O.
M.
G.
Thank you. 
5 Likes
@Its_me_Stella
Posting over here on your thread seemed more appropriate than clogging up the foodie thread. But I just wanted to say I am proud of you making yourself that meal and posting about it. I’m also very grateful to you for doing so as I’ve been on some bad restrictive cycles lately and was just about to skip lunch, using a busy work day as an excuse. Instead I saw your post and went to throw some veggies in the oven to roast. I feel like I am sharing this meal with you and that brings me some peace in this moment. 
4 Likes
Enjoy my friend, i sure did.
2 Likes
Its been a hot minute. I just checked in because I am feeling some anxiety about recent weight gain. I think I will reach out to my therapist via email, she told me I was always welcome to. In the years before I would not have done that because i wouldnt have wanted to bother her, my life wasnt worth her time. Well it is today, Im done suffering and I need help.
6 Likes
Ty for thinking of me Franzi, your thoughts move out into the universe and give me strength. I appreciate them.
3 Likes
These are the thoughts to keep. I am glad you have gained back what you lost being sick. Seeing her is good ( as long as you appreciate what she has to say and find it helpful) because a lot of your change will be a learned behavior ( I think) and checking in w your coach will help you be accountable and stay on track for your goal. Big hugs and love for you. Proud of your progress all the way around. xoxo
2 Likes
Sending strength and love to you Stella. Hope you reconnected with your therapist via email…that sounds important right now.
1 Like
I tried, I wrote out the email but I didnt send it. I have an appointment with her in Friday, I will be ok until then. I always have this fear that if I make a big deal out of anything everyone else will too and I dont want that. Often in my life I have underplayed where I have been at with my mental health out of fear. Often they have said in my reports “the patient presented well…” when in actual fact I had been an absolute mess and screaming for help inside. When I say absolute mess I mean that in the most frightening of ways. The fear of losing control of my life is sometimes stronger than the fear of dying for me. I am definitely not anywhere near suicidal right now just using past experience as comparison for how strong this fear can be. I really have to work hard at calming my mind, even get myself to eat, it is such a huge ordeal. These pains that I have stored in my unconscious haunt me terribly and convincing myself that I am safe today… well I guess most days I am just not convinced in this regard.
Its so fucked because I absolutley hate how I look when I am super underweight and I dont hate how I look when I am at my trigger weight (which is still underweight) but the number makes my head spin like you cant even imagine. I like the way my body feels when i am really underweight, and I dont like how my body feels when i am at my trigger weight. It is PURE INSANITY, and the most insane part is that I get the whole part about this just being a vessel for this life time. I feel that with my heart but i cant shut the thoughts up in my head. I think I need a fucking lobotomy.
7 Likes
I will say that the thoughts have changed, and my behavior has changed drastically since starting ED therapy so thats a +. Baby steps. 
4 Likes
You know I love baby steps and taking our wins.
I hear you. But maybe, sometimes, it IS a big deal? Your health …physical and mental…IS a big deal. Idk. I just hear your pain and I feel like instead of using our quiet, don’t rock the boat voice, wait til therapy on Friday thoughts, we may need to ask for / to reach out / to advocate for our deep inside little girl self. It is okay to send an email to our therapist when we are raw. Just my $.02 and do not want to overstep. 
3 Likes
Yeah your right, and she is super safe. I can always say… “I dont want to rock the boat” and she would get it.
Thanks
2 Likes
Just looking up at my last post here and my update is I managed to hang on without relapsing back into extremely restrictive patterns. Yay me.
Today was day one of a 4-week readiness group and tomorrow is day 1 of a 10-week DBT group for ED. I was feeling pretty overwhelmed before the meeting started today and was having some pretty defeating thoughts but I just hopped on the gratitude thread and wrote a gratitude list instead of letting my head get ahold of me. It worked well and got me to my meeting. Tomorrow’s meeting starts early, I won’t have time to get nervous.
Just taking this one day at a time, I am still not comfortable with my weight gain. I am in a headspace where I am trying to bargain with myself, trying to figure out a way I can lose weight in a “healthy way” without anyone noticing. That is my illness trying to gain control of me again and I am aware of it. It’s just like substances there is no “healthy way” for me. Once I start a pattern of restriction and lose weight it becomes obsessive and compulsive, one lb is too many a thousand is never enough.
I will try to check in tomorrow after the DBT group.
7 Likes
Phew, I got hammered in the middle of the night with Norovirus but I did manage to make my Zoom therapy group at 930 am. Grateful for that.
Some interesting things came up for me during therapy today. It was just a intro day, no heavy material but the facilitator asked some good questions that got me thinking.
“Who has done DBT before?” Well I have this will be my 3rd go around. Sitting with this took me back to the question, “Why are you here again?” Its a question I have asked myself in recovery before, many times. That image of recovery not being linear is burned into my mind because mine has sure been messy. Messy, but always on an upward trajectory no matter how shallow the slope.
2 years ago I asked myself in an absolute fit of desperate rage, " How can you still be here???" as my mind was completely ruled by obsessive thought patterns and compulsive actions. I had only had a couple of months of breathing room where my obsession to pick up drugs had disappeared. I didn’t understand how I could apply a program of recovery to one aspect of my life and not another. The simple fact was I couldn’t, and the more I tried the more I was met with resistance from the fear inside me. Again today I could have said to myself, “You have used DBT to overcome your urges to self-injure, to regulate your emotions and why can’t you apply what you know to your ED…”
I am grateful that I don’t need to ask this question today because it doesn’t come from an inability to be able to, my problem is that I am missing the willingness I have found to help me recover from my other illnesses.
The second question the facilitator asked was “what do you hope to gain from these 10 weeks of therapy?” I have learned in recovery to shine a light on my darkness so I raised my hand and said “I’m hoping to gain a more consistent willingness to be healthy.”
I need to stay honest, open, and willing… 
8 Likes
There has been a lot, not sure where to start so instead I will post this little poem I can really relate to, today.
And so,
today she stopped hiding it.
She decided to go on a journey
with her baggage.
She carried all of it
to the land
that nurtured the soles of her feet.
She wore a tiny crown.
Because her baggage
as much as it had been a weight and
a secret; a shame,
and messy embarrassment
was also that which made her to be
who she was!
So she ritualized it.
She took a deep breath
deeper than Lake Baikal
in Siberia and spoke,
"I declare my baggage
a celebration of myself!"
The winds swelled like a pregnant sea.
and licked her face
kissing away her salty tears.
The moon cried
out of gratitude
that something so small
could carry so much honesty.
She realized that her journey
would go easier
and be lighter
if she released what she no longer needed.
She was attached to her baggage!
How would she dispose of it?
She sorted and piled up the stories
and the pieces
and took away only what could fit
into one small bag.
She stood with her back
to the weight of old things
and waited
for the song of the universe
to guide her further.
~ Stasha Ginsburg
9 Likes
Amazing!!!
Smells like progress. Sounds like you benefited from DBT. Look at you go!!! Whoop whoop!
2 Likes
Love the poem, what it says, and the picture with it!
Good thoughts and big hugs for you on your journey, ODAAT. 
1 Like
Love this especially.
Beautiful poem and picture.
2 Likes
My beautiful dear friend 
Please be patient with yourself on this. As you know, good lord I understand literally everything you are saying. The way my body feels at a healthy weight is triggering, I’m not a fan of how I look grossly underweight, but for some reason I feel better in my skin. I don’t weigh myself now and refuse weigh ins at the doctor. The oncologist mandates it because of my transfusions and medication, so I step on the scale backwards.
Of everything we’ve kicked, this one is the hardest. We don’t need alcohol or drugs to survive, but we need food. Our relationships with food are convoluted and complex. It’s a journey where we need to focus on the small successes that are leading us to the healthiest us that we can be.
I’m not sure about you, but the feeling of food in my stomach is triggering, so I started with foods that didn’t leave an uncomfortable feeling in my belly. A lot of rice cakes and salads lol. I gradually added more foods as I got stronger.
I’m pulling for you. It’s the hardest thing ever, and trust me, I’ve had a few slips with this shit show of a life I have going on. Thankfully, I’ve been able to reel it back in. But that monster will always be in there and it’s a dangerous slippery slope.
You know how much I love you and how special you are to me. I believe in you and I’m your biggest cheerleader 🩷
6 Likes
Thanks, everyone for your kind words and support, @Girlinterrupted the sense of identity is important as you know.
As I stated in my last post there’s just been a lot lately and it seems to all be focused around my ED. I have finished all the weeks of ED therapy online so that is a win. I showed up for everyone sometimes that meant twice a week and many times that meant at moments I did not want to be there. I have gotten a place in the Regional Eating Disorder program so now have a three-person “team” that I am working with. I have had my intake with the psychologist and the nurse, I still haven’t returned the dietician’s phone call. ( insert eye roll here) I am not going to lie, the nurse’s appointment was really hard, and I almost didn’t make it. It drove me right back into FFF and I had to reach far into my skills box and ask for help to get to the hospital. I am grateful that my mom was willing to take me, what sucked was that the whole drive there she talked about her latest diet and calorie intake. She even caught herself and said " Oh I am not supposed to talk to you about this am i?" stopped and then picked it back up again minutes later. I forgive you Mom and your obsessive thoughts, I get it. Anyways by the time i got there I was absolutely fucked and all because the nurse had told me when we were booking the appointment that she would be weighing me. FUCK, I weigh myself multiple times a day… but I surely do not want someone else weighing me and trying to take control of my eating. I was honest with her about where i was at, and by the end of the appointment, I had reasoned with that wounded part of my brain telling her that if they ever started to try to control and we hated it that we could stop coming. I got weighed, also backward which makes me laugh because I fucking know how much I weigh hourly. Now to find some willingness with the dietician… I just need to go and listen, I dont need to do anything.
12 Likes
Girl, you are working so hard and lol at the backwards scale. It’s kind of like when a dog hides his face and thinks since he can’t see us, that we can’t see him. Same with that damn scale. I have to do it myself today. We have so much shame about that number and it’s ours. It feels like a violation when others see it. It’s just a damn number, why does it affect us so much? It’s wild!!
I’m glad your mom caught herself, but girl. Where we we going? 
I’m glad you have her help and support 🩷
I’m obviously just catching up, so anything I’m off base on, I apologize. I’ll be caught up with you soon enough. I miss you muffin 
2 Likes