When Nothing Works

Last week, I made a decision. I'm tired and don't want to fight anymore. I need help.

I'm already woven deeply into treatment - but I go to my sessions and have perfected the art of "being there" without being committed to recovering from my eating disorder. In a perfect world, I want to stop throwing up without gaining any weight or eating anything. I love starving. I like being thin. I like the quest to control my body - it makes me feel like I'm ascending above the human world of possibility.

After a lot of thinking, I started rolling the idea of doing an inpatient program around in my head. I've been averse to the idea of hospitalization from the start - I'm not scarily thin and don't have "enough" health issues to rationalize that level of care. But when I honestly sat with the idea for a few days, here's what I came up with...

Health Issues to Consider (and rationalize a higher level of treatment)
1. Osteopenia and bone health - I could break a bone lifting something or stepping off a curb.
2. Insomnia.
3. Shaky hands and lack of coordination in the past few weeks.
4. Inability to hold down my medicine in the morning.
5. Irregular heart rhythms and "concerning EKG" last week at the ED clinic.
6. Signs of dehydration.
7. Lack of energy.

Reasons I Should Not be Hospitalized
1. I'm not thin enough.
2. They'll make me fat.
3. Once I'm done, I may still not be able to eat regularly on my own.

Reasons I Should Not be Hospitalized (that I've used in the past, but are actually untrue)
1. Too expensive (insurance covers it all).
2. I can't get out of work (I'm a business owner with understanding coworkers).
3. It's a symbol of failure (maybe for my friends and family, but I'm failing life right now).
4. It won't be different than my current treatment (I'll be forced to eat and not purge).
5. The other people in the program will be thin and starving; I need to lose weight and don't belong in an ED hospital (my doctors keep telling me that my weight is a little too low still).

I went to the clinic on Thursday and asked my team of doctors what to do. Both the doctor and the therapist said that if I was one of their daughters, they'd want me to be in the hospital.

I confessed that my only real reason for not wanting to do an inpatient program was my fear of gaining weight. I want someone else to force me to do it... I'm not sure that the healthy part of me is strong enough to admit that it's what I need when the fear of getting bigger is woven so deeply inside of me. But with that admission in the ED clinic, I took a step forward, and I think that I will be hospitalized in June for a couple of weeks until I can start thinking and behaving rationally again.

I'm willing to do anything to make this better - except for eat and gain weight. And I guess that is the heart of the problem.

I'm feeling resigned, and stressed. I just want ED to go away. And since I made the decision to try an inpatient program, I've been feeling crazy. My brain's running wild - all I want to do is lose as much weight as possible before I start the program to avoid getting "too fat." This means that I've given up even TRYING to eat normally. I'm starving again - which means that the level of survival eating and purging is escalating at a scary rate. I want to lose weight so badly - I feel like I NEED to lose weight - my heart races all day and I get sweaty with anxiety just thinking about it. I feel like an utter failure; I need to get small as quickly as possible.

I realize the inherent flaw in my logic - I want to get better, and yet...? I want to be smaller? The anxiety around trying to be thinner is making me crazy, and I feel panicked and scared all the time. Since making my decision, it's not just that I don't want to GAIN weight... I'm terrified of staying how I am now... FAT.

I feel turned inside out. Like I've taken a step forward and resigned myself to a higher level of care, but in the process taken away my role in being accountable to recovery altogether. I'm frustrated and tired. And tired of being frustrated. I'm tired to feeling fat and tired of being fat. I'm tired of not getting to eat and then eating what I don't WANT to. I'm tired of spending hours eating until I'm full enough to purge and getting every obstacle (indeed, every THING) out of my way so that I have the time and privacy I need to participate in my own drama.

I don't trust anyone right now - I'm not even certain that I can rely on the process I've been participating in for the past several years to keep myself in check and control. I'm scared to give it all up - but also excited at the prospect of putting my life and worth in someone else's loving hands.

Please, please, please. Let there be movement. Let my heart be changed and strengthened, so that I can make healthy choices and move forward. I am tired of this place, and ready to move on. I'm scared, but ready. And I can't do it alone... because there's something dark in my heart that is pulling me away from the desire to move forward. I can't just rely on my own heart, but I have to start realizing that in the end, I AM THE ONLY ONE who can change this. Blehk. Help me today. Help me this week. Will this get better? I'm needing some hope. And some help.