Vanilla-flavored Emotions

It’s hard to express how I am feeling this evening because I frankly don’t know. I feel many things in my life are keeping me distracted that I am given the uncomfortable luxury of not having to grapple with my feelings or situation. It makes me feel unreal, for lack of a better word. I feel robotic. Just going through the motions.

New Year’s Eve was interesting. Two other ladies from my eating disorder groups spent the night with me, but it wasn’t a party. We talked and played cards. I was the first to get tired and sleepy and that was a relief to me. My social anxiety was high and I wanted to get away from the group and be by myself. We split up around 10:00 and all took our respective sleep meds and went to bed. We had breakfast at Atlanta Bread Company Saturday and then each went our separate ways. ABC was difficult for me. At the very least it was a challenge. I was preparing for a 5K race that afternoon and had to eat a carb-filled breakfast for energy. I chose a bagel with cream cheese but it was tough to eat. Thankfully my friends sat with me until a lot of the anxiety was gone.

It was pouring rain for my 5K, but I didn’t let it stop me. I was tired and weak from poor nutrition, but I jogged the whole 5K and felt so good when it was over. I’m already planning my next 5K for March. I realize I need to take better care of myself nutritionally; I barely had the energy to finish this one. But one good thing about an eating disorder is the self-discipline. Even when I felt my legs wanting to give out from under me, I forced myself to continue. I can make myself do whatever I need for it to do.

I’ve been meeting many of the nutrition goals that Dietician set for me. No binging and purging. No self-weights, which is like having an itch that you just can’t scratch. I feel the strong need to weigh myself, but I haven’t. I’m pretty sure my weight has changed, good or bad, and I want to know.

I start school in a week. Dreams about the abusers have been replaced with dreams of not being able to handle myself in class, of walking in late, of not knowing what is being talked about, not being able to follow along. This will be my third attempt at a writing class and hopefully my last. I will meet with my professor this week so we can have a good game plan going into class so that my needs get met and I’m not overwhelmed by the class expectations.

My eating is not good and I really don’t care right now. I’ve lost weight and I’m happy about that. It’s not that I’m trying to lose weight, but I am trying not to eat. The less I eat the better I feel about myself. I feel clean and pure and strong. It actually scares me when my clothes become bigger. That’s not the goal. But I don’t know what the goal is. It’s just something I’m going through, and I wonder what it will take for me to snap out of it. Contrary to belief, it’s out of my control.

My seasonal, holiday position with the big department store has ended and I’ve been retained for “on-call” work, meaning whenever they need someone to fill in at a cosmetic counter they call me. I like getting experience in all the major cosmetic brands. I previously worked for Clinique and Origins. But each day so far has felt like the first day on the job, and that is extremely stressful. These jobs can be fun, but when you are required to sell a product of which you know nothing it isn’t very pleasant. It’s always new and stressful and like being thrown to the wolves.

This post feels dry and bland, which is exactly the way I feel right now: Dry and bland and flavorless. There is no depth or emotion to it. Welcome to my mind.
There are no emotions coloring me right now. It’s just blankness, a stark, pronounced undeniable blankness. Memories of the old bedroom I lived in creep in, but there’s nothing attached to the memory. It’s times like these I absolutely and fervently doubt the diagnosis of DID. There’s just blankness, Numbness. I am cut off from something. Or maybe this is the way everyone who is normal feels. But right now I don’t feel DID. I feel too stable to be anything less than just a touch of generic crazy. There’s nothing wrong with me.