Many months ago, there was an awesome cartoon on Therapy Tales that I have been dying to expand upon. It starts like this:
I’ve often thought about what my therapist would say were I to tell her about my blog. I bet she’d be thinking something like the following (note: I am NOT the artist that Therapy Tales is!):

Yeah, I don’t think we’ll be having this conversation any time soon…

In anticipation of the third season of “In Treatment” starting this fall, I’ve been “re-watching” season one. I say “re-watching” because I never finished watching it in the first place.  When I first started watching the show, I would watch one patient at a time — week one through week nine. Then I would choose another patient, and watch him/her for all nine weeks. I could do this since I had the DVDs.
This time, I’ve been watching the series as intended — week by week, with all …

It was really weird for me to look at anxiety as some positive indicator of change rather than some big red “stop! uncomfortableness ahead!” sign. If I were waiting for recovery to be comfortable, it was never going to happen. Challenging the eating disorder was never going to feel good (at least not while still in the thick of it).

This evening I was reading Carrie’s post on overcoming core traits.  Personally, her post was very timely, having just finished reading the book, “When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough.”  That is NOT a book that I would normally pick up (I feel pretty well-versed in perfectionism), but my therapist handed it to me.  In hindsight, maybe I could have NOT read it and argued that I was challenging my perfectionism by not doing my therapy homework.  Oh well, next time…
Anyway, the book made a lot of good points, and I could …

I just couldn’t resist…
On the 12th day of Christmas,
my therapist gave to me…

12 new feeling words
11 prying questions
9 self-affirmations …

I’ve been in all different levels of treatment with numerous professionals and various treatment centers, and overall I’d have to say that both group and individual therapy are important (and beneficial) in recovery.  With group, there are several people who you can bounce ideas off of, get advice from, relate to, and rely on for support.  I feel like most of the real therapy work happens in individual, though, where you can focus on your specific issues, goals, etc.  I really do think it helps to have both individual and …

“I’m not deflecting because I’m avoiding something deep. I’m deflecting because I’m avoiding something shallow.” – House, MD
One of my biggest treatment pet peeves is when professionals ask non-deep “deep” questions. For example:

What does it mean to feel?
How did it feel to be in that space?
How does it feel to be in this space now?
What does it mean for you to not be in that space anymore?
How do you experience that process?
What would it mean for there to be grey in your world?
How does it feel to have …

Last night I watched all of the “In Treatment” Sophie episodes.  I am just engrossed in this show.  I feel so connected to the patients and to Paul.  I think that they discuss such intimate details that I feel like I am part of some deep relationship.  I can relate to a lot of what the patients say, so Paul’s responses are meaningful to me.  It’s also funny that I don’t feel comfortable ending therapy at the end of each season.  In episode nine of Sophie I was thinking, “No!  …

(in no particular order)

You measure the cost of things in nutrition appointments (ex: That shirt is one nutrition appointment. These shoes are worth two appointments).
You start dressing like your professionals (or maybe, they starts dressing like you…)
“Treatment” is a recurring event with no end date on your calendar.
You’ve never needed to purchase “Eating in the Light of the Moon” because at some point you have been given a photocopy of every chapter.
In group, no one sits in your seat, even when you’re not there (because you’ve been sitting there …

There have been many blog posts written on facebook and pro-anorexia, however, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about facebook and recovery in general.
Facebook is really unique in that EVERYONE (okay, almost everyone) is on it.  If you’re an eating disorder patient, this means your professionals, the other girls/guys you’re in treatment with, past patients, your school / work friends who may not know about your eating disorder, your family members, etc.  In what other realm do all of these people connect?
For most people, “Facebook stalking” means checking out what …