therapy

Today was my first session/intake at the counseling center. My tuition is mind-blowingly high, but it does mean that I got to show up today, and for as many visits as I want, without even showing them my ID, let alone an insurance card. Perks?

It was a mixed bag. I definitely went in with a plan, a set agenda. It kind of wiggled away from me a bit, but I think we at least glanced off of all of the things I want to work on. She did get a little caught in my depression history, which I expected, but was also a little amused by since that's truly not what had brought me back to therapy 8 years later.

I told her that I binge and purge. That was hard, harder than I thought even though I totally had intended to tell her. I've only ever told GF, once while driving through the dark along yet another empty stretch of I-10. I said it like it was something I used to do, once upon a time when I was younger, instead of something that I'd done in her house a few days ago when everyone was gone at work. She told me that she used to hear her mom doing that, when she was young, and that the sound made her so sad to think that her mom hated her body that much. I felt such a deep sadness and guilt, and I actually stopped for a little while after that. But slowly it started creeping up again.

I first made myself throw up when I was...young. I remember, I was at my Dad's house, I'd just eaten a massive chef's salad. Normally my dad was always trying to encourage me to finish my food, I thought he'd be proud of me, but his comment on realizing that I'd eaten all of it was surprise, something along the lines of "That was supposed to be for multiple people - you ate it all?" In hindsight, I really think it was only for multiple people if you were using it as a side dish, but who knows, this was easily 14 years ago. So I went to the bathroom and tried to make myself throw up. I don't remember why I thought that would be a good idea, but I did. I don't remember much of his reaction, maybe some bafflement and sadness. I knew it wasn't a good idea, at least not to do it if I was going to get caught.

After that I didn't do it again for a while. I did it occasionally in high school, increasing frequency my senior year (I think at least the school secretary knew, but only hinted and I was happy to play dumb). I did it on and off in college, especially after my sophomore year when we started having weight adjustments to our rowing scores. Suddenly my first place 2K time shifted down the list, sometimes dramatically, when I was compared to rowers 50lbs lighter than me. It was fair, to be sure, and I needed a reality check about all the weight I gained my freshman year, but it did sometimes compel me to make some poor choices in the name of keeping my weight in check (since I couldn't keep my self-control around the delicious desserts our school seemed to provide everywhere, all the time).

I didn't purge often in Peace Corps, pretty much stopped for the two years except for a handful of times. It just felt unimaginably wasteful, and so painfully immediate, to be throwing up food voluntarily when there were plenty of people outside of my courtyard 100 feet away who would have been happy to have so much extra food that they could just throw some of it away. I tried to embrace my weight as best I could, and focused on getting through the time.

In Tucson it was on and off, but pretty regular when opportunity presented itself. Maybe once a week up to 4 or 5 times a week, occasionally multiple times a day. It's gotten similarly bad here the past few months, overeating my goals almost every day, and either exercising a bit excessively or making myself throw it back up. It used to be I would only do it if my roommate was out of the house. Now I just wait until she's asleep with her white noise machine and the a/c going. Escalation. I start to eat and I feel hard pressed to stop, it's like my mind just goes into this blank space and all I can think of is to eat as much as I can easily consume in as little time as possible.

My therapist seemed proud of me for telling her. When I told her that she was the first person I'd ever told, she congratulated me, and asked me how it felt. I laughed. "Surreal." It's true, I still can't quite believe it. I feel like my relationship and poly/kink problems are so much more pressing right now, the interpersonal dynamic issues, being emotionally closed - those are problems! I told her it kind of killed me to be such a stereotype. High intelligence, high performing independent female who got bullied as a kid and is under a lot of stress, so to feel in control of something she tries to control her weight through disordered eating - purging, obsessive control over when/what/how, etc. We all want to be a special snowflake, and yet this was exactly what any psych textbook could tell you about identifying women with eating disorders.

Once upon a time I had a blog. I would chronicle everything I ate. I'd celebrate those days when I ate under 1000 calories. I looked at and reposted pictures of painfully skinny girls with protruding hip bones and clavicles that had captions like "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" (this was pre-tumblr, of course). I would trade "support" with other girls like me, those girls who would talk about "Ana/Mia" like they were an adorable pair of chibi friends instead of destructive eating patterns. I look back on that in kind of a horror, but it was real, it was what was occupying my brain whenever it wasn't consumed with wanting to cut myself, or wanting to figure out why I was starting to feel erotic stirrings towards my female friends.  

Unrelated, she asked to see my scars when I told her I cut. I honestly forgot about the ones on my hip, they're the most dramatic. Most of the high school ones have actually faded, thankfully, they're pretty much invisible. But these thigh ones are faded but might not go away for a very long time. Anyway. She saw a bit of rope burn, from my self-suspension a few weeks ago. I told her the truth - it's a rope burn. She seemed to think that it was a self-injury, so I rushed to assure her that I was just in kink instead. She decidedly wasn't reassured, and seemed concerned, so I explained a little bit - I like to tie myself up and be tied up with rope, and I like to get hit with things. I did a terrible scatter shot of some of the reasons why people do kink, trying to reassure her that we aren't all crazy, it's not a form of self injury, etc, etc. I asked her before I left if it was going to be an issue, but she seemed game for giving it a go so we'll see how that works out. I wonder what she'll say when I tell her how much kink inspires me to love my body? ;)