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Hi Kristen,
I’m writing again. I see your page is loaded with great stuff. I also am having a difficult time with the bulimia. My weight in low, but I like it that way. I gained weight when I left Shands, but decided to take it off. Bad behaviors.
Anyway, I moved into an apartment, away from my smoking bf. That seems to help. So I won’t go on, just touching base. You are the only person I know from the hospital I can contact. That place was a joke.
Hi Carole,
I am glad to hear that you have improved your living situation. It sounds like you are still struggling…I am too.
Unfortunately, I am not in a place where I can offer anyone help with Eating Disorder recovery. I can only offer my own personal experiences here on this blog.
Just a reminder, this is a public blog, so comments are visible to everyone.
Please take care of yourself. You are a valuable person. 🙂
Thanks Kristen, I will remember that. I’m not hiding anything about my ed. I meant your blog and page is helpful. You seem to have your stuff together better than I do. I guess we all think that way. Thanks again.
I am so glad that you are finding it helpful! Please keep reading. 🙂
Hi Kristen –
I wanted to let you know that I started reading your blog, and am so proud of you. Depression (and all that related crap) really sucks. Writing about it takes courage and tremendous strength. You are helping and inspiring people with your honesty and willingness to share.
I always thought you were a beautiful person (inside and out), sometimes its hard for us to see that in ourselves. Thank you!
Hi Dina!
Thank you so much for reading and sending supportive comments. I don’t know that I am particularly courageous or strong, but I appreciate your thinking so! 🙂 What I DO know is the more secrets I keep, the more the disease grows in strength and power. Please keep reading and I will keep writing. 🙂
Once again, you’ve created such a real picture of depression, anxiety and OCD and I can relate to sooo much of this. The words you choose to use to describe the *insanity* (using that term in a good, laugh-out-loud way) are amazing, and your phrase, “my own mind has brutalized me my entire life” is spot on.
I read today’s post and your “what if” thoughts on an earlier intervention by your parents. Don’t laugh, but my guilty pleasure television show is Say Yes to the Dress and yesterday I caught an episode with a young woman (20, I think) who suffers from OCD and worries over every detail. I found it frustrating that her parents kept repeating over and over during the episode, “She can’t make a decision because she has OCD” or “Her OCD will just not allow her to make a decision.” They said this at least 7 times during a very short segment. It made me think, “Sheesh, if they stop reinforcing her OCD every chance they get, she might actually be able to relax a bit.” I was officially diagnosed with OCD when I was 19 or 20 (who can remember now), but I’ve been fortunate to be on the right dose of medication for 20+ years, and my OCD is/was much milder than I yours. I’ve often thought that if my parents had me diagnosed when I was younger, I might not have suffered so much as a teenager and young adult, but then I saw this episode of SYTHD, and I changed my mind. I’m thinking an earlier diagnosis may have crippled me (more!). I dunno. OK, I’ve rambled enough today. Peace, friend!
Cassy,
First of all, I AM laughing at you. (and me too, b/c I freaking love that show, but I don’t have cable, so I have to catch it occasionally at the gym!).
Second of all, I have opened up the comments section under that post, with the hope that you will copy and paste this one over there also, so readers can view it there. (I would do it administratively, but that seems disingenuous somehow).
By the way, did that freaking girl end up picking a dress or what???
Dearest Kristen,
When I read your writing, I see myself; I don’t see myself. But all the while, I laud your willingness to be Kristen. Your honesty in this blog is truly ‘good stuff’.
When I write — ‘put it out there’ — I am filled with doubt. I will bet *the* finest writers in history had self-recrimination…..
My sense is that *we* (you, too) continue to write, because we so NEED to.
I was so exhausted yesterday, that I lay in bed, getting hungrier and hungrier. It was meal time.
At some point, I lifted my self, and went to the kitchen, and microwaved something easy. (Something Easy is my middle name.)
I am not claiming that we are similar — (specifically along the lines of the anorexic thoughts you describe, but yes, despite decades of binge eating, I still have them.)
What I am saying is that, with practice, with encouragement, with self-compassion, we begin to feed ourselves despite other feelings that we are having, other thoughts, other states of being.
I struggle with this, Kristen. I am extremely challenged by the notion of ‘doing the next right thing’.
When you talked about how you were able to feed yourself, I was really quite glad that you found the strength to do that.
Yes, life can seem, can be, horrendously difficult. I derive such a sense of not being alone as I read your writing. The sense that our journeys are different, and the same.
Brava, Kristen, keep on keeping on.
I pray that we all are able to find that courage…………..
leslie, gratefully
PS I thought you were in Florida, no? Snow scenes from where?