5 days and counting...
hey fellow friends, i will have five days at the end of today. i feel surprisingly very good! it almost scares me how good i feel because i do not want to get my hopes up if i end up slipping before my 30th birthday. i just can't seem to figure out the balance between being "gentle" with myself and not giving myself unconscious permission to slip. i remember in my therapy, she had so much compassion and pointed out so many strengths that i ended up minimizing my behavior and allowing myself to continue to b/p all in the name of being kind to myself. it is dangerous thinking for me. what do you guys think?
i attended a conference on eating disorders today at a local hospital that specializes in it and has the whole continuum of care. i was not that impressed. it was pretty basic. much more focus on anorexia than bulimia. i realize the medical complications with anorexia are often, not always, more serious and risky for patients but still.... i always felt this weird sort of competition with my fellow anorexic patients.
saw my psychiatrist today. he is continuing the celexa 40 mg and gave me a script for klonopin. i think i have built up a tolerance for ativan which i have been taking for sleep since my relapse. i have had an insomnia problem for about a year and i am convinced that is was the precursor to my depression which led to my relapse a few months ago. i was exhausted and still am. sleep is better for sure but i wake up often throughout the night and have difficulty getting back to sleep.
after visiting with the doc, i had my own client for therapy. my boss at the counseling clinic sat down with me before the client and asked me how i felt i was doing with the work. now my assumption was that he was going to tell me i was not cut out for it and was not doing a good job....blah, blah, blah, all those negative, self-defeating distorted beliefs and thoughts! but it was the opposite. he told me that in just the past 6 months since starting, i have grown incredibly as a clinician and that he would now consider me to be "seasoned!" it felt so great to hear that.
i have felt a calling to be a therapist since my teenage years when i used to watch those channel 2 specials with john bradshaw from the 1980's. whatever happened to him? when i was in residential tx for 4 months a week after graduating from social work school, one of the therapists there told me i was a "natural." i thought he was just trying to build my confidence.
i always have believed that if you have a strong passion for what you do, that certainly it counts for something. a desire must be fulfilled. sure, i do know people that are delusional about their talents and have a strong desire for it despite being really bad at it but most people have a passion for a reason. it is intuitive.
i love my work. i feel very lucky to hear my client's stories. now...if i could just follow what i tell them to do in my own life!!!
posted by Jackie @ 4:50 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Jackie, Congratulations to you for doing what you love -- how great that your talents are recognized! I imagine that you must have trememdous empathy for your clients that they can really feel. It is so healing.
You ask a really great question about being gentle with yourself vs. unconscious permission to slip. I would imagine it has something to do with how you interpret being gentle.
For example, gentle could be relaxed about the rules...or it could be loving yourself so much that harming yourself is off your radar. Gentle could be taking care of yourself so completely, that you feel that self-love each day.
But more important than my ponderings, I wonder if you have a definition of being gentle with yourself that would feel really beautiful to you? What would being gentle look like in a way that you could trust, that you could sink into in complete relaxation?
It's highly likely that insomnia contributed to your relapse. I've noticed how sleep has helped me in my recovery -- I had sleep apnea for about my whole life, woke up not breathing many times each night and was chronically sleep deprived due to overworking. My dentist gave me a TAP device which positions my mouth so I can breathe.
Now I actually get sleep and it has helped just about everything in my body -- major difference.
Not being able to sleep can be a sign of adrenal fatigue -- common today, but more so with those recovering from an addiction/ED. You may want to check out some resources on it, if it looks like it could be related to what you are experiencing. Donna Gates has a great CD on adrenal fatigue and has recently written a good article on it - I think she's giving it free as part of the sale of the 9th edition Body Ecology Diet promotion.
In any case, I congratulate you on taking care of yourself -- bravo!
With love,
Heather
Hi Jackie,
Congratulations! You are doing so great, and I am so happy for you!
I loved reading your post, and especially reading about your passion for what you do! It's so great when people KNOW at an early age in their life what their calling is! Obviously, you have found yours!
I am very tired, so I won't write much tonight - especially after reading about insomnia and adrenal burnout... The difficult part is that it is a vicious cycle: lack of sleep leads to adrenal burnout, which leads to more insomnia...
I can certainly relate with you there! I have suffered from insomnia since I was a teenager, and it can be quite debilitating. It was pretty bad last night, so I'm going to try and catch up on some sleep tonight!
Do you have any kind of meditation or winding down practice at bedtime? One habit I have picked up that often helps me is to rub the palms of my hands together to generate energy, then rest one hand on my chest and the other on my lower abdomen. In Chinese Medicine, a common cause of insomnia is when the 'Heart and Kidney are not communicating.' The Heart, in Chinese Medicine, belongs to the Fire element, and the Kidneys to the Water element. The two are supposed to 'communicate' in order for a person to be healthy, but, for many people in our busy society, there is a disconnect. By placing one palm on the lower abdomen (level of the kidneys) and one on my chest (heart level), I experience a calming sensation and it seems to aid in connecting the different energies and grounding me. You can try doing this and then focus on your breathing. Take deep breaths into your abdomen. Even when I still cannot fall asleep, that way I at least feel more relaxed, and it takes away from the frustration of not being able to fall asleep.
Well, that turned into a long comment after all! ;-)
big hug,
keep up doing so great!
love,
Emily
Hey Jackie! I just stumbled upon your blog. I'm laughing at your last line because like you, although it's not my profession, I too am great at dishing out advice but I'm not so good at doing what I say. I guess I'm a little hypocritical, but oh well.
I wish you the best of luck in your recovery. It's not an easy thing. It's not like being an alcoholic because one cannot live without food. You need it to survive, so it's a tough thing. Good luck to you!
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