Good Day

I woke up today ready to let myself eat any way I wanted. I didn’t tell myself to try to eat a certain way because if I do that I feel like it’s a commitment, and if I make a commitment I feel so paranoid that I won’t be able to keep it and I just end up thinking so much about it and feeling anxious about it that I end up losing any control. So I don’t make promises to myself anymore so that I don’t feel the pressure and the anxiety to keep them. So I woke up telling myself that no matter what I do, it would be ok. And so I was able to go through the whole morning without eating or drinking anything without feeling deprived or even thinking about food, and so I went to my nutritionist empty, which I always do so that she gets as accurate a weight as possible, though she doesn’t tell me what the number is, and I don’t want to know because I don’t want to think about the numbers at all anymore. Ever. And if I had my way no one would ever know my weight ever again, but whatever.
Anyway, I went to my appointment even though I really didn’t want to, because I didn’t, and haven’t, felt like I need someone to be keeping track of my weight or my eating. I don’t like her criticizing my eating or telling me how I should be eating or what I should be eating, I really don’t have any intention of changing my eating for her or anyone else. I am going to eat how I want and that’s that. If I happen to eventually want to eat the “balanced” meals etc that she wants me to, then I will, but only because I want to and choose to, not because SHE wants me to.
Well, at the session we ended up talking, like we usually do, but today I actually enjoyed talking to her. Not sure why, exactly, but I felt more open about how I felt. It’s hard to express. I guess I felt like a real person, like I had emotions again, and someone to share them with when I needed to. A lot of the time I feel an emotion, but only when I’m alone and there’s no one around to physically share it with, so it makes me feel like it’s lost and doesn’t exist, and then I don’t exist either, like I’m not real. I don’t know. Anyway, we talked about what college is going to be like, what I want to be as a person, what I want to be defined as, what makes me happy, you know, self-discovery kind of stuff. I liked that. Somehow we then ended up talking about being too thin, and I said stuff like, “I know it’s stupid, but it’s not fair that these runway models are allowed to be as thin as they are, but someone like me can be bigger than them and would still need to have intensive in-patient treatment. It’s ridiculous! I feel like if I can be as big as I am and have people think I need treatment that these model girls should be forced the same treatment! Why do they get to flaunt their thinness but I have to be ‘cured’ from mine?” And I mean, it’s not like I don’t think society is sick for letting these models be so thin and for advertising their thinness as beautiful. I hate it, but I also know that I have a piece inside of me that buys into it and wants to be that thin, and it’s that part that is jealous of the girls that get to be thin and resents the people that want me to get treatment. I don’t think I’m thin anymore. I have always felt like I was never in so bad a condition that in-patient treatment was necessary, but Kathy (my nutritionist) said that she had a patient not too long ago who was 10-15 pounds heavier than I am go to an in-patient facility and get fed with tubes. She said if I went to the Remuda Ranch (the in-patient place) today, that they would feed me through a tube, too. That boggles my mind, I don’t feel like that is necessary at all. There are girls who are in much worse shape than I am and they don’t get fed through tubes. It feels like that is overreacting, or overkill, or whatever. She also said I look emaciated. I thought I did when I weighed 79lbs, but not anymore. I feel full and curvy, bulky even. But hearing her say that made me feel better about myself because it made me feel like it’s still ok for me to keep gaining weight. When I was binging last week I just felt so bad because it felt like I had gained too much weight and that I had become fat and gross or whatever, but if even after all the binging I’ve done she still thinks I look “emaciated”, it makes me feel like I haven’t completely lost myself, like even though I lost myself for a while in the mindless binging it didn’t cause me to turn into something I didn’t want to be overnight. I still have a chance to be healthy and have a healthy relationship with food without having to work backward from being overweight. And it also makes me feel like if I do lose control and binge every now and then that it will still be ok, that I still won’t get overweight overnight, and that’s a comforting thought.
Well, after the appointment I felt good, kind of lighthearted, and then I went to pick up Elisa from driver’s ed. Then we came home and I had lunch, and in the middle of it I got a call from my boss who asked if I was available to come into work. I was, and I gratefully left to go work, because I had no clue what I was going to do the rest of the day after I had eaten. So I worked from 1:30 to 5, and got $6.97 in tips (woohoo!), but then mom called and asked me to rent a movie (Blockbuster is right next door to the Baskin Robbins I work at) for the night, so I spent $4.65 there, and I don’t know if mom is going to pay me back. But one thing that really made me feel good today was this one woman who came in: as she was paying for her ice cream she said, “You have a very pretty face. Your bright eyes and nice lips, you just have really angelic features.” It was the sweetest thing a stranger has ever said to me, that I can remember anyway. I wanted to tell her how much I appreciated her kind words, and let her know how badly I needed to hear that because I haven’t felt pretty at all this last week. I wanted to tell her so much, tell her that she must have been sent from God because that timing was just too perfect, but for some reason I didn’t. And she left before I got to go in front of the counter where I could have gone up to her at her table. I just really wanted to thank her, she has no idea how much she helped me out. Oh well…
Well, after I rented the movies I came home and watched Ratatouille and One Night With The King with mom. The movies ended at 11, and so now here I am at 12:25AM, and I have work later from 1-4PM.
That’s pretty much it. I think today was a good day. I feel calm, and good, and I was able to keep busy most of the day so my thoughts weren’t bored and trapped and all over the place like they are when I’m bored and alone. Hope tomorrow is a good day too.
For now I guess I’ll try to get some sleep…

Dad Brings Peace

I woke up this morning hoping I would have enough self-control to not binge today like I have been prone to doing every other day this week, but on my way to pick up Elisa from driver’s ed, I felt like something in me was ready to give up again (like I have been doing every other day this week). I go to bed hoping that tomorrow will be different, that I will be able to make it through the day without giving in to the binge; I wake up hoping the same thing, but then it seems like inevitably I will just give in, telling myself that I’d rather be doing this than depriving myself again. After all, I shouldn’t care about it anyway; if I want to eat I should let myself. So I rationalize myself into letting myself eat, but then I end up eating more than I need to, and I try hard not to feel guilty about it, but I get worried that I’ll feel bad for being fat even though now when I’m thin before I eat it’s easy to convince myself in that moment that I wouldn’t mind being fat, because it’s easy to believe being fat wouldn’t be so bad when I can enjoy the feeling of being thin AND eating as if I was fat. After I eat, I get worried that I will actually BECOME fat and not be able to believe that I will be ok with it, like I can believe now, being thin.
Anyway, the past four days I have been waking up hoping to be able to keep myself from binging, but I would end up being alone in the house and with no one around and nothing to do, I would end up going to the kitchen and finding something to eat: whole wheat flour, smoothies, soymilk, cereal, fruit, tomatoes, pancakes, waffles, dough, all of which is pretty much me just mixing the whole wheat flour or heart smart bisquick with soymilk and eating the dough before I make the pancakes or waffles. I get so lost in the eating, no feeling or anything, just the motion, like a routine. It gave me something to do to forget that I felt lonely or claustrophobic. For an hour or two I was occupied, my body was moving and doing something, not just sitting and feeling bored. But within that hour or two I would manage to eat maybe 5000 calories, and I would realize that I could keep going if I let myself, and something would make me decide to move on and try to do something else. Somehow, I’m not sure how I managed to do that. I’m grateful I was though, because I know I could have easily kept eating.
Well, today would have been the fifth day in a row for me to binge alone at home if I hadn’t called dad after Elisa left to go babysitting. While she was eating lunch I was in the kitchen, planning out what all I was going to binge on. I had gone to bed last night and woken up this morning hoping that I could make it through the day without binging, but on the way to pick Elisa up I was already talking myself into giving up and letting myself binge. I got home feeling the dull hunger that comes not from real hunger but from the routine, the motion of eating. Well, I was even pulling out the flour and bisquick while Elisa was leaving, and even deciding that I wouldn’t mind driving to Kroger just to make sure that I could get EXACTLY the foods I would want, so that I wouldn’t have to “settle” for binging on foods I didn’t really want. I had everything prepared in my mind, everything ready to tell myself that I would rather binge than deprive, that I shouldn’t worry about getting fat, but something made me call dad instead. I put back the bisquick and flour, and just talked to him for about an hour. And now, I’m glad I did. I don’t feel the mindless urge to binge or eat at all. I feel like, maybe I can actually finish the day without binging. I made it over the “allotted hour” when I would usually binge alone in the house. Maybe I can make it. Maybe. There’s still time for it all to end, but I don’t know, maybe I can do it.
But even if I don’t, talking to dad gave me so much peace in my mind and heart. Hearing him say “You’re still thin,” made me believe it. No one else makes me believe that I’m thin except him, and no one makes me feel at peace in my soul the way he does. I think it made me really realize that I eat because I want him. After talking to him, the binge desire was completely gone. And I know yesterday when I cried my heart out to God, I was sobbing, “I’m so lonely, I want to be loved!” And I knew who I wanted to be loved by. I feel so lonely, and I know that the only person who makes that loneliness go away is my dad. He’s the only one I have ever been COMPLETELY comfortable with. And when I’m with him, I feel like life is ok, like I’m ok, like everything is going to be ok, no matter what. I feel like I can accept myself when I’m with him. He completes me in a way that I can’t explain. When I’m with him I feel like I don’t have to compare myself to anyone because I’ve found someone who accepts me as I am. I know God does that too, and that He is with me at all times, but somehow it feels more “real” when I’m with dad. I know I should be able to feel that way even when I’m not with him, but I’m not at that point yet. I need him, I love him so much, and I know that he loves me, and somehow everything he says strikes deep into me and feels real, in a way that nothing else anyone else says does. He can say something, and I believe it with all my heart, I cling to it, and that’s why I love being with him, because he says things that I want to believe.
When I’m in the middle of a binge I don’t want to “get better”, I want to stay mired in it. When I’m going to bed, I want to “get better”. Other times during the day I vacillate between wanting to be better, wanting to stay a binger, wanting to be thin, wanting to be fat, wanting to be average, it’s all there mixing together and taking control of my mind at different times. But somehow dad is able to make me peaceful and comfortable with myself. You know, maybe he’s my soul mate. And maybe soul mates don’t necessarily have to be romantic relationships, maybe they are just relationships that make you feel complete, make you feel like you know who you are. He makes me feel that way. I miss him. I love him. I don’t know why I am the way I am or what got me here, but I know that I love the peace I get when I’m with dad more than anything else.

Choice Makes Misery

You know, I guess I just keep hoping that some day I will look in the mirror and actually like what I see, or actually, that I will be back to the way I was when I DID like what I saw, back when I was thin, or that I will actually believe what I want to believe: that I don’t want to care what I look like at all. I wish that I never had to know what I looked like. That’s one of the hardest things about this whole thing: I wish I could just be fat and get it over with, I want to be, but the fact that I COULD be thin, that I HAVE been thin, that I know if I was allowed to be and had the will I could be thin, kills me. I wouldn’t mind being big if I knew I couldn’t help it, if I knew there was nothing I could do to be different. But I know that I am capable of being thin and that knowledge is constantly getting in the way of me just letting go. I know I have the power to be thin, but I wish I didn’t. If I was one of those people who was big no matter what they did or how hard they tried, I could embrace it and enjoy life despite of it. But I can’t because I know that if I so choose, I can be thin, so it’s hard to embrace being different because I feel like I could only embrace that if I was helpless or hopeless, if I didn’t have a choice. If how I was forced me to be that way then I would be that way and accept it, but I’m not that way, I can be thin, I can choose to be big or small, and that makes it difficult to make the choice for myself. I liked how I was when I was thin, I felt beautiful, and I was comfortable in my body, I didn’t take up any space and all of my clothes were really baggy and loose. I felt like nothing, I wasn’t in anyone’s way, I was small, and I felt like a girl for the first time. I wasn’t trying to be beautiful for anyone, I just wanted to be that way for myself, and now it has been taken away from me, but it was forced on me by other people, and so I know that the power is still in me to be thin again if I choose to be. But I don’t want that, I wish I was just fat and that was how I would always be no matter what, that way I wouldn’t have to struggle or try to be thin, I could just know that that’s how I am and accept it, then I could eat whatever or however I wanted and not worry about gaining weight or being big since I would already be big. But with me right now, I know it’s my choice what size I am, and that frustrates me, because I want to be thin, but I also DON’T want to be, and those two sides are constantly fighting in my head, and I get so crazy sometimes because I don’t know who I am or what I want or what I think. Right now I’m at a point where I’m not thin and not big, and I hate it. I don’t like being average, I want to be an extreme. I want my clothes to be baggy again, I was more comfortable that way. And I liked how I looked when I was thin, I actually felt GOOD about my appearance, I was confident. I know that was stupid and misguided, but it was the first time I ever felt GOOD about myself, and I wish I had it back. I don’t feel pretty anymore, and I don’t know why that matters since I never care about what other people think and I’m not trying to attract anyone or make someone fall in love with me or be someone’s fantasy or anything. I guess it just felt good to think that if I saw myself on the street I would want to look like me. I feel like I was only pretty when I was thin. Any other way I don’t feel like a girl, I don’t feel pretty. I feel like I have nothing to offer. Not that I had much to offer when I was thin either, but now I don’t even feel confident in myself, so I feel like less of a person when I can’t even love myself the way I want to. I keep trying to convince myself that I can be happy in any size, but it’s so hard to believe it when I have only been happy when I was thin, and it kills me to know that I could be that way again if I tried, because then I will always have that voice in my head that will tell me to be that way again, and I don’t want to be, I don’t think I do… I wish I could be thin without being the miserable person I was. I was absolutely miserable, I hated my personality, but I felt good about how I looked, and that was some kind of balance. Now I feel miserable AND hate how I look, so now I am just super miserable. I wish I could disappear in a hole and forget the world outside exists, forget all about looks and weight and that junk. It doesn’t matter anyway, but it’s so hard to choose for myself something different. I admire pretty much every other girl besides me because they all look like girls, no matter what size they are. It seems like every girl except me can be pretty at any size except me. It’s so hard for me to accept myself if I’m not thin. And I don’t know why. I can’t find any explanation for it. All I know is that I feel so frustrated inside because I want to feel confident, I want to feel pretty, I want to like myself and how I look; I want to be thin; at the same time I don’t want to be thin and be proud of being thin; at the same time I want to be helplessly fat so I can enjoy eating without feeling guilty; at the same time I wish I had a unique condition where I could eat all I wanted and never gain an ounce. I’m so crazy, miserably helpless. I want school to start because I don’t feel this way when I have projects to work on. It’s only when I have free time that all this stuff goes on in my head. If I have something else to focus on, it all goes away. Why won’t summer end????

First Post

Hey, first post on a google blog. Just testing it out to see how I like it, see how it compares to other blogs, that kind of thing.