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.