Hello!
It has been much, much too long! I hope everyone is doing well! So much has happened since I wrote on here last. I attended an intensive-outpatient program over the summer and for the first part of this fall. I recently stopped the IOP program to give myself more time to focus on my school work. I want to believe that things are better, but I’m just not sure. I think treatment did help me a little in the beginning. The structure and accountability was good for me. I ate foods that scared me in situations that were more than uncomfortable. Tears were shed, lessons were learned. With time, though, I felt that everything I was being told in treatment was going in one ear and out the other. I suddenly no longer cared to get better or to let go of the eating disorder.
I’ve gained some weight over the months from being in IOP and from having lots of binging and purging behaviors. To be perfectly honest, the thoughts are unbearable at times. I feel like a failure. I was terrified to come back to school this fall because I was paranoid that my friends would notice or comment on the weight I’ve put on. Eating disorders are so irrational. Surely there are worse things a human can do than put on weight. In my mind though, this is the ultimate sin, the one unforgivable act.
I am still living at home with my parents and sisters. That’s a confidence-booster, being 22. I’m rationalizing with myself that it’s smart of me, and I’m only at home to save money while I finish school. But I know that if I was living alone I would crash and burn, hard. Still, I look at the other girls in my grad program, so independent, so happy, carefree, out on their own. I am jealous. I feel less than, insignificant, not good enough, utterly useless.
So that’s how things are going for me at the moment. I want so badly to be smaller. Sometimes I feel I want to shrink into oblivion. At the same time I just want to live my life. I want to try and enjoy these years. I know I’ll never get them back; I know they are precious. I know these things, I do. But why, then, am I so afraid to let the eating disorder go?
You Deserve a Donut. 