I am out of treatment... I left M House on Monday night. I feel reasonably comfortable about this, as I'm fairly secure in my meal plan these days, managed to recover from a few "slips" on my own, and almost all my overnight and weekend passes had gone without a hitch. Basically, I felt I didn't need to actually be living at M House to continue on the level of recovery I've achieved so far. I wrote up three specific goals when I went to M House, as this was a requirement for going back, and I definitely feel I've made some significant progress on those goals.


1. Eat at least 3 meals and 1-2 snacks daily; also make whatever changes/increases dietician recommends. NO binging and/or purging. - I had a few slips, yes, but they did remain only slips, and I managed to get back on the rails and back to my full meal plan and my no binging, no purging. Currently I usually eat 3 meals and 2 snacks per day, but an extra snack may come into play if I stay up particularly late (night snack), or get up and eat breakfast earlier than usual (morning snack). If I'm having a day where I've been feeling particularly hungry all day, I look at my protein intake, which at least 8-9 times out of 10 is where I've erred (sometimes I'm not paying enough attention and don't get quite as much protein as I should). If I am hungrier than usual, I don't ignore it. I need to feed my body the fuel that it requires to get through a day.


2. Learn and USE new coping skills to help with underlying depression, anxiety, and/or emotional distress (eg mindfulness, distractions, whatever). - I definitely feel that I've done this, too. Positivity ended up being a huge factor in this, actually; I turned my previous thinspo Tumblr (yeah, yeah, I know) into an extremely positive, recovery-oriented Tumblr, and I started seeking out Tumblr and Twitter folk to follow who were posting very positive, helpful messages. Affirmations also helped a little in the beginning, and continue to help when I'm having a particularly bad moment.

Another tool I found invaluable when at the very beginning of my stay at M House was reading. I read several very very good books within the span of a couple of weeks: Jenni Schaefer's "Life Without Ed" and "Goodbye Ed, Hello Me", which were absolutely amazing, as well as a couple of other positive books, or books that really made me think (such as "A Stroke of Insight" and "The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog"). These gave me a really good foundation for outside of myself that #1, recovery WAS possible, evidenced by the fact that someone else had done it and had all sorts of specific and helpful tidbits outlined in her books, and #2, that I was sick not because there was something wrong with me, or because life had done me wrong so often that it was impossible to get out of it, but because bad things happened and my brain did wonky things with the bad stuff. My brain definitely had a predisposition to go "wonky", as everyone's who has mental illness does, and once certain pathways in the brain are set up and reinforced so many times, it becomes easier and easier to think like that. And, of course, when critical pathways are ignored, such as the ability to think non-negatively or to cope with emotions or hard times without disorders, they fade away and get rerouted elsewhere.

So I guess, for me, what made a HUGE difference was realizing that my sickness really was not part of me, but rather was a complex set of layers of brain pathways all trained to go in the wrong directions and make faulty assumptions. Crucial to fixing those, however, was having the new, positive, other-perspective input (such as Jenni's books, or affirmations I felt I could come to believe) to put in there instead. Focusing on the negative never fixes you. Instead of saying something like "I am not worthless", for example, you need to say "I am worthy". In the first statement, even though you're saying you're NOT that, what your brain hears is the word "worthless", which further reinforces the pathway you have built up for worthless. Using "I am worthy" instead will create the new pathway for "worthy" and allow you to start thinking about what makes you worthy, why you feel you're not worthy, etc, so you can work on any issues that crop up, and once you've done that begin to truly believe that you ARE worthy.


3. Come to a greater acceptance of my sexuality. - This is a trickier one, as it's a longer-term issue and involves all the underlying self-esteem issues, my avoidant-type fear of anyone hating me, etc. I did not write this as "Learn to accept my sexuality" for that exact reason. I do believe that I did come to better terms with it during my stay, although I know I would certainly still have my fears about intimacy, certain individuals finding out, etc. However, I think I would be able to cope with things like that if it came down to it, now; and I don't hate myself and my feelings (and desires) with a passion anymore. So there is some improvement there.



And now... I have to figure out what the hell I want to do with my life, and what I need to accomplish to get there. It's figuring out what I want to do that's the hardest part. I am leaning towards a degree in sociology, even though I know it is hard to get a job with such a degree... then again, that's what graduate school could be for, if I decide to go that route. But if I change my degree halfway through, or decide at some point that I don't actually WANT a degree, then I can change, or stop school altogether. I am actually allowing myself to make decisions like that if I want to, which is a BIG step. Before this, I felt basically obligated to get a university bachelor's degree; nothing else would ever do. But if I did decide that trade school, or just jumping into some job, was the better thing for me to do at some point, I WOULD now do it. The fact that what I want to do still coincides with a bachelor's degree is just a happenstance, really. You know?

I think I'm done writing for now. Feel free to send any comments or questions or whatever. It's probable that I've left quite a bit out of this entry that maybe should be here, for better clarity of what exactly has gone through my head in these last couple of months.