A whole week has passed..

It's been a week since I last wrote in here, but that does not in any way mean I haven't been considering my current position and where-to from here, in fact, it's been a busy week in that regard, and I've come up with the beginnings of a plan. After re-reading some recovery stuff I've decided that I really do need to give up my scale (or at least weighing) in order to reduce the focus of food and weight and consequently e.d. behaviours. I don't know how i'm going to go, but I see this literally as the only thing left I can try in order to bring about some change. I'm going to weigh myself for one last time tomorrow morning and then aim for one month scale free! I think it's a realistic goal, it wont be easy, but it should be enough time to see if there is a shift in my thinking. I have tried to remove all the mirrors that I can, as I know this will increase the likelihood of other body-checking behaviours, and am going to give it a real shot. I haven't decided what i'm going to do about my food or exercise yet, a part of me wants to move back in to the carrot and lettuce stage, another part of me wants to just enter the purge everything stage, while another part of me wants to try a protein shake in place of a real meal. In regard to exercise, I want to give up hockey, thus removing the need to perform (and therefore fuel myself adequately). I would be quite happy to embark on a weight lifting programme and continue running, while maintaining my one evening of squash. I just feel so guilty bailing out on the team at this stage in the season :(  It has been so nice having the last four weekends at home spending time with my family- they really miss out when i'm playing as it's such a large commitment with trainings and travelling.

I ended up going to my GP last week and going back on buspar. I'm on the same dose and am just going to deal with it for now. I also saw Lynne my psychologist from the e.d. specialist service. Nothing miraculous came out of that session, I just told her I had stopped restricting, purging, and exercising for the past two weeks (it's three now), and we talked about what it was that was able to pull me out of the lapse. I basically just told her that I can't afford to be dragged back in to the disorder and end up medically compromised and in hospital again, only to be forced to eat and gain the weight back again- it's just a cycle I've engaged in for far too long. And what have I gained from this cycle? Absolutely nothing. It has not fixed a thing, only occupied years and years of my life. I don't even want to go into what it has taken from me or potentially destroyed.

So from here i'm going to try something new. I'm going to stop weighing, but will probably keep with MFP at this stage, just so I have some concrete evidence at the end of this all. I could just keep my own log, which in fact may be more useful, as it could give the time of consumption, which MFP does not allow for. And by this I could also be reducing my focus on calories and macro nutrients as well. Okay, i'll run with this. And at the end of the month (so beginning of July) I will assess how things have gone, and if necessary, can then get an appointment with the dietician for further input. Ahhh the anxiety!! LOL. My next appointment is on the 10th so I can share this goal then, talk about how i'm finding it, and hopefully be encouraged to keep at it for the remainder of the month.

I shall let you know how I fare.

Sundays' end

Here we have ourselves, nearly 8.00pm, both girls are in bed, and my first moment to myself all day. I do realise that i'm a selfish person, please don't be bothered by this, I just really didn't think through the implications this would have on my life as I brought children in to the mix. Anyway, it's been a rather awful day mood-wise for me. I've been as irritable as shit, and raging at my dear children far too frequently. This in turn has me feel terrible yet it's too late to do anything about it, as it's out and left my mouth already. And it's not just what I say, but the manner in which I deliver it, i'm fucking angry, and it's such an inappropriate degree of emotion, and it drives me up the wall. This is the very reason I went on medication, and shit me, I think it actually worked, despite me thinking it wasn't doing jack. I've been off the Buspar for four whole weeks now, and boom, irritability, sleeplessness, rage- all different manifestations of the same thing #ANXIETY. I know I really don't have a choice as to where I go from here, basically it would be in everybody's best interest if I resumed with the prescription, but I was on the highest dose, taking 4 pills 3x a day- that wore me down after time, and I started missing doses here and there, and that's when I thought "oh hey, i'm hardly taking them anyway, they mustn't be working" and so stopped taking them altogether. There is an alternative though isn't there. I could try to 'manage' my anxiety, and this would be all fine and dandy if I knew when it was about to hit, but it just like blindsides me and rarh i'm yelling and physically restraining myself from doing anything stupid, so perhaps i'm not quite at that stage yet, trying to manage these multiple episodes? But oh the shame in returning to my GP for a script renewal. She wont even blink if I ask her, it's more of the internal dialogue I feed myself in regard to how inept I am at being a stable functioning human being that is worse, but it's all part of the same process. For my children's sake however, I will put myself through whatever I have to, to ensure they have the best foundation for a "successful" life that I can offer them. One filled with unconditional love, warmth, acceptance, appreciation, communication, availability both physically and emotionally, positivity, nurture, and physical contact. It is definitely not an easy task being a mother, the toughest role one can ever elevate themselves to. All I can hope is that I do not fuck up too much with my daughters and they grow into caring, and generous girls whom know they are loved and love in return.

On another note, the e.d. front- I weighed myself. Not smart, nor stupid, just is. My weight is the same as it has been, as in I gained back the kilo or so I lost while running too much and eating too little, so i'm right back where I started nearly a month ago. Ha, what a fucking waste of time all of that was. Two weeks of beating myself into submission and denying myself, followed by a week of exhaustion whereby I couldn't bring myself to even think about jumping on the treadmill or going to any hockey trainings, though eating as though food was the only activity/exercise/past time worthy of my attention, followed by a further week of physical ailments and further eating though in a more modified manner. So I find myself right back where I started, with the same dislikes, the same goals, but perhaps i'll need to come up with a new mode of achieving them. I do not have time for anymore futile cycles, I have done my years with that, so anyone with any legitimately worthy advice for stripping bodyfat and achieving some hot shapely legs, i'm open to suggestion!!

Childrens' Parties and more Childrens' Parties

Today is the weekend for parties for my dear 4 year old. She had three of her preschool friends turn 5yrs this week, and all have their parties at the same time. We managed to squeeze in two today (with mama missing out on her hockey game), with another one still to come tomorrow. It's so interesting to stand back and witness what happens at these events, as there are notable differences between the children themselves and the adults. The children are typically very excited to be moving on in their venture towards school, while the parents are left pining their 'baby' whom is growing up so fast, starting school already. I wonder if this is considered a loss for some, and for those people, a process of grief must be traversed. Anyway, what I really came to write about this evening is that I've come up with a plan! Starting today I have begun recording emotions that I recognise throughout my day, I then rate them using a 1-5 scale for intensity, and briefly state what happened. I am going to do this for the next three weeks, then when I see Veronika next submit this to her, discuss any patterns that may have emerged, or if there were better coping strategies I could have used to diffuse the situation etc. I'm feeling pretty good about this, as it means i'm actively doing something, and can have documented evidence of change over time.

After my purchases at Lush the other day, I've also started to indulge myself just a little. I really like how clean my facial block is leaving my skin, and am particularly in love with the massage body bar, it smells divine and is heavenly when applying, requiring the time to give yourself a quick wee massage. So this has become a time of self-soothing/self-nurturing for me.

I also managed to cook up a few chicken breasts this evening to freeze in portions for my lunches over the next week. Tomorrow I will bake the sweet potato, or cook up the brown rice which i'll add to the meal, and walah, lunch meals are taken care of. I'll throw in some lettuce leaves and tomato to give it a bit more colour (it's not going to add to it nutritionally or anything), and perhaps I will have it with a cup-of-soup or something given the unfortunate season of Winter is now upon us #cry.

Eugh! I just lost half of my post, and am too frustrated to re-write it now, so am going to call it a night and go and engage in some distress tolerance skills to calm me down (only half joking) xx.

Wednesday- before and after

Wednesdays are my scheduled day off, which are typically occupied by appointments of differing natures. This Wednesday I was due to see my trauma therapist. I went shopping for a couple of hours before hand and felt great! Bought some new products at Lush to try (for myself!), spent some money on the girls at Smiggle, and a large wall planner at Kikki-K to position right in front of my treadmill. I went in to my session feeling pretty good after the crisis i'd had over the previous week or so, rested, recovered, and ready to go back to work and carry on. For the most part my time spent in session was fine, nothing overly triggering, more of just a catch-up session filling Veronika in on what had transpired over the last couple of weeks since last seeing her- how I went from distressed crisis mode, to dissociated shut down mode, to making some firm commitments in regard to e.d. behaviours again, taking a couple of days off work to regroup mentally before really crashing and burning. And all went well. But the moment I walked out the door I was confronted with immense sadness, tears, and a general overwhelming mass of emotion. I panicked, as I do when having to experience or contend with any emotion, called my husband and asked if he could pick the girls up from daycare as I was unable to, and then text him telling him I wasn't coping and needed some time to process whatever it was that was going on (insight is not my forte), but that I was going home. He text back and said okay, but we needed to talk about all of this tonight. The mere thought of having to articulate anything, and particularly with my husband, of whom I do not communicate with in regard to any of my "mental health" issues had me near retching. On the one hand I wanted to take this "opportunity" where my emotions were right here on the surface and therefore reachable to start the process of working through them/enduring them/discovering what was at the root of them, and then dealing with that, but fear and anxiety cripple this ability within me, and have me run from them time and time again, hence why I continue to return to the same damn dysfunctional and maladaptive coping strategies year after year. I desperately wanted this time to be different- here was my opportunity to move beyond this static place I find myself and progress. Yet, I failed. I got home, I busied myself, the girls arrived home, family life continued, dinner, bath, bed.. and then bed and my kindle for me to escape the horrors of the last couple of hours. My husband tried to talk about what was going on, I was unable to give him any answers, everything was numb and unavailable. He left me to go do a workout, of which I was grateful.

Thursday morning rolls around, and i'm ready to go back to work and get on with life. Come 2pm and my vision starts to roll with holographic images, I can't focus on any single one thing, I get all hot and flushed and start sweating, and feel like i'm about to burst into tears as if in shock. This lasts about 20mins at which time a headache and nausea take it's place- welcome to a migraine. I walk through to the office and am greeted with comments on how pale/green/awful/unwell I look, and admit that I don't feel well. I push through until 4pm and then relent and say I need to go home. I have co-workers offering to drive me, but feel guilty for their concern and do not want to put anybody out. I come home, arrange for my inlaws to collect the girls from daycare, and go straight to bed, and sleep for 2 hours. I felt better (and hungry) upon waking, so go downstairs and join in with family happenings. I put my youngest to bed and go back to bed myself, leaving my husband to deal with my 4yr old for the remainder of the evening.

And here I find myself, Friday morning, my inlaws have taken the girls back to daycare, and i'm having another day at home, resting, and trying to recover from whatever I have going on at the moment. My therapist suggests I start reading some books on trauma and what people have done to overcome their pasts, but upon searching Amazon there were none that really stood out for me and took my interest. She wants me to start desensitizing to things, by reading about them, talking about them, blah blah, but what really is there to say? I'm so detached from everything that took place in my childhood, and have built such tremendous walls around everything that accessing that 'little girl' is near-impossible. I say near, as there have been moments where I've been able to trust in somebody enough to feel the appropriate things and make headway in this area, but that was 9 years ago while in residential treatment, and probably not until 9 months into my stay! I finally came to a place where I felt safe on all accounts- physically, psychologically, and emotionally, and could afford a little vulnerability and authenticity. I experienced perhaps for the first time what it meant to feel unconditional love and acceptance.

Now I read today that as an adult you can offer this to yourself, that you need no longer be that child looking and longing for somebody else to fill this role for you. I need to read more, for as things stand, I am not convinced that this is the case. It is an interesting view point, and one in which I will research in depth, for if it indeed can support its' claim then maybe the end of my recovery journey is nearer than currently perceived. I shall keep you informed.

Another beginning

I need to recommit to recovery- no more pseudo recovery which appears lovely on the surface, but an authentic recovery which provokes movement. As things stand, I've been stagnant for too long. I continue to hold on to behaviours, even in their mildest forms, for fear of what would happen if I truly decided to embrace freedom. Yes I still have my hang-ups over weight, shape, and size, but in the past 18 months I have proven to myself that I can actually survive (emotionally, psychologically, and physically) at this higher weight. And while there are still days whereby it's all very distressing and I long for nothing more than to lose it all again, they do pass, and life carries on generally in an amiable way.

I took photographs of myself today, full length ones clothed only in my underwear. The results I found most upsetting. And of course I would, so why did I do it? I don't know- perhaps I thought I may have pleasantly surprised myself, perhaps i'd assumed the three weeks of over-training i'd just done would've had an impact on my composition, or perhaps I was looking to demean myself in such a manner to spark some motivation to run and starve again? One would think after having done that, that this would be enough trauma to put oneself through in a day, but apparently I wasn't finished yet. I then weighed myself, and then calculated my bmi. I was such a mess at the end of this process I thought i'd b/p to relieve some of the anxiety. Given it was now lunchtime I started with soup and a croissant, and then I heard the whisper of truth or reality or whatever you want to call it, and let the urge pass. It did, but the guilt remains over the croissant (this does not fit with my 'clean' eating standard), but i'm getting there.

Tomorrow I see my therapist. It's been three weeks since my last appointment and much has happened. Not so much in my physical world, but emotionally and psychologically. I wont be able to articulate all that has come and gone in that time, I can only hope to remember the more prominent parts of it and bring those to light, but even then i'll be lucky to present anything. I just do not remember things. However, in this case, I do remember how awful I've felt, how stressed and overwhelmed I've been, and my desire to run away and isolate from the world and everything/everyone in it.  It really is quite unfortunate for me in these times that I have two little girls whom require their mommy. If not for them I doubt my commitment to change and recovery. This has been over a 20 year battle for me, so I don't expect miracles to happen, but for the sake of their lives I do hope for greater degrees of freedom than what i'm currently experiencing, and not just in regard to e.d. behaviours and body image, but in joy, expression, relationships etc. I'm working towards the bigger picture.