Losing Weight is Addicting

It just is. I know I don't need to lose any more weight. But I still get excited when that needle goes down. That's silly. It is a fucking number.

For a math student, I really hate numbers.

Finally Angry

I am finally angry. I am annoyed. I am frustrated. I am pissed off. My jaw is tense and I feel energy radiating in my chest. My movements are short and purposeful. My sentences are short and choppy. I use lots of fragments to make my point. That's me when I get angry. My speech would be rapid and short if I were speaking.
So what the hell am I angry about? I am pissed off that my parents seem to see no reason why they should consider my needs, wants, or desires in their opinion making. I am angry that they seem to be treating me like I am a two year old when I am really twenty. I am annoyed because they are ignoring the fact that I even have a voice to use. I am all grown up, an economist with the ability to run cost/benefit analysis. I know how to make my own decisions.

This is when my emotions are strong. When people ignore my voice. When people treat me like a two year old. I have a huge preference for autonomy over familial loyalty and I don't get worked up over familial duties or losses. They are just other humans with whom I happen to have common DNA. So what? I do get worked up when people skoosh my autonomy. Where do you think the bulimia came from? People telling me that I had to eat this and had to eat that. Fuck them, I said, I can eat it. . . and bring it right back up. Nobody said I have to digest it. Pfff!

So, yes, I am angry.

Learning Something

I don't have very strong emotions. Yes, I do have emotions that I have not learned how to handle. I have feelings and emotions, but I also have tools to deal with them. My methods are less than safe, but I am working on developing safer ones. But in reality, I am fairly Stoic in my philosophy. I have an awareness of the responsibility I have in given situations. Let me give you an example. . .
My grandfather died last night.
He was ninety. He smoked for seventy years. He was very lonely. He was not very happy in his life. He was happy that he got to see some of his grandchildren get married, great grandchildren be born, and outlive most of his friends and relatives. He did not want to go to a nursing home; he wanted to die in the house he built. He did.

I am not sad. My roommate called me inhuman last night because I am not sad about this. It's not that I don't care or don't acknowledge that some people would be sad in this situation, I just don't have any control over the situation and his death is not a huge trauma. He lived a full life, much more than many other people. I have no control over his death and I am happy that he did not let my parents and aunts push him into a nursing home where he would have been miserable, even if he had lived for a few extra years. I do, however, feel like an awful person because I am not sad. I wasn't close to him. I do have the emotion of sadness, but just not right now. Am I somehow less than human because I don't have the emotions I am supposed to have?

I do get sad. If my horse died, I would be sad because I would feel some responsibility. I would have lost something very important to me. I would not be convinced that my horse is better off not living. But the given the situation, I don't emote sadness. I am not an emotional person.

THAT'S OKAY. My entire life I have been told that I should feel this or have this emotion or not have this other emotion. My roomie labeled me inhuman and uncaring because I am not sad because millions of people do not have adequate food and water. I know, but why should I be sad about that? My roomie decided I don't appreciate beauty because I don't understand why people walking by a virtuoso violinist is a travesty. It's not that I am nonchalant or uninvolved or detached, I am primarily simply in control and very aware of what is going on in my mind.

I am hyper-aware of my mental processes (as if you haven't figured this out yet) and I use such awareness to my benefit. Is it wrong that I choose to control some of my emotions? Am I somehow not adequately experiencing life because I am so Stoic? Less human? Detached? Uncaring or heartless?

Haha! A few successes and some failures

NYC went better than I had expected. Oh yes, I got to obsess and obsess over it before hand, but I also got to make a whole hell of a lot of contingency plans and that was useful. Was I perfect? NOPE, far from it. Did I try really hard and keep myself from really severe ED behaviors? Yup. Did I keep myself from SI for the weekend, despite the fact that I had my razors? Kinda. I did get at myself with a plastic knife at lunch one day. It's amazing how effective a little plastic knife can be. . . I still have the lines! Yeah, there were a couple times I didn't eat every meal, but I did eat every snack. Yeah, I was way deficient on my protein--indicated by my protein binge when I got home *shame*

But I am pulling myself slowly out of a couple bad days on the rebound from the trip and in about nine minutes, I am going to opt in for my AM snack and I have plans for lunch. I still here the ED, loudly and I am still kinda giving in. I still want to feel empty and hollow. I still want to feel as though my belly button is falling through my body to my spine. But I am making myself disobey because I know that the ED offers nothing but pain and suffering and self loathing.

Oh god, oh god, oh god

Wow. . . sometimes I am convinced I have an eating disorder and I am not making it up and right now is one of those times. The way I am putting everything into weight. My mind is focused only, ONLY on weight and f*t. I am so frantically worried about this trip and being an utter failure with my goals that I am feeling so much and still trying to put the excess into to weight concerns. I know there are feelings there, but I have enough and everything is going to weight.

I cannot stop thinking about how f*t I must be, even though I know I am not. I cannot stop checking to feel my hipbones, feel my ribs, collarbone, spine. I am so freaked out that soon I will be f*t, obese even. Ahh! It is so frustrating that I don't know what to do with it.

I am not ready

I am not ready for this. I am leaving for NYC in like nine hours, to spend three days with some people I respect and eating out. I am not ready. I am not in a good position for that to occur. I was doing so well and then all these emotions literally fell out on my lap and I feel overwhelmed by them. So much so that I am have a hard time convincing myself to eat. I just want to feel empty. Very empty. The emotions are not going to go away, but I can make my body empty.

You know, I tried to be assertive last night. I really did, but I think I might have been more effective if I would have simply flat out SI'ed, right in front of her and spoke that way. I think she would have listened better. Fuck. My communication would be so much clearer if I could just convince people to read my ankles. Everything is right there. My loneliness, my fears, my self loathing. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then scars are worth a million and bones worth many millions.

I really might end up dying before Dr. B. Of this I am aware, I am just trying to decide if I care that much.

Going Forward

Zoloft seems to be my deity in pill form. I am doing really well on the meds and so many things are happening. The a/ds have given me the ability to get just a little handle on all the things I knew. I knew I wasn't fat; I knew I was a good person; I knew I should try to challenge my ED/SI thoughts. But I couldn't. I know this now. Now, I can though. And now I AM. I am reinforcing the things I know. I am NOT fat. I am a GOOD person. I am a great student. I am a wonderful horse owner. I am capable. I still find these things pervading my thoughts, but I know I can challenge them and I am willing to try. Sometimes I am more successful than others. But there is clear evidence of my going forward.

I am two days behavior free and I am working on one more today. I can do this. Four days is my goal, but that goal will be reached one day and one meal at a time. Moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day. There will be challenges today, but I can do it! I will do it!

What type of Horse will you be....
Thoroughbred You are the Thoroughbred. Being the thoroughbred, you are very strong and fast, infact you can run like the wind and nothing can stop you! You will protect your loved ones throughout whatever and will do it without a fuss. You do things your own way, and love competition. You are also very brave and loyal. You love winning and impressing people but will do your best at anything. The Throroughbred is know as the ultimate race horse...
Take The Quiz Now!	Quizzes by myYearbook.com

Rough Day

UGH! I don't want to eat, I want to purge, I want to cut. Part of it might be feeling a little overwhelmed by school and part of it might be that I am a little anxious about a speech tonight. But I don't think that is what is really at the root of this. I am afraid of giving these behaviors up; what will be left for me to use to deal? The voices in my head just go over and over about how f*t I am, how lazy I am, and how f*t eating will make me. I am so sick of thinking about such petty issues. Also, definitely feeling voiceless, but too scared to make my voice heard. I cannot use my voice; I know how to use my body. Yeah, my mind is a bit scattered right now too.

Fuck it, I am going to go try and eat lunch and try to keep it down. Fuck.

YAY!

This is a real yay, not one of my sarcastic ones. The meds have made everything much more real, including emotions. I can feel the emotions that are underlying my behaviors and often I find them very, very overwhelming. And yesterday was one of those days were the emotions seemed as though they were going to squoosh me. The anxiety, the feeling being overwhelmed, the f*t feeling were so overpowering. I really wanted to b/p. I mean REALLY wanted to.

BUT I DID NOT B/P!!!!!

I don't feel proud, but I know I should be. So, I am going to take a few moments and brag. I am going to do something nice for me today. I did this, I fought, and I finally kicked the ED's ass. For one day at least, I was successful!

I cried last night.

I don't know what to do with that fact. I don't cry--ever. The meds are great, really make life much more dynamic and fun, but they also make emotions much more real. I know a lot of people say meds deaden their emotions, but meds really brightened mine. Anyway, those emotions can be really, really overwhelming. Feeling unheard, as a visceral experience is overwhelming and causes huge amounts of anxiety and stress in my mind. And I don't know what to do with such mental issues.

Another skill to learn. . . how to relieve such mental stressors.

Even With the Meds. . .

Okay, meds might be the closest thing I have to a deity right now, but they are not a deity and they don't solve all my problems. I still think they are working, but yesterday I was just high on "so this is how other people go through life? REALLY??!" and everything seemed a little magic. HOWEVER, last night and today have reminded me I still have to work really hard. Having the neurochemical ability does not simply fix the problem. NOPE! I have to work now. And I am ready. I am not happy with my day thus far, but I am going to change that. I am going to journal and not allow myself to freak out about homework or exams. I am going to work hard, but I am not going to let the overwhelmingness of it all lead me into ED hell. I am going to eat a good dinner at 8 and NOT blame myself for eating too much. I am going to do yoga and go swimming and not hate myself for not burning enough calories. The behavior work is doable, the emotional work I am more afraid of.

Maybe the meds are working!

I don't feel numb today. I don't feel dead. I have no clue what to do with these emotions; I don't know what they are or how to make sense out of them. But they are there. Instead of being sick of being sick, I am sick of being sick and I am going to do something about it. Instead of just wanting to be better because I "should" be better, I want to be better because I hate being sick, FOR ME. There is a life out there and I would like to live it. Thanks anyway.

The thing is this is not a manic, out of control up feeling. It just isn't a numb, dead sensation. And from there the desperate desire to recover kicks in and I get up and start encouraging myself toward recovery. Also, I expect this is a overreaction to the phenomenon of not feeling like I cannot get out of bed. A WOW, this is how normal people feel. . . what the hell?

Interesting Experiences

Over the last couple days I have had some interesting experiences and I think all of them have helped me clarify the ED/SI.

• I have had two people encourage me to get IP or Residential treatment over the summer. I don't think I am by any means that sick. Yes, I understand I still need some treatment, but I am not using behaviors on a daily basis, close, but not daily. And I really think I just need to work a little harder if I want to get this under control, but I don't think I need more outside help. NOBODY else can save me, NO Tx can save me, I have to save me.
  
• I am petrified of recovery, much more scared than I am of being sick for the rest of my life. I really think being sick is the only way I am going to get attention. If I get sick enough, people will be concerned. . . perhaps we should replace people with parents. If I weigh 90lbs, do you think they will care? What about 130? I will have to learn to get what I need--love, affection, confidence--from ME.
  
• You know, I had the weirdest experience yesterday. I have been going to the rec a lot and I have finally discovered the nerve to go swimming which entails wearing a swimsuit where my legs must be bare. YIPES. Now generally I would not mind because I don't know anybody there, but yesterday they had a bunch a swim lessons. Thus, there were lots of little kids running around and I know my ankles look like HELL. Now, I don't expect college students to ask; we're too self conscious. But little kids don't have that inhibition. They don't care. I cannot imagine having to explain my ankles to a child. Imagine.
• I am so sick of my roomie. Encroaching on my space and I cannot figure out how to simply use my voice, appropriately. Apparently I went a little too far last night and exploded at her. I feel so guilty about it. Well, I actually don't feel guilty, I cut that out last night. But I think I should be guilty right now. I hope next year's randomly assigned roomie is a little saner for me. But who the hell knows?