Honest.Now Terrified.TW Anorexia

I am in hospital.
Not tor my ED.

I just saw my IP pyschiatrist

This morning, I restricted breakfast.

Of course, my ED " voice " was telling me to be secretive, but when she asked me if I felt I am getting worse in hospital, I looked at the floor and told her that I restricted breakfast.

Sbe asked me if it was about feeling a sense of control, or about feeling anything at all...

Told her, well,both.

Told her the " high" it gave me,.

She had already told me that as this isn't an EDU if I am restricting it, it would be grounds for
discharge.

I am voluntary.
So, technically I could say I want to leave at any
e time.

And I was expecting her to d/c me right then, after confessing to my restricting.

My ED WANTED her to kick me out, go back " home" to my old familiar and very sick patterns.

I never want to eat again.

My doctor also told me to get out of my room, I have been isolating.

But that stupid television, the chatter, the hilarity, the light-

I can't bear it.

Lunch is in an hour.

I am anxious over it.

Nurses will be asked to bother me as to whether I have eaten.

But if I become medically compromised they will d/c me.

Pyschiatrist is eager and optimistic about ECT.

My OP Pyschiatrist/ therapist very positive about it too.

I am resigned.

I keep thinking in distortion...

So, after having anorexia for most of my life, being in and out of tx, I have " insight", yet even now at a healthy weight which gives me a dx of "Atypical" anorexia ( which my ED tells me is not valididating.) I recognise my head is still very ill.

And one can d*e of ANY eating disorder at ANY weight.

I am going mad!

I am back and forth and admittedly very black and white in my thinking, ambivalent about going back Into tx as my IP pyschiatrist asked me about.

I should feel good about following my values and being honest with my doctor this morning, but as I am sure you all whom also struggle with an ED that voice" is enraged right now, and threatened.

I despise my body.

I only feel like mysejf when very emaciated.

Right now...feel like I am taking up too much space....

Quite literally.

And I told my doctor here I don't think i will ever get better....from any if it.
Can't see my ever having a richer life.

She said she thinks it is possible.

Asked her a couple questions about ECT-said, depression has already blunted my creativity, will ECT blunt it too?

She told me it shouldn't.

* As I asked in my intro, please no ECT horror stories.

Sorry to be all over the place in this post...i just wanted to.reach out on this board.as I am clearly struggling and just needed to express this.

I so hope I have not triggered any of you

Please,please take good care, everyone, and thank you for reading if you have...

I can relate so much to what of what you wrote, especially the back and forth in black and white thinking. Too freaking frequently I go from "I'm going to get better" to "I'm going to make damn sure I die of this thing soon" when thinking about recovery and it's disorienting.

"feel like I'm taking up too much space...quite literally." Same, my friend. I'm in subsidized transitional housing for people in recovery, escaping domestic violence, etc. and I feel I shouldn't be here because there's some women out there sleeping under tarps, in cars, etc. that can't handle that as well as I can (honestly, if I had better relationships skills and someone to do it with, I could do a Christopher Knight type lifestyle, or if I were back at a more physically healthy state I could spend my life walking back and forth on the Appalachian Trail and probably love it more than waking up to the first bus drive by, walking by the homeless camps to get my meds every day and be interrogated for not taking any PRNs or be interrogated for taking all the PRNs or some other bs, now that spring is here there's gonna be a lot of loud motorcycles, fireworks every weekend, tourons everywhere, be attacked by flies, ticks, and mosquitos daily, all the stuff associated with the weather people like because of some hatred of putting on a coat or not wanting to shovel every now and then or something dumb).

(I do have kind of a post I wrote in a weird state on an ECT session I had recently, but if you saw that, do know that was out of paranoia and distrust from PTSD and I'm sure nothing crazy happened. It's really not a horrible treatment, if I could go back to the hospital I did it the first time (transportation there will be an issue now) and keep up with maintenance treatments, I'd do that over meds any day because the side effects are just way more tolerable and, statistically, it works better. I don't think I really got "helped" much my first round because they thought they were just treating bipolar mood episodes and I wasn't in therapy or any treatment for what now they've added as PTSD, SUD, an eating disorder that's constantly changing presentation, BPD, and ADHD, and also was in an incredibly stressful living situation, which generally ECT is more for depression/mania/psychosis than the various problems stemming from trauma/environment/situational stress).

If you do it, I hope it helps. It shouldn't blunt your creativity, and if it works you could likely gain the creativity depression took away back. I remember doing a lot of creative writing during my first round and it wasn't horrible stuff either.

Oh.. @MuddyBoots your suffering breaks my heart...

Although it is not, as you know in the DSM V, most pyschiatrists accept that the dx if CPTSD cearly fits me...

I am sorry you have been through so much trauma, and I have recieved little help for it...

You have so much to carry in your life!

So, it is no wonder you turn to your ED to cope.

Thank you for reaching back to me, and all you trusted me with sharing.

And thank you for letting me know you were able to.write again after ECT!

There is poetry deep in my soul that needs to be put to paper.

Thank you for your compassion.

ED's just love to become all-consuming. I haven't been active with my ED for years...but it doesn't mean I don't still have the thoughts. I have them a lot, most days if I'm honest. I just don't act on them. I have a family though (husband & daughter) and can't restrict or turn full-fledged to my ED without them noticing quickly. It's hard, but recovery is worth it in so many respects.

That you for your reply, @Blueberrybook.

You ought to ne very proud of yourself for reaching a place of recovery, but I am sorry those maddening intrusive ED thoughts still plague you.

I am glad you have your husband and daughter as reasons to not listen to that " voice" and I admire your strength and positivity about recovery.

I am really struggling.

I have no social supports.

TW....negativity.

I just...at the moment feel better having given in to my ED today( just " had dinner" but it was just something " safe"...

I am not even trying.

I am near to being half a century old and terribly ashamed I have never reached a place of solid recovery despite being in tx so many times.

I feel like difficult " Borderline " brat.

I dread telling my pyschiatrist tomorrow that I ate next to nothing today.

Please..
If you are far younger than I, or even of you are a my age or older and also struggling, I implore you to seek help.

.. And thank you again @Blueberrybook

@Autumn88 I'm sorry you still struggle with the ED. I still struggle with the thoughts as well as with overexercise. I'm 47 years old.

@Blueberrybook

I am sorry you too have to fight those thoughts and the urge to over exercise.

" Middle age" brings a whole new set of triggering stressirs, doesn't it?

Sorry you're struggling so much right now. I understand "difficult 'borderline' brat" thing too. I'm not sure but I think you're implying you have BPD too? It's hard because we (or at least I am) the way I am because that's how I grew up was "normal" and "how to survive childhood," and these things just get so deeply ingrained they're so hard to change. Therapy's hard with a fear of abandonment, the tendency to split, not knowing how to balance boundaries, being really impulsive and self-sabotaging, having a hard time consistently trusting someone else, and maybe even experiencing countertransference from your therapist/providers or even "burning them out" with all this making next time even harder to feel hope for.

I don't really know how to seek "real" help right now. I know I can do it on my own (gonna have to if I want to), but honestly don't want to. If I can be real for a second, I was addicted to opioids, alcohol, meth, and dabbled with other stuff for a while, and I feel like this eating disorder is a replacement. It's something my obsessive mind can attach to and indulge in all the time, and it won't even land me in jail.

Hello, @MuddyBoots...

Thank you for your reply.

Firguve me for only responding now, exhaustion and depression struck me like a Mac truck here in hospital yesterday and I was simply incapable of being at all coherent.
( Probably won't be very coherent now, but thank God I am allowed downstairs to the lobby to get coffee, hopefully caffeine will help me to make some sort of sense.)

Sorry!!! Already babbling away...

Anyway, yes...was dxd 25(!!!) years ago, along with a myriad of other dxs...and certainly the BPD is
what for over 2 decades has so often had me be stigmatised by mental health professionals, punished for an illness that a huge percentage of people are afflicted wirh due to trauma...

You should be very proud of being in recovery from addiction!

That shows your strength and tenacity!

...I do get " trading " one disorder for another. .

For me, with my OCD I find it a relief to have something for my obsessive compulsive behaviours to latch on to my ED...

* I am NOT suggesting this to anyone trying to cope with their OCD.

This has been my experience though.

And, @MuddyBoots, I hear you.. I too know " how" to eat having been in tx so many times, but I keep returning to the icy lying embrace off my ED...

You have all my empathy.

Please believe, you are of worth.
You deserve to know what a recovered LIFE is like!

And as do all of you happening to read this, even though you all may believe me to be the worst hypocrite you have ever encountered.

Hooe I at least made a little sense @MuddyBoots and please take good care of you.

Thank you so much for the kind words @Autumn88. You were perfectly comprehensible, don’t worry. I really appreciate it. I haven’t been diagnosed with OCD officially, but told I might have PANDAS which is essentially in my case OCD symptoms caused by strep (probably had it as a kid and just learned to manage things okay enough until I got strep again), and I think a lot of those traits end up presenting in the ED too.

It’s crazy how BPD is “the most treatable personality disorder” yet also too many therapists refuse to work with anyone with BPD (or have a limit to how many clients with that dx they will take on, or end up clearly struggling with their counter transference after a while).

I think I got more help for my BPD symptoms from DBT books and a workbook from Dr. Daniel Fox than any therapist honestly (and cutting out substances, finding stable and generally less chaotic housing, and treating my ADHD has helped a lot too).

Hello, @MuddyBoots.

GAH!
Just wrote a reply and lost it.
Sorry, still trying g to get used to the forum.

Anyway, also sorry for another delay in replying, been a terrible couple days.

Am" home"( can't call it a real HOME since it a dangerous dump, but that is another story.)
from hospital having thought about ECT during a completely sleepless night, and told the nurses I revoked my consent to ECT.

My mini skirted, spike heeled young pyschiatrist
was livid.

But I have my reasons, and I was voluntary.
Discharged of course and glad of it.

Long story, sorry for rambling on on the ED board about it, but I will also add that this doctor, who said " Your primary issue is your eating disorder That's where the shame comes from."
(Um...yet ANOTHER young doctor who dismisses all my trauma as where my shame truly comes from. Although I realize how much shame ED behaviours can trigger in a sufferer)

She lied.

Never referred me for treatment.
My " discharge summary" was just a bunch of crisis lines to call which I crumpled up-well aware of those numbers by now.

Anyway, sorry...back to YOU!

I am.sorry you too experience OCD symptoms latching on to your ED gleefully...

Interesting about PANDAS...I too had strep many times as a kid as did my older brother whose OCD is far worse than mine, or perhaps manifests a little differently.

As for BPD, I am so blessed to have such a patient and devoted pyschiatrist whom I think I mentioned ( sorry long term benzodiazipines have destroyed my memory) has never treated me like simply a label...yes have put him through a lot-was very angry during the worst of my ED , and he admitted he was frustrated. But not with ME,but my SUFFERING.

And now, where I am at with my ED clinging to me, so so loud, demanding, demeaning, controlling next session will be spent processing things that led up to what I cant even call a " relapse", as even though I gained the weight- the mental.stuff is all still there, always will be I imagine...please again, me ever the hypocrite that I am, yet telling you with all sincerity, you CAN be free of this horrible ( and d**dly ) disease.

Sorry to ramble on and on, especially about myself, and we just met here.

Hope not overwhelming you or triggering you.

Hope you're alright out there.
Do something nice for yourself today.
You deserve it.