Atypically Recovering: On My Own No Matter How This Goes

Tag: therapists

  • Looking Back At Food Logs During The Time With The Ex-Therapist

    Image- online search

    TW- brief mention of calories
    Font size is also not what I wanted, so off to figure that out.

    I was looking back at old food logs from about 7 months into “treatment” with my former eating disorder therapist, and was stunned to see that the calorie range was 230-900 calories/day most of the time; 1000 was a BAD day… this was while being told what to eat by the ‘therapist’, who would then tell me I wasn’t eating enough… ??? No wonder my body hung on to every calorie when my dietician told me how to increase calories (she had online access to my food log). During the time when my body was still being starved, my dietician brought up supplements multiple times. Being ‘atypical’, and wanting to lose more weight, I rejected that idea, and my ex-therapist didn’t seem bothered enough to consider them, even when I told her what the dietician had said. I should have listened to the one with the Masters’ degree in nutrition.

    Until I started listening to my dietician, mostly because my ex-therapist wasn’t available and didn’t see messages for days to a week at a time, I was still in starvation mode, and my body wasn’t able to start to repair itself. At all. I went into the calorie increase with the mentality of “just get it over with”, and went a bit too fast. I eventually gained back the 65 pounds I’d lost, and was despondent over it. I still have trouble justifying feeding that thing I see in the mirror.

    At this time, my ex-therapist was missing in action a lot of the time, and had no idea what I’d been eating for months… as someone who was supposed to be managing my food intake. It took a year to finally get a food list from her after multiple promises of “I’ll send you a food list tomorrow” (witnessed by my dietician when ex-therapist called during an appointment one day and joined in). When I finally got it, it read like something from Weight Watchers- not the current view that there should be NO restriction during recovery from restrictive eating disorders, regardless of weight/body size. There is repair work that needed to be done, not sending me into acute renal failure/acute kidney injury for the 2nd time in roughly 2 years, while being ‘guided’ by said ex-therapist.

    There was also the issue with how to measure what I ate. She gave vague spoons of this, or a third mug of that… being diabetic, with kidney disease caused by poor perfusion from malnutrition, and gout, I needed measurements to determine insulin dose and to make sure I didn’t go over protein restrictions. What size spoon? How big is the mug? In the U.S. a mug could be 12 ounces or 20 ounces… I needed standard measurements. That wasn’t about eating disorder ‘behavior’, but for medical safety.

    When my hunger cues started to come back, she told me to eat rice cakes and vegetables. Those are incredibly triggering from the bad relapse in 1996, and while I do like vegetables, that wasn’t what my body needed. Everything was stuck in the outdated clinic methods that so many struggled with that is coming out more and more. I thought I was just being too uptight. She was supposed to get me through this stupid disorder, not contribute to it. She also told me about some horrible rye thin cracker things she likes… it was like eating burnt sandpaper sprinkled with bird shit. AND they’re considered diet foods that I wasn’t supposed to eat according to her earlier ‘rules’.

    I’ve had an NG (nasogastric tube) in for 4 years, with a 2 month reprieve a few months back. I need to have fluids consistently for kidney function to stay where it is and not get me into the stage where transplant lists are discussed (won’t do that), and with food, it’s hard to get it in some days. I am drinking most of the fluids now, but the tube is there for supplementation when I just can’t cram anything else in with slow stomach emptying (result of eating disorder as well as autonomic nervous system disorder). Most of the time, it’s the minimum that gets in, but I do make an effort to do better than that. I didn’t have a tube before starting to eat more, which still isn’t enough. For most of my life, my calorie intake was 700-900/day. There was a period after a 1986 outpatient program that banned diet sodas when I consumed way too much in the way of caloric fluids (and I gained a lot of weight), but otherwise, food intake has always been restricted from the time I was about 6-7 years old.

    So, I’m trying to learn ‘normal’ for the first time (and someone I know sent me a food list for ‘normal’ people), and unlearn the chaos from the last 4 years. There are many days when I just think it’d be better to just get back to my ‘normal abnormal’, and settle where I was for most of my life. I’d eat stuff that wasn’t that great, but in very small portions. I’d also eat healthy stuff, in smaller portions. The idea of just eating what sounds good is something I’d like to do, but don’t think I deserve weighing what I do- and yet I understand metabolic slowdown from restriction. I’m stuck in the space between the trapezes.

    I do eat more now than I did in January and February of 2023, but freak out if I go over X calories/day which is still several hundred less than I’m supposed to eat for my age, weight, and activity level (slug). I’m physically limited enough that even walking outside is risky. I have a cart to hang on to when I take out the trash, and a rolling walker for appointments on flooring that isn’t ‘home’. If I decide that I don’t want what I’d planned out, I have to re-do the entire day to compensate for my whims. This is after 3 1/2 years with the ex-therapist, and the last 2-1 /2 years when I was still a patient of NO input from her at all about what I was eating. So much for “I’ll talk you through every bite if I have to”… which wasn’t what I wanted. I just wanted to get to a place where food wasn’t the enemy, and I didn’t resent having to eat it.

    My dad was preoccupied with his weight (as was my mom), and I asked him several times when he was just going to enjoy the food he wanted to eat. He had no answer, though did loosen up in his later years. Now, I can’t answer that same question, and I’m not getting any younger.

  • Fundamentals of Disassociation: DID

    Fundamentals of Disassociation: DID

    Photo: mine

    There are few good examples of disassociation in TV or movies, and most of those involve people who are sociopathic and homicidal. Those are the very much exceptions to those who have the more extreme form of disassociation, DID, or dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) which will be the focus of this post. The statistics show that between %0.5 – 3 of the population is impacted by DID- which means you probably know someone with DID. Not all presentations of the disorder are the same, just like the reasons behind DID vary somewhat, mostly by degree. It’s widely accepted that severe and ongoing trauma cause DID.
    https://www.mind-diagnostics.org/blog/dissociative-identity-disorder/6-must-know-dissociative-identity-disorder-statistics

    To break it down, I’m going to use the example of a bank. The vault is the mind. In a ‘normal’ person (who frequently disassociates on a mundane drive home from work), memory is stored in the main body of the vault. There is nothing to keep the person from remembering things as they occur, as well as being able to recall things at will. For someone with dissociative identity disorder, the mind is more like the safety deposit boxes. They are secure and separated from the rest of the vault by a locked gate of some type, though still part of the entire vault and bank. When abuse or neglect is so severe that a young child can’t process what is happening, the mind breaks into pieces- as many as are needed- to cope with the abuse that has no sign of ending. There is generally no external support system, as most people with DID were traumatized by caregivers. There’s nowhere to go but inside. For a young child, the caretakers and people most often in their life are supposed to provide safety and security. When that is broken down by repeated and severe abuse/neglect, the child goes ‘inside’ to feel safe, creating an ‘alternate’ (or alter) who holds that pain and trauma so the ‘outside’ (or host) personality doesn’t have to remember or deal with the impact of the trauma.

    The number of alters isn’t necessarily relative to the severity of the trauma. Each person is a bit different with how their system of alters works, and the biggest thing to remember is that it was a survival mechanism to help the child cope with something it didn’t really understand, and to spread out the trauma so that the mind doesn’t break. Most of the time, the host isn’t aware of the others, and there are varying degrees of awareness of others inside and how they work in the ‘system’ as a whole. The alters are consistent in their behavior, speech, preferences, etc- just like a ‘normal’ person, but with many contained in one body, and the host is clueless about the ones inside until something breaks down the barriers keeping the host unaware of the alters. Memory can be an issue for the host and the alters, depending on the communication between them and the specific purpose for the alter. Over time with therapy, there is a better understanding of both the trauma, and how each alter works, as well as the cooperation between them. The core function is self-preservation and protection- not to strike out at external people.

    Most people with DID aren’t obvious. That’s also a survival mechanism. In a world that dislikes things it doesn’t relate to or understand, being ‘outed’ can be a death sentence for various relationships. It’s an invitation to be discredited or have assumptions made that simply aren’t true. The alters can also be exploited (especially younger ones). They can behave in ways that are abhorrent to the host (the one most people know publicly). They can behave in ways that aren’t developmentally in sync with the chronological age of the ‘body’, but not necessarily overtly so. Most have jobs that they are good at (and the employer gets multiple ‘minds’ for the price of one !!). Many have raised healthy kids. On the surface, and with superficial relationships, they are undetectable by design. Some may seem a bit quirky, but nothing that indicates the trauma that they had to survive by any means necessary and available to a young child who has no other ‘out’.

    This is very basic information. Do you have any questions about DID ?

  • Uneventful Few Days, Thank God.

    Uneventful Few Days, Thank God.

    Photo: mine

    This roller coaster of emotions as I work through the therapy trauma as well as trying not to lose too much ground on the recovery front is exhausting, so having a few days without anything chaotic going on has been a welcome relief. I had a few routine semi-annual MD visits, which I never look forward to, but they went OK and the weather was cooler which minimizes driving anxiety with the dysautonomia/heat intolerance. Kidney function is a tiny bit worse but still in the same ballpark as it’s been. Parathyroid levels were still elevated, so bones are at risk (already have osteopenia), but meds were adjusted for that. It’s imperative that I don’t let my carbohydrate intake go too low in order to prevent another round of acute renal failure (already 2x in 5 years from carbs being too low). The NG tube is still responsible for roughly half of my fluid intake, so that is relieving some anxiety about fluid intake, and helps to minimize how much I have to do with one thing that is already hard. Whatever makes this easier is on the ‘approved’ list if it means keeping my kidneys functioning. The rest of the chronic stuff may or may not improve, but my kidneys will decline if I don’t keep carbs and fluids adequate.

    Emotionally, it’s been a bit less mellow, but with that I am fine with letting some disassociation kick in periodically if it means keeping my brain from spinning out. I will go into the disassociation more one day, when I’m feeling less conflicted about the last 4 years… it’s been that long since beginning active discussion with ex-therapist about being one of her patients. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to work through the betrayal and exploitation, but I do hope that day comes. I try to remember good parts, and there were some, especially early on. If I can’t remember more of those times, then I don’t want to remember any of this. I don’t like not feeling like I’m ‘here’ enough to be mindful of what is going on, and at the same time being able to ‘check out’ helps with the days when I yearn for not being here at all. I’m not suicidal… I’m exhausted, traumatized, and overwhelmed. Disassociation can be a gift, even when it also feels weird and awkward to discuss. In some ways, it’s like very deep ‘daydreaming’ that gives my mind a break from current stressors. That’s a bit simplistic, but will do for now.

    It’s been 8 months since the ‘no call’ to discuss the 2nd colonoscopy prep, and since it never happened and the first prep was very noticeably way more than my stomach could hold, even though I didn’t get all of it in, I didn’t have that polyp removal scope. I was in acute severe pain for hours. It felt too physically risky. I have done preps before and was a laxative purger in the early years, as well as the 1995 relapse, so am familiar with how laxatives work. I should never have been THAT bloated or in THAT much pain with the first scope. For the GI doctors I saw, delayed gastric emptying (VERY common with eating disorders) seemed to be a foreign concept. That 2nd colonoscopy was to remove the large polyp and look for the others that were suspected based on the size of the 1.5cm one they got a photo of.

    Her refusal to speak to me as she said she would and degree of apathy spoke volumes. She also tried to tell me about some apparently horrible health issues of her own (vague, cryptic, and “won’t say more because I’m concerned about your health issues”… Uh, SERIOUSLY??) which was on brand whenever she either didn’t want to talk, or had someone else more important to cater to. But, nobody close to her seems to have any clue about any medical issues, so…. ??? It all felt like a way to avoid accountability for her erratic “therapy” and undependable phone call completion rate. Even though she said she was healthy during our first call, I heard about a broken front tooth, multiple issues with a chronic leg problem, asthma, migraines, “a flu” several times (likely food poisoning- IF anything with those since she didn’t report respiratory issues, and influenza IS a respiratory virus), some respiratory infections with no contact for a month, some mystery serious thing that she didn’t have treated- discovered by a pet (which I have heard of, but that she bailed on getting it properly diagnosed was weird- and was flying all over Europe a week after this ‘thing’, so ??), COVID and long-COVID at the same time (not a thing without having COVID before the long-COVID prior to reinfection- in a town with 300 cases among 140K people- and she was one of them? Possible? Yes. Probable? Like desert property in a swamp). Each time she told me of one of her medical issues, a little more detail was added. I was a nurse for 35 years, keeping my continuing education hours up, and some stories simply do not make sense.

    I doubt everything she ever said, especially looking back at patterns. New patient moving in (to her home, or another WhatsApp patient) meant radio silence and not even seeing messages for up to a week or so… she ‘shelved’ current patients who weren’t well yet for new ones who took more time, leaving those of us who were already ‘in’ “therapy” before she took on new ones she didn’t have time for . From online comments and the McClintock book, it always revolved around finding the patients who would likely pay more than those of us who were ‘shelved’ with a bit of ‘breadcrumbing’, though she’d agreed to the rates we all paid prior to starting, OR said she’d keep patients with no additional charges. And then ask for monthly money in varying amounts for her personal or adult child’s expenses (sadly, the older daughter was VERY rarely mentioned).

    People with eating disorders are already pretty good at feeling worthless, and her actions reinforced that I didn’t mean anything to her, especially after going through the money I’d set aside for therapy- and she continued to ask for more with decreasing contact. The “I love you like a daughter” gives me the creeps now. In a few seconds, I went from hoping for an idea that would help get through the colonoscopy prep to feeling absolutely kicked to the curb. Reminded me of one side of the family’s narcissistic callousness. If I would have listened to anyone about the prep, it would have been her. Since then, I’ve refused to speak to her when it was convenient for her. Worthlessness confirmed. “Therapy” done, and failed. All of the bullshit terms of endearment , compliments, agreeing with a LOT- it all feels fake, and I don’t know how long that takes to work through. Writing does help, however, and I thank you who read my yammering on about this. I hope it starts to fade soon.

    I’m not forcing food, but am trying to get in the minimums- though with protein I don’t see a big problem with giving my kidneys a bit of a break. I also have a lot more leg muscle and bicep muscle than 4 years ago. I don’t mind the bicep muscle but the leg muscle just looks like very pale tree trunks, so if that shrinks again, I won’t be at all upset. I’ve removed as many things as possible from the ‘forbidden list’ (as much as I can… works out fine until I try to actually eat ‘fear foods’ and think about the ‘numbers’). If I want soup for breakfast, so be it. If I want cereal for lunch, OK. If I need to get some protein in , but I’m not wanting anything edible, I toss some IsoPure Clear protein into the NG bag. I guess I’m in “whatever works” mode. Kinda like I have been since I was in my teens. It’s kept me alive this long, so I hope I still have time to get back to my baseline eating. It’s still considered restrictive, but I was stable. If I a get back to where I was prior to gaining weight on less than maintenance calories, I’ll evaluate to see if I can tolerate that weight. I don’t have to be an x-ray with skin, but enough lighter to improve mobility, pain, blood sugars, and kidney functioning (not sure about the last one being reversible). My independence depends on it. So, I’m very tired, but hanging on.

    Thank you for putting up with me. And a particular thank you to whoever is reposting these posts.

  • Really Struggling

    Really Struggling


    Photo: mine

    I’m really struggling to feel worth the effort of bothering with any of this stuff any longer. I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to be near food. I don’t care what happens to me. I won’t actively do myself in, but if I got sick enough to become terminal, so be it. I’m tired of being strong. I’m tired of fighting. I’ve been fighting to survive, either physically, mentally, or both, for as long as I can remember. I feel dead inside.

    I’m tired of trying to make sense out of a therapist basically telling me to go ahead and die when she didn’t have the time (after saying she would) to discuss ideas to get the 2 gallon/2 day colonoscopy prep in me. I struggle with 2 liters over a day, with half of that by tube. It felt like she just wanted to be rid of me. She was doing a good job with that already, with the breadcrumbing… but to refuse to talk to me about a procedure that could remove a large polyp and look for more that they suspected ?? To me that just says my life is worthless to the supposed self-worth whisperer. More like the grim reaper’s emcee. A 1.5 cm polyp has better odds of becoming colon cancer than not- and I’m not worth a damn phone call. Others got personal visits in other countries (so I was told), but for me, the phone must have weighed 500 pounds. Couldn’t physically bring herself to do it, so that told me a lot about what she’d been saying since the beginning. A bunch of fake terms of endearment, a ‘special’ name she wanted to call me (variation on my actual name), and the compliments about my sense of humor and ‘wit’, and I believe nothing. My only plan now is never to speak to her again.

    I just don’t see the point in fighting with my body and mind any longer. If I get better, fine. If not, whatever. There isn’t a meal that goes by that I’m not blasted by my ED brain for how fat I am, and how this body doesn’t deserve to eat. I have to ‘earn the right’ to eat by being small enough not to look like a total pig. I’m sick of the roller coaster, and I can’t afford help now… and why would i want to interact with any human after the past 3 1/2 years? It’ll be 4 years ago this coming June that I became a patient of the ex-therapist. One of my worst decisions ever. Every time she didn’t call when she said she would, it reinforced how others were worth more. Sure, stuff comes up periodically- but >%50 of the calls she said she’d make never happened. With the last call she refused to make, my value as a human being was shredded.

    I’m almost wishing that something takes me out – colon polyp turns to cancer, OR the eating disorder finally eats my kidneys once and for all. Just no more “help” from humans. And for all who are struggling to survive something and WANT to survive, I’m sorry, and I wish you the best.

  • I’m So Tired Of All Of This; It’s Hard To Eat In This Body

    I’m So Tired Of All Of This; It’s Hard To Eat In This Body

    Image- general online search

    I don’t know how to do this. There is no interest in food- and not just my eating disorder ‘head’. Physically, nothing sounds good. I have stuff here that I “should” like, but there’s no interest in eating it. I’ve been forcing food that seems “normal” but not anything that stirs up too much fear. I’ve given up on trying to get more protein in. If I happen to want it, OK (still have to limit quantity because of kidneys and gout), but I’m not putting extra effort into seeking it out. I just want to be ‘normal’, whatever that is, and when I look in the mirror, I just see a disgusting body that is not deserving of food. I wouldn’t see someone else, my size or larger, and deny them food- but it’s something that has been in my head for over 55 years. I don’t deserve what others do, even if it’s just food to stay alive.

    I’ve been trying to do ‘low pressure’ foods- like cereal and milk for breakfast, a baked potato for lunch, and some broccoli, rice, and peanuts for dinner. That doesn’t get enough calories or protein in for the day- and I’m sick of forcing the ‘numbers’ to come out right. I don’t want to think about it… and yet it’s all I think about. There is always something in my head telling me not to eat ‘enough’, though I’ve never gotten any consistency with the calorie amount set up as my goal- I haven’t gotten close to that.

    With protein, it seems that a break now and then isn’t such a bad idea if it can reduce the workload of my kidneys. I know a good chunk of the weight I gained when I tried to eat more is because of muscle gain. My legs used to be atrophied enough that the tendon on the side of my leg, near my knee, was visible- and the reason I ended up with a wheelchair for longer distance walking. Now, my thighs are like bricks with some fat over them. My right bicep had basically disintegrated, but now is much larger. I know muscle is good, but I don’t want it if it means more weight, and muscle weighs more than fat.

    I’m still trying, but I’m tired of it. I haven’t quit eating, but I’m not willing to spend so much time trying for something that feels uncomfortably excessive, no matter what the numbers say. I just want to pick at the things I do like and if it works out, fine. If it doesn’t, then so be it. Getting the “food rules” from the ex-therapist out of my head is taking a while, but going better. I’m more interested in being comfortable, and not forcing stuff I have no interest in consuming. I still aim for enough carbs to avoid acute renal failure again, but that’s the most I’m doing right now.

    The worst thing I’ve ever done was go on the extreme restriction ‘diet’ in the summer of 1981… the second was seeking help from someone who ended up causing more damage. Undoing the damage, and also trying to ‘rewire’ my brain by doing the opposite of what my eating disorder head says is exhausting, and doesn’t move very quickly. To get ‘positive’ stuff into my head, I’m using a radio station 24/7 that has upbeat songs (happens to be contemporary Christian music with a lot of mental health ‘boosting’ songs). I do wake up with positive messages from the songs going through my head, so that is good. The volume is low enough not to bother my sleep, but loud enough that if I don’t have anything else on (movies, videos), I can hear the songs playing softly.

    I’m so tired, but I haven’t quit.

  • That Time When I Wondered Why I’m Still Alive

    That Time When I Wondered Why I’m Still Alive

    Image: general online search; not my image.

    Today is one of “those days” when everything seems to trigger a round of crying. I’m struggling physically with food and fluid intake, which makes everything else worse. I’m super protective of any sleep I get. Most people with eating disorders have some sort of trauma in their lives, and I’m no different. I think this was triggered by such a deep sense of loss about many things in my life, set off by seeing the obituary for one of the family friends who’d known me since I was first adopted as a newborn. The rest seems to be a cascade of things that I never would have imagined to be part of my life when I was thinking about how i saw my life as an adult at a much younger age.

    I’m not up for going into a lot of detail now, but I’ve been through various types of abuse. I grieve the loss of so many people. At age 14, the murders of my skating coach’s six kids rocked me to the core. In Austin, Texas, I was raped, beaten, and sodomized for 6 hours, resulting in police shooting the offender in my bedroom after I finally managed to escape when he passed out. He didn’t die, so off to trial. I’ve been through medical abuse and errors. I had acute promyelocytic leukemia that nearly killed me shortly after the first abnormal lab work. I’m disabled to the point of only being able to safely leave home for MD appointments and to pick up prescriptions that can’t be delivered. And few people notice if I’m not around.

    It hasn’t been a year yet since my dog needed to be allowed to go in peace, in my arms at the emergency vet clinic. That is something that still haunts me. It was the right thing to do, and she let me know it was time. She only knew me not working, and we never spent a night apart in 12 1/2 years. She knew when I wasn’t OK, and many times, she’d get on the bed and lie down between me and the edge of the bed, so I couldn’t get up unless she moved. I can’t express how much the loss of that sweet dog has hurt. She was only 3 1/2 when my dad died, so since then, she was my only “in town” family. But I’m also so thankful that I had her as long as I did. She truly was special, even though all of my dogs before her were loved very much as well.

    When I was growing up, and even when I moved away from home after nursing board results were back after the usual 3 month wait after taking boards when I was 22, I always imagined having a husband and kids, and living a fairly ‘normal’ life. My eating disorder was relatively stable when I first moved (that changed quickly). But, it was the rape that really changed things for me. To avoid any pressure to date, I often chose night and/or weekend shifts so I wasn’t available to meet anyone. I’ve never liked bars or clubs, so that was out, and even church was pushed aside because of work hours. I never wanted to be physically close to another man again, and I never was. I dated in high school and nursing school, and those 2 guys were very kind and always treated me well. I knew good guys were out there- but I was afraid of another sociopath being able to find me (I had been targeted specifically for looking like the rapist’s ex-wife). He had planned to dismember me alive before that day/weekend was over, holding a knife under my right breast, asking what i thought I’d look like without it. I never was afraid of “all” men after that, I just didn’t want anything to do with feeling trapped.

    I think about the things that I’ve never known- what it’s like to be a sister, an aunt, a mom, a wife, or to feel what it’s like to be loved properly. I know my folks loved me, and they did their best- and yet they had their own traumas from their childhoods. But I felt like a prop a lot of the time. I had to be worried about ‘family image’ from a very young age, not that I was a ‘mischievous’ kid. It was just made very clear to me not to tell anyone how I felt unless it was all sunshine and daisies. Even when I was suicidal in junior high and high school, I was in big trouble when I answered a depression screening honestly that a teacher gave me in the hall at school after noticing that I was struggling. Dad was the principal at that school, and my guidance counselor (another family friend) approached dad with the teacher’s concerns after she told him about the depression screening. I needed to move away from home so I could just be me. And to get help if I needed it, and I did.

    I believe that there must be some purpose for me still being around, even when my ability to work as a nurse was cut short nearly 22 years ago. It feels like all I’ve ever done is try to survive, and my body is struggling with the stress of all of that. The last year, with therapy being irreparably destroyed, has been the hardest because it was so personal. I doubt Ex-therapist would agree with that, but she doesn’t get to dictate how it feels on my end. The rape wasn’t personal- I was targeted, but anyone who looked like his ex-wife would have been- and I’m kind of a ‘generic’ looking person, at least back then. Both changed something in me forever. I’ve survived a lot, and it’s exhausting. I have no interest in dying, but I need to find something to help when the grief and reminders get really hard. I’m having a lot of trouble with nausea and feeling full with not a lot of food, or having to tube fluids because I can’t tolerate the volume of fluids and food. The amount may be the same, but how quickly they go in is different.

    It’s hard not to know what is going on with the large colon polyp, or what impact that will ultimately have on my lifespan. And, even if I knew, I doubt it would change what i would do. My kidneys couldn’t handle chemo, and daily radiation for X number of weeks would be way too physically demanding. The GI docs won’t consider a prep that I could handle volume-wise, so that makes it impossible to remove the polyp. Not being allowed to speak with my ex-therapist (as she said she would) about possible ways to make the huge prep (2 days, 2 gallons) easier was the emotional equivalent of being told that I’m disposable. I’d already flunked the Cologuard, the colonoscopy when the polyp was found, and colon abnormalities were seen on an MRI of my pelvis (also had an endocervical biopsy last summer).

    I go through days like this periodically, and since i don’t really have anyone to talk to, I write.

  • Birthdays With An Eating Disorder

    Birthdays With An Eating Disorder

    Photo- mine

    Birthdays (or any holiday or gatherings around food) are painful for people with eating disorders. I’d hoped to do better this year, but fell short. The ‘plan’ was to order something I wanted without regards to the nutritional information (calories and macros in particular), but it didn’t quite turn out as I planned.

    I did manage to get a 5″ cake, but it tasted of the phony ingredients in the sprinkles, so it was disappointing. I did eat about a cupcake’s worth of it. I got a side order of Popeye’s Red Beans & Rice, which I did get down, along with a biscuit. Then things went sideways. I wanted to have a single burger from Culver’s, and onion rings, but when I put those into my food tracker, I freaked out at the total “numbers”, even though I was below my eventual calorie range. It was too much of a jump from where I’ve been.

    This goes on with holidays as well. I’ve got a friend who always invites me to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter meals with her family, and has for years. I have a lot of reasons for not going that don’t involve my panic at eating around other people, or other eating disorder freak out triggers. The dysautonomia makes temperature regulation away from home difficult, and requires that I have an ice vest and extra inserts (so another big bag to lug around). My stomach also reacts to hot food, and that can be rough away from home if it sends the meal careening towards the ‘back door’ in a hurry, which isn’t great at someone else’s home where more people will be using the same bathroom. And hot food can trigger a full blown autonomic ‘episode’ where I end up passed out from my BP dropping too low. I also can’t have various foods in ‘normal’ amounts because of diabetes and kidney disease, or much animal ‘flesh’ protein because of gout. I don’t like a lot of holiday food (pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes, cooked carrots, etc). So, I suck at being a guest. I don’t like to stick out as some weirdo.

    The eating disorder is also a factor. I feel too fat to eat around other people, even though I think nothing of someone larger than I am (or smaller) eating whatever they want. It’s a holiday- have fun ! Eat the goodies ! But not me. My eating disorder ‘voice’ tells me that when I’m small enough, THEN I’ll ‘deserve’ to enjoy food– not just put something in to make the “numbers” look good. I haven’t eaten around anyone (and that was in the car after initial COVID vaccines) since 2021. I haven’t eaten IN a restaurant since 2017, and that was with my uncle. I know nobody is paying attention to what I’m doing when they’re out having a nice time, but I still feel like what I see in the mirror isn’t deserving of food. Not knowing the exact nutritional information is also hard- some of that is necessary for insulin dosing and not exceeding daily protein amounts, but some is just panic.

    I want to be able to just enjoy a holiday like a ‘normal’ person, but I haven’t been to a holiday dinner with family or friends since about 2002. I would go after meals and hang out for a while, but always skipped the food, using the dysautonomia as an excuse (and it is a valid one), But the food part is what scared me more. I grew up going to big family Swedish Christmas Eve parties, and love those memories. I try to get some of those foods to have at home, alone.

    Birthday is a wrap, so on to what to do about Thanksgiving. I’m thinking about doing a Cornish game hen- small enough not to be intimidating, as well as not having as much waste because i can’t eat a lot of it (I can freeze the extra). Maybe some stuffing. I WANT to eat that. I hope I do better in a few weeks. I am determined to get well. It’s just slow going, with trial and error. I don’t feel like I necessarily failed today- but I do think I’m learning how to minimize panic, while eating things that are still scary. The cake may have sucked, but I still ate it. Next time, I’ll get something different. Live and learn.