Part Led Travel

I'm currently on a business trip that is NOT going well.  I wouldn't say "everything has gone wrong" but I WOULD say something has gone wrong in every part of my life. Travel in general leads to temptation with my eating disorder.  Travel for work is even worse.  I, almost immediately, felt the all to familiar pull to binging and purging as I sat alone in my hotel room. I unconsciously returned to food rules that I never even knew I had.  I started with obsessively drinking water. Then forced myself to go to the gym every day.  I then began compensating for snacks.  (You see, on these trips, the host company feeds us constantly!  Every time I would snack, no matter if I was hungry or not, I would force myself to remove something from my next meal.... I have "made it all up" and then some by the end of the day, though.) And I must must MUST eat less than the men I'm traveling with.  None of these thoughts are remotely consistent with all the work I have done to eat intuitively.  I feel like I've regressed.  I should know better!  I have parts that are telling me I'm doing very poorly at recovery! I did not REALLY WANT to go to the gym tonight.  I wanted to chill out in my hotel room, do some writing and get a good night sleep.  I couldn't give myself permission to do that.  I tried and all kinds of my parts "puffed up."  Some were scared. Some were mad.  Some were relieved (fewer).  Some were confused.  Some were sad.  Some were hurt.  So I went to the gym and am up WAY too late again (not to metion, I have to be up in less than 6 hours to get tomorrow's gym time in). I feel completely led by these parts right now.  I feel like the victim on a runaway train.  I am ENTIRELY unable to do what I want to do.  I feel the trap of the eating disorder closing in around me.  All I can do right now is pray that it does not go past normal eating / exercising (as of now the issue is in my head but not showing up on my plate to any degree of alarm) and that it will go away once I get back into my safe environment.

Fun

I've been tasked with having fun this weekend. It sounds simple and easy enough. Who knew fun was so subjective!

I was in my therapist's office yesterday, who gave me the "assignment," and I had trouble with it even before I left the office. Is TV fun? Is taking down wallpaper fun? Is finshing paperwork that's been looming over me fun? Is seeing a ballet fun?



I don't even know what FUN is anymore? How can that be? Everything has been distorted. It's just like food. One cookie is okay: tastes good, provides some enjoyment, etc. Twenty cookies bring on emotional and physical pain. This would lead me to believe balance is key. Balance is NO EASY feat. I kept asking my therapist what could be considered fun? I used TV as the example. I often feel like TV is a waste but I spend so much time in front of it. TV provides a much needed break at times, as well as some entertainment but when I've been sitting there for hours I feel physical and emotional pain.

I ended up going to the ballet last night. I enjoyed it but for me it's like an alcoholic taking the first drink. One is never enough. I always want more. I miss dancing more than any other loss in my life. Watching ballet leads me to want to dance again and then I can never get enough. But it IS fun.

Today I slept VERY late, mostly because I was up surfing the web about dancing. I decided to watch "a little" TV before getting my day started. That was almost 6 hours ago and now I've given up. I have soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much I need to do. It's another wasted weekend. Mom wants me to come over for dinner but I don't feel like I deserve it. I feel fat, useless, unworthy, tired, gross.

The need to not feel like this drives me to constantly go, go, go. Then I get overly tired and back to this spot or I give up entirely because I can't seem to make any difference anyway.

I'm in a very sad place right now. I am having immense trouble with my parts, relationships, ED. I don't want to promote this pain to anyone reading. The goal of this blog and in my life is recovery, health, balance. I'm struggling with all that myself right now though.