Showing posts with label food addiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food addiction. Show all posts
Friday, November 30, 2012
♫ It's my surg-iversary ♫
Yesterday was my official one year surgi-versary. One year. It still feels like it was yesterday, but it feels like it was a million years ago at the same time. Such a cliche, but so true. Gastric bypass and the first year thereafter is a journey full of both physical and emotional changes that you'd never even expect, both good and bad.
Mid-February 2011, I went to an information session with no plans, no preconceived notions, and an open mind. I left with plans for an initial appointment with the surgeon and a glimmer of hope that it might actually happen for me, that I might get to be "normal" again.
In March, I weighed in at a whopping 327 pounds at that appointment and was mortified. At the end of May, I met with the medical team and the dietitian and started on an ultra-mega-low-cal pre-op diet (and a healthy dose of phentermine!) that would ultimately help me shed 35 pounds. Cleared for surgery, I thought November 29 would never come. I weighed 292 that day, exactly what I weighed the day I gave birth...five years prior. *shame*
I've been through stalls, eating disorder treatment, and more run-ins with the scale than I even care to remember. I've obsessed, I've cried, and I've celebrated. I've been proud, I've been ashamed, and I've been unable to look in the mirror and not be critical.
Fast forward to the present. I'm down to 189.2, a number that I haven't seen in so long that I honestly never thought I'd see it again. I'm "ok". Well, ok-ish. I still obsess. I weigh myself every time I walk into the bathroom. I am fixated on food: how little can I eat, what I can and can't eat, what I shouldn't have eaten, etc. I obsess over loose skin, sagging and delated boobs, the batwings, and the hideous hanging stomach that is the bane of my existence. I dream of plastic surgery. How sick is that?
Looking ahead, I hope that this next year brings acceptance and a sense of peace. I hope to get to a healthy weight that I can sustain. I hope to see permanent changes in my relationship with food. I would like to shed my emotional reliance on food. I plan to continue therapy to really work on ALL my issues. I hope to have plans for plastic surgery. I also hope to find an exercise program that I really love and that I will stick with.
Is that too much to hope for? I like to think it's not. I'm looking forward to the next year and I hope it treats me well. Hell, I hope I can treat myself well! That would be a first, so wish me luck on that one.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
A little self pep talk...
Day off today and I'm home alone, which can always be dangerous for me. I've been prepping myself for a great day of relaxation, writing, and self care and giving myself a little pep talk.
A la Stuart Smalley, my affirmation for today:
I will not let the kitchen call my name. I don't need to binge. I don't need to purge and hurt myself. I can write, I can go down to the gym, I can walk the dog. I can start a new book, I can clean, I can catch up on paperwork. I will call my grandpa to catch up with him. I can do anything I want for the next five hours until the little lady comes home from school. It will NOT revolve around food.
I would love to know why my thoughts automatically turn to food. Why is it such a preoccupation? Why is it always on my mind, even when I'm not hungry? How do you change such automatic thoughts? They've always been there and I know it will take a long time to change them, but I just wish I had more control over them.
A la Stuart Smalley, my affirmation for today:
I will not let the kitchen call my name. I don't need to binge. I don't need to purge and hurt myself. I can write, I can go down to the gym, I can walk the dog. I can start a new book, I can clean, I can catch up on paperwork. I will call my grandpa to catch up with him. I can do anything I want for the next five hours until the little lady comes home from school. It will NOT revolve around food.
I would love to know why my thoughts automatically turn to food. Why is it such a preoccupation? Why is it always on my mind, even when I'm not hungry? How do you change such automatic thoughts? They've always been there and I know it will take a long time to change them, but I just wish I had more control over them.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Tackling Treatment
After spilling my (rearranged) guts at the intake interview and leaving feeling like they wouldn't take me, like I was "too crazy" for just an ED program, the director called to let me know that my insurance had approved without any hassle and that my carrier mandated that I start within two days of approval. Yikes! At this point, I was freaking out and trying to back pedal. "Oh, it's not that bad. I'm totally overreacting and exaggerating. I don't have a "real" problem." Um...yeah right.
They had me start in a "partial hospitalization" outpatient program that ran from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm. It was a real stretch to be away from my daughter for that amount of time, not to mention the stress it put on us as a family in terms of running around, juggling schedules, childcare, etc. Plus, it seemed to be mostly patients who needed the structure and intense supervision to be able to eat real regular meals, whereas I had the opposite problem. I needed supervision to keep me from eating, lol.
But, as I spent a few more days in the program, I began to realize just how disordered my eating and thinking really are. I say "are" because I am in no way "cured". I am in a much, much better place than I was before treatment, but I still have such a long way to go. I slip up. I slip up too often. I had a really bad "slip up" on Friday and I felt horrible, but I reminded myself that it's OK, that it's not the end of the world. A few weeks ago, I found the most amazing quote in a fortune cookie and had to tape it to my refrigerator to use as a personal mantra:
One. Day. At. A. Time. It's all I can do. I have to remind myself of this over and over...and over and over.
Even though I wasn't the sort of patient they typically saw, they were absolutely wonderful and worked around my dietary needs, scheduling needs, and emotional needs to figure out what would be the best fit for me. We finally decided that their intensive outpatient night program would be the best place for me. I came to enjoy it and look forward to my nights there, with people who "got it". While they may not have been able to relate to the issues that bypass presents, we were joined by the feelings, the underlying issues, the negative beliefs, the lack of self-esteem, the self-hatred, the never-ending barrage of the ED voice. Because when you really break it down, no matter the eating disorder diagnosis, aren't we're all the same at heart? Broken-hearted, sad, desperate, shamed, angry, scared...
I'll delve deeper into the nitty gritty of my time in treatment as we go along and I'll share a lot of what we worked on in group, as well as the some of the more private writing I've done over the past few months. There will be positive, but there will be a lot of negative, too. I'm tired of sugar-coating and pretending to be OK. I've done it for so long that I'm not sure if I even know the "real me". Admitting that I needed help to battle my ED is but one piece of the puzzle, yet it's one that has really made me so much more self-aware and I know that this realization is going to be key to my long-term success after bypass. I want to keep this weight off so desperately. I cannot go back to where I was. The fear of failure is a strong driving force, both in terms of recovery and staying healthy and also in favor of retaining the ED behaviors. I go back and forth between needing to be rid of my ED and desperately trying to hold on to my habits for fear of regaining any weight. Such a double-edged sword, but that's definitely a topic that deserves its own post.
They had me start in a "partial hospitalization" outpatient program that ran from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm. It was a real stretch to be away from my daughter for that amount of time, not to mention the stress it put on us as a family in terms of running around, juggling schedules, childcare, etc. Plus, it seemed to be mostly patients who needed the structure and intense supervision to be able to eat real regular meals, whereas I had the opposite problem. I needed supervision to keep me from eating, lol.
But, as I spent a few more days in the program, I began to realize just how disordered my eating and thinking really are. I say "are" because I am in no way "cured". I am in a much, much better place than I was before treatment, but I still have such a long way to go. I slip up. I slip up too often. I had a really bad "slip up" on Friday and I felt horrible, but I reminded myself that it's OK, that it's not the end of the world. A few weeks ago, I found the most amazing quote in a fortune cookie and had to tape it to my refrigerator to use as a personal mantra:
One. Day. At. A. Time. It's all I can do. I have to remind myself of this over and over...and over and over.
Even though I wasn't the sort of patient they typically saw, they were absolutely wonderful and worked around my dietary needs, scheduling needs, and emotional needs to figure out what would be the best fit for me. We finally decided that their intensive outpatient night program would be the best place for me. I came to enjoy it and look forward to my nights there, with people who "got it". While they may not have been able to relate to the issues that bypass presents, we were joined by the feelings, the underlying issues, the negative beliefs, the lack of self-esteem, the self-hatred, the never-ending barrage of the ED voice. Because when you really break it down, no matter the eating disorder diagnosis, aren't we're all the same at heart? Broken-hearted, sad, desperate, shamed, angry, scared...
I'll delve deeper into the nitty gritty of my time in treatment as we go along and I'll share a lot of what we worked on in group, as well as the some of the more private writing I've done over the past few months. There will be positive, but there will be a lot of negative, too. I'm tired of sugar-coating and pretending to be OK. I've done it for so long that I'm not sure if I even know the "real me". Admitting that I needed help to battle my ED is but one piece of the puzzle, yet it's one that has really made me so much more self-aware and I know that this realization is going to be key to my long-term success after bypass. I want to keep this weight off so desperately. I cannot go back to where I was. The fear of failure is a strong driving force, both in terms of recovery and staying healthy and also in favor of retaining the ED behaviors. I go back and forth between needing to be rid of my ED and desperately trying to hold on to my habits for fear of regaining any weight. Such a double-edged sword, but that's definitely a topic that deserves its own post.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Reaching Out
I "knew" I needed help roughly 15 years ago, but knowing and doing something with that knowledge in an active way are two completely different things.
My daughter has a progressive neurometabolic disease and we had decided to begin counseling to help her deal with all she goes through. During the intake interview, the psychologist asked me how I was doing. Hmm...how was I doing? That was something I had to really ponder. Honestly, until I had gastric bypass in November 2011, I had pretty much given up on myself completely: my health, my mental health, my sense of self, my goals and dreams, my body, my weight. I guess it was pretty obvious that I was far from OK after discussing a bit of both my history and my current dysfunction, lol. I wasn't seeing anyone for therapy at the time, so she had me schedule an intake for myself. I will admit that I have many, many things I could/should work on, but we don't have time to list all my neuroses/diagnoses/etc. right now. That list will take a long time to explore, but we'll get there.
I've dealt with severe depression and anxiety all my life and currently have a diagnosis of "mood disorder NOS" while they attempt to rule out bipolar. In the course of a few meetings with the new therapist, I had revealed my long struggle with ED and it made me infinitely more aware of just what I was doing to myself and how badly I could damage not only my newly rearranged anatomy, but everything else, too. I was absolutely terrified that I was doing irreparable harm inside: stretching the pouch that was my new stomach, causing ulcers, weakening the lines of staples in my "old" stomach, weakening the sites where my intestines were rerouted and joined back together. I had vivid visions of internal bleeding, emergency surgery, and not being able to care for my daughter. But, I couldn't stop the bingeing or the purging. Stress relief, but in a horribly self-destructive form.
The therapist had me start journaling daily, basically just reflecting on the day and my feelings. Being open and honest and actually facing everything I had pushed down and used food to keep down was incredibly difficult and emotionally exhausting. I really started to feel like I was hitting the bottom, but it felt good...in a way. I knew that it was time to actually do something and opening up (again) in therapy was the catalyst I needed to force me into action. I had an appointment set with a doctor in my surgeon's office for a check-in the next week and I decided to go in and just be brutally honest.
So, I did it.
It was nerve-wracking and embarrassing. I was mortified, but I just went in and told the truth. What a novel concept, huh? I was sure that they were going to be disappointed, even mad at me. I felt like a little kid in trouble. Adding insult to injury, she even had an intern with her that day and I know he got way more than he had planned out of that patient visit.
To my surprise, she wasn't mad. She was amazed that I was brave enough to admit what was going on and actually ask for help. I can assure you that "brave" was not an adjective that I would use to describe my feelings in any way that day. She had a powwow with my therapist and they found a treatment program close to my home that focused on ED in all its ugly forms: anorexia, bulimia, bulimarexia, binge eating, EDNOS, night eating syndrome, bigorexia (muscle dysmorphia/"reverse anorexia"), etc.
Because my life is one never-ending extenuating circumstance, it wasn't feasible for me to do any sort of inpatient program and I didn't feel that that was what I truly needed. I was worried that when I had the intake interview with the program's director that she would think I was "too crazy" for outpatient and would try to admit me. I was really afraid that someone would think I was somehow "unfit" to care for my daughter. But again, like my doctor, she didn't judge me or make me feel bad. I was more honest than I had probably ever been in my life and I'm so, so glad that I was. I needed this opportunity. Desperately.
Tune in next time to see where I ended up and the treatment plan we formed.
My daughter has a progressive neurometabolic disease and we had decided to begin counseling to help her deal with all she goes through. During the intake interview, the psychologist asked me how I was doing. Hmm...how was I doing? That was something I had to really ponder. Honestly, until I had gastric bypass in November 2011, I had pretty much given up on myself completely: my health, my mental health, my sense of self, my goals and dreams, my body, my weight. I guess it was pretty obvious that I was far from OK after discussing a bit of both my history and my current dysfunction, lol. I wasn't seeing anyone for therapy at the time, so she had me schedule an intake for myself. I will admit that I have many, many things I could/should work on, but we don't have time to list all my neuroses/diagnoses/etc. right now. That list will take a long time to explore, but we'll get there.
I've dealt with severe depression and anxiety all my life and currently have a diagnosis of "mood disorder NOS" while they attempt to rule out bipolar. In the course of a few meetings with the new therapist, I had revealed my long struggle with ED and it made me infinitely more aware of just what I was doing to myself and how badly I could damage not only my newly rearranged anatomy, but everything else, too. I was absolutely terrified that I was doing irreparable harm inside: stretching the pouch that was my new stomach, causing ulcers, weakening the lines of staples in my "old" stomach, weakening the sites where my intestines were rerouted and joined back together. I had vivid visions of internal bleeding, emergency surgery, and not being able to care for my daughter. But, I couldn't stop the bingeing or the purging. Stress relief, but in a horribly self-destructive form.
The therapist had me start journaling daily, basically just reflecting on the day and my feelings. Being open and honest and actually facing everything I had pushed down and used food to keep down was incredibly difficult and emotionally exhausting. I really started to feel like I was hitting the bottom, but it felt good...in a way. I knew that it was time to actually do something and opening up (again) in therapy was the catalyst I needed to force me into action. I had an appointment set with a doctor in my surgeon's office for a check-in the next week and I decided to go in and just be brutally honest.
So, I did it.
It was nerve-wracking and embarrassing. I was mortified, but I just went in and told the truth. What a novel concept, huh? I was sure that they were going to be disappointed, even mad at me. I felt like a little kid in trouble. Adding insult to injury, she even had an intern with her that day and I know he got way more than he had planned out of that patient visit.
To my surprise, she wasn't mad. She was amazed that I was brave enough to admit what was going on and actually ask for help. I can assure you that "brave" was not an adjective that I would use to describe my feelings in any way that day. She had a powwow with my therapist and they found a treatment program close to my home that focused on ED in all its ugly forms: anorexia, bulimia, bulimarexia, binge eating, EDNOS, night eating syndrome, bigorexia (muscle dysmorphia/"reverse anorexia"), etc.
Because my life is one never-ending extenuating circumstance, it wasn't feasible for me to do any sort of inpatient program and I didn't feel that that was what I truly needed. I was worried that when I had the intake interview with the program's director that she would think I was "too crazy" for outpatient and would try to admit me. I was really afraid that someone would think I was somehow "unfit" to care for my daughter. But again, like my doctor, she didn't judge me or make me feel bad. I was more honest than I had probably ever been in my life and I'm so, so glad that I was. I needed this opportunity. Desperately.
Tune in next time to see where I ended up and the treatment plan we formed.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Opening Up
INVITATION
If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . . If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, For we have some flax golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!
-Shel Silverstein
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Come in, come in! Welcome to a dark little corner of my life. Ok, so maybe it's a little bigger than just a corner. Not quite as big as a guest room, since no one would ever want to stay in here...on purpose, at least. Maybe a den? Either way, it's (slowly) becoming a smaller and smaller space, occupying less of my mind, my time, and my life. As I open the door to the closet and let (most) of the skeletons pour out, I'll open the shades and let in the light so I can see myself a bit better. You, lucky you...you'll get to come along for the ride.
This blog will chronicle my lifelong battles with food addiction, binge eating, body image, and bulimia. I had roux en y gastric bypass surgery (RNY) on November 29, 2011, naively expecting it to be the supreme road to happiness and weight control, and have lost over 120 pounds so far this year. However, I realized that the old demons had managed to sneak back into my life, manifesting themselves in more and more covert ways. I entered eating disorder treatment in July 2012 and completed six weeks in August. Am I "cured"? Of course not. Am I in a better place than I was? Absolutely.
The content will definitely not always be pretty, of that I can assure you. But, I promise that I will always present my stories and my ramblings with absolute honesty. My main goal in opening up and putting it all out here is to be able to help those who are walking the same path, since I know I cannot be the only one dealing with disordered eating after weight loss surgery. My surgeon's office claims that most people turn to alcohol or drug addiction as a substitute for food addiction after surgery, but I know disordered eating after surgery has to be way more prevalent than anyone knows or cares to admit. Honestly, you don't get to over 300 pounds and the point of needing your insides rearranged to manage your weight without some form of disordered eating. If you really think about it, the eating plan and way of life after surgery are all about eating disorder behaviors: constant weighing and measuring, restricting carbs, tiny portions, etc. I just hope that I can maybe convince anyone considering surgery to be extremely honest with themselves about the "why" of their problem with obesity BEFORE surgery.
Even though I was completely open about my history both with my surgeon and at the pre-surgery psychological evaluation, I don't think anyone could have predicted how I would respond to life after surgery. Body image issues, which everyone has, are amplified to an extreme. Sagging, drooping, extra skin, hair loss. Even though the compliments keep coming, the negative thoughts seemed to outnumber them 10:1. Oh, how I wish someone would have forced me into treatment before surgery, if not 15 or so years ago. Of course, hindsight is 20/20. But, if I can help even one person face the facts and get help, sharing my story will be fulfilling and worthwhile. It's not easy to open up, even anonymously, but I need to do this for myself as much as I hope to be able to help someone else.
So, follow along for all the "fun". I'll let it all out, work on recovery, and continue working on my weight loss to get to a strong and HEALTHY weight. I'll laugh, I'll cry, I'll bitch and moan. And, I always promise to take it one day at a time.
It's all I can do.
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