I think that, despite all the things I tell myself sometimes, there is actually a reason why I don't go back to starvation.

On another journal site I'm part of, one of my friends wrote this entry a few days ago. I'm sharing it with you because it is relevant, and not entirely boring. The name in the entry has been changed.

I don't know why Camille felt the need to call me yesterday and tell me she went/nearly went into cardiac arrest over the weekend. Due to starvation. It was the first thing out of her mouth. No 'how are you?' or anything. Just me, me, me.

I don't care, damnit. I mean, I care on the basic level that people give a shit about other folks, but why did she call ME? Did she expect me to rush over and nurture her back to health? So frustrating.

I feel like shit recently. Saw my psychiatrist and she bumped my Prozac up to 30 mg, heading to 40's in three weeks. She also lectured me about the whole anorexic stint I've been on.

Yes, yes, I know, I know. Eating, good. Starving, bad. Skin, good. Bones, bad. Tasting food, good. Tasting acid, bad.

Trying to get a handle on it. Need to eat to train for the [constabulary]. Feel very out of control of myself.


The first thing I felt when I read this was... anger. "Camille" was clearly just calling this other girl to get attention, to show off, to express some sick pride in the fact that she's so ill she nearly had a fucking heart attack.

And I realized: STARVING IS NOT COOL.

It's not a fucking fun little game to stop eating and nearly die because your heart fails. It's not a good way to get somebody's attention or concern, and it's not cool or popularity-enhancing. And even though I know the attention-seeking aspect can be part of the disorder, it just makes me want to scream, at everyone who has restrictive EDs and joins these communities and thinks that, somehow, what they're doing to their bodies is actually right or even justifiable.

IT'S NOT.

Starvation is not fucking justifiable. Starvation does not make a person beautiful or likeable. Starvation is a way to hide from the fact that you're scared, or miserable, or have no idea how to deal with people or with life. It does not make you a better person -- it makes you physically worse, which leads to the worsening of your mental state. It may seem like a clever or fun way to cope, and also "get pretty" at the same time, but IT IS NOT. That's a bunch of fucking bullshit. Eating disorders are a way to cop out of life and out of feelings. They are not something to be proud of, to call your ex-girlfriend to brag about and expect sympathy and support for. Your hospital stays, the number of times your health professionals tell you you have to eat for your own health, and that this is really not good for you -- those are not fucking markers of how successful you are, how much control you have. They are markers of how out of control you are, and how nonpresent you actually are in real life.

When you starve, you get the comfortable experience of never actually having to deal with your shit. You have a means to distract yourself, and it works quite well. But it is complete and utter bullshit, and it's not a real life at ALL -- not even CLOSE -- and I am sick of people portraying starvation as an actual lifestyle. It is a way OUT of life, not a way IN.

And I guess what I'm saying, and what I'm doing in my struggle not to restrict, is choosing to at least TRY to deal with my shit, and not alter my body because my mind is uncomfortable with something or another.

I remember restriction. I remember the way not eating affects your brain, the way it dulls your thinking and concentration and leaves you obsessive-compulsive and anxious, always needing some sort of background noise or television, always needing something to do to distract yourself even further. I remember the days that revolved entirely around food, the way I couldn't get to sleep without the heaters on bust, the way I'd lie in bed and feel my heartbeat slow and slow and weaken, and be terrified that one night I'd be lying there and it would suddenly just stop. I remember the nights of anxiety wherein I was almost convinced that it would do exactly that, and some narrow strand of fortune must have saved me from it, but tomorrow I might not be so lucky.

I don't want that anymore.

Worrying that I am going to have cardiac arrest, similar to my proud friend up there, is NOT COOL.
Obsession with food, to the point that nothing else but eating disorders and eating disorder research and friends and groups exists in my life, is NOT COOL, and NOT OKAY.
Being that completely fucking out of it? That's not even a life. That's a waste of a fucking life.

And I don't want it anymore.

I wish to fight with everything I have in order to try and ensure that that never, ever comes back.

Because I still remember it all too vividly... and I don't ever, ever want my life to be like that again.


I have so much more to live for than just an eating disorder, and I really hope to someday be able to give up ALL the symptoms and just eat normally and live normally. But giving up restriction was the first, and probably the most essential, step. The other stuff I can work on.

One day, one hour, one minute at a time.

Everything has been so, so hard lately, and I am not 100% sure what's changed, other than my lack of calorie-counting. Could counting calories really have been suppressing THAT much shit??


I'm so fucking miserable.


I can't help thinking that restriction would make everything better again. I mean, obviously I know that in the long run it would do shit-all except get me completely obsessed, and it wouldn't actually make me happier -- but at least it was a distraction, and at least I didn't feel so fucking fat all the time.

I probably don't have the willpower for that anymore, though.

It figures.

I feel so alone. So so so alone.

I need help, but I don't think I will ever get it. Not anymore.

I am alone.

I really am.

I was having such a good day... and now it's all gone to shit again, and a large part of it is because of food. Yes. Motherfucking shitass FOOD.

How much longer am I going to have to deal with this bullshit? How much longer am I going to have to continue on like this, trying to make up "meals", trying to get enough calories without having too much, trying to eat so that I fill myself up but not eat so much that I am stuffed and uncomfortable? How many days or weeks is it going to take before I get a fucking CLUE!?

I don't understand. I used to be okay at intuitive eating. Now, though, it's like I don't have a proper "full" button, nor a proper sense of when I'm actually, truly hungry. I do not understand what happened that fucked this up so badly. I mean, I was b/ping right along when it worked before. Why does it stop now, when I'm not b/ping as much? I don't fucking GET it.

That nutritionist referral seriously can't come fast enough. I'm pretty sure I'm going to gain a shit ton of weight if I keep eating the way I am, and I'm not sure I can stand that. I'd probably end up going back to restriction first. And I don't want to do that... but if it's the only way to keep from becoming a motherfucking fatass, well, so be it. What has to be done shall be done.

When I stop giving into various ED behaviors that I have relied on to regulate my mood, it never seems to fail that I become spectacularly depressed.

I lack interest in a lot of the stuff that used to interest me. Sometimes it will interest me for a little while, but left to my own devices I will usually start ignoring everything again after not so very long. I don't even like reading anymore, and reading used to be the one thing I always, always loved to do. These days I prefer watching television, or movies. I can sit passively and just stare at a screen that way. Plus I never have to use my brain to imagine the scenes, the characters, how it all fits together logically -- when I sit in front of a box and watch the pictures flash before my eyes, all the scenery and people and things are laid before me, and all I have to do is let my mind process what is presented to me. No brain work on my part. Said brain work has become, generally, too laborious for me -- too much of a chore.

I feel, most of the time, like nothing really matters all that much. And yet when things do matter, they matter so much that I experience overwhelming amounts of anxiety when I think about them. School, for example, is one thing that does cause me anxiety when I think of it a lot. A lot of the time I am convinced I'm going to fail at it yet again, and when I do fail I'll then never be able to get a real job, never get out of this hellhole I'm in, etc etc. But, most importantly of all, when I fail, people will start to look down on me, to realize my failure and think less of me as a person. People will start to dislike me, even hate me, because I am not good enough and not worthy of their affections. In fact, I don't really believe I'm worth anyone's affection even now. It's not like I've ever done anything good enough to be worth anyone's care or time or effort, anyway. It seems like mostly I just either squander or completely fail to appreciate what I get.

Half the time I can't tell whether I'm just tired, or whether I'm actually, truly depressed. But it seems like no matter how much I sleep, I'm always, always fucking tired. And I know that's a symptom of depression. I mean, I'm not stupid. I'm the one who spent hours and hours reading everything I could possibly get my hands on online relating to depression, borderline, eating disorders, whatever. I used to be able to recite the DSM practically verbatim. I'm not that obsessed anymore; but I haven't forgotten it, either. I feel like people condescend to me a lot... tell me things they think I should know, and might have known if I was smart.

And that's the other thing. I feel like whatever intelligence I used to have is basically gone. It's not as if my brain is being USED in any way right now. Complete idiots can do the same job I do right now; I'm not in school; I'm not taking lessons of any sort because I haven't got the money (and I probably won't have the money anytime soon). And yet when I actually try to use my brain, it does not seem to want to work. Is this depression, or is this just me being lazy and unused to actually thinking or working? I am, of course, always inclined to blame it on myself. Everything is always my fault. I am always the reason for my own lack of ability and drive -- the reason for my own fucking failure.

This is what it always comes down to: if no one can change this but me, then my brain tells me that the reason this came to be MUST have been my doing, even though I've never heard of a person who caused his or her OWN emotional problems. And there are certain people who think I should be able to put aside whatever emotional shit I have and just do the right thing and be acceptable and functional in society. Well, whoever actually believes that is a fucking asshole, because the reason I have fucking problems in the first place is because nobody cares about my damned feelings. All anyone cares about is that I be presentable, that I be likeable, that I just give in to what everyone else wants and never have any selfish demands or needs or wants or desires. That I never try to fulfill what I need or want, if that want happens to conflict with another person's want. Well, FUCK YOU. I'm so tired of believing in your fucking bullshit. There is no reason in the world that I shouldn't be able to do what I WANT.

Yet even as I type that, I know I don't have the self-confidence, or sense of self, required to actually stand my ground even the majority of the time if there's a conflict. I will give in to what the other person wants, then be horribly angry and depressed and beat myself up later on in private for it. That's what I always do. Because, deep down, I can't stand it when people hate me, and I'm always sure that if I disagree with them on something that is important to them, they will hate me. It's like I would rather put myself through hell than go through the even greater hell of being unloved and unwanted by ANYone on the face of this planet. I'd always rather have a lot of personal pain than the hatred of even one person around me. I don't know why it is so important to me that no one, absolutely no one, visibly disapproves of me; but it is. And I always seem to be willing to do anything at all to make sure that people do not hate me.


Comments are off because I don't want fucking common sense advice, and I know that's probably all I'll get. I am so fucking SICK of goddamned advice. It's all words, without a twinge of sympathy behind it, and none of it ever works anyway. All I want to know is that someone understands, or maybe even cares. I want... compassion. And I really don't understand why that is such a hard concept.

Guys... I think I need to be stronger. Stronger in my efforts to pursue recovery, if I ever want it to work for me. I have to be... assertive.

The thought terrifies me.

I need to tell my psychologist that I'd like her to refer me to a new psychologist, and also that I'm interested in going to see a nutritionist. She can, at least, actually do the first one -- and if she can't follow through with the second one, she'll be able to direct me to someone who can. I may have to go crawling to my GP for a nutritionist referral, but my GP does know some of my history, so I think she would refer me with a small bit of persuasion.

I need to see people who can actually help me -- who actually WANT to help me. Despite what my current psychologist may say, I don't think she is actually invested in our therapeutic relationship. She doesn't really care how often she sees me, or what we talk about. She'll see me once a week, once a month, or once every two or three months, and it's all the same to her. She could spend a whole session talking about completely superficial, irrelevant things and it wouldn't bother her at all. She also doesn't have any sort of specific treatment plan for me; and if I give the smallest indications of resistance, she backs away and doesn't ever touch the issue again. In short, I do not feel that she is at all committed to helping me, nor am I even remotely convinced she has any fucking clue what she's doing. Actually, sometimes I find myself wondering how the hell she managed to get a PsyD at all. (We'll ignore that she told me she didn't get into any of her first-choice grad schools, and then didn't get into ANY of the internships she later applied for, which was how she ended up in Newfoundland in the first place. Maybe I shouldn't be quite that mean -- although sometimes in the back of my head I feel like it.)

Many of you probably know that on Star Trek: The Next Generation (okay, I know it's nerdy -- stick with me for a second), Deanna Troi is the ship's counselor, and a formally trained psychologist. In one episode I watched recently, she said this, and it really struck home:

"People come to you with the problems they want to talk about, but what you have to do is get them to talk about the things they don't want to talk about."

Now, this is pretty much true, isn't it? I mean, isn't it? It's usually the unacknowledged issues that hold us back, and our inabilities to deal with certain issues which make us mentally ill in the first place. Yet my current therapist's approach is the complete antithesis to this quote. She will never, and I mean NEVER, try to pry ANYthing from you. If you say "I don't want to talk about that", she actually takes you directly at your word and never talks about it ever ever again, even if it's something that clearly bothers you, and which any competent psychologist would know you probably need to talk about despite immediate emotional discomfort or pain. It's like my current psychologist can't stand the idea of inflicting "more" pain on a client, even though dealing with the shit inside of them would, in the long run, probably help most of her clients a good deal -- far more than her stepping-on-eggshells way.

The truth is, that may actually work for some people, as her own anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate, but it doesn't work for ME. I need a therapist who will challenge me, who will invest in the relationship, and who actually has some idea of what kind of treatment I require. I need a therapist who cares if I don't call for an appointment for weeks -- who will express how often she thinks I need to see her, and might actually be concerned if I stopped coming as often. If she wasn't concerned, I would hope she could be honest with me regarding why she was not concerned -- honest as to whether or not she thought I even needed to be there, and if she didn't think so, honest about how we should terminate therapy. Honest, instead of keeping me on indefinitely, neither driving the therapeutic process forward nor terminating it, which is what my current psychologist does. There is no inertia in our therapeutic relationship at all; it is static, fuzzy, and completely incoherent and directionless. That does not work for me.

I shouldn't have to put up with that kind of bullshit when it doesn't help. Therefore, I have to work up my own assertiveness and tell her I need to see someone else. Get a new evaluation, maybe, and see if I actually need therapy, instead of having the psychologist basically tell me that whatever I decide is all right with her, because I'm not going to go home and take a whole bottle of pills or something right after we finish our sessions.

Therapy just doesn't work when the therapist says, "Leave... go... talk... don't... whatever. I don't care." Don't most therapists usually have opinions about whether or not you actually need to be there? You know? What kind of fucking psychologist IS this that I got landed with, anyway??

I need to get out of there... get out and find someone new.


Any support at all would be appreciated.

Please tell me I can do it. Please tell me I'm not crazy and illogical for thinking these things. I really need to hear that I am not stupid and that I am not wrong. I really need to not be stupid and wrong.

Please.

BBC Quiz: What am I like?

Results

Counsellor

The four aspects that make up this personality type are:

Summary of Counsellors

• Search for meaning in their life and develop powerful insights
• Are dedicated to helping others reach their potential
• Think of themselves as gentle, peaceable and cautious
• Others may find it difficult to get to know them

More about Counsellors

Counsellors have a natural understanding of human relationships and the complexities of life, which they use to help others. They search for meaning in everything and develop complex insights.

Counsellors feel most relaxed and creative when their surroundings are organised. They are deeply private people who only share their insights with trusted friends; however, they will defend their values if challenged.

In situations where they can't use their talents or are unappreciated, Counsellors may withdraw from the people around them or become resentful. Under extreme stress, Counsellors may feel overwhelmed and be driven to organise small parts of their lives such as their kitchen cabinets or their record collection.

Counsellors typically prefer a few close relationships to a wide circle of friends.

Counsellor Careers

Counsellors are often drawn to jobs where they can help people develop emotionally, intellectually or spiritually and where they can use their imagination.

Take the test

You scored as Eating Disorders, Congratulations! You have an eating disorder! You know what it's like to have "fat" eyelids and that there's exactly 58 calories in one medium-sized green apple. Western society has discarded your well-being for sickly, paper-thin models and celebrities; welcome to the club, sister. Eating Disorders 100% Unipolar Depression 58% Borderline Personality Disorder 50% Antisocial Personality Disorder 17% Schizophrenia 8% Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder 8% Which mental disorder do you have? created with QuizFarm.com

Surprise, surprise!

I don't care if it hurts...
I want to have control.
I want a perfect body.
I want a perfect soul.

Superbad was... superficial. That's all I can say about it, really. It was pretty funny, but it was also extraordinarily shallow. I can't imagine living the sort of empty existence where alcohol, house parties, and completely unemotional sex ruled my life. Of course, my own existence is not really that much more fulfilling, so who am I fucking kidding here. I'd so get plastered just to forget about this shit, and I've done so in the past. Actually, the movie made me want to get plastered again so I can forget about my goddamned life for a little while.

I don't know what the fuck is going on with me lately, or what to do about it. I think I'm getting depressed again, but I don't even know why, let alone how to fix it. My weight is somewhat stable, at least for now, but I feel like my eating has been shit -- completely inconsistent and often terrible. Half the time I don't even like food, don't want to eat it at all, but then there are many occasions where I eat far beyond comfortable satiety, and I end up feeling packed full and guilty and generally disgusting.

My psychologist doesn't help me at all, and the appointments are a load of bullshit that usually make me feel better temporarily, but don't really help in the long run. I don't want to switch AGAIN, though, because that's too exhausting and I'm sick and fucking tired of getting bounced from psychologist to psychologist. The whole thing is a crock of shit, and I want OUT. That being said, though, I don't know if I actually can stay out indefinitely without feeling like... well, like this. Depressed and hating my life and not knowing what the fuck to do about it. So I might make an appointment anyway, and plan what I'm going to say in advance, and then actually SAY IT. Because I get in there, and the fact that she's nice erases any remote traces of assertiveness I might have had before going there, and I get all passive and more interested in having her not hate me than in telling her what I actually think. And what I actually think often isn't very nice, or very tactful, but I don't know how else to say it and still get across what I need to, so usually it just gets wiped out of my head as I try to subliminate how horrible I really am. But I can't do that again. I CAN'T. And yet I may end up doing it, and therefore waste more of my own time, more of my own life, wallowing in this crap in my own head.

I still don't understand why the fuck this shit had to happen to me.

Please note: I am not asking you for sensible, rational, common sense answers. I am sick of fucking common sense. If it was a matter of common sense IT WOULD BE FIXED BY NOW. It is clearly not even remotely fixed, so it clearly has nothing to do with common sense at all. So please refrain from making so-called helpful "constructive" suggestions.