Thank you all!

(I wrote this post and it didn't post? Stupid Blogger. So I'm revising it to make it relevant for now. Ugh.)

Everyone was super supportive here and on Twitter. People said some REALLY nice things about how they respected me. "Respect" is such a powerful word. It makes me want to cry, I love you guys so much. LOVE YOU.

After that crazy night, like always, my whole physiology has calmed down. Even though I feel better now, I'm slightly concerned. This is what happened all through the beginning of 2010 - about once every couple of weeks I would feel my sanity take a back seat, and the gears would turn faster and faster, and the only thing that made me come back down was something impulsive, harmful, dangerous. It's what landed me in the hospital. I thought it was Hypomania exacerbated by the inappropriately-prescribed SSRI, but if it's happening again...when I'm not on any medication....

Trying not to be pessimistic, but I suspect you'll see me manic pretty soon.

Maybe it'll help me lose weight.

And I'm sorry I keep not replying to comments individually. Ugh. Some of you say really kind or important things and I just can't handle responding. I'd blame it on the fact that I'm usually on my phone and it's hard to read/remember/respond, but mostly it's a combo of memory, anxiety, and just plain laziness. Yes, anxiety - even remote online social contact gives me the jitters.

Today I'm in some kind of swing - I've burst into tears twice for absolutely no reason. Other moments I'm chattering to myself and pacing, which is actually a normal level of energy for me, something I've done since I could barely walk, but it's just so novel to me this time since it's so clear the thread of depression has snapped. I'm not hyperkinetic or not sleeping (yet?) but hopefully I'll be able to do things like clean the damn house again. Frustrated, useless.

Other important things: I have two job prospects, both which are awesome, and I might even be able to take on both, since one is remote with no specific hours. Finally I can be doing something other than wallowing in self-pity! Plus, you know, money. (One is in web design, the other in IT. If you're wondering.)

That means I'll be able to do ballet again. Because I'll be taking care of the arthritis again. Real exercise, real beauty. So excited.

Also - this part's embarrassing, because I feel like I'm trying to put on airs - I've been discussing with the fiance about joining some volunteer program. I'm thinking about a homeless shelter, since it's relevant to me personally, and I can do it at night or another flexible time once I start working. I really, REALLY strongly suggest volunteer work to ANY of you - you will gain a sense of self-worth that is amazing, and it gets you out of the house and curbs isolation, and you get to distract yourself from your own head, AND you're helping others on top of it! Will keep you guys informed.

Tomorrow is the Eating Disorder Support Group, if I remember correctly. Or is that next Thursday? I'll have to find out. That's also on my list.

ALSO working on a handful of informational posts for you guys, stuff about nutrition, mental health, pro-ana, all the good stuff. I'll try to get at least one a week up so this blog isn't always boring babble about my problems!

LASTLY - I've saved the best for last - I've finally got a copy of Marya Hornbacher's novel The Center of Winter. SO EXCITED AAH. I was going to save it for days where the fiance is working and I'm alone, but honestly it'll probably be done tomorrow, haha. I'll let you guys know all about it. (If you're having a hard time finding books, try AbeBooks.com, where they sell used books discarded from libraries and stuff. I think I paid $5 for this hardcover copy, and that includes shipping!)

(I realized this post makes me look super-busy and energetic, but seriously, I lay around most of the time. This is nothing. I think.)

Permission equals failure

Came up with a new plan to give myself "permission" to binge, since I do it no matter what my intentions are or mood is. Experiment failed horribly; spent the night eating, barfing, later drinking and cutting and swalloing meds, just to try to get my head to shut the fuck up.

I should have known better, because it's the same pattern every time, due to my complete spinelessness and general awfulness. Plan to fast, I eat 500. Plan to eat, I binge. Plan to binge, I eat 6 days worth of food and go insane.

I feel so empty, numb.

Planning not to eat till Wednesday. Making coffee. Maybe I can squeak by with just one small "cheat". Haha. (Want to cry.)

Because I'm really sick of people complaining "oh I binged because I ate 1 candy bar" I'm going to share with you this list:

1 large fries 470
3 donuts, maple, jelly, coconut 630
1 bag corn chips 360
1 box macarons 510
1 gf small pizza 920
1 packet ramen 380
2 burger rolls w butter 544
1 bowl vegetables 100~
1 box mac cheese 1140
4 cans d pepsi 0

Total: 5054 calores

I'd say "lesson learned", but the sad fact is I want to do it again today.

Useless words

Busy with the life I barely have.

I wanted to make Friday my "comment answering day", but I don't really have private-time on Fridays, so it's gonna be on Sunday nights instead. That's a good week-starter I think? (This update is from my phone.)

the schedule is working out pretty well with the exception that my insomnia throws it off a bit sometimes. I'm still binge/purging most days, but it's usually only once a day, and sometimes not at all. I consider this improvement.

I didn't go to the Thursday ED group, for reasons beyond my control. Well, sort of. I actually don't want to tell you guys why, but I kinda have to, because it's going to affect future blog content in an important way.

My boyfriend and I are getting married. We picked up the liscense yesterday. I know some of you will find it hard to resist congratulating me, Haha, but really, I am quite ambivalent towards it due to some moral conflicts I have concerning marriage, religion, and the law.

However life is life, and we think it's the best choice for us. My health is a huge factor in the rush - treatment is in absolutely no way possible, even with their "payment plans" and other bullshit, when my savings are in the red and my income is zilch. This is not to mention my physical problems which are soon to become mobile disability without proper medication. So why wait? Why put it off for some arbitrary time period? We've both been married before, and I've never in my life given a shit about a white wedding and all that schlock, and this is the man who knows everything about me and loves me anyway. So we're going for it.

Also, he had me put down "writer" as my occupation. Is he perfect or what?

Other than that, well, I still appear to be in a "normal" mood. Better than depression, sure. I can't decide if I feel like the tentative Bipolar II Cyclothymia is confirmed, but it sure seems like it. Especially since I've been going back over my manic ramblings on old blog posts. That crazy shit? That was mania, I don't think there's any doubt now. Under typical circumstance I'm fairly sure I only reach Hypomania, but over the 2009-2010 period I was on an SSRI...one of the things I failed to mention on the blog included the fact that I thought spirits were trying to contact me. I just realized it recently, how totally out of place that is.

Great, now I'm babbling. Where was I going with this?
Oh, the moods. As you can see I have energy again. Hoping to get some work done and bust out some exercise and get the weight back on track.

Going to stop rambling for now.

My Daily Planner

Out of the blue yesterday my depression broke like the sun peeking through the clouds. I have no idea why.

At some point I ate a bunch of cereal and went to throw up, and said, you know, I don't feel like it. So I didn't. Then I wrote a bunch of my (years in progress) novel, then I did the dishes and the laundry, then I decided I would write myself the daily schedule I've been meaning to do for months on end. I don't know where the energy and good mood suddenly came from (and it's not manic thankfully) but I am certainly not going to complain.

So I want to babble about my awesome daily schedule plans, because it's super important to me. (And it really does involve my ED.)

I function best with rigid, detailed structure, which needs some external imposition, because I am prone to checking-out of reality to live in the world in my head. As you may have guessed by the unnecessary amount of effort I put into this blog, I have always been a workaholic: there is nothing that makes me feel as good as being productive! But I totally suck at staying focused on my own.

Also, at least two of my life/year goals involve being self-employed. Being without children and unemployed means that my responsibilities are limited and so timing is flexible. Does it really matter if I do the dishes today or tomorrow? But when responsibilities and goals are added, I'm going to need to make better use of my time, especially if I'm going to be running a business while taking proper (better) care of a home. Even full-time writers schedule themselves with a "work day" - and doing so means I would have focused, set amounts of time to work my craft.

The final issue is, of course, the eating disorder. Even if I were not actively trying to lose weight, the randomness of my diet is NOT helping my life. (As I wrote this, I got an alarm reminder to go eat. Pausing.) All I think about is when I'm next going to stuff my mouth, and whether or not it'll be "just right" or "too much". It's seriously old. Looking back through the blog archives, I wasn't bingeing or purging during the time period where my meal schedule was set to a strict 3 hours between meals/snacks. And, I was at my lowest weight. (Of course, that is just dependent on how much I'm eating at these specific snack times. It doesn't have to be unhealthy.)

So! I timed out my super-anal schedule in half-hour blocks, in conjunction with pre-planned "meals", and my already-made massive chore list. It includes food-time every 3 hours with items that are roughly 100 calories and more or less balanced in carb/protein/fat ratio. It includes 4 half-hour chores a day including laundry or dishes, which keeps the entire house basically spotless over a month's time, when the chore list starts over again. It sets aside time for tea/cigarette breaks, blogging, exercise, and other goof-off stuff. And it assigns me a proper schedule to do my writing, work on my portfolio for school, and do some crafts. And 8 hours of sleep that I may or may not take.

Yes, I do all of these things in one day. The Power of Scheduling.

Also in the "optimal wellness" category, I've started taking Fish Oil capsules and a vitamin tailored to hair/nails/skin. Hopefully this will curb the hair-loss and irregular period issues, at least as much as possible. (I was also taking vitamins when I was at my lowest weight, and my hair loss was not as severe, nor did I lose my period, so I expect these supplements will really help.) I'll confess that the reason I wasn't vitamining myself this time was a consciously self-destructive intention, which is of course the mental illness talking. So that's enough of that ridiculousness.

Oh, also, I got the CRON book The Longetivity Diet. I'll let you know how it is when I'm done.

Was 113.5 today, but "full", so hopefully I'll get a more accurate weight tomorrow.

Goodbye Tooth Number 4

Halfway into a binge - icecream, cheese, fries - I am shovelling chips into my mouth by the handful, until CRUNCH! Goodbye, filling, goodbye tooth. I knew it was coming, because the root's been sensitive for a while now.

No, it wasn't enough to stop me.

I've managed to curve some of the crazy binge/purge cycling, which is to say it happens once a day instead of four or five. But it takes constant vigilance. If I go over a certain amount in one sitting, it's over. And I have no idea what that amount is. So I avoid food until absolutely necessary... and then pray.

On Wednesday I took the train across town to an Eating Disorders Info Group. Thought it was a support group, it wasn't, but I did sign up for their actual group. This meeting was basically info on their treatment program. (Met one other anorexic/bulimic and chit-chat a bit. She was really sweet. Her husband was there supporting her, which made me really happy to see.) Anyway, I couldn't affort treatment even if I wanted it, especially without insurance, but I might try their Evaluation service to check my vitals and stuff. In the meantime. For purely cerebral purposes.

I like watching myself die, I think.

I know the real reason I want to go to this group, why I'm poking at treatment again. Yeah, I'm lonely. Yeah, I'm scared by my deteriorating health. Yeah, I want to make my boyfriend less worried (after all, he can see the bald spots and empty sockets too).

But the real reason I'm going is the same reason I sought therapy before - to feel validation. I really don't think I'm that bad off, for one just exaggerating my problems for dramatic purposes. I feel like I'm just playing around with a disorder, just faking it, like it's not REALLY a problem or illness or issue, it's just me being silly as per usual. Taking everything too seriously.

When will I feel justified? Why isn't losing teeth and hair enough? Why do I need the recognition of others to even see it?

So I'm going to this group next Thursday, and meet some other girls and hope beyond hope that someone will give me an answer that will satisfy my nameless need.

Response to Anon: Ana Groupies

I just received a long and thoughtful comment from an Anon, which reads as follows:

understand where your coming from, but your last comment about how if you think this is the ideal shape of a woman. Here is my confusion, I've read your blog. For quite some time. I've seen your before pictures and read your post about how sickening it made you. But it must not have made you that sick or how did you get there in the first place? Also, you wouldn't have decided to take the before pictures if ana wasn't a decision for you. I didn't just wake up one morning and say I'm sick of being fat. I'll go anorexic. I'll purge. I'll get an eating disorder. Mine started when i was very young in junior high and i wasn't predisposed to any opportunity to gain weight. I'm not trying to falsify your disorder, or call you a liar. But it makes me a little skeptical, and a little offended myself. I didn't choose my eating disorder. And I've tried SO hard to recover from it but I fight myself every day trying to accept that a societal weight is beautiful on me. When id rather be 98lbs. I'm just trying to point out that I'm confused. I'm not attacking you so I'm sorry if u take it like that.

I have to be honest, I'm a little obtuse: I'm not exactly sure what you're asking. I know, I'm thick sometimes. But I'm going to try and answer what I THINK you're asking - correct me if I'm missing the point.

I'm guessing the question is this: Why would I tell people who "consider an underweight body as a feminine ideal" to leave, when I clearly do so for myself?

What I meant by this was specifically targeted to individuals who are not AN, and therefore carry this belief for different (social?) reasons. I'm talking about the people who think anorexia is something celebrities do to look sexy, or someone who thinks that starving skinny will make them popular or get the guy, or those who are facinated by anorexia because they believe it makes a person elite.

It's sort of a given that people dealing with AN are going to feel that thin=success. Many of us glorify the illness in our minds - it's a technique to stay obsessed. I personally believe this is rationalization, our minds trying to give ourselves reasons for why starvation and weight loss makes us feel like we're doing the right thing, so we take what we've learned from society and wrap it around the disorder. But there is a difference between doing this as a symptom during the course of the disorder, and someone who has not actually experienced it.

(A side note I forgot: I don't think anorexic is the feminine ideal for all women. I just think it's the ideal for me.)

(Warning, the next part is a long rambling about my history. I tried to be concise, but it's 15 years of ED.)

What I don't understand about your comment is what you ask about my personal history. I think what you're asking is, how am I anorexic if I got fat? An anoretic wouldn't let herself get fat, right?

The answer is this: I am first and foremost a bulimic, not an anoretic. I became a non-purging/restrictive-type bulimic around age 12. My weight was relatively stable through my teen years. In early adulthood I started swinging between underweight and normal weight. Shortly before beginning this blog my bulimia shifted into full-time restriction - I starved 70 pounds off my body to a 17.5 BMI.

The trigger for this switch was due to a massive weight gain - in less than 9 months I'd gained over 50 pounds. The cause was rather complex and happened all at once, a combo of ED, medication, undiagnosed celiacs that caused malnutrition, and undiagnosed autoimmune arthritis that caused constant pain and fatigue. At the time I was walking home from work in tears, shaking with muscle weakness, too exhausted and sore to move let alone get any amount of exercise. The malnourishment caused by the intestinal damage made me constantly craving food, but the more I'd eat the more damage I was causing, so I ate and ate and ate.

When I tried to stop the binges I found I couldn't, and it terrified me. I realized that I had an eating disorder then - I'd never known before, because I thought like so many people that EDs were for immature teens. I wanted to die, would rather die that be fat and unable to stop. So I cut calories. Then I cut them some more. And I was really good at it and it made me feel great. On that premise, I went in search of ways to trigger myself - and there was pro-ana.

(Then I got some treatment and gained a bit, then it bounced around a while since life was insane, and now I'm back to losing.)

Currently, I would likely be diagnosed as "bulimia nervosa with anoretic features" - until I lose about 7 pounds more, which would qualify me for both diagnoses. (Side note, you can see how stupid the weight specification is here.) (The DSM-V would either label me with AN or "Atypical AN".)

I should also note that it is well documented for people to crossover between AN and BN (at least half in some studies) and that my story is very similar to those who develop AN in adulthood. (Which is why my story is different than yours or a more "typical" course of AN.) Basically, from what I can see, the only reason I never developed AN in my younger years is because I'd never tried to intentionally DIET. I was fat and gross, and avoided eating to make up for binges, but somehow the purposeful weightloss never got involved.

(And another small note: my brain SCREAMS at me whenever I even remotely associate myself with the word anorexic. I am too fat and too bulimic to be anorexic. I suspect that I could weight 80 lbs and would still feel the same way. However, I use the word anorexic with extreme hesitancy here, since though technically I've qualified in the past, it is not my primary mode of function.)

I confess that when I started this blog, my opinions on pro-ana were not as clear. I was using it to trigger, not for support. Actually, I'm still using it to trigger, obviously. Other times I just crave emotional support, and other days I just want to support others who are hurting. Some days I want to try to find my balance, as I've described. Some days I'm just sick and trying to die. All this is exactly why this blog should be avoided by people in recovery - I would love to support you, but my own actions are probably not going to help you, are likely to offend, and may even cause you trouble.

So yes: on most days I am choosing to indulge my eating disorder instead of trying to fight it. One could argue how much "choice" is involved, but I certainly concede that attitude plays a great deal. Frankly, even knowing all the facts and figures from studies on EDs, I honestly don't have a damn clue how much of my actions are "choice" any more. I honestly have no idea.

Phew! So, did I answer your questions somewhere amid my rambling? Did I leave anything out? Did I go completely off track?

A Note on Blog Content

Since it has been a while with the blog hopping around, and since I've got some new readers, I'm going to reiterate some things about my content.

I absolutely DO NOT give "how to" information on eating disordered behavior. Particularly purging. Yes, I will share factual information, including the kind from which it may be possible to inspire dangerous behavior, because I believe that the benefits of open knowledge outweigh the negatives. It is well documented that anorexics read things like medical texts and memoirs to look for "tips". However, to actively "teach" disordered behavior is abominable.

(Frankly, if you need "tips" on how to starve or purge, you clearly do not have an eating disorder and should not be involved with Pro-Ana at all.)

I generally try to avoid intentionally triggering content, like Thinspo and quotes and such. (In fact I'm already regretting posting my Tumblr up there and will probably remove it.) No, I do not censor myself and often include graphic descriptions of my own behavior, which may indeed be triggering. However my experiences, feelings, and behaviors are common to those with eating disorders - shocking when they are spoken aloud to those unfamiliar, but not at all unusual.

Sometimes it may seem like I am "glorifying" anorexia or bulimia. I am not. It is part of the disorder to "comfort" oneself with these philosophies and justifications - that starving equals strength, that sickness equals control, that emaciation equals beauty. They are not FACTS, or even opinions - they are the emotional product of a hurting mind trying to rationalize a disorder, to make sense of madness.

Pro-Ana is an online community of people who are unable, for whatever reason, to be served by professional eating disorder treatment. For some of us, treatment is inaccessable due to distance or money. For many of us, traditional medical and psychological treatments have failed. The general goal of Pro-Ana is to find a balance between the disorder and health, to learn to live with this chronic illness, relying on the compassion and understanding of others with similar experiences.

This blog is targeted for individuals dealing with eating disorders, body issues, and mental illness. Pro-Ana is generally NOT targeted to all of those groups, only to those with restrictive-type eating disorders. But the topics I touch on are relevant to more than just the proana group, which is why I don't mind a more extensive readership.

This blog is NOT intended for:

MINORS. Only those above the age of 18 should be here. I make it very clear with both a Blogger warning and a disclaimer in big letters at the top of the page. I cannot be any more responsible.

DIETERS. If you are seeking assistance in weight loss, even if you are willing to use "drastic measures", this site is not for you, whether or not you have an eating disorder. There is no "extreme dieting" on this blog, and no "inspiration".

THOSE SEEKING RECOVERY. This blog is uncensored and likely triggering. Particularly because I have a negative view of traditional treatment, being here may undermine your recovery-focused path.

LIFESTYLERS. If you deny that eating disorders are mental illnesses, or if you believe they are a choice, OR if you feel you do not have an eating disorder and are choosing a low-calorie lifestyle, this website is not for you. While there certainly is "choice" when it comes to dealing with an eating disorder, the ED itself is not a choice.

WANAREXICS. You are in this category if you are trying to "develop" an eating disorder for any reason, or trying to "trade" your BN or BED for AN. While it is true that many ED patients cycle through different EDs at different points in their life, AN is not "better" than other EDs and is not glorified here. Believe me, I understand what this feels like.

ANA GROUPIES. If you glorify anorexia or the anorexic body as a feminine ideal, if you think thinness is a sign of control and success, then you are welcome to your opinion - just have it somewhere else. Your type of "support" can be damaging and dangerous to those with EDs or poor body-image.

I think that about wraps it up. Capisce, my friends?