So, I am not going to try to catch up the past 8 months in one blog post.  But here is a brief synopsis:

• Started relapsing in April after some super hard therapy work
• Started new eating disorder behavior: bingeing, which accompanied my restriction and exercise
• Got sicker
• Went back into residential treatment July 3
• Stepped down to Partial Hospitalization in late July
• Was discharged 9-29
• Drove home and got home on 10-1

This time, treatment went to a deeper level and I made a lot more progress.  I am still working on my eating disorder and trauma and everything with Team Heidi, but I feel a lot stronger than I did in the winter and spring.

That said, yesterday I really struggled during a particularly intense therapy session.  The AT started out the session by saying, “Want to do some art?”  Yup, I was totally game.  He had me grab a piece of watercolor paper and he slid the watercolors and a jar of water and told me to paint, “what needs to come out” or something to that effect.  And so I painted a representation of feeling alone.  And the pain of of feeling lonely.  When I was done, I passed it to the AT, who took a look at it and interpreted it exactly as I had painted it. Loneliness.  As he talked to me about it, he hit on every nuance of how I feel.

I wasn’t prepared for that.  I felt totally stripped naked and exposed.  It was a painful juxtaposition of me wanting to have some control over what he sees and how he sees it and the fact that I need to be be  vulnerable and seen and validated for the feelings that I have.  Who knew that being validated could be so painful?  Let’s just say that I cried a lot.

But it was after the appointment where I really struggled.  The eating disorder came in whispering that it could make the feelings to away.  I did not binge, but I definitely ate food for comfort.  And this is where my struggle lies….to make it through hard things (therapy, life, etc.) without falling back on eating disordered behavior.  I am not say that comfort/emotional eating is the worst thing in the world, but for me, it is a very, very slippery slope.  Bingeing=shame and self-loathing.  Bingeing=restriction to compensate for the binge. Bingeing=too much exercise to purged the calories of the binge.  Bingeing is what is at the bottom of the slippery slope.

Last week, I did great, but I think the honeymoon is over and the day to day struggles are real.  But I am not discouraged.  Truthfully, I know I can handle this but it is not going to be easy.