Wow.

Been a crazy couple of days.

I started my outpatient treatment program yesterday. It's basically going to be group therapy 3-4 days a week (Tuesdays are optional), with regular individual meetings with a counselor and nutritionist. This miraculously coincides with Ace's school schedule (Spring break ends on Tuesday). I can drop him off, head to treatment, and when I leave treatment, I would have time to meet with a counselor or the nutritionist or what have you and still be at Ace's school in time to pick him up. My mom calls this a "God Thing." She's right. As usual.

Yesterday, I met with a counselor who said she believes I have an eating disorder. This pretty much totally blows my mind, but it makes sense. Since my miscarriage, I have completely turned to food for emotional support. I eat when I'm sad, when I'm happy, when I'm angry... often when I'm angry. I'm also a compulsive eater... probably compulsive overeater. Also blows my mind. I thought I was just plain old fat. But the more she explains to me the difference between plain old fat and compulsive overeating, the more I identify.

Today, I met with the psychiatrist. After like a quazillion questions, he pretty succinctly and with absolute certainty said that I'm bipolar. Dude. Seriously? Bipolar? Again, the more he explained it to me, the more I was able to relate. When I said "Do you think I have an eating disorder," without pause, he said "Yes."

Tonight, I'll be starting on a mood stabilizer that will hopefully control my compulsive eating and various manic behaviors and GOD HELP ME SLEEP. As soon as that starts to level out in my system, I'll be starting on an anti-depressant that hopefully will not screw me up as much as the last SIX I've tried.

My family has rallied. My oldest sister has taken care of Ace for the past 2 days and will tomorrow. She lives in Louisiana and has a full-time job and a husband, but took off of work to come up here to help me. My stepdad is taking off of work to take care of Ace on Thursday, my little sister will take care of him on Monday, and he'll start back to school on Tuesday. If I need any other help after that, my mom, who is currently out of town, will be doing the helping, as well as Drew when possible.

This makes me feel like crap to some extent, but I know they want nothing more than to help me get better. Both my mom and stepdad have been through recovery, so they're both ready to help however possible with my recovery.

My recovery.

I cannot believe that I'm in treatment... in recovery. I know all these words and all the steps and everything else because I was basically raised in AA (my mom got sober in 1987 and brought us to meetings and sent us to Alateen), but I sure as hell never thought I'd need intensive treatment this way.

The doctor said he thinks I'll be in treatment for about 8 weeks. He says that with medication and therapy, in 8 weeks, I'll be a different person. I think that without insomnia and a sinus infection I'll be a different person, but my psychological issues will remain.

I may not post much during treatment. I've had this blog for 4 years though and I've posted during good times and bad, so I'm not shutting 'er down. Y'all can call me or text me or e-mail me if you want, but don't be surprised if I don't post much.

I'm off to absorb some of this information, fill out a questionnaire about eating disorders, and hopefully sleep a little bit. I'm so overwhelmed.