Therapy and Yoga

Yoga:  20 minute Rodney Yee DVD in evening
Other: Therapy
Bloating: 7 (10 being worst)  Lots of bloating but not too painful.  Just unattractive!
Cramping: 6 (10 being worst)  Cramping after BM but subsided in a couple of hours
BM satisfaction:  6  (incomplete evacuation)

I had been thinking last week that perhaps the therapy I am doing (psychodynamic psychotherapy with a psychiatrist 4 times a week) is "bad" for me, in that it stirs up all my anxiety and sadness and fear and regret and anger, and my stomach gets all tight, and then... time's up.  And I leave the office feeling pretty shitty, gut-wise. 

I have also been thinking that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) might be more helpful in treating my anxiety, IBS and eating disorder in a more directed, focussed way.   It's about reframing your cognitive beliefs and redirecting your behaviour.    Very goal-oriented.

 So I raised this with my therapist today - although we've been dancing around this topic for a couple of weeks now.   She thinks that yes, during the sessions I am feeling anxiety, but I'd be feeling this anxiety even without therapy, and that I am feeling it when I am not in session with her.   This is true.  She says the session merely brings it to the surface.   She agrees that CBT would be helpful but it's a typically a short-term set of sessions, like 14 weeks, and after that I am going to continue to need support.  She thinks I should find a CBT program to do in conjunction with seeing her.  And she commended me on my new commitment to yoga - we discussed doing the yoga when I get home after my therapy sessions to help unwined the knot in my stomach. 

Which is what I did this evening.  I felt pretty drained after a cry-fest in therapy, so when I got home at 6:45 I just did a quick 20-minute session.  It's from a DVD of Rodney Yee's called AM Yoga, consisting of five 20-minute sesssions, so there's a different one each weekday.     It's nice, but after the intense ashtanga classes I've been doing, it feels like I didn't do anything.    I bought a longer Yee DVD of power yoga - so I'm thinking I should do the 20 minutes every morning, then an additional longer DVD a few evenings per week.    And studio classes on the weekends.

I kind of lashed out on someone else's blog today.   It's an ED recovery blog that I think is pretty brilliant - http://ed-bites.blogspot.com/.    The author, Carrie Arnold, was discussing her difficulty in feeding herself when her parents are away. And I got all bitchy on her - saying she should consider herself lucky that her only barriers to eating are mental ones.  That I would give anything not to feel like shit all the time and worried every time I put something in my mouth whether it's gonna cause bloating, cramping, diarrhea or constipation.  

I was speaking out of the frustration that wells up in me - when I feel it's impossible to fully recover from an ED when you have IBS.   However, I realize that for Carrie, the ED is serious and difficult and painful.  It's probably insensitive for me to imply she shouldn't complain because my circumstances are more complicated.   That's as good as telling her she should be grateful to eat because there are children starving in Africa.   Or Pakistan, as it is lately.   I wouldn't be suprised if she took offense.

But perhaps it managed to shift her focus, if even a little bit, if only for a moment.   Sometimes when I walk down the street I pass by people with serious deformities, in wheelchairs, etc. and it temporarily jogs me out of my own intense body loathing.   Sometimes a little perspective can be a good thing.