Weight Watcher success!!!

Tomorrow is my 3rd weigh in and the end of my 2nd week on WW. And I'm doing GREAT!

Last week I lost 5.2 pounds! And since I was sick, that was without exercise. This week, I've still been doing well, and I even fit in a workout the last two days. I feel hopeful about my weigh in.

I've had a much BIGGER success, though. Last night, I had the urge to binge. And guess what! I didn't! Here's how: The cravings set in, and I knew that I did not want to throw away all my hard work. I was only in the second week, but I wasn't willing to give up on myself. So I distracted myself by calling a friend. Then, I focused on how good it would feel to be in control of the cravings. I told myself that waking up the next morning knowing I had resisted a binge would be a very powerful feeling. So I went to bed still wanting to eat, and when I woke up this morning, I got a big smile on my face thinking about the victory. Here's what I plan to tell myself from now on when I want to binge:

"The victory of being in control makes me feel far better than any food ever could."

This works because I am an instant gratification kind of girl. I want to be happy now, no matter how miserable it makes me feel in the future. That's why I binge. But the power of knowing I had control kicks in within a few hours. It's not instant gratification, but it's a lot more immediate than losing 100 lbs!

Anyway, I am thrilled about this victory. I'm also fairly certain I've never done anything like that in my life. I've ALWAYS given into the cravings. And now I know: I can be in control.

Time for something new....

Ok, I feel a little silly. I just spent the last few posts telling you about intuitive eating. And now, although I'm not abandoning what I've learned, I am moving on to something new.

I have decided that I am going to do Weight Watchers. At first I was going to phrase this as I was going to "try again", but I want to use stronger and more positive language than that. So I'm not trying, I'm DOING, and it's not again, because last time was just a "try". Get it? :)

Why am I doing this? Well, I am sick of not losing weight. I'm frustrated that I'm gaining weight again. And I am just all around sick of being stuck in this body! So tomorrow I am going to my first WW meeting, and I am greatly looking forward to it!

I was going to post my "before" picture and weight, but I just chickened out. But I promise that when I lose some weight I will post my starting information. It's just too embarrassing to post when I'm still there, you know?

I will be back tomorrow to tell you how it goes!

Wowza I can eat a lot!

I don't have much time to blog right now, but I was thinking over my last post, and I realized my increments for overeating were not accurate to my personal experiences. I wanted to set the record straight for my own peace of mind.

I have been known to...

not only eat HALF a bag of chips, but a BAG and a half.
not stop at 5 cookies, but eat 12 (not dinky chips ahoy, either. I'm talking big homemade cookies.. with real butter!)
not just eat pizza every day, but eat a WHOLE pizza every day

The list of my eating offenses goes on and on, and somehow I didn't feel right letting you think that I thought half a bag of chips is the maximum amount you could possibly eat. Because that's just not true.

Whew! I feel better now :D

I'm (relatively) happily married! & The Basics

I'm shocked. I just found out that ANOTHER couple that's our age (I'm 21) is getting divorced. I hurt for them. They were great together, and they were one of our favorite couples to hang out with before they moved halfway across the country. They have 2 kids,  a house, and a loving family to support them. And it still didn't work out. I feel so much empathy/sympathy for them.

I have never dated anyone except my husband. That means that the only relationship I've been in is the one I'll be in for the rest of my life. Since my only relationship has worked out, I don't know what it's like to be with, or love and lose, someone who isn't my soul mate. So when I imagine losing a boyfriend or husband, I imagine my life essentially ending. I am positive that I could not live without my husband. Literally, I don't know how I would do it. So when I see a couple who was in love break up, all I can do is hurt for them.

I don't want to come across as stuck up or condescending at all. I am awful with men. I don't know how to flirt, I either clam up or act like a freak, and I've never had a guy like me back except for my husband. I know how amazingly blessed I am to have the relationship that I have. And although we have our fair (or not so fair) share of problems, I would consider us (relatively) happy.

Ok, I said I would tell you what I'm doing to get back on track. Here it is: I am doing the things I did right in the first place. What were those things? Here you go:

1)I gave up. I stopped trying to control my food. I stopped judging what I was eating. I removed the emotional entanglement from my eating experience. Does this mean I don't eat in response to emotions? No, it just means I stopped the mess of thoughts that was leading to the mess of emotions surrounding the way I ate. And all I did to do that was... Give Up.

2) I ate whatever I wanted to eat. If I wanted pizza every day, I ate it every day. (That's actually a realistic approximation for me. I. Love. Pizza.) If I wanted 5 cookies, I ate 5 cookies.  If I wanted half a bag of chips, I ate half a bag of chips. And you know what? Overtime, I started to eat pizza ONCE week, and I started to eat only TWO cookies. And I started to eat chips out of a bowl instead of the bag because as it turns out, I stop eating whenever I run out of what's in front of me (usually)! Then I noticed that I was eating fruits, and the occasional vegetable, and food other than pizza and chips and cookies. And how did this happen? I gave myself absolute permission to eat whatever I wanted.

3) I ate whenever I felt like it. Now, the IE book says to only eat when you're hungry. But to me, that reminded me too much of the things (diets) I did before I Gave Up. So I eat whenever I feel like it. Just like giving myself permission to eat whatever I want makes me eventually eat less, giving myself permission to eat whenever I want makes me eat less often, too.

4)I stopped eating when I felt like I was ready. Again, the IE book says to stop eating when I'm satisfied. But sometimes I'm not ready to stop eating when I'm satisfied. My stomach fills up awfully quickly for a stomach that's been stretched out so much! So I keep eating until I feel ready to stop. This is where trusting myself comes in. I have to trust that I will eventually be ready to stop eating. And what helps me stop eating? Knowing that I can eat again in 5 minutes if I feel like it. (See #3)

So that's basically what I was doing when I stopped gaining weight close to a year ago. But then I got in my head, I got depressed, I got confused, I tried waaaayyy too hard, and I started to gain weight again.

So now, I am going back to this. My counselor told me that if I know what works for me, I should NEVER let anyone else tell me to do something different. And I like my counselor, so I'm going to listen to her. :)

Can I do better?

I'm not being a very consistent blogger, am I? Today I was on a message board, and someone had posted a link to their blog. And I loved it so much that it made me remember that I have a blog, but I haven't written in it since OCTOBER. That makes me disappointed in myself.

Which reminds me of a conversation I had with my mom a few weeks ago. I was telling her that I hadn't been working out that week, and that I didn't think I was doing my best. And she said, "Sara, everyone ALWAYS does their best!"

At first, I was like, "No way! Why would every one try so hard to achieve 'their best' if they are ALWAYS doing their best?" But then I thought about it. I think when people say "my best", they mean the best that they could do ever. Which would probably mean some other factors were involved, like years of experience coming together, and having the right people around you, and God working in your life. But those things (well, the first two) don't occur every day. But you do do your best at any given point in time given the circumstances.

This realization was such a relief for me. I've always been hurt by the phrase, "try harder," because it's not usually a question of effort. And even if you feel like you didn't exert any effort, I bet there was something else going on that made that lack of exertion your "best" for that point in time.

Anyway, moving on.... Since I've been doing my best all along :) I will be interested to see whether my best in the future will include writing in this blog! I would like it to.

Last time I posted (October), I was telling you about Intuitive Eating. Well, I am still (attempting) to eat intutively, and I have to say, it's going pretty well. I had some trouble for awhile there, though. Here's what happened. First, I had a mood swing, and I got depressed. I should talk about emotional eating in another post. Second, I was reading an intuitive eating message board, and people started comparing alcoholism and over eating. I thought that they had it all wrong, and that I knew everything I needed to know about alcoholism. What you didn't know until now is that my dad is a recovering alcoholic, and I have spent thousands of miles in the car with him going to AA conferences (that also had activities for the kids) discussing alcoholism. So when I read the "misinformed" posts, I called my mom to talk to her about it. (I call my mom 1-7 times a day.) She informed me that I was the misinformed one. So I called my dad and invited him over to discuss AA and intuitive eating.

When my dad walked in the door, I was still under the impression that AA was about control. Apparently I've never paid much attention to the first step: "Admitted we were POWERLESS over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable." You see, I had attempted Overeaters Anonymous, and the first thing they asked me to do there was make a list of my trigger foods, and then simply not eat them (as if that could ever be simple). To me, that came across as, "Step One, Take Control."* I'm not judging any OA group except the one I tried, which to me, had it ALL wrong (based on what I know now). So, my dad explained to me that AA was about relinquishing control, and, as step two indicates, turning your life over to a higher power. He told me that in  his opinion*, AA was no place for anything "psychological", such as thought techniques. He thought that if your head is the problem, how can you expect to fix it with your head?

I took this to mean that I couldn't follow any of the intuitive eating techniques because they were all "psychological". My counselor later explained why this was crazy very well. She said, "If what you were doing was working, why did you mess with it?" So, for the last few weeks, I have been working to regain the progress that I lost in the last month or two. My next post will be about what I'm doing to get back on track.

*AA is a wonderful program that I credit with wonderful things. OA also helps many people. Any person's opinion is just that; an opinion. Please do form impressions of the program as a whole based on what I have said.

And there's progress on the eating front!

I have Binge Eating Disorder. I've been diagnosed twice. I have tried a thousand diets: calorie counting, Fit or Fat, Weight Watchers, South Beach, SparkPeople, the list goes on. I have had a million "tomorrows"- you know, the day when you're going to start taking control. And I have had countless moments in my life where I felt like I was a failure because I couldn't control what I ate.

But guess what? I am now free. I am so excited about the things I don't do anymore: I don't diet, obsess about food, or binge. Even better: I DO stop eating when I'm full, enjoy my food more than I used to, and treat myself with respect and  little bit of love (the love could use some multiplying, but I'll get there). In fact, I haven't gained weight since February, and I've actually LOST a couple pounds.

You want to know what's going on, don't you?!

I have been eating intuitively. There is a book called "Intutive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works," and I've been using what it says. What does it say? In a quick tiny nutshell, it says: eat what you want, eat when you're hungry, and stop when you're satsified. I'll tell you more about it later.

I actually have a history with this book. I've struggled with eating for a long time, so when I went to my first counseling session when I got to college, I told my counselor that I wanted to lose weight and that I was on a diet. She immediately said, "NO! Don't diet ever again. Get this book, and go talk to this person about it." So I got the book and talked to the person. I could tell that it was a great book, and the person was super helpful, but something just wasn't clicking. All I can say is that it must not have been God's plan for me to start following the book then, because I wasn't ready.

However, I kept the book. I really liked it, even though it wasn't clicking. Fast forward through countless diets and endless food misery, and arrive in Spring 2010. I am fed up with diets and my failure with them, and I give up. That might sound bad, but you have to consider what I'm giving up on. I'm  not giving up on hope of myself, I'm giving up on DIETS. They are making me miserable. And around the time that I give up, I stop gaining weight. It must be a miracle, right?

Fast forward again, to summer 2010. I remember the book. And I realize, "Wow, I think I might be doing what the book says without trying!" I was. For some reason when I stopped fighting, I won.

I've been working on it since, then and I plan to share my journey with it with you!

I'm back...

Ok, so I haven't posted in awhile. I can explain.

I started writing this blog because I knew there was something wrong with the way I was eating, and I wanted to share my journey of "fixing" that. I had decided that the way to do that was through a partial hospitalization program for mental health. So, when I had to leave that program, I felt like my blog was over. But it's not.

Let's talk about leaving the program. Basically, I'm not healthy enough to go (to the place for sick people...). I know, it confused me, too. However, my psychiatrist said that I really could be too sick to commit to such a full schedule. I agree. And at first I thought that it was a bad thing, but after some discussion with my new counselor (yay!) I have realized that I didn't "quit", I made a healthy choice to leave.

I am happy to give you a positive update on my disorders (Bipolar and Binge). They are both doing considerably better! I am back on a new bipolar medication that I had taken before (but had to quit for insurance reasons) and it's working just as well now as it did then! I am crying much less frequently; down from every day to every couple weeks. My mood is so much more stable, and I have been more active. However, I am still a long way from healthy; I'll tell you more about my recent experience with that in a future post.

My progress with my Binge Eating Disorder has been so HUGE that it deserves it's on post. So I'm going to end this one (happily because I'm back) and start a new one!

Bipolar frustrations

A few months ago, one of my friends asked me, "So does it bother you when people use the term 'bipolar' casually?" I asked him what he meant, and he said, "Well, like when Katy Perry sings 'Got a case of a love bipolar', does that bother you?" Well, at the time I said no, but now I'm rethinking my answer.

Lately I've been noticing a lot of people loosely throwing around the term "bipolar". I had a neighbor call someone he didn't like bipolar. I had a banker tell me "everyone's bipolar". I was searching for blogs by bipolar people and came up with a whole bunch of blogs casually mentioning the word "bipolar" without having a clue what it meant. And, the one that made me feel the worst; I found a blog by an actual bipolar guy who's symptoms are managed by low dosages of two medicines. (I take high dosages of 3 medicines and my symptoms still aren't managed.)

The one that made me the most angry, though, was the banker telling me everyone's bipolar. I have had horrible experiences in my life of people saying that everyone has the same problems I have. Usually this consists of someone saying, "I have experienced what you're going through, and it's not that bad." In high school some of my classmates took this a step further and said, "I'm handling the same problems just fine, you need to try harder." If you want to crush my heart, tell me I'm just not trying hard enough. I hate it when someone says that everyone has my problems because it makes me feel like I shouldn't be struggling because everyone else is fine.

The fact is that I have some very real problems that I'm really struggling with. I'm sure some people truly understand and I know some people have it worse that I do, but that doesn't mean everyone gets it. You know what? As much as it bugs me to have people misuse "bipolar", I would let everyone misuse it every day if it meant I felt like someone actually understood me and what it means for me to be bipolar.

My first FULL week... brings struggles

Last week was my first full week of PH, and I faced some struggles. I mentioned in the beginning that I have a "quitting complex" where I will be very excited about something new in the beginning, but I soon lose motivation and quit. Well, the appropriate amount of time has passed and I've tried to quit PH. I sent an email to my psychiatrist to ask for advice, and it summed things up nicely:

"I have been going to Partial Hospitalization for a couple of weeks now- 5 days so far. I am having some feelings that are typical for me. I was really excited about going when I first started, but the last few days I've decided I don't like it and that I'm not sure if I want to continue participating. There are a lot of things I like about it, and I can't come up with a very good reason for why I want to quit, I just know my brain is telling me loud and clear that I don't have the energy for it and that it's not going to help me anyway.
I don't know what to do. I've already called in sick once and left early once. I have no motivation to go. I've tried going even when I didn't want to but I hated being there and that was the day I left early. My brain says I want to quit but my heart doesn't want to lose the hope I've put in going. What should I do?
Also, lately I've had absolutely no energy. I'm not sleeping more, I just feel so depressed and void of energy."

I think that the most important part of this is that my heart doesn't want to lose the hope I've put in going. After much sleepy deliberation, I called in sick again today, but I had a huge internal struggle because I desperately wanted to go, I just couldn't find the energy. (The good news is that my lack of energy is likely to respond to medication. As of yesterday, I have some new med changes, and I feel hopeful about them.)

I hope that Wednesday I will write a new post about how I went and had a great day.

Day Three

Well, my third day of PH went pretty well. We begin every day by coming up with a daily goal, then sharing it with the group. When I got there, I felt like I had already accomplished a major goal just by showing up, but I managed to decide that my goal would be to take cold medicine. I have a cold, and I'm extremely stubborn about adding anything to my (already high) number of nine pills a day. My husband gets extremely frustrated because I'm a big complainer, but I won't listen when he tells me that medicine will help. Unfortunately, despite the goal I forgot to take more medicine when I got home. Oh well.

While I was sharing my goal, I told the group about something else. I went to see my psychiatrist on Tuesday, and although I was sure of the opposite, she said I am actually doing better. She's really proud of me for seeking out PH and following through with it for awhile now. When I shared this with the group, everyone nodded and smiled like they were proud of me, too!

It was the last day for two of the patients, and we did "Dove Chocolate Therapy". It's not as fancy or official as it sounds, but it's way delicious! The leader passed around a bowl of Dove chocolates. We all saved our wrapper as we enjoyed the chocolate, then we went around and read the quotes from the wrappers to the departing patients. The funny part is that many times the quote is best for the person who opened it! That was true for me. My wrapper said, "Celebrate the small victories in your life." I said that this is really hard for me because I'm such a black and white thinker. To me, black is failure and white is the big successes. The small victories fall in the gray, and I just overlook them. Someone piped up and told me that they remember me saying on the first day that I quit a lot, and they thought it was a huge victory that I had been going to PH for two weeks. I thought it was so sweet that the person not only remembered what I said on my first day, but wanted to give me positive feedback!

At the end of the day I was feeling confused, and I shared it with the group. I was confused because Wednesday I was so resistant to being there that I called in sick. Later on Wednesday, I really missed PH and regretted not being there. But by Friday when I was there again, I was feeling depressed and unhappy about being there. Another patient told me that a lot of people aren't so sure about it in the beginning, but you move past that and learn to appreciate PH. That sounds hopeful to me!

I'm never doing THAT again!

Yesterday was the first day back at PH after the holiday weekend, and I didn't go. Do you want to know what happened? Ok.

I was snoozing along with my alarm, and I just couldn't seem to wake up. I hadn't gotten to sleep in for a few days, and I was worn out. As I was trying to wake up, all I could think about was how I wasn't going to be able to handle the walk home in the afternoon. So I called and told them I had a headache. I really do get bad headaches, but I didn't have one yesterday.

I immediately felt guilty, though I was too tired to feel the effects fully. What I did feel was guilt that my husband had already gotten up and showered so he'd be ready to take me, and no longer needing to do that, he had over an hour to wait before he needed to go to work. So I stole sleep from someone I love.

Hours later, when I finally woke up for good, I started to feel worse and worse. The thing is, I really like PH. Since I've started going, I've felt less lonely and bored. I've had something to do. Not being there made me realize how much I want to be there.

So the lesson learned is that I need to not worry about making it through the day and just think about how much I'm going to miss if I don't go. I really hope I remember that, because I don't want to make the same mistake again.

Quotes

Today was my second day of PH. It was still a good experience. I got to go to a relaxation garden, had yummy pizza for lunch, and met some new people. My favorite thing that we did today was read through a bunch of quotes and choose our favorites. I wanted to share some with you!

• A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
• William Makepeace Thackeray
• Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
• Oprah Winfrey
• The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
• G.K. Chesterton
• A real friend never gets in your way- unless you happen to be on the way down.
• Dr. Wayne Dyer
• The deeper the sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
• Kahlil Gibran
• Joy is the feeling of grinning on the inside
• Dr. Melba Colgrove
• Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Take time every day to do something silly.
• Philipa Walker
• To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
• Oscar Wilde
• It's important that people should know what you stand for. It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for.
• Mary H. Waldrip
• Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, if you are not willing to move your feet.
• Trouble is a part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.
• Dinah Shore
• We can do no great things-- only small things with great love.
• Mother Teresa
• Look at everything as though you are seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
• Betty Smith
• To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.
• Confucius
• The days are too short even for love; how can there be enough time for quarreling?
• Margaret Gatty
• Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.
• St. Francis de Sales
• What is a friend? A single soul shared by two people.
• Aristotle
• Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous.

PH Day ONE!!!

Guess what?!!! Today was my first day of PH (partial hospitalization), and it was awesome! First of all, I've discovered that my perfect number of "snoozes" is six, which is the equivalent of half an hour of button-pushing. It's enough that the alarm can go off several times before I even have to know "what that noise is", and I also wake up almost completely by the last two. So I successfully made it to the car, and when my husband dropped me off I was even leaning toward feeling positive about him not getting lost on his way back to the main road.

The whole program is in one room, and all the sessions take place there. When I walked into the room, there were two leaders and zero patients. Well, I later found out that there was one leader and one other patient, except the patient was dressed so nicely and had such good insights that I thought she was a leader! Slowly the other patients arrived, and soon the group started.

The day is broken up into several different "groups". The first one is called "Goals", and everyone takes turns sharing a goal they have for the day, how they're feeling, and anything new that's happening in their lives. I went last, so when I cried during my goal, I knew I was the only one who did. My goal was to not have a major panic attack. My tendency to quit and run away when I get scared was screaming inside me, and I felt extremely anxious. However, when I told the group that I was scared I would quit, they said they wouldn't let me! They also pointed out that even though quitting isn't much better than failing (which is what I'm soooo afraid of) the reason we prefer to quit is because it's on our terms and in our control. That made sense.

The next group is called "Coping Skills" but I missed that today because I had to go fill out paperwork. Oh, that reminds me, I have an assignment that I have to return Friday. I hope I don't forget! Next was "Group Therapy" which was led by a very nice woman. When I first saw her I thought, "Wow, what a pretty woman in her twenties!" It turns out, she was forty one! That's not old, but it's a bit beyond twenty eight!

Next was lunch, which I promised I'd tell you about. We each got a voucher that was supposedly worth up to five dollars, but I found out that they don't really care how much you spend as long as it's reasonable. I had a turkey cutlet that looked like a pork tenderloin, some delicious party potatoes, some mixed veggies, a big cookie, and caffeine free diet Pepsi (my fav)!!! In addition to the "home cooked" foods, they have pizza, a grill, and a salad bar. I look forward to eating there many more times. However, hopefully how I eat there will change as I go through treatment.

After lunch we had another group that I can't remember the name of, but I know the leader wasn't my favorite. Unfortunately, I think she's also the Coping Skills leader, so I'll have to get used to her. I was pretty sleepy during this session because it was right after lunch and I didn't talk at all.

The last group of the day was really fun. It was called "Recreation". Apparently sometimes that means a field trip, but today that meant ice cream! We made our own ice cream using just ziploc baggies. I'll put the recipe at the bottom of this post. When we were done with our ice cream we finished the day by talking about planning activities on our own. It's important for us "sick people" to get out to the house! There was also supposed to be a "Community Group" at the end of the day but we didn't have that.

I have a funny story for you. Today someone brought in a stuffed monkey to be the program mascot, and we were trying to name it. Someone said "How about 'Dr. Phil'?" Right then some other people entered the room just as someone else responded, "Yeah, Dr. Phil is cute!" The people that walked in thought we meant that the man Dr. Phil was attractive, and we had to explain it to them. Then I joked, "Yeah, Dr. Phil's a hottie!" and  we all cracked up.

ZipLoc Ice Cream

Place in a pint size freezer bag:
1/2 c half and half or milk
1 T powdered sugar
1 T flavored syrup (strawberry, chocolate, etc)

Place in a quart size freezer bag:
1/2 c rock salt
2 c ice

Squeeze the air out of the pint size bag and seal it carefully. Place the pint bag inside the quart bag. Leaving a little air inside, seal the quart bag with the pint bag inside it. Shake the package for 5-15 minutes or until your ice cream solidifies. Remove the pint bag, and discard the quart bag with the ice and salt. Scoop the contents of the pint bag into a bowl or eat it out of the bag and enjoy!

A New (and Last) Hope

I found out that my insurance approved me for partial hospitalization. I have a feeling I'm going to be using that phrase a lot, so from now on, partial hospitalization = PH. I start the day after tomorrow at 9:00 AM (This = YIKES for a girl that normally sleeps in every day.) I am going to spend 6 1/2 hours a day three days a week there. My psychiatrist is happy because I won't be able to sleep all day and I will get exercise. The hospital is a mile away, and although my husband is going to drop me off in the morning, I have to walk home in the afternoon. This should be fine when it's not too hot out, but holy moly is it hot and humid today. Overall, I'm excited about this new experience and the people I'm going to meet.

SIDE NOTE: Want to hear something that's oh so predictable if you take into account my food problems? I'm excited to eat in the hospital cafeteria. I'm pretty sure that excitement will fade as soon as I discover that it's as mediocre as most hospital food, but until then, I'm looking forward to it.

I'll be back in a couple of days to let you know how the first day (including the food) goes.

Treatment Options

I thought I should go over some treatment options for disorders like mine (binge eating and bipolar). Most psychiatric disorders have similar treatment options. While the content of treatment may vary, the setting and format are usually very similar between disorders. I'm going to list some options, attempting (key word, there) to put them in order from least to most severe.

Support Groups are groups of people with similar issues that get together to offer support and insight to one another. Many times these are non-profit (they are not expensive but may request donations) and often there is no professional leader. Some examples include Overeaters Anonymous (http://www.oa.org/) and support groups affiliated with the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance (http://www.dbsalliance.org/)

Group Therapy involves a group of people with similar issues participating in therapy led by a professional. The advantage that Group Therapy has over Support Groups is that the professional can ensure that the group's discussions are productive and constructive. The disadvantage is that Group Therapy involves formal fees, although health insurance may cover all or part of them.

Individual Counseling includes various forms of mental health counseling, occupational therapy, nutritional counseling (dietitian) and any other form of therapy or counseling that relate to a person's disorder. Many times the patient would meet with the counselor anywhere between once a week and once a month. This is a good option because it offers one on one personalized attention by a professional but is less time consuming and costly than other options.

Psychiatry involves a psychiatrist (a doctor that has additional training in mental health) meeting with a patient to diagnose disorders and prescribe medication. Many people are hesitant to take medicine, and while everyone has the right to make that choice, sometimes there is truly a physical chemical imbalance that needs to be treated with medication. I know personally that although my psychiatrist and I haven't found the perfect balance of medication for me yet, the medicine I am taking is helping a lot.

Partial Hospitalization involves a patient spending a number of hours certain days of the week in a hospital treatment setting, and going home every night to be with his or her family and to practice what he or she is learning. This is much more intensive because the patient spends many more hours a week in treatment. It's also convenient because the patient gets many forms of treatment in one place: group therapy, individual counseling, and sometimes psychiatry. This is what I am going to be participating in.

Residential Treatment occurs when a patient goes to stay for a period of time at a non-hospital treatment center. This offers 24 hour support including all of the treatment aspects of partial hospitalization, but it's not as intense or severe as complete hospitalization. I've always been very interested in this option, but it is very expensive and many insurance policies do not cover it.

Hospitalization is for patients that need acute care. It it includes all the treatment aspects of partial hospitalization and residential treatment at a much more intense level.  Many times patients will be discharged from hospitalization and then participate in partial hospitalization or residential treatment as a transition.

I hope that this has been a good overview of treatment options, and that it helps you understand some of the differences.

My eating disorder diagnosis

Yesterday I had my initial eating disorder assessement. This is how it went.

My mom picked me up and took me there for moral support. She didn't plan to go into the assessment with me, she was just there to calm my nerves beforehand and discuss the experience afterward. As we sat in the waiting room, I felt pretty good. I was excited to finally get some hope. A very nice woman came and took my paperwork, and I was happy to hear that she was going to be one of the people assessing me. When I was ushered into the assessment room, there were many heartfelt apologies because they were running ten minutes behind. I told them it was no big deal because my psychiatrist has been almost an hour late before. (It's ok, she's a great psychiatrist, even the people at the assessment has heard of her and said she was great, which I already knew.)

There were three people doing the assessment as a team. There was a counselor, a psychiatric nurse, and a dietitian. They asked me questions for about an hour. They were so nice, and kept telling me I was doing a great job. (Later, my mom told them that I need a lot of positive feedback, and although that was news to me, it makes sense when I think about it.) The questions were fairly painless.

Next, they took me back to the waiting room and said they had to discuss my diagnosis privately for 5 or 10 minutes. Well, 20 minutes later I was still waiting, very anxiously I might add. My mom was there, and she did her best to calm my nerves. I was just nervous because I wasn't sure if the questions they had asked me captured exactly how much I'm struggling. My worst fear was that they wouldn't give me a diagnosis.

They finally came back for me, and they had (what was in my opinion) relieving news. Binge Eating Disorder isn't an official diagnosis because it currently falls under the category of Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (NOS). However, Binge Eating Disorder is what I have.

They had a couple of treatment suggestions. The first one was Overeaters Anonymous. While I respect 12 step programs (AA works great for my dad) I've tried OA and it didn't work for me. I was excited to hear their next suggestion, though. They recommended that because of my bipolar disorder and my eating disorder, I should try partial hospitalization. The hospital where I went for this has very reputable psychiatric services. The partial hospitalization program isn't specifically for eating disorders, but they would work in an eating disorder counselor and a dietitian just to help me. Basically how it would work is that for about 6 hours a day three days a week, I would go to the hospital and participate in the program. I would go home every night. (Yay for seeing my husband!) Basically, it would be pretty intensive but I wouldn't have to go away from home. It sounds great to me!

This morning, I called the contact person for the program, and she and I set up an appointment for tomorrow to start the process of getting it pre-approved for my insurance. I'm nervous, but mostly excited to be moving forward!

How do I feel?

I just finished filling out the paperwork for my assessment. I'm having mixed feelings about my appointment. I'm scared that the people there will say, "Sara, you don't have a problem, just deal with it!" That's a pretty irrational fear, but it's real. Also, I have a quitting tendency that I'm very concerned about. It has a lot to do with my bipolar disorder, but I will get really excited about doing something new and I'll do great for a couple weeks, then I'll quit whatever I was trying. I do this with diets, therapists, exercise programs, jobs, and many other things. These people at this assessment are  my last resort. (I'll talk about all my previous resorts in a future blog.) If I quit on them (or in the unlikely case they quit on me) I  am out of other options. I don't know what I would do. So, I simply have to feel hopeful about this experience. Because if I don't, what else can I put my hope in?

Eating Disorders Overview

So, my eating disorder assessement is three days away, and I thought I'd share some basic information about different types of eating disorders. There are three major types:

Anorexia Nervosa occurs when someone extremely limits his or her caloric intake and is often at a less than healthy weight.

Bulimia Nervosa occurs when someone cycles through bingeing and compansating. Compensatory behaviors include vomiting, using laxatives, or excessive exercise.

Binge Eating Disorder occurs when a person binges but does not compensate. Because this includes an intake of huge numbers of calories without getting rid of those calories, people with Binge Eating Disorder are often overweight or obese. (I think that I have this.)

Eating disorders also involve distorted and drastic views about food, weight, and body image.

To learn more about eating disorders, visit the National Eating Disorders website at

http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/index.php

THE Reason

Hi! I'm Sara, and this is my blog!

I should start with a bit about me. I'm 20 years old, I live in Iowa, and I'm happily married. My favorite things include music, hugs, and empathy. That's the good stuff. Unfortunately, I also weigh 245 pounds and I can't stop eating. This blog is about my journey to figure out why that is and overcome it.

I was a healthy weight and a healthy eater most of my life. Then, something happened to me; I began to experience symptoms of depression. My mom took me to a doctor, and then a psychiatrist, but nothing seemed to help. I got worse and worse until finally, when I was 17, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This is important because up until I started experiencing related symptoms, I had a healthy love of food, and nothing more.

I began seeking refuge in food. I would use it as a coping mechanism. (Today it is one of my only sources of comfort, along with my husband.) I started to spend more and more of my money on food. I would eat dinner with my family, then retreat to them basement with a stash of food and retreat from the world. As the months passed, I developed an increasin number of unhealthy eating behaviors, and my weight climbed higher and higher.

Today food is my best friend and my worst enemy. I go through an enormous range of emotions when I eat, and these emotions are only magnified by my bipolar disorder. On one hand, I cultivate so much joy and ecstacy from food, and on the other hand, it is causing various aspects of my life to make me miserable.

I have embarked on a journey to discover why I have such an unhealthy relationship with food, and seek professional help for my behaviors and underlying causes. I also hope to find a path to healing, a healthy weight and body image, and a normal life. I have taken the first step in this journey; I suspect I have an eating disorder, and I have an upcoming appointment for an assessment at an eating disorder clinic.

I look forward to chronicaling my experiences here as a way to celebrate to joys and lament the hardships of this journey, and I invite you to join me!