Bawwwwing
I hate crying in front of people, even my own mom/family. It's usually just embarrassing for me and doesn't make me feel relieved even when it's over, to be honest.
In the five years I've been to counseling now (on and off, skipping several months at a time and whatnot, but still) I've only cried twice, when I told Laurie my dad had cancer (he's fine for now thank god..he had this really rare kind of tumor called a liomiosarcoma in his abdomen and it was all removed, and so far in all his screenings there's nothing there) , and yesterday.She wanted to schedule a whole appointment before I left for school talking about my ED because I usually don't bring it up and we ran out of time last session.
It was probably the most honest I've ever been to her about it, or anything else really. I tried to explain to her how I didn't even know if I wanted to stop, how I need something that's mine, that I own, that nobody can stop me from doing. How it's become so normal it doesn't scare me anymore. The emotional toll of lying all the time but feeling the need to continue anyway. The rush and the high and the secrecy, and even the thrill in hiding it; knowing I can get away with it.That's when she dropped the bombshell on me that when she called my house to reschedule when I first got home to break my mom told her she suspected I'd been purging and to ask me about it.
I just lost it and spent the rest of the time rambling and crying, to be honest.. I was just so embarassed and ashamed, I really thought she had no idea. The fucked up part is that what I'm most upset and ashamed about is that I apparently didn't cover my tracks good enough, that I should have hidden it better about, not that I've been doing it and being dishonest in the first place.
It's just so weird because my mom has been so normal and seems really happy with me lately, I would have thought she would have immediately confronted me and refused to let me out of her sight if she thought that considering how she insisted on staying with me in my apartment for over a month last time. Laurie pointed that out, though. When I told her I was afraid of my mom knowing because I didn't want her to freak out and start micromanaging she reminded me tht that she hadn't so far, so I need to give her credit for that.I actually felt like this was the first time she really said some things that got through to me about my eating disorder.
She reminded me that no matter how many anyone wanted me to stop, nobody could stop me from acting on my behaviors if I really wanted to - it's impossible. So if I want to stop it has to be entirely up to me. I have to want to stop, and if I don't, then it's never going to be better.
She's also made a big point about not having to hide all the time , not keeping my whole life a big secret- not just my eating disorder but my life in general. I'm always hiding, keeping everyone out, trying to solve my problems on my own and building a wall up so I can't feel emotionally vulnerable (probably why crying in front of people feels so shitty to me). That really got to me because I know how true it is and it actually makes me wonder if she can see through me better than I think - when I omit things that aren't going well and exaggerate how well I'm doing. I hide and lie from even the one person I have HIRED to help me with my problems for fuck's sake. :/
But the thing is is the sucky part about ED is I don't see how you can't hide. You have to lie and do these things in private. Nobody goes around eating and puking in public, in front of their friends and family. ED totally loses power the more people know, I think, and that's supposed to be a good thing, but it doesn't feel like it.
I'm still not sure how much my mom knows about me purging, I really, really hope she was just wondering/suspecting but assumes I'm fine. She sure seems happy with me lately and was going on and on the other day about how it just goes to show you the medications really do work, etc. She just can't know.
Anyway I'm not really sure how I feel about our session overall. She said a lot of things that really stuck with me but I spent so long bawwing and rambling and her trying to comfort me we never really got to any actual plan to improve anything before the session was over. But she told me when it ended that she appreciated me being so honest, that she knew how hard talking about this was for me, and she's definitely never said anything like that before, so that makes me feel like maybe we got somewhere anyway even though I left feeling really upset.
I just can't wait to get back to my apartment, I miss my privacy so much.