Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Welcome to the party

I had decided not to write, and the words just weren't in me. But I can not be silent for my own sake. My heart hurts. My soul aches and I can't do a damn thing about it. I'm stressed beyond tolerance; I'm broken down inside. I don't know how much more I can take.

I've been reduced from the full day program to the half day program and I am scared out of my mind. What will happen if I'm only half present? What will I do when the craving to binge and purge is beyond my ability to resist? I wasn't ready to go half day, but it is the reality. Now I just have to deal.

I'm so impatient with myself. I want to be recovered yesterday. I can't waste any more time. I look on the Internet at recipes for foods that I want to make, but I don't make them because I will eat them and I'm not ready for that. Recovery is a long and arduous process. In five minutes I am supposed to have my evening snack. I don't want it, but I know I don't have to want it in order to eat it. It will go down just the same.

I'm resigned to do what I need to do just for this moment. I can't worry about my next meal or my next snack. Only what's right here in front of me.

There is a tremendous sadness that is aligned with my thought processes tonight. I don't know why. Maybe it's just because I know I've lived with this disorder my whole life, and pile on a dissociative disorder that complicates the eating disorder just makes it worse. Life could be so much more than I know. Miley Cyrus may not think it's about what's "waiting on the other side" but for me it is. I'm climbing and it sucks every second of the way.

I know this sounds like a pity party, so welcome! I don't mean for it to. I guess I'm just trying to think outloud on the Internet.

Thanks for letting me share.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Better than a Klonipin

I did it. I'm not proud. I can't be left alone. I need a crazy-sitter.

Yes, I binged and purged tonight. I was afraid it would happen, and it did. I should feel more ashamed of what I did, but to be honest, purging made me feel better than taking a Klonipin.

Tonight is the first time I've been alone, and I knew when I kissed my husband goodbye that I might fall prey to ED. He had been circling above me all day, waiting to pounce on me, knowing he could tear in to me when I was alone.

It started with my dinner. I thought if I was full and satisfied from dinner that I wouldn't feel the need to binge and purge. I was wrong. The binging foods in the kitchen (there aren't many) were seducing me. And so I began.

I will spare you the graphic details. Suffice it to say, I was out of control. I purged the binge foods and my dinner. A week of sobriety erased away.

A coating of self hate resurrects, and I can barely find the words for this post. My head is already foggy. It's the perfect ending to a crappy day. I felt rebellious and defiant and obstinate all day. I didn't want to go to groups, I didn't want to eat snacks, and I damn sure didn't want my meal. I even asked to be discharged from the program. I'm tired of getting fat, and I know they are lying to me. Gaining this weight can't be good for me.

At the same time I know I'm wrong. I hate both sides of myself. I hate the healthy side and I hate the sick side. Tomorrow I need to march into the hospital and be honest but I'm scared. I feel five years old.

I need to reach out to people, but I am so scared of relationships. I'm scared to go get coffee with somebody because I feel my diagnosis of D.I.D. will interfere with relationships. The only support I have is my husband and that's too draining for him. I need other people in my life desperately, but people who can understand what it's like to have mental health issues. I need friends who are in it for the long haul. I don't want to open up, develop trust, and then be burnt.

I feel so alone.

If I owned tears I would use them right now.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Too much to ask for

I learned today that I can't cry tears. I must not have been born with tear ducts. I know how silly that sounds but I also know I haven't cried in months and I'm about due. I'm not ashamed to bawl my eyes out in front of others. I'm also not depressed to the point my tears are hijacked.

Another thought: could my medications be causing my inability to cry?

It's all because of them: the alters. I am simply their vessal, their conduit. I am nothing more than a blank slate to them. Any emotion I feel is generously provided by them. I have no emotion of my own originality. My identity, my existance, my substance is solely reliant upon them. I feel sad only when another alter whom is sad is present. I only feel anger when an angry alter comes forth. It is quite frustrating. I want to be myself in my own right. I don't want to ride the wave of emotions my alters give me.

They steal my tears, my thoughts, my decisions. I have nothing left for them to take. I can offer nothing that they don't have already. And do they give anything? No. Hell to the NO. I don't get any information about who they are, why they are, or how they are. I want to know them. I journal to them. When I feel another alter present with me or bearing down on me I journal and ask questions of them to try to get to know them. I feel like I get nothing back.

I asked one thing of them: when they are present to please give me a name or some other identifying mark so I could keep up with them. That didn't go over to well with them. No one wants to be identified. It's too dangerous.

So for too long I've felt stuck in therapy. I'm unmotivated and unsure where to go now. Today was so unproductive for me at the hospital. In fact, it was worse than unmotivating. It was triggering. One of the women in my group made a comment of a sexual nature and it brought bad memories to us. We were triggered right before heading into lunch. It raised our anxiety through the roof.

But I'm getting side tracked. I hate myself so much for not being further along in therapy. The only real progress I made was in residential treatment. Right now, I'm flat and burnt out in the partial hospitalization program. I'm getting nothing out of the groups. Everything they are doing I've already done before, that's how f-ing long I've been there. The only reason I keep going is for the structure around meals and snacks. Without that, I would be starving myself and exercising constantly.

I don't know what to do. I feel really despondant, hopeless, unmotivated, and stuck. I need help with my alters and how often we dissociate. I feel that time will never come. I need the alters help and they won't budge. They've fallen silent and will speak nothing. I only want to know who is sharing this body. That's not too much to ask for.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

"Sleep perchance to dream"

I love that quote from Hamlet b/c it is part of the soliloquy where he reveals his thoughts about suicide. Just think it's poignant.

As for me, it's too early for bed, but an unatural urge for sleep has come over me. I know what it is: I have an alter that puts me to sleep to protect me from stress. Meanwhile, I'm about to drop off any moment. It will be a miracle if I look at this tomorrow and my thoughts are centrical to the theme of this post, if there is a theme. :) All I know is that heaven and hell are concurrently trying to drive me mad.

It's been a difficult weekend. The pendulum has swung back and forth several repeatedly. The angel on my shoulder telling me to eat my f-ing snack and the devil on the other side telling me to restrict. Truth be known, I've listened to both sides this weekend. The weekends are so hard for me. Friday night I was coming out of my skin with anxiety. During the week, my days are structured from 10:00 to 7:00 with the partial hospitalization program. I have two meals and two snacks there. All I'm responsible for is my breakfast and my evening snack, which is quickly coming upon me as I sit here typing this blog. On the weekends I'm obviously responsible for everything. That alone is a trigger. Today I had an immense urge to binge and purge, but I didn't. I got out of the house and went and did a light workout. I felt so much better afterwards. But I digress.

I'm worried about the sleepiness overpowering me and the eyelids that are heavy and closing. I worry that the alter is protecting me from the stress of having to eat with the birth parents at dinner. It was miserable. I hated the whole thing. My meal wasn't even good. It was supposed to be a vegetable salad but it came out with bacon on it (I'm vegetarian) and it didn't have the beets, edamame, or asparagus that was listed in the ingredients description. So not only did it suck that I had to eat with the bios, I had the suckiest meal. At least they paid.

I worry about the sleepingess because I don't want to be dissociative. The weekends are always harder and I'm afraid come tomorrow I won't be able to pull myself together. The last few weeks have been really tough and brought me in and out of in-patient hospitalization.

So if my alter IS trying to put me to sleep, the stressful meal with the bio. parents is why. I'm not close to the birth mother or father. I feel guilty, but I don't know what else to do. I hate it that it makes the birth mother cry.

Poor bio mom. So fragile, so vulnerable, so manipulative. She really thinks I love her. Me? Not so much. Insert tears.