Main » April 2006

April 7, 2006

It's been awhile

Inpatient for 3 months, and I haven't updated too often here. It's been quite awhile since I've posted anything, so I figured it was time for an update.
I've had my good weeks and my bad weeks--- as to be expected... but the last few weeks were worse than usual. I don't know if it's the fact that I haven't purged in two months and don't really have that as a coping mechanism anymore, and so it's like--- all these thoughts and feelings and things come up and I don't know how to deal with them without resorting to my eating disorder. I guess that's not entirely true, cause I'm learning some things here I could use-- but that's not the first thing I look towards. By the natural order of things--- eating disorder or not-- when one coping mechanism is removed, you naturally drift towards the next one that offers at least some of the same respite that the first one offered. No purging, so I go to cutting. Until this week, I hadn't cut in 10 weeks, which is a record for me. But I think that's part of why everything has been progressively overwhelming: I didn't have my two best coping mechanisms to use, and so I keep trying to ignore things.

I've been struggling with coming up with an exit date for here and wondering when I think I'll really be ready to leave. But really-- how do you know that for SURE? I know I'm not going to be 100% "fixed" when I go home, but I don't want to leave too early and not be ready.

I'm thinking of going home for a week the first week of May. Several friends are graduating that weekend, and are then moving out-of-state. So I don't want to miss that. But when I originally had thought of leaving at the end of April, beginning of May, I think the reason for setting that day was in order not to miss their graduations. I'm not so sure that day was because I thought I'd be actually ready to leave then.

So...Jen and I came up with an idea. I may go home for a week at the beginning of May as sort of a "trial run" and see how things go. If they go well, I'll come back here, put in my 2-weeks notice and work on plans for when I get home. If any issues come up that I hadn't thought of, I'll still have those two weeks to work on it. If I find I'm definitely not ready to go home yet--- at least I'll know that too.

I dunno....... I need to talk to my parents about it, and about getting a plane ticket. Pete was all for it, as were several therapists here that I've talked to about it. So.... we'll see. Who knows--- maybe in another month, I'll find that I AM ready to go home.

Posted by Wendy at 4:56 PM | Comments (2)