I like the title. It’s really a t.v. show on the Travel Channel about a man that tours the United States finding “out of the way” eateries. I like the title because it’s about us. It should be entitled “Missing In Sight vs. Food” because that’s the direction we are heading these days. Safe foods have become unsafe. The one meal we were allowed to eat without repurcussions was dinner and now there is always a reason to get rid of it.
It has been an extrememly long day. I can’t say that emphatically enough. Every other day we go through the same hell with our pain patch. We have a herniated disc, L5 S1. Had it for about ten years. We’ve had all kinds of procedures done on it. We are going through another round of epidurals….again. The pain that has been shooting down both legs is gone, so we can at least celebrate that. But the normal, constant, chronic, dull, ache hasn’t lessened and because of our restricting the patch we use is not dispensing the medication into our system like it’s supposed to. So every other day we go through withdrawals a few hours before it’s time to take the patch off. The patch is supposed to last 48 hours, but we usually get 42 before we start to feel the effects of the back pain and withdrawal symptoms. Now, I’ve never taken heroine, but I’ve heard Duragesic pain patches compared to heroine and so the withdrawals are like withdrawals from heroine. It’s misery to the highest exponent. There are visual disturbances, weakness in the legs, sensitivity to temperatures, anxiety, sweating, cramping in the limbs, stomach disturbances, and that’s only to name a few. The obvious solution is to put the new patch on earlier, but that means doing so each and every time, eventually using my supply of pain patches before it is time. And the doctors WILL NOT give out a new prescription until the thirty days is up. So I have to be miserable every other day and go through the withdrawals.
A better answer would be to eat. When we were on a regular schedule of eating and keeping the food in we had no problems with withdrawals or the patch wearing out too soon or not dispensing enough at the time. But we are getting so lost in the eating disorder it’s not as silly to me anymore. I hear my members telling me we are not thin enough, but I don’t know how to rebut them. I don’t know what to live for. I feel extraordinarily hopeless. I am afraid I don’t have what it takes to finish school. Maybe I’ve been pretending all along.
D. and I have our 9 1/2 year anniversary on Valentines day. Our ten year is August 14. I spent my 9 year anniversary in treatment. I really want us to get our act together, but I have members who are in such pain from trauma that this is all they know to do and I don’t know how to help them. I really don’t. What motivates Lola to work on her eating disorder? How does she find life so amusing as to entertain us with her witty blog? I envy that so much. I used to be a good writer. I also used to be a good cook. Those things have been taken away from me. What will be next? Should I even care?
So today we were at Costco, like Sam’s club, a warehouse retailer where you buy in bulk and throw half of the items away because you don’t need a pizza the size of a Hummer’s wheel base. Never mind that. It was a good day to go, at least for non-eating disordered people. There were tons of samples, none of which I ate, or would take a little taste and give the rest to D. I only bring it up because I thought the U.S. was in a recession, but everyone was getting ready for the Superbowl tomorrow by purchasing 32″ HDTVs, cases and cases of beer and expensive wine, and everything your delicate food pallette could want for kickoff. D. and I sat down and did bills and we’re in it. How did we get so in debt? I don’t know. I used to pay cash for everything. Never the matter. I don’t care. But a new iPod would be great. But it just boggles my mind that the economy is so horrible and people are spending money right and right and left and left.
I sit here typing, trying to think of something poignant to write, but nothing is there. My mind keeps going back to food: us vs. food. It just happened so fast, our downward spiral, and I think if I write here something may pop into my head and make it all make sense and make it easy to eat. Monday’s the day we start the program. At least that was the last word. I’m so scared I had a nightmare about it. Everyone views their dietician as a Nazi, but this woman really is. This is not my first time in the program. I don’t like the program because you get no therapy, really. I mean there is group therapy and you see your case worker once a week, but no “let’s get down to the nitty gritty” therapy. It’s all too predictable. At least we get to see our outside T. while in the program. Somewhat of a consolation. We need to work on the trauma. No dancing around it. No tiptoeing. We’re ready. Scared, but ready. It has to be done. We will never gain weight until we feel hopeful and that progress is made with the member’s trauma.
Well, we’ve rambled sufficiently enough to say nothing. We just hope if we write long enough we’ll have an epiphany, something that will change us. I can honestly write that we want an end to our suffering, but I don’t know how to do that.
We truly live on this side of hopelessness, and finding a reason to live is getting harder and harder. It’s just too much. Too much to deal with, too much to handle, too much to try and claw our way to the surface.
Re: “It’s just too much. Too much to deal with, too much to handle, too much to try and claw our way to the surface”.
There is a part of me who understands your members when they happen to feel there’s just “too much of everything” and not knowing an alternative way of getting rid of this “too–much–ness” (if my adult me is allowed to call it so; if you don’t like him to call it so, then he apologizes)
Various parts of me now seem to see there IS a wisdom in throwing up as a nature’s most quick way to get rid of “too–much–ness” (sorry again).
As extreme as it may seem to those who never experienced anorexia or similar extreme conditions, it nevertheless IS very NORMAL (and natural) way that the extreme situations call for the extreme measures.
Some parts of me still find themselves unable to see it as NORMAL (and natural) way, but other parts of me are progressively more and more able to see it as the extreme conditions calling for extreme (but still normal) responses.
There are various ways (some mild, some medium, some big, some small) of getting rid of “too–much–ness“.
Throwing up is only one of them, the most quick and thorough one, though. Other ways are just NOT as quick and thorough, but maybe – just maybe – a lot of little expressions of disgust can equal one BIG (i.e. throwing up) one?
A group of self-helpers get together each week at Tuesdays here in my town – to try and express a LOT of various little expressions of disgust and each week we firstly try and express the little gestures only facing the wall (not facing straight away each other because in our childhood we were punished for showing disgust at somebody else’s face – be it parent or other people’s faces).
In the next exercise our little self-help group is divided in half – the first half is encouraged to show the gestures to the second half of the group (across the room with a big safe distance that makes expressing the gestures a bit easier).
It’s easier in comparison to doing it at home.
Because the group offers support to those who find themselves unable to do the gesture and additionally the other co-facilitator skilfully uses EFT to address the blockages that prevent the group as whole from gesturing freely as babies are allowed (it seems babies are the only ones who don’t get punished for throwing up or making expressions of disgust directly at parent’s face).
Other exercises in group are done in pairs, pairs of pairs (four people), and at the end they are done facing the whole group while each member is encouraged to express a gesture to the rest of the group and to the co-facilitators, and the latter two to each other (which is accompanied with a lot of amusement).
Because I couldn’t find anyone else to come up with the gestures in the first place, one of my inner members comes up with them, so he is playing a role of co-facilitator, too (it is not the adult me, though, the host only gets to observe the sessions, at least he is not embarrassed by the exercises anymore, which is a sign of progress for us all)
Instead of trying to get rid of “too–much–ness” every once in a while in a big way, it seems my inner members are progressively learning to enjoy the exercises in the outer group.
There are my inner members imagining you – Missing In Sight‘s inner members – are joining our outer group‘s exercises once a week…
or even actually doing the exercises virtually through Skype (if that can be done at all, but I think it could be).
waving to you