Normal eating is a strange creature. It does not stay the same from one day to the next. It fluctuates, moves, changes with the environment, perking its ears to the sounds of breezes through trees, mind examining and calculating the possible dangers, the pitfalls, the way to move fluidly through the forest without stumbling and breaking a bone. Its keenest instinct is for survival. It knows that the method to do this is... well, not any one method at all. General guidelines, which can change when the guidelines prove useless or dangerous.

Normal eating, though, is not self-starvation. It is not the wild creature laying down, wrapping its tail around its body, occasionally getting up to lap from a pool of water and otherwise resting, languid, slowly but surely making its way to blending with the earth, no more indistinguishable than the patch of dirt upon which it rests.

Normal eating is also not bulimia. It is not the lion cub, tearing at a bloody carcass savagely, devouring as much of the raw fuel as it can fit inside its belly, and then running, growling, paws pounding hard over rough stones and blistering, scorching savanna for hours and days, frantic and stuffed and never fulfilled all at once.

Normal eating is the hummingbird, its beak poised inside a brightly-colored blossom, intaking the sweet essences contained in the flower's heart. It is a tree, its roots planted firmly in the ground, its branches outstretched, the sunlight warm and caressing on its full green leaves. It is, too, the stray dog begging for every scrap of food a human hand is willing to toss down to it; it is the seagull tearing apart garbage, scavenging for all the crumbs it can find in a greasy paper bag, a plastic toxic concoction of half-eaten oils and starches. But it is also the hawk soaring over water, catching a fish in its talons, soaring even with the heavy weight dragging it down -- finding the shore, finding life -- triumphing in the end as it rejoices in its hard-earned prize.


I want to be the hawk.

I am not going to purge this binge I engaged in at the movies tonight. I am also not going to eat yet again more, so I can purge my stomach completely empty afterwards and feel somehow better about myself.

Tonight I am going to sit with it. I am going to live with the consequences of my actions. I am not going to take the cop-out way of sticking two fingers down my throat, leaning over a toilet bowl, feeling that familiar and easy release. I am not going to fucking do it.

I'm tired of living my life worried about food. My aim is for three fairly balanced, fairly healthy meals a day, plus snacks whenever I need them. An evening one will probably be necessary. Essentially, I am trying to put myself back on the Homewood meal plan again, only minus some of the food bulk and probably some of the calories. The Homewood meal plan was 2000 cals easy, though, so I don't feel guilty about cutting out a few hundred. I can easily maintain my weight on something like 1800, and hopefully feel satiated as well.

I know that this whole normal eating thing is going to take quite a bit of time. There are days when I'll possibly not eat certain meals, or put off certain meals; there are certainly going to be days when I overeat, by accident or just because I can or in spite of the fact that I know I'll probably feel like shit afterwards. Thing is, it is very hard for me to actually, TRULY learn if, every time I make an overeating mistake, I simply purge it out and forget about it. That's not how normal human beings learn to eat less. Rather, they eat too much, get sick and full and feel gross, and the next time they want to eat the same things in the same quantities they remember how it felt before, then choose to do it or not, as the case may be.

I need... to do something about all this ED shit. Because I'm sick of relying on it as that cop-out thing I do, and I'm sick of obsessing about food, and I'm sick of that same old bullshit story that I HAVE to be thin to acceptable, that only thin people ARE acceptable, and that being thin is not only preferable to being overweight, but preferable to being a normal weight as well. It's all fucking SHIT, and I'm SICK of it!! It is NOT normal to diet yourself beyond your set point, any more than it is normal to binge or compulsively overeat yourself beyond it. It is not normal to be a weight that is abnormal on your frame. The weight on your frame doesn't even mean anything about the real fucking you... rather, it is a visible, pointed statement about your food habits up until this very moment in your life. I don't know who decided that your previous eating habits were complete indicators about your various personality traits, but it's a load of crap, and I can't believe people buy into this shit so often. Including me. Maybe especially me.

I want to be healthier. I want to have more emotions. I want to live, instead of just pretending -- going through the motions with a happy fucking smile even when I'm not happy. So maybe there are days when I won't be happy! So what??? People aren't supposed to be happy and placid all the time! That's not even the way human nature works!

I am so sick of society's bullshit. So fucking sick of it. And I am, one way or another, going to remove myself from all of this before it is too late, and it takes away significant chunks of my soul as well as my body and mind.

I WILL NOT. FUCKING. HAVE IT.

Two words patter over and over in my head like the soft footsteps of a child:

Weight-loss-weight-loss-weight-loss-weight-loss

It is soft and breathy and full of seductive undertones. It pulls me under, a hypnotist, eyes black as starless night, and I am powerless to defend myself against it.

++++++++++

She said, "I don't know if I've ever been good enough
I'm a little bit rusty
And I think my head is cavin' in"

RIP, Polly Williams.

Polly Williams, one of the main characters in the documentary "Thin" by Lauren Greenfield, has passed away.

Her obituary can be found here.


This makes me so, so sad. :'(

Self-harm triggers

Tore my arm up a bit with a fresh razorblade tonight. Blood was running down my arm in several places, dripping pleasantly on the hardwood floor. More droplets than I think I've ever dripped there before. I did a whole bunch of cuts, very quick slices with some pressure, enough to make the seams come open and really bleed. That's what I wanted -- needed. Wanted to see proof that I am, for now, truly harming myself enough.

I pulled back on the bulimia enough to try and have a semi-clear head for my psych test; but I haven't got a really important test for a good while, so I don't fucking care right now. I b/ped once earlier tonight, and then -- funny enough -- went to a screening of a film for eating disorders awareness week, with a discussion panel of eating disorder experts afterwards. I was hungry when I was there, and sort of hungry when I got home, but I am not putting even MORE unnecessary food into this stupid body.

Odd, isn't it, that all the ED awareness week stuff has just served to motivate me even further to self-destruct? Maybe because they only take you seriously if you're actually doing serious, deliberate, cruel damage to yourself. Maybe because I still really, truly believe I deserve every bit of it. I take a sadistic pleasure in it (and I do mean sadistic, not masochistic). Maybe I can bring myself to semi enjoy the pain, but I much more enjoy being the inflictor of it. Only upon myself, of course; but that lessens none of the pleasure.

I am totally, hideously fucked up. I know. You really don't have to tell me.

Binged. Purged. Took six diuretics -- four Pamabrom and two Aldactone. Feel fat as hell. It sounds stupid, but I take diuretics basically because they make me feel thinner... that, and I know they're probably at least somewhat fucking up my electrolytes and throwing my body's natural balance out of whack, which is also something I want, for whatever reason. I hold my breath when I take them, because they taste really really bad, and I drink them with the smallest amount of liquid I can get away with, because otherwise I feel like the liquid will take up all the space that the diuretics just drained, and the thought of it makes me crazy.

Lately all I want is pills pills pills. These herbal diuretics I see everywhere (who knows if they actually work or not, but I'd try them anyway). Maybe some more laxatives (I only have three left, which is no good for anything). More water pills. Diet pills, maybe. I haven't had the courage to buy diet pills or laxatives, but I'm getting there, I think. Eventually I'm sure I'll want them so badly that I'll say "fuck it" and just BUY them. Have considered things like green tea pills, herbal supplements of various sorts, mixes of this and that extract which supposedly stimulate the metabolism or suppress the appetite or generally make you lose weight. I don't know why I want weight loss pills, really, because I'm not all that willing to modify my diet such that I actually would lose weight. I guess maybe I just want assurances that I'm not going to gain a zillion pounds. And, of course, there's also my constant conviction that I'm more or less a beached Beluga whale -- white and grotesquely rotund and unfit to be gazed upon by the human race.


And the beat goes on

What do you do when you think you're standing at the precipice of a long, narrow valley named "breakdown"?

I am tired of caring. I am tired of things being vital. So tired, I think, that my mind shut them all out; and now they are no longer vital. Now I don't have to worry about things. I don't have to care if I study properly for this test, or complete that assignment, because they don't matter to me. I don't have to care if I do really well at work on any given day, because I don't care whether people get mad at me or even if I get fired. I just don't fucking care about any of it.

As long as I can self-destruct, I think, I will always survive. Because nothing else matters, so I don't have to be ridiculously anxious about it, or completely broken up if it doesn't work out... which means I can focus on what my mind really wants to focus on in the first place, which is destroying myself. I don't really understand why my brain desires self-destruction so much, but it does -- and resisting the urges, and dealing with the feelings that brings up, on top of all the other stressors and depressors and irritations and anger-provoking things in my life, is just too fucking much. So I self-destruct, and I coast through life without having to deal. Without having to feel all these things which cause my moods to fluctuate so wildly and unpredictably, and which consequently cause me to feel insane.

Plus... I am alone, and not cared about by anyone. And a girl who isn't loved doesn't deserve to be nice to herself, or gentle or compassionate towards herself. No; a girl who is not loved, whom nobody even wants to be intimate with, deserves nothing less than self-destruction -- deserves nothing less than pain and dizziness and mental disorientation and dissociation. Because when a girl is not loved, doing harmful things to herself is the only way she can get by. Anything less just hurts too fucking much to handle. Self-destruction really is less painful than the things that lie beneath.

"Carbohydrate addiction?" Pffffffft.

So someone who is a pusher of the concept of "carbohydrate addiction", as he/she calls it, left this comment in my blog detailing various emotional issues and self-destructive behaviors:

If you were taking speed could it cause all these problems? -- Carbohydrates ARE speed!

This is how I responded:


Speed would cause my heart to race and probably get palpitations, my hands to shake, my blood pressure to increase, and my mood to swing wildly into insane mania. Carbohydrates -- even straight sugar from the box -- would not do THAT. And, actually, I think that speed's effects would be much more similar to drinking too much coffee than to eating a lot of sugar.

Look, I admit that high GI carbs do have a strange effect on the body sometimes, and they do often cause my blood sugar to swing and me to get strange and insistent hunger pangs when I am not actually hungry. HOWEVER, clearly I am aware of the effect high GI foods have on my body. If I do eat them, I can anticipate the physiological changes and act accordingly. As in, I know that when a hunger pang hits me really hard half an hour after I eat something filling that was very high on the GI, it's probably not a true hunger pang, so I should wait a little while for it to go away.

And, you know, I do limit my high GI carbs for this reason. However, high GI carbs do not CAUSE my eating disorder, nor do they CAUSE the states of mind that make me engage in bulimic (or anorexic) behaviors. In fact, sometimes high GI carbs are more like a punishment, because I know my body hates them and doesn't process them evenly and well as it does with other foods.

PS: You may be interested to know that I eat lower GI carbs without any blood sugar problems whatsoever (whole wheat bread, for example), and can usually tolerate the occasional fruit (and, actually, I find that fruits agree with me very well).

Can you see now why your theory does not really do me that much good? I can eat carbs -- just not the high GI ones (often). And even when I am eating very mindfully, my eating disorder rears its ugly head anyway, because it's EMOTIONAL, not just physiological. No psychologist or psychiatrist would ever agree that a clinically diagnosable eating disorder is solely physiological anyway, because it's a load of crap to try and claim that. Eating disorders are what they call "biopsychosocial", which means they are multifaceted. They don't come from just one cause (like eating carbs).

++++++++++

I'm tired of people going around claiming that this or that ONE SPECIAL THING!!! will suddenly magically cure every problem I have. Even IF I did decide to do a zero-carb diet, that would only fix the food aspect of things. I would probably still end up going to other self-destructive coping mechanisms, like cutting, and I would still have all the emotional issues that built up over the course of my life to deal with.

So, no, stopping all carbs is not a quick fix. It's a nice idea, and wouldn't it be lovely if we could cure all the world's ills with one tiny diet change? but it just isn't true at all. I mean, god, people have been eating carbohydrates for thousands of years, and only in the last, say, 30 or 40 have we even had this "obesity epidemic". Where were all the poor carbohydrate addicts a thousand years ago? Seriously. People just ate to survive then -- which is what WE should do. If we actually did do that, we wouldn't get as fat as we do. This is why I am a firm believer in true intuitive eating -- eating what our biology requires and desires to stay healthy, with wiggle room for food as pleasure or food as part of socialization. THAT's what I strive for... not low-carb, not low-fat, and not some other diet. I am sick of diets, and sick of "gurus" claiming they will cure your every ill, when they really, truly won't.

Okay, I'm done.

I've had a very binge-y day today... a small "breakfast", a fairly large meal at work, then McDonald's for supper tonight, after a few cookies and before a "dessert" (aka end-of-a-binge) of three chocolate-coated granola bars. And then half a glass of caffeine-free Diet Pepsi with four Aldactone. (Aldactone would be the potassium-sparing diuretics I mentioned an entry or two ago.) Not that the Aldactone really helped much... but perhaps it helped a little, or will help more later when things are digested better. I hope so anyway.

I suppose I knew this was coming, though. I've been purging far too much lately -- lost a couple of pounds, which really isn't a big deal since I'm nowhere near underweight, but I always tend to freak out a bit when I lose any weight at all. It's stupid, but it's like losing a pound or two = OMG YOU'RE STARVING YOURSELF AGAIN AREN'T YOU YOU IDIOT. Which I'm really actually NOT, since I tend to eat a fairly healthy breakfast and lunch every day, at the very least; but there's still some block in my brain against even semi-deliberate weight loss. Sometimes I even think that this is the reason I've gained weight... because gaining, in my mind, is better than losing. Gaining means I am not conforming to completely stupid and brainwashing societal ideals of thinness, and it also means I am definitely not even close to starving to death. And, yes, I realize how illogical this all sounds... but it is how my brain works.

I severely need to go to bed now, though. I am tired out of my freaking mind. I was supposed to finish a math assignment tonight, but couldn't because I couldn't concentrate at all due to being completely miserable -- and then, of course, just as my mood was just beginning to lift, fatigue slammed its iron fist deep into my belly and brain. Soooo... no math for me tonight. Oh fucking well. I'll get done what I can get done tomorrow morning / early afternoon, and that will have to be good enough. And if it isn't, well, it's my own fucking fault again, isn't it?

I am terribly afraid this will be a repeat of my last school semester -- which ended with me dropping all my courses and getting zero money back for any of them. I do NOT want that to happen again. CANNOT let it happen. And yet... I am already unable to concentrate properly on my work. This really, really is not a good sign.

Bulimia frequency increase? Check.
SI frequency increase? Check.
Self-hatred and self-destruction taking over? Check.
And now... schoolwork going amiss? Another fucking check.


I wonder just how many checks it will take before really bad things start to happen.

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.

++++++++++









++++++++++

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