Amy's Story
Hullo, my name is Amy.
I no longer worry about letting people know I have diabulimia - the only shame I feel after being in recovery is the HUGE amount of weight I've gained by binge-ing and then desperately taking insulin to 'cover' the binge. Most of the time I still find myself grudgingly taking insulin, but not the full amount I my body really needs in order to control my weight. I will be 40 in just over a month from now, and I've struggled with this now for 17 years.
I'd like to think that I'm winning, but sometimes it doesn't feel like winning at all when I see myself in the mirror or in pictures. All I see is a bloated body over *** pounds and long years of pain and self torture for 'nothing'. But then I remember my brushes with death and try harder to put it into perspective; be fat or die. I'm still in great emotional pain over being huge, but I am still alive to talk about it... although I know that living with diabulimia means that I'm killing myself in inches.
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 21. It was a horrible shock and traumatic as hell - when finally admitted into the emergency room, I began to slip into coma right then and there. The nurses and doctors were frantic and I could hear them talking all around me, but I couldn't move or speak; it was like being trapped in my body in some kind of living nightmare. I heard the nurses ask the doctor about the possibility of kidney failure, lung damage, brain damage and I wanted to scream at them "I'm still here! Oh god, please don't let me die!" I honestly thought the diagnosis was a death sentence, because my grandfather with type 2 (on insulin) had died of a blood clot due to his diabetes. Every time I woke up I had a knee jerk reaction and my first conscious thought was "I have diabetes, I'm going to die".
My fasting glucose had been 32, but then I was also already engaging in restriction of food. The weight had slid off me effortlessly, and I thought some sort of miracle had occurred. I pointedly ignored my receding gums, the boils, the other skin infections, the constant pain, the raging thirst and urination, yeast infections and odd menstruation. It wasn't until my hair started falling out and a trip to the hospital to lance a boil on my inner thigh that I finally gave in and went to a dermatologist who ordered the fatal blood test.
I was very very ill for a long time, but because I had been so heavy (over 200 pounds), I kept thinking I had the 'less serious diabetes', or type 2. The weight was piling back on, and I had a specialist who told me I was 'just a very young type 2', and taken off my insulin and given an appetite suppressant called phenfluormine - and quite naturally I was in DKA in no time at all. When I called the specialist and told her how sick I was, she gave me hell and tersely asked me if I wanted my diabetes to go away forever. When I said 'Yes of course I do!" to her she then cooly replied that I'd have to "withstand the discomfort. When you lose enough weight your diabetes will go away." Eventually the DKA was bad enough that I KNEW I was going into another coma and a doctor actually came to my house and forced me to go back on insulin and gave me the name and number of the Diabetes Clinic at Saint Paul's here in Vancouver.
I clung to this belief for years afterwards, withholding insulin or cutting back on my dosages. My A1C's were horrific and my doctors were concerned. I quickly learned to lie, to blame my hormones or anything to cover up the way I was torturing my body to make it look like I thought it should. All the time I kept telling myself that if I could just bear the pain long enough, the nightmare would stop and I'd be healthy again. Each time I 'failed' when the pain of DKA became too much and the dreaded yet blessed insulin would save me at the cost of the weight coming back. It was and still is a bitter struggle.
I hit rock bottom after my best friend Sara died at the age of 24 of cystic fibrosis December of 1995. I more or less stopped eating, and I stopped using my insulin gradually over time until I could barely breathe or walk- forcing myself to exercise even with the firey pain burning in my cramping calves, hands curled like claws from the same pain in my forearms. All I wanted was for the pain in my heart and in my head to go away; I wanted to die.
I was admitted to the Extra Care Clinic at the Saint Paul's Eating Disorder Clinic here in Vancouver, near death - flirting on the edge of DKA and coma once again. The lead doctor, Dr. Birmingham when he assessed me was frank, even blunt.
"I don't know why you're not dead already." he said.
I felt his pronouncement like a shock - necessary I know now to be heard by my healthy self locked inside the tyranny of my eating disorder. Somehow he got through to ME, and I couldn't lie to myself any more. The extra care clinic at that time was 4 beds on an in-patient psych unit, it provided medical and psych care for people with all sorts of mental health issues. 4 beds for a single province, with desperate patients and sometimes out of province desperate patients trying to save their lives. The waiting list, I learned later, was mostly over a year long.
I was admitted on May 18, 1996, exactly 5 years to the very day of my original diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. The irony was not lost on me, and to this day it remains my 'second birthday' - an anniversary of rebirth and hope... at least NOW it is, for a long time it was an anniversary of failure, where my body betrayed me. The clinic had me in-patient for 3 weeks, and it was like another form of torture. I had to have inter venous magnesium, because all the long months of DKA had sapped all my electrolytes (and thus the cramping in my arms and legs), when I ate it was all I could do to keep the food down, and because of this I was threatened with a feeding tube in my nose. Dr B (bless him) came in and discovered that my intestines had effectively shut down to cannibalize the proteins for my other organs- I went on a medication to get motility back and the pain was excruciating.
The emotional work was also painful, I had long panicked sessions where I wept and railed against my fate, hating my body and its betrayal - having to take insulin to live, broken, ugly, diseased! My mother came from her new life with my most recent stepfather in Seattle to be confronted and educated gently but firmly. My youngest Aunt also came and was educated willingly, and between all three of us we forged a support network. My secret shame became known, and I wasn't silent any more, I had to learn to ask for help, and it was and is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
I grieved for my friend, I grieved for the loss of my healthy self, I grieved for the abused and neglected child that I had been who would never have anyone to comfort her except a diseased and broken woman with only the skills to pile more abandonment and pain upon her.
My breakthrough was highly memorable. I sat in the spring sunlight shining through a large window, trying to journal with my hands cramped into claws, an IV of magnesium burning in my veins, igniting pain in my left arm. I was shaky and tired, and my numb heart recalled my friend's life and her death. She had loved me, despite my weight, my background of abuse, eventually my diabetes... and it occurred to me that I needed to learn to love myself that way too. It was as if Sara was sitting beside me, I could almost feel her slight slim weight next to me on the bed, and her raspy voice in my heart.
"It's gonna be ok kiddo." she said sadly.
The dam burst and I felt like I had woken from a living nightmare - I wept for hours, shaking and in terrible pain physically and emotionally. But the tears this time washed out my heart and left me room to learn to love myself, even if imperfectly, a final gift from my best friend. I'd watched her die, and here she was helping me learn to live.
After my time in the extra care facility, I was admitted to an experimental outpatient program - learning the in's and out's of the lying force in my head, which I soon learned was the 'voice' of my eating disorder. I learned cognitive skills and assertiveness skills to try and help combat it's insidious and seductive demands. I challenged many of my old patterns of thinking, but through it all I felt oddly out of touch, different from the others, special in a way that was both satisfying and terrifying. Where the others had to make themselves not eat or purge, I had only to skip a dose or cut back on my insulin. So efficient, so elegant -and deadly.
The time in that program marked the beginning of awareness. I no longer went completely without insulin... but I lied to myself about my dosages as time went on. I was told repeatedly by the medical team that insulin didn't make me gain weight, but over time I saw that they lied. My weight climbed steadily and as it did I began to panic and I began to alter my dosages. I never quite completely skipped it though, so in my mind somehow that made me purge free. I found myself lost between the two clincs; the diabetes clinic was clueless about the eating disorder and the easting disorder clinic was clueless about my diabetes. My eating disorder trumpeted it's glee and the lying went on and on even after I graduated from the program. To be fair, it was no longer the same - I was mostly aware of it by this time, so it got sneakier.
I continued to gain weight slowly but without stop and one day I went to a plus sized store to try on clothes and realized just how big I had really gotten. I was with my first live in boyfriend at that time, and with gritting of teeth I went straight to the eating disorder clinic and admitted what was going on. My blood work was hideous, and I was admitted once again to the Extra Care Clinic though not in as dire straights this time (thank heavens). The outpatient program had been canceled over the years, so it was into a new out-patient facility that I went, a program called VISTA.
For 4 months I was granted a single room in a shared house in the Kitsilano area of Vancouver, taking the bus in to the hospital each weekday to go to group and individual therapy, to finally deal with the issues that led me to purge and eat and torture myself.
Being so large AND having diabetes was awful. These tiny elfin women with anorexia and bulimia were all around me and I could see them eying my bulk with horror, and inwardly I flinched. We chose coping the same way, but my body had betrayed me yet again -ironically in my bid to try to stop purging I had to pay the price of being obese and every sidelong glance was like torture.
Every day I lived with these other women, we went to therapy together, had meals together, cried with each other, celebrated our victories. It's immensely powerful to witness and also to find the same strength in myself - I got so much out of the programs that mere words cannot even begin to describe what I share with the other patients.
In the morning we'd do our ablutions according to the schedules we signed up for, taking turns in the bathroom. We'd make our way to the hospital for breakfast. Breakfast (and every other meal) was watched over by a staff member, and we would support each other in selecting our meals and eating it together. Each of us had to eat 100% or we would get 'step out'- which meant you spent your days under the watchful and helpful eyes of the staff at the house for a week or for several days- as decided by the treatment team.
Each day had a set schedule. after each meal we'd adjourn for a group session, talking about and supporting each other through the after-meal issues for at least an hour. Then usually there would be group therapy with specific topics, and on different days of the week individual appointments with the dietitian, doctor, therapist or any specialists would happen. Lunch would often be at the hospital, sometimes dinner as well, those meals not at the hospital would be carefully monitored by staff at the house. After each meal we had to stay in a shared space with no bathroom visits unless monitored by staff. One day a week would have family and friends sessions with a social worker present, and we were encouraged to educate and share our experiences with them.
I gave up all my control over my insulin dosage; the staff at VISTA watched me take my insulin, measured the dosages, wrote down the blood sugar numbers, watched me take all my other medications. They gave me support when I panicked about the full dose of insulin too: over the years I'd added insulin resistance to my ever growing list of conditions to deal with. So here I was a fat type 1 with type 2 on top of it. It felt like the ultimate insult. Every injection was a reminder of failure, but it was life giving too, but I was told that I used my diabetes to hide my eating disorder, and my eating disorder to hide my diabetes issues. It was and still is a very no-win situation.
Teeth gritted, I mentally pushed up my sleeves and began trying to deal with the underlying issues instead, but again I felt lost; the diabetes was an impassable barrier - I didn't fit in, was odd man out, my disease made me special, and not in a good way. It was frustrating and heart breaking at the same time. Finally I came to the conclusion that if I couldn't be perfect in dealing with it, I'd just have to do the best I could in small bursts, and take as much good information and behavior modification and cognitive therapy from the program as I could and make up my own treatment as I went along.
And so I have.
Nearer the end of my stay, I took matters into my own hands, determined to make the most of the safe environment. I tossed away a lot of my old patterns and worked very hard on replacing them with healthier alternatives. I knew that I'd had an eating disordered way of looking at the world for 25+ years, I sure as hell wasn't going to be able to undo that many years during a 4 month stay in treatment. I tried to get a therapist, a dietitian, a diabetes specialist, a gp, all of whom could work together, I shopped around and was up front and honest about what I needed and wanted from each of them. If there was any doubt, I went off to interview a new one. I educated my emotional support network; in my case my mother and aunt and increasingly a few select friends. A best friend of mine has the standing right to call my mother and have me committed if I completely backslide. I did a lot of work to set it up so that I had a safety net.
Alas, a few months after I came out of VISTA my then-boyfriend left me for another woman. It was awful, I felt so betrayed - and ANGRY! Stubbornly I kept to my meal plan, took my insulin and meds, saw my therapist and while it wasn't perfect, I grimly hung on. I even managed to work full time for about 10 months before I fell flat on my face again. The ex boyfriend married the woman he left me for, using the wedding plans he and I had made - and with the intervention of a mutual friend I came to terms with my anger and even helped the lady in question with her wedding dress. I'd like to say I went to the wedding, but honestly I just couldn't stretch that far. It took a lot of serious soul searching to admit that even *I* could not be that 'nice', and that I had every good reason for allowing myself the dignity of not dealing with it.
More recently I went to a very helpful group on women who are abused, and learned the impact abuse has made on my life and how to deal with it's repercussions on my psyche and relationships. In a way it's like the extra weight I'm carrying is the child that I was, and I'm holding her inside my body. I've been manipulating my insulin a bit, not to the way I used to, but binges happen more often and I often bolus myself in a panic when I realize what I've done. I think it's time now to 'give birth' to that inner child, let her go, send her into the world through me in a healing manner. My doctor recently asked me if I would like to enter a program for people with Metabolic Syndrome (which I have). It's been hard, because it will mean delving into the pain once again, but this time I can get the balanced help I need to challenge my black and white thinking around diabetes care and exercise. I'll have medical supervision and help with the physical pain of being so heavy, out of shape and frankly out of glycemic control.
I've always had intestinal trouble, even from early childhood. I was told often it was Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). which is medical speak for "we don't know what the hell it is but it makes you hurt and sick". A year or so ago I had a particularly violent and painful attack that had me in the ER with doctors scratching their heads and a tentative diagnosis of 'abdominal migraine'. Less that three weeks after this attack I had another - but this time I found myself with severe bleeding that wouldn't stop. I went to the ER once again and they kept me, eventually telling me that I had something called ischemic colitis. Basically what had happened was I'd had a stroke in my intestines, caused by sugar plaques in my arteries from uncontrolled diabetes. The intestines didn't get blood for a while, so some of the tissue died and became necrotic, the dead part shed leaving me with a raw and bleeding wound. Because I don't drink much water to begin with (I hate the taste), my blood volume was low and I nearly bled to death. I know this is disgusting, but it's not one of the complications of diabetes I've ever heard anyone mention. I'm sharing it because I don't want the same thing to happen to any of you out there.
To date I have an on again off again fight with my diabulimia. I hate it, pure and simple. I find that I'm still more ahead that I realize sometimes, but it's hard to see that when I'm so heavy and so disinclined to deal with my self care on a regular basis. I go through cycles of dealing then not dealing, and I try to be aware of triggers. Lately I've been tired of all the lying, watching my health go down the tubes when I've worked so very hard to get where I am in my recovery so far. Just cause I'm not 'perfect' in my self care doesn't in the least negate all I've been through, that's what I keep telling myself. These groups and this site are a constant reminder to me that I can do better, that I deserve better, and in sharing my story at last in full I break the last barrier. Maybe this is all I have to say, or maybe I need to write it out further for myself, or even perhaps in a book to further help break the silence. Dunno, let's take it one day at a time and see what life hands me next!
I no longer worry about letting people know I have diabulimia - the only shame I feel after being in recovery is the HUGE amount of weight I've gained by binge-ing and then desperately taking insulin to 'cover' the binge. Most of the time I still find myself grudgingly taking insulin, but not the full amount I my body really needs in order to control my weight. I will be 40 in just over a month from now, and I've struggled with this now for 17 years.
I'd like to think that I'm winning, but sometimes it doesn't feel like winning at all when I see myself in the mirror or in pictures. All I see is a bloated body over *** pounds and long years of pain and self torture for 'nothing'. But then I remember my brushes with death and try harder to put it into perspective; be fat or die. I'm still in great emotional pain over being huge, but I am still alive to talk about it... although I know that living with diabulimia means that I'm killing myself in inches.
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 21. It was a horrible shock and traumatic as hell - when finally admitted into the emergency room, I began to slip into coma right then and there. The nurses and doctors were frantic and I could hear them talking all around me, but I couldn't move or speak; it was like being trapped in my body in some kind of living nightmare. I heard the nurses ask the doctor about the possibility of kidney failure, lung damage, brain damage and I wanted to scream at them "I'm still here! Oh god, please don't let me die!" I honestly thought the diagnosis was a death sentence, because my grandfather with type 2 (on insulin) had died of a blood clot due to his diabetes. Every time I woke up I had a knee jerk reaction and my first conscious thought was "I have diabetes, I'm going to die".
My fasting glucose had been 32, but then I was also already engaging in restriction of food. The weight had slid off me effortlessly, and I thought some sort of miracle had occurred. I pointedly ignored my receding gums, the boils, the other skin infections, the constant pain, the raging thirst and urination, yeast infections and odd menstruation. It wasn't until my hair started falling out and a trip to the hospital to lance a boil on my inner thigh that I finally gave in and went to a dermatologist who ordered the fatal blood test.
I was very very ill for a long time, but because I had been so heavy (over 200 pounds), I kept thinking I had the 'less serious diabetes', or type 2. The weight was piling back on, and I had a specialist who told me I was 'just a very young type 2', and taken off my insulin and given an appetite suppressant called phenfluormine - and quite naturally I was in DKA in no time at all. When I called the specialist and told her how sick I was, she gave me hell and tersely asked me if I wanted my diabetes to go away forever. When I said 'Yes of course I do!" to her she then cooly replied that I'd have to "withstand the discomfort. When you lose enough weight your diabetes will go away." Eventually the DKA was bad enough that I KNEW I was going into another coma and a doctor actually came to my house and forced me to go back on insulin and gave me the name and number of the Diabetes Clinic at Saint Paul's here in Vancouver.
I clung to this belief for years afterwards, withholding insulin or cutting back on my dosages. My A1C's were horrific and my doctors were concerned. I quickly learned to lie, to blame my hormones or anything to cover up the way I was torturing my body to make it look like I thought it should. All the time I kept telling myself that if I could just bear the pain long enough, the nightmare would stop and I'd be healthy again. Each time I 'failed' when the pain of DKA became too much and the dreaded yet blessed insulin would save me at the cost of the weight coming back. It was and still is a bitter struggle.
I hit rock bottom after my best friend Sara died at the age of 24 of cystic fibrosis December of 1995. I more or less stopped eating, and I stopped using my insulin gradually over time until I could barely breathe or walk- forcing myself to exercise even with the firey pain burning in my cramping calves, hands curled like claws from the same pain in my forearms. All I wanted was for the pain in my heart and in my head to go away; I wanted to die.
I was admitted to the Extra Care Clinic at the Saint Paul's Eating Disorder Clinic here in Vancouver, near death - flirting on the edge of DKA and coma once again. The lead doctor, Dr. Birmingham when he assessed me was frank, even blunt.
"I don't know why you're not dead already." he said.
I felt his pronouncement like a shock - necessary I know now to be heard by my healthy self locked inside the tyranny of my eating disorder. Somehow he got through to ME, and I couldn't lie to myself any more. The extra care clinic at that time was 4 beds on an in-patient psych unit, it provided medical and psych care for people with all sorts of mental health issues. 4 beds for a single province, with desperate patients and sometimes out of province desperate patients trying to save their lives. The waiting list, I learned later, was mostly over a year long.
I was admitted on May 18, 1996, exactly 5 years to the very day of my original diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. The irony was not lost on me, and to this day it remains my 'second birthday' - an anniversary of rebirth and hope... at least NOW it is, for a long time it was an anniversary of failure, where my body betrayed me. The clinic had me in-patient for 3 weeks, and it was like another form of torture. I had to have inter venous magnesium, because all the long months of DKA had sapped all my electrolytes (and thus the cramping in my arms and legs), when I ate it was all I could do to keep the food down, and because of this I was threatened with a feeding tube in my nose. Dr B (bless him) came in and discovered that my intestines had effectively shut down to cannibalize the proteins for my other organs- I went on a medication to get motility back and the pain was excruciating.
The emotional work was also painful, I had long panicked sessions where I wept and railed against my fate, hating my body and its betrayal - having to take insulin to live, broken, ugly, diseased! My mother came from her new life with my most recent stepfather in Seattle to be confronted and educated gently but firmly. My youngest Aunt also came and was educated willingly, and between all three of us we forged a support network. My secret shame became known, and I wasn't silent any more, I had to learn to ask for help, and it was and is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
I grieved for my friend, I grieved for the loss of my healthy self, I grieved for the abused and neglected child that I had been who would never have anyone to comfort her except a diseased and broken woman with only the skills to pile more abandonment and pain upon her.
My breakthrough was highly memorable. I sat in the spring sunlight shining through a large window, trying to journal with my hands cramped into claws, an IV of magnesium burning in my veins, igniting pain in my left arm. I was shaky and tired, and my numb heart recalled my friend's life and her death. She had loved me, despite my weight, my background of abuse, eventually my diabetes... and it occurred to me that I needed to learn to love myself that way too. It was as if Sara was sitting beside me, I could almost feel her slight slim weight next to me on the bed, and her raspy voice in my heart.
"It's gonna be ok kiddo." she said sadly.
The dam burst and I felt like I had woken from a living nightmare - I wept for hours, shaking and in terrible pain physically and emotionally. But the tears this time washed out my heart and left me room to learn to love myself, even if imperfectly, a final gift from my best friend. I'd watched her die, and here she was helping me learn to live.
After my time in the extra care facility, I was admitted to an experimental outpatient program - learning the in's and out's of the lying force in my head, which I soon learned was the 'voice' of my eating disorder. I learned cognitive skills and assertiveness skills to try and help combat it's insidious and seductive demands. I challenged many of my old patterns of thinking, but through it all I felt oddly out of touch, different from the others, special in a way that was both satisfying and terrifying. Where the others had to make themselves not eat or purge, I had only to skip a dose or cut back on my insulin. So efficient, so elegant -and deadly.
The time in that program marked the beginning of awareness. I no longer went completely without insulin... but I lied to myself about my dosages as time went on. I was told repeatedly by the medical team that insulin didn't make me gain weight, but over time I saw that they lied. My weight climbed steadily and as it did I began to panic and I began to alter my dosages. I never quite completely skipped it though, so in my mind somehow that made me purge free. I found myself lost between the two clincs; the diabetes clinic was clueless about the eating disorder and the easting disorder clinic was clueless about my diabetes. My eating disorder trumpeted it's glee and the lying went on and on even after I graduated from the program. To be fair, it was no longer the same - I was mostly aware of it by this time, so it got sneakier.
I continued to gain weight slowly but without stop and one day I went to a plus sized store to try on clothes and realized just how big I had really gotten. I was with my first live in boyfriend at that time, and with gritting of teeth I went straight to the eating disorder clinic and admitted what was going on. My blood work was hideous, and I was admitted once again to the Extra Care Clinic though not in as dire straights this time (thank heavens). The outpatient program had been canceled over the years, so it was into a new out-patient facility that I went, a program called VISTA.
For 4 months I was granted a single room in a shared house in the Kitsilano area of Vancouver, taking the bus in to the hospital each weekday to go to group and individual therapy, to finally deal with the issues that led me to purge and eat and torture myself.
Being so large AND having diabetes was awful. These tiny elfin women with anorexia and bulimia were all around me and I could see them eying my bulk with horror, and inwardly I flinched. We chose coping the same way, but my body had betrayed me yet again -ironically in my bid to try to stop purging I had to pay the price of being obese and every sidelong glance was like torture.
Every day I lived with these other women, we went to therapy together, had meals together, cried with each other, celebrated our victories. It's immensely powerful to witness and also to find the same strength in myself - I got so much out of the programs that mere words cannot even begin to describe what I share with the other patients.
In the morning we'd do our ablutions according to the schedules we signed up for, taking turns in the bathroom. We'd make our way to the hospital for breakfast. Breakfast (and every other meal) was watched over by a staff member, and we would support each other in selecting our meals and eating it together. Each of us had to eat 100% or we would get 'step out'- which meant you spent your days under the watchful and helpful eyes of the staff at the house for a week or for several days- as decided by the treatment team.
Each day had a set schedule. after each meal we'd adjourn for a group session, talking about and supporting each other through the after-meal issues for at least an hour. Then usually there would be group therapy with specific topics, and on different days of the week individual appointments with the dietitian, doctor, therapist or any specialists would happen. Lunch would often be at the hospital, sometimes dinner as well, those meals not at the hospital would be carefully monitored by staff at the house. After each meal we had to stay in a shared space with no bathroom visits unless monitored by staff. One day a week would have family and friends sessions with a social worker present, and we were encouraged to educate and share our experiences with them.
I gave up all my control over my insulin dosage; the staff at VISTA watched me take my insulin, measured the dosages, wrote down the blood sugar numbers, watched me take all my other medications. They gave me support when I panicked about the full dose of insulin too: over the years I'd added insulin resistance to my ever growing list of conditions to deal with. So here I was a fat type 1 with type 2 on top of it. It felt like the ultimate insult. Every injection was a reminder of failure, but it was life giving too, but I was told that I used my diabetes to hide my eating disorder, and my eating disorder to hide my diabetes issues. It was and still is a very no-win situation.
Teeth gritted, I mentally pushed up my sleeves and began trying to deal with the underlying issues instead, but again I felt lost; the diabetes was an impassable barrier - I didn't fit in, was odd man out, my disease made me special, and not in a good way. It was frustrating and heart breaking at the same time. Finally I came to the conclusion that if I couldn't be perfect in dealing with it, I'd just have to do the best I could in small bursts, and take as much good information and behavior modification and cognitive therapy from the program as I could and make up my own treatment as I went along.
And so I have.
Nearer the end of my stay, I took matters into my own hands, determined to make the most of the safe environment. I tossed away a lot of my old patterns and worked very hard on replacing them with healthier alternatives. I knew that I'd had an eating disordered way of looking at the world for 25+ years, I sure as hell wasn't going to be able to undo that many years during a 4 month stay in treatment. I tried to get a therapist, a dietitian, a diabetes specialist, a gp, all of whom could work together, I shopped around and was up front and honest about what I needed and wanted from each of them. If there was any doubt, I went off to interview a new one. I educated my emotional support network; in my case my mother and aunt and increasingly a few select friends. A best friend of mine has the standing right to call my mother and have me committed if I completely backslide. I did a lot of work to set it up so that I had a safety net.
Alas, a few months after I came out of VISTA my then-boyfriend left me for another woman. It was awful, I felt so betrayed - and ANGRY! Stubbornly I kept to my meal plan, took my insulin and meds, saw my therapist and while it wasn't perfect, I grimly hung on. I even managed to work full time for about 10 months before I fell flat on my face again. The ex boyfriend married the woman he left me for, using the wedding plans he and I had made - and with the intervention of a mutual friend I came to terms with my anger and even helped the lady in question with her wedding dress. I'd like to say I went to the wedding, but honestly I just couldn't stretch that far. It took a lot of serious soul searching to admit that even *I* could not be that 'nice', and that I had every good reason for allowing myself the dignity of not dealing with it.
More recently I went to a very helpful group on women who are abused, and learned the impact abuse has made on my life and how to deal with it's repercussions on my psyche and relationships. In a way it's like the extra weight I'm carrying is the child that I was, and I'm holding her inside my body. I've been manipulating my insulin a bit, not to the way I used to, but binges happen more often and I often bolus myself in a panic when I realize what I've done. I think it's time now to 'give birth' to that inner child, let her go, send her into the world through me in a healing manner. My doctor recently asked me if I would like to enter a program for people with Metabolic Syndrome (which I have). It's been hard, because it will mean delving into the pain once again, but this time I can get the balanced help I need to challenge my black and white thinking around diabetes care and exercise. I'll have medical supervision and help with the physical pain of being so heavy, out of shape and frankly out of glycemic control.
I've always had intestinal trouble, even from early childhood. I was told often it was Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). which is medical speak for "we don't know what the hell it is but it makes you hurt and sick". A year or so ago I had a particularly violent and painful attack that had me in the ER with doctors scratching their heads and a tentative diagnosis of 'abdominal migraine'. Less that three weeks after this attack I had another - but this time I found myself with severe bleeding that wouldn't stop. I went to the ER once again and they kept me, eventually telling me that I had something called ischemic colitis. Basically what had happened was I'd had a stroke in my intestines, caused by sugar plaques in my arteries from uncontrolled diabetes. The intestines didn't get blood for a while, so some of the tissue died and became necrotic, the dead part shed leaving me with a raw and bleeding wound. Because I don't drink much water to begin with (I hate the taste), my blood volume was low and I nearly bled to death. I know this is disgusting, but it's not one of the complications of diabetes I've ever heard anyone mention. I'm sharing it because I don't want the same thing to happen to any of you out there.
To date I have an on again off again fight with my diabulimia. I hate it, pure and simple. I find that I'm still more ahead that I realize sometimes, but it's hard to see that when I'm so heavy and so disinclined to deal with my self care on a regular basis. I go through cycles of dealing then not dealing, and I try to be aware of triggers. Lately I've been tired of all the lying, watching my health go down the tubes when I've worked so very hard to get where I am in my recovery so far. Just cause I'm not 'perfect' in my self care doesn't in the least negate all I've been through, that's what I keep telling myself. These groups and this site are a constant reminder to me that I can do better, that I deserve better, and in sharing my story at last in full I break the last barrier. Maybe this is all I have to say, or maybe I need to write it out further for myself, or even perhaps in a book to further help break the silence. Dunno, let's take it one day at a time and see what life hands me next!
