walking through my wreckage.

i lasted eight days. eight days until i was kicked out. those eight days were filled with sadness, anger, frustration, grief, hopelessness, and so much more. i knew my discharge was coming. it wasnt a surprise at all. i had expressed extreme ambivalence days before my discharge.

i had an emotional half a week or so with losing someone i knew to anorexia from a support group up here in MA as well as drama in my personal life. i knew that in order to be successful this time around in treatment i needed to kick my eating disorder to the curb. the exact opposite happened. i clung onto it. for dear life. restricting my calories has always been my way of numbing myself. not allowing myself to feel. i loved what my eating disorder had done for me. i loved how it allowed me to no longer feel. anorexia has become my best friend. someone who never leaves me, someone who is unconditionally there...whether or not they are there in a postive way...they are there....and thats just comforting. and in those eight days i felt feelings i havent felt in a long time. it was so incredibly uncomfortable. i felt exposed, vulnerable. i wanted to do anything not to feel.

as i was told by my clinician that i was being discharged, i immediately felt like a failure. this was my 5th round of treatment, 3rd in this particular facility, and i didnt succeed. i told her how i felt and she said "we dont see you as a failure. we think you are very sick". ed fed off this sense of failure. "you think im sick. i will show you what sick really is".

the weekend approached and i tried to put what had happened out of my mind. i went to work from 11-8 on saturday and then spent the most perfect evening with someone who means the world to me. i had fun and smiled but in the back of my mind i was worried about what would come next for me. monday was fast approaching....judgement day.

i finally heard from the director of the health center. it had been decided by the entire team that i need to take a leave of absence from school. i did not find out until today that this leave will be a minimum of time from now until the fall semester, meaning i will not be able to attend classes until january and graduating in may with my masters is just a dream in the past. everything i have worked so hard for just crumbled right in front of my eyes. she stated that in this time of absence, i need to go to an eating disorders program (which i need to find), complete the program fully to their expectations, and the program and my T need to clear me to be reinstated on campus. when i do return, i must see my T weekly, be medically monitored, continue with medication compliance, see the on campus nutritionist as well as maintain a certain weight (which of course they refuse to tell me what that # is). i was in shock. is this really happening? its a nightmare. i pinched myself. nope. this is real. very real.

i have to run into myself... it is what every addict needs. (i firmly believe that eating disorders follow the addiction model, hence why i refer to the term, addict.) as long as there has been someone left in my life to blame for my behaviors, i was not going to take responsibility for my addiction. my running into myself is what we call "hitting bottom". when an addict runs into themselves. when there is no where else to look at but at us. i often have said that my rock bottom is a bottomless pit. i still firmly believe that but i also believe that i am getting closer to the absolute bottom of that pit. i have found myself in the past few hours, since hearing the final news, blaming every one else.. "springfield college is ruining my life. they just want to see me fail and not graduate. all they care about is covering their ass and making sure i am not a liability".. and wanting to be left alone with my disorder... when in reality it is myself who has chosen this path of self destruction and despair. i have descended into the depths of my eating disorder and i am finding the consequences to be more painful than i could ever imagine. an addict needs to walk through their wreckage and clean it up themselves. i am in that spot. i am walking through my wreckage and somehow i have to figure out how to clean up this hot mess i have made that is my life. only i can choose the path to recovery. no one else. no one can make me sit down in front of a meal and eat 100% of it. no one can make me go to treatment and succeed. it is all on my shoulders. talk about pressure, non?

i think that is what i am struggling with right now. i am so incredibly angry at myself and at ed. i did this to myself and my life. no one else. i only have myself to blame and it is incredibly hard to sit with that. i feel like i failed everyone. the people who love me are tired of seeing me make the same mistakes and choices time and time again. they are turning their backs on me because it is too painful to watch me self destruct...it is a lonely life that i live. it really is the great picture of tragedy and sadness. i do not have much contact with my family as i have deemed myself the "black sheep". i have isolated myself and people who have been strong supports for me have realized they need to protect themselves and their own feelings because it is too painful to watch me slowly die. it is not their job to love me to death...

right now i dont know what to do, how to think, or what to feel. i am in a state of shock. it hasnt really hit me that this is reality. i see my T tomorrow (thank goodness) because i need to process what has happened and figure out an action plan. i am trying so hard to not listen to ed right now. he is telling me "see. after all of this, i am still here. come to me, i know how to make you feel better. lean on me. i am not going anywhere. if you just listen to me all of this will go away and you will be happy" wrong. FUCK YOU ED. but it is so easy to get sucked into that disordered mindset. i just have to try my hardest to ignore him no matter how loud he gets. because believe me...he gets LOUD. i dont have much more to lose so i might as well take a stab at recovery, right? easier said than done...but i am going to try my hardest..

love you all

lis