ive had two passes since i last posted. one on monday night where i went to harvard square with my parents and one last night with my college roommate, maria.
i had applied for a dinner snack pass with my parents but since i had trouble saturday night i was only approved for a snack pass again. i was fairly nervous about this pass because anytime i spend with my parents is stressful for me so when i have to eat in front/with them, the situation is only more stressful. i knew this time i really didn't have much of a choice of whether to eat or not because i was with them. there option was still there to restrict though.
we went to urban outfitters and got a quilt and a couple pillows for my room, since ive been looking to redo my room for a long time now. after that, as i kept close watch on the time, we went to j.p.licks for snack. i don't know why i keep deciding to get ice cream for snack since it is a huge fear food for me. but anyway, we went there and my mom said, "go order what you want," and i immediately freaked and said, "are you not eating with me?!?!" and she said, "ice cream, are you kidding me? of course i am." this relieved me because if they weren't going to eat too then there was no way i would eat. but at the same time it was encouraging and nice to hear someone say something like about a huge fear food for me. it helped me realize, even if for a second, that ice cream shouldn't be considered a fear food, that it can be enjoyed once in a while without guilt. but even though i had that thought to hold on to for a second, i realized that ice cream is a fear food for so many more reasons than just the calories and its nutritional content; its also a fear food because of my behavior that is connected with it.
i ended up getting a medium--a very very large medium--cake batter ice cream. no restricting for me that time. i ate it, but i cant say i was really there for it. i just ate it mechanically, not able to enjoy it at all. all i could think was how i felt like a fat pig for eating that. i hated ordering it because all i could think of was how the workers must have been thinking that im fat enough already and why would i think its ok for me to eat ice cream to get even fatter. i felt like everyone who saw me with my ice cream too was thinking this. it was the most embarrassing thing ever. with all those thoughts going through my head it was impossible to be present with what i was doing.
as far as getting mad at my parents, i really didn't get mad at them that night like i usually do. it felt really weird to not get mad at them; so weird in fact that i was purposely reaching for things to try and get mad at them at. one time in particular my mom said something about how she got low-fat ice cream, but it wasn't said to me or very audibly. so i asked her what she had just said and she replied by saying nothing, but i knew what she said, so i pried and said, "wait, did you just say you got low-fat ice cream?" and she said, "yea, i had to for my stomach because low-fat is much gentler on it." generally if anyone else said this comment my ED would flip out and yell at me for being so fat and getting the full fat ice cream, but in this instance my rational mind was much stronger than my ED and i understood my mom didn't get low-fat because she was worried about the fat content in terms of weight, but she was worried about how it would affect her stomach since she has trouble with dairy. i couldn't get mad and that was aggravating. its sad to think that im so used to getting mad at my parents that when things go ok, i cant stand it. i cant stand the uncomfortable feeling that something going well causes me to feel. ive become so accustomed to feeling crappy, that when i don't feel that way i need to find a way to make myself feel that way so i can feel normal.
the ride back on the bus from harvard square was pretty silent. i was in my head. i felt awful for eating the ice cream, i was embarrassed, i wanted to purge, and i couldn't stand feeling my fat moving around on my body with every bump of the road. i was angry that i had eaten and i was angry my parents were probably on cloud nine seeing that i HAD eaten, and especially that i HAD eaten ice cream. its been so long since they've seen me eat anything like that at all. but i wish they knew that while they were happy, i was hating myself.
i had also applied for a dinner pass for the next day and whether i got it or not was dependent on how i did on the pass with my parents. i talked to my therapist and asked her if she was going to give the pass to me and after reviewing my pass return from the night before, she approved me for a dinner pass. she asked where i wanted to go, and i told her the place i want to go is a place she already said she doesn't really want me to go--the rainforest cafe. once again she said she just doesn't think it is a good place to be present during a meal. the only way to get used to eating is if i can be fully there for it. but i really wanted to go!
so maria came and got me and i was still debating on where to go--the rainforest cafe like i want, or johnny rockets which would be more meet my therapists wants. i knew too, that if i did go to the rainforest cafe that i would get a veggie burger and a water, both of which are off limits because that is restricting. so i decided to do what my therapist would want me to do and i decided to go to johnny rockets. i ended up getting a grilled chicken sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and mayo, but i did not get my third starch--which would have been fries--and i did not get a caloric beverage, instead i got water. so i still ended up restricting, and though i knew that would get me in trouble, i was able to justify it more because i didn't go to the place i really wanted to go to.
the rest of the pass was fine after the whole eating part and feeling really fat and awful for eating, and then eating in front of maria. we walked around the mall for a bit and went into yankee candle and smelt the whole store. After that we went across the street to a gigantic, two floor, barnes and noble so i could get a new journal. We left there, came back to this place, hung out for a bit, made some origami and put on some cool tattoos--thanks nicole <3
i had a good time, but i knew i didn't have a "successful" pass.
needless to say when i applied for walk group today i expected to get turned down during rounds, which of course i did due to my restricting.
today was rather uneventful. there was a little incident at cafe that involved one of the girls here and another one--obviously. i was the second one at the table and the girl that was already there seemed rather upset and i asked if it was ok if i sat near her and she said "yea that's fine, i just don't want to sit near XX." (i don't use names in this for privacy reasons, lol). so of course XX comes strolling along and scoots down the bench right next to her and she looks at XX and said, "um, XX, i really don't want to see you take small bites." just like that. so XX moved away, clearly upset over the comment and allowed others to sit in between them.
i felt pretty bad for XX because it was said in a rather blunt way that was probably not easy to take, and it doesn't help that XX is rather sensitive. BUT, XX does really need to stop that ED behavior. she has been here for several weeks and has not really improved on it at all, and once you are on cafe, actual EATING behaviors should be pretty minimal, but they clearly aren't with her. on the other hand, the comment had to be said because the other girl needed to advocate for herself and realize what was best for her in her treatment. it is not easy to be around others who are engaging in obvious ED behaviors when you are trying to work on yourself.
so that happened.
then i had therapy. that was interesting. i don't really feel that it was productive at all, but for some reason from the beginning i felt like my therapist was expecting me to bring something up, but i really didn't know what she was expecting. maybe it had to do with her asking me right from the beginning if there was something i wanted to bring up with her. i thought she meant my pass, so i talked about that, but i found out later that that was not what she was talking about.
there was an incident on monday where four of us girls, including me, were pulled aside and talked to by the nurse that was on and one of the CRCs. apparently there was a bit of some mean girl action going on and we were the culprits--parents had been calling complaining that their kids feel targeted. the group of us decided to bring it up in post-meal to try and get to the bottom of it and it turned out that the girls that felt this way were all made to feel that way by someone who wasn't in the room--there was only one girl who was on pass at that time so we knew who it was.
but today, when i had about five minutes left in therapy my therapist said, "well i guess i wanted to bring up how things are going in the milieu" and that was pretty vague so i didn't know exactly what she meant so i asked her and then i got a response that gave me a bit more direction and so i told her about the thing on monday because i was fairly certain she was talking about that. then she continued to tell me how it was discussed in rounds today and she made it seem like i was the only one who was talked about and that i was the main mean girl. i took extreme offense to this because there IS a click here, but i am not part of it. im like switzerland. im pretty damn neutral in this community. i am not a part of that 4 girl click, but then again im not really a part of the other group that there is. and that other group isn't really even a group. its just a hodge podge of girls who don't really have a certain place where they belong, but since they are not in the definite click they feel left out and like they are being bullied. like i said, im in the middle of these two groups, not really aligning with either one, so i was pretty upset that my therapist was bringing this up in therapy and essentially accusing me of being a mean girl.
i told her how i was aggravated and she told me that i should try and figure out more from other people what the deal is. but, without direction as to who to begin to question--because i thought it was all taken care of that night in post meal, but apparently not if it was being brought up in my therapy session--then i really didn't know what i was expected to do or accomplish with that. she encouraged me to talk to a staff member.
so lucky for me, snack was immediately following therapy. just the place i wanted to go to make myself feel even more amazing. the only good thing was that one staff member who i knew was in rounds was supervising snack so i asked to talk to her and i told her what happened and i asked if i was being talked about at the one instigating all this and such. she basically assured me that it wasn't that way, but she said she would talk to my therapist to clear up the air.
next was therapy group, and about five minutes into therapy group, i saw the staff member i talked to go into my therapists room. about ten minutes later, the staff member came out and told me to go in.
soooo we had a nice little chit chat in which my therapist told me she didn't mean to come off as accusatory and that she wanted to hear more of my side of things since we really didn't get a chance to talk about it much. i basically told her how i feel like there is definitely a click, but that i am not part of it. i told her im like switzerland, and that i too even feel sometimes i am not welcomed by that click. it was all talked out but i still feel now that i cant associate with any person without my actions or the people i hang out with being misconstrued as to, "oh shes hanging out with them so she must not like me." i like both "clicks" if you will and i try to spend equal time with both, and when there are conflicts between the two, i try and act like the peace keeper. its a pretty stressful situation to be in. to try and make everyone happy and be good to everyone, yet still for all that work end up getting caught up with the wrong people in the wrong situation and be labeled as the bad person. i try so hard to be fair to everyone and never say hurtful things. im not perfect so sometimes i slip in the moment, but i have started to apologize to people, which is BIG for me. when things like that happen, i feel like all the good i have done is discounted and makes me feel like crap again. i guess all i can really do is try to be even more vigilant and conscious of the group dynamic and try to not get myself in a situation where i am labeled the "mean girl" by association.
oh, p.s. i got a new roommate today. she's 21 and is quite unique. we shall see how this goes.
and with that, i'll leave with a short quote from the front of my new journal:
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." --Confucius
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