And So It Begins

And so today was the first proper day of treatment, and I feel not much but frustration (and probably some fear.)

Frustration because everything seems to be focused on drugs and alcohol, and so I feel like a second class citizen. When I filled out the intake form, all the questions were about drugs and alcohol -- and they were not phrased in such a way that you could really talk about eating disorders. (And the counselor seemed annoyed when I pointed this out.) Frustrated because nobody told me there would be dinner available – I mean, nobody would put out a buffet of drugs and alcohol for this group. Frustrated because we are tested for drugs and alcohol, and yet there is no way to test for what I’ve got. And frustrated because the left hand doesn’t seem to know what the right hand is doing, which is where the fear comes in: I need this to work. I really need this to work. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to do something like this again, from both opportunity and actual cost.

This evening’s session had a group about food and feelings, which seemed to include not just those of us with eating disorders (there appear to be two others, one of whom has a problem similar to mine and the other of whom is an anorexic), but people who are recovering from other addictions but seem to have replaced those with some problems with food, or uncovered a problem with food. I think I much preferred that half to a lecture about cravings, which was the second half. (If I’m honest, I also was starving by that point, as I went out at the break with another woman with an eating disorder just to be friendly, and because I didn’t want to face the food.)

In the food and feelings one most of the women (there were four women and two men) were talking about how they didn’t even notice other people’s size because they were so focused on their own. And it made me feel so separate, because frankly, I do. I wouldn’t have guessed anyone in that room had a problem with food, and couldn’t help noticing how much bigger I was than all of them. I never don’t notice size, and despite it supposedly being a judgment free zone, I didn’t feel I could say it. Maybe at some point I will.