All right... so I haven't posted here in about an eternity. A lot has happened, so I'll try to give a fairly brief overview, I guess.
I relapsed. Pretty badly, in fact. I was at a halfway house for four months, during which time I was having off and on ED symptoms, but nothing extremely serious. I would estimate I was purging, on average, about once a week. However, the desire to lose weight was always there, and there weren't very many times when I would allow myself "extras". But I was more comfortable with myself and my weight, for at least the first three months, than I had been in a long time. I was somewhere around the mid to higher 120s (at 5'3.75"), which was a healthy, normal, but not too massively huge weight for me. I started getting comfortable enough with my body to allow myself to wear some more fitted clothes, that actually showed my figure a bit. Etc.
My last month there was when things all started to spiral downward. During my last month, a lot of really unfortunate stuff happened. A lot of the staff was going on summer vacations, including my own day counsellor, who was gone the ENTIRE final month of my stay. I had just been starting to really get into some of my issues, so the timing of this was incredibly poor, but there was nothing I could do about it. All the residents who had lived with me my first 2-3 months there had left, and in their place had come residents who were much more high-strung, strange, or very annoying at times, and I found that quite difficult to handle. Groups often got cancelled because some staff member or another wasn't there; structure got a lot more loosey-goosey generally. As a person who does not like change, and also as someone who finds it very difficult to open up to many people, this combination of circumstances did not turn out well. It led to the last month of my stay not being a time when I should have started expanding on some more real issues when I was able to have support doing so; instead, it was a time when I was trying to cope with all the stupid little things being thrown at me, and feeling as though I was also being mostly left to my own devices to do it.
So... I started restricting a bit. And during my last two weeks, I was also going to the gym (residents got a free membership). I managed to lose at least a pound or two right at the end of my stay. I could feel, very strongly, that an ED relapse was basically inevitable. And I had no way to fight it.
My weight over the next couple of months went from the low-ish 120s to the low to mid 100s. People were noticing, and a few were commenting, and I guess a lot were worried, but I really really could not stop what I was doing, especially at first. I felt it was the only way to keep myself from completely falling apart. In short, I needed it to cope. But once I got started, I simply couldn't stop it on my own.
And then there was the bulimia. Towards the end of my stay at the halfway house I didn't even want to binge, and didn't often purge; I didn't even have any desire to binge, as I was finding it repulsive. That all changed, however. First I got into purging a little more: I would feel like eating a normal meal, but I wouldn't want to keep it in, so I'd get rid of it afterwards. However, as my weight continued to drop, I started getting really bad binge urges, and so I began binging once every 2-3 days, then every day, then between 1 and 4 times a day. Of course, I wasn't about to leave any of those in, so I would purge them too.
Around mid-August or so, I went to see my GP about a referral to the new eating disorders clinic that has just started up in the capital city here. They had had some of the services available before, but there was nothing cohesive about them -- they were sort of scattered and more random. This new clinic, which is basically an IOP setting, offers a more comprehensive sort of program, all contained within one suite in a general outpatient services building. Anyway, I went to my GP, who started me off on getting the bloodwork, EKG, etc I needed to be medically cleared for the program.
But... I ended up having a very small abnormality on the EKG. My doctor didn't think it was a big deal -- she didn't really think it meant anything, in fact -- but she was pretty sure the ED clinic wouldn't take me with any sort of abnormality on the EKG, and so she decided to refer me to a cardiologist to completely clear me for all things cardiac. However, just to get to the point where I knew I needed this cardiology referral basically took a month, and then I had to wait another month to actually get in to see the cardiologist, etc etc... and ED started filling in the time gaps very very strongly.
So... I guess I'm still underweight, especially for my body type, but I'm not (and was never) at a weight that is superbly, dangerously low. At my lowest this time around I was 100.2 lbs; I think I'm somewhere around 104 right now. That would put me at a BMI of around 18. I don't know whether to consider myself a b/ping EDNOS, or an underweight bulimic, or what. I have not so far lost my period, although I've had some of the other starvation side effects (cold, very very tired, hair falling out, etc).
Things are not altogether bleak, however. I've continued to see my psychologist, psychiatrist, and my counsellor / social worker from the halfway house program. The referral to the ED clinic has finally gotten through the medical clearance stage, and my orientation is on December 9th. I am also currently seeing an intermittent dietician, who my social worker, god love her, referred me to so that I would have some ED support while I was waiting for this stupid bloody clinic to come through. All I can say is that it's a really fucking good thing she did that, because if she hadn't I honestly don't know where I'd be with regards to food... but I know it would not be at ALL good. As it stands now, however, I have been at least semi-tolerating a meal plan that has increased so far every week (have seen the dietician three times), and is now somewhere around full food guide compliance as far as I know.
This is full day #2 of my new plan, and even though it's extremely, extremely tough to do it, I'm bloody trying. I am so tired of this ED thing, and what it has taken from me and my life, and I know that unless I fight it, it will never go away. This stupid crap has been living in my head for over three and a half years now, torturing me, making me believe that if only I lose a little more weight my life will be perfect... but it is fucking lying to me. That doesn't make it any easier to be faced with the fact that I've really fucked up, and now have to face the idea that I may have to regain to the 120s range. Actually, I don't like that idea at all. But maybe I actually have to do it if I want to get better from this ED thing. Maybe I do.
So there you have it... an update on how the last zillion months have gone for me. It's not exactly positive, but I suppose it could be a whole hell of a lot worse. Actually, I know it could be. And so I hope that maybe I can prevent this from getting worse, and if and when I finally get started in that fucking clinic I can actually make some changes in my life, and my eating, that will stick, and that I can own as something I really want to do for myself.
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