Dietician appointment in a little over two hours. My ridiculous physical symptoms of yesterday (heart going nuts every time I stood up or walked anywhere) seems to be gone today, so I guess I don't have to worry about getting vitals done or some shit. Not that I'm convinced she would do it, but anyway. To be honest I don't even see the point in going, because I don't honestly see how I can up my cal intake at this point, and that's pretty much why I would visit an RD at this point. But I guess it's good to keep some sort of connection with someone who actually knows about EDs. It might be helpful later on, too, if I actually try to get into residential again, which is something I'm seriously thinking about.

The problem is that in Canada, there are extremely few options when it comes to residential eating disorder treatment, and any inpatient treatment is basically reserved for only the most emaciated, death-bed anorexics (like programs in true hospitals). I've already been to Homewood, and I know another stint wouldn't help me again for various reasons. They diagnosed me as anorexic and yet put me on a weight maintenance contract; they have NO individual therapy (what kind of treatment facility has no individual therapy??); they allowed me to gain 18 lbs in 5 weeks when I was supposedly on weight "maintenance"; I could go on and on. But it's not going to help this time partially because of the lack of individual therapy, but also partly because they absolutely do not support suicidality in the program. In fact, I had to be three months three of a suicide attempt before they even let me in. Not to mention that if you cut even once there it was a dealbreaker -- as in, they could dismiss you from the program for doing it. Which is SO ludicrous, because so many people with ED issues also have self-harm issues, and a facility as supposedly great as Homewood should be able to deal with it without one cut being a fucking dealbreaker. I mean, how stupid is that?

Another facility I've been considering is Bellwood. This one is in Toronto proper (Homewood is in Guelph, about 45 mins outside Toronto) and is based on the 12 steps. Obviously, most of the programming there is for addictions. I sent them an online message about whether they have individual therapy, can deal with clients who traditionally get suicidal when not having their addiction/ED (because I do consider the ED an addiction, or certainly addiction-like), and whether they can handle people with borderline traits. I also requested that if they could not do these things, if they could recommend somewhere that could. I don't know how long it will take them to get back to me, but I hope they can actually tell me something helpful, because where treatment is concerned I'm seriously at the end of my rope.

I've done M House twice (first time for four months, which is the full stay, and the second time for almost two). I'm doing the ED IOP program for the second time, now, and am doing far worse in it now than I did last time, although admittedly I had a much better start. But things have deteriorated ridiculously. I've lost 10+ pounds with no signs of stopping, I'm taking laxatives every day, I intentionally don't drink liquids I think will hydrate me (basically any drink without caffeine). I still get ridiculous SI urges, but I've been able to ignore most of them. The suicidality is just being kept at bay by the self-harm/dehydration with laxatives. It's just... I don't know how much longer this extremely unstable balance is going to hold. I do know that sooner or later, something will give, and more likely than not I'll either end up in a hospital (which I HATE), dead, or permanently injured somehow. I loathe every single one of those options, actually, but I can't seem to avoid it when I get, or am getting, in truly awful states of mind.

I really do have a very strong mind, you know. I endure a lot more mentally than probably many other people could. But it's because my head has been so full of SHIT and distortion my whole life that my mind has naturally had to be stronger, to cope with it all. It's not some wonderful gift someone bestowed upon me, and I take zero credit for it. If someone has to lift increasingly heavy weights his or her own life, every day, eventually that person is going to develop really great upper body strength. And it may seem awesome to someone looking in on it, but that person remembers the weights, the every day, the strain, the muscle tears, the pain, the stiffness, the suffering of it all. In the end, the final product looks completely different from what it took to actually get there.

I dunno if I'm making much sense anymore. Just that... I want OUT, so badly, and I was desperate enough to email Bellwood for myself, and hopefully I'll ask about more options when I see my dietician today. All I really want is like a comprehensive list of residential (or even inpatient) treatments in Canada that don't require you to be an emaciated anorexic on your deathbed. So far I only know of three residential places, and one is private and extremely kooky (and I wouldn't qualify anyway, because they don't let you in if you already take medications, and I can't stop my meds or baaaad things will happen). The two IP places I know of are the ones that only take emaciated anorexics. Soooo... I don't know yet, but I guess I'll find out sooner or later. I hope I will.

Warning: Entry contains eating disorder and suicidality triggers

I keep thinking I need to do more treatment. Somewhere, anywhere. Then I could finally face the things that make me suicidal head-on, and learn to deal with them. The only problem is, I have no idea where to go for this.

M House? I just left there. Plus I don't think I'm prepared to go back for a third time, especially since it's not even two months since I left. I mean... sometimes you've gotten all you're going to get out of a particular program, you know? Sometimes enough's enough.

HOPE? I do that already, and they can't help me with any of the deeper issues. The only chance is the psychologist, but she has a 2-3 month wait list right now, and even then she is technically only supposed to do short-term therapy.

An eating disorder program? They usually can't handle the acute suicidality, or the chronic stuff either. I would have to talk explicitly about that with any sort of ED residential I could apply for. And they'd have to have individual therapy, which a place like Homewood, for example, does not. And Homewood is supposed to be a "top of the line" treatment in Canada. There really aren't that many other options.

Why the fuck don't they have a program for people with BPD in Canada, seriously? It's actually ludicrous. Bullshit. I know that what awaits me, under the ED, the depression, anxiety... it's the borderline part trying to come out. The part that fucking HATES me, that hates me so much that I want to destroy myself, slice myself to pieces, burn myself away, take an overdose so I just fucking DIE already. Only I never actually die, because then the small part of rationality that always seems to remain gets me to tell on myself -- tell a friend, call the paramedics, go to a hospital. I can never seem to actually complete a suicide attempt. And the hospitals around here? Well, they're a fucking joke, really. I was in HSC in June, short stay not long ago, and neither one of them could do anything that TRULY helped the suicidality. Both were holding bins until I could get my act together enough that I wouldn't actually try to complete suicide. Neither meant that the suicidal thoughts actually stopped once I got out.

But the ones that loom right behind ED for me, now... they are the sorts of urges I can't ignore. I feel, within some deeper part of my being, that they are right. That I've had enough of this shit, and I'm not getting any proper help, and it looks like I won't for a long time, so FUCK THIS FUCKING LIFE. I am seriously sick of all this shit now. I just want out. I want out I want out I want out.

But I can't overtly kill myself. Fine. So I take laxatives a couple of times a day, go through excruciating cramps and bouts of very watery diarrhea. So I eat less, and try not to eat foods with a lot of potassium or salt. I start eating and purging, because not allowing ANY food doesn't seem to work anymore, knowing that purging is also getting rid of fluids, potassium, electrolytes generally. So I stop taking my iron pills any more than once every 3-4 days -- just enough to make me non-anemic, because getting short of breath and having ZERO energy make me want to eat more. Never take the proper dosages, because I don't deserve to get fully physically better, and anyway, completely fixing a medical problem brought on by ED seems counter to my goals here. So I pursue the eating disorder, and self-destruction, with every moment of my day when I actually stop to think, and I build it up gradually, to build up my tolerance, and maybe soon this whole fucking piece of bullshit I call a life will finally be done with. Accidentally, one day. Oops, heart skipped one too many beats. Oops, passed out. Oops, accidental death, don't know when it's coming, won't tell on myself, it's not really fatal till it's actually fatal, and if it happens I won't be around to see the consequences.

This is where my head is lately. And it is a fucking awful place to be.

I fucking hate life. I fucking hate... everything.

I guess I'm sort of in relapse mode, now. I've only lost about 4 lbs, making my real weight about 117 (scale weight with clothes and food is about 120), but I am purposely not eating nearly what I should, and some days I hardly eat anything at all. I went away this weekend, and ate fairly normally throughout the weekend, so now apparently I have to restrict a lot to "make up" for it. Even though I know I couldn't have GAINED any weight this weekend, the fact that I'm pretty sure I didn't lose any is apparently a problem.

I also bought laxatives today, and took 4 a few hours ago (dose on package is 1-2, but the package dose NEVER works for me). I didn't even buy them to be "empty", as I still have fairly regular BMs... I just did it to lower my electrolytes, and to put myself through physical discomfort and/or pain. I just... feel like I deserve it, so much. I really really do.

I was suicidal practically every night last week... I actually ended up inpatient on Monday night, because it was getting bad enough that I was planning how I'd do it, and I think I actually would have taken an OD had I not gone into hosp that afternoon. My stay was completely useless, though -- the "team" at short stay doesn't have a fucking clue about psychological disorders, and consequently couldn't do shit for me. They couldn't even speed up my psychology referral at T Clinic (I've probably got at least another YEAR till I get a new therapist). So I asked to go home the next day at around lunchtime, and within an hour or so I was discharged. I didn't even have to fight with them. But I knew the psychiatrist would let me go, because I framed things when I spoke to her as a "freakout" (which is not exactly the right term for it), plus I was resisting everything the "team" was telling me, because it was all bullshit. (Well, it was.)

Of course, I still can't deal psychologically with my life, and if I keep thinking like that about suicide I'm going to end up in hosp again, and I cannot fucking STAND that ward, and I want to remain out of there if at all possible. But not acting on the suicidal urges doesn't make them go away... it just makes me need another, different method of holding back those particular thoughts. So... apparently ED is starting to return to its former place in my life.

After everything I worked so hard for... I came to a psychological challenge that I absolutely cannot deal with on my own, and no one can help me, so here I am, going back to where I started again. I am fucking PISSED about it, really truly, but I feel like there's nothing I can do about it right now or I will literally go insane, and/or actually end up dead this time, because I'm fed up with turning myself in. So... what's worse, destroying my soul with an eating disorder and yet leaving my physical body alive for longer, or killing the physical body when it's the mind I really want to kill, and in actual fact I don't truly want to die? I really don't fucking know at this point. I just know the option I prefer, and it isn't the suicide one.

I just cannot seem to cope as of about five days ago, but it’s not something that’s going to go away quickly... and I get to my wit’s end about it every day. The only thing keeping me from doing something horrible to myself tonight is the fact that I’m going out of town for a few days tomorrow, which is something that I hope will keep me distracted and on the happier side for at least that time period.

I know one thing I need — therapy — but I can’t get that for quite a long time yet. (At least 2-3 months, and even then it might only be short-term therapy.) I have NO fucking idea how I’m going to continue to deal with this horrible, awful emotional pain EVERY GODDAMNED DAY until then... and probably longer still after that, since it will obviously take awhile to start dealing with it. I can’t imagine how I’m going to make it through every single one of those fucking days.

My new mantra is: Fuck food, and fuck life.

It's stupid... I'm eating again, I'm eating somewhat intuitively now (although it can't fully be trusted yet), and I'm actually sort of okay with being this big (I am definitely at least 125 by now), and yet here I am contemplating throwing it all down the shitter and just going with my eating disorder again.

Why?

Because other people seem to have it soooo fucking easy with their disorders. They never have to face up to responsibility, or risk, or crazy anxiety because they're worried about how to pay their ridiculous bills, or what they're going to do in school, or what the hell is going to happen if they ever meet someone they want to be with and their intimacy issues crop up. Nooo. Other people get to dive into their eating disorders or self-harm or whatever, and get all the numbness and comfort from it, and never face f*cking reality. But meanwhile here I am, slogging through real life, actually trying to fucking do something for myself... and what am I actually getting out of it?

Stupid crazy anxiety. A fucked-up sleep cycle, in part because I've had so many fucking med changes lately, and every time I increase my Seroquel just by 12.5 mg I am asleep for 12-13 hours because it sedates me so badly. Days when I can't even go out, because the thought of having to be in the world and face it is so incredibly overwhelming that I can't handle it. Depression, when I have moments where I'm so sick of doing the same shit over again, yet I know I have to find some way to be content with the same things over and over, because I'm so fucking poor that I can't afford anything different.

And then I start reading shit online about emotional neglect, childhood neglect, and it makes me think all this effort at recovery is fucking worthless anyway. Because my parents will NEVER admit they could have been emotionally neglectful, even unintentionally (and I do believe it was unintentional), so how the fuck can I ever fix it? I'm probably gonna wait another 2 fucking YEARS to see a psychologist at T Clinic, and until then I have... what, a social worker who does "counseling"? I need real fucking THERAPY for this shit. And I can never find anybody who will fucking do it, and do it RIGHT.

Hopelessness. That's what this is. And wanting an easy way out, because the hard way seems like it's never going to work, and I don't know what the fuck to do anymore, and I'm trying SO FUCKING HARD and this is not working. What more do I have to do to make this work?? What more do I have to do not to suffer from depression/dysthymia, anxiety, the [very large] remnants of emotional neglect? What more do I have to do to be comfortable with my sexuality, to be comfortable telling boys who think I'm attractive or nice that, sorry, I'm actually gay? What more do I have to do to actually be fucking OKAY, and BELIEVE that I am okay????

I am just... so incredibly frustrated. And I hate all this fucking bullshit. Maybe I would feel better if I, too, pulled into myself and destroyed myself and just became a selfish, dismayed, petulant child again. Maybe I fucking would.