I Can’t Even…

Every Friday, without fail, I go to the gym. I don’t think it is an ED thing so much as it is a time slot that fits well with my schedule and it became a habit to go then. That and I enjoy it.

With my one-on-one counselling we decided to change my workout plan a bit because after some delving in to shit in my head we discovered that while my weight workouts are enjoyable and don’t seem to feed my ED the cardio part of my workout does feed my ED. So as a challenge I shortened my cardio.

It sucked. I hated it. I felt like I was cheating on my workout. But I did it. I didn’t die or get instantly fatter and well, maybe it was a thing I could do again.

Thing is, the past 2 Fridays I go to the gym, I work out, then the next day or two I am sick. I mean, I am sick already, I’ve been battling a bug (or possibly two) for a couple weeks now and it seems that every time I work out after work it flattens me for a couple days. I work weekends and can’t afford to keep missing work because I am kicking my immune system in it’s ass with my workouts. I was toying with not working out tonight after work, in an attempt to be self-caring and all that crap, ya know, baby the body in the hopes it finally gets healthy again…well, as healthy as it can get considering how I eat I suppose. 😉

I was leaning on the side of still working out, because I didn’t want to miss my Friday evening workout – the gym is nice and quiet, it’s the best workout of the week!

And then shit went down.

There is a swinging door at work with the tiniest window and massive blind spots on either side. I was just about to push the door open, so my left foot was up mid-step, when another staff member pushed the door from the other side, really really hard. It smashed in to my foot, pushed my toes back really far, and as a bonus spilled the just made cup of tea I was holding so I burned my forearm.

Just. Fucking. Great.

Do you know how much paperwork is involved when a staff member gets injured? I do because I’m usually the person handing it over to the other staff members when they get hurt and threatening them with me in their face at every moment of their next shift if they don’t fill it in asap and get it back to me.

I’m not worried about the burn, I sometimes self-harm (real winner of mental health over here!) and my chosen method is burning, so I know how to handle that just fine.

My foot though is another story. The more I walked on it at work the more it hurt. Even when I sat and rested it, it hurt. By the time I got home my limp was pretty impressive. I had a shower, propped my foot up, and have been babying it all night. It still hurts though, which sucks balls.

The bigger problem for me though is…I didn’t go to the gym.

Now, ok, part of me, a teeny tiny I think rational part of me, is saying it is fine I didn’t go. In fact it is probably good I didn’t go because I would have definitely made the foot worse.

The larger part of me is saying I am a failure for not going. If I was really dedicated, if I really wanted to get to my goal, if I really cared about my fitness levels, if I really wasn’t a loser, or lazy, or pathetic, I would have pushed through and gone to the gym. Now I might as well give up. I will be a lame ass next week and find a reason to not go then too I bet, because that is what I am, a lazy, disgusting, fat, weak, loser who was just waiting for an excuse to not work out that they can then use for weeks and weeks until it was like they never went to the gym. This is the beginning of the end. May as well give up now.

I couldn’t get my brain to shut up. It was circling with these thoughts, I couldn’t make them go away, I couldn’t fight them, all I did was believe in them. Whole heartedly, 100%, believe them.

So I ate.

I ate my feelings away. I squashed them down under ice cream and cookies. I ate and I ate and I ate and for a little while my brain was quiet. All the insults, all the stressing, all the fear, it all went away. Then after a brief, too brief, quiet moment in my head, it was all replaced by guilt over what I ate, shame over letting myself go, horror at how much I ate, disgust at how much of a pig I am, hatred over my actions, realization that I am not dedicated, I am not strong, I am not a fit or on the way to being a fit person.

I am nothing.

I am a slob of a person who literally ate their feelings in to submission, only to be swamped by new, worse, feelings. Feelings that I earned, that I deserved, because our actions show what we truly want. Our words can say anything, our actions are what we should pay attention to. And my actions showed who I really am.  All the horrible things I am.

I say I don’t want to be those things, but if I truly didn’t want to be them I would have sat with the first batch of uncomfie feelings rather than indulge myself, eat all that food, and now have to deal with the consequences.

I am glad I got injured tonight, I deserve the pain. I deserve every pound of weight I gain. I deserve every stomach ache I get. I deserve every single drop of guilt I feel. I did this to myself, I deserve punishment.

And trust me, tomorrow, it will be meted out.

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My Line

Everyone has a line that when they cross it they go “shit, this isn’t good, I’ve gotta fix this”. Or something to that effect. I crossed my line so accidentally that I didn’t realize I had done it until the damage was done.

And now I feel I have to do something about it. Well, sorta. I felt more strongly about needing to do something about it yesterday, when the pain and injury were worse, today, as it is healing and less painful I’m not quite ambivalent but close to…I imagine tomorrow I’ll be even less inclined to take action…I wonder if eventually my line will move?

Maybe that is how it happens…you cross your line by accident, have a day of “gotta fix this shit”, then the next day comes, you realize the world hasn’t ended and you’re still able to function and are less worried, and over time your line moves, so that next time you get to that same point that caused panic only yesterday you don’t even feel a twinge of worry.

That should be unsettling, but I sorta don’t care…

This probably doesn’t make any sense, lemme explain.

I don’t cut myself, that’s not my thing, but I do burn myself, which when written down like this sounds horrible but it really isn’t. I make sure to not burn so bad I will scar, or impede my ability to function, I don’t burn myself where people will see, it’s not a big deal.

Except apparently it is? At ED recovery it got discovered by my case worker and my dietitian and they didn’t take it well. Not that they freaked out or anything, but it became this thing that required more meetings and talking, and it is what ended me up having to go see the shrink. They take it way more seriously than I do.

A couple months ago I burnt my arm more than intended, second degree, and ended up with a small scar. It is annoying and I don’t like it. I have extensive first aid training so I am able to competently tend to my own burns, but even with tending, I got that stupid scar.

I told myself I wouldn’t do that again. I wouldn’t second degree burn myself again, I’d not take the risk of another scar.

Notice I don’t actually care about being injured or what it is doing to my body, it is pure vanity driving this decision. That and if my case worker notices I am bandaged up again it might open up more intense discussions etc and ugh, no thanks!

Well, two nights ago I accidentally second degree burned my arm, different spot, but still…not good. I didn’t mean to, I swear! And I didn’t realize how bad it was until Friday morning when I was at work, I scratched my arm and hit this massive blister that is surrounded by smaller blisters and a hella lot of red skin.

sigh.

So I tended to it.

Today when I took the bandage off to wash the wound I discovered that the freakin massive blister that was hard only yesterday has burst (I probably bumped it and didn’t realize) so my chance of a new scar is pretty high. Oh, and infection, the chance of infection has increased also.

Yesterday, after discovering it, I was upset. Upset with myself for doing this. Even though it was by accident I was still upset. I don’t want another scar. The blisters are in a spot that make it easy to bump and cause more pain. I’m going to have to wear long sleeves for at least a week to keep the bandage hidden. Basically, I am upset because this injury will affect my day-to-day life for 3-14 days (depending on speed of healing). It is one thing to burn myself when the damage is minimal and I am not affected the next day but this, this is affecting me and I am annoyed by it.

The whole being upset thing caused me to seriously think about my whole burning myself deal and I was motivated to want to make changes to stop the burning. I didn’t know what to do and I just kept thinking I should talk to my case worker, tell her what I did, tell her I want to change, ask her for help. I don’t want to go on meds but maybe there is something else that can be done.

Today, with the blisters healing, the pain less noticeable, my being over 24 hours from the time of injury, I care less about stopping myself from doing this again. I am more inclined to think that since this was an accident it doesn’t really count and what is the big deal, don’t blow things out of proportion, stuff like that…which may be my brain trying to rationalize irrational behaviour so as to stop me from recovering (and if that doesn’t sound like a sentence made by someone who is in treatment I don’t know what does! lol)

But yeah, I crossed my line by accident, and now I’m wondering if my line will end up moving as a result…something to ponder as I go re-bandage my arm. *rolls eyes*

Trust Issues

I don’t trust people.

This isn’t a reflection of you, or of any specific person, it is just a fact. I know that people suck. They will let you down. They will not be there when you need them. They will hurt you. They will ultimately do what is best for them no matter who it might hurt.

That’s fine. I know all this, I’m not some naive idiot who thinks the world is a good place and so are the people who inhabit it. I would rather be strong, and ready, and have the knowledge that people can’t be trusted, then be shocked when something happens and I am confronted with this information abruptly.

Thing is, because I don’t trust people, I generally expect the worse from them. Maybe not right away, lots of people are good at hiding just how ruthless and uncaring they are, but eventually something happens and you see through the cracks.

My case manager, I think that is what her title is, confuses me. She is soft-spoken, she makes eye contact, she has open body language and gestures with her hands when she talks (not in a violent way or a trying to create distraction way, in a friendly open kind of way). She doesn’t get mad when I swear, or don’t do a good job, she has…I guess it would be compassion…for like, everybody…or so it seems.

I don’t get it.

I keep waiting for her to yell at me. Or tell me to do a better job already. I keep waiting for her to push me harder than what I am able to deal with, to try and break me.

Instead of forcing me to do something, she suggests, she talks about something then asks if I would be open to whatever it is she was talking about. No demanding I do something. No “if you don’t do this then I’m kicking you out of the program”. Just a question about if I would be open to trying what she talked about.

I really don’t get that.

I met with her two weeks ago, I had filled out one of our weekly forms where we answers questions about how we’ve been doing that week. It is kind of a snapshot so they know how strongly we are engaging in our eating disorder behaviours. I wrote that I had self-harmed. Didn’t really think about lying on the form since I figured they probably weren’t read by anybody but she called me to ask about what I had done, how I was doing, did I want to come in and chat. I didn’t really want to go in and chat, what was there to say after all? I gave myself second degree burns on my arm because I didn’t know how else to deal with a situation. Does that sentence really require a face-to-face conversation? I don’t think it does…Somehow though I ended up agreeing to go in and see her.

We chatted. She asked if I would be open to meeting with the shrink they have on staff, he could talk to me about medications that might help, stuff like that. I said no. I told her the truth, which was I was uncomfortable with being in a room alone with a guy. Well, I don’t think I worded it quite like that, but that is the gist. I can deal being in close quarters with a guy at work, or in a public space, where there are lots of escape routes and they aren’t really all that focused on me and only me. But in a room with a closed door and no one else to keep them occupied? No thank you! She said she would be there for the first meeting, and after that if I wanted she would come to other sessions.

See what I mean? She could have just told me to suck it up and go see him, but instead she offered to be there not just for the first session which she would be there for anyways but follow-up sessions also. Compassion. That woman has it in spades.

I also told her I don’t do medications. They aren’t my thing.

So she let it drop, just suggested I keep it in mind as something to consider for the future. I lied and said I would.

Then this past week we had a meeting, the 8 week group I had been in ended and there are post-group meetings to discuss things, see which group I am being put in next, stuff like that. Again with the paperwork. Again with me not lying about stuff I did. I really need to just lie on these stupid forms already, sigh. I told her I wasn’t sure if some of the stuff I did was technically considered self-harming because it wasn’t cutting or burning myself. She didn’t actually say, but I think the decision was that the things I had done are self-harming.

She again brought up seeing the shrink. Before I could say no she said he is booking all the way into August so not like the appointment would be right away. She also said he could give me lots of information about the different medications, I can research and make my own choice, I am under no obligation to take any pills, but it might be a good idea to talk to him.

She wasn’t mad, or pushy, but her face had an expression that I don’t have a word for…like…ugh, I just don’t know. But when she made that expression when suggesting I see the shrink I felt like if I didn’t say yes she’d be disappointed or something and apparently I don’t want to disappoint her since I said yes to a meeting with him.

What the fuck.

So now I have an appointment the beginning of August to see the shrink and talk meds. I guess the meds are to somehow help me not self-harm. I don’t really understand how that works, but it scares me. The idea of taking something and it being able to affect my decision to self-harm or not, what the fuck is it doing to my brain that some pill can affect a decision like that? I worry they change who you are, make you less you somehow. I dunno, I probably sound crazy. I just don’t like the idea of popping a pill, having it mess with your head, and everyone being ok with this happening.

I may back out of the appointment, I still have lots of time to decide. Maybe if I manage to not self-harm between now and then she won’t even get that expression on her face if I cancel…it’s a thought…