Crossposted from another blog.


What I wrote on Twitter today got me thinking. Let me write it here for you. And maybe expand upon it a bit.

One thing I have to accept about recovery is that my life will probably not be as "interesting" after this. The rapid downward progression has a feel of accomplishment to it, when in that negative headspace. But I know now that ED is not REAL accomplishment. It's an illusion, designed to keep me sicker, designed to shield me from the bruises and scariness of real life. But sometime I have to learn how to handle real life, no matter how I might dislike it by times, no matter how "boring" it may seem. It is what it is.

I lost more than I accomplished with all this. I lost school. Student loan security. Even financial security. All gone because of ED. And what did I get? Being thin? How is being thin worth all that loss? How did I warp things so highly?


To be honest, I don't think I believed any of this loss could or would happen. Somehow I believed the glue of everything would hold together while I tumbled further and further down the rabbit hole. Maybe because things always "held together" before.

But I didn't factor in one major, important variable: Economics. Economics, something I never had to worry about before, have now basically proceeded to fuck me over. For my next student loan I'm looking at having $2000 taken out of whatever they give me, which I am now going to have to attempt to save. This means I'm going to have to get a job, one I probably won't like a whole lot, and scrimp and pinch in order to save the necessary cash. This is going to take quite a long time. My other option is to continue to work full-time, and do one or two courses every semester until I get the necessary number done. I think it would be a little easier to work full-time for... what, maybe a year or so... and be able to take the school year off to do courses, and work again during summers, like I had planned before. Of course, this all depends on if I can get student loan to actually give me the money I need to be able to live during the semester. Which I hopefully still can, but there's no guarantee.

Right now, though, I am on financial assistance. Yes, government assistance. And, yes, it is a fairly big blow to my pride. It's also the sort of thing that doesn't necessarily have a timeline. I know I should stay on assistance until I know this particular acute episode of ED/mental illness actually IS gone, and won't come back. But how long is that going to take? Four months? Six? Longer? And what of the fact that I can seem to somewhat hold things together right now... you know, because I'm mostly eating my meal plan, not b/ping nearly as much, etc. Could this mean I don't need the ED treatment as badly as I did before, the way my head says as it nags at me?

The truth is, considering how acute I WAS, they may still take me. But will I benefit from this treatment? I have noticed that many of the days I get triggered are the ones I actually go to the clinic... the ones where I have to talk about ED directly, and do so with people who actually understand ED. Does that mean I actually need to go (though sometimes I doubt how much I need it), or is it somehow making me worse? Or maybe being there just temporarily takes the veil off the real, underlying issues, that somehow I'm suppressing right now in order to try and be meal plan compliant, and not do ED behaviors. I do know I'm having a decent bit of anxiety, existential depression. Is it possible that the ED program could have something to offer me in terms of resolving the things that caused the ED in the first place? I mean, I think that's what they try to do. But isn't that what all my current treatment (psychologist, social worker, psychiatrist, etc) is aimed at? But maybe that ED focus also needs to be there, working on me from that perspective.

I just really don't know what I think about any of this anymore. I am continuing forward with trying to go to the ED clinic simply because I have done so much towards trying to go to it already, and I don't want to chickenshit out now. I know I do need SOME support. The dietician stuff is the only thing keeping me on track at all with eating. I feel like without that support... without someone to check in with, to help me try and be more logical about food... I could not do this meal plan, and possibly would not even WANT to. So maybe that indicates right there that I do need this ED clinic. I don't know. The dietician I have was only intended to be temporary anyhow, and she can't exactly help with the psychological issues. I know there are limitations in that regard. So maybe I need this clinic more than I think I do. Maybe maybe maybe.

All I know is that I couldn't have stopped this. For some reason, I desperately needed ED when I was engaging in it. I still don't know all the reasons why. I do know my last month at the halfway house partially helped to fuel it; but I could have taken other ways of self-destructing. Yet it was ED I chose. Why? Because I wanted to be thin? Because I thought being thin would be a wonderful accomplishment? But WHY did I think that? Why am I still so scared that they're going to make me gain more weight? How can I be convinced that maybe my ED isn't so bad just because I'm mostly able to follow a meal plan now?

I am so very very confused. The thoughts run around in my head in circles. And amid all of this I'm having to fight that anxiety and depression because of the money issues, because of the boredom... having nothing productive to do with my time, not feeling useful, etc. I just don't know what to do, except to try and keep on trucking, and distract myself, and eat these meals and these snacks. It's just that right now there's this emptiness within me that I'm trying very hard to ignore, because if I give into it I'm going to want to do ED behaviors. So it basically means I can't really feel anything I'm feeling. No wonder I feel so empty.

Maybe the clinic can teach me how to feel emotions again without going insane. That would probably be a useful skill. I wonder if that's even possible.