g things I have to share. And it’s not because I only focus on the negative – I promise! It’s because life in the clinic is fairly routine and dull, and unless I’m having some kind of emotional crisis, there’s nothing to share. And today I’ve had no emotional crisis. I have in fact had a great (but slightly dull) day.
Today’s psychology task – write two letters. One from my body to me. One from me to my body. Here goes:
This morning I woke to the news one of our founding members, mother to the firstborn of the August 1996 babies (arriving early, in June 1996) passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.
Today I’m very sad. I guess it was inevitable. After 25 years of marriage I don’t normally blink an eye when spending time apart from my significant other – but this is different. We’ve been apart a month and will now be apart another 2-4 weeks. Which in the big scheme of things will become a blip on the radar, but today we’re surfing the blip.
One of our tasks in group therapy today was to “create three characters to live in your own ‘Land of Oz’. Give them each something to search for that YOU are searching for through your eating disorder (NOT related to weight). Give reasons why the Mighty Wizard would say that you already have what you are looking for.”
Today I am afraid of recovery. I’ve been in this place before – where I’ve felt the beginnings of change and then become overwhelmed with the fear of that change and what it might herald. so I rush back to the safe and familiar.
As I may have mentioned once or thrice, I suck at art. And the thought of doing art therapy leaves me feeling cold and slightly nauseated. However, it is also true the art therapist is not only a lovely person, but also a very good therapist. Plus she’s nice to me – and by that I mean, she often lets me write in lieu of drawing. So here’s a few of my art therapy, “works of art”. Spontaneously produced. Unedited. Raw. Cheerless…
I’ve spent a lifetime as a highly anxious person pretending it wasn’t so and secretly not coping. Nobody knew. I hid it. Very well. Now I don’t want to. I want to accept and manage it instead. It won’t solve all my problems but it will be a good start. I have no idea how to manage it…
So in contrast to my previous post on resilience, I now concede that in some areas of my life I can become and behave in an extremely resilient manner. There are areas I need to work on, but for now I’m surrounded by professionals who will gladly work with me towards those goals.
