- Hello everybody, happy Thursday!
And when it's Thursdays here at KatiMorton.com,
that means that I'm on Twitter!
So if you asked your questions
using the hashtag #KatiFAQ, I found 'em,
and I have three today, and I have a journal topic,
thanks to Millie, so thanks Millie.
Without further ado, first question.
"Hey, Kati, what's outpatient
"group therapy like for eating disorders?
"I've never been there, but I'm going soon,
"and I'm really scared.
"Will I have to eat there?"
I think this is a good question,
because we don't always talk about
what each type of therapy or each
level of treatment looks like,
and kind of what to expect.
So, outpatient, depending on,
I'm assuming this person's doing a day program,
so outpatient at the bare bones of it,
is seeing your therapist once a week,
and then seeing your dietician once a month,
and seeing your doctor once a month,
and it's just going for the appointments,
and then coming home and
carrying on with your regular life.
Going to a day program means that
you either do half days,
and this is just, if you have a different experience,
let me know, but this is how it works,
at least in California and in the States, mostly,
because I've referred clients to other places.
There are half days where you come in,
like, kind of afterschool-ish,
like, usually you have to be there around 3:00 or 4:00,
and you do a group, and then you do dinner,
or you do snack and group,
and then you have another session
with your dietician or your therapist,
there's dinner, and then there's an evening group,
and then you go home at like 8:00 I think, or so,
'cause I used to run that
down at the place I used to work at.
And then, if you do the full time,
you come in the morning at like 7:00,
and you have all your meals there,
and then you go home and you may do
three days a week, you may do five days a week,
it just depends on the program.
So, chances are, yes, you're gonna have to eat there.
I mean, I'm 99.9% sure that you're gonna have to eat there.
When you go the first time,
you'll do a lot of paperwork, answer a lot of questions,
you'll meet your therapist, your dietician,
the regular physician that they have there.
And the thing that's really cool about that is that
they'll have you fill out your meal plan kinda thing,
and they'll help you select things.
Usually, at the places where I worked at,
you had a few selections to make.
Usually there're like two options,
or if you're a vegetarian or not,
or if you have any things you're allergic to,
any allergies, food-related allergies,
all sorts of stuff like that.
So that's your time to talk with your dietician,
to freak out if you have to.
A lot of clients freak out because
that's really overwhelming.
It's a lot to do and they're already like,
"I don't wanna eat, ugh!"
And it's just too much.
So, but yeah, you have group, you have
usually your own therapist there as well,
and you eat together, and you talk together,
and you process, so that's what it looks like, okay?
Question number two: "Hey Kati,
"is there such a thing as only having an eating disorder
"at a certain time of day, like only at night?"
And I just picked this because
I thought that was really interesting.
It's something I haven't thought about
or heard from people before,
but the answer's no.
You either have an eating disorder
or you don't have an eating disorder.
You either have depression or you don't have depression.
Mental illnesses don't come and go
with the time of day.
You may struggle more in the evening to,
like, for instance, no matter what eating disorder you have,
we tend to get weaker at night.
We get tired, if we're restricting we get more hungry,
if we're a binger we're usually by ourselves,
and all the day of fighting that off,
we're just wearing down, and we tend to binge or,
you know, do behaviors or whatever it is,
we tend to do them more at night.
I just find that to be true.
If I'm wrong, you can let me know,
but in my experience with my patients,
that's usually our weakest moment.
That's also when we tend to feel saddest,
it's getting dark out, it's just that we're tired.
We get worn out, so it can be really hard.
It's a harder time of day is when
the sun goes down and it's nighttime.
It's hard.
So, no, you can't have an eating disorder
only at one time.
You may notice it more, but it's there all the time.
You just may be either not hearing the voice as much
because you're fighting it,
or you may just not even recognize that it's there
because you're just doing what it tells you.
I don't know, those are my thoughts.
Question number three: "Hey Kati,
"I will be doing really well,
"and then for no reason,
"I'll just stop caring about my recovery,
"my goals, and myself.
"Nothing that used to drive me before matters.
"How can I fight through this apathy."
Thanks, I thought this was a good question because
a lot of us have this, right?
Like, we'll be really motivated, and we'll wanna fight,
and we're like, "Yeah, I can do this!"
And it comes and goes, right?
It always does, that's life.
That's like, any time we're trying to make a life change,
like I've been trying to get up earlier
so I can get more done, and it's
really, really fricking hard
because I'm not a morning person.
Every day the alarm goes off and I'm like,
"Ugh, you've gotta be kidding me!"
But, I do it, sometimes.
And I'm getting better.
So, my encouragement for something like this,
'cause it's gonna be different from person to person,
but I would encourage you
to allow yourself to ride the wave.
It's okay to feel apathetic every once in a while,
if we don't care for just a minute.
we can't care and be motivated and driven
100% of the time.
Like, that's not something that I actually would
even ask my clients to do.
You know how I always say
it's a process, not perfection?
When you find yourself being apathetic,
I would maybe spend more time
taking care of yourself.
Is it that you need to journal it out,
you need to vent?
Should you call your therapist, maybe,
and have an extra session?
Do you think you're more depressed
and your depression is getting worse?
That's something you should bring up
with your psychiatrist and your therapist.
Are there ways you can get out of the house,
just to shake it up?
Can we do opposite action, where we think one thing
and we do another, can we do that?
There are a lot of things we can do,
but the most important, I think,
is recognizing that that's a human condition.
That is completely normal.
We all go through these bouts of being like,
"I can do it, I can do it, I'm doing so well!
"Oh, I just get so tired."
You know, and we ramp back up.
So, during that, allow yourself to be like,
"You know, I'm human.
"It's not the end, it doesn't mean
"that I'm set back to the beginning
"of when I first started recovery.
"I'm gonna pick myself back up,
"and I'm gonna fight again."
And just reminding yourself of that
during those times of apathy
can be really powerful, okay?
Hang in there, it will get better,
and you are stronger than you know,
and you're worth the fight, so keep fighting, okay?
Journal topic, thanks Millie.
It says, "We cannot judge a song by its duration,
"nor the number of notes.
"We must judge it by the way it touches
"and lifts our soul."
And she says, "This quote always helps me
"to focus on the things that really matter in life.
"Your appearance and all those little things
"you think you need to be perfect don't matter."
It's true, they don't matter at all.
"What really matters is the way
"you lift other people,
"and the ways that you can bring happiness
"into the world."
So, rewind that, listen to it again,
and tell me what you think.
What lifts, or what is it that you do
to lift other people,
and what are the happy things in your world right now?
Let me know, okay?
Tomorrow, it's finally Friday,
so I'll be on Facebook, so ask your questions there
using the hashtag #KatiFAQ, and I'll see you then, bye!