Thanksgiving Break

I hate schoolwork. I have this pathological avoidance of it. Even if I like the assignment, I'll put it off and put it off until the due date passes, and then a week more, and then maybe I'll turn it in 3 weeks late or just quit the class. I hate this about myself. It's lazy and self-destructive and a complete waste of a valuable education. At present I'm only delinquent on 1 assignment, and I'm trying to convince myself it doesn't matter that much. But it does. I'm graduating in a few weeks and I need to just buck up and do the work.

Weight loss, same thing. I binge on bad foods, make constant poor decisions. I came home to find my skinny little sister even skinnier after an autumn of field hockey practice and a new diet. "I'm trying to be healthier" she told me in the American Eagle dressing room on Black Friday. I'm hovering somewhere around 140 pounds, meaning this autumn I gained around 10 pounds. Part of it is definitely that I stopped purging so much, part of it is that it's cold out and I don't walk and bike everywhere anymore. I really need to start a gym routine. (I say for the thousandth time)

Yesterday at the mall I saw my best friend from high school. If I weren't with my sister I might have just walked on by, never saying hello. But we did stop and pretend to exchange pleasantries. As we walked away from each other my eyes filled with tears and my stomach clenched with grief. I hurt her, back in 12th grade when I was blinded by my own raging pain and emotion and self-hate. But then I tried to make amends all summer, I reached out over and over again throughout college. She's polite, but makes it clear with her actions that she wants nothing to do with me. Last night when I got home I cut all our social media connections, seeing her pictures only makes me sad now.

My mood was lifted though, when we got to the movie theater and I stopped in at the bathroom. My period. Thank God. Three weeks ago the condom broke and I've been a ball of nervous tension ever since. I really need to go to the doctor and get on the pill or get an IUD or something. I never want to deal with this shit again. I texted L, who is now officially my boyfriend btw, and he was super relieved. I knew he was too afraid to ask about what was going on, but I wish he would have just let me know he was nervous, too. It would have made me feel a lot less alone.

Three weeks left and I'm no longer a college student. I can't wait to be free and yet I'm completely and utterly terrified. Nothing will change, and yet my whole identity will change. I won't be a "student" for the first time since I was 5 years old. It's time to finally figure out who I'm going to identify as for the next phase of my life.

Just keep swimming

Decided that I need to join a gym. I think I'll feel better if I start working out and eating better. So I'm going to try and go carb-free for a few days to see how I like it. Unfortunately I eat mainly carbs so it's going to be a bit hard to find new foods. But I think I can do it if I don't over think the whole thing.

L and I have been sleeping together lately. Spending a lot of time making playlists and smoking pot and talking about where we want to travel. He makes me so happy, but he still hasn't broken up with his girlfriend. Part of me never even expects him to. I'm not worth it for him to end that relationship, I'm a distraction, a blip on his radar, a nothing.

School work hasn't beaten me down too badly yet. I'm up to date on all my classes and I think I'm going to pass all of them this semester. Tomorrow I'm going to a climate change talk and there's going to be a senator there. I really can't wait to write about it.

Talking with my roommates the other day about it, I realized that I really want to be an activist. Or maybe a scientist. But climate change is really important to me, and I want to do something to help save the environment. I don't know what yet, but something.

Ennui

Currently climbing my way out of a several-day-deep hole of depression. Of the last 72 hours, I spent about 40 sleeping, 12 at work, 3 having sex, and the rest binging and watching television. Is it depression thats causing this overwhelming laziness, or is the laziness making me sad? Cause that's all I feel, overwhelmingly sad. All I want is to be sleeping so I don't have to be thinking. When I'm awake and thinking (or worse, talking to people) the insecurity and the self hate grow so strong its hard not to cry. I've cried a lot in public over the past week.

There was at least 4 homework assignments due today. I've only done one of them so far and I feel like such a huge failure. But it was me, these past few days, who actively procrastinated, knowing this would happen. I can't write, I can't do the work. I just do not care about any of this.

up and down and up

After my last post I only made it a few more days before the binging started again. It's embarrassing to admit here what a failure I am. I've been eating bad foods again in large quantities all alone. And then I run the bath so my roommates won't hear me purging. They think I don't do that anymore and I wish I could live up to their expectations of me.

Each morning I wake up and either remorsefully take a stock of last night's damages or happily congratulate myself on a low intake and bounce onto the scale. One wonderful morning it actually read 131, a great number for me. But this morning it was 134, still not awful, but up over the past week. My goal right now is to see 129 or lower by October. I don't think it's completely impossible, especially if I find a little time to actually get in some exercise.

Dieting is so boring. I wish I had some better news to tell you all.

A little optimism

Somehow, by some miracle, I've been binge-free since last friday. That's 10 days! I feel so fantastic, I can't even say. This has been a plague of mine for 13 years, which, not so coincidentally, is also the number of years since my mom died. It's kind of odd to type something like that out onto this white space. I have a problem that I've been embarrassed about since I was 8 years old. I binge eat and that's the thing I hate the most about myself, and I hate a lot of things about myself. And finally that I'm feeling just a little control over this behavior is so liberating. It's like if I could solve this than I could do anything.

My 21st Birthday

Just returned from a trip to Martha's Vineyard with my friends. 3 of my roommates, 1 friend from school and 1 friend from work. Two of my roommates grew up on MV and we stayed at E's house with her lovely parents and brother. We had a really great time in that classic girly vacation kind of way. Singing Beyonce and J-Lo in E's Dad's huge truck, three in the front row, three in the back row. It was what I imagined having friends would be like when I was a kid.

Luckily I wasn't the fattest girl on the trip this time, only the second fattest. One of my friends, who I love more than words, has let herself balloon since last summer. She complains about it all the time but she eats so much food constantly and hates to exercise (hmmm... sounds a lot like me, except without the purging.) The great thing about being with people constantly is there's not much time to eat secretly. I ate too much for sure, but it was in more reasonable quantities than I usually eat. 1.5 cups of pasta instead of 4, 2 cookies instead of 10, etc.

Today my weight was 135.5, higher than I'd like but not outrageous. But it's a huge mark of failure this year. I swore to myself I'd be 121 by my 21st birthday, but that's tomorrow and I'm still 15 pounds away. All I care about is eating, where I can get my next food fix from. I plan in my head where I'll go and where I can purge. How much I can eat and where I can eat it without anyone seeing me. I wish more than anything that this could all stop. That I could just be normal and eat healthy and be the person I should be. But I can't. Because I'm hopeless. I have zero potential to be anything worthwhile at all.

Karma

My work crush kissed me on Saturday night. I was so happy about it, I was in a good mood for days after. Now I'm pretty sure it was all alcohol induced. We both have the day off today and I asked him last night if he'd like to do anything. He said no and immediately my cheeks went hot and pink. My stomach hurt so much from embarrassment that I thought I was going to throw up.

But then karma kicked in, because 10 minutes later this guy who's been trying to ask me out for ages gave it another shot and I was so shocked that I said yes. I mean, how weird is that coincidence? Then, I think because the universe was trying to give me an ego boost, the guy who runs the trivia night gave me his number on his way out. How about that? 

And yes, I'm still fat. I'm still puking. Life goes on and it hurts every damn day.

53

On my family vacation in Charleston, SC this week.  I flew from Boston to Charleston on Tuesday and arrived here just in time for a pulled pork dinner. Everything here is junk food, but somehow everyone but me is skinny. Dad took our pictures on the beach last night, the whole white shirt and jean shorts thing. I'm editing them for him to give prints to the grandparents. I was in the middle of working on a group shot when just I had to stop because I was crying too much to focus. I'm so fat and ugly it's hard to even see anything else. I wish I could just stop eating and fix this so I could move on with my life but dieting is so hard. I'm eating around 1200 calories a day every day this week, walking a lot on the beach and swimming. I really hope I'm under 134 when I get back to Boston.

I hate my body and my skin and my face. Everything is so hideous. And the worst part is that I'm not even a nice person, I'm mean and gossipy and boastful and lazy and judgmental. I don't want to be this person anymore, I'd rather be dead than to keep being me.

Anyway, enough pity and tears. Today is my mother's birthday, she would have been 53. I wish she were here so I could ask her everything I've always wanted to know about her and hug her and make her a pretty pink birthday cake. She'll have been dead for 13 years on the 11th, I can't believe it's been so long. Everyone says I look like her, but I know they mean that I would look like her if only I were 25 pounds lighter. She was tiny and beautiful, I can only ever dream of being like her.

headphones, bookmarks

Yesterday went a bit better than the day before. I actually made it to the gym where I burned 550 calories according to the exercise machines. Plus I only ended up only eating about 300 calories (peach, cabbage, dressing, strawberries, iced tea) until just before work when I ate an entire bag of popcorners chips (they're dangerously addictive to me for some reason) and immediately purged them. It was 600 calories in the bag, but I'll count 200 since I got everything up. Then I worked 7 hours, only pissed off two customers, and had a good day for sales. I wouldn't say it was a good day, I was still really sad and lonely, but it was better than the rest of my week was.

I've finished a few good audiobooks recently. Here's the few that I'd suggest:

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty: The story revolves around the miniature dramas of a picturesque Australian primary school, all leading to the murder of one of the parents. Themes of domestic violence and sexual assault are explored through the lives of three mothers who all have children in the same kindergarten class.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: Amy is missing and all the evidence says her husband Nick killed her. But of course, nothing is ever as it seems. (this one was my favorite, and it's movie being released in the States in October)

The Silo Series by Hugh Howey: Book 1, Wool explores a society that exists inside an underground silo that stretches 150 stories into the earth. You'll have to read book 2, Shift, and book 3, Dust to figure out how they came to live there and to reach the conclusion of a story you won't be able to put down.

The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood: It's 1923 and Rose Baker's job as a typist at the upper west side police precinct has gotten a lot busier with all the new prohibition-related crimes. To handle the new workload another typist is hired, a graceful and sparkling girl called Odalie. The other typist changes everything for Rose before she even knows what's happened.

Any suggestions for me? I'm always searching for a new book!

fat ass

Gaining, gaining, can't stop gaining. This morning 137, 1 pound over my "healthy range." Just a few weeks ago I weighed 133, it's so soul crushing to gain weight and know that I'm moving in the opposite direction from all my goals. I really wanted to weigh 121 by my 21st birthday, but that definitely can't happen now. My birthday is in less than a month and I am failing astronomically. It's not that I'm just eating badly, making poor choices and whatever. It's that I'm choosing the wrong foods for meals and also adding thousands of calories daily with these monstrous secret binges. For example, yesterday:

• BREAKFAST peach
• practiced driving stick shift with my friend, hated myself intensely the whole time
• LUNCH very fatty mac and cheese
• SNACKwent to a movie and ate reese's pieces and gummies and diet soda
• came home from the movie and smoked with my roommate
• went out to buy binge food
• SNACK ate whole bag of chips, rest of gummies

It was probably 3,000 calories by the time I went to sleep. I know if I could only do the GM diet fully I could lose 10 pounds in a week. But I can never complete it properly because I'm surrounded by temptation. Fatty food in the restaurant, fatty foods in the store, roommate who love to order in and drink a lot of tequila and beer.

The depression is pretty bad this week. All my energy to do things that I normally love is just gone. Maybe I should quit smoking pot. It's making me too slow and hungry and sad. I love it, but I need to stop. I also wish I could quit my job but I need the money. Lately I just dread going and hate being there. I feel like I'm constantly messing up and I'm so sensitive about every tiny thing I do wrong. I've cried during the past 4 shifts.

In less than a week I'm flying to South Carolina for a vacation with my extended family on my mother's side. It just so happens that it'll be my mother's birthday while we're there. I wonder if anyone will make it a big deal, who will talk about her. It seems like no one mentions her at all anymore, she's almost completely gone now. That must be true death, when no one remembers you anymore.

Pity Party

Chatting with my dad, sitting with one leg tucked under the other on the couch. He's asking about our day trip to the beach and detailing the logistics for our up-coming camping vacation with our cousins. I look down in my lap for a moment, but my eyes stop on my thighs bulging out of my denim shorts. I'm so pale I practically glow-in-the-dark and everyone knows white makes everything look bigger, kitchens and waistlines alike. My thighs don't look like they belong to a 20-year-old, they look grotesque and way too old for me.

My stomach is a huge jiggling lump. It juts off my abdomen in the most disgusting way. Handfuls of flesh on my sides, innie belly button, rolls when I lean over. Big bubble butt, cellulite thighs, ugly wonky knees, short legs, pale too-wide feet. Fat wrists, no visible bones, fleshy forearms, pudgy childlike fingers, untoned biceps, round fat shoulders. Double chin, baby fat cheeks, The stretch marks on my hips and breasts are shameful white lines on my pale pink body, only making the fat more obvious. I am the fattest girl in the apartment, fattest member of my family, the ugliest person in every damn picture.

At the beach I spent all my time watching the people walk by and judging their bodies. The skinny girls made me jealous, the fat ones got my pity, scorn, and empathy. The kids made me wish I hadn't grown up fat. My life would be so much better, so much happier, if I hadn't been addicted to junk food, if I'd grown up pretty and likable. My personality is so bland, it's not fair that I have to look ugly too. Aren't fat girls supposed to be funny and smart? I got the worst of everything. It's so hard to keep up conversation when your head is full of self-comparisons and self-pity. There's no socially acceptable way to talk about the thoughts that plague me day in and day out.

Looking down at my thighs, I felt the chicken and diet dr pepper churn in my stomach. I excused myself from the couch to go chug a glass of water and throw up everything left in my stomach. This life is torture. 

A little self-hate for good measure

Lots of adventure in the past few weeks. I made a lot of friends and did a lot of fun things. But I've also gained. Not a ton, but enough to make me feel like absolute shit. I was maintaining 132 for a month or so, but then about 2 weeks ago I bounced back up to 135. I can tell on my body, too. I feel larger, like I'm constantly bloated. But unfortunately, feeling like shit always leads me to more binge eating. I binge maybe a third of what I eat, but I'm trying really hard to stop the purging. I need to protect my teeth and get healthy so I can move on with my freaking life.

My big goal for the year was to be 121 on my 21st birthday. That's only a little over a month away, I don't think it's going to happen. I eat way too much, smoke too much, drink too much. I don't like who I am or what I do, I need to become another person entirely. So I'm joining the Peace Corps. At least, I'm applying, I don't know if I'll actually get in. I can do some good in the world and find myself, or rather, find a better version of myself and learn how to live in that skin.

I wish I could peel away the fat like a heavy coat. This isn't me, this pudgy, ugly person. I'm a beautiful slight creature, small and worthy of love. I am just not who I'm meant to be at this size. Right now I'm a huge bulging girl, average and unattractive. I hate me so much this way.

Left out

There's this recurring pattern in my life. Maybe it's not a pattern, just a phenomenon that happens all the time but through my melodramatic lens looks like one. Anyway, there's this thing that happens when I feel like I'm finally confident in a group of friends and then all of the sudden I start feeling really left out. This happened in high school, and then again a few months after I joined the sorority. It's like as soon as I'm confident that I can trust them not to forget me, I start getting left out of everything again. I'm not invited to go out anymore, no one asks me to do things with them.

I found my group, my people, in my roommates this year. We became really close since we moved in together and lately we'd been talking a bunch about getting tattoos together. I know, I know. Friendship tattoos are kinda dumb. But whatever, it was sweet. And then yesterday a bunch of them went on a girls trip out of the city without me. My best friend didn't even bother to invite me. And then they all came home with tattoos.

I feel so juvenile to cry over this. I feel so left out and unimportant. We were all supposed to do this together, it was going to be special. Instead, while they were out having fun, I was alone at home doing nothing but watching Grey's and binging and purging. I've purged a lot the last few days. I just feel so let down by everyone in my life. Sometimes I just really want to lay down and give up, a lot of days I can't seem to figure out the point of living. And it doesn't help that I realize how stupid all these emotions are, how immature I'm acting.

June update

Only two more weeks until these summer classes are over. Thank goodness. They've been really difficult, and I'm feeling the desperate lazy crush of depression coming back again. I really don't know how other people do this. The whole living thing, the whole 'being an adult' thing. It sucks.

I've been seeing a psychiatrist, he's a cool guy. He put me on an anti-depressant, but so far not much has changed. Still the same sadness, still the same amount of purging. I must say though, my out look on the purging has changed. It's not a mental thing, or an emotional thing, despite what therapy and "experts" online have told me. It's a habit, a bad habit, but a habit nonetheless. And that doesn't mean it's going to be easy to stop, but I don't think I have to work out all this emotional bullshit in order to stop binging and purging.

Summer is here (finally) and that's made me a lot happier, I must say. Today I biked 12 miles and I feel really good about that. Biking always makes me feel free and accomplished. I like the trails and the peace of it. I want to try to bike from my home here in Boston to Cape Cod this summer. It's 70 miles, but I think I could do it in a day as long as I start early in the morning.

Just as before

Just got hired at a new restaurant. I feel like I'm wasting my time at the old one, not making enough money or doing anything productive with myself. But I will miss the people I worked with a lot. I really liked them, and I'll be sad to tell them that I'm leaving. 

After I quit therapy, I panicked and wanted to start it again. So I emailed my therapist and she emailed back saying that of course I could come back if I wanted to. I emailed about appointments a few times but never got an answer. I'm so confused! Now I have a plan to see a psychiatrist. Mostly I want to see him so I can stop crying all the time and get my emotions under control. Medicine isn't the same thing as a miracle, but I'm still hoping for one. 

On Wednesday night I'm taking the bus from Boston to Philadelphia to visit my family. My dad and my sister will both be home, but my brother will still be away at school when I'm there. In my little diet-obsessed brain, I'm worried that I'll eat too much of the comforting foods at home. Banana bread, tortilla chips, sugar cereals, pasta with cream sauce. I don't know how I'll be able to control myself in that environment, the place I got fat in the first place. Plus, this is the first visit home since my dad found out about my eating disorder and he'll be watching me like a hawk. If I'm caught with any suspicious behaviors, I know it's going to mean a very awkward conversation for both of us. 

I purged yesterday, and the day before that. Both days I felt under control until I ate what should have been a normal meal and freaked out. I feel the guilt start to bubble up inside me, and then I console myself with the promise that I won't keep the food down. I'll just get rid of it as soon as I find an isolated bathroom and a cup of water. And as soon as I've made that decision, I'm free to eat whatever else I might like, so long as it won't be too painful to purge. Then I quickly find my restroom, gulp a cup of water and purge. I drink water and throw up until I am only throwing up clear liquid, then I know everything in my system is gone.

Who would I be if I didn't have this food issue taking up so much of my energy? How could I possibly fill the time?

Lonely

Normally I live with 5 other girls, but last night I somehow had the entire house to myself. While some people might call that heaven, I was distraught. I turned on all the lights in the house, a movie on my computer. Then I poured a glass of wine and made a piece of toast. For the third night in a row I cried myself to sleep, overwhelmed by the loneliness. 

When I woke up at 7 this morning I walked through all the rooms of the house, looking for signs of life. No one. Turned on the shower, washed out my hair, and wailed ugly sobs to the empty house.

My time in Boston has been marked by extended periods of time spent walking the city alone. I shop and look at things, eat in cafes, listening to music and podcasts and books in my headphones. But I'm always alone. Of course everyone needs their alone time, but sometimes do much of it can be suffocating. Don't call me crazy, but I'm looking forward to when I have a husband and babies to look after, to keep me from being all alone. 

None of this is what I want right now, I want to travel and establish a career and do so many things before I settle down to raise a family. But oh, to have people I love to call my own and to come home to each day.

fighting for me

I need someone to fight for me, to be disappointed when I skip doctor's appointments, to realize when I'm pulling bullshit to get through. It's like because I'm not visibly sick I'm not any cause for alarm. Right now I'm not accountable to anyone, if I win or lose it's all on me. What a terribly lonely feeling.

Last week I sent an email to my therapist at the eating disorder center saying I wanted to quit treatment. She responded just wanting to know if I was going to continue therapy, or stop that as well. She didn't try to convince me to stay, tell me I needed to try harder. I'm slipping though the cracks, no one is going to catch me. Part of me is wishing for a heart attack or something serious enough to take some of these decisions out of my hands.

the key

I think I know how I can win this game. Simple. Just spend more time on planning and strategy. If I plotted out each day in advance, when I would eat each meal and possible options, I'd never need to panic or spin out emotionally over whether or not to buy anything with carbs in it. But to plan, I must be more focused, and set time apart for the planning. That's the key, really.

But what if it works? What if I'm successful? Not just in this weight thing, this thing that really in the end only matters to me. What happens if I can get my shit together and venture into the larger world? I'm starting to realize that I'm always going to be me when I grow up. I'm not going to magically transform into wonder woman in order to be independent. Little me, feeble and frightened, has to do all the things I've dreamed up for myself. In my own skin, I have to chase a career and a relationship, to travel, to earn money and build a life, a family. How could I do any of those things? I'm just not capable, I'm inadequate.

I'm so fucking terrified of growing up and growing older. What happens when I'm 25 and 30 and 40? I'm only good at being young. Maybe I'll always be this emotional, but I hope not. I'd rather be peaceful, accepting. Confident. I want to be a lot of things.

xxx-xxx-xxxx

Each time I think of posting, I think but I just did that. And each time it has been more than a week. I miss posting regularly, and it's nice to be able to look back on. The trouble is that looking back makes me so sad. When I remember things in terms of time, last semester or October 2012 I tend only to remember the good things, the big things. Reading old posts brings back everything, the heartbreaking depressingasfuck details of my everyday life.

I'm so tired, and my legs are sore. But I'm excited to be thinner. I will be thinner, it's summer and I'm focused. I've been kicked out of IOP (my outpatient program) for poor attendance. Not that I was actually making any efforts towards getting better. Yes, I puke a little less now, but I'm also able to eat far fewer calories now that there is more sunlight and less self-hatred.

Actually, the depression isn't that bad lately. I'm feeling okay. I'm tired and missing having a man in my life, though. I'm seeing a therapist now, but I still have to find a nutritionist. Well, I guess I used to have to since that was a program requirement but I guess now that I'm not in IOP I don't have to find a nutritionist after all. Oh well. I think I'd just like to get very sick. Move into the land of thin and restriction, control and constantly getting smaller.

April now

I keep a journal of everything I eat and everything I do now. It used to be an app on my phone, now it's a little blue book. I like the book, I can write things exactly how they are supposed to be.

This morning I went for a run. I was planning to run towards the river, along the running path to Harvard, then back. I only made it half way, my ears were cold and my head hurt from the caffeine pills I've been taking on an irregular schedule.

I don't know when I've ever been so careful about what I eat. When I've ever measured and prodded my food with such precision. Writing this, I'm trying not to cry. I'm feeling smaller, prettier, but also so unbelievably constricted, hopeless. Skittering energy. Launching and crashing, hyper-active then hiding away from anything that involves movement or people. Only want to cry and have someone hold me. I want someone who loves me to take care of me. No, I will have to do that all myself.

What will you do? What will you be? How will you survive? What will your story be? They all want to know. I wish I had the answer, or at least a more convincing response. I wish I had the follow through, that my spoken-aloud dreams weren't straight lies.

Oh I'm so sick. I hurt so badly. I don't know where the cure is, how I will ever find it. I look and I try and I whisper, help. 

over stretched

I just want to yell at them that I couldn't make it to class because I'm so depressed. That one morning I missed class because I lost myself in a binge and purge episode. Dealing with food and all this sadness is driving me crazy. But no, I have to have documentation and meet with a hundred administrators which only makes me feel more dramatic and like such a fraud. I'm too fat to have an eating disorder, that's what they'll think. No, more likely they'll think, she's so fat, must be the puking kind.

For so long I've been operating on a just get through it mentality. I'm getting near the end of my rope. Last week and this week I've been working too much. The money is great, but my nerves are fried. This weekend was so much work, and the entire time I was just making myself sick. On Friday I restricted then drank then binged. All of Saturday was spent binging and purging (twice in the toilet at work) and thinking about binging and purging and the enormous gulf of self-hatred that's taken up residence in my gut. My enormous fucking gut.

Plateau on my weight, always 133 or 134, days with higher numbers were spent jittering on too much caffeine and under 600 calories. This life I've created for myself is some sort of personally designed torture.

But, Oh! I have so much to be thankful for. It's pathetic that I'm this unhappy with all my piles of blessings. And I have no more to say.

Mar. 16

Some days, when I'm listening to loud music in my headphones and zoning out, I scroll and scroll through tumblr or different blogs for thinspo. A lot of it scares me. I don't want to be scary thin, and I can never ever look like a VS Angel, none of it is relevant to what I want to be. I just want to be this magical "perfect", I don't even know what the goal looks like. Just smaller in general.

On monday I spent most of the day in the ER getting my blood drawn and my heart rate measured so I could be cleared medically to start treatment. I'm in an outpatient program that involves a lot of group therapy and eating a regulated meal. The meal is torture, I swear. We have to meet quantity requirements in a few food categories, and everything always feels like too much.

I've been so afraid of purging since treatment started, and since the dizzy spinning incident, that I've been avoiding anything that might make me purge. Which is most foods in any average portion size. On the days I go to the outpatient program I end up eating 1200 calories or so, and on the days I don't go it's been about 500-900 calories a day. And it's been working, which feels nice. On Sunday, when I got home from Philadelphia and Washington DC I weighed 138 pounds. Then on Thursday I weighed 132. And today 131. I want to be at 129 by next week, I need this.

Tonight I'm going on a date with a guy who runs the trivia at work. I'm nervous that it will be awkward, or that I will embarrass myself. I'm also nervous about the fact that I have to tell him I definitely can't see him again, I really am not up to dating or being with guys at all right now.

from down here

Rock bottom isn't a place I've seen, at least not yet. But I felt a little closer to it yesterday. Most of it I spent alone, wandering Boston eating everything I could think of and vomiting it back up before the magic 1 hour mark passes. I don't know if this is true, but in my head at least, the stomach doesn't start doing anything with all that food until about 1 hour after it's eaten.

Instead of class (which I don't really like to attend anymore) I went to go smoke with my friend. He and I have been friends only for a few weeks, but he's a really nice guy. Yesterday I had to finally tell him we can't sleep together anymore. It hurts me too much to sleep with someone who doesn't care about me and who I don't care about in that way either. We had that conversation and things were fine afterwards, at least until his roommates came home. They're all acting majors, and they're too much personality for me to keep up with. I freaked, and left in a hurry, I'm sure they noticed.

Thats when the wandering an eating started. And so much purging. My stomach muscles are actually sore from all of it. By the end of my day I was exhausted and sad. I ended up at a bar with my friends, and only 3 beers later I was vomiting again, not by choice though.

My current idea is that I was so low on electrolytes that my body just couldn't do it anymore. It was so embarrassing to lose control that way. And it almost scares me enough to call for help.

opinion of me

His fingers never stopped moving, making little circles on my wrist, my stomach, my thigh. When his hands fell onto the healing cuts on my legs, I shifted the blanket we were under so he couldn't see. I don't know what I'll say if anyone ever sees. The way the lines are parallel and so numerous, it's obviously no accidental scratch, or an unlucky fall. I'm scared of my cuts for exactly the reason I made them- all the hurt and self-hate are visible on my body now.

Nothing he said in conversation was very impressive. But his height is. 15 inches taller than me, it's fun to tilt my head back that far to kiss him, fun to see the way his hands are so much bigger than mine. And I find it delightful that his hands know what to do, know the spots to look for, just where I want to be touched or held. Do some boys just know this inherently, or is it something past girlfriends have taught them? If it's the latter, I'd like to say thank you to each of them.

In a few minutes I should start getting ready to go to work. I spend all my time there trying to impress the managers and the other floor staff. The other day I paid for a beer I ordered by mistake instead of having a manager cancel it. I don't have money to throw away like that, but I couldn't face the embarrassment. I want them to think I'm smart and capable, interesting and worth having around. So far I only feel like the ugly new girl who can't do anything right, too dumb to tie her shoes.

unwell

What I wanted to say to him went something like this:

"I want you to treat me like I'm worth something to you. Give a damn about me and the things I love. Don't pressure me into things you know will hurt me; if I say I don't like something, don't do it again. I'm hurting right now, and you make things worse. But for some reason I can't stop wanting to be near you."

All I really said in the end was "I'm okay. Really, I'm okay." Even though I was trying not to cry and he could tell. He must have asked 100 times, and I never answered. I just don't want to be needy, and I can't say what I want to say without being dramatic and dumb. Because it's my fault, all of this. I was the one who kept showing up when he called, I'm the one making a choice to keep seeing him.

On Wednesday I cut two-inch lines into my thigh, one after another. I also added some to my collar bone, I always need to cut and scratch myself there. It feels so incredible to watch little drops of blood beed up and roll down my paper-white skin. It's like grotesque rain drops on a window pane, mesmerizing.

When he saw the cuts he gave me a look. I think he understands that they aren't from any kind of accident. When he asked I said I didn't want to talk about it. I wonder how many lines I can make before someone confronts me.

little thoughts

I'm having one of those moments. Right now the world looks like an uphill journey towards nothing. My dream was to be a big-shot reporter. But I can't report anything. I'm not good enough, I can't work hard enough, I don't have the necessary qualities. I've never written or created anything worth a second look. Whatever made me think I could amount to anything was a lunatic idea.

The depression is back. It's back for sure, stronger than I remember. But it's always stronger than I remember.

I wish I could stop blaming myself for all the ways I'm failing to fix my own problems. I wish I could turn off logic and perfectionism for a little while.

Today and yesterday I ate incredible quantities of food. I didn't purge any of it. I'm going to look so fat and hideous in my misery. I make a decent melodramatic at least. (that last bit was meant to be a joke, I hope I got some laughs.)

reduce me

I sobbed so hard and so loud that my roommate heard me from the other room. She hugged me and said it's okay. But it isn't okay. Everything fucking hurts. I just want to fucking break things, I want to punch things. I want to get in a fight with someone and win. I want to cause as much pain as I'm feeling right now. Maybe this is how people feel just before they do the stupidest thing they've ever done.

I'm binging terribly this week. Which also means I'm spending far too much time with my fingers in the back of my mouth, my eyes red and crying, my stomach aching. I hate this so much, it's gotta be some sort of punishment for something I did in a past life. Or a punishment for something I did in this life, Lord knows I've done enough terrible things.

bruised

The thing I never understood about self-harming was how a person could actually commit and make themselves hurt so much. It's the numbness, I know that now. When everything hurts so bad that you can't even feel anything anymore. Then you just need a shock to the system, something to force the tears out.

Rationally, inevitably, the sun will rise tomorrow and trees will grow taller, rivers will keep running. The world is so much bigger than me and my little crisis. The world is a big, beautiful place and I am just a small part of it. I am just another beautiful little piece of the universe. And when all the sadness is gone, I'll still be here, and the world will keep on spinning. I can go out and do things bigger than myself, this is all going to end okay.

But right now I'm hurting. When the train is coming, I have to keep my eyes averted so I don't think too much about what it would feel like to jump onto the tracks. And when I'm using a sharp kitchen knife, I try not to consider the temptation of an easy slice down my forearm.

cheers

Ladies, in honor of my new fake ID (Illinois in case you were wondering) I'd like to propose a toast. This toast is for all of us, the crazy ones, obsessed with food. This is for knowing how much you weighed this morning, and just before you last went to the bathroom, and just after, too, and to looking forward each morning to seeing the little number drop lower and lower. Here's to freakish knowledge of calories and nutritional content. Here's to purging with the shower running, having cut up knuckles and short finger nails. I honestly don't know how I could have survived the last few years without the support I get from this blog, so thank you- from the bottom of my heart.  Cheers to us, the girls who drink wine out of measuring cups.

on and on

The less you eat, the less you have to purge. It's a nice way to look at things when all you can think about is food and the lack of it. At least when I'm hungry my legs start to feel thinner, my thighs look just a little smaller in my dark-wash jeans that used to be too tight. Though I'm sure they're only looser from wearing them so much, it would take more than 5 pounds to make a real difference.

All weekend with my family I focused on staying away from food as much as possible. I ate only when others were eating, and ate in small quantities (mostly, I had too much pizza for lunch on Friday.) Everything that wasn't under 200 calories I purged. Of course I can never get everything back up, but I'm getting better at it. Practice makes perfect, they say.

On the drive home today I almost threw up from car sickness. So we stopped for hamburgers, a logical solution to my brother and my dad. They both had the burgers, I had a grilled cheese and cream soda, full calories. I got most of it up, but didn't want to take too long in the bathroom. Then my dad and I went to see the Hobbit. I had some popcorn during the pre-views and purged that, too. The rest of the movie I drank my diet coke and chewed winter fresh chewing gum. I used to hate diet coke, but now it makes me feel like a true girl-on-a-diet. The fake sugar and carbonation feel like such a rush.

I've been reading The Passion of Alice by Stephanie Grant, another eating disorder book, this one set in a recovery unit in 1984. The book is funny because you never know much about the narrator, mostly about her relationships with the other patients. No one's inner thoughts are discussed in too much detail, it's mostly about their actions and interactions. The book is okay, but I don't think I'll ever read it again.

I changed the passcode on my phone to my next goal weight. Every time I want to use my cell phone I get a little reminder of how much weight I have to lose. So far I think it's helping.

As if it mattered

I need an ana friend to text, someone to talk to when all I can think about is ed-related things. Like someone I could tell when I'm worried my roommate could hear me purging, or when I'm proud of myself for staying under my goal intake. comment if you'd like to, or message me somehow.

---

Finally had that appointment with the therapist. She was nice, but it still feels really weird to pay for someone to talk to. I don't think I like the idea of therapy, but I won't quit it yet. If I quit it now it would seem like I wasn't trying.

So may people know about my issues. All the roommates, my friends David, Matt, Sara, and probably a bunch of people I don't even realize. Everyone has such a huge mouth, including me. As if life is complicated enough and we don't already have enough to talk about without adding the drama of an eating disorder.

It's been weeks since a day when I didn't purge or didn't eat under 800 calories. My weight dropped 9 pounds in 4 days when I did the GM, I was briefly at 135, then went back up to 139, and now I'm going down again. Today I woke up to 137.5.  I'm going home to Pennsylvania today, flying in the evening. Then it's four days of family time, but I hope there's enough exercise and noise and distraction that I'll be under 136 when I arrive back. Under 135 is the dream, but I don't want to disappoint myself.

Last night was another big discussion with my roommate. I just started crying to her, I don't know what possessed me to tell her anything. The more I tell her, the more she worries. She cried because I cried, then we were both in her blankets whispering about life. I love her so much, and I wish my problem would go away so it wouldn't be her problem anymore. But I don't want to get better, I just want to lose weight.

meandering

I read in a few books about this behavior of bulimics. They wander the city, looking for the food that will satisfy them. They eat and eat, purging everything. They have to wander around because they are too embarrassed for anyone too see them eating too much in any one place. I do that. I do that all the time. I did it today, I think I spent over $40 today on food that ended up in the toilet. Such a colossal waste.

Tomorrow I have my appointment with a therapist. I've been waiting for this appointment for weeks, the woman seems very nice. I think if it weren't tomorrow I might burst. Someone besides me and this blog needs to know about this hell inside my head. I spent all day slightly worried that I might start crying and blabbing to a stranger on the street.

In the same area I have my current job I'm applying to a few different restaurants. I have an interview tomorrow at one of them and I'm waiting to hear back from the others. I also have a phone interview tomorrow with a news company that might pay me to actually use my skills in journalism. wahoo!

My face looks ridiculously round and fat, especially when I'm wearing lots winter gear.

I need a little help

When someone even brings up the idea of food, I start to get nervous. My life this week surprisingly and quickly dissolved into a full-bodied obsession with food and the lack of it.

I starved sunday to thursday, eating under 2,000 calories spread over all five days. Then yesterday and today I had two massive binges. I spent a large number of hours eating and throwing up, my throat is raw and burned. My stomach hurts, my head is aching, I feel like total shit. But it's like it wasn't me who did it. I was on autopilot, just a rational little robot inhaling food and vomiting it back out again. If I keep purging this often, (today I lost count at 4 times) it's going to start to show. A little blood actually came out an hour ago, I think maybe I scratched my tonsils with my finger nail. And my face is puffy, blood vessels in my face are broken, my hands always smell faintly of vomit.

This isn't what I want. I don't want to choose between eating nothing and everything. I don't want to rip myself to shreds. I just lost control, and I'm not sure how I'm going to get it back before these food problems destroy my life.

Today, I remember sitting and eating something, I don't know what, and crying alone in the dark. I was all alone in the house, no one could stop me from eating everything and from retching violently hour after hour. I was crying and wishing that someone would walk in, that somebody will come and save me. But I don't really think anyone will be able to save me. I have to do it myself, and I'm too pathetic to accomplish that task.

blizzard day

I can't sleep anymore. Every morning since I began this diet I wake up still thinking about frightening dreams, stomach grumbling, eyes hurting, legs weak. And to make it worse my weight went up since yesterday morning. I feel crushed, but I know I deserve this.

jan.1 intake:
b- 2 bananas, 1c strawberries, black tea (256)
l- 1 fruit leather (45)
d- "cauliflower pizza" (314)
s- 2 fl oz. red wine, 2 clementines (120)

Using the excuse of "feeling sick" doesn't work if you use it too often. I was "sick" on NYE, and I know my roommate would ask questions if I tried to use it again. She was excited about cooking dinner and eating all together last night, so I relented. We made "cauliflower pizza," I put another handful of mozzarella cheese, a 1/4c of pizza sauce, and 5 turkey pepperonis on mine. It was surprisingly low-calorie, but it wasn't allowed on the GM diet plan. yesterday was supposed to be bananas, milk, and vegetable soup. I could only rationalize the total change in plan by taking a two hour walk in the freezing cold on Carson Beach on the south shore. (I'd never been there before, I can't wait to go back in the summer.)

But this morning I weighed more than yesterday morning so I know that I was wrong to stray from the plan. I ate over 700 calories, double what I ate in the first two days. As a fix, I ate nothing today, just water and black tea. I'm head-spinning hungry, I'm wondering when my will is going to break and the binge will happen.

Clearly with today's fast, I'm not on the GM diet today. It was supposed to be beef and tomatoes, but I don't like either of those foods. So tomorrow I'm going to have brown rice sushi and fruit, and maybe a salad or something if I end up going out to eat with my roommate's parents like we planned a while ago.

This is so sad. I can't keep focusing all my energy on what I eat. It's so self-defeating. No one is ever happy if all they can think about is finding their own happiness. When you shift focus away from yourself and onto doing things for others, that's where happiness lies. But selfishness is my downfall, and right now this desire for self-perfection is a fire in me.

auld lang syne

Happy New Year my dear readers!! I'm so glad it's an even numbered year again, though 2013 was very good to me. I don't really want to list accomplishments or summarize anything, but I'd be happy if I had another year like this one. I want to keep moving forward, to keep gaining the things I want and leaving behind the things I don't need in my life. 

Today marks the 4th day of the GM diet. Yesterday was a really hard day. I woke up at 6am because my heart was racing and my stomach hurt. I got up and my legs were shaking, I got scared of what might happen so I ate an apple and a clementine. I immediately felt nauseous, but I thought it would pass. About 15 minutes late I had to leap out of bed to try to make it to the trashcan, but everything ended up on the floor.

What's funny is that I make myself throw up often, but when it happens naturally it hurts way more. My throat hurts less but everything else feels like an acid burn. The rest of the day I ate 6 clementines (210) and a whole jar of peaches in white grape juice (400) which is somehow the most calories I've eaten in three days.

The shaking hands and hazy thoughts have been worth it if you look at just the scale. I weighed 144 on the morning of day 1, 138.5 on the mornings of the two days after that, and this morning I weighed 135. One of my benchmark weights is 136, which is the high end of the "normal" bmi range for my height (5'2). It's sad that I'm still aiming to be normal after all these years of struggling. I should have made it to the bottom end of that range by now.

normal bmi range: 18.5-24.9

136 lbs- 24.9

101lbs- 18.5

I have this 35 pound ideal range I need to be within medically. But emotionally I want to be the weight that makes me feel light and pretty and worth wanting. I don't know what that is yet, but I'm going to keep dieting and burning calories until I find it. I wish that my weight didn't determine my worth, but it does. It plays into almost every part of my life- getting hired, keeping a job, finding a boyfriend, making new friends, being liked. Fat people have a hard time doing anything worthwhile in a world like this.

And now I'll make that list of New Year's resolutions:

-to be 121 by my 21st birthday

-go on a roadtrip

-travel out of the country

-make a film/radio piece I'm proud of

-get a killer internship or job prospect

-listen to more live music

-volunteer

-spend less money on silly things

-call my grandparents more often