OUCH! goes the weasel and OFF go the blinders

OMG! So today I had to go to the Dr's office to get the final of three epidurals for my degenerative disc. Though they typically give me I.V. sedation for it, today they couldn't find a vein that would work. Said my veins were too small and not hydrated enough. So my smart-ass husband looks at me grinningly and asks, "Why are they having trouble with your veins NOW?" I knew what he was alluding to. I didn't respond. I don't think he's trying to be a pain; guys are just born that way.

So I'm told from the residential facility that it will be 2-3 weeks before they get a bed available, which, in residential speak, means 4-5 weeks before a bed is available. No problem here. I have to admit the first things my mind goes to is that I can lose more weight before I face having to put it back on. It would just be logical to not lose any more weight because putting it back on is a bitch. Why are we making it harder on ourselves by continuing to gain weight? D. likened us to a heroin or other drug addict right after the intervention but who continues to use all the way up to walking through the doors of treatment. We continue to exercise 2 hours a day, eat small amounts of food, and purge other times and will continue to do so until we walk, if we walk, through the treatment doors. It's not set in stone that we are going to res. tx. There are so many factors involved, especially money. It's a sad commentary when mental health in the Western world is dictated by insurance and mostly out of pocket expense.

So I'm lying on my back wondering how I'll be able to work out tomorrow. Usually the stiffness from an epidural lasts a couple of day, even with ibuprofen.

I'm heartbroken to read some of the blogs I follow through Google Reader and how people are having such a hard time. I feel more compassion for them than for me. My littles really want to color and put stamps in their stamp book but I have very little mental energy to facilitate that for them or ask others in the system to go forth and take care of things. An e.d. will cost you everything. I didn't realize it in treatment last year. I guess I've grown or am able to see things in a different light. My blinders, for the most part, have come off.

Last year in treatment I kept asking my nutritionist if I could just lose a few pounds I would be okay, could she help me do it? I couldn't bear to think of living life in a "normal" body. I now see what that line of thinking has led me to. Every day something else worse happens, i.e., I almost fall of the exercise machine from fatigue, I can't let my spouse see me naked for fear what he will say about my bones, my skinny jeans are now too fat, "safe" foods are becoming risky and rituals worsen, I am sleep deprived, and, worst of all, I am mean and cranky and irritable all because I don't feel well. I am too tired to even speak to my god-daughters. They call through Skype but I reject the call because talking to twin thirteen-year olds is exhausting.

I don't know whether I should sit down and speak with them of the misery of eating disorders, (though know where and why I was gone for the better part of last year...treatment facilities yeah!!! just kidding) so they will think twice before toying with their weight or just skip the subject altogether. C. always wants to look at the fashion magazine and, since she doesn't take ballet anymore, she, at thirteen, worries about her figure and getting back into shape. She seems to eat heartily, although she is now a vegetarian thanks to me. I'm hoping she'll grow out of it. She is just too vulnerable to be messing with her nutrition. And she always comments about how skinny I look and I'm, what SHE calls, a Fashionista. I don't know.

For a long time, anorexia and bulimia helped us out to cope, but not anymore. We don't need it. We've allowed ourselves to be robbed and ruined of what could have been a good life. Decades have been eaten alive, died, and been buried by some disorder or another.

It's just too much to bear.

Becca out