I am trying not to feel guilty about eating today. We'll see if that works, or doesn't work. (I'm betting on the latter -- how about you?)

Purging always makes me feel better. It's like my new form of self-injury.

So great. Now I'm going to become bulimic or something. Just fucking great. *long, heavy sigh*

I keep eating extra food. Like, every fucking day. I'm not gaining anything, but I'm not losing anything, either. And it's really frustrating, and also really pissing me off. I'm so frustrated with myself, and with everything, that I actually feel like crying right now.

I can't wait till I go back to school. I can walk around for as long as I want to burn cals, AND I'll have access to a gym, which I want to go to at least twice a week. Maybe exercise will do something for me...

God, I'm pathetic. I used to be so good at this -- and now look at me. Pitiful and desperate and piggy and terrible and fat. Still fat. It's too much to ask to be tiny, apparently. Of everyone I've ever met or talked to, I am the one who most deserves to turn into a walking skeleton -- to become emaciated and weak and barely breathing -- to skip hand in hand with Death as my body decays. So why can't I do it? Why???

I feel like something inside me is going to crack open soon if I can't fix this. And I really don't know what I might do if the last barriers "saving" me break down. Or maybe... maybe that's what I need to do. Maybe I need to lose my last bit of sanity in order to starve. Maybe I need to lose all my fears and self-control, so I can finally fucking die out of it.

I just wish I knew that, if I died, someone would understand why I did it. But I'm not sure anybody would. And that's the worst part -- worse even than the dying. Alone in death as well as alone in life. Then again, I should be used to being alone by now; I've been alone for a really fucking long time. Only I'm not, and I know I never can be.

I've always wanted people to see inside me -- the real me, the part that lies far deeper down than anyone has ever fully seen. But they never have. Ever. And I can't honestly say that I believe anyone will ever want to, let alone be able to.

Well, cravings caused me to eat way too many calories for my liking this afternoon and evening (somewhere around 700). However, I burned 107 just by dancing around to songs, and may or may not burn some more later on. I hate exercise, but I couldn't stand the thought of letting that 700 calories sit without getting rid of SOME of it... and since I was way past being able to purge anything out, exercise it had to be. It was vaguely fun, though, I admit. Also, Dance Mix 95 is the shit. :D

I wonder how many calories jiggling my leg burns? Because I've been doing that all night. Ha. Probably not very many. And anyway, I have the leg jiggle going on most of the time, so it's really not burning any more calories than I normally would.

There is one good thing about my intake today, and that is that I've had a fair bit more water than I usually get. I really do have to start drinking more water on a regular basis, too. I honestly think that a fair amount of my cravings are thirst that I'm mistaking for hunger, so I'm gonna try and drink at least a couple of bottles of water a day, and have water before food if I get cravings, and see what happens. (Currently, I'm lucky if I get about two glasses of water a day. It's no wonder I'm hardly losing anything.)

Earlier tonight I thought I didn't care so much about weight loss anymore. I was wrong. I still want to lose weight.

Blah.

I'm going to be having a healthy supper tonight: Boneless, skinless chicken breast (medium), mashed potato (not sure if I'll eat that yet), green beans, and corn on the cob.

I WILL eat at least most of it. And I WILL NOT purge. To 100% secure these facts, I'm taking my daily meds with the meal. Since I can't throw up the meds, well, I'm gonna have to keep the food down too.

Besides... I stupidly tried to purge a Tim Horton's cookie half an hour after eating it, but 90% of what I got was colored water. Stupid, stupid girl. Next time just don't bloody eat the cookie -- especially when it isn't yours to begin with.

In the beginning, food made me fat.

Much, much later, lack of it made me weak.

Now, eating too much of it makes me throw up.
Not eating enough of it makes me eat too much of it, which as we already know makes me throw up.
Throwing up tastes terrible, makes my throat raw and itchy, and makes me crave electrolye balancers, which makes me eat.

Fucking annoying substance, food.
Someone needs to put a ban on it, or something.
It's driving me fucking crazy.
CRAZY CRAZY CAULIFLOWER. *runs around screaming and flailing arms*

Interesting quiz...

Your Body Image is 68% Unhealthy, 32% Healthy

Your negative body image is borderline serious. It could turn into an eating disorder or psychological problem. Perhaps you're just having a bad day. But maybe you need to think about getting help for your problem.

How's Your Body Image?

I got my hair cut yesterday, and when I weighed in today I had lost a pound from the day before. Score! :D. I really like the cut, too. I got about four inches chopped off, so it now just rests against my shoulders, and has a little bit of layering. Much better than the long, unkempt-looking mess of before.

I'm going to have me some Kamut Puffs now. Au revoir.

Right now ED is making me feel powerful. More calm. More in control. Less anxious; less emotional.

Warning: Purging and cutting TRIGGERS AHEAD. Read at your own risk!!!

I was really hungry as well as feeling weak, after hardly eating today (I was busy and didn't want to get up to get my planned food), so about half an hour ago I went upstairs and poured two HUGE bowls of Multigrain Cheerios with milk. Probably took me ten minutes to eat, tops. I then sat with it for a few minutes -- but then I realized that, since I'd satiated the craving, I no longer wanted the food in me. So to the bathroom I did go to purge. I got the majority of it up (though not all) and almost immediately felt so much better, about everything.

For me, purging can be such an emotional release. Fill yourself up -- stuff yourself to the brim -- feel your stomach full and heavy against you -- and then step into the bathroom and wash it all away. Walk out feeling cleansed. Walk out feeling like you've gotten some soul grime scrubbed from your pores. Feel like a better person -- a happier person, a more capable person, a more fulfilled person. That's what I get sometimes from purging. Sometimes it's robotic, but more often I wash away a good deal of passion and anxiety along with the food. Bulimic behaviors are truly the behaviors of someone who feels. Anoretic things -- restricting, compulsive exercise -- are a denial of feeling, to me. And for awhile I really liked that. But now, sometimes -- I feel. And so sometimes I have to get rid of how I feel.

I have the urge to cut, too, tonight. I have an almost never used, small utility knife that I favored the last time I did it. It would be such satisfaction to run it slowly across my upper arms -- see the blood well and then bead, maybe slide down my skin -- dab it with toilet paper, press in hard for several seconds to stop the bleeding. Feel the pain of the mattress against my newly injured skin when I lie down afterwards. Wake up the next morning with blood inside my shirt, maybe small bits on the pillow. Feel satisfied. Refreshed. New.

This is really why it's so hard to give up my self-destructive behaviors. They're so cathartic, sometimes; other times they're emotionally repressive, another thing I often strive for. These two benefits seem priceless to me, and I treasure them dearly. How can I possibly decide to give them up and then drop them just like that? I can't. It's completely impossible. Until I start to fix things in my head, I'll never be able to stop either of them for good, 100%. And, funny enough, that doesn't really scare me at all. I just keep thinking, "If something really bad happens, the hospital is always there." I mean, it's true. Twenty-minute drive away. Faster if I for some reason needed an ambulance. So I'm not really worried for my safety at all.

But should I be? Really?

I don't believe you.

And I won't let you take away the only tools I have to cope with life. I simply cannot.

This is some thinspo I uploaded to Yahoo today:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/cauliflower_000/album?.dir=/f7a2re2

Feel free to save whatever you like. They're public domain photos, after all. ^_^

Enjoy!!

Attempting to recover even a tiny bit from ED is like being bounced up and down against your will on a see-saw. You know, like when the other person is heavier than you, and if he or she wants you to stay up in the air they can? And you just have to beg and plead to be allowed down until they give in? But then you try, after a few see-saws, to keep THEM up there. And sometimes you even succeed. And you feel a sort of triumph. I got back at the person who tortured me. The eating disorder that tortured me.

But we continue our see-saw game. Up and down, up and down, up and down. When will it end, and who will be stuck at the top so long that he/she falls off, and one is triumphant? I don't know the answer to either of those questions, and I'm pretty sure it will take me a long time to find out.

I wish this stuff could be fixed quickly. :/

I decided on some new rules for myself yesterday. Pretty simple, actually.

Max cals per day: 500
Max fat per day: 15g
Max carbs per day: 50g

I am hoping this will help me somewhat in getting past this plateau... it's really irking me that I've ceased to lose. I mean, with this kind of restriction, I have to start losing again SOMEtime, right?? By all reason and logic????

Well, I finally figured out why I'm not losing weight -- I'm eating too many carbs. I ate 96 grams of carbs yesterday. Ugh!

So now I'm trying to figure out a good carb max to set. 50g? 60g? I'm thinking 50g would probably be adequate, but I'm not sure. I know Atkins starts with a 20g carb max, but moves to 40-60g somewhere along the line.

For now I'm going to say 50g. We'll see if I can't start losing some more weight in a few days with that. :)

I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've decided a few things about what I'm going to do with this journal.

1. I won't be posting daily weigh-ins here anymore. I may or may not update when I reach goal weight(s); depends on how I feel when I get there.
2. I may not write here every day. I plan to write only when I really want to, and only then when I think it's relevant. This is something I should have done long ago -- and, well, now I'm doing it.


In other news, I never thought I'd be so glad to move my bowels in my life. I'm very glad that they're not so seriously backed up that I'd have to see a doctor about it...

Well, you'll all be happy to know that I'm raising my daily calorie limit back to 500. My usual 200-300 calories isn't enough to keep me from feeling physically awful anymore.

I feel that some of you on my [LJ] list either don't think I have a real eating disorder, or I could very easily recover right now and just won't. I do not honestly believe that either of these are true. If I give the impression here that I think this is some sort of wonderful game I play that I could put away any time I like, then I'm truly sorry, because I do not believe that this is the case. I don't get into most of my emotional stuff here, but suffice it to say that I do have plenty of psychological issues, not the least of which is this eating disorder. This particular ED is new to me, it's true; however, self-destruction is not a bit new to me, and my ED to me seems like just a different method of self-destruction. Yet another terrible coping mechanism that I've come to depend on.

Because, yes, I'm dependent on it now. Within the first few months or so I could have let this go easily, although I wouldn't have. But now... well, I've tried to start letting this go probably half a dozen times or more, and nothing has worked. And I honestly feel like everybody's got darts in their hand, aimed at me and ready to fire anytime I talk about physical complications, because I "should have more sense" or something. I "shouldn't be hurting [my]self". I "could die from this, you know!" You think I don't fucking know that? You think it doesn't keep me up at night? Plus, comments like that don't want to make me recover any more -- actually, they just want to make me cry, because it clearly indicates that even now nobody understands. I would have thought that having [an LJ] friends list full of eating disordered people would mean that they'd be understanding, but I guess I was wrong.

I feel like I'm sinking further and further down, and not even the people who know what it's like will talk to me while I drown. And that makes me feel hurt.