New found RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

As the leaves fall and the trees turn bear in anticipation for the ice queen to spread her frosty breath, I have settled down calmly with recognition of the change of the seasons. I do mourn the balmy summer nights where the sun's rays stretch so generously into the evenings giving endless days and shorter dark, scary nights, but as sure as summer must end, winter will also pass in time.

DBT has thought me that rarely are things permanent. The gift of acceptance (when I can practice it) has allowed me to live a life less terrified by despairing thoughts and emotions. They do pass, maybe not quick enough, and maybe not for long enough, but the brief respite between the terrors allows us to reach deep inside ourselves and enjoy the time when we are in control. When the haze of distress lifts, it provides a short period of wisdom where preparation can take place, where gratification can develop and life can be lived.

Recently I have been living in an all too common mist of fear and anxious thoughts. It’s a fear fog which has established itself atop my recovery mountain. It’s holding me back from seeing the view from the top. I am out of breath and exhausted from climbing so high and so hard. Each step developed my emotional muscles and built my tolerance to exposure. I have had to face tough terrain and steep cliffs. Now as I reach the top, I am so so close to achieving the glorious moment of breathtaking beauty, the stunning view from the peak of the mountain. Yet my view is clouded with terror, and I am waiting for it to clear…..

The Raging River of Emotion

My intricate network of defective nerves carrying the equally faulty transmitters must have decided to jolt its self back into action today. I sat for a while in the chilly spring sunshine before my weekly ‘me-time’. It really is such a delight to have a whole hour where I can simply talk about me, and I know that my therapist will give me her full, exclusive attention. That sounds conceited, I know, but I don’t care. I have spent too long neglecting my own turbulent mind.  I thought about how privileged I really am while I sat on an ugly and uncomfortable plastic bench outside the treatment centre. ‘I have someone who gives me time to talk and helps me to become a better person; I have a confidant, a sounding board.’ Then it struck me; ‘I have never given myself so freely and truthfully to anyone before and I have never felt such empathy from another human being in my life.’ It feels peculiar, both excellent and shocking at the same time, for I feel extraordinarily exposed and vulnerable having another person on this earth know my secrets, yet relieved that I don’t have to bear the weight of them alone anymore.

We have an idiosyncratic relationship, in so far as I would never choose to disclose such prized and feared confidences to this woman if I knew her casually. To be honest I don’t know if before DBT I would have been able to tolerate her mannerisms. She is quirky and a bit disorganized. Actually she reminds me of my mother; extremely caring yet frustratingly scatty. I got the feeling that I also annoyed her (but of course that could be BPD thinking!). She seemed to resent how little progress I was making despite how well read up I was on the DBT material.

Before we had even met last summer, I had read Marsha’s Training Manual, and shimmed her major body of work: Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. 1993. I am an intelligent woman when I want to be, and I like to be primed and set to tackle a problem when I feel able. I am always able to read. So for the year between getting my diagnosis and accessing the right treatment to treat it, I read everything I could get my arduous little eyes on. I spent hours scouring the internet for reliable sources of information and weaving together the best comprehension I could grasp outside of a Clinical Psychology Doctorate. Luckily I still had my University student library admittance which afforded me full access online to both the British and American Medical Journals. I also had a good grounding in mental health from my years studying Occupational Therapy.

Now all that stood before me was to somehow turn my culvert of knowledge into tangible skills. And annoyingly, I couldn’t do it alone. She was the bridge I needed (but didn’t want to have to rely on) to pass over the violent river safely. Battling the raging currents of emotion alone was not working anymore, but I couldn’t see that. I fought for weeks not only against my emotions, but against this woman who said she knew a better way across and wanted to help me get there. I didn’t believe her. She couldn’t understand my internal conflict, no-one could.

At first I thought she came across patronizing, one of the many things which annoy me about her. Yet, as the weeks wore on, I realized she was merely reciting little Marsha-isims. “How can you create a life worth living, if you are not willing to participate in the therapy?” And every time I would be self critical or chastise myself for my transgressions, she would pipe up and bluntly cut across me; “That’s a judgment!!!” So for a while I stopped talking, I stopped telling her anything and I continued down my white watered river of destruction!

Now that I am a few months down the watercourse, the rapids are less frequent and some tributaries of support have joined my journey towards the sea of recovery. The emotions are still there as is the water in the river, but I have more energy to swim back and survey the journey as the intensity of the emotions have subsided and the volume of support has grown.

Even though we still don’t always see eye to eye, I am now at peace with my therapist and the service as a whole. I can see how far I have come, and how far I still have to go, but like the river, it only really flows in one direction… towards the sea. I guess my route has simply taken a small meander along that path. 

One Thousand Paper Cranes

Paper Crane!

I want to do something positive for my recovery, something which does not involve therapy, or food diaries or skills group. I need something more holistic, more spiritual and meditative. I need a project and I need a wish.

An old Japanese legend said that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes so pleases the gods, the folder is granted a wish.  The well known story is Sadako and her 1,000 paper cranes.

Sadako Sasaki (January 7, 1943 – October 25, 1955) was a Japanese girl who lived near Hiroshima, Japan. She was only two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.  As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1954, at age eleven, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with leukemia, the "atom bomb disease".

Sadako's best friend Chizuko, came to visit her and brought with her some origami (folding paper). She told Sadako the legend of the crane. It is Japanese legend that folding 1000 paper cranes (senzaburu) so pleases the gods that the folder is granted a wish. Sadako wished to get well. So, after hearing the legend, Sadako decided to fold 1,000 cranes.

After she folded 500 cranes she felt better and the doctors said she could go home for a short time, but by the end of the first week back home the dizziness and fatigue returned and she had to return to the hospital. 

Sadako continued to fold cranes. Even though she was in great pain, she tried to be cheerful and hopeful. Not long afterwards, with her family standing by her bed, Sadako went to sleep peacefully, never to wake up again. She had folded a total of 644 paper cranes.

Sadako's story had a profound impact on her friends and classmates. They completed her thousand cranes and continued to raise money from school children all over Japan to build a statue to honor Sadako and all the children affected by the bomb.

This is my project, my ambition. Wish me luck friends.

Regular Eating Pattern

I am having a rough time with my BULIMIA this week, but really, I don't want to dwell on negativity and destructive behaviors in this post. You are an intelligent reader and hence I assume you can understand what devastating effects an eating disorder has on anyone unlucky enough to suffer from one, without the need for me to point out the finite and mostly dirty details. 

Instead, I want the spotlight of this late-night post to shine on a combination of resources which can be used to combat the BINGE/PURGE cycle. I am not saying that I have mastered them all, far from it, but I have tried some with great success. And the way I look at it, at least trying some of these suggestions has to be better than continuing to destroy my body and mind with self-inflicted agony.

The first thing I have (tried) to do is introduce a pattern of regular eating. It is the single most important element of overcoming Bulimia in my opinion. Its different for everyone, but for me it means containing my eating to three planned meals a day plus three planned snacks between main meals. By eating this way it displaces the urge to and action to binge. My approx daily plan looks like this:

 8.00 A.M.: Breakfast

10.30 A.M.: Morning Snack

12.30 P.M.: Lunch

 3.00: P.M.: Afternoon Snack

 6.30: P.M.: Dinner

 9.30: P.M.: Evening Snack

I have left no more than 3.5 hours between meals/snacks as I know that that is my limit when trying to curb binges, and also the ideal time frame to  master EMOTION REGULATION. Any longer and I turn into the wicked witch of the west. Fact. Although this is set in stone, and has to be for my recovery, I do change it up a bit a weekends and if I am out and about at a commitment. Sorry therapist, I have a life. I try my hardest, (but don't always succeed) to not skip any meals or snacks though.

Where possible I do make eating my number one priority each day. My food diary and meal plan also take time, but I realize the importance of monitoring my food intake and being mindful to my emotions around food. I try to plan, plan and plan to plan! This includes having ample amounts of my "safe" foods in the house such as oats, fruit, skim-milk and rye bread. I am comfortable with these foods. I tend to plan the night before what I will eat the next day and jot down some ideas on my food diary. For example, tomorrow I am having Salmon, peppers and quiona for dinner.

I also restrict eating to the kitchen table or sitting room. Never my bedroom. Crumby bed sheets are really not attractive. I try to eat at a table which is out of arm's reach of further supplies of food. And while it might be tempting, and I am so guilty of not following this one, It is important to focus on eating and not distract with TV or internet. 

Limiting my amount of "trigger food" by not having any in the house it a safe bet to stop me impulse bingeing  So I plan my shopping, make a list and stick to it. 

The best thing I find to do when that niggle of an urge comes on me is to get out of the house and not take ANY money with me, and stay out until the urge goes away. This really is my 'go-to' STOP method. But everyone will have something different.

What my recovery looks like to me

It is soon approaching Eating Disorders Awareness Week (20th-26th February 2012.) And it was suggested by a fantastically inspirational Blogger and You-Tuber; Rachel who's Blog Lost in Translation can be found here (I highly recommend you check her out!), that I write a bit about my reasons for recovery, what it looks like to me and why it is worth it.

To be honest I find this topic quite difficult to write about, because, beneath the obvious (and equally important) surface reasons for recovery such as improved health, emotional stability, a meaningful life and mended relationships there is a unfathomable search for who I am, my genuine self, which until found, will always compel my ED to rear its none to pretty head again. This is what my recovery looks like to me. It is the arduous search for, and discovery of a true identify not associated with my eating disorder and a conclusion which sits happily within my heart.

I am still most defiantly searching, and for this reason I do not consider myself recovered, even though I am ‘Clinically’ recovered from the criteria which bind me to a diagnosis. I am still scaling the walls of the dark well of my eating disorder, but I now have a torch, a pick and a rope and am clawing my way out, slowly.

I am quite enjoying finding out whom I am all over again. It’s great to have the opportunity, a wonderful mental health team, (some) support from my family, the head space and physical health to fully apply myself to this life-changing task. It is a full time job, and much like Gretchen Rubin, who spent a year exploring what her life meant to her and what makes her happy through her ‘Happiness Project’ blog (Another MUST READ!) I am allowing myself the time this year, and possibly even next year to find what makes my life worth living, what will get me out of bed each morning, what makes me happy.

I have been told that every fragment of your personality, your "self," serves to create the whole of your genuine self, therefore I do not ever want to forget my illness or the profound effect it has had on me, so, for me recovery is not about leaving ED behind and closing the cover on that part of my life. Instead, by acknowledging it and RADICALLY ACCEPTING that it has been part of me, that it happened, and that it was, at one stage the only way I knew how to cope, I can find solace and strength to search for a better way to cope with the emotions which fuelled it.

The genuine self is going to look and feel different for every single person, but the one thing that all will have in common is that the genuine self is the recovered self. By creating and accepting the genuine self, we become functional, healthy adults capable of facing life’s hurdles. 

Your genuine self will be unique to you. You may share similarities with some folks and be extremely dissimilar to other folks, and yet both groups of people can be your friends. When I have solidified my genuine self, I hope be able to recognize that everyone else around me also has a genuine self. People need not share the same thoughts, beliefs or opinions on any subject, let alone all of them. By embracing my own genuine self, I’ll suddenly be free to embrace the genuine selves of those around me because they will no longer represent a lot of work – I will no longer need to change them or convert them to your my of thinking. I’ll be content to allow them to be exactly who they are while I continue being exactly who I am. And if, or should I say when, I encounter someone who wants me to change, I’ll weigh their request against my genuine self and be able to determine whether or not that aspect of me is open to change or not. Sometimes these scenarios might mean that a particular person will chose to avoid me because of my refusal to bend to their wishes, and my genuine self will be okay with that. I’ll know that their boundary was unhealthy and that it’s probably best to end the association with that person.

The genuine self, for me at least, is really a remarkable sense of inner peace and tranquility. It doesn’t mean that I’ll have earned a pass into Nirvana or Utopia. Nor does it mean that my life will be a constant state of "smooth sailing." There will still be upheavals, fights, moments of extremes – that’s part of life and it cannot be changed. With the solidity and security of my genuine self, though, I will be able to weather those ups and downs with the calm and peaceful understanding that, no matter what, I will conduct myself in accordance with the beliefs of my genuine self.

This is what my recovery looks like to me, and remember, your picture will be different and unique and life-changing and most of all, deeply personal to YOU.