Prozac

In the spirit of celebrating recovery, I'd like to give a shout out to my 6-month anniversary with Prozac. Our first months together have been full of surprises, mostly not good as of late, ups and downs with a strong inclination towards down, and extremely volatile, bordering on unstable. So, Prozac, consider this a break up call.

But really, while I'm notoriously quick to make excuses, I'm honestly questioning my emotional and physical wel-being after the past six months. Everything seemed to prove dramatically during the first month of treatment and even in the real world after, but I think I was too quick to attribute changes to the Prozac, instead of giving myself some credit.

Now, as I'm starting to seriously struggle, the benefits I once assumed were directly related to meds, have disappeared. Instead, I've adopted a case of crippling depression and anxiety. Mostly anxiety. I'd like to think it's just a result of 6 months of sobriety, a transient stage that soon will pass. Instead, I'm forced to face physical evidence including blood pressure high enough to qualify me for pre-hypertension, severe mood swings causing ends of precious relationships, and a complete ack of care about anything at all, including any progress I've made in eating, drinking, and exercising.

I've read several memoirs recently about young women with eating disorders exacerbated by co-occurring mental disorders like borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder. I've also always wondered if my issues, particularly my fondness of exhausting routines, may stem from obsessive compulsive disorder. Medications management of these disorders is NOT Prozac, and I'm wondering if some of my recent symptoms could be related to misdiagnoses.

I still remember questioning my initial diagnosis of depression because while I do feel sad, lost, and hopeless sometimes, these emotions are rarely overwhelming. Instead, my physical reactions to certain situations (for example, shaking when I'm forced to face foods I'm not comfortable with or feeling my chest tighten if my schedule changes to impact my planned exercise) indicate anxiety.

Fortunately, I have an upcoming appointment with my psychiatrist (who is about my age and seems way uncomfortable around me... I don't bite dude, and definitely not you). I'm going to compile some evidence documenting my recent even further decent into madness, that may coincide with the Prozac and see what happens.

Anyone out there have any particularly good luck with meds? Please help...

Three steps forward

Yesterday was my sister's birthday. We went and got tattoos! 

Three footsteps representing my steps away from bulimia, anorexia, and alcoholism. 

Always progress forward! 

Black and white thinking

I met with my sponsor yesterday before an 8pm meeting and we chatted quite extensively about black and white thinking, all or nothinc mentality, deprivation versus excess. The similarities between alcoholics and those with certain eating disorder tendencies is quite phenomenal and more and more apparent as I try to tackle both issues.

Recovery from alcoholism involves no spectrum, no holding onto habits, no intuitive consumption. The recovering alcoholic does not drink alcohol, plain and simple. All recovery strategies involve replacing a with b. The recovering anorexic/bulimic cannot simply remove their substance of choice as that's the strategy that got them a diagnosis in the first place!

I am certainly finding that abstaining from drinking is leaps and bounds easier than the eating disorder addiction my mind can't let go of. It's so much easier for me, as an addict, to remove completely; anything that must be constantly adjusted on a spectrum becomes damn near impossible. It is not a cookie for me - it is no cookies forever or all of them. Just lije drinking was never one beer, it was all of them to blacking out and not being able to walk or, well, never none.

I have to learn how to manage substances, including food on a spectrum and eliminate this black and white thinking if I truly want recovery. Ain't no way around it.

Recovery Ain't Easy

I haven't posted in a while because I've been so busy and focused on the momentum I carried out of residential. Luckily, I'm still on track and feeling positive though a stint in residential is ny no means a quick and easy fix. While P, my friends, and my family are easily convinced that I'm fixed as I scarff down breakfasts of oatmeal, lunches of veggie wraps with cheese and mayo, and dinners as wild as BBQ pork sandwiches, I still hear the eating disorder.

My biggest struggle has been resisting the urge to compensate for my daily food intake through exercise or sobriety. I'm over 45 days sober, but sometimes I worry it's the calories I'm avoiding instead of the fact that I'm likely an alcoholic. Either way, sobriety is helping me in every way except inducing hangovers bad enough to prevent over-exercising. Today at therapy, we worked on exploring how I'm still compensating and yes, occasionally purging and the impact of these behaviors on my recovery. I've vowed to keep a food and exercise log in an effort to keep myself in check, reimplement an escort system at home to make sure I'm not given the chance to purge after meals, and take a Boost every day I'm running to gain the weight my body lost after residential.

I am not going to have a completely perfect recovery process and that's okay. As long as I'm moving in the right direction, exploring the triggers underlying slip-ups, and trying my best to challenge all eating disorder thoughts, I can be very proud of myself every day.

Plans

Plans are always just plans without action.

First, I planned to lose weight by not eating anything but cereal and fruit as a senior in high school. I planned to run 8 miles every day, in addition to intense soccer practices and tournaments for my competitive soccer team. I planned to avoid social situations and restaurants where eating is not avoidable. I planned to have control, be perfect, and look the part. After I succeeded in losing 20 pounds, reaching a goal weight of 104 right before college, I was skinny enough to raise some red flags around school and home, prompting my pursuit of thin even more.

In college, I planned to maintain my thin physique and even lost weight during my first semester as a freshman soccer player. 100. What I didn't plan for was the introduction of alcohol to my lifestyle. Alcohol took hold in a way I could have never anticipated, made me relax, and loosened my grip completely on controlling my diet and exercise. The more I drank, the less I cared. Until drinking because the norm and the feelings of fat, ugly, and out of shape set in.

What I also didn't plan for was learning how to purge. I learned to purge during college by trying it once. I was somewhat of a natural, or at least had the ability to purge food fairly easily. Having the wherewithall to purge changes your life forever. It provides a guaranteed sense of guilt for keeping anything down. This aspect of an eating disorder can make everything so much more complicated. You don't want to eat, but you know you can and have minimal consequences on weight - at the expense of heavy consequences on health and quality of life. Learning to purge set the stage for the rest of my life. I type this blog 7 years after learning to purge and the repetitive emptying of my stomach has resulted in an inability to hold anything down. I purge hands-free now, simply bending over and releasing. Try recovering from that, even if you want to.

I have always planned to start living my life without my horrifying habits and binding eating disorder. I've always thought I could shake it if I really and truly tried. In recent years, I have started to hate feelings of fear and anxiety that accompany every bite of food and obsession with burning calories through exercise. I desperately want to be like my friends and significant others, giving zero thought to planning meals, exercise, and calories. No more calculating and recalculating calories in and calories out. No more undereating, overdrinking, and obsessive exercise. No more obsession over deviations in life that cause deviation in plans.

I planned to get over my eating disorder in college as a Nutrition and psychology major, then as an intern studying to be a Registered Dietitian in graduate school, and then as a PhD student studying, you guessed it, Nutrition. But as life progresses through ebbs and flows, trials and tribulations, and constant stress and strain, the eating disorder and associated issues persist, flaring up and subsiding slightly, but always existing.

Sometimes, more often than not, facing your fears requires changing your plans. Day treatment was an attempt to change my plans by facing my fears, but it's not enough for me. On Monday, I start residential treatment for my eating disorder, exercise addiction, and alcohol abuse after relapsing heavily over the past week and a half. Today, I've run 19 miles, thrown up 4 times and keeping no food down, and weigh 98 pounds. I am ready for treatment and I'm ready to be healthy and happy. I am ready. I am terrified, but I am ready.

Downward spiral

Last night, P and I went out for drinks with a crew of rowdy friends to a bar where we notoriously drink too much. After purging any substantial food I ate (except a small bowl of oatmeal and a pack of peanut butter crackers), I let my anxiety and exhaustion get the best of me. P and I got into a big fight which has been the norm lately. We went out, having settled nothing with my stomach growling and 2 shots already coursing through me. I think we can all speculate how this ended.

I don't remember most of the ride home, but I remember the feeling of thinking this break up is for real...we really are over this time. I hate what I put this wonderful man through and I constantly feel guilty and resentful at myself and my eating disorder. We go around in circles, with me apologizing for everything, assuming I'm always doing something wrong, and finally apologizing for apologizing. It becomes increasingly true what they say, I cannot fully love someone who tries so hard to make me happy and make things work until I can love myself. I hope that happens sometime very soon because I fear the fighting and the tears and my inability to trust when P promises, over and over, he does want to be with me, regardless of my problems, is doing irreversible damage.

This morning I wake up with bruises and scrapes, mementos of my drunkenness and pain. I wake up with a gnawing hangover and the urge to binge and purge and make the hurt go away. I know none of this will do me any good, but I know I'll spend the rest of this beautiful Sunday fighting the already embedded urge. P and I resolve our fight and seem to be in a much better place than last night, but I'm still so damn disappointed with myself, my stubbornness, and my inability to maintain a functional relationship without bringing my partner down with me.

It's all or nothing with me right now and I'm afraid I'm teetering on a very dangerous, very narrow edge, close to giving up.