This morning I didn’t take a replacement some I got my blue band. Which means I get privileges; I’m now unobserved in the bathroom, I can pick my own meals, I don’t have to be supervised 24/7, only an hour after meals and half an hour after snack.
Life Balance (Flower Analogy)
In life balance we talked about self worth. In “Stage 1” people tend to define themselves with external things. Our self worth is dependent on out “Petals” (Pleasing other people, no flaws, looking good) sometimes we feel the need to add extra petals (being skinny, excelling academically, approval of peers) Petals can become very important to us, we want them to be perfect because we believe that people will be attracted to us because of our petals, so we work very hard to keep them as special as possible. People panic if one of their petals is pulled off (if someone is mad at them, or they didn’t look good, or they weren’t invited somewhere) consequently, if something happened to this person to cause them to lose one of their petals they are left with a scary void. Instead of defining ourselves by what we do or how we look to others, we do the only thing we know how to do- we try harder to be perfect. We get scared and think no one would like us if they knew who we really were. So we add more petals. What we need to realize is long after the petals wither or fall off- the center remains. The center is where the essence of the flower is found. If we looked at ourselves stripped of our petals what would remain? We are terrified that the center of our flower would be empty. It is important to know ourselves and fill out center. The flower in “Stage 3” has beautiful petals surrounding its center, but the difference is that these petals are expressions of who we are rather than the determinants of our self worth. If we lost out petals tomorrow, we would not lose our identity or self worth because we could just find other ways to express ourselves and bloom other petals. So out petals may change color and shape at different points in our life as we grow and change or we encounter new experiences and circumstances. When we know who we are in our center we can find a new way of expressing ourselves through our petals. For this exercise we were asked to come up with qualities (internal) that describe us. After that we had to link it to something external. I and up with things (compassionate, empathetic, eccentric, creative, open minded and supportive.) Then we had to give an example of us showing these externally. I couldn’t come up with anything. Amanda helped in group saying that I’m caring, supportive and a good friend. Later I ended up having a break down, I don’t like myself and that’s why I couldn’t come up with anything and that I didn’t know how to fix me and that I’m getting bigger and I’m anxious and that I’m worried they aren’t gonna be able to help me. Amanda said after that conversation that I needed to be here, I kind of agree. At my doctors appointment u asked my weight and she wouldn’t tell me, so I know I’m gaining because she tells people if they are losing weight and she won’t tell me so I know I’m gaining. I can seem it and feel it. I can see myself growing outwards, like I’m taking up space I’m not entitled to. I think I’ve had myself convinced for a long time that if I could somehow scrape the marrow from my bones and be a little lighter, if I could shrink- take up just a little less space, if I could somehow become a negative amount of a person then maybe I wouldn’t be too heavy a burden to bear. Snack Because I know I’m gaining weight I have been getting more anxious about meals. Dinner was hard, I literally felt like I couldn’t pick up my fork. I had to keep being reminded to eat. After snack I broke down again. talked with Lauren one of the nurses. She told me that I feel like I’m gaining weight and growing out and that to me I probably think I can see that but that’s just the body dysmorphia thoughts and that that’s my eating disorder telling me that. I told her I was scared they were gonna kick me out because they think I’m ready to leave already and that people think I’m not sick enough to be here and she said I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t sick enough. She said intensive treatment and 24 hour care is serious and that they wouldn’t have put me up here if it wasn’t necessary. It was nice to be validated. Sometimes I have myself convinced that I don’t need to be here that I’m doing it for attention, that there’s nothing wrong with me. To be reminded that I really am sick and this is a problem wether other people believed it or not was nice. It was nice to know that I’m not crazy.
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