Acting into Right Thinking

I woke up still wanting to weigh and not to eat today because of the obsession to go to the meeting tomorrow at my sickest. Still I took shower and didn’t weigh and went to my dad’s memorial tennis match. I called my sponsor and support and talked openly with my stepmom after and realized a lot of things.

I knew how irrational these thoughts were. I knew even if weighed today when I got back home (hadn’t eaten or drinken so could have this choice) and restricted to try and lose to sickest tomorrow there was no guarantee I would be back at my sickest on Sun and then would have thrown in my recovery for nothing. I knew that two days really can’t make that huge of a difference in my appearance. I knew that honestly the girls at meeting tomorrow be too worried about their own bodies to worry about mine. I don’t go to EDA meetings determining whether other people are sick enough to be there…my only thoughts about that are if I am sick enough to be in room. I knew if I used this meeting as an excuse to restrict I would use the next meeting to want to be my sickest too. I would use meeting my new residents next semester as an excuse to go back to school in 80s. And that would end me up in inpatient because already said if don’t gain lb per week then have to go inpatient. I knew how illogical these thoughts were but there was a problem.

I was realizing how irrational they were expecting that to make them go away…but that’s not what was going to happen. I was going to realize they were irrational but they were still going to be there. I was going to have to move forward and make the right decisions even still feeling it was wrong. Even with these thoughts. As my dear sponsor told me: “You have to act your way into right thinking, not think your way into right acting.”

So I came home and I ate breakfast and I didn’t weigh. I am just taking it meal by meal today. I am taking it moment by moment. It still feels wrong. At my core it feels wrong. I don’t have the positive pride in my decisions but I am using the support of others and the fact they are applauding me to know these are the right decisions to make. I am realizing this is what is missing from IP/residential treatment for me. There I don’t have to even think if it is wrong or right decision because all decisions are made for me. I eat what they put in front of me or I get feeding tube. They choose what I eat, when I eat, that I don’t exercise. I just go through the motions. But then I transition home and have to make these decisions for myself and it still feels wrong…and I don’t know how to make the decisions. But more on that in a later post.

My stepmom reminded me another purpose in my recovery. I have a passion to work as a social worker in residential eating disorder treatment because I want it to become a place where recovery for someone even as sick as me (aka the people who usually end up needing residential) can recover. Where independence and making your own decisions is learned. To make it so there is an additional step between residential and going home….one that slowly gets people to have to face these moments of feeling wrong but making right decisions. Of planning meals, eating them, resisting exercise, eating desserts and doing it based on exchanges and meal plans not numbers….all while still having strict accountability of treatment. But to do this…I have to recover. It’s really my passion to recover outpatient because I know that is where I can learn this independence that will allow sustainable recovery. Not just the temporary recovery I experience inpatient/residential. Now I just need to prove I am capable and ready for that independence. And that’s what I am doing today.

And that’s why I am going to share more on this blog about recovery and what I am learning works and doesn’t work. The techniques I try to use to get through my recovery and to foster this independence. Right now I use a form to plan out my meals for the week or at least for a few days at a time so I don’t have to put as much thought in it. I hope in future to wean down to only planning night before and then to planning right before meal and then to just choosing foods in moment. But for now I pre-plan ahead so ED doesn’t have excuses. It works for me. If anyone wants a copy of these forms shoot me an email J

Well..I am off to make more recovery decisions. Thanks for reading.