BREADSTICKS!

Right now, I am currently inpatient at BHC Alhambra Hospital.  I am back after being discharged from my 5 month stay only six weeks later.  It came as a dissapointment to me, but I know it is what I need.  My life has been taken away from me- school, work, Mexico, my high school church ladies, and just the ability to have FUN.  I want all of this back, so I am, in a way, relieved to be back here getting help.

Today we had a group called "Exposure Food."  The group is basically what is sounds like.  They give us a food that patients either avoided eating or binged on, depending on the disorder.  Past exposure foods have been doughnuts, candy bars, chips and dip, and cinnimon rolls.  Part of the challenge is just sitting with it in front of you.  Sometimes that is ENOUGH of a challenge.  But they encourage each person to try it, and if he or she completes the snack, it will replace the mandatory afternoon snack.  Are you following still?  They even give us incentives sometimes by bringing diet coke or coffee for those who try the "fear food."  During the group, you need to choose a coping skill, and I chose journaling.  This is what it looked like:

"Breadsticks from Papa Johns?!?!?!  God, I'm so scared!  And full from lunch!  God, help!  I want to beat this, but I'm teriffied of my freaking thighs rubbing together!  I want to go home.  Hide in my bed.  I already feel like such a failure for just THINKING about trying them...and I haven't even touched them yet!  But who says that if I try these two breadsticks that I will be a failure?  If my goal is to beat ED (eating disorder), wouldn't eating this be considered a success???  I can just imagine someone w/o an E.D. laughing at me right now.  I'm having a mini-panic attack over BREADSTICKS! Lame!  I'm afraid to simply touch them.  I don't want the grease and the parm. cheese on my fingers.  I think it would be easier to eat with a fork and knife...but that's not normal...Then again, neither is being afraid of bread.  The verse at the bottom of my journal is very fitting- John 10:10 "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."  God sent salvation so that I DON'T have to live in bondage........So...I tried two bites...and honestly, they are not appealing to me.  They taste like cardboard.  But I tried, so I get to enjoy diet coke :) :) :)

So here's to SOMEDAY eating breadsticks from Olive Garden with my sister.  Cheers!