with the kids. It's going to be crazy and I'm scared of if it's going to take a toll on me. I will try and update more next week. It's hard to make my thoughts public these days...I hate scaring people.

Can't think of a title

I've been trying to put my eating disorder out of my mind lately. Just not think about it, focus on it, not worry about it, not deal with it. It wasn't the best idea. Because now all of a sudden I have enormous amounts of anxiety at meals. Saturday at lunch with a friend, I nearly had a panic attack when my lunch arrived. I had to force myself to eat. It was so hard and scary, and the food wasn't even a "scary food". After trying to put the anxiety out of my head and not allowing myself to let it out, I went into a state of being numb. It was too much to bear, so I went numb. I'm struggling a lot with restricting, obviously. Going to the grocery store lately has caused a lot of anxiety as well. It's just too complicated, all of this.

My depression is, kind of up and down. I am still having suicidal ideations. It's definitely still scary. I'm working through it though I guess. My therapist gave me a DBT workbook to start working on. We'll see how that goes. I also found out that there is a horse farm an hour away from me that does equine therapy. The horse that I rode at Remuda Ranch is there (Dude), as well as many of the other horses that were at RR when I was. And some of the same staff works there too. My therapist emailed the woman in charge of it, and I am anxiously awaiting a reply. My therapist seems really set on having me do equine therapy, she thinks it could help with a multitude of things I am struggling with. Hopefully this will work out and I will be able to do this! Working with and riding Dude while at Remuda helped me SO much in SO many ways. It would be amazing to be able to work with him again.

I haven't seen my dietitian in 3 weeks, going on 4. We have had scheduling conflicts, on both of our ends. The next time she can see me is next Monday. It's been hard. I definitely need her support right now. Like I said at the beginning of this post, things are so crazy with food right now and I just need her help with getting back on track. Things feel so unstructured and out of control and I just need to have a plan set up with my meals, grocery shopping, etc.

The next two weeks are kind of crazy. I have something to do besides work pretty much every day this week and next week. This Friday I am traveling to Maryland for the weekend with my mom and two sisters for my cousin's bridal shower and bachelorette party. Next Friday is the kids last day of school, and the following week will begin a pretty busy schedule as I will be babysitting all day long instead of just half a day. I'm stressing out about it, worried about how I will be able to fit in all of my appointments and other things. Hopefully it won't be a big deal and everything will work out.

Other than that, my mind is a blur and I've been trying to take things moment to moment. When the suicidal thoughts hit, or the panic attacks, I tend to want to crawl into a hole and die. But they aren't getting worse, which I guess is a positive.

Anyway, more later this week...

A revelation and other things...

Tonight, I took the kids I nanny to diving practice. This is the same pool I coached at last summer, so I know a lot of the people there. I have known for years that my old therapist and her family belong there as well. And I even ran into her last summer. Tonight I ran into her again. I actually went up to her. I saw her as a therapist for 5 years and it was an intense and sometimes complicated and unhealthy relationship, and in the end I chose to leave her because things were too messy. But I hold no hard feelings against her. She saved my life in a lot of ways and saw me through the hellish years of high school. So, even though I get nervous when I see her, I never pass up an opportunity to go up and talk to her. And so that is what I did. She gave me a big hug and we talked for about 10 minutes. Just catching her up on where I am working these days, talking about our dogs, where I am living, and other gossip. At one point she said to me, "Well, you look wonderful!" To which I replied with, "Thank you! I have gained a lot of weight..." She said, "but you look healthy and happy".  To most people in recovery from an eating disorder, the word "healthy" is not a positive compliment. And usually I roll my eyes to myself when someone says that because I don't think they really mean that, blah blah blah. But when she said it to me, I felt that she meant it. I felt that she was happy for me. She also mentioned that it seemed like I was doing really well. The topic of my eating disorder and other related issues never came up, but perhaps what she was seeing was my "inner light", which so many people have told me over the past year that I have such a thing.  It motivated me to start doing better with life, with recovery. For so long I have wanted and tried to be sicker in order to gain attention and so-called praise. But tonight, something switched on (or off) in my brain. I realized how happy this person was for me. And she wasn't just some unimportant person in my life. She knew me like the back of her hand and knew all my deepest, darkest secrets. She was genuine in her compliments for me and it made me feel happy.

Depression wise, things are kind of at a stand still. That heaviness I was feeling is still there, though not quite as intense. I think I'm more numb than anything. Although, sometimes I wonder if I can really tell at all how I'm feeling. I'm not quite sure. It's frustrating. Thoughts of suicide are definitely still there, especially when I think about my future. I'm trying really hard to push through that, and of course stay honest with those thoughts.
I started a new medication for my depression. It's called Abilify and I am taking it in addition to the Prozac. It's make me pretty nauseous, but that's really the only side effect. I've only been on it a few days. Hopefully it will start to work soon.

Things with food are pretty okay. 2 weeks no purging. I struggle with restricting here and there, especially on the days that my anxiety is sky-high. It's by no means normal, or anywhere close to it. I'm scared of eating normal, of gaining weight. Speaking of that, I'm having a horrible time with body image. Especially since now the weather is so hot that I have to wear shorts. I try to remind myself of how strong my body is now, and that I'm healthy. Even though I know about where my weight is right now, I am making myself not look at my weight at my dietitian appointments, or using the scale at work. It gets me no where.

Tomorrow and Friday I have therapy and dietitian appointments. I'm pretty anxious about them. I do have a lot going on and I just hope I can find the strength to stay honest and use the tools and wisdom my treatment team provides me with.