I feel as though today has been a day of mistakes for me. I repeatedly overstepped boundaries I had set for myself in terms of relationships with others/not prying, how I conduct myself professionally and casually, and, of course, my eating. Simultaneously, though, I also failed to meet expectations I've set; I fell short. I fell short in conducting the meeting with S, A, and J. I failed to workout. I failed to talk with anyone about driving me to observe a child somewhere, mainly because I knew my bank account was $0.00 and I wouldn't be able to pay for gas. So now I'll be lying to my professor in my discussion post because I'm too proud to admit my failure so late in the game and suffer the consequences of being honest and receiving the grade I really deserve. I just hate this. Failure failure failure failure. Every day. I need to stop behaving so lethargically and stop being so fucking half-hearted in my attempts at recovery. I'm irritated that I so blatantly looked choice in the face and gave pausing/reviewing my values the finger in light of temptation. I hate that. It makes me terrified that I'll never recover. See, I want to seeth, see -- you'll never change! No matter how much work you put in, eventually you crack! You'll never change--you CAN'T change. Fuck up. Screw up. You. will. never. accept. salvation. You have no fucking willpower! No wonder you're so fat. No wonder your body jiggles and jostles when you walk. No wonder you look like shit and your face is broken out. No fucking wonder. We all know why this is happening, you food whore, you slut. You FAILURE. You are not living up to who you should be, to the one thing that gives purpose to your existence, the one thing that makes your fucking presence even worthwhile. You slutty bitch.
That is what I want to (and have partially been saying all day) to myself.
But I know that recovery means learning to treat myself differently, with grace and curiosity and understanding. With acceptance and kindness. So I need to re-approach these ideas and see if they line up with what I truly believe. That's the only way to move forward. I don't want to give up!
So. I believe that I did cave to temptation today; I did this because I was feeling like I needed to be grounded. I had already napped in an attempt to give myself the break I wanted, along with watching some YouTube videos. So that was good--I attempted to address my needs for a transition and rest without food and I was actually successful at that. The issue didn't come until S left to nanny and I was alone. The relief I felt at her going was tangible, which was unexpected. But I felt like I could breathe; I think that was partially just from feeling free from judgment/a dark mood, and also the knowledge that I could binge if need be. As time wore on, though, my mind became consumed with continuous thoughts/obsession over the thought of the food that was in the cupboard, waiting for me. I knew that I wasn't hungry and I also checked in with myself enough to know that I was feeling upset/sad because of all the things I felt like I had done wrong during the day. I wanted that feeling to go away because I knew that I needed to get started on my other assignments, but, of course, didn't want to. Combine all this together and it led to me standing in the kitchen, frantically yet not wholeheartedly whispering reminders to myself about what my goals were, about how I should go sit and think about this and reconsider what it was I wanted, about how much I would hate feeling sick/full/fat/uncontrollable later on. But when the food, solitude, and painful feelings are there, promising relief, you don't do any of these things. At least not yet. And that is what I am banking on. Not yet, I have not yet learned how to do that. However, that absolutely does not mean it will never happen! As I learn to accept my feelings (which I did try doing), and let myself stop and feel them and find another way to soothe once I know my needs, I can learn to feel like I have a choice--a viable, good choice--for how to act. But that will take time and repeated encounters. I am still willing to learn and change and discover who I am without this eating disorder. I trust and believe that my life then will be better in terms of overall well-being than it is under my relationship with food now. Not to say I'll never be in pain, but just to say that when pain comes, I will feel it deeply, and I will deal with it healthily, embracing and soothing it. And I will maintain a beautiful life through it--or as close as I can get. I feel tempted to eat maybe, but I know my real needs. And I love myself. I want what is best for me, so I will do what is necessary to treat myself well.
Today, I was trying to self-soothe through that binging and purging session(s). I was trying to help myself cope and feel better. But it was ultimately painful, very painful. It hurt being so full. It was humiliating to go through so much food and having so many dishes out when Serena came back. It saddened me that I couldn't save breakfast or lunch for tomorrow, that I couldn't plan ahead for caring for myself. I want to be kind to myself and heal/breathe through painful events and moods and problems in life without destroying me. So I need my heart and habits to be transformed here. I need to change and let these insufficient band aids go.
"Breathe new life into me so that my heart--and my habits--may be transformed. May I leave differently than how I arrived. May I have the courage to let go. May I be changed." -Karly Pitman
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
this is what it looks like
I feel the need to exemplify for everyone what exactly bulimia--specifically binging--looks like. Compulsive overeating. Gorging. Whatever you'd like to call it.
You take a road trip with your roommate and the entire drive you sneak into gas stations to buy coffee alone. Caffeine, you say, you need caffeine. She thinks you're buying black coffee. No. You're putting the sickeningly sweet, thick creamy coffee imitation of French Vanilla and Pumpkin Spice into the same Styrofoam cups that all the people who really drink black coffee use. You're not sure if she can smell the difference, but you're praying to God she can't.
You notice how sloppily the white, stretch-mark-lined cauliflower fat around your thighs bounces all over the seat as you drive. You hate your body. You feel high off of all the sugar you've been ingesting. You hate, hate, hate yourself. You feel suffocating with how stuck you are.
You spend the week with friends constantly trying to slip in more food at each meal without people noticing. You have never felt so self-conscious in your entire life. You never realized just how much more you typically eat than the people around you. You can't relax. You just want to be alone so you can eat.
You repeatedly make excuses to slip upstairs to "email my mom," "reply to a text," or "grab a hair tie"; you actually just want to shove a hand into your box of Cheez-It's and chomp it down as quickly as possible. You need that hit of food. A lot of it. Now. Alone.
You wake up at 4:10 AM to sneak downstairs and grab food before everyone gets up to see you off for your return trip. You're in a spare bathroom, hoping your insomniac roommate it truly asleep, and blearily scarfing through each food item. Can people hear you chewing? You should have picked the snack without nuts.
You go grocery shopping with your roommate after this trip and are insanely protective over your cart. You "casually" pick a different checkout line and thank heaven that there are other, shorter 20 items or less lines for her to go through.
You avoid putting your groceries away until after she leaves. You don't want to give her a hint as to just what or how much food you bought. So you stall by unpacking your bags while she repacks hers for a weekend at home. You cheerily offer to help her bring stuff to her car. She asks, "Are you sure you're going to be okay here alone?" in reference to the last fall break when you were a little stir-crazy from being alone on a deserted campus for 5 days. I laugh at the insanity of the question. Hahaha. No, I want to say, no dear I will absolutely not be okay. I will be binging and purging on probably 10,000 calories worth of food all weekend (maybe more). I will be depressed. I will be in a haze. I will feel like shit. I will definitely not be okay. But I say "Yeah, of course; that's so sweet of you, but I'll be fine!"
You rip into the King Size Heath bar you bought as soon as the door's locked. You then unpack your groceries and ferociously dig into bags and boxes and gallons and cartons of good. You have to taste everything, now! You make odd combinations which taste surprisingly yummy. You use about 20,000 dishes. You eat and eat until you are literally shuffling, bent over like a humpback, to the bathroom. You bend at the waste and tickle the trigger. It's all water at first, the few sips you chugged desperately at the end once you realized how little you'd drank throughout. Then the food comes. And comes and comes and comes. You can feel the relief, so certain. As absolute as the fullness that told you to stop. You purge and purge until only small amounts are coming up. You try not to drip snot everywhere as you flush and move to the sink to wash the vomit off your hand and arm. You clean the toilet seat, feeling good. It's done. And everything you hated the taste of when you were full suddenly sounds so damn appealing. Maybe just a few more bites. What could be the harm? You won't get full enough to need to throw up again. Just a small snack.
10 minutes later you're back over the toilet. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until the list of your transgressions looks like this:
-1 extra-large box of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal
-1 bag multigrain tortilla chips, a little bit of too-hot salsa
-2/3 gallon 1% milk
-1 box Mac 'n Cheese
-1 pizza crust, 3/4 cup tomato sauce, 2/3 cup cheese
-1 large bowl of rigatoni noodles, 3/4 cup tomato sauce, 1/3 cup cheese
-1 half-gallon toffee ice cream
-2 heath bars
-1 (entire) package coconut dream cookies
-6 Chips Ahoy cookies
-1 box brown sugar
-3/4 stick butter
-2 cups oatmeal
-1 banana
-5 buttery biscuits
-1/2 a sub bun with a little tomato sauce/salsa
You'd rather be dead, but the best option is going to sleep instead. It's 1AM and you're exhausted. So you purge one last time because it's painful to lie down when you're full and organize the endless dishes into a seemingly neat order for tomorrow's washing.
And when you wake up you're hungry. It begins again.
This is the hell of bulimia. It never stops.
You take a road trip with your roommate and the entire drive you sneak into gas stations to buy coffee alone. Caffeine, you say, you need caffeine. She thinks you're buying black coffee. No. You're putting the sickeningly sweet, thick creamy coffee imitation of French Vanilla and Pumpkin Spice into the same Styrofoam cups that all the people who really drink black coffee use. You're not sure if she can smell the difference, but you're praying to God she can't.
You notice how sloppily the white, stretch-mark-lined cauliflower fat around your thighs bounces all over the seat as you drive. You hate your body. You feel high off of all the sugar you've been ingesting. You hate, hate, hate yourself. You feel suffocating with how stuck you are.
You spend the week with friends constantly trying to slip in more food at each meal without people noticing. You have never felt so self-conscious in your entire life. You never realized just how much more you typically eat than the people around you. You can't relax. You just want to be alone so you can eat.
You repeatedly make excuses to slip upstairs to "email my mom," "reply to a text," or "grab a hair tie"; you actually just want to shove a hand into your box of Cheez-It's and chomp it down as quickly as possible. You need that hit of food. A lot of it. Now. Alone.
You wake up at 4:10 AM to sneak downstairs and grab food before everyone gets up to see you off for your return trip. You're in a spare bathroom, hoping your insomniac roommate it truly asleep, and blearily scarfing through each food item. Can people hear you chewing? You should have picked the snack without nuts.
You go grocery shopping with your roommate after this trip and are insanely protective over your cart. You "casually" pick a different checkout line and thank heaven that there are other, shorter 20 items or less lines for her to go through.
You avoid putting your groceries away until after she leaves. You don't want to give her a hint as to just what or how much food you bought. So you stall by unpacking your bags while she repacks hers for a weekend at home. You cheerily offer to help her bring stuff to her car. She asks, "Are you sure you're going to be okay here alone?" in reference to the last fall break when you were a little stir-crazy from being alone on a deserted campus for 5 days. I laugh at the insanity of the question. Hahaha. No, I want to say, no dear I will absolutely not be okay. I will be binging and purging on probably 10,000 calories worth of food all weekend (maybe more). I will be depressed. I will be in a haze. I will feel like shit. I will definitely not be okay. But I say "Yeah, of course; that's so sweet of you, but I'll be fine!"
You rip into the King Size Heath bar you bought as soon as the door's locked. You then unpack your groceries and ferociously dig into bags and boxes and gallons and cartons of good. You have to taste everything, now! You make odd combinations which taste surprisingly yummy. You use about 20,000 dishes. You eat and eat until you are literally shuffling, bent over like a humpback, to the bathroom. You bend at the waste and tickle the trigger. It's all water at first, the few sips you chugged desperately at the end once you realized how little you'd drank throughout. Then the food comes. And comes and comes and comes. You can feel the relief, so certain. As absolute as the fullness that told you to stop. You purge and purge until only small amounts are coming up. You try not to drip snot everywhere as you flush and move to the sink to wash the vomit off your hand and arm. You clean the toilet seat, feeling good. It's done. And everything you hated the taste of when you were full suddenly sounds so damn appealing. Maybe just a few more bites. What could be the harm? You won't get full enough to need to throw up again. Just a small snack.
10 minutes later you're back over the toilet. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until the list of your transgressions looks like this:
-1 extra-large box of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal
-1 bag multigrain tortilla chips, a little bit of too-hot salsa
-2/3 gallon 1% milk
-1 box Mac 'n Cheese
-1 pizza crust, 3/4 cup tomato sauce, 2/3 cup cheese
-1 large bowl of rigatoni noodles, 3/4 cup tomato sauce, 1/3 cup cheese
-1 half-gallon toffee ice cream
-2 heath bars
-1 (entire) package coconut dream cookies
-6 Chips Ahoy cookies
-1 box brown sugar
-3/4 stick butter
-2 cups oatmeal
-1 banana
-5 buttery biscuits
-1/2 a sub bun with a little tomato sauce/salsa
You'd rather be dead, but the best option is going to sleep instead. It's 1AM and you're exhausted. So you purge one last time because it's painful to lie down when you're full and organize the endless dishes into a seemingly neat order for tomorrow's washing.
And when you wake up you're hungry. It begins again.
This is the hell of bulimia. It never stops.
Friday, October 11, 2013
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