FED UP (i can do this!)

Im sick of feeling like shit! Im sick of cooking meals for my family and and not being able to eat with them! Sick of going to bed afraid that i wont wake up in the morning! Sick of all of it! It's just not worth it! Today in therapy we were talking about weight and I identified a weight that is within a healthy bmi range for me, yet is not scary- high like the target weight from my last treatment. Its a place that i think i could be ok at, and, while i wouldnt be CRAZY about how i looked and felt, i wouldnt have to starve or purge to maintain it. So... I think i am going to go for it. I dont have to gain TOO much in order to get there, but i am still kind of freaked out, cause i am used to trying to lose, not gain. I started already, at dinner, eating an appropriate amount with my family. Right now i feel like a beached whale. I have changed my mind back and forth at least five times in the last hour. Sometimes, i think i am going to restrict tommorrow to make up for dinner and so on and so forth. Then i remind myself of all the reasons i want to get better. I hope i can do this! I dont want to be sick for the next 20+ years or the rest of my life. And, looking at it logically, if i want to get better, weight gain is inevitable. And its not like i have a long way to go. But any gain causes MAJOR anxiety! Maybe this is wrong thinking, but one thing i have been telling myself is, if i dont like being "healthy", i can always go back. I know how. Weird, but that's kind of comforting to me. But i'm going to give it a real shot first. Hopefully i wont be on this blog next week eating my words. It seems like i have alot of breakthroughs and grand ideas that never seem to last. I hope this one is different.

a bit of good news

I just read my last post and realized that it was a bit of a downer so here's some good news: i found out today that my insurance approved my Pristiq! Hooray! I have been on samples since December, and my insurance company refused to cover it at first, so my doc had to fill out a bunch of forms and such. Well, it looks like they are going to cover it now. They should! I mean, i have tried every available ssri, a few snri's, some tricyclics, you get the picture. What i'm trying to say is, there are good reasons that i need a newer drug. So, anyways, i'm happy about that. Oh, and I saw my psych doc last night and iv'e graduated from seeing him every 2-3 weeks, to not seeing him for 2 months! So there's a bit of progress! Outside of the eating disorder, i'm enjoying a period of stable mental health at the moment. :)

please pass the v8

Well, my potassium was normal at 3.7 when they took it yesterday morning (normal is 3.5- 5.0), but i have not been doing very well ed wise since then, so i am currently treating myself to a huge glass of low-sodium v8. May i just say that i HAAAAATE bulimia! My feelings regarding the anorexia are mixed, but i swear if i never had to stare down the inside of a toilet bowl again, i would be one happy woman! Sorry to be so graphic, but there it is.
Mostly, i just wish i could accept my body at a healthy weight and trust it enough to eat intuitively again. Yesterday, i was so desperate for some success; to feel normal, that i said to myself' "to heck with the rules, i'm going to eat with my family and have what they are having". I was just longing for a "normal" family dinner. But about 5 minutes into it, ed started up, and i had all these thoughts about how fat i was going to be and how much weight i was going to gain from the food i was eating ect ect and before i knew it i had decided i was going to purge. Which meant i could have seconds, and thirds, because why not, i was going to get rid or it anyway? Looking back, I'm trying to figure out where i went wrong. Was it too risky to try to be "normal"? Should i have just stuck with my Boost and left the real food to those who could handle it? Should i have taken smaller portions, or maybe skipped the potatoes? Then would it have been ok? I'm just trying to figure this out, because somewhere in there there has got to be an answer for me; some way for me to join my family at the table and be ok with it. I hate to say this, but i am starting to lose hope that i will ever be "better" or "normal". Non-eating-disordered. I don't know. Maybe i am just having a bad week.

STITCHES!

Ok, so we were just sitting around, enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon at home, when Annie( my 2 year old) decided to take a swandive off of her rocking chair right into the corner of the entertainment center. She hit it head first with a sickening "crack" noise then started screaming at the top of her lungs. I got to her, but as soon as i saw the blood i knew that i couldn't look so Chris had to pick her up and survey the damage while i composed myself ( i tend to freak out when one of my kids gets hurt). I was imagining that her eye was out of the socket or her teeth were missing or her face was somehow rearranged to look like Sloth from the Goonies, but Chris showed me it was just a cut on her forhead that, while deep, was rather small. Still, we had to take her to the urgent care clinic for- you guessed it- stitches. This was not nearly as traumatic as i thought it would be. First, they wrapped her up in a blanket so she couldn't move. i told Annie they were going to wrap her up "like a baby", and she seemed to accept this just fine. The doc said most kids go ballistic. Then, the doc gave her a shot of novacaine near the cut to numb the site for the stitches. Poor little Annie was so brave! She whimperd a little, and looked at me and Chris for reassurance, but she didn't cry! Then the doctor gave her 4 stitches, and she didnt cry or squirm or anything! Her little eyes were full of concern, but we just kept praising her and telling her that everything was ok and how good she was doing, and then it was all over. The doctor and nurses were amazed! When it was over, Annie was actually smilling in the mirror at her cartoon character bandaids! I think the whole thing was harder on Chris and i than it was on her! She is so amazingly cute and wonderful!
I kept being paranoid that the doctor was ggoing to call a social worker or something, because when Annie hit the edge of the entertainment center she also hit my wrought iron plant stand so she had these other marks on her face and in general looked all beat up. She still looks pretty rough today. But they didn't say anything about it.
I just ggot back from my doctor appointment where i had my potassium rechecked, so i am waiting to hear if it is still low. If it is low, the doctor is going to give me some supplements.
We found an apartment in Ames on friday. We are not moving until aug, but since it is a college town you have to get them early. Oh, yes, and it is smaller than our place now but costs about $130 more a month. Yay for that. After spending the day driving aroun Ames, i am no longer psyched to be moving there. It looks like just another craphole to me. A craphole where i wont know anyone and dont have a treatment team or any friends or family and no ywca what the hell am i going to do!? Well i guess i will have to figure somthing out. I am just being negative right now; i'm sure it isn't that bad.

sunny day

Today is beautiful outside! Just gorgeous! I am doing better today, too. I did go to the Y but just walked, thank you very much, doctor! But i felt RIDICULOUS! Like a little old lady on that treadmil! But i did it, and i have a sense of peace that i know that today i am taking care of myself, at least to the best of my ability for right now. Oops i have to go- scary gyno appt looming at three o'clock! Maybe i will post more later.

hits & misses

Wellll...... I was able to add two potassium rich foods to my intake today. In addition to shakes and apples, I am now enjoying oranges and low-sodium v8. So, hopefully that will help things along. Fyi: low-sodium v8 has more potassium than regular.
That's the good. The bad is- I went to the Y to WALK and lift weights and the first thing i did was get on the scale and find out that in the one day i took off from excercising i gained considerable weight. It was a horrible feeling- like a punch in the stomach. I could tell by my body that i had gained so i just should have stayed away srom the scale but i just HAD to know. It's that morbid curiosity. But that much? In one day? How on earth am I going to "take it easy" until my dr appt next monday!?
All of this was swirling through my head as i got on the treadmill and cranked up my ipod. And i started out, fully intending a mild stroll, but then I just had thhis flash of anger course through my body and i JUST GOT MAD! Mad that I couldnt excercise! Mad that, for once, I had done what I was supposed to do, and now I was paying for it with emotional pain and discomfort. And i just thought "screw it" and started running. Yeah, i know, i have about the emotional sophistication of a two year old. And i was just reading my post from yesterday, and all those good, healthy thoughts i was having about recovery, and now i feel really bad. I just dont understand myself sometimes. I want recovery so bad, yet i balk every time it gets hard or I feel uncomfortable!
In other news, we are going to Ames friday to look at some apartments and i am kind of excited about that. It will be nice to know where we are going to move and exactly when and stuff like that. I have never been to Ames before, and we are taking Emma out of school to come with us, so it should be a fun road trip.

Thought I Was Doing Really Good, But...

Things are all messed up. Last night I had a really fun trip to the ER with sypmtoms of some kind on heart problem. Turns out my potassium was low. But i have been doing pretty good with the purging, so the doctor thinks its all the excercise, which i admit has been a bit excessive. But here's the tricky part- my potassium was low, but he didnt want to give me an iv or any pills; instead he told he to go home and "eat potassium rich foods, like bannanas and potatoes". Ok, this is a problem for me, becuase i tend to purge just about every "food" i eat, which is why i drink the Boost, and I told the doc this, so he said " well, double the Boost. And no excercising.". So I was left to go home and freak out about how am I supposed to increase my intake while decreasing my excercise HEY DOC IF I COULD DO THAT I BET I WOULDN'T HAVE THIS STUPID EATING DISORDER! Well, i woke up today feeling stressed out and hella fat and bloated and so far have purged twice today which is pretty much the oposite of raising my pottasium. So i was happy that i had an appointment with Corey, but it ended up being one of those sessions that made me feel more deppressed and hopeless. And confused. Corey thinks I can still exercise, like walking and lifting weights. So I am tempted to go do it tommorrow. Just walking, nothing big. I have a follow up appointment with my doc on monday to get my potassium rechecked and maybe me will give me some potassium supplements. I have a feeling that i keep spelling potassium wrong. Anyways. It seems like once i get a handle on one pertt of my ed, another part gets out of control. I thought i was doing so good, not purging and everything, when the whole time i was also in denial about overexercising and restricting. So now i have to face that, While still trying to not binge or purge. It's just all too much sometimes. While i was talking about this stuff in Corey's office, i had this mental image of myself just going home and crawling into bed and pulling the covers up over my head and hiding from it all. Cause thats what i feel like doing. But i have to keep going, keep trying, hoping something works. I have to do it forr my girls. They are the light of my life and my inspiration. The other day, Emma and i were talking about things we were afraid of. she said that the thing she was most afraid of was me dying. That really has given me something to think about; to my girls, i am everything. If they lost me, their lives would be affected forever. I can't let that happen. So....I will cool it on the excercise. I will try to find a way to increase my intake without freaking out and purging. I will treat myself with love and respect, so i can be a good example to my girlies. Cause i sure wouldn't want either of them doing this to themselves. It would break my heart.