Observant Feminist Feminism, recovery, punk rock and a good book.

Yesterday was a sort of ridiculous example of how something small can lead to something pretty big.

1. My laptop cord has been fraying for awhile, I taped it up and I’ve been extra careful with it, but yesterday was it. It gave a little short, fucked up my laptop a bit and died forever.

2. There is a Best Buy across from work so I went over to get a new cord. They no longer carry my cord, because it’s Apple, so a three year old cord is a fucking relic. After 3 more trips between Best Buy and my office, I ended up buying a cheap tablet that will get me through the rest of University. (My antique Macbook wasn’t going to live that long).

3. I was getting used to the new machine when Brian mentions that I need to move all of my files off of my now old Apple and onto a USB drive because we need to clean the computer to resell.

4. The last moment’s with an old laptop is a ridiculous thing to be sentimental about. Moving school files, work files, a resume or two, some comics, and pictures. Wait, pictures.

**This is where a frayed cord that has been slowly dying for months does something no highly paid therapists have been able to do.

5. I went through every photo, I didn’t copy any from when I was sick. They are gone. They are all gone. I remember when I was losing weight I quickly deleted “fat pictures”, that was a lot easier than deleting “sick pictures”.

As hard as it was I didn’t cry, at least not yet. There will be a time when I need to punish myself for something and those pictures will be gone and that might make me cry. Now that they are gone I’m not sure why it took so long to do. It’s as simple as the click of a button, delete. I guess it helped that last night I wasn’t deleting sick photos, so much as choosing to keep healthy ones. I saw all the good times I’ve had since and was able to save all of those memories.

Question for you all, how do you deal when people ask you where your scars are from?

jessicavalenti:

plumblemon:

Well I’m off to one of my follow up appointments at TGH.
I hate the 7th floor.
I hate that I will be weighed.
Ugh

Hang in there. Maybe do something nice for yourself tonight? It’s not easy to go back in there, you deserve something nice. 

My doctor weighed me. I’m now officially “overweight” and am no longer “normal”. Fuck me.

thenextrightthing:

Fat

AKA

Bored, guilty, useless, lonely, anxious, sad, angry, confused, discouraged, inadequate, indecisive, stupid, and unlikable.

Thanks treatment for teaching me that fat is a word not a feeling but not teaching me how to deal with this “feeling”. 

This morning I had a psych assessment. I was kinda nervous because no one’s really ever told me what’s wrong with me. Even when I was in the hospital for an eating disorder it felt like the diagnosis changed often (I went from anorexia to bulimia to NOS to whatever the fuck being in recovery is called). 

So, I was nervous to receive my labels. I was surprised to find out I have social anxiety disorder. I have never had as many friends as I do right now, and I have never been as social as I am now. It’s embarrassing to admit but I have spent a lot of time alone. The idea that I still have problems with social anxiety kinda sucks.

Next up on the list of things stuck to me, is GAD. Generalized Anxiety Disorder, this one I thought I had. Generalized sounds like, “I’m anxious all of the time about all of the things” and that fits me perfectly. But it also means “I can’t stop the worries”, but I can stop the worries. I distract, I drink, I cut, I do homework, I read, I shop, I swap worries, and I can fall asleep just fine. This means I don’t quite fit GAD. I’m GAD-NOS, or maybe just anxiety-NOS, I already forget my label.  

Finally, Panic disorder. I don’t have full blown panic attacks very often, and when I do, they have a very clear trigger based on a past relationship. But it turns out I have mild panic attacks. These little bouts of leg shaking, chest tightening, breath losing, anxiety that just pop up 3-4 times a week, were described as not quite enough to say I have a panic disorder. So they can’t help me with this. THIS HURTS. THIS IS THE WORST. But it’s like Panic disorder mild so I guess I should just deal with it?

From the lens of a social work student doing this was interesting. I would never want to put one of my own clients through this. All of these labels are something I would never want to put on a person. But I found out something even more disturbing in this whole process. Everything, EVERYTHING, I’ve told my therapist (who I trust with everything), is in an electronic file at CAMH. I’m gonna guess my chances of ever getting a job there are zero. 

I was left waiting a lot. As a client that really sucks. People left me and forgot about me. I had to re-explain a lot of stuff that my therapist already knows and I hate re-telling my whole fucking mental health history.

The worst part of all of this is that at the end of the day I feel like I was told I’m not quite good enough at crazy. The first doctor I ever saw about the eating disorder told me I needed to lose 5 more pounds to be considered under weight and in need of help. That has stuck with me and made me feel like I was never good enough at being anorexic. Now I’m told I’m not good enough at anxiety, not good enough at panic attacks, but not quite good enough at sanity to not be labelled. I see my doctor on friday, I feel like things will be different now. I don’t even know if I want to go. A big chunk of trust has been lost.