I have a whole ton to update on and a couple posts I’ve drafted, but first I want to touch on a difficult subject that came up yesterday. I’m still trying to accept my new normal for the first few weeks of the semester.

I had an absolutely wonderful day at clinical orientation in the children’s hospital. I’m very pumped for it all. I left in a great mood and just felt positive, but then I looked at my phone. I got an email from R that was a little shocking and very upsetting:

K and I talked and we would like you to be at x exchanges before you stop coming to IOP.  We will extend your time in IOP to 2/15.  If you haven’t been able to reach x exchanges by then we will need to look at having you go to a higher level of care like PHP to stabilize. So,  work hard this week to keep moving forward!

Now I want to back up a little bit. In the beginning of January I stepped up care, attending more groups and eating lunch at treatment. I didn’t consider it IOP because I had other appointments while I was there. I quickly realized that being there the whole time IOP is going on still means I’m in IOP. I think it’s been good for me to get out of my dorm and try to work through some of this. The one thing that hasn’t truly improved (okay, I did have half an exchange increase from 2 weeks ago to last week) is my eating and subsequent weight loss. I don’t know that I’ve had this much trouble getting out of restriction before.

IOP is going relatively well. I’ve had a ton of challenges and mostly stepped up to the plate. Last week Monday ended up being the most exchanges I’ve had in months, thanks to increasing for both my meal and snack at IOP. Even though I do love the therapists and some of the activities, I don’t want to be there any longer than I already have been. I’m ready to focus on school instead.

Originally I was supposed to attend full IOP this Thursday and R would let me know on Monday what the plan would be. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I’m not at all happy with this arrangement. I cried and felt generally terrible upon hearing the news.

I decided that yesterday I would allow myself to wallow. I felt all of the negative emotions that came up – guilt/shame, frustration, fear, hopelessness, a little anger, sadness. I didn’t try to push them down. At some points I felt genuinely sorry for myself. It honestly was a bit miserable. As hard as that was, I believe it definitely benefited me. I got out those feelings in a more healthy way. I didn’t focus on acceptance, which may seem a little counterproductive.

Today, I will attempt to end the wallowing, rationalizing, and planning about how I will get myself out of IOP for the next 2.5 weeks. As my best friend said, arguing against it may result in my team feeling I’m not in a good enough place to continue in this level of care. I really can’t have that happen. (side note: any other form of treatment absolutely will not work with my schedule)

Today, I will work on acceptance. I want to go into tomorrow with the best possible attitude. If I’m going to be forced into IOP, I want to actually gain something from the experience. We’ll see how that goes considering how stubborn I can be (and how loud Ed is now).

I am not where I wanted to be by the time spring semester started. I am not where my team wants me. I am (probably) not in a stable enough place to handle everything. I need to change this so I can be in the best possible place to thrive and not just survive.

This is obviously not the update I wanted to make, but it’s where I am. This won’t be where I am going to stay.