Thursday, January 14, 2010

Here I Go Again

Yesterday was my first appointments at my new ED recovery program. This is my second time trying to find a place that can help me. After not seeing any results at the first place, I am skeptical that this time will be any different. I tried to think positive though.

I walked into the large waiting room and immediately felt judged. Everyone stared at me and my ED started to go to work. It started telling me that I was not the skinniest person there and everyone was looking at me because I was so fat. Then I felt that it was a mistake to be there and really did not even have a problem. I eat a lot and am gaining weight, so it makes no sense that I have to be there. I got very frustrated while I was sitting on that purple couch waiting to hear my name. I probably looked like I wanted to hit someone, but I was just battling with my ED. It happens all the time.

My first appointment was with my therapist and I will call her LT. This was my first time meeting LT and I got a fairly good first impression. Like I said earlier, I have doubtful thoughts about therapists because I have not had any good experiences, so getting a good first impression was a step. She took me into her office and told me to sit down on this cream couch that was not at all comfortable. I just wanted to get this over with. She asked me some basic questions to get to know who I was and my story. This is the kind of stuff I don’t mind talking about. I do not mind talking about my childhood or my family. It is the much deeper subjects that I have a hard time with. Am I supposed to feel better after I come out of one of these sessions? I usually feel worse and I wonder why.

My next appointment was with my dietitian and I will call her AD. I had not met AD before this, so I had no idea what to expect. As she introduced herself to me, I thought she looked firm and strict. She seemed like she would probably be able to enforce the rules pretty well. When it comes to food, I tend to break the rules, so her being stern with me will be a good thing. This session was also a lot of questions. It was question after question and it never seemed to end. I was getting so drained by this time and had a major headache. As she asked me each question she wrote down my answer quickly, but never broke eye contact. She asked me things like my symptoms and what I typically eat in one day. I know exactly what I eat, so that question was not difficult. At the end of the session, she asked me where I wanted to start. She said she could throw it all at me at once, but that would not be the best if I was not ready. Eventually she wants me to get up to eating 4-6 times a day, versus the once or twice I am eating now. When she told me that, my ED jumped in and convinced me her goal was to make me fat. 4-6 times a day? Are you nuts lady? I suppose she will eventually make me eat butter and cheese too. As I was battling with my ED again, she brought another subject up….weighing myself. She did not want me to. She suggested that she could weigh me in her office once a week and then we could talk about it. No, No, No! Are you kidding? Once a week? Her argument was valid, so I agreed to leave the weighing to her. She set some realistic, but challenging goals for me for this week. One being I cannot weigh myself. My ED gets really angry when I cannot step on the scale or I have to eat more. We will see how this goes. Wish me luck.

1 comments:

Maeve said...

I think that it's normal to feel worse when you talk about the hard stuff in therapy. So often we tend to push those feelings aside, so having to deal with them head on is a tremendous challenge. That being said, I find it is good if you can wrap each therapy session up in a way that gives you something more positive to focus on. If you're frequently finding you leave feeling worse I would suggest talking to the therapist about that so that you can try and end the session on a positive note (so deal with the bad stuff in the session and leave with something good to think about).

Good luck with the dietician. Try and remember that she doesn't want to see you get fat, she only wants to help you. I know it's uber hard, but I also know that if you take it one step at a time you can succeed.

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