#which is WILD bc i was for sure my ED was about to relapse and i was fist fighting that bitch for MONTHS

[w1cked-w1tch]

Can't tell if this is the wellbutrin or if it's mania. Legit haven't felt this good mentally since...... fuck, some time last summer? Damn maybe it really was the adderall fucking my shit up.....

[cakesexuality]

Hey so

Talked to my social worker on Tuesday, she was off for a while so our last 2 appointments have been mostly catching her up to speed on what happened while she was gone as well as in between the appointments

Talked to my dietician yesterday and we did a Rule of Threes worksheet that was sent to me when I reached out to NEDIC a couple months ago, we also decided that I'm not gonna do any work on figuring out which foods make me sick for now bc that might be a slippery slope to restriction

Jesus fucking Christ, I had to reschedule it 3 times due to transport issues, but I finally have my assessment with the ED program tomorrow

The social worker from the hospital seemed to think I was intentionally avoiding the assessment but he was really nice about it lol, he was like "You don't have to do this right away, you can wait until you're emotionally ready" and like no I'm READY, I've been in recovery for 11 years already, I just couldn't physically get to the hospital

My dietician is an absolute cheerleader about everything and she was like "And make sure you pack your bag with lots of snacks when you go to the hospital on Friday!!!" which I always pack snacks when I go to in-person appointments but I appreciate her really wanting me to regularly have something to eat lol especially considering I'll be at the hospital for several hours

I did pack my bag, btw!! I've got a bunch of different snacks in a lunch bag with a few different things to drink

I also have my GP tomorrow before the hospital so I'll be talking to her about some stuff and giving her a booklet for primary care providers that NEDIC also sent me

I seem to have properly relapsed at this point 🙃 I'm disappointed but not blaming myself, I'm still trying my best, and I'm eating Goldfish and drinking Ribena as I write this

My ED recovery app has 2 questionnaires you're supposed to do every month and it won't let me do one of them until tomorrow but it let me do the other one today and my score this month is better than last month?? Wild

Still not worried about which level of care the hospital will offer me

[juupajaa]

💍Honeymoon phase:

Honestly honeymoon phase is something else. I wish there were more studies done on this whole thing bc it is so wild and honestly if I ever become a cool science gal, I will do this research myself. I’m pretty sure honeymoon phase is the whole root of why recovery is so hard and this is definitely the most cruel and twisted stage of eating disorders, even if it’s not the one that causes the most mental and physical suffering.

Ok so now your ed/de has latched onto you and it has a bitching strategy: make you feel like it is helping you. 

In honeymoon phase, your disordered eating is working full time to make you feel better and in turn you are doing whatever it asks of you, in order to feel better. You are “willingly” taking part in disordered behaviour, and it feels like it is working. And you aren’t wrong, it probably is. There’s a good chance your behaviour is causing things to actually improve for you. Some might get compliments for their weight loss or attempts to eat healthier. Others might get more motivated to perform well and get praise from that. For some the new fascination is enough to make things feel better. 

This is the part where your disordered eating is forming into the special cocktail, tailored just for you and your current needs. You try things out and see what works to ease your discomfort. Your de hasn’t fully shifted into a full blown ed yet, but by now it’s on it’s way if it is to come. Your behaviour isn’t the same forever though. It might change along the course of the illness or the events in your life, and if you relapse at some point in your life, your ed/de might be very different from the last time.

In my life, I’ve had four episodes with my ed and each time the behaviour was very different and usually it evolved from one thing to another during the episode, but mostly revolving around one thing. First time I was counting calories like my life depended on it and it evolved into purging over time. Second time was a big ole binge-purge galore, but it had a twist of five consecutive days of starving between binging and purging. Third time I was mainly restricting, but it evolved into food hoarding with a single item diet. Fourth time it was starving and insane food rituals, which evolved into uncontrollable binges. Each of these episodes happened years apart and they went through the stages independently. 

Yet every damn time I fell for this shit like I didn’t know better. The first time, sure, I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but the second time? I was thinking: Oh, no I’m not gonna get into an ed again. I’m just throwing up a little, that’s all. The third time: Oh yeah, I’m not getting sick again, I just really like to hoard food. I’m not gonna eat any of it, but wow would you look at all this food! Fourth time: Yup, this time I got it. I’m gonna lose some weight and not be an idiot about it.

My point is that the honeymoon phase is so damn good, that even if you are fully aware that this might and will end badly, you’re going to go along with it, because it is working and you can’t deal with whatever is going on in your life right now. Here are some things you might experience during the honeymoon phase: 

an increased interest/concern/fascination with food/your looks/nutrition

a sense of having a new hobby, interest, skill or even personality or a friend or a life-style

being in a better mood when you get to engage in your behaviour, and getting irritated or upset if you can’t for whatever reason

your days start to revolve around food, but it’s still manageable

seeking a sense of control, pride, accomplishment, pleasure or satisfaction from engaging in disordered behaviour

you start seeking out information about food/nutrition/weight loss more or less daily, maybe even get lowkey obsessed with it (I used to have a folder on my laptop, full of pictures of food that I would just stare at every day and I dedicated a lot of time in updating and keeping it in order. Hi, my FBI agent, why u didn’t help me out dude?)

During honeymoon phase, you get all the perks of an ed, without the suffering part and it is pretty rosy, not gonna lie. Whatever was worrying you so much before, it’s easier to handle. It feels like you’re doing ok, maybe even good, but at least better than before. You might feel like you’re in complete control of your behaviour and that it isn’t affecting you negatively at all. This is of course false.

The key element of honeymoon phase is that sweet, sweet denial. Some might go full blown actual denial, not even entertaining the thought that this is an ed/de. It might feel like a conscious change in lifestyle and since it isn’t hurting you just yet, it is easy to think so. Others might get something called optimism bias, which is very common among people in general. A common example of optimism bias is that we don’t think car accidents will happen to us. To others sure, but not to us. In the case of optimism bias in an ed/de, you might be fully aware that this isn’t exactly normal and you probably shouldn’t be doing these things, yet the rewards you get from your behaviour are good enough for you to dismiss your concerns. You might even be fully aware that this is disordered behaviour and you might know all about the health risks, yet you are convinced bad things won’t happen to you because you are “not really sick”. Again, false. You are sick and this is how eds/de are. I repeat: Yes you back there, thinking you’re not really sick, just a fake fraud who wants to lose some weight but are too lazy to do it healthily. Trust me, if you were healthy, you’d be losing weight like healthy people do. Your disordered eating is keeping you from doing it, making your relationship with food too complicated for you to lose weight by the books. Same goes for you, dude in the back, thinking you just really love food and it’s normal to hide your eating habits from others out of shame or guilt. It isn’t normal.

Another thing that might happen is that you develop an interest in eds. You start seeking out information and media, anything you can find. You might feel insecure about yourself and wish you could change yourself as quick as possible, convinced that it won’t lead to an ed, because you need to be something special in order to have an ed. This is all normal disordered thinking and don’t feel badly if this was you in your honeymoon phase. You didn’t bring your problems to yourself, even if it feels like it. People without disordered thought patterns don’t actively try to mimic eds. They get bored or tired of it after the first few days or weeks.

What is so cruel and twisted about the honeymoon phase is that it lures you in with promises of better quality of life, hooking you in and making you give your disordered thought patterns time to cement themselves properly. Yet once honeymoon is over, your quality of life will start to sink back down, getting possibly much worse than what it was before your disordered behaviour. And not only that, it also makes you doubt you are sick at all, because you “actively took part in it, so it must have been willful and conscious”, which too is false. It is such a cunt and I hate this bitch so much. 

After the honeymoon phase, if your de will turn into an ed, it will, and if not, you might fall into a disordered eating cycle, and I will talk more about it in the next stage. While you can fall back from all the rest of the stages from this point on, honeymoon phase is something you can’t really ever return to during your current ed. Honeymoon requires you to be in some level of denial and once you slip out of denial, you can’t really fall back into it. This is of course very unfortunate for all of us, because this is the only point where our coping mechanism is actually helping us cope.

The good news is that this is still a very early stage of an ed/de and recovery is still rather quick and painless at this point. Should your situation improve and your coping mechanism to become useless, you might kind of just slip out of the de without any trouble at all. Or in case of other’s getting involved in the situation, the treatment is very effective, since your disordered thought patterns aren’t too strong. Yet. 

[brunchbitch]

TW ED

Ugh had a tough session with Brandon ed-wise and he brought up the efficacy of having an ed team and whether it’s helping the ed or exacerbating it. I had said that I have been struggling more ever since my dad and Karen made that nutritious comment that my (ed) mind ran wild with, that it meant they were saying I am unhealthy and fat which is something I have always feared is encouraged by an ed team. I am especially sensitive to comments around food and nutrition and weight from my parents due to my childhood experience.

I described how I struggled with my weight being the same at Kellie’s appt bc I felt I should’ve lost a certain amount of weight since I gave blood that day and I looked up how much a pint of blood weighs so I felt certain that kellie was going to tell me I lost weight so I feel like I actually gained weight. He (incorrectly) surmised that I had given blood in order to lose weight which is not true. He said “then why did you look up the weight of blood?” I said that the ed colors the majority of things that happen on a day to day basis so when I saw the Red Cross worker lift up the bag of the pint of my blood, immediately my mind thought “I wonder how much that weighs. I just lost weight!” Brandon was like “yeah but why did that thought come up?” I just looked at him and said “Brandon. The ed is everywhere. Weight is almost always on my mind. If I’m constipated I obsess over how much weight I’ve gained. I think about how much I would gain if I washed my hair right before session and had wet hair. I have wondered how much I would need to cry or to sweat to lose weight. I think about how much fluid I’ve drank that day. I worry about being bloated and gaining weight. You have no idea how pervasive and toxic the ed thoughts are.” He was like “wow. Ok, I hear that.”

That’s when he brought up whether the ed side of the team was helping. I said I actually wanted to decrease the frequency of sessions with liz and kellie bc I said that the focus on the ed can make it worse. He said “do you really feel that way? Because I know I have said that in the past but I wasn’t sure if you actually agreed with it. I’m not necessarily saying that the ed treatment is definitely not helpful and I don’t think we should make any changes right now but it’s something to think about. But it seems like a little bit of a red flag that you ‘want’ to relapse, you’re cutting corners, and you’re obsessing about other people’s comments on your food, and obsessing about your weight. I won’t even pretend to fully understand what it is like for you. This is still your choice. I can see that the ed is very appealing. If you decide that you want to live in your ed, there will be no hard feelings from me. I will be sad, for sure, but I won’t negatively judge your decision or be angry. I don’t think I’ve ever fully understood how hard some of this stuff is for you and I’ve realized that I cannot tell you which life is ‘good’ in terms of outpatient vs treatment. That’s a decision you need to make and I can really see the pros and cons of both sides, which I don’t think I really understood before. But I do know that the things you say are important to you - school, a cat, dating, an apartment - are just not possible if you choose to live in your ed. I know your ed has a lot to do with control and I’ve noticed an increase in that type of thinking in this session, but I just want you to know - I will not win that fight. If you want to be in control, you will always win. No contest.”

It gave me a lot to think about and I think when I asked to decrease sessions with liz and kellie, it was mostly ed-motivated. Idk things are kinda tough rn and I still haven’t gotten my period back. Liz and I talked about how that in itself is triggering bc we identified that I’m kind of thinking “well if my body isn’t already fully functioning at this weight, it won’t matter if I lose weight.” We also identified that the word “just” can be a red flag - i.e. when I say I “just” want to lose a couple pounds or I “just” will leave out one exchange from a meal. She was like “you’re climbing Mt. Just right now and it’s a very slippery slope.”

[lunnonbridges]

2019

saw Rachels tumblr post wrapping up her 2019 so ima do the same thing lol ty for the inspiration rachel <3

2019 was wild had some amazing highs and some devastating lows but i mean that happens every year lol.

school: completed my favorite clinical ever in the ED wow i could go on forever about it because i enjoyed it so much and i learned so much and wow ED nursing is amazing and so crucial i can’t wait to work in the ED again in a few years (hopefully) overall i enjoyed school surprisingly i love nursing and i can’t wait to finally use my BSN, RN in action in a few months. i!! am!! a!! college!! graduate!!! passed NCLEX too thank god (no real lows in the school department actually)

work: got to put my RN license in action working as a flu nurse haha i thought it was gonna be more intense but it was actually pretty chill just giving shots lol im not afraid of giving shots at all now because i did it literally for a job lol. got hired to be an oncology nurse at swedish which was nice :) the not nice thing was having my license delayed though which means now i am not working as a nurse T_T but i mean at least i still have the job--just got delayed but nothing to beat myself up over it. glad i found a full time babysitting job to fill the void in the meantime though :) winston is a very cute baby and i love him a lot and i am excited to see him again ahah hes such a darling and pay is enough for me to pay rent and some but rip savings haha

family: feels kinda the same? i’ve always been decently close with my immediate family i guess but going to the wedding and seeing everyone for the first time in a while was weird--i am def the most liberal and like out there out of the entire family i would say like what i believe in and what i hold important etc but i mean thats also not a bad thing--they focus too much on religion and like conservative ways in my opinion and i am too scared to talk about that stuff with extended family lol bc they are so stuck in their ways and i dont want more lectures lol i dont go to church in seattle but i go to church when i am home lol all convos at home become church related somehow and i hate it honestly...i don’t want religion shoved down my throat anymore please!!!!!! it is so suffocating

fitness/body image: started gyming a lot this past summer and continued it until december loll bc i got busy with life but i gained a lot of muscle mass and started feeling good about how i looked for the first time ever really (so sad i know) gained some weight too but that’s ok bc muscle mass. hopefully i can go back to the gym in january so i can work on getting slim thiccc lol i’m such a twig. i am not worrying too much about weight anymore because it is just a number! but i do relapse sometimes and worry too much over how i look--it is a work in progress

friendship: for the most part good or actually honestly all good because the only friend i feel like i kinda lost is Jason? but i mean hes off doing his own thing with his own friends and SO so its ok. if he’s happy im happy for him! maintained friendships with everyone i was close with before and even caught up with some old friends like alice, esther, rowena and i even met up with priyanka once although she never hits me up anymore lol i tried ok she is a busy person. got pretty close with like albert and will especially the past few months and everyone else really through talking to them about my struggles and issues and i know they all care about me truly <3 i love my friends and i am very grateful for the bunch of them. still close to michael and michelle! and i became close to michelle kang thanks to rachel <3 hehe i love rachel she keeps it real for me and is there for me regardless i love living with her and being with her and she just gets me ya know? ily lots rachel wifey <3

relationships: wow where do i even begin....life was going well with jason and then it just went downhill and i am writing this post as single as i can possibly be HAHA we broke up in sept after 3 years but no hard feelings right? hes with someone else and i am content/over him for sure---i was losing feelings which is one reason why i called it off lol but ya he taught me alot but at the same time a lot of people don’t think he was the best for me lol...they all tell me i could do better/glad i am not with him so interesting to hear this now tbh we had some issues and they couldn’t be resolved properly...hope he isn’t mad at me or anything idk....i can say confidently that i am over him 10000000% and i won’t look back. downloaded dating apps in seattle lol and i got wrecked for 2019 HAHA met a really nice guy and hit it off well and i was really liking him but ya tldr did couple-y things and were even exclusive just to have it called off bc there was no attraction and surprisingly i’m not mad at all even now! it hurt the first few days but im over it now. thank you next! (if youre reading this please know this is true and i do want to be friends and this time apart with me being in the bay has helped a lot--took my mind off of a lot of things lol i just want whats best for you!) i know hes looked at my tumblr before lol thats how close we were imo since only a select handful know of this page... he was the first guy i was amazed at for his maturity and levelheadedness actually so kudos to him! not many guys are like him so hopefully the next is just as mature lol i am talking to some guys super casually tho but ya i gotta just focus on myself and friends/fam instead of boys lmao...i am extremely afraid of being vulnerable and opening up and even truly liking someone again because they always leave and i always get hurt and broken lol hopefully i learned my lesson this time haha boys are scary and i have 0 expectations anymore ha ha ha! im open to dating not too sure about being tied down though idk if the right boy comes along so be it!  i dont want to come off as like dependent and insecure and always needing a boy with me for validation--i dont want to jump from 1 boy to another boy so fast bc my heart needs time to heal and recover lol i am baby heh 

this is a very long post so ima write my 2020 goals on a different post aha overall 2019 sucked kinda but also didn't suck lol hopefully 2020 is better haha