Choices

This post is going to be about the last night of weekly meals during my treatment program. I dedicated a separate post for each night for a reason. It would have been simple to make sweeping statements and give generalities about what meals are like during treatment for an eating disorder. By closely examining each night separately, it gives me the opportunity to delve further into the experience. I’m still processing my experience in treatment. I’m still trying to make sense of my eating disorder, how I feel/felt, and what positive things can come from this for myself and possibly others. These posts represent my willingness to be honest with myself, to explore what scares, embarrasses, and confuses me, as well as to stop isolating myself from the people that can help me…YOU.

Thursday nights were the last night of weekly treatment. By that night, I was mentally, and in turn, physically exhausted. There is a phrase that says that once you KNOW better, you have to DO better. That journey from knowing to doing can be taxing, even just on a weekly basis. Once I was in treatment, my focus seemed to be only on my eating disorder. There will never again be a day in which I can simply sit down and eat like I did before. Now, I know that something is “off” and I have to be attentive to it at all times. Any second, things can go terribly wrong for me.

On Thursdays, we were to bring our own dinner to treatment. The meal should still meet the nutritional needs outlined in each of our individual meal plans as every other meal we consumed should be. The difference was that WE got the opportunity to select what we ate to meet those requirements.

When I found out during the first week of treatment that we would bring our own meal on Thursday, I was elated! I was being given control and a choice. As that first Thursday approached, I became less optimistic. By Wednesday night, I was in a full panic attack. I needed to come up with something to bring for the meal and fast. If we did not bring a meal with us, we would be able to order from a local restaurant that would deliver there OR we could piece together a meal from what was in their kitchen. Being my first Thursday meal there, I didn’t want to do either of those things. I pondered my exchange list and decided to stop at Wawa on Thursday morning. I ordered a burrito bowl that contained white rice (starch), grilled chicken (protein), salsa (veggie), guacamole (fat), and cheese (fat).

When we entered the lobby at treatment on Thursday nights, a TA would take our meal from us and put it into the staff lounge refrigerator. From 5:30PM-6:30PM, we would have a process group. At 6:30PM, our meals would be handed to us and we would go into the kitchen. We were required to take our food from its container and place it onto a paper plate. Because it was bring-our-own-food night, there was no kitchen staff available to wash dishes. Therefore, we used paper plates and cups and plastic utensils. Just as with the other nights, a TA would go through out meal and how it met the exchanges. One thing that I learned from Thursday evenings was just how inaccurate my estimations about portion sizes could be. That first night, I thought that the burrito bowl wasn’t going to be enough food. The “tiny” bowl fit easily in my hand. BUT, once it was dumped out onto a plate, it was a HUGE amount of food. So much so, that I ended up having to get rid of half of the guacamole and more than half of the rice. I also had to add some veggies from the kitchen rations to meet my exchanges.

The atmosphere at the table on Thursdays was always more relaxed. There was something empowering about having that little bit of choice to select what we would be bringing to dinner. Those nights, it seemed the conversations were lighter and everyone easily ate the foods that they got some enjoyment from.

During the meal processing, I was surprised to discover that I was not the only one who had struggled with bringing their own meal. Many of them brought the exact same meal each week because they knew that it would meet their requirements and that they enjoyed it enough to try to eat it.

For me, there are many facets to my struggle that I had never considered, brought to light on Thursdays. Monday and Wednesday nights I didn’t like NOT having control or knowing what I was going to be eating beforehand. Now, Thursdays were anxiety riddled because I DID have a choice. Why? I discovered that NOT having a choice AND having a choice were just different sides of the control coin for me. Not having a choice- no control. Having a choice- no control. Having a choice, no control?? Yes. Because, given absolute complete control of my eating options, I don’t think much about what is in my food, how it is prepared, the portion size, nutritional value, what it will do to my body, etc. I am only concerned about how good it tastes and how it makes me FEEL. I want to be satiated and comforted by food. I want to feel numbed and blissful. The requirement to be mindful of the portion size and what exchanges it met still put me in a position of not having complete control. It will always be painful for me to know that as a person recovering from an eating disorder and as someone who will have bariatric surgery, I will NEVER be able to “just eat what I want”. I will always have to put thought into what I eat, how I eat it, when I eat it, and why I eat it. I will always have to consider these things for as long as I live because the alternative is for me to do nothing and not change. That is not an option that I want to take either. When I stressed out from Sunday until Thursdays at 5PM, what I was really stressing out about is my reality- the rest of my life. If I was having this much trouble, being given options, what would I do with EVERY single meal when I have those same endless options? I know what I am capable of doing to myself and that scares me. I know my inability to make sound choices as a binge eater. Those choices go well beyond just my eating behaviors. And, that SCARES me.