Tonight... I am tired. And also wondering if I will ever really, truly get out of this eating disorder for good.

Basically everybody I know, or used to know, with an ED still struggles with it at least some of the time. Probably the majority of them still have anywhere from mild to moderate to severe life interference, even today, from their eating disorders. What would make me so special, so lucky, that I would somehow magically be able to get rid of it where most of my other friends have not been able to? The answer, of course, is nothing.

I'm not quite sure I was ever able to truly shake off this disorder. Sometimes I sort of forget it exists -- but then I have a tendency to veer back towards COE, that disordered eating pattern I began to develop in the ninth grade, a pattern which, in times of so-called normalcy, never seems to quite leave me. I am a lot better at intuitive eating these days... I can usually stop before I become so chock-full that I am ridiculously uncomfortable or sick... but I still end up getting just a little too full too much of the time. It bothers me a lot, honestly. I wonder, too, how much of it really is a disordered eating pattern, and how much of carelessly overfilling yourself a little is just a normal eating behavior which happens to normal people sometimes.

But then I wonder how many people in this world really ARE normal eaters. I look around me and see just as many overweight, obese, or morbidly obese people as I do normal or underweight people. And, in fact, I would wager that there are more overweight and obese people around here than normal or underweight. So maybe most people I know will habitually, when they go to restaurants, eat until they are stuffed. But a lot of the people I know are also not normal weights. I'm not even judging at this point... it's just a FACT. So how can I possibly rely on their behaviors to be a cue for my own, when what I desire is to maintain my weight? I mean, they gained the extra weight somehow, so it seems to me that it is not wise to put my trust in their methods.

On the other hand, though, it is very very difficult to starve myself these days. Too difficult. I get lightheaded, cranky, tired; I have no energy to do anything; I cannot think or concentrate properly. None of these things are conductive to doing well in school, going to the gym, or having a social life. The last two, especially, are very troublesome to me. The lack of vitality, enthusiasm, passion -- the cloudiness of thought -- they are unacceptable to me when I have other important things in my life that need to get done. I probably would have pursued the eating disorder more while I was just working; now, though, I have my grades to think about, and I MUST do at least decently well or I feel that my whole life will go to shambles. I don't want to gain a shitload of weight, but if I want to be functional at all I probably can't lose a shitload of weight in a short time, either.

So then... what the fuck do I do? I don't even know. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Eat normally enough that I can eat socially, but rely on my hunger and fullness cues instead of overeating, but try to get some exercise in so maybe I can be less flabby, and then try to rein in my caloric intake just enough for me to slowly lose weight. Is that actually all POSSIBLE to do at once??? I have severe doubts. I really don't think it IS possible. At best, I think I can try to eat intuitively and healthily most of the time, and intuitively while socializing, and then I can exercise several times a week at the gym and hope that this somehow decreases the flab. Which it may or may not. Which bothers me... but it's such a complicated issue to work out that I may only be able to work on a couple things at once. In this case, perfection may just not be attainable, as I must pursue balance among all areas as opposed to zoning in on one area and letting the rest fall to the wayside.

Somehow, I have to teach myself the way to eat normally and mostly healthily and generally happily. Somehow. Without gaining a ton of weight -- without losing a ton of weight -- without giving into the ED behaviors in any way.

But can I even do this?????

I love Googlism.

sylvia plath is now recognized as a major
sylvia plath is essential reading for all those who have been moved and fascinated by plath's life and work [yes... yes, i suppose it is...]
sylvia plath is opgenomen
sylvia plath is a contribution to the very thin stack of books in turkish on american literary figures [she should be flattered]
sylvia plath is their oj simpson
sylvia plath is a shoo
sylvia plath is published in johnny panic and the bible of dreams
sylvia plath is one of the poets who has written multiple poems that give me those feelings [i actually agree with this one]


Why I looked up Plath? I really don't know. She was the first writer that came into my head. Which may or may not be a good thing.

Maybe I'll do a proper update sometime later.


PS: Googlism, for the unindoctrinated. (Is that even a proper word?)

I am a whale. A horrible, awful, massive, gargantuan whale.

On another two-day fast. At first I didn't really want to, but at the moment I just can't imagine putting any food in my mouth for some reason. Just a second ago I thought about some salad... just the greens, not even any dressing... but then I thought, "Nah." I'd just rather not lift the fork or the hand to the lips, move the muscles of the jaw, chew, swallow. I would rather not take in any nourishment at all.

Also, I think I'm getting a little too pro-ana for my liking. Lol. Nobody has to jump down my throat or anything here... I know how stupid it is. It's just that right now, it really feels like the only thing that can save me from my fat and ugly self, and I am ALL for it. I don't even care about my strength, or exercise, or anything. I just... don't want to eat. Love to look at all that stupid thinspo. Whatever. I'm not making any apologies for it. It is what it is, and I'm cool with it for now, so it's completely fine with me.

Work tonight at 7 for five hours. The good thing about a late five-hour shift is that I can say I already had supper, and then on break I can just have some diet soda. Easy schmeasy.

Guess I'm out for now.

How could I be so full of hope, happy and determined and so sure I was going to do well and be beautiful and lovable and have everything that I wanted -- and then crash down so hard?

Yesterday: I was fasting. I was sure I could lose weight. Willpower. Determination. I felt like maybe I could be beautiful, inside, out.

Today... well, I ate. A good amount at first. Then got displeased with my fat self just before going out to a birthday gathering for a friend, because my jeans are too fucking TIGHT and they made my love handles just pop out way more than they needed to, and it was awful, and I was overstimulated anyway because my sister wouldn't stop blasting her fucking music above my head, and I was tired because I'd only gotten four hours of sleep the night before, and everything was just horrible. And then I get to the gathering and of course there's nachos with this great dip and little two-bite triple chocolate muffins, and... FUCK!!! I really did not want to eat anything else, but I felt like I had to eat socially, and then of course I just dived right in because it was a comforting social thing, and I felt horribly awkward for awhile for various reasons, and... FUUUUUUUCK! Why am I so goddamned COE anyway??

I am the most gargantuan blimp on the face of this planet -- I am convinced. Even girls who have far higher body mass indexes than I -- girls who are really overweight, girls who are obese -- even they cannot possibly match myself in blimplike qualities. I might as well be swimming in the fucking ocean. Rename me the blue whale, and you will have some idea of the TRUE fatness inside of me.

I don't know how to describe the feelings in a way that doesn't sound completely stupid. I know that comparing myself to blimps and whales is pretty cliché. The truth is, that's not even the half of it. I feel like anybody looking at me must immediately KNOW how much of a fat, ugly, disgusting failure I am. They must look at me and laugh behind their eyes and whisper about me to their peers, giggling too loudly to ignore because they also think I am a deaf idiot and can't hear them at all. Only I do. I do. I can feel their criticisms, their judging looks, their stares, see the hands cupping mouths to ears, almost touch the hostility and negative feelings that flow towards me as they look at me. And all this they can tell just by LOOKING at me, I am positive, because my fatness MUST exude in waves and bursts and slap everyone in the face as they pass by. I am so huge that I am impossible to ignore -- impossible not to laugh at -- impossible not to hate and make fun of.

And don't tell me this isn't logical. I don't care if you don't think it's logical. I don't care if the whole fucking WORLD can't see what I see in myself. I see it, and so to me that means it MUST be logical, and it MUST be true. There is no way it CANNOT be true.

What I want to know, logically, is this: How can I possibly keep going on in a body like this, which causes me so much pain every time I look at it -- when I dress it in the too-tight clothing that fit me a few months ago -- when I go into dressing rooms and try on two sizes bigger and the pants are STILL too fucking small?? How can I even keep making myself eat, when I am alone and not accountable to anyone? It's a pure decision of LOGIC. I like food -- I really do. I WANT to eat. But everytime I eat I always end up feeling like this!!!

How can I keep doing this? Or can I even keep doing it??

Going on a two-day fast to mark my return home, and (hopefully) the start of something new. [Cue High School Musical soundtrack.] I may let myself have one or two cups of coffee, which would be about 10-20 cals' worth of milk, but other than that it's just tea, water, and maybe diet soda. I imagine that both coffee and diet soda will end up being present.

I mean, come on... it's only two days, and it will sorta give me a bit of a kick-start, as well as making me feel like I actually can accomplish something, and that maybe I can stop being this gargantuan FATASS and become at least a semi-normal weight, even if I can't manage being really truly thin. I feel that I have a huge excess of body fat and inches, and this must change. Two days will start the process; and hopefully showing myself that I really can do this will be all the motivation I'll need. Not that I don't already have some motivation -- but I really want this to be more fuel for the fire, so to speak.

Can I be frank? I don't give a shit about "recovery", and I don't want to be told not to do this. I AM doing it, and I don't even think it will hurt my health at all, given that I have not truly restricted in a very long time. This body has got fuel to burn, and things in the digestive tract to be cleansed... trust me.

Time for bed. And tomorrow will be the first day of a whole new beginning. ^__^

So I'm just starting a binge, and I go to my iTunes and turn on the shuffle... and what's the first song that comes up?

"Addicted" by Kelly Clarkson.

It's sad when even your mp3 player knows you have problems. >P


I'm hooked on you
I need a fix
I can't take it
Just one more hit
I promise I can deal with it

Holistic wellness? Recovery? AHAHAHAA. Ha. HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA. It's never going to fucking happen for me. I'm really starting to get convinced of that now. So many things try to derail me, and not all of them succeed, but enough do that I think I am really starting to fall off the wagon, in more ways than one.

Will the wave break? Will there be some kind of tsunami later on? Or will I just be stuck knee-deep in ocean water forever, never knowing when a huge, breath-sucking wave might overtake me?

Anorexia: a portrait

I thought this piece of writing was so fantastic that I just had to link it here. I emphasize so much with this... I remember very vividly, still, exactly what it was like.

Anorexia: a portrait.

If you've ever been confused about the differences between COE and BED, or the different kinds of bulimia, or what differentiates anorexia from bulimia, etc... I suggest you read this article. Everything this person wrote is so true -- and while it doesn't entirely clear up b/ping or purging anorexia vs bulimia, it DOES give what I consider to be a good version of the difference between COE and BED. And it actually clarifies bulimia as a disorder with binging at its core, but with different methods of dealing with the food than those with BED. I, at least, really appreciated the difference... especially since my bulimia has always been more about the binging and not the purging. But I digress.

http://stillhopingstilleating.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-disorders-look-like.html

If I was in school, after a binge-tastic night like I've had tonight, I could just choose to eat almost nothing all day tomorrow and sort of "cleanse" myself, and then I'd feel better and not hate myself so much. But tomorrow I have to work, and I have to eat at break at work (or it will look extremely weird), and then I might have to go out to supper before I go see a musical with my dad... FUCK!!! I just can't goddamned win!

I hate food, and I hate eating, and I hate the fact that these last few nights I've been shovelling a bunch of shit in my face and not purging nearly enough of it out. I am going to be fat as a fucking pig by the time my exams are done. I think the stress, combined with the fact that I've decided not to restrict during exam time, are making me OVEReat as a stress relief mechanism. :|

WHY is it that unless I'm restricting I'm flat-out fucking BINGING????


And now I'm going to bed. I'm pretty tired, and I have to get up at 5:50 AM yet again tomorrow morning. (I've been getting up at 5:50 AM every day since Monday for work. Fun, hey??) Wish me luck in getting through my shift tomorrow -- I expect it to be fairly brutal -- and also in actually studying for my exams. I am having a really hard time concentrating on studying, and I'm really terrified I'm going to fail.


What a way to update after writing no entries in forever.

Article: Why The Scale Lies

This is an awesome article I just discovered through a non-dieting group that I'm part of on Yahoo Groups. Take a read!!


Why The Scale Lies
by Renee Cloe, ACE Certified Personal Trainer

---

We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence its readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale.


Article taken from here.

The eating disorder speaks

You should fast tomorrow.
You're so fat. You fat cow.
What the fuck were you doing, binging like that, anyway?
Yeah,I know you were tired. That doesn't give you the right to eat chocolatey sugar until you're stuffed to the fucking gills. I don't even care that you did get the energy you needed from it. You're a pig. A fat motherfucking PIG.

You need to go to the gym tomorrow, too. Desperately.
Also,you should skip off going to the center tomorrow, because if you see all those people eating you're going to want to eat, and the LAST thing you fucking need is to eat, you goddamned FATTY HOG.
You have to burn off all those disgusting calories you consumed tonight. Disgusting calories that are going to make you blow up into even more of a balloon than you already are.

You can feel how your stomach bulges out. How your unrestrained breasts press down on it, so the whole front of your torso is like one large roll extending all the way down your front. You can feel, with a simple movement of your hand, all the fat that pudges out, everywhere.

The love handles that stick out from the sides of your middle, extending visibly underneath any even semi-tight shirt that you ever wear.
The pieces of extra flab on the inside of each thigh, rubbing together near the very top of your legs when you walk.
The bit that you can grab on the bottom of each upper arm, even though your arms are supposed to be the skinny part of you, you goddamned fatty. Ugh. Even your fucking ARMS are getting fat!!

You disgust me. You pig. Pig pig pig.

Why do I bitch and complain at you about this?
Because being fat makes you unworthy.
You know it's true.

You try to ignore me -- you try to tell yourself that what is inside is really important. And maybe that's true. But you're starting to realize the thing that I've always known: that, really, essentially, there's nothing inside. You're not motivated to achieve. You're not brilliant. You're not gorgeous. You're not going to be any sort of really important person in life. Sometimes you think you might as well just give up trying, and I think you're right. And every time you get to that line of thinking, I am always here, waiting for you. Whenever you decide to acknowledge your deeper feelings, your worst feelings, I am here. Don't you think there must be a reason for that?

Sometimes I think you were destined to go back to me. To be mine.
We could make a fine pair, you and I. You provide the shiny tap-dancing shoes, and I provide the puppet strings. You clean the leather painstakingly, I plan out the dance moves, and together we make a fabulous team -- and you get to dance down the gorgeous polished floor, all light and air and rhythm, and maybe finally feel happy and free.

Too bad you still sometimes think this is an empty promise. Because I really think we could have a future together. A beautiful one.

Just think about it.

Eating Disorder Recovery

I found this information quite useful, and I thought that maybe somebody else might, too. :)

++++++++++

Why Recover?

The experience of an eating disorder is different for everyone and the benefits and value of recovery might be hard to understand when you have an eating disorder. For many people the behaviours associated with your eating disorder act as a reward or serve a purpose in your life and therefore it may be difficult to see a good reason for stopping these behaviours.

Recovery might involve feelings and experiences that could be unknown to you.

Here are some reasons that you might choose to leave your eating disorder behind:

• Not having to live your life in fear or with self-hatred and sadness

• Not having your mood or actions dictated by a number on a scale or the number of calories consumed, times purged, or sit-ups performed

• Being able to form and maintain quality give-and-take relationships (both friendships and romantic)

• Feeling comfortable in your own body

• Not having the way that you feel about yourself stop you from doing things that you love

• Being able to enthusiastically engage in study, work, and voluntary activities

• Have energy to do the things that you do (or once did or might soon) love

• Not having to feel guilty about the concern that your eating disorder stems from your family and friends

• Not having to live a "secret life"

• Being able to rejoin the world (emotionally, psychologically, physically) and leave behind the feelings of isolation

• Recovery is likely to allow you to feel good and that feeling of peace that accompanies it might have you smiling to yourself in moments you would least expect

Relapse

Recovery might be a rocky road - often a case of two steps forward and one step back. The number of times you fall over or back into your eating disorder is not important - what is important is that each time that you do, you don't let yourself dwell for too long. Try to pick yourself up and take off where you left off. It might be a slow and frustrating process, but you will still be moving forward, and that is what will get you there in the end!

Often something might trigger your relaspe. It could be something as "big" as a break-up or a death or as "small" as the tone in someone's voice or an unanswered SMS. Being able to identify your "triggers" might be helpful because it could allow you to look at how you originally responded to it, and to think about how you might respond in a more positive way next time . Identifying these things can be hard at first and may take some time, but with practice you will become a pro and be able to catch yourself in the moment.

Depression, Anxiety, and Other Mental Health Issues

Some people find that when they let go of their eating disorder behaviours and symptoms, they still experience things such as depression, anxiety, social phobia, or obsessive-compulsive behaviours.

You might wonder why you would work so hard to give up your eating disorder, only to have it replaced with something else. The answer is because there is no guarantee that you will go on to experience any of these things, or that if you do, that they will be as bad to live with as your eating disorder has been.

One of the main problems and causes of these issues popping up post-eating disorder is that they have usually been underlying issues of the disorder. The behaviours of your eating disorder were a way to cope with the mental health difficulties and once when you remove the behaviour; the underlying issues no longer have their usual outlet - the fall-back coping mechanism has been removed.

So if you find that you are experiencing one or more of these problems during recovery, it is important that they are dealt with too.

What Can Help With Recovery?

Things that might help you along the journey of recovery range from the big to the seemingly tiny, but they all play a role. Here is a list of things that some people have found have helped them with their own recovery (some will work for some - others for others!):

• Therapy - (in whatever form is most personally suited to you - everyone is different).

• Keep a "recovery journal" - fill it with positive and affirming thoughts. Write about why you want to recover, what your eating disorder gives and takes away from you, where you will be in 5 or 10 years if you stick with your eating disorder instead of giving it up, and/or anything else that will help to get and keep you motivated

• Spend time around positive and supportive people who are comfortable with themselves and their bodies (who have a healthy relationship with food!). Spend time with people that possess qualities that you admire and aspire to develop within yourself

• Talk to other people recovering from eating disorders or people who have already recovered. Mutual support can be great and motivating, and seeing someone else make progress or enjoying life might help to keep you inspired, too.

• If body image is something you are really struggling with, take a trip to the art gallery, and have a look at all the different shapes and sizes that beauty comes in. It sounds corny, but this can be a very positive activity! Similarly, go out one day with your "blinders" off - notice the diversity of shapes around you - don't only focus on the thinnest people and block the rest out (you may be amazed at your tendency to do this).

• Think about your own ideas of what beauty is. If they don't seem 100% kosher to you, question and re-evaluate them!

• Think about (maybe even write about) the people that you like and admire and what it is about them you like. Is it their size? Or is it something greater? Do you like your friends because they are thin? Or do you like them because they are fun or interesting or possess other great qualities?

• Keep something around where you can see it that will remind you of why you want to recover. Don't ignore it when you are feeling like crap - this is when you need to pay attention to it the most.

• Read recovery-oriented books - these can help inspire and keep you motivated (check out the health section of your local library or bookshop)

• Take up a hobby - get out there and live. Is there something that you used to love doing but have stopped? Is there something you have always wanted to try but have let your fear get in the way?

• Do things that nourish your soul. This could be anything from dancing to bongo drums, to planting a veggie patch, to climbing a tree, to sailing a tall-ship, or to engaging in voluntary work, to having a bubble bath. It doesn't have to be big; it doesn't have to be expensive. Experiment with different things - part of recovery is getting to know yourself all over again (or for the first time!) and you won't necessarily like everything you try.

• Hospitalization in an eating disorder clinic or hospital ward (when it is medically or emotionally needed or helpful)

Something to Keep in Mind

The most important thing to know and remember about recovery is that it is possible - not just for everyone except you, but for everyone including you. It takes an enormous amount of persistence and courage, but it is possible and it is definitely worth it.

I feel so goddamned fat today.

I binged and purged last night, and again tonight. I managed a week and a day without it before I caved. The biggest problem was not the actual stopping of the bulimia-- it was what happened as a consequence of stopping. Basically, I've been spending the last week overeating/binging... er, well, a lot. I didn't really bother counting how many times it happened, but it happened almost every day. There might have been one, or maybe two, days when I didn't "really" overeat or binge.

I weighed myself the other day and found out that in a period of not quite two weeks, I gained FIVE AND A HALF pounds. So that made me freak out. And then I freaked out more when I started scrutinizing myself in the mirror, as I am wont to do to check to see if my fat deposits have grown or shrunk, and I saw that they had grown. Given the weight gain, I am not at all convinced that seeing the enlargement of my fat was even close to being an image distortion. I mean, if you look at yourself practically every goddamned day in the mirror, minute changes are not that hard to see.

I am just so fucking sick of being fat. I was at a healthy BMI for my height when I weighed 20 pounds less than this, so WHY do I have to weigh so fucking MUCH??? Why do I feel like I should stay somewhere around this weight? Because my new pants won't fit me anymore? Because I'll start wearing my older jeans, and someone might notice I'm wearing all my smaller clothes and suspect I'm losing weight? Why does it even fucking matter if anyone knows I'm losing weight? I mean, it's MY business, not anyone else's, and if I want to lose weight, I am perfectly within my rights as an adult woman to do so. I'm 21; I go to university; I paid for my own tuition; I have a job. I'm not exactly independent and responsible, but I'm not a child either.

The only reason people are able to have that weight-maintenance influence on me is because I let them. And I let them because their opinions matter to me, and I don't want them to think I'm weird, or suspect that I have even slight food issues, or have any reason to know or even guess that I have and/or used to have mental illness problems. I just want to seem normal. Really, I want to BE normal. The problem is that I'm not even sure normal is attainable for me. I do know that the appearance of normal is fairly attainable, although I will always have quirks that come out despite my best efforts -- but so do most people. So even that can be normal, as long as I don't talk about certain subjects to certain people or what have you.

I'm just so sick of having to put all this effort in just to seem okay, normal, stable, well. Sick of how much thought and planning it can take just to both look and feel somewhat normal about food on a given day. Sick of how much thought and planning it takes to organize my life: I have to make sure I get this or that thing done, make sure I eat enough calories to live but not so many that I gain any weight, make sure I get good grades in school, make sure my coworkers don't start hating me or thinking I'm a slacker or a crappy employee, make sure I socialize some, make sure my friends don't feel neglected or like I hate them, make sure I am being somewhat active so I'm not a lazy slob with too much body fat, etc etc etc. I mean, the list could go on for days. There's so much in there that it fucking exhausts me. Is it any wonder I just want to get rid of it all so often? How can anyone person be expected to perform optimally in everything all at once? And yet I feel that I must, because people who are only part of one area of my life have no idea if I'm being a wonderful, stellar achiever in everything else -- if I do badly in the one area that THEY see, they will still think that I am horrible. And for some reason I just can't handle the thought of that.

So, yeah... I'm perfectionistic, I guess. But I really have been my whole life. Making sure that things look awesome -- that people perceive me as someone who can do things, who is good at something, or who has talent or intelligence -- has always been a way of making sure my world stays in alignment. Everything will be okay as long as it looks okay. Such an astounding illusion, really, but such a powerful one. Even yet, I still believe that if I can make everything look okay enough, eventually I will HAVE to be okay.... or maybe even good enough. Maybe, someday, good enough to be liked. Good enough to be loved.

Too bad I've never quite managed to reach that stage yet.