My homework (and dear God I hope I really let her read this)

***Some of this is a bit of a repeat because I literally wrote everything out for Shish and I just emailed it. A little anxiety but at least today's session will be about some really important stuff. Here was her question for this journal exercise (a REALLY good way to get me to talk) "What's stopping you from regular eating every single day?" It's really really long but I'm not leaving anything out for Shish this time. Pretty unfair since she's leaving in less than a month but maybe this means we'll have a month of growth and of really challenging all the things I believe about myself***

When I wake up in the morning and it's a good day, the last thing I want to do is think about food. I want it to be a good day. It just comes so naturally by now...avoiding it. And the one thing I've learned through this experience is that working on recovery is really exhausting and frustrating. So those days when I wake up and I don't instantly feel this thing inside of me, where it's cold and tense and I can like feel the blood flowing through my veins--well, I don't want to do anything to mess up my day. But then there are those days when I wake up and I wish I didn't have to do this anymore. It sounds so dramatic now because really life is not...it doesn't even compare to what others experience. But I guess because it's so real--the feeling. I can really feel it and it hurts and I just sort of carry it around all the time. Most of the time. And I think, I wouldn't feel like this if I weren't fat. Life shouldn't be this hard. Lose weight. Don't eat. Everything will be better if you could look in the mirror and not see what you see. I fucking know it's not true too. But I still really really believe it. Skip breakfast. Skip lunch. Skip dinner. You don't deserve to eat right now. Not yet. It will not kill you. Do something else, anything else when it's time to eat. Get hungry? Fight it. Because this is standing in the way of you having everything you want in life.

Every time I eat a meal (or binge) I feel like shit. I hate myself. I can't even stand to look at myself. It's like I've just given myself permission to fuck up my life. The shame I get after eating a meal (unless it's just a salad or fruit or something really really healthy) is almost as bad as the shame after a binge...unless I purge the meal. And then of course it feels like it didn't really happen. Even though I know it happened. It's because somewhere along the way I accepted the fact that I am fat and I don't get to eat. When we went out to dinner as a family, my mother and sister would always point out the obese people and say they shouldn't be eating that. They don't need to eat. How could they eat in public? And then they would all look at me and say you don't need that bread. Don't get the pasta. Eat a salad. No dessert. "Your white friends don't let themselves eat like that because they care about their bodies." (Yes. My dad seriously said this).

I was the pickiest eater growing up. There was always a fight at dinner time. At breakfast. At lunch. Because I never ate my vegetables and had to sit at that fucking table while they all enjoyed their dinner and I only wanted everything my parents said I couldn't have. Off to bed without having eaten much throughout the day. Picked at breakfast. Junk for lunch. Threw the dinner out or fed it to the dog or stuffed it in my pockets (which is so gross when it ends up in the wash) or sat at the table for hours. But my mother would always give in and just give me what I wanted. She definitely didn't want to send me to bed without having eaten something. Ice cream. Cookies. Just take one bite and I could have dessert. Just one piece of broccoli and we could go get a happy meal. She even started saving the boxes and wrappers and giving me my food in that so I would at least try it before I said no. But I couldn't eat what I wanted to eat because I wasn't thin. And then the hunger crept in, always at night. And it just became something else I did. Try not to eat the bad foods during the day. Not a fan of the good foods. But if I have to eat...do it at night when they aren't watching. When they can't look at me and think, she's so fat and she's still eating and she's eating that! How can she still be hungry. She shouldn't be hungry. Soon I started believing it too. That I didn't deserve to eat three meals a day. I had plenty of fat to burn. I should never be hungry. If I eat during the day, it had better be something safe.

Every time my dad said something about my weight I internalized it. And I wish I hadn't. If I could go back in time, I don't know how I could have told him to fuck off at 12 years old, but I should have tried something. Everyday I was a fat ass. Sloppy. Disgusting. Already bigger than my mother and sister. He wished I was anorexic. That's what he said the summer I started purging. What kind of daughter outweighs her older sister and mother? So for senior prom...I couldn't go. He wouldn't pay for a dress and dinner and hair and nails and shoes and pictures if I went by myself. And there was no way I could get a date as fat as I was. I could be such a pretty girl, if I just took care of my weight. How embarrassing for him to send pictures to my grandmother and aunts of just me when every other girl has a date? How could I not be embarrassed for myself? And I was...I just stopped showing them that I cared what they said about me. But I just wanted them to fucking give it up and love me all the same anyway. Be proud of me and not disappointed because I'm not a size six like my sister or a size 2 like my mother.

Whatever I've done though, has never been good enough for him. I don't actually believe it's because I've never been thin. I think it's just because I'm me. And so while I really and truly want to be thin because I think everything in my life will miraculously come together, I know that's not true either. I'm just kidding myself. It's not because I'm fat. I have this wonderful excuse (both the eating disorder and being overweight) that I'm not who I want to be and I don't have the life I want. Because if I'm binging and purging all the time then it's a perfectly reasonable excuse for why I couldn't finish law school. If I was thin, I would have wanted it enough. So stupid too, because that's not even what I wanted, but I still want him to not hate me. Still single? Well I get to use the binging and purging as an excuse. I need to be alone. I can't give up that kind of time. But I also get to use being fat as an excuse. "No one wants a fat girl. I'd have to lose weight and straighten my hair and go back to law school and learn how to cook and clean before any guy would be interested in me." But when I'm thin, I can work on my script. I can date. I could get married. I could go shopping and go to the beach and go dancing with my friends without needing to be trashed. Except, what if I lose the weight but my script sucks ass. What if no one still wants me? Will I end up someone like my mother...we all know how I'm a chip off the old block. What if I end up thinking some asshole like my father is the best I can do? What if I still hate myself and it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm fat at all? What if I end up just like her? Just like him? What if I have no more excuses? What if it's just me. I'm not good enough. For my dad. For my mom. For Jack. For anything or anyone.

I'm not sure if I really could challenge those notions. Some things we still believe even though we know they aren't true. Like I know there is no such thing as a physical place called hell where souls burn for eternity, but I'm still afraid of going there because of all the crap I was fed as a child. How do you challenge the things your parents tell you about yourself? Which things do you weed out? You're fat. I love you. I only say this because I love you and I want you to have a good life. You have to go to law school. You disgust me. You were a complete waste of time. I'm so proud of you. You must lose weight.

What's true? Because we can't say that only the good things are true. So then that must mean that it's either all true, or none of it's true. I can pretend that the reason I'm so miserable is because I'm fat and bulimic. That has nothing to do with the fact that I can't accept myself or love myself enough, or my deranged and abusive father or my spineless mother. I get to love them and hate them and fight with them about being someone different from the little girl they raised while still holding on to the belief that being that girl will make everyone happy in the end. None of it makes any sense and I don't have to take the time to figure out what's real and true. I get to hate them and love them and they get to do the same thing and everyone is really unhappy and hurt but unable to do the right thing. I guess in the end, I really am just like my mother. I see a way out (sometimes) and I know there's a way out but I don't believe I get to have it. After a while the life sentence doesn't always feel so horrible. On the good days when I can skip meals then I don't have to think about any of this. And on the bad days, I still have my escape.

thankful Thursdays: I'm thankful for the culdy. So very thankful for the culdy. Thankful for the friends I've made and the people who are now a part of my life. I'm really thankful that I found FIVE dollars in my car and so I'll be able to afford this morning's session with Shish. I'm really thankful that I got an interview for a nanny position IN town. And oh my gosh! The BEST BEST BEST news ever....Jay is STUDENT OF THE MONTH! YAY! He's had a really hard time with school in the past. Last year was pretty brutal for the poor kid. He's had so much progress this year and although I tell him everyday I'm so proud of him for all the hard work, I know he will be totally proud of HIMSELF when he's recognized in front of the school. And as a special gift: we got him three new books! I'm so thankful I have the freedom to share this day with him.

and life with me is never easy

With the help of one of the girls from dbt I was able to speak a little bit more of the truth than usual. In a way, I feel really guilt because I was able to tell this girl things in confidence that pertain to the eating disorder in a way that I have not been able to do with Shish. And it's really not about her. Not really. Because I really do like Shish. She's an amazing therapist. Very cool person indeed. She has the ability to really get you to think about things (even though she hasn't been as good at getting me to tell her exactly what I'm thinking). But the major difference between her and my new friend -- let's call her Sue (I know, right? Sue...But she's got beautiful curly hair like Curly Sue) -- is that Sue gets it. She understands. And it's not like anything that comes out of my mouth is shocking or new to her because she knows. She has had the exact same thought. You can just tell.

So it was just me and Sue today at group and of course Shish. The other therapist was off defending her dissertation so let's wish her luck. The session was ending and we were asked to act opposite to the eating disorder at least once during the day. Doing it everyday would be ideal but clearly Shish knows to take the baby steps ropes with me. So here's my individual scenario. Fine. I have clearly demonstrated that there are times when I can opt opposite to the binge. I can do the ice dive. I can take a walk. I can get out of the house and take Chewy to the park. I can call a friend. I can take a nap. When it's possible for me to cut the binge off and remain in control of myself, I'll try. And then there are the times when (I'm not entirely blindsighted) but the urge can get to 100 and there's no stopping me. I'm not stopping me. I want the binge. But my main problem is restricting throughout the day. I know I need to externalize the eating disorder. I know I need to accept that it is not me. I do not have to do everything it tells me to do. But even with accepting that binging and purging doesn't work (and it doesn't)...I'm not any happier, I'm not any thinner, I'm not where I want to be. Well, the ed says restrict. The ed says don't eat all day.

You have enough body fat. You do not get to eat. You do not get to sit down and have breakfast, lunch, and dinner like everyone else because you've eaten too much as it is. You're disgusting. Your life will be BETTER when you are thin. And then maybe you will have earned the right to enjoy lunch. It's not an issue of gaining more weight (although of course that troubles me as well) but it's really the plaguing thought every time I indulge myself with dinner (like tonight, a salad and some fruit) and I don't purge it: I'm weak. I'm disgusting. I did not need to eat that. This is exactly why I'm fat. Because I have no discipline. It's apparent in every aspect of my life. I'm a loser. I will never be who I want to be. Because I can't even stop eating.

I'd never told Shish that before. And truthfully, I didn't even get all of that out. I simply said that I don't deserve to eat. I don't need to. My body can eat itself many times over. And it was really hard and scary to say that because we've never talked about that. She doesn't know really how much I hate myself. She doesn't know that. Or at least she didn't. And I know. I know, I really know that restricting to the point where I get to be a size 2 or 4 will not make me happy. I already know that it will never be enough. I know that if I cannot accept and love and treat myself the way I treat someone I care about then losing weight will not bring some miraculous state of happiness. I know that being a size 4 will not make me a better writer. I will not be more confident. I will not fall in love and get married and live happily ever after. I know that being a size 2 will not mean I can go back to law school and graduate at the top of my class. But there's a larger part of me that tells me that every single day. That life will be (not perfect) but pretty fucking close. It will still be life. But for some reason I think it could all be doable if these things happen.

Because I still believe that being thin will change everything, even though I know it will not. I believe that that will allow me to love myself and treat myself like I know I should. I believe that someone will love me and want to be with me and they will not be disgusted by me. I believe I'll be able to work towards accomplishing things I want (not just when I'm recovered...but when I'm thin). And I know where it comes from. It comes from years of being told that I would be pretty if I lost weight. That I could go to the prom if I had a prom date and that that would only happen if I lost weight. If I ran every morning and didn't eat bad food. From years of my mother obsessing about her weight. From years of my father criticizing her body. And mine. And the insecurity has built all these walls around me and sort of protects me in a way. Like, the reason I am alone isn't because I'm me, but because I'm fat. Because it's so much harder to know that the reason I'm so miserable is just because I'm me. There has to be an excuse.

Yet, I know. That's not it. When all of that shit went down with Jack, I was at my lowest weight. And it was I guess the worst thing that could have happened. Because here I was, in love with a guy, and he mistreated me in every way imaginable, and it wasn't because I was fat. That's a fucking fat ass pill to swallow. He didn't rape me because I was fat. He raped me because he saw the real me...and didn't like me. I wasn't good enough. So I think I hold on to this so tightly because the eating disorder serves me well in some aspects. I can still have hopes that it's not me. I can restrict all day and binge and purge at night to punish myself. I can avoid the shameful feelings I have associated with meal times by restricting and then lose myself in the binge and have that release. And then I get to use it to say this is why I'm so unhappy.

Tomorrow I have Shish. Or rather today since it's already Tuesday morning. And I already feel the anxiety for what's to come when it's just me and her and my thoughts and feelings. And I really want to be open and honest because I do know that she can help. I do trust her. But it's so damned hard to say all of THAT to someone who (THANKFULLY) doesn't get it. Because then people look at you a certain way. A different way. It's not just about the eating disorder. It's not just about my weight. It's not just about my incredibly fucked up family. Whatever this is...the thoughts and feelings that run through my mind...they permeate into everything about me. What I do. What I say. What I can't say. My interpretations. How I react. The way I see myself. The way I try not to see myself. And it's really more disturbing than the fact that I binge and purge. Because here I am...24 years old. Seemingly someone who should not have a care in the world. Provided with opportunities that others don't even dare to dream about. And I'm stuck in this. I really do feel stuck. One good week here. And then I sabotage it. Because I'm so afraid of what life would be like without it. Oh, sure...I long for it. But I long for that ideal. That happily ever after. The life that's worth living is so fucking PERFECT in my mind that it's almost like I'm setting myself up to fail...and that's why I have this little cycle. If it can't be perfect...well then, it's not soooo bad the way it is.

i MUST do better

I went down for a ten minute nap at 1o am. Not the smartest thing to do since I had to be at Shish's office by 11 and it takes a good twenty minutes and I had yet to shower. But it was really with the best of intentions that I'd wake up at 10:20 at the latest and make it on time. At 10:35 I was still in bed and figured I'd just call in and ask for an afternoon appointment since I'm usually the 2 pm slot. Except she was booked. And I chose sleep. But then the part of me that wants recovery said, "Erin if you don't get out of this fucking bed right now and show up to your appointment you're going to have one shitty day." So I called her back and said I'd see her at 11. I still had time...Except in the two minutes that I contemplated starting my day someone else STOLE my hour. I was pretty pissed at myself really for just completely ruining my day.

Can I say that I have so much work to do for work...and job applications to fill out...and money problems...and UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That it all just makes me want to go right back to bed.

I must have really taken a break from the binging because I had almost forgotten the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach that comes along with the disorder. Oh my gosh! It was almost unbearable. I felt so completely bloated and stuffed and it just felt like if I scratched my skin that I would burst at the seams and would start oozing out. Lovely, huh?

So I've spent the past two days binging and trying to recover. Clearly I'm going through the ringer because I purposely did not purge and now my body is punishing me. However, I still managed to be quite productive yesterday (which is what I'm most proud of). I applied for five jobs and while I already concede that it's not a full day's work...it came as quite a triumph seeing as how the thought of looking through the classifieds section on Tuesday sent me into crazy binge mode. Thank God that anxiety has passed.

I'm really really tired right now though. I only got about six hours of sleep (half my regular amount) because I had to take Jay off to school which meant getting him up and in the shower and dressed and fed. (And I coaxed him into doing five addition problems before school which I thought would warm him up for the day academically.) We'll see how well that worked this afternoon. I was really glad that he spent the night because we got to spend a lot of time together and the kid is just too darn funny and cute.

I wish I could take a nap but I have some homework to finish up before I go see Shish. I was looking forward to today all week but now that I'm feeling sick and tired I'm afraid it's going to be another one of those sessions. Last night I really had the urge to binge. I mean it was crazy because my stomach felt just awful and yet the only thing I could think of was food. I considered sticking my keys in a bucket of cold water and freezing it...so that when I get the urge, I can't actually get in the car to leave. Oh man...I need a prayer

panicked

i had a week of no binges. more than a week of no purges. and last night i binged and damnit i hate when it's like this. i don't know why it happened. but i just feel so shaky. i just feel so completely out of sync (not like i was ever in sync) but everything feels like it's happening at FAST pace and im not moving at all and it's so scary.

i need a job. the anxiety of looking at positions that either require a MASTER'S degree or high school diploma...drives me fucking crazy. i swear, i really love this area, but it's either or. there's never an in between. we have a really high population here of educated people. So my whole experience of finding something im interested in finds me WAY too qualified or THERES NO FUCKING WAY. its exhausting. its frustrating. its scary as fuck. its intimidating. its daunting. and when you're literally BROKE...it makes you consider doing shit u never thought youd end up doing.

so i binged. go figure. and i dont feel right. like im really trying NOT to binge RIGHT now so i tried sticking my face in ice cold water...literally a bowl full of ice water TEN times for TEN seconds and while it felt good doing it after say the fourth time. right now my blood is just

i can't calm down. i think i need a purge. and here's when it's crazy. right here, right now. where im actually really really really trying NOT to binge. im gonna take a shower and then walk the dogs and then get out of the house. but all of that is just avoiding it...i want this feeling to pass. DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT im so scared because i know it could be over if i just give in...do an all out binge/purge fest. but im also kind of interested to see..what will happen? what if it passes and I don't have to depend on the food? how LONG will it last? how long will i feel like crawling out of my skin. like RUNNING AWAY FROM LIFE. when will the images of sticking a barrel in my mouth stop popping up in my head. why am i sooo fucking terrified of living my life?

How come one day life can be really okay? How is it that I can have a good week and then wake up literally afraid to get up? How does the prompting event for a binge really get to a point where it's just WAKING UP. I'm going to try to do some stuff right now to ride this urge out.

feels like a storm is coming (like a real storm...not more drama in my life)

Off the top of my head the past few days have been really good. I've been eating regularly (or however I define it to be). But eating so much that I feel it's too much (although I know it isn't) and I haven't binged in a while. I think it's been a week although I'll have to check my logs to verify that. Either way I'm psyched. I cannot remember the last time I purged or binged (and I really think the last B was in Tennessee).

Friday I hung out with one of the girls from my dbt skills class. :) I know! Isn't that insane? Because for like two weeks I was convinced that they hated me and thought I was so fat and disgusting and it just GOES TO SHOW how I can misinterpret any old little thing. I was soooo wrong about the situation when I thought I was absolutely right. I can't have enough of those moments it seems, but at least this time I felt so much better knowing I was mistaken. I went over to her apartment to help her pack and we talked and I really enjoyed myself. I ate lunch before I headed over because I don't think we're allowed to eat around each other. I know we're not allowed to engage in any behaviors (which technically means restricting) so we parted ways at dinner time. We took her dog on a nice little walk right after an afternoon shower and it just felt good to hang out with someone who knows and understands and also know that yeah, there are more things to life than this. We could talk about the ed and group and therapists and food and alcohol and drugs and then we could leave it alone and go elsewhere and it just felt natural. Anyway, I came home and ate dinner and something really really upsetting happened!

My checking and savings account literally had less than $1.00. I didn't understand how something like that could happen especially since I'm not expecting a paycheck for THREE weeks. The situation got a little better. LITTLE. For some reason sometimes my bank always holds more (I think that's what happens why I purchase gas anyways) than it needs to and later redeposits the money back. Either way I was frantic. Sad. Scared. I have two therapy sessions next week and need money to pay for that. I also need money to do a few other things and change was just not going to cut it. The really good thing about it though: it finally kicked my ass into gear. Not that I didn't need money before (because I certainly did) but I literally started making plans to start selling stuff.

Like my guitar. And old cell phone. And clarinet. And CLOTHES that I had hoped to wear again. And so many books. And then for some reason I just couldn't sell that stuff. I mean if I absolutely have to do it to make ends meet I will...but I went out on a limb and responded to a cr@igslist poster who needed a babysitter this afternoon. Thankfully the lady called me yesterday afternoon and (I totally sent references and wrote a lot about myself) said I had the job. For now...crisis averted. A little breathing room. I almost halfway considered waiting tables but honestly, it's just not something I can afford to do. I cannot handle stress well which means I'd be putting myself in the worst possible situation with LOADS of food. The babysitting worked out fine. The two kids were a handful (cursing! at four and five years old!) I had to wake up at 8 o'clock in the morning (well before my usual noon) but I felt really productive. I was making money, having fun with the kids, dealing with real life situations and although yeah, I felt a little overwhelmed and nervous and scared and tired and frustrated when they wouldn't listen to me AT ALL -- I got out of the house. It felt good to spend six hours doing work. It felt even BETTER to be paid more than we originally agreed upon.

The only part of the day that I literally thought I wouldn't make it is when the four year old girl pushed her white tricycle down the driveway hill into my CAR! I just celebrated my ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY with my car on Saturday. And now there's this L-O-N-G mark across the bumper. A mixture of the pant coming off my car and the white paint coming off her bike. Not pretty. I seriously wanted to hurt that little girl. But I told myself...assess the damage (nothing I could personally do at that moment to fix my beloved bumper) and just be glad that's the worst thing that's happened to the car in a year. I'm still angry. But dude I did not binge. And I freaking could have sent those kids to their rooms and ate the HOUSE.

Needless to say I'm pooped. I have plenty of dbt homework to do post Desper@ate and oh! I wrote a letter to Shish. I'm taking it in on Thursday. It's four pages so I won't paste the whole thing, just the major ish...I have really missed you guys. And I hope everyone had a good weekend. Filled with rest and love and acceptance and fun times. I'm off to catch up on some much needed rest.

a rather dull Thursday with Shish

I was pretty blank today with Shish. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because food wise I've been having an okay time. I guess I should have mentioned that I feel this pull towards restriction. But even that didn't seem worth putting out there when the only thing she would say is act counter to the eating disorder. Which is what I did. I came home and made a big salad. And then ate some ravioli and felt fine. I'm still fine more than 90 minutes later. I really hate those sessions where it's not me just being plain rude and difficult but where I honestly don't know what to say. And I think today she wanted me to have an agenda but I just sort of get into these periods where I don't care what we talk about as long as it doesn't have me screaming and yelling from the room. It's good to have low key sessions every once in a while I know (but it's also a waste of both of our times and my money).

I'm also unsure of what I can actually talk about with her. And I know at this point in therapy (and with her leaving in less than six weeks) it's ridiculous to say that but this is an eating disorder clinic. Most stuff is usually about food and family issues and emotion regulation. I don't have a burning desire to talk about Jack...but I did throw it out there for her to catch. Or rather I threw myself out there hoping she would catch me. And it's not a problem problem, but there are a lot of things that I've written to her over the course of the past seven months that we've never talked about. And they're all really hard things to talk about and so in a sense I'm more than thrilled about it. But I can just see how much I have progressed by opening up and talking about stuff that's going on in my life currently that I do think it would be important to go back and drudge through the past (just a bit). I already know that's not her style and that she do it but I don't feel comfortable bringing it up. And I think she is pretty much allowing me to control the ball right now because I can't imagine she would want to go there with me. I mean no one would want to do that. I completely shut down. I'm completely a bitch when we discuss things that are off limits. I'm mute. I'm not someone even my dearest friends would want to be around.

I have the usual homework so I think that for next week I'll just write out an agenda and make sure I at least bring something to the table that I want to cover with her before we make this transition to the new T. But I don't know, sometimes I just feel like I can't say things to her even with the list. Like today, I mentioned applying for a job to teach at the Friend's school but that I was afraid of not getting an interview or the job. The prospect of being rejected is enough to paralyze me and I'm also petrified of making yet another (law school) mistake. And the only thing Shish could say is, "Well, why wouldn't they hire you?" It's comforting to hear in that moment and I know she's being 100% sincere. But I don't think she knows what it's like to doubt yourself so much that you really need someone to TELL you what to do. I mean, this is how I got into this situation with law school, but it's because I couldn't make the decision on my own. I can't decide for myself what's okay to eat and so I'm really following this meal plan here (or at least trying to and telling myself that as long as I do not deviate I am not allowed to binge). I feel like I've lost all power and control over my life. It's so simple to only get up out of bed to go to group or therapy when you feel like...nothing.

And the strange part about all of this is...I'm actually feeling really good. I'm not wallowing in despair or crying or angry or upset. This is just something I've come to accept. I just have a funny feeling that this is not what self-acceptance is supposed to be about.

trying to get used to this life again

It's been pretty difficult adjusting back to my normal everyday life. Honestly, I'm doing quite well coping with the fact that I was surrounded by best friends and complete acceptance and pure love for four days. I've been talking on the phone with my friends a little bit more than regularly and we made plans to meet up again in August. I did however learn that BEST removed me from her friends on F@cebook. That was pretty shocking. We had always talked about how that's the true test of friendship. Even during a really big fight we may have removed one another from MySp@ce but never the book. So glad that I was with friends because I wasn't able to dwell on it or even be upset.

So what's so hard? FOOD. Of course. I ate very well last weekend. Three meals a day. Dessert. Snacks. When they ate, I ate. Sometimes I had cake for breakfast. Other times beer. A couple of times I had fruit. It felt really good to already have my food rules in place for those times we went out to a restaurant (TWICE a day!!!) because it limited my options to vegetarian meals only. Which was perfect!!! Sometimes I only had like two choices and it meant that I couldn't agonize about what to eat (and also make some very healthy choices!) So that felt really good.

Now that I'm back though I've been craving sugar. I think it's because the graduation cake was just so freaking good!!! I mean the four of us devoured that cake like none other. I also indulged in PIZZA (a complete NO NO) and I really want to restrict. But my body apparently LOVED the food intake this weekend and is letting me know all the time that it wants food. Spread out across the day. More than fruits and veggies. It wants soup and pasta and cake! and...I guess it just wants variety. But in moderation.

And now for the funny/sad/really sad story. My mother has always been really sensitive about her weight. She's a size two right now and while not to put all her business out there she's more than half a century years old. She's given birth to two daughters and with the first one who was nearly full term she didn't even break 100 pounds. So she walks in the house after walking the dogs and my sister says, "You look fat." Something you don't say to ANYone, right? But most certainly not our mother who always asks if something makes her look fat (even though most people know that a size two could NeVeR ever be fat). I'm not sure why my sister did it. But them my mom got really sad and was like well you could stand to lose twenty pounds yourself! And then they started playing the game (how much weight they needed to lose and where...) and clearly I'm sitting in the room. And it was like the big white elephant. Or big brown elephant. Anyways...clearly my sister wanted to go there and you could tell my mom was really uncomfortable and praying to God that my sister did not turn to tell me how much weight I could stand to lose. Thankfully she didn't. But they didn't need too. It finally got up 40 lbs with my sister (which would make her look emaciated as hell). So if she needs to lose that much...what would put me under a 100 lbs.

That was never even my goal. That was never even something I wanted. And I still don't. But dear God is my mother really like this? Someone who knows her daughter suffers from an eating disorder but still so completely selfish that she asks all the time if she's fat. If I think she should eat 1 piece of chocolate (size of a kiss that is) and then plays the how much do I need to lose in order to get to double digits game. I don't even know what the word for what she and my sister are...but I must say I'm very proud of myself for not letting that effect of binging and purging.

how driving through a mountain can actually inspire you to keep pushing right on through til you get to the other side.

The past three days have been absolutely amazing. Abso-freaking-lutely! My dear roommate from college and bestest friend has graduated from law school in the top ten of her class. She actually had the 6th highest gpa (but there were 4 people ranked number one). How AMAZING is that? She's brilliant. Hard working. Beautiful. And a wonderful friend. I'm so happy for her.

So I drove over to Tennessee after meeting with Shish on Thursday and for the life of me I cannot remember what we actually talked about. I know I committed to doing a few things before every single binge over the next week (which I really couldn't focus on while with friends and alcohol and pizza floating around the place) but I'll recommit myself for the next three days. I also vaguely agreeing that I need to physically distance myself from my sister for a while as a means of self protection. I had a pretty hard time doing the diaphragmatic breathing in last week's skills class and again with Shish so we worked on that. Now it almost seems like a waste of time but I must just be blocking something out because I do remember that I completely destroyed the camisole I was wearing during that hour. I literally started pulling the strings out and focusing all my attention on ripping the shirt into pieces because I was so angry and tense. How very awkward.

The ride through the mountains was beautiful and scary as hell. I have never actually driven through and on mountains for such an extended period of time. Literally 3.5 hours. I worked in Charlottesville for the summer and so I saw the mountains from a distance but never actually had to go down the winding roads with huge yellow signs that said CAUTION: ROCKS SLIDE. Talk about anxiety. Now add rain. Three dozen tractor trailer trucks. And everyone zooming past me at 60 miles per hour (while I was safely doing 45) because the other caution sign said safest speed 50 miles per hour! I was not prepared and I was highly tense and I felt like crying and my ears were popping and we were going up hill then down hill and I will never make that drive again. And yet when I remembered to breathe (I had the Sedona method playing the entire way to K-ville) I could focus my attention on the beautiful scenery. I was literally in awe of how it all works. The earth. How it was even possible for me to drive through the mountains. How the trees managed to grow so high. It was just one of those rare moments when I had nothing else on my mind but how mind blowing life is (well, I also had surviving the maze on my mind).

My other roommate flew into town and we headed to the mall to build a be@r for our graduate. I really loved making that bear and I've been thinking about what to give Shish when she leaves and I think I'll make her a bear too! They're too cute. Then we headed to the university library and spent two hours making a scrapbook of never before seen pictures from college and a few pictures I hijacked from our friend's facebook page. She thought that was hilarious. I had promised myself before hand that I wanted to have as normal of a weekend as possible. I wanted to escape my eating disorder (more for my friends than myself). Four days. Of just pretending (which I know isn't the smartest thing to do...pretending I don't have a problem with food when I clearly do) but I just didn't want to look back on the weekend and regret anything. The wonderful think about doing the scrapbook before we even headed over to our friend's apartment was that I got to look at just how few pictures there were of me from four different camera sources. I was always the one who jumped to take the picture (even when other people who weren't roommates were around) because I felt so self-conscious. I have absolutely no idea how I look to other people. Seriously. I feel fat. I feel ugly. I can't be objective about these things. But when I see myself on film then there's hardcore proof of it. What I see in the picture is what everyone else sees as well. There's no denying that. So I have always made it a point to make a really stupid face or do something completely off the walls in pictures to draw attention to that (rather than my body). Or I just flat out refuse.

This weekend seeing the abundance of pictures we had (and how few of me there were) I decided to be apart of the captured memories for my friends but I still did a lot of the crazy (& drunk) poses. I felt it was a compromise. I still felt completely uncomfortable and everything else but I knew I would kick myself in the ass if I wasn't present in every moment. And technically at the graduation and graduation dinner I took normal pictures like everyone else. I can actually look at those pictures too and see how beautiful my dress was and how pretty I looked that night. And it's just really sad because the whole night I felt fat and I just wanted to LEAVE and the pictures turned out great.

The first night we got completely trashed at my friend's apartment and around 1 am after taking six shots of grey goose and chasing them with reisling we ended up at a pizza parlor where I started dancing to the music playing only in my head and split my favorite pants. The pants I have not fit since SENIOR year of college three years ago. And it was quite shocking to my friends because the pants actually didn't fit. They were too big. And they couldn't understand how pants that are too big can split right down the ass and through the thigh can split under those circumstances. Needless to say I didn't even remember going to the pizza parlor and I didn't realize my pants were split until the following afternoon. Nor do I remember being picked up by one of my friends and carried to the bathroom multiple times. Like I said...an amazing weekend.

The following day we actually went out to a club (and I promise I'm getting to recovery centered stuff here) and I was feeling pretty sad. Actually I felt ashamed. I felt stupid. I felt like a loser. I felt like I was going nothing with my life. I felt even worse for thinking all that while at the club celebrating my roommate's accomplishments. And then I felt fat. And then everything made sense. Why I don't have a boyfriend. Why I suck at life. And so on and so forth. It basically stemmed from the fact that everyone at the graduation dinner asked me what I was doing with my life. And I said "taking a break." And I know they don't know my circumstances. None of the adults have any idea of how miserable I was in law school or that I have an eating disorder or that I think I may have the most fucked up family east of the Mississippi. But saying nothing just made me feel like nothing. And because I didn't address those feelings and thoughts immediately they resurfaced after the first shot (of grey goose) and I was sitting at the bar completely silent on the verge of tears (and seriously scaring my friends who had no idea what was going on in my head). It took me a good twenty minutes to get it together but I did some diaphragmatic breathing and actually thought about what WISE MIND would say. At the bar. In a dance club. With my friends surrounding me. I just needed to escape and think about how to effectively handle the situation and be present for my friends. Nothing about the future of my professional life could be determined at 2 am and so it made no sense to ruin the rare opportunity I had to get faded with my best friends. I literally had to pick up shot glasses on the bar and envision them being all the hurt and embarrassment and disappointment (and everything else) and just DROP it. Let it go.

I told myself if I felt like going back and picking all that stuff up later and handling it, I certainly could. After six drops...a few more minutes of breathing and coming clean to my friends about why I seemed completely absent-- I really let it go. In fact, I told them that I didn't even need to talk about it. I had let it go. I was back and ready to party. It wasn't easy. Those feelings didn't want to be dropped. I'm so used to holding on to all these negative feelings and thoughts that I literally have to tell myself to LET THEM GO. I had to force myself to go out on the dance floor (completely self conscious and all) and then I practiced being in the moment. Thinking only of dancing. Other thoughts came into my head and I acknowledged them and went right back to focusing all my attention on the music. By the end of the night I felt fabulous. I really did. And I think all those m@nhatten apples had only a little to do with it.

My roommates and I talked until nearly dawn that night and they both agreed that I like being...well I can't remember the word they used. But apparently someone who does like discomfort and pain and sadness and all that stuff. Something that Shish has alluded to as well. Only once. But after I had a really successful day with the food plan and then never even tried it again. She thought it was interesting that I felt happy and proud with the outcome of the experiment and then went right back to my same old routine and didn't even think about repeating it because maybe I like the chaos and drama that comes along with having an eating disorder. I disagreed. And I disagree with my friends. I don't like ANY of it. But I do see how I completely downplayed the fact I am technically employed and I did volunteer for one of the democratic presidential nominees and I do spend a lot of time caring for my nephews. And yet, I said I was unemployed. Taking a break. Doing nothing with my life.

i.e. Making the situation worse by not truly acknowledging the reality. Not seeing the good but going right into the darkness and pain and disorder (and I have NO idea why I do that!)

I have a big day ahead of me. I really want to do some things to try to turn around how I feel about my existence. First by accepting it. That it's truly okay simply because it is. And then changing a few things each day to see if that makes me feel any better about myself. I also have so much dbt homework to catch up on before tomorrow's class. I've missed you all so much and I promise I'll catch up AFTER I check some things off my to-do list. As wonderful as this past weekend was...I'm actually glad to be back. I want to set up a routine and make some real changes in my life. First things first though, and that means I have to work on this eating disorder. It was wonderful to pretend (or try to pretend) for a weekend that I'm like all my friends, but it'll be even better to actually live a lifestyle that doesn't involve an eating disorder.

Not This Time!!!!

Shish is back tomorrow! I'm really relieved. I just sort of feel better knowing that she's back in NC and that I get to sit down and talk to her tomorrow. Hopefully I'm not a closed off bitch. Hopefully I can get it together beforehand and open up about how horrible the past two and a half weeks have been during her absence. And then right after that I'm leaving for Tennessee. It's gonna be a six hour drive (and I really hope the part of TN that I'm going is the part without mountains) because that sort of thing freaks me out. I had planned on taking Chewy with me along for the ride but one of the other girl's going HATES him with a passion so it looks like it's just gonna be me all by myself which should give me some time to think and pray and do a lot of wise mind and breathing exercises.

I have to get packed when means trying on about 10 different pairs of jeans, a few dresses, making sure every shirt doesn't make me feel or look fat and I had planned on doing it late tonight (right before bed) but I'm thinking I need to do it now. Yes, it will depress the fuck out of me. But it will also give me an opportunity to (maybe) head out to the mall if I plan ahead and not end my day on such a tragic note. I also have to print out about 100 photos and clean out my car and clean my room and straighten my hair and do some work from home and....I'm stressed. But I'm really excited about seeing my college friends and roommates and spending the weekend together. We haven't seen each other since we hit up South Beach last August and it'll be a wonderful reunion. I do to be careful though. Food will be unplanned and spontaneous this weekend for SURE. A lot of alcohol consumption. One girl who knows about the ed said I should bring my own food so that I'm not forced to make decisions that are going to upset me. I'm not doing that though. I want one weekend where I can pretend I'm like everyone else. It's completely ridiculous I know (since I'm not like everyone else and if I eat french fries and drink beer I will surely have a meltdown) but it's one weekend. One breath at a time.

I'm a bit paranoid and anxious about seeing my friends because I've dropped three pants sizes since my friends saw me. One will surely comment. The others...maybe not so much. I can't look at my body and tell the difference but looking at pictures from last August compared to last night it's VERY clear. But also very clear that I have a ways to go (ugh, this is not recovery focused). I'm just gonna stop right now! I'll be mia for the next few days but thinking of you all and reading all the public blogs from my Google Reader on my celly.

And now to end on a FABULOUS note

Two counties in NC had more than 50% turnout for registered voters. And MY county was one of them. The other county only has a population of 4,000 and we have more than 200,000. I spent SIX hours canvassing yesterday after I voted (and was interviewed and photographed for our local newspaper) and came home EXHAUSTED. When I woke up and heard the FANTASTIC news...I was just completely content with the way I had spent my day. My county also had the HIGHEST percentage of Ob@ma voters with 75% for him, 24% for Clinton and 1% undecided. I didn't know you could STILL vote that way! I'm only writing about all of this here because it got me out of BED. And out of the house. And engaged in life. And I had a headache and it was HOT HOT HOT and I ran out of water during the first hour and it was more important to me that I stay out there. Not just to avoid being at home because I was so tired I don't think I would have binged...but because it felt good to have a huge portion of my day not consumed with my eating disorder. Not engaging...but not even THINKING about food.

Not a complete success though. Because it just meant that I restricted the WHOLE day. But it wasn't intentional. I guess I'll be honest and say that it started out that way...

crossing my fingers for a good Tuesday

It's a good day when I wake up and I don't feel the emptiness in my chest. When I don't feel like my insides are freezing. When I don't feel something cold running through my veins. When there's no pressure in my chest. When it's not tight. When it doesn't hurt to breathe. When there's not this incredible build up of shit on top of my back weighing down on my shoulders and arms and traveling down my back.

I think that's why I try so hard to avoid the food. Because I feel like I've already been given a gift. The gift of a good day. And I just want to try my BEST not to fuck it up before noon or prime time. Because I know what's sure to come if I eat something that doesn't feel safe. If I feel overwhelmed or stressed out by the smallest thing. If it's too hot or I get a headache or the dogs both get ticks on the same day. If I even think about work and decide I don't want to. If I end up fighting with my sister or having to discipline Jay or there's traffic...Or I end up leaving things left unsaid with Shish or anyone else for that matter.

Waking up well rested and not full and not hungry with something to do (but it's not overwhelming in the least bit) encourages me. I can get out of bed and take a shower and eat something safe. It feels okay to allow myself that. I can walk the dogs and do whatever I need to do and everything seems to be in control and going well. And nothing spectacular has to happen. It can just be a normal day.

But oh fuck if I wake up and it's there. Ice in my veins. Empty. Alone. It's SAD in there. And it hurts. And I just want to stay in bed all day. I have purposefully moved my laptop downstairs so that when those days happen (and they've been increasing in number lately) that I absolutely have to go downstairs in order to get online. So smart that I have started leaving my phone downstairs, just so I will force myself to get out of bed. If I wake up like that it's hard to tell myself to get back up. There's no getting up. There's nothing. On a good day I might think about trying to do better. Being better. A little more effort. Increasing the commitment by another 10% or so. But on a sad day, there's no hope. And I haven't even discussed something going wrong on a sad day.

I didn't know others could feel that same hollowness in their chest. I thought something was wrong with me (and of course there is...) but I thought I was the only one who could feel that emotional pain in their body. I couldn't even articulate that before I started recovery. Of course it's still there sometimes and I hope it goes away completely. And it doesn't make the feeling go away at all but knowing that someone else has it too...that they understand. They get it. That I'm really not as alone as I think I am...and that they're trying, capital T, because they want that better life so bad they can taste it. So somedays I have hope and some days they do and it's enough to fuel me. To get me to the next morning when it's not as cold as it was the day before. To convince me to eat dinner even after a binge because it's what I can do to beat this thing. What can I do to live a better life? Honestly...taking it one moment at a time.

One breath at a time.

looks like it'll be a good week!

It's a bit after 6:30 pm here and I haven't eaten yet. I'm trying not to think about what to do about this because I don't want to spend too much time thinking about food. On the one hand I would love to restrict for the entire day but I know that's not likely to happen. I always get that urge late at night (regardless of whether or not I've eaten for the day...unless I've truly fed myself enough) and so I guess it's just a matter of eating something now and again later and hoping I don't binge (or waiting until after The B@chelor and having an all out food fete). To be smart about it, I really cannot binge tonight because I have to be up at 5:30 in the morning. I feel a bit like Z (having to be up BEFORE the sun is out. I don't even know what time sunrises happens these days.)

It's primary day tomorrow in NC and I'm committing TWELVE hours of volunteering. I'm already overwhelmed just thinking about how busy I'll be tomorrow. But I absolutely want to give my whole day to it for these reasons:

1. I love politics (the reason I went into law school actually...or a BIG reason anyways)
2. I love Obama and I think it's rare for people to believe in a political leader the way we do with him. So rare that I want to be a part of this movement.
3. Having something to do gets me out of the house and away from food
4. Having something that I WANT to do gets my focus on more important things in life.

Okay. And really quick (cuz I'm starting to consider eating something now and I don't want the moment to pass) today's group was REALLY good. I was like ABSOLUTELY honest, okay, absolutely honest with the group. I only didn't disclose one minor thing about a vulnerability and I will share that with Shish on Thursday. I talked about how having a bad week when others had great weeks made me feel really bad. I talked about how I felt like the kid nobody likes in our group and...guess what.

That's really not the case at all. Just another example of how I see things with black and white tinted sunglasses and it's so sad to say this but...I had a horrible WEEK because of last week's class. Because of my interpretation of it. So one of the girls said like that she felt bad because she thought it was something she said and I got around to fessing up in the bathroom during break away from the therapist (Shish is still defending that dissertation!) and you know what???
We all struggle with the same insecurities. We really do. Anyways, we've exchanged email addresses and just the simple fact that I know they haven't been intentionally excluding me makes me feel so much better. That's a wonderful feeling.

Then had a heart to heart with us which made the three of us feel really bad. We can all be really apathetic, bitchy, and sarcastic at times. We're also about a decade younger than the therapists so they might be too far removed from their mid twenties to remember this time. And of course they haven't struggled with eds. Anyways, I personally have never made this comment but I have certainly AGREED with the other two girls on the numerous times that they've said it. "You don't get it. You don't understand. You have no idea what we're talking about. You only know because you've STUDIED this stuff, you haven't experienced it so you can't KNOW what you're saying is true. You can tell us to do this exercises when a binge urge hits because you have no idea what a binge urge feels like."

Yeah. In my opinion, it's not nasty at all. Just honesty. Like today, I said I spend four entire days binging and purging. And the therapist said that must have been pretty bad. And one of the other girls was like, "You have no idea what she means when she says that! Pretty bad??? You really don't get it."

I agree. She's right. There are some things that they will never "get." But that doesn't mean that they don't know what they're talking about. It doesn't mean that they can't help us. It might be a good thing that they don't get it. Sometimes though, I wish they did. Sometimes binging and purging sucks. But something that was admitted for the first time during group, was that sometimes it feels great. That's the part that sucks. The buildup of all life's little shits gets to be too much and I binge and purge and it all goes away. When it works like that for me...it's the worst thing that could happen because it reinforces the idea that binging and purging HELPS. She couldn't get all of that. That the binging and purging was the BEST part. The worst part was being able to ONLY do that. The cycle. The out of control feeling. The worthlessness.

There have been other times when those comments have been thrown out in the room and I know Shish doesn't like to hear it. According to her, it shouldn't matter to me whether or not she or the other therapist have had an eating disorder. They're presenting us with a way out that works and has been proven to work. Being a better bulimic doesn't work. Picking up another harmful way of dealing with life doesn't work. But what another member said today was true. When we make those comments, it's because we're trying to hold on to the eating disorder. When we make those comments, it's because we're just really MAD that they DON'T know, not that we wish they did. We're pissed because unfortunately we got stuck with two very pretty and thin therapists who seemingly have it together (although we really wouldn't know) and our lives are very much fucked up. We got dealt some pretty shitty cards and then picked up more bad ones and never dropped any of them. So throwing in their face that they DON'T get it and because they don't KNOW from first hand experience means they can't tell us how to do ANYTHING. It's more harmful to us. But it comes from a place of insecurity and anger and sadness. And not of really thinking that these two therapists can't handle the three of us.

And what's kind of interesting is that...well we don't know anything about their lives. We're so convinced they have NO idea what we're going through (in terms of food and self esteem and what to do with our lives and emotions and family drama) but the therapist told us very candidly that we know nothing at all about what she knows from first hand experience. Based on their own comments or misunderstandings about things it's safe to say they don't have experience with eating disorders...but they're still young women. They don't live in a bubble. Maybe they didn't have the same family dynamics that I grew up with (but neither did the other two in the group) and we still relate. Maybe it wasn't an eating disorder, but drugs, or an unhealthy relationship, or cigarettes. Maybe it was nothing at all. But everyone has something. Some to lesser degrees than other, but I'm going to commit to doing a chain analysis for every single binge, doing ALL my homework this week, and being a lot more willing to recover (and not just lose weight.)

It's really hard for me to take that first step (of the day by eating something) because I'm so afraid it'll lead to a binge. But I have to keep getting back up on the horse immediately after I fall down.

a weekend much better than the last

A friend and I made sushi plans for lunch yesterday which sort of fell through because I woke up at 1 and didn't feel much like eating anytime thereafter. He's going through a pretty rough spot in life right now. His live-in girlfriend has decided that it's not working out and wants to break up. This is the friend from last weekend's party that I went to go help set up for. A dear friend from middle school that I had a mini crush on during college (and apparently he did too) but at some point it just gets weird if you haven't crossed that line before the first decade of friendship, y'know?

When I first came back home this past winter he did a fabulous job of getting me out of the house. I was pretty depressed and withdrawn and although we didn't get together very often (because of the live-in girlfriend) he still made it known to be ABSOLUTELY that he would be there for me anytime. I just needed to hear that and so I decided to return the favor. Fortunately for me, even though I feel the depressing sinking back into my life, it's not completely smothering the life out of me yet and I think it's good for me to try to do things for others because it gets me out of my own funk (even if only for a few hours). We talked for a great deal Saturday before I went to volunteer for one of the campaigns and decided to do a late dinner for sushi around 9 when headquarters closed. (And see a movie!) Which sounded perfect to me because I didn't want to go home after eating sushi (seeing as how it would have been the first thing I'd eaten all day) because that would surely result in the dreaded B word.

No such luck for me though. By the time I called him at a quarter to 9, he was already out drinking with another friend who's having relationship problems and of course had already eaten because you know, as he stated it, "who the fuck waits to eat until 9 o'clock at night! I was starving!" So I was pretty let down. I was looking forward to going out with my friend and it wasn't just about getting him out of the house cheering him up...but about keeping me out of the house and cheering me up as well. He told me to go eat dinner and he'd call me when he was leaving the restaurant so we could still catch a movie. Except FUDGE...I was hungry. Not starving. But still hungry enough to notice the hunger pains and feeling pretty nervous about how to handle the situation. I desperately wanted Moe's (but chips & queso isn't a meal, nor is it healthy or safe) and I really wanted to feel in control. I did not want to binge. I did not want to lose control and end up spending the night in the kitchen and bathroom.

It was ELEVEN pm before I decided on what to eat. Something I'm really upset about eating. Something that wasn't safe. I actually thought I was going to throw up immediately after eating it. Greasy french fries! I can't remember the time I ingested something so soaked in grease. It was really making me feel ill. And guess what! Still didn't purge. That was fabulous...but I felt disgustingly sick. I didn't binge. I had a normal amount of food. Actually, seeing as how it was the first time I'd eaten all day, it wasn't enough, but of course my mind was being completely irrational and telling me that it was TOO much. I knew though that purging would just make things worse. Once I got that empty feeling in my stomach I would need to fill it back up again...and get rid of it, and so on and so on.

Up at noon today (sunday) and felt sooo completely bloated. Strange since I didn't binge and didn't overeat but I guess eating at night was enough. I find it absolutely ridiculous that so much of my life is about this. It's really sad. But at least I'm doing things each day to make sure I do something for myself and others...and that makes me feel a little better.

I found my favorite boots! Really my only pair of boots. Studded cowboy boots that I had misplaced for the past FIVE months. Feels good to start the day off on a great note.

Thankfully, I turned the day around

So this morning I overslept my volunteer engagement and felt pretty horrible about it. It's been just one of those weeks. Or the past two weeks have been one of those weeks(s). Not too sure about how to grammatically do that. :-)

Binging at night makes mornings pretty pathetic. Since I don't have a formal job and pretty much little responsibilities during the day it pretty much enables me to lounge around and read until it's time for Oprah. I get to either obsess about what not to eat or I get to binge and purge all day and generally just fuck things up even worse than they are now. I felt pretty depressed today. I felt like a loser. I was really disappointed in myself and the only thing I wanted to do was sit and eat. But it was also the last thing I needed to do. And I couldn't quite tell what I felt like doing, y'know.

I talked to Shish and she tried to encourage me to eat something that I could keep down but also safe enough so that I wouldn't start binging. I told her I could do it but I lied. I couldn't. I knew when I said I could that it wasn't something that was up for negotiation. I just didn't want the binging to start. If I'm starting the binge purge cycle at 10 pm -- I can live with that. It can only go on for so long y'know. But starting at noon. Or 3. Or 6. Waking UP like that. It's scary. It's the ENTIRE day. And waking up with that sick feeling...that's better than waking up with binge blood. If the sick feeling lasts all day it means at least I CANT eat anything. But God forbid it go away. Then binging is possible because I'm already guilty and sad and upset and what else could I do?!?!?

So I restricted. And it wasn't quite so hard. I thought about what I could eat and feel okay with and decided that there wasn't anything I felt okay with. I was pissed at myself for binging the night before and missing the volunteering so I did not deserve to eat. And since I was being so mean to myself, binging would surely follow if I tried to be nice to myself. Ahh...the forgiveness. I ended up talking on the phone for a while and then deciding to get ready to hear both democratic party presidential candidates. Line up started at 3 pm but doors didnt open until 530. It's soo freaking humid down here so I knew I wouldn't get there too much earlier than 530.

My mother invited herself (my sponsor told me I should uninvite her because it's self care and speaking up for myself and I totally agree) but in the end I said nothing and even had to drive. And I hate driving to the city the dinner was in. UGH! Anyways...we sat next to some really cool couple and had a fabulous time hearing the opening speakers. Random people who work for the party but people running for Senate and two of the hopeful gubernatorial candidates. I won't delve too much into this stuff since this isn't a political blog but I cried. I was so moved to action and feelings of doing something positive to help the future of my country that I CRIED. I haven't been so moved in a really long time. I had become cynical. Even with all this talk about hope and change...I didn't really believe. How could I believe or have hope or think about change for a NATION when it proves to be so elusive when it comes to my own life.

Well, hopefully the spirit of tonight's message stays with me for a very long time. It certainly was a historical event, the highest attendance for a Jefferson J@ackson dinner (over 5,000) and hearing BOTH Senators speak (one female, the other African American). Walking out with a pep in my step, and a heart beat that was...yeah, a little more upbeat. And seeing the young people and the old people and people of different ethnicities and people of different sexual orientations and people from different socioeconomic backgrounds and people from different cities or those who live in the same city but on different sides of the railroad tracks TOGETHER who at the end of the day want the same thing. A better America. And all our similarities, what we want for our fellow Americans, what we want for our country, what we want for the world...far outnumber the differences we have among us. Seriously. And it was so good to SEE and to HEAR and to experience.

I'm an American. I want to make enough money to own my own home and pay my student loans and fill up the gas tank and buy groceries (and not binge or purge them) and save for my retirement and save for a rainy day (or year) and live in a safe neighborhood that has the best education for neighborhood kids in the same neighborhoods as anyplace else in America. And I want our troops home and I want us to come up with a plan to treat our Earth like a planet we love and appreciate. And I want people who didn't go to college to still be able to make a living wage. And I want the criminal justice system to be fair. And...I want Americans to stop treating each other differently just because we have different backgrounds. I love the differences. They exist. They make this country beautiful. I want us to be fair to everyone. I want our country to be a model for developing countries since we so foolishly believe we're the moral authority on everything as it is. I want the definition of Americans to include everyone and exclude no one and I want us to focus on all the things that really matter. Tonight I was (am) still full on hope for a better country...

And yet I still binged when I got home. It wasn't tragic. Not even too much calorie wise since I hadn't eaten all day. But tomorrow I'll just try again. I'll try to get up before noon. I'll vote EARLY so I can volunteer the entire day on election day. I'll have sushi with my friend (who threw the party for his girlfriend last week...they just broke up.) :-) He could use a sweet dragon roll. And I'm just going to take it one day at a time. It sucks. Because I want to do more. But it's also scary...because that's as fast as I can do anything these days. Sometimes I have to take it moment by moment and realize that I am sick. I want to be better. I am working at getting better. I have to try a lot harder every single hour to fight this thing. But I am still sick and I have to take care of myself. And so when I think about it like that...

Today turned out to be a really good day.

long day today and an even longer day tomorrow

Lucky for me in the midst of all this backtracking with the multiple binges and purges per day, I had an appointment with my nutritionist. I absolutely adore Cruella. We got to talking about politics because Michelle Ob@ma will be in my hometown tomorrow morning and I signed up for tickets. Or at least I thought I did. I never received my confirmation e-ticket online so I had to go down to headquarters and volunteer so that I could be a volunteer during the event tomorrow. Not too big of an inconvenience and it ended up turning out well. Cruella and I discussed what needed to be done today to ensure that I would stick to my food plan tomorrow (and not binge and purge or overeat) and whoa...is there a lot that goes into making sure that I have a good day.

For starters, in order for me to be up and at 'em tomorrow morning at 8:30 am then I absolutely cannot binge or purge tonight. Binging and purging makes me feel absolutely sick in the mornings and it's sort of like a mini-hangover. It takes me a really long time to get moving. Honestly, I've been feeling less and less like getting out of bed in the mornings regardless of whether or not I binge at night. But hopefully the excitement about actually having to do will kick my ass into gear. Tonight, I also have to pick out what clothes I plan to wear. It could take me over an hour to feel comfortable in an outfit that I wear all the time but depending on how I feel in the morning (i.e. FAT, bloated, ashamed, worthless) it might prevent me from even leaving the house. I'm totally not in the mood to do that now because I just ate something but waiting until tomorrow morning when I'm already pressed for time would be disastrous. AND because I volunteered today and I'm volunteering tomorrow, I got two tickets for a dinner rally tomorrow night and I'll actually get to hear B@rack. I'm really excited about that. I only mentioned that because it means I'll need to pick out two outfits. Sigh...

So the plan is to have breakfast before I head off to the first rally. A piece of fruit & cheese and I know I can totally feel okay and safe about that and I feel confident I'll do it. We also planned for me to eat something after the rally. Ordinarily that would bother me (and it still does) because I wouldn't want to end up binging. I think she listed a salad with protein for lunch and that's something I would ordinarily have for dinner. It won't be possible for me to eat that tomorrow because the volunteering doesn't end until 3:30 pm. I imagine they will have food for the volunteers since we'll be there for over five hours but...just thinking about that makes me freak out a bit. I don't want to mess up. I don't want there to be food there. But I also know that I'll probably be really nervous and stressed out and tired (since I'm not used to waking up before noon) and my mind will tell me to binge. The smart thing to do would be to take a snack. My own safe snack so that around lunch time or at some point during the rally if I get the urge to eat/binge, I can be ready with something that I will feel okay about and won't lead me to a binge. We then planned that I would eat dinner before seven pm, but the dinner rally is at 630. We'll get there as soon as the doors open an hour beforehand but we're not having dinner there so it means I'll either have to eat before the dinner rally or afterwards. Waiting until after 8:30 or 9:00 pm wouldn't be a smart idea because assuming I've eaten twice beforehand (my body will totally be starving by then and I'll end up binging) but eating at 4:00 pm (basically right after the volunteer gig) wouldn't be smart either. I'll have to rush to get home, eat, and get dressed after having probably just eaten a snack just a few hours beforehand.

I would totally love to hear both Ob@mas speak tomorrow. I would hate to let my eating disorder get in the way of me doing something I really really want to do. But being busy literally for 12 hours out of the day is sure to be overwhelming. I'm not so worried about having a setback since I'm already in setback mode. I just really want to have a good day and not obsess about food when I have really important things to do. And yet, I'm already obsessing about food. If things are going horribly after the volunteering then I'll just give my ticket to someone else. That makes me feel really shitty though, to know that I'll just go home to binge and purge (instead of going to hear him speak and binging and purging at night). However, there's nothing to say that the day couldn't go smoothly and then I'll get home and be so exhausted from all the excitement that I head straight to bed and have a good food day after all!

I'm crossing my fingers that I can get everything done and still make really good decisions about food and check in with my feelings. I can already anticipate the anxiety, the nerves, the stress of driving and parking for both of these things...but as long as I deal with the feelings when they come instead of letting them boil over, then I might actually be able to pull this off. And I really want to pull this off. I'm really tired of the monotony of my life. Sleep in past noon. Read. Binge. Purge. Repeat.

Back to Cruella: She was really helpful with giving me more food options that I feel comfortable with. And she totally understood about my desire to go vegetarian. I know a lot of the times at the clinic they don't like us to adopt new restrictive food behaviors because they think we're just letting the ed talk. But when I explained that it wasn't because I wanted to lose weight, but because I felt sick to my stomach thinking about the way they treat the animals, she took it really well. It's really hard for her to come up with things that I eat and that are on my safe food list because I'm so picky (only veggies I eat are salads) and now I'm cutting out meat and I just love love love junk food. But I feel pretty comfortable with her suggestions and I'm looking forward to having some good weeks ahead.