This week, I am focusing on triggers and how to deal with them. I was recently triggered by a nurse in my doctor’s office. Soon after I was triggered, I posted the following message on Isurvive.org, which is a message board for abuse survivors. The post fills you in on all you need to know. Tomorrow, I will get into how I dealt with the triggering after posting this message.
Triggered again re: eating disorder
D@#$!! I am so sick to death of being triggered every other day. I HATE this time of year.
Today, the trigger ties in with eating disorder, which is why I am posting here.
For most of my life, I have struggled with binge eating and compulsive overeating. I have made great progress over the past few years, but I have been slipping some (but not nearly as intensely) over the past several weeks as I keep getting triggered over and over again.
I have always had high cholesterol, no matter how “good” I try to be with my eating. It has been as high as 300+, and doctors want it under 200. I am now on Crestor (the “miracle drug”!!), and that has been working well.
I saw my doctor earlier this week for my six month cholesterol check in. I specifically told the nurse NOT to tell me my weight. If I hear a number, I sets me off badly — right back into self-hate land, which fuels the need to eat and … well, you get the picture.
She did not tell me the number. The doctor made a comment about me being a “normal” weight in relation to a conversation we were having, but that was it.
I know that I am not skinny and never will be. But, I wear a size 8 in relaxed fit jeans, which I figure is pretty good for someone who will be forty in the not-too-distant future. I am generally content with how I am.
So, now the nurse called to give me my results. My cholesterol is good — 187. Yeah!! Why couldn’t she have just stopped there??
Then she says that my triglycerides are too high. No s@#$. That always happens when I wrestle with my eating disorder. The doctor wants me to taking higher fish oil supplements to pull that down. Cool, I can do that.
And then, the d@#$ nurse says that my weight is up 6 lbs from last year. Already, the triggering starts. And then she says that someone of my age and height should weigh under ###. And then I was gone.
d@#$ d@#$ d@#$
Why did she have to leave that part of the message!?!!
So, now I have this number rolling around my head. I know it is just a number, but that doesn’t matter when I get triggered. I know that my weight is higher than “that” weight (or why else would she have said it?), so now my head is going all sorts of places that are likely not even accurate.
I also know that it was my time of the month, so I was bloated with water weight. In my head, I know that nothing has changed, but now I am back in that horrible place of being bombarded with those messages — “I’m fat. I’m worthless. I am this big cow who doesn’t even deserve to live.”
I know how to push through it all, but it p@$$es me off to no end that I HAVE to work through this crap again. My doctor knows about my eating disorder history, which is probably why she handled the weight stuff the way that she did. But that d@#$ nurse.
I hate this. I hate for other people to continue to have the power to push my buttons and send me reeling back to that horrible place. I hate it!! I hate it!! I hate it!!
– Faith
_________________
After the rain, the rainbow.
Related Topics:
- Getting Triggered after Child Abuse
- Determining the Origin of Triggers
- Traumatized Adopted Child, PTSD, and Triggers
- Trauma Tuesday: Traumatized Adopted Child and Triggers
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
im sorry you went through that… i have been in a really really bad place it seems as every every every thing sets me off just as you say… and then like you say i hear all the things in my head that i have heard so many other times in a million other ways… any ways i understand aboutwieght and numbers and allof that … sorry you went through that…
It is a terrible feeling to know that someone else can say the simplest thing and it can send us into a tailspin, out of our control. If they only knew the power they have! I hope you’re able to cope in the coming days.
I have struggled with my weight, also. Honestly I don’t know if any of it could be considered an eating disorder or not, but it’s still a problem for me. About ten years ago, I was so skinny that people thought I looked ill. Last year, I hit the most I’ve ever weighed, fifteen pounds higher than the limit my doctor set because I’m at risk for diabetes. But in the past six months, I’ve dropped two pants sizes without meaning to. I swing between eating hardly anything, only one meal a day with a couple of snacks, and what might (maybe) be called binging, where I go crazy with sugar cravings and eat larger meals three times a day.
One medication I’ve since stopped taking was responsible for the majority of the weight gain, but I still have days where all I do is eat junk food, and other days where I hardly eat anything. The two seem to balance each other out, but I still hate the way I feel when it happens because I know it isn’t healthy. Maybe I should pay more attention and see if anything triggers one or the other.
[…] faithallen @ 7:07 am Tags: child abuse, getting triggered after child abuse In my last post, My Experience with Being Triggered Recently, I shared a recent experience with being triggered. Just re-reading what I wrote gave me headache, […]
Midge,
Many people mistakenly believe that only anorexia and bulimia qualify as eating disorders. The truth is that an eating disorder can manifest in many ways, from only eating one food item for weeks on end to yo-yo’ing between binging and starving yourself. Eating disorders come in many packages. The telltale sign is whether you are controlling your eating or if your eating patterns are controlling you.
Take care,
– Faith
oh Faith… I soooo understand exactly what that must have been like. That nurse should have known better!!! It isn’t rocket science for her to have been sensitive about that! I have told them for years not to let me see the weight because it is a major trigger for me, when it is higher than I want, it freaks me out, when it is low, it motivates me to keep on not eating. I was hospitalized several times as a teen for bulimarexia/anorexia…in many ways I say it saved my life though, because it was a “safe” place where people cared for me and taught me I was worth fighting for and, they believed me. I did a vlog on it on my youtube account… omg, I forgot to tell you, I am myblueart (e-mailed you last week)… maybe that will tell you. Anyway, the post is called My Hero… and it expresses how that eating disorder, although it almost killed me, maybe saved me too… it was an interesting revelation. I have been mostly “free”of it (mostly,but not perfectly) for many years, but with memories coming up for me, the new ones I don’t know how to accept, I am struggling a little again. trying not to be too hard on myself though, I am aware, and am trying to keep myself as safe as I can with it.
thanks again for all your posts!
blessings!
“Hope”