I took laxatives at 8 PM last night. It’s almost 1 PM now and they still haven’t kicked in. I have about three days worth of binge food stuck in my stomach, my stomach is bloated, my breasts are the size of melons, it’s hot, and I don’t know whether to be more worried that my laxatives were wasted or that they will kick in when I am driving to work, at work, or during my two hour group. I am up another pound, making me three pounds heavier than last week, and I don’t know what’s water weight, PMS weight, or real weight. I just want to curl up and sleep. I want to dig into my stomach and empty everything out. I want to cut off the fat around my hips and thighs. I want to blow everything off until I can finally lose these last five pounds. I need to stop overeating; it’s making everything awful.
Tag Archives: binge
F The World and Everything In It
It’s 6:00 PM and I haven’t eaten all day; although the fatigue and weakness is at all time high, I still don’t feel the urgent need to eat. But I planned on eating some donuts by the end of the week, and by God I was going to get me some donuts. Traffic is a bitch as usual, but I ride through the frustration and comfort myself with the thought of eating sugary sweetness by 6:30.
As I exit the freeway, I see that traffic is backed up all the way to where I am, and I say, “Are you fucking kidding me?” Traffic never seems so bad until you are either starving or in binge-mode, either way you just want to get where ever you are going so you can either crash or stuff your mouth with food. Well, by this time I’m both, and the fact that traffic is backed up all the way to butt-fucking EGYPT, the rage I felt this morning suddenly returns and I’m spewing out the F-Word like it’s my job. My car idles more than it moves, and thoughts go through my head: I’m going to be late to my step study, I may as well not go. I need to deposit this fucking check, I’m not going to have time to buy donuts. I could just skip the step study and buy the donuts and then deposit the check. I could buy donuts, hit the meeting, and deposit the check after. It will be dark after, and I don’t want to get mugged at the ATM. But I don’t want to come home early either. My gas tank is almost on empty. Will I even make it to the grocery store?
“Bullet with Butterfly Wings” is playing by the Smashing Pumpkins and the song ironically fits. Despite all my rage, I’m just a rat in a cage. But instead of a cage, I’m stuck in my fucking car, and the last thing I want to be doing is sitting here. Tears threaten to pierce the back of my eyeballs, I pound the steering wheel, and I feel unwell. I don’t know if my blood sugar is dropping, but I feel shaky and despite the air on, I feel clammy and hot. Every once in a while it feels like my brain moves around in my head against my will and I have chest pain, although I’m unsure if it’s because of the poorly fit bra I’m wearing, psychosomatic symptoms, or something I really should be concerned with.
We get to the first light, and I finally see what has caused all the traffic: the fucking light is out. FUCK THIS, I shout, as if I could suddenly turn into Jason Bourne and maneuver my way out of this traffic with kick-ass car tricks and a knack for avoiding oncoming traffic. But I realize I’m not a Jedi Knight and sit. It’s a four-way stop with multiple lanes; by the time I get up front, four more Smashing Pumpkin songs have already played. I take a quick glance to make sure nobody is coming and floor it. Probably not a good idea given the fact that I need to save as much gas as possible, but there are other things I must attend to.
I glance at the clock: 6:35. I could probably still make the store and the meeting, but would have to deposit my check after. Or I could do the responsible thing and deposit my check, hit the meeting, and come home, but my priorities are fucked up right now, and the only thing I want to do is buy some donuts. I decide to ditch the meeting all together, fuck that shit. I’m still 20 minutes away from the store and I get stuck behind a truck hauling a horse trailer and yell out more obscenities. REALLY, I yell. FUCKING, REALLY? The second to last light before the grocery store turns yellow. FUCCCCCCCCK, I scream. You do realize you are in a rage over DONUTS. If you were eating enough you would have sailed home despite the traffic, thinking of more pleasant things and reminding yourself that it could be worse. But instead you are gripping the steering wheel like your life depends on it, and your breathing harder than you need to be. Over….donuts.
I get to the store and try to find parking: That one is too close to the entrance, people will see me eating in the car. That one is next to a truck full of Abercrombie wearing, flip-flop sporting dudes with sunglasses, how ’bout NO. I see a spot in the middle but then realize there are shopping carts there. OF COURSE. I loop around and find one relatively isolated and park. But what is this? The sun is directly in my eyes. If I eat the donuts here, the sun is going to drive me bat-shit crazy. WHATEVER, I’M FUCKING HERE, LET’S GO. I grab my wallet and make sure the four one-dollar bills I had are still there (where would they really go?). I take my purse and slam the door. I realize my check from work and phone are out in plain site — fuck that, I don’t care, nobody is going to rob me between the time I am in and out.
I high-tail it to the donut section, pulling up my pants every two or three steps. My stomach is so flat it’s almost concave, and my pants are not doing a good job staying up. I pass person by person, asking myself, “What the fuck are all these people doing here? It’s fucking Friday (Friday, gotta get down on Friday), don’t these people have lives? Why are they all shopping NOW? Go HOME!” I get to the donuts and BRILLIANT! A mother and her young son are stocking up on donuts as if they are preparing for a national donut shortage. Not really, but that’s how I feel, and as I casually pretend to look at the wonderful pies, I wait for them to fucking leave. When they do, I quickly scan my options: maple bars, chocolate bars, chocolate covered cinnamon rolls, glazed, jelly, powdered. My goal is to only get two, but the way they display them they all look so fucking PRETTY, all so fucking DELICIOUS, I can’t decide. You have to decide, there’s no time to THINK about this, there’s a million people behind you, there’s a million people judging you, there’s a million people waiting for your fat ass to choose so they can get their own donuts, you need to STEP ON IT. There’s nobody really behind me; I could probably take another ten minutes before anyone even came back here, but I grab the prettiest donut of the bunch, a round donut with pink frosting and a chocolate drizzle. 99 cents you say? Fuck two, I’m getting THREE. I grab the chocolate donut with custard filling. And to tame my anorexic side, I grab the “small” maple old-fashioned donut (don’t worry, it’s small, it won’t do as much damage!).
I race to the express lane, all the way on the opposite side of the fucking store, all the while pulling up my pants and dodging all the people who are in my way. I luck out at check-out; nobody there. The woman up front says, “Just the three donuts for you?” Yup! I respond, with a smile on my face, acting as if the day is beautiful and my heart is singing. The total is 2.07, and my first thought is, “WHAT THE FUCK? I COULD HAVE GRABBED FOUR.” I pay, take my donuts out into the car, and greedily grab for the old-fashioned maple. I start to eat it when suddenly a monster truck pulls in next to me. FUCK THIS, I think, and drive to the ATM machine. I know it will be semi-deserted there.
I can’t wait til I get there and eat while I’m driving. The ATM is not even a two-minute drive and I’m halfway done with the pink donut by the time I get there. At this point I can already feel my stomach filling up and the sugar rushing through my veins. It’s not a pleasant feeling, and I scold myself for buying three. YOU DIDN’T NEED THREE, YOU ARE DISGUSTING. I park and bring out the custard donut. As I take my first gluttonous bite, I realize I’ve parked in front of a nail salon. I can see the customers, they can see me. I slouch down in my seat and bite and chew. Bite and chew. Bite and chew, licking up the custard that bursts out of the bottom. My fingers are suddenly covered in chocolate frosting; I lick them while casually glancing around to make sure nobody can see me. I have no napkins so I wipe my fingers on the side of my seat. An old couple walks to their car, the car that is parked right next to mine, and I turn away and pretend like I’m rummaging through my purse, the last bite of donut still in my hands. When they leave, I plop the last bit into my mouth and swallow. I check the mirror — I have chocolate on the corner of my mouth. I wipe it clean and put myself back together. My hands are relatively clean yet sticky, but there’s nothing I can do.
As I walk to the ATM I catch a glimpse of my stomach in the glass window. My shirt reveals my belly and it’s still almost concave. I put my hand right below my breasts and can feel the food slowly trailing down my intestines. In a couple of hours my once concave stomach will be distended, and suddenly thoughts of gaining weight overwhelm me. You could purge. Don’t be silly, I’ve never purged. It will be fine; I won’t really gain any weight. I may maintain, but I won’t gain. Are you sure? No.
I drive home and pray my family hasn’t arrived home yet. I need time to unwind and process the previous 60 minutes of my life. I need to process the fact that I just ate three donuts in a matter of two minutes. Even when I tried to enjoy the second one, relax while eating it, I couldn’t. This wasn’t a binge, but it wasn’t normal, and I’m suddenly dreading my morning weigh in. I ask myself if it was worth it. Was three donuts worth it? Worth the traffic? Worth the racing heart-beat? Worth the chest pain? Worth the rage? Worth the paranoia in the grocery store? No. Yes. No. Yes.
I get home to an empty house. My family is still up in the foothills, not even close to being on their way home. I rushed for nothing. I got mad for nothing. I could have enjoyed a peaceful evening alone, with one donut, as I originally planned this morning. But what’s done is done. It’s in the past. All I can do now is start over tomorrow.
Don’t Look At Me
I have no problems eating in front of strangers, nor do I really have a problem eating in front of family members. However, when it comes to friends or aquantances, if I can avoid eating in front of them, I do. It used to be worse in the past. No matter who I was eating in front of, I would cover my mouth while chewing. It was a habit I formed after I developed the ED, and it would happen so frequently I wouldn’t even notice myself doing it. It was so bad my family members would make fun of me, often covering their mouths when we went to restaurants or had family functions. I don’t believe I do that as much anymore, but I definitely do it if I am eating around people I don’t feel comfortable with.
My new boss thinks it’s important that we all eat in the staff room. Whether this is to promote communication between employees or to limit doing work during our lunch hour, I’m not quite sure. Either way, this is what I feel in terms of that:
Yeah, I don't think so.
It’s easy to avoid though given that when she’s not here, there is only two of us. So because our receptionist isn’t a snitch (at least, not yet), I eat my food in my office. It’s bad enough I have to actually prepare it in front of people. I eat the same thing practically everyday: 1-2 cups of stir-fry veggies, 1 tilapia fillet, and 1 tbs. of teriyaki sauce. It takes awhile to microwive everything given that it’s always frozen. I could defrost everything beforehand, but I’m lazy (1st World Problems).
If I were to eat in the staff room, I’d usually be by myself, however, the lobby is right outside so I have this paranoid notion that our receptionist would be able to hear me chewing. I don’t even like the idea of people knowing that I eat. Granted, everyone would assume I eat given that I’m still walking around alive, but I get really insecure about that. I know, logically, that people don’t care whether I eat or not at work, but I’d rather them see me never eating, period.
Plus, sometimes I do weird things with my food. If I’m very hungry, I’ll eat very compulsively and fast. If I’m not satisfied, I’ll dip my finger into the left over teriyaki sauce until I’ve licked everything up. I’d rather people not know I did those things, let alone watch me do those things.
On a different topic, if I managed to continue this food plan and the weight loss stayed consistent, I’d have a BMI of 14.5 by May 6th. I would actually surpass my primary goal. So if I actually continue without any problems until then, what’s next? Would I stop? Would I continue? Would I be hospitalized? Would nobody notice? Last night I put on my glasses when looking at myself naked in the mirror. I constantly chastised myself for not being thin enough, but when I looked at my back with my glasses on? It was like a whole different person. I don’t know why I’ve never put on my glasses before, but I think it does look a little alarming (at least it would look alarming to people on the outside). It was like when you flip from a regular channel to an HD channel. All of a sudden I saw all these contours and dips and bones that I didn’t see before. I can’t imagine my husband seeing me and not wondering how much I weigh; he still views me as sexy when I’m fully unclothed. If I were to reach BMI 14.5, I wonder if it would make a huge difference or if I would look the same as I do now. I have big boobs (big enough for people to ask me in treatment if I had fake ones) and big hips (this is not my body dysmorphia talking, I actually really do have big hips for my height. It runs in the family). I often wonder if I wore an A cup if my weight would be any lower. At my highest weight I could almost fit into a D cup. At a healthy weight I’m a C cup. Right now I can still fit into some of my C cup bras, but most of them I cannot. Anyway, if I lose most of the weight in my hips, boobs, and thighs, it wouldn’t really make a huge difference to the outside world in terms of what I look like. But if I lose most of it from my back, face, and arms, then that’s a different story.
I’m also semi-excited for tomorrow. I was planning on buying some donuts (husband will be out of town). But yesterday and today, even though I am weak from restriction, I don’t have that overpowering urge to compulsivly overeat or binge. I will probably still go and buy something to splurge on, but I don’t think it will give me the same adrenaline rush like it did a few months ago. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve been lucking out on not overeating this week. The fact that I have no urges whatsoever is foreign. Not that I’m complaining; this has been the most successful I’ve been in terms of manageing the ED AND losing weight at the same time since I was just regularly dieting in 2010.
I will be honest, the weight loss is exciting to see, but at the same time, I promised myself this blog wouldn’t turn into the diaries I used to write (I lost another .2 pounds! I didn’t eat anything! I binged! I gained .4 pounds!). Nobody cares. So yeah.
So back to original topic: Are you scared to eat in front of people? If so, why?
My ED as a Meme
My ED is like one of those memes. You know the ones where they have a question up top and then a general statement down below? Like anxiety cat (totally me) or paranoid parrot? Except for my eating disorder, it’s a meme where I try to convince myself I don’t really have an eating disorder:
Ate a normal meal at a restaurant? NOT REALLY EATING DISORDERED.
Drank a milkshake and didn’t binge afterwards? NOT REALLY A BINGE EATER.
Ate a cupcake and didn’t see fat on yourself? NOT REALLY SUFFERING FROM BODY DYSMORPHIA.
Ate 1500 calories? NOT REALLY RESTRICTING.
Got your period? NOT REALLY ANORECTIC.
Didn’t consume 3000+ calories? NOT REALLY A BINGER.
Maintained your weight for almost a year? NOT REALLY GOOD AT LOSING WEIGHT.
I spend too much time comparing myself to other girls trying to convince myself I’m not really eating disordered. There are all these reasons as to why I don’t really have an eating disorder. I don’t lose weight fast enough. I eat too much to be anorexic. I don’t purge. I’m not 60 pounds. I’m not hiding food anymore. I’m mostly functional. My health is relatively okay. I can’t even fast for one day. I eat too normally on weekends. I don’t feel as bad as I should after a meal. I don’t hate my body. I don’t think I’m fat. But then I also have to realize I’ve put my body through a constant cycle of restricting/overeating pretty regularly for the past year. No, it hasn’t made a huge impact on my weight, but it has made a huge impact on my overall emotionall well-being. I’m either miserable because I’m hungry or miserable because I’m full. There’s seldom an in-between, and when there IS an in-between, I’m miserable because I feel too normal. Hungry/Normal/Full. I don’t want to be any of those things, and yet, I force myself to endure it for one primary goal: to lose weight. And I’m not even doing that.
The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Well, after almost a year of mainting the same weight (plus or minus a few pounds), you’d think my brain would get a clue. I’m a fucking loon if we are going by the insanity definition above.
My original plan of symptom management went pretty well last week and I was satisfied with the emotional results that came with it. I was less fatigued and irritable which made it a pleasant week for me and my husband. The downside was I didn’t see the weight loss I wanted, but I think that had more to do with the holiday and my period than my “inability to be successful at an eating disorder.” Yesterday did not go as planned either (remember the “at gunpoint” analogy I made two entries back?), but today I’m starting again on the 650 calories and it feels good so far.
I need to stop trying to put myself in the anorexia box and just let it ride. I am what I am, I do what I do, and regardless of what label I have or what label I want, this is my eating disorder and it’s different from yours. It’s different from hers. It’s different from his. It’s different from eveybody’s. And that’s okay. What’s ironic is my eating disorder is one way for me to feel “special” and “different” from everyone, and yet I strive so hard to make it look like everybody else’s eating disorders. Because if I don’t, that means I’m not really sick. But I am sick. I let food and weight dictate what time I do things, what I tell my husband, what I say at work, how I schedule my day, how I plan my life. More memes for that:
Husband going on a trip? PLAN A BINGE.
House empty in the morning? GET OUT THE SCALE.
New jar of peanut butter? OPEN THAT SHIT.
Have the computer to yourself? WORDPRESS TIME.
Number on the scale bad? DEPRESSION ALL DAY.
Anticipating having sex? AVOID OVEREATING.
Weekend coming up? CAN FINALLY USE LAXATIVES.
Friend ordered a salad? ORDER THE SAME THING, MINUS THE DRESSING.
Sick with the flu? WONDER HOW MUCH WEIGHT YOU’LL LOSE.
Kids brought home candy? HIT THAT UP WHEN THEY AREN’T LOOKING.
Nine months of pregnancy? THREE MONTHS BEFORE YOU GET REALLY FAT.
Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all night. OBSESSIVELY CHECKS WORDPRESS COMMENTS. (lol)
Overeaters Anonymous WAS Home
I want to post a comment I received regards to the OA (Overeaters Anonymous) program:
Be honest with yourself if not with anyone else – you are a part of OA groups because you get a perverse satisfaction in knowing you have more will-power than them. You like strutting around at only 80lbs in these meetings and having others gaze enviously at you. You like knowing that you don’t truly know what it’s like to binge or over-eat. You hide behind the facade that there are no anorexia groups for you to attend, and yet you made “the first” over-eaters group on Facebook – why over eaters? Why not anorexia? Well, because you feel better about yourself being part of an over-eaters group. Anorexics would pose too much competition for you.
You accuse others of comparing themselves to you, and yet you throw yourself right in their face to compare. You pretend, “I’m just like you!” but you’re not, and you know you’re not, and that’s what makes you feel better at the end of the day. Knowing you’re the one “with the most control” out of the group.
I think it’s important for me to address this issue.
Before my relapse, OA was home. In treatment, despite the majority of us suffering from anorexia or bulimia, Rader Programs introduced us to Overeaters Anonymous and had us go to OA meetings. Why? Probably because we had a better chance of finding support there than other 12-step groups, given that Eating Disorders Anonymous and Anorexia and Bulimia Anonymous groups are so hard to come by. With that said, I didn’t really click with the program at first. I didn’t understand the steps or the principles, and so when I got out of treatment, I never went to the meetings. I will say that in a general sense, Overeaters Anonymous is a group for people with all types of EDs. Yes, the title of the group is Overeaters Anonymous, but if anyone took the time to read the literature, it also welcomes anorexics, bulimics, and everybody in between.
Anyway, when my house burned down in 2007 I was in relapse again and my counselor urged me to go to OA or else she couldn’t see me anymore. So I did.
OA saved my life. I never once compared myself to the people there in a negative way. I never judged them. I never intentionally tried to make anybody else feel bad about themselves or their compulsive overeating. The people there welcomed me with open arms and I went back, every week, for about three years straight.
I started OA on facebook because that was MY fellowship. I belonged to this wonderful 12-step group that helped me find spiritual recovery from my eating disorder. It helped me reconnect with a higher power, it helped me become a humble person, it helped me be of service to other people, and it helped me let go of eating disorder behaviors. If you take the time to go back into this blog and read the entries pre-relapse, you would see that I was a very, very different person. In fact, in the FAQ, I never had weight stats. I never mentioned my weight or BMI. I never mentioned much about my personal life. I never posted pictures. I stuck to the principle of anonymity and was very cautious about what I posted. My number one goal was to help other people through helping myself, and I never wanted to trigger anybody.
I will say it again: OA SAVED MY LIFE. People can complain and argue that I’m not like the people in there, but I never felt more connected to people in my life than in my first few years in the program. We were different, yes. We were struggling with different issues. But we were all using those issues to hide the same things: insecurity, pain, sadness, emptiness, unhappiness. We were all coping in unhealthy ways, despite undereating, overeating, purging, over-exercising, using laxatives, dieting, restricting, bingeing, whatever.
In terms of the comment saying I don’t know what it’s like to truly binge or over-eat, I don’t want to spend too much time arguing about that. I’m pretty tired of people getting their panties in a twist over whether or not I binge. I will apologize for the misuse of the word in some entries, but there have been times where I have truly binged. This diary doesn’t cover the entire ten year span of my eating disorder, so it’s not safe to make assumptions in regards to what I do or don’t do.
I can tolerate people criticizing me, but please do not criticize my place in the 12-step program. I was a different person when I was in recovery. If that sounds like a cop-out, then it is what it is, but it’s true.
Do I throw myself out there for people to compare themselves to me? Sure. Online, I’d say that’s a pretty fair assessment. After all, I have admitted to being a compulsive attention-seeker. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t post pictures or stats. But in OA? Never. I never once, even during my relapse, have I gone to a meeting with the intention of showing off my weight or bragging about my relapse. I’m a selfish person, but I’m not that selfish. I’ve known the people in that meeting for five years, and they are the last people I would ever hurt. I care for them more than I care for a lot of people in my life, and if my weight bothers them, then that’s out of my control. Do I feel disconnected from them? Extremely. Do I feel insecure when I talk about my anorexia? Absolutely. But I never did when I was in recovery. But I think the difference is back then, I was at a healthy weight and it was easier to talk about the anorexia in past tense than it is to talk about it in present tense.
In terms of the very last sentence of the comment, what’s funny is I came onto wordpress today to write an entry about how out of control I was. I’m not in control at all. Even if I managed to fast for a week straight, I wouldn’t be in control. This entire week I have been very out of control in terms of food. I’ve attempted to severely limit my food intake and have ended up over-eating almost everyday. I haven’t had a bowel movement in three days. I feel both emotionally and physically uncomfortable and feel very weak (emotionally). So no, I don’t think I have more control than anybody in that group. I actually feel embarrassed and unworthy to BE in the group, because most of the people in my step study are doing very well in their recovery and I’m the only one in relapse. Realistically, I’m in the least control and the one who looks like a fool. The people in that group probably feel more pity than they do jealousy.
I find it generally odd that people criticize me for telling the truth. I admit my fault and mistakes, and people still like to write condescending comments in regards to those faults. I already know I’m an attention-seeker. I already know I am overly judgmental towards some people. It’s not like you have to remind me. I read the comments and I do get defensive, but then I have to realize, “Well, they are true. You already know that.” It is hard hearing it from others, but what my point is, why do people get so frustrated over it? I suppose it’s because I don’t make any effort to change.
My brother once cheated on his wife and said, “At least I own it. At least I take responsibility for what I did. People often deny their faults, but I don’t.” In the end, it doesn’t make it right. I can tell you all until I’m blue in the face how awful a person I am, but it doesn’t mean much until I change.
We are on Step 4 of the program right now. Steps 6 and 7 is where we deal with our character defects. We’ll see how that goes. The question is, “DO I WANT TO CHANGE?” They say in program how we wouldn’t have defects unless they helped us in some way. The attention obviously feeds my insecurity. The judgement also feeds my insecurity. As does the gossiping. The selfishness, I suppose, feeds the need to only look out for myself. So yes, my defects do help me. But am I willing to let them go? They say in recovery that we must be both physically and emotionally abstinent. So even if we get rid of our ED behaviors, we still need to get rid of all the negative shit that came with it. I’m not ready to let go of the ED behaviors. Am I ready to let go of the negative traits? I’d say yes, but the hard this is that they really go hand-in-hand. On some subconscious level, I may be afraid to practice humility because that means I would probably, overtime, let go of my ED behaviors. Being stuck in this constant bubble of negativity keeps me in my eating disorder. But being in my eating disorder also keeps me in this bubble. I don’t think I can pick one or the other. I have to let go of both in order to achieve the full potential of recovery.
This is me Bingeing
I often sit and wonder if I were ever on Intervention or some other show that exposes (exploits?) eating disorders, what would I tell the cameras that would follow me around all day? Even though I have an eating disorder, the bulk of my life really doesn’t scream “EATING DISORDER” as some may think. With anorexia, I’m restricting most of the day, so what are the cameras going to do? Record me sitting there, not eating? How interesting. And even when I binge, unless the camera crew were lucky and got me on a day where I gave into one, I’d almost have to re-create a binge just for television entertainment. They’d probably have to send my husband away, which is barely realistic given he is with me more days than not, but the most bingeing I do is when I’m alone. I suppose they could get shots of me preparing my food, although that in itself isn’t too exciting: “For breakfast I put 13 grapes into 1 cup of lite vanilla yogurt. Then I eat it like a normal person.” Then, of course, to make it seem more dramatic, Intervention would switch to a black screen and write, “The average woman [my name]‘s height should be eating 1800 calories a day. [My name] eats 500.” So they’ve got me eating food and bingeing, but what else? Are they going to record me playing Farmville for two hours before work? Or watching an episode of One Tree Hill I recorded on my DVR? Or reading the latest Stephen King book before I fall asleep at night? If they did, I’m sure they would work in into my disorder somehow, saying that people with anorexia often withdrawal from friends and family, preferring to be alone. Although that may be true, it’s a crock of shit for me, because I’ve always preferred spending my time doing meaningless things by myself. But if they didnt’ work it into the show SOMEHOW, I would probably be the most boring character they ever had.
Anyway — last night I DID have a binge, and against all normal binges, my husband was there while it happened:
BEFORE: I was driving home, slumped down further into my seat than usual, peering over the steering wheel. I was dead-tired despite not having done anything productive at work. It was more due to the fact that I had been starving to death and my body was feeling the results full force. By the time I got home and hugged my husband, I was about ready to collapse and fall asleep.
THE TRIGGER: But no, my husband was cooking dinner. My lower abdomen was hurting and I just KNEW I was about to start my period. Thoughts started swirling through my head: “I NEED TO EAT, physically I’m feeling pretty shitty.” And it was true. From a realistic standpoint, my body needed nourishment. But I was in the danger zone by then. Anything I put in my mouth would tip me over the edge and I would inevitably binge.
THE JUSTIFICATION: My body needed this, and I was about to start my period anyway. My period would put some weight on, and I have mad crazy urges to eat when I’m menstruating, so I might as well eat (BINGE).
THE URGE: The cravings kicked in. For some reason a cheese quesadilla sounded superb, and I opened the fridge.
THE BINGE: I piled shredded cheese onto a small tortilla and nuked it in the microwave. It was too hot to eat, but my mouth craved it so bad I ate it anyway, burning my tongue and barely tasting anything. As it cooled, I begin to eat slower, trying to convince myself I could stop at this. I could stop eating after this quesadilla and there’d be a good chance I’d still be 79 pounds in the morning. But no, a quesadilla wasn’t DESSERT, so I went back into the kitchen and took out a mug. I paused to think if I should use one of the giant mugs, but for then, a small mug would do. If I wanted to go back and get more, I would. One layer of ice cream followed by a layer of Andes Mint chips. Then another layer of ice cream and another layer of chips. This went on a third time, and I smashed down the ice cream to make room for more. I sat down with my husband and in a moment of pure insecurity and crudeness I started ranting about how overweight a cousin of mine has gotten and complained about how disgusting it was that she would let herself get that way and how she would die and early death due to obesity. Ironic considering I was doing the same thing, only backwards. I finished the ice cream and felt like I could stop there. Plus, if I went back to get more, my husband would be suspicious, if he wasn’t already.
An hour or so passed, and I asked him if he still had some Girl Scout cookies left. He did; the short-bread kind (really? The shortbread kind? Weak.). I took eight and dipped them in milk. Not as satisfying as if they were Thin Mints or Oreos, but they would do. An hour or so after that, I piled more shredded cheese onto another tortilla and ate it cold. Cheese fell out of the tortilla all over the plate, and I ate that. I didn’t finish the cheese burrito thing as I hadn’t realized just how gross it was cold.
And that’s where the bingeing ended. The damage would have been worse had my husband not be there, but I wonder now if he knew, or if he was oblivious.
AFTERWARDS: Afterwards I’m always filled with tremendous guilt and shame. I checked my stomach in the shower. Still flat, but I knew the reality of it all: somewhere in my intestinal track, disgusting food was digesting and making me fat. I checked my bones in the mirror, making sure they hadn’t magically disappeared during my derailment, but they were all still there. Not as prominent as I would like, but still there nonetheless. I couldn’t sleep knowing what I had done, but when I finally did, the night sweats came as my metabolism kicked in.
By early morning, even before I officially woke up, the cravings for water came and I couldn’t wait to get up and drink something. I’m always are incredibly thirsty the morning after a binge, and I’m not sure why.
When I woke up, the usual routine commenced. I urinated (at which I found that yes, I did actually start my period), took my clothes off, and weighed myself. 80.4 lbs. Whether or not this is period related, food related, or just something corky my body did (going from 79.6 lbs. to 80.4 lbs.), I sighed in somewhat relief. It could have been worse.
And in an ironic twist on things, it seems my eating disorder has regulated my period vs. stopping it. My normal cycle is usually 35-40 days (weirdly long) and the last two months it’s been a 28-day cycle, on the dot. At least this explains why I have broken out so bad.
My stomach this morning feels full and bloated, making it easier to fast all day until dinner, which will consist of a salad.
Next week we leave for LA on a four day trip where I will inevitably eat like a normal person and gain any weight back that I lose by Sunday. I know this will be true, because that is what history has taught me in the past. I know it to be true, and yet I can’t (won’t?) do anything to stop it.
Truth is a Dirty Word
People don’t like it when we lie and pretend we are something else that we’re not. But when we finally open up and say who we really are, we are chastised for being immoral. We are looked down upon because of our selfish ways or our values or the way we live our lives.
A classic case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
I could put on a smile and pretend like my life is all in order. Why shouldn’t I? I could blog about my two-story home, my loving husband, my job, our gated community with hardly any crime, our great marriage, etc. But then people may get upset because that would be bragging.
Or I could talk about how when I got together with my husband, he wasn’t legally divorced yet and our small, Bible-thumping town just about exiled us out of the county. Or about how when our small, two-bedroom house burned down I was on the verge of going completely insane, cutting up my legs and starving myself to death. But then people would get upset because I was being overly dramatic.
It’s a lose-lose.
My life has both good parts and bad parts, but regardless, it’s no better or worse than anybody else’s. And when you take morals and ethics out of the equation, no matter what I do, as long as I’m not hurting anybody else, it really is what it is. There’s no room for judgement, because at the end of the day, whatever I’ve done has happened and I can’t take it back.
People are so damn curious about eating disorders, and then when they finally read about how they really are, they point fingers and say how selfish we are. They blame us for damaging impressionable young girls who think they are fat. They balk when reading about how we are able to eat a dozen donuts and more in one sitting and then puke it all back up when we’re done. They ask stupid questions, like “You know you are killing yourself, right?” They almost always see it as a choice we are making more than a mental illness that has the highest mortality rate of all mental disorders.
So I have an eating disorder. Does that completely take away my right to dream of having children? Until I actually have children of my own, my thoughts and dreams are just that: thoughts and dreams. We are not our thoughts until we put those thoughts into action. Regardless if we are thinking of having children, thinking of having a one-night stand, thinking of slapping someone upside the face, thinking of downing a whole bottle of pills in order to kill ourselves, our thoughts are not our actions, because thoughts can be changed. So why the judgement? It’s like, what do you want me to do? Magically stop myself from wanting to have children? Let me take my magic wand out of my asshole so I can do that for you.
I work as a substance abuse counselor and 100% of my clients are court-mandated to be in my program. That means 100% of my clients were caught either selling or doing illegal drugs. The courts like to label them all addicts or junkies. The normies of the world like to think of them as second-class human beings. People who know nothing about drugs and drug addiction like to assume anybody who does an illegal drug must be an immoral person. When in truth, the majority of my clients are actually very kind, and some of them are better parents, spouses, or friends than some of my own family and friends.
Do I make bad decisions when I’m active in my eating disorder? Yes. I won’t deny that, and I will accept personal responsibility for the things I choose to do. But I never chose to have an eating disorder. Unfortunately, those were the cards I was dealt, and those are the cards I’ve been playing with for the past ten years. Some years I’ve been able to play fairly well. Other years I’ve been able to get out of the game completely. But others I’ve been drawn in, like the gambling addict who loses all his money and desperately tries to win it all back. In the end we only dig ourselves deeper into debt, or in this case, the never-ending cycle of an eating disorder.
Am I a bad influence to those younger than me or those who “want” anorexia? Possibly. But that’s not my fault. I may be co-dependent, but I’m not THAT co-dependent. It’s not my responsibility to “save” anyone, nor is it my responsibility to censor what I say in case someone stumbles across my blog and chooses to follow in my footsteps. That’s on them, whoever “they” are, and I will NEVER omit something that may be damaging to someone else. I don’t have the power to make anyone do ANYTHING, so I will not be ashamed of what I write in here.
You want to know about eating disorders? Read me or any of the blogs linked in my blogroll. Eating disorders ARE selfish, and I’m sorry for that, but it is what it is. If you can’t handle the truth, then look elsewhere for your reading material.
Body Fight
I feel like my body hates me; being the same weight for almost six months makes me feel insane and inferior.
I make new plans everyday, hoping something will satisfy both my hunger cravings and the will to lose weight.
I try to eat 750 calories a day to alleviate the cravings, but weight loss is too slow. I eat 500 calories to speed it up and end up overeating. Thus…a weight of 81, 81, 81.
I make myself feel better and say it’s my metabolism. My body is at a normal plateau. But in reality I think I am just weak.
But then again, I can’t imagine I am eating enough to stay plateaued, even with the overeating. I would think I would at least lose a pound a week.
The 79 pounds was so short-lived, and to jump to 81 the very next day perplexes me and frustrates me. I want so badly to manage the eating disorder, but I am so desperate to lose more weight that I end up sabotaging everything.
Realistically I would probably lose weight in the long run by consistently eating a higher caloric daily intake than what I am doing now, which is heavy restricting and overeating/bingeing. And yet, I can’t seem to let go and eat that much food during the day. It makes me feel too much like a normal person.
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Desperate
I feel so desperate. I feel like time is running out and this effort to lose weight is in vain.
I read over my blog entries and it’s as if two different people are writing them. I see contradictions all the time (e.g. “I don’t have a problem” then “Wait, yes I do!”) One day I hate my life and the next I am saying I have it good. I wish I could just be honest with myself and my readers on how shit really is.
I do feel desperate. The more time passes where I don’t do anything about having a baby, the more I feel guilty. The more desperate I become to lose weight. The more desperate I become to lose weight, the more I restrict. The more I restrict, the more I overeat. The more I overeat, the more I starve in order to compensate. The more that cycle continues, the longer I stay stuck at 81 pounds.
81 pounds, BMI 15.8.
I read other people’s blogs and how they are losing weight quickly. Then I think of how much energy I spend restricting and realize how that makes me feel: like a loser, a failure, a wannabe, a poser, a bad anorectic.
I feel so dreadfully desperate to get down to 75 pounds because it’s like then I will be able to have a baby. I feel like once I have a kid (if I have a kid), I can no longer be anorexic. It’s like this is my last fucking shot to prove to myself I can make it to a BMI of 14. And the longer I take, the longer I stall on having a baby, and the worse it makes me feel.
I want to stop. I want to stop trying and actually start doing. I want my metabolism to kick in. I want the food cravings to no longer exist. I actually thought that if I fasted all week, at the end I would just finally give into recovery. That lasted 12 hours…
I feel defeated and angry. I am tired of trying to accomplish this, and yet at the same time I feel like I have to. I feel like I can’t give in. I feel like I have to be eating disordered or else there will be nothing for me.
I feel like it’s time to grow up now. I am reading a novel by Stephen King called 11/22/63. It’s about a guy who goes back in time to stop the assassination of JFK. The closer he gets to the day of the assassination, the more obstacles he must face. The past does not want to be changed and tries to make sure the guy cannot do it. I feel like that is my life. I have never been able to get passed 78 pounds…something always occurs and I give up.
I don’t want to give up but I do…
So with that said, I am going to surrender just a little bit more. I am going to try to write and read less. I am going to stop the ED forums. I am going to eat three meals a day, shooting for 750 calories a day or less. I am going to bring the scale home so I am able to weigh every morning after peeing and on an empty stomach. Instead of being this tortured soul who has an eating disorder I want to adapt this as my lifestyle…I want to stop being so fucking depressed and comparing myself to other ED girls online. My ultimate goal is to continue losing weight, but I can’t do that if I keep bingeing my ass off. So if I stop the triggering sites and eat at regular intervals, I should be able to fucking do this.
Maybe along the way I will devote more of myself to recovery (the more I go to meetings, the more I see that as a real possibility), but for now I am “playing things by ear.”
I just want this week to be over…I want the work transition to be done with, I want all the paperwoek finished, I want to be put on part-time, I want to eat cleanly, I want to be weightless and free.
Free of these burdens…free of myself.
Hatred
The more I eat normally over the weekend, the more hatred I build up for myself. I hate that I can’t go all day without eating. I hate that I can’t lose weight. I hate that I don’t have a BMI if 14. I hate that I don’t look emaciated. I hate that my husband sees me and is still able to say, “I love your curves.” I hate my large breasts, my hourglass figure, and outer thighs. I want them gone, and I hate how painfully slow this whole process is. I must not want thinness bad enough if I can’t even stick to 750 calories over the weekend.
It’s killing me not having a scale here at the house.
Yeserday’s food intake was awful, but to a normal person, probably alright. I had one small chicken breast for lunch and a handful of almonds. Then I had a bunch of peanut butter I used for making brownies, then for dinner I had a small turkey burger patty, some rice, and corn. Then of course, a brownie. The caloric intake also shot up because I had another sweet tea from McDonalds.
So I took laxatives. I know it doesn’t help me lose weight, but it empties out my system and makes my stomach super flat. I know its weird but I judge how well I did with food based on how flat or distended my stomach is at the end of the day.
I feel thinner, but I know it’s just a lie. I want to fast this week, but I haven’t made up my mind. It will just lead to more bingeing.
I’ve had on and off again chest pains all weekend. Don’t know if it’s ED related, stress related, or psychosomatic. But last time my chest felt this way, my tests were all normal, so I am not going to do anything about it. We are still paying off my last hospital bills.
