So I met with my therapist on Monday morning. I was all over the place, telling her I was binging and purging a lot more now, cutting, doubting recovery, seeing patterns similar to when I was in eating disorder treatment before that weren't effective, etc. I rambled on about how hopeless things feel, how on Sunday I wanted to fling myself from the window after purging and cutting, but knew that it was (of course) a silly thought. "I wouldn't do that!" My plucky therapist thinks so, but still advises me to CALL someone if I have those thoughts. Right. Anyhow, I paused in my little pitiful tirade, probably to breathe, or think of more things that were wrong, and she offered a suggestion: "we talked about goals, so what would you like to see us focus on in the near future?" and I thought...and thought...and thought...I could have waited all day. I had no idea what I wanted, so I just blurted out: "I can't sleep. I never have had normal sleeping habits. My eating habits are fucked up (eating disordered). I can't relate to people my age. There's this gap. I can't feel anything. I'm distant. I don't know who I am, I guess. I don't know what I want. What makes me happy, really." I rambled on with things like this for some time until she cut me off, "I think that's good, see? Now I know we're low on time here, but what would you like to focus on first next time? The eating? The identity issues? The sleeping?" I wanted to say identity. I thought, "if I have that, then I'll be set!" but then I thought, "wait, I can't even keep my fucking lunch down." So I answered, "The eating, yeah, is a more immediate concern." She agreed.
That night, I had to work on a take-home midterm for my schizophrenia course. I had planned on working on the damned thing the previous Saturday, but I experienced a rather "mixed state" that day which precluded any sort of work at all. So there I was that evening in the library, clacking into some computer terminal (the corner one) some brilliant theoretical/experimental nonsense I'd been alighted to that morning while reading a tome on Creativity. It seemed like a fantastic study proposition for schizophrenia research, which was what my professor wanted. I sipped back some earl grey and realized it was getting late and that the high I'd been riding from purging dinner was wearing off. It had actually worn off long ago; I just wanted an excuse now to binge again. My thoughts had been crawling toward that path back in the "Methods" section. I more or less knew what I was going to do. So I got the hell out of the library after saving my progress on that question. I only have one more to go, right? Just one more essay to write by tomorrow morning, that's not so bad.
One would think I would have learned, having been through therapy for my eating disorder, to be aware of my thoughts and feelings. No shit. I just can't seem plan around them now in a relapse. Without delving into my mood disorder (that definitely matters) too much, there's definitely a kind of "madness" related to the thinking in the person with bulimia. This is the kind of thinking that will lead a person to walk to five different bathrooms to find the right one to purge in (see: paranoia). This is the kind of thinking that will cause someone to think that just because that tray of pasta was on the top of the trash heap, it's fine to eat (see: delusional). In some cases this is the kind of thinking that will cause one to choose the cycle of binging and purging multiple times in a night rather than doing a midterm that is due in less than eight hours. Then, this is the thinking that, after the body is drained and mouth sour, will whisper, "You know, you should really just sleep and do that midterm in the morning." And you know what, I did. I slept for 1.5hrs, awoke, terribly alarmed, and had a mad flurry of writing from 5-9:25am, managing to churn out the essays I needed, the essays I'd avoided writing all night. Of coure, by the time I walked into class, I knew I was feeling a tad hypomanic, because I was laughing at the powerpoint slides my professor showed us of sex differences in schizophrenia.
Fortunately, nothing too terrible happened that day. I ended up feeling fan-fucking- tastic for about two and a half hours, and then I crashed. I was too tired, food deprived, cold, etc. I got home and still, I insisted on reading something, always, I insist on doing SOMETHING (it's called behavioral activation), until I passed out. The binging and purging cycle of course, remained unhindered that night as well. And today hasn't been better. I don't know what the hell I'm going to tell my therapist. "About the 'I was only purging once a day' thing..." It's such a complex issue, this eating disorder, and I was reading about dual diagnosis last night, and it seems like bipolar II is incredibly common with bulimia, which might make sense beyond my bipolar-NOS diagnosis. But knowing that won't change much, will it? No, not really. But I'd like to know.
To end on a better note, I might be going to a party (as Han Solo!) with some people in my lab for Halloween. This could be: a. really fantastic, b. really anxiety-ridden, or c. drunk-time (which might be good or bad?).
-Mt
So I met with my therapist on Monday morning. I was all over the place, telling her I was binging and purging a lot more now, cutting, doubting recovery, seeing patterns similar to when I was in eating disorder treatment before that weren't effective, etc. I rambled on about how hopeless things feel, how on Sunday I wanted to fling myself from the window after purging and cutting, but knew that it was (of course) a silly thought. "I wouldn't do that!" My plucky therapist thinks so, but still advises me to CALL someone if I have those thoughts. Right. Anyhow, I paused in my little pitiful tirade, probably to breathe, or think of more things that were wrong, and she offered a suggestion: "we talked about goals, so what would you like to see us focus on in the near future?" and I thought...and thought...and thought...I could have waited all day. I had no idea what I wanted, so I just blurted out: "I can't sleep. I never have had normal sleeping habits. My eating habits are fucked up (eating disordered). I can't relate to people my age. There's this gap. I can't feel anything. I'm distant. I don't know who I am, I guess. I don't know what I want. What makes me happy, really." I rambled on with things like this for some time until she cut me off, "I think that's good, see? Now I know we're low on time here, but what would you like to focus on first next time? The eating? The identity issues? The sleeping?" I wanted to say identity. I thought, "if I have that, then I'll be set!" but then I thought, "wait, I can't even keep my fucking lunch down." So I answered, "The eating, yeah, is a more immediate concern." She agreed.
That night, I had to work on a take-home midterm for my schizophrenia course. I had planned on working on the damned thing the previous Saturday, but I experienced a rather "mixed state" that day which precluded any sort of work at all. So there I was that evening in the library, clacking into some computer terminal (the corner one) some brilliant theoretical/experimental nonsense I'd been alighted to that morning while reading a tome on Creativity. It seemed like a fantastic study proposition for schizophrenia research, which was what my professor wanted. I sipped back some earl grey and realized it was getting late and that the high I'd been riding from purging dinner was wearing off. It had actually worn off long ago; I just wanted an excuse now to binge again. My thoughts had been crawling toward that path back in the "Methods" section. I more or less knew what I was going to do. So I got the hell out of the library after saving my progress on that question. I only have one more to go, right? Just one more essay to write by tomorrow morning, that's not so bad.
One would think I would have learned, having been through therapy for my eating disorder, to be aware of my thoughts and feelings. No shit. I just can't seem plan around them now in a relapse. Without delving into my mood disorder (that definitely matters) too much, there's definitely a kind of "madness" related to the thinking in the person with bulimia. This is the kind of thinking that will lead a person to walk to five different bathrooms to find the right one to purge in (see: paranoia). This is the kind of thinking that will cause someone to think that just because that tray of pasta was on the top of the trash heap, it's fine to eat (see: delusional). In some cases this is the kind of thinking that will cause one to choose the cycle of binging and purging multiple times in a night rather than doing a midterm that is due in less than eight hours. Then, this is the thinking that, after the body is drained and mouth sour, will whisper, "You know, you should really just sleep and do that midterm in the morning." And you know what, I did. I slept for 1.5hrs, awoke, terribly alarmed, and had a mad flurry of writing from 5-9:25am, managing to churn out the essays I needed, the essays I'd avoided writing all night. Of coure, by the time I walked into class, I knew I was feeling a tad hypomanic, because I was laughing at the powerpoint slides my professor showed us of sex differences in schizophrenia.
Fortunately, nothing too terrible happened that day. I ended up feeling fan-fucking- tastic for about two and a half hours, and then I crashed. I was too tired, food deprived, cold, etc. I got home and still, I insisted on reading something, always, I insist on doing SOMETHING (it's called behavioral activation), until I passed out. The binging and purging cycle of course, remained unhindered that night as well. And today hasn't been better. I don't know what the hell I'm going to tell my therapist. "About the 'I was only purging once a day' thing..." It's such a complex issue, this eating disorder, and I was reading about dual diagnosis last night, and it seems like bipolar II is incredibly common with bulimia, which might make sense beyond my bipolar-NOS diagnosis. But knowing that won't change much, will it? No, not really. But I'd like to know.
To end on a better note, I might be going to a party (as Han Solo!) with some people in my lab for Halloween. This could be: a. really fantastic, b. really anxiety-ridden, or c. drunk-time (which might be good or bad?).
-Mt