bulimia & my poor credit card

[thatcoldfeeling]

I really am stupid. Not content with fucking up my face (posted abt in gen health), my bank balance is non existent and I just checked my credit card account - I've spent hundreds this month b/p'ing.

Am tempted to cut through my credit card so I can't use it, but I need it for emergency petrol etc. Oh bollocks.

Any suggestions?

Feel like I have been spamming MN this wkend with my ridiculous life.

[Nibbl3s]

Hi OP, can't offer much advice I'm afraid as I'm in the exact same position as you but didn't want to read and run. Have you considered cbt? I've never tried it but know people who found it helpful in recovery. Does anyone know about your eating disorder? Friends or family?

[thatcoldfeeling]

Hi, sorry you are in the same shit situation Nibbl3s.

I did have CBT but it was a waste of time. The therapist was desperate to get to some 'essential truth' abt myself that he thought I maybe held erroneously. He pounced on the idea that I think I am weird which was a throwaway comment, and it was all useless. None of it was even for my ED though, they said they could either deal with the ED OR anxiety and really pushed for anxiety, against what I said! BUT I have just been referred by my GP and have an apt on Mon for a MH assessment. Maybe this will help. I have got through many a cycle of this and returned to normal-ish eating, but obviously it has never been properly dealt with.

No one irl knows. Sometimes I wish people did know so I could tell them how hard it all I for me, esp around food, but then I think abt how disgusted they would be and am glad they don't know.

How about you? Are you getting any help?

[thatcoldfeeling]

Hi Dancing.

In the last week I have b/p'd between 2 & 7 times a day, with fruit and sometimes breakfast cereal being the only food I can eat safely (but restricted). It is pretty much structuring my life at the moment, though I have certainly been worse. (I had a few horrific months at the end of a really abusive marriage where my life was literally just going from kitchen to bathroom constantly, punctuated with him doing stuff to me, I was a pretty appalling parent, by those standards at the moment my life is just fine, but it isn't really fine!).

I'm not on a meal plan, when I have got myself out of this before I have also done the 3 meals 3 snacks v structured plan. I feel like I cant sort a plan right now, I know exactly what the plan would end up like if I tried to make one currently. It would be 1200 cals of safe food, to go over that would totally freak me out.

I like the cc in ice idea. I should do that. I don't know why I didn't think of it seeing as I freeze so much anyway (all the fruit I eat gets frozen first cos I am a weirdo!).

[thatcoldfeeling]

I saw my GP yesterday and apparently my last blood test results were fine. Which of course makes me feel like a fraud.

This morning I told my kids I was going into work but instead went and exercised, followed by several b/p sessions. Feel like a bit of a general scumbag really, and of course spent more money that I cant afford to spend like this. It wasn't even on food I like, just food I know is easy to purge, which is stupid.

Need to get a grip and sort a proper meal plan I suppose. Will need to get groceries delivered, supermarkets just set it all off, and fuck knows how I will stop myself purging :(

[thedevilinmyshoes]

It's much easier with help. I have some bulimic behaviours as part of my ED and have also been helped by 3 meals 3 snacks type structure but couldn't go from A to Z in one step. I found a therapist through b-eat and though couldn't afford to keep working with her I do have a cpn who has helped carry on what was started. Have made really big improvements although some way away from being completely free of it all I can honestly say daily life is immeasurably better!

We make very small changes at a time, clawing back the power in almost imperceptible ways until it adds up to a healthier way of being. The 'overcoming' books on anorexia and bulimia are useful as a starting point.

Didn't find the nhs ED services helpful when last referred but wouldn't hesitate to go back to them if things worsened.

[thedevilinmyshoes]

PS you're not a fraud! Bodies are really good at regulating themselves despite what we put them through - it's a good sign but you could consider supplements to give you a little more support while you work on this xxx

[thatcoldfeeling]

Hmm, must look into b-eat. I don't really hold out much hope for the NHS services either. There is a specialist service locally but afaik it is inpatient only.

I do take a b vitamin supplement & prob should take some other supplements I imagine.

[thatcoldfeeling]

Just tried to make myself a reasonable meal plan, but just feel completely nervous thinking about it. It feel like a selfish thing to do, I know people whose lives are shit at the moment for various reasons, what makes me think I deserve to eat all that. I feel like eating will make people hate me even more, and be angry with me.
And if people feel angry with me I can't eat.

[thatcoldfeeling]

I can totally imagine IP actually being the biggest relief ever. However, I just can't. I am a single parent, and nobody knows about my ED. No friends or family, I have one friend who knows we are not so close any more, and two old work colleagues who know but none of the detail, only that I had an ED, and one has now moved away, and one was never a work friend. So certainly nobody who could have my DCs.
I have snapped a bit today though in my head, this cannot carry on. Saying I am going to work but going b/p'ing?!? What kind of lunatic does that to their children. I felt like a drug addict. I should have been at work too! My job is pretty flexible but I am seriously taking the piss now and I can really see myself for the pathetic mess I am right now.
So with that messed up idiot in mind, and not wanting to be that person, I have just eaten an actual normal dinner. (Normal, I think?! You know how you lose track of normal!). I had some mashed potato, a veggie sausage and lots of vegetables. I feel really full yet could easily go and stuff my face with more and purge. Am typing, typing, typing. Going to apply for a job actually, won't allow myself to leave the sofa until my CV is uploaded, it will be too late for purging by then.
I have also just made up a meal plan and done an online grocery shop to get in things I need for 2000 cals a day of food that is nice, but not moreish, and that is difficult or particularly-off-puttingly-gross to purge!

[thedevilinmyshoes]

How's it going thatcoldfeeling? Hope you've had an ok day so far

[thatcoldfeeling]

Thanks both. Today has been so much better. I haven't got up to quite as many cals as planned, abt 1600, and had to exercise quite a bit to feel okay about it, but feel much better for that than b/p'ing. Feel very full and gross and so worried about gaining, but also feeling like today has actually been quite successful compared to recent weeks. Thanks for your support & being kind :)

[thedevilinmyshoes]

Sounds like very solid steps forwards! It's surprisingly hard to gain weight in the long term (the first thing the ED team told me to do was get rid of my scales but it's taken a long time to wean myself off, my thing is like a form of OCD and I have lots of 'safety behaviours' like that) and really the difference in my weight between restricting/purging and fairly consistently eating well in excess of 2300 calories each day is barely 2lbs. It's not even noticeable to me and I check myself very often!

I wish I'd known it was possible to eat so much and maintain a fairly low weight, could have saved myself a lot of horribleness.

[thatcoldfeeling]

Ugh, scales! Luckily I haven't succumbed to them this time around. If I go to someone else's house and they have scales in the bathroom just seeing them is hugely triggering for me! I went for coffee with an ex-work colleague a few months ago and she had some in her bathroom - it was like being physically hit to see them and then go into a conflicted meltdown - do I want to know!? My weight will only ever disappoint me! Even when I have been more restricting and less b/p as I was the time before this and really lost weight, the numbers are always NOT LOW ENOUGH. Not sure why capitals were needed there

But anyhow - from clothes I know I tend to be about half a clothes size up when I eat 'normally', so same size really but just the difference between a belt or not. So you are right really, it is not exactly dramatic. But that said, people do comment when I lose weight so it must be noticeable, and therefore also noticeable when I gain. I wish people wouldn't comment, but then I also hate it when I know I have lost and people don't comment because I feel like I haven't lost enough and I want it validated and for people to SEE that I am fucking struggling please fucking help me. But at the same time I don't want anyone to see and know that I can't cope with my life so if people comment on my weight they can fuck off. Obviously I don't have a clue what I am on about and make no sense whatsoever!

Think I have probably written enough about this now, in a slightly obsessive eating disordered loon kinda way!

[thatcoldfeeling]

Update - had MH assessment, and have been offered ... ... ... more CBT!
There really is no help :( She was v apologetic abt the lack of community ED support (only IP), fucking CBT really is all there is. I said I would do it, but it must be with a different therapist to last time.

[thedevilinmyshoes]

It might help? CBT in a sort of guided self help type of way is the best treatment for bulimia. It's the basis of what I do with my CPN, having started with a therapist I found through b-eat. I was a relative latecomer to bulimic behaviours, they emerged when recovering from 2nd bout of anorexia. But now they're never very far away!

I hope you find the new therapist helpful, it sounds like you are ready for it x

[thedevilinmyshoes]

You could also try b-eat, they run groups in lots of areas or might be able to point you in direction of further support.

[ThirtyNineWeeks]

For you, OP You sound amazing, not stupid at all. You can do this. Tiny steps x x

[thatcoldfeeling]

Thanks, I'm not very hopeful but so tired of it now, and the cost. Maybe if I won the lottery I cld just b/p myself to death.

[ThirtyNineWeeks]

You can do this x

[thatcoldfeeling]

Thanks. I am not feeling so sure.

POSS TRIGGERING

Struggling massively today. Have b/p'd a few times. Not to be TMI but last time on totally awful food to purge, def never going near that combo of foods ever in my life. I used to just stop purging if I started and it was going to be too difficult to purge, but I couldn't leave it, and had to keep going/stopping, drinking, purging again, and just think to hell with the state of my throat (seriously hurting now) ignore that I was choking etc all really very disgusting. Feeling especially shaky now. Also feeling full of panic that I still didn't purge properly though kept going til there was nothing & I was drinking water then purging water, but I don't feel empty :(

Got GP calling at some point. Def need meds increased and going to ask for diazepam too as had horrible day yesterday full of flashbacks.

[thedevilinmyshoes]

Hugs 🌸 how did it go with GP?