Punishment

I rode my bike again this morning to the Tuesday meeting.  I'm recognizing how much safer my day feels when I attend groups, like I walk away after the hour is up feeling cleansed, pristine.  Bulimia doctors slovenly upkeep - the dread of taking showers, the vulgarity of breath, the vile elasticity of the stomach, the erosion of teeth enamel, the rotten yellowing of the smile.  Today I am not overly obsessing about my food.  Yesterday I felt like I wanted to rip my fingernails from their sockets, like if I ate another goddamn piece of broccoli I was going hurl it all over the bathroom.  But I didn't.  I picked up my book, I walked around the neighborhood, I checked my email for the 30th time.  I drank my sleepy-time tea, popped some Tylenol PM, and brushed my teeth.  Only I can't brush my tongue, even hours after I have eaten, or else I will be slopping the remnants of my meal out of the sink.

I've recognized the pendulum swinging from bulimia to anorexia more and more, like a snake coiled to strike, ironically my worst nightmare.  I had to stop myself from counting the number of kidney beans I ate for lunch and I watch as I retreat in my old, familiar behaviors.  Someone brought up the topic of punishment today in group.  I approach everything I do in this manner, be it exercise, eating, reading, studying.  Why do I feel like such a failure if I don't read one book per day?  Does this mean that I am worthless?  It's preposterous to believe that anyone can continue life in this fatalistic mentality - to make perfect grades, to maintain the perfect weight, to conquer quests beyond the limits of human nature.  And my rituals, I'm so sick of my fucking rituals.  Why do I check the protrusion of my stomach every time I pass a mirror, or lay my arm across my hip bones when I'm in bed to check if they're jutting out far enough, or rotate my hips with my knees pressed together to see if my thighs touch?  Why can I only eat an everything bagel as opposed to any other kind, or have to move coffee shops every hour whilst studying to maintain concentration (HA!), even when I begin my days at 5 am?  It's all so ludicrous, and I'm exhausted.

My homework for next week is to eat a piece of chicken with you over the weekend.  I'm allowed to prepare it myself, and it's also within limits if I don't feel like eating anything else for the rest of the day.  You've observed me in my attempts to consume the chicken even I prepare myself.  I mutilate the poor fowl, shredding the cooked carcass into slivered almond slices, hunting for traces of fat or blood, any excuse to push it to the side in disgust.  So now I have to eat 4 ounces of chicken by next Tuesday, the size equivalent to a deck of cards.  I would rather start training for the Boston Marathon, and you know I hate to run.  I'm too tired to run.