My last post specified a few goals aimed at cutting down on my daytime restriction, and the spiked nighttime emergency feeding I was taking part in. I took care of each of those, and when I got home after school I did not feel as out of control. I think that I need to pack more food than I did, but it was a good start.
I did not have school yesterday, and ran errands (clothes shopping too) in the sunshine... I had two granola/protein/fiber bars and a container of fruit with me. It proved to be a good choice, and when I got home around 6pm I did not feel insane... I ate a decent dinner... I not only have the habit of waking up in the middle of the night to feed, but also between 10pm and when I go to bed I find myself craving energy dense foods. It is pretty frustrating because the anxiety I experience by trying to find moderation during that time is intense, and many times that feeling will overtake my efforts. I do not try to NOT eat during that time period because I physically get hungry (for now I am working from the moderation standpoint), unfortunately eating anything that is not sugar/fat/easy starch- huge trigger to crave even more.
The shrink and I have been working from a psychodynamic approach in trying to figure out the late night and time when I should be sleeping, and it has really started to work on the overnight/middle of the night eating, but when I am conscious just before bedtime it is still a struggle. After we switched to this perspective in January surrounding the overnight eating, I immediately started to have success in sleeping though the night, and also reducing the shame surrounding when I did wake up and eat. This next part just might take a little longer, since it it the essence of my eating disorder.
There is some progress on the body image front! Yesterday while running errands, I stopped at a few stores to look at clothes... and bought a dress for myself AND some kind of lingerie/lace short dress thing. After I tried on a few dresses, I found that my previous (long time/years) perspective of how I looked in a dress had started to fade, and I felt really feminine. So I found one that I loved, and was pretty excited (and it has no sleeves... arms exposed!)! I wandered over to the pj's section, and found that there were short dress-ish lingerie items that looked like something I could go for. I am terrified of strappy/thong/two piece stuff because of my body shape, but I really found these to be something I could go for. I almost bought two, but ended up with one that makes me feel sexy (what? I just said it makes me feel sexy) that I will be able to wear in front of my husband without puking from nerves. Anyway. Those two purchases were a big deal.
I have a huge amount of research writing to do in the next four days... will make some goals for myself later today.
