Where the bleep has Caitlan been?!

Yes, I am alive! I don't even know how long it has been since my last post but I do know it has been quite some time. So there is a lot of catching up for us to do therefore, before I continue on the series of the development of my ed I am going to do a catch  up post. Enjoy. I have missed you all and spilling out my guts to you. So here goes.

Life has been rather interesting this past month. Interesting in the fact that I can't put a lot of words to my thoughts and feelings towards treatment, school, recovery and life in general. I am going on my ehh fourth week in day treatment at Renfrew (or maybe fifth I can't remember) and will be going BACK to intensive outpatient on Thursday. Insurance likes what they are seeing concerning numbers, meal plan following and symptom usage. Don't get me wrong these are all great things. I have been following my meal plan for a solid few weeks and the weight loss has ceased and we are starting the trend to move in the correct direction once again. I have been doing a lot of hard work with my treatment team and parents and overall fairly decent. So I can see where insurance would think that I'm ready to move to a lower level of care. Unfortunately, insurance can't measure my emotional and mental state like they can my physical weight and the percentage of my meal plan I am consuming. A lot of what I am doing is mechanical, which to some extent is okay if that is what is getting me to eat throughout the day but the goal is to eventually get to a point where I will be eating for myself and not because I have a staff member sitting next to me or my parents sitting in the room. That scares me, a lot. I still have so much anger towards food and a therapist would probably say that I am not angry at the food but at something else deep down and I am taking it out on the food. But whatever or whoever I am angry at the food is an easy target. So that is something that I am working on. After every meal stating one part of the meal that I enjoyed so I can learn to actually like the concept of eating and food in general. Not as easy as it sounds.

As for me and the Big Man upstairs. We're still in a pretty rocky place. But I don't think I am on strike anymore just more on the fence about taking that leap of faith into His arms. There are a lot of "what-ifs" that come along with surrendering my eating disorder entirely and trusting God. Of course I could argue that anything that comes from God will be better than the hurt I am feeling now.

I withdrew from school a week or two ago. I am still numb about it but I know it is what I needed to do. Some people can handle intensive treatment and school at the same time but I am just not one of those individuals. So after much thought and prayer I told myself that until I am out of intensive treatment of any kind and after I have been living on my own for a good chunk of time with no threats of moving back into intensive treatment I will stay out of school. It isn't fair to my parents or myself. No matter how bad it sucks and how much it hurts me I know that this is what is best for me. My brain doesn't have the energy to tackle school and recovery at this moment in time. I pray that one day I will be in a place that school is once again calling my name and the desire in my heart and my want for life will still be there.

I feel as if I no longer have many close friends. I can feel my relationships in Austin growing further and further apart. Not saying that they love me any less or that I love them or care about them any less but it is what it is. We are in different places in our lives right now and living in different cities and that makes it hard to keep the kind of relationship that we had a year or so ago. I am making wonderful friends with girls from Renfrew, which is great but still a lot of them don't seem to carry much foundation outside of treatment which just hurts me so badly. There is one whom I have been able to hang out with on a pretty consistent basis which is such a blessing but other than that the girls I felt would continue to stay in touch have drifted themselves. I don't have a good excuse for not making new friends who aren't in treatment or at my work. I have excuses but not good ones to the outside world. So it isn't fair for me to sit here and say how lonely I am or that I get my feelings hurt too easily. But it's the truth. I have girlfriends from elementary school that will love me forever and will be there for me through thick and thin but living cities and states away makes it tough.

So there is my update. A lot of rambling I know but well you should be used to that by now. Give me a few days and I will write again. Until then I'm just gonna keep keepin on and pray that come Thursday I can keep moving in the right direction and for once not fall back into the temptations of this monster.

Much love sweet friends.