I used to think that things like a truly good, meaningful life, intimate relationships, and fulfillment just didn't exist. My thinking has enlightened some since those times: I believe, now, that these things can possibly exist... for other people. But I do not truly believe they will happen for me.

To have these things in my life would take a truly remarkable combinations of the right circumstances, as well as the right people coming into my life at the right times. What are the fucking chances that it will ever happen? I just don't think my life is set up in such a way as to allow me to be receptive to anything so good as the things which I crave. I don't, in short, believe that idealism will ever come true for me. Ever.

The only reason, therefore, that I have any hope at all is because, if I can't live IN the things I most desire, at least I can sit on the fringes and watch. At least I can know it's there... and maybe I can drink some of it in by proxy.

Maybe.

I apologize if this wasn't truly coherent. I have to admit I recently came off a bit of a b/p, and as such I am not quite as clearheaded as usual right now.

I really feel like I'm about to give up on life, and soon.

I don't care about anything anymore. I'm tired. Actually, to be more accurate, I'm absolutely fucking exhausted. I spent most of today lying in bed and/or sleeping. My physical body itself is run down, tired, wants to rest. And my mental state is deteriorating, too. I really just want to go to bed for a few days, at least, and maybe afterwards crawl out and do something remotely productive. But that's a big maybe.

I was a little pissed that, because I've been working and/or going to school seven days a week, every week, I had to skip psych class today because I so desperately needed a break. It's a bunch of fucking bullshit that I'd have to skip a course that I'm PAYING for just because my assistant manager's too fucking lazy to try and vary my shifts a little. I'm going to have to call her sometime tomorrow -- probably in the morning before I leave for school -- and ask her to please only schedule me for either Saturday OR Sunday of every week. And if she doesn't start doing it, it's going to have to be ultimatum time: I need it done, or I need to quit. I can survive financially off my savings for awhile, although I don't really want to, and then in the summer I could look for a different full-time job. But I really don't want it to have to come to that. I mean, I don't anticipate her being unreasonable. I just like to plan for every contingency.

Anyway, I think I'm going to go lie down for awhile now. Hopefully the (mild, potassium-sparing) diuretics I took not too long ago will begin to work their magic soon. I can literally feel the excess water weight under my skin, in my cheeks, and I want it to go away. I could care less if diuretics are supposedly unhealthy -- I will not take being bloated like this. I think half of it has to do with the fact that I just got my period, anyway, and some of it possibly has to do with me not having had my daily coffee today. Not that I wanted the caffeine, being as exhausted as I am. But you know.

Things I plan to do in the future, maybe within the next few weeks:
~ Get my bottle of vodka back from my friends' house
~ Buy water pills from [store] (maybe)
~ Buy Hoodia from somewhere (maybe)
~ Buy more sleep aids -- I'm running low, and sometimes I get too anxious to fall asleep easily when I need to

I just really, really wish I had some fucking benzos or something -- maybe calm my crazed anxiety a little. But I can't get any without visiting someone that has a prescription pad and explaining my anxiety to them in detail, and even then I might just get prescribed an SSRI or something like that. Which isn't to say I don't need one, because sometimes I think maybe I do... but, being the impulsive person that I am, I really like the quick-action effects of benzodiazepines. Or, you know, maybe I just wish I had some more medications to use and abuse at will. Either or.


I really do think I'm starting to fall, you know. I do.

How I feel right now, in pictures.

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++++++++++

I just want to tear into myself right now. Or get totally smashed/stoned and become completely oblivious to the world. I wouldn't really care which. Only problem is, there's nothing in my house right now upon which I can get high or drunk, except wine, and I HATE wine. Oh well.

A lot of the time, lately, I just want to give up on life. Altogether. I know I'm not supposed to want that -- not according to "everyone" -- but I do want it a lot.

Things are just too fucking hard.

I have been binging ridiculously lately, mostly without purging (although I still purge... just not enough to get even most of it out), and my weight has been ballooning. I don't even want to give number details. All I know is that I'm completely fucking sick of myself. Sick of my horribly fat, flabby body. Sick of constantly shovelling shit in my mouth. Sick of eating everything in sight, regardless of calories or quantities or anything.

It's funny. Sometimes I think we don't even picture restricting as a "real" disorder. I'm just doing it to stay skinny, we say; I'm just doing it so I don't get fat. But when we suddenly flip the coin and revert to binging insanely, all of a sudden that becomes a disorder. All of a sudden we're disturbed by our abnormal eating patterns, by the way we deal with our emotions through food. Of course, restriction is exactly the same, only with the opposite action taken, but it's so much easier to be in denial.

I can't be in denial anymore -- not when I'm eating like this. I think I have a motherfucking problem now. The only trouble is that I'm pretty damned convinced that nobody is going to understand, because all anyone ever focuses on in the treatment of eating disorders is improving your body image, improving your relationship with food, etc. That's all superficial bullshit. The real problem is trying to fix the emotional problems that cause the EDs in the first place; but nobody ever seems to give a damn about fixing THAT. In fact, I am really starting to believe that nobody cares about fixing underlying emotional whatevers at all. All any therapist, psychiatrist, dietician thinks of is symptoms, symptoms, symptoms, and how to get you to stop having them. Once that's done, they always think you're magically cured. ONLY I'M NOT FUCKING MAGICALLY CURED. All getting rid of the behaviors did was make me more alone than I already was -- make me lack anybody to ever talk to -- make me feel pressure to continue being "normal", so I don't make everyone else feel like shit on my behalf.

I am tired of this... all of this. I am tired of behaving well, and feeling like I can't or shouldn't do anything self-destructive, because I need to maintain outward appearances, keep everyone else happy. I AM NOT HAPPY!! But it doesn't even fucking matter if I'm not actually happy, as long as I keep acting happy, because nobody can tell the fucking difference anyway!!!

ARGH!!!!!

I just feel like complete and utter shit tonight.

I also find everything overwhelming. School; the thought of working on the weekend; the thought that soon readings and homework and labs and assignments and tests are all going to be throwing themselves in my face, and I'm going to have to deal with all of them, and get them ALL done, and done WELL, or I won't be able to get good marks in school. And I need to get good marks now if I hope to get admitted to the psychology faculty, because every course I'm doing now is going to count when they tabulate my average and compare it with the other psych major hopefuls. Not that I'm at all convinced that I will actually come out on top in such a comparison, ever.

Actually, right now my self-esteem is fairly low. I feel horribly inadequate -- ridiculously rusty in all sorts of things that for most students at my school are second-nature by now. Working in fast food for almost half a year has really, really dulled my mind... not that it was being truly challenged before that, during all my stupid restriction obsession shit. I was doing more thinking then than I did while working full-time at *****, though. At least before I was spending all day reading and writing to people and exploring lots of information on eating disorders and clinical psychology in general. When I worked at ***** I got too brain-dead and lazy to even do that stuff regularly.

Okay... I don't know what else I was going to write, but whatever it was is gone now. So I'm just going to post this and go. Good night.

An unsent letter.

Dear food,

I hate you. I love you. I need you, unfortunately.

Why do you always have to be the focus of my life? Why, when I'm upset or sad or angry or lonely or bored, do I turn to you, or the lack of you, for my comfort and self-destruction? I know it's wrong to do that. I know it's unhealthy, and it hurts me in the long run. I know the short-term comfort isn't worth the longer-term self-hatred, or the possible medical consequences of an eating disorder. I know this, and yet I keep turning to you over and over and over. Where did my ability to be sensible about you go? Why does it seem to be completely impossible for me to eat normally anymore?

Someday, I suppose, I'm going to have to make peace with you. But I just don't know how anymore, and that frustrates me, and sometimes it even scares me.

I wish I could just forget you exist. But that's not even remotely possible.

Fuck.


No love,
Me

My self-destruction is getting worse and worse.

I don't even care about school anymore. I was so looking forward to going, and now I don't fucking care about it at all. The only reason I want to go back right now is because it will allow me to escape this hell they call fast food. It's not the actual workplace I hate -- it's not the coworkers -- it's not even the customers. The part that makes it hell is being surrounded by the shittiest of shit foods all day long, and constantly being tempted by them. These, of course, are temptations I cannot 100% avoid. Occasionally I do have to have onion rings or I go insane. Occasionally I want a breakfast sandwich instead of eggs and toast. Sometimes I get bacon, or sausage, or even hash browns. Once in awhile I buy the burgers with bacon and cheese instead of the ones without. All these "occasionally"s add up the calories, and unfortunately also add up the fat percentage on my body.

My work uniform barely fits anymore. Yesterday was the first day in which I literally had trouble doing it up, and it was tight enough that anything other than superficial movement was very uncomfortable. Once in awhile I could feel the waist digging into me. This is what you must understand about these work pants: Unlike the guys' pants, or some of the other girls' pants (the newer ones and the supervisor pants), these old girls' pants sit RIGHT on the stomach. And I, much to my chagrin, have a body type in which weight, when gained, primarily goes to my stomach and love handles. In other words, I'm gaining weight right where those pants need to fit -- and the tightness of said pants are clearly demonstrating to me how much fat I've accumulated around that part of my body.

I dread the day which I am sure will eventually come when I just can't get the pants done up at all, or it hurts too much to even be bearable. That will be the day I'll have to walk into the office and say to the assistant manager, "Hey, guess what? I'm a fucking fatass, and I need new pants!" Truth be told, if it was financially feasible at all, I'd much rather quit than have to ask for a bigger size of pants. The day I have to ask for new pants is the day that any respect I have for myself goes completely out the window. It will be official, announced to the world, the talk of work gossip: Niika is fat. Niika outgrew her pants. She's such a pig -- she probably gained all that weight from the shit food she's eaten here. Well, I'm sure glad I'm not her... I wouldn't want to be the one gaining all that weight. I wouldn't want to be a gross fatty like she is.

So, you all say, why don't you do something about it? Count your calories... restrict some... exercise more? Exercise will be taken care of, I hope, starting next Tuesday or Wednesday. I can work out at the university's gym basically as much as I want, and I plan to make use of the facilities. Food, though... I CANNOT control my food at all these days. Well, okay, I can, but it only lasts for like half a day or a day or maybe a couple of days before I suddenly snap and eat everything in sight. And usually end up purging at least once. And then usually, after that, continue to fucking eat, only in small enough quantities that I don't have to purge from being ridiculously and absurdly full.

And I think I'm starting to realize why, exactly, none of my attempts at healthy eating, intuitive eating, or even restriction work these days. It is as simple as this: I believe I deserve to suffer. I believe I deserve to be in pain. I deserve, in short, to self-destruct. And what could be more self-destructive than not only abusing food, but by torturing myself with unnecessary weight gain and consequent self-hatred? I mean, losing weight would be a privilege, and I sure as hell don't deserve privilege. I also, glutton that I am, do sometimes like the binging -- like that I can eat any fucking thing I want and get rid of enough of it not to experience extreme stomach pain and distention afterwards. I don't think I actually gain the weight purposely to torture myself, but it sure doesn't help my self-disgust any... or my self-esteem, either, for that matter.

The fact that I am planning to work out like a fiend shows that I truly am fucking fed up with this weight gain and this proliferation of fat on my body (because there really, objectively is too much of it now). The fact that I cannot stop binging / being bulimic really doesn't show anything other than that I hate myself with a passion. So does the fact that I recently started (mildly) self-injuring again. It all ties together. I have this friend who keeps saying, "Fat people just need to stop fucking eating." Well, no shit, Sherlock. But do you think it's actually easy to stop eating? Any easier than telling an anorexic person to just eat a damned sandwich? It's such a bunch of fucking bullshit. But it just proves how little anyone actually understands overeating or bulimia. It's not about the food -- it's about the emotions behind the behaviors. The weight gain or loss is just a side effect of the eating problems, which are manifestations of the emotional problems. (Of course, knowing this does not make me feel even remotely better about my weight gain.)

I just... hate this life I'm living. I can't see any way out of it. I hate this house -- I hate my job -- I don't have any idea if I'm going to even remotely like school or not. I keep thinking about it and picturing myself wandering around campus alone, eating lunches while watching the world walk by me, sitting in at least two out of three classes not talking to a single soul, being too afraid to join LGBTQ, wasting my life trying to attain a goal I can never attain while I'm still so psychologically unsound (becoming a psychologist). The ONLY thing I want to do with my life is be that psychologist, and I'm 99% convinced that I'm never, ever going to become stable enough to do it, and that is because the only psychologist who ever helped me is now somewhere in the United States, and nobody else in this entire province seems to do psychodynamic therapy, which is the only therapy that has ever helped me. I don't need to be taught how to change my thoughts -- I need to fucking deal with my shit, and I can't if nobody will help me to figure out what the hell it even is. My idea of the therapy I would want, if I was to do therapy, is so specific and narrow that I'm not sure anyone could fill it, so nobody can ever help me, so I'll never get to do what I want with my life, so what is the point of even trying? Might as well self-destruct, because that's the only thing I seem to be able to do somewhat consistently.

I am sick, sick, SICK of this shit. I want out. But I can never get out. I have learned that it is not acceptable to try to commit suicide. It is not acceptable to starve myself. It is not acceptable, in fact, to show outwardly that I have any problems. It is not acceptable to hate my life, either, or to hate my job, or to want to do anything other than what is expected of me -- which is to work and/or go to school so that I can get a "real" job. It is not acceptable to do anything my PARENTS don't want me to do. I learned that the hard way, when they forced me into fucking work. I must subliminate myself, or hate and try to maim myself, so that I can "function" in the world. Only I'm starting to not function at all anymore.

It should scare me that I'm starting to throw my life away again, and sometimes it does; but most of the time I really, truly don't believe I even have a life to throw away. This existence is not a real life. It is a half-life, a shadow life; I am a ghost floating around a hazy, empty maze, and all the light and color and vitality and vivacity exists outside the maze, but I cannot even begin to find my way through the twists and turns to become part of the real world. I am forced to sit here, doing nothing, thinking nothing, being motherfucking nothing at all.

I live with madness in my head.

Snippet from an IM conversation today:

NiikaChiCk: You know what i figured out is so hard about recovery for me?
NiikaChiCk: I essentially get thoughts from ALL sides of the disordered spectrum, all the time.
NiikaChiCk: I should restrict. No, I should try to eat normally, and b/p when I have a craving. No, I should restrict, and b/p so I can maintain restriction. No, I should eat normally without binging or purging, but I can have sweets if I want them. Yes, I should count calories. No, I should forget that calories exist. I can eat whatever I want as long as it's healthy. Fuck it, I'm just going to binge on whatever the hell I want to eat. Now I'm a fatass. Must lose weight. Weight is not everything. Maintenance is better.
NiikaChiCk: ARGH.
NiikaChiCk: Restrict. B/p. Binge. Overeat. Moderate. What the fuck is it gonna be this day, this hour, this minute?
NiikaChiCk: I never know
NiikaChiCk: Lose weight slowly, lose weight quickly, maintain weight, not care about weight, work out, be lazy... ???
NiikaChiCk: blaarhgdksghjsdfg.


How the hell do I deal with a thought process that's essentially a chaotic jumble of EVERY FUCKING DISORDER EVER???

I have no idea... but I have to try. Because this is the only life I'm ever going to get, and I have things I want to do, and I don't want to waste my limited time obsessing over all this shit.


Fuckity.

Christmas is a fucking shitty time for bulimics. Or a glorious, bountiful time, I suppose, depending on how you look at it... but it's been a bit of a horror story for me this year.

My throat is sore as hell.
My stomach hurts.
My cheeks are beginning to resemble small blimps.
I'm convinced I've gained ten thousand pounds.

Oh, bulimia, how I loathe thee. But I'd've loathed it more if I'd had to keep down those gargantuan binges.

Maybe I'm sick of holding on

Is it an eating disorder behavior when you're okay with eating food, and in enough amounts to satisfy you (or so you think anyway), but you're only okay with eating certain KINDS of food? As in, you have a fairly short list of safe foods, which are foods you usually use to restrict with, but you're okay with eating enough of them?

It makes me sad when I abuse my body by eating too much -- always feeling bloated and never feeling really, truly hungry.


It makes me sad when I abuse my body by eating too little -- always feeling empty and on the point of eating everything, and drinking gallons of Diet Pepsi and water and decaf/coffee to cover up the fact that I never feel really, truly full.

++++++++++

There has to be a happy medium somewhere. There just fucking HAS to be. A medium that allows for mistakes -- a medium that allows freedom and happiness in food choices -- a medium that allows for, god forbid, weight fluctuations.

Maybe I will gain weight at the outset of this. Maybe that's the way it's going to have to be. Maybe my disordered brain will make me gain, or lose, or fluctuate wildly (and, honestly, the first or the last are more likely). Maybe I'm just going to have to fucking deal with it, instead of fantasizing about restriction and control and how I can exercise all I like when university comes and I won't be forced to eat at work anymore and, dammit, I can get to that 100 lbs, that "magic" number which seems so ideal and yet so mystically elusive. The scale as a god.

But the scale is not a god. The scale is a piece of machinery that spits out how much force I exert on this planet with my physical presence. It is a tool -- a measurement device -- nothing more. Admittedly, it is something that used to be able to make or break an entire day or week or month for me... and it still can, sometimes. But it is NOT a god, and I should not worship it as if it was. There are many far more deserving things in this universe to worship.

So I exert a certain force on this planet. So maybe I exert more force than I would like. So fucking what? At least I'm HERE, and not dead, and not locked up in a psychiatric ward for the fifty thousandth time. The rest... the rest I can work on. But I am not a slave to those old bonds anymore, and maybe I should actually try to stay free of them, instead of running headlong towards the safe, comfortable, destructive, lonely, horrible fucking entity known as Mental Illness. When has that ever worked for me in the past? Seriously, Niika. Get a fucking grip. That image in your head -- that idea you have that everything would be all right once you lost some more weight -- it's never going to fucking happen.

I need to focus more on health and less on the number on a piece of metal.

Pieces of metal are stupid anyway.

"Eating is normal. It is not a shameful activity that only fatties engage in.

Sadly, I do have to keep reminding myself of that."

From here.


It's so true, though. It really is.

In moods like this I don't care about anything. I don't care about work, or the fact that school's coming up, or Christmas, or friends, or existing. Nothing. I just want to lay down and... not exist anymore. Or sleep. I mean, I know I'm tired. But I'm tired so fucking often lately. It's no wonder I was starting to become a caffeine addict (before I abruptly pulled myself off it) -- caffeine is the one thing that keeps me from feeling tired. Well, that and sugar. Hence all the overeating urges I seem to get. But I already talked about that yesterday.

Why does life have to be so fucking hard all the time now?

Who do you talk to when you have nobody to talk to at all?

I feel horribly, utterly alone so often these days. Not a single person around me understands, and I don't think they ever can or ever will.

I have also discovered that depression turns me into a compulsive overeater, which makes me slowly but surely gain weight, which makes me unhappy, which contributes to my depression, which of course just fuels this whole fucking cycle all over again. Fuck shit fuck.

Why can't I just be happy with being normal? Why can't I just be happy, period? Why does my brain have to be so fucked up?

Afsdhfjdshgjhfsdgsdfg.