run

Week Seven, Day 1

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023

Content Warning: discussion of eating disorders, weight loss medication, self harm, and mental health.

Ok. 
Ok, ok, ok. 
Ok, so this was originally a much longer, if you can believe it, much angrier post, but the first drafts of it were written in a state of doom-spiraling and abject fear. Now, a few hours into this mess, I’m trying to look at everything with a cooler head, while still acknowledging that the situation is fucked up. 

Welcome to week seven; we’re coming in HOT. 

There’s so much backstory here, and honestly, I’m too tired and upset to get into all of it, but the cliff notes version is that over the past two years, I’ve been on a pretty intense treatment plan to help regulate my metabolism. When the body is put through a severe and prolonged period of trauma, like the trauma of an eating disorder, it becomes really tricky to regulate itself. Near impossible in some cases. It’s why I struggle to lose weight with moderate diet and exercise; the wiring in my body is essentially fried, and I result in subjecting myself to awful things that I know will be successful if I can hold out long enough. See here for devastating proof of how far I am capable of going. 

The medication that I’ve been on has been, at times, excruciating. There was about a six-month adjustment period that was so severe that most people on this medication don’t make it through. The nausea and dry heaving, the chills and full body tremors, I don’t wish it on my worst enemy. It was awful. But, re my stubbornness, I plowed through, and I got myself “adjusted.” The point of all of this brutality, was weight loss. 

And I cannot say that it has done its job. 

What I can say,  without a shadow of a doubt, is that this medication has become a security blanket of epic proportions. Have I lost a ton of weight? Not really. Maybe about 25 pounds. Have I gained? Again, not really. This medicine kept me in this nice little plateau where everything was blissfully stagnant, and I thought that might be enough, right? 

How wrong can a person be, you might ask? 

Incredibly wrong. 
Epically wrong. 
Biblically wrong. 

Today, I was informed of a caveat that was never made clear, or even presented, to me. My insurance told me that since I did not lose or maintain the loss of 5% of my BMI, I am no longer eligible to qualify for this medication. 

I don’t think…that I can adequately express the tailspin that this has me in. I don’t know that I can convey the kind of fear that has wrapped its icy fingers around my throat in a vice-like death grip. 

First off, 5% of my BMI is a lot of fucking weight. Like. A shocking amount. And I feel like that information, that little nugget of a morsel of intel, would have been helpful for me to know when I started this whole process. 

I’m terrified for a few reasons. The first being that you are meant to ween yourself off of this medication slowly. If you stop cold turkey, the side effects can be really brutal, and if they are anything like what I went through getting adjusted to this shit, I can’t even imagine what the detoxing is going to be like. And because insurance companies are kind and empathetic and see us as humans and not little piles of sickly cash, 🙄, they have left me with no other option but to stop this cold turkey. Because my doses run out in less than a week and a half. 

So that’s terrifying thing number one. 

Terrifying thing number two: I could gain the weight that I did lose back, plus some additional pounds just because, you know, bodies are fun. 

I would take a thousand detoxes over this possibility. Because, to gain this weight back? What was it all for? All of the nausea and dry heaving and vomiting when I was able to get down a piece of toast? What the fuck was it all for? 

And then there’s the realization that I failed, right? Which, I think you know by now, is not a place I like to live in, only this sucks even more because I failed at a game I didn’t know I was even playing. There were rules and stipulations that were not made clear to me, and I fucking lost. Because there’s nothing I can do. I’ve called my doctor, who is conveniently on vacation- not her fault, but still – and she is at the mercy of my insurance just as I am, and insurance has made it crystal clear that they will not be covering it anymore. AND because Dr. Emilia is out of office, I have only had access to and communicated with her RN, and there is little she is legally medically allowed to say to me. She can’t prescribe, she can’t even suggest without being liable, and so she can’t tell me if I’m supposed to take my dose today or if I should try to ration it out and lower the dosage to prolong whatever detox I’m in for. Basically I can get no medical help with this. The best solution she was able to offer me was to set up an appointment with another physician in the practice, one whom I’ve never met before, and go over the whole shebang and see what they can do, which, you know, is just making my chest break out in hives, but it’s fine. 

No one can give me any immediate answers. 

And I’m scared. And I’m angry. Because I lost at a game I didn’t know I was playing. On top of the fact that this was supposed to be the easy thing, right? This was supposed to be the little boost that took me farther than diet and exercise alone. So what does it mean when my body rejects the thing that is supposed to, canonically, be the assist that fat people sometimes need? Is my body just so unbelievably broken that it’s beyond help? Is it? I mean, really, is it? Because I feel like it is. And that sucks. 

A few months ago, Dr. Emilia floated the idea of maybe taking me off of this medication, so there is a part of me that knew this day was coming; I’m just so good at evading anything medical that I thought I could prolong this inevitability for a bit longer. But when she floated that idea, I told her that I was scared to go off of it, for all of the reasons I mentioned above. Jesus, I sound like a fucking junkie, and maybe I am, but I’m also a person who has been put through the wringer with all of this shit. Case in point, when I spoke to her about my concerns, she said with a blank expression, “Well, you know, eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full. That should help.” 

AS IF I HAVE ANY ABILITY TO DO THAT. 
As if that is something that I have any real control over. 
As if my life hasn’t been one long meditation in trying to achieve that, but sure, yeah, of course, eat when I’m hungry, stop when I’m full WHY DIDN’T I FUCKING THINK OF THAT?! 

And this isn’t the first time she has made a comment like this to me, just so unbelievably tone-deaf toward and to a person with an eating disorder, and the thing is? I don’t even know that she clocks how much of a mind fuck that comment was. She doesn’t realize the SPIRAL that sent me in. She doesn’t understand that that is the equivalent of  saying to an alcoholic at a kegger, “Well, have a few and then stop when you think you’ve had enough.” It is the same 👏 fucking 👏 thing👏. 

I don’t know. 

I don’t know how my body is going to react to going off of this. 
I don’t know if I’m supposed to go off of this cold turkey. 
I don’t know if I’m supposed to take my shot today. 
I don’t know if I’m supposed to take my full dosage or if I’m supposed to ween myself off of what little supply I have left. 

It feels like I have been thrown to the wolves right now, and I need to talk this through with my therapist, Amy. This has been the crux of the work we’ve been doing, this idea of self-regulating, and I thought I was doing well on that journey, but the big bad wolf just came by and huffed and puffed my little progress hut all the way down. And I’m scared. I’m scared to rely on myself, and I don’t think that I trust myself enough to not go to extreme lengths. This medication was a wonderful life raft amid the sea of self-harm, and without it, I am so freaked out that I’m going to start thrashing and drowning in those waters again. 

I don’t know. 

And I’m sorry. 

This is supposed to be a blog about running. And I promise I’m going to go on this run in just a moment. But right now? I’m angry. And I’m scared. And I’m feeling myself just enough to know that what happened today, what will likely continue to happen over the next few days with my doctor and with insurance, was and is going to be wrong. And I am within my right to be angry about it, and to feel like I have been let down by a system that is designed for me to struggle and fail. Over and over and over again.

But I am still going to put my shoes on and go for this run. 

Because that is one fucking thing I can control.

POST-RUN MORTUM

Time Running: 35 minutes 

Distance Achieved: 2.44 miles 

Tunage: Hadestown 

25 minutes of running today, no breaks. Hadestown is actually a great soundtrack to run through; the beats are excellent. 

The run was fine. I don’t think I’m going to crack a 35-minute 5K, which today I am fine with. If I can get it done in under 50 minutes, I think I’ll be okay with that, and I still have over two months to prepare for this. 

Outside of the run, dude, I don’t know. I’m still so angry, and I have no reply from my doctor from yesterday, and I’m not sure if I was supposed to take my shot today or not, but I did because I guess mama needed her fix. Even if it is purely out of fear and habit at this point. The thought that kept surfacing on the run was that I need to find a new PCP. If I want to heal, if I want to get healthy and stay safe and stop hurting myself, then I need a team to be on board with that. And I don’t think my current doctor is going to be on that team. And that’s fine. But if that is the case, then cuts need to be made, and a new starter needs to step onto the court. Jesus, you know it’s bad when I start using sports metaphors.