Month: September 2012

Well, today marks two weeks since I arrived here at Eating Recovery Center. I’m having a pretty good Monday, though I am a little tired. Today is Pajama Day (decided by the patients, not some cheesy thing forced on us), there seems to be about a 10% participation rate. I didn’t come in Pajamas but I think I may participate in Punk Rock Day tomorrow, we’ll see!

The routine here is basically as follows:

• Check-in, pee in a cup, get weighed, check vitals
• Breakfast
• Group (Recovery Skills, Boundaries, etc.)
• Morning Snack
• Group (Body Awareness, Yoga, Psychodrama, etc.)
• Lunch
• Group (Process Group, Community)
• Snack
• Transitions (First week group to help us settle in.)
• Group (Grief & Loss, Nutrition, Body Celebration, Spirituality, etc)
• Free Time (1 hour to do whatever we want)
• Dinner

So that’s basically my day. There are 10-15 minute breaks between each thing, but it’s a pretty busy day. Weekends are a little different, but same idea.

Today, Monday, started out great, but by the end of the day it kind of fell apart. We have one person leaving due to insurance issues, another leaving to go to inpatient, another leaving tomorrow because she’s ready (Yay!), and yet another leaving Wednesday who is not ready.

Having insurance/money come between someone and treatment for a serious illness infuriates me. To pretend that this country in any way has it’s priorities straight is such a joke.

Overall I am still feeling optimistic and positive about being at ERC, it was just an emotionally challenging second half of the day.

Well, it’s bedtime. Here comes Tuesday.

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Help me raise the money needed for my treatment.

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Well, here goes. I’ve been on this stage of this journey for one week, as of today. My eating disorder was also mostly private, until today.

The titles aren’t important, but for the sake of understanding and others maybe working through the same things, I am dealing with bulimia and binge eating.

I have been bulimic since high school, though the behaviors have varied greatly in frequency over the last 10 years. Sometimes they were mostly nonexistent for months, and sometimes I had behaviors every day. Years ago, through working with a therapist, I was able to curb my purging, but the binging never stopped. As a result my weight has increased, but more importantly my health has degraded.

I may get into the specifics of the journey that led me to where I am today at a later date, but for now,  I want to document where I’ve been and what I’ve been experiencing.

I am in a Partial Hospitalization Program at Eating Recovery Center here in Denver. I feel incredibly lucky to live so close to this place, especially once I found out that most of the patients are from all over the country. I went through the intake process on Monday, August 27th and have completed my first full week as of this writing.

Already I am noticing major changes in my relationship with food and my interactions with the world around me. Prior to entering treatment I had become incredibly isolated, barely leaving my apartment. I was avoiding work due to anxiety resulting from my body issues and had simply lost control.

I am grateful for my job at Comcast and the benefits offered that allow me to be away from work and working on my recovery. I am definitely fortunate.

Well, I suppose that’s enough for today, it’s about half an hour past my bedtime and I should head to bed. Program starts at 8AM, meaning I wake up at 7AM, which is usually the time I go to bed, following my night shift at work. It’s been an interesting transition.

One final thing, just to throw it out there: I am thankfully covered by insurance, but it doesn’t cover everything and while the deposit was broken into multiple payments, it’s still a challenge. I’ve setup a fundraising page in hopes of raising some money so I can focus on my recovery and not on my bank account.

Thanks for anything you can do, and thanks for reading. I hope to continue blogging multiple times per week as I go through this journey, so, until next time.