Clipped from an entry on another journal site.


My life seems to have taken a slight upswing lately. I finished at my shitty fast food job on August 30th, and then I started school again on September 4th. I am taking a full course load -- 15 credits, the maximum I can have before needing a letter of permission to take more classes. This equates to five courses which require a fair amount of reading, study, and some written assignments (although thankfully not many, and NO heavy-duty essays). Most of my evals are being done through tests, in fact, which is pretty common in first-year courses.

For, yes, I am still taking all first-year courses. Technically I have the credits of a third year, but as most of those courses were for a specialized degree, most of them don't even count towards my new degree. So, basically, I get to prance around campus with the credits of a third year, and the student number of a FIFTH year, while really, for all intents and purposes, being a first year. You can see how this might create some awkwardness on my part. Luckily, people don't ask many questions -- I just tell them I was doing a music degree first, and then I took some time off / worked before going back to school again to do a new degree, in which most of my previous courses don't count for anything. This generally seems to cover all the bases in such a way that nobody asks me about the specifics of my "time off"... I guess they just assume I was working for most of it.

It's a little sad, though, just how easy it is to cover up the fact that I was previously crazy. I mean, there are a bunch of people who know -- my family, many aunts and uncles and probably cousins, my close friends from high school, the friends I met online and in various treatments when I was still very trapped in my disorders -- but I think most of them, aside from some of the online friends, basically assume that it's all in the past now. And I will admit that I do a decent job of putting on a sane, normal front. I try to be generally cheerful; I held down a job, and now have converted into a full-time student, which lord knows is no easy task to begin with; I socialize and play games and chat with people and seem, from all fronts, to have a normal life. But we all know that appearances can be deceiving (clichéd but true). And even though I think I have, in a general sort of sense, been improving more than declining since leaving Homewood, there have still been a ton of struggles along the way.

I sound a lot more grounded now, though, and I know that too. Which is partially because a lot of the time I am more grounded. Since I started school I have been trying to adopt a healthy/normal eating routine (healthy when I am able, or normal when healthy isn't fully possible), as well as adding some exercise, because I am required to pay for a gym membership at school and moderate exercise can only benefit me health-wise. I have realized, very practically, that if I ever want to get out of the shitty minimum-wage work I have to do school, and therefore I have to do whatever it takes to make school work, and to get the best grades that I can possibly get. And I know myself well enough to know that this includes following a sensible and mostly healthy meal plan, and being active enough that I don't feel like shit because I am so sluggish and depressed. So, basically, I have to at least try not to torture myself constantly with the ED, whether it be bulimia or restriction. Both of them make me tired and irritable and cold, and make my focus less on school and more on food and weight and self-destruction. Obviously, that isn't going to work if I need school to be the priority.

So, basically, I have once again decided that I am just really fucking sick of all this ED bullshit... but I know the only reason I have been able to decide that is because I am back in school. If I'd been at my job much longer, on the other hand, I think a relapse would have been pretty much inevitable, or at least I would have had a serious downward slide. I was on the point of developing one before school started -- having fasting days a lot, only eating at work on the days that I did eat, or at least limiting the cals, etc. It's just a damned good thing I got out of there, and saved my body as well as my soul. You know?

For anyone who has actually read to this point... I applaud you. You must have a lot of stamina and patience to wade through such boring crap >P. In any event, I guess I had better go. I have to see about retrieving my fifth Harry Potter book from the clutches of my sister's friend (hopefully it's not beaten up and dirty like the last book my sister loaned her was when I got it back -.-), and then I am going to finish Goblet of Fire, and then maybe I will start some of my reading for school. Toodles! :)