Content: Eating disorders, self harm
I’ve been laying here in bed for multiple hours hiding from life beyond the blankets. Life is too hard to look at sometimes let alone to get up and live.
I went to see my Hematologist who said I currently have no blood clots. I told him I’m concerned about my weight and the effectiveness of my blood thinner shot. He said, let me look at your weight. He looked, then said without pausing, “You’re going to have to starve yourself. Cut everything in half. Starve yourself.” My immediate reaction was to think but not say, ‘This is why half your clients leave you a bad review. Stuff like this right here!’
I still laugh at that moment with him because despite being wrong about needing to starve myself, this is the dedicated Oncologist / Hematologist who stayed with me for that long 3 months in the hospital and 2 in a nursing home. He helped save my life. He’s on top of my medical care but his bedside manner is crap. He has no ability to communicate with people. As a matter of fact there’s a common joke he was born 30 yrs old. So yeah, he totally massacred that moment. I wasn’t hurt because I know him and he wouldn’t intentionally be cruel.
Its difficult for people who don’t take certain medications to say that “the meds don’t cause weight gain”. It’s easy to cast judgment when you don’t feel the pull of medications like Gabepintin, steroids, Seroquel and depression meds at the same time. It’s easy to cast judgement on what I should be doing when you’re not the one who needs to do it.
In therapy I talked to Dr D about my weight and how for me, food can be for comfort or a weapon. Baked goods are comfort foods for me. Fast food is like purposeful self harm, like cutting. My extreme food abstinence is self harm. I most certainly have disordered eating.
Food can be a weapon? Yes. When I’m angry I binge eat. I think of how unworthy I am of good things. I keep eating. I hate where my life is right now. I keep eating. You disgust me. You’re so stupid. No wonder no one likes you. I. keep. eating. You should have tried harder to walk after the amputation. I stop eating and swing to extreme abstinence and go without eating for up to 3 days. I return to binge eating.
I’m angry with myself. I wonder if I tried hard enough to walk. If I could walk again, if only I could walk again I’d….. enter all the walking I’d do for weight loss, enter all the reasons why the wheelchair is my fault. Forget the totality of my health issues, it’s my fault I’m in a wheelchair. Forget the evidence that says why I’m in the chair. It’s my fault.
I hate myself for not trying hard enough to walk. I do know the reality in my head but my heart is dead set against me.
I eat.
With disordered eating, I’ve lost the understanding of reasonable food portions. I could very easily eat a half gallon of vanilla ice cream in one sitting if I didn’t stop myself. A ten sack of White Castle sliders is nothing to me. I can’t tell that I’m full.
I’m either starving or binging depending on which type of violence I need to inflict on myself.
I understand that I’m not going to walk again. I understand that it’s due to complex and compound medical issues and not because I gave up. I did not give up.
I didn’t give up! In my head I know that but my heart beats louder than my head. Will I ever be more than what my heart condemns me for?
Joan