Question Asked, Question Answered

A question was asked on my formspring page about why I don’t call my birth mother “mom”. This is a complicated question that has two answers.

First, I stopped calling my birth mother “mom” a long, long time ago. As a child I always called her “mom,” but it was years later when I evaluated her actions that she turned into a birth mother, not a mom. When I conjure up the image of a mom in my head and heart, it is someone who is nurturing, loving, affectionate, and compassionate. It is a woman who protects her children and goes to all costs to ensure they’re safety. My birth mother did none of that.

Fake chicken, it's whats for dinner. And so yummy. Even my meat eater Husband liked it. Tastes like chicken. :)

Was she emotionally or physically protective? No. Did the birth mother set us up to be abused in her house? No. I don’t believe she ever knew about the perpetrators. But later when she did get knowledge of what happened to us it became all about her. It wasn’t, “Oh, you poor daughter. I’ll get you some help.” It was all about her: how could someone do that in HER home and to HER daughter and be HER relative.

Sometimes I don't feel like making a meal, so then I reach for the veggie hot dog. And we sampled some new bar-b-cue chips and they were really yummy.

She was all about the control she had over me. Asa teenager she didn’t want me going over to friend’s houses. So she would create a whole list of Cinderella chores and tell me I could go when my work was finished. There was never a way to finish the work. So I stayed home under her thumb

.

Honey Smacks, anyone? Perfect treat and even better in my paint-your-own pottery bowl.

There were too many fights that she had with the birth father. It made the environment tense and threatening. When birth mother was angry you knew she was coming after you next. She stopped being a mom when she would beat me or throw things and scream. A couple of times she cursed me out.

Veggie ribblets and sweet potato fries. Along with salad monster, mango, and a good book. I was

almost at the end of the book and I wanted to finish reading it. Exciting book.

I grew up feeling like she loved me second to everybody else. Birth mother was always trying to take care of people and she loved kids mostly. She would often invite other children to the house and love on them right in front of me. I never received the attention that other children got. I also remember asking birth mother if she would make me her special dish of macaroni & cheese for me. She said no, but when the other neighborhood kids came over and asked for a special treat they got macaroni & cheese.

The production? Pizza. Cast of characters: Boboli mini crust. Pizza sauce. Fresh tomatoes. Veggie Italian sausage-style crumbles. Mozzarella.

Before and after.

The final production. Delizioso

Another aspect, and more difficult to grasp is that the birth mother only gave birth to this body; she did not give birth to any of us. It is part of the Dissociative Identity Disorder. She did not give physical birth to all of us. Some of us were “born” from her in that her anger produced a part that was needed to deal with her actions, and thus we were created.

Mother’s Day is hard. There is no card exchanged. No brunch to be had. No gift giving or flowers offered. I want a “mom” more than anything. Whenever she’s around I get sucked back into her web thinking “maybe this time she’ll act like a mom.” But things don’t change. I mourn my birth mother every day, but on Mother’s Day it is worse. I think about the good moms out there, ones that treat their daughters with respect and care no matter their age. Ones that promote independence and leave manipulative aspects alone.

Went to a Georgia Tech baseball game. It was fun until I got bored.

So I took a picture of my feet for amusement.

Georgia Tech won the game,

8-4. Go Jackets!

I’m sure to a lot of people it may sound disrespectful not to call her “mom.” It is not meant to be punitive or spiteful to her. It is a matter of protection for us. By not calling her mom it creates an emotional space between the two of us. I can distance myself from her and refute any attempts from myself to get sucked back into the IDEA of her being a mom. I need distance from her. Otherwise, I’ll just end up being hurt again by her.

Castor Girl also asked a of me in her comment. It's a good question and I'll post a second part in "Questions Asked, Questions Answered." Stay tuned.

I need friends. I'm so lonely.

Here's your sign

It happened again. Oh yes, it did!

Let me set the scene for you. So I’ve had a pain in my back for 10.5, and, no, it’s not my husband. I have a herniated disc, L5 S1. So I get epidurals (ouch is right!) every six months or so. Well today I went to my epidural and I haven’t seen this doctor since last year and the first thing he says is, “You’ve gained a few pounds.” WTF? Do I have a sign on me that reads, “Please call me fat”? Does it read “I already have poor body image, so let’s kick her while she’s down.” I mean come on people!! You’ve got to be kidding me with this! Twice in one week I’ve been reminded that I’ve gained weight.

Lunch - Grillers burger, sandwich thin, sweet potatoes (first time eating them) and a salad monster. Oh. Dried mangos.

This bowl is one of the pieces I did in residential treatment. It's to remind me that dreaming, loving, and hoping are things I can have if I just fight one meal/snack at a time.

I cried in Dietician’s office today. I never cry. Someone in the system has taken away the tears. But tonight I cried and it felt good. We talked about my body image and how I feel like I’ve gained weight. She weighed me and, miracle of miracles, my weight was the same. Then why do I feel so freakin’ fat?

Princess Graham Snacks. For the littles, of course. There was a time I would deny my littles the pleasure of a graham snack in the shape of tiaras and princess faces. Shame on me.

To be honest and paranoid I don't really trust the numbers she is working with. I don't trust her to tell me I've maintained when I've actually gained weight. I don't know that she would actually tell me the truth. I have these thoughts that I'll weigh myself in addition to her weighing me so that I can be assured she's not lying to me. My wise mind says she's not lying, but the ED voice is just a little louder and more persuasive.

I did have a soda monster tonight, but not a salad monster. It was all about the asparagus. Steamed then mixed with a little bit of spread and salted until my blood pressure went up. Included is a veggie patty sandwich, vegetable root chips, and a yogurt.

I went to A.N.A.D. (Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders) tonight. The topic of the meeting was about feeling fat and having poor body image. Was this of divine arrangement because it was totally appropriate for what I'm dealing with? We talked about feeling fat or being obsessed with weight and what the feelings are underneath feeling fat. When did that feeling start? Do these fat feelings coincide with anything going on in therapy or some life event like being reminded twice in one week that you’re not as skinny as you were.

This has got to be the best oatmeal I've ever eaten. I don't know if it's because its organic, but it has something going on with it.

I used Agave syrup in my oatmeal because I heard great things about it. For example, because it's concentrated, you only need a little bit. In addition, it has a low glycemic index so it won't spike your blood sugar. Taste wise, I'll have to try it again. It didn't do anything for my oatmeal.

I’m questioning whether having a little more weight on me is beneficial at all. Physically I felt like sh*t when I was underweight, but I still felt great about myself because I was thin. I was proud of it. I felt safe and had better body image. Now I’m average weight and have no self-esteem and poor body image. It’s a dichotomy.

It’s this part of recovery that has tripped me up so many times. I get to this point of questioning whether recovery will really work for me. I have these constant thoughts about not being happy with my body image or feeling that I would rather restrict or how being super skinny is so much better. I want my thinking to align with my behavior. I want my body image to be great and to stick to my meal plan at the same time. Wishful. Thinking. Maybe it’ all or nothing thinking; if I don’t have the behaviors match the thoughts then I won’t allow myself to have either, the thoughts or behaviors.

I don’t know how to reconcile myself to this. I don’t know how to continually make myself go to meetings and see my treatment team and adhere to my meal plan when my hearts not in it. I'm doing it, but I don't want to hate myself for doing it.

First off, I’m on Formspring now, so if you have anything you want to ask me, big or small, I’ll do my best to answer it. It's a great way to find out more about Missing In Sight.

I read this book to my littles tonight. I was impressed with what Bee said on my comments page about what she does for her littles, including her adolescent parts and it motivated me to do more for my littles. When I read this book for the first time it made me cry. It is such a sweet and nurturing book. I really felt comforted by it.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I meet with Dietician. I’m terrified she will tell me I gained weight. I’m scared because I feel like I’ve gained weight and that will further increase my thoughts of being a failure. I'm struggling exceptionally with body image and I hate it. When will the struggle be over? Adhering to my meal plan right now is the only measure of success I have. It's the only thing I can track. It's easy to say, "Yes, I've followed my meal plan the last thirty days" but it's not so easy to say I've changed my view of myself for the past thirty day. I guess the behavior comes first and then the thoughts. Kind of like if you start smiling when you're depressed you might feel better. I know I haven't changed my thoughts and that has been making it worse because I am NOT at all happy that I'm being successful at my meal plan.

Speaking of meal plans, here's some of what's been on my plate lately:

This is a packet of instant organic oatmeal and flaxseed with soy milk. It taste almost like rice pudding or tapioca pudding. It's thick but fluffy and so yummy.

A blurry picture of a raisin oat bran muffin chopped up in Oikos honey yogurt, blackberries, and a spoonfull of Almond Butter. I died and went to heaven.

Here, I tangoed with a mango, and the mango won. It's my favorite fruit in the world.

I can measure my progress by how well I stayed with my meal plan. But even those accomplishments are not sitting right with me. I feel angry with myself for following the meal plan; for doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I remember feeling so empowered when I first started with my meal plan. I was confident that I could follow it and somehow learn to love my body.

Homemade vegetarian wrap, orange, and a salad monster. I am the queen of salads.

Fresh strawberries and cocoa almonds. Tastes just like a chocolate covered strawberry. And the company of a good mystery/thriller makes for an even better snack.

But a part of me is definitely rebelling. I hate my body; I hate my meal plan; I hate myself for following said meal plan. How can one be angry with doing what’s right? Well, one can and one does.

Not my favorite meal, and it did follow a food ritual: the foods must not touch and must be eaten in a specific order. Note to self: food rituals DON'T make the calories go away. Tofu, quinoa, asparagus, and an Oikos honey yogurt.

I’m more especially upset that I haven’t been able to exercise as much as I used to for health reasons. For six weeks or so I have been feeling fatigued and dizzy; dizzy to the point of passing out. I can’t work out when I’m exhausted or about to faint on the exercise machine.

Food just tastes better when it's eaten off my Charleston, South Carolina plate. I made this while in residential treatment. I wanted to associate food with my happy place, and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Charleston. I love the history, the culture, the beaches. Did I mention I love it?

I’ve been to my PCP, a cardiologist, my psychiatrist, and a neurologist. No one can provide me with any concrete answers as to why I have these symptoms. It makes me feel hopeless to be dizzy everyday for the past give or take six weeks and not be any closer to finding the reasons behind it. *Sigh*

I realize this post is depressing. I try to keep it positive, but I'm just not in that place right now. I’m not good at asking for what I need, but I’ll try here. I really need words of support and understanding, so if you have something to say, drop me a line.

Peace out.

"Altered" sleeping

I’m a sad, sad moon. I feel like I’m on the outside looking in at myself, watching me from far away. Today has been one big struggle. I'm surprised how the comment at the gym is continuing to plague me. I’m not brooding over yesterday’s comment. I'm not dwelling on what was said to me. I’m not trying to be a drama queen or refuse to let the matter die down. But it has stirred up some ED thoughts that want to suck me back in, have me start restricting, and weigh X amount of pounds. It's just a continual fight. I want to get back to the place where I was starting to feel good about recovery and being proud of myself for my accomplishments.

Alas, I just can’t get happy about anything today. I can’t praise myself for eating according to my plan because I don’t believe that is cause for celebration. Intellectually I know it’s a good thing, but I wish someone would tell it to my heart.

Nevertheless, I did eat what I was supposed to eat.

I love how bright and cheery these colors on the plate are. For lunch it was a Morningstar Garden Veggie patty, avocado, vegetable chips, salad, and pineapple.

And in the salad we have Baby Spring Mix, tomatoes, carrots, spinach, celery, broccoli, and red bell pepper. All topped with a heavy little Italian dressing.

Last night when I was angry at the woman from the gym I received solace from a place I haven’t heard from in a while. I have a part that makes me sleepy when stress gets to be too much, and so last night I could feel her take over and make me sleepy. When I was in residential treatment there were two places in which this member would intervene regularly: during group therapy about s*xual healing and also in Residential Therapist’s office. I have no control over it when it happens, but I’m grateful for it. This “sleepy” member is like an anti-anxiety pill or a muscle relaxer. She soothes me into a dream that is so welcoming and peaceful . She shuts stress out by shutting me down.

Dinner: pizza on English muffins, salad (it's my fave!) and Oikos honey yogurt.

But then there are other times when I feel estranged from my members. For example, the littles seem to be hiding from me. Or maybe it is I who is hiding from them. I don’t know. I’ve put off letting them watch the cartoon version of 101 Dalmatians because I don’t know if I can handle it when they come out. I'm afraid there will be too much switching which will set off my migraines.Tonight I read them a book called Kiss Good Night, but there was no response from the littles or any other member of my system. (Maybe it's because the book was really boring.)

It was as if I read the book to myself; that's how much silence I encountered.

What about you? Do you have any alters that perform what some people would consider “weird” jobs? How do you nurture your littles? Does the presence of your alters ebb and flow?

Oh, no! She didn't!!

It can happen so quickly. One comment can shoot you right down out of the sky. That happened to me today at the gym. I was down stairs lifting weights, feeling pretty good, and a woman that I see there on a regular basis came up to me and proceeds to tell me that, according to her, she thinks I look much healthier now. She says for a while I had been too thin and looked peaked and sickly. Yes, she says, I look much better now.

I realize she meant to pay me a compliment and how could she know that I’m recovering from an eating disorder. However, even with knowing this, I suddenly felt fat and ugly and disgusting. There are some things you should never say to someone with an eating disorder, and that includes commenting on weight and appearance.

It surprised me just how much her comments affected me. I immediately started thinking I was gaining weight which made me depressed. What an irrational conclusion based on an innocent comment! But my thoughts didn’t get any better. My knee jerk reaction was to over exercise and to start restricting to lose weight again. But I did neither. I exercised my two hours, had snack on the elliptical machine, and left. And in spite of my feelings, I adhered to my meal plan for dinner. Dinner is never easy, as it is the last meal of the day, but tonight’s dinner was incredibly hard. But I did it.

Recently I have been feeling good about my recovery. I’ve kept on my meal plan, been attending my EDA (Eating Disorders Anonymous) meetings, and stayed off the scale. But even now, hours after the comment, I feel like a failure. All my successes pale in comparison to the reminder that I’m not as skinny as I used to be. It’s amazing the power that even an innocent comment can yield over someone.

There’s a saying that goes “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I’m in hell because of her good intentions. I hope this will pass soon and let me start feeling good about my recovery again.

I’ve listed a few web-sites that list the dos and don’ts of what to say to those with an eating disorder. They are really insightful and helpful to friends and family of someone with an eating disorder.

http://www.angelfire.com/bc/peacelovehope/rules.html

http://www.mirror-mirror.org/applove.htm

http://www.something-fishy.org/helping/whatyoucando.php

http://hubpages.com/hub/Top_Ten_Worst_Things

April 30th

Yesterday was such a beautiful, warm and sunny day that I decided to plant some flowers. I love flowers but do not have a knack for keeping them alive. That only thing that thrives in my garden are weeds. Nevertheless, things can change and I chose some flowers that are appropriate for where I'm planting them. I can't tell the names of the flowers I planted because I just don't know. But here are some lovely pics.

This is the before picture. Hence, my lovely weeds.

And the flowers (alive before I get to them) from Lowe's.

And here is the finished product:

This is my fave.

And coming in 2nd:

This next one doesn't look as good but I'm still happy with it.

I also went to Trader Joe's last night and was SO disappointed. I thought it would be like a Whole Foods, but it was so small and had a very limited selection of produce and vegetarian products. However, I did come across a small find:

(Sorry for the grainy picture.) This "peanut butter" is to die for. It's smooth, creamy, and lower in fat than regular peanut butter. I heated some up with a muffin and yogurt this morning, along with strawberries and it was so yummy.

I'm trying to keep my recovery interesting and not so boring by trying new food products.

Question of the day: Is there a food product that you just go crazy for? Where do you like to grocery shop?

Pardon our dust...

a remodel is a must.

Blog under construction.

Be back soon.

Tinkering on the edge of sanity

As I was lying in bed waiting for the elusive sleep to descend upon me last night I was thinking about how I relate to food and how eating it makes me feel. It’s been staring me in the face all this time but it wasn’t until last night that I fully recognized that my struggle is not about the weight. It’s doesn’t matter what I weigh. My fight is not that I want to weigh X amount of pounds; it’s about how the abuse made me feel and my attempts to distance myself from it through restricting food.

The inner war is more about feeling clean and whole and I thought resisting food would do that for me. In truth, I need to find different ways to make myself clean, although it can be argued that I’m not dirty. What was dirty was the way we were treated and what people did to us. However, it is still hard to buy into the line of thinking that we weren’t to blame and we are clean.

Something made me so sad last night. One of the member’s of my system that has the eating disorder is afraid that if we conquer our preoccupation with food and weight she will no longer be needed. She has done her job well at keeping us distracted from the real issues. Her desire to be thin and symptomatic is to ensure that people and Therapist know that she is not okay. She is afraid if she lets go of her disordered thinking and disordered thoughts that no one will see her pain. Even though we know that the real issue is the abuse and not our weight, she still wants to lose. Just as cutting is a cry for help so is her eating disorder.

My heart breaks for her because she feels unwanted and disposable; like if we get better she will be unneeded and expendable. She has been vital to keeping us alive and “functioning,” for a lack of a better word. She will need a new job in our system. Even though we know this, it doesn’t make recovery better. As I write this she sends me memories that she harbors. The pain is overwhelming. We are still sad.

This is all bull sh*t. I hate myself.

Make way! New thoughts coming through

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about how much do I want to get better. I’ve been feeling that as much time as we’ve put in therapy we should be further along in the process than we are now. I’ve done fairly well at stopping some of those self-destructive behaviors that used to plague my existence. However, the eating disorder is what gets me stuck in time. I don’t understand how I could still be struggling with those behaviors based on how much inpatient, residential, and outpatient treatment we’ve had. But I’ve realized that one of the reasons recovery didn’t stick before was that I didn’t commit to it. I didn’t do everything I needed to in order to resist falling back into old, destructive coping habits.

An area that I can pinpoint is the way we think about ourselves.

When I first forayed into recovery, I did what my treatment team suggested. I gained weight. I followed a meal plan. I took my meds. By my actions it looked like I was in recovery, but in my head it was a different story. Not once did I stop to work on what I thought about myself. I thought I was fat, ugly, and repulsive. I didn’t even want to change my thinking. I wanted to hate myself. I felt better if I hated myself. If I liked myself then it was as if I was giving myself permission to love something worthless, defective, and damaged. In a sense, it was like I was protecting myself by letting myself think I was despicable. If I hated myself enough, if I called myself enough names, if I drank/cut/burned/purged/restricted enough maybe I would eventually change.

Don’t get me wrong. I am nowhere near to accepting myself, much less loving myself. When I look in the mirror I see flaws, not fierceness. But what’s changed is that now I’m open to the idea of not hating myself. I’m open to the idea of changing the way I think and view myself. I finally see that in order to truly recover this time we are going to have to start thinking of ourselves differently and start accepting us.

Thinking out loud: Motivation

I feel like I’m slipping. The quest for recovery and sanity remains eternal. During my career time as a mental health consumer, I’ve seen my fair share of good and bad days. There have been times when I was “recovered” (whatever the hell that means) and times when I relapsed. I’ve seen skinny days and heavy-set days. There have been moments when I cared about getting better and moments when I couldn’t give a crap. It’s this latter category I find myself in now. I just don’t care whether we get better or not.

When I went back to Therapist in September/October of last year I had made my mind over that I was going to commit a 150% to getting better. I felt determined and purposeful. I wanted to get better; I wanted relationships; I wanted a life. But now my motivation is gone and I don’t know how to get it back. More importantly, I don’t know how to make myself do something I don’t really want to.

Someone once said, “Do the right thing and let your heart catch up later.” I know I don’t have to want to talk about the painful experiences we’ve had in order to actually tell them to Therapist. I also know I don’t have to be gung-ho about eating my food in order to actually follow my meal plan. These are things I can do regardless of whether or not I want to. But it would make things so much easier if I wanted to.

I don’t know where my motivation for getting better has gone. I just know I don’t care like I used to. Maybe I’m just bored with my recovery. I know I get bored with my meal plan because there are a select number of foods I’ll allow myself to have. But how does one get bored with therapy? Therapist used to play cards and games with us and we’ve asked him to again, but each time he offers we chicken out. Maybe owning up to being scared and still actually playing a game with him will change things up a bit.

Still, I just can’t care enough to try. There’s something missing in me that makes me not care. The ED behavior came back just when we were working on something difficult in therapy. Maybe not caring and being unmotivated is just a symptom. Maybe it’s a defense, a very good defense, to keep me from talking about what we should.

Question of the post: How do you stay motivated when you’re tempted to “throw in the towel?” Are there times in your life when motivation ebbed and flowed? What did you do? What do you do to keep hope alive?

Disapeared

I’ve been thinking all day of what to write and I come up with nothing. So here are some bullet points to highlight where we are at this moment in time.
• Husband and I are out of town visiting his parents. While I love the in-laws and they are good to me, I’m really stressed out. I’m away from my home, my food scale and my gym. They help me feel safe.
• We’ve been real switch-y since we got here.
• Since I’m not at home, Husband and I got a one week pass to the local gym. Not as nice as our gym at home, but at least it’s a workout. I have to get my daily workout.
• There is an anger right now directed toward Therapist. Don’t ask me why or which part has the anger. But it’s there just seething. Since being out of town this week Therapist and I won’t have our usual sessions. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing. He’s a good therapist and hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t know why we’re so angry with him. Hopefully it will go away this week.
• We bought a stained glass kit for our littles. It’s of a puppy dog with a bone in it’s mouth. I tried to engage the littles last night when I was making it but they weren’t responding. I ended up making it by myself. We also bought the littles a book that has 5 stories in it about the Berenstain Bears. We’ll read a story tonight. I get a feeling they are not comfortable coming out at this strange home. But then again, who is comfortable?

---------EDIT-------------
I’m very unsettled. I wrote the above earlier and then had dinner. Dinner always makes me edgy. It is the hardest meal I have to eat. It just changes me from like day to night. A switch gets flipped. It ruins me.
I’m sitting in the ruins.
Someone else is pushing to come forward. I’m disappearing.

Nobody's home anymore

Had another session with Dietician. Why do I let it torture me so? The session just sucks the wind out of my sails, sucks out the life and makes me a ghost.

I hate living in this body with everyone else.

I hate feeling dirty and unclean.

I hate that I can’t get off the effing exercise machine.

I hate how the number on the scale defines me.

I hate that food tortures me.

I try and tell myself that it’s just food. It can’t hurt me. It won’t jump off the plate and attack me. But my head doesn’t believe it and neither does my heart.

When I see me I see fat; I see a loser and a failure; I see someone nobody likes. I see damaged goods until I can’t see anymore.

I don’t know how I ever thought I could recover. I forgot why I started trying. I’ve lost my motivation. I don’t want to do this anymore.

All my freakin' parts

I’ve started this post a thousand times and have deleted every word that I typed. I just can’t formulate the right words or the right thought for that matter. There’s so much “quiet” noise inside my head that sanity gets drowned out. For two days I was feeling better. The switches were fewer; I didn’t have the bad headaches. I might have even felt calm for a second or two. I was really on a roll. But then there’s today. Rapid switches. Migraine headache. Pressure behind my eyes. Morning of lost time. Overwhelming anxiety.
I can’t really complain though. I’m afraid I’ll sabotage myself for saying this but Friday and Saturday were almost good days. I can’t ever recall a time when I felt something so close to happiness. I guess you take the good with the bad.
There is something that I’ve been ruminating over and wanted to write about, but I just haven’t known at what point we should get our feet wet. The topic is parts of a system. Not everyone in our system knows each other and it seems some of us may be more different than alike. Up to this point, all the parts I know are female, but it appears that one of the parts may be male.
Our first inkling of there being a male member was when we were journaling a while back. There was a switch in the system and when we searched out who it was the only information we received on the member was that the writing was that of a males. It’s even highlighted in the text what part was written by the male member. There have also been two very specific times in Therapist’s office when the presence of a male member was felt.
I guess I haven’t written about this yet because I didn’t want to believe it was true (still don’t.) I’m flat out scared to death by it. It is weird enough sharing a body with five year olds and ten year old and teenagers and college students; however, at least we’re the same gender. If it’s true that there is a male part in our system that would really freak me out because I don’t like men. Men are pigs. How the hell am I supposed to get along with a male member in this system?
So, what do you do? I know some people with DID have parts of different genders and some even have animal parts. How do you handle it?

I am beside myself. I'm at a real loss for words. I'm not going to turn this into a blog on eating disorders, but since it's so much a part of my recovery I have to include the topic as we document our journey and recovery.

Sometimes it takes my breath away. I was fine this evening, almost happy. I was enjoying the five tulips that are daring to grow among the many weeds in my yard. I started to prepare my dinner and the wave of fear came over me. Not fear but terror. I weighed and measured every morsel of food on my plate. I totaled the calories to make sure I was safe. Then I sat down to eat my salad, veggie burger, potato chips and yogurt.

I only have one specific fear food: peanut butter. Other than that, I can just about eat anything if it's small enough and in my meal plan. But there's one type of food that scares me more than anything and that's food that is white and creamy. Anything white and creamy turns me crazy. (this post is fucking with my mind and not coming out right)

So what I'm trying to say is that I saved my yogurt for last. I didn't look at it. I thought I had picked up the blueberry yogurt that is purple in color. When I pulled back the top, I saw it was stark white and creamy. I think to myself: I can do this. I've come this far with dinner; let me finish it like a good girl.

I take bite one of the white and creamy yogurt. It gives me an unexpected startle. I've "woken" someone up. I trudge on and take bite two. Flashback. One of my perps comes at me. I feel eleven years old and I can't breathe. I'm choking, choking, choking.

(damn this post. i don't know why it's being written.)

"It's always something."

I woke up to myself this morning. I felt unreal but more like my real self than I had in days. I quickly did a backwards inventory of Monday, Sunday, Saturday, and Friday. I couldn't find myself in any of those days. I scurried around the house looking for traces of my existence over the weekend. What I found were items that did not equal me. I found a newly purchased latch hook kit, a sun catcher, two tops, 3 bras, and 2 pair of shoes. That doesn't include the e-mails I received from various vendors stating they had received my order and it would ship shortly. And when I went to view your blogs and postings I saw I had comments unpublished. They led me to a post I don't recall writing.

Apparently I had an adventurous Fri-Mon. I am quite displeased. I got an e-mail from Therapist in response to an e-mail I apparently sent to him. No, we did not go to our appointment Monday. I haven't been this out of it in a long time and my thoughts wander to what set off my being left out of the loop.

The only thing I can think of is the meeting with Dietitian Thursday night. Seeing Dietitian was a mostly conjoined effort. The lack of eating, the guilt around eating, the over-exercising needed to be dealt with, so we met with Dietitian. Of course, the members that carry out the eating disorder behavior aren't too thrilled about being told when and what to eat and how much to exercise, so I'm guessing that the revolution beginning Friday was in part due to them. The trail of loot left behind is a strong clue that points to them as well.

I knew I was crazy before but now I know for sure. You see, while Friday through Monday there was all this bitching about not exercising and being off the meal plan, there has been more bitching today about being ON the meal plan. If that don't cross a grasshopper's eyes I don't know what will. We exercised today, we've been active, haven't laid around a lot, and adhered to our meal plan. So why should we feel guilty when we eat? Someone felt bad for being off the meal plan a few days ago and I feel bad now for being on the meal plan. It doesn't equate. I just ate dinner and maybe that's why I feel bad. I feel fat if I don't eat; I feel fat if I do.

It's just like Roseanne Roseannadanna would say on SNL, "It's always something." :)

Dead, bloated, and bad

Thank you to everyone for their comments. They are part of what's keeping me going right now.

This has been a bad weekend for us. It didn't start out bad on Friday, but something, I can't remember what now, kept us from working out. If I don't work out then my meal plan is screwed for the day; I ended up eating God knows what. Saturday was even worse. I got a call from Bitch, our bio-mom, and she wanted us to go with her and my god-daughters for some shoe and bra shopping. Not having a proper breakfast or my mid morning snack, I was doomed for failure. All I wanted to do was work out.

Don't get me wrong. I did have fun shopping with my god-daughters. C. is always up to try new things, but her sister is a different story. Always the same style, the same black bra, the same boring shoes. I let wear what she wants, even if she looks like a ragamuffin. It's her style; I let her own it.

But all this weekend I've been off exercise and off my meal plan. That makes me the fattest woman to be walking the earth. And dirty. As if I've been rolling in filth. I haven't left the house all day because I was embarrassed too many people would see me and see my contaminated beginnings. I want to die. I'm exhausted from being so thoroughly tainted. I'm dirty and I know it. I hate myself for it. I made it happen. I deserve the consequences.

I know it's important to see Therapist tomorrow but I don't want him to see me like this. I want to cancel the appointment. How can I show up in his office like such a failure? Other people can have a normal relationship with food. Why can't I? Why must I always eff it up by presuming my cleanliness on restricting or exercising?

Therapist can't see me like this. What's the worst that could happen? I won't feel in control. My emotions might come spilling out. I may give him in detail what happened this weekend and that is a strong no, no. Therapist will look at me like a failure and I'll feel less cared about by him because he will see my raw unadulterated badness. I will be humiliated by my failures. I am mortified that I am so bad.

Failure lurks around these pages.

That's right. I am a failure, a fat failure. I didn't follow the meal plan today that Dietician prescribed for me last night and I agreed to. I've skipped dinner and evening snack. I was hoping for a new start by seeing the Dietician but the eating disorder behavior really has a hold on my.

More to come later.

I've still got it, but I don't want it.

I purged tonight, and it was easy. Too easy. The last couple of times I purged it was difficult. I had to use all the little tricks I've learned along the way to make my food come up. It left my throat raw and my stomach burning and sensitive. This time I purged effortlessly. In fact, the food came up on its own, just like in the good ole' days when I was purging daily. I know I sound like I'm proud but really I'm not. I'm finding my behaviors very alarming but can't seem to stop myself.

This morning I was starving. I know my body needs more fuel than I'm giving it considering all the exercising I'm doing. But as I was eating this morning I felt out of control; I didn't know when I was full so I ended up bingeing. I didn't purge the food but it left to disordered eating through out the rest of the day. I couldn't get a handle on myself. I felt very dissociative and could 'feel' my members/parts swirling in my head, bothering me as if they were influencing my behavior. The headache and pressure behind my eyes was immense. I should have tried to journal with them, but I didn't. All I wanted to do was berate myself and think how I could reverse this morning's damage.

So this evening, after a gluttonous dinner of rice, the idea to purge it came into my head. I fed an excuse to Husband that I wanted to shower, walked into the bathroom, and the rest you know about. Dinner was flushed. I find it curious that once I purged my members retreated. Gone is the headache and pressure behind my eyes. I no longer feel bothered by them.

I'm not happy with myself. I'm even less happy with the content I've been looking at on the Internet. I've been looking up pro-ana pages and thinspiration pages like I was a teenager. This scares me. These are behaviors that I engaged in before when my ED was at its worst. I'm scared I'm heading back there. I'm scared I will cancel the appointment with Dietician out of fear I'm not thin enough or needy enough to see her. I'm just plain scared.

Before it wouldn't have mattered to me. I would be glad for purging. I wouldn't comply with Dietician. I wouldn't have been honest with Therapist about my recent behavior. But now it's different. I truly want to get better. I want to get better and I want my members to get better.

I don't know what else to say. 'sigh'

Forgive me while I wax melodramatic.

The struggle with food continues and, besides the people constantly pressing behind my eyes, I feel so alone. I'm trying so hard but it doesn't feel good or make me happy. I'm not purging and I'm eating three squares a day but I feel the old eating disorder creeping its way back into my life. Even though I'm eating, I'm sure it's not enough for the amount of exercise I'm doing. I'm killing myself on the cardio machines.

Each meal becomes a war between me and the others; even if I win and eat, they slay me with their thoughts. And their thoughts become my thoughts and I loathe myself for not being better than this or different.

Given the reoccurence of the eating disorder behaviors, I'm sure it's no coincidence that one of my perpetrators has set up shop in my mind. I keep getting memories of him, his cars, his house, even the memory of the breezy summer air smacks me dead in the face.

I really am trying to fight. I made an appt. with a dietician but I am suffering so much I just want to go to sleep and not wake up. I don't have the strength or the desire to fight anymore. I hate myself to pieces. I'm not suicidal but I wish I were dead. It shouldn't have to be this hard. To hell with it all.

Signed,
Nobody important

I'm a piece of sh*t.

I can't get happy. If I eat, I'm worthless. If I restrict, I'm worthless.

Spent over two hours in the gym today. Tried to leave after an hour but I just couldn't. I thought of all the calories I wouldn't be burning so I stayed.

I can't talk or think my way out of this. I try to tell myself it's just food; it can't hurt me or make me dirty. But it screams back a different message.

I'm afraid of where this is going. I'm such a piece of sh*t.

Having a bad day, a bad week, a bad month.

Can't get out of bed today.

I'm okay, I'm not okay

I'm disgusted with myself. I can't break the cycle of restrictive eating. I don't know if I even want to. Then today I committed a cardinal sin: I weighed myself. I thought I might have lost a little weight the way Husband has been talking and getting worried. But no. Not one ounce.

I can't account for it. And so I disgust myself. I can't even lose weight the right way. I'm a terminal loser.

Tonight was so painful. All I wanted to do was rest at home. I had a 2 hour workout at the gym and every muscle ached. I couldn't move another muscle. Unfortunately, I had promised my goddaughter I would take them to the mall. And for anyone trying to restrict, it's not a safe place to be. We first went to the food court because she was hungry. There must have been two hundred people there eating all the delicious food that I wanted but couldn't let myself have. As we walked by the vendors, the smells of the offerings was so tempting and it made me mad and rebellious. The first part was mad I couldn't eat any and the second part was rebellious because she didn't want any fucking food anyway and she wouldn't be weak that way.

Now I'm back at home after hard core browsing. I did buy my eleven year old alter some bangle bracelets. I had a discussion with her today while we were looking through a fashion magazine and she said she wanted bracelets. I'm trying to do more and more things for my alters, but to be honest, I can't bear to journal with them. There are other alters I need to talk to but I'm too scared to write to them. I'm scared of everything. Sometimes I just want to go to sleep.

There's more, but I'm too give out to continue.

Take care.

Lunatic sound off - BEWARE

Warning. You are about to enter a pity party with some profane language mixed in, self directed anger, and unapologetic repetition of content. If you don't want to get fucked up like we are and feel bad about yourself and hate yourself as much as we do, you might want to go where normal people blog about flowers, butterflies and blue skies. Blaahhh.

Yours truly,

MIS

I'm so over this. It's totally consuming me. I thought I would never be back here again. But it's gone by so fast. It didn't take long before each milestone was reached.

Don't get me wrong, the self-hatred was always there. The looking in the mirror and only seeing a fat whore has never gone away. But at least we could eat an apple without feeling like we've blown our diet and will wake up fat the next day. Now, we eat just enough to keep up the energy to workout. After the workout, we're blown and we have to rest. I can see the weight finally starting to come off and I'm elated, shamed, and angry. It shouldn't have to be like this. Therapist says there are other ways of dealing with our issues and I believe him, but nothing will ever make us feel clean again. We are soiled and dirty and the abstinence of food creates the illusion that we aren't contaminated and sullied. We watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for our eleven year old alter who has the eating disorder. Watching a fucking movie didn't help her. True, she was able to laugh and feel like a kid again. But the instruments are still in place and the decree to restrict has not expired.

Damn, damn, damn. I never wanted to be back here. It is like a snowball rolling down a snow covered hill, gaining speed and snow everywhere it rolls ready to plow right over me. Maybe it's over dramatization. I just fucking hate feeling this way. Every thought is consumed by food and how to stay away from it. This is not supposed to be happening. I'll say it once, I'll say it twice, I'll say it as long as I fucking need to say it.

We've been here before. No one in the system can deny that they don't know where this is headed. Sure, she claims. She'll stop once she reaches a certain weight. Bull shit. She won't stop. It will go lower and lower and lower. She can't stop. It's not a matter of wanting to anymore. It's a matter of physically picking up the food to eat it. Everything creates guilt.

And what do we do about our other members who are caught in the crossfire. They don't deserve this. The littles want their Princess graham crackers back, but we won't let them because of the calorie content. Go ahead. Call child services.

Most members have a breakdown at some point. I find it interesting that all our relapses and journeys into hell happen between February and April. There's just something about those months. I don't know the connection, but I have a very vivid memory of someone walking through the house of our birth parents just as Spring was springing and feeling very depressed, overwhelmed, and feeling fat.

I'm angry at us. We know better than this. How the fuck did we get into this and how the fuck do we stop this? To say "Eat" is ridiculous. We've already told ourselves that. We are too far gone. We don't want a fucking intervention. We want to do this on our own with Therapist's help. But what can he really help us do? The switch has been turned on and hidden so we don't know how to disarm the behavior.

I know who this is and I feel so sorry for her. She didn't have a childhood. She abstained from food because she felt it made her feel dirty. Will self talk help? Will a million showers help? What can I do to help a damaged, broken, suffering eleven year old alter better? What can we do besides food that will make her feel good about herself, make her feel happy and worthy and clean, and not have to turn to food? We tell her the bad stuff wasn't her fault but it doesn't help. She's internalized blame for years and it's hard to undo those tapes.

But then, this is all bull shit. We aren't that bad off. Sure, we skip some meals, workout excessively, but our weight is still fine and no reason for concern. Do we want concern? Hell to the NO!! Notice how back and forth we go. I'm okay, your okay, we're all okay.

There are so many talking and contributing it's hard to keep track. The push/pull is in place. I expected it to be. History predicted it. It's always been like this. We hate ourselves for doing this but just can't stop.

We AREN'T suicidal. Not by any means. But we always knew we would die of this. There is no helping us. This is no cure for us. We've been in the game too long and we're too old, tired, and exhausted to play it again. One day, we'll bow out gracefully.

End of pity party.

Cloudy with a Chance of Hatefullness

I don't know what to say, but my heart is so heavy I feel like I must say something, anything. We had a session with Therapist today. They seem to get harder each time. An impression of sadness has followed us around our portion of the world since we left his office. The eleven year old with the eating disorder was listening in on the session and her heartbreak was palpable. Getting through the afternoon and evening has been difficult. The pandemonium in the head has not subsided and we crave sleep, eight hours of medicated sleep, if only to give our mind a chance to rest from the marathon of switches today.

We restricted today. We tried to think of Therapist's words about coping strategies that we could utilize instead of using eating disorder behavior. We got our eleven year old a movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but have been too ill to watch it. We skipped lunch, an easy thing to do when therapy is right at noon. There's so much trepidation inside. One minute, we collectively agree to try new things for her, the next minute we take it back out of our own fear.

She's not the only one who benefits from restricting. While I don't know who else capitalizes on the hunger, I know the edict has gone out from others to lose weight. We aren't safe as we are.

As a whole we hate ourselves. We are worthless, talentless, weak, despicable, fat, loser, whore, dirty, sickening, abysmal. Our badness is immeasurable and incurable.

I'm sad because I don't think we can change. I'm sad because we hate ourselves. I'm sad because it just feels right.