I don't quite know how to begin this post.
I guess for everyone who doesn't keep up with these things and just decided to check this or is new to my facebook/blog I'll summarize my summer.
I spent this summer (June 14th through August 12th in a residential Eating Disorder Center called Castle Wood. Frankly speaking Castle Wood is as good as it gets.
Not only did they help me work on the things that I needed to get to move on from my past (so I wouldn't 'symptom swap, and hurt myself in other ways once old pain arose again) but they also helped me admit that there was old pain in my past.
I've always been very flippant about my past, "Oh yeah, my family is fucked up," without really telling myself or letting myself recognize how that could have effected me.
It did.
It hurt, and I refused to let myself admit that it hurt. I wanted to think I was the one who made everyone hurt. I was the one who made others hurt me.
No one else in my position could do that, but I was special, I was messed up in special ways.
In my family, for generations there has been a triangle of abuse (Karpman, 1968), physical, emotional, neglectful, who knows.
Abuser
/ \
Abused Rescuer
I've been in all 3 positions, as have almost all members of my family. In the circumstances though, without knowing why or how to stop this, even what was going on, it's hard to blame. Blame isn't necessary in most of the cases in my family though. What is, is recognition that actions have been wrong. Certain things done by all of us were wrong, and though they cannot be take back, they must be learned from so they're not repeated.
Without the help of Castle Wood and my amazing Therapist, Laura Wood, I wouldn't have been able to see this.
Trauma has always been sort of a scary word for me. Sort of like sex, it just wasn't allowed around me. Laura and the staff helped me realize that growing up I did go through a lot of Trauma and it did effect my psychological development and my Bulimia/EDNOS.
It was a rough but magical summer and I learned a lot.
I wanted to come home almost every week and after I was home my grandmother told me one of the online staff told her to be prepared for calls like that; that means that therapy is working most of the time and the parts of me that don't want to give up my eating disorder and negative behaviors are fighting back.
I met amazing people, both staff and friends and I'll never forget any of them.
After coming home some things were a mess. I back slid a bunch and eventually ended up ennrolling full time in school, something that was not supposed to happen and did not bode well for me.
Things are rough but still do-able.
My mom's pretty ill currently and that's pretty stressful and I'm also having a pretty tough time with motivation to do things around the house.
Hopefully I can try and figure out a way to set out times to do things and that will help me figure things out and get things done, at least it will show my mom that I'm trying.
I'm really wanting to show everyone that I can do this, I've thrown out my scale, been using my prescriptions as prescribed (mostly, I have cut down on my Klonipin and Metadate (the Metadate NEEDS to me changed, but I see my doctor next week) and although my intake has been irregular, it hasn't been a huge issue.
(And living out of a mini fridge isn't exactly in line with both my fickleness and the variety I'm supposed to use, although it would be better to use it at all)
I suppose I'm doing well, considering the circumstances, and I'm trying to make the best of it, even if it might not look like it most days at face value.
I love all of you and thank you for the amazing support,
Cassidy.
