Transitions

I've been seeing my dietitian for three and a half years, and it's safe to say that I've become rather attached to her.  She's seen me in the lowest lows of anorexia, and has slowly guided me back to what she says is a healthy weight (I still think I'm overweight.)  She's been patient while I threw tantrums (yes, tantrums at age 30ish) because I wouldn't eat another bite and helped me broaden my food choices.

My therapist and I have been discussing the progress I've made over the past three and a half years.  I went from someone on the verge of hospitalization to fully weight restored (I think it has been restored a little too much!)  It's been a drama filled, sinkhole riddled path, complicated by surgery, food limitations at school, and more allergies.  Progress, though, is progress, and I am grateful for the growth thus far.

This week, I will meet a new dietitian.  When I started with my dietitian, the goal was to learn how to eat healthy while handling food allergies.  Little did my consciousness know that I was hiding an eating disorder.  I was terrified that first visit, thanks to a previous dietitian I saw once, who scared me away from any and all dietitians.  Needless to say, our focus became weight restoration and maintenance.

This time, I'm nervous, but in a different way.  My dietitian said that sometimes people take you as far as they can, then it's time to move on.  I don't want to believe her.  I don't want to start over.  Even though...... I know she's sort of right.  I have to keep going without her.

I want to make sure to keep moving.  To keep growing.  To keep learning.  All the same principles I live by in my classroom.  And while my therapist and I have been working on this for a while - expanding the safety of my classroom to the rest of the world - I am afraid to put it into play everywhere else.

Most importantly, I want to give this new dietitian a chance.  I know she's not going to be the same at all, and that's ok.  She's going to come with her own perspective and ideas, and that's ok too.  And while my dietitian played quite the parental role for me, I know my new one won't.  Because I don't need that anymore.  Which, when I think about it, is a good thing.

What I do need is to learn how to eat balanced, how to manage my food intolerances while eating healthy...... and how to not let the anorexia return.  Ever. And maybe, just maybe, she'll help me learn how to like food? 

I hope she's up for the challenge...........