Transcription for Dr. Jon Connelly

Transcription

1 Page 1 of Transcription for Dr. Jon Connelly NOTE: Verbal agreements from the Client or Dr. Connelly of Right, Okay, Yes, Mm huh, Yeah, and repeated words will be omitted at the transcriptionist s discretion. It s now the 17 th day of February, It s a Sunday and it s about 3 pm. Ginny, our meetings are video recorded and you have been kind enough to give me permission to make these recordings accessible to mental health professionals. You re possibly teaching them how to do a better job with other people, so in that way touching all kinds of lives that would benefit from what you re up to today and I deeply appreciate your willingness to do that. And I m committed, of course, to making a difference for you. We spent some time talking about some stuff that happened to you when you were a little girl. Some of it was stuff that happened in daycare and then afterwards and feeling guilty about stuff and all kinds of stuff like that and I wonder how all that left you. I really haven t thought about it much since then. It hasn t really Well that sounds just about perfect. So let s check it. When you, and I m gonna talk about it and let s see what it does in terms of emotions. We know what it used to do. When you were a little girl, you and your sister, who is younger than you were in a daycare program together -- a daycare or nursery school or something when you were really little and there were grownups there and they had you guys doing kind of sexual stuff with each other and then later you initiated some of that with your sister and one day she told you she didn t want to do it anymore but you kind of still wanted to do it and then after that you felt all guilty about it because you were older and it made you feel like you had somehow perpetrated stuff. Did I pretty much capture what happened there? And as I just went over all that with you right here, did it push buttons? Did it make you feel stuff? Not really. I feel better about it. So that s clean, that s clear, it s a done deal? Been there, done that? I believe so, like... Well just check it out, did you feel horrible when we went over it?

2 Page 2 of No. And previously you would have? Oh yeah, definitely. There we go. Okay. So, that s exciting. If we make progress like that together in the short time we spent together, then we know that your mind is definitely responsive and that we know how to connect and work together cause it s a joint project, you know? See what I mean, I gotta know what I m doing and you gotta be good with it and obviously that s the case to have gotten all that done. Yeah, cause I know the first time I saw you, you did something, so went and talked to my ex-boyfriend, he was like horrible for me and soon as I left I You still good with that? Yeah, as soon as I left I changed my number, couldn t wait to change my number and haven t talked to him since. That s right, now I m remembering that, yeah, yeah. Cool. So that s done. Thing about the childhood thing is done. You ve had this difficult relationship with eating. That began how long ago? Well when I was like a toddler, my mom said one of my first words was More. Like, I would be banging my hands on the highchair screaming more, more, more. And I think that was before that daycare stuff even happened. And like I would eat an obscene amount of food and then I was always really big for my age. And I sort of started acting out on my eating disorder before I found the drugs and alcohol. But it wasn t really that bad. The first time it really got bad was the first time I got clean and I just became severely, severely bulimic and didn t understand why I was doing it. And that was about when? In It was the first time I got clean and sober after my first rehab. And the drug/alcohol stuff began about when you were how old? I started drinking when I was like twelve but I struggled with not eating, and if I did eat I d throw up but it wasn t like severe like it was

3 Page 3 of But it was going on. in 2006 but it was going on Before you were twelve? before I was twelve, probably 4 th or 5 th grade it started. So much earlier than the drugs and alcohol. You re how old now, honey? Twenty-eight. Okay. And the last time you purged? Was Valentine s Day. Okay. So you ve had a few days clear now. Yeah, I was still then eating like way too much. Even like healthy food, like when I start, I just, I m having a really hard time stopping eating. And so I like totally not allow myself to have chocolate or cereal, or ice cream, cookies, cake, or anything like that because those are like my binge foods and so I m like, well I can t have it at all cause that s what happened Valentine s day. That s a good idea. I m good with that. I don t know whether everybody talking to you is good with that but you gotta follow somebody s direction. I m good with that. I m good with you having zero of that. You good with that? Yeah, I m good with that. So let s set that up at zero and so tell me about today. Today all day was salad. Well I ate a meal this morning. I ve been drinking a lot of coffee. And I ate salad and then I was eating this dry fruit stuff and I knew I should stop eating but I just kept eating and then I went to group and then I thought I was about to leave to go to work so I ate more salad and I ate these raisins and I m pretty full right now. I just wanna start

4 Page 4 of Okay, let s think again about types of foods as we start so we have a plan together. The types of foods let s eliminate dried fruit. So that, dried fruit is let s eliminate it. There s a bunch of things about it that would be good not to do. Is that alright with you? Yes. Okay. So then you ate lettuce today, which is a good idea. Did you eat any chicken, any tuna fish, any? No. Now that would have been a good idea with those salads, wouldn t it? So do you like things like that? Would you like to, you know, open a can of tuna and put that in with the salad? Okay, salad s got what on it? It had strawberries and walnuts and feta cheese and craisins. Okay, it won t have any more craisins. And then like the salad dressing, raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Okay and let s add to that tuna or chicken or even beef. Some people have salads that have beef in them. How will that be? That would be good. Would that look pleasing to you? Okay. Think about that salad in front of you and without trying to control it just check out how quickly or slowly you d be eating it. I eat very fast. So it would feel like it would be going fast. Okay so the next thing we want to take care of the type of food. And type of food, well so far, salad s great because fresh greens cold, as many as you would like. That s nice abundant thing. Want to have some walnuts with it, the cheeses with it, meat with it, tuna with it, chicken with it. All that kind of stuff, fine. Okay. Cooked vegetables, do you ever have cooked vegetables? Like spinach or string beans or broccoli or? I had broccoli yesterday. Do you like it okay?

5 Page 5 of Um hum, it was steamed broccoli. It was like the healthy meal that they have over here. It was grilled chicken and brown rice and steamed broccoli and the snow peas. It was really good. Well, you can have that, you can have cooked vegetables, you can have raw vegetables, you can have broccoli raw or cooked, broccoli s great, asparagus great, any kind of green vegetable go for it and enjoy it. Make sense? You can have any kind of meat. How s that sound? But you re better off with things like lean meats. Any kind of meat wouldn t mean I ll have a pound of bacon with some sausage for dessert. Right? It would be, you know, something reasonable. You got that? Does that sound okay? Sounds okay? Okay. So, as you think about doing that, do you have any question now, as to whether well we gotta do a little more. How about a piece of bread, is that in or out? I like bread. Like sometimes if I don t have any carbs I feel like I set myself up for a binge if I don t eat enough carbs. Okay, so then bread is in. Is it white bread, wheat bread, dark bread, light bread? I like white bread but I guess I should be eating wheat. Not just wheat, but full whole grain dark bread. You can get crackers that are whole grain, dark crackers. Have you seen them? I believe so. Okay. Look for things like that. Those are more filling and more filled with nutrition. The stuff in white bread doesn t have it s kind of like they separate all of the nutrition out and then they give you what s left. So it s the kind of food that causes hunger as opposed to the kind of food that causes satisfaction. So you want foods that cause satisfaction. Make some sense? Okay. Potatoes, in or out? I like potatoes. Okay, well let s keep potatoes in -- baked potatoes, particularly baked sweet potatoes. I love sweet potatoes.

6 Page 6 of Baked sweet potatoes in, easy to make, right? In the microwave, out, and there you got a nice baked sweet potato. If you want, you can get these things that kind of moisten and make it buttery that don t have butter or you can go ahead and use butter. I m good with either. So, sweet potatoes in. French fries, in or out? They would have to be out. I love them too much. French fries are out, baked potatoes are in. Baked potatoes have nutrition in them. Sweet potatoes don t have much. I mean, not sweet potatoes, french fries, not so much and a lot of stuff that you re better off without. Are you, so, turkey, in or out? In. And pound cake, in or out? Out. Good, so ice cream, in or out? Out. Good. Got it? Good with it? Okay. How are you with your body now? How are you liking your body? I don t like it all my clothes are getting too small. My stomach s big, and I don t like the way I look. And like my hair s falling out, it s really dry, my face is breaking out. What s going on with your hair? I think it s from my eating disorder. This past week the nutritionist gave me a meal plan but I think I was not eating enough, like I was just like really, really hungry. And then after three days of that ended up binging and purging and my roommate, she looked it up. She said it was like basically a vitamin deficiency, why my hair is falling out. You, if you re following somebody s, see you re gonna get different people telling you different things and that would be too confusing so you ve got to, like I just went over stuff with you. I don t want you to do what I suggested if you re following what somebody else suggested. So pick who you re gonna be

7 Page 7 of I want to go with you. You ve been helping me the most and her meal plan isn t really working for me because I m getting too hungry. And it s setting me up for binging. So you re good with what I m saying. Yes. Okay. Then it s me. I m not so very interested in quantity, I m interested more in type and interested in pace. And the speed at which you eat. So we re gonna practice things about eating at a particular pace. Make some sense? So I want you to close your eyes please and think about this salad with the meat and all that stuff in front of you. Get it to be something that looks appealing, looks good. Once you get it, just nod for me. Okay. First step is as you look at it, look at it and anticipate the taste of the first bite. So before you take it think about how it ll taste and think about, well first actually think about what it will be like to have eaten the salad and how you ll feel an hour after having eaten the salad how it will be for you to have eaten that salad. And then let s think about having eaten most of the salad but a couple of bites of salad were left. And now an hour later when you remember having eaten most of that salad. Good, and then open your eyes. Okay let s start right there. What was that one like to remember having eaten most of the salad? It was hard to remember the last time that I hadn t eaten all of something in front of me. Well, okay, what we re doing here is... It made me feel good about not eating all of it basically. Okay, so there was a sense of feeling satisfied with what you d done. You were pleased with that. Yes. So that s now what the plan is. The plan is that as when you sit down to eat, you re finished when there s still some food on the plate. Like, two bites, anyway. Two bites always don t get eaten. Good with that? Good. That s a deal?

8 Page 8 of Deal. And think about how you feel now getting up and throwing the two bites away. Really good about that. Okay, and they get thrown away. They don t get put in a little Pyrex thing. Two bites get thrown away. What you re doing with that is you re teaching your body and you re teaching deep into your mind that there s an abundance of food. If there s an abundance of food, then there s no need to store it. So, do you want your body storing food? Then, don t be storing food by scraping little bits of it and putting it into things. To show your body, hey, we don t have to worry about food, it s okay to get rid of food, get rid of a couple of bites at the end of the meal and know that your brain at the deepest level is watching and going, oh, well that s something. I guess we don t need it. I guess we can spend it. Got it? Good idea? Now, we re going to change the pace of food. So, I need you to be a little closer to me. (inaudible) Just put your arm out there so that when I catch it and touch your forehead you just are in, good. Easy, see now deeper mind is accessible. Feel how deeper mind is just accessible? Notice arm doesn t like have bones in it. Notice how it s just floppy loose? Everything is just loose. Everything is just like liquid. That s good, that s good. And then just like this and everything is going right deep into your mind. Here we go. Here we go, things go way deep into your mind and now it s about eating and here s how it s done. You look at the salad and you anticipate that first bite. Enjoy looking forward to that bite and thinking about how it ll be. Next, slowly take the bite focused on doing it. As it s in your mouth, chew slowly but more than you would normally chew. Chew that one twice as long as you would normally chew. Digestion begins in the mouth where you release the goodness. Then when you swallow you pause for a moment and remember it. Then your mind goes to something else. Maybe what it will be like to be engaging in some kind of physical activity with your body strong, trim and responsive. Then it s time to think again about the sound and begin to anticipate the next tiny bite or medium bite and then go ahead and take that bite. Again, savor while chewing. That s a girl, chew more than you would, that s it, and then swallow, pause and remember. Think again about body trim and moving and working. Enjoying it working and then when you re ready, begin, you can open your eyes. It takes a little while to open them, doesn t it? Yes. In fact it feels like they re stuck now even more, stuck. Yeah, that s it. And that just sinks in, in, in, in, when you feel that on your forehead. Everything that we ve done together is sinking, pouring, way, way, way, way deep into your mind. There it goes, way, way, way, way

9 Page 9 of deep in to your brain, there it is. That s it. Feel how your eyes are stuck? Like stuck, that s a girl, stuck. And then big breath in, good. And then big breath in, and big breath in, yes, and getting stronger next time. You re strong. Yes, yes, yes, yes, say yes. Yes. There you go. Now your eyes can open. Alright, so, what was the sense of that, what was the experience of eating the salad that way? It was a lot better. I visualized like myself starving and that it was nutrition for my body, not for whatever I ve been doing with it, like comfort food, or whatever. So how did you like the pausing and the chewing and the remembering and the anticipating? It was good. All that felt good didn t it? And then the thinking about your body trim in between each bite, you like it? Yeah, definitely. Okay. So that s our deal now. That s how you ll be eating. Just like that. Make sense? And just those foods. It s like an either -- it s not about moderation. Okay? Alcohol isn t about moderation. Yeah that s what s been so hard like What s that? That s what s been so hard because like drugs and alcohol, it s abstinence, like, you know. It s not hard because it s not about, it s not food that was the problem, it was certain kinds of food and certain ways of eating. So you re practicing abstinence, not moderation. Abstinence from those foods From now on. I was eating.

10 Page 10 of What s that? Abstinence from that food and that way of eating. Yeah, yeah. Because what we just did with that salad, has nothing what does that have to do with what you were doing? Nothing. Right? So that s not what you were doing. Do you see how they re separate? Yeah, they re definitely separate. So that s a whole separate thing that s different from what you had been doing. It s a whole separate deal. And that s why it s really -- we re gonna do what you re good at, which is abstinence. Abstinence you re good at and this is not that but it s this. And this isn t that anyway. So you see how they re separate? Yeah, good. Yeah, it was kind of crazy, like yesterday I just got a job waiting tables and I had to carry beer to a table and it didn t really bother me but when I walked in the grocery store I thought I was gonna have a panic attack. Like I wanted to buy all this crazy food and it was horrible. So now, well let s -- I d like you to just picture cookies, and chips, and brownies, and éclairs like a table full of them. And what s the feeling now as you look at them? It s like disgusting. Isn t that interesting? Yeah. It s completely different, isn t it? Yeah, it really is. It s completely different. So now I d like you to think about you re walking through the grocery store, this is a particular grocery store and at the back on the right there s going to be some salad greens, nice dark salad greens and you like peppers, the color peppers so you put yellow and red, and all those things into that and some nice dressing for the

11 Page 11 of salad and that s what you re gonna be bringing home. Okay? And close your eyes, as you walk into the grocery store on your way to the back you re gonna be passing aisles filled with all kinds of junk. A million kinds of chips, hundreds of cookies, many different kinds of cakes, buckets of dried fruit, and then you get to the back and look for the greens. And then again when you re ready, you open your eyes. Good job and tell me the experience you just had. I walked in the grocery store and there was cake and cookies and stuff, like a bakery and I just walked by them and went and got like salad stuff and it didn t bother me when I was thinking about it that time. Not like a panic attack like I did yesterday. It s the same store. There was no like panic, no like concern. Cause those things are now okay, here s what we re gonna do with that. Think about a bowl filled with Do, have you seen those smooth -- they feel good to rub rocks or stones? They re not super precious stones but they re pretty? And some people get a whole bunch of them and put them in a bowl. Okay. And as you see that bowl of nice smooth rocks -- they re pretty aren t they? And is there any inclination to chew on them? Or taste them? Okay, so as we then - you re gonna think about that bowl of rocks and then as you think about chips, salty, chippy, crispy things, they move in your mind and in your brain so that they fall into the same notch. They re experienced in the same way. You see them and it s just like seeing rocks. When I move your shoulders all that just sinks in through the entirety of your being. So that it s just blank like the same. Where s it s just the same. There it goes, there it goes. Big breath in. Okay and open your eyes. Yay, good. And let s check our work. Think of a great big bowl of Doritos. (inaudible) was eating last night. And what s it look like now? Actually kind of looks like rocks in my brain. Okay, so you know, so that might even be decorative. Cause there are things you would decorate with, right? That you wouldn t eat. Like little rocks, plants. There might be some plants that would be pretty. Nice in the dirt plants. Would it be good to, you know, have a nice bite of no. So, pretty to look at, certainly not something you would find edible. Make sense? Okay. So next we re going to add to the same thing sweets. So again think about soil like if you were gardening and digging up you ever garden with your hands and you feel the soil between your hands and the roots of a plant? And then as you re thinking about the roots of

12 Page 12 of the plant and the soil and the dirt, how nice it feels in your fingers, and what dirt is like, yes, and the soil is like and the soil and the sweets, soil and sweets. Like soil with roots and sweets. Both the same. Brain has them both the same. There it is. Both the same. That s it. There you are, yes, yes, yes. And then clumps the rest the way up, that s right, just like soil. And up. Alright and now this gals says to you, she s sitting watching TV and she s got a nice bowl of Oreos. And watch how she s like watching the TV but how she s just kind of the Oreos are like on automatic. Watch her face as she takes one in. Notice how she kind of scrapes the icing part with her teeth. Look at the kind of crumbs where they re on her lips. Watch her like eating an Oreo, good, and now she s gazing on the TV. She s falling into the show. And then there s another Oreo It s like automatic. It s almost like she s asleep. Gazing in a trance and sliding these Oreos. Crumbs you can see the Oreo as it s in her mouth. And you can watch the cookie crumbs on her tongue. Watch them as they get mashed by her teeth, slide down, that s it, and now she s offering you some of the Oreos. And what s it like to be offered? Like not really sure I want one. Right now, like when you first said an Oreo, I could almost taste it, but now I don t know picturing her eating it that way was like disgusting. It turned me off. I don t want the Oreo now. Okay. Interesting, huh? Yeah. And so now it s graham crackers. Now it s little cakey icing things. Now it s little snappy doodle things. Watch people eating them, it s on automatic. Eating, teeth going into that, crumbs on the lips and just that s it, that s it. How do they look to you? How are they looking to you? I was thinking about like chocolate chip cookies, like the home made ones and they re still kind of like they still bother me. They re like my sugar food. Think about her biting into the chocolate chip cookie. Think about the cookie and the chip itself as it touches the teeth. Watch the chip kind of liquefy against her teeth. Look at her kind of lick at her lips to get some of the crumbs and now she s offering some to you. Yeah, I don t want that one. You don t want that one, right? So, to think about sweets, if there was a sweet, if there was a kind of sweet candy, sweet having the sweet in your mouth would be just like this. Like she s chewed it up and it s on her tongue and the thought of you eating the sweet is the same thought of

13 Page 13 of her gooey tongue sliding into your mouth. Like a wet gooey food filled girl tongue. There we go. And she s saying, hey, would you like to taste the brownie? Is it a pretty clear no? Yeah. Definitely no. Is it maybe I d like a little tiny tip of the tongue taste? Or I d like a great big deep down into the throat taste? No, none. Okay, and then this fat boy with a white t-shirt, but it s ridden up to about here is eating this sizzly hot pizza and you watch the pizza as he chews it and see it inside his mouth and see how inside the pizza his teeth release the fat, and how the fat slides down to fill up the fat in his tummy. Watch it slide in. Watch it fill up the fat. Notice how he keeps his lips open as he chews and there s always some food left in the mouth. And then he offers to share his pizza with you. And the thought of that pizza is the thought of his gooey tongue. If somebody tried to force you to eat pizza, it would be like that gooey tongue trying to force its way into your mouth. The smell of it pizza fat boy, gooey tongue, tasting pizza, tasting his tongue. Okay? They fuse. They fuse, they re stuck, they re the same thing. Yes, the same thing. Your body is transforming by the second. Becoming even more lean and fit and light and you ll fuel the lean with foods that are good for you. When you eat that tuna, eat that salad, you re fueling the lean, fueling the muscles, that s it. Fueling strength, there you go, there you go, and then big breath in. You got it, you can. There you go. Well, how did we do? We did good. I needed that. I needed that bad. We got it done, huh? Feel like it s done? Yeah. Anything that you are left with? Any kind of concern or curiosity about? I don t know. I guess just well, none really. If I m around people like eating a lot, I guess it s not really bothering me right... (inaudible) Try, It s not bothering me right now. Say that. ( It s not bothering me right now.) It s not bothering me right now. ( It s not bothering me right now.) It s not bothering me now. ( It s not bothering me now.) Now it s not bothering me. ( Now it s not

14 Page 14 of END OF TRANSCRIPT bothering me.) Now it doesn t bother me. ( Now it doesn t bother me.) Now it doesn t bother me. ( Now it doesn t bother me.) Now it doesn t bother me. ( Now it doesn t bother me.) It used to bother me. ( It used to bother me.) It doesn t bother me now. ( It doesn t bother me now.) Now it doesn t bother me. ( Now it doesn t bother me.) And then check it out, black and white cookie, you know the big ones? How about one of those? See that? Kid just kind of like wanting to lick that right into your mouth. Young boy, twelve year old. Nice fact cookie tongue into yours. Did I push enough bad buttons? Yes, yes. All kinds of them, right? Yeah. Got it? I got it. Thank you. I needed that. Thanks.