There are certain things that I have just learned to accept of myself when it comes to ED. I've lived with it for way too long untreated to ever fully recover. I don't mean that negatively but just practically. No matter what part of the wellness spectrum I may be on at any given moment, weight will always be the first thing on my mind when I wake and the last thing I think about before sleep. Even on a really good day. Especially on a really bad day. I will never love the full length image in the mirror. I may appreciate the positives but I will never not see flaws. I will never see food in a 'normal' way. To someone who isn't ED this probably seems like excuses or not tying hard enough or giving up or just something they can't possibly imagine but it is what it is for me. What I strive for each day is peace and small victories. It's knowing that in this current onslaught of people obsessed with 'health' that I can't jump on that bandwagon because most of them are borderline disordered themselves and hiding it under the guise of health because let's face it... if I went in to see Dr. M and told her my diet consisted of primarily chicken and broccoli, that I ate virtually no carbs or sugars and that I did strenuous aerobic exercise for one or more hours a day... she would tell me I was relapsing...
So I tune it all out and count it as a victory when I only spend a few hours a day thinking about food and weight and in the fact that I am idling at a higher weight than I would like and have not freaked and dived into relapse (which is my nature). I have spent the past year focused on not letting anyone make me feel bad about where I am in my struggle. 7 years ago Dr. M would have probably thought I'd have been hospitalized my now because it didn't look good and honestly I came close a couple times. So the fact that I never was is again a small victory. I also spent the past year focused on my work and I worked miracles last year on a group of kids so behind that when the year was done I amazed myself at what we had accomplished.
I've been promoted this year and there is completely new leadership and it's been a summer of changes and more to come. Like most EDs I'm not good with forced change and so anxiety levels are high for me which is why I'm writing again.
My job is where I shine. It's where I can be amazing and all my own personal neuroticness doesn't get in the way. No matter how bad a state my mental health is in, I can always do my job and it has always been my escape. I have never been limited or handicapped by ED. This week is the first time I have felt so and it has set me into crisis mode. It's the closest to relapse levels that I've experienced in a long time and as I prepare to explain it I feel stupid because to most people it would so not be a big deal. I'll probably come back and rewrite this whole post because I know I'm rambling. Out of practice I guess.
So new admin this year and the principal went through a program where her mentor suggested to do something called Journey Lines as a way to let the staff connect with you on a personal level and grow trust and emotional investment. It works like this: You draw what looks heat rate line that illustrates highs and lows of your life and you walk everyone through that in 7 minutes or less. You are suppose to be very deep and let them really know why you are who you are and why your are where you are.
She met with the whole leadership team and told us she was going to do it and then informed us that we all would do one and present it in front of the staff. She did hers this morning and it was powerful and so purposeful. My friend D did hers this afternoon and I was in tears because the big event I didn't think she'd choose to share (because I can't imagine doing so) but did is the fact that she's a rape survivor. It was so amazing too. But I'm to do mine Friday and everyone close to me has acknowledged how not me this will be and I'm in one of the worse states of anxiety of my adult life.
It shouldn't be hard. I'm not going to share everything because the label ED is not one I can afford spread around professionally. I can't handle more eyes analyzing my size than I already deal with. But I don't share emotional things with people period. I mean D is driven crazy when I come home from a date and all she wants is for me to spill everything when she asks how it went and every time all she gets is "It was fine.". Drives her crazy but I'm very guarded about sharing my feelings. Honestly I think it's because it takes me so long to figure out what I am feeling in the first place that I don't want to share prematurely and then possibly inaccurately. Some people just feel and know what those feelings are but I don't and when I do they make me uncomfortable. People with an ED are among the minority who can sympathize with that.
Watching the two journey lines today made the anxiety level rise for me. I have a fear of public speaking which is why I do trainings and such so that I can grow out of it. It's good to do things that make you uncomfortable. But this is that phobia paired with something that is just HARD for me. Every therapist who has ever worked with me has spent so much time trying to get me to open up and talk about what I'm really feeling and not talk about life events purely factually. And now, without knowing it, my new boss is requiring me to do something that is my worst nightmare. I have to stand in front of 50 people (10 I have barely met, 5 or so that do not like me, 10 that I consider close friends who still know little about my personal background, 3 that know most of it and others that are somewhere in between) and talk about my life and how it has shaped me. I'm beyond terrified.
The amount of anxiety this is causing me is enough to have brought me to tears in front of D today (which freaked her out because I rarely let anyone see me cry) and she said I could totally not do it. But to me that would be admitting failure at a job I never fail at. It just isn't an option. I can't admit weakness to a new boss and a staff that is to see me as their leader and expert. And the stubborn side of me is just in self hatred mode since this shouldn't be such a big deal. I just need to do it. But the other part is that I'm not a dishonest person and I feel like omitting certain things is close to being dishonest but it is not smart professionally (nor could I handle it mentally) to air out all my dirty laundry. Not to mention that much of what made me who I am are things that are not pretty for my mom who many in the district know and I can't bare to tarnish her legacy.
And on top of the anxiety of just doing this activity is that it is causing me to relive and revisit my life and painful memories and feelings... things I have spent a life time burying and ignoring because I never did learn how to just deal with the feelings so that I could talk about them without falling to pieces. The word to describe my mind right now is chaos.
I don't know how much sense this will make to anyone else but hopefully it will help me sleep better than the last few night...
So I tune it all out and count it as a victory when I only spend a few hours a day thinking about food and weight and in the fact that I am idling at a higher weight than I would like and have not freaked and dived into relapse (which is my nature). I have spent the past year focused on not letting anyone make me feel bad about where I am in my struggle. 7 years ago Dr. M would have probably thought I'd have been hospitalized my now because it didn't look good and honestly I came close a couple times. So the fact that I never was is again a small victory. I also spent the past year focused on my work and I worked miracles last year on a group of kids so behind that when the year was done I amazed myself at what we had accomplished.
I've been promoted this year and there is completely new leadership and it's been a summer of changes and more to come. Like most EDs I'm not good with forced change and so anxiety levels are high for me which is why I'm writing again.
My job is where I shine. It's where I can be amazing and all my own personal neuroticness doesn't get in the way. No matter how bad a state my mental health is in, I can always do my job and it has always been my escape. I have never been limited or handicapped by ED. This week is the first time I have felt so and it has set me into crisis mode. It's the closest to relapse levels that I've experienced in a long time and as I prepare to explain it I feel stupid because to most people it would so not be a big deal. I'll probably come back and rewrite this whole post because I know I'm rambling. Out of practice I guess.
So new admin this year and the principal went through a program where her mentor suggested to do something called Journey Lines as a way to let the staff connect with you on a personal level and grow trust and emotional investment. It works like this: You draw what looks heat rate line that illustrates highs and lows of your life and you walk everyone through that in 7 minutes or less. You are suppose to be very deep and let them really know why you are who you are and why your are where you are.
She met with the whole leadership team and told us she was going to do it and then informed us that we all would do one and present it in front of the staff. She did hers this morning and it was powerful and so purposeful. My friend D did hers this afternoon and I was in tears because the big event I didn't think she'd choose to share (because I can't imagine doing so) but did is the fact that she's a rape survivor. It was so amazing too. But I'm to do mine Friday and everyone close to me has acknowledged how not me this will be and I'm in one of the worse states of anxiety of my adult life.
It shouldn't be hard. I'm not going to share everything because the label ED is not one I can afford spread around professionally. I can't handle more eyes analyzing my size than I already deal with. But I don't share emotional things with people period. I mean D is driven crazy when I come home from a date and all she wants is for me to spill everything when she asks how it went and every time all she gets is "It was fine.". Drives her crazy but I'm very guarded about sharing my feelings. Honestly I think it's because it takes me so long to figure out what I am feeling in the first place that I don't want to share prematurely and then possibly inaccurately. Some people just feel and know what those feelings are but I don't and when I do they make me uncomfortable. People with an ED are among the minority who can sympathize with that.
Watching the two journey lines today made the anxiety level rise for me. I have a fear of public speaking which is why I do trainings and such so that I can grow out of it. It's good to do things that make you uncomfortable. But this is that phobia paired with something that is just HARD for me. Every therapist who has ever worked with me has spent so much time trying to get me to open up and talk about what I'm really feeling and not talk about life events purely factually. And now, without knowing it, my new boss is requiring me to do something that is my worst nightmare. I have to stand in front of 50 people (10 I have barely met, 5 or so that do not like me, 10 that I consider close friends who still know little about my personal background, 3 that know most of it and others that are somewhere in between) and talk about my life and how it has shaped me. I'm beyond terrified.
The amount of anxiety this is causing me is enough to have brought me to tears in front of D today (which freaked her out because I rarely let anyone see me cry) and she said I could totally not do it. But to me that would be admitting failure at a job I never fail at. It just isn't an option. I can't admit weakness to a new boss and a staff that is to see me as their leader and expert. And the stubborn side of me is just in self hatred mode since this shouldn't be such a big deal. I just need to do it. But the other part is that I'm not a dishonest person and I feel like omitting certain things is close to being dishonest but it is not smart professionally (nor could I handle it mentally) to air out all my dirty laundry. Not to mention that much of what made me who I am are things that are not pretty for my mom who many in the district know and I can't bare to tarnish her legacy.
And on top of the anxiety of just doing this activity is that it is causing me to relive and revisit my life and painful memories and feelings... things I have spent a life time burying and ignoring because I never did learn how to just deal with the feelings so that I could talk about them without falling to pieces. The word to describe my mind right now is chaos.
I don't know how much sense this will make to anyone else but hopefully it will help me sleep better than the last few night...
