Craziness.

I lost it. I don't see what other people see. I don't know why and it scares me. I purged last night and I had a horrible headache afterward. Every time I stand up, my head throbs quite a bit. I'm not sure what I've done, but I'm not sure I intend to stop.

I see the warning signs. I know where I am headed; the question is whether I care. Today I don't. Tomorrow I might. Craziness at it's best.

I'm afraid of who I am. I'm afraid of who I'm not, who I should be, and why I am not that person. I am so confused about what other people see; it isn't what I see and I know my reality isn't real. I am playing all the trigger games. How long until I give in?

My mind is in chaos. I cannot go on like this; should I try? I don't know where I am going and I don't know why I am even going. That's it. I'm lost. I cannot even read the map; in fact, I am not even sure I can find the map. I might not even be looking. I'm so lost.

They say. . .

They say I'm strong.
They say I'm a fighter.
They say I'm brave.

If only they knew. I'm not brave, I'm desperately hiding from everything that scares me. I'm not strong; I've been hiding behind the ED and SI for years. Those things support me, not psychic strength. I never once fought. I had time and time to try, to say 'no', but I never once did. I didn't fight; I submitted.

153

8am--151

156.

157.

I was worried about going to the doctor today because I needed more a/ds. I'm really rather sick of people thinking that I am sick and need help. Yeah, I have my issues, but doesn't everybody. Mine seem to be, at this point, just socially unacceptable. Some people drive too fast when they are frustrated. I cut. Nobody sends people who drive too fast to counseling, getting several sets of people involved. Ya know. I'm managing. Just because I'm not thrilled about everything, a little upset sometimes, does not mean I'm crazy.

Sure, I want to be happy and who could complain about having a therapist to talk to, but when there are finite resources and time, I'm not at a point where that is important. Perhaps the word is yet, but I have rent to pay, groceries to buy, horses to keep and those things are NOW.

Perhaps most of all, I'm scared that other people are seeing something that I refuse to see. And that my blindness will take me somewhere I do not want to go.

Skinny Comments

Last night, somebody said, "you are so skinny." I fought with the comment. Psychologically anyway. But how do I process that? It is the single biggest inconsistency in what people see and what I see. By no means am I underweight; in fact, I think I am overweight.

It really rattled me up.

Speechless and Lost

Will the desire to lose weight ever go away?

Will the need to be skinny ever disappear?

Will the bleakness ever lift?

Am I ever going to be as chipper as I was immediately after the a/ds?

All of a Sudden

I'm being exceptionally noncompliant. I went from taking only half my meds to none. WHY? I'm not doing my work. WHY? WHY do I keep trying to communicate in ways that need complete translation from hell and back again? People don't understand that "thin" means "overwhelmed. But I behave as though they do.

I will be skinny.

Someday. . .

Someday, I will be able to see what other people see when they look at me.

Someday, I will not absolutely hate me and what I see in the mirror.

Someday, I will take the good and the bad with a grain of salt instead of pure evil and perfection dichotomies.

I really want it back.

I really want to be skinny and I really want anorexia back. I want that control, that hunger, that emptiness. The red marks on my scream how much I hate myself. And I know my behavior is NOT useful, not practical. If I weren't so scared of failure or imperfection, I might take up letting myself admit that I am horrible or even tolerable. I would not have to make up excuses to fail, manipulations to push people away, to show them that it isn't me who is imperfect, but the devil child following me around. I refuse to allow myself to take blame. And I'm a manipulative bitch to other humans.

Do I even know what is me and what is her?

Perhaps the Professionals Missed Something

Only one person ever suggested Borderline Personality Disorder as a plausible diagnosis. And I always flat out dismissed it. Now I am reconsidering. Seems logical enough. I have a horrible time with relationships and social interactions. My moods fluxuate WILDLY. Oh, and I don't trust anyone.

Recovery, Recovery, Recovery

It's like a battle that never ends. It ebbs and flows, but it never disappears. Right now, I suppose I'm in a flow period. I am struck by the need to lose weight, the need for attention, the need for attention. The fact that I'm not perfect and that other people seem to see a different reality than I do. That has plagued me for as long as I can remember being self analytical enough to even think about such things. I loathed and others loved. I loathed and others admired. I loathed and others praised.

Every day I see things that trigger me, that remind me how wrong I am. And I still, to this day, don't know how to process such experiences. I desperately want to talk to somebody and I don't know who. People who care, leave or get torn away by other things. And the people I care about, I'm not supposed to care about them. Places where I connect, I'm supposed to detach. And with those with whom I am detached, those people I am supposed to care about deeply. It's like I don't work right.

Internal conflicts

How is that I can have two diametrically opposed ideas in my mind simultaneously?

Repeat

Getting my tushie in gear. I still deal with the fat issue, but something has occurred to me. The only people who claim to be recoverED are the people. Professionals rarely make such a claim; increasing evidence that perhaps recoverED is the wrong goal and I should stop berating myself for not being there. Instead, why don't I just get on with life and figure out how to deal as things come along. I don't want to worry about being recoverED; I simply want to LIVE.

Slipping, slipping, slipping

A thing about recovering is that you KNOW what's normal and abnormal. And sometimes, I don't care. I can have the completely rational half of me know completely and totally what is going on, that I am slipping, that I am binging with the intent of purging, that I am going to cut to see who cares enough to ask AND I STILL binge, purge, and cut. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I know b/p and SI DON'T help me in the least, but I still do sometimes.

The Complexities of Losing Weight

I'm losing weight.

Yay!

Oh wait! NO!

This is unbelievably confusing. My instinct is to be really excited about losing weight. However, I cannot imagine why I am losing weight, which scares me. I feel like my eating is out of control and completely random. It feels like I am eating way too much. I'm probably not, but it feels as though I am. But I know I am not eating too little. But I am thrilled that I am losing weight. And it is everything I can do to NOT write down the number.

Fun House Mirrors

Having an eating disorder is like spending your entire life looking at yourself in a fun house mirror. Nothing is quite right. And everything is dependent upon my figuring out how to understand that I am standing in front of a fun house mirror. Everybody else looking at me has a more accurate perception. All I can see is the fun house image. I can listen to everybody else, but I can see only the fun house mirror.

This Disordered World

So, now that I am trudging through recovery in a fairly confident way, I have noticed a lot about this world and the inherent disordered-ness. Two cases have recently caught my eye

1. I went to go buy a belt yesterday. I was unable buy a women's belt. I had to buy a men's belt. Too bad I'm too f*t to be feminine. Except I am anything but.
2. I need a new hunt coat, especially if it is going to double as a suit jacket. Sorry, the size I bought when I was 14 is the largest size Dover sells.
   

I get to have lunch with Robert Frank!

Now imagine me jumping up and down and screaming that around my room. . . that's how excited I am.

I am such a geek.

I hate it when I make him uncomfortable.

Boundaries are complex and there is no equation. Damn.

Six Months!

Today is six months since I have used ED or SI behaviors. I feel like I should be more excited than I am. Maybe that's a good thing, indicating that it isn't that important. But it is THAT important. After ten years, I'm finally getting better. Gaining control of this part of me that has always been so overwhelming for so LONG.

Good for me. I think.

The Importance (or lack thereof) of Diagnoses

One of the kickers about my journey with mental illness has been the reaction that everyone wants to figure out what label I should wear, me included. As a result, I have quite a list; Borderline Personality, OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Personality, Bulimia, Anorexia, ED-NOS, Major Depression, Panic Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder. As far as I can tell, that list is useless. That's not to say diagnoses are useless, far from it. Sometimes the MH professionals get scared when they meet someone they cannot figure out; that's almost everyone they meet. So we end up with a list of diagnoses, as though that solves the problems, as though explaining by naming works well. It does not. Carl Rogers did not come up with a taxonomy of diagnoses in his psychological theory because he felt the list would distract from the real issues. He is very right in that regard.

Loneliness

I am convinced that loneliness is the single most damning cause of human misery. Loneliness draws a person inward and focuses their attention on themselves. Loneliness causes a person to stop moving toward any goal. They get stuck. Loneliness is an achingly empty feeling. People don't do particularly well under conditions of un-relationship. They get lost in their own minds, tangled in emotions that aren't as overwhelming as they might seem.

I don't like to be morbid about my eating disorder. It reminds me too much of when I was really, really depressed. But for any of you who may have forgotten the cost of eating disorders, here's something at which to look: http://www.something-fishy.org/memorial/memorial.php

What I learned about humans from an eating disorder

Not to mention gads of other mental illnesses.

1. Most people aren't happy. Hell, they are lonely, sad, insecure and miserable. Mental illness is everybody else on steroids.
   
2. People want to avoid risk.
   
3. People don't want to be different, wrong, or "out of place."
   
4. People want to know, desperately, who they "really" are.
   
5. People are egoistically focused. Looking outside themselves is HARD. Looking outside, decentering, is SO important to living a wonderful life.
6. The world isn't a happy place; sadness is hyperabundent. The theodicy problem is the single most damaging aspect of religion. Shut up arguments are easy and prevelant and very comforting.
   

Why I am going to continue to be a perfectionist.

Because I have no reason to do otherwise. I mean, really, why would I stop striving for perfection?

I don't know why

But I am really anxious right now. Shaking. Stomach in knots. I don't know quite why. There are the normal issues--lacking in productivity, didn't see my horse today, et al. But in some sense, there is a lot more going on than that. Something biological too I think.

Crazy!

That's all there is to it. This is crazy.

My weight is stable. The same, everyday. 158.

Granted it seems high, but really? I'm tall and fairly broad. The best part is that weight fluctuations are miserable. 158. 149. 162. All in the span of two days. I'll stick with the stable weight. Okay, maybe I'll try to lose a little.

Carson Kressly Has Earned My Respect

So, I saw How to Look Good Naked today for the first time.

Holy schneikies. Right on target in my mind. First, it acknowledges that looks matter. It doesn't live under the fairy tale that beauty is internal; who cares what the outside looks like? There may be supermodel beauty inside, but people are lousy and they see the outside and they judge. Second, it acknowledges that you don't have to be a size zero to be beautiful. Nor is there some inherent beauty in "fat acceptance." But in some sense, we are stuck with the body we got, we might as well figure out how to get on well with it. And it's not worth hating yourself over. Work with it, take what you have, and move on with your life.

So here's to Carson and How to Look Good Naked. Join the Perception Revolution!

MY NCUR Abstract Was Accepted!

They call that "just?"

Has anybody noticed that the Christian god has a crazy conception of "justice?" Listening to my "guilty" pleasure, Adventures in Oddessy, I hear their interpretation of Solomon. Here is the "justice" of god, Solomon screws up, and god rains down costs on the community. What the hell?

Oh, and by the way, how can Solomon be the wisest man that ever lived, as god promised him, if Jesus lived. Does that mean god lied?

I'm Happy, Damnit!

I seem to be having difficulty convincing people that I am happy, content and certain that I could not ask for more out of life. Why do they not think that my experience of life is somehow less because I picture life in a different way!

That's Right.

I am that weird. So weird, the people that I always thought could at least "get" part of me, don't get me any more. I guess that means I feel alone. That's probably why I cling to professors. They make much more sense to me. I don't really understand why. It makes sense, my argument about recoverED makes sense, strong assumptions. But it isn't a fun argument. I argued that there was something fundamentally different about people with EDs than people without EDs. And I argued that people don't know themselves or the world in which they live. It's unsettling. Most people find it scary. I don't. I have no clue why. Maybe I am deluded, but it is a deluded that works for me.

I do, I feel alone.

People who see clearly

Are considered blind.

I made my first post in "advanced recovery" last night about how I didn't want to be recoverED. In the sense that, recoverED isn't my goal anymore. I think it is a ridiculous goal for only those who live by fairy tales about what it means to have a mental illness. And my post was promptly moved to Anorexia/Bulimia. Not even A/B Recovery. I am not sick anymore and I am not in denial. Ask others. They agree. But don't ask people who live by fairy tales. All day I have been fighting their belief that I can be recoverED, in the sense that I can get to a point where I am at no higher risk for an ED than anybody else. My ass! I will always be closer to ED than those who have never had an ED. Something made me initially susceptible and there is no reason to think that the proclivity disappeared in the past year or so.

I'm just frustrated. Now that I see clearly, I am considered blind.

A Lesson

I have been trying to decide if I qualify for "advanced recovery." One of the things that has stopped me from saying yes is "in recovery for two years." Well my initial reaction is, no, it has been only three months. That's not true. I haven't used behaviors for three months. I've been "in recovery," more or less so for several years. So, what's the lesson: Recovery takes time. For some of you, that's no shocker on the surface. But, do you really understand what that means? It means you are going to read and get advice at point A, but not even figure out how to put it into practice until point C. Things don't always make sense, they aren't always useful then and there. I think part of recovery is a mining expedition: what are some tools? Dig them out. What are some ideas about what recovery is? Dig them out. And hang onto them until you get back to the lab. Then start testing them. Some of them you will have to test many times before anything happens. Some will be useless from the get go. And a few will be precious platinum.