My tentative plan was to contact my university's eating disorder's clinic when winter session started in January.

I don't want to.  I know I need to because I'm getting more and more out of control, walking further and further down this dark path.  But i can't bear the thought of gaining weight, of going back to what I looked like before.  Maybe one day I'll post pictures.

This last week and a half at home, all I have done is binge and purge.  Now...my binges may not be as large as others.  I still probably stay below 2,000 or 3,000 a day with most of that ending up in the toilet.  I ended up reaching my GW3 of 110 pounds which shocked me, but my weight has been fluctuating wildly between 110 and 115 because all of the purging has made me retain water in the worst way.  Yesterday I had a moment that really scared me quite a bit when I was purging.  I had binged on a piece of biscotti, some potato chips, soem pretzels and soem bread.  All very dry.  I thought I had had enough liquid to wash it down, but apparently not.  For once stuff started coming up without my really forcing it, and it all got clogged in my throat in a big gummy mess before it came ripping out of my throat.  For a bit, it felt like I was suffocating and I honestly thought I was going to choke to death on my own vomit, or that my esophagus was going to rip open and I was going to bleed to death in my bathroom.  Afterward, my throat felt mangled and torn apart, so much so that I managed to talk myself out of a cereal binge later that night and just went to bed instead.

Today I haven't eaten.  Well, that's a lie.  I couldn't sleep last night, as has been the cas really for the last couple of days when I haven't been with my boyfriend because all I do is sit awake and count up all of the calories I have consumed, purge or not.  But I woke up and decided to make some cheddar cheese scones for my boyfriend and hairdresser because I was going to see them both today.  I 'm an amateur baker and have a little teeny tiny business going on the side as well.  Strange, eh, considering I hate eating so much.  But I ate one of the cheddar cheese scones right out of the oven, and immediately purged it up and made sure that it was completely gone because there was stomach acid that followed it. That was the only thing that I've eaten today.  I may allowed myself some steamed vegetable dumplings (45 calories each) just to keep my body from going back into starvation mode and keep it burning off this horrible fat on my frame.

This is sic.

When I was in high school, back when I was seventeen, I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression.  I tried to kill myself twice, and I was actually put in suicide watch in the hospital for a couple of days.  Not fun.  My depression was so severe that I actually suffered from psychosis in the form of hallucinations, both visual and auditory.  I know that my depression is getting quite, quite bad again when I suffer from hallucinations and these have been happening again.  When I was driving to the supermarket the other day, it looked like the highway sign was waving back and forth, leaving a spectral trail in its path.  I wasn't sure if it was a hallucination or if I was getting an aura for a migraine, but then I got an auditory hallucination as well.  When I get an auditory hallucination, I don't have specific voices talking to me, per se, one telling me that I'm worthless, or a couple telling me to do something or not to do something.  It's like I'm standing in the middle of a party and there's just the din of conversation and I can't make out any one particular voice.  It's awful and it makes me feel absolutely mental.  I've never, ever told anyone in my life other than my therapist about these hallucinations because I know they would think that I was absolutely mad and just write me off.  I don't want that to happen.

So, it's not necessarily because of the EDNOS that I want to go into recovery, but because I know that my depression is getting bad, and it is getting very bad very quickly.  I have been self-harming almost every day and I know that if things continue, it will not be long before I am back on suicide watch.  This sounds very pathetic, but I don't particularly care about harming myself, but I couldn't do that to my boyfriend.  I'm not glorifying myself in any way, saying that I'm irreplaceable, but it would be unfair for him to have to deal with the fallout of my death or my hospitalization or anything like that, and so for his sake, I want to get out of this horrible mental state that I'm in.

I have a hunger high.  I often wonder to myself why I binge when it feels so, so good when I restrict.  I feel happy in a way when I eat less than 500 calories, happier still when I eat less than 300, and elated and accomplished when I eat nothing.

Is...there any way to do recovery and continue losing weight?  It didn't work the last time I was in recovery.  In fact, I gained well on thirty pounds.  Ugh, the thought's enough to make me sick.

Thank you for reading all of my scrambled thoughts.

Yesterday was the worst day that I have had in a very, very long while.  I purged seven times.  Seven.  I know that to some that is not very much, but for me it is.  In a normal day, I will purge perhaps three times, maybe up to five if I am feeling particularly stressed out.  It was such a bad day, and I was left feeling particularly disgusted with myself.  Let me take you through my day.

The morning started out with my boss getting on my case about eating.  My boss recently expressed his concern about my eating and I told him that I would be seeking treatment in the new year.  I also stressed to him that it was important that I do it on my own terms and in my own time, but my boss is also a nosy asshole and doesn't quite understand that.  For breakfast, I eat oatmeal at work every morning at 9:00.  This is my routine.  I don't like when it is disrupted.  Yesterday morning he harassed me for about fifteen minutes about putting real sugar into my oatmeal instead of Splenda.  Why the hell would I do that?  I understand that you're concerned, but understand that nagging me about what I'm eating is only going to compound the problem, make it fifty times worse, and make me toss out the oatmeal instead of eating it. And believe me, when one is restricting as heavily as I am (400 calories a day), 140 calories makes quite a difference.  Would you like that on your head?

So now all of that attention is drawn to what I'm eating for breakfast when normally I like to hunch over in my own little corner of work and eat my oatmeal slowly and quietly with my own additions to it: lots of cinnamon to boost my metabolism, and lots of sugar to make me feel satisfied.  But that's blown.

There was a work holiday party that we walked over to at around 11:00.  It was potluck and it was served buffet style.  Panic.  Can you think of any worse situation for someone with EDNOS to be in?  I certainly can't.  Having to stand in line with fifty other people in the room, worrying about who is watching you fill your plate, judging what you're eating, worrying about who is thinking you're fat because you've picked up one too many rolls or put just a bit too much hummus on your plate.  I forced myself to put food I wouldn't normally eat on my plate because I don't want my boyfriend (who has been enormously helpful and supportive) to worry, and because I wanted to appear as normal as possible to my coworkers.  I grabbed a quarter of a cup of three bean salad, a tortilla chip, a piece of cheese bread (!), two pieces of sushi, and a boiled carrot.  This is a lot for me.  I was in the middle of crossing the room to grab a diet Coke when my stupid bitch of a peer cranes her neck quite obviously to look at my plate as I was passing by, scrutinizing everything that was on my plate.  Then she said, very loudly, "just checking to make sure that you're eating!"  In front of a room full of people, half of whom I don't know.  Lovely.  Great.  Way to make me feel normal and comforted.  Fuck you.

I go to sit down at the table where all of my coworkers and friends are sitting, and one of my coworkers asks me about how long I've been vegetarian (nearly seven years).  My boss takes this as his cue to the entire table, several times over, jokingly "oh, Q just doesn't eat.  No Q just doesn't eat at all.  Well Q just doesn't eat, look at her!  She just doesn't eat."  Great, wonderful.  Food in my mouth is sawdust.  Pardon me, I have to go purge.  Purge #1.

I don't stay away long because I know that if I do, then the jokes about "hey, did the food stay down after the meal" will start.  And guess what, they did.  I had to leave before I started yelling at someone, so my boyfriend and I walked back to my building.  Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.  I've had a lot of coffee and tea today, I say.  Purge #2.  Get the food out of me, I can't stand it.  I hate it.

I'm deeply upset and angry at this point.  What right do all of these people have to meddle and embarrass me at such a large function?  If you are genuinely concerned and have any modicum of respect for me, you would pull me aside and say something, wait for an appropriate time.  You would not embarrass me in front of strangers.  So after my shift was over, I went to my boyfriend's house to decompress.  I tried to make myself have a snack because I really, truly am trying to get better.  I had some PB2 (45 cal) and told myself I was only going to have 5 saltines to go along with it (60 cal).  20 saltines later and I excuse myself to go to the bathroom.  Lots and lots of coffee and tea, I say.  Purge #3 in my boyfriend's toilet.  How fucked up.

I go back to work, well and determined not to purge anymore today.  My stomach is already in serious pain and my liver feels like it's going to tear itself into pieces.  But the flip in my brain has already occurred and I'm well on my way into binge mode now.  I grab a pot of Cheerios and a bag of bar-b-que Fritos from the convenience shop and scarf them down while I'm in the office.  Run to the bathroom.  Purge #4.  I manage to pull myself together after that.  I think it's out of my system.

Oh shit.  Dinner with my boyfriend and his roommates?  That's okay, we're going out to get sushi.  I can handle that.  I've started eating a little bit of fish since I've been so vitamin deprived, but not too much because, after years of being vegetarian, it really does tear my stomach to shreds if I eat too much.  So we go out to dinner, I'm eating along with everyone else, but not too much.  I avoid the oysters, I avoid the fish head (because ew, gross).  And then his roommates start in on me.  "You know, I never see Q eat.  Q doesn't eat.  Nope, never see Q eat."  Despite the fact that they've just fucking sat across from me and seen me eat.  Also starting in on me is the girl to whom I've confessed about my eating disorder, to whom I've told about my extreme restricting because I had to tell someone.  The girl who knows that some days I don't eat anything at all, and on good days I may allow myself to eat up to 600 calories, still well short of the 2000 that I should be consuming per day.  And she joined in merrily, teasing and joking maliciously about how I wasn't eating, correcting me when I said that I do eat.  At this point my boyfriend was as livid as I was, particularly as he knew the day that I had been having.

I had to leave early to go babysit, but made a quick pit stop at the bathroom before I left.  Get rid of the sushi, get rid of the mushrooms, get rid of the salad.  Purge #5.

Got to my babysitting job.  Boys were all asleep, all I had to do was keep an ear out to make sure nothing was amiss.  God, I wish that they were awake so I could have run after them.  I lost my bloody mind.  I'm deeply, deeply ashamed to admit that I went on a binge in a house that was not mine.  Raided my neighbor's closet and ate half a bag of veggie sticks, Triscuits, nuts, two NutriGrain bars, a massive slice of whole grain bread with soem apple butter, then purged it all out in their toilet along with the french fries I'd scarfed when I got home just before heading over to their house.  Purge #6.  What fucked up person binges on someone else's food that they spent their hard-earned money to buy, that they use to feed their three children, and then promptly tosses it back into their toilet, befouling their house?

I run home, still crazed, scarf down a cinnamon roll that my mom had made earlier this week.  More French fries.  Soem bread.  Some pretzels.  And then I throw it up in my bathroom so forcefully that vomit and toilet water splatter back up onto me, onto the bathroom floor.  Purge #7.  I am so thoroughly sick with myself at this point that I want to die.  I take my prescription for the night and hope that it kills my liver so that I can just die in my sleep and put myself and everyone else out of my misery.  I know I have to go into recovery and I know that party of me really, really wants to.  The other part of me just wants to lie down and never get back up again because dealing with people and their selfishness and evilness is too fucking hard and I'm sick of it.

Right now I hate the world.  If you've read through all of this, I appreciate it.  I know that it was massively long and whiney.

Purge

Wow.  Yesterday was horrible.  Absolutely horrible.  And I feel horrible today as a result.

Yesterday was a purge day.  Purging in every sense of the word.

I've gained two pounds.  From eating more than I usually have.  Maybe up to 500 calories a day.  What a disgusting blob.  I absolutely hate myself.

Yesterday I started out by eating two egg whites with my usual reduced sugar ketchup/hot sauce combination (40 calories).  Then of course I had to top it off by eating a slice of the pumpkin bread that I made.  It was super healthy pumpkin bread made without oil or sugar and with whole wheat bread, but still... (60 cals).  I purged it back up before going to the gym.  During my first serious bout with EDNOS, most of my purging came from exercise.  That came back full force yesterday.  I spent an hour and a half on the cross trainer, went for five miles and burned almost 500 calories.  I thought that would be good enough.  I would burn way more than I would eat that day and everything would get back on track, right?  Absolutely wrong.

May I just say that I think it's completely unfair that the lighter you are, the more difficult it is to burn calories?  Unfair.

When I got back from the gym, I was hungry.  So instead of being strong, I had a slice of bread (35 cals),  half a serving of potato chips (60cals), and three tortilla chips (60 cals).  What is wrong with me?  Back to the bathroom to purge before I took a shower.

Anyway, I had to go out to lunch for a friend's birthday and of course we went to a Mexican restaurant.  Is there anything healthy to eat at a Mexican restaurant?  The answer is no.  I went for the healthiest thing on the menu which was the vegetable fajitas, ordered it without cheese, sour cream or guacamole.  But still, the vegetables were swimming in oil and grease...disgusting.  Instead of eating the flour tortillas, I used them to soak the grease off of the vegetables before eating them with lettuce.  Still, I could just feel the grease congealing in my body...back to the bathroom.  Purge number three for the day.  Number of calories consumed at lunch?  I have absolutely no idea.

Stopped at the mall on my way down to work to return a sweater because I have the shoulders of a linebacker.  But I did buy a size 2 pair of jeans.  I am now down from the size 10 that I was back in July.  How do I celebrate?  By buying candy corn from Target.  Yes, really fucking brilliant of me.  Two servings of candy corn in the car on the way down to work (300 cals) and then a sprint to the bathroom to get rid of it as soon as I get to work.  Ineffective, I know, as sugar is one of the first things absorbed by the body.  Purge number four.  My throat is on fire at this point and my stomach is one enormous cramp. I am hating myself and I am at a foul mood at work.  I claim feeling sick to my stomach and garner everyone's sympathy.

Dinner is two portabella mushrooms with hot sauce that burns on the way down my raw throat (50 cals) and I am satisfied until I hit the 8:30 point in the evening.  This is always the worst as I still have an our and a half left in my shift and I get "hungry."  There is a vending machine down the hall.  I walk to it because I am a disgusting, fat blob.  I buy a bag of baked Lays.  I eat the baked Lays (120 cals).  AT this point I absolutely hate myself, but cannot bring myself to purge for a fifth time in fear that I will bring up blood the way that I did last week.  By the time I get home, my stomach is in a knot and I want to do nothing but lay in bed and cut until my sheets are stained with red.  Instead I put my exercise clothes on and go into the basement and do an hour of Tae Bo.  I burn 600 calories, drink senna tea, and finally stumble into bed at 12:30.  I have to be up and out of bed at 5:30 to return to work this morning and now I just feel drained spiritually and physically.  So far all I have eaten are three bran crispbreads, (36 cals), one with a tablespoon of PB2 (25cals).  All I will have for the rest of the day is a salad (30 cals the way I make mine up) and the other two crispbreads I packed (24 cals).  I will walk up and down stairs while I wait for my afternoon work meeting.  I will get rid of these two pounds and begin losing again.  I will not go over 200 calories again.  I will clean myself out.

I am pathetic.

Ouch

So what's been going on here?  I'll just x-post a question I posted on PT rather than re-write the whole story:

I was trying to up my calorie intake from 200 cals a day to around 400 because I've started working a second job and I needed the extra energy.  It did not go well.  I felt so guilty after every dinner I ate that I started purging after dinner more and more regularly (purging is basically what kicked off my ED back in high school).  On Friday I blacked out at work so I had some cheese to up my energy, but felt guilty about all of the calories, so I ended up purging that.  Then I went out to dinner with a friend and had to pretend to eat normally because all of the taunts of "Gosh, Q, stop being so anorexic" really get on my nerves.  I ended up purging that in the restaurant bathroom.

Long story short (too late, I know), both times there were bright streaks of what looked like blood when I purged.  I wasn't purging anything particularly tough like chips - it was soft like cheese and egg whites.  Needless to say I'm worried.  What should I do??  I'm afraid to go to my doctor because she will know that I've relapsed and she will refer me.  Plus she will tell my family even though I'm 25 - we've all had the same GP for at least ten years, so she will drop little hints about her being worried about me which will make my family ask questions, and I would really rather that didn't happen.  Has this happened to any of you before?  I would really love some help right now.

Soooo yeah.  Basically for a couple of days after that, eating anything was like eating razor blades, particularly a bit further down around my chest.  Diet soda was the worst, or hot sauce.  Or anything that was cry.  I guess it was a nice reminder that I was  a fat ass and shouldn't have been shoving food into my gullet in the first place anyway.  I'm fasting today because I don't want to be gaining weight, I want to be losing.   I want to be light as a feather and not have my guy struggle to pick me up.  I want to be twirled around like a Disney princess and be slender and beautiful.  That will not happen if there is food in my belly.

And Scene

I reached my second goal weight.  Hooray.  I feel more disgusting and fatter at this weight than I did at my first goal weight.  In fact, I actually had a nightmare and a miniature breakdown because I thought I saw more fat on my belly and on my sides and had sworn that I was gaining weight.  I was terrified to weigh myself and made sure to drink some senna tea for two nights and eat lots of the crispbread crackers before I even dared step on the scale to make sure that my system was completely cleaned out and I wouldn't be carrying around any extra weight.  But there it is.  As a "reward," and to get people off of my back, yesterday was my reward day where I didn't count calories as strictly as I have been.  I've been doing the ABC diet for the last couple of weeks, but I took a break (I don't consider it a cheat) and allowed myself to eat 700 calories yesterday.  I even allowed myself to eat two slices of multigrain bread, and made sure that there were people around to see me eating it so that they would finally get off my back about my eating habits.

I got a...lecture would be too strong a word, I guess, but a talk from my boyfriend the other night about being too skinny.  I guess a talk would be too strong of a word as well.  He expressed his concern about my weight and said that he was worried about me.  Still, he likes fuller-figured girls, so I would say that his opinion is slightly skewed.  I asked him if I was so skinny that he would stop sleeping with me and his response was "Oh, God, no!" so that's that!

I have ben purging a lot more lately.  I can't stand the thought of dinner in my stomach.  It just sits there like a weight, even if I am under my calorie count for the day.  I hate it.  My ED started with purging, even though it evolved into more anorexia-leaning EDNOS.  I have gotten good at being able to purge very quickly in a public bathroom and then returning to the dinner table if I am out to dinner with my friends and no one knows what's going on.  I'm not sure if that's something I should be proud of.  It's not, actually.  It's disgusting, but I can't stop  I know y mind, that this disease, is writing a check that my body cannot cash, and I'm causing more damage to myself even more quickly, but...

Well, here's to my next goal weight.  Let's see if I can't convince my friends and family that I've stopped losing weight for the time being.

I really, really wish I could just eat normally.

Wow...

Yikes.  Just when you thought that friends were friends.

I know it was probably because she was exhausted.  I don't envy my friend.  I actually dropped out of the particular program she is doing because it was simply too much for me.  Teaching a full day of classes without a planning period, having to do lesson plans and grading for said classes and then having three evening classes during the week to do school work for...that's a lot.  So she was probably exhausted and irritated in class which caused her sniping.  But that is enough justification.  My feelings were still very hurt.

My friend is quite overweight and very obviously enjoys food.  She came to class last night with a massive Chipotle burrito that turned my stomach into knots and both made me want to vomit and snatch it out of her hands when I saw it and smelled it.  The first thing she said to me, before hello or how are you, was "I don't see how you starve yourself.  I went the whole day without eating today and I wanted to kill myself before I got this burrito."

This is from someone who I had once confessed that I had EDNOS.  Yeah.  Ouch.  Okay, whatever, i dismissed it.

When class was ending, she seriously looked like she was going to fall asleep on the way home because she was so exhausted.  Concerned, I decided to say something nice to her because, you know, I thought we were friends.  So as I was leaving, I told her "Hey, sweetie,  I know you have a lot of work to do tonight, but please try to get some sleep."  Her response?  A very sarcastic, "Yeah?  And you try eating, okay?"

Wow.  Just...wow.  Knife, gut, twist.

Sorry, in the future I won't give a shit whether or not you fall asleep on the road and crash your car.  I don't generally care if someone expresses concern whether or not I eat, but when you say it sarcastically, and then couple it with an equally sarcastic, shit-eating grin, it makes me want to hurl a chair at your face, regardless of whether or not you're my friend.  It's that kind of thing that frustrates me because people don't realize that this is a disease, not a decision.  It is an emotional disorder.  That is why it's called an eating disorder!  I'm not simply dieting to lose weight.  It really annoys me that people think I want to starve myself to the point that my bowels are twisted and don't function.  That I want to starve myself to the point that I am failing my masters degree when I used to be a straight-A student.  That I am afraid of food and have panic attacks when confronted with it.  That, when I somehow convince myself to eat three meals, however small, I end up purging the third so hard that my throat still hurts the next day because I can't stand the thought of the calories staying in my body.  I hate that people think I make a choice to be that way.

If I had a choice in the matter, I would choose to walk back into therapy and tell someone to fix me.  I would tell them to change my attitude about food and teach me how to eat healthily.  I would tell them to teach me how to go out with friends and not surreptitiously stare jealously at their plates of French fries.  I would tell them to teach me how not to add up every single calorie that goes into my mouth, and how to be happy with my curves instead compulsively counting my ribs every night before I go to bed and every morning right after I wake up.

Maybe I'm being overly-sensitive and what she said should not have upset me so much.  Maybe I shouldn't be crying as I type this.  But really, all I want to say right now is fuck her, and fuck people.  Ugh.

Concern

Yesterday two people told me that they were concerned about me.  One was my mother when she saw that I was down another jean size and I was wearing them without any muffin top.  However, I take her concern with a grain of salt as she rolls her eyes every time I grill vegetables instead of frying them, or make my own egg drop soup at home instead of indulging in a calorie-laden Chinese food meal with the rest of my obese family.

My friend Ashleigh saw me for the first time in two weeks and remarked on how thin I had gotten.  But really, thinner and thin are not the same thing.  I may have gotten thinner, but I am not yet thin and therefore I need to keep up my dedication.

This section contains a bit of TMI, so you can skip over it if you would like...

I am sure we all have those moments where we think "Okay, that's enough.  I need to stop because I am really hurting my body."  Last monday I had diarrhea all day.  To the point where I couldn't leave the bathroom because I had to use the toilet every ten minutes.  After that, I did not use the bathroom at all.  I literally could not have a movement.  I decided to use a laxative on Saturday to try to get things moving and...it didn't work.  At all.  This has never happened to me before.  All it did was make me bloated.  My stomach was swollen with gas and I felt horrible.  By this Monday I still hadn't had a bowel movement and it had gotten to the point where I was so bloated that I was throwing up food just because my bowels weren't moving at all.  I felt absolutely awful at work and kept running to the bathroom to dry-heave so I ended up leaving work early just to go home and have a lie-down.  I was feeling sluggish and absolutely fatigued anyway.  That night I had a handful of prunes and took some milk of magnesia and yesterday I finally, finally was able to go.  It wasn't very much and today I am still bloated and very gassy, but it isn't as dire as it was.  My stomach was so distended this past week that my liver was actually hurting and yesterday and today I was having chest pains (although for the chest pains...I like to run my fingers over the ribs on my chest since they are showing now and I love it...maybe that's where the pains came from?)

From the natural market today, I bought this crispbread that my mom and I saw on Dr. Oz.  One cracker has 12 calories and 5 grams of dietary fiber.  So if I eat four crackers, I can satisfy 80% of my daily fiber intake and all of that for only 48 calories.  I had some today and those crackers are FILLING.  I only ate two and my stomach felt like it was going to explode because I was so full.  I also bought some Chocolate Senna tea as well to use on occasion, but I don't want to get into the habit of using that because I know that it will only compound the problem.

In other news, I am only six pounds away from my second goal weight.  I am going to start the ABC diet on Saturday.  I was concerned about it because so many of the days on the diet have a higher calorie count than what I have been eating for the past three months, but perhaps I need it to stave off this plateau that has kind of been riding me the last two weeks.  My weight loss has really slowed and I don't want it to.  I can still pinch tons of fat in places where there should be none and I want it to be gone.  I don't want to be fat anymore.  I want to be slender and beautiful.

This past weekend was horrible.  I don't even want to write about it.

Wednesday was a good day.  Very good.  I ate only 100 calories.

Yesterday was passable.  I ate very well during the day, but had somewhat of a carb binge when I got home - A huge slice of 7-gran bread spread with chipotle southwest sauce from Subway, and then a couple of tortilla chips.  I haven't gained  any weight so far, though, so maybe my body just needed the fuel?

Today my mom commented that I look like a stick with a big head attached to it.  Thanks?  I feel like a circle with a big head attached to it.  I still have seven pounds to go until I get to my first goal weight and I feel like the weight just isn't coming off fast enough.  I wish I had more time to go to the gym, but I simply don't.  I suppose I could skip class more often to go, but I'm already probably on the cusp of failing, so that's likely not the best idea in the world.

Today for breakfast I am having coffee.  I've been having the weirdest cravings lately.  I usually hate coffee, but this morning I couldn't stop thinking about it, so coffee is what I am having.

I feel like lately I don't really have much energy to do anything anymore.  Go to class, do my schoolwork, go to work, get out of bed, live.  It's all just very draining.

Words hurt...words heal

Between caring for my dog who had surgery on Friday, I spent the weekend at my boyfriend's house.  This week has been...tough to say the least, and I have not been myself.  I have been depressed since eighth grade, was diagnosed officially at seventeen and still continue to struggle with it, especially when I relapse with the ED.  I am also an insomniac, and the combination of depression, eating things I know I shouldn't have eaten, cutting, and not sleeping is a fairly dangerous one.  Lately, when I am up in the middle of the night, knowing that I have to be at work at 8 in the morning and yet stil being completely unable to go to sleep, I have started to have suicidal thoughts.  Thoughts such as well, I'm running out of places to cut...I can't do this anymore...but there is still room on my wrists.

To carry this from the night to the day and still have to act as though you are normal is a great strain and I really just couldn't handle it anymore.  I cracked and told my boyfriend what was going through my head.  We've been friends for a couple of years, but have only been dating for two months or so, so I was afraid that he would look at me like I was a freak, but it was the complete opposite.  He told me he wished that I could see what he saw about me, and told me all of the things that he liked me about me, what set me apart from all of the other girls he dated.  Wow...  Of course he wants me to talk to someone, but he also said that I should do it on my own time and he wouldn't push me and I sincerely appreciate that.  I felt much better after spending the weekend with him, like I could put up with another week of life's crap.

But when I was at home taking care of my dog, I had to be around my family.  Maybe it's the ED that is making me irritable again (my irritability the last time I was down with it was unreal...), but it's just bad all around.  My grandmother is staying because we're having that party for my little brother's birthday, and I was grilling myself some eggplant for dinner.  I guess I had the audacity to go back and get one too many slices of eggplant.  I had six altogether, so about 60 calories or so, but I like to take two at a time so that I feel fuller faster and don't stuf myself in one sitting.  But when I was going back one trip, my grandmother said "Wow, you must really like your own cooking.  You keep going back for more and more food!"

Yikes...

If I hadn't already taken my birth control pill, I would have thrown up everything that I had eaten thus far.  But I have no intention of getting pregnant and thus couldn't risk throwing up that pil..  I was so upset and disgusted though.  I mean...six slices of grilled eggplant...Vegetables!    I felt so torn down...I hate when people comment on what I eat.  Absolutely hate it.

But on the bright side, I weighed myself on my friend Joe's scale just for shiggles.  I did n't think it would be very good since I thought I overate the last couple of days, but it actually said I was two pounds less than what my scale said.  Instant mood boost.  It may have made me unreasonably happy.

Today, I have decided, will be a "splurge" day.

My little brother is turning 18  and my family is going to be ordering out (of course) to celebrate.  The real problem will be on Sunday when all of our extended family will be coming over to celebrate.  My family is ordering Subway subs and possibly grilling.  Of course there will be cake and ice cream.   I'm already panicking at the thought of being around all of that food.  I'm worried that I will be weak and start eating everything that is there.  I don't believe that the Subway subs will be that much of a problem as I can always get rid of the top slice of bread and eat an open-faced sandwich.  I've been a vegetarian for the last six years, so one of those sandwiches for me will only be around 100-calories.  I can grab myself some Arctic Zero ice cream and have a half-cup of that which will be 45 calories... I'll have that instead of cake which will satisfy my sweet craving.  And if that isn't enough food, I will have a Smart Dog (a tofu dog with 45 calories) or a bowl of Shirataki.  Okay, so it may not be that bad.  But anyway, I digress.

I think that today will be a little bit of a splurge day.  My family is probably going to be ordering out Mexican food from a really good Mexican restaurant  near our house.  I haven't eaten there in years, but I remember that it is delicious.  I'm not going to be eating from there; absolutely not.  I can't imagine how many calories just one of their dishes has.  It actually makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it (by the way, I have been throwing up unintentionally and having very bad diarrhea for the last week.  Gross, I know, but does anyone else have that problem?).  Instead, as to not miss out on the Mexican food experience, I will stop at Chipotle on the way home.

Chipotle, I have found, can be one of the healthiest fast food restaurants if you know exactly what to get.  It helps that I am a vegetarian and I can skip out on a lot of the fattening things that one can get there.  I don't get the burrito, I get the bowl which skips on a lot of calories.  Here is what I do:  I ask for the bowl, get the delicious cilantro-lime rice which drives me wild.  No beans whatsoever, ask for extra veggies to fill me up.  Green tomatillo salsa and lots of extra lettuce.  If I want something that is extra spicy, I ask for the red salsa as well.  I love spicy food and it fills me up that much quicker.  For the entire bowl, it is something around 170 calories, and usually I only eat half because I am stuffed to the gills by the time I get to that point.  Wow!  85 calories of delicious Mexican food?  Yes please!  So I am fasting today so that I can splurge and eat the entire bowl so I can celebrate with my family.  I may even put some fat-free sour cream on it just for fun.  Wow, that may actually push it up to 190 calories.  Still under my 200-calorie limit for the day, and I probably won't even be able to finish the entire thing.  My stomach just isn't that big anymore.  Also, here is the nutrition calculator I used to figure out the calories in Chipotle, although they have the nutrition information posted on their website as well (finally!): http://chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=nutrition_calculator

So as long as I don't break my fast for today and cheat like a complete idiot, I don't think that I will be too upset with myself.  And I don't think that I will cheat today.  I'm at work until 2:30 and I don't like to eat at work because there are too many people there and I hate eating in front of large groups of people.  Then I have class from 3:00-4:15, and then back to work for a meeting from 5-5:30.  Then it's just the drive home and some little errands before dinner.  I love busy days because there are so many things to keep me busy and distract me from food.  It's the weekends that are killer.

Rant

I am SO unbelievably disappointed in myself.  Yesterday started out all right enough, I suppose.  I was planning on eating a little bit less than the usual 200 calories that I usually eat.  I didn't have breakfast and for lunch I just had my shirataki noodles (0 cals) with some sugar-free spaghetti sauce (35 cals).  I was feeling a little bit light-headed so I had a piece of bread (35 cals) with some wonderful PB2 that I just picked up yesterday(45 cals).  115 calories so far, right?  This was when I should have left the house, done some cleaning, or something.  But I had so much homework due for class tomorrow that I had to get done, and I really wanted to dedicate myself to it.

I lost control.  I couldn't stop myself from eating.  Study munches?  Gross.

Arctic Zero ice cream (32 calories), two cups of air-popped popcorn (60 calories), and then came the pièce de resistance: French fries.  French fries have always been my foible, but since my relapse I haven't touched them.  It's my own weakness, but I blame my family for bring disgusting food to the house.  My dad brought home Fatburger yesterday for my mom, little brother and himself, and brought home extra fries to try to entice me to eat.  I kept wandering into the house to snag one, and then would leave them alone.  But I couldn't stop myself from wandering in to grab another one, and then another one.  Before I knew it, i had finished off the entire sleeve of them.  Ugh, how disgusting am I to have eaten all of those French fries?  That brought my intake up to 500 calories for the day when I had intended to eat less than 200.


I know that doesn't really qualify as a binge, but I feel disgusting nonetheless.  I went to the gym today for punishment and made myself work off at least the amount of calories that were in the French fries.  I also cut last night.  I don't like it, I'm ashamed that I do it, but on days that I exceed my calorie intake by that much, I do it.  It' sa reminder nto to do it again, that I don't want to continue to be grossly overweight.  I cut on my hip bone so that whenever the cuts rub up against my jeans when I walk, it reminds me not to eat, it reminds me to stay below 200 calories, and it reminds me that I need to lose weight.  I would never, ever recommend cutting to anyone, and I know that if I found out that any of my friends were cutting, Ana or not, I would beg them to stop.  But it's just something that I have to do...When I get to that point, it's like I need to do it to keep myself from splitting apart.  I have to do it to keep breathing.  I'm a mess.


But my family...I'm living in a poisonous environment and not by choice.  I don't want to be 25 and living at home with my parents.  Who on earth does?  But I am working on my second masters' degree and with health insurance payments, car payments, car insurance payments, credit car payments, student loan payments, and only being able to work 30 hours a week on top of attending classes, there simply isn't enough money to be able to afford my own place.  When I start student teaching, the inflow of money will decrease even more because I will have to stop working.  But my family is so fucking unhealthy, it really blows my mind.  Here is what their BMIs are.  The numbers will blow your mind:


Mom: 43
Dad: 29
Little brother: 41


And yet they are content to eat 1000-calorie burgers and French fries until they feel sick.  They know that they are dangerously obese and yet they continue to bring cakes and cookies and chips and crap into the house and it's disgusting.  And yet when they mock me when I exercise twice a day or eat a salad or asparagus or decline to eat French fries.  They MOCK me while they are slowly killing themselves.  They are even making my dog obese by feeding her too many snacks while I'm not at home and saying that I'm a mean mother because I don't overfeed her when I'm at home.  It frustrates me to no end.  How am I supposed to lose weight in such a household.  Even if I didn't want to lose weight, how would I maintain a healthy weight in such a household?  I feel like I gain weight just sitting in the same room with them, breathing the same air as them.  I love them all to death, but I also feel like I am slowly starting to hate them...

Please, someone help.

Success?

I fasted on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  When my willpower got too weak, i would eat, but all I would have is a salad consisting of maybe a cup and a half of lettuce and maybe just a tablespoon of fat-free dressing.  I know that I lost at least one pound, but I'm afraid to get on a scale right now.  Big surprise, eh?

I spent all day and last night with the boy and of course I had to eat around him.  I don't think I ate anymore than 280 calories, but still, coming off of a fast, that's a LOT and I feel bloated and disgusting.  One can hope that it may shock my metabolism into burning calories more quickly and thus promoting more weight loss, but knowing my metabolism, this won't actually happen.  I will probably gain three pounds or something like that.  The only consolation is that I was very easily able to convince him to help me "work off" some of the extra calories that I consumed.

Fuck! I forgot that I promised my old boss that I would go to lunch with him tomorrow.  That's all fine and wel, but I decided that instead of doing a juice fast, that I would just do an all out fast.  It's difficult to explain to people why you're not eating your food, particularly when you're having a one-on-one lunch.  Now Im going to have to break my fast early.  I will just have to either bring along my Shirataki noodles (0 calories, yay) or suck it up and exercise twice tomorrow.

Today I got on the scale and it freaked me out.  It said that I had gained two pounds before displaying an error message.  Who wants the scale to display an error message when you step on it??  I fixed the battery in the back and got on it again and it read the same as it had a week ago.  That was better; I'd rather not gain any weight, but still.  I haven't lost any weight in a week?  That's not good either.  What's going on?  Next thing I know, I really will be gaining weight and I can't have that.  I don't like this plateau.  It just gives me more inspiration to stick to my fast.

It will be easier now that I am going to be out of the house more.  I hope.

Hello

So this is my first blog post.  I wanted to start a blog so I could have a place to write about what I can't talk about with my friends.  They don't understand my "dieting" and what I have to do to get back to a weight where I am happy with myself.

In 2006 when I was diagnosed with EDNOS, I reached an all-time low weight of 120 pounds and it was wonderful.  I was a size four and I felt so thin and light and free.  I was like everyone else around me, not the fat cow who ate too much and whom people pitied for not having a boyfriend because she was just too tragically overweight.

When I moved to Scotland for graduate school, I made a great set of friends from around the world.  Unfortunately, we also ate a lot of great food and drank too much.  I gained about thirty pounds and could no longer fir into any of my clothes.  This devastated me.  To walk around as the fat pig again, to be uncomfortable in my own skin again, set me again into depression that I am still struggling with.  I had to do something about it.

I'm now in my second masters program and I have finally found the willpower in my again to get myself back on track and stop eating like a disgusting pig.  I finally have control over my eating again and I have stopped putting poison in my life.  No more French fries and potato chips and processed foods.   I have lost twenty pounds already and I am ten pounds away from my first goal weight of 120 pounds.  I would like to be 115.  I want to make it there.  I don't know if I can, but I want to be.

I eat 200 calories a day.  Or at least I try to.  Sometimes it's a little bit over, sometimes it's a little bit under.  I have been home a lot (too much, gosh, my family is irritating me, but that is another story) this weekend and that makes it hard to be as strict.  There have been a couple of days where I went over 300 calories.  Fortunately, all this weekend I have exercised at least twice a day so I am still burning off everything that I eat, if not more.  I am still afraid to get on the scale.  I feel like a bloated cow for eating all that I have and going over my 200-calorie limit.

Tomorrow I am going to start a 48-hour fruit juice cleanse.  I am a little bit worried because the fruit juices will likely add up to more calories than I have been eating for the last two months, but maybe it will help to flush my system.  I was also thinking perhaps of buying that huge bottle of that detox solution called the Hollywood Diet or whatever that they sell in Giant.  Anything to flush  my system of the crap I've put it through this weekend.

Wish me luck!