Rachel's Rebelious Realizations!

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed”

Michael Jordan

"To avoid heartbreak means missing out on the good as well as the bad."

Free2be at Ramey Nutrition

http://www.rameynutrition.com/free2be-1

Recovering THROUGH Trauma

This is going to be kinds of a fucked up, un organized and possibly depressing blog that may or may not seem unfinished but it's what I got right now. I think it's time I talk about how I ended up back in Washington. Right before I moved back home I was living in Reno, NV and had landed myself in the ICU for the millionth time. I think I had gone to the ER for a toothache that had me contemplating throwing myself in traffic it was so painful. I was so relieved to have a doctor I had not had before and was hoping to get away with no blood draw and just some antibiotics and pain meds but one of the nurses recognized me and told the doc treating me that I looked worse than the last time I had been hospitalized. The gig was up, I was so mad! So my blood was drawn, critical potassium, critical bicarbon, critical creatinine, acute renal failure, the whole nine yards. I knew the drill, they knew they didn't have to explain it to me. Automatic admit to ICU and then telemetry. This was standard protocol for me. I had a new doctor once I was admitted so I wasn't happy. I usually had the same doc and he knew how to treat me but apparently Dr. D was on his day off or holiday or something so this new young hot headed doctor with something to prove was my doctor. He was crazy, knew nothing about me, knew nothing about eating disorders or how to treat them. I had been to the hospital so many times that I practically treated myself while I was there. The nurses looked to me to know what to do and what IV's to hang and when to stop them and what to infuse based on what my 4 hour blood draws came back at. I had created my own gong show of medical help that basically catered to my eating disordered. A pick me up when I had gone too far. I had my own medical team to save me, manage my eating disorder and then send me on my way until next time when we did it all over again. I'm sure they thought I was quite pathetic, but I refused to go into inpatient treatment and it was all anyone could do to keep me alive, each time hoping it would be the last time and it would stick and I wouldn't be back knocking on deaths door needing a recharge. I lived like this for 4 years. The last hospital stay before I moved back home was not that way. New doctor. Wrench in the works. He managed to load me up with 26 pounds of fluid water weight in 3 days. I panicked. I had Dr. D on the phone begging him to talk to this doctor and make him discharge me. He did and that was the last that Renown hospital ever saw of me. I was in new territory. In a body that I didn't know with a face I didn't recognize. I knew nothing of the person I was when I got home. For the first time in my life I could not pull my jeans up over my thighs. I didn't own an article of clothing that fit. The weight of all the water was more than I could bare. I couldn't breathe, I could barely bend my legs to walk. I didn't recognize my face when I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the body I saw the few times I managed to look down. I cried constantly. I showered in the dark so I didn't have to see myself and cried when I had to wash my body because I hated the way it felt and could feel my painfully stretched skin. I remember calling Sandy one night shortly after and cried hopelessly to her voicemail. I remember saying that I didn't know how I was EVER going to make it. I didn't know how I was ever going to recover. For the first time I felt my own mortality. I knew, at that point, that I was never going to recover, that I was going to die from my eating disorder, because if "this" was what I was supposed to be aiming for, I wasn't ever going to be able to handle it. It was a trauma that burned itself into my brain and memory and has since remained there untouched, eating away at and plagueing my life. Even as I write this I cannot emotionally "go there". I can't emotionally connect with it. I went home that night after phoning Sandy knowing that it was over for me. If this was what recovery felt like, if this was the trade off and the body I was going to end up with ... I wasn't going to do it. I didn't know how to be OK with that. I didn't know how I was EVER going to believe that I could be OK. I knew, right then, my life was going to end. I didn't know what to do, I had never been "here" before. I knew with every water logged ounce of my being that I was not going to live this way. I couldn't do it. I crawled into bed and kept myself in a drug induced sleep for 2 days, I could no longer bare my thoughts. The eating disorder had won and I had given up. My best friend still lived in WA and I wasn't going to take my life before saying goodbye to her. I already missed her so much. 3 o'clock in the morning I picked up my cell phone, dialed her number expecting to reach her voicemail. I was too chicken shit to say goodbye to her in person. She answered. I didn't speak a SINGLE word, not a breath. It felt like days of silence but in reality I knew it was seconds. I inhaled to speak and before I could muttered a sound she broke this silence. I could hear the fear and urgency in her voice, "Jess, I'm on my way. Can you hold on for 24 hours?" Not a single word, she knew with that one breath that something was wrong. I told her 24 hours and not a second more. She literally hopped in her car, drove home, packed a bag and started on the drove from Seattle to Reno. Neither of us knew what we were going to do once she got there, she just knew she had to get there. When her car pulled up in fromt of my house I came outside and she hugged me so hard for a second I thought that was how I was going to die. We just stood there in an embrace and she wasn't going to let me go. I broke down and just sobbed like I had only sobbed one other time in my life. Uncontrollably I sobbed for everything all at once. My body shook as I sobbed for my life that I was losing. I sobbed for the person I used to be that I had lost. I sobbed for the hopelessness I felt. I sobbed for the pain I had caused. I sobbed for ultimate loss. I sobbed for the loss of my child. I sobbed for the grief and the pain and the trauma of that day, the last time I cried like I was crying in my friends arm. I fell to my knees, praying for it all to be over, for her to let me go. She never did and she continued to hold on long after I let go ... I knew she had come to take me home.
I like to live my life and mark moments with music ... a life soundtrack, if you will. This morning I was discharged from the hospital after a 4 day stay and I have found that life has come full circle for me. At the moment, I don't know how to blog about it. I don't know how to sort through the pain and grief and the struggle. I'm trying to find the fight and the will. I'm trying to find that strength to hold on for for a second, and then a second longer. My thoughts can't go passed the soundtrack of my life in this instant. I want everyone who reads this to listen to Mumford & Sons song called Awake My Soul. This is where I am right now. This is where my fight is, right now. And for everyone struggling to recover, ALL OF YOU, you better hang the fuck on and manage through this because I swear to God, after all the unbearable moments of trauma in my life, If I can hang on through this second and the next you better be hanging the fuck on, too. Listen to this song. Please find comfort in knowing that you are not alone, because I'm right here, too. I'm going through this mother fucker of a thing called life and as much as I want to, I just can't manage to let go. I don't know what else to do right now, but I know that.

Beautiful Small Step Toward Recovery

Bravery through Recovery!

Each morning 7 days/week, our PHP intensive day program patients are to write out how they'll be brave that day. I had to post this due to its eloquence and candor regarding what it takes to recover. Thank You Gary!

Bravery: my brave today is to give myself the authority to eat, allow my body to speak and my mind to sit back and just experience what it would be like to let my body ask and receive.
-Alyssa Gary

Destination Recover(ed): Day 679

The scale is not your friend. It's not my friend, either. I'm going to share a little silliness that happened this week that had me off my rocker crazy-girl angry. Months and months ago I put my scale away and let Scarlett be in charge of my weight. I couldn't handle the temptation to step on the scale every day. Every time I went in to or walked by the bathroom the scale beckoned me. It drove me nuts. In my healthy mind I know that part of recovery includes the number on the scale going up. But the scale was causing such an emotional tornado for me. I wasn't happy if the number went up and I wasn't happy if the number went down. The scale never matched how I felt. Some days I would get on the scale expecting the number the be higher and it would be lower. That played to my healthy mind, making me angry and frustrated because I felt as if I was gaining weight. Other days I would get on the scale just to make sure I knew where I was and the number would be slightly higher, making me feel unready as if it was all moving too fast I didn't have time to prepare for this. Half a pound would tug at my heart strings. Wait! Slow down, I'm not ready to say goodbye yet! I began to realize that it didn't matter what the scale said. It doesn't. Logically I know that 3500 kcals is equal to one pound. That's 3500 kcals ON TOP of what your body uses to function and repair itself. I knew it was impossible to be gaining and losing based on what my intake and activity was. I knew it was just shifting weight, extra fluids, retaining water and losing water. But for some reason common sense flew out the window as soon as I stepped on the scale and suddenly the scale became God and whatever that number was became the spoken word. It's not healthy, I'm pretty sure we all know this. So I let Scarlett manage it, on ONE stipulation. I agreed to not worry about my weight as long as when we got to a certain number, she would tell me and we could plateau and hang out there for a while, redusce my intake to stay there. Giving me time to accept and emotionally prepare for the next steps forward. A number that got me out of medical danger, where we would have a little cushion so Sandy could start the "real" EMDR and I could medically and safely begin working on trauma. And I agreed that if I fell below Scarlett's stipulated number then she would have free range to up my intake further. Agreed. Agreed. The scale got shoved in the back of the linen closet, on it's side, wedged between a wooden crate and the wall. Out of sight, out of mind. This weekend my Mom and I tore the house apart decorating for Christmas. This house was a disaster as we replaced every day knicky knackies with Christmas lights and Snowmen and Santa figurines. The regular towels came down and the snowflake decorative towels went up. I even have ice skating penguins on my bathroom counter. Christmas linen came out of the closet and winter flannel went on the beds. In the process of all that my Mom (innocently/naively) sees the scale in the back of the closet and puts it back in the bathroom by the bathtub. My bathroom, by my bathtub. Do we all know where this is going ... ?? The scale did not lose it's allure sitting in the back of the closet. It wasn't dead, merely hibernating, and now it was awake again ... and hungry. So I fed it. That stupid lying dog. In the moments before I got on it I tried to prepare myself, coming up with a number in my head that I was ready to accept. A number that was higher than I was before I put the scale away, but clearly under the number Scarlett had promised to keep me at. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and stepped on the scale. I stood there for moment and then opened my eyes. Took another deep breath and looked down. Common sense should have told me to check and adjust the calibration before and even after I saw that number. That awful, terrible, terrifying, outrageous number. A number that was above where I was promised we would stop at. Here's how the eating disorder works ... It instantly discredited everything Scarlett had ever said. It screamed at me "I fucking TOLD YOU SO!" I felt betrayed. I could feel the rage at my throat, the back of my neck was seething hot. I went between sheer panic and rage. I was along with my eating disorder. I wanted to call Scarlett and scream at her but I knew my anger would overtake my ability to articulate anything but nonsense which would only anger me more. I wanted to throw it all out the window. I was DONE. I even allowed myself room for a higher number that I was willing to accept, but I was well above that. I was consulted about this, I was not prepared. God had spoken and I was NOT ok. I picked up the phone shaking and texted Scarlett:

Me: Scarlett. We kind of disheveled the house today decorating. That's generally how it works and then everything gets in it's place and we're decorated. Somehow the bathroom scale made it back out ...

Scarlett: Awe jeeze! You?

Me: Fucking shit Scarlett. Now, I know I should not have gotten on it, so I'm totally taking responisibily for that. But you fucking promised me! You fucking promised we'd stop at ##. What. The. Fuck? I don't even fucking know right now. AND I already took my ambien and I'm going to crash out. I'm so angry right now. I'm really sad. I don't know what to say other than I want to scream so bad. Don't even respond right now because I am so fucking angry right now. I'm angry at you. I'm angry at myself. I'm really angry at myself.

I didn't know what to do or what to think or how to feel. I just knew that I was angry and I needed her to know that I knew what was happenning. I knew she had lied to me. I knew she was tricking me and the game was up. I also knew that as soon as I said not to respond to me that she was going to respond, so I turned my phone off because it was just going to anger me further to read whatever she had to say. Before the Ambien kicked in I started crying. I didn't know what to do. My heart was trying to convince me to hook up to my feeding tube and go to bed, just keep everything the same until I can sort it out. My eating disorder said "What the fuck for?". I wanted to get up and start exercising like crazy, lose the weight, forget the Ensure, quit. I was having a tug of war. I didn't know what it all meant to me. This is what I wanted, right? I want recovery. I want to be done with this. But I wanted it on my terms under my control. I don't gain the weight unless I allow it to happen. It's my choice... And then the Ambien kicked in and quick as that, all was calm and quiet as I fell into my drug induced sleep. When I woke up in the morning, as dreamland faded away and the reality of the night before crept back in, the reality zinged the waterworks and a huge giant sigh. "Ohh, yeah ..." The anger had passed and I was left with sadness. I was Very, and this very was Sad. Very sad. I grabbed my phone and sure as shit, Scarlett had responded, but I sadness was a better platform for me to deal with this than anger.

Scarlett: Hahaha.... ## my ass! Awesome scale to make you feel so shitty, though. If only I could see ##.... I'd love for you to be that angry! I'd love for that to be true. But you stepped on an old dusty bathroom scale that could've popped up any number, it's the power you're giving to a piece of plastic. Let's wait to be angry until you weigh that much, not when a dusty old scale says it, deal? Whether you gave that old dusty piece of plastic all your power or not and saw that number I know it freaked you out and I'm sorry. I love you through all this. Oh, and you're not ## pounds, but I'll buy the pretend and sleep better knowing that day might come! I love you sweet Jessica. Night :)

Sleep put me in a better place to read and accept that. It would have just angered me further to read that at the time. Sleep allowed me to be a little more objective, a little more realistic a little less crazy. I got it. I took a scale that has been sitting on it's side in the back of a closet and stepped on it. Well no SHIT it popped up with crazy numbers. I didn't even checked to see if the needle was tarred out at zero. I still haven't. It's a fucking mind fuck. At that moment, I knew she was right. I knew my eating disorder puffed itself up in a huge huffy rage because it was threatened. It didn't change the fact that I freaked out though, and now I'm left with wondering WHY? Why would that number not be ok with me? It was less than 2 pounds over the number I agreed to in the first place. Why would it matter? It's in the direction I wanted go and quite frankly not far enough away from the "dying weight", the weight I was when I realized I was dying and I told Scarlett that I didn't want to die. The turn around point. Scarlett doesn't ever discuss my weight with me but for happenstance she let me know that I was only 6 pounds away from that turn point. 6 pounds away from dying. I would have thought that it would have to appeased to my eating disorder to know this, but it unsettles me even further. I know it's not the weight and I was sorry I had gotten so angry but now I feel like I'm in a mind trap that I don't know how to get out of. I keep trying to figure it all what, what it would mean if my weight was where I thought it was. My eating disorder was so thrilled at the thought of Scarlett's betrayal. It was overjoyed to think it had beaten her and could have me back. It makes me realize how strong the eating disorder is. It's like a cockroach, you can cut it's head off but it's not really dead. It will come back. I like Scarlett's analogy of the two wolves:

If you feed the Good wolf, the Evil wolf gets angry. He puffs up big and becomes violent, barking constantly, foaming at the mouth, viciously clawing at and threatening you. You have no choice but to feed him because you can't take it anymore. It hurts, so you take the Good wolf's food and you feed it to the Evil wolf and he stops biting you, he stops barking and snarling and the silence from the chaos is beautiful. The Evil wolf snuggles up to, keeps you warm, he even loves you, he protects you from everything that is not him, as long as you give him all the food. You feed him and he feeds you in return. He abuses you, feeding you hate and lies until you can't take it anymore and the silence of the chaos is overwhelming. The absence of the chaos is not love or serenity and peace though, it's a thundering silence. There is no more Good because the Good wolf goes away. You're not feeding him anymore, you don't pay any attention to him, so he leaves. Just because you have kept the Evil at bay does not mean that there is Good. Good is gone. Good went away. So you start feeding the Good again beckoning him to come back and protect you, save you and the Evil wolf starts snarling again, and so you plead to the Good wolf and you say "HEY! I'm feeding you, you're stronger now, why aren't you helping me? This Evil wolf is attacking me because of YOU! Because I'm feeding YOU! You're supposed to protect me! Help ME!" But the Good wolf just says, "But I just got here. You just started feeding me. I need more. And besides, I'm a Good wolf! I'm going to stay right here and be good, and love you. If I fight, then I'm no different than the Evil wolf. YOU have to fight the Evil wolf. I'm a Good wolf." That's where I'm at right now, I'm feeding the Good Wolf. My theory is that eventually, the Evil wolf will get weak and he will go away and as long as I continue to not feed him, he will stay away and my Good wolf will never have to fight him. It's just that right now now, I have been feeding my Evil wolf for 20 years, he's huge and giant and towers over me, he has muscles of steel. Strong. 20 years strong. He's not just going to whittle away into some tiny little waif of a wolf after missing a few meals. And my Good wolf isn't going to magically become Under Dog because I gave him a sip of water and some kibble. But if I keep nourishing him and giving him food Good will get stronger and Evil will get weaker. I will get stronger and my eating disorder will get weaker. Right now I've got two wolves again but my Good wolf seems to be curled up in a food induced coma and I can hear him snoring. But it's a beautiful sound.

“The difference between try and triumph is a little umph.”– Roger Staubach

“How long should you try? Until.” – Jim Rohn

Destination Recover(ed): Day 678

I've been carrying this poem around with me in my life for about 8 years. It finally seems fitting.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.
~ Mary Oliver ~

How Changing Visual Cues Can Affect Attitudes About Weight by NANCY SHUTE

With most Americans fat or fatter, you'd think we'd be lightening up on the anti-fat attitudes.

Alas, no. Even doctors often think their overweight patients are weak-willed.

But changing negative attitudes about body size might be as simple as changing what you see. When women in England were shown photos of plus-sized women in neutral gray leotards, they became more tolerant.

When the women were shown photos of anorexic women, attitudes became more positive there, too. "Showing them thin bodies makes them like thin bodies, more, and showing them fat bodies makes them like fat bodies more," says Lynda Boothroyd, a psychology researcher at Durham University in England, who led the study. She calls it a "visual diet," changing what your eyes eat.

Why the unflattering leotards? Boothroyd and her colleagues wanted neutral clothing to sever the link between thinness and success that's so strong in Western cultures.

The researchers also tested photos of women in designer clothes and found the test subjects thought better of the well-dressed women, fat or thin. The glamour effect existed independent of the change in perception caused by repeatedly seeing the leotard-clad women.

All the study participants still preferred thinner-than-average bodies, but their preferences did move up or down depending on what they saw.

Perhaps that's why we're so obsessed with thinness, even if most of the people around us are found to be larger. We're constantly fed images of very slim actresses and models, all beautifully dressed. "All you have to do is watch five minutes of TV and you see more thin bodies than you would all day on the street," Boothroyd says.

There's no question that culture affects not just attitudes about weight, but body size itself. When Zulu women move from South Africa to England, their body size preference shifted from the full figures favored in Africa to a midway point between that and the thin ideal in the UK, Boothroyd says. Her work is published in the current issue of the online journal PLOS One.

But that shift clearly hasn't happened in doctors. Another study in the same issue of PLOS One found that doctors are strongly biased against fat people, even if they don't think they are.

This comes from a fascinating crowdsourced study, Project Implicit, which is designed to tease out attitudes that people are unwilling or unable to articulate. Led by psychologist Brian Nosek, an associate professor at the University of Virginia, the project offers dozens of free online tests that let you test your implicit biases – and contribute to science, too.

Participants are shown photos of faces, and are tested on their speed to identify them and associate them with positive and negative words.

More than 359,000 people took the project's "Weight Implicit Association Test" online, and about 2,300 said they were doctors. Even though physicians are constantly reminded about their need to work with patients to maintain a healthy weight, they had the same strong anti-fat bias as the public.

"We don't know if this affects how doctors behave clinically," says Janice Sabin, an assistant professor in bioinformatics and medical education that the University of Washington in Seattle, who led the new study.

But other studies have shown that many doctors view obese patients as unattractive and difficult to work with, and that obese women get inappropriate comments about their weight from their doctor.

Given that, maybe it's time to show doctors some plus-sized photos — of hefty physicians.

Destination Recover(ed): Day 677

Thanksgiving was pretty awesome this year. In the past it has always been a chaotic time. Ever year I intend on arriving at my Dad's early in the morning so I can feel like I got to spend enough time over there before having to leave to go to my Mom's for second Thanksgiving (which is a fucking nightmare if you have an eating disorder. As if ONE Thanksgiving dinner isn't traumatizing enough). I never want to leave my Dad's house when it comes time to go and I always wish I had gotten there earlier so it could feel like I stayed longer. So far this has never happened. I'm always running late. If I want to be at Dad's by 9am it's almost guaranteed that I will actually make it there around noon. We do a pot luck Thanksgiving at my Dad's. Dad and Mom always do the turkey (this year they deep fried it. *Awesome* fun times not blowing the house up!) and stuffing and then everyone else brings a side dish. We sign up on the list. It's fun. I made fresh from scratch (NOT from a can) green bean casserole and also fresh homemade cranberry sauce (plus I brought the kind in a can for my sister, who loves it). This year I was ready! This year I was on schedule! Car loaded Thanksgiving Eve, ready to roll out of my driveway at 7am to drive from Stanwood to Shoreline to pick up my friend Natalie by 8am and then make the 1.5 hour drive to my Dad's arriving around 9:30am! No muss, no fuss, no chaos, no anxiety. 
Per usual I was late this year ... BUT not as late as the previous years, so we're making progress already! Last minute I decided to  prepare everything for my Mom that she wasn't able to get done because she was working back to back to back to back schedules at work. I think it's awesome that my Mom is the big head honcho where she works but it requires an obscene amount of her life, especially during the holidays where she is on blackout and isn't allowed to take days off and her company requires that she work until midnight on the eve of eves, and eves of holidays, and then turn around and be there at 4:00am the following mornings. So I felt bad this year and prepped all her food and recipes. I got in my car by 9:00am to go get Natalie. 2 hours late. DEAD FUCKING CAR BATTERY. Apparently when I loaded my car up before I went to go to bed (aka watch a movie because I actually didn't sleep for one second that night) I left the light on above the console. Awww MAN! Are you effing kidding me?! Unfucking believable! :::*pouty face*::: Mom to the rescue (which is completely out of character and uncommon for my Mom). She hands me her keys and says, just replace the gas so I can drive to work in the morning. OMG, am I actually going to be THANKFUL for my MOM this year?! Keys in hand, food and supplies transferred, on the road. I picked up Natalie, and after making a few stops (Walgreens and QFC for the alcohol my Mom called to see if I could pick up) We were at my Dad's house 11:45am. Record Time. I may or may not have sped, but the fact that there was absolutely NO TRAFFIC may have also contributed. And the best part? We were the first to arrive! Everything else basically went off without a hitch, not exactly on schedule, but whatever, family was together, we food was eventually cooked and everyone was set at the table. We started a new Thanks Giving tradition, too. Normally we would go around the table and each give thanks for what we were thankful for that year, but this year was different. This is the first Thanksgiving since my grandpa passed away on December 1st last year. Last year he wasn't present at the table because hew as in the hospital, but we were all kind of in an emotional cocoon last year, everything was awkward without grandpa who was the always the Turkey Carver and giver of thanks and Grace sayer. This year, without grandpa, we started new traditions in his memory and it was beautiful and sad and I cried at the table. Mom carved the Turkey this year (because my DAD doesn't know how to carve a turkey and pulled out the power tools, so Mom took over). My sister Rashel was home this year after a very long year of her taking off to find herself. Dad & Mom weren't wrought with the pain of dealing with Rashel's absence and grandpa's last few days. My Sister Crystal is pregnant with my nephew, Jonah, and she is so beautiful at 8.5 months pregnant (and always) and her and her husband are so happy. My other sister, Shannon wasn't going through (and as everything panned out, never went through) a divorce. We weren't in the emotional turmoil of being at the hospital every single day for a month to be with grandpa and see him so ill. I wasn't just discharged from the hospital, the same hospital and subsequently the exact same room as my grandpa. Grandma wasn't crazy, or withdrawn from the grief. We were OK. We made it through the year. We survived. We had an abundance of love and reasons to be thankful this year. We do every year. I have an amazing family, and not just at holidays. I gave thanks for that this year. I gave thanks that I know we are not "normal" in the way that my siblings talk to each other every day and my sisters are my best friends. I gave thanks that we say I Love You when we see each other on holidays as well as Tuesdays or because it's a Saturday. I gave thanks that I can send my Dad a text at 4am on Monday morning because I just felt like telling him I was thinking about him and he'll text me back and say he loves me and thanks for making his day. I gave thanks that I can open my email and see a random message from my grandma that she loves me and "That Is All". I gave thanks for Scarlett and Sandy for their patience, unconditional love and belief in me. And I gave thanks that for this day, I was able to be present in my life and not worry about the food I was giving thanks for. I was able to engage in conversation and comprehend when people talked to me. I gave thanks that I wasn't bundled up in blankets, looking gaunt and dead, just trying to make it through sitting at the table because I didn't have the strength to hold myself up and the chair was so painful to sit on because my bones protruded and there was nothing to protect them. I gave thanks that my mind wasn't cluttered with my eating disorder, although it was still present it wasn't loud, and it wasn't in charge. Another day with my eating disorder so present is what I strive for. It's my proof of my recovery. It's the bounty of all the hard work and the painful days. It's something tangible that I can say OK, so this is what it's like. Now I know. It's not just like working your ass off doing the the fucking impossible without a clue of what you're actually working towards ... you can't miss what you don't know, and I feel like sometimes I'm just working blindly, not knowing what exactly the payoff really is going to be, other than this "word" recovery ... which means "not dying" "healthy" "not sick" but you don't know what the FEELS like, you just know that you don't want to die, that you don't want "this" anymore, that you're tired of fighting, that "something" has to change. Recovery. You just want recovery. So you do the work. You cry the tears and you scream because it's hard. Some days it's impossible. And you fight, anyway. But you don't know what it's going to be like. You're taking a giant fucking leap of fate, feet first without knowing where you're going to end up ...  I suppose it's like a blind person trying to imagine color. How do you do that? Where would your brain go to know what the color RED is if you've never seen it before? I decided to blog about this because for one day, for one meal, I was free. Whether or not I decided to eat or try food, it didn't matter. I was thinking about my family, present, engaged in conversation, laughing, crying, being alive. This is what it's going to be like to be recover(ed), and while I may be a long long ways from recovery, I am recovering.

Destination Recover(ed): Day 676

Ok, I've been putting off writing this blog because I want it to be perfect. I had the most special spectacular day a week and a half ago and it was such an emotional and perfect day that I'm having a hard time putting words to my feelings in such a way that I can perfectly express how and what I was feeling. But I'm realizing that my need for perfection is what is constantly holding me back. So I'm just going to dive in and hope that I can get it across without jumbling it up and rambling on too much :) so bear with me here ...

 

So I had a spectacular day last week. It has taken me a while to blog about it because I had a difficult time wrapping my head around it to put words to my feelings. So that day started off as a not so good day. I had just left a particularly emotionally difficult appointment with Sandy. EMDR is fucking hard and it's so incredibly taxing on my body. I leave those appointments with the same empty euphoric feeling I used to crave when starving. The "nothingness" feeling. Empty. Only now instead of reveling in the feeling as "success" or "comfort" my brain instead automatically screams "Jesus Christ! I need an Ensure STAT!" (yay for small proofs of recovery!). So I show up for my appointment with Scarlett right after my appointment with Sandy and I'm beat. I'm exhausted. Trauma work is never fun, so I'm a little emotionally blah, not exactly feeling super awesome. I had just spent the last hour and a half realizing that I am affected by my sister's pregnancy in a traumatic way. That while I am so excited and proud and ecstatic and anxious and thrilled and happy, it brings up trauma issues for me. And no matter what I want or how I tell myself I feel, I'm not getting away from the underlying trauma. I can still be happy and excited for my sister, and be traumatized by it at the same time. But I can't pretend that it doesn't bother me, that it doesn't trigger trauma for me just because I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to go there or process it because I don't want to relive it, but there's no denying it and I'm coming to terms with the fact that I have to deal with it even though I don't want to. So it had been "that kind of a day" when I walked in the door at Ramey Nutrition. It actually kind of makes the whole day perfect actually. To have such a wide spectrum of emotion all in the same day and survive it as one of my most favorite days of my life ... it really makes it that much more fucking awesome of a day. Complete. So I had been set up to know that there was something special that was going to happen at my appointment with Scarlett, so I knew that going in but I never thought or expected what was going to happen. Appointment is going as normal and I'm giving the Scarlett the play by play from my appointment with Sandy, discussing intake and body image issues and then ... AND THEN ... there's the knock at the door ... and in walks this guy, who I recognize from Scarlett's pictures on Facebook, and I know his name but I've never met him before. So I'm a little confused as to what is going on and wondering why he's coming in and joining my appointment. I mean, not like "WTF is he doing here", but more like "I wonder what is going on". I won't give his name because I didn't tell him I was going to blog about him, but I so want to tell the world how awesome he is and how he touched my life and filled my soul. He was there because he reads my blogs and wanted to do something for me. What makes it so emotional for me is that I never fully realized how far this blog goes and how many people are reading it and how many people it's helping, whether it be support for someone with an eating disorder or just bringing to light what it's like for someone who doesn't have an eating disorder. A piece of my life and journey that one wouldn't otherwise know anything about. So in one of my blogs I wrote about not looking forward to winter because of the cold and what it felt like to be so cold because of my eating disorder. If you suffer from an eating disorder, you know what I'm talking about ... the cold gets down into your bones and you just can't warm up. Your body is tense all the time and it's exhausting. It's painful. My lips turn this purplish blue and feel like I look as though I'm being preserved on ice. It wears you down. I hate it. You don't have to have an eating disorder to know what this feels like either and it was something that he could identify with. So, as the story goes, my blog affected him. It's weird, it's like my life, what I go through as an every day thing affected the life of someone I don't know, have never met or crossed physical paths with. It's a concept I'm still wrapping my head around. To me, it's just my life, it's what I go through every day so nothing I do or say or write seems profound to me because it's just the way it is, it's just the way things go and I'm just writing about it. So he decided that he wanted to do something and here he was sitting across from me telling me how he reads my blog and explaining how he felt and how he wanted to get me something and he pulls out this coat. But it's not just a coat, it's an awesome coat, a coat that was special made. A coat that he had to call around to different companies to find someone who would help him with this coat. He read everyone he called my blog until he found someone that wanted to help him. (on a side note this coat did NOT come from REI who could care less and didn't want to help and now there is a year long boycott against them ...) A coat, because I get cold and I'm not looking forward to winter. A coat because he knows what it's like to feel that cold, even without having an eating disorder. Now I don't know how to articulate my emotions from this point. It's so much more than a coat. I mean, to have someone you don't even know do something so profound that you can't even speak ... it's surreal. To not have to worry about the cold this year because this coat is so fucking warm and enveloping and to have one less thing to worry about, to not have to dread that pain ... I'm just so touched. It's more than a coat to me. I feel safe in it. It's my armor. I've had a few rough days since then and in the midst of crying and dealing and feeling just so defeated and emotional, I put my coat on and curled up and created this safety nest inside my coat. And it may sound ridiculous, but I don't really care.  I updated my Facebook status that night (yes I'm a FB'er) because I felt this overwhelming gratitude and I needed to get it out but all I could say was this:

 

November 14 near Stanwood

At the moment I am at a loss for words to describe the most amazing day I have had. Today I feel beyond honored and blessed, enveloped by love and safety and truly inspired and motivated. I wish I could find the words to express the immensity of my emotions but for now I will revel in the comfort and joy of knowing that everything is exactly at should be and everything is going to be just fine. Thank You, with all my heart.

 

So I wanted to blog about it so I could say Thank You, you have truly touch my life in ways I may not ever be able to fully express ... and you have warmed my soul and made such a profound impact on my heart and will always be remembered for for helping me to my ultimate destination: recover(ed).

One of the best days of my life.

Great PHP Small Step!

Become Aware, Eating Disorders are Growing Rampantly!

Become Aware, Eating Disorders are Growing Rampantly!
Thank you Ashley! This will help a lot if people understand what you all are going through at Ramey Nutrition
http://www.rameynutrition.com/eating-disorder-recovery

Destination Recover(ed): Day 675

I have this horoscope that I have been carrying around since circa 2003. Well, I don't "carry" it around per se but this piece of paper that I've written it on has this way of resurfacing in my life at just the perfect moments. Oddly enough, each time it shows up on it's own, it leads to some sort of encounter with Scarlett ... which is an odd connection that I just made right now in this second, lol. It was this horoscope that either gave me the courage or confirmed my decision to start treatment in Bellevue, which eventually led to how I met Scarlett for the first time (I wasn't very nice and found every and any reason to hate her back then). The last time it showed up was during a life crisis. In fact, I had completely forgotten about the horoscope and I was in the middle of packing my things to move from Reno back home to Seattle .... I've vaguely touched on that time in my life in previous blog entries but that time in my life is what I will consider ground zero for me. Those were the darkest days of my life, my very bottom ... The horoscope fell out of the user's manual of my Netbook while I was packing. It literally fell in my lap while my friend and I were packing my things. I came back home to change something (anything) and shortly after moving back home in 2010 I was sitting in Scarlett's office hoping she would forgive all my shitiness from previous years and join my "Team Jessica". I also got the coin tattoos on my wrist the day after I moved back to Seattle in honor of this horoscope. Well, it showed up again last night ... at a really random place, my Grandparent's house. I'm not really sure how it made it's way here. I mean, it's not exactly impossible or strangely unusual, I have my own room here for the 1 night a week I spend here. It is kind of weird, though. Anyway, yesterday is hands down, going to be one of the best days of my life ... and I will blog about it later today because I think it's important to share ... but right now I wanted to share my horoscope from about 10 years ago, lol ... because I think it's important, too.

With the sun swimming in the glittery waters of the Piscean Sea, you're more inclined than usual to relish the glamors of things you can't understand, to be drawn to mystery, and surrender to the unknowable. I applaud your courage, imagination, and passion. Just one warning before you wade in over your head: The places you want to go will probably be good for you but may require a huge shift of personal paradigm. What I mean is, for months or years you've kept the royal coin of your kingdom POWER side up. If you want to venture into these new territories, it's time to flip the coin. The other side, of course, says: LETTING GO.

Destination Recover(ed): Day 674

November 14, 2012, 11:11pm

Sometimes I feel really motivated and I want to blog something great, I want to feel great about my choices to make progress in my recovery. Some days I feel like a positive ball of inspiration. Today is not one if those days.

Shit, I can move mountains and fly, why not swim? Today is a day if just getting through it. No drama. Nothing extreme. Just Wednesday... Hump Day... Humpback Whales... Whales swim... See, today's a good day to just swim.

Your Thoughts on How this Story Parallels Recovery

World Diabetes Day, We're Celebrating with a New Location!

19940 Ballinger Way
Shoreline, WA 98155

"People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them." ~George Bernard Shaw

Thanks Ashley!

Thanks Alice!

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"No more risking me and my life on the eating disorder it's time for a new fear..it's called recovering (life)" -Alyssa G. http://www.rameynutrition.com/eating-disorder-recovery

A More Creative Version of Counting Sheep to Get to Sleep

For many patients at Ramey Nutrition, anxiety can get so high, that sleep can become almost impossible. This article comes from PubMed and was found helpful! Read on!

For insomniacs, focusing on personally engaging but nonarousing thoughts instead of ruminations seems to be more effective than standardized sleep hygiene.

Sleep-onset insomnia continues to be a widespread problem. Cognitive-behavioral approaches such as stimulus control therapy and more recently developed treatments (JW Psychiatry Feb 6 2012 [Free full-text Sleep article online | PubMed® abstract]) are quite effective, although used less often than medications. This small study introduces a very practical one-session intervention, cognitive refocusing therapy (CRT), to eliminate bedtime ruminations that many poor sleepers identify as the major stumbling block to getting to sleep.

Sixty-two college students were randomized to CRT plus standard sleep hygiene (SH; similar to stimulus control therapy) or SH alone. CRT participants were taught to identify personally engaging but nonarousing thoughts (e.g., song lyrics, TV program plots, recipes) that they would focus on when preparing for sleep or if they awoke later. Data on 51 students were analyzed.

After 1 month, both interventions were associated with large reductions in insomnia from baseline (within-subject effect size: CRT, 1.57; SH, 0.81), yielding a moderate improvement for CRT compared with SH after controlling for anxiety and depression (effect size, 0.60). The CRT group also showed a trend toward reduced nighttime arousal.

Comment: Insomnia is a complex problem with multiple causes, but this intervention is simple, brief, logical to the lay person, and effective. Clinicians, especially those in primary care, could offer this technique to their patients as a first-line intervention before prescribing hypnotic medications. The intervention seems to be a creative variant of the old "counting sheep" method, but is more likely to be effective because it employs personalized cognitive scripts that are more appealing and easier to focus on. The use of college students limits generalizability, although they are likely to have disturbed sleep and chaotic routines that make sleep more difficult.

— Peter Roy-Byrne, MD

Published in Journal Watch Psychiatry September 17, 2012

CITATION:

Gellis LA et al. Cognitive refocusing treatment for insomnia: A randomized controlled trial in university students. Behav Ther 2012 Jul 27; [e-pub ahead of print]. [Link to Behav Ther article abstract]

Copyright © 2012. Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.

Of Monsters and Men "Little Talks"

Of Monsters and Men "Little Talks"
Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghb6eDopW8I&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Hey! Hey! Hey!

I don't like walking around this old and empty house.
So hold my hand, I'll walk with you my dear

The stairs creak as I sleep,
it's keeping me awake
It's the house telling you to close your eyes

Some days I can't even dress myself.
It's killing me to see you this way.

'Cause though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.

Hey! Hey! Hey!

There's an old voice in my head
that's holding me back
Well tell her that I miss our little talks.

Soon it will all be over, buried with our past
We used to play outside when we were young
and full of life and full of love.

Some days I feel like I'm wrong when I am right.
Your mind is playing tricks on you my dear.

'Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey!
Don't listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same.
Hey!

Though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

You're gone, gone, gone away,
I watched you disappear.
All that's left is a ghost of you.
Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,
there's nothing we can do,
Just let me go, we'll meet again soon.

Now wait, wait, wait for me, please hang around
I'll see you when I fall asleep.

Hey!
Don't listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same.
Hey!

Though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey!
Don't listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same.
Hey!

Though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore (x3)

Destination Recover(ed): Day 673

In the past few days I have heard from several people that I seem depressed lately... Thing is, I'm not depressed. I'm kind of really sad, but certainly not depressed. I've been really in my head these past few weeks, contemplative. I'm a little confused about where I am and I'm trying to figure it out without "figuring it out" ... I have an INSANE need for control that always has me trying to perfect this journey ... I always have to know what's going on, I need to understand what happened, I need to know what's next, what I'm supposed to be doing next. I have a hard time letting go and "trusting the process" because I don't want it to just happen. I want to be prepared for what's coming. I want to be able to expect whatever is going to happen every step of the way.
In my mind I'm always thinking, "Ok I did that, now what I do? Ok, that happened, and I did this. Ok, now what? What's next?" That's not trusting the process, that's controlling the process. It's frustrating. It's confusing. I feel like I'm always doing everything the wrong way. Maybe it's because I'm terrified that if I don't do it "right" then it won't work for me. Maybe I'm scared shitless that I might miss something and then I'm fucked ... as if recovery is going to hurl towards me and if I'm not prepared for it, standing in just the right spot, arms outstretched with a big giant "X" on my forehead, that it's going to hit me at the wrong angle and somehow skip off me, bounce off into the atmosphere and I'll miss it. It'll be gone. And now, because I'm overwhelmed by all of this and I keep trying to process it and process all these other emotions that don't even have shit to do with shinola that my genious fucking brain has decided that the best thing to do is to shut down a little, curl up into the ever so warm and comfortable eggshell. Safe and protected from everything bad and in turn, everything ... good.
I feel like I've got all this shit in my head that I want to explore and my outlets are all plugged up or off limits. One outlet says use me! But it's only going to electrocute me. The other outlet says don't use me anymore, use that outlet over there. That outlet isn't available all the time and besides, that outlet actually works but I'd have to deal with shocks and jolts of electricity every once in a while .... Well, that's terrifying. So I'm feeling safe in my retreat back in my egg right now because I'm really not sure what to do at the moment. I want to cry. Some more. This feeling ... this non feeling ... is familiar. It's all too familiar and I know I can't stay here long or I'll just end up getting cooked, one way or another.

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

Ashley can't be stopped!

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

Ashley's awesome inspiration!

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

“Perfect is a word; without human language, it would not exist.” - Ramey Nutrition PHP Patient

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

“If you want to forget something or someone, never hate it, or never hate him/her. Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate.” – C. Joybell C.

Dena Cabrera, Psy.D., CEDS Helps Us Deal with the Holidays!

The holidays are fast approaching and for many people with eating disorders this can be a very stressful time of year. The already cramped holiday schedules, get-togethers, and large to-do lists combined with trying to do their best to continue following the Meal Plan and maintaining recovery can be very difficult. Clinicians can work with clients in advance to help them better navigate some of the struggles that surround the holiday season. Clinicians can work with clients to:

1. Set realistic expectations - Holiday excitement also brings demands - between shopping, baking, feasting, crafting, parties, and entertaining, it can get quite overwhelming. By setting realistic expectations, we don't set ourselves up to become stressed or freaked out because we overextended ourselves. Understand that, oftentimes, pressure during the holiday season frequently comes from consumer-media to buy, spend and do.

2. Stay Balanced - As we become busy with holiday tasks, activities, and demands, we can lose ourselves. Sleep, eating, and exercise often become out of balance and compromised. It's important to stay consistent and not neglect healthy living. Thus, put yourself as your #1 priority - be active, eat balanced meals, and get adequate sleep. If we wear ourselves out, then holidays become a chore and we lose the fun.

3. Find meaning in the season - It is easy to get swooped up in the hustle and bustle, but for everyone it is not a season of ultimate "joy." There are lots of emotions that surface for people at this time of year. In fact, many people find the holidays difficult and challenging. It's important for those who do struggle with the holidays to reach out for support. Recreate meaning in the holiday season that is comfortable or at least tolerable for you, as well as planning ahead. If you know the difficulties the holiday season may bring, prepare to take care of yourself emotionally and physically during this time.

4. Preparing ahead - Time goes so fast. Make a list and check it twice. Don't wait until the last minute as this only creates stress. Just remember, time goes fast and getting it done now is a way of taking care of yourself.

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Destination Recover(ed): Day 672

November 8, 2012

Lately recovery sucks. I want so bad to just be done with this process. I want to be able to go to bed at night and wake up recover(ed) and not have to go through the re-feeding, not have to experience the weight restoration process or put myself through the EMDR and trauma issues. I just want it to magically happen while I'm asleep and wake up healthy; mind, body and soul. I don't want to celebrate surviving eating a slice of pizza. I just want it to not matter. I want to cry over spilled milk and not the fucking milk. This morning I just feel ridiculously emotional. I'm worn out and worn down and don't feel like being strong. I'm worried that my sense of "being strong" has come int he form of ambivelance, and maybe "being strong" means I have to let go and fully give in to recovery, trust the process. Yesterday I made the choice to increase my intake on my own. I want to catch my metabolism, I want to just put a little weight on and go from there. I want my body to stop over-reacting and just trust me. I'm feeling a little defeated today. This is when I just want to hunker down, do the fucking shit, and be held safe ... "I know, buddy, I know." This is the ugly part.

Saving Private Dale

"Acceptance of yourself is more life enhancing than gaining the acceptance of others."

-I have the ability to maintain & hold the truth that I am worthy of life & the opportunities it brings me. I don't need to transform or mold myself into something that the world wants me to be because more often than not it doesn't match my "squirrels" (values) or true meaning. By honoring myself, perception, & belief, I can hold on to the realization that I am good enough just as I am & I don't need to prove to anyone that I am capable of living a fulfilling life.

Alyssa's Overwhelming Small Step!

"Gaining weight is like giving birth. Painful as Hell, but worth the life at the end."
-Alyssa Dale

Free2Be________.

Sign Up Today!


Welcome to Free2Be________. at Ramey Nutrition!
Recovering from an eating disorder requires a lot of hard work, but you don’t have to feel like you’re alone!
If you feel ready to make the choice and commitment to your recovery and take back your life from your eating disorder, we would like to invite you to join Free2Be________. Free2Be________. is a 15-week program that offers a safe, supportive, and inviting environment for you to receive the love and care that you need to reclaim your life.
Who is welcome?

Individuals who are seeking more support in an outpatient “real-world” setting, and who are ready to make a 15-week commitment to their recovery.
What Does the Program Entail?

Mandatory part of Eating Disorder Program:
Eating Disorder Support Group with Shena Washburn, RD, CD on Tuesdays 5:00pm-7:00pm
Gentle Yoga with Sarah Ahktar on Thursdays 6:30pm-7:30pm
Optional part of Eating Disorder Program
Dinner, meal support Thursdays 5:00pm-6:30pm
Meal not provided. Please bring your meal with you.
Please note that in an effort to provide support to all who attend; this program requires a 15-week commitment. To assure maximum support given to both you and others, we ask that you please arrive no more than 10 minutes late. We take our program very seriously so we can provide the most reliable sense of support possible, which is why if you miss more than two support groups or yoga (or meal support if registered for), and/or repeatedly arrive 10 minutes or more late to group, you will be asked to rejoin when you have more availability
If you have any questions or concerns regarding Free2Be________. or any other service we offer, please do not hesitate to contact us at:
Phone: (206) 909-8022
Email: Shena@rameynutrition.com
Web: www.rameynutrition.com
Date:
Tuesday, November 6, 2012 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm

Fitness Trainer Position Available

FitnessTrainer Position Available

AboutRamey Nutrition: 

Locatedin Seattle’s University District, Ramey Nutrition is a nutrition clinicoffering individual and group nutrition counseling, support groups, yoga, andfitness. We take a patient-centered approach by listening to patient needs,providing nutritional and emotional support and individualizing treatment forour patients.

Whileour current patient services primarily consist of Eating Disorders treatmentand recovery, as well as Diabetes management and weight-management, it is ourdesire and goal to build a strong enough team to assist any patient with any movement-relatedissue.   The Movement Specialist at RameyNutrition will play a vital role in our growth, by providing compassionate,genuine, honest, and unwavering support to promote a full and life-long healthand strength.

JobDescription

•        Workpositively and compassionately with those that are unable to move or have nopast experience with movement
•        Workwith our patients on site, training in Seattle, then moving up to Shoreline,when appropriate.
•        Performindividual movement sessions appropriate to a person’s fitness level but alsowork together with a nutritionist to create a team to help our clients reachtheir unique goals.  It is possible we wouldalso have you teach group classes.
Applicantsmust have a college degree and experience in teaching or participating indifferent fitness styles.  Examplesinclude cross fit, yoga, traditional personal training, boxing, dance or otherclasses.  Our patients range from adecent fitness level to very low levels of movement with little to no priorexperience with fitness. Because of this we are requiring a trainer who ispersonable, accountable and patient.
Tobegin with you would work out of the University District in Seattle buteventually be mainly working in the Shoreline area?

MinimumQualifications

•Bachelors Degree

•Experience working in movement, and a strong desire to work with those needinggentle movement

•Ability to work well independently with little to no supervision

•Excellent listening and communication skills

•Strong therapeutic, movement, teaching, and leadership skills

DesiredQualifications

•Familiar with different levels of fitness and movement

•Practical experience in motivational movement

•Ability to prioritize work and handle multiple tasks

•Experience in and comfortable with leading groups

*Ifinterested in position, please send resume, cover letter Bonnie Atkisson at bonnie@rameynutrition.com

Starship Recovery!

Starship Recovery
DAILY INTENTIONS

a big part of this is being aware that this is happening. intentions should be as big as possible. the point of the intention is that you make the intention.

AM of SUNDAY 10-28-2012

Thankful For
Having to think about what I’m really thankful for when initially nothing comes to mind, Bender resting his head on me this morning and behaving because he just knows I cried a lot last night, Tomorrow being Monday- so I can be in a safer place where I can say right now I feel “unloveable or unworthy or not good enough” and people understand instead of fighting with me about it (not saying anyone agrees just that they don’t say I’m the problem, they just say the truth), feeling my feelings a bit this morning

Intention
Eat and be gentle with myself. its there in love. to protect me like a mom making a kid put on a jacket before letting the kid leave the house. Reach out for support and remember when things seem like they are all crashing down and you want to be at Ramey... time will pass and tomorrow will come before you know it.

To Do
Talk to Sam now that I’m sober and figure out where we stand, Eat

Be Brave
Talk to Sam

Vision
Can I get better or am I just going to replace 1 issue with another?

Small Step
If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies... so too is the Soul’s Journey” Aaryaa

AM of SATURDAY 10-27-2012

Thankful For
Intentions starting my day, mis chicas at ramey, Greta for being amazing and always super nice, Offering to not drink and not drinking even after Greta decided not to, 10 months sober for my mommy (whatwhat!), enjoying the panic of getting ready even if I had an the night.

To Do
Intentions, Walk with Sam and Bender to Starbucks in the rain, Nap, Clean up “hurricane Ashley + Sam,” Ask Sam to Watch a good rainy day movie, Eat, Veg, Get more sleep tonight, Maybe go out

Be Brave
10 minute free right- got to start journaling to get my thoughts straight. Spinning wheels go round and round.

Vision
Ed has a purpose in my recovery- he is my guide to show me what I am missing in my life. As I find each one, our relationship changes. Since Ed is a part of me, its hard to think of getting a “divorce” like Schaffer. I wonder if instead of breaking up, we’ll both grow into our appropriate roles in my being. Ed may be more like a play critic who is a friend. When I’m caught up in my vision of how the play is doing, he notices the holes that I overlooked directing so many different aspects of the performance.
Right now though, we aren’t friends. He’s just a critic who sends me over generalized messages that “im a shitty director” and I react to them since he’s the only critic I’m trying to please/basing my worth on.

Intention
Are things really as bad as they feel or is that a lie I am just used to believing? Question myself and find truth. (remember to honor it, “people aren’t walking around panicking” a lot of times when we feel like the sky is falling is a good thing- might it be get the fuck out of the way. what hurt is coming? Say “thanks for the warning, i know you did this out of love and I don’t need it today and I appreciate the protection. I’ll keep an eye out.”)
Small Step:
“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs

Additional Notable Quotes:
“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing the monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward” ~CS Lewis
“Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision yo umake, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningles. Truth an confidence are the roots of happiness.”
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum LP
“I don't know you. The only thing I know about you is, you're reading this. I don't know if your happy or not; I don't know whether you're young or not. I sort of hope you're young and sad. If you're old and happy, I can imagine that you'll smile to yourself when you hear me going, he broke my heart. You'll remember someone who broke your heart, and you'll think to yourself, Oh yes, i remember how that feels. But you can't, you smug old git. Oh you'll remember feeling sort of plesantly sad. You might remember listening to music and eating chocolates in your room, or walking along the embankment on your own, wrapped up in a winter coat and feeling lonely and brave. But can you remember how with every mouthful of food it felt like you were biting into your own stomach? Can you remember the taste of red wine as it came back up and into the toilet bowl? Can you remember dreaming every night that you were still together, that he was talking to you gently and touching you, so that every morning when you woke up you had to go through it all over again?”
― Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down
“Was it hard?" I ask.
“Letting go?"
“Not as hard as holding on to something that wasn't real.”
― Lisa Schroeder

PM FRIDAY 10-26-2012

Thankful For
Shopping, Alyssa, Alyssa, Michelle, Hannah, Rachel, Shena, Scarlett, Recovery!

Intention
Do my best to reduce my expectations (ask why I have them) and be truthful with myself and others

To Do
Hair, Makeup, Car Tags, Dinner with Sam, Help Sam with Costume, Have fun tonight & Relax

Vision
If recovery is an iceberg (eating disorder stuff is above the water, the water represents the anxiety, worry and fear inhibiting recovery and the ice below the water is the real foundation of things to address) then I am swimming around in the water, sticking my face in and trying to open my eyes to see what I need to do. The water stings and distracts me from tackling everything below and also keeps me focused on the tip.


Be Brave
Journal or do self talk about “what if I had no expectations for tonight? What would it feel like (good and bad), and what thoughts might come up?

Small Step
Listen to my body and focus on what I know is true. Respect my being- body and mind

Need
More time? Jk. Space so I can get ready or help with it. Acknowledgement that I have a lot to do and am not in a good mood (irritable/feel rushed and stressed).

Can Give
My presence if someone wants to sit near by for support. I can listen and would be multitasking so I don’t think I can offer to much feedback in the moment. Just let me know what you need from me before we talk so we can be on the same page.


AM FRIDAY 10.26.2012

Thankful For
A,A,M, H, Ramey staff, playing dress up, hanging out with fun ppl I feel safe with.

Intention
Call myself out on my own bullshit, reach out for support and EAT so I can have FUN tonight

To Do
Appointment, Get Bender, Sephora with AG, Sew Ears onto Headband, Make Up, Fun Time

Vision
Recovery is a “goal” that is eluding me. A challenge I am trying to get control of (according to my dream interpretation using Dream Bible)

Be Brave
Actively question myself about my expectations for the evening and challenge myself to have an open mind.

Small Step
As a physician would use a scaple to open an infected wound, we use the truth to open mental and emotional wounds. To heal the physical body, we need to open the wound, clean them and use medicine to keep them clean until healed. Our emotional wounds are covered by denial and systems we’ve created. It is painful to open these wounds and find lies and still “you will know the truth and it will set you free.” You begin healing by practicing the truth with yourself. You begin to see everything as it is, not as you want it to be.Step 1: Find the hurts/injustice that happened to you is no longer true RIGHT NOW, IN THIS MOMENT. “The truth is always changing.”

Can Give
My presence and distractions with crafts and makeup.

I Need
Accountability for my “be brave” and eating because parties/events are challenging for me.

PM THURSDAY 10.25.2012

Intention
Rest and Relax with Sam aka be normal :).

Thankful For
Pumpkins!!, AD, AG, H, M, FUN, Scarlett (for being an amazing support to all of us and doing 2 jobs), Yoga, Disney Movies.

To Do
Pumpkin, Costume, Makeup Time, Yoga, Sleep and Eat.

Vision
I don’t want my Ed and am in a happy mood especially being at Ramey with all these lovely ladies. Recovery is possible, and I just need to do the work. I imagine there will be more ups and downs before I am recovered. I’m worried because good days are often followed by lows that seem so much lower.
Be Brave
Put away my laundry. I just really don’t want to do it.

Small Step
Enjoy the good day and don’t let worry ruin it. Worry means to torment... I don’t want to torment myself for being in a good mood.

Can Give
Someone to hang out with or if you need someone to talk at or do creative things with. I’m not very focused, and probably not be a great conversationalist.

I Need
People to spend time with and am open to hearing about your path to recovery.

AM THURSDAY 10.26.2012




Thankful For
Alyssa, Alyssa, Michelle, Hannah, Ramey Staff, A Place to be authentic

Intention
Stay present

To Do
-    Eat
-    Go to Katies
-    Bender
-    Stay until 5pm
-    Work on costume  

Vision
Why is it so hard?! Recovery feels like Mary Go Round by Kacy Musgraves

Mary Mary quite contrary,
We get bored so we get married
And just like dust we settle in this town.
On this broken merry go 'round and 'round and 'round we go,
Where it stops nobody knows...
And it ain't slowin' down, this merry go 'round...

Be Brave
Think about the things I want to think about the least- if my adversion is so strong, they are probabably what I need to work on.

Small Step
Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you

What do I need?
Honesty- transparency. I don’t want to guess what ppl want or need to worry if I am doing the right thing for others. Acceptance that I’m focusing on me and that might rub someone the wrong way. I hate conflict.

What can I give?
My presence here, someone to eat with if I’m already eating. Quotes and advice J