Two Days So Far

Two days in a row I have binged and then taken various pills to try to mitigate the damage. sigh.

I wish I could throw-up, I’ve tried so many times to purge that way but I can almost never seem to manage it. So instead I over exercise, and take pills that hurt my stomach but are supposed to rush the food outta me, and I take laxatives just in case the other pills don’t help, and then I restrict way more than normal for however long after that I can manage.

And oh yeah, during all this I hate myself, and isolate myself, and can’t focus on anything because I am so overwhelmed by the thoughts in my head.

I went for a long walk tonight after my first binge of the day. Partly to try to burn some calories, partly because I like to walk as it lets me think and not think all at once, partly because I enjoy listening to music while walking, and partly because it was finally dark out so I could go outside – after a binge I prefer to exercise, or do anything really, in the dark because while I am horrible to look at on a normal day, after a binge I feel especially hideous and can’t stand the thought of people looking at me. I’m judging myself enough thanks very much, I don’t need others doing it also.

I only walked 8km (5 miles). I should have walked for longer but all of a sudden, while walking, I got super tired, and my legs were feeling heavy, and I realized that I didn’t think I could finish the distance I had planned, so I cut the walk short. Lame I know. I should have pushed myself to go farther, but I caved.

Normally after a walk I don’t have any muscle pain or aches, things you get after a real workout, cause it is just a walk, but since I got back my legs ache. As if they got a real workout, but again, it was just a walk, so I don’t know what’s going on with them. My lower back is kinda sore also, but I’ve put some heat on it and I’m assuming by tomorrow it’ll be fine. Legs too, I’m assuming by tomorrow they will be fine also.

I must be getting out of shape to have such a simple thing as walking noticeably affect how my body feels. I’ve been taking part in a fitness challenge, in the last 7 days I have had 6 workouts. I guess I should up that since my body seems to be getting weaker and I’m trying to make it stronger. Well, thinner and stronger, which I am aware are goals that are at odds with each other.

It used to be something I spoke with my counsellor about but since I don’t have him anymore I guess it is just something I will speak to myself about. Or not think about at all. Ah yes, one more unsolved issue to have floating around my brain, awesome.

It has now been 2 weeks without him. I’ve stopped talking about him to anybody that knew about him because I don’t want to seem like some obsessed crazy person. I don’t know how to explain what I feel in regards to him. It isn’t like a crush, or when you break up with a boyfriend, or even when a friendship ends, but it is similar enough to some of the emotions that come up in those situations that I feel a bit like I do when I’ve been dealing with the end of a relationship.

And I’m kinda mad at him that he gave me hope. In his own odd way. When I said I was upset cause I’d never see him again an stuff he gave me this reassuring, compassionate, expression, and said I don’t know that, and I’ll have him around helping me for a while, and stuff like that. As if he is going to magically reappear in my world somehow. But he isn’t. And I have to acknowledge and deal with that. He isn’t going to reappear at my program and be my one-on-one counsellor again. He isn’t going to pop up somewhere else in my world and become a friend. He’s just a person that I spoke with for a short time that I’ll never see again. And that is messing with me. Usually people you tell private, important stuff to, are people you will see again, people you can contact, people you know. But now, I’ll never see him again, he’s probably already forgotten I exist, I’m spiraling from losing him as part of my support team, and I’m never gonna know what happens to him. Does he get a great job? Does he do amazing things? Does he have a happy life? I dunno. And I never will know, because it isn’t my place to know that about him, but I had this false sense of friendship because of our talks together and I feel a loss that I will never know those things about him.

I sometimes make up stupid scenarios in my head about running in to him. At one of my sports team’s competitions, or just when I’m out doing something. He told me in our last session that if he ever sees me, due to ethical stuff, the most he is allowed to do is nod, he can’t come say hi, I would have to initiate contact. And we can never be friends, unless, maybe I am better from what he used to counsel me about, and he sorta stretched the ethical rules. So even if I did run in to him, and say hi, it would never go beyond that superficial quick convo before we both went on our way.

I don’t want you to think I’m wanting to date him or something, I don’t, that isn’t what this is about. It’s just, I think he is someone who would be cool to have as a friend, not for the counselling stuff, but because he’s funny, and in to fitness, and has a relateable way about him. And I think that if somehow we had met in real life, not in a counselling session, maybe we could have been friends. I mean sure, I know we never would have met, our lives don’t cross paths anywhere and even if they did he’d never glance my way, but it is just this feeling I have.

It’s stupid. I know it is stupid. But it is how I feel.

I think all these feelings floating in me, about this, are manifesting in binges, and restricting, and self-harming, and other not healthy coping skills. I also have sunk in to a “don’t care” mentality and skipped meal support today. I also would have skipped drop-in but I got convinced to go by a friend. I feel like, without him there helping me, I can’t do this on my own, so why try. Why put in the effort when all I’m going to do is fail? Seems like a waste of time to me.

I miss him. I miss our sessions together. But I’m not supposed to miss him, so this is just one more thing I am alone in dealing with. And the person who would normally help me deal is him, but obviously he can’t help with this, and I don’t know how to deal with this, so I’m engaging in damaging behaviours and I don’t really care about the hurt I am doing to my body because really, what does it matter?

I May Not Always Be Right

Yeah so um, maybe I was lying the other night when I wrote things are fine. I didn’t mean to lie, I felt that at the time, but perhaps, possibly, just maaaaaybe that was me blocking that I wasn’t fine and doing my whole hiding behind a mask thing.

The only reason I say that is because I am sitting here, with a distended abdominal area, feeling super sick, after having a binge so large I am amazed my stomach didn’t literally explode. I haven’t had a binge this big in ages. It lasted hours. I couldn’t stop. The best I could do to make it not as bad as it could have been was at the last minute when driving home I cut across traffic so I could turn in to my neighbourhood instead of continuing on to the store where I had planned to buy allllllll the food.

Not like that stopped the binge though, I do have food in my place after all. I’m thinking I should rethink that, but that is something to ponder on a day when I’m not bloated, and a billion pounds heavier, and sick feeling, thanks to eating hours worth of food.

I’m not completely sure why it happened.

I had work, then group, then my team practice, then I got home and ate so much I should be rolling places not walking.

I didn’t say much in group, I had something I sort of but not really wanted to talk about. I might have brought it up but being there made me so sad I just wanted to disappear, not engage in the convo. I’m really struggling with the loss of my one-on-one counsellor. Last week was my first week without our session, this was the first group where he wasn’t there. Tonight it felt like there was this big void where he should be, but isn’t. Even though he was replaced by someone I like, I wish she would leave again if the trade off was getting him back. I know that is stupid. She has important stuff to teach and share and all that, hell, she is my case worker so she sorta has to be there for me to progress through the program. Its just I want him back.

While I was sitting in group someone said something, I wish I could remember what, and it got me thinking I might share, so I started thinking of how I would start my talking and I realize my opening sentence would have no meaning to anyone except him. But he’s gone. So no one would get the significance of what I was saying, so I’d have to explain in more detail what was going on, and I wasn’t up for that. That realization made me feel so alone. No one there just gets me, and I didn’t really realize how much I liked having someone who understood me, until I had him for a short time and he left and I now feel the gap in my recovery support system of where he was.

It is like a chair. Has 4 legs. In theory they are all equally supporting the chair but maybe one is taking the brunt of the weight. Then that one leg is taken away and the chair falls because it doesn’t have enough support.

I’m the chair, he was that one leg.

I am in this place of not really giving a fuck about recovery. Am I happy I binged tonight? No, definitely not. Am I unhappy about it because it affects my recovery journey? Only in the sense that I don’t want to get fatter and would much rather be restricting. As long as this binge doesn’t turn in to an often thing and I can get back to restricting tomorrow, which shouldn’t be a problem, then all is good. At least by my standards.

Maybe not everyone is meant to recover. I mean, if losing one person from my recovery journey affects me so much, maybe it is better to just not take this journey and instead figure out a way to deal with my disorder in a functional way. Like how there are functioning pot heads, and functioning alcoholics. Maybe I can be like that, only with restricting.

It’s something to ponder…

Under Control

Ok today was better, making me feel like an idiot for posting last night when I was freaking out.

Sorry ’bout that.

Today I got my workout in while keeping my calories low and I’m feeling much better about things. More in control.

I’m about to go to bed, just thought I’d pop on here and say things are ok again so as to not leave the most recent post on my blog one of me spazzing lol

Too Much

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I think I’m having a panic attack. Except I don’t actually have panic attacks. Or maybe I do and I just don’t acknowledge them as such?

Ugh. Who cares what this is!!

Let’s go with, I am FREAKING OUT! And almost cried. And had a massive internal battle. And am still freaking out even though the damage is done. And I kinda still want to cry, or run away, or have someone say it will be ok, except there is nobody because I don’t have a freakin one-on-one counsellor anymore so I have no one to talk to. And I think I’m having a mental breakdown and oh my god someone get me out of my head.

Ok, lemme try to explain what is going on…

I started a fitness challenge yesterday, 44 workouts in 44 days. Nothing too crazy or extreme, just something to help me get back on track. I wasn’t initially going to add a food component to the challenge buuuuut I want results and results are 90% what happens in the kitchen and 10% what happens with your workouts so I can’t exactly ignore the food side of things completely, right?

I figured I’d track my calories, write the number on the day beside what my workout was, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. Easy peasy.

So not turning out to be easy.

I mean tracking is easy. But my response to the numbers hasn’t been easy to deal with. sigh.

Now, don’t get all judgy on me with this, but I don’t care to eat over 800 calories a day. 800 used to be my max, I preferred to be in the low 700’s. If I consistently ate in the 600’s or lower I’d have trouble functioning at work, but the low 700’s seemed to be a good spot for me.

While in this recovery program I am not supposed to track my calories *rolls eyes* For the most part I haven’t. I did have a day where I tracked because I didn’t know if I was still under eating or not since I didn’t know the numbers for how much I was eating but I knew I was eating more than I used to…wow, that is a convoluted sentence. When I tracked that day I was in the 700’s so I was ok with things.

Something I worked on with my one-on-one counsellor is pre and post workout food. According to him I have to fuel my body properly to get the results I want from my workouts, and to keep strong for my sport, and to heal quickly from my workouts so I can get back out there sooner. I don’t care for this logic but I trusted him so I started making sure I ate something about an hour to an hour and a half before working out and that I ate something after my workout.

By ate “something” I don’t mean just anything. It is always a carefully chosen, high protein, low carb, low fat, snack or meal.

Even though he is gone the idea has stuck in my head and I am still making something to eat post workout. I’m not quite as good with the pre workout but I’m trying…kinda…

After my workout tonight I came home and made a protein smoothie bowl, it is basically protein powder, a small banana, frozen mixed fruit, and a small amount of plain almond milk, all blended to a consistency that requires a spoon to eat it. It is kind of my go-to for a post workout meal.

My freakout is because I was sitting at a lovely 700 calories eaten prior to that smoothie bowl. Once I tracked that smoothie bowl I was at 1007 calories.

One thousand and seven calories.

ONE THOUSAND AND SEVEN CALORIES!!

1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!1007!

That number won’t stop flashing in my head.

Over a thousand calories. In one day. Oh. My. Fucking. God.

What have I done??

When I tracked the ingredients for the smoothie bowl I had the protein powder and the banana in the blender. I could have dumped them before blending anything. I saw that number before I had eaten the smoothie bowl, I could have done something to stop myself from eating enough calories to put me over 1000.

I could have stopped myself. I should have stopped myself. I am a failure for not stopping myself.

Whyyyyy didn’t I stop myself?

When I saw that number, as I stood at the counter with ingredients in my hand, I froze, just stared at the contents of the blender and wanted to cry. My breathing became more shallow, and faster, I wanted to throw the entire thing against a wall, get rid of it, not see it anymore. I wanted to go back to the gym for an additional workout. I wanted to scream, cry, hide, fight. I wanted to do a lot of things. All I actually did was stand there, shaking, upset, lost, not sure what to do, not sure what the right decision was, and so I chose to trust in what my counsellor had said. Trust that needing a post workout snack is more important than keeping myself in the 700’s. Trust that eating that smoothie bowl, and as a result eating 1007 calories for the day, wasn’t throwing away all the work I did in the gym. Wasn’t taking away from the results I want to get. Wasn’t going to make me wake up fatter tomorrow.

I don’t believe any of it. I think he will be wrong, and I will get fatter, and I won’t get the results I want in the gym, and I made the wrong choice, and I am stupid for making and eating the smoothie bowl, and I am failing, and making bad choices, and I deserve all the bad things that will happen to me because obviously I have no self control and don’t deserve anything good. My will power is gone, obviously. My self control non existent. My worthiness never existed.

Why did I let myself eat so much today? What was I thinking? I feel so glutenous. I never once thought I’d eat over a thousand calories in a day unless it was due to a binge. How could I let myself eat so much when it wasn’t a binge? What if this happens again? What if this is the beginning of me losing total control and sliding in to a land of over eating every day? What if this is the first day of the journey to being super fat? I can’t. I can’t let that happen. This can not happen again.

CAN NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!

I think I’m going to cry, and I am NOT a crier. But I’m so alone. I don’t have anyone to talk to in person about this who will help me figure out what I am doing, or why this happened, or what to do in the future. The only thing I know to do is go backwards. Revert back to how I was. I know I can do that. I don’t know if that is the answer though. But if that isn’t the answer than what is? I don’t know how to handle having eaten so much in one day. It isn’t like having to handle having eaten a crap ton of food in a binge and dealing with the physical and mental and emotional pain of that. There is no pain, physically at least. I’m not having side effects from what I ate. I just ate too much.

I don’t know how to mentally and emotionally cope with having eaten 1007 calories in a day. I’m so ashamed I ate that much. I feel like I am going to be judged for having eaten so much. I’m going to go hide now.

 

Stupid Decisions

Today I am exhausted. I didn’t sleep well, I’m stressing about a bunch of things, and there is that whole little thing of not eating enough. Combined, those three things, plus a bunch of other things I’m probably not even aware of, have left me exhausted.

Unfortunately for me Mondays are a busy day for me. I work 7am-2pm, then speed to my group that runs from 3pm-5pm, then have an hour break before my 6pm group that ends at 7pm then I speed to practice where I am an hour late and coach makes sure I am aware what an inconvenience it is that I show up late on Mondays.

Yeah, Mondays kinda suck.

They suck more when I am tired.

I’ve been working on limiting my workouts to a more normal number, which isn’t easy cause coach is pushing us to workout even more, and harder. And I get that, she wants us in shape, but holy fuck from practices and selected by her workouts alone that is 7 workouts a week and that isn’t including the workouts we are responsible for on our own. In total she’d have me working out 12 times a week.

I get tired just thinking about it.

Part of me wants to rise to the challenge, push myself to do it, show myself, and her, and everyone, that I am strong enough, dedicated enough, capable enough, to do this.

Part of me knows I’ll burn out.

So today I didn’t want to go to practice. It was pouring rain, cold, windy, I was tired, hadn’t really eaten all that much for the last couple weeks or so, I was already struggling to function, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to survive at practice.

I did a thing I rarely do, I texted I wasn’t coming to practice.

I hate myself for doing it even while acknowledging I would not have survived practice. Well, ok, that is being dramatic, I would have survived but I wouldn’t have performed well, and it would have taken so much out of me I wouldn’t have been able to function afterwards. Which might have been ok except I have an early morning work meeting tomorrow and a photo shoot this coming Thursday that I can’t be sick or wiped for. Photoshop can only do so much ya know?

The very rare times I don’t go to practice I also restrict my eating, obviously. I mean, if I’m not going to work out then I can’t eat anything.

I didn’t do that.

I picked up something to eat on the way home from group because I knew I didn’t have the energy to cook anything and I was so cold and so desperately wanted something warm.

When I got home I ate. I ate an amount of food that to me is so large I don’t know how my stomach fit it all, but to a normal person was a normal amount. And what was weird was even after I was done, and I didn’t feel hungry anymore, if anything I felt overly stuffed and in pain and sickly, I wanted to keep eating. Not from hunger. Not even from emotional distress (I don’t think), but because it is habit. If I eat the amount that I ate then I must be about to binge because I never eat that much in one sitting, so it is like my body was prepped and wondering why I wasn’t still stuffing my face. Also, I was still cold, and I think I partially wanted to keep eating because of being cold. Which doesn’t actually make sense, but it is how I felt at the time so I’m going with it.

I didn’t eat anything else. I did have over the course of the rest of the evening three cups of tea, which did nothing to help the sickly gross feeling in my stomach.

I didn’t take any of my supplements, or diet pills, or laxatives, and that is bothering me. The least I should have done was taken pills to get this food out of me faster, but they all make me bloat, sometimes for days, and like I already said, I have a photo shoot on Thursday and I can’t do that bloated.

So I’m sitting here, hours after I ate all that food, laundry finally done, yawning, I should be headed to the shower and then bed, but all I can do is focus on how my stomach feels. I am scared to shower because I will see how distended my stomach is from having food in it. I am also so tired that I am too tired to get ready for bed. Does that happen to anyone else or just me? I have been known to have a nap on my living room chair in order to get enough energy together to get up and go to bed. Somehow I feel that isn’t quite normal…

I’m mad at myself for skipping practice. I’m mad at myself for eating when I didn’t go to practice. I’m mad at myself for not taking any pills after eating to mitigate the damage from eating. And above all that anger is the super focused power of my brain constantly reminding me of how my stomach feels.

Seriously, how do non eating disordered people eat like this? It’s disgusting.

What’s really fucked up is if I told this to my group, or my one on one counsellor, or any of the people at recovery, they’d probably say not going to practice and eating dinner are signs of recovery or some stupid thing. But all those actions accomplished for me was to make me feel weak and lacking in willpower.

I feel like recovery should have a tag line:

Recovery, where every decision you make will feel wrong and you’ll wonder if you’ll ever not feel like a weak idiot!

I Can’t Even…

Every Friday, without fail, I go to the gym. I don’t think it is an ED thing so much as it is a time slot that fits well with my schedule and it became a habit to go then. That and I enjoy it.

With my one-on-one counselling we decided to change my workout plan a bit because after some delving in to shit in my head we discovered that while my weight workouts are enjoyable and don’t seem to feed my ED the cardio part of my workout does feed my ED. So as a challenge I shortened my cardio.

It sucked. I hated it. I felt like I was cheating on my workout. But I did it. I didn’t die or get instantly fatter and well, maybe it was a thing I could do again.

Thing is, the past 2 Fridays I go to the gym, I work out, then the next day or two I am sick. I mean, I am sick already, I’ve been battling a bug (or possibly two) for a couple weeks now and it seems that every time I work out after work it flattens me for a couple days. I work weekends and can’t afford to keep missing work because I am kicking my immune system in it’s ass with my workouts. I was toying with not working out tonight after work, in an attempt to be self-caring and all that crap, ya know, baby the body in the hopes it finally gets healthy again…well, as healthy as it can get considering how I eat I suppose. 😉

I was leaning on the side of still working out, because I didn’t want to miss my Friday evening workout – the gym is nice and quiet, it’s the best workout of the week!

And then shit went down.

There is a swinging door at work with the tiniest window and massive blind spots on either side. I was just about to push the door open, so my left foot was up mid-step, when another staff member pushed the door from the other side, really really hard. It smashed in to my foot, pushed my toes back really far, and as a bonus spilled the just made cup of tea I was holding so I burned my forearm.

Just. Fucking. Great.

Do you know how much paperwork is involved when a staff member gets injured? I do because I’m usually the person handing it over to the other staff members when they get hurt and threatening them with me in their face at every moment of their next shift if they don’t fill it in asap and get it back to me.

I’m not worried about the burn, I sometimes self-harm (real winner of mental health over here!) and my chosen method is burning, so I know how to handle that just fine.

My foot though is another story. The more I walked on it at work the more it hurt. Even when I sat and rested it, it hurt. By the time I got home my limp was pretty impressive. I had a shower, propped my foot up, and have been babying it all night. It still hurts though, which sucks balls.

The bigger problem for me though is…I didn’t go to the gym.

Now, ok, part of me, a teeny tiny I think rational part of me, is saying it is fine I didn’t go. In fact it is probably good I didn’t go because I would have definitely made the foot worse.

The larger part of me is saying I am a failure for not going. If I was really dedicated, if I really wanted to get to my goal, if I really cared about my fitness levels, if I really wasn’t a loser, or lazy, or pathetic, I would have pushed through and gone to the gym. Now I might as well give up. I will be a lame ass next week and find a reason to not go then too I bet, because that is what I am, a lazy, disgusting, fat, weak, loser who was just waiting for an excuse to not work out that they can then use for weeks and weeks until it was like they never went to the gym. This is the beginning of the end. May as well give up now.

I couldn’t get my brain to shut up. It was circling with these thoughts, I couldn’t make them go away, I couldn’t fight them, all I did was believe in them. Whole heartedly, 100%, believe them.

So I ate.

I ate my feelings away. I squashed them down under ice cream and cookies. I ate and I ate and I ate and for a little while my brain was quiet. All the insults, all the stressing, all the fear, it all went away. Then after a brief, too brief, quiet moment in my head, it was all replaced by guilt over what I ate, shame over letting myself go, horror at how much I ate, disgust at how much of a pig I am, hatred over my actions, realization that I am not dedicated, I am not strong, I am not a fit or on the way to being a fit person.

I am nothing.

I am a slob of a person who literally ate their feelings in to submission, only to be swamped by new, worse, feelings. Feelings that I earned, that I deserved, because our actions show what we truly want. Our words can say anything, our actions are what we should pay attention to. And my actions showed who I really am.  All the horrible things I am.

I say I don’t want to be those things, but if I truly didn’t want to be them I would have sat with the first batch of uncomfie feelings rather than indulge myself, eat all that food, and now have to deal with the consequences.

I am glad I got injured tonight, I deserve the pain. I deserve every pound of weight I gain. I deserve every stomach ache I get. I deserve every single drop of guilt I feel. I did this to myself, I deserve punishment.

And trust me, tomorrow, it will be meted out.

Not Helping

I wrote a bit ago about how I had been sick (well, when I wrote that post I was currently sick) and as a result lost 3 pounds in 3 days.

When I went back to work I had lost a total of four and a bit pounds and apparently it was noticeable. I don’t understand how, but people said they could tell, and asked if I was ok, and did all that concerned questioning nosy thing that people do. When I said I had been sick they switched to concerned but not as nosy, which is a bit better I guess.

This also seemed to open up the gateway for them to comment on my weight in general.

I’ve lost weight this past year. People love talking about that shit. I lie, and tell them I lost it in a healthy way. They have no reason to not believe me, so they nod and say I did a great job.

Then they proceed to tell me how I shouldn’t lose anymore weight because “you’re wasting away!” but in the next breath they say how great I look. Even when I came back to work after being sick people were saying how great I looked…right after telling me I looked sick *rolls eyes* People!

This is not helping me get back to a more “normal” way of eating.

When I was sick I was living off of chicken noodle soup, tea, and very small amounts of apple juice. When I’m sick my appetite, the sad little thing that it is, goes right out the window, and it takes everything I can muster to remember to drink the tea, let alone eat the soup.

I knew I had lost weight. And because I always want to lose weight I was happy with this loss. My ribs were more prominent, I felt lighter, stronger, more capable, smarter, better. I feel a lot of great things when my weight goes down…which makes it reeeeally hard to be ok with staying at this weight or gaining. When I went back to work I had zero internal incentive to go back to eating anything other than my soup and tea.

My first day back at work I worked two jobs, then went to the gym, then went home and ate nothing post-workout, then woke up the next day so much sicker that I had to call in and miss two days of work. Apparently I went back to the gym a tad too soon. Oops! Since I spiraled back down in to the world of being sick I also spiraled back in to the justification that it is ok to eat only the chicken noodle soup and the tea. Oh how easy it is to think like that.

So now I’m basically over the cold, just some sinus stuff. It is the first day of my work week, I worked two jobs, went to the gym after work, and am about to head to bed and I am realizing I am having a very hard time with eating. Not just eating in general, which I always have, but eating foods I used to be ok with. I used to be ok with eating oatmeal. I didn’t eat it when sick cause it was too much for me. Now I can’t bring myself to eat it. Just the thought of it makes me cringe a bit. I don’t know why. I like oatmeal. I was totally fine with eating it before…hell, it was one of my few food staples, but now, well, I went without it all that time I was sick so obviously I don’t need it, so why eat it?

A lot of foods have turned in to dilemmas like this for me.

Eggs? Yup.

Bread? Yup.

Oatmeal we already discussed.

Fish? Yup.

Certain vegetables? sigh, yes, even those.

Now, that list may not seem long but it basically all the food I allowed myself to eat on any regular basis.

Right now my list of ok foods seems to consist of chicken noodle soup. Even I know that isn’t a good list! Though part of my brain thinks it is brilliant. *rolls eyes*

I don’t know how to integrate my old foods back in to my rotation, I didn’t really anticipate them leaving my rotation ya know?

My screwed up brain, combined with all the compliments I am getting from people about how great I look is making it hard to see the logic of eating again. If I look so great after what turned out to basically be a soup diet, why not continue?

I know the people at my work don’t mean harm, they don’t know what I am struggling with, they don’t know that by telling me I look great and skinny and all that they are re-enforcing that not eating is a good choice and strengthening my fear that eating any other foods will result in my becoming immediately fatter.

I know it’s not their fault. I know it. I swear I know it! And I know I have to control how I respond to people’s comments and I have to control how I internalize what people are really saying. Someone saying I look good doesn’t translate to I should never eat again, not in other peoples brains anyways, and I have to break that connection in mine.

But c’mon, I got called skinny today. Me. The fat girl with a good 30 pounds left to lose. I don’t want to lose that compliment and right now my brain is saying I’ll lose it if I eat.

Messed up. My head is so messed up.

Does Recovery Equal Fat

My treatment plan is all group therapy based. I’ve never done inpatient, or residential, and I never will. I know, I know, never say never, but seriously guys, never.

So my experience with recovery, both mine and other peoples is quite limited.

Something I have noticed over the past year is the weight fluctuations of the people in my various group sessions. I find it troubling…

Hitting a bump in recovery and going down makes sense to me, especially if you are anorexic or have restricting tendencies. Even going up makes sense if you are a binge eater.

But someone who is supposedly doing really well with their recovery and the treatment team is pleased with their progress and they are now imparting their recovery wisdom on to the rest of us who has gotten fat, um yeah, I can’t get behind that.

Now granted, I may not be the best person to be judging if someone is “fat” but even I can tell when someone has had a significant weight gain…and if it is in the name of recovery, well, what the hell?

This guy from one of my groups went to residential treatment, or maybe it was inpatient first then residential…whichever it was, he was out of the group treatment for a while and doing a more intense treatment. I’ve read people’s blogs about inpatient treatment, generally you aren’t allowed to exercise, you have strict meal times, and strict meal plans.

This guy, I’m gonna call him J, he used to run a lot and ate once a day. I don’t know what he ate so I don’t know for sure how much or little he was consuming. He is in his mid-forties and had been doing this most of his life. When I met him in group he looked to be in great shape. Yes, I know, looks are deceiving, but I’m just trying to give you a picture here.

So in shape guy, goes to more intensive treatment, when that treatment is done J comes back to group, and J is fat. And I don’t mean a little bit extra but not really all that noticeable, I mean like, lots extra. Lots.

I feel so sad for him. That people he meets now who never knew him before will only know him as this over weight mid-40s guy instead of the runner, the athlete, that he was.

Maybe he is healthier inside, physically and mentally, I dunno, I can’t speak to that.

And he’s not the only one! There is a girl in group who ballooned up. She got so big! Both these people are considered to be doing oh so well with recovery, we are supposed to be impressed with their progress, they are sharing nuggets of wisdom to help guide the rest of us, but all I can think is that they failed. They fell in to the trap. The trap that is recovery makes you fat.

There has got to be a way to recover without becoming over weight! There has to be *stomps foot* because I refuse, abso-fuckin-lutely refuse to go any further with recovery if it means becoming over weight.

I work hard to understand and believe that when my dietician asks me to add a new food to my list of foods I will eat, or to eat more than one meal a day, or to consider drinking a glass of milk, that she is thinking about nutrients, and fueling my body, and stuff like that. But I always think she is trying to sabotage me and make me fat. And I kind of, in a vague way, grasp that my thinking she is trying to sabotage me is probably my ed trying to scare me or trick me in to not changing. On my good days I kinda get that.

But…it doesn’t take away from my fear that she is trying to make me fat.

Now I have two people who have actually gotten fat from recovering and omg the panic I feel whenever I think of either of them. That panic can take me from contemplating having a snack to ordering myself to not eat anything else for the rest of the day because all food will make me fat and who knows which food will be the tipping point that takes me from what I look like now to looking like them.

Envision a big ass wall slamming down and blocking off all food, that is what it feels like in my brain. I panic, that wall slams down, and boom! No more appetite. No more willingness to try to eat. No more openness to the idea that my treatment team is right.

Just a big ass black wall that stops me from getting to any of the things that are on the recovery side of my brain…heck, not even an entire side, more like a little itty bitty section eeked out in a corner with one tiny fluorescent light that barely works swinging over a battered desk and some figure huddled under the desk trying desperately to get work done without being noticed and kicked yet again.

When that wall slams down it takes so freakin long to get it open even an inch, and it is exhausting to try. And part of me doesn’t want to try, because, well, if forcing it open, and working this whole recovery deal is going to end up with me fat well, no, just no, that is not an ok end result for me.

Does everybody who recovers from an ed get fat? Or is it just coincidence that I am seeing it happen right in front of my eyes to people I know? Are they the exception or the rule?

…I just realized that a lot of my posts lately have been very negative and “screw recovery-esque” which has me wondering why I am so defensive all of a sudden…yet one more thing to ponder…

Body Image

I hate being asked what I think about my body image. Like seriously, what doctor thinks that is an okay thing to ask a person? I never know how to answer.

Uh…well, I know I am fat, so I guess that is how I think about my body image?

I have sucky body image.

I don’t want to talk about it.

Those are my instinctive responses but none of them seem to be the right answer. sigh.

In case you hadn’t guessed, I was asked that recently. It makes me stumble every time I am asked, makes me screw up the rest of the conversation, makes me want to punch a wall and look down at my feet at the same time. That question makes me so incredibly uncomfortable.

It also got me thinking about body image. Which is a pisser.

I know I am fat. I see myself in the mirror every damn day don’t I? And not just in clothes, clothes that I choose specifically to try to hide my many flaws, but naked, or in just a towel, or just underwear, when none of the flaws can be hidden. I see it all. I know where all the problem spots are. I see where all my failures are etched on my body. I see where the evidence of my laziness and being prone to over indulgence show.

I see how fat I am. Daily.

I don’t want to have to put that in to words for some doctor.

I fly to a different province for Christmas, a province that has less tax than I do, combining the smaller amount of tax with Christmas and Boxing Week sales, and birthday discounts, I tend to buy clothes when I am there because it will save me money. I needed to replace all my work clothes because none of them were fitting properly, they were all too big. I figured they all got stretched in the wash, and were a bit old, so no big deal. Well imagine my surprise when I am trying clothes on and am going down 2 to 3 sizes before I find things that fit, and those items fit loose. I prefer my clothes loose but I think if I preferred form fitting clothes I could probably have gone down another size. Crazy!

I know I have to take in to account vanity sizing and all that, but…it appears I have shrunk, and it isn’t that my clothes got stretched out.

Hmmm.

Now, I am not at all unhappy that I have gotten smaller, in fact I am thrilled. I am also confused at how this happened and I didn’t notice.

I look at myself every day. I see my flaws, my fat, every day. How did I not notice some of it went away? I mean yeah ok, I had noticed my ribs were more prominent and my hip bones, but my stomach and thighs are still just as fat, my ass still just as big, my face still just as round.

Before that shopping trip I would have said I 100% know what I look like and I 100% know I look the same, am the same, as this time last year. I have not changed in size, no matter how badly I want to.

Apparently that statement would have been wrong.

And I’m struggling because if I didn’t see that I was losing weight, then what if I start gaining weight and I don’t notice? What if I start getting even fatter and I don’t see it, and nobody tells me, and I just get fatter and fatter until there is no coming back from it?

Also, if I don’t see myself as I truly am, if I did get smaller and not see it, but was so sure I knew exactly what I looked like, well, what if there are other things I don’t see clearly? What if there are other aspects of myself, my eating disorder, my attempt at recovery, that I think I 100% see as they are, but, I don’t? And if I don’t see other things clearly, and other people don’t tell me what is the truth, or they tell me but I don’t believe them, how will I ever see things as they truly are?

How can I trust anything I think, or feel, or see, when it comes to me and how I look and my health and my eating disorder, if I somehow went down 3 sizes in clothes and can’t see that change?

How will I know what is real, what I can believe?

It reminds me of when you are driving in the fog. The area right around you doesn’t seem that foggy but farther down the road the fog looks thicker. You go farther down the road and realize it still doesn’t seem so thick around you but a bit farther down the road it looks thicker. Eventually you realize the fog around you is just as thick as the fog down the block, only you can’t see it because it is too close to you for you to perceive, because you are in it.

I am in the midst of my eating disorder, I vaguely knew about it before but chose to ignore the knowledge. Now, now I am aware, and see some things more clearly, but not all things, because I am too much mired in the eating disorder to see things beyond a certain point. Maybe one day I’ll be able to get clear of the fog, but for now, it is around me, blocking me from seeing the truth about who knows how many things, and even though I am aware of it now, it is fog, and I don’t know how to fight something I can’t touch.

 

Tired

I’m tired.

All. The. Time.

I wish I was a cat who could just sleep my days away, but unfortunately I have responsibilities to deal with that force me out of bed much earlier than I want and make me stay up later than I would like.

Then there is the whole problem of not getting a decent sleep when I am finally in bed.

What’s with that?

Seems like some mean trick, not being able to get a decent sleep even though I am so tired.

It was recommended to me I cut out some of my caffeine, so my last drink of the day is now decaf.

It sucks balls.

It also makes me feel tired earlier, which was sorta the point I guess.

The lack of caffeine in that last drink of the day has not magically made it so I can sleep better, or get to sleep faster, or really had any affect on my sleep.

All I notice is I now have more trouble functioning during the day because I am low on caffeine, or at least lower than my norm.

After my friend died I had a two day binge fest. Since then I’ve been a bit more in control of things. Some days I am eating more than I think I should, but not as much as my dietitian wants me to eat. Most days I am still under eating by quite a bit more than I tell my dietitian, I don’t want her to freak out at me. I am also going to the gym more – although that is partially a lie cause last week I was hardly there. A combination of grief, a change in schedule, and really bad cramps kept me away. I plan on recommitting this week though.

I had hoped by going to the gym more I could lose a dress size in time for my one work’s Christmas party but that binge, plus the lack of gym time, has screwed that up for me. So I’ll be as fat as I am right now at the party, which sucks.

I haven’t lost my collarbone, or my shoulder bones, which pleases me. And my hip bones are more noticeable but not as noticeable as I want. I’m getting there though! I’m worried Christmas, well, the month of December really, will derail me, it did last year. The gym will be handy for that, to offset extra food I might eat. I have to be careful though, don’t want to eat more because I think I have a buffer or something.

This post is all over the place, because I am tired and can’t seem to keep a single thought in my head for long before it gets replaced by a new one.

Seriously missing my caffeine right now.

Goals