Going Back

Life threw me a curveball, and I reacted the best way I knew how: I quit eating. It's a lot nicer to be hungry than in pain. I played it cool at first... explaining away my behavior, minimizing my weight loss, insisting everything was fine. Everything was not fine.

Finally, last Friday, the bottom dropped out. I was called into a meeting with my entire treatment team (roughly fifteen people), my therapist at the helm. I was told that my weight is now below what it was during my initial inpatient admission back in March. I was told that I am considered "cognitively compromised." I was told, quite simply, that I'm in trouble. They gave me a week to figure out how to get myself back in-patient.

So I'm going back. It's only for two weeks; I already laid the entire foundation for my recovery the last time I was there. Rather, these two weeks will be very targeted. I will no longer be able to distract myself with hunger. I will eat, and I will feel. Both in large quantities, I'm sure. I will cry. I will face the things I have been suppressing. I will gain weight. (That last one is a real fucking sticking point for me, by the way.)

I'll be back just in time for New Year's, which is apropos. New beginnings and all that. I am hopeful. I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity to get back on track. And I am so, so thankful that there are so many people - my treatment team, yes, but also family and friends - who believe in me and my ability to get well.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Eating disorders are horrible, and I regret the day I ever started down this path.

You Can't Have It Both Ways.

I've been told numerous times since my eating disorder was formally diagnosed eleven years ago, "You can't be sick and happy at the same time." I argue that sentiment to this day, but if I'm honest, I accept that it's true. No one with an addictive behavior - eating disorder, alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping, sex, whatever - can really call themselves "happy." Numb? Disconnected? Aloof? Yes, absolutely. And those feelings are certainly an improvement over the hurt that underlies the behaviors. But happy? No, definitely not.

Last night in group therapy, we had a lecture on Pia Mellody's Developmental Model. It's basically a tree, with the leaves being addictive behaviors, the trunk being codependency, and the roots being trauma. In order to stop the addictive behaviors, we were told, we have to resolve the trauma. Kill the roots and the tree will die. Makes sense. Just a few breaths later, though, things started getting complicated. "You simply cannot do the trauma work while you're engaging in your behaviors," the therapist told us. "The behaviors keep you disconnected from your emotions, which makes healing the trauma impossible."

Okay, so let me see if I understand this. You can't overcome the addiction without healing the trauma, but you can't attempt to heal the trauma if you're using your addiction. Hm. Am I the only one noticing the problem here? Am I the only one really, really frustrated? It's like an unsolvable math equation, where no matter how many ways you rearrange the numbers, it just never adds up.

Maybe my frustration is a result of the sheer duration and entrenchment of my illness and the magnitude of trauma I haven't yet begun to untangle. Maybe I'm just tired of fighting what sometimes seems an unwinnable war. I am discouraged. I am confused. I am desperate. And yes, I am sick and unhappy. I WANT to be well. I WANT to be healthy. I WANT to be at peace. I wish the path was clearer. I wish I could figure out that damn equation. I never was good at math.