Program Day 65

• I'm so happy right now! You know why? Because, although I spent the whole day kind of wondering if I was doing the wrong thing with food and being a bit unsure about if it's really okay to keep eating...... I just realized something: I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG! ALL I DID WAS LIVE! LIVE AND TASTE! I'm allowed to enjoy this!

Let me start at the beginning

• One of the strongest emotions I felt today was gratitude.

(Let me take a break here to say that I'm hyper and my legs want to run or jump on a trampoline or skip or something... oh dear, how will I ever fall asleep!)

• Kay, back to gratitude. I am overwhelmed in gratitude for the people who are in my life. I really think I am just really lucky.

Starting with the professionals:

Tracy. Tracy was the first professional involved in my ED treatment. I think of her as the Director of my recovery. She's the one who got the therapist and, later, the physician on board. She has stuck by me, put up with me, been patient with me, always believed in me, always took me seriously for about 3.5 years. She has read countless emails. I used to leave her check in voice mails and they were so often full of distress or full of signs that I was about to get way off track, again, that she would call me the next day just to reassure me that, yes, eating was the right thing to do. Jane always jokes that she doesn't want to work on people pleasing with me because so much of my health has been saved by my desire to please Tracy. (That's not why I eat now - but that's a big part of why I used to eat). Tracy is also just damn good at what she does. I think about where I have been and where I am now. I think of all the food rules she's helped me break; all the food fears she's helped me overcome. She has helped me stop feeling guilty for eating. She's retaught me what "normal" is. she hasn't just told me what to eat; she's helped me reframe my cognitions around food. She has really been a life saver for me. Really truly. I mean.... there were times when I needed more than what Tracy could offer, but Tracy kept me afloat. Tracy kept me from completely sinking many times.

Jane. Jane is a skilled therapist. She really understands eating disorders, understands me, understands how recovery happens, meets me where I am, is patient with the process. I mean, I don't know what else to say except: she's just freaking good at what she does! I have decreased black and white thinking; increased self esteem; re-defined how I think I "should" be as a person; begun to work on asserting myself and on boundaries. Beyond that, she's worked on the food stuff with me a lot too. She's eaten with me, at times, 3x a week when things were worse. Most of all, I really really really really really really trust her. I REALLY trust her to guide me well.

Program RD. She asks me to send her things I write. I do. She reads them. She talks to me about them. I sent her the thing about the epiphanies and, today, she came out of the office and goes, "Oh, so I read your thing and..." And it struck me - WOW. You know, in IOP, you only get a 15 min session per week with the program RD... but, first of all, she gives me more than 15 min AND SHE READS MY THINGS! I mean... she really works with me. She talks to me not just about food, but she helps me separate mind and body. she helps give me realistic intentions. I feel like she really is cares about me doing well. Today, she told me she talked to Tracy on the phone yesterday, and I asked her what they talked about, and she goes, "I was like, 'Laura is freaking me out!' and Tracy said, 'I know she's freaking me out too!' and then we both screamed like little girls because we're scared!" And I laughed and she goes "Stoogie... seriously.... you have to check in with me every day. We can't have another slippery week. We have to figure this out for you. So, this week, this is the test."

Program Manager. Program manager isn't even a therapist or a dietitian but she has also gone out of her way to help me out, and today she handed me a card that said, "I want you to know that you are one of those people who inspires others. You are an amazing young woman and you deserve the best in this world. REmember the house." (House = a symbol in a dream I had that I had told her about). But, this program manager, I have pulled her aside many a time to talk to her or ask her questions and she has always helped. I feel like she's invested in my recovery.

Dr. E (physician) back up in the Bay ARea: She saw me every week for a while this spring. She made me feel believed in. She called me and had me drink an ensure with her while she was on the phone once. (Gosh, thinking of those days... so sad... so sad that I wouldn't eat enough... ) She's fed me oranges in appointments. She finished every appointment with a big hug from her. I've been scared in front of her, and she'd just stop with the physical exam and give me a tissue and sit next tom e for a while. She's the one who talked to my parents and gave them her opinion and recommendation to go residential (which i never went to - just the day program - but still). She made me feel worth it.

i mean, I really have been blessed with an amazing team of professionals (a dr., a dietitian, a therapist) outside of the program, and I come to the program and I encountered even more wonderful people.

Beyond just the program manager and my dietitian....

Another therapist there. She's not even my therapist, but I totally take advantage of her wisdom! She has seen me get stuck in my head and has jumped in right then to talk me out of my head. She has stayed after program for hours at a time, talking with me. She has asked to see things I've written about. I've shown her. She has printed it, written comments in the margins, and handed it back. I mean.... woah. She has really been a big help for me.

Beyond professionals...

You know, we dont' have power over who our parents/siblings are, but we do have power over who our friends are. We have the power to choose our friends. Thinking about that, if I really were only friends with a certain kind of person - the kind of person who is healthy for me to be around - I realized today that I have enough of those people... not a roomful, but a few of those people. And that's all you need, right? A few good friends who are healthy for you to be around? And those people are in my life (a couple local and a couple not), and they show me they care about me.

I am blessed.

I am so blessed.

So, quickly, onto the program today...

We had a lunch outing. The IOP people went to a separate restaurant. And we sat next to Jennifer Garner. Anyway, my intention was to purposely try to think like a non-ed person so that my eating experience is more enjoyable.

Here's the thing about what I ate: If I think about it, it causes distress. If I just experience it, it was wonderful. Lesson: don't let your mind get in the way of your eating experience. Or, if it does, realize that what it says is irrelevant. It's easy for me to think about how it was probably a 2,000 calorie meal. Or it's easy for me to focus on the fact that I'm pretty sure there was butter on every possible thing I ate. Or about the fact that I had to eat quite a bit more than I was comfortable with. But if I focus on that, what's the effect? I go into "shut down" mode. I start to go into "compensate" mode. I am less happy. Why would I do that to myself? So I have to change my focus..... to this: to the fact that I tasted flavor combinations I had never tasted before.... to the fact that the flavor was effing delish!... to the fact that there were a couple of moments at the table where I was cracking up so much I thought I might spit my food out.

EX: one time, I was wiping my mouth with the cloth napkin, and the program RD who was sitting across from me thought I was spitting my food out. She grabbed my wrist with one hand and covered her mouth with the other hand (which scared the crap out of me) as she gasped and she goes, "Stoogie! Are you spitting your food out?!" So then of course I BURST out laughing b/c no, no no I was not spitting my food out. I was like doubled over laughing so hard.

EX: I wasn't quite done and the waiter came and said, "Shall I take your plate miss?" And the RD goes, "No, keep her plate here." and the waiter looked so confused, looked at me again, until I said, "yeah, still working."

Anyway, this is just one of those situations where, if I even let my mind touch on the parts that make me feel nervous, there's no point to it. So I'm going to soak in the positive of the experience.

Lunch was:

1/2 sandwich made of bread soaked on olive oil, burrata cheese, roasted egg plant, basil aioli

1/2 sandwich made of bread, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and mayo

90% of the terra chips on my plate

AND a lemonade (I don't know why but they made me order a caloric drink).

So - if I think back on lunch and just think "oh no!" then I'll ruin my day.

But if I think back on lunch and say "what intersting flavors and great tastes! And we laughed! then I am closer to being really living.

It would ahve been so easy to get off track after lunch. I was future tripping. "Do I really eat snack and dinner and snack still?!" I went to the bathroom and the RD chased me into the bathroom (even though I don't purge ever) and she was like, "Stoogie, are you okay?" And I said, "If I think about it, no, but if I don't think about it, I'm fine." And she said, "How can I help?" And I said, "Do you REALLY think I should eat a snack before dinner still and dinner and an evening snack." And she goes "ok, first of all, take those future thoughts out of your head. don't even think about snack until snack time. But... yes. you definitely should." I asked her (she ate the same lunch as me) if she was going to eat a snack. "Hell yes - always - I can't go all the way until dinner without some food" was her answer. Ok, I needed that reassurance.

I pulled my index card at snack time and, lucky me, it said "ice cream and cookie." I knew that I wanted to challenge myself to an ice cream cone as a snack sometime, but I thought I shouldn't do it on a day when I ate that lunch. But then I remembered Tracy's goal of "no changing index cards." So I thought about how I'm supposed to challenge the ED, how I'm in a program so it's my job to be tolerably uncomfortable. I thought about how I don't want to slip backwards. So, I went out and got a mocha almond fudge ice cream cone from a local ice creamery.

Honestly, it was good, but I didn't enjoy it that much because I wasn't hungry. Also, I was kind of in a bad mood afterwards and started to go into shut down mode because of "all the food" I had had today. I was feeling pissed and livid at the fact that I ahd to follow the stupid meal plan. I got in a grumpy mood and my mom asked me what was wrong and I snapped, "I'm full and just got really fat from the stupid food that they made me eat today!" (haha, I can laugh in hindsight).

But then I made a connection between my food and the mood. See, I was about to have a networking interview sort of thing on the phone after the ice cream cone. So, I paused and wondered what this "so full" and "so fat" feeling was all about.

I wrote this in my food diary after the ice cream cone: "REally unhappy and unable to focus because I feel so full. I want to commit to not eating the rest of the day. I can't even interact with people right now I'm so mad about this food. But, you know, maybe I'm just anxious about the interview/conversation. I feel out of control, but, in reality, nothing is actually out of control. Even if I did have more calories today so far, nothing is out of control. Nothing has actually gone awry. So I'm going to keep remembering that nothing is actually out of control and that I'm probably just anxious about this interview."

If I was living alone, would I have eaten dinner? I don't know. I might even say no in this case. That's not good. But I'm with a family. So my dad says to me, "wanna go to dinner?" I tell him I'm not at all hungry, but I'll go. I know the right thing to do is to eat. The RD ate the same lunch as me and she's eating dinner and she's not getting fat from doing so. If I were in residential, I'd be eating dinner. Dinner was complicated too... as a family, we odered 3 appetizers (sweet potato fries, tomato mozarella salad, and fruit/nuts/cheese plate) and we all just ate them as our dinner. I did not keep track of what I ate. I just casually ate - probably as a result of having a large (LARGE ) glass of wine (hehe) with dinner. I never dink the wine, but I really thought it sounded nice. So I ate (and I ate enough) without even keeping track of what I ate. That's the type of thing that would ahve thrown me for a loop on a lot of other days, but, somehow, today, I was just totally present with my parents. WE were tlaking and laughing and eating and drinking wine and I was tipsy and it was wonderful. WONDERFUL. I was fully present.

In case you can't guess, I didn't count calories today either! (I mean, how could I have? 2 restaruants and an ice creamery)

At dinner, my parents and I were just chatting away, even talking really openly about the eating disorder.

My dad gave me the nicest compliment on the way home.

He said, "Laura, I haven't wanted to say this because I don't want to jinx anything, but you look so good since you've been eating better. Your hair looks better, you have all of your eye lashes again, you look alive and absolutely beautiful. You just look happy and relaxed."

That was so nice of him to say.

Then he adds, "And just in case you took "look good" to mean "fat," I should clarify that I think you're slender and nowhere close to fat." I thanked him for the clarification.

And then he added...

"And I still don't understand how you can sometimes think you're fat. Maybe I hsould give you a brain transplant."

And I'm like.... "dad... your first comment was a compliment enough. You're good."

haha.

Anyway, it would have been so easy to skip evening snack, but I just don't wnat to slip anymore. I want life; I understnad that ED recovery is my job right now, and, when I think of that, it allows me to tolerate more discomfort. So, I pulled an index card and ate my snack.

Main thing to remember about today:

It is only my mind that wonders if I "messed up" today; my body actually has no problem with it. My body was full but never stuffed.

Take away: Ground yourself in your body not your mind.

Another take away: Ground yourself in the good:

-Great tastes

-Great conversation

Conclusion: The food today was worth it. There's no reason I should even wonder if it was okay or not. If it's okay for other people to casually enjoy food, then I can too, right? right.

Also, (why did the font just switch btw?) ...

I think we all have a right to let ourselves be happy. you know?