Happy in hell

Today I am happy for all the wrong reasons.  I woke up incredibly depressed and wishing I hadn't woken up at all.  While I was getting dressed I noticed that my waist seemed smaller.  I was really excited, but also prepared for a letdown when I measured my waist.  23.5 inches.  The last time I measured (which was ages ago) it was around 27 inches.  I get excited about being skinny the way a little kid gets excited for Christmas, so I was elated all morning. 

I had therapy this morning, which brought me down a bit.  I was very self-critical in my ballet class today, which didn't make me feel much better.  After ballet (jumping around for an hour and a half) I still felt restless.  I was riding my bike from the college to my house, so I decided to just keep biking.  And keep biking, and keep biking, and keep biking... I've ridden my bike 18-ish miles today.  I'm proud of myself.  I was on a bike trail that goes around a lake.  After the first lap, I wanted to quit and go home.  I even started to follow the path home, but I turned around and kept going.  I made myself keep going until I had completed 5 laps around the lake. 

When I got home I did sixty crunches, laying on the floor under the magazine pictures of teeny tiny models I hung on my bedroom wall along with a couple motivating Nike ads.  I had some apple juice, because I hadn't eaten since breakfast and figured I could use a small blood-sugar boost.  I immediately regretted it.  120 calories of apple juice when I could have just had water.  What a waste!  After that I guzzled water.  I weighed myself.  I was 121.5 lbs.  Then I realized that I'd had quite a bit of water and approximately 8 oz of apple juice.  I filled my bottle to how much I'd had to drink and weighed it.  It was half a pound, and I reckoned the apple juice was probably a quarter of a pound.  Subtracting this three-quarters of a pound puts me at 119.25 pounds.  Woot!!!!!  I'm so excited!  I've lost 4.25 pounds since early September.  Crazy! 

I know this is really bad for me.  I know that I'm approaching an unhealthy weight.  I should weigh close to 130 pounds, according to BMI charts, but screw that.  I'm having fun.  Well, sort of... seeing the numbers go down is fun, but the actual process is hell.  If I don't eat I walk through the day in a paranoid haze.  If I do eat I hate myself for it, no matter how much or how little I ate.  I'm trying to find some semblence of moderation. 

My grandma is making 4-cheese pizza for dinner.  I'm nervous.  I feel like if I eat it it will completely wipe out all the hard work I did on my bike ride.  I don't know how many calories I burned on the ride, nor have I looked at how many calories are in the pizza yet.  I'm going to, though.  I can probably only have one or two slices.  I probably have to have at least two pieces or my grandma will worry, and I don't want her to be suspicious.  Whenever we had pizza in the summer, I would eat nearly half of it.  Disgusting.  I need more self-control. 

I shouldn't be losing weight.  This is really bad.  But I love losing weight! I'm so torn.  I know if I work hard to recover I can be happy, but at the same time if I work hard at weightloss, I can be thin.  Both are appealling, but being thinner usually wins.  I don't know what to do!!!!

Help! :(

Dr. Oz 08/07/2012 "Feederism"

Written Tuesday, August 7th, 2012

I. HATE. Doctor Oz.  Every time I see his show it terrorizes me.  His focus is on different ways to lose weight.  It's so triggering! I want to take notes, try out his methods.  I am so tempted to fall back into my disordered eating habits and start losing weight again.  I hate Doctor Oz and I need to stop watching it.

Today's show is truly horrifying to me. The guests on the show are "feederists," women who want more than anything to be fat.  They want to be the fattest women in the world.  They get off on it, they think their enormous bodies are beautiful. Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to be judgemental or critical of them. Kudos to them for their self-confidence. The thing is, they don't think their bodies or eating habits are unhealthy.

That's their choice, that is what this episode of Dr. Oz is focusing on; however, from an eating disordered point of view these women are monsters.  They are my worst nightmare.  Seeing them and their pride for being large turns me off to food and eating. I feel threatened.  I feel enormous.  I want to starve.

I don't want to come off as being bitchy.  Recognizing that these women are my worst fears personified makes me feel so mean.  I am scared and confused by these women.

I want to over compensate for the extra weight I carry.  I am 5'7" and weight 127 pounds.  I have gained four pounds in the past month.  I am admittedly the exact weight I should be, maybe even a little under.  A counselor at church camp last week even told me she though I look like I am under 120 pounds (I wish!). I just don't always see that I am a good size.  I am scared of my body.  Sometimes I don't know how to feed myself.

How do y'all eat like it's no big deal?  Aren't you terrified?  I am hyper aware of what I eat and what the consequences of my eating may be.  I am terrified of gaining weight.

This is all I can say on this topic for now, or I will end up talking in circles. 

A Sad Playlist for a Sad Day

Fiona Apple -Limp
Marina and the Diamonds -Teen Idle
Sia -I'm In Here
Elliot Smith -Between the Bars
Skylar Grey -Invisible

I would love for someone to grab my shoulders, shake me and say "I can tell you've lost weight. You look sick. What have you eaten today?" so I can have the satisfaction of saying "Absolutely nothing."

I don't think anyone has noticed, though.  And if they have, they don't care enough to do anything about it.

I NEED BRITNEY BACK, DAMMIT!

Sapphire - Therapist = very bad

Holiday Woes

I haven't posted in a while because I've been extremely busy with school and extra curricular.  I find myself needing to write now because it is the holiday season and this is very stressful for me because of all the eating involved.  I have been trying very hard to recover, which requires me to permit myself to eat and enjoy it without fear, self-hatred, or guilt.  It's not easy. 

Thanksgiving was wrought with anxiety.  I ate mashed potatoes with butter, half a plate full of stuffing, cranberry sauce, applesauce, and two slices of pumpkin pie.  I did get to go for a short walk afterwards, and I climbed trees with my cousins, but I still felt guilty.  I was wearing my prized Calvin Klein skinny jeans and I was bloated and hanging over the waist-band.  I don't know if it was just body dysmorphia or if it was real, but I could feel rolls of fat around my middle.  I felt disgusting.  I tried to have a good time anyways.  It was pretty hard.

Since then, I've tried to ignore the fact of what I ate on Thanksgiving and move on with more important things in my life.  I really do want recovery.  Yesterday went really well.  I ate all my meals without restricting or purging, I didn't over exercise, and I felt relatively ok with myself. Today is a different story altogether.

Today I feel like my stomach is huge and the tops of my arms are flabby.  The last time  checked I weighed 131 pounds.  I should be proud of this, and be happy with my healthy body.  But I miss the days when I was 99 pounds.  That's bad. 
 

I am really struggling.  I have a war going on in my head between my superego and id.  I want  to skip lunch and workout after school, but I need to eat, accept myself, and study and go to Art Club after school. 

I have some cuts on my leg that I have to let heal before I can wear short skirts again, but what bums me out even more is that I don't know if I have the courage to wear short skirts because I'm not confident about my legs. 
 

I need to reach out to my friends and family for help and support but I am really insecure about asking for help. I see myself as a greedy person.  I want more love than I deserve, and I crave security.  Is that bad?  I love helping others, but I dont' think I'm good enough to be given help or love.
 

Now I'm just ranting.....
 

And so , dear readers, I need your support.  Send prayers, send me good vibes, whatever it is you do.  And above all, treat yourselves well today.  Be gentle and forgiving to yourself. Eat, drink, and be merry, as they say. 'Tis the season and all that...
 

If you're struggling too, post a comment and I'll email you.  I would love someone to talk to. 

If you have any advice, please share! How do you deal with feelings of self hatred, and the temptations to restrict, purge, or hurt yourself during recovery?

Grrr, It's a Struggle!

Well, dears, I seem to be on the edge of the cliff -- I can either walk away to safety, or fall back into my old ways.  I've been eating really well lately, and I'm really proud of myself for it! I haven't been eating "easy" foods either.  Instead of measured out granola, yogurt, and salads, I've started eating things like toast and eggs, potato chips, fruit salad (the kind with marshmallows =] not the healthy kind), chocolate cake, etc.. It's crazy! And at first I was having a lot of fun eating whatever I wanted.  But I'm starting to feel a little self-conscious about it.  Yesterday, because of the amount of food in my lunchbox, my bag of potato chips didn't fit in it, and I had to carry it separately.  It was so humiliating.  I felt like everyone was watching me and judging me for the amount of food I had.  I kept thinking, If all the food doesn't even fit in the f-ing lunch box, then it must be too much!!!  I ate it all, though.  I wanted to cry, but I made myself eat it.  I didn't even purge afterwards.  Today was harder though.  I was tempted to skip lunch, and although I did eat, I didn't eat as much as I normally do.  At play practice after work, I was eating a meal from Subway.  I sat on one side of the stage, and everyone else sat on the other side.  The separation made me feel like I was too fat to associate with any of the other actors there.  I felt like because I was the only one of them who was eating, my peers were disgusted to by me. 

I'm kind of proud of the level of self-respect and improved body image that I've gained.  But there's still that damn voice in the back of my head, you know? It's my eating disorder telling me what a pathetic mess I am, and telling me how much better I could be if I didn't eat.  I don't want to lose myself to anorexia or bulimia again, because I've learned a lot from the progress I've made towards recovery so far.  I know that I can be happy if I let myself go and allow myself be happy.  I've gotten so close I can almost touch it.  I just have to make the switch from "I have an eating disorder," and "I'm recovering from an eating disorder" to "I used to have an eating disorder."  It's not an easy change to make.  I've had my eating disorder for 11 years - since I was 5 years old.  It's like an old friend, and I struggle every day to make myself see that there is a better life waiting for me if I let myself have it. 

I've got to stay strong.  I have to, or I will die. 

For those of you reading this who also suffer from eating disorders, you need to know this too:
You have to stay strong.  You have to, or you will die.