Boo!

I just saw a little witch run down the street!! How many times a year do you get to say that??

Only about two hours and counting left until the hijinks and shenanigans commence. I reeeeaaaally want to put on my costume but I should really save it for the evening.

My mom has spent the last hour and a half trying to desperately to turn some red wigs blue so that my sister and Helen can be Thing 1 and Thing 2. Hehe that kind of rhymes. Anyways, if all else fails I think they may need to just go trick-or-treating sans blue hair and claim to be ginger Thing 1 and Thing 2. That's what I told them to do anyways.

I'm curious- how are my fellow EDed friends handling the candy and goodies tonight? As we approach the holiday season I imagine there will be more and more situations where you have the chance to use behaviors around food.

Bothered and bewildered

I am having the most unpleasant feeling right now. No, not the post binge blues, but an entirely different and non food related anxiety- an anxiety I haven't felt this acute since my 8th grade Valentines school dance. Don't make me say it...

The thing is, it's so inappropriate. Not only do I babysit for his children, but the man is at least 25 years older than I am. SO NOTHING CAN OR WILL EVER HAPPEN.

Here's a little background info: you know those children I was babysitting last night, the ones whose mom, Kathryn, is an amazing cook and is super nice? She is his ex-wife. She and Bob got divorced a little over a year ago, because he'd been having an ongoing affair with another woman. Now that they live in separate houses, I tend to babysit at either house on occasion whenever I'm needed. Oh and one of his kids, Helen, is my sister's best friend.

I don't even really want to go into a ton of detail about Bob right now. I might get sick to my stomach if I imagine or fantasize any more. Suffice it to say, he's is not like other dads. I mean men. He's not like other men. Holy shit, do you hear how twisted this sounds? He's just really genuine and sincere and FUNNY and I feel like I can be myself around him. Today he picked me up because he was loaning me his car to drive the kids to soccer practice and stuff after school. As I slid into the driver's seat he said, "So you're okay with driving? You have a license and you know how to steer with something other than your teeth?"

I went beet red in the face. "Oh my god. Did Helen tell you about the time I attempted driving with no hands?"

"It might have come up." He smiled. "But keep your mouth off my steering wheel, please." Then I said something about how I must be a terrible role model for his kids and he said, "I think you can do goofy stuff and still be a good role model." It's moments like these when I wonder if there's even the slightest possibility that he might like me too. Again later, after he'd paid me and I was walking down the hall to leave, he caught up with me because he wanted to show me something. Turns out it was just some posters he'd bought for Helen's room- one that photo of Earth taken from the moon, and the other poster was of Rosie the Riveter and that "We can do it" quote. It was so sweet, he said he wanted Helen to have that poster so she knows that there's nothing she can't do.

I don't think it's love. I mean, I don't think that I'm in love with him. I've heard that if you don't know whether or not you're in love, then you probably aren't. I don't think I've ever been in love.

Anyways, I hope this is just a fleeting crush. But I also don't think I've ever wanted anyone this much. I don't know what to do.

T'was a looooong day

I'm so tired and I'm doing too much and none of it is enough because after I finish one thing there is something else to do next and then by the time you know it it's night time and I'm too tired to study and I feel horrible because I haven't had the time or energy to hit the books like a good student should. I've got too much going on. I have to work at Angora from noon to five almost every day and I try to do my reading in the mornings before I leave but it's hard to study then and by the time I get home in the evening I'm so tired from standing on my fat clown feet all day that I just want to fall asleep in front of a silly BBC show where the people wear capes. Is that so much to want? I kind of want to start doing drugs.

I just got back from work, and I'm feeling a little bad. Apparently, Tulan thought I could work a double shift every Thursday since I did last week, but I thought last Thursday was just me helping her out so I can't stay there tonight! I promised to babysit my neighbor's kids! I feel horrible. It's so overwhelming having to work behind that counter alone, especially during the evening hours when everybody wants dessert. I just wish someone could be there with her.

*

I'm putting a star in between these paragraphs because right now it is three hours after I posted the above. I'm babysitting and currently the children are tucked away safe in their beds and I am feeling... surprisingly at peace. I think I might have binged tonight :( Whoops. Well, when I say kind of I mean I did binge, but most of it was healthy dinner food like chili and pasta and biscuits. Kathryn, their mom, is an amazing cook and every time I come over here she has something vegetarian and delicious prepared just for me and honestly, truly good homemade food should never be passed up because it is rare. Am I right? Anyways, another reason I'm calling it a "kind of" binge is because I don't feel all the way sick to my stomach, and I don't plan on following through with the behavior by stopping and buying junky sweets on the way home. It ends now.

Still, I know I'm going to feel guilty and gross tomorrow. Thankfully I don't have to work again until Tuesday so I'll have time to recuperate. And hey, at least I seem to have broken my pattern of "domino bingeing" (having one binge day right after the other). It's all about the little steps. Of course this optimism is probably due to the massive amounts of pleasurable neurotransmitters released in my brain during dinner... I guarantee my next post won't be as sunny.

Buggin

I sort of want to binge. I haven't eaten very much today and now I'm hungry and wanting something delicious and carb heavy. Since I got home from work at 5:30 I've had an apple and a carrot stick to tide me over until I decide what I want for dinner, but now it's almost seven so I think I might just forget the meal and have some popcorn if I get really hungry later on. Ugh... restriction is so not fun when you're fat and hungry. And now I'm depressed. I would binge but I have to work tomorrow and I don't want to have a food hangover in the morning. Plus bingeing is what made me fat in the first place so there you go- two solid reasons not to binge.

Tulan is really starting to catch on to my eating habits. I mentioned last week that she said I "never get hungry at work" and I "never eat." Today she actually dished out some coffee oreo ice cream into a mug for me and told me to take a break and eat it. At first I responded with my usual go-to answer: "No thanks, I ate before I came here." But then she looked at me very sternly and said, "Eliza, you need to eat." I haven't had anybody so on my back about food since coming home from school last winter. It's weird... and a little unnerving. I mean, I guess I appreciate the concern. I do. It's just a little humiliating because this woman is probably wondering, "If this girl eats so little, how is she not incredibly skinny?" Ugh. It's very frustrating having to deal with this on top of the stress that already comes with having to serve ice cream to greedy sugar addicts.

And now I'm super hungry so I think I'll have some yogurt.

This post is stupid

Okay, first of all- I need you guys to watch this video because I think it's CRAZY!!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/eight-years-of-aging-on-video/

Second of all, I need to talk about how I'm worrying about death and dying. Anybody else ever get unwelcome thoughts about their ultimate demise? It's scary and sad and now I'm wondering what life holds in store for me after death. Heaven? Hell? Dirt and worms? Nutella? I don't know what to expect. It's times like these I wish I believed in a divine being because then I could ask for strength and courage and absolution. Which reminds me I haven't taken my meds yet today...

Anyways, back to the video. The other thing it made me wonder was what if someone did that sort of time lapse with WEIGHT LOSS??? Like a flip book of a regular person losing weight really quickly. Man that would be triggering. Also I'm really tempted to try it. I could take a picture of myself every day for like three months and then put it all together into a 30 second video of me becoming really skinny. I'm sorry, I'm sick, I know.

On a healthier and more recovery oriented note, I'm really going to stick to weighing myself just once a week. Real weight is not lost overnight, and turning to the scale every time I need reassurance just leads to frustration and bad thoughts.

LOL for the past twenty minutes I've been belting Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of my lungs and my brother just pounded on the wall of my room from his. True talent is just not appreciated anymore.

OOuuf... this post is becoming disjointed and uninteresting. I should think of something astute and psychologically insightful to say but I'm totally beat from studying this evening. I have a test in two weeks, and I decided that, rather than cram the night before like I did with the last one, I should put in at least two hours a day reviewing stuff. I just finished reading about phantom limb syndrome. Scary stuff. When you lose a leg, some of the free nerve endings in the remaining part of your leg that originated in the lost leg will fire off signals on occasion that make you feel like your leg is still there.

Now I shall reward all this hard work by watching an episode of something on my laptop. Perhaps the X-files. That feels appropriate for the occasion.

Huzzah!

Well I have settled on a most delightful and befitting Halloween costume for next Sunday! As of recently I have become increasingly interested in English folklore- initiated first by my fondness for the BBC series Robin Hood and then reinforced by the medieval literature unit my mother has been introducing to her 8th graders at school. I'm going to be a knight! I found the outfit at iParty when I went shopping yesterday with my brother and sister. A full suit of armor or real chainmail would have been better but this will do just fine. It's pretty impressive for polyester. Added bonus: The costume is one size fits all, and the model in the picture was a six foot tall man weighing 210 pounds so I think the robes will cover my fat quite nicely.

Speaking of fat, I've lost about 5 pounds in the past week and a half, which I swear I was not trying to do. I haven't been bingeing, so I think that may have something to do with it... but at the same time I haven't really been eating meals either. I'm not starving myself, I'm just not hungry. I know that is not an excuse, but I just thought I'd put it out there. I eat when I'm hungry and that's it. Anyways, its nothing to worry about because I have a good twenty five pounds left until people usually start to think I'm getting too thin.

I don't have to work at Angora today, so that'll be a nice little break. I have Dr. Gordon at 2:00 though, and then Psych class at six. I feel like this night class at BU is less like school and more like a sad weekly reminder that I'm not a real student in college. Although the subject is relatively interesting, general Psychology I mean, the class itself is boring. I tend to space out during lecture and then do the real learning from the textbook once I'm at home and alone in my room. While my mom argues that I should be getting as much out of the presentations as I can, I feel that I am much more of visual learner so reading works better for me. However, as a knight and a lady of honor, I shall respect all teaching methods and learning styles.

Get out of my head!!

Okay, so I have these weird little ED obsessive thoughts about certain foods that I've really only developed over the past year, and I guess I want to start trying to work against them. It's this thought that certain foods are only for certain occasions. For example, trail mix is only for hiking so I can't eat it unless I'm hiking, or, sandwiches are a lunch food so I can't have sandwiches for dinner, eggs are a breakfast food so having an omelet for dinner would be inappropriate. You get what I mean. Anyways, the irrational thought/fear behind these beliefs is that if I do have something like say, oatmeal for dinner, my body will know that it's not dinner food and it will somehow show in my weight.

I KNOW these are crazy rationalizations that my eating disorder is just trying to torture me with, but it's getting in the way of stuff. OH HERE'S ANOTHER GOOD ONE!!! I have to space out my vegetables throughout the day even though I'd rather just eat them at dinner. Why? Because if I try to pack in my two to three servings of veggies at dinner my body will know that I haven't had any all day and I'm just trying to make up for it so then I'll gain weight. Wtf, right?

To be fair, it's not as bad as it was a couple months ago. Over the summer if I had wanted a cheese stick at 5:45 p.m. I wouldn't let myself have one because I was convinced that if I did my body would think I was having a cheese stick for dinner and think I'm eating strangely. So what would happen then is I would just binge... because I figured that my body already must think I'm disordered to have cheese right before dinner so I might as well binge and call it a day.

The whole reason I bring this up is because it's just after 8:00 p.m. I haven't had dinner yet, but I'm not insanely hungry so all I want is a greek yogurt. My ED says, "Yogurt for dinner is inappropriate, so just skip dinner altogether." I most likely won't skip dinner entirely- because I'm sure I'll get more hungry soon. It's just so frustrating!!!!

Does anyone else have these type of intrusive thoughts or beliefs about food?

Something fishy

Yesterday I had my first double shift at Angora, which essentially means working noon till midnight. It's funny, there comes a point at night when you're so tired that you don't even care anymore that you need sleep so you just stay up and it doesn't really feel any different... sort of like going numb. I've only experienced this feeling a couple times in my life: The night I finished writing the perfect college essay (stayed up till 2:00 a.m.), the night of the senior prom (in order to attend the after party, students were made to stay until 5:00 a.m. to ensure they wouldn't go out and drink afterwards... this still doesn't make sense to me), and then last night. By the time I got home I was so tired I couldn't fall asleep because I was too tired to even feel tired.

The past few days have felt mellow. I think I'm mellowing out. The things that I've been struggling with and the anxieties I've been having seem less frightening. My job, though stressful and arduous, is becoming a bit more routine and less like a performance that I'm being judged on. My monumental weight, though disheartening and gross to live with, is not life-threatening and I'm sure I won't look this way forever. My leave of absence from school, though inconvenient, will not get in the way of me pursuing whatever it is I want to become. Who is to thank for this positive new outlook on life? Who knows!? It could be the higher dose of prozac, or maybe just the new structure I have in my day, or maybe there really is a higher power who is rewarding me for all my years of pain and suffering. I think it's the meds though :)

Despite the improvement in my mood and stuff, something bizarre has happened to my appetite. It's kind of... gone. I've been so busy this past week with work and studying and watching the first season of Glee with my little sister that I haven't actually been eating meals. I hadn't really realized it until last night when I was mopping the floors behind the ice cream counter and all of a sudden I got this fuzzy weightless feeling in my head. I haven't felt that in months. Then around 8:00 Tulan asked me if I wanted to take a break to get some dinner and I told her I wasn't hungry. She said, "I never see you eat! You've been working since noon and you haven't eaten anything since then." I think she said it more out of awe than concern. I mean lets face it- I don't look like the type of person who doesn't eat.

Anyways, it's not really the restriction that is weirding me out. I restrict all the time! It's just that usually I'm hungry when I'm restricting, so I don't hold out for very long and I invariably end up bingeing. This isn't to say that the restriction isn't coming from an ED place... I'm sure if I didn't want to lose weight I would be eating more, but a huge part of it is that I just don't want food.

Things that are making me feel googly

I feel like I don't wanna go to work tomorrooooooooooow. Not for any specific reason in particular... just the usual odd ball anxieties: I'm afraid of screwing up, I get upset when customers are mean to me about their ice cream, I feel horrible when Tulan has to point out the spills I've missed or the yogurts that were too watery. ARHGHHHHHH sometimes I wish I'd picked an easier and less stressful place to work. To be fair though, working behind the counter at a sweet shop didn't sound all that demanding when I first checked it out... oh well. My dad said that the stress and discomfort is good and it means I'm "stretching." I suppose this is true to an extent. I just wish I wasn't so preoccupied with worrying about it, you know?! On the bright side, all the worry and confusion eradicates any and all binge urges so I'm all set in that department.

Before work tomorrow I have an appointment with Dr. Gordon so that means I can't sleep in :( Booooooooooooooooo

Speaking of Dr. Gordon- MY PARENTS MET WITH HER. Not quite sure why I put that in capitals, since I told them all ahead of time that I was okay with it. I guess it's just another image I have in my head that makes me feel uncomfortable... the image of my parents meeting with my therapist. UGguguguh. Naturally I was super curious about what they all thought of each other. My mom was all approval, she even said that she could imagine herself "spending the day or going to Starbucks" with her. My dad said, "Yeah she's okay." Anyways, I tried to get some more out of them- my mother in particular. Of course she insisted that they didn't discuss anything that they wouldn't have discussed in front of me- "mostly just possible courses of action for the spring."

I'm like, "What courses of action?" Because lets get realistic here people: one semester leave from school was acceptable, another one was understandable, but who takes a year and a half off from college? When would I graduate??! When would I ever get my life moving again?

It's a fall miracle

Strange thing happened to me today. A few hours ago I woke up from my afternoon nap to the smell of cookies baking downstairs and of course I'm like oh screw it lets binge. Rachel and her friend Helen were having a sort of girl's day with baked goods, and it's not like I have anything better to do on a Sunday so I joined them. After about ten minutes I started thinking about all the other foods I could binge on, and coming up with excuses to get out of the house and buy stuff. My mom was in the kitchen, and I pretended to be looking for my pills. I was like, "Man, I keep on meaning to pick up my prescription from CVS but I can never get myself to go out and do it!"

Then she said, "Eliza, just take the car and get the refill. If you don't do it now you won't remember again until next weekend." HEhe I so sneaky....

Anyways, I got to CVS, told the nice pharmacist with the bifocals that I wanted a refill, and then he was like okay that'll be fifteen minutes we'll call you when it's ready. So I headed over to the ice creams and began deliberating on what flavors to get. The Ben and Jerry's half baked is always a good bet so I picked up some of that and then some plain vanilla as well. Then I went over to the Halloween section and got a bag of candy corn and Reese's cups. As I was paying for all my stuff though I changed my mind all of sudden; not about bingeing... I guess I still wanted to binge, but I didn't want the ice cream anymore. This was unprecedented, because ice cream holds the most power over me as a trigger food, and the fact that I simply and suddenly wasn't in the mood for it anymore, was frankly a little suspicious. I said to the cashier, "Can you give me a minute? I forgot something." Then I walked back over to the freezer and stood in front of it. The hardest part was that I kept wondering to myself, "but what if I want ice cream in an hour or so and I can't justify taking the car again? Shouldn't I buy it just to be on the safe side?" As I thought this I heard how ridiculous it sounded in my head. LOL safe side of what? How would buying food to indulge in a nasty addiction that makes me feel horrible about myself be playing it on the "safe side?" I put the ice creams back, but I still bought the candy.

Now I'm sitting on the floor of my room, where I usually blog. It's been about 45 minutes since I got home from CVS with my meds and my candy. I ate about half of the candy corn and half of the Reese's cups but think I'll stop now because I'd like to set a good example for myself and others in the future.

Ho hum

I'm really in the mood for a smoothie from Angora... it's funny, whenever I'm working there the LAST thing in the world I want to eat are smoothies, ice cream, and frozen yogurt, but I haven't had a shift there since Tuesday and now I miss being around them! Which reminds me- I finally heard back from Tulan about my schedule and here is what I've got: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from noon to 5 p.m. That's to start, she said. If I want more I can ask, and then there's also the possibility of taking other people's shifts when they can't make it. I can't wait to earn money! MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!

I was bad this week :( I missed my MEDA support group and my riding lesson because of all the silly negative thoughts I've been having lately. And also because of PMS. I shall focus all my positive energy into making next week a success.

It's rainy and cold

Just spent the last 40 minutes typing in symptoms on Web M.D. Why does this site even exist? I type in "red tongue" and the only thing it says I could have is scarlet fever. I'm not feeling under the weather, though- just super bored beyond all belief so I'm coming up with all the things about my body that are kinda odd and then seeing what illness they could mean.

I had a good session with Dr. Gordon yesterday. She told me I should probably start seeing a psychiatrist about my antidepressants, especially since I decided to increase the dosage without even consulting a medical professional first. I guess she's right, but so far everything seems okay on 80 mg... fewer binge urges for sure, same amount of restriction though and my moods and anxious/poopy feelings are up and down all the time it's not even funny. She also said I should start up with a nutritionist again so now I've got two phone calls to make. It was funny, she said: "Eliza, correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that making these types of calls and getting in touch with people is difficult for you." I laughed because she put it so nicely. Um, YEAH I have a problem with that! Ever noticed I don't call my friends or family members, I don't check my messages because I don't return calls because I'm just so muddled up in the brain? Just another thing to work on I suppose.

MMmmm... someone is making popcorn downstairs. Speaking of which- tonight is pumpkin carving night at Quaker meeting! (Popcorn and pumpkin sound similar so that's why I said speaking of which) I haven't been to one of those in TWO YEARS because I've always been at school during the fall so it'll be so much fun! It's been hard to enjoy my usual favorite fall festivities because everywhere I look I'm reminded of last October and how much different (skinnier) I looked, but I'm truly making a solid effort to combat those feelings. After all, there isn't one specific way one should look according to what season it is.

How do you like them apples?!

Here's something funny for those of you who are like me and enjoy finding the humor and irony in eating disorders every once in a while: Last week and the week before that I binged a lot upstairs in my room while switching off between watching episodes of Robin Hood on my laptop and reading The Once and Future King by T.H. White under the covers. I don't like putting the empty candy wrappers and ice cream cartons in my trash can because then when people come into my room they see all the trash and they'll know I'm having a behavior. So instead of throwing them away, I hide them in places like under my bed or in the empty drawers of my bedside table. This would be acceptable I guess... if it was only a temporary spot. But then tomorrow comes and I'm like, "I don't wanna touch those melty ice cream boxes! Gross! I'll do it later." Before you know it a week has gone by and there are fruit flies in my room. So here I am, camped out on the floor of my closet, on the opposite side of the room from my bed because I can't bear the stench of horrible rotten binge detritus.

On a happier and more hygienic note, I've been feeling surprisingly more stable and in control of my urges ever since last week ended. My job at Angora Ice keeps me busy and distracted, which honestly, is pretty much 95% of what it takes for me to get back on track after a week of behaviors. I think that's true for a lot of us though, right? Routine. Routine is key.

When it comes to food I'm just feeling much... smarter. Smarter? That doesn't sound like the right word to use because intelligence has very little to do with normal eating. I guess by smarter I mean more wise-minded. Today when I got home from work I was STARVING. My shift started at noon and ended at five so I didn't have time to eat lunch and by the time I got home my stomach was eating itself. I sort of dove into a bunch of cheese and crackers, not really caring whether it was portioned because I was just so hungry and I didn't even care if it turned into a binge. The weird thing is, after like five minutes, I felt satisfied and stopped without even really having to FORCE my self to stop. How cool is that?!! I was already in a good mood from having made the perfect smoothie at work so I felt like shouting it from the rooftops: "I JUST HAD A NORMALIZED EXPERIENCE WITH FOOD!"

In addition to having more structure during the day though, I think A LOT of it has to do with meds. I upped the dosage on my anti-depressants last week after the binges, and since then I feel like skipping instead of walking, singing instead of talking, beeping instead of bopping!

I've got the autumnal blues

Fall is here, and today it finally hit me. I'm about to talk about my feelings now, so gear up for some shallow body image laments and painful reminiscences of last year.

At this time last year I was at college in New York. I was super skinny, enjoying French, theatre, and Psych classes, living with the best roommate ever, and for the first time in years I felt like I was worth something. Fall is my favorite season, and October my second favorite month (after December- Christmas, people!) so the pretty leaves and pumpkin heads made me feel all the more special. I still had issues despite looking awesome. I was homesick and withdrawn, the highlight of my day was the gym... but I had my appearance to fall back on, you know? Every time I was feeling like shit I could just look in the mirror and remind myself that I'd been striving my whole young adult life to look like this and now I FINALLY had. Anyways, I've told this story a hundred times- the one about me losing a ton of weight and feeling great, then all of a sudden taking this cataclysmic U-turn over to binge eating disorder. I won't tell it again, but in fact remembering it has helped me draw a seriously groundbreaking conclusion about why I can't seem to stick to a meal plan and eat normally. Here's why: See, if I had always been a binge eater, and had always been trying to go on diets and lose weight, and never had any bouts of severe weight loss through restriction, I would TOTALLY go for the idea of balanced meals and portioned exchanges. But since I know what it's like to have such fast and controlled weight loss through restriction, I can't help but hold out hope that maybe someday I can regain that ability. Does this make any sense? I feel like I'm not making sense. Obviously the thinking is unhealthy and warped, but my point makes sense right? I feel like it is so important for this to make sense because it explains why I have been constantly swinging back and forth between binges and crash diets- because I'm just that desperate to feel anorexic again.

Anyways, the only reason I'm feeling so unhinged by all these thoughts is because it's October, and I spend all three other seasons looking forward to fall, but I can't enjoy it because I'm just so sad about how much better I felt last year.

My lips are chapped

Well, tis the end of a very long and productive day. Right now I'm sitting on the floor of my ever so messy room playing the Georgia game. It's super fun and you don't necessarily need to have a guinea pig named Georgia in order to play... just a bunch of awesome tunes to sing along to and a willing person or animal to have their name put in the lyrics. Here are some of my greatest hits:

-Georgia in the U.S.A.
-Walking on Georgia
-Rockin' around the Georgia Tree
-Georgia Looks Like a Lady
-Oh, I Just Can't Wait to be Georgia
-It's Still Rock n' Roll to Georgia

I got a bunch more but you get the idea. I'm in a goofy mood :)

Anyways, my second day of training for work at Angora didn't have me quite as panic stricken as yesterday, but I'm still having trouble making the frozen yogurts nice and swirly, and don't even get me started on the espresso machine. My supervisor though, Tulan, she is the sweetest lady since sliced pumpkin bread. She's from Turkey, and since she only moved here a couple years ago her English is still kind of choppy. Back home she was an engineer, but I guess she wanted to start a business instead and she moved to the U.S. I'm lucky to have someone as patient as she is to train me. I'm such a screw up and always missing important details about things, but Tulan doesn't yell or get frustrated.

I've been asked to taste the ice creams a few times, which puts me in a bit of an awkward position. I'm not one of those people who can just sit down and have a nice little bowl of rocky road, let alone a spoonful. Ice cream has become such a major binge food for me that I wouldn't dare attempt to eat it on "real" days.

Speaking of food and grossness and being fat and having a soul sucking eating disorder, I have totally failed in my homework for Dr. Gordon this week. After my string of binge episodes last week, she asked me to fill out diary cards of all my exchanges for the next seven days, making sure to stick to the meal plan I had in program, and keeping track of any urges or feelings I had around meals or snacks. Ummm... not only have I not gotten around to finding where I put all my blank diary cards, but I haven't been eating full meals either- due to my appetite being dashed every time I look at my enormous thighs. Lunch is usually a peanut butter Clif bar, and salad for dinner. Once the weekend is over and I've had some distance from the week of behaviors I'll probably be able to stomach some real meals, but until then I'm just trying to keep my mind off of it.

Short one

I am so tired right now I can't even think, and considering I didn't roll out of bed until 1:30 today, that is saying something. However, for the past few hours I've been training at Angora Ice. Yes, I got a job! HOooray for me! I'm finally starting to get my shit back together. It's about freaking time.

That being said, I am now feeling depressed, hungry (despite eating dinner), sore from being on my feet, and ever so exhausted. Tomorrow I go in again for training at noon. Hopefully, my frozen yogurt pumping skills will have improved and I won't drop any more ice cream cones on the floor.

Good night.

Rock bottom

I'm sitting here wondering why and how things went so downhill this week. I've had like five binge days in row now, and after being so good! I'm tempted to say it's because I missed a couple days of my meds, but I know that's not the whole reason. Maybe I'm also about to get my period? That would be awesome if that were the reason why...

Last night I couldn't fall asleep so I started rooting through my closet and found a box of these ancient videos I used to watch when I was little. The Land Before Time was one of my favorites. Anybody heard of or remember Land Before Time? It's about these kids who are dinosaurs and they're all different species but at the same time best friends forever. In the first Land Before Time there's an earth quake and the kids get separated from their herds. The rest of the movie is all about them coming together and finding a new and safe place to live, even though some of their parents were killed in the quake or by other dinosaurs. It's heavy stuff! Anyways, right around the part where Littlefoot sees a cloud in the sky shaped like his mother, I just lost it. It made me not only painfully nostalgic for my childhood, but also saddened and ashamed by how much of my teenage and adult life has been spent as a slave to destructive behaviors- not just ED behaviors either. I'm talking about the isolation, self-injury, anxiety, negative self talk... I wish there was a way for me to just put my foot down and say, "No more! It ends today!" But I've done that so many times only to find myself right back at square one the next day. I'm just totally trapped and I have no idea how to regain control over myself.

Dr. Gordon says I need to let go of the weight loss obsession first. That's what needs to happen before anything else can be accomplished. As much as I've tried to convince her and myself that I can recover and lose the binge weight at the same time, it's just not possible for me.

So I need to get rid of that scale I found a couple weeks ago. I wish I didn't have to throw it away but I know if I don't remove it from the house entirely I'll just dig it out again in a week, so it needs to go.

Mope

As of October the 1st (couple of days ago), I have decided to slip into a permanent state of catatonic depression. The decision was a tough one to make... after all, it takes a lot of work to be depressed and there are many things you can't do anymore once you've committed to it. Here are some of them: No more singing, no more laughing (except cynical chuckling), no more listening to music (unless it is a pre-approved emo artist), no more bathing, no more reading fantasy novels, no more using my binoculars while driving, no more chocolate chips, no more dinosaur stickers, no more sunshine, no more happiness, no more hope. There are a bunch more but you get the idea.

My goal here is to try and stay gloomy as long as possible so that by the time things get less shitty I will feel that much better. Does this make sense? Don't answer that, actually. It makes sense to me.

On a more uplifting note, I may have landed a job! Disappointed but also galvanized by my rejection at Rosie's Bakery, I decided to apply to work at Angora, the ice cream shop next door to it. I got an e-mail from the manager saying that she had some shifts for me so I sent her my resume and cell phone number and now all we have to do is wait to hear back...

Grass is greener

I do not feel much like writing, but not because the past two days have been uneventful. I'm just feeling bogged down and lackluster by the rainy weather. I'm riding tomorrow so hopefully the weather will be nicer.

I cleaned half of my room- the less messy side. I would have cleaned all of it but I've sort of created a nest of notecards, books, unfinished friendship bracelets, and towels next to my bed that seems a shame to pull apart. Oh man. I can totally see myself in 60 years, living alone in a smelly little house with shag rugs and cats and empty ice cream cartons strewn all over the furniture. It's basically how I'm living now, actually...

I was thinking about this DBT skill that I picked up when I was in program. I think it's called the Comfort by Comparison skill... not sure though. Anyways, the idea is, when you are feeling really awful about yourself or the way you look or the way you ate, you just think of people who are in worse situations and then you feel slightly less like shit. You think about the orphans in Haiti, the greasy pelicans living in the oil spill, the woman who was murdered and dismembered in Randolph, Massachusetts. And toll booth workers... they all have it much worse than me.

The pros of this skill are:

-puts things in perspective
-gives you some hope
-keeps you distracted from own problems

The cons:

-reading about tragedies can make you more depressed, thus sinking even further into gloom
-might make you feel somehow invalidated by saying that your problems are small and thus not real problems
-can make you so guilty you'll want to self sabotage and then engage in behaviors

This skill has been on my mind since this morning. My dad keeps an enormous black leather case under his desk which he's always said has important historical documents in it, but I've never asked any further. Today I opened it up and found a pretty impressive collection of front page stories, some dating back to the 1960's. He's got newspapers from 9/11, Neil Armstrong on the Moon, Red Sox series win in 2004, the Leakey's discovery of Lucy the hominid, Princess Diana's accident, Kennedy's assassination, Martin Luther King's too... some happy historical moments but mostly sad stuff that just made me think about how little I've actually experienced. What's an eating disorder compared to stuff like world wars?