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Tag: relapse

BACK DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

While you’d think fear and loathing around body size would make me eat less and move more – proven methods of weight loss – it does in fact increase my anxiety which makes me eat more food, more often, and much faster. Counter intuitive. But my reality. This in turn makes me more unhappy and I find myself in a vicious downhill spiral.

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SUNSHINE

My inclination is to run and hide and bury my head – old habits die hard. But if there is one thing I have achieved this year, it’s to stop using eating disorder and self-harm behaviours to numb my emotions. They are becoming non-options. That’s not to say I don’t think about it, miss it, want it, and feel tempted to slip. I’m moving closer and closer to accepting they’re no longer an option for dealing with life.

COMING UP FOR AIR

During the last week I had a rapid escalation in suicidal ideation. As each day became more exhausting than the last, the desire to succumb to eternal sedation was overwhelming. I sobbed my little heart out in a manner I can’t recall doing for a long, long time. I could have reached out to any one at any moment in time, but when I desperately yearn death, the last thing I can do is tell anybody. Telling means acquiescing to living and I have to be ready for that. But more significantly, telling someone means burdening them once again with sadness and worry.

SWAMPED

My house flooded. It’s a bit of a bummer really. And caused a lot of angst and stress. We’re fortunate in many (most) ways – floors are ruined but no structural damage, and we have good insurance to cover most of the repairs. But getting flooded is a pain in the arse. Aside from extra expenses insurance doesn’t cover, it’s a week of packing up the house to store in the shed, and several weeks of living without floor coverings while listening to the gentle roar of three industrial fans. It’s also forced us into unplanned, premature, costly renovations. I know in six months time this will all be history and I’ll have lovely new floors and plaster work, but right now, the stress has got to me and my recovery journey is not solid enough to avert relapse. So relapse I have.

TRANSFERENCE

When the word addiction is bandied around, images that come to mind frequently involve drugs and alcohol. But addiction has as many varieties as there are addicts, and the compulsion is a symptom not a cause. What it’s a symptom of, varies for individuals, but we’re all numbing something.

WEEK SEVEN

Forty three days down. Nine to go. I am ready – but glad to have these last nine days to consolidate what I’ve learned, set up support at home, invent a new life for myself, and gain the confidence to know it’s not only possible for me to recover – or even probable – but I have to believe I will recover.

WEEK TWO

Same old, same old. Neither better nor worse. I feel my depression has sunk pretty low and I spent a lot of today mapping out “exit” strategies. But I also communicated this with the registrar and have requested to have my dose of pristiq increased. She’s also modified my leave to “escorted” which is fine by me.

IT’S A ROLLER COASTER

Everything we do in life, we do because it’s the thing we want to do the most at the time. When I choose to binge or purge, at the moment in time it is preferable to being healthy. I’m getting something out of it – numbing my emotions, punishing myself, weight control. There’s always something that feels like a positive – a backhanded false positive.

A HAPPY MEMORY [OR A FEW]

As I feel myself sliding, down, down, down again, I want to make a really concerted effort to focus on ups – not downs. I went for a walk after gym this evening, and for the first 20 minutes I found myself falling into heavy, dark, unproductive thoughts. Then I remembered I’m supposed to be retraining my brain to think of a positive future. So I tried remembering happy times in my life – peaceful, simple times, with family and friends.