A glimpse...

Journal entry prior to treatment...

1/22/07 10:58 AM

I had a breakdown yesterday. A real melt down. Last night after I left my sister’s I couldn’t go home, so I just kept driving. I drove all the way to Charleston (hour and half away). I just sat in an empty parking lot once I got there. I felt like a real nut case. I listened to sad music. I sat in silence. I cried. I yelled. I “prayed” in a very loud tone. I did all the things nut cases do when they drive to an empty parking lot an hour and a half away from their home and just sit there. In the moment I really felt like I was going crazy. Today I feel kinda stupid, especially cause I skipped work, and didn’t call, and they called here looking for me, to which I didn’t answer. I did the mature thing and called my mom and asked her to call my work to tell them I was sick, which I was, but it was more of an emotional sickness.
So now I’m sitting here, staring at my computer screen… thinking about all the things that went through my head last night… feeling like an idiot.
When I finally got home last night at 3:00am, my mom was just waking up. I walked in the door the same time she walked out of her bedroom door. Perfect timing huh? A real spiritual person would say that was so God, but I don’t really feel real spiritual right now, so I don’t know what it was. Anyway, when I walked in at 3am of course she was worried, which I knew was going to help me feel even more sane. I told her I was fine and that I had been over at Bonnie’s. She walked into the kitchen and I followed her. I guess she was getting up to work on some papers or something for work because she had her briefcase and all these books and notes in her hands. I sat down at the kitchen table with a blank stare on my face. She asked me what was wrong. I knew I had to tell her, but I didn’t want to because it’s so hard for me to talk to her. She always gets that worried, excited tone of voice when she asks “what’s wrong, what’s wrong?” When I said it was hard for me to talk to her she said she was sorry and that she was only human. I got so mad when she said that. No duh she’s human. I felt like here I am having a crisis and my mother is playing the victim. A role that I’ve felt that she’s played for a very long time, and I’m sick of it. I was about to storm off, but I sat down at the table and she sat in silence waiting for me to respond. I started to cry and said it was hard for me to say. Finally I blurted it out, “I have an eating disorder.”
Maybe it was because I was expecting this dramatic response from my mother, or some sympathy or I don’t know what, but after I said it she just sat there and said “I know.” I was furious. I couldn’t believe that was all she had to say. Then she went on “is that what was so hard for you to say?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Here is this thing that I felt was controlling my life and my mother was asking if that was what was so hard to say. It made me feel like an idiot. It made me feel stupid for even trying to make an effort to help her understand. And for me, it justified why it was so hard for me to talk to her. She just doesn’t understand.


Journal Entry while in treatment....

6/27/07

Wow… so that was a while back, and I’ve come a long way since then, not only with my eating disorder, but with my mom. I’ve been in treatment since the beginning of February, and to this day remain in a group home for girls on the road to recovery from their eating disorders. I’ve been doing so well for so long that I sometimes convince myself that I never had an eating disorder… until I come across a journal entry like this. I have found many like this, and its entries like this that remind me where I was and where I am going. These journal entries keep me in check and remind me of my struggle within when I start to think I’m perfect, or that I’m “cured.” I sometimes wonder if this disease is even curable; manageable maybe, but not curable.