Last week I got my diagnosis, sort of. I am either Bulimic or have OSFED. shrug. To be honest, I don’t really care what my diagnosis is. The doc said something about a sub-type restrictive, I wasn’t paying too much attention though.
He asked at the end of our appointment if I had any questions and I said no, I always say no when asked that by anyone, and inevitably I come up with a question when it is too late to ask. sigh.
I don’t understand how I can be labelled bulimic when I don’t throw up. I thought a core component of bulimia was throwing up…isn’t it?
I guess because I use laxatives and diet pills and exercise to counter act the food I binge eat those are being counted the same as throwing up…that is my best guess anyways. I’ve always wished I could throw up whenever I wanted, it seems a much more effective way to get rid of the food I binge on but I can never seem to manage it. Actually, that is a lie, I have very rarely managed it, but I never throw up a large quantity so I’m definitely not getting everything out, which makes it seem not worth the trouble. Plus, I like my teeth and don’t want them to rot out of my jaw due to all that bile eating away at them.
So here I am, a person who restricts daily, except for when she goes bat shit crazy and binges, and when she binges she then takes loads of pills to try to rush the food through her body, and who increases her exercise to try to mitigate the damage all those calories are doing to my body.
I don’t feel better having a diagnosis…not sure if I was supposed to feel anything by having it. I’ve read how some people become so attached to their diagnosis, it becomes part of their identity, I don’t seem to be having that problem here.
Guess that just goes to show how we are all different, shrug.
Today was a food gong show and I am so not happy with myself. 😦 I was out of town (only an hour away) and was about to start the drive back but had to get gas, I was super hungry, as in that level of hunger that can’t be ignored. I wanted to ignore it because I was actually driving back in to town to attend a dinner with my team so I knew I’d be eating within an hour and a half or so, but I caved and bought some almond M&M’s.
Why do I do these things?!
I started eating them sooooo quickly while driving, it was insane.
I didn’t eat the entire bag, I managed to get a hold of myself and stop, but I’m not sure how many are left in the bag because while driving I sorta put the bag off to the side and tried to pretend it wasn’t there, then hid the bag in my glove box when I got to the restaurant, and left it there when I got home. Maybe I only ate half the bag, maybe three-quarters, maybe all but two of them, I just don’t know.
So there I was, feeling nauseous from the influx of chocolate and almonds and I was going to dinner. Ugh. We went to a Congee restaurant and I had no choice over what was ordered, the menu was pre-picked by our coach, and when I got there I was late so everyone kept pushing food at me so I could “catch up”. In situations like this I lean heavily on picking vegetables and shrimp, I don’t touch the rice, I usually don’t touch the noodles but tonight I did, and I took some of the beef and some of the chicken. It is all served “family style” so think Asian restaurant where all the food comes on platters that are placed on a large turning platform that is in the middle of the table and you take little bits of whatever. So when I say I took “some of the beef and some of the chicken” I literally mean two bites of chicken and about 4 bites of beef.
The good side to when we go to this restaurant is because it is expected you take a little bit at a time and put it on a smaller plate you never are expected to have a full looking plate and it is super hard for people to keep track of what you ate. So if I am strategic and time things right I can get away with only eating 3 or 4 bites of food the entire dinner.
Tonight I wasn’t strategic enough and ended up with more, and when I think about how I have no idea how anything was cooked or what was in any of the sauces or marinades I shudder. I imagine I ate over 1000 calories in that meal alone and that horrifies me.
It gets worse though.
We then went for coffee or tea and donuts after the dinner. It would have been worse and been ice cream but people wanted somewhere closer so to the coffee shop we went. I ordered a tea (that part is fine), and a Tim Bit (that is a donut hole). I thought it would make me look like I was blending in while everyone else was eating their cookies or donuts but it actually made me stand out because everyone thought it was so strange I ordered one Tim Bit and they kept commenting on it and teasing me about it. It didn’t actually bother me too much because that has been my go to for years, a single Tim Bit, you get the flavour of the donut with less of the guilt or calories.
When I got home it all came crashing down on me though. The M&M’s, the dinner, the Tim Bit. How can I fix this?? I couldn’t go running because (1) I’ve got this weird, super high level pain in both my hips that isn’t getting any better and is preventing me from running, and (2) it was really late, and dark, and chilly, and not safe to go out. Instead I pulled up workouts on YouTube and did some of those. I usually scoff at home workouts but this one got me sweating and moving a lot and it made my stomach feel better, like it moved the food along a bit faster. Thank goodness!
So now it is almost 2:30am, I am tired and going to bed soon, my stomach is growling which confuses me since I ate a lot today, and my hips ache and make me feel like an old person.
Not my finest day.
I guess though, since my one and only thought after dinner was how to get rid of that food, and throwing up is not a real option for me (though I keep trying), and my workout was specifically chosen to help mitigate the damage eating did, that counts as the purging part of the bulimia diagnosis?
I dunno…and like I said earlier, I’m not so certain I care. I’m not married to the diagnosis, or even to the idea of having a diagnosis. I wonder if there is a real point for me to have it, besides doctors being able to label me I mean.
Just one more thing to ponder I suppose.
My Dark Side 