The beast is back...

The good news is that I have been doing Morning Pages! I have done them for several days, and I am finding them beneficial, although sometimes it's a stretch to write three pages. This morning, however, I decided to forego Morning Pages and blog instead...because ED is alive in me, and it's been a rough week.

I had two weeks of pretty "grey" eating (in that I wasn't having black-and-white thinking about food...not in that everything I ate was grey). And there were different shades of grey. I had some food that was balanced fuel for my body. I had some Skittles. I had some Christmas cookies. But I did not binge, and I did not restrict, and I felt like I was being kind to my body. But I also didn't shower for five days, so while ED may have been dormant, my depression certainly was (is) not.

My psychiatrist added another antidepressant to my own particular cocktail, but I am not up to full therapeutic doses, so I am not sure what the final result of that will be. I am pleased that the medication she chose has been shown to increase dopamine, and since increasing serotonin and norepinephrine has made me better-but-not-best, maybe this will work in tandem with my other medication to improve things in that area.

Anyway. ED. Sometimes, the trigger for a binge is clear. Getting bad news. Getting good news. Stepping on the scale and seeing weight gain. Stepping on the scale and seeing weight loss (I am not currently stepping on the scale at home, but I did get weighed in a medical context a week ago, so that could be part of it). Going out with friends. Staying home alone. Having a hard day at work. Having a good day at work. I am sure you can see a pattern here...anything really bad can trigger a binge for me, but something really good can too. I am not sure what happened this week (I have had a lot of anxiety, so it might even just be general anxiety that sent me into the food), but my black-and-white thinking is back, and everything I am eating is "bad." Bad. BAD. And therefore, I must be bad.

It's a new week, so there are a lot of dieters out there who are starting fresh this week (and it's the first Monday of a new year, so that makes it even more true), and part of me wants so badly to start fresh as well. Maybe this time a diet will work. Maybe I should give Weight Watchers 2016 program a try. Maybe I can just track calories. Maybe I can give up carbs. Or dairy. Or meat. Or sugar. Which one is going to work?

And the other side of ED's coin...the shopping bug. I definitely overshopped last week. I did some of it mindfully, buying things I really did need to buy either to replace worn out things or to otherwise contribute to a clear planned activity. But some of it was mindlessly perusing Old Navy and adding to my (already extensive) wardrobe. Some of it was buying yarn, even though I already have a burgeoning yarn stash (BUT IT WAS ON SALE! Just because a store is having a sale does not mean you have to go shopping.). Some of it was groceries (YAY), but some of the groceries were candy and binge foods (BOO).

Balance is so hard, y'all, and it's clear I have not found it. But I guess my only option is to keep showing up...because any other option ends up in a really bad place.

Oh, wait...HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Turkey and sales and family, oh my!

And here it is, Black Friday, thought by some to be the busiest shopping day of the year (unless you have ever worked in retail, in which case you know that the busiest shopping day of the year is the Saturday before Christmas, unless that day is Christmas Eve, in which case it is the Saturday before that). And here it is, also, the day after Thanksgiving, a day filled with food and fun and family. It's like a one-two punch.

So if you have an eating disorder, Thanksgiving is a mine field dotted with triggers and good intentions. "Oh, look how good you look! You have lost so much weight!" (Yes, I have been starving myself. Thanks for noticing.) "Wow, you look so healthy!" (Yep, weight restoration worked, but now that you mentioned that, I think I will go back to restricting tomorrow.) "Why are you eating so little? Wow, you can sure pack it away! So now you're a vegetarian? Good for you!" Any comment can wake up the beast that we call ED. We might enter the dining room intent on enjoying our food and tasting everything we put in our mouths and stopping when we are full so that we don't have to hate ourselves later. But then the meal is over, and we aren't sure where the time went, and our plates are empty, and we are looking around to make sure we didn't eat everything, and that warm flush of shame makes its way up our chest and to our face, but it's easy to blame that on the wine.

And then, as a reward for getting through that day, you wake up the next day on Black Friday. Sales are EVERYWHERE. Maybe you will just LOOK. Check out the deals. There might be something that you "need." After all, Christmas is coming, and you have some gifts to buy. So you hit up one popular website, and there are deals galore. So you fill your shopping basket, mostly with things you don't really need. One of the things is a gift, but you have to spend $50 to get free shipping! So you fill the basket with a few more things to meet that goal...and just as you are about to hit "buy," you remember that you have made a promise not to shop. Cold turkey, remember? So you delete everything and close the web browser.

But then you think of something that you have been looking for, something that you could probably argue you need. And maybe the deal today will be worth making the purchase. There is a bit of wiggle room in the budget. The cable bill can be paid a couple of days late. So you make the purchase...a $200 item that will be here in two days. Amazon! Love it! Another great thing about Amazon...they have a "cancel" button. So nine minutes later, you are back on the website, cancelling that order because, although you do eventually need to make that purchase, it does not have to be today. And the deal is not really that great.

I wish I could say that all of my shopping endeavors went that well today. However, instead of spending $400 on stuff that I really didn't need to order today, I kept it to under $100, and I bought a couple of gifts, and I should still be able to pay my cable bill on time, so I guess that is a draw, even if it's not a win.

Anyway, that's a peek at the last two days of life as someone with an eating disorder and a compulsive spending disorder who is supposed to be avoiding all shopping (cold turkey!) and whose eating disorder has risen strong as a response to that plan. So the expectation is that I am working on changing my thoughts and behaviors and moving toward recovery. The reality is that I am back at home on my couch, hermit-ing the rest of the night away and wondering how I will make it through the rest of this festive season relatively intact. And wondering if this is something that I will talk about in therapy this week or if it might be time just to start "I'm fine"-ing everyone again.

Post-therapy thoughts...

I see my therapist once a week, and I often (always?) find myself with a LOT to think about when I leave her office. This week, she was fresh from a conference at an area eating disorders treatment facility and had some new resources to share with me, which the science and research nerd in me really enjoys. I think a part of me thinks that if I can learn enough about my eating disorder and related issues, I can wrestle it to the ground and kick the shit out of it and send it on its way.

However, right now, ED is going strong. One of my goals on my latest treatment plan is to be honest about my behaviors, and I mostly meant that to be with my therapist, but I think it's also probably important for me to honest with myself. I have been semi-restricting to restricting lately (my low days are in the 500 net calories range, with days ranging all the way up to 1200 calories net, and most of them hanging somewhere in the middle), so that was a big topic in therapy this week. I have referenced before in this blog that I know that ED is trying to kill me, so when the conversation turned to the fact that what I was doing is dangerous and could eventually lead to death, the first thought that came to my mind and right out of my mouth was, "I feel like it is worth the risk."

For what feels like my entire life, the goal has been to be skinny(er). In high school, I weighed about 80 pounds less than I do now, and I felt big and fat and conspicuous...but I can look back in photos and see I was not. When I was a child, I was taller than the other kids, and I had a lot of "baby fat" that my mom said I would lose once I hit puberty (I am still waiting for that "baby fat" to disappear.). I can't remember a time when I was not aware of being one of the bigger kids (even if the pictures I see of me as a child don't support that belief), and my entire adulthood has been one long battle with my weight.

A popular topic right now in the eating disorders community is the Health At Every Size (HAES) movement, which seeks to show people that it's not the size of their bodies that matter, that they can be larger and still be healthy. I can't wrap my head around HAES, however. I canNOT accept that the size of my body is "okay" and that I should not keep trying to change it. I understand, cognitively, that restrictive food behaviors lead to bingeing. I get that. I have lived it. And I have always said that I would never say to someone with anorexia, "Man, I wish I could do what you do." In fact, once, when in group, my therapist brought up this topic, and when asked if I was jealous of a then-member of the group who did restriction "better" than I did, I vehemently denied it. But as my desperation for a smaller body grows, and as my desire to have SOMETHING in my control increases, I do find myself wishing that I could do just that. HAES does not seem like an option for me. This body is NOT okay. I can't imagine ever accepting it as such.

I appreciate that there is someone out there who cares enough about me to want me to eat. And I am willing to make an attempt to "normalize" things a bit. But ED has me convinced that is not true, and I don't always  have the energy to ignore him right now.

Not doing such a great job of adult-ing...

I am in kind of a deep shame spiral right now, and it all has to do with a lack of functionality as an adult in some aspects of my life. There is something in my home that needs to be repaired right now. It will not cost me anything to repair it. Being without it is a major inconvenience and has resulted me needing to come up with creative ways to fulfill some very basic daily activities. However, I also look around my home and see nothing but a mess...the kind of mess that caused me to believe I fit the definition of a hoarder. And that leaves me paralyzed...unable to make the call that will result in this repair being accomplished. I have done some frantic "cleaning" this afternoon, in an attempt to make things passable enough that repairmen can come in without me being afraid of their judgment (and I do recognize that there is a very real chance that they will not give a flying fuck what my home looks like), and I think that if I vacuum and then close all the doors to the bedrooms and the bathroom (under the guise of locking up my pets because that also will have to happen for someone to come in but mostly to hide what a shithole it is in here), I may be able to bring myself to send an email tomorrow alerting the maintenance service to the issue and setting up a time for them to come in and deal with it.

I also continue to hang out on some pro-Ana sites, and one thing about hanging out on social sites filled with people who feel very much the same as you do about themselves is that you learn all kinds of other fun ways in which you can be reminded of what a mess you are. I was introduced this week to a word that I did not even know was A Thing, but it was not only A Thing, but it was A Thing That I Do. The word is "dermatophagia," and if you know anything about the roots that make up a word, you know what that means, and yes, it is as gross as it sounds. I asked my therapist quite a long time ago about the condition "dermatillomania," which is similar to trichotillomania, which is the compulsive pulling out of one's hair. I definitely am someone who picks at my skin, especially around my cuticles (although I used to do this on all my fingers and am able to limit it now just to my thumbs), and I thought it was a leftover habit from when I used to bite my nail, but now the idea that it is more than that has taken hold and is doing a great job of fueling my anxiety (which does not need help, really).

So this is not about me self-diagnosing (which is also sometimes A Thing That I Do), but it is about getting an idea out there and mulling it over and deciding whether to investigate it further. I get a little touchy about that because my psychiatrist once asked me, when I asked her about the possibility of me having some OCD-type behaviors, if I thought perhaps I was someone who wanted to have a lot of psychiatric disorders. But I am pretty sure that I don't have a large audience out there, so I guess that disclaimer is for myself...mostly.

Pocket full of kryptonite

So if you are someone with "food issues," you are probably well aware that there are these things we call "triggers" out there that can lead you to overeat, undereat, binge, purge, restrict, overexercise, or what have you, depending on your particular "preferred" behaviors. For me, I know things are not going to go well if I am going to some sort of social function. When I go to any kind of get-together, ED comes along, dressed to the nines, putting on his charming face, and he will not leave me alone.

"Oh, look, M&Ms. You LOVE those! Why don't you have some? You have been being so goooood."

"Those Hershey's kisses are special! They aren't just the regular old foil ones. Have some! You deserve them."

"Now, someone went to the trouble of making that cake. You can't just refuse a piece. That would be rude, and I know you don't like to make waves. You better have just a little slice."

"And make sure you clear your plate! You don't want to seem ungrateful...wait, is that kettle corn? When is the last time you let yourself have some of that? Better take the opportunity while you have it!"

Needless to say, my night last night did not go well.

I came home, feeling stuffed and bloated. I had heartburn (I still have heartburn). I was weighted down with shame. And I am determined to have a better day today.

Unfortunately, the only "better" that I can come up with at the moment is a day of extreme restriction. Water and carrot sticks and maybe a yogurt. Not a health balance...but what do I know about balance? All or nothing...that is my game.

I think that is why ED likes to spend so much time here with me. He has no trouble knocking me off balance, and which direction I go in each day is totally up to him.

Cold Turkey

As I recall, I have mentioned in the past that I have a lovely therapist (and I don't just say that because she is an occasional reader of this blog) with whom I am fortunate to spend time once each week for individual therapy and every other week for group therapy focusing on adults with eating disorders. In addition, I am fortunate that my employer provides a health care plan at minimal cost to me that does not place a limit on how many times I can access mental health services such as outpatient therapy in a calendar year. Seeking help in this manner has been life changing for me.

Anyway, it turns out that it is really hard to adjust to life without credit cards. My creditor accounts have been enrolled in a debt management plan, and all of my credit card accounts are closed. And I thought this would mean that I magically would stop spending money. After all, I believe I have said that I have enough self-respect not to allow myself to fall into financial ruin. Clearly, not having credit cards means that I will have to change my spending habits, but I can do it! I am an adult! This is what adults do!

So this week I was overdrawn on my checking account. I paid out NINETY DOLLARS in overdraft fees before I was able to come up with a plan (which involved a Coinstar machine and an old savings bond) to get my account back in the black. I was furious with myself. I had "allowed" myself some shopping after a stressful day, even though I know I have no safety net. My credit cards are gone. My savings account is empty, save for the money required to keep the account open. In a particularly low moment, I emailed my therapist because I needed to share with SOMEONE how absolutely awful and scary things were seeming to me. 

At our individual session this week, we talked about the shopping and the spending. And she asked me to consider giving up shopping. Cold turkey. Abstinence. No trips to the Target Dollar Spot. No Zulily orders. No Old Navy orders or Amazon purchases. No celebrating the arrival of my paycheck in my bank account with a special little treat. No shopping for wants. Using my money only for needs.

So. 

This feels impossible. It feels like my "favorite" coping mechanism is being taken from me. I am an online shopper and tell myself I love it. The thrill of the chase, comparing prices, placing the order, waiting for the package to arrive in the mail. It's a rush. I am sure it is lighting up the same pleasure centers in the brain that so many other addiction behaviors do. 

However, it also feels like my only option. Left to my own devices, I seem to be intent on destroying myself. My relationship with food is all or nothing. I am either eating to excess or eating not enough at all. My finances are a major source of stress and shame. The people with whom I feel I can share the details of my struggle are few and far between. And when my therapist asks me to name my emotions as I sit crying in her office, the only one I can come up with is "sad." I hate myself. And I punish myself by engaging in behaviors that could land me in real trouble. And then I present the story in writing, sounding (and feeling) like I am talking about the events in someone else's life...all while wondering how I will regulate my emotions without a trip to Target or a perusal of Nordstrom's website. 

So...cold turkey. I believe her when she says I need to do this. But I am not sure how I will be able to...

 

So this is how yesterday went...

Binge eating? Check!

Shopping? Check!

Self-loathing? Shame? Anger? Check! Check! Check!

Ugh. 

So yesterday, I had my plan to restrict all day because I knew that my ability to control myself at dinner was not going to be promising. And then I took a wander down to the cafeteria, with $2 in pocket to "try a little something." And then I walked back to my work space to get my debit card because "FOODCAFETERIAFOODNOMNOMEATEATEAT!" And that involved some food that was not part of my "plan." And a big dessert. And the stage was set for the rest of the day. 

I finished my workday...and headed to Target. And clothing was on sale for 25% off because of course it was, and I became like a kid in the candy store. I even reached out via text to a trusted friend to tell her that I was in Target, and that was not enough to stop me from releasing the shopping beast. 

And then I left Target and went right to Old Navy. 

So I was (am) already thinking about how much of a screw up I am. And then I proved it to myself by giving in to ED and spending money. 

Oh, and I forgot to mention the cookies I bought at Target to continue to feed the beast. 

Dinner was a feast. There was an appetizer. There was a meal. There were fries. There was alcohol. There was dessert. There was self-loathing. There was shame. 

There was a Xanax waiting for me at the end of the day. There was quiet in my mind. There was sleep. 

Today is another day to continue trying to trigger myself back into restriction. 

I have never met a cafeteria I didn't like...

So here I am, feeling kind of smug because, "Haha, ED, I know you like it when I stuff myself with food, but I am NOT doing that right now." But today brought with it a land mine. Dinner out. Somewhere nice. Where I have not been before. 

I carefully packed my food for today. Baby carrots. One serving of cereal. An apple. Sugar-free Jello. A lite yogurt. Yep, it feels good to have a plan. Tonight might get dicey, but the time leading up to then? Totally under control. 

Ahem. 

So then I made the mistake of going to the cafeteria. I am not working in my usual building today, so I have not been in this cafeteria before. And I have long had a love for cafeterias. I used to live in a state where we had public cafeterias where you could go to eat (early versions of an Old Country Buffet, kind of), and eating there was a treat. So I went to the cafeteria to buy something small...and ended up buying an entire meal. And dessert. 

Dammit. 

And the familiar feeling is back. You already screwed up. You are a pig...no wonder you are so fat. You might as well just eat whatever you want tonight. What else did you expect from yourself?

I hear you, ED. I hear you. 

This is not what recovery looks like...

I was changing my clothes the other day and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and well, ugh. I know what the number on the scale says, and I know I am not supposed to be so concerned about what the number on the scale says, and when my body is covered with clothes, I can almost believe for very brief moments of time on occasion that being fat is not the end of the world, but then I do something like see myself unclothed in the mirror and realized that is not actually true (at least for me, at this moment). And wouldn't you know it? ED is right there at my side in those moments, ready to stick his claws into me and exploit that moment and turn it into...whatever he feels like this week.

So this week, ED agrees with me. I am fat. And that is the most important feature about me right now. ED doesn't care if I am working hard or being a good friend or enjoying the nice weather or getting plenty of sleep at night. ED cares about the following:

• what I weigh.
• what I look like.
• what I eat.
• what I don't eat.

ED doesn't want me to do things that are going to make me feel better about myself. ED wants me to stay stuck, sitting on my couch, with him over in the corner, surrounded by the stuff that I can't be bothered to clean up, putting work that has to get done off to the very last minute. And he has the power this week! I have a project to do. It has to be done this afternoon. I have just barely started it. My home is a mess. I have been "going to vacuum" for about two weeks now. I have not vacuumed. I am trying as hard as I can to trigger myself back into restricting, which means spending a lot of time on pro-ana sites (which I had promised myself I would not do anymore) so I can read all about how people are eating nothing and try to emulate them (day three and counting! and a water weight loss of over 5 pounds!)! I am weighing myself, even though I know the scale is triggering. I am tracking every bit of food that goes into my body, and any time I have to give someone an accounting of what I am eating, I am padding the numbers to make it look like I am not restricting.

I think my ultimate plan in all this is that ED will "help" me lose weight (let me check back in with you next week when he has me eating my face off), and I will use therapy and meds to figure out the why behind my eating, and then everything will be wrapped up in a neat little package all at the same time, and I will find myself both (a) skinny(er) and (b) mentally and emotionally healthy! And I will continue maintenance meds and maintenance therapy, and ED will get up on his black horse and ride off into the sunset because I won't need him anymore.

I am aware that this is probably not how things will turn out. But for today, I need to believe it anyway.

When ED comes to play...and the shame-ies and blame-ies come with him.

This morning, I answered the call of the online shopping site and the coupon code. I found on a favorite clothing website a coupon code for a BUY ONE, GET ONE 75% OFF. How was I to resist that? What followed was a series of four purchases (But with my debit card! I didn't use a credit card!), as I wanted to take full advantage of the savings and match up like-priced items so that the 75% item was enjoyed to the best of its potential. I first visited the site because they sent me a "We miss you!" email with a coupon code because OF COURSE THEY DID. They exploited my weakness. I forgot to unsubscribe from this particular site's emails. What I have not mentioned yet is that my budget this pay is so tight that I had to purposely put off a payment already scheduled to come out of my account the day it was due to a day after it is due (which will incur a late payment penalty) in order to "free up" the money to buy these items. And nowhere in my plan is the possibility of canceling these orders or returning the items. In my mind, I already own them and love them.

For some people, ED disguises himself by putting on a friendly, benevolent face and pretending to be a friend. However, my version of ED does NOT do that. My ED looks like this:

He is not my friend, and he does not pretend to be. He is dark. I can't see his face. And I am terrified of him because I know he is trying to kill me. He exploits every weakness he can find in me. And right now, he is filling me with shame and blame, and he is LOUD, and he won't SHUT UP. My brain is telling me that I should eat something healthy for breakfast that is good fuel for my body. But ED? Right now, ED is telling me that I don't deserve to eat anything good for me. In fact, he says I don't deserve to eat anything at all.

I don't know that I am strong enough to resist him today. It's hard not to listen to someone who holds so much power over you.

White-knuckling it

There is a definite problem that comes from white-knuckling something in one area of your life when you have an often silent, yet always present, monster named ED lurking at the periphery of your life. All that energy that is being put into trying to avoid one behavior (so for me, that would be all the energy and attention that I am giving to my money situation) means that you are taking energy away from trying to keep ED in his corner, out of the way, maybe watching you, but certainly not contributing. He looks for weak moments, and he tries to get in through the little openings in your resolve. He has been talking to me a lot over the past week. And he has a lot to say.

"Well, you can't spend money, so how are you going to make yourself feel better now? Have a donut. Have two donuts! It's not like you bought them. They are just sitting here in the break room. You can have donuts and not spend money! So that's still a win!"

"Don't eat dinner. You don't deserve dinner. You are a mess. Look what you have done to yourself. You can't even be trusted with your own money. Doesn't it feel good not to eat dinner? Doesn't that make you feel better? No? Well, good. You don't deserve to feel better."

and my personal favorite

"Should you really have told her that? Is that someone to be trusted? Is she going to keep your dirty secret? Or is she going to tell everyone? Then everyone will know! EVERYONE! You might as well just tell them all and get it over with. Everyone is going to find out anyway, and then they are going to know about you."

Ugh, ED. STFU.

I am fortunate that I do have some people that I DO trust. But man, this dude can be loud.

But I ate dinner yesterday, ED, and I shared with people who have earned the right to hear my story. So for now, you can just go ahead and STFU.