I cancelled therapy tomorrow. Not sure why. I do this about once every other month or so (not counting times when I legitimately have to miss, like being out of town or something like that). The fact is that after three years of basically continuous therapy, sometimes I just really don't feel like going. I don't feel like talking about eating disorders or depression or any of my shit. This happens more often when I'm doing well, like now, but it also happens when I'm not doing so hot and don't feel like sitting there and crying for an hour.
I adore my therapist, so it has nothing to do with that. I think being in therapy just reminds me that I'm sick. Or at least that I was sick, and that I'm still a little sick. Right now I would consider myself relatively recovered from my eating disorder, but it's not like you go from sick to well in a hot second and that's that. And the further I get in recovery, the more it dawns on me how sick I was for how long. When I look back at myself at 13 or 19 or even 22, I want to cry for how sick I was and never knew it.
When I was 19, I was hospitalized for low heart rate. I spent the whole time being SO MAD because it felt like everyone was tearing my life out of my hands, and that I had no control over anything anymore. And now it makes me sad to realize that they were actually saving my life. I wish I could apologize to the doctors who got stuck with me, because I was an obstinate little snot.
There is this girl I met at the first treatment center I went to back in Home City (where my parents live) about four years ago. We stayed in touch, but things have gotten strained. Basically, she is still very very sick in her eating disorder. She also has other issues (purging, self-harm, etc.) that I don't fully understand, although I've always tried to be supportive. But this girl is not doing well, and has gotten VERY needy with all the texts, e-mails, etc. Anyway, I have found the need to pull back lately. It makes me feel kind of bad, but is also freeing in the same way it has been freeing to pull away from my own eating disorder. It also just makes me sad, because that was me not long ago: being sick and self-destructive, blind to something that was so apparent to everyone else.
So, I feel like I'm being a bad friend, but I'm also putting myself first. For me, recovery was a choice. The health problems forced my hand a bit, but ultimately I had to decide that enough was enough. And now that I have, it seems so freaking obvious that I can't believe I didn't do it sooner. My friend hasn't made that choice, and I can't make it for her. I guess that's the illness, and I'm not implying that people with eating disorders are "choosing" to stay sick. But I did choose to get better after many years of choosing not to.
I guess my point is that sometimes I need a break from being a Sick Person, or a Recovering Sick Person, and need to just be a person. Although I am immensely grateful to my beloved Dr. P., I wouldn't see her if I weren't sick. And I probably wouldn't have been friends with this girl if we hadn't been sick together. So, I just need a break.
A few years ago I had to seperate myself from one of my best friends whom I had met in treatment. She was struggling very much and I was trying to hold on to my newly "stable" recovery. It was really hard and I felt like a horrible friend but sometimes we need to protect our recovery even when we might need to do things that are hard or seem selfish - but they aren't selfish. Recovery is important and we need to protect it the best we can. My friend and I were able to reconnect a little while later and while I worried she woruld he and at me, she actually understood and we were fine :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, when you have been in treatment for so long it can be scary or weird to think you might not need it as much (or eventually not really need it anymore) when I started weening myself off of treatment, it was strange because I didn't know what to do with myself as a "regular" person who wasn't in treatment but the more I let go of my treTment team the stronger I felt because I was stable enough in recovery and I saw myself standing strong on my own more and more little by little and starting to find a life outside if my ed and treatment. It's scary at first but it's also such a wonderful and freeing feeling! :)
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