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.