Freedom Friday #5 Part One

Part One? What does that mean. Well..I am struggling with something today and I want to use this Freedom Friday to blog a little about it. I need freedom to do that. To let my true self show, but I also have faced TONS of freedom foods this week, so part two will come but probably not till tomorrow. So on we go. Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble...it's just free flow.

Basically today I met with my N and had to tell her about the restricting I was doing over break. As I knew she would she told me to get back on my plan, but then she went a step further. She not only wants me to add back my snack and dairy I was restricting, but also wants me to add back the fat exchanges I took out a while ago. Well mental freakout started right then and because of work we didn't have any time to discuss it. Instead I had to go back to training which kept me distracted for a bit.....but training only lasted so long.

Back in my dorm, my mind spun with adding up the calories all these add backs meant. And with the fact that my N said there is a possibility my plan is too much, but we will never know until I actually get on it. My brain jumped to the idea that I would gain 5 lbs a week and when my N said we would have to wait a month to change anything, my mind freaked out that then I will have gained 20 lbs. I know, I know....not very logical, but what if it happened.

I know I only have to gain a lb a week and that's all I want, so I only wanted to add back enough exchanges to meet the calories to do that...and even that I don't want to do. So that means not adding back the fat exchanges. I can cope with the level of anxiety of doing this, but having to add back fat exchanges too....that just seems insurmountable. So I have a plan of action that will keep me comfortably anxious, but also on the road to weight gain. With this, plus school starting....I just don't know if I can handle much more.

But is that okay? Is it okay to be comfortably anxious. In treatment they didn't let us just skip a challenge because we were too anxious....we had to do whatever was assigned/given. Some days this meant anxiety so bad I would have full blown panic attacks and call screaming to my parents to book me a plane ride, but I coped....I coped and pushed through. And in the end I reached semi-recovery.....a lot closer to full recovery than I am now.

But here...outpatient...I don't know if I can handle it. But have I even earned the right to make decisions like this. I mean I haven't even proven I can gain weight at all, let alone that my body is even capable of the extreme ballooning I think will happen. For today, I am sticking to the modified plan I feel comfortable with...the one without the added fats. But I don't know how I feel about that.

If any of you were to come to me and tell me this same thing I would tell you to do the N plan and that the weight gain you think isn't possible, yet I can't apply that to myself. For myself I make excuses. I let fear control me. I hold myself back. I tell myself I just can't handle the anxiety, but yet I've never let myself feel it. So how do I know that I can't cope? Is doing this comfortable level of anxiety just holding me back from breakthrough?

I have a lot to think about I guess. For tonight I am just going to do the plan I decided on and allow myself to feel the anxiety that brings (along with the anxiety of eating 3 fear foods today). My plan was to get weight checked on Monday to make sure I am making progress (aka gaining weight) and if I am not then add the fats in. And you know what's weird? A huge part of me hopes that I am not gaining weight. That somehow my metabolism revs up and I actually need the fat exchanges.

I guess that's another one of my fears. That I don't need all this food. And if I go on the N plan and then have to get it reduced....I will just feel like that little girl being told to diet all over again. I know its weird for an anorexic to say, but I want to be able to eat more food. It's one of the things I had pride in being in treatment. I was on the highest meal plan in order to gain. It felt soooo good to have the lies in my head saying I needed to diet to be proven to be lies. But now I believe them again.

So part of me hopes that come Monday the idea of dieting will be shut down and I will see that my body can handle this plan. But that same part of me knows that won't happen. I can't possibly need this much food. But at least I will be fully doing a plan for once and can get on the road to trusting food....I just wish I needed more. The good news is my metabolism will kick in eventually and maybe one day I will need those fats.

It sucks to still be this obsessed with food. To not just be able to allow myself to eat these fats. I mean I want them...so why don't I just eat them. The answer is this damn fear tied to my weight. I just get so freaking frustrated with this. My weight isn't the end all, be all. It's not who I am. It's not what I want my life to be about. It's not something I really have any control over. It's a freaking number. You know what else is a number. My calcium level. That's a number I could get and judge myself on...but I don't. My shoe size is a number....but I don't measure it every day. I don't decided everything that I do with my foot in order to keep it stable. My temperature....same thing. I don't fixate on these numbers...but my weight...I have let it not only control, but ruin my life.

I hope one day soon this won't matter so much. According to my therapist I have to just feel this anxiety, see I won't balloon, and then it will go away. But I want a guarantee I won't balloon. I want solid evidence that it won't happen. But then that takes away the anxiety...it doesn't allow me to feel it. So for the next few days its gonna be rough as I allow myself to feel this anxiety.

And Monday....when I step once again on the machine that has ruled my life. When I glance through my squeezed tight eyes I will be praying the number hasn't changed. That I can see I need more. But I also know that will only bring temporary relief. Because I will increase my plan and then my mind will tell me that really I don't need it and I will have to feel the anxiety anyway.

So maybe I should just go ahead and add them. I don't know. Why can't I just trust my nutritionist? Why can't I just trust my body? Why can't I just wake up and be normal? I wish I had the answers. But I don't. For now all I can do is rest on what I do know. I want to be free of these thoughts and obsessions and that is going to take recovering. Recovering is going to mean doing my meal plan (preferably the one my N gives me, not my adaptations). Doing my meal plan will mean gaining weight. And gaining weight is going to be scary. But it's okay....I can feel this fear....I can allow myself to feel anxious and it will be okay. It will keep me out of the hospital and a tube out of my nose. It will keep me in school and out of treatment. It will keep me alive. For now....that's the truths I know...and for now that's enough for some freedom.