It is so embarrassing going into the lab every week for bloodwork. It's the same girls working there all the time. After > 1 year of doing this, most of them know me. Some of them are the same age as me. I've always hated that part of treatment: the med students and nurses and lab techs who are the same age or younger than me, making me feel even worse about being so stuck in my illness that i'm missing out on life. The longer I stay stuck, the further apart I will feel from the world as everyone continues moving on and growing up. The world won't stop for me to give me a chance to catch up. More and more I've been feeling that maybe I never will. I don't even know where to start. It's so daunting that I hardly dare to try.
It says right on my standing order card: Anorexia Nervosa. Every time I hand that card over I feel like whoever's reading it is going to judge me. ie. she's not skinny enough, how could SHE be anorexic, blah blah blah. They're subtle about it but I can see them inadvertantly giving my body a quick once-over when they read my diagnosis. It's almost like a business card, except instesd of the letters PhD. or M.A. (hah I wish), I have the letters A.N. lol.
i think thats the hard part about an ED- it sucks the life right out of us, and we are so consumed by it, nothing else seems as important. we are worried about looking too fat, too ugly, too selfish.. we don't see ourselves the same way everyone else does. i know that when we try to say out loud- "im uncomfortable with how i look" and people give us funny looks..its because we definitely DONT see what others see. so i think they are not giving you the once over because they think you are too fat!
ReplyDeleteI relate to this so, so much. I hate having to go to the doctor and have the same people see me again and again with still the same problems. And it's so much worse when the nurses and lab techs are all younger than me and I feel like they must think I'm an idiot for not being able to get it together. And I hate feeling like I'm so far behind every one else. I guess what helps me is to keep reminding myself that I have an illness and it's not that I'm doing something wrong. And I have to keep believing that someday I'll get it together and that even if the world hasn't waited for me, I'll find some place in it. And I think you will too.
ReplyDeleteohhh i use to have to go not for bloodwork but for weekly weighs at the doctor....same people, every friday morning... same naked me who is supposidly "anorexic" until the doctor exclaimed i was "healthy as a horse" at which point i never went back to get weighed. i freaked out and convinced myself i must have never been "bad enough off" with anorexia and no one in their right mind would think i was ever anorexic- not to mention my weigher was my age and pregnant...i was like way to make me feel shitty about myself even more at 24!!!!! so yes... i definitely relate
ReplyDeleteI feel so much the same, that everyone is moving on with life while I'm stuck because of my mental health issues. It's not a nice feeling. But I guess health comes first, and everything else will come later.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I had to get my blood test done and it said 'anorexia' on my form, I did not like it when the people working there read that part of it...! :/
Take care,
Cassie x
I feel the same way : (
ReplyDeleteI feel like the world is going on without me and I too have just been spinning and watching it go by. But somehow we WILL catch up, we will! We've got too!
I understand about the lab thing too, as I also go in every week. It used to bother me alot but now I try to not let it affect me. I know, easier said than done - but DON'T let their thoughts and opinions affect how you feel about yourself, okay??
love ya girl!
I can so relate to this after years of weekly blood and urine tests. They are all younger than me (I'm 44) and I feel like I have to explain why I've been coming there for so long, and I always have to explain who the ordering doctor is (because he is about two hours from where I live and thus the lab I go to, so he isn't in their system) and that he is my eating disorders specialist, not my regular doctor blah blah blah.
ReplyDeleteTake care.