a little note, with some insights

UCLA is wonderful . Surprising me constantly. We get outside at least once a day for 45 mins. The sun is still shining here but the temp is dropping. Nothing compared to the Autumn chills in WA, but jacket long pants worthy.. I really am trying this time. I think actually for the first time, me trying wise. I really want recovery. I just have so much coming up in January as motivators to get better. just to have a life again is motivating. But I so struggle sometimes hour to hour to day to day. I am just taking it slow. Yet the staff is challenging and helping me reach my potential. Breakfast was a struggle. I can still feel it in my belly and in the top of my throat. I was taken over by ed for a brief moment in my meal and I spit some food into my cup to avoid the feeling in my throat and my fear of swallowing it. here is some of my insight about why that happen.

A. I didnt get a lot of sleep do to a nightmare that kept attacking at me through out the night. It was about the incident I had with a pseudo boyfriend I was interacting with at the time. He forced me to give him oral sex and swallow. He liked to do things rough when it came to anything sexual. I dont. I mean he would pull my hair and face down on him and would not even like me come up for air. It was awful, and it was something that happened a lot.

B. Today at breakfast I was eating scrambled eggs and for some reason I had a hard time swallowing. The nightmare was still resonating in me. It felt like it was the incident all over again. Being timed when eating, that time pressure. I just wanted the meal to end. I could swallow anymore, so I spit into my cup most of my scrambled egg. The staff didnt notice. But I will process everything and confess later to day. Oddly I am proud that I was able to look deeper and identify when was going on, what I was thinking. Because it was not about the food. It had nothing to do with the food.

C. But in those moments sitting at the breakfast table, I made it about the food, about the portions and my lack of trust in the team when it comes to calories and portions. In that moment when I choose to obey my eating disorder I was distracting from how I was feeling about my nightmare, and my hatred toward that boy, and all the shame that I have about not stopping the boy and not fighting back. In a way, my spitting out food and restricting was really me trying to control the past and get back at him, but really I only hurt myself.

Thats the insight I had this morning. My friend Emily on the phone was really helping. I definitely use talking with others as a healthy coping skill compared to the alternatives like pacing or exercising or purging to numb out my feelings. I am still emotional feeling my nightmare, and I want it to stop and go away. When I pace those emotions go away. I hate remembering. When I remember, I feel disgusting, dirty, inadequate, and all "the should's".

Hope this helps anyone, but it helped me just to write about it.