I have an eating disorder.
It feels so strange to say that. Somehow it rolls off my tongue as easily as telling someone I have high blood pressure...or a hangnail.
I'm not really sure where to begin.
I know a lot of rumors are going to be going around, and as much fun as a good game of telephone is I'm going to tell the real story myself.
I'm checking into a residential treatment program on Friday.
It has all happened so fast. Or not. I suppose the fact that it has been a way of living for me for 17 years contradicts that. I have always gone to therapists to deal with "regular stuff." Making sure my antidepressants are working, making sure I'm not unbearably anxious. They'd ask how the eating thing was going and I'd always tell them I had it under control. I was only doing it 2-3 times a day. (Those were my "good" weeks.) I would say it so nonchalantly. I wasn't trying to minimize it - it just didn't seem like a big deal to me anymore. Sure it scared me for the first few years. But seriously....17 years later it is just a way of life.
A month ago everything changed.
I started seeing a new NP after things didn't work out with the crappy prescriber I had forced myself to stick with for 2 years. I went to the first appointment and gave her a brief history and she was immediately ALARMED! (Seriously, the caps were necessary to portray her reaction.) She didn't understand how I had never focused on this disease that could kill me at any given time. So that kind of scared me. The whole "I'm not going to think about it" thing wasn't working out anymore. I agreed to go see a whole treatment team to figure out how to fix this nagging issue. Now I had an NP, an ED therapist, a nutritionist, my GI guy and my PCP who all decided to become ALARMED! at the same time. (It didn't help when they found out it was more like a dozen times a day....we were way past the good weeks of 2-3.) They started pushing brochures at me for residential treatment centers. They were talking about heart attacks and arrythmias and my throat randomly bursting. Or getting throat cancer. And not in the distant future. Like now. I have to go get an endoscopy to make sure my throat cells haven't started mutating or whatever.
Game over.
So now I have a million people who are worried and angry and supportive and loving and I am totally overwhelmed. My husband is also totally overwhelmed. We are so lucky to have so many people who give a crap about us. I will be leaving my family behind on Friday for a minimum of 3 weeks. I keep trying to remind myself that it is better than that whole "throat bursting" situation which would probably end with me never seeing them ever again....but this is so hard. I don't have enough time with them before I have to go. I have multiple appointments today to get bloodwork and an EKG and to meet with my PCP for whatever else she wants to talk about.
I am already exhausted and I haven't even started yet.
I hope my baby doesn't forget me. I hope my daughter doesn't become overwhelmed by this whole situation. I hope my husband doesn't run off to Mexico after the first few days ever of him being a "single dad."
I hope this fixes it.
- Pita
It feels so strange to say that. Somehow it rolls off my tongue as easily as telling someone I have high blood pressure...or a hangnail.
I'm not really sure where to begin.
I know a lot of rumors are going to be going around, and as much fun as a good game of telephone is I'm going to tell the real story myself.
I'm checking into a residential treatment program on Friday.
It has all happened so fast. Or not. I suppose the fact that it has been a way of living for me for 17 years contradicts that. I have always gone to therapists to deal with "regular stuff." Making sure my antidepressants are working, making sure I'm not unbearably anxious. They'd ask how the eating thing was going and I'd always tell them I had it under control. I was only doing it 2-3 times a day. (Those were my "good" weeks.) I would say it so nonchalantly. I wasn't trying to minimize it - it just didn't seem like a big deal to me anymore. Sure it scared me for the first few years. But seriously....17 years later it is just a way of life.
A month ago everything changed.
I started seeing a new NP after things didn't work out with the crappy prescriber I had forced myself to stick with for 2 years. I went to the first appointment and gave her a brief history and she was immediately ALARMED! (Seriously, the caps were necessary to portray her reaction.) She didn't understand how I had never focused on this disease that could kill me at any given time. So that kind of scared me. The whole "I'm not going to think about it" thing wasn't working out anymore. I agreed to go see a whole treatment team to figure out how to fix this nagging issue. Now I had an NP, an ED therapist, a nutritionist, my GI guy and my PCP who all decided to become ALARMED! at the same time. (It didn't help when they found out it was more like a dozen times a day....we were way past the good weeks of 2-3.) They started pushing brochures at me for residential treatment centers. They were talking about heart attacks and arrythmias and my throat randomly bursting. Or getting throat cancer. And not in the distant future. Like now. I have to go get an endoscopy to make sure my throat cells haven't started mutating or whatever.
Game over.
So now I have a million people who are worried and angry and supportive and loving and I am totally overwhelmed. My husband is also totally overwhelmed. We are so lucky to have so many people who give a crap about us. I will be leaving my family behind on Friday for a minimum of 3 weeks. I keep trying to remind myself that it is better than that whole "throat bursting" situation which would probably end with me never seeing them ever again....but this is so hard. I don't have enough time with them before I have to go. I have multiple appointments today to get bloodwork and an EKG and to meet with my PCP for whatever else she wants to talk about.
I am already exhausted and I haven't even started yet.
I hope my baby doesn't forget me. I hope my daughter doesn't become overwhelmed by this whole situation. I hope my husband doesn't run off to Mexico after the first few days ever of him being a "single dad."
I hope this fixes it.
- Pita
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