Thank you so much to the lovely girls who left such encouraging comments on my last post. I was feeling SO down and miserable and like giving up in every sense of the word and your comments just totally changed my mood - I can't thank you enough :) You are all right - I only have this one chance to get my degree and the rest of my life to worry about being thin! I can see this now but I guess due to my inability to prioritise properly I assumed I needed be thin more than I needed this degree. Which isn't true. I don't consider myself a stupid person but my number one priority is always to be thinner, which I see is incredibly stupid!! But it's all I know, it's what consumes my thoughts day in day out and I'm not ready to let it go, if I can let it go, that is.
Strangely though, after deciding to let myself eat whatever I wanted to get over the exam period, I pretty much lost my appetite and have had two really good days - almost no carbs in me for 48 hours and I feel amazing. I think I need to go back on the Atkins Diet. It is the only diet I have been on that actually WORKED. The reason I couldn't keep it up was because I kept passing out. My body just couldn't cope with the enormous drop in carbohydrates, and I literally didn't have ANY carbs, no fruit, no vegetables, so my body really suffered. I felt dizzy, nauseous and lethargic the whole time and the second time I passed out I just thought 'screw this' and stopped the diet immediately but what I should've done was slowly increase my carbs, like allow fruit for example.. so I am attempting to do that again. I guess it's an Atkins hybrid diet... is that what the Zone diet is? I'll have to look it up.
Something unexpected, that hadn't occurred to me before, happened on Monday. To give you some background, as part of my degree I have to spend long periods of time in hospitals doing lots of observation etc... Anyway, I went to see my personal tutor today to find out where my next hospital placement would be. She mentioned the name of the hospital and when I asked about the type of wards they were she replied that she wasn't sure and was waiting to hear back but said it would either be general medicine or eating disorders. OH MY GOD. I didn't know whether to feel excited or scared. She then asked me the question. Yep. 'Have you ever had an eating disorder? It's good to know as it can be difficult if you've experienced it'. I said 'No'. I didn't know what else to say! I am very interested in Eating Disorders and I DO want to help people to recover, but I don't want to help myself! Also, I don't even think I have an ED, not at the moment anyway. I think I'm just a girl on endless diets who hates her body - which probably fits the profile of many girls who do not meet the criteria for an Eating Disorder.
Anyway, as my history of depression is on my Uni record (yeah I did admit that, in case I became unwell) they may just put me in the general ward.
What I'm getting at here is - what would you do?? Would you want to see an ED unit? I've never seen one except in documentaries. Part of me is fascinated, intrigued and part of me thinks OMG what a hypocrite I am! Hand on heart I can say in truth that I do want to help people with EDs. I do want them to recover because they ruin lives and kill people, they are so complex and to be part of a team treating them and restoring people's lives would be an honour... but I know I have eating issues too. Would I be a total hypocrite if I was to work on an ED ward?
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wow, this is a hard question...
ReplyDeleteOK, let us think about it...
The most patients on eating wards are teenagers. Of course there are some grown up people too, but they are the minority. This automatically creates a boundary between you and them, as hard as it sounds. But they always sense if you got some food issues yourself, they can tell from the way you look at food, at yourself in the mirror, I mean, be honest: If you meet another woman and she is ordering strange food in the restaurant and looking at you all the time, you already know that there is something going on, we can do the same thing. We sense it, too, and we learned around their age...And the second they realize that you got issues too they don´t respect you any more as a part of the counseling team. You don´t listen to a doctor who tells you to stop smoking and has some cigarettes in his pocket. You simply don´t. Additionally, it could have a bad effect on you, too. I mean, would you not search for thinspiration there? Would you not secretely admire the really skinny girls because of their control and their determination? Would there not be a part of you thinking: No, don´t eat the healthy meal! It will ruin everything!
And there would be this other part, seeing them suffer, cry, long for a solution to their desperation. And you would really try to help them and despite yourself for this other part of you who wants them to carry on.
But no: You are not a hypocrite if you were to work there. I would like to work there too. You gotta know you enemy, don´t you`? It would just be over the edge hard. And there will always be this power, this force making us wanting to go there, to work there. I guess that´s because we want to meet girls and women being the same kind as we are, we seek company, and that´s just human.
Don´t blame youself, if I were you I would just wait which ward it is going to be and take this. It´s like destiny...
:-)
Don´t worry, you are a very special person, you are not mean or anything.
Take good care.
Wow, M.C has said it all. I don't think it's hypocritical either.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the extent of your interaction with the patients, but I think it's more important to be a friend to them first than to try to counsel/advise them towards recovery. Leave that to the doctors and dietitians. They'll be more amenable to listening to you when they know they can trust you.
I'm glad you had two good days. (: We all need whatever good days we can get.
*hugs*