another good day + more about Corey

So....I DIDNT PURGE ALL DAY YESTERDAY! Go me! And so far today has been good too. I did work out this morning and am feeling good/bad about it, just wondering if it was a good idea. I feel good and strong and not weak or anything and Corey said to base it on how i am feeling, but we know he is a little skewed and kind of a health-nut. But i am not going to worry too much cause i only did work out 2x this week which is hardly overexercising.
Corey tends to agree with me about my target weight from the university hospitals- that it is too high. He says he personally feels best when he is at the leanest end of his weight range. Part of me is like YES somebody finally agrees with me, and part of me is worried that he is supporting my illness thinking when he says things like this. Ok, this next part is really kind of bad. When i first got out of treatment last year and was really unhappy about my body and my weight and Corey was really trying to get me into working out he said some things that were pretty iffy. Like, that if i wanted to feel in control of something or obsess about something, working out and lifting weights is a really great way to control something in a healthy way. That weightlifters can get on a strict regimen and a really lean, high-protien diet and really control that aspect of their life and get their body fat down and have a really lean body and be healthy. That i could channel my anxiety and need for control in that direction and work out every day and eat really lean and get a lean body. Ok so maybe this might be good advice for somebody, and i think he meant well, but let me tell you it was EXTREMELY triggering for someone fresh out of treatment! And not that i give the treatment team at the uihc program credit for knowing what they are doing, but i think any treatment team would not be happy to hear a therapist talking this way to a patient.
The thing is, in all other aspects, corey is a REALLY great therapist. Before i saw him i was seeing this lady who is supposed to be the ed therapist in the area, but she never gave me any feedback, just the whole nod nod uh huh uh huh routine. The most she ever did was suggest i keep a food journal. Corey gives me really good feedback and is really proactive about challenging me, ecpecially on the distortions and thought patterns behind the ed. I dont really want to find a new therapist. Well, the other peice is that i am moving to another city this summer so it seems pointless to start with someone new and build a theraputic relationship with them just in time to move. I mean, in a few months i will be in a new city and have to find a new therapist anyway. So i might as well stick with corey.
Saw my psychiatrist last night and he is cutting back on my lexapro and risperidol. i will see him again in 3 weeks and hopefully then he will d/c these two meds. I am worried i will never be able to have any more kids cause i am taking too many meds and wont be able to wean myself off them when im ready to have a baby. But i am not ready to have a beby right now so i guess i shouldnt worry about it.

ok day

yesterdays therapy was not as bad as i had anticipated. We talked about some uncomfortalble things for a few minutes, and then switched over to talking about my eating disorder, wich is a safe topic for me and pretty much took up the rest of the hour. Dont get me wrong- it was a productive session. Corey is pretty concerned about things and really wants me to get the purging under control (we all do). We decided to revisit the idea of having me drink liquid supplements as the base of my meal plan until the purging is under control, then start back with "real" food when i am comfortable. I am ready to give it another shot but my major concern is mealtimes with the kids- how is that going to be for them when mommy's not eating what everybody else is eating. Im so scared about passing on weird food habits to them. Corey said that he would rather have me do this for now if it helps me get healthy in the long run, then to do what i have been doing and stay sick. He said if Emma asks just say "This is what mommy needs to eat to be healthy" or something simple like that. Something about health, not weight.
Sometimes i wonder if one of the reasons i like corey as a therapist so much is that he is kind of concerned (obsessed) with weight and eating healthy himself. He used to be a body builder in his 20's. I saw him today and all we talked about was food and weight stuff. Most of it was productive, but some of it wasnt. For instance, he told me that all he eats all day is one Naked juice drink (the protien kind) and then he has a light dinner in the evening. But if he is "reducing", he has another Naked juice instead of dinner. Thats just two Naked juices all day! Maybe its just me, but that doesnt seem like alot. And he still wants me to work out while i am on the liquid diet, even if i am taking in less than 1000 cals a day. He said if i started losing weight i could add more fruits and vegetables. I guess i dont get specific about where i am weight- wise on this blog kind of on purpose. I will say right now that i am getting close to my pre-treatment weight. im only sharring this so you can understand why i am kkind of alarmed at his cavalier attitude regarding combining the liquid diet and encouraging me to work out. Part of me is thinking "he says its ok-go for it!" but i know that is illness talking.

im sad

Sorry my posts have been kind of dark and deppressing lately. Im afraid this one is more of the same. Im just in a funk, deppressed, cant seem to pull my head out of the toilet. i have therapy in a few minutes with my husband and i am dreading it. i spend most of the day not thinking about the things that are getting me down kind of on purpose, and in therapy i have to not only think about them but i have to talk about them too. i have therapy tomorrow as well, and i also see my psychiatrist tommorrow. Im hoping he (the doctor) will take me off some of the "extra" meds that i have been weaning off. That would be great.
I found out more about my moms cancer- it is a stage 3 but her doctor didnt really even want to stage it cause her case is so unique. She will be on iv interferon every day for a month, then get shots of it 3 times a week for a year. I guess this is pretty standard treatment for melanoma that has metastasised. But i was reading about it on web md and found out that only 20% of people respond to the treament, and the only way you can tell if the treatment has worked is if you dont get cancer back. So its kind of like a waiting game that my mom will be playing for the rest of her life. But it could be worse, i guess, so i am tryiing to focus on the positives. Like my mom is young and healthy so hopefully the treatment wont be so bad for her. I hope this whole thing inspires my sister to stop going to the tanning bed but i doubt it.
I have to go get ready for my appointment but i will try to post later. Hopefully i will be in a better mood. I have one positive observation to make before i go- the trees looked absolutely beautiful this morning with the frost on them; it was like a winter wonderland! Im glad i am able to appreciate the little things like that.

sunday afternoon

well, not much going on. Still here, trying to keep it all together. I wish i had + progress to report on the eating disorder front but so far no good. Was it Marilla from "Anne of Green Gables" who always said "Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it", or something like that? I like that. I mean to post more often on this blog. It's just the darned Seroquel- it scrubs my brainpan clean and all i want to do as soon as the girls go to bed is sleep. Yeah, it's really been putting a dent in my love life (ok, so maybe that is too much information. But there it is.). On the other hand, the anxiety has been more manageable and that is crucial right now. I honestly think that were it not for the seroquel i would be in the hospital right now. So i am willing to make the temporary sacrifices for a little piece of mind. Piece of my mind. Ha ha!
Lately i have been semi- obsessed with the song "Disturbia" by Rriahna (sp?). I feel like the lyrics pretty much describe what it is like to be me right now. Ok, maybe that is a little bit dramatic, but there it is. And who hasn't, at some point or another, heard a song that just clicks and makes them say "hey, that is so me!"? I wish i knew how to copy/paste or whatever and could put the lyrics up here. The song is kind of about living with a madness inside that distorts everything and isolates you and is debillitating. At least thats how i took it. Thats how i feel about my deppression/anxiety/eating disorder. Its like i live in a cold and scary parallel universe and im looking out through a distorted lense of irrational fears and bad memories. I try to function in the so-called real world but in order to do so i keep up a constant dialogue with myself, kind of like a coach. It sounds like this " now go to your husband. now hug him. now smile. put the pot on the stove. turn on the stove. good job. you can do it. theres emma. give her a hug and smile.". Well, thats only on bad days. On good days i can function without the "coach". Only there havent been very many good days lately. It might sound like i dont love my husband and kids, like i am "fake" with them. Thats not it at all. If it werent for the love that i have for my honey and little ones i would just give up. Its just that the deppression makes it difficult some times to be expressive or just plain interact above the level of a slug.
Whoops! I didnt mean to ramble on. Since ive scared off any new readers, and bored the rest of you into a coma, i had better go. I have some serious sitting around to do. But if you comment and you have heard that song, please tell me what you think of it. I do admit, it has kind of an annoying rhthym that gets stuck in your head. Bombombedum boombombedomdom.....

crazy hair day

Today is crazy hair day at Emma's school. Either that or she is full of it and i am the most gullible parent in the world. Anyway, she wanted a mohawk, but her hair is too long, so i gave her a row of ponytails up the middle, to kind of simulate a mohawk. There was some hair left on the sides so i put a ponytail on each side which kind of turned out looking like handlebars on the sides of her head. I must say i was pretty proud of my handywork. I wish i was smart and knew how to post pics on my blog cause i took some pretty good ones of emmas hair. If i ever learn how i will come back to this. My kind friend Keely sent me a pretty detailed step by step email with instructions on how to do this but it it was lost on me. I consider my ability to even post on this blog to be a small miracle.
Here's a random question: why do i keep buying "light" soups expecting them to be good? Or even sort of good? My New Years resolution, since i havent made one yet, is to never be duped into spending $1.75 on a can of celery water again! I bought one today that had like 3 pieces of corn in it! Seriously! It was supposed to be "southwestern Vegetable". The picture looked delicious. I think thats what keeps suckering me back in, those dang mouth watering pictures. Well no more! Can you tell im a little bent? The story has a happy ending though- since the soup was clearly inedible it gave me a nice excuse to zip over to Subway for a somewhat more expensive but definitely more palatable lunch. MMmmm, banana peppers!

update

this is just a quick update. I will write more later. I was hospitalised on a psych unit for a week and got out about a week ago. While i was there i found out that my mom had a reccurance of a melanoma ( skin cancer) that she had 15 years ago and it is in her lymph system wich could be bad. I will find out more about that this wed. I also got some more very bad news that i am not sure that i want to talk about yet or at all. Needless to say i havent been dealing with any of this very well and my psych doc added seroquel to my regimen ( im off all the benzo's) which has helped alot. Before the seroquel i was worrying about things constantly and crying alot and my stomach hurt from the stress so i could barely eat. Now i feel much better but the downside is that i am not really emoting at all and am feeling quite sedated. But i guess that is ok for now because i can function ( even if i am functioning like a robot). I am wondering a little bit if i am on too many meds. I am on lexapro, topamax, pristiq, risperidal, seroquel, and trazodone. I typed them into this website where you can check your drug regimen for interactions and there were like 7 moderate interactions and 3 severe. But they were all ones i knew about before, like sedation and overheating and seratonin syndrome. Oh, and i wont be going on the grapefruit diet anytime soon. Ha ha laugh that was a little joke :) . I am just going to try to trust my doctor that he is going to try to do what is best for me. Peace out :)

decision

ok, so this one is alot aboout food. so if you think that this is going to bother you then dont read it. I just dont want to trigger or upset anyone. Ok, so here is the deal. i am pretty much purging everything i eat. Even so called safe foods like fat free chips or raw caulifluaer. Everytime i sit doun to a meal or snack i get this anxious and deeply weary feeling because i know what is going to happev next. I feel like noourishing myself is juust this minefielld and i dont feel safe and dont know which way to go. I am completely out of control and it scares me. I AM SO TIRED OF THROWING UP! I cant f-ing stand it. i have been trying the small meals tthroughout the day but that hasnt been working. It has just resulted in me purging more times thruoghout the day.
So here is the plan that i came up with last night. Supplements, and supplements only. No "food". I look at supplements in a different way then i look at food. I look at them kind of like as medicine. I have never thrown up a supplement. I think this could work for me. All i know is, i need a break from all the purging and the anxiety that is going on right now. The whole what to eat, what not to eat, is this safe, will i throw this up. Its driving me over the edge. Whith suplements there is nothing to decide, you drink one, youre done and you go on about your day. i dont know how long i will be on the supplements. My therapist suggested 2 weeks. obviously the idea is not to be on them forever. When i am feeling ready i will transittion back to regular food. Its just that right now my emotional state is so fragile and ED is doing such a number on me that i want to take back some of the control and feel a litle saner and calmer. I hope everyone can suppoort me in this step or at least see where im coming from but if you have concerns that is ok too. i know it must seem a little drastic. And who knows, maybe tommorrow ill break down and have a hamburger. you never know. this is just something id like to try, because right now i feel like im runnung out of options. Love and peace to all!

fifth anniversary!

cant believe that five years ago (technichly yesterday) chris and i were getting married in the salt lake temple. Sometimes it seems like a long time ago and sometimes it seems like it has gone by fast. We certainly have had our share of trials. i remember our first anniversary- we played scrabblr at the Center for Chance cause i couldnt get a pass to go uot. that was a bummer, but chris was a real sport about it. I am blessed with such a loving, carring, understanding husband. Sometimes i worry that i have the capacity to take advantage of that. But i dont want to be that wayy, i really dont. I want to be healthy and well and be the wife he deserves! I want to be the person that i deserve! I know that if i could somehow thake all the energy i put into obsessing about food/ weight/calories and put it toward soomething positive, who knows what i could accomplish! Maybe i could get off disability, go back to school, and have a career, marbee helping others in the mental health feild. Or maybe i could just be a really kick-ass mom instead of just so-so, But i am forgetting about the anxiety and deppression. not to be self-defeating, but those two monsters were there before the eating disorder showed up, and i am likely to struggle with them for the rest of my life. I just have to find a way to live with them so i can function and they dont control me.
So anyway, back to my anniversary trip. We stayed at this great little b&b in a 2 room suite witth a fireplace and a jacuzzi tub and an absolutely beautiful christmas tree that was still up. Maybe i will see if my husband will help me put pictures up on this blog. i am so bad with technology. Anyway, unfortunately, my ED came along for the ride, but was fairly unobtrusive, and chris and i enjoyed ourselves immensly. The benzos stayed at home. We shopped at all the cute little boutique stores and i got myself the COOLEST tshirt wich i will try to post a picture of. It says "caffiene girl" accross the top and the bottom says " because sleep is overrated" and it has a drawing of a cute girl surrounded by sodas and energy drinks. Perfect for me, yes!

happy new year

ok, so i am having a really positive attitude, or am trying to have, but the behaviors are reallly slow in coming around. I did really well the llast day of december- no purging! yay me! But yesterday and today, after a promising start bolth days, i ended up hitting the toilet. and its been over stupid stuff, too. Like feeling too full aafter a salad or having just a few hersheyes kisses. and the real killer is that bolth times its been within anhour or ttwwo after taking my pristiq, which is the new antideppressent that i have been pinning all my hopes on. But how is it going to work if i keep throwing it up. I feel like such a failure and am getting really discougaged. i mean, i want to get better so so badly. I wish i had the money to hire a private duty psych nurse whose only job was to hang with me and keep me from throwing up. But like that is going to happen. i keep trying to stick to foods that are safe, as in thay wont make me feel threatened and i wont want to throw up. but lately a new layer has been added to my illness- the feeling of fullness makes ke want to purge. Even if it is just carrots or salad or something. So i feel like nourishing myself is practically impossible. I f anyonee has any suggestions, please post a comment here or on my facebook. sorry about all the food talk! i am just really feeling alone and hopeless. Oh, and things are not going well on the benzo front, either. I told the doc that the klonipin wasnt working well so he gave me a prescription for lorazepam. i went ahead and refilled the klonipin anyway, so now i have bolth. i am pretty much taking them around the clock and while my anxiety is doing better i know deep down this is not how i am supposed to be using them and this is what i used to do with the xanax that got me into trouble. I am already having blackouts and problems with my memory wich is a bad sign. i am afraid to tell anyone because i feel so fragile and dont want my meds to be taken away and still hope i can get to a point where i can manage them effecctively.
I other news, i am really looking forward to this weekend! Chris and i are going to the amana colonies this weekend- no kids. we have a 2 room zacuuzi suite at a bed and breakfest and are going out to eat at all the authentic german resteraunts and shopping at all the boutiques! i am so excited. Historicaly, my ed has been able to go on hiatus for special occasions so i hope this will be the case. And i am not takin ANY benzos with me- i see nothing but fun for this weekend with no need to block any of it out, and i want all mt memories intact! So im not even leaving them as an option. i am feeling really good about that. And, maybe a benzo free weekend eill help me get that whole situation under control. Well, wish me luck! Please leave comments so i know you were here, either here or on facebook. it means alot to me that someone would read this! Love you all!