Celebration of Lights

Thank you all so much for your comments. I feel less alone and less like nobody would care if I fell off the face of the earth. It feels like I'm screaming behind a wall of glass. Opening my mouth but nothing can come out. All these emotions are bubbling beneath the surface and I know they are there but they're trapped (untentionally. I don't try not to feel. I want more than anything to have a good cry... I'm just unable to for reasons unknown to me). I'm panicking inside and yet everyone tells me that I am the calmest person they know. How can my view of myself be so different from what others see? It's this incongruency that throws my world out of whack. With two polar views, they cannot be both right, so who's right?

I saw my new T, Kristina, yesterday. I love her. I never knew I could connect with a new T so quickly but there's somthing about her that made me take a leap of faith and open up/trust her. Maybe it is her kind spirit. I feel a little guilty, as if i'm betraying my old T, Barbara, who I have seen for 8 years and who has basically watched me grow up from a teenager to now. The only reason I started seeing Kristina is because Barb is on holidays and I needed to see someone so I wasn't hanging and feeling alone, but now I'm not sure whether to go back to B or keep seeing K. She gave me bunch of photocopies on mindfulness and distress tolerance from a DBT workbook meant for BPD. I'm excited at this hands-on approach. Something concrete to do. Steps 1, 2, 3, etc. I like this kind of linearity.

Last night I went to the Celebration of Lights (annual fireworks competition in Vancouver) with a friend and a girl I met in ED group. We went for dinner because my non-ed friend was hungry. THAT was an awkward situation. So many pressures from different angles pressing in on me. I wasn't hungry and didn't really want to spend money on something I didn't want to eat. I had salad earlier but I felt obliged to order something 1) so I wouldn't trigger my ED friend, 2) because we were taking up seats in the restaurant and therefore 'should' order food, 3) so I wouldn't draw attention to myself and looks from other tables like I normally get. People who haven't had ED's take simple things as ordering food from restaurant for granted. I envy the ease with which they do it. I only wishi I could open up a menu, pick out something that looks really yummy, order it and eat it without further ado or worry. Just eat it. That should be my motto, like Nike's "just do it". But something has gotten twisted inside me and there is no simplicity left in my life where food is concerned.

Tonight I'm going to a free yoga class taught by a friend/yoga instructor in training. Karen from Food and Yoga. She used to have an ED too and went through IP ten years ago. She hasn't relapsed since then and she's strong and healthy now, studying to be a yoga instructor! I've never been to a yoga class, so wish me luck!

Losing Friends

I don't know what to make of this. Yesterday I had 2 friends distance themselves from me because of my ED. These people used to be right there beside me talking about ED tips and stories. I don't have anybody. I'm more and more alone. Even the people who have had ED's (and should therefore understand and be more supportive) are leaving me. Am I that horrible a person?

Here are the messages I received:

1. i had to take your comment down tho cuz you had a link to your blog and i like to keep my page clean - but also a friend of my family looked at it and well, she used to know about my ed and well, it got her concerned again. i explained that even tho i am not struggling like before with my ed i still have friends that may - and so on and so forth. anywayz, long story short, i cant have stuff like that on my page - especially mention of eds and myspace [cuz myspace is private and i woul dlike to keep it that way]. i come from a small town and i have a close family and it just raises unnecessary concern.

2. for my sake, I'm gunna remove u as a friend on fb b/c your pics are ed related and triggering. I'm not upset at all!! I know where u r at and it is a really hard and shitty place to be at! But for me, I can't move forward in my recovery unless I distance myself from the anorexic world.
U are real thin tianne, anorexic thin. U need and deserve help to get outa the hell hole. I pray u can chose to do it!

I feel like I could disappear and nobody would know/care.

Bone Density is OK!

I don't want to do this - I don't want this to be my life - every night my body kicking into autopilot mode and b/p-ing from 11pm to 3am. Every day I wake up with the best intentions and resolve that today will be different but it never is. Then I struggle with the question: can I do this on my own or do i need to go into the hospital? I sometimes surprise myself at the fact that I can function every day at work and looking after Zach since I have so little sleep and nutrition. The human body is amazing. Its capacity to scrape by on whatever it is given, the resiliency and resourcefulness... but I know there must come a point where enough is enough. I wonder how close I am to that point. The morbid part of me wants to toe the line and taste death. Just a taste. I don't actually want to DIE. Besides, I'm far from it - I'm almost too big to even be considered ana, lol. My last bone density test results came back OK, so for now I'm safe from osteo. In some ways i think my body's ability to cope works against me. I can't legitimately see myself as "sick" when I get by day to day and go through the motions. I mean, I'm not collapsing therefore I don't NEED to be hospitalized, right?

What I do need is to move out and get my own place. My mother and I have NEVER had a good relationship and even though I'm older now and she should have mellowed a bit with age herself, things are just as bad as when I was a teenager. She doesn't approve of me, my choices, the way I want to raise Zach. As a result, the whole discipline thing has been a huge struggle and Zach is probably confused too about who to listen to. When my mom and I did a brief family therapy stint back in December last year the counsellor picked up on that too and asked us how those roles are defined, "Who is mom and who is grandma?" Because the lines are blurred by us living with my mom, Zach might think that I'm more of a sister to him than a mother perhaps. Some barriers to me moving out are financial and practical. My mom does help out a lot with babysitting and if I moved out that wouldn't be as accessible to me. I guess it's a trade-off right? I've gotta take the good with the bad. I just hope this isn't going to affect my relationship with Zach permanently.

25th Bday

It's been a week since I last updated! Not much has happened in that time. My birthday went well. We went to Denny's for dinner. Yes, I know that sounds really bad - trashy - but it worked well for us for a few reasons. 1) Kids eat free on Tuesdays 2) Free birthday meal for me and 3) Denny's has a play area for kids and they are family friendly so no worrying about Zach disturbing the neighbors or upsetting the servers. I made a beautiful white chocolate strawberry cheesecake with whipped cream as my birthday cake. Unfortunately I couldn't even bring myself to have a tiny slice. It's funny how I can live vicariously by watching others enjoy my baking. Since I was 16 I have been making my own birthday cakes because I like to seize any opportunity to bake. That sweet 16 cake was a marbled chocolate/yellow cake with chocolate frosting and white chocolate piped accents. My Duncan Hines chocolate frosting recipe was a huge hit online at allrecipes.com and it actually got published in print in the Allrecipes Cookbook! (I have also happily been in charge of bday cakes for family members since that time.)

I'm down to about 92-93 lbs... (I am 5 feet, 6.5 inches). It's such a mindfuck that the smaller I get, the bigger I feel. I look around me and it seems like everyone is getting smaller and that they are smaller than me when I know that logically it is not true. I used to think that anything under 100 lbs (ie. double digits) would be good enough but then the world around me started twisting and distorting itself making it seem like everyone is shrinking too therefore I need to lose even more weight so as not to be at a normal weight. I wonder what is so unacceptable about being a normal weight.

I know I have lost a lot of my personality along with the pounds I've lost. I have developed a mild social anxiety that was never there before. When I go out with people I worry about being faced with food and uncomfortable situations but even moreso, being too tired or zoned out to interact with others. I worry about being boring. I have no problem making friends, I just fear that when they really get to know 'me' that I will not be what they want or they will get tired of me. I have to keep up appearances (of normalcy? of happiness?). There probably is some truth in these fears because I really don't have a lot of energy. On the weekend I was out with my mom and sister and we had to walk up a hill a few blocks from the parking to the stores and I remember my legs feeling weak and in the back of my head I wondered how I would keep up to them. I do not want to go IP but even I can admit to myself that it would be really difficult impossible to kick this without the intense support you get from IP.

I think all of this is taking a toll on Zach. I don't think I'm fit to be his mother. My own mother and I have been fighting a lot (mainly because I'm a bitch to live with) and Zach overhears us. He's been acting up and throwing things. I caught him snatching a toy from another kid his age at the church preschool. He used to be such a good natured, gentle spirited boy. What am I doing to him? Everything in my life is falling to pieces. Like watching a go-kart destined for destruction. All I can do is watch and say, what went wrong and how did it go so wrong so fast :(

Christy's Wedding Shower

Back in the summer of Grade 11 I went on a 6 week summer work student exchange to Québec with 3 other girls I had never met before. The 4 of us became really close friends after spending all that time together and we've been in touch ever since. Over the weekend I went to the wedding shower of one of these girls. She's getting married August 8 of this year. The other 2 girls are getting married next year... and then there's ME. Totally single for the past 1.5 years (except for a few unmemorable dates through Lavalife). I feel like I'm being left behind, muchly because of the ED keeping me stuck in one place. I don't have the energy to date but the years are slipping by. I'm going to be 25 tomorrow. OMG - I will be a quarter of a century old! When I was younger and I thought of where I Would be at age 25, I expected to be so much further along. I'm doing well in terms of career and education but that's all.

I want to stop using the ED as a crutch or an excuse not to participate in life. I know there is some truth in the fact that I don't physically have the energy to go out as much as a fully healthy person would, but I also know that I could be making a greater effort on my part to at least *try*. It's weird to want something so much yet not be able to muster up the strength to reach outside yourself to try and attain it.

Back to the wedding shower. It was held at this super-nice house in North Vancouver. Everything was immaculate and they had a huge pool too. Drinks were served in itty bitty teacups with 2 saucers underneath, the host and her children had perfect posture and composure, dressed so elegantly. I hate that kind of atmosphere and it immediately makes me feel uncomfortable. I wore a spaghetti strap dress and you could see a few old scars from cutting on my ankles. Anyways, from the moment I walked into the house, I could feel everyone staring at me. Literally looking me up and down. Later one of my friends told me that they were whispering behind my back about how skeletal I am and that I'm obviously sick. I personally don't think it's THAT obvious. The Ana part of me is happy because this means that I have succeeded at being skinny enough to elicit comments and for people to assume ana when they look at me. The other part wonders if that's really what people see and they just keep their mouths shut around me. I wonder if I really am so thin that it's obvious something is not right. In my mind I don't believe that I am at that state of thinness yet. Maybe it's just that group of rich women who think that... maybe they just talk about people out of habit and I happened to be the pick of the day.

Post-appointment

Edema sucks. My body is extremely prone to water shifts because of the constant dehydration that I subject it to, so edema has been plaguing me the past few days. My ankles are visibly swollen. Normally I can wrap my thumb and middle finger around my ankle and have some overlap but now I can't even touch thumb to finger when I try. The weather being hot has made it 10x worse too since people under normal circumstances tend to retain more water in the heat (so I'm told).

I had my dreaded doctor's appointment at the hospital yesterday and she gave me a prescription to help with this. She says it has something to do with hormone imbalances too from b/p. Good news is that I'm still "sick enough" to be on the IP list. She seemed shocked and confused that I might even think that I am not sick enough. I guess the ED mind fucks up your clarity and makes things seem all screwy. She also got mad at me because I haven't been going weekly to do my bloodwork. I felt like a child being tsk-tsk-ed at. I guess I'll have to make more of an effort, especially with these new water-pills. A possible side effect of the meds is that they affect your potassium. Shit. I've had enough potassium problems in the past. i JUST got the paralyzingly painful leg cramp thing under control, I really really hope this doesn't mess things up.

I met a girl in the waiting room who scared the daylights out of me. She is missing two teeth in the front because of osteoporosis and acid from purging. She's "not all there" if you know what I mean. She knows it too and says that she might not make sense sometimes because she's lost a lot of brain cells from the ED. Right now she's at a healthy weight but she had to be certified a few times and was in a coma for a little while from it. I don't think I would get to that point. It's scary to see how real it is though. It's not just on TV or in movies, this brings it so much closer to home.

Appointment Anxiety

I am so nervous about my doctor's appointment tomorrow at the hospital. I don't want to eat anything, I am freaking out about what might be said tomorrow.

I'm afraid that since I haven't lost much weight since the last appointment that they'll say I'm healthy enough and I won't get the support that I need. I know this is pretty irrational because nothing has changed since last time when I saw the doctor and when they wanted me to IP... but because I'm stable, ie. not WORSE, I feel like they might think I'm OK when I know that I do need the support.

On one hand I don't want to go IP but on the other hand I know that I need to because nothing is getting better on its own and even if I try to be healthier it's too difficult without round the clock help and people to talk to and people to physically keep me company so I don't "engage in unhealthy behaviors" (lol) to use their words.

There's a little voice in my head saying to take laxatives/diuretics/not eat anything to fuck up my body a lot before the appointment to prove that I'm still worth being helped.

Zach update

Cuteness: Last night I was talking to Zach, chattering away while he was having his bath. One of the things I said was, "Mommy loves Zachy. Zach is my baby. Is Zachy mommy's baby?". He stopped playing, looked up at me, leaned over and said, "MY Mommy [emphasis on the word MY]. Hug please!" He then proceeded to kiss his hand and then put the kiss on my cheek and in my pocket to bring along with me.

The weekend was quite eventful in a non-eventful way. We did everyday things like grocery shop, go to church, go to the library, etc. but there was something different, a good kind of different. There's been a shift in my relationship with Zach. For the first time I felt like I could have a conversation with him. This made me realize just how much he has grown up and how much he understands. It made everything so much more fun because I can see his personality developing and every day brings new surprises. It's like getting to know a new friend and learning about that person little by little.

On the toilet training frontier: I cloth diaper but when we're at home I let him go diaperless with just little boxer shorts on. He hasn't done #2 in his diaper since he was 10 months old (I did the Elimination Communication Diaper-Free Baby thing until I went back to work full time when he turned 1. It worked really well and I wish I could have kept it up. He would probably be totally trained long ago if I hadn't gone back to work. Zach knows when he has to go pee because he says "pee" and then within the next 5 seconds he's peeing on the floor. He also tells me "pee in toilet", so he knows where he "should" go but doesn't tell me in time. I'm not too worried about it, I'm more impressed that we're doing as well as we are in this area especially since everyone tells me boys take much longer to be trained than girls.

Kristina, new T

My family doctor is a sweet person, very softspoken and gentle, a great person overall but a crappy doctor - at least where ED's are concerned. It's tough for me to think about switching family doctors because I've seen him since I was 8 or 9 so there is a lot of "history" between us. Maybe I cling to the past too much and maybe I'm too loyal a person... Anyways, I am supposed to see him weekly for medical monitoring but I haven't been because when I'm there all we do is chat about how things are going. He doesn't do blood pressure checks or weight or any of that stuff you'd expect. When I was getting all those leg and foot cramps - terrible paralyzing cramps - early this year, he gave me Potassium supplements when really according to the EDU doctor I see as well, I should be taking Magnesium supplements for that. Since I started on the Mg supplements things have gotten much better.

I have started seeing a new therapist as of yesterday (in addition to the one I've seen for 8 years, when I was in Children's Hospital). The only reason is because Barbara (old T) is going away for a month or so and the ED group is on a break until October so I feel like I'm at loose ends. I need my appointments in order to keep life going. Without these set points in time I would feel like I was floating and floundering. I need my identity as a "sick person" and in some ways the constant appointments are becoming a part of my routine life which is probably not very healthy for my head. The new T, Kristina, thinks that I will be in IP by August but I don't think so. I'm not THAT much of a medical priority! lol. I also hope that it's not that soon because I need more time to mentally prepare - and to lose more weight for insurance and as a buffer since I know in IP you have to gain weight.

I'm so excited about the movie coming out about baking called "Julie and Julia".

Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) are featured in writer-director Nora Ephron's adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell's Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Based on two true stories, Julie & Julia intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends...until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

Given that I have a baking blog and am absolutely obsessed with food-related anything, this is the perfect movie for me. I only wish it were out in time for my birthday which is July 21! It's only coming out August 7th.

I just realized that I haven't been blogging about Zach, my son. The sad thing is that ever since I started working full time (July 2008) I don't see him very much.

Our weekly schedule:
M-F he is at daycare until 5:30 then I play with him a bit, give him dinner and a bath then it's bedtime. Sat-Sun he spends the morning with his dad then comes back in the afternoon for a nap. The only time we have is after the nap before bedtime.

He's growing so much and learning so much. Some things he says amaze me and I wonder, 'how do you know that!?" We're currently going through a bit of a tough time with discipline. At daycare when he's told not do something he does it more and more. I feel like I've done something wrong in raising him but I don't know what to do. I am very firm and I strongly believe in discipline. I will not and have not ever spoiled him and this adds to my confusion about where this behavior is coming from. I do the "time-out" thing with him and always follow through with consequences when I say I will. Here's the 'aww' factor... He always asks for a hug after he says sorry, which melts my heart every time. He is such an affectionate little boy. I don't know how one minute he can be on my last nerve and the next minute I want to smother him in kisses and hugs.

CMA Mark: 72%

I passed my CMA exam!!! I only have one more year of school left and I will be a Certified Management Accountant!

It was the longest 5 seconds waiting for the PDF file with my CMA mark to download.
Every nerve in my body was on edge.

When I saw the words "Congratulations! You received 72" (Passing Grade is 60) I couldn't believe it! I didn't just scrape by, I actually got a decent mark!
It is the best news I have had in a long time and this means that now I get to truly enjoy my summer - completely carefree and worryfree... well... except for the little problem of potentially being stuck in IP.

I have a Dr. and Psych. appointment next week and I'll know more about it then.

I realized that I am never 100% sure of what I feel. I often feel the polar opposite feeling both at the same time. For example, with IP. On one hand I want to go because it means I've been identified as sick enough and it means I've succeeded at having an eating disorder. It would be so much easier not to have to think and it would be a nice relief from my life. I know that if I do want to recover (I'm still ambivalent on this) it would have to be in a hospital or somewhere OTHER than my home. I need a total change.

On the other hand, I don't want to leave my life, disrupt my work and leave Zach (my son) to be in a hospital. I used to think it was normal, seeing doctors weekly, being poked with needles on a regular basis, until someone pointed out to me that most people my age don't see their doctor unless it's for a pregnancy test or for an annual checkup. At that point it became painfully obvious to me that this is NOT the norm for people. When I was getting my weekly bloodwork done I also noticed for the first time that I was the youngest one by far. Most people were in walkers, over 60 years old. I felt a little out of place.

Feeling 2 opposite things at once is totally frustrating and leads me to wonder what it is that I really want deep down. My T says to try and identify my "gut feeling" or my "instinct" but this concept is completely alien to me. I'm stuck in my head, intellectually, way too much of the time. It's sort of like the idea in the book Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking.

Waiting for the CMA marks

I'm shaking with anxiety...

The marks for my CMA (accounting) exam are coming out this morning... I wrote the exam on May 14th. It's a national exam and the pass rate last year was only 60%.

I was not in a good headspace when I wrote it. My T strongly suggested that I not write the exam but I wrote it anyway. I don't want to fail. I have not failed anything in my life... I'm a perfectionist. I know that there are a lot of things going on right now and my head is not as clear as it normally is, but I still cannot fail. I don't know if I could forgive myself if I did...

Waiting waiting, I hate the waiting game...

Half the year is gone

"Feeling the past moving in
Letting a new day begin
Hold to the time that you know
You don't have to move on to let go."
-I Remember, Deadmaus ft. Kaskade

I received a letter from my new treatment team at the hospital. They just reiterated their recommendations that I do IP and then follow that up with residential treatment. They want me to do 2-3 groups/week until I go into IP (hmm... *if* I go at all). They also kept saying that I seem ambivalent about all treatment options. I suppose I am ambivalent. Nobody thinks I look ill or "too thin". I still look healthy-thin which confuses me because I see other people at the same weight/height as me and they look thinner, yet my face is not drawn or gaunt. My hair is still long and shiny, my body is coping with everything pretty well and nobody would guess that there is a problem. I'm healthy-thin. Not sickly-thin. I wish I looked as crappy as I felt because at least I wouldn't feel guilty about going to the hospital. As it stands right now, I'd probably be the fattest one on the IP unit!!!

I went to get my weekly bloodwork done today. I felt kind of awkward, surrounded by a ton of people over 50 years old (at least). It was like being stuck on the geriatric ward. Is this what has become of me? Spending my lunch hour in a lab... I feel older than 24. I feel like I skipped my teenage years and all that frivolous fun that teenagers have. I always was too serious/practical. People say that I will hit my 30's and go wild to make up for lost time. I highly doubt it but it might be fun... lol