First of all, thank you all for your comments on the last entry. Seriously, putting all that out there was scary to the nth degree, but the support I've gotten because of it made it worth the fear.
Second of all, wow, I sure do know how to dump a major bit of news and then disappear, don't I? I have excuses! Good ones! Which involve school and homework and Disneyland and me being tired from it all. ANYWAY....
So now that I've had my Giant Breakthrough, I am faced with an interesting fork in the road. The way I see it, there are two ways for me to deal with my eating disorders. I can either A) redirect my compulsion and binge behavior into some other area of my life (running, shopping, knitting, drinking, working, etc) so as to still have my usual coping mechanism in place or B) I can learn how to not run away from emotions and situations that make me uncomfortable and develop new coping mechanisms. And I've decided that really, B is my only option if I want to be successful at this whole happy, healthy WLS patient thing.
But really, becoming a compulsive knitter who binged on yarn when she is having a bad day would be much easier than Option B, you know? Option B involves really hard work, a lot of facing truths and changing behaviors and soul searching. And also honesty. And possibly therapy. And definitely a lot of support group time.
(Unfortunately for my husband, it also involves a lot of me talking, talking, talking about this to him. He is very good at the listening thing though, thank god.)
One of my resolutions for 2008 was Be More Brave. This past weekend, I was at Disneyland with a very dear friend, and we went to California Adventure. She loves rides that involve nothing but plummeting to the ground; I absolutely hate them because of a giant fear of falling. But she really wanted to ride the Tower of Terror, so I decided to be brave and ride it with her. It scared the living daylights out of me, with the up and down and big drops and fast rising. I kept my eyes closed and screamed at the top of my lungs through the whole thing, with one hand grabbing my friend's leg and the other hand white knuckling it on a handle. I wasn't able to tell if we were going up or down after awhile, but the screaming helped.
And then we got off and I was fine and it was actually...kind of fun. I might even ride it again the next time we go.
The reason I'm telling you this story is because I realized today that the Tower of Terror is pretty much the perfect example of what I've been going through (and what I'll be going through); it's frightening and exhilirating and makes me cling to people and scream through the ups and downs. So I'm totally going to have to keep up with my Be More Brave resolution if I really want to do the whole Option B thing. Or you know...ride crazy ass rides at Disneyland anymore.
Second of all, wow, I sure do know how to dump a major bit of news and then disappear, don't I? I have excuses! Good ones! Which involve school and homework and Disneyland and me being tired from it all. ANYWAY....
So now that I've had my Giant Breakthrough, I am faced with an interesting fork in the road. The way I see it, there are two ways for me to deal with my eating disorders. I can either A) redirect my compulsion and binge behavior into some other area of my life (running, shopping, knitting, drinking, working, etc) so as to still have my usual coping mechanism in place or B) I can learn how to not run away from emotions and situations that make me uncomfortable and develop new coping mechanisms. And I've decided that really, B is my only option if I want to be successful at this whole happy, healthy WLS patient thing.
But really, becoming a compulsive knitter who binged on yarn when she is having a bad day would be much easier than Option B, you know? Option B involves really hard work, a lot of facing truths and changing behaviors and soul searching. And also honesty. And possibly therapy. And definitely a lot of support group time.
(Unfortunately for my husband, it also involves a lot of me talking, talking, talking about this to him. He is very good at the listening thing though, thank god.)
One of my resolutions for 2008 was Be More Brave. This past weekend, I was at Disneyland with a very dear friend, and we went to California Adventure. She loves rides that involve nothing but plummeting to the ground; I absolutely hate them because of a giant fear of falling. But she really wanted to ride the Tower of Terror, so I decided to be brave and ride it with her. It scared the living daylights out of me, with the up and down and big drops and fast rising. I kept my eyes closed and screamed at the top of my lungs through the whole thing, with one hand grabbing my friend's leg and the other hand white knuckling it on a handle. I wasn't able to tell if we were going up or down after awhile, but the screaming helped.
And then we got off and I was fine and it was actually...kind of fun. I might even ride it again the next time we go.
The reason I'm telling you this story is because I realized today that the Tower of Terror is pretty much the perfect example of what I've been going through (and what I'll be going through); it's frightening and exhilirating and makes me cling to people and scream through the ups and downs. So I'm totally going to have to keep up with my Be More Brave resolution if I really want to do the whole Option B thing. Or you know...ride crazy ass rides at Disneyland anymore.
1 Comments:
Glad to see you back. Your last post inspired me. Therapy, support group and just telling my story.
Actually, all your posts inspire me.
Thank you.
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