Can I Be the Pink Ranger?

My greatest fear with my eating disorder is that I will morph into a compulsive overeater. This weekend has been nothing less than horrible in terms of food and I am afraid it will continue into the week. I am afraid I will gain all my weight back. I think back to the time I was abstinent from anorexia but eating nothing but microwavable food on a daily basis; seldom caring what I was eating, because hey, I didn’t know my weight and I was in recovery; I had a right to my carbs and milkshakes and candy. And then I started realizing all my clothes began to feel too tight. I began noticing folds and rolls I had never previously had. I began to feel inferior when I couldn’t find a dress to fit me before my friend’s wedding; the only thing that made me feel better was the fact that I still looked thinner than her on her wedding day.

Two months later I began the diet that lead me to my relapse; 30 pounds lighter and 30 times more miserable. I ask myself if I would rather be miserable than fat. If I could rewind time, would I still have gone on a diet? Probably, but I don’t think I would have stopped the meetings. I think if I had stayed active in OA, I would have been able to stop the diet after losing a healthy 10 pounds. But instead I kept going.

Am I capable of eating my way back up to my dreaded “fat” weight? I am sure of it. I could switch my ED just as quickly as a Mighty Morphing Power Ranger switches into super hero mode. It has happened before. I feel like I have lost the will power to lose anymore weight, but realistically my body just can’t lose anymore weight because of the damage I have done.

I have been having on and off chest pain all weekend; I have dismissed it as heartburn because that’s what I have been told it is every time I go to the doctor. They are accompanied by heart palpatations, but oh well. We are too broke for me to see a doctor anyway.

Today is Mother’s Day; a part of me always feels embarrassed, resentful, and ashamed on this holiday because I am not yet a mother. I feel like society expects a woman of my age to already have at least one kid. I usually treat today like any other day because my mom is dead; it’s easier not to think about her than do anything for her…I do the same on her birthday, the day she died, and her wedding anniversary to my dad. Just regular days I don’t give second thoughts to, because if I did, that would mean facing the reality that she doesn’t exist anymore.

Getting Older

This is going to sound horrible, but when I look at women like Jennifer Love Hewitt and Christina Aguilera, I get scared to get old and have children. Both of those women bordered on unhealthy thinness when they were most famous, and now both are somewhat…”curvy”…and that is being polite. I know it’s harder to stay in shape once you are in your 30s, and given that I don’t even exercise now, what am I going to look like when I am in my mid 30s?! And even if I didn’t get fat, I still don’t want to look like a woman. To me, being an adult woman means you are less sexually attractive. It sounds awful, but that’s something I crave…I crave attention from the opposite sex, even though I am taken. Even though I don’t seek out other men, even though I have been faithful to my husband, I still like knowing men find me attractive. And I feel that once I hit a certain age, my youth will forever be gone and I will be this…average woman.

The irony is men probably find a curvy woman more attractive than me, as I look like a child. I have been mistaken for my husband’s daughter on multiple occasions, given a children’s menu at a restaurant, and told I look like a teenager too many times to count. Granted this will work in my favor when I actually do hit my 30s, but still. The thought of being old just scares me to death.

What My ED Hears

The other day our intern brought my boss a cake for her 21 year sober birthday. I, of course, opted out of not having any. I don’t know if my boss (who knows about my eating disorder) was offended I wasn’t having any, curious as to why I wasn’t having any, or resentful because I wasn’t having any and she was…but here’s out this conversation went down:

Her: Do you want a piece of cake?
Me: No, thanks.

This is where normal conversations should end. When somebody says no, they mean no, or else they would have said otherwise. If they choose not to elaborate, that is their right. I didn’t feel like an explanation was necessary.

Her: Do you not like sweets?
Me: No, I do. I just don’t want any cake.

At this point, I was offended at the question and wanted to scream in her face, “IF YOU KNEW HOW MUCH SWEETS I ATE DURING ANY GIVEN BINGE, YOU WOULD NOT BE ASKING ME THESE FUCKING QUESTIONS.”

Her: Well, then what is it about cake?
Me: Nothing. For today, I just don’t WANT any.

Now, a rational human being would say she was just curious, or suspicious because I wasn’t eating cake, or interested in learning the ways of an anorectic. But my eating disorder says she was being a nosy bitch who needed to keep her mouth shut.

A part of me liked it. A part of me liked getting the attention around food. Especially because she is trying to watch her weight. She’s OVERWEIGHT and has openly admitted she has a problem/addiction to food but she’s not willing to work recovery around it. So of course my ED smiled in accomplishment because I had more willpower than her.

THEN…during group, one of my clients was graduating and upon leaving she said, “I’m still going to find a way to put some weight on you.”

My ED heard, “Well, of course this fat client thinks you are thin. An average person looks thin to her.”

Then another client chimed in and said, “NO! She’s perfect the way she is. She doesn’t need to gain ANYTHING!”

My ED heard, “You are AVERAGE.  You aren’t SKINNY enough.”

It’s so daunting and frustrating dealing with all these conflicting thoughts.

Why is Anorexia so Fascinating?

This is something I wrote on an ED forum:

I remember, at six-years-old, watching the HBO special “Lifestories” with my mom. The episode was called, “The Secret Life of Mary Margaret: Portrait of a Bulimic.” At the time I had no idea what an eating disorder was, or that throwing up your food was called bulimia. I had no weight issues of my own; even as a child I was underweight and had not yet experienced the hopelessness of insecurity and self-consciousness.

And yet…I remember thinking it was so fascinating. Watching this girl control her weight by starving, bingeing, and purging. Or in my six-year-old vocabulary, not eating, eating a lot, and throwing up.

I didn’t find it fascinating because I felt sorry for her. I found it fascinating because I thought it looked glamorous and romantic. I’m sure I didn’t use those words at six, but I can’t even describe what I thought at the time. My mother was always thin, and I can’t recall her ever really dieting, although I guess to some extent I knew that diet and exercise = not fat.

Anyway, ever since then I had always been attracted to eating disorders, fully aware I was never fat or overweight. I remember opening up an old copy of the journal version of “Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul” and seeing that I had written “I sometimes wish I had anorexia” when I was about 11 or 12. I don’t remember writing this. Underneath I wrote, “But I could never become anorexic because I’d be too scared of the health consequences.” But why? Why on earth did I wish to have anorexia? Logically I knew I wasn’t fat, but I sometimes thought I was, but normal people’s first instinct is to diet. Why was mine EATING DISORDER?

Was it for attention? To feel special? Unique? Troubled? I can see how I would do that now as an adult, but at SIX?

I won’t lie. I miss the romantic feelings the onset of my eating disorder gave me. The secrets, the feeling of superiority, the attention. Even when I was bingeing it felt romantic, because that’s what the REAL GIRLS WITH EDs DID in ALL THE LIFETIME MOVIES. Sad, I know. But now? It’s not so fascinating. Now it’s boring. Now it feels like a trap. Now it feels like Hell. Ugh.

The ED Battle in my Head

The Days When I Feel Like I’m Sick

On some days, the days when I’m restricting pretty heavily, those are the days when I think to myself, “This is ridiculous. You can’t live the rest of your life doing this. When it all comes down to it, it’s a pretty big pain in the ass when you are starving all the time.” These are the days when my stomach growls, my limbs fill like there’s sand in them, my eyelids become heavy, and I salivate while watching food commercials. This prompts me to watch the food channel, just so I can live vicariously through these people who are cooking rich, delicious foods and are actually able to eat them without a second thought. These are the days I wish I could order a huge cheeseburger with bacon and not feel like a fatty afterwards.

These are the days when I look at pictures like the one in my avatar (at my ED diary) and think, “You are much too thin. How can you think you are fat?” These are the days when I’m able to rationally see my weight is unhealthy and that the more I do this, the better chances I have of doing something horrible to my body.

These are the days when I’m secretly buying binge food at the store and stuffing them into the back of my closet. Or bringing them with me on vacation and hiding them in between clothes in my suitcase. And the embarrassing moment when I realize the reason all my clothes small awful is because my binge foods have managed to emit a not so pleasant odor during the trip.

These are the days when I realize I don’t have to unbutton any of my pants or shorts in order to take them on or off, or the fact that none of my pants fit anymore, and none of my belts really do the job in holding them up.

These are the days when I realize the huge bruises on the back of my thighs are from the chair I sit in for a couple of hours a day on the computer. When I bruise from merely sitting on a chair, that’s probably a problem. Or when I start getting massive cramps in my toes again. Or when I have on and off again mild chest pain — regardless if it’s psychosomatic or not.

The Days When I Feel Like I Don’t Have a Problem

This is most days. I pass by the bathroom mirror, the living room mirror, the windows in stores, whatever reflective surface, and realize, “I’m not that skinny.” I think back to the women on the documentary “THIN,” and think, “You aren’t sick until you look like them.” My ribs don’t show unless I angle my body a certain way, and even though I can feel my sharp bones everywhere, they’re not sharp enough to protrude through my clothing.

These are the days when I can eat relatively normal without a problem. Or when I order a milkshake at a restaurant, or manage to eat an entire piece of mud pie probably consisting of 1000+ calories alone.

These are the days when my weight doesn’t go down, or I realize that it takes me forever to lose weight, or when my husband tells me he doesn’t feel like I’m too skinny. These are the days when I can see my thighs jiggle, or when I look at my lower back fat, or the fact that my arm wiggles back and forth when I shake it.

These are the days when I realize I still menstruate, have all my hair, get through the day without fainting, go to the doctor and get perfect health results, and am able to live quite normal despite being weak and miserable a lot of the time. These are the days when the thought of fasting for more than one day just seems completely impossible. These are the days when I feel weak in my eating disorder (if I even have one) and feel like I’m pretending.

The Battle in my Head

And the sad part of it all is when I have days when I feel like I’m sick, it’s a trophy. It’s glorification. It’s justification. It’s a pat on the back. It’s the devil on my shoulder saying, “You’re doing such a great job. This is proof you are better than others. This is proof you really do have a problem. This is proof you can lose weight.”

Yet, on the days where I don’t feel like I have a problem, those are the days I feel like I can keep going because I should. Because I need to. Because I need to prove a point. Because I need to be thinner.

And all the same — regardless if I’m sick or not, this is still affecting my life in a huge way. I may not be losing my job, or my relationship, or my home, or my family, or my health, but it sure does sound like I’m losing my sanity. And right now, that’s pretty much the only thing that keeps recovery in the back of my head.

Thank You Supporters

I just wanted to check in a bit, especially to thank my supporters. It means a lot to me that people still read this blog and wish me well, especially because sometimes I feel like such a fake. And to Charlie — who took the time to email me and ask for prayers on his twitter; that means a lot . So, thank you.

I’m not really sure where I’m at right now with recovery. I don’t want to ruin my health any more than I already am, and every time I see someone with a baby or hear my friends talk about being pregnant or see a commercial about kids, I feel guilty because I may be ruining my chance of becoming pregnant. But it’s so hard to stop when your health results come back normal and you still manage to get your period. “Maybe I can go a little bit longer before I do any long term damage.” That’s my constant justification.

We went on a mini-vacation. I say mini because it was a work conference for my husband, but we still got to go to San Diego to relax a bit. I gained two pounds while there, and not knowing my weight the entire time was a huge struggle. I ate way too much unhealthy food and felt so incredibly gross and disgusting, but at the same time I’m glad I got to get away from work. I’m upset about the two pound weight gain, but the only person who will notice is ME. I’d like to be back down to the weight I was before I left, so here’s to hoping I reach that goal this weekend.

I don’t feel like I’m sick enough to go into treatment. Hell, I don’t feel like I’m sick enough to go to a therapist. Yet, at the same time, I do. But really, how are they going to help me if I don’t WANT the help? I feel hopeless and worthless unless I want recovery first.

Torture

My very first thought in the morning is, “I hope my husband put out the scale so I can weigh myself.” Not, “What a beautiful day,” or “Good morning, husband.” Just…hopes that the scale will be available so I can use it, wishes that the number on it will be lower than yesterday.

It’s almost 10:00 AM, but I’m still tired and don’t want to get out of bed. My eyelids feel very heavy, and I feel weak today. My husband has left to go participate in the outdoor activities I choose not to take part in, and I’m happy he’s out of the house so I can use the scale in peace. Because even though I still ask him to take it out every Saturday, I secretly know where its hidden. He does not, and it needs to stay that way.

I slowly walk to its hiding place, take off my night gown, and step on. To my disappointment, it’s the same number is was yesterday, and I feel completely, and totally defeated. I’m so weak this morning because I restricted my food intake yesterday, so I thought I’d lose something.  But to see the same exact number on the scale is as bad as to see it go UP a number. I step on again just in case, and it’s the same.

I curse myself, telling myself it’s my fault, because I must have counted how many chips I had in my nachos incorrectly, or because of the late night tea I had, or because at 1:00 AM in the morning, I decided to have one piece of hot tamale candy. Or the second cup of stir fry veggies I had at dinner, when I could have survived on one. Or the fact that I haven’t had a bowel movement. All these things I wish I could go back and change, just so the number would be lower and this weakness wouldn’t be in vain. This hunger. This lack of energy.

And the cycle continues — I try to make myself go to the bathroom, and when I can’t, I go back to step on the scale about ten more times, stepping on, stepping off, knowing perfectly well the human body will not lose weight just by doing that, but hoping nonetheless. And the number has magically gone up .2 pounds. What a cruel joke to play on me — my body sure knows how to press my buttons.

I laugh and put the scale away — it’s only 10:00 AM and I have a couple of hours before I’ll allow any food to pass my lips. But I’m so, so hungry. My stomach is growling and my limbs feel like somebody pored sand into them. Walking up the stairs to go weigh myself was such a burden; the thought of getting up and doing anything makes me want to cry.

I sit at the computer, doing mindless activities, occasionally looking at the clock, hoping that time will have raced forward when I wasn’t looking. But it hasn’t. It never does when you want it to. So I sit, starving to death, wondering if I can just hold out another hour so I can finally eat.

And this is life in an eating disorder — living your life around it, instead of it living around yours. From the moment I woke up — it was all about my disease. Even when I got up out of bed to go urinate, I was urinating not because that’s what we do in the morning, but because I couldn’t weigh myself until I was completely empty of any excess weight. I thought taking a shower may eat up some time, but then I thought, “You can’t, because your wet hair will weigh you down if you weigh yourself again. Wait until the evening when you never weigh yourself.”

And that’s how it is.

How Much Longer Will I Take This?

So it’s been a little over a month since I fully “relapsed,” and I still have no real intentions of going back to an OA meeting, working any type of recovery program, or maintaing/gaining any weight. In total since my diet began in June of 2010, I’ve lost almost 25 pounds. Granted, it was a very, very slow weight loss, but I’ve never in my lifetime lost that much weight, even in my “severe” anorexic periods.

When I was in recovery and wanting to get pregnant, the inevitable weight gain didn’t really scare me. I figured I was in a healthy enough state to accept any body changes, and that I would successfully be able to lose any baby weight and not relapse. Now that I’m fully in my disease, I’m terrified of getting pregnant, gaining weight, and possibly changing the way my body looks permanently.

I think my body is at a “perfect” weight right now, meaning I don’t look fat, but I don’t look emaciated either. I do look underweight, and to some I would look “unhealthy,” but the body I see in the mirror right now is similar to the bodies I envy on fashion magazines. And I’m not saying that to be conceited, but I think I do have a healthy perspective of what my body really looks like, and despite my height, I think I look pretty good right now. I’d hate to ruin that…by getting pregnant.

And that’s such a selfish thing to say. But in all honesty, I’ve been avoiding the baby issue for weeks now simply because I want to hold onto this ED as long as I can. I want to get as low as possible with my weight before I have to let it go forever. But even if we were to successfully get pregnant, I think it would be enough to make me snap. I can’t fathom the thought of even gaining ONE pound. The thought of gaining 10, 20, 30+ pounds makes me want to kill myself. Not literally of course, but I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t go into a very deep depression if it were to happen.

But for now, I’ll continue to eat between 500-700 calories a day, hoping to lose at least a pounds a week. For what reason? To be pretty? To be skinny? Well, to tell you the truth, I’m already both. So why must I continue to torture myself — constantly being hungry, weighing myself multiple times a day, planning when to pack my food so it looks like I’m taking more with me than I really am, looking at junk food like a dog who hasn’t eaten in days, having to buy new clothes because the new clothes I just bought no longer fit me anymore?

Because I like to see the number go down. That’s really it. I just like knowing I made the number go down. I don’t see myself as a hideously fat person, but I think I could be thinner. Do I like my thinness? Yes, and I reckon I’d like it even more if I were even thinner.

I think a part of me hopes this will all come crashing down on me so I can just take a break from life. But that’s the easy way out — residential treatment can’t come swooping down to help me every time I want to whine about life. And that makes me sad.

I Feel Like a Failure

Everyday I go a little deeper into a relapse. I got my period today, and for the first time in years, I wished I wouldn’t get my period not for the slim chance I was pregnant, but because that would mean I was doing well in my eating disorder. I got my period, and that just goes to show my eating disorder that I am still “fat.”

I feel the need to “punish” myself tomorrow; eat less than I already am. Yet, I’m constantly starving in between meals, and I feel like my period is sucking out all my energy, which isn’t a lot because I’m almost always tired now. I still don’t really understand this, considering there are plenty of anorexics out there who eat way less, exercise, and are still able to fully function. I don’t know how they do it.

Also, the fact that I have my period helps me justify that it’s perfectly reasonable to lose another five pounds. Or ten. I’m just tired of how slowly I’m losing. And the fact that my boobs are bigger during my period is driving me crazy; I feel even fatter.

Looking for Therapists

So I called my old counselor that I had before I entered treatment. I let her know everything that was going on with me, and I ask her what her opinion was on whether or not OA is enough for me. It all boiled down to her saying, “You know what you need, it’s just a matter of doing it now.”

She’s definitely right. I don’t think I’m sick enough to enter into any type of treatment center, but I also think I’d benefit from some type of therapy. At the same time though, I feel like I know how to keep myself in recovery, but again, I’m not ready to be there yet.

And in all honesty, the stubbornness I have isn’t so much because I would possibly have to gain weight (although that’s a huge, huge part), but because I like feeling like I’m good at something again. I like when people complain about how they have no willpower with food, or that they have to lose a few pounds, because my ED says things like, “I have plenty willpower, and don’t need to eat x, y, and z” or “If people would just take the time to read a damn FOOD LABEL, they wouldn’t have to diet. They should be smart like ME!” I like when people comment on how much weight I’ve lost. I like the thought of people worrying about me. I like the feeling of BEING BETTER THAN YOU and GETTING ATTENTION. My two main issues the first time ’round.

I feel like I know this magic secret that nobody else does, and if I were to get back into hardcore recovery, I’d lose it. I lost it once, and I feel like I don’t want to lose it again.

The stupid thing though is that I think (and this is my recovery brain talking, not ED) my weight is just about average for my body/height. Before I was hardcore into my ED, my weight was pretty stable around 93ish pounds. This is where I’m at right now, and if I ate 1500 calories a day, I’m pretty sure that’s the weight my body would stay. When I got out of treatment, even my nutritionist said that 93 pounds, the weight they discharged me at, was an okay weight to be at.

That sounds like a justification, but that’s not why I wrote it. I wrote it because I feel like a “dry drunk.” It took one year to lose 20 pounds, and I didn’t take any drastic measure to lose it. I ate three meals a day and cut out freezer/high fatty foods/soda. That’s pretty much it. I still have my period, I have no physical symptoms of an anorexic, and I feel fine on a daily basis (no fatigue or dizziness or lack of energy). But the psychological symptoms are ALL there. The envy, perfectionism, disappointment when I gain a pound (like this morning), wanting to lose more weight, seeing fat on my body, feeling not thin enough, feeling better than others, attention seeking, etc., etc.

So anyway, back to my counselor. She is going to send me referrals for ED counselors in my area. There’s a chance she may not be able to find one who works on a sliding scale system, but I’m hoping at least someone pops up. Even if I’m not ready to tackle this ED thing, I think it would be beneficial for all the other stresses I deal with (work, infertility, end of the world crap).

And just for the record: I gained a pound today (92 lbs.) and ED said, “SCREW IT! It’s SATURDAY, YOU GAINED ANYWAY, EAT WHAT YOU WANT!” So for dinner I ate an entire steak. Plus corn, a plumb, and 1 cup of rice-a-roni. I don’t feel uncomfortably full (thank God) but I do feel full, and most of all, fat.