even the brains of people with depression aren’t the same… how could you expect the symptoms to be?
PAUL MARCUS FUOG
(Source: fleeten)
Another amazing video. It’s a bit more dry and technical than it is inspirational. However, it makes an excellent (and not often discussed) point about how in treating all other illnesses of the body doctors have images of these parts (images of hearts, lungs, arms, legs etc) to see what the problem is and exactly what they need to treat, but that when in treating mental illness psychiatrists base their treatment (giving medication) off of symptoms, rather than actual real physical evidence of what the problem is (images of the brain) so it’s like throwing darts at a dart board so to speak. It advocates SPEC imaging and is definitely worth the watch.
I want you to imagine a ten year old version of yourself sitting right there on this couch. Now this is the little girl who first believed that she was fat, and ugly, and an embarrassment.
Keeping this as a reference for every time I want to use behaviors:
- I will get nothing positive out of restricting, binging, or purging.
- None of my problems will be solved, in fact they will likely be magnified because of the self-hate that I feel from falling into the same old trap.
- No matter how many times I say “it will be different this time”, it will NOT be, if I continue to go back to the same things that I KNOW don’t work.
- Using the same behavior today that I used the previous day will result in the same outcome and I have to believe that and not let myself be convinced otherwise.
- Same behavior = Same results— That is a fact.
- I refuse to let myself use the excuse of “I will start tomorrow”, because that will get pushed to the next day, and the next and pretty soon I will have wasted an entire year.
- And the concept of wasting my life to this is much scarier than dealing with any problem I face in my life currently.
- I can, and will break the vicious cycle by dealing with the issues in my life as they arise rather than avoiding them and allowing more to resurface.
- I am healing, I am learning, and I am growing and I deserve to to let myself solve my problems in a healthy way.
- I will become the person I want to be because I am stronger than I believe and I will prove that to myself.
- And I will remember that- "I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me."
Body dysmorphia…
Its funny, despite gaining about 10 BMI points from my lowest weight, in some ways I don’t actually think I look any different when I look in the mirror.
When I look back at photos, obviously I can see how thin I was. But I rarely saw it back then. Occasional glimpses or insights, perhaps.
The reflection in the mirror is the same as it has always been. Except that maybe I am actually now staring back at a non-body dysmorphic image.
I always hated my natural shape and size. I feared it most. It was what haunted me during my eating disorder, and what terrified me most when I stared in the mirror. No matter what my actual size, I saw this size. I always saw my natural size, and I was always ashamed and terrified of it.
I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I am happy with my current shape and size. I am no longer afraid of what the world has gifted me with. Except of course when I am stressed or anxious and eating disordered thoughts attack me again! But, on the whole, I am OK with me. Finally.
It is very odd that all along, throughout everything, I have been afraid of being this size and seen this size in the mirror no matter what weight I actually was. And now, arriving here, everything feels right. I see my reflection, it is me, and I make no vows to change it. I am not afraid of it. I am me. I cannot change it. It is OK.
