A Letter to a Friend

I didn't want to get out of bed today, and I have a new friend that I have been talking to who is very helpful in making me feel like my old self again. The relationship is new and non threatening (meaning he doesn't just want to get into my pants, in fact I dont think he does at all) and for whatever reason he is someone I have been able to tell everything to with no fear of judgement.

I typed out this email on the BlackBerry to him, and felt so much better when it was finished. After reading it again, I realized that it was written pretty well so I decided to post it here as part of my own little therapy program. Since I hate going to therapy. And that ties in perfectly with my email to him. (*I am changing everyone's name, of course)

Good morning David!

Today we can get away from delving into bad feelings of yours because
today I am going to vent my frustrations. Not necessarily because I
think you have the answers but because I need to.

I would go to therapy and probably should but I hate it. I'll talk but
I always imagine the therapist is half listening and wondering what
she is going to make her family for dinner. Or she's thinking "wow,
this girl is a piece of work" or sometimes I will question what makes
her qualified to handle me because she wasn't issued that textbook in
college.

For example, at the Renfrew Center where I was sent for residential
treatment, I was having a hard time stomaching (for lack of better
word) the eight thousand dollar per week cost of "getting better".
I had been told when I left charlotte that my insurance would cover
most of it, but the second day in treatment (right before lunch!) I
was told that the insurance had denied most of the coverage. This
would cost me everything I'd worked so hard to save. I was ready to
bolt. The staffmember who was sent to convince me to eat the lunch I
was too nauseated for was overweight and compassionless.

How could she understand what I was going through? It was obvious she couldn't.

It took an hour of "just eat it" "I can't" for me to be let out of
lunch and given a non compliance on my file. Those prevented me from
getting privileges like phone and internet and contact with the
outside world.

Anyway, I am having problems motivating myself to go to therapy. Also
because the new therapist I found seems timid and new at her
profession and doesn't feel comfortable taking on "ED" so she referred
me back to Renfrew's therapists, but Renfrew wants me back in
residential or at least partial hospitalization because of my
continued weight loss. I can't afford the 1000 per week plus childcare
expenses and they also will take me out of work. They won't let me
just see their therapists.

No one seems to understand that my problem is emotional and not food
related. It is nerves. In Florida they had me sedated all day to calm
the anxiety so I'd eat. I don't think that was helpful at all, because
I never dealt with my issues and when I finally did attempt, my life
fell apart worse, my husband left me, and I still had no healthy way
to cope.

I had a best friend at work. Melanie. We did everything together. I told her
everything because that is what friends are for. She knew I wasn't
eating. She knew I'd become dependant on amphetamines and
benzodiazepines just to function. She knew my husband's infidelity
issues and how they affected me. She knew every way I attempted to
cope and never once told me I was making bad choices. Shed always say
I was justified. Then, one day she told people I was drug addicted and
anorexic, and some other awful things that were true but personal. She
told her husband all the bad names I'd called mine in confidence and
he told my husband. there were also rumors of infedelity on my part
that made it back to him.

All of this happened for reasons unknown to me. It happened two days
after she went on maternity leave from work. I was sent to florida
within days of that and I hadn't seen or spoken to her since.
She came back to work yesterday and was so mean and cold. I never did
anything to her! I don't know why she stabbed me in the back like
that! We were best friends and through it all I had no desire to expose
her skeletons to other people and believe me, she has them.

Meanwhile, my babysitter situation is driving me crazy, my husband is still saying horrible things to me, and I can't even have fun at work now because
Melanie is back and still a jerk.

I can see the bones showing again now. I don't want to be this way but
my nerves are so,so, so on edge. I have no family here to support me,
I have kids who are completely dependant on me and that is so much
pressure!

That feeling of dread you get before you know something bad is going
to happen... like if you found out you had a disease or something or
someone just died or someone stole your car? No one wants to go have a
damn cheeseburger when they feel like that. I feel this way 90 percent
of the time and my stomach feels sick. I literally cannot eat.

I feel like I'm disappointing people because I'm being weak or lazy or
not caring enough.

I'm scared to death to take any kind of pill because of what I did two
weeks ago.
I feel stuck in some kind of scary limbo and the more the bones show,
the looser the size 00 uniform gets, the more exposed I am to others
as failing.

I have been reading spiritual inspiration books and praying , which
helps, but the stresses I'm facing are so overpowering that I am
starting to skip appointments and not get out of bed.

I believe God is powerful enough to deliver me of this but there needs
to be some kind of override function on my brain because the faith
that was in my heart bled out with just about everything else.

I'm really not having a happy day. :/ but I don't feel out of control
like I did the day I overdose and there have been no tears this
morning.

I guess that's a step.