I have been at this for fifteen weeks or so now and I feel that I am running out of excuses or reasons for why I am so shit at recovery. Of course my therapist is kind enough to offer explanations.
I had a panic attack at week thirteen towards the end of our session. The following week I finally let my guard down enough to discuss the possibility of trauma. He asked if we could do a screening questionnaire, and then diagnosed me with PTSD. I am expecting this, he said. The difficulty we are experiencing, is consistent with the presentation.
I am beginning to discredit myself. Was the time I did well, following all the damn regular eating rules - was that just me stalling? So that I could stretch out my time with this sickness for even longer? Why was I so sure of my conviction to get better? I am ambivalent about recovery at best. I want to get better but do not, cannot, bring myself to do it fully. I just cannot trust that recovery will not make me gain a significant amount of weight. And that is surface level shit anyway, the real issue is my inability to manage my emotions without using food as a crutch.
The issue is that my self-worth is so low, I have to depend on the value I place on my weight to prop it up. The issue is that I was taught that I could trust no one, and the few people I can trust, I have to prove my worthiness to and hold on to those relationships no matter what. And if for some reason they decide to detach, I take that as a reminder of my unworthiness and I'm devastated. I can't function.
I use other people to reenact my childhood, using them as containers for my emotions, wishing they would accompany me through my pain... yet push away my own parents in an attempt to control that abandonment narrative. I am the one rejecting them now.
Fuck all of this awareness if I'm going to do fuck all about it.
Yesterday I floated the idea to my husband that I do not want to schedule next week's session just so KDB can't monitor my weight anymore. He said that I have to go, and I know I do. Sometimes I really just want time alone with this illness, where the weeks are not broken up by accountability appointments, explanations for why my meal planning logs are how they are. Just leave me alone to slowly, slowly die.
Back in August I had bad ideations, and even now I occasionally think, the kids would be better off without a mother who is like this. I mean, in the long term. If I died they would struggle to find their feet, what with childcare, funeral arrangements, that initial grief.
Imagine, that I would rather subject them to that pain, than actually do the work to recover, or endure this deep pain I am suffering at this moment. How much destruction do I really want to cause everyone around me?
But of course I recognise the duality, the insaneness of it all. I see that I am thin and in the same breath I say I have got bigger. I do these nourishing activities and at the same time deplete my body of food. I stand on the scales each week wishing to have lost weight but am disappointed when I actually do, because it means I failed at recovery.
I would like very much for this mental torture to end.
2021-10-22.09:47 a.m.
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