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.