Program Day 18

I am so tired right now, that this post is not going to be very thoughtful. I got up at 5:30am, got to the program at 8am. Stayed at the program until 3:30pm, at which time a few girls and I left and got snack then lazied around for a few hours... then we went to Korea town and got dinner and sang Karaoke and now, at midnight, I just got home.....

• It's funny - I tend to think my eating disorder is different from other people's in a way that ends up leading me to not take my food seriously. Like, I think it's really necessary for all the girls I was with tonight to eat their afternoon snack, dinner, and PM snack. But, for some reason, I, personally, didn't want to eat any of those - and somehow that wasn't a big deal to me in my head (yes, I know, i just realized a couple of days ago it is a big deal if I skip a meal and I shouldn't do that b/c that is playing with fire....) I totally minimize the eating disorder... and then I end up being the only one who doesn't want to eat. Let me tell you - if I don't feel like following the meal plan, THEN I SHOULD NOT HANG OUT WITH 4 OTHER GIRLS WHO ARE ALL ON MY SAME MEAL PLAN... b/c they 1) are following it and 2) know when I'm not following it. So, this is the first Saturday when I actually ate the two snacks and the dinner AFTER also eating the program food. The girls were like "If I was purging right now, would you let me do that?" And I was like, "No way! I'd come and save you from yourself. I'd restrain you." And she goes, "Right well anorexia is so seductive because the behavior is so subtle... when your head is in the toilet, something is definitely wrong. But when you're just skipping a meal, it's easy to think it's not that big of a deal. But what you are doing right now is the same as if I were purging." So, those girls got me through this afternoon.

• The food at the program ended up being totally okay today - not torture like I feared. The bfast was ok and I was actually hungry for lunch! I think here's my problem with breakfast - it's so carb heavy that it leaves me shaky. I'd rather have a breakfast with more "real" (non-dairy) protein (like eggs or PB or lox or sausage or bacon). So I made a list of a bunch of breakfasts that I think would meet meal plan requirements and handed them to the clinical director today.

• But the way I reacted to all the food was that I was kind of psyching myself out all day. I was hyper sensitive to anything in my stomach. I have not had a sip of liquid all day b/c I feel like if I have to put all that food in me, I can't also possibly drink too! This is so messed up I know. I am soooooooooooooooo compelled to restrict tomorrow... but I need to push through and challenge those urges. I wrote on my weekend planning sheet that my coping mechanisms for getting through urges were 1) stay grounded in the physical (hunger), 2) stay grounded in the evidence I've built up (fullness does not equal out of control; my body can handle more food than I would have thought); 3) stay grounded in my values (I want to be someone who is present, not caught up in my head thinking about restriction); 4) something esle I forgot. So I will use those. Plus, I must remember my goals - I am here to experiment with my eating style... so the only way to do that is to EAT.

• I had a really weird therapy session today. I just felt slightly disturbed afterwards. My therapist is like ON MY CASE about eliminating behaviors. She thinks I'm in denial and she thinks I still have "a lot of eating disordered behaviors." She thinks I'm over exercising (definition of over exercising in this program is breaking your super minimal exercise plan). She thinks I weigh myself too much. She thinks I'm still restricting too much. So I just have a lot of thinking to do now....

• Tomorrow it's important I drink liquid and eat food. I don't know why I'm being such a head case today... I'm just feeling hyper sensitive to feeling anything in me. But I know what I need to do to get through this: ground myself in what I've learned so far, set intentions for eating and for living, and remind myself of my goals. I'm too tired to do all of that right now, but I'll do that when I wake up tomorrow.

• My new strategy for dealing with calorie counting is working: I can't stop my head from counting. But what I can do is I can accept the #. So if a # flies in my head, instead of fighting it and pushing it out, I'm just like "yup, those are my new #s now. My cal #s are getting higher and higher. Cool. Opportunity to push my limits." So I'm having a positive dialogue with myself in which I accept the higher calorie number. That seems to stop the thoughts from going on in my head on repeat - the thought feels listened to, and it stops after that.