Not the only one

"I can't take the anxiety.  It feels like something is wrapping around my chest and squeezing.  I can't breathe.  My heart's racing.  My thoughts are spinning.  I can't keep up with them.  It's all right when I'm writing.  But the minute I'm alone again, the thoughts start up.  I'm terrified all the time.

"Are you taking your Klonopin?"

"Yes! It doesn't help!"

"Maybe you aren't taking enough of it."

Klonopin's a benzodiazepine, and those can be very addictive.  I used to love it, when it still worked.  Now I have to take handfuls for it to even make a dent."

"I am who I am.  This is the way it is: a balance, maybe an uncomfortable one.  It's about doing all the necessary, frustrating, boring, exasperating, annoying, banal tasks to keep episodes at bay, but accepting they'll come at some point anyway; structuring my life tightly in order to function well, but being flexible enough to deal with the unexpected; embracing the bizarre notion that sometimes things might go wrong - but other times they might not.  I try to build a future out of contradictions; madness is only a small part of my life, yet sometimes it completely takes over and tries to destroy me.  

That's all right.  It has to be."

-Marya Hornbacher Madness: A Bipolar Life

Maid

The first thing I do in the morning is lift off the sheets and check my belly.  This morning I saw a bubble, a tire, a doughnut, and I've been on the move ever since.  Yesterday was a frustrating day; I was ravenous from 6 am to 6 pm.  Hunger frightens me now, when before it was pleasurable because it removed the guilt from bingeing and purging.  At least I resurrected satisfaction from feeling my body needing food.  Now hunger signals an opportunity to binge.  I have to be conscious of every bite I place in my mouth, and yesterday I wanted to eat everything.  I woke up early, starving, and ate a bowl of soup (fat-free), then I had a salad with kidney beans for lunch followed by a fist-full of bran flakes to munch on.  I went to baby-sit around 4 pm, and while I was preparing dinner, I ate maybe five to eight pieces of steamed broccoli, a handful of (light) popcorn, one almond, one bite (as in one piece) of macaroni and cheese, and lots of Perrier.  I raged with the need to taste everything appealing.  I have to be extremely conscious to eat only one handful of popcorn, to place the mac-n-cheese out of sight before it's too late, to drink water instead of stuffing my face with foods I'm scared of.  I kept checking my stomach in the mirror after all that I ate.  I was wearing jeans with a black tank top, and I hated the sight of my stomach hanging over my jeans.  It makes me want to vomit.  (Surprise, surprise.)  I left around 7:45 and stopped at Central Market.  I perused the aisles, taking a sample of the 5-onion soup in my cart.  I left with 8 bottles of sparkling water, some pretzels and some candy.  I've eaten maybe 6 pretzels since yesterday, and after I woke up to my bulging belly, I threw the candy down the garbage chute.  It's 3 o'clock and I've consumed 2 cups of black coffee and a salad with 15 kidney beans, along with 2 large bottles of sparkling water.  I forced myself to eat because I wasn't hungry.  It's so much easier not to be hungry.

My manic side debuted after months of hibernation.  I slept well last night (1/2 tablet of Trazodone), dreaming and retaining tens of stories, none dealing with bulimia.  I specifically remember a dream where your younger hippy American brother was coming to visit, so we placed him in the guest house which was filled with roaches and dust.  You spent hours cleaning while I read my book in bed.  When I woke, the dream clouded my thoughts, the duress of my cleanliness infringing on my concentration.  So how did I ameliorate the situation?  I cleaned today ... maniacally. 

You've frequently asked if we needed to hire a maid for our apartments/houses.  We've never been responsible for more than four rooms since we've lived together, and every time the topic surfaces, I erupt like a volcano.  I've never explained why.  When I was seven or eight, I have one of the first memories of my mom telling me she loved me.  It was Saturday morning, she and my dad were out for some reason, and while they were gone I vacuumed the upstairs, dusted the entire house, and cleaned the bathroom I shared with my brother.  My mom walked in as I was rowing the vacuum backwards and forwards in the guest bedroom, the sucking sound so loud I didn't hear her come in.  When I saw her silhouette in the threshold, I turned the cleaner off.  It was rare for my mom to come upstairs unless she was waking us up, yelling at my brother, or putting up Christmas decorations.  The expression on her face glowed like she had just walked in on her surprise birthday party.  And then the words, "I love you" followed, a smile on her face zapping warmth directly into my heart.  I was immobilized with shock.  I vouched from that moment on to continue to clean every Saturday to please her, to have her love me because of how clean I could be.  I never heard her praise me for cleaning again, but she didn't have to.  The affect was sealed.  I finally found something I did worth loving.  

In the past five years I've rarely picked up a sponge, buffering resentment to have to clean every time we've moved.  Why should I clean if I won't get approval?  I'm seeking something I should have hurdled years ago, but I haven't shut off the sound of the vacuum inside.  And you ask if we need a maid?  That was one of the only things I could do for love, and I've failed miserably.  

I cleaned for hours today, scrubbing the eyes of the stove, bleaching the bathtub, scouring the pots and pans caked with residue.  It reminded me of my Saturday mornings and how content I was to clean our house.  My room was spotless, my organization spilling into manic mode, my relentless energy fueled to eradicate the scum in our bathroom overly obsessive.  But I was happy because it made my mother aware of me.  I was present, even in the reflection of the gleaming white tiles.

Lying - Quote

"Nobody knows.  That's the worst of it.  I never got any big kick out of being thin - but the lying.  Having to lead a double life like a spy or a hit man.  I understand those guys, I know what they're going through.  Always having to think about what you say and do.  Always feeling like people are watching you, trying to catch you at something.  Never able to just be yourself.  Like when I make a big deal about only having an orange for breakfast and then scarf all the way to work ... the truth is I just shovel it in.  Day and night.  In the shower.  On the freeway.  I've even got stuff in the paper-towel machine at work."

Tobias Wolff Hunters in the Snow

Drugged

I slept nine consecutive, undisturbed hours last night - but I woke up exhausted.  My new sleep medication is called Trazodone, and my doctor prescribed one 50 mg tablet before bed.  I started off taking one to one-half tablets of Ambien at 5 mg, then bumped up to one tablet of 12.5 mg of Ambien CR.  Now I'm up to 50 mg!!  I have been awake for almost 6 hours, and I still feel groggy; my body is giving off flu-like symptoms.  Everything feels achy, my head is throbbing on the left side, my forehead is warm, and my throat glands are swollen and sensitive.  Is it the medication or my body's reaction?  Yesterday my tummy was going haywire every time I ate or drank anything.  The good news is my anxiety level has flattened, almost like I'm stuck in Savasana after 90 minutes of yoga.  I'm ready for my body to accept my healthy choices my mind is making.  I don't want to be drugged for the rest of my life.  

Genetics

My relentless fascination with the question why has led me into the field of genetics.  A ten-year study on eating disorders was conducted in London where researchers searched through the entire human genome to find genes pertaining specifically to anorexia and/ or bulimia.  Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that releases signals telling the body it wants food, sleep, or sex, and controls levels of impulse, aggression, perception, depression, and anxiety.  It has been proven that variations in the serotonin receptor gene are twice as likely to occur in patients with anorexia.  So, in anorexic patients, serotonin is emitted more frequently, sending signals about food and/or sex that may not be pertinent.  It has also been proven that patients with high levels of serotonin suffer from extreme levels of anxiety.  Bulimics and people suffering with depression, on the other hand, have been reported to findings of low serotonin levels in their brain.  To rectify the imbalance of chemicals, we binge on foods high in sugars and carbohydrates to increase the levels of serotonin, thereby presenting a false sense of well-being.  I now have medical research to prove why my anxiety level is so much higher without bingeing and purging for 6 weeks.  I don't have to take such a deep breath.

Update

I've practiced yoga twice today, and my leg muscles still feel like knuckles that need to be cracked.  It's painful to sit down and just be.  I hate today.

Loony

Oh, man.  I'm still sleep deprived as I arrive at week six.  42 days without bingeing and purging.  It's incomprehensible.  I was swapping stories with a new member of the ABA group yesterday.  I heard myself saying out loud that a little over six weeks ago my behaviors were as follows: I would weep before taking a shower, sometimes preparing myself for hours just to make it underneath the running water; my only priority was my eating disorder, so sick that I was bingeing and purging sometimes up to 18 hours a day.  The newcomer helped me realize how effortless it is to doll out advice, but how the sword will pull out its other edge and point it in the opposite direction deftly and without sound.  "You haven't eaten anything today except for grapes?  Well, eventually you will die with this disease," I heard my voice echo against the bare walls. I came home last night after spending a few hours with my ABA friends at the meeting.  My anxiety literally forced me to pace the walls of the meeting room.  I have never before witnessed someone incapable of sitting for an hour's time in a support meeting.  I have been moving non-stop for 48 hours, and I still have difficulty sitting for stretches of time.  I cannot handle feeling like I need to be locked up in a loony bin.  Only a couple hours after blatantly advising the newcomer about her food choices (inherently not my place to do so), I was buckling with anxiety, quivering as I walked into our apartment, painting a picture of my past few hours before you with a trembling hand.  And what is your advice?  "You need to eat more, Stephanie."  I burst into tears.  

It's as simple as that.

Prozac

I read an interesting article depicting the usage of anti-depressants on mice.  Prozac was the first self-help med to be tested on animals.  Researchers took mice, some injected with the drug and some without, and then threw them into a tub of water.  They recorded their observings as the enhanced mice fought harder to stay alive.  Who can struggle the longest to keep their head above water?  That doesn't sound like a life to me.

Quote

"... if it was your fault, then you weren't powerless - you weren't at the mercy of stuff just happening."

-Ann Packer Songs Without Words

Leaps and bounds

I commit to my new meal plan:

Breakfast: 1 starch, 1 fruit, 1 dairy, 1 protein, 1 fat

Lunch: 1 starch, 2 veggies, 1 protein, 1 fat

Snack: 1 dairy, 1 fruit

Dinner: 1 starch, 2 veggies, 1 protein, 1 fat

My sponsor delivered some scary news to me today.  She considers kidney beans to be a starch, which means I can no longer eat these as my protein.  I have to eat chicken.  I am going to attempt to eat one portion of chicken with Mathias that I have not prepared myself this weekend.  We are going to the grocery store tonight to buy all of the foods I will need for the week.  This is going to be so difficult for me.  I know it's just chicken, but I haven't really digested chicken in 10 years (except for Ridgeview).  This is a testament to surrendering my control over the food ... and eventually the weight.

Great news is my sponsor offered to have lunch together once a week at her house.  It's such a relief to be able to eat with someone who knows what to prepare, what portions to put on a plate, and how to make each person comfortable while eating their meal.  I'm excited!

Quote

"In Nikos Kazantzakis's novel Zorba the Greek, the pallid narrator frets a lot about his weaknesses of the flesh.  He lies awake at night worrying about the infinite varieties of lust that call to him from this world; for example, cherries.  He's way too fond of cherries.  Zorba tells him, Well then, I'm afraid what you must do is stand under the tree, collect a big bowl full, and stuff yourself.  Eat cherries like they're going out of season.

This was approximately the basis of [the American diet] plan: the Zorba diet."

-Barbara Kingsolver Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Insomniac

I don't know what else to do.  It's 1 am.  I have slept only 3 hours; my eyes are burning, my thoughts are incomplete, yet my feet are shaking in anxious rebellion, and my chest is ready to explode.  

Over the course of 2 days, I think I may have had 2 panic attacks.  Wednesday, I was waiting in a long line at Buffalo Exchange, a thrift shop that buys back clothes, seeing if I could get any money for the clothes I was taking to a clothes swap that evening.  As I sat awaiting my turn, my body was acting out because I wasn't in motion.  I was standing, stretching, crossing my legs one over the other, opening my book to read it only to close it seconds later, every 10 seconds exploring a new range of motion.  I thought I was going stir-crazy.

Waiting to see the doctor yesterday was even more prickly.  I arrived thirty minutes early, and instantly the anxiety permeated my chest cavity and bottled my breathing.  Literally every breath I took was a meditated deep exercise, not only laborious, but also extremely obvious to the other patients in the room.  Twenty painful minutes later I skirted to the restroom, staring at myself in the mirror as my chest heaved and tears sprouted from my tired eyes, the palpitations of anxiety I can only imagine to be what waves of contraction pains feel like, forcing myself to say I wasn't going crazy.  Stephanie, you're not crazy.  This is going to pass.  You're going to beat this fucking disease.  I wish you were here, Mathias.  I need your strength.

My doctor is magic: objective, sensible, yet compassionate.  She assuaged my beliefs that my symptoms are common.  HA!  Apparently feeling like you're losing your mind means you're going through recovery.  Who knew?  I described to her my discomforts with my anxiety medication and my inability to sleep for the past 5 (almost 6) weeks.  So now I'm taking the highest dosage of Ambien available on the market for sleep and something similar to Xanex for anxiety.  She inquired how you and I are doing, "Well," I said. She asked if I was having suicidal thoughts, "No," I responded.  I'm not sad and/or depressed.  I don't know if the Prozac is working or if I'm just proud of myself for not bingeing and purging.  I'm going to stick with 40 mg daily of the Prozac for now to see what the effects look like for me.  

She told me to call her today if I couldn't sleep.  I wonder if she is already at the office.  It's, what, 1:40?

Brutal

Sleeping is brutal.  My body was exhausted last night, finally retiring to bed around 11.  Not only had my legs stopped their bizarre muscle spasms (I  don't know how to even describe it), they were actually tired.  I laid down and instantly felt a rush of anxiety enter my chest, which is usually a daytime symptom.  Needless to say, I had difficulty falling asleep.  I "woke up" at 1:30 and haven't been able to sleep since.  I'm uber-frustrated because my I cannot read right now.  My eyes are so tired after reading a couple of pages that I try to rest, only to feel the swell of anxiety again.  I don't want to take the anxiety medication until I see my doctor today.  The last thing I need is to feel forced to be moving when I'm oh so tired.

Week five and a half

I cannot stop moving.  I feel like I have tarantulas in my leg muscles.  If I quit walking, it feels like bugs are crawling inside me!  I went running this morning.  If I've ever run before, I've considered it jogging, keeping my pace pretty slow at about an 8-9 minute mile.  Today, I couldn't run fast enough.  Sprinting helps soothe the pain.

I just got off the phone with my ABA sponsor.  She reassured me this is normal.  I called my doctor again, today, though.  My next appointment (which was made yesterday) was scheduled for next Tuesday, but I asked if I could come in tomorrow.  Luckily there is an opening for 2:30.  

I am going to do some yoga/pilates to relax (haha), walk to CVS and then to the library.  I wonder if lifting leg weights would help ... or wall squats.  Fuck this - I can't sit down any longer!

Quote

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to blind man's eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration: - feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love.  Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened: - that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on, - 

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by power 

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.

-Wordsworth

Report

By the way, I just called my doctor again, at the expense of feeling like a pest.  I'm still not sleeping through the night, and I've been on medication for over three weeks now.  I've only had two full nights rest that I can remember.  

I am also having difficulty eating.  Breakfast is hard.  I've broken the habit of eating an everything bagel every morning, but now I think it's not healthy to eat it at all.  So I'm left wondering what to eat.  I stopped at Central Market this morning on my way to my meeting and purchased 3 dried pineapple rings.  I also made some coffee at home and brought it with me in a travel mug.  This isn't going to cut it for my breakfast ... and now I'm not hungry for lunch.  I'm going to eat anyway, though. It's a little perverse, but I know when I'm uncomfortable, I am getting better.

I cried again today in my meeting.  I just don't understand why me?  There's no use focusing on this, but I've just reached a level of frustration so extreme.  I'm tired of being strong.  I'm tired of being lonely.

Hush Hush

The duality of personalities when dealing with an eating disorder is perplexing.  I am still amazed to receive emails from friends I am sharing this blog with who knew nothing of my sickness.  The only person who was aware of my disease in Massachusetts was Frank, my boss, whom I told only after I left the state.  Carroll and Kim knew of my battle in California; no one else.  I still don't understand how people did not know.  I'm a phenomenal but transparent liar.  I was eating all of the time.  In MA, I would take home venti strawberries and cream frappuccinos dolloped with whipped cream every day.  I once brought home a tray of expired toffee almond bars that I consumed in minutes.  CA was even more extreme, especially with the addition of the warming ovens.  Breakfast sandwiches were my best and worst enemy.  On my breaks I would usually eat an eggs florentine sandwich (though I would deviate with meat-filled options - even though I don't even like meat!), drink a large glass of milk saturated with vanilla syrup, go out to my car to grab my bottle of water, and purge in the bathroom outside of the building.  I hated my job because I couldn't stop eating, and there was no escaping the food.

I thought my secret was exposed the day I fell down the stairs.  I've had several episodes where I've passed out or fainted or had a seizure.  I'm not exactly sure what happens to my body when I lose consciousness.  I do know, though, that my electrolytes are completely bonkers.  The day I fell down the stairs we were living in Santa Barbara in our first (and beautiful) apartment.  I worked in the morning, arriving home after stopping at the store to purchase some binge foods.  When I depleted my resources, I returned to Trader Joe's on De La Vina to replenish.  (Trader Joe's is a bulimic's dream because the food is so inexpensive!)  My purchases included a bottle of cheap champagne, pasta and red sauce, a bag of imitation cheetos, and barbeque chips.  I came home and found our landlord's mom rearranging boxes in the house behind our own.  It was our first introduction, and she was so endearing, offering me a tour of the rental property she and her daughter owned.  I placed my bag of groceries in our garage, doing my best to conceal its contents from her field of vision.  We went up the large, slate-slabbed stairs as we conversed, getting to know each others' histories.  She showed me around the townhouse, and we ended up congregating in the kitchen, standing next to the sink.  I distinctly remember leaning against the counter time and again for support as my head whirled around me.  We talked for maybe ten or fifteen minutes before I realized I wasn't feeling well.  I started seeing black dots against a yellow screen, my stomach blowing in nauseous waves, signaling for me to sit down.  Dawn, our landlord's mom, was mid-conversation, and I remember desperately trying to break her speak.  I finally had my chance to tell her I needed to leave, too embarrassed to admit I needed to sit down.  I made my way towards the stairs, and that's the last thing I remember.  I came to at the bottom of the twelve sharp stairs, my body sweaty, my face paler than alabaster, chills running through my fingertips.  I was lying in such an awkward position, my head resting on the ground, my right knee almost touching my nose, my left foot out the front door, my bones angular and twisted.  I didn't cry.  Even when I saw the graft of skin six inches long missing from my shin, I didn't cry, blood the color of the marinara sauce I almost consumed minutes before oozing from my wound.  I grabbed my head, tightening my grasp on the throbbing knob growing on the back of my head, somehow rising to my feet, and apologized.  I'm sorry, I told Dawn, I don't know what happened.  I'm not feeling well.  I'm going to go home and lie down.  I'll be okay once I rest.  She asked me for your number.  She was so concerned.  I just wanted to get away.  You arrived home minutes later, even before I had time to conceal my groceries from you.  That was my biggest concern, like you didn't know already what was going on.  I'm aware now I suffered a concussion, yet I refused to go to the emergency room.  I still have a lump on the back of my head - almost a year after the event, even though its shrunken from the size of a tennis ball to a gumball.  I didn't go to the doctor because I felt it was my fault I fell in the first place.  I should have known better.  I had been bingeing and purging all day.  It was inevitable that I was going to pass out after standing for so long.  I beat myself up for not drinking some orange juice in the grocery store to revitalize my immune system.  I woke up at 4 am the next morning and went to work, claiming to my coworkers I had a seizure and fell down the stairs.  It's genetic, you know, I told people.  My mom has epilepsy.  I told as many people as I came in contact with, saying the words out loud to convince myself of my lies.

Ready to Run

I am on my way to meet with my sponsor this morning.  My body feels like it's been trapped in an airplane seat for 24 hours; I cannot move around enough.  I did some yoga and pilates both yesterday and today, stretching non-stop to loosen my muscles.  I was looking forward to riding my bike to my meeting today, too, but it's raining pretty hard.  I want to just open the door to the outside and run.  This is how it feels to want to crawl out of your own skin.

Week five

I like writing in this blog because it holds me accountable for how I'm feeling on a daily basis.  Today I feel like shit.  Obsessions are the only thing I have to offer. I am thankful for books to rid me of my neurotic mind.  

I wanted to binge today on cauliflower.  Yes, cauliflower.  I wanted to steam it and binge on it, but I didn't.  I read my book instead.  I also need to call my doctor again about my sleeping patterns, because it has been too long since I've slept more than four hours.  I know this is taking a toll on my health.  I also haven't called my sponsors.  I feel like a pest.  I'm going to go back to reading my book now.  I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin.  

Description

I've withheld returning this book to the library because I want so desperately to remember the writing.  This is the best depiction of my childhood I've ever read.  I have also grappled with the desire to write about my mother from a place holstering no blame.  This is the essence of recovery in writing: Caroline Knapp's Appetites.

"The why here - why I chose to starve, is a big question, much of the answer idiosyncratic and personal.  There is always a family at the center of an eating disorder, and I had a characteristically complex one at the center of mine, dominated by a set of brilliant, inhibited, often unhappy parents whose marriage was riddled with ambivalence.  They were loving and generous people, but also reserved to the point of opacity, and their expressions of affection were so coded and veiled I wouldn't learn to decipher them until I was well into my thirties.  Before then, I often felt mystified and apart and anxiously insecure.  My siblings seemed to have had a more innately secure sense of familial belonging, the result of a style that meshed with the family style, perhaps, or a kind of internal wiring that left them more apt to feel understood than unmoored. I lacked that.  I suspect I felt personally responsible for my parents' quiet unhappiness and reticence, the bad kid who'd somehow poisoned the air we all breathed, and I felt compelled from an early age to compensate, as though my right to stay needed to be earned: I was quiet, shy, clean, perfectionistic.  I got A's.  I scrubbed the kitchen without being asked.

My mother inherited no such gene [taste of luxury and fine things].  She never took much interest in womanly things, particularly appearances; she was whipsmart, painfully shy, bookish, and solitary as a girl.  Maternal love, in her experience, was deeply entwined with judgment, and her own interests lay in realms her mother seemed either to disdain or to judge harshly.  This made for a lot of powerful conflicts, literal and psychic.

I imagine a young woman feeling deeply agitated without always knowing why, conflicted about her own desires and wants, which she wasn't quite sure she was entitled to in the first place, and ashamed of her own needs, which she herself could barely acknowledge ... How does a woman who's been raised to table her own needs, to sublimate her own desires and strivings into the care and feeding of others, to swallow her own disappointments, communicate to her daughter the very feelings of authority and entitlement that she herself lacks?

Kim Chernin, from The Hungry Self writes, 'in coming of age and entering the world, she is in danger of calling up [her mother's] envy and resentment, and even worse, more painful and disturbing to consider, she is now in a position to remind her mother of her own failure and lack.'  She sees this dilemma as central to eating disorders, a woman's attack on her own body hiding 'a bitter warfare against the mother: it's the guilt we feel and the hidden anger we can't express.'"

The worst of both worlds

Personality traits and common characteristics of anorexics and bulimics - the truncated version:

Anorexic and Bulimics

low self-esteem

superhuman expectations or perfectionistic strivings

overvalue of physical appearance in self-evaluation; terribly low body image

middle and upper-class women (90% of eating disorders fall in this category) who are smart, attractive and successful

obsessive-compulsive behaviors

high need for approval

Anorexia

desire for control

drastic change in life *all examples below describe my teenage years

disease develops between ages of 12-25

conscientious, eager to please, hard-working

high intelligence and superior scholastic performance

belief she is unworthy of love and attention

lack of communication skills and lack of desire for independence (this was not the case for me)

over-protective, rigid families (also does not apply)

loss of sexual desire

Bulimia

average weight

disease develops around the average age of 19 or higher

realizes she has a problem

problems with anxiety, depression and impulse control

deprived of affection as children

trust issues resulting in few or no satisfying relationships (again, not my case)

red, puffy face and watery eyes

swollen glands

fatigue

tooth decay

irregular heartbeats

As you can see, I fit into both of these categories.  I found this excerpt on the Education Resources Information Center website.  "An analysis of the results showed that bulimic women with a prior history of anorexia were more depressed than nonanorexic bulimic women.  Bulimic women with a history of anorexia also reported previous treatment for weight related difficulties and a higher family income than nonanorexic bulimic women ... All women recognized their eating habits as disruptive and expressed an interest in receiving treatment."

I found myself questioning the exclusivity of my disorder when I went into Ridgeview.  I didn't look like the other bulimics nor make close friends with them.  My body was thin but not skeletal, while most (and I mean most in a loose sense - I don't have research to back this up, nor do I want this to be triggering for other bulimics) bulimics look healthy, almost plump-like.  I was timid upon entering, harboring a few tender friendships I hold dear to this day.  The other bulimics were outspoken, almost bulldozing therapy sessions, and our hallway conversations were most always dominated with the garrulous and outlandish tales of their lives.  I wasn't this way.  I was quiet and reserved, withdrawn until I found friends.  Only then did I let loose, allowing my personality to unravel like a tightly-woven braid.  I have never had a problem speaking my mind, though.  My mom can attest to this.  She playfully describes me as a young child, barking at customer service people, always ready to fire off my demands, never satisfied with the treatment I nor my family was receiving. I acted the same way at Ridgeview; I remember screaming at a man seated at the AA table next to ours in the cafeteria after he jokingly offered my anorexic friend a slice of chocolate cake.  I was so infuriated with his lack of manners, I inherently lost sight of my own.

*Most anorexics desire a sense of control, especially if they experience changes in their lives over which they have no power.  Changes that can trigger anorexia may include receiving unexpectedly low grades, rejection in a peer relationship, having a sports injury, and entering a new school.

Miss

List of things I do not miss about bulimia:

Constantly pulling the shades up and down in the house to shelter my eating habits from the outside.  I could do this literally 30 times in a day - usually I just kept the shades drawn.

Finding food I had dropped in random places: a cheese curl under the couch, a candy bar wrapper stuffed in-between sofa cushions, a bottle cap the kitty had batted underneath the computer desk.

Getting into my car in the morning and smelling day-old, musty fast food scent, like putrid grease from the french fries.

Almost having a heart attack every time someone knocked on the door, any time, day or night.  It normally amounted to the UPS delivery person dropping off a package, asking for a signature.  But I always felt like I was getting caught.  I just realized now my punishment was my disorder.

Cleaning up!  I would allot about two hours every Friday to "clean" the house before your return.  This would largely include going to the grocery store to replenish your foods I had binged on during the week.  If there was a large amount of food in the fridge on Monday, I would write a list so I could purchase what I needed.  I cannot tell you how many boxes of cereal I've had to buy.  By the way, you buy really expensive cereal.  :)

Fear of lending people my books, uncertain whether they were smudged with food grease or if crumbs were trapped in-between the pages.

Always needing to know where you are at all times, just in case you happen to come home unexpectedly and see me bingeing.

Finding trash I've hidden absentmindedly.  For instance, I used to stuff empty potato chip bags (along with many other things) in plastic bags and scatter them throughout the house: in my sweater baskets, in my purses, behind the kitty litter in the bottom of the closet.  I found a plastic bag filled with trash, including beer bottles, about a month ago.  I opened my Rubbermaid storage container to retrieve some old tennis shoes, and there it was.  That was about 5 weeks ago.  

Going to the grocery store.  I will always love grocery stores, as most eating disorder sufferers do, but I hated the feeling of returning to the same store so frequently.  I consciously had to scatter what stores I went to because I was going so often and buying so much food.  And I was buying the SAME foods, too.  If I recognized the checkout person as the person who last rung me up, I would switch lines. 

Stuffing my face in the car.  If I was returning from the grocery store, I had to purchase something to snack on for the ride home, either chips or popcorn.  And if I drove home next to the same car the entire way, I recognized what a pig I was, and started to wonder if the driver thought the same.  If I've gone through the drive-through and purchased my grotesquely large order of burgers and fries, I made sure that the cars around me only witnessed me eating one burger.  If I came to a red light, I made sure to stop out of alignment with the other drivers, so they could not look out of their car windows into mine.

And so much more.

Vanity

The last time I went to the dentist I discovered I had eight cavities.  I only told you I had four because I was so humiliated.

I was sitting at a stop light a few months ago, running my fingers from scalp to end like I usually do.  As I brushed my hand through my hair, a bundle about an inch thick broke off in my grasp, leaving me holding a nested wig the length and color of my own.  I remember staring at the rank lock for what seemed like minutes, my breath malfunctioning, my eyes ballooning, fear rising in my throat.  My eating disorder was finally visible.  The car behind me honked, poking me to pay attention to the green traffic light.  I cracked my window, stuck my fingers out of the slat, and watched as my nest of hair floated out of sight.  I still have a large chuck of hair missing in the back of my head, even though it's grown out considerably.  This image surfaces every time I'm taking a bite of yogurt: I need calcium so my hair won't fall out, praying this will make it easier for me to swallow.

New Dream

You're going to love this.  In my dream, I walk into the kitchen to find you eating cereal.  An empty box of Special K is sitting on the counter.  I ask if you have eaten all of the cereal, and you say yes.  I get upset and start screaming, "There were two boxes of Special K in the pantry and now they're all gone.  That was the only thing I could eat in the house!"

And then I woke up.  

I'm sorry I'm crazy even in my sleep.  I love you.

Progress report

My anxiety level is much better tonight than it has been all week.  I no longer feel the constricting palpitations below my heart.  I only slept last night until a little after one.  I've tried keeping the lights turned off when I wake, willing myself back to sleep, but my mind is racing and my heart is leaping (I know this is disgusting, but I have to pee almost every hour anyway, so I have to get out of bed!!!).  Today, I've read two books, written a bit, attended a meeting, eaten lunch with a group of people, socialized (both times in places surrounding food) for a good amount of time, and abstained from bingeing.  I need to join a gym, though, or sign-up for a yoga/pilates class before I do return to my previous patterns.  I did come home tonight, though, and have pleasure in eating some kidney beans.  I can remember a similar feeling in Ridgeview where I looked forward to meal times and actually enjoyed the pleasure of eating.

Why can't I get better and still lose weight?  HA!

Hypocrite

I'm such a hypocrite, in more ways than one, but tonight I will focus on my hysteria with the physical aspects of bulimia.  I went tonight to my weekly viewing of my ultimate tv show, Project Runway, at a cafe.  A couple of friends accompanied, one of whom, I'm sad to say, is seriously immersed in her disorder.  It's unnerving to be in the presence of a pronounced bulimic, even for me.  I don't know how you've maintained sanity these past five years.  This particular person ordered a beverage, and I couldn't help but monitor her actions.  She went to the restroom minutes after drinking her milky coffee (so quickly, I must add), returning with darting eyes, reaching for her glass of ice to chew on.  I know the signs, or at least, I know my signs, and they all fit the equation for purging.  I want to help; it's in my nature to nurture (sorry for the cliche), to tend to those who are suffering, most especially those hurting more than myself, but for some reason I can't.  I'm too uncomfortable.  An endless number of people have pillared their strength to help me make it to this day in my recovery.  Why can't I be supportive for someone who's suffering, also?  I've spent hours making fliers, posting them around the city, to reach out to those who need a lifeline, but I can't follow through with the emotional support when the physical body is crying out, reaching for aid.

Quote

"I urged myself to live in a state of complete consciousness, even when that meant pain or boredom.  I realized that for years I'd been squeezing my talent out of a toothpaste tube.  I'd misused it and abused it and failed to replenish it with deep reading and full consciousness.  I was greedy for what I had missed."

- Pete Hamill

Low

I'm anxious.  I've been debating whether or not to walk to Whole Foods to purchase some dinner, even though I have enough makings for a salad here.  I haven't eaten much today: no breakfast, some kale and a handful of edamame for lunch, no snacks, but lots and lots of sparkling water.  And yet I still feel like a blimp, or my stomach does, anyway.  Am I hungry?  Fuck if I know.  

I'm in such a bad place.  I cried in my meeting today, not having cried in over three weeks, over my frustration with my compulsivity.  I was asked what I'm scared of.  Is it of getting fat?  I already think I'm fat, and obviously my mental status isn't top-notch, so what difference does it make if I gain a few?  Am I scared I'm going to fall off of the wagon?  Yep.  Reading my old journal really jarred me.  I feel like I'm on a repetitive spin cycle with my thoughts, threatened they will return with avengance every few years (months/minutes?).  My sponsor actually asked me if I had suicidal thoughts after I started crying.  I don't.  Thank goodness I don't.  I don't know if the Prozac is working (I have a hard time believing it can have an effect so quickly), but I haven't felt like not living since you went to Europe six weeks ago.  For that I'm grateful.  

I wish you were here.

Dream

I've been posting journal entries from a journal I uncovered from over seven years ago.  A sense of doom is encasing me - some of what I had written then is almost verbatim to what I'm writing now.  I was speaking about this with a friend yesterday, and she commented that this is proof that we suffer from a disease, and this disease never goes away.  I'm left feeling angry, angry and powerless.  

We discussed watching the Olympics and how are negative body images are projected onto the best athletes in the world. Over the past few days I've heard myself saying how ugly swimmers' bodies are, asking myself how they live with their bulky shoulders and trunk-like legs.  Sick.  The irony is disturbing.

I'm reminded of my illness every second, waking or sleeping.  Last night during my sleep (which lasted the entire night!), the reoccurring binge dream flared in my unconscious.  The dream begins with us in a house, waiting for guests to arrive.  In the meantime, I go into a room alone and order numerous pizzas for delivery.  I then exit the house, leaving you to foot the bill.  When I return once the food has been delivered, you are irate, asking me why I didn't pay for the food I ordered.  You then stomp out of the house, and I binge on pizza after pizza.  I wake up frightened, plump with guilt, awaiting the flood of relief that never flows.  This must correlate to the feeling of never being relaxed.  I don't feel relief that I haven't binged on the pizzas; the frustration level augments because I cannot escape my obsessions even in my slumber.

I've said before that I'm tired of living in my mind.  I'm exhausted, and it's exhausting talking with me.  I feel for you, my friends, my family; thank you for listening to my limitless exasperations.  I just want to find the answer for my own peace.  Is it wrong to want to watch an Olympic sporting event and genuinely root for your national team*, rather than scrutinize their frame?  To walk from one end of a room to another and not compare thinness with each person I pass?  To have "normal" dream-filled sleep, like sitting for an exam I haven't prepared for?

These are my list of wants.  I'm being honest with myself.  These are things I will never have.

*Even though I was rooting for the French to win the men's swimming relay.  Allez les bleus:)

Obsession

I am aware that my obsessive behaviors are purging in other ways.  For some reason, I have to read one book every day.  In the past few days, I have visited the library at least twice daily, walking there to get some exercise, finding solace in the outdoors, the movement, the fresh air, yet I don't take the time to enjoy my environment.  I literally walk the however many blocks with my nose in a book.  I enter the library with at least two books to drop off, and I peruse the aisles for more books to read.  I'm starving to read.  I want more and more, scared that if I stop, I will want to eat.  I feel naked without a book in my hands, words soaking my eyes.  I have anxiety over reading; tonight, I dropped off the book I read yesterday as well as the one I read this morning, and while I was there, I picked up nine more books.  I came home by 7:45, and I'm almost finished with a book called Appetites.  It focuses on anorexia.  I am so fixated on the subject of eating disorders.  I feel like I have to finish this book and at least start another book before I go to bed tonight.  The beast in the cage is rattling ... I'm so tired of living in my mind.

August 17, 2001

Journal entry: 19 years old

I'm on the road to recovery.  I have almost conquered an entire day without bingeing, and I haven't intentionally denied myself of food.  I have honestly wanted to complete other tasks.  I started taking Adderall and Celexa yesterday, and the change is drastic.  I rarely think of food.  I still feel guilty for eating - maybe even more so- but I'm more conscious of what I'm putting into my body, and even more importantly is that I know that I should eat.  My hip bones are sticking out more than usual, but I still see a large-boned, thick girl in the mirror.  I'm scared that if I start to lose weight, the doctor will take me off the Adderall.  That drug is a miracle.  Honestly, everything looks brighter, and my sense of perspective has finally broadened.  I don't just stare into my plate of food.

Also, my mom and I had a very serious talk.  I told her I supported her and loved her, but she made me feel like the guilty runner-up in the competition.  I told her about the weight loss comments.  We decided to make up a system where I write a note to her and leave it under her pillow if she says anything derogatory.  And she did tell my dad about my eating disorder.  It's cool, though.  Silent but sweet.  I went outside yesterday to talk to my mom around dinnertime, and not once did I think about food.  Not once was I afraid to walk into the kitchen.  This is an unbelievable feeling that I have longed for for three years.

August 12, 2001

Journal entry:  19 years old

Tonight, as we sat down to dinner - my mom only preparing meals for she and my dad (thanks to my request) - my mom started hinting at her weight.  She said, "I got on the scale at the gym today and I don't know if it's right."  She waited a minute, and then my dad said, "I'm sure it is or it isn't, whichever one you want it to be ... I'm sure it is."  It was quiet for a minute, and then he said, "Well, did you weigh more or less?"  "LESS," she replied, "and I'm not even exercising as much."  You would think that since I've told her about my sickness, she would be more comforting.  Why is she trying to compete with me?  I always feel uneasy and worse about myself when I am around her.  She came into my room this morning and asked me if I wanted to go shopping.  I said yes, and then brought up the idea about buying a desk.  My dad offered to purchase a nice one for my new apartment, but I turned down the offer because I didn't want to intercept the desk he was also planning on buying for himself.  My mom told me I can have the junky desk in the basement.  It was quiet, and finally she walked out and slammed the door.  Today, after we finished shopping, she said, "I guess we don't have any money left for the desk."

Year three

Pictures of me at Birmingham-Southern make my eating disorder smile.  I was at my lowest weight, 104 pounds, my 5'11" frame reflecting grace and sparsity, my straight blonde hair not having lost its shine, squaring my cheekbones like accent marks above my jawline, it, too, not bloated from abuse.  I only have a handful of pictures from my only year at my first university - the first being my school I.D.  Days before school commenced, I had  ACL surgery, rendering me to the services of my best friend Madeline, my knee brace, and my pain medication.  I spent the couple of days of recuperation following the operation asleep, waking only to have my soiled bandages gingerly exchanged for fresh by my caretaker, my mother.  My dad came into my room every thirty minutes, holding his hand deftly in front of my nose, breathing a sigh of relief that the medication had not knocked me unconscious, tempting me to drink fluids wafting with chicken broth and ramen, cupping my neck and pouring the liquid into my throat.  My ED was gaining momentum at this stage; my relationship with it had evolved over two years, overcoming anorexia for several months in Geneva only to grasp hands with bulimia during my final year of high school.  I considered my "secret" to be negligible, telling myself I would be able to control my urges in college, the one to two times I purged per day could easily be quelled now that I was sharing a matchbox dorm room with another person, so small I had no place to hide.

After spending two days sleeping after my surgery, I awoke hungry, calling my dad into my room for company.  He asked if I was hungry, and I responded by nodding, asking for Papa John's pizza to stop the rumbling in my belly.  My parents knew nothing of my ED at this stage, yet my dad paused when I requested pizza for my first meal.  I distinctly remember him bellowing to my mom downstairs, inquiring if it was okay for me to eat my food of choice.  This proves to me how my erratic eating patterns had already taken root.  My mom yelled back, "Of course she can have pizza.  She can have whatever she wants."  My dad sat by my side as I ate one of the two pieces of pizza placed on my plate, not knowing that this would be the last time I would keep in any Italian food for the next eight years.

As a response to the Lortab painkillers I was consuming every six hours, my appetite as well as my waist-line slimmed.  My school I.D. was taken three days after my surgery, and the only meal I can recall eating was the one slice of pizza the day before.  My face looked gaunt, sunken, and I loved it.  The picture was my pride and joy. 

ACL surgery is no picnic; I was required to participate in rehabilitation twice a week for two months, to spend eight hours during the night using my motorized knee bending apparatus while sleeping, and to hobble around campus in a full-leg brace with crutches for 3 months.  Madeline was not only my roommate and chauffeur, she was my muscle and entertainment.  She literally lifted my leg into and out of her Mustang ten times per day while maintaining a jovial attitude, laughing she was only helping me for access to my handicapped parking sticker.  Freshman parties and gossip were all duly reported to me by my faithful roommate, she cavorting with new friends as I made acquaintances with my pain killers, expelling as much energy I could muster to make it to class and back, vanquishing into sleep before thoughts of food, yet alone friendships, entered into my world.

It wasn't long before loneliness sneaked into my life, soggy, melancholic time drawn from within.  I lived in a suite where eight girls shared four rooms, two to a room, four to a bathroom, with one large communal area purposed for movie nights and drunken board games.  The door to my room remained shut at almost all times, and I found no reason to open it to guests.  No one ever knocked.  I recognized my isolation, hearing about my mother's sorority stories my whole life, filled with reckless frivolity and permanent happiness.  I compared the life I was paving for myself to hers, feeling entitled to my solitude.  I had just moved from Europe, goddammit, I had just endured major surgery, screw these narrow-minded Southerners who blast Sweet Home Alabama from their fraternity rooftops - I don't want anything to do with them.  Excuse after excuse after excuse.  My entitlement tethered me to my dorm room, to my $200 comforter I begged my mom to purchase to match with my roommates, our stylish purple carpet painstakingly chosen to represent royalty.  My room was my safe-haven from the unknown, allowing my eating disorder to secrete its dysphoria into my creation, the analgesics permeating and pumping in and around, creating a cycle I tumbled into.

My mobility strengthened as the weeks passed, and my social ability remained stagnant.  I do not remember much from this period of my life.  If I wasn't spending my time with Madeline or the few friends I remembered from high school, I was holed up in my room.  I cannot recall anyone's name or face besides those of my professors; I cannot remember how I passed the countless hours between my dull freshman classes (except French and English).  So when the topic of sorority rushing filtered through my dorm room door, I entertained the idea.  Here was my chance - to meet people despite my gimp knee (my future nickname "gimp" forthcoming), to ascend my itching oblivion, and to taste the devout sisterhood of sorority life my mother held sacred.  I was going to live a normal college life.  As rush week approached, I listened to torpid gossip regarding what each sorority signified.  If you considered to pledge KD, for instance, you were classified as a partygoer with modest looks who was always up for a good time.   Pi Beta Phi equated bookworm and unappealing.  I heard the phrase, "I'm praying that I'm going to make it into such and such sorority" so many times I felt sick. My sycophantic side guffawed and spat with disgust.  "Who cares about this crap?" I told myself, so blind and lonely that I defaulted to my learned childhood behaviors, not yet learning that cynicism equals insecurity.  

I told myself I would attend rush to catapult myself into the social scene of the college but that no matter what, I would not pledge.  

One Month

Can you believe today marks day 31 of no bingeing and purging?  I am still in shock.  I haven't written since Friday morning because I've had such a productive, healthy weekend with you.  Thank you for pushing me to eat eggs, for ordering my meals for me without me knowing what's to come, for making yourself available to go for walks with me any time, day or evening, meal or no meal, for being my eating partner at the Pho restaurant.  It's so much easier to push myself when you are here.

I want so desperately for you to trust me, even though I am slowly gaining trust in myself.  After breakfast on Sunday (and eating a few bites of eggs), I was hesitant to use the restroom afterwards in fear you would think I was not keeping my food in.  Should I keep the girl's bathroom door propped open or wait until someone else walks inside?  I made you feel my stomach before and after I used the restroom, not only to insure you of my safety, but to hold myself accountable, just in case.   

Here is my progress report:  my sleep is still interrupted on a nightly basis.  I wake between 1 and 3 am after taking half of an Ambien to medicate myself into my initial sleep.  When I rouse, I try to read a few chapters from a book to see if I can fall asleep again on my own, and if that is unsuccessful, I will take a Klonopin.  Last night I tried to fall back to sleep around 3, but neither the medication, reading, nor drinking a cup of tea helped.  Someone in my meetings informed me they could not sleep their entire first month of abstinence.  I'm looking forward to nocturnal month two...

I miss you already.  I knew I felt love for you before, but loving you when I am healthy is so much brighter.  I just read a quote this past weekend that reminded me of you, "Wittgenstein once wrote that when the eye sees something beautiful, the hand wants to draw it.  I wish I could draw you."  - Nicole Krauss

Monday mornings always bring a feeling of separation anxiety for me.   I don't want you to leave me (to my own devices) because it takes a while for me to restructure my thoughts.  I spend the weekend not having to concern myself with positive affirmations when you are around.  I'm too busy laughing with you and being present for myself.  The adjustment period come Monday morning is trying; it reminds me of when I moved back home with my parents after I left Birmingham-Southern.  This was the summer and fall after my first year of college.  My bedroom at home is upstairs in the front of the house, my bed displayed below the angular window overlooking the front lawn.  I can remember waking early and hearing the sounds of my mom preparing for her day, knowing she would be out of the house by no later than 6:30 am, my dad having left for his early morning workout an hour before.  I spent so many anxiety-filled moments peering through the slats of the custom-blinds of my window, feeling a rush of relief when I saw my mom's white car emerge from driveway.  I would force myself to wait a few minutes before heading downstairs to the kitchen, leveraging the stair-rail as I tackled the steps four at a time, not even bothering to brush my teeth or insert my contacts before I began my morning binge.

Quirkiness is a habit I wonder will ever devolve.  I need to feel safe to maintain my sobriety; I cannot leave the house too regularly on my own when I am hungry, I cannot go to the grocery store without a premeditated list in hand, I must begin each and every day with a detailed schedule or else deviation will lead to destruction.  This morning I knew I did not have any Equal for my usual coffee, and I was not willing to pay the exorbitant price for organic aspartame Whole Foods sells (what, like $13?!!).  Instead of driving to the grocery store to purchase the fake-sugar, I walked to Starbucks, ordered a short coffee, and took a handful of sugar packets from the condiment bar home with me.  I still don't trust myself to drive to a grocery store with only one item on my list, especially on a Monday morning with no food or coffee yet in my belly.  I'm feel strangely fortunate to have a limited weekly budget right now, because I fear if I had money to burn, I would be sitting in front of the tv with groceries on the counter, food in my mouth, crumbs down my shirt, and trash at my feet.  Instead I'm living day one all over again.  

Good morning

Well, it's 1:35 in the morning, so the pattern continues.  My tummy is crying for food, too.  What should I eat this early in the morning if I'm going back to sleep?  I'll take half of an Ambien with some water, wait a bit, and then eat some yogurt.  I need calcium ... my hair is still falling out like crazy.

Bizarre that I feel well-rested!

Sleep update

Last night I slept for over 9 hours.  My doctor's advice was to take half of an Ambien before going to bed and half if/when I wake up at 3 am.  I didn't wake mid-morning, sleeping straight through until almost 8 o'clock!

When I wake from sleep endorsed with a pill other than Tylenol PM, I feel groggy and lethargic.  I'm hoping my increase in energy will reenergize my ability to work out (once my sleep schedule is straightened out). My anxiety level has waned, even though I feel anxious driving in my car alone at night, fearing I will give into my desire for warm, steamy take-out.  I also have a flutter of nerves in the mornings, which I think is tied to hunger.  I am having trouble finding a happy medium with my breakfast foods - Special K is not very filling, and I want something satisfying yet light.  I usually end up eating kidney beans with lettuce and drinking two cups of coffee and sparkling water.  Twice this week I have resorted to taking a Klonopin to subdue the nerves; they do not seem to fade after I eat, and tempting images of eggs, grits, and bagels at Whole Foods pop ceaselessly into my head.  I need to challenge myself with some variety before the binges return.

The kitty is back to normal.  No more sneezing or coughing, thank goodness.  

Guilt

My sponsor asked me to sit with two absolute thoughts regarding my mother: what characteristics I most loved and hated.  

I love that my mother was always there, that we shared almost every minute of every day together, that she drove me to my school where she worked every morning, and I would sit in her classroom from 6:30 am until 8, playing Brickles on her Macintosh computer, knowing, breathing comfort when she was in the room.  I love that I was her sidekick, whether it was obligatory or not, that she took me unquestionably on shopping errands: Sam's, Wal-Mart, TJ Maxx, Hancock Fabrics, you name it, or that I was her pool buddy at the YMCA every summer, even adopting her love for aerobics when I was adept enough to maneuver the stepper in class.  I love that she cheered me on from the sidelines - in dance, track, piano, choir, ballet, gymnastics, volleyball, basketball, even guitar, that she thrived on my talents when other parents and friends were around, that she was available to drive me and my friends to our sporting events, that she offered to purchase not only my favorite treats, but my best friends' as well.  One of my all-time favorite memories of John Carroll is opening up the trunk of my mom's car before she drove me and Laura to Tuscaloosa for the State track competition.  My mom had asked Laura if she wanted a snack for the ride; she was heading to Sam's before picking us up.  Laura mentioned she loved animal crackers.  So my mom purchased a 5 pound bag of animal crackers for her, her way of showing me her abundance of love.  

I remember Lessons and Carols practice my eighth-grade year.  I was singing in a trio, and during the rehearsal two days before the actual performance, I started to cry.  I was proceeding to my position in front of the choir with the other two girls, and it was my responsibility to move the microphone.  I don't quite remember what happened, but I ended up fumbling with the stand, and a feeling of embarrassment and shame rushed over me.  As the song started, I lost control of my emotions, and I began sobbing.  I couldn't stop the tears, and all I remember is looking into the audience at my mom, seated at the end of the bench on the second row, mouthing to me that it was okay, as her eyes glistened compassionately with tears.  I cried for four minutes, throughout the entire song, and not for one second did I take my eyes off of hers.  

I hate that she didn't understand me, that as her child, I was too sensitive to handle her cynicism, her sarcastic behavior, that I took (and still take) everything she said too personally, because she was my mom, she was my world, and she didn't lighten up with her remarks, her jabbing comments.  I hated that she wasn't perceptive enough to realize she was hurting me, that I didn't have the protective shell she did when I was her age, that it took me 13 years to grow that shell, to cope with the way she treated me.  

I hate that I have to let go of the relationship I've always wanted with my mom.  I've tortured you and my friends with endless fights that rip open old scar tissue.  My friends keep asking me, "When are you going to learn?  Can't you find another person to love you like your mother never will?"  But I don't want to.  I know she loves me, deeply, more than any mother can love their daughter, but the message is distorted, in a perverse, saddened way.  I need to let go of the expectations that my mother is going to one day understand that for the past ten years, I've hidden many manifestations of my disorder from everyone.  But the secrets are not going to solve our relationship.  My wise friend wrote to me, "[Your mom] wants to know secrets like why you never felt good enough, or smart enough or loved or why/when you've acted like her and then maybe, just maybe she'll share with you her secrets - secrets of feeling like a failure as a Mother, as a teacher, a spouse, a daughter - no matter how many rewards - never, ever truly believing you're good enough."  Please let this be true.  I just don't know how to get better when I psychoanalyze every word that comes out of her mouth, that maybe I manipulate it so I can punish myself.  Maybe I'm asking to be hurt by her so I can have something to be upset about, so I can hold onto my disease, so my eating disorder looks more appealing than my perception of reality.

I just want to ask her one question.  Can you tell me what I did wrong?

Quote

"The knowledge that some people can have enough while you never can is the single most compelling piece of evidence for a drinker (insert bulimia wherever necessary) to suggest that alcoholism is, in fact, a disease, that it has powerful physiological roots, that the alcoholic's body simply responds differently to liquor than a nonalcoholic's.  Once I started to drink, I simply did not know how or when to stop: the feeling of need kicked in, so pervasively that stopping didn't feel like an option.  My friend Bill explains it this way to his mother, who has a hard time wrapping her mind around the disease concept of alcoholism and who holds fast to the belief that he could have controlled his drinking if only he'd exerted enough will.  He says, 'Mom, next time you have diarrhea, try controlling that.'  Crude, perhaps, but he gets the point across."

-Caroline Knapp, Drinking: A Love Story

Weekday

I'm noticing slight changes in my body as the days turn into weeks.  My stomach is not deposited with clots of adipose tissue, my lovehandles don't feel as though they are slackened suspenders hanging from my sides, my cheeks are not punch-drunk swollen.  I know most of this has to do with the decreased intake of alcohol.  During the weeks, while you were away on a project, I arrived home around 7 or 8, with food and drink in tow.  I refrained from drinking while bingeing because I needed the alcohol to help me sleep.  When my cycle was complete, I drank one to two to sometimes three glasses of wine, then headed off to my stuporous sleep.  

The mornings were considerably lucid, and even though I had no hunger, I had to eat a bagel.  There was no way around it.  A binge occurred when I felt so morosely fat, or I did not retain any of the dinner I'd eaten the night before, where one bagel turned into two plus doughnuts, breakfast tacos, etc.  My morning ritual used to consist of heading to Einstein's.  I was usually the first to arrive, waiting in my car at 5:30 for the doors to open, ordering my bagel to-go, and driving over to school.  I would enter the building, sometimes having to wait for security to unlock the doors, head into a classroom, and begin my endless studying.  My concentration level was so pathetic, though.  Within 15 minutes, I would have to get up, go to the bathroom, come back to my desk, go to my car to get some water, return, until finally I would give into the cafeteria.  The cafe doesn't open until 7:30, so until then, I would placate my urges through the vending machines, feeding on Pop-Tarts, Doritos, hell, it could have been cardboard for all that mattered.  Purging at school that early in the morning was easy; no one arrived until 7 or later who used the restroom on the second floor.  My classes didn't begin until 8 or 9, so I would most usually order a bagel from the cafe, with egg and cheese and salsa, again which would of course be purged within 10 minutes of eating.  I don't know how I managed to complete my lab reports in the mornings before class, and complete them well.  My brain was always dizzy and clouded.  It would take me a week to respond to an email, reading and rereading the message, telling myself I'll write later, then warping back into my foggy mentality.  By the time class started, I would have binged, on average, 5 times.  I think the reason I love school so much is it allows me the inability to interact with my eating disorder.  I'm forced to be cognizant and abstinent for hours at a time.  My brain and body respond so eagerly to the respite of my destruction that they want more.  

I tried so desperately not to binge after school and before work, but I couldn't stop the cycle.  My body must have been so hungry, so ravaged, and I gave into the overwhelming cravings time and time again.  Usually I couldn't wait to get into my car to drive to get food, couldn't wait to chew.  Often I would stop in the school cafe to order something to put into my mouth, favorably a coke with the crushed ice.  This allowed me the opportunity to chew on the ice while I walked to my car, drove to the take-out restaurant (normally Pho), and waited for my order to be prepared; thus, not having to worry about having any food in my stomach too long before I could throw it up.  The afternoon binge normally lasted an hour or two, depending on how much time I was allotted.  Then off to work.

I'd come home with food, always with food, bags and bags of it, with a bottle of wine, and would lay on the couch willing for my life to be over.  I used to wish to die when I was purging, and I would drink to numb the pain of the bulimia.  My dad questioned me if I had a problem with alcohol when I was at Ridgeview.  I told him no.  Should I have answered maybe?*  These past three weeks I have rarely drunk anything at all.  I will pass at the offer of a beer, I will walk away from a drink half-full, I have no desire to drink a glass of wine, which used to be my drink of choice.  I don't think I had or have an addiction with alcohol, but I know damn well I abused the hell out of it.  My sleep now is proof of that.  But if you put a bowl of pasta in front of me, if there is a piece of cheese in the fridge, if the loaf of bread you buy over the weekend is left in the house, I will tear into it like a coyote on a housecat.  Now that is an addiction.

*The Harvard University Eating Disorders Center estimates that 25 percent of women with eating disorders also suffer from substance-abuse problems. -Drinking: A Love Story

Quote

"I try to believe in something, just for the heck of it.  I pluck some absolute out of the air, some expanding thought that will open in my head like ether - God, or the future, or the greater good.  I bow my head and try to believe that love will make it better, or if I love won't then children will.  I turn from the high to the humble and believe, for many seconds at a time, in the smallness and the necessity of being a mother."

- Anne Enright

No progress

Seriously, 3 am wake-up call is getting ridiculous.  Now 5 of 7 past nights.  I'm calling the doctor at 8 am.  Good news is Izze seems back to normal.

Hear me

I want so badly to turn on the tv and binge right now.  This morning was my meeting, and afterwards I met with my sponsor at a coffee shop/deli where we talked over lunch.  I ate a small salad without dressing and a cup of coffee.  I'm hungry, I don't want my stomach to expand any more than it already has, and I'm hating my mother.  No more excuses.

I'm angry for the way she reacted to my story about Angela yesterday.  I'm wanting so desperately for her approval, for her to tell me what a beautiful person I am, be it through my writing, my character, my achievements, and I keep falling short.  

I was given great advice today in group: "Let God give her what she deserves, dammit."  I'm not spiritual, or at least my relationship with something greater than myself has not yet evolved, but I find comfort knowing I'm not in control to judge.  

Yet, I'm falling into a repetitive trap.  When I asked for her feedback from the story yesterday, she responded by saying she didn't read my writing very carefully, that she wasn't interested in my writing style.  She wanted to know my secrets, what I kept hidden from her, from you, from everyone in my life.  I want to rip out my crying heart, place it in her hands and scream, "Here!  This pain is what I've been hiding.  My heart feels like it's been attacked by a Rottweiler, and you were the one who let go of its leash.  Do you want to know that I've thrown up in a neighborhood street after bingeing on 3 large pizzas I took home from a work meeting?  It was late at night and I drove around for 10 minutes looking for a deserted street where I could throw up, knowing I couldn't purge at home where Mathias sat waiting for my return.  Do you want to know I vomited in a parking lot last year at the Laguna Seca raceway?  Mathias was watching cars race around a track while I retreated to the car, bingeing on peanuts and protein bars I found in the car, then went to the hill overlooking the track and threw it all up.  Or that I was actually purging the Icee I was drinking when we were driving through North Carolina looking at colleges 10 years ago, when you pulled over to the side of the road to let me be sick, claiming my stomach was unsettled from all of the sugar.  I even purged the dinner we ate at Chili's during that trip, not throwing up until we got back to the hotel.  I locked myself in the bathroom and ran the faucet and shower to cover my sound, quietly puking up my meal while you talked to dad about our day.  Is that what you want to hear?!!!!!"

But I don't say those things.  I make small talk, thank her for spending the time and effort to read my writing, talk about my day and my recovery like her comments haven't hurt me, and repress.  She has her life, she doesn't understand how important her words are to me, I'm 26 fucking years old whining about my relationship with my mother.  

It's nice to hear someone say God will give us what we deserve.  Right now I deserve not to live with this disease.  For my mom, she deserves to hear that.