I’m excited to be able to start this with a positive. This week Thursday, we were FINALLY allowed to come into our school building to work, and I’ve never been so excited to go. I got to see so many of my amazing coworkers who I haven’t seen in about 6 months, and it was just good for the soul. These past several months have felt particularly lonely, and it was nice to return to a sense of normalcy.
In other news, I found out this week that I was officially accepted into the inpatient program and am now on the waiting list, where there is an approximate 2-3 week wait. It’s strange because even though, rationally, I know I need the help, a big part of me was still convinced that there was no way the doctor reviewing my assessment would look at that information and say, “Yes, she definitely needs inpatient.” I was expecting them to say I was fine and should just continue in outpatient, or at the opposite end of the spectrum, tell me I was a lost cause and that they couldn’t help. (Don’t ask me how both of those scenarios make sense in my head at the same time.)
2-3 weeks feels like a lifetime and 2 seconds all at once. I’m panicking because now I have a general time frame for how much longer I can continue losing weight and controlling what I put in my body. It’s real now. Before Wednesday, when I got the call, it was still just an idea, a possibility I was flirting with, but nothing was for certain. Now it’s real. I mean, I know I can still change my mind, but I also know that would be a bad idea.
Walking down a hallway feels like I’m walking through mud. Lifting a bag of trash into the dumpster feels like trying to lift 200 pounds. Going up a flight of stairs makes me feel like I just ran a marathon. I had to take a break from putting the few groceries I actually buy in my car because I was seeing stars and felt like I was on the verge of passing out. Those things are not normal, and I have to keep reminding myself that these things happened, are happening, and the only way to fix this is by going back to treatment, and putting in real effort to get better.
It feels like my only chance at leaving behind this miserable existence I’ve been trying to call a life.
