Hello there, audience members!

I'd like to start by getting through some of the formalities. No beating around the bush! I'm an 18 year old girl, and I'm anorexic. I go to a highly competitive boarding school and live a high stress life - lots to deal with in the way of school, family, money, college (I'm a senior right now), and so on. I tend to involve myself in anything and everything and keep going until I get it just perfect. So I did that, and about 2 weeks ago I ended up in the ER for my eating disorder, as well as some co-morbid conditions I'll discuss more later. My school and my dad took action, and the "experts" consulted all suggested in-patient treatment. What does that mean? Before I know it I'm driving six hours to a city (which shall remain nameless) to be checked into a residential program (which shall also remain nameless) to spend the next 4 to 8 weeks "getting help." This has all been very hard on me and even today (just two days into treatment) I feel very overwhelmed, but one thing I like to do when I feel anxious is write, so write I shall. Welcome to my blog, "My Adventures at Rexi Camp."

 So my third day here managed to work me into a bunch of different states. I started off really positive, I was happy for getting through my first real day yesterday and just working on progressing as much as I could. I felt like I had adjusted really quickly and was doing my thing, but as time passed I became more and more stressed. I had to deal with a lot of stresses from my family, and I felt really sick around lunch time and couldn't eat all that much, plus I keep fixating on how much I've eaten lately (I've eaten every day for basically the last four days) and it makes me feel so fat. I have all this anxiety because I can't know how much I weigh and I think it's a lot more than most of the other girls here. I grew more and more tired as the day wore on and I started thinking about how many more days of this same kind of thing I have to go through. I wasn't really feeling all the group therapy because other girls tend to get really emotional, and I know I'm supposed to be learning something from them and relating to them, but I just get really uncomfortable that they break down or cry, and I just want to tell them to pull it together! My therapist has said I need to work on expressing my emotions, but I still associate emotion with being weak and messy, and I don't see myself truly opening up to many people here. Plus there's this constant thought in the back of my mind about how long I'm going to have to be here, and 4-8 weeks (I'm guessing) of all this restriction and limitation I feel is just going to add to the challenge. I don't want to have to ask to go to the bathroom, I don't want to have to finish my salad if I don't feel like it, I want to choose to attend or skip therapy or when I can do my work or read or just lay around, when I can go to bed and when to wake up. I'm trying not to stress out too much, and I think the only way to deal with any of it is to limit my thoughts as much as possible to the day at hand, the task at hand, the meal at hand, etc. I want to try so hard, but at the moment I feel more discouraged than anything...

 Almost a week in! It's been quite the ride so far. My emotions are all over the place, though I'm glad to say mostly positive. I have a whole individualized treatment team (therapist, dietician, psychiatrist, family therapist, and medical doctor) who all are really qualified and helpful. I particularly like my therapist and dietician, and the one-on-one attention is really helpful. The group stuff, on the other hand, comes with its pros and cons. On the bright side, it can generate a lot of support to be around other girls who have the same experiences you do and whose minds work in the same ways yours does. On the other hand, being in treatment means being with a bunch of girls who aren't better yet, and in a lot of cases, girls who don't really want to get better. I've been struggling lot with separating myself from those negative thoughts - the ones surrounding the fear of gaining weight, how to cheat the system, the desire to be stay sick, anxiety about what you would be like without an eating disorder, stuff like that. There are of course people who are motivated and want to get help, but those girls tend to go through the process and move on, meaning they don't stick around long enough for me to meet them! Currently I'm part of a batch that can seem pretty down a lot of the time, so it takes all my effort to stay focused. Even so most of the time I keep truckin' along trying to improve, but I have to admit that at times I feel guilty for not trying harder to stay anorexic. My body image was mostly good until today though, because my dietician gave me a meal increase. They can assign you anywhere from 3 meals to 3 meals and 3 snacks a day, and everything is on a percentage system so some people only eat 1/2 or 3/4 portions. I'm on literally the lowest meal plan possible (3 meals all at 50%) which confused me because other girls who came in at the same time I did had a higher plan, but my dietician said this is because my caloric intake was basically 0 at the time I came in so we had to start really small. She seemed very concerned because I guess the significant amount of weight I lost in a very short period of time is even a big deal among anorexic patients, and she said it was really medically dangerous. She added a snack for the first time yesterday, and I forced myself to finish all my meals today (if you don't you have to drink a supplement). I feel SO FULL though, I'm seriously worried my stomach might explode. Not a good feeling =(

So here I am a couple days later making yet another post. I already feel like so much has changed...in four days! First of all, I had two doctors appointments: a bone density scan and a heart echo. I have slight osteopenia in my spine, which is the same thing as osteoperosis except it's reversible (yay!) with a lot of calcium and time. My heart echo came back and I have myocardial reflux, which basically just mean when blood goes through your valves some comes back the other way because your heart isn't strong enough to pump it through completely. So that's just from malnutrition, but is also reversible once my heart gets stronger. It sucks that even being anorexic for a short period of time can cause such physical damage. It really makes you think...

In terms of mental as opposed to physical diagnoses, there are a couple things. We had to go through the DSM criteria for anorexia just so basically they could be like yeah you're anorexic. They've put me on stomach medication for gastroperesis, which is a condition where your stomach doesn't absorb food because it's slowed down so much. I'm also on an anti-anxiety medication for being OCD, and they want to put me on a mood stabilizer because they claim I'm hypomanic. If you know what being manic depressive/bipolar is you've got the jist of it, except I only have the manic side. I'm kind of against getting medicated for it because to me it sounds like all the symptoms (quick thinking, rapid speech, creativity and easily thinking of new ideas, being goal-oriented, in a good mood and having a euphoric feeling regardless of circumstance, a feeling of being hyper-productive) all sound like great things to me, but I guess it can also lead to impulsive/high-risk behavior that could be dangerous. I know I need it, but I can't really wrap my head completely around the benefit of it. My therapist has also now labeled me as having alexithymia, which means that I'm unable to identify or recognize my own emotions. So basically this is all supposed to be fixed by a combination of medicine, therapy, and eating. We'll see how it goes! Other than that, it's going as well as it could be. I feel pretty comfortable here and have gotten used to all the groups and everything. We have an art show for some of these other doctors next Thursday, and I'm submitting a painting and a poem I wrote to go along with it. I also had to do this activity the other day where I described myself 5, 10, then 15 years down the road first with my eating disorder and then without it. It was really intense, but helpful I think. I've had more meal increases which has been really difficult. The first day I had to supplement most of my breakfast and started puking involuntarily...disgusting. It's getting better though, and I'm really motivated. The only other setback has been that I'm starting to get some of the cravings for the drugs I was on before I came here, but I'm trying to stay strong! I just have to think about a full recovery, and how if I were caught with that stuff it would just delay my progress so much. One of my goals for this week is to "let go" (literally that's all it says, the ambiguity is driving me crazy) so I'm going to try and work on that...whatever it means!