How I got here…PT 1

I want to move on. I want to make this Journal about the present and the future. I spend all my time running away from the memories but I feel like until I just write it down maybe I can move forward. This is going to take a long time and I am going to try to make it as short as possible. I am not going to write at this point what started everything. I am only going to go back to what lead me where I am now.

In April 2016 I started to get sick like sick where I could not hide it. I had lost a significant amount of weight. I was having trouble at my job I was just existing I didnt know exactly what was wrong but I knew I was sick. I went to the hospital several times and I was basically given anxiety medications but nothing was really checked. Then I was told it was kidney stones so I had surgery to break up the kidney stones but it did not help the tingling and stiffness in my arms and legs or the fact that I just did not have any energy I would try to stand up from the toilet but I would sometimes just fall back down.

In July I took my kids to a water park to celebrate my sons birthday. It was only after a few minutes that I started feeling increasingly sick. I tried to get water but as soon as a drank the water I was throwing up unable to get up. I then lost my sight and hearing. I was taken to the medical trailer and then taken to the hospital. When I got to the hospital I was convinced I was going to die. I soon learned that I had been suffering from Hypokalemia and was minutes away from heart failure.

I ended up in the hospital a few more times after that for the same reason. When I went to my doctors the next time I didnt have my normal nurse practitioner I had the head doctor who asked me about my weight loss and my hospital stays. I finally told her that I had relapsed in my eating disorder pretty seriously. Due to my heart problems I was immediately taken for a ultrasound on my heart. Where damage was found heavily on the left side. At this time she recommended me leave work and see a nutritionist and a therapist. So I found a nutritionist and she recommended an eating disorder program close to where I lived. I had never in all my years actively sought out treatment. I really didnt get how sick I was and I really just needed the short term disability at work until I felt better but I went and for the first time I told the person everything.

I was hoping for some counseling or something maybe an eating plan or something instead I found out that they were recommending me for an inpatient program in Florida. So without knowing much about it I started going through the process but then I started having second thoughts. I was really torn. So I found another program. I felt like it was the right place and I had found out that I didnt qualify for the one in Florida because I failed my pre-examine and would need to be hospitalized first before I could be medically cleared to travel and be admitted but the other place I didnt need to do that. It also was not inpatient it was a partial hospitalization program.

So I was entered into that program. I will say that I knowing what I know now that program was not for me although it was a great program. That program was very much about accountability and commitment and I was really not in a place that I could make that program work. I in some ways became sicker from that program because the other problem I struggle with is alcohol. I was going to a place having two meals a day two snacks and not having the knowledge or the tools to know how to emotionally deal with it at night. I would only recommend this type of program if you have done a more intense program and you are stepping down. I began drinking 3 times as much as I had before and after I believe two months my insurance would no longer cover that level of care and would only pay for inpatient treatment.

This time I went to (what I now know) was a great program. I only stayed for one day I just really had a lot of anxiety about it, I was going to miss my kids Halloween, Christmas, and birthdays. I do wish I had thought of the long run but I did not.

After that my drinking became worse I got stuck in a weird place mentally. I had lost my job, my husband was angry at me, my kids were scared because I was in and out of the hospital so many times. I just didnt know what to do. So one day I decided that I was going to go and I was going to get better for my kids and my family. I was for the first time really ready to do it.

I looked online and found a place in Michigan.

Part 2 will be about what really destroyed me.