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