The Reality of an Eating Disorder

How did I end up here in this suffocating mass of people? A salad in front of me and noise all around. My emotions rising high in my throat and threatening to burst forth in a cascade of tears. I bite them back in embarrassment. We had gone around the circle in my group this week and made goals that we were all going to hold each other accountable to. Mine was to go out and have a “real meal” at a restaurant.

So here I was, with the waitress worriedly asking if my meal was ok, a barely touched salad in front of me. I focused my eyes on the ball game on the TV and didn’t realize until my boyfriend took my hand worriedly into his that i had been playing my thumb against the steak knife, allowing it to shear against my skin, the pain somehow making it easier to maintain control in such a public and exposed space.

The guilt and shame of my stupidity overwhelmed me and I dug deep into my salad, forcing the bites down my tight throat until I thought I might choke.

“You…you don’t have to eat it all…that’s a lot of food…” the words and hand on my arm snapped me from my resolved inhalation of the meal in front of me. I felt suddenly embarrassed and unsure about the size of the meal.

“Do you think its too much?”

“.. That’s not what I said. Eat if you’re hungry. Are you hungry?”

“I…I don’t know…do you think its too much?” My hands scrambled for my phone so I could look up the calories. He snatched it away.

“You don’t need that. Its ok. Eat if you want to, but don’t feel like you have to eat the whole thing. It was a big salad.”

I was unsure of what to do. Anxiety welling up into my eyes. I took a deep breath. My hand played at the knife again. It felt as though all eyes were locked on me. “Do you need a box hon?” the waitress popped up out of nowhere. Panic and no words. The dissolved from my tongue as I scrambled for the “right answer”. The right thing to say to appear the most “normal”. Would someone bag up a few leaves of salad and chicken and take them home?

She knows. Everyone knows. He hates you. He just wants a girlfriend who isn’t a fuck-tard. You’re such a burden when you get like this. You’ve been such a shit for weeks and hes going to leave you. Oh shes looking at you funny. Quit acting weird! SAY SOMETHING!

“Ummmm thanks…no, ummmm, I’m ok. Its fine. The meal was very good.”

Concerned eyes all around. He took my hand and I squeezed his tight, grateful for the anchor as he walked out. A joke jumped from my lips followed by a smile, desperate to break the haze. The outside was so hot, so humid. It was a blanket suffocating me.

Another joke and smile and laugh. Chattering on about something inconsequential that I cant even remember.

But if I just let the drugs talk,

They have a different story to tell.

Because somehow I manage to

Make my life a living hell.

I get tired of this life I’m in,

And sometimes I don’t want to stay.

And then I need to sit right down

An just cry my heart away.

Protein Powder and Fireball Whiskey

My heart breaks. I get daily messages from a friend, lonely and desperate. Pictures of his growing muscles. Talk of whether it was leg day, or maybe back and tri’s. I try to be patient and calm with all this talk. I never jump to conclusions, as diagnosis is a slippery slope. But as the weeks and months wax on I become convinced he has a problem.

I tell him my story and confront him about what I see. I say I wish someone had told me when they first saw I had a problem. I explain eating and exercise disorders. I ask him if he thinks its a struggle for him and if he wants me to maybe help him talk to someone professional to see if it’s a problem. He says little, but denies nothing. The days continue and he tells me more and more about the pain he feels, the twice daily workouts, and his meals. I leave the thoughts I’ve planted in his head alone, not wanting to pester or break his trust. He slowly lets me into the intricacies of his life meal by meal, workout by workout.

A snapchat of protein powder and fireball whiskey, one chasing down the other. I ask how he is feeling and he says “good”. I leave it at that. I get a picture, a come on if you would, seductively flashing a nice V-cut set of abs and asking how I am. I give a generic answer, unsure of what to say. Unsure of what to do.

My heart aches.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

I’ve been delaying posting to wait and see how a few things pan out, but I’m going to post a “life-events” update sometime in the next few days. In the meantime, something came up in one of my treatment appointments that I wanted to kinda hash out and process.

I was in my dietitian’s office and we were talking about how it’s been such a stressful week for me and how I was dealing with that. Eating since I got home from the trip hasn’t been going so well and I’m really in a pretty nasty binge/purge cycle. I weighed myself about halfway through the week, coming in at XXX.X. Well, I didn’t believe that number and decided to double check it with a different scale, which read XXY.Y. Of course, upon the different result, I had to triple check with yet another scale that ready XXZ.Q.

Well at this point I of course ROYALLY lost it and had a major freak out that I didn’t know which number was accurate. I consoled myself with the thought that when I got to my dietitian appointment she would surely have an accurate scale and I would know the correct number.

Fast-forward to my dietitian’s office. She looked at me, said she would weigh me if I wanted her to, but then asked me why the number was so important. No news here, this is the first question every eating disorder recovery specialist asks and one I’d heard a million times but never had an answer to. She stated that all scales were a little different and that there was no assurance that any one scale is “right” and that it’s more important to use the same scale consistently so that it shows fluctuations. I rolled my eyes and said that I knew all of that logically in my head, but I still wanted to know my exact weight. She asked why that was.

The first thing that popped into my head was a very honest and authentic, if kinda fucked up, sentiment that had never occurred to me before. “Weight is a standardized way to compare ones-self to others, and how can you have a standardized method if the testing is inaccurate?”

What? Wow? Could I really believe something so cold?

It’s embarrassing and hard to hear yourself verbalize but understanding the root of your cognition is part of the process in changing them to what is more right, true, and healthy. I needed to “hear” myself think that in my head and then recognize how utterly screwy it really is! So often when our hearts are hungry, we will eat whatever lies are there to fill us up. And the lies we tell ourselves are the most dangerous because we truly believe them! How do you catch yourself lying to yourself? Three years of therapy I guess.

Just another step in understanding and in the healing process.

Bailing Out

New original song is posted! Bailing Out – Youtube Link

My Rambling Thoughts on the Way to the Post Office

I’m walking to the post office to pick up yet another package that will add to my wardrobe. I’m not a fashionista. I’m a tomboy. I don’t wear makeup or do my hair in any kind of fancy way other than stepping out of the shower and running a brush through it. I hate shopping.

And yet I’m redoing my wardrobe. I’m telling myself that it’s to buy professional clothes because soon I am graduating college and going into the workforce, and if there’s anything the last two summers of internship taught me, it’s that I don’t know SHIT about how to look dress-casual day after day at work. But I wonder sometimes if I’m just buying the cardigans and skirts to have an excuse to walk the .6 miles there and .6 miles back to and from the post office.

I’m excruciatingly picky when it comes to clothes and my style. And I have a very…different…? very ME look that you won’t find on Pinterest. I like Chucks and Keds, colorblock, chambry, sporty mixed with casual chic? Chambry is my new favorite as it is both professional, casual, and comfortable. Flannel is the bomb. I hate anything with sparkles, sequins, ruffles, lace, or frills. Green is my favorite color, and I’m not afraid to sport bright contrasting colors. I like it even. It makes me feel happy and upbeat.

But I’m still a 21 year old girl. I still stress about what people think about how I look and about my (now adult) acne and whether or not I’m committing a “fashion faux pas”, so I still send pictures of my outfits to my mom and sister to have them previewed and ok-ed. I still go onto Pinterest and look for professional hairstyle hacks for girls who don’t know shit about what they’re doing. (By the way, I found a tutorial on an awesome bun using Pinterest that I was able to master! And the best part is I can do it in 3 minutes and I don’t even have to take a shower and it looks totally legit!)

But I wonder as I’ve been stressing more and more about how I look if this is part of growing up, or just another outlet for my eating disorder. Another excuse to walk .6 miles to and from the post office. Another outlet of control over my body. I don’t know. I think as far as my face goes and my skin, I genuinely want people to think I have pretty skin. I genuinely want people to think I have pretty hair. I mean, who doesn’t? So why not put some effort into my skin and hair, that’s healthy, right?

It’s healthy to like bright colorblock and to fearlessly sport green Chucks to work in an outfit that somehow ties it all together, with pigtails and looking a weird combination of cute and professional so my boss doesn’t understand why it works, but she loves the green Chucks, because that is ME. Intro psychology buzzword: authentic-self.

Bad News and Venting Dump: Don’t Feel Obligated to Read This Shit

Just a quickie today. I wanted to point out THIS SUPER AMAZING ARTICLE about dating a self harmer. So much truth here!

I slipped up pretty badly the other day. Took a couple hits and got kinda high. Slept with a friend, which ended in a full on meltdown on my part. I was sobbing. I texted G. He doesn’t know. This is why I can’t date him yet, because I know I would just fuck it up. Things are getting so close, but I feel like I’m still stuck in a tornado going in circles, taking drugs from whoever and sleeping with whoever is there and can make the feelings go away in that moment.

I need to get back to pitt and into the semester. I need to pull myself together and into my coursework. I need to focus on the fact that G is so sweet and has been there for years despite my constant shit and that he’s not going to leave. Unless I drive him away.

Oh yeah, and I need to remember to never touch brandy again! I’ve never gotten drunk so fast.

Oh yeah, and B is back and told me he wanted me to move in with him. GO AWAY!!! All you are is poisonous and toxic. Don’t you dare try and guilt me for your choices.

Sorry. Venting over.

I eat my dinner in my bathtub
Then I go to sex clubs
Watching freaky people gettin’ it on
It doesn’t make me nervous
If anything I’m restless
Yeah, I’ve been around and I’ve seen it all

I get home, I got the munchies
Binge on all my Twinkies
Throw up in the tub
Then I go to sleep
And I drank up all my money
Dazed and kinda lonely

Pick up daddies at the playground
How I spend my day time
Loosen up the frown,
Make them feel alive
Oh, make it fast and greasy
I’m numb and way too easy

~Tove Lo Habits

Finals

Sorry I’ve been so AWOL the past couple of days. I’ve been doing a lot of work with finals and studying, and also a lot of drugs because being awake just hasn’t been worth it. It really hasn’t been good, knocking me out for up to 30 hours at a time. But today I’ve been trying to reset and start over, especially with my eating and schedule.

Had some self care this morning with a good breakfast to nourish my body and some guitar music. NOVEMBER COVER, please excuse the morning voice plus the frog in my throat. I’ve got a cough and cold right now that’s been hanging around for a couple weeks. Annoying, but oh well. Also if you want, check out my HOUSE ON A HILL and LIES covers from a couple weeks ago. Excuse my fatness in both videos.

The good news is that I’ve been keeping up with my studies despite the recovery hiccups. I’ve been in contact with my honors director and am thusfar in position to graduate in good standing with the honors college. I also scored a 95% on my senior assessments and have been feeling ok with my final projects and tests. The semester will officially be over after the Social Psychology Symposium this Friday, so we’re close.

I had a great self care and self respect victory the other day turning down and removing myself from a very triggering and harmful situation with B. He only ever comes around when he wants sex or money for cigarettes, and I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.

I hope you all are doing alright during this busy part of the year!

New Insight

I have a series of questions that I often ask people when I am first getting to know them. It serve two purposes for me; to help get to know the person and where they’re coming from and to get ideas for tough life questions that I myself am seeking the answer to.

One question that I always ask the guys is how they know when they are a man vs a boy.

Well, I think I have finally come up with my own answer to this question, and I think it is important that I hare this with the other women out there who may struggle with some of the same issues I do.

For girls, sexuality and our sexual identity as women is a difficult thing, especially in this culture where women are hypersexualized to such an extreme. Pornography puts ideas into the heads of guys AND women of the role women should fill. Words like “pussy” and “cat-calling” reduce us to the level of animals to be summoned by a man. Even the rape culture normalizes the idea of guys pressuring women to have sex.

After all, “boys will be boys”.

Well let me tell you what a MAN does.

A MAN never puts a hand on a woman in a sexual way without her consent.

A MAN stops his advances when he is told to stop.

A MAN asks a woman if he may hug or kiss her.

And I think these last two are the most important of the bunch. A MAN does NOT beg, plead, manipulate, or pressure a woman in any way to get her to have sex with him. “Let me put it in just a little bit,” “but it wants to be inside you,” “ugh, blue balls are awful!” and other common ways to make a woman feel guilty are downright unacceptable.

And lastly, a MAN does not in any way get angry if he is turned down. He stops immediately and does not get upset.

Ladies, he should not be begging you and making you feel guilty. He should not be getting angry when you say no! Your body is 100% yours and he should not take that safety away from you. It is not selfish to say “no.” And those guys that do? Those guys that beg and yell?

They are not men. They are boys. They are little boys.

Hope For Now

I’ve been enjoying a new anthem over the past few days, a positive affirmation, if you will. Something to strum on my guitar or on a friend’s when I’m struggling, and it truly helps I think. My life is better without certain poisonous influences

I feel so much better now you’re not around
There’s no one to kick me while I’m down
No one to burn my bridges anymore
So keep on walking
‘Cause I’m not here to make you feel good
To dry up your tears and apologize for you
I feel so much better now you’re not around
So keep on walking out

“I am and always will be the optimist. The hoper of far flung hopes. The dreamer of improbable dreams.”

Get knocked down 734 times, stand up 735…

Knocked down 1098 times…?

45,690…

I lost count long ago. Maybe that’s why so many people are drawn to me though. Maybe that’s why I have so many wonderful friends who are there for me in an instant. Because some of us just toddle along, looking the demons in the face and saying “bring it on mother fuckers.”

Sorry, Not Sorry

When I found THIS ARTICLE my heart did cartwheels within my chest. I always here people telling me about how I shouldn’t say “I’m sorry” so much, and how it even gets annoying sometimes with how often I almost cower for fear someone will be angry at me when I make a mistake.

I always thought this was just me, but now that I see someone else’s analysis of the habit, I totally agree! For me, I think I do it mostly with guys. It’s ingrained in my head that guys are almost superior in a relationship, and if I fuck something up, even something minute, like putting the eggs on the wrong shelf, I will either be punished, or he will become angry, or he will even leave.

“When you say it all the time like that, it makes me think you aren’t sincere. It loses it’s meaning.” No, you don’t understand, I mean it wholeheartedly every time. That’s why it’s so emotionally exhausting.

“Stop saying that! It’s so annoying!” I’m sorry, I try, but…”

“Why did you flinch when I yelled at you? I’m not one of those guys to try and hit you!”

“I’m sorry, I know…”

“JESUS! STAHP APOLOGIZING!”

“I’M SORRY!”

And so it continues. Yes it is a way to take blame and try and keep peace. Yes it does mean I don’t have a spine sometimes. Yes, sometimes I wish I would just pick my head up from its hunkered position in between my shoulders and say “you know what, I’m not sorry, I’m going to respect myself and tell you to fuck the fuck off.”

Like last night when B texted me telling me to send him “naughty pics”. When he booty called me at 11pm while his real girlfriend was at his house. I cowered in my room pretending to be asleep. “You deserve more than this, you deserve more than this. DO NOT let him make you his bitch! You are worth more than that!”

Sorry, not sorry.

Like when I got a text from another “friend” the night before accompanied by a dick pic and instructions to “come suck it”. And when I replied that I didn’t respond to disrespectful summons.

Sorry, not sorry. (HE said sorry for that one! Good kid! Maybe you learned something tonight!)

When T came onto me really hard (no pun intended) while we were supposed to be doing homework and got frustrated because I wouldn’t let him “put it in”. And he ended up jerking off on the floor next to me because I stood firm in my stance that I wasn’t going to let him touch me.

Sorry, not sorry.

Seriously, sorry (UGH) for the explicit examples, but this is really what I have become to a lot of people. A piece of meat. Because I have no respect for myself. Because I aim to please. Because sometimes I feel that is the only way to get a guy’s love and affection. NO! Stop! I’m working on knowing that it’s ok to say no when I don’t want to be manhandled. MY body. MY sex. Mine and mine alone.

Sorry, not sorry.