So tonight I’m afraid that tomorrow my pdoc will call back saying she thinks it’s a good idea for me to go to the ER and get checked out (orthostatic vitals, bloodwork, etc). The problem is that we know I already have orthostatic tachycardia, and she suspects my blood sugar is low, and she talked today about how she sees signs of cognitive impairment (which interferes with my ability to fully engage in therapy). I’m not sure how low the sugar is, but the cognitive impairment is accurate -- she said (and I could see) that my thought processes and speech were slower, I wasn't as sharp-minded or sharp-tongued (lol), my focus and concentration were off, and that I was forgetting things, which I hadn't previously done. And my bloodwork was fine when I was admitted to short stay before I went on protocol, and I did eat much better for that week, but lately I've been having leg/body cramps and other random, odd symptoms, like short lasting bouts of vertigo, or what I would call "muted" brain zaps. Most of the time, though, I don’t even get symptomatic when my lites or sugars are low except that I feel tired, so there’s no actual way to tell if I'm low in anything without the tests.

However, my pdoc also gave me a slip for bloodwork. So I could go get that done, then... what, wait several days for her to get the results? If she thinks I might be bad enough to end up admitted to the ER or even medical, should I wait that long? But I’m not trusting my own memory of what went down in the session, now... hence why I called her and left a message asking her to phone me when she got it. I need to be sure that I won’t be going in for no reason, the doctors won’t laugh their asses off because my being there is so ridiculous, etc etc.

If I do go I’ll make sure to go during the morning/afternoon, before Halloween truly gets to a full start, because Lord knows the ER is going to get filled up tomorrow night from people having accidents or just doing stupid-ass shit because it’s Halloween. Halloween isn’t one of those holidays (like Easter or Christmas) where people try their best not to go into a hospital; it’s more like Paddy’s Day in that people party and celebrate and are more, not less, likely to get hurt and need the ER.

I guess at this point I just feel this whole thing is ridiculous... like, do I really need to be on a damned medical ward just because I get tachycardic when I stand up? But then again, when I think about my physical state atm, I know I don’t feel “right”. Standing or walking for any length of time makes me feel quite weak and not-okay, and as such I really can't do a lot of walking... so, basically, the ED is also now causing some impairment of mobility on top of everything else. Yet I still don’t feel like I would in any way qualify for a medical admission. The pdoc on the psych ward didn’t pay any attention to me suddenly getting orthostatic tachycardia in my last couple of days there; he let me go after about three questions when I asked to be discharged. But, then, this is the doctor who’s discharged me from psych assessment when I was actively suicidal. How good can HIS judgment be?

I just don’t know. I’m so confused and scared and my head isn’t working right and idefk.


PS: My scale yesterday said 88.3 lbs... but today it was also 88.3 lbs, so now I don't even feel good enough for hospital ANYway because I didn't even lose any fucking weight yesterday, so what good of an anorexic am I? But I'm not nearly so hungry today, or at least it's somehow in check, so I'm hoping that might help compensate a bit....

I am still around... well, not so much on [site], obviously, but I am at least alive. I just spent almost two weeks in the hospital (psych wards) but only spent not quite one week on ED protocol -- and since I was voluntary and it was made clear to me that I could leave at any time, on the day the shit truly hit the fan in my head... I left. I just couldn't cope with it anymore.

Here's something I wrote just before I logged in.


++++++++++


So “this morning” when I weighed (I woke up at like 3 PM, but okay), the scale said that I was 90.6 lbs. I did not, of course, believe it. It was jumping around more so than a scale really should, though all within the 90 lbs slot (90.4, 90.6, 90.9), so I picked the number that it showed the most near the end. But, really, I’m starting to think the battery is truly gone. I have a new battery that I will put into it before I go to bed shortly, and I’ll do my weight again tomorrow... it shouldn’t have increased any, at least, so hopefully I’ll know it with 100% certainty.

If that WAS actually the right weight, though... it would qualify as my lowest weight ever. Until now, I had never gotten below 90.9. (I discounted that as an actual possibility because I only saw that number 1 time out of at least 5 or 6.) I think I’m supposed to feel pride, or triumph, or something, but I really just feel mostly blank. A nod to myself — “Good, you didn’t gain in the hospital, actually you lost, how awesome is that?” — and then back to blank. Because there is always, always the knowledge that you still have more left to lose. That you have to keep losing and losing until either you die or someone stops you, because you tried as hard as you could, but you simply could not stop yourself.

I’m on a downhill train with no brakes, waiting to reach the end of the railway... I have no concept of where that path might go, and the window blinds do not open, and it’s entirely possible that the train may suddenly turn too sharply and if it did I would crash and roll off into Neverland, irretrievable, an exploded carcass amid a melting ton of coal and steel

I weighed 95 a couple days ago.

Everything sucks fucking ass, and I really hate my life. I slept all through Thursday (deliberately; took another dose of sleep meds when I woke up) and am grumpy about being awake even now. I would love to be able to constantly sleep through everything but I just can't. Maybe every other day or every few days, but not all the time. So for now I'm suffering it out. And that sounds so stupid, because I don't really have many demands on me and I've got "fun" things so why should I be "suffering" just from being awake? But I'm so fucking apathetic that almost none of these things is actually fun anymore, and I'm tired and cranky and just basically feel like dung, and I DO NOT WANT TO BE AWAKE.

Fuck everything.

96.1. BMI: 16.6. Ho hum blah blah. Just another day, another weight, another small percentage by which I'm shrinking. I wish the weight loss made a difference. It doesn't.

96.5 lbs. BMI: 16.7. It's truly odd, and interesting, how little I actually care. I'm glad to be losing weight again, yes, but the actual number doesn't matter. I just have to lose and lose and lose. It's already pretty low, and I already think my body is too skinny, but I have to keep losing. It doesn't matter about anything else in life -- it can go on, or it can not, but I HAVE to lose weight, whether sooner or later. And I absolutely cannot do anything that I know would cause me to gain weight, and minimize weight-maintenance behaviors to a bare minimum. That's just it. That's all my life really is right now, at its essence.

I'm helping with a political campaign, and I have a sponsor child, and getting portraits done today at 5 as part of me and my sister's gift to our parents for their 30th anniversary... but absolutely NONE of that would matter if I wasn't losing weight. For that matter, if it all disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't be so much a disappointment as, "Oh, I have to find some other way to distract myself now", despite how much enjoyment or satisfaction I may get out of these other pursuits. The weight loss is actually the only thing that truly matters, aside from maybe the political campaign. And that is truly, pathetically SAD.

Binged. Purged. I feel GOOD right now. Actually good, unlike I feel most of the day. More relaxed, and more... high, I suppose. Maybe my blood sugar's going down, idek. But I feel so much better and so much more free. I finally realized afresh that binging and purging will let me eat EVERYTHING I've wanted without absorbing much, if any, of the calories.

This is probably dangerous. Since I'm already restricting, any b/ping will be on top of that. But I think this is the point at which I'm going to become a b/p "anorexic" instead of just restricting as I've been doing... I'm getting too hungry, and the cravings for food are too insatiable. I want more than I've been eating, and I can't get it unless I b/p. So there's a really good chance that this is exactly what I will be doing.

PS: My weight is 97.6. BMI 16.9. Whoop de fucking dee.

Yesterday my weight was 98 lbs. BMI: 17. Solidly underweight. And yet I don't care, because I'm nowhere near where I need to be, and this body is still fat fat fat, and this is literally embedded into my brain now instead of being any kind of "other" voice or force... yet it still doesn't feel like me, precisely.

It's very very hard to describe how I see or interpret this thing in my head. There's nothing I can do to verbally challenge it, because it's not a voice. There's nothing I can do to attack it of itself, because it's not really a separate thing. It's IN me. It's a strange no-real-color nothingness that yet is somehow inside me, and it has complete control over my head. The closest it comes to any other disorder is OCD. I do not have a choice: I HAVE to do what I'm doing. Anything else is completely and absolutely unacceptable, and hardly crosses my mind as a serious possibility anyway. It's not a possibility because it's just not.

I can't describe it any better than that. I wish I could. I do feel that some brain switch has flipped now, or more likely many switches, and suddenly shifted my head into some different and strange kind of mode that I've never experienced before. I don't know how to feel about that... but it doesn't even matter how I feel about it, because it happened and now it's there. And that's it.

I'm going to the walk-in clinic today because I'm feeling a significant, hard thing where my transverse colon would be located in my body. I haven't taken a natural poo in probably at least a week and a half, maybe more... and when I did take a dose of Ex-Lax (a safe dose, for once in my life), all that came out was what was in the descending colon. Which is fine, and I'm glad it came out, but I'm worried about that big hard-feeling thing above it. I'm worried that maybe I have some sort of impaction and it's not GOING to move. So walk-in clinic it is for me... and I hope to God they don't test my sugars or something, because I doubt my sugars will be great, unless I manage to get a coffee in before. Hopefully if they did check my vitals they'd at least be acceptably normal.

These are the sorts of things I worry about lately. Hoping to God to stay out of the hospital as long as possible. Realizing that I won't be out forever because I'm bad at hydrating, I don't get nearly enough electrolytes, and now all these bowel issues on top of it. Realizing that if my weight keeps dropping and dropping, eventually I won't have a choice anymore, and I'll be certified in. It's all really fucking scary and I'm just trying to stay out of the damn hospital as much as is humanly possible. I mean, who actually likes the hospital? Not most people, anyway. And I'm sick of ERs and drips and paramedics and sugar boluses and being attached to heart monitors and being stitched up and all the rest of this fucking nonsense. I WANT OUT. But it's only a matter of time before I end up back in. And that is very, VERY disconcerting, to say the least.

Weight today: 98.9. BMI: 17.1. I'm starting to get down there, but I have a ways to go before I'm even close to what I want. And after that, I'm not sure I could even stop, anyway. The vice grip on my brain is too tight and this is literally all-controlling of my food decisions. I don't even feel like someone else is in there... just that something was put in my head, like some chemicals changed around or something. It's not ME, but it's not some separate "voice" whispering either. It's not "anorexia" and then "me". It's me, and a vice grip. I can't explain it any other way.

Today I was 101.9. BMI: 17.6. At least I’m decently into the underweight category. I don’t qualify for anorexia by the ICD, but it’s quite possible that I qualify as anorexia under the DSM-V at this point... either that or atypical anorexia. I barely purge; I just take energy pills to keep myself from feeling as hungry. I don’t want to purge and I certainly DON’T want to binge. It’s very strange to me that I’m able to just... not eat, but apparently I am. I’m pretty sure that’s only because of the pills, though. But I'll use whatever method is necessary to prevent me needing to b/p constantly.

Saw pdoc today... she gave me some ideas for keeping electrolytes and fluids a bit better that aren’t too many cals, so I’m grateful for that. I don’t want to end up in the fucking hospital again. I hate the hospital. (But, really, what rational being likes the hospital?) I hate it especially when it comes to medical shit due to ED, though. There’s always the chance that this will be THE time that you don’t actually stabilize enough and they send you to the psych ward (voluntarily or not)... and if that happened, I’d be put on a protocol for the ED and either have to eat, or have a tube forced on me. I’m terribly, terribly afraid of that. This is why I want to avoid the hospital. I’m terrified it will happen someday when I’m unawares, and I’ll just have a complete fucking meltdown and, whoops, there goes the last strand of my sanity. That is not what I would consider a good outcome. (Understatement.)

I don’t want to die doing this... I want to lose weight. I want to lose every pound that I can lose. And I don’t really have a choice anyway — my brain is so far gone that even if I wanted to fight the weight loss and the restrictive mind, I wouldn’t be able to. If I landed on a ward right now for ED they’d have to force feed me, and I’m sure I’d be extraordinarily upset the whole time. I simply cannot handle the calories right now, let alone taking them into my body VOLUNTARILY. The thought is disgusting and repulsive to me, because I feel disgusting and repulsive because I’m still nowhere near my lw, let alone where I want to go. Having any sort of complications at this stage to me would be absolutely and utterly ridiculous because I’m still too fat to have anorexia consequences. I know that logically this is stupid, but... ED brain is absolutely convinced. And ED brain is steering this ship at the moment.

My next challenge: to get through the next 4-6 weeks without my pdoc available at all. I have made plans with her: Going to see my M House counselor in the interim, getting bloodwork done in another week or two (to make sure electrolytes aren’t bottoming out, basically) and seeing a doctor for the results; and, well, that’s it, really, but the medical and psychological aspects will be covered, albeit not as well as I’d have liked. But she can’t help that she needs surgery and I can’t help that she’s going, so all I can do is try to cope the best I can, you know? It’s not exactly going to be the easiest thing in the world, but I’ll have to handle it because... I have to. I don’t have a choice.

Oh, yeah, and she’s also going to call my completely paranoid self after she has the surgery to tell me she had the surgery and she’s still alive. I’m always scared for people when they go into surgeries because there’s always the small chance the surgery will go wrong, no matter what surgery it is. The fact that she is actually willing to call me, and I know she’ll do so, makes me feel much better about it. Once I know it’s done and she’s still alive, it will be like, “Okay, there really isn’t much danger anymore, and she really will come back.” Which, apparently, I need to know rather desperately. Then again, everything I need feels desperate lately... *sigh*

103.8. How the FUCK did I gain to ONE OH THREE point FUCKING EIGHT????

Coffee and diet soda today. Nothing else. The creamer will be my calories. Fuck it all.

I hate ED... I hate my weight... I hate my life.

Written yesterday:


So tonight I had to go to the ER because my heart was racing a bazillion miles a minute and when I drank a bit of fluid, I almost threw it up... yeah. Had to have two bags of fluid as well as a REALLY FUCKING PAINFUL sugar bolus right into my IV, because my sugar was at 2.8 (not the American blood sugar scale, btw). This is, literally, the first time I’ve ever had to call 911 solely because of ED, although I’ve been dehydrated AND had low sugars before.

Tonight should have scared me more, I think... but it really doesn’t, because there’s not a thing in the world I can do to stop this if it’s going to happen. I mean, I can’t stop the behaviors on my own, so obviously whatever consequences come from those aren’t going to be just automatically stopped, either. I’ve been poked, prodded, and warned, but ED is just in the driver’s seat and I am the passenger, and when it’s not that way I can’t deal with anything. So... whatever’s going to happen will happen, I guess.


**********


Today, well, I still feel stable. Medically, you know. I kind of overate a bit yesterday (to me) because I guess I had gotten sort of scared by the blood-sugar-me-unable-to-get-off-kitchen-floor thing. But today... I am planning to eat what I normally eat (which I was told by the medical people is most definitely not enough -- as if I didn't already know that). And I'm planning to take my energy pills, although I was told point-blank by medical that I shouldn't take them anymore.

What fucking difference does it really make? If I get dehydrated again I can go back to the ER. They can't do sh!t to me in there anyway unless something else that doesn't have a quick fix is wrong. Hydration, sugars, they can fix that in an ER stay. I'm not so worried about it. I can't have the wolf in my stomach all day, and the energy pills are the only things that tranquilize it (mostly), so I will take them. I don't see another way, unless it was to give up ED, but I just CAN'T do that right now. I am incapable of doing it on my own. ED is too loud and too huge in my head to not listen to it. I can't fight it the way people want me to. I just can't. So there's no point in even trying.

102.2 lbs. BMI: 17.7. I was dehydrated this morning -- but that's usually the case in the mornings. Yesterday I was "too" hydrated which is why I didn't lose anything at weigh-in yesterday. But today I figured I would... and once I recalibrated my stupid-ass scale, I had about a pound gone. Almost a pound. Whatever. I'm down another BMI point so I'm okay enough with it.

I'm at the point now where what I want to do is just... go on like 100-200 cals a day. So my coffee and MAYBE one other thing. My true preference would be to just have the coffee and nothing else (the creamer comes to at least 70-80 cals for my coffee), but I'm not sure I can handle that yet at nights... so maybe just the coffee for the day, and then something small, like a Greek yogurt, before bed. That would work out okay, I think. I think I think I think.

You can't tell the eating disorder has gotten bad at ALL. Noooooooo. Never.

Written yesterday


103 lbs. BMI: 17.8. Finally in the 17s. Of course, if I'm not careful, it'll go right back up. But being careful doesn't seem to be so much of a challenge these days — that is, if I can accept feeling tired and fairly miserable all the time, and waking up with cramps in my legs. Which I can. I can handle that just fine. My bones don’t hurt on the bed or when pressed together yet, so that’s something. I’m not sleeping most of the day… although, to be honest, I wish I could.

I also got bloodwork done a week and a half ago, and when I and my psychiatrist looked at it during my appointment yesterday, everything was normal, including my ferretin (which was, a few months ago, at 5, and is now 30 something — normal is 11+). So I’m like, "Dude, my body's totally fucking fine! It doesn’t matter if I feel tired or sick because it doesn’t mean I’m anemic!" And I know my head will totally run with that.

However, my pdoc did actually do my vitals (sitting and standing). She said something about how she works with cancer patients, etc (she’s an inpatient psychiatrist for basically whoever needs to see a psychiatrist, regardless of unit), and so she had some things that other psychiatrists didn't. I thought it was good that she did that, but also strange. Mostly because I've NEVER had a psychiatrist who even had a stethoscope in their office, never mind a blood pressure cuff and a pump! I have a feeling she may check my vitals either every time I see her or every other week... especially because my BP was low-normal (I think she said 110/80) and my heartbeat sitting was 104. It went down to high 90s when I stood, though, and it's usually the opposite way around when you stand, and my orthostatic BP wasn’t much different either. So I'm 'okay' for now but not really okay. If that makes sense.

I looked toward the back of the clinic where I’d never been before as I was walking out from my appointment (which was therapy and not just vitals, etc) and noted that there was a scale, saying, "Oh, there IS a scale. I always figured there was one here somewhere; I just didn’t know where." She kind of smiled and said "I’m not weighing you". I said "I know"... but she then said "There may come a point at which I do weigh you, though." There was nothing I could say to that because I knew exactly why such a time might come, and I couldn't argue about it because that would be pointless. It IS kind of reassuring to know I probably won't die if she's keeping an eye on me. Note the word probably.

I can't lie, though… if/when I do start to get weighed, it's going to scare me shitless. I know I will be tempted to waterload and/or put weights under clothes, etc. Because I know that if I go under a certain BMI I can be certified into hospital, and I do NOT want that to happen. I mean, maybe if the time came I would feel differently, but at the moment, being certified and forced to gain weight is one of the worst things I could possibly imagine. That fear tends to increase as I lose weight, not decrease, so... *sigh*

Anyway, I'm rambling and this is stupid, so I'll end it. All I know is that a) I’m not medically unstable, b) My appointment frequency is going to be increased when my pdoc can possibly do it, and c) I don’t think I'm going to be able to stop this without some sort of intervention. The ED is already making me more depressed and stuff, on top of the physical aches and pains, so honestly I think it's just a matter of time before I totally lose my shit and end up suicidal anyway... but then again, maybe not. I am trying my absolute BEST not to let that happen, because that's how I ended up on protocol last time. I DO NOT WANT TO BE ON PROTOCOL AGAIN. Chances are pretty good I'd refuse it, anyway, and either end up dead or on a tube... neither of which would be fun... aaaaaagh. Why do I torture myself thinking about shit that's never happened to me and would take a long time to happen even now?

Apparently I stop and start this shit on a fucking dime.

106.2. Can't take anymore weight gain. Back to restriction. I just hope I have the fucking willpower this time. Of course, I will probably make myself do it whether or not I want to, or "have the willpower", so (hopefully) that part is totally irrelevant.

I CANNOT GET FUCKING FAT AGAIN. I'VE SPENT TOO MUCH TIME FAT. THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE.

Well, I got down to about 104. Then I started binging at nights. Then, on the third day (two nights of binging), I think my head... I dunno, started to clear a little?

I realized: I don't want ED. And I do I want to eat.

And those sound like powerful thoughts, and they are, in a way. I'm letting myself eat. In meals and snacks, and trying to have relatively healthy stuff if I can. On the other hand, ED is like, "Fine, okay, you can eat now, and maybe for a little while longer, but then you might have to stop again."

Fact of the matter is, I don't want to be as big as I was before. I don't want to get past 110 ever again. In fact I'd prefer to maintain somewhere around this weight, or at least, if I have to do a gain/lose cycle, to start the lose cycle before 110 or just as I hit 110, and then to lose to at least low 100s, and cycle back if necessary. If I HAVE to binge, if I HAVE to fucking cycle around, I want to plan it, and have more control over it.

So it's like I'm throwing the wants-to-eat part a bone... but not too big a bone. Not a bone too unmanageable for the ED to deal with. I feel like in order to stay at all stable I have to do this.

I have my next appointment with my psychiatrist on August 1st. I was supposed to have been seeing her every two weeks, but then I got into a phase where I wanted zero to do with "therapizing", as I call it, and then when I finally did make an appointment I missed it because I thought it was on Thursday when it was on Tuesday. I know this one is actually on a Thursday, and the date is burned into my brain, so I won't miss this one, at least. But I also know I don't have to be therapized if I don't want to, and I know how to not let her in if I don't want her there. So, I guess, I've figured out how to control that too.

I mean, I want to be honest with her. I do. But part of the honesty would be that, if I didn't want to discuss something, I would tell her "I don't want to talk about that". Or talk about the not wanting therapy anything, if I felt that way. Honesty, for me, is in the moment. And if I tell her I don't want to talk about something, she knows there's more to it, but it's also TRUE that I don't want to talk about it. You know? I don't feel like I'm lying in saying that. It's more of a lie to force the words out when I'm not okay with it. That's how it feels, anyway.

I guess what happens happens. In the meantime, I have almost a week to kill. The heat (really the humidex) is insane, and threatens to stifle me at every turn, and I'm so BORED and I can't find anything to occupy my time in such a way that I feel fulfilled. I'm slightly depressed, still, but I'm also completely restless. I want everything to CHANGE, NOW, but I haven't got the means to do that unless I do something ridiculously self-destructive, and I don't want to do that. In the end, it won't fill up the hole inside me -- it will just be another distraction.

I don't want more goddamned distractions. I want answers, and I want the truth, and I want all this stupid disorder shit OUT OF ME.


PS: *resiprog* isn't going to happen. I got through part 1 of the application process and realized that this is a VERY Protestant organization (non-denominational apparently means non-denomination Protestant), and even just listening to the two lectures I heard in one day was completely overwhelming. There's no way I could go there and listen to two lectures a day, plus daily prayer and/or Bible study, plus groups, plus meals, plus chores... yeah, you can see why that would probably make me go UTTERLY INSANE. And I am NOT going to be indoctrinated into a religion that isn't Catholicism. So sorry, but no.