Saturday, February 23, 2008
Scared feelings
It has come to the scale is now the final analysis of everything about me. It's like recovery seems possible but I can not imagine how I can be ok without my eating disorder.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Frustration and Understanding
I'm having a real hard time dealing with the acceptance of lack of help for patients diagnosed with eating disorders.
This past week I was hospitalized for reasons unrelated to anorexia although it was well known to the medical profession at the hospital that I had an anorexia diagnosis. I was put onto the surgical floor and re-hydrated. They eventually became unclear as to the etiology of the pain relating to my VP Shunt. I was put on a "Calorie Count" due to my eating disorder. Now as if hospital food wasn't bad enough, to have somebody keeping track of every morsel you do or don't eat. I think I had maybe 500 calories the whole hospital stay. The food was horrible but the menu looked like a five star dinning menu.
The whole hospital experience was less than desirable. Being a teaching institute the "rounds" included 16 students, an attending physician, resident and anybody else who was "curious". They spend 30 minutes or more talking to eachother right over the top of you, while ignoring anything that comes out of your mouth. They all thank you and leave. As a patient you never really know what's happening or where they stand with "teaching" or diagnosing.
Now I acknowledge that I have an eating disorder, have accepted responsibility, have agreed to go to inpatient treatment and am fully aware of the consequences my actions on my health. However, the insurance company has decided to not approve inpatient treatment. There isn't much help out there available for eating disordered patients, hence, the 20% mortality rate of anorexia.
Guess I'm frustrated but understanding why so many people with eating disorders don't get help.
This past week I was hospitalized for reasons unrelated to anorexia although it was well known to the medical profession at the hospital that I had an anorexia diagnosis. I was put onto the surgical floor and re-hydrated. They eventually became unclear as to the etiology of the pain relating to my VP Shunt. I was put on a "Calorie Count" due to my eating disorder. Now as if hospital food wasn't bad enough, to have somebody keeping track of every morsel you do or don't eat. I think I had maybe 500 calories the whole hospital stay. The food was horrible but the menu looked like a five star dinning menu.
The whole hospital experience was less than desirable. Being a teaching institute the "rounds" included 16 students, an attending physician, resident and anybody else who was "curious". They spend 30 minutes or more talking to eachother right over the top of you, while ignoring anything that comes out of your mouth. They all thank you and leave. As a patient you never really know what's happening or where they stand with "teaching" or diagnosing.
Now I acknowledge that I have an eating disorder, have accepted responsibility, have agreed to go to inpatient treatment and am fully aware of the consequences my actions on my health. However, the insurance company has decided to not approve inpatient treatment. There isn't much help out there available for eating disordered patients, hence, the 20% mortality rate of anorexia.
Guess I'm frustrated but understanding why so many people with eating disorders don't get help.
Friday, January 18, 2008
It’s about: Anorexia: “loss of appetite” What Anorexia has done to me:
It’s never about a loss of appetite but rather a loss of control and obsession over food
Being a slave to the scale, never being “good enough” the numbers never being low enough
Food consuming 99 percent of your thoughts
It becomes who you are, what you’re about and what you think about
It’s showing up to Thanksgiving with your can of 90 calorie Progresso soup, and soup bowl because you can’t eat, anything more, or anything that can’t fit into that bowl
It’s not being able to enjoy Christmas dinner with a family full of people you’ve hardly seen since last Christmas but having to work all day to cook it.
It’s anxiety before going grocery shopping
It’s about checking and re-checking every nutrition label before it’s “approved” for placement in your shopping cart
It’s about knowing how many calories are in something before how much it actually costs.
It’s about weighing meat, measuring liquids, counting items. A LOT of computing.
It’s about not being able to eat anything that isn’t packaged sealed with a nutrition label
It’s about obsessing over exercise, calories and numbers
On the treadmill, off the treadmill, on the scale, back on the treadmill
Finding accomplishment in something you can be good at, even if it is your own demise.
It destroys the image in the mirror. Being able to see one thing while thinking another
Fatigue from lack of sleep
It’s about spending time in the shower with the music loud while purging with a toothbrush
It’s about having a list of “good” foods or “bad” foods, or 100 reasons why you can’t eat that night
It’s sneaking to hide empty packages of diuretic pills, laxatives and other “forbidden” items.
It becomes an obsession, an addiction, a learned lifestyle
Headaches from dehydration
Muscle aches from starvation
It makes a good person turn bad.
Eventually, it’s a loss of control
In a sense, it is selfish; it has robbed my husband of a wife and my children of a mother.
But most of all Anorexia is such a deep seeded destructive persuit to be thin
It’s never about a loss of appetite but rather a loss of control and obsession over food
Being a slave to the scale, never being “good enough” the numbers never being low enough
Food consuming 99 percent of your thoughts
It becomes who you are, what you’re about and what you think about
It’s showing up to Thanksgiving with your can of 90 calorie Progresso soup, and soup bowl because you can’t eat, anything more, or anything that can’t fit into that bowl
It’s not being able to enjoy Christmas dinner with a family full of people you’ve hardly seen since last Christmas but having to work all day to cook it.
It’s anxiety before going grocery shopping
It’s about checking and re-checking every nutrition label before it’s “approved” for placement in your shopping cart
It’s about knowing how many calories are in something before how much it actually costs.
It’s about weighing meat, measuring liquids, counting items. A LOT of computing.
It’s about not being able to eat anything that isn’t packaged sealed with a nutrition label
It’s about obsessing over exercise, calories and numbers
On the treadmill, off the treadmill, on the scale, back on the treadmill
Finding accomplishment in something you can be good at, even if it is your own demise.
It destroys the image in the mirror. Being able to see one thing while thinking another
Fatigue from lack of sleep
It’s about spending time in the shower with the music loud while purging with a toothbrush
It’s about having a list of “good” foods or “bad” foods, or 100 reasons why you can’t eat that night
It’s sneaking to hide empty packages of diuretic pills, laxatives and other “forbidden” items.
It becomes an obsession, an addiction, a learned lifestyle
Headaches from dehydration
Muscle aches from starvation
It makes a good person turn bad.
Eventually, it’s a loss of control
In a sense, it is selfish; it has robbed my husband of a wife and my children of a mother.
But most of all Anorexia is such a deep seeded destructive persuit to be thin
Sunday, December 30, 2007
CC
3 saltines (breakfast) 36 calories
3 saltines (taken w/pain meds) 36 calories
8 baby carrots w/ tbsp dip (dinner) 70 calories
Daily total: 142 calories Weight: 138.4 lbs Height: 5'7" BMI: 21.7
Today I spent much of the day in bed. I smacked my head last night and haven't been right since. Today was also a big eating day. I generally don't have so many saltines but had to have some with my pain meds (which I had to take for my head pain)
3 saltines (taken w/pain meds) 36 calories
8 baby carrots w/ tbsp dip (dinner) 70 calories
Daily total: 142 calories Weight: 138.4 lbs Height: 5'7" BMI: 21.7
Today I spent much of the day in bed. I smacked my head last night and haven't been right since. Today was also a big eating day. I generally don't have so many saltines but had to have some with my pain meds (which I had to take for my head pain)
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Hard to decipher
I'm having a hard time trying to seperate what characteristics are part of OCD or what's part of the Eating disorder I'm accused of having.
I find myself measuring out tbsp's of dressing and counting out baby carrots. Did you know for every 8 baby carrots there are 35 calories and 70 calories in the 2 tbsp's of dressing that you eat with them. It's HORRIBLE and I don't know how to stop it. It's like some form of curse that somebody has put on me that no matter how hard I try to not cut things up in small pieces, or arrange things on the plate or count baby carrots (for instance) I just can't stop doing it. It's become such a habit that it's "normal" routine. If I'm not cutting things small, making big meals, counting carrots I find that I have a HUGE amount of anxiety, even on 6 mg of Ativan a day.
So with this thought, I've arrived at the conclusion that it's OCD suffering rather than eating disorder.
I find myself measuring out tbsp's of dressing and counting out baby carrots. Did you know for every 8 baby carrots there are 35 calories and 70 calories in the 2 tbsp's of dressing that you eat with them. It's HORRIBLE and I don't know how to stop it. It's like some form of curse that somebody has put on me that no matter how hard I try to not cut things up in small pieces, or arrange things on the plate or count baby carrots (for instance) I just can't stop doing it. It's become such a habit that it's "normal" routine. If I'm not cutting things small, making big meals, counting carrots I find that I have a HUGE amount of anxiety, even on 6 mg of Ativan a day.
So with this thought, I've arrived at the conclusion that it's OCD suffering rather than eating disorder.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Different thinkings
I guess as a disordered eating patient, you try to find some sort of accomplishment in something. I tried to find accomplishment and satisfaction in the purchase of a new home, new car and new job all in one year, but it was an empty ended feeling. Nothing compared to the feeling of accomplishment that I have had with disordered eating.
It's like it becomes who you are and what you think about. How many calories are in that? how many carbs? how many minutes do I need to exercise today? When consumed with anorexia it's like your mind and body need "better" ohhh you hit the 145 lbs mark, you can go a little further, how about the 135 lbs mark. It's like running a marathon, and each hurdle you meet, there's another not far in the distance to achieve. It's something that without even realizing, people validate the "being good at it" feeling by making comments on weight loss, or looking good etc.. It's a sense of being good at something, but in a sense it's being good and your own demise, death and starvation.
It's like it becomes who you are and what you think about. How many calories are in that? how many carbs? how many minutes do I need to exercise today? When consumed with anorexia it's like your mind and body need "better" ohhh you hit the 145 lbs mark, you can go a little further, how about the 135 lbs mark. It's like running a marathon, and each hurdle you meet, there's another not far in the distance to achieve. It's something that without even realizing, people validate the "being good at it" feeling by making comments on weight loss, or looking good etc.. It's a sense of being good at something, but in a sense it's being good and your own demise, death and starvation.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Good questions to consider
I know we all have different opinions on whether there should be a Medical Directive option for eating disordered patients.
I have strong opinions. I think, at a healthy BMI and right state of mind, one should be able to say, hey, "if I collapse or am in a presistant vegatative state I would like to not be kept alive by extreme measures" I think we can all think of a case where a woman (and no for legal purposes I can't say names) where the court decided that in PVS that she wouldn't have wanted to be kept alive "artificially" GOOD DECISION, good job justice system (and I know I'll get a lot of hate mail from the people here but..................) let's think about this, a person who has collapsed from a thin driven society that has suffered from an eating disorder probably doesn't want to live in a PVS kept alive by G-tube feedings.
So I've decided to meet with some spiritual care counselors at the local hospital, to discuss formulating a "medical directive" for myself. The last thing I want in this world is to be exploited by means of artificial measures, I'd like to die with dignity.
So after much research, thought, consideration etc... I've decided, shall I collapse, I'd like no chest compressions and no vent tube. If it can't be done with ACLS meds or bag mask, than let it go (and that's where the dignity part comes in) I'd like not to be tube fed. Not a lot to ask right?
I have strong opinions. I think, at a healthy BMI and right state of mind, one should be able to say, hey, "if I collapse or am in a presistant vegatative state I would like to not be kept alive by extreme measures" I think we can all think of a case where a woman (and no for legal purposes I can't say names) where the court decided that in PVS that she wouldn't have wanted to be kept alive "artificially" GOOD DECISION, good job justice system (and I know I'll get a lot of hate mail from the people here but..................) let's think about this, a person who has collapsed from a thin driven society that has suffered from an eating disorder probably doesn't want to live in a PVS kept alive by G-tube feedings.
So I've decided to meet with some spiritual care counselors at the local hospital, to discuss formulating a "medical directive" for myself. The last thing I want in this world is to be exploited by means of artificial measures, I'd like to die with dignity.
So after much research, thought, consideration etc... I've decided, shall I collapse, I'd like no chest compressions and no vent tube. If it can't be done with ACLS meds or bag mask, than let it go (and that's where the dignity part comes in) I'd like not to be tube fed. Not a lot to ask right?
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