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I'm coming back to this blog. It was an interesting sojourn. I'm messing with the layout a lot, so give me a few days to set up, and then I'll maybe post something of interest.

Bulimia Pain and Plans

I cannot stop the binge-purge cycles on my own. Cannot, and it frightens me. I would be more terrified, except that my boy comes home from his business trip tomorrow. I know myself well enough to know that me ever-present goody-two-shoesness will not allow me to binge or purge while he is near. While he’s away at work, I am less sure, but the thought of lying (guilt) or admitting it (guilt) makes me sick to the stomach, if you’ll pardon the turn of phrase.

So I’m just going to not eat, and tell him, truthfully, that eating too much will set off the bulimia. He obviously won’t like that either, but it is the safest choice while I (a) search for treatment and (b) decide if I want to go.

A tiny voice of fear speaks up, that this might mean I will stop eating anything at all, because at this point everything scares me. And if I stop eating too fast, it’s hospital-city, long before proper weight is even lost. But this small fear is quashed by my abject terror in the knowledge that if I don’t meet at least ONE of my long-term life goals this year, I really will kill myself.

I need one of these things:

– buy the wooded land I want for my dream home

– finish my novel’s manuscript and submit it

– enroll in college fulltime (and actually go)

– start a successful at-home business with my craft skills

– reach my goal weight of 95 to prove I can

Hmm, gee, which do you think is the most likely to actually accomplish??

I know, it sounds really trite. But I have felt it is too late for happiness for me since I was a teen, and the thought that I will spend the rest of my life like this, never quite succeeding, is crushing me.

On the more practical side of things, I am 0.1 pounds from my next goal weight of 113.4. I burnt my fingers making Christmas candy for my boy’s family. My “safe foods” list is miniscule now: small eggs, 50 cal yogurt, veggies, rasins, apples, broth, and shrimp. Took a mirror to my teeth: no less than four need work, one extraction, at least one root canal, one cap, god knows how many cavities.

And then my throat hurt all night, and I happened to glance in the mirror at the right angle…two huge bright pink lumps on the underside of my jaw. My submandibular salivary glands, gone haywire from so much daily purging. Here’s a good article if you want the science behind that. I tried to take a picture of it but my camera phone doesn’t have good enough quality. (In doing so I realized I could show my face here since there is no longer any reason or anyone to hide from.)

Maybe next time.

(Also I’ve been real active on Twitter lately…feel free to add me and say hello!)

Officially ED

I woke up this morning and immediately realized that eating disorder has finally, well and truly, taken over my life.

I know that sounds stupid after all that’s happened: losses and gains in life and weight, suicide attempts and mental wards, therapies and pills and everything else. I couldn’t say it when I tried to die, or when I lost my job, or home.

But now I have no other life besides bingeing, purging, and starving. On days I starve I am filled with hypomanic energy and obsess over ever step. on days I eat it is always too much, and it sents off a binge/purge cycle that doesn’t end until I pass out exhausted for bed. Those days I throw up a minimum of three times, at least, often after consuming in 20 minutes what a healthy person eats in 2 days (which is what I usually eat in a week). And then I do it again. I can feel the tingle of ketosis returning and I doubt I’ll see a period this month, again. I go to the grocery store and walk slowly all wide-eyed and afraid and read every label and leave with nothing but diet soda and carrots (unless I’m cruising for a binge) – and actually I don’t get carrots any more because they hurt my rotting teeth. I can’t even eat foods that used to be “safe” for me and haven’t had meat or dairy in weeks. I take laxatives and salt purges mornings and nights, and green tea and Alli pills daily. I walk for miles on painful inflamed joints and count the calories burned. My hair is falling out (so I’ve been told) and I can’t focus my vision anymore.

On days I’m empty and the laxatives have done their job, I weigh myself.

I continue to lose.

And I’m not even underweight.

I told my boyfriend that I would try to be not only honest about everything, but OPEN, and let him know whenever the eating disorder was a prablem. Ha ha, what a joke. It’s constantly a problem. My promised lasted literally a day. The next day I binged and purged wildly, sobbing, and felt so bad for making him worry I cut the corners from the story when I told him. The day after I didn’t eat at all except for soup at midnight (purged), and all I told him was how proud I was for not bingeing and eating a healthy dinner (sans mention of purge). From then on it’s been pretty straight-up lying. I cannot voice this. It is constant. And I cannot stop. Much better to hide it.

I’ve taken a look at the adult eating disorder treatment in the area. There are programs of all kinds. But I am terrified of them. For one, I have no money and no insurance (and by “no money” I mean literally no source of income no job, no prospects, no savings – the roof over my head, the clothes I wear, and the foot I eat and barf is all paid for by him). Even if we got married and I had insurance and his money was truly “mine” in the legal sense, treatment will cost me thousands and thousands.

Worse are two little “issues” related to treatment. One is that I am chronic and refractory, and the prognosis for eating disorders is already shitty without those two complications. So that’s big money and effort with a poor likelihood of return.

The other issue is that I’m going to be nocompliant with treatment, no matter if they keep me outpatient or lock me up. I know for a fact that I will do everything in my power to keep losing weight. I have to. I have to. It is the only way to live with myself. And so most time in treatment will be wasted as they try to beat down the disorder, convince me that other things are worth living for, as time and money tick away. If of course I’m not just kicked out.

Really, me seeking treatment will only happen if my guilt about torturing my poor boyfriend outweighs my fear and hopelessness. I’m not sure I have the ability to care anymore.

(Actually I feel a lot better opening up to you guys. Thank you for existing.)

114 today. That’s about 10 more until “oficially” anorexic. Again. So next month?

I wish bulimia would curl up and die. But I don’t want to lose the anorexia.

Security Breach

Blog has been discovered, again. I was careless. He’s promised to to read it behind my back, but it’s a hell of a temptation I’m sure…so if you’re reading this, Hi Darling. We’ll talk when you get home.

So we had an interesting talk. He believes I’ve been “lying by omission”, because I’d promised to be totally open with him about everything…but the fact is that ED is a constant running undercurrent in my thoughts. It’s part of daily life. It’s why I don’t really blog often anymore – who wants to hear the same ole miserable crap over and over?

So I told him I’d try to share. Everything. It’ll be interesting to see, and I can’t help but expect very bad results. Because I think today I’m going to tell him I’m not going to eat to make up for yesterday. Yeah, that’s going to go over well.

However I DID get to explain to him all about Pro-Ana, which was pretty nice, rather than getting an instantly negative judgement.

(Also, I’m fucking with the content again, which is why stuff keeps showing up and disappearing. Sorry.)

I need to catch up on blogs. I miss you girls.

Master Cleanse Fail, lol

Yeah, no. So the Master Cleanse is just too little too fast, and made me binge like I’ve never been fed before. And bad stuff, too, like donuts and shit I shouldn’t be eating. Can’t tell if I’ve hurt my intestines with it because, har har, you take senna or saltwater laxatives twice a day on the Master Cleanse, so I’m shitting water anyway. It’s awesome, you should try it. (Sarcasm.)

The sad thing is, the cleanse part itself isn’t so bad – I like the taste of the lemonade, lemons are on sale this time of year. But the calorie drop made me crazy, or maybe just the lack of chewing or something. You’re supposed to have a minimum of 6 drinks daily, and drink another lemonade every time you “feel hungry”, but that concept is, of course, a joke with bulimia. I’m always hungry. I’m hungry after a buffet.

So I’ll have to try it again a little later, after my calorie intake has been lowered more slowly. Maybe in a week. All I’ve been eating (and keeping down) are fruits and vegetables and an occasional egg or dairy. Discovered a brand that makes zero-calorie dips, caramel, chocolate, strawberry, which is a godsend. (Ana-send?) And my mood has been pretty good otherwise. And I’ve been exercising daily. Ups and downs, as always.

Bad news, my OCD/ED (or wherever you want to place blame) is acting up a lot. I go to the grocery store and leave with nothing but apples and coffee, because everything else makes me feel ill, even things that I usually consider “safe”. My old trick of saying “it’s okay, it’s organic” isn’t working anymore. Public places are upsetting me too; tried to eat sushi, but there were so many people near me I had to leave. There’s other little things, too. I wonder if it’s the lack of sun.

Strawberryjam mentioned that it’s probably not safe to be jogging around at night. No, it’s not, but I live in this weird area of suburbia, and there aren’t even people out during the daytime. My route is basically just through my apartment’s cul-de-sac area. And our crime rate is really low. (I’ve always had this habit of wandering at night, for years now, and I can probably count the number of times I’ve ever seen people. It’s strange, these people who sleep at night!!)

Well, today I’ve had an adorable little apple (60) with special caramel sauce (0) and my morning senna tea. Going to eat an egg (75). And then…?

All my days are planned around food.

Online? Again? Maybe?

I haven't been paying attention to anything online because I've been focusing on getting my RL life settled. My life is so very, very different now. New home in a new state, new boyfriend, new lifestyle, new everything. For the better? I would say yes...

...except for this little thing we call Ana.

Okay, okay, I'm trying to summarize this in a way that makes sense, because I can never remember what I blogged about.

Early 2011: I lose my job and fiance. Life falls apart. (I am at lowest "healthy" weight possible.) I start drinking a lot. Dates are vague from now on. Oh, I start sleeping with random men, too.

Spring: I am technically homeless, staying with my (best?) friend. ER visit for alcohol-induced panic attack. I'm approved for food and state disability (feds still pending). (Gain from binges and booze, lacking privacy to barf.) Online friend offers place to stay that isn't a livingroom couch, and I accept.

Summer: Fly to new home for "test run"; start dating boyfriend. Mood wild; suicide attempt stopped by being physically wrestled to the ground. (Barfing again sometimes, but not bingeing.)

Autumn: Fly to my mother's to get shit together for the move. Utter misery. Late night binges, purging at least three times a day. Pregnancy scare when period doesn't show...two different tests show negative, so after a week of nothing, I just start the next round of bc pills as usual. (Clearly it was the bulimia.) Finally saved when bf offers to rent moving truck instead of the slow shipping process - I drive cross country to my new life. I get a rotten bulimic tooth removed. (And you can see from my last post the results of that, haha.)

Now: I am essentially a really handy housewife. I cook, shop, clean, do laundry, fix and install appliances, sew curtains and quilts. We're thinking of getting married just so I can have some insurance. (Which I hate - not because I don't love him, but I have political issues with marriage...unfortunately they don't have other options in this state.)

My boyfriend works the graveyard shift and is gone for 12-14 hours for most of the week, and takes frequent business trips. One thing about me is that I genuinely enjoy alone-time (from being an only child I guess?), and I'm a night owl, so this suits me just grand.

But of course all this makes anorexia very very easy. Nobody is watching but me. The only voice arguing about what I should eat is my own. I'm better on the other "crazy" fronts. I don't drink unless we go out, and that's minimal. Self-harm almost totally gone. Stopped barfing. Mood's been surprisingly quiet. But it seems all of those things are in direct correlation to the fact that I've stopped eating almost entirely.

Today I've had nonfat cottage cheese (70) with sugar-free jelly (10) and half an apple (40), and will have the other half (40) and maybe some yogurt (60) or oatmeal (95) later....and that's it. (Other than the copious amounts of diet soda and black coffee and green tea I consume on a daily basis. And weirdly, I'm finding myself "too busy" to eat, despite the fact that I'm still unemployed.

I've lost about 16 pounds since I arrived a month and a half ago. Yeah. That much. I get 2-6 miles of walking every day, and do some light barre-pilates-calisthenics too. And I've been working up to start running again, since I have perfect quiet suburban streets.

The man is gone on another business trip until the day before Christmas, so I'm taking the opportunity to try a Master Cleanse. Not that fake lemonade diet shit, but the REAL DEAL - I bought the book. After reading the book, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you - I think the Master Cleanse is a load of bull. However, I'm a don't-knock-it-till-you've-tried-it person, and I've always wanted to know if detoxes worked, and it's as good of a starvation diet as anything else I'm doing, so hey. Starting tomorrow, it's 10 days of detox. Organic lemons, real maple syrup, burning cayenne, senna tea, and salt water. I want to make myself proud.

115.3 lbs today, after drinking a bunch of water. Going to finish my coffee and try to go for my first run. At 1 am. I love you, my crazy accepting girls.