What Happened To Treatment?

I started a blog and then I disappeared. So what happened? Well, that is quite a story - one that upsets me even now. Let me start by sharing with you the email that I sent out to my friends:

Here's the story: My eating disorder (EDNOS - not exactly anorexia or bulimia) is in full force right now. After much arm twisting, Hubby got the treatment center to give us a payment plan. We handed them $1100 that we had scraped together and they said my insurance had approved me so that I could start Partial Hospital treatment (10 hours per day, 7 days a week).

I started treatment on Monday. I thought I was going to die. I have studiously avoided having any relationship with food for a very long time. All of the sudden, they had me picking out menus (of food I do NOT like) and eating 3 meals and 3 snacks a day. Plus drinking lots of water. It was sometimes hard not to cry when I saw the food on my plate. If I didn't eat everything, they would ask me to drink a supplement called Peptimin (sp?) so that I would still get nutrition. 

Eating all of that food affected me in two ways - it "woke up" my body and it "woke up" lots of emotions. The therapy sessions did the same thing. On the first day I got pulled out of sessions by the direct care staff, the nurse, the psychiatrist, and the dietitian to tell the story of my eating disorder in minute detail to each one of them. So I had to keep repeating it. I had to keep remembering how it started and why it was active now. 

Not Otherwise Specified

When I was quite young, the "You are what you eat" public service announcements were all over the place. Without knowing that my mind was willing to lie to me, I "figured out" that if I ate the same foods my family ate, I would become like them. There were scary and hurtful things going on in my life that made becoming like "them" a very bad idea. "They" ate fairly healthy food, so this little idea left me with only junk to survive on. Brilliant, isn't it?

I was also very cognizant of money being a big issue in our family. Huge. Once more, my lying mind had "figured out" that since I had already been "given away" once (adoption at birth), I could possibly be given away again. I had been told that my birthmother relinquished me because she could not afford to take care of me. Also, my father was on the Board of Directors of a children's home, so I knew there was some place to send me. I needed to make sure that I did not cost my family too much money or I would be sent away. What costly thing was I willing to give up? Toys, clothes, or bubble gum? No. I was willing to give up food. More brilliance.