So yesterday was a pretty shit day in terms of eating... was restricting again all day (well, as much restricting as I seem able to do lately, anyway), and then b/ped when I came home from open mic last night. I was a little worried to see some of the baby carrots I'd eaten at... what, 1? 1:30?... come up at about 10:30-11 PM :| .

Today has been a little better, though -- only had coffee for breakfast as per usual, but I had my session with my social worker today, and afterwards she asked me if I wanted to stay for lunch at the house (M House), so I accepted. So I had a bowl of homemade turkey soup, a white dinner roll, a teeny tiny bowl of fruit salad, and some shortbread-like cookie thing. Well, and Coke Zero, but that doesn't really "count", I suppose.

I did have to leave my apartment basically right after I came back from M House, though, because I knew I would binge if I sat in my place much longer. I really have to get over this thing where being home seems to = automatic binge trigger. There are times when I can be at home for 3, 4, 5 hours without wanting to binge, but the urges never fail to come sooner or later. I know that at least part of this has got to be due to the restriction/malnourishment... but that doesn't make it any easier to mentally handle the urges, or always eat when I feel binge-y. The restrictive part of my disorder simply can't handle keeping down good amounts of foods for extended periods, yet. I seem to be able to eat normally or semi-normally every 2-3 days, anyway, so that's sort of an improvement, I guess??

I don't know if I'm going to be able to make any sort of "supper" for myself tonight, let alone keep it down, though. It seems that when I am served food, instead of having to make it for myself, I can handle that if I decide it's okay to eat it; but even if I am hungry, know I should eat healthily, I find it near impossible to actually prepare meals for myself. I think it's because it feels like I'm being so "nice" to myself when I do that, and I don't want to be nice to myself. It also feels like some dam inside me is going to burst apart, and everything inside of me is going to flood out and destroy me / others, if I let go of this ED. That's the bigger part of it, I think. Somehow I have to figure out how to deal with that... but I have absolutely no idea how doing so would work at present. :S

"Breakfast": Medium light roast coffee with milk and sweetener

Lunch: Small veggie pita on whole wheat with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, green pepper, mushroom, hummus, honey mustard, and light mayo; a bottle of Diet Pepsi

"Snack", aka Niika-can't-control-her-damned-self: Two shortbread cookies in the form of pumpkins, with orange icing

Supper: Formers' Supper at M House -- half plate spaghetti with meat sauce & mushrooms; quarter plate of Caesar salad with like... 1 crouton and two bacon bits :| ; 1 piece of multigrain garlic bread; maybe around a cup of iced tea

Snack: A piece of the half chocolate, half butter pecan cake with orange icing (Halloween cake) that was made for dessert; not quite half of a bottle of Diet Pepsi


My stomach has decided to be a bitch tonight and give me ulcer/hernia/whatever-the-hell-it-is problems. Love the thanks my body gives me for eating more -.- . On the other hand, I'm sure these stomach problems would never have happened in the first place had it not been for the ED, so probably the only way I'm going to be able to fix the pain is eat normally, not purge, and grin and bear it in the meantime. I managed to eat more today, but I'm already planning to b/p at least once when I get home, because I simply can't resist the impulse, and I want to, and I need it. Also known as: fuck my stupid fucking head. :/

Also: My social worker called the ED clinic the other day about whether I could see someone while waiting for the referral to go through, and it turns out that there's some outpatient dietician who only has about a 2-3 week waiting list at the moment. So she sent the referral off tonight. If I get into the clinic before the dietician can see me I can just not go; but if there is any sort of delay with getting clinic services (and given what's already gone on, that's not so unlikely), I will at least be able to talk to someone about it and attempt to get some kind of meal plan or something. I guess I'll see if and when I get there. *shrug*

Complete fail at recovery. My ability to eat "more" lasted all of one day... then on Sunday I ate a bagel with cream cheese from Tim Hortons, really early in the day, freaked out about eating even MORE later on in the day and really truly starting to gain weight, and ended up b/ping. Four times. :|

Yesterday... well, I wish I could say I didn't eat "much" aside from the two b/ps I had. I tried not to eat much, but it didn't quite work out that way, as a lot more ended up digesting than I had planned. And then at the end of it all, of course, I got slightly hypoglycemic, so I ate fucking maple kisses candies, and had a glass of apple juice. I am a fucking fatass.

My mindset these last couple of days has been really really horrid, as well. I keep wishing I would just die already -- feeling like simply expiring would be a really good thing. I don't have any plans to act on this right now (no worries)... it's a pretty passive desire. Right now, actually, my inclination is to let the ED do it for me. Which may be another part of the reason why I b/ped six times in two days.

The right corner of my mouth is starting to get a red mark on it. I am pale. I am only letting myself drink coffee before I see my GP today at 1:30 (it's 7:40 now), as I don't want to seem overly fat on her scale, which reads about 2lbs heavier than mine because of clothing and such. I was 101.6 this morning; my hope is that, if she does weigh me today, her scale will say something around 103. Which would be a BMI of 17.8. Which isn't low enough, granted, but it's lower than my last weigh-in at her office (107.5; BMI of about 18.6?).

I feel quite self-destructive. Instead of slicing up my skin (which I have thought about also), I feel like I am waging war on my esophagus, stomach, intestines. The constant b/ping, even if my chemistry is not horribly imbalanced yet, is definitely taking its toll on the "hardware" of my body. I know I still have that ulcer/stomach thing, at least, because over the last couple days it's been hurting more. Which of course makes perfect sense.

All I want to do is destroy myself. Kill this stupid thing inside me that I can't even identify, let alone figure out how to fix. What is it about me that I hate so much? What is it that's inside me that I need to kill so badly that I'm willing to literally, physically die to not have to see it or deal with it?

I don't know. I don't fucking know.

I am trying to attempt to eat a little more throughout the day -- sometimes -- but I am terrified of gaining weight, still, so I will not eat any more than my body will allow me to. So far today I've had about 6 or 7 sweet chili heat Doritos, about 1/2 bowl or a little more of a (very full and very chunky) bowl of turkey soup, and a coffee. I still feel full right now, actually, but I can't tell whether that's my anxiety or my stomach talking at this particular moment. Either way, I can't allow myself to eat more until I feel really, truly hungry. And even then it has to be "good" things, and I have to have something of a decent portion, or, preferably, I have to know the calories in the food.

I don't know. I feel like this is a "positive step", yet I'm aware that I'm still not eating "enough". Yet I'm trying to eat more throughout the day than I was willing to eat during the day before, and I'm not as cold, and when I do manage it I feel less weak, seem to have more brainpower, etc. So I am doing "better", I guess. And yet I have no idea if I actually am gaining weight, as the lack of cold, etc, would mean my metabolism is slightly higher than before, which means I am (hopefully) maintaining. Again, I'm super terrified of gaining weight, and right now I'm also not 100% convinced I need or want to gain anything, ever, so I can't let myself. I am also still b/ping... but there were a couple of days I didn't b/p at all, not so long ago. So does that make me any better, or am I just fooling myself? I don't know. *sigh* But I am trying not to let myself regress further, and so any tiny baby steps I can take may help. Or so I am telling myself.

A week and three days until my cardiologist appointment. Follow-up with my GP re: medical tests on Tuesday. Therapy with psychologist as usual on Wednesday.

Ho-hum.

I am losing my motivation.

I am not thin enough, sick enough, good enough for treatment.

Plus, I'm starting to really want to self-destruct. I feel like I am a horrible, awful person, and I deserve the pain. I deserve everything I get for doing this stuff to myself, for being so wrong on the inside, for being such a horrible failure.

Feeling good, or even okay, doesn't feel "right" anymore. All that feels right is discomfort and self-torture.

A rainy day, a muddy hill, and I am slipping down it.

Went to the fill-in GP today, and now I have to get a whole bunch of tests done... ugh. She gave me slips for bloodwork, a new EKG, and a chest x-ray; I'm also being sent for a H. pylori breath test thing, and an upper GI series. Essentially, she thinks I might have a stomach ulcer... however, because my primary complaint was chest pain, and because I told her that I had an eating disorder (which I described as "bulimia slash restricting"), she's sending me off for a bunch of other stuff as well, like the EKG, iron and B12 levels, etc. Oh, yeah, and the area where my gallbladder is felt odd/bad when she poked at it, so she's testing that too. :|

She got me to make an appointment for two weeks from now to see my regular GP, I guess to get checked out again as well as to get the results from some of the lab work, etc. My blood pressure was 140/90, which is a bit high, but I'd JUST had coffee, not to mention I was quite anxious, so the combination evidently did me no favors. My pulse was 70, though, which is fine. In the meantime, she has told me to cut back on the caffeine (!), and to try and keep something in my stomach at all times (!!). I can probably cut back the caffeine, although I doubt I can give it up altogether, but there's no way in hell I'm eating smaller meals throughout the day, or whatever. My calories are NOT going up. I feel fat enough already without eating all sorts of other extra shit. She did put me on a temporary double dose of Prevacid, though, which should help even if I can't bring myself to eat and keep down much more.

Nothing else is really very different, aside from the fact that my level of frustration has gone up another few notches. I just wish I didn't have to run back and forth to the doctor's office and the hospital and the psychology/psychiatry clinic and M House all the fucking time, especially because all it's doing right now is slowing my still-fairly-fast-moving trainwreck. I wish I just knew how to be fucking normal, and be okay with myself, and be able to tolerate life without destroying my body and mind and in the process. I don't know what the fuck it's going to take to get me to wake the fuck up.

Made an appointment with the GP on Tuesday. It's not my regular GP, as she's off till Wednesday, but I have no trouble admitting I'm bulimic and talking about physical symptoms, so I'll go anyway. Probably better to do it quickly, when I'm still willing to go / have the symptoms, etc.

I was actually not having any pain or discomfort at all, but it started to hurt when I began drinking my coffee this morning -- first in my stomach/throat area, and later it felt more like it was in my chest. That makes me think it's a problem with my esophagus or stomach, probably caused by the purging :|. It would make sense, given that I purge every day, and sometimes 2 or 3 times a day, and that in between times I drink a lot of acidic things and don't exactly coat my stomach with food. I guess I'll find out for sure when I go on Tuesday.

Today I was 100.4, which means that my BMI is "officially" below 17.5. I wish that made me happy, but it really doesn't. I feel just as shitty about my weight as I did at 17.5, or 17.6, or in the 18s or 19s for that matter. I feel like the biggest fucking heifer alive. And I'm getting utterly terrified of food.

I'm supposed to eat (vegetarian) pizza tomorrow at volunteer training. Eat Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house the night after that. Next Wednesday I also have to eat another Thanksgiving dinner, as there is a tenant meeting at my apartment building, which is going to be based around a turkey dinner. I mean, FUCK. I try to be fucking social, and not go crazy from social isolation, but the result of that is that people have to push all this fucking fattening greasy disgusting food in my face??? It really fucking pisses me off. And I may not be able to finish the food anyway, because it terrifies me. That won't be such a problem at the tenant meeting... but around all my friends, all of whom know I have an eating problem, and have watched me as I've lost from healthy to underweight? AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Still doing shitty. Feel a bit crap physically as well. For the last day or two I've had weird pseudo chest pain things, which I think are mostly anxiety, too much caffeine, and/or not enough liquids. I've had plenty of all three, believe me. I'm considering booking an appointment with my GP, but I probably won't. What would I say to her? "Hey, look, I know you know I have an ED, and you can't do anything for me until I go to the specialist, but I feel like crap, so waaaah." ??? No thanks. I mean, maybe I should be having blood tests at least semi-regularly, even if just for electrolytes.... or maybe I'm just a fucking attention-seeking hypochondriac, and nothing I do is acutually bad enough for things to go medically wrong with me. Mostly I'm pretty convinced of the latter. Hence not going to the doctor, like, ever.

I did drop school, also... deregistered for my term on Monday. That means that student loan will get back 25% of the money they paid for my tuition/fees, which is better for me, as it'll be a little less to pay back, at least. The money they gave me for rent and living expenses is mine unless I choose to give it back, which I'd have to be an IDIOT to do, so it's still going to pay my rent and living expenses for Sept through November. After that... well, I guess it'll probably end up being social assistance for me. If I haven't got the energy to do school and still be functional in other areas, I hardly see how I could have the energy to work a full-time job and still be functional.

I'm seriously starting to get really, really sick of this ED bullshit now. I've even considered going back to Homewood, which is a place I swore I'd NEVER go back to again, as I had so many issues with their meal plan and general program the first time around. I think my brain is grasping at any possible straws that might keep me afloat, because I have nothing right now. Zero. Nadda. Zilch. No support. No monitoring. Not a goddamned fucking thing. And that does kinda piss me off; but at the same time part of me doesn't think I need or deserve it.

Sometimes I really hate my stupid fucking brain.

Had therapy today... my sessions are getting weirder and weirder. Today I dissociated fairly badly because I was anxious, to the point that I actually forgot a thread of conversation, and I was kind of drifting in and out a bit. When I was finally able to ground myself a little better, I was rewarded with anxiety so strong it felt like the beginnings of a panic attack, and I couldn't quite feel myself as one whole being physically, although I could feel my limbs separately if I thought about it (my psychologist asked me if I could feel my limbs). The psychologist actually had to talk me through a grounding-type technique... you know, paying attention to my body, how my feet felt on the floor, the things that were around me, etc. I was able to get back into myself and calm down a little after that, but still.

I could only shake my head and be puzzled, and the smallest bit scared, about the incident while it was happening. Sometimes I can kind of play off my psychological workings as no big deal, but it's when things like that happen that I truly realize: I have issues. Like, not just something small that "ought" to be able to be fixed fairly easily; not just things I do to myself that I "could" stop at any time. Huge, motherfucking, this-shit-will-not-go-away-just-because-I-want-it-to ISSUES. And I don't know how to handle that, or what to do with all the emotions and "strange" thoughts/perceptions that the therapy brings up. I definitely think it's a decent part of the reason why the ED is so strong right now.

The problem, as I see it, is this: the people who treat my ED need to understand that this is the sort of place where it comes from. But will they understand? What the hell are they going to know about borderline, and this dissociative / emotionally intense thing I've got going on? Are they actually going to understand the underlying issues? Or am I once again going to get totally shitty surface treatment for the ED?

I just don't know. I don't fucking know. And I am helpless to know, or to do anything about it. All I can do is sit here and wait -- wait for my specialist appointment, wait for professionals to do their bit, wait for the program, and hope to hell the program is actually up to scratch.

So I have made a decision... one which might sound a bit like it's coming from left field to a lot of you, but I can assure you it's not. I think I may be dropping my current term of school.

Why? Because I have very limited energy right now, and when I'm going to classes, the act of going there, being in class, and actively listening and learning takes up the vast majority of my energy. It has resulted in basically every other area of my life getting sorely neglected. My apartment is a mess. I haven't even been showering regularly. I don't see my friends or second family (aka the people at M House) nearly as often as I want to. And why? Because I simply don't have the energy for it.

Unfortunately, this lack of energy also extends into any schoolwork I have to complete outside of class time. Which means that most of my reading, homework, and studying simply doesn't get done, either. There's no way I can achieve academically the way I should achieve if I can't do most of my post-lectures work.

So... something has to give somewhere, and I came to the realization yesterday that this "something" will be one of two things: My sanity, or this school business. Believe it or not, it is a sign of progress that I am doing this now, rather than trying and trying to plow through when I'm really not capable of functioning properly. I have dropped 3 semesters of school in the past, and every time I did it it was retroactively, after I had a complete breakdown and landed myself in the hospital. This time I can actually see that this isn't going to turn out well if I keep going, and I'm making an attempt to stop this particular trainwreck before it gets itself going.

The emotional impact of the decision hasn't hit me yet, mainly because I haven't actually physically dropped the courses yet; but I suspect that there will be a decent emotional blow after the courses are gone. But even though it's going to be hard, I really think I need to do it. I think it would be best for me right now, especially considering how long it's going to take me to get into the ED clinic, to ease up on myself and try to focus on at least retaining as much of my self as I possibly can.

The appointment with the cardiologist isn't until November 2nd, by the way. So I have until at least then to wait.

Gotta go... library's closing.

(Posted yesterday on forum.)


A friend had written to me: Do you have any idea what caused this plummet in things love?


October 1st, 2009

I have known this relapse was coming since a few weeks before I left M House. I don't know why I knew it, or what specifically precipitated it. Maybe it's just that I couldn't deal with the shit that was beginning to come up mentally/emotionally, even while still there. So I began to withdraw. And self-destruct.

Ate extra tonight. Rather hate myself for it. Stomach feels sloshy inside. I hate that feeling. It makes me feel fat. Of course, I am fat, so it's only natural I should feel that way.

Fuck ED. Fuck school. Fuck life. Fuck everything. I'm too tired to deal with this stupid shit right now.

Maybe I'll just hide out in my house for the rest of my life, aside from essential errands. Things would be much less exhausting that way.