So the wonderful Roxy has nominated me for a Reader Appreciation Award! I love Roxy and her blog because she is fighting hard in her recovery from an eating disorder. I admire her tenacity and the steps she takes to beat the ED. Lord knows I wish I could be where she was, and if I ever transition back into recovery, she will definitely be someone I look up to (not that I don’t look up to her now!). Shas graciously nominated me for a Reader Appreciate Award and here is what I have to do:
Damage Control
I have gained two pounds over the weekend. Needless to say, given that and the emotions brought on by the family get together, I am determined to break maintenance and meet my goal weight.
I have tried my best to refrain from talking about food plans and goal weights and weight loss in this blog because for a lot of us, it isn’t about the weight. I also didn’t want to come off as pro-ana or wannarexic or someone who gives tips and tricks.
But unfortunately, it IS still a lot about weight for me, and it IS one of the biggest driving forces of my eating disorder.
I have been trying to reach my goal weight for almost a year now, but once my body hit a certain weight, no matter how much I restricted my food intake, it would take a long time to lose anything, and by that time the urges to binge hit and I would gain everything back.
It is beyond frustrating. So I asked myself what I did two years ago when I started to relapse. How did I lose 30 pounds with barely any effort? Well, I started an account on sparkpeople.com, went on a 1200-1500 calorie a day plan, and logged my food daily. The consistency and routine of the site helped me stay on track, and even though there were days I went to bed starving, I was able to get through it without cheating. Now I am unable to get through anything without cheating/overeating, so I am hoping logging my food will help me finally meet my goal weight.
Given that sparkpeople.com won’t even work for me anymore because it registers my weight and goal weight as unhealthy, nor will it give any food plans under 1200 calories, I am on my own. And in a last ditch effort, I am resorting to the ABC Diet. Not because I expect rapid weight loss (at this rate with my metabolism, I am hoping to lose a pound a week), but because I need structure. I need something to follow, because if it were up to me, I would sneak in chocolate or candy or leftovers or peanut butter or ice cream, and with a plan on paper, I am less likely to do that.
So my plan is to do the following:
o Follow the ABC Diet
o Allow myself to eat somewhat normally on weekends
o Do not eat anything I cannot calculate calories for
o Try not to eat anything off my food plan for the day
I will be logging everything in my “Food Diary” to the right (including weight). It is password protected, but if I gave you the password to my “Me IRL” page, it is the same one. (If the password doesn’t work, let me know. There may be a capitalization error.)
I am sorry if this post is rather disappointing or pro, but it is what it is. Another side to my eating disorder that I am choosing to write about.
I don’t have high expectations for this to work, but I am desperate. I can’t stand the body I am in.
Adventures in Treatment: Body Distortions
We are in body image and are asked to pick partners. Today we are going to get life-size pieces of paper and are going to draw what we think we look like. Jennifer, the girl who steals food, complains and says she’s already done this activity several times. Shelly, the girl with the mouth like a sailor, says in a snotty voice, “What do you expect? When you have been here a million times like you, you are going to repeat activities!”
I am still new so I haven’t really made any friends; if all the girls are like Shelly, I am not sure that’s a bad thing. I begin to get nervous because I have no idea who I would even ask to be my partner.
I sit quietly hoping someone will be nice enough to offer, and in a few seconds one of the older ladies, a compulsive overeater named Mary, says she would love to be my partner.
I am glad it’s her; she seems much kinder and less catty than the younger bunch, and I thank her for willing to be my partner.
We go to her room and lay out the papers. We outline what we think our bodies look like. Despite thinking of myself as fat, I think I have a pretty good idea of what I actually look like, and I begin to draw down the entire page. I have no idea if I am getting weight and height proportions correct; not because my body image is distorted, but because I am not an artist and even drawing an outline of a body proves difficult.
When I finish, I lay down on my drawing. I am a bit disappointed we are not doing this in our underwear (I have fears my clothes will make me look fatter than I actually am), but after Mary is done drawing me, the overlaying outline is far thinner than what I drew. This amazes me, because the second drawing is on the verge of being emaciated and I feel proud.
I feel somewhat bad for Mary, because she is overweight. I don’t feel bad BECAUSE of her weight, but because I don’t want her to feel self-conscious around me. I don’t want her drawing of an obese woman to be completely accurate when mine was way off the mark.
I draw her, and when I am fininished, her first drawing is considerably larger than how she actually looks. Mary is also amazed at this, and feels a little bit better about her body image. I say with a smile, “See! Look how tiny you are compared to what you drew.” She replies with a simple “Wow” and continues to look at her paper, looking at it like it was some long lost love letter from an old lover. It was nice to see.
When we share, I say I was really surprised at the results and that I thought I looked “scary skinny.” Brooke, an average sized bulimic, asks if I would show the group my drawing. In my first moment of humbleness, I actually say no and that I don’t feel comfortable. In my head I feel like it would only be to “show off,” and even though that was usually the only thing I did, in that moment, I feel it’s the wrong thing to do.
I don’t know where the humbleness came from, but it was the first moment in my life where I wasn’t a snob about something. And as much as it hurt to have to pass up an opportunity at attention, I know that sometimes doing the right thing can sting a little. So I don’t show anybody the drawing. I take it back to my room and stare at it and stare at it. I don’t see how I could be so thin and wonder if Mary drew me incorrectly. But I know she hasn’t; her marker was as close to my limbs as possible. I have the pink ink on the side of my jeans to prove it.
I don’t show it to anyone when I get home either, and by the time I am ready to possibly bring it out, our house burns down with it inside, along with every other piece of writing and activity I did in Rader. Maybe that was God’s way of wiping my slate clean and getting rid of everything I didn’t really need. The drawing doesn’t exist anymore, but maybe that’s a good thing.
Triggered
I went to a family BBQ yesterday, and these family functions never fail to make me feel jealous, competitive, or irritated. Not to say that I don’t have a fabulous time once my family and I all get together and swap stories, but a lot of the conversations usually have to involve weight, babies, or money, all of which I have strong feelings towards.
My sister-in-law, who used to be fat, has now slimmed down considerably and now looks like an average woman. Strange considering she’s been overweight the entire 20+ years I’ve known her, but in the last year she’s lost about 85 pounds. Granted she was nowhere near a body size I would ever feel jealous of, but the fact that she was able to lose 85 pounds in a year vs. my 30 pounds in two years made my blood boil. The fact that she still eats healthy made me jealous, because eating healthy has always been MY thing, and now it’s HER thing, too. My other sister-in-law said to my brother, “Your wife is going to vanish soon!” and he said, “Yeah, I just wish she were happier.” Hm…maybe losing 85 pounds isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, especially when you lose a bulk of that weight only eating 500 calories a day. Needless to say my heart sang a little each time she snacked on something “forbidden.” Granted, I snacked on some forbidden foods as well, but I made sure that my dinner plate was smaller than hers. I literally felt like my fat was growing each minute I was there. I felt like I didn’t look skinny enough, I felt like nobody would have ever seen me as sick, I felt like nobody would ever suspect I had a problem because I wasn’t thin enough. I took a picture of my arm in a desperate attempt to convince myself I was not getting fatter by the minute, but on days like yesterday, I see somebody totally different. I see a fat person. Even though realistically I know I’m not fat, I know I’m not THIN ENOUGH either.
As if it matters; I gained almost a pound overnight. YES. (Thus triggering me to go ahead and eat some pizza and ice cream/peanut butter. SCORE.)
Babies were also a hot topic, especially given my youngest brother’s girlfriend is pregnant. So I’m the only sibling in the family with no kids (of my own), and it’s hard to sit and listen to people brag about their children when you have no children to brag about. Just another reminder that time is ticking away and I have yet to become pregnant, nor do I know if getting pregnant is even going to happen given the circumstances.
And money — hearing how my brother bought this, or my other brother bought that, or how my sister-in-law just bought new shoes, or how my other sister-in-law is lasering all the hair off her legs. Cool, bro…I just bought some gas today with scrap change, it was awesome. Didn’t even have enough to fill the entire tank! Oh, and THIS gem came out of my sister-in-law’s mouth:
Aint life a bitch?! Geezus.
Anyway — as I said before, I gained almost a pound overnight. Last year’s memorial day weekend BBQ is the BBQ that pushed me into relapse. This party, despite just eating an entire mug full of ice cream and peanut butter, will hopefully push me deeper. I know that sounds awful, but I’m tired of maintaining this stupid weight. I’m tired of only being on the verge of emaciation. I’m tired of being that girl who “could have an eating disorder” but also “could just be naturally skinny.”
I want to be in the BMI range of 14 by July 4th weekend (when I see them next). I’d have to lose like a pound a week for that to happen, and given my track record and awesome metabolism, I’ll probably still be maintaing by then. AWESOME!
Sorry for this trivial post — but I’m in a bad space this morning.
So You Want to be Anorexic?
If I were to write an anti-anorexia blog post, it would go a little something like this:
So, you want anorexia? Well listen up, because we just so happen to have a packaged deal here, and that package includes the following: you will wake up every morning feeling weak, sometimes unable to find the strength to wake up, let alone get out of bed. You will go to sleep starving, your limbs so heavy and your head pounding from not eating. You will feel cold all the time, your nail beds will be tinted blue and goosebumps will be permanently etched on your skin. Your hair will fall out and look brittle. Your once vibrant face will turn dull; dark circles will take up shelter underneath your eyes. You will slowly but surely learn what it’s like to have very low self-esteem and depression. You will berate yourself for every calorie you eat. You will be consumed by the compulsion to count numbers all the time. You will feel trapped. You will lose friends and possibly loved ones due to isolation, misunderstandings, fights, and your attitude, which by the way, will be negative all the time. You will become a different person, often careless, self-centered, and selfish. You will never be happy nor will you find happiness in a goal weight. And if you get really bad, your body will start to shut down, one organ at a time, until you eventually die a miserable death, all alone. You will not die happy as long as you are thin, because even at your thinnest you will still see someone you look at with sheer disgust. Anorexia is a ball, and all you have to do is sell your soul!
/end sales pitch.
Now, hear me out. We have all read things like the blurb above. But the question I have is this: Are things like that really going to help young girls who say they wished they had an eating disorder? I can tell you for myself that when I was an impressionable girl of 15, reading that would only have encouraged me further because I wanted nothing more but to be the sickest anorectic around, on the verge of death so people on the outside knew how much pain I was in. I wanted to stick it to my dad, as if almost dying would get back at him for all the shit I felt he was putting me through. I wanted my hair to fall out. I wanted my organs to fail. Because all that meant I was “sick enough” and worthy of having an eating disorder. It would mean I actually had a problem that was more than just a phase. And of course, all that together would garner what I craved most, which was attention.
Now, maybe if I wasn’t hard-wired to have an ED as I believe I was, then things like the above rant would have made me realize that anorexia wasn’t “cool” and that I needed to find some other outlet to vent my frustrations. But if someone wants anorexia, chances are they were someone like me (whether hard-wired or not), and things like the above pitch would only fuel the fire.
With that said, I don’t think that means posts like the above are in vain; it helps to paint a realistic picture of what anorexia really does bring a person, because there are, unfortunately, girls so dense (sorry, naive) that they are unaware of the dangers of calorie restricting and throwing up. There really are girls who think anorexia is a blanket term for all types of dieting and can be stopped at any time, usually when said girl’s goal weight is met. Eating disorder awareness should be spread, but it’s a tricky endeavor when there are also girls out there who want to be sick, who want to hospitalized, who want to be miserable and to die a sad, lonely death.
And as for me, almost eleven years later, despite the obvious fact that I do NOT want to die from this, despite my recent health scare, I have jumped right back into the ED. Despite restricting, I have maintained my weight these last three days, not meeting my projected goal weight this morning and feeling defeated as we are going to a party later in the day. The one pound I didn’t lose won’t really make a difference to anyone on the outside, I would still look the same regardless, but to me, I see a completely different body today then I saw yesterday.
Being sick isn’t as fun as it was when I was a confused, lost 15-year-old, but I didn’t have as much at stake then. I wasn’t living in the real world yet, where I naively thought that if I got really sick, daddy would wave his magic wand and get me out of whatever pickle I put myself in. But now, in the latter half of my twenties, even though there are times I want something drastic to happen to prove the severity of my disorder, it is not like it used to be. There is no magic wand to erase everything. If something drastic happens, there is going to be nobody on the sidelines feeling pity or congratulating me for proving a point. Nobody will be tipping their hat in my direction, applauding me for almost dying. I will just be a sad girl of 26 who spent a good chunk of her life accomplishing nothing but not eating properly. What a fucking thing to be proud of.
So if some girl wants to be like me, there is nothing I can say to stop her, because the same things that went through my head will go through hers: I want to get that sick, it’s okay because I will stop before I get to a point of dying, I will be able to stop at my goal weight, I will look fabulous once I lose these ten pounds, it would be awesome if my period stopped, I am going to get so much attention, people will finally understand the misery and emptiness I feel, etc.
Do you want anorexia? Be my guest. You will either get bored of it and stop in a few months or you will learn the hard way and live with it for years. In the former scenario, you wont be any worse off than before you started. In the latter, nothing I say would have made a difference anyway.
I Pity The Fool
So, how about them Bears?
Usually said when someone wants to avoid a particularly awkward situation. In my case, the embarrassing fact that I have figured out why my arm suddenly became sore.
Now, before I continue, I feel like a complete idiot due to how much support and concern I got in your comments, but let me preface this with the fact that my chest pain was very real and unexplained, so it was good I went to Urgent Care even though my EKG was normal. Although given the source of my arm pain, all the hooplah I put both my readers and husband through was probably unjustified.
So, without further rambling, last night, the memory of how I strained my arm hit me like a ton of bricks:
In my haste to get home from the store on Wednesday (remember, this is the morning after I had the slight panic attack and realization the ED must be stopped), like an idiot, I tried to carry as many things as possible from the trunk of my car to my kitchen. So being the genius that I am, I put three shopping bags on my left arm, one of which was holding two 2-liter soda bottles (which explained the soreness below the elbow), and hand carried a gallon jug of green tea with my left hand (which explained the soreness in my upper arm). So to save at least some of my dignity, even though my arm pain was not physically ED related, it was still ED related in that it wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t in such a rush to overeat the peanut butter and icecream.
Do you hate me yet?
I feel so incredibly dumb you don’t even know. My husband had little to say about it; I think back to me sobbing on the phone with him, thinking I was going to die of a heart attack, all because the memory of me carrying in too many groceries had slipped my mind. The combination of the chest pains and him being gone just magnified everything and made the last two days of my life really overly dramatic.
I hope you all don’t think your comments were in vain, and I also hope you can read this with laughter instead of hatred….lol.
So, there you have it. *embarrassed*
Health Update
First and foremost, thank you guys SO much for the outpouring of support I got for my last two entries. I’m sorry to worry everyone; I sort of feel like I was being melodramatic! Again, when I have more time, I will definitely respond to each comment I received.
I just got back from Urgent Care. I don’t know whether to think I’m totally fucking crazy or that the medical system here in the states just blows.
Long story short: everything is normal and nobody can tell me what the fuck my chest pains are from aside from the obvious fact that I don’t eat or drink enough. But I’m sure a bunch of you will get a kick out of the following conversation I had with the family care doctor on staff:
Doctor: Well, given that you don’t smoke, drink, are young, are a woman, and you don’t have any history of heart disease in your family, the odds of you having a heart attack are very low.
Me: What about my eating disorder? Heart problems are a consequence of anorexia.
Doctor: Your symptoms are not conducive with a heart attack. Your anorexia is what we should really be focusing on, not the possibility of you having a heart attack, because that’s not likely. Now, I don’t know a lot of about anorexia, but I do know it’s tricky.
Me: Well, what about my arm pain?
Doctor: It’s probably unrelated; if you were having a heart attack the chest pains you describe would last longer than a few seconds.
Me: So my EKG was normal?
Doctor: Yes, everything was normal. We could get some blood tests done to make sure your electrolytes are normal. They are probably all over the place, though.
Then I go on about how I am afraid of getting blood tests done because last time they charged me a bunch of money.
Doctor: Okay, then let’s hold off on your blood tests. I’ll just make you a follow up appointment with your primary doctor.
She then goes on to say how I should go into treatment and start taking care of myself. The usual “lecture” one expects from a doctor who doesn’t know what else to say (or doesn’t know anything about eating disorders, for that matter). In the end I felt like she was patronizing me and thinking, “Well, what do you EXPECT? You wouldn’t have to come here so often if you just ATE.” Maybe she was thinking that, maybe she wasn’t, but when she said this (after letting her know what my line of work was):
“I have to do the same. I have to take care of myself in order to take care of all my patients. I have crap I have to deal with, but sometimes I put it off because I’m dealing with everybody else’s crap.”
It made me feel like I was a burden; a girl who wouldn’t be wasting the doctor’s time if she could just eat like a normal person. In the end, I was in and out 30 minutes.
So once again, the chest pains go unexplained. If the doctor didn’t deem me a serious enough case to get immediate blood work done, all my tests were normal, and the odds of me having heart problems are so incredibly low because I’m not an old man who chain smokes and has a history of heart disease in his family, I shouldn’t worry, right (sarcasm)?
The most logical reason though, which is probably pretty clear to anyone who reads this blog, is that whether the chest pain is serious or not, it’s probably ED related one way or another, and the obvious solution would be to get back into recovery.
But every single time a test result comes back normal, it’s like a green light to continue the ED a little bit more. Between my last two entries and this one, I really don’t know where I want to be in terms of the ED or recovery. I really don’t want to be a person who has to panic every few months every time she feels like she is going to die. I really don’t want to have to spend even more money on my eating disorder, whether it’s for binge food or doctor bills. I really don’t want to dig myself further into a hole where I really do get to the point where I’m rushed to the ER or worse — dead. But at the same time, I’m also the person who doesn’t want to go back to eating normally, or going to meetings, or gaining weight.
I’ll have to take a few days to think about this — really think about my priorities and what I want my life to amount to. I spend so much time trying to convince myself this doesn’t have a huge impact on my life, but then things like THIS happen, and I realize, it does. I’m sorry I can’t give any definite answers as to what direction I’m taking, but I suppose I don’t have to. Thanks again for all your guys’ support.
Breakdown
After work my left arm started feeling weird. There’s no way to really describe what it felt like; it was very mild and if I didn’t think about it, then it was almost as if nothing was wrong. But there was a very slight heaviness to it, almost how it feels when you were exercising a lot the day before or when you sleep on it. I began to panic, stupidly googling “heart attack symptoms” knowing that arm pain is one of them. In a moment of desperation and fear, I called my husband to tell him I had been having chest pain all week last week and weird arm pain now. As a cover, I told him I thought it was due to dehydration. Not taking me seriously, he tried to be the “fixer” and distract me by asking me how my day was and asking stupid, unimportant questions thinking this would calm me down and everything would go away.
I was sitting there sobbing, tears down my face, answering all of his stupid questions and saying that I was super, honestly afraid that something was wrong and that I didn’t know what to do. He said that “heart palpitations” are normal for people who are dehydrated (even though I didn’t SAY palpitations, I said CHEST PAIN) and that all I needed to do was sit and drink some water. At that point I knew we weren’t going to get anywhere. I don’t know what I really expected anyway. Maybe for him to drop his business conference and come drive all the way home. Maybe to tell me to hang up and call 911. Maybe to encourage me to make a doctor’s appointment.
I pushed further, saying that I was thinking about going to urgent care in the morning, but if I did, we may end up with a huge bill again. He was somewhat supportive, saying that if that’s what I felt I needed to do, then to do it. But he also made sure to throw in there that my health problems could have been easily avoided if I “just took care of myself.” (What I heard was that he was blaming me and minimizing my health problems.)
He told me to drink some water again, and I said, “Honestly, I don’t think drinking water is going to stop a heart attack if I am in the midst of one.”
He said, “You aren’t having a heart attack.”
I said, “How do you KNOW?”
He said, “Because you aren’t having symptoms of one.”
I said, “On and off chest pain and arm pain are two MAJOR signs of a heart attack.”
He said, “Arm pain is NOT a heart attack symptom. It’s a sign of a stroke.”
I scoffed and said, “Look it up on the internet.”
He told me again he didn’t think I was having a heart attack, but that if I thought that I was, I needed to get off the phone and call 911.
The conversation ended shortly after that. I don’t know what I expected. Apart of me is disappointed that my own goddam family members don’t educate themselves on anorexia and it’s health consequences. They all just assume it’s a fucking diet phase and that food is the end all be all solution to both my physical and emotional problems. The fact that my husband clearly does not know what signs to look out for if I’m having a heart attack BOTHERS me. Another part of me feels like this is to be expected; if I am not forthcoming with the fact that I’ve still been restricting my food intake, is my husband really supposed to suspect an actual heart attack if he assumes I’m a healthy 25-year-old woman otherwise suffering from slight dehydration?
Obviously I’m not dead of a heart attack/cardiac arrest. I made it through the night, although I cried a few more times out of fear. This morning, my arm feels sore in two places (the inside of my upper arm and just below my elbow). Not sore enough where I can feel it now typing, but sore when I press on those two spots. I don’t know if it’s heart related, ED related, or if I just strained it doing something, but either way I’m going to go into urgent care today to check everything out. Fortunately I was just paid yesterday and I can afford the 20.00 copay today; any bills that come after we will just have to make payments on.
I don’t know what my plan to do in regards to food are for today; I’m about to leave for a dentist appointment and in the last 15 minutes I could have used that time to eat breakfast but instead I typed this entry.
Is it awful to pray for something to be WRONG with me when I go to the doctor today? Because that way I’ll have a legitimate excuse to go back into recovery and the money we will have to pay for medical bills won’t be for nothing.
Thank you to all the supportive comments in my last entry. I will reply to all of them soon.
We’ve Got Quite a Pickle Here
I’ve totally and utterly put myself in a pickle. Despite my chest pains subsiding over the weekend, they’ve returned, sporadically, throughout this week.
I’ve been waking up on and off throughout the night for the past two or three nights; my body’s way of letting me know that yes, I am still alive and breathing. But last night, when I woke around three in the morning with slight chest pain again, I had a minor panic attack and had a clear realization: I can’t do this anymore. There was no ED voice to disagree, there was no rationalizing, there was no arguing, there was no compromising. In that moment I realized I had to stop engaging in my eating disorder and start eating again. The other voice, the ED voice, said, “Okay. I give up. Tomorrow, I will let you eat.” I then promptly fell asleep with lingering feelings of fear; how unfortunate it would be to die the night before I decided to begin recovery again.
And then a mere six hours later, when my husband had left for an overnight trip for work, I decided to go to the store as soon as I woke up in order to buy a donut and some chocolate peanut butter. My plan was to come home and eat the donut and mix the peanut butter with the last of our ice cream and fast the rest of the day. The two voices were back in my head: you can start recovery next week, after you indulge in the junk food you are about to buy, after you have the family bbq this weekend, after you lose a couple more pounds.
I bought some other much needed groceries, feeling guilty for spending over $4.00 on a small jar of chocolate peanut butter, and was in such haste to get home that I started leaving as soon as the groceries were bagged and put in my cart. The cashier said, “Woah, hold on there, I need to give you your receipt.” I casually said, “Woops!” and he replied with, “You in a hurry to get out of here? I don’t blame you!” I laughed an embarrassed laugh and took the receipt.
I ate the donut in the car and the ice cream and peanut butter when I got home.
The chest pains are on and off. They get worse when I panic. They will inevitably continue tonight, especially because I will be home alone, and that is when I most fear something will happen to me. There will be nobody to help if I suddenly go into cardiac arrest. There will be nobody to give me CPR. There will be nobody to call 911.
And here lies the pickle:
The week and a half’s worth of chest pains has got me pretty freaked out. And after last night and the fact that I made no effort to combat the ED behavior this morning despite last night, has got me even more freaked out. I think about treatment options and the reasons why it wouldn’t work:
1.) My job.
If I went into treatment, regardless if it was outpatient or inpatient, I would have to take a medical leave of absence. If I were to be honest with my employer as to why I was seeking a leave of absence, she would definitely let me go, as in permanently. She knows my eating disorder history and states that if anyone on her staff relapses, she will let them go. She will not rehire you until you have five years worth of “sobriety,” or in my case, “abstinence.” I suppose there are ways around this; legally I don’t know if I have to tell her why I’m seeking a leave of absence, but either way my job is potentially at risk. If I lost it, I wouldn’t be rehirable with the same company for five years and the odds of me finding another job in my field in my location? Slim to none right now.
2.) Funds
We are broke. We are barely living paycheck to paycheck right now, and to top it off, one of my step-sons was just in a bad accident (he is okay) and we will most likely be paying a lot of medical bills within the next few weeks/months. Despite my insurance covering treatment for anorexia, I’m sure there will be hidden fees in there somewhere, or the insurance would find some way to screw me over, or it would run out as soon as I gained a pound. Not to mention I wouldn’t be working, and I’m sure even if I went on disability, it wouldn’t be nearly as much money as I’m getting now.
3.) My relationship
There’s a risk my relationship could possibly end, or at least hit a rough patch, if I came to my husband yet again stating the need for treatment. The last time I did this in November, he threatened to leave while I “got my shit together.” Not necessarily a threat at divorce, but a threat to separate, at least temporarily. He made it very clear he thought I shouldn’t need to go into treatment because I had already been there and should be able to recover on my own with the help of OA. He thought I only wanted to go into treatment for attention, because treatment as always been a “trophy” for me in the past.
I just feel so alone and trapped right now. There’s literally nobody I can talk to about this. Even if I were to start small with going back to a therapist, none of the ones my insurance covers are ED specialists, and I don’t think we can afford the $20.00 copay I would be spending every week. Especially with what is going on with my step-son.
So I feel if I wanted to recover, at this point I would have to do it by myself. There’s always OA, but I think I need more than a 12-step program right now. A part of me wonders why I can’t just make the decision to eat 1500 calories a day and start meetings again. It seems so fucking simple. But then there’s apart of me that feels like maybe I’m freaking out for nothing and these chest pains are psychosematic.
But they are SCARING me. I’m scared to the point of wanting to just cry. I want so badly to get checked out by a doctor, but we are so fucking broke I’d feel guilty spending ANY money on this FUCKING EATING DISORDER.
I suppose I could call my insurance and find out what types of tests they DO cover so I won’t be surprised with a $500 bill again. Then I can go ahead and schedule a physical and request covered tests. Anything else, we literally cannot afford.
I’m really scared. And tonight I will be by myself….I hate this.
Adventures in Treatment: Weigh Day
Weigh days are always Tuesdays. Every Tuesday morning, before the sun comes up, a nurse knocks on our door and gives each of us a paper-thin gown. We must take everything off except our underwear and go down the hall to another room where a nurse will weigh us.
As the girls line up, it’s the perfect time to compare bodies; after all, we are all in gowns with our arms and legs now clearly visible. Those of us with blankets wrapped around our shoulders make it a tad bit harder, but it’s here in line where I am most self-conscious of my own body and most comparative with others. There was Cat, who was the thinnest of us all, the only truly emaciated anorectic in the facility. Krista, the only girl shorter than me but around the same weight. Carley, another anorectic thinner than me. A handful of compulsive overeaters, all over the age of 40, who are overweight. And the majority of everyone else — bulimics who are usually of average weight.
The lack of monitoring is unusual for an eating disorder facility. Each room has its own bathroom, and each bathroom remains unlocked unless we lock it ourselves. And although we are discouraged from using the bathroom right before weigh in, it would not be hard for someone to waterload before going to line up. The thought crosses my mind from time to time, but I figure since I’m eating most of my meals, there would be no point. I already know I’m gaining real weight, no need to fool anyone with fake weight.
The nurse who weighs us is the same every time, and what’s strange is this is the only time I ever see her. She’s an elderly woman with white, fluffy hair who never talks and looks as if her eyes could turn you to stone. In the six weeks I’m there, she never talks to me aside from returning the “hello” I give her on Tuesdays. I’m always intimidated by her, and her presence makes me feel like I’m an insignificant spec who she could care less about.
When it’s my turn to weigh, the nurse leads me back into a small room with an old-school balance scale. She has me weigh backwards so I can’t see the number. It’s torture not knowing, especially in those moments when you can hear her sliding the dial back and forth, back and forth, trying to get the most accurate weight possible. If she slides it to the right, does that mean I’m fatter than last week? If she slides it to the left does that mean I’m thinner than last week? It makes me nervous, because past history tells me nurses often take a ball park when they don’t want to wait for the scale to totally even out or when they are too lazy to find the exact number. I hate this about nurses and hope this one takes the time to get my “true” weight (even if I am unable to know what my true weight is).
I hear her scribble down a number (Did I hear her write two digits down? Or was that three? Have I eaten enough to balloon all the way up to a three digit weight?! No, it was two. It had to have been two!). She tells me I’m done. I get off the scale, tell the next girl in line that she is up, and walk back to my room. I change back into my pajamas and lie back down on the bed. I may or may not have been medically cleared to go on the morning walk, but due to miscommunication and nobody double checking, I tell whoever is leading the walk that day that I am not approved to exercise. Other anorectics often ask me why I don’t go, especially because no exercise means faster weight gain, but I tell them the truth: There’s nothing more I hate than waking up at the crack of dawn and exercising.
About two or three weeks after I’ve been there, I’m driven to another hospital to get a bone density scan. The doctor asks me to step on a scale. Out of instinct to follow the rules, I say, “They don’t allow us to see our weight.” The doctor says, “Well, do YOU want to see your weight?” I tell her yes and step on the scale.
84 lbs.
Not counting the huge breakfast and lunch meals that are sitting in my stomach, I have gained probably five to six pounds, gaining roughly 2-3 pounds a week. I am unusually happy about this weight despite hating it, simply for the fact that I expected the number to be much higher.
I am later diagnosed with osteopenia, which I secretly get excited about, but also am disappointed with because it is not osteoporosis. Just another confirmation that I am not sick enough.
