I'm too tired

for words. so here is an abbreviated version.

I took my "daughter" to school today. Came home. Didn't feel like working out. I'm starting to get too fatigued for it. I slept until 3:30, when my husband came home. I watched POTC2 and drugged myself into oblivion. I spoke with someone on my treatment team who said I had left her a message; no memory of that. i told her how hopeless i felt. i'm scared of this hopelessness. it was the kind of depression and hopelessness and suicidal ideation that wound me in the hospital the first time. but i am ashamed of myself and that makes me all the more hopeless. from february to november i was in treatment. how could i still be suffering like this?

moving on...

Had dinner with husband tonight. purged it. no surprise. i feel gross and fat and dirty and scummy.

i go to the dr's tomorrow to get an epidural for my herniated disc. i have to be there at 8:00 am. i hope it works this time. i am so tired of back pain. i've had it for ten years and multiple procedures.

i'm so tired of pain, period.

Where we go to die

This is not been a good day. It's consisted of one of four things: eating, purging, sleeping, or cutting. Maybe I should throw in crying and feeling gravely sad. I've tried to hold back on this blog as much as I could because I didn't want readers to think all I did was whine or bitch and moan. I don't care anymore. I really feel desperate and need to get back to what I was, a woman who didn't abuse food, who was making progress with her trauma work, and didn't feel sad all the time. I remember telling my T. at the res. tx. center it was the first time I had ever felt hope. How sad. 34 years of life and it's the first time I've felt hope.

And here I am, not sure how to feel about myself because I want to die. I really want to die. Should I be mad at myself or should I have compassion. How should I feel?

I'm so empty. For the first time in the world I crave living, I crave trying to graduate school and not caring if I get an A or a B. But I've been dying inside and I don't know how to iterate that to others that I'm not okay.

I feel that I don't have the help I need. I have no nutritionist, a psycho-iatrist that doesn't know two cents about me but prescribes heavy drugs, and a therapist that leaves at least me wondering if he knows how to handle the gaggle of us. I, Tina, feel we are lost and there is no hope for me, the littles, or the others.

Black Katherine- I told everyone this would happen. You can't escape your destiny. And no matter how many times you hide in the FUCKING CLOSET!!!!! you will be found. Death is the only answer to our problems.

Victoria - Everyone is crying for help. Everyone feels lost and alone. No one can pull it together. And I'm flat. The turmoil has sucked my words and music from me. Angie and I are on a time schedule. We have school in August. We have to make sure everyone is functional so that we can attend.

enough

A hopeless serenade

I give myself permission tonight to whine, moan, bitch, complain, or to indulge in any other outburst needed. So many emotions and I can't escape not one. The day started out as usual. I took my god-children to school, although I was exhausted. What I would have given to have just a few more minutes in bed. Nevertheless, I took C. and O. to middle school, stopped and got coffee, and we to therapy. After therapy, I stopped off for a workout. I did more than usual: 95 minutes of cardio. I was ecstatic because it totalled 1,000 calories, and I was to return later in the day with D., my husban for a fourty minute workout. I don't know what it is about exercise but it always makes me depressed. I thought exercise was supposed to give you a rush of endorphins and make you feel good. It doesn't for me.

After my workout, I came home, showered, and got ready to see the psychiatrist. I hate psychiatrist. How can they know enough about me in less than fifteen minutes to prescribe serious mind-altering drugs? I don't get it. This was only the second time I'd seen him. I like him as well as possible. When I finished and got my drugs, I came home famished. I had still only allowed myself 300 calories for the day and had burned 1,000 working out, so mentally I was pleased with myself.

However, I can't boast that I'm happy with what I'm doing. I want recovery. I really, really do. I want to uncover my past, communicate on a friendly basis with my alters, and eat normally while being skinny.

I feel as if I'm going off track. After the psycho-iatrist, I came home and rested with the dogs, waiting for D. to get off work so we could go work out. What I didn't know is that he has meetings every Tuesday for six week to help maintain his credits as a teacher. He teaches Special Education for 3-5 graders. So no workout. I didn't feel like going by myself. So I waited until 5:30 and made a restricted dinner and here I am typing away my anxieties because I feel so guilty, anxious, and remorseful that I ate food. I am mad at myself for being such a damn pig. So my calorie count today is 780, and even though I safely worked that off on the eliptical machine, I'm whigging out because I feel it too much.

This line of thinking is so incongruent with recovery, which is what I really want. All the hospitalizations before and the residential treatment, I was only halfway motivated. Now, I feel like a warrior and I want to get better. I don't want to be sick. I don't want to dissociate or be fragmented. I want to be around food and not have the panic attack I had tonight.

I'm getting worse and it's to the point the E.D. is controlling me, not the other way around. I had to do an extra five minutes on the eliptical in case I was lazy and didn't push myself hard enough. I had to burn 50 extra calories in case the machine miscalculated my caloric output. I can't sleep at night anymore. I wake up frequently, and, when I do manage to sleep, I dream of food and being able to eat it. I downloaded a calorie counter onto my Blackberry.

I've fallen from grace.

But I know I can get back. I don't want my "daughters" to see me this way. They are very intuned into what I eat, how I eat, and what I look like.

More than anything, I want to work on the trauma pieces, but I don't know how. To be honest, I almost feel like I'm doing it alone. The system doesn't know how to work on the memories with R., our therapist. I speak at least for myself, and a few other alters, that working on the trauma right now is key. When we worked on trauma in residential tx. we experienced a VERY abbreviated moment in time when weight didn't matter as much and we felt more free. That tells me it is possible.

But we've been feeling very hopeless lately. Our lives can not be like this forever. It's back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Maybe that's not true. The "forth" has only ever been a pretense.

The bell jar is descending. Hopelessness is finding its way home. I recognize them all too well. I am going back to school in August and I really want to be ready. If I'm not...

I guess I'm done whining and complaining. I just want to get better. I've had an eating disorder for twenty-three years. I know it's not going to go away easily. It will take hard work; work that I havn't vested yet. And I know that working with the alters is going to be difficult. I'm scared that we won't be able to do the work with out current T. that we did in res. tx. All the more reasons to feel hopeless.

But we're ready now. And we have till August to get to a point where we can function at school.

Black Katherine is coming alive with her "told you so" attitude. She's not full of malice. She's just depressed and dripping her hopelessness onto us. I feel like screaming because I feel like we're not being heard. We need help fast or we won't make it.

Okay. So we whined, bitched, complained, and moaned. For all good reasons. We're ready, ready, ready. We just don't know for what, but it better be soon.

Discussing dissociation

I found a blog from a trauma therapist called "Discussing Dissociation" and found a lot of great information on it. I most liked her idea on creating an internal scrapbook for alters to get to know one another in a more creative context. Also, as I looked around her site, she has so much good information that I thought it would be helpful for a lot of people to explore. Take a look. Hope it helps. Take care.

Lengths to getting better.

What a weekend! It was filled with errands, sleep, and taking my god-daughters to a movie and shopping. We had assignments by our T. to complete and haven't been as productive as we would have liked; nevertheless, we did do some journaling, which was part of our instruction. Another assignment was to let Tina, one of our members, make chocolate chip cookies. We came close, even got the ingredients together. That was as far as we made it with that. We left the ingredients out so Tina can make the cookies for tomorrow. We didn't get a work out in on Saturday, so being behind a day in calories meant we had to put the cookies off until we could safely get an extra work out in.

We've been thinking about how we ended our previous blog. The topic of the lengths we will go to to get better came up and is rather pertinent considering the lapse that has happened since leaving treatment. What are we willing to give up in order to get better?

The question firsts needs to be asked do we want to get better. The answer is yes, especially with the dissociation. Not meaning that we want to get rid of our members. But there are times when we are switching constantly and it gives me a raging, intolerable headache. The switching and shifting is disconcerting, confusing, and most of all, unsettling. There is every reason in the world to want to get better. But the food issues come in. Most anorexics agree, even the ones on the road to recovery, that there is a sliver inside somewhere that starving oneself creates a sense of safety. Getting attention, having people who formerly didn't notice you start to care, and being sick is a plus in having this disorder. Growing up, the only time we got attention from the birth mother was when we were sick. The only time we get attention now is when we are sick.

Back to the point: what are we willing to give up, what lengths will we go to to get better? Certain areas of our life have to be explored and let go before we can even get close to wanting to let go of the eating disorder. I don't think it even possible to let go of the E.D. until some exploration is done into the reason we dissociate and the trauma we've gone through and blocked off.

For some of us, food is dirty and equated to abuse. Eating most things is reminiscent to the sexual abuse. Starving ourselves makes us clean and pure inside. One of our assignments is to find ways to feel clean about ourselves without depriving ourselves of food. Much thought has gone into this. There are three ways we use to cleanse us. Starvation, over exercise, and showers. We shower and scrub like we've just been victimized. The skin is red and raw.

I've no idea of any other avenues to avail that will produce the same cleansing effect, because it has become like a chemical release inside. It's like the release of endorphins. What else could give us that rush? Shopping, cooking, playing with the dogs, cleaning the house, watching a movie? Cleaning the house might help, but I can't think of anything else to make me feel clean about myself so that I don't want to starve or exercise or damage myself in any other way.

If members could let go of their secrets and share their memories with each other then perhaps we might not feel so dirty inside that emptiness is the only answer. Towards the end in res. tx. it got easier to access memories, but I don't know how to do that without res. tx. Sure, I have a therapist, but there's a missing link. Yes, I trust my therapist. The alters agree that they do as well; so, why can't we access the memories like we did before.

What comes first: giving up the memories or giving up the anorexia? The anorexia makes me feel clean, but so would dealing with the memories that tainted me to begin with. I remember towards the end of residential treatment after dealing with a painful memory that my weight wasn't as important as it had been. Processing the memories and feelings were more helpful. That feeling didn't last long, but if I kept at it and worked with the trauma it might make the anorexia less important. I wouldn't need it for safety.

But I can't force alters to give up their memories and secrets. They know I'm scared witless. I don't know how to cross that bridge. I say I'm ready to deal with it. I stuck with the painful feelings in treatment during session and didn't run from it, but I don't know how to access the memories and feelings now that I'm in the real world. I'm quite confused.

I would go to any length possible to get ready of the dirty, shamed feelings. It takes starving myself and exercising for at least 60 minutes everyday to feel clean. I have to be empty, weightless and hollow to be clean, pure and
unpolluted. I would give it up yesterday if I only knew how. Anorexia is necessary in making myself feel that I'm not degraded, trashy, and worthless. I'm so done feeling that way; I just don't know how to give it up.

I know I shouldn't have this episode because it sabotages my chances of recovery, but I purchased an episode of a t.v. show named "Intervention" and downloaded it to my iPod. It is about a woman named Emily who was anorexic, at least at the time. I identified with what she said about not eating and then exercising and showering and feeling empty and clean after that. She said it was the best feeling in the world, and I totally agree with her.

Anorexia is going to be very difficult to give up. I have to find something that will give me that same pure, clean, and spotless feeling. I just don't know what it is or where to find it. I also wish my members would be more forthcoming in sharing their trauma experiences. Without that, I don't know if we'll ever make it past the tight rope of death that we walk every day.

Titleless, wordless, thoughtless, pointless, just less

Once again, I sit down with nothing to write about. I don't know why I've gotten so fussy about sitting down to the computer with a prepared speech to type in; nevertheless, it would be nice, knowing others are reading this, to have some organization of thoughts. In closer thinking, this delimma about having nothing or not knowing what to write mimics my daily living. My thoughts are more often than not disorganized and disarrayed. I saw my T. today and in mid-sentence I couldn't remember what we were discussing. It happens constantly with my husband, D. So all I can try to do is be gentle with myself, give the reader credit that they will stick with me through the process, and if not, that it is important for me to continue blogging so as to document my journey.

My journal is no different. I reserve that for the "secrets"; the things that aren't really for public consumption. But I haven't been writing in it lately. Facing the journal is really disturbing because it brings everybody out. My members often want to come out and write and then they get adamant and loud and purposeful and they overtake me. I try asking them to step back, talk one at a time. Sometimes I'm successful, other times I can't hang in there with it and I end up downing the tranqs. In addition, the journal makes me feel like a failure. I feel like I should great big epiphanies and the babal facets of life aren't what the members should be writing about. They should be journaling their memories and their experiences. I feel like a lot of times what they write is inconsequential. But who am I to judge and decide what is important and should be written? I'm not the censor.

I guess it comes down to (sorry, I know I've said it before, so I don't mean to whine) having a lot of success in residential treatment and that now that I'm home it has gone to hell. I remember a lot of the skills I was taught, but I'm not finding them useful. In R.T. the littles were starting to tell their stories; now, they've just kind of shut down. I can't get anyone to really talk to me. I get these images that they send up. Nothing of the abuse, but they are images that I don't remember like how a balmy summer night felt riding my bike or fishing in the grandparent's lake or the big Barbie dream house at the end of the bed. Those images, feelings, and senses they give me and it drives me bloody mad. I don't understand the point.

I tell myself they have to let their story be told at their pace but their pace seemed a lot faster in res. tx. I feel like I'm going no where, and, ironically, I want to get better. We keep sabatoging ourselves, but deep down we want to get better.

Do people get better, or do they fool themselves into getting better? When I was working out this morning I was thinking about what I would write in the blog. I was determined it would be absolutely positive and there would be nothing that sounded whiny or self-pitiable in it. We have parts that want to get better. This is no way to live. What will we do, what lengths will we go to, what are we willing to give up to make it happen?

Something for us to think about for tomorrows post. Yeah! We already have a topic in mind. Go, us!!!!

Illusion, confusion, and delusion

I'm hacked. I just sat and blogged for fifteen minutes and lost it all. Dammit to $#@&! It wasn't important anyway. Mostly it was about how my blogs are aimless and pointless and don't have a theme. Like Clinically Clueless wrote recently about suicide and a member of Jumping in Puddles wrote about God and Jesus and Lola wrote candidly about her eating disorder. I never know what to write.

I offer rambles to the readers. Little snippets about my day and my pretensions of recovery. I see my T. 3x a week now, yet he only calls it a lapse, not a relapse. Whatever the fuck you call it, I'm going down, fast and furious. I'm pissed off at something I saw on Dr. Phil today. Of course I'll watch anything on eating disorders and he featured males with eating disorders. The guest doctor he featured on there was from Rogers Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin. It was a psychiatrist I had seen before, although he wawsn't my assigned doctor. In any case, I was a little stunned. Whatever. Dr. Phil was talking about how Rogers Memorial was a cutting edge hospital and was the best of the best. It upset me. I attended Rogers before and I thought if this hospital is really the best of the best then what hope is there for me. If I attended the best of the best and I'm still eating and throwing up and exercising 95 minutes in one day, what do I have to say for myself.

I hate myself all the more as I write this post. When will it dawn on me? I have goals and aspirations. I want to go back to school; I want to be an English teacher and eventually get my post doc degree and teach college. So what is wrong with me? Why am I LETTING myself plunge so deeply in this eating disorder? I feel like a disgusting, worthless human being. I'm an embarassment to myself.

I pay a heavy price to keep the eating disorder and the illusion of recovery. But I know no other way for safety, asylum, and protection. I try to balance between the two.

My head is switching alot right now. I can't get my thoughts out. The alters that sabotage my recovery are competing with the members that keep the eating disorder. I'm in between with a spinning head. Stripped of identity, voice, and opinion. I know this makes no sense but they've taken me.

It makes me really sad. My heart is heavy and I just want to go away.

Switchy-poo

I don't know where I am tonight, but I felt like writing something to just check in with the cyber world.

My head is screaming in pain, my anxiety is off the scale, and I feel grotesquly fat and obese. I'm upset that I'm empty. I used to be such a good writer, though you would never know it from my blog postings. But I could say what I wanted with the words that I wanted and I would feel so complete and satisfied. Nowadays, my alters are giving me nothing to say.

You see, I don't know how other systems work, but I am merely the spokesperson, the body, the front that is presented to the world. I am made of nothing but ash, the dead relic of the first born who was killed the first time. When I speak, it seldoms comes from my own volition but, rather, the election of one of the members. And it HURTS!!!! It makes me cringe and writhe in pain to not be able to express a feeling or even experience an emotion of my own. All I can do is illiterate what they want said.

And this can cause so many problems, so many headaches. What if member A doesn't like what member B has to say, so member A tries to shut her down? An internal, vicarious mayhem insues. And I'm left holding the daggers.

That troubles me far less than just not being able to put on paper or on screen the exact way I'M feeling at the time I'm feeling it because the words aren't supplied to me. I'm not granted access. I am to be reminded that I'm a front and nothing more. I need to be more. I don't like being a blank, a shell, barren, vacuous, and an emotional, spiritual, intellectual virgin. If I am blank, then I have no value; if I have no value, then I am worthless; if I'm worthless, the ensuing question is unequivocally: why am I alive?

Must I spend the rest of my days being the frontrunner for them? And I get angry at myself for not being more appreciateive of what they've been through, but I can't help it. I know the members have done much more than I have. Which is worse, though: to have so many emotions it aches, or to have no emotion at all that it aches as bad?

To top it off, I don't remember the post before this one. They are posting without me. It upsets me because I don't know what is being said and we are supposed to agree on what gets put out to the world. I don't know. I don't know.

For the past week, we've been switching alot and they've been crawling over each other like puppies to get out. Why we can't work on and decide on a system I don't know. It seems fair for everyone to take their turn. But they aren't. I think they're pissed off about not seeing our residential therapist anymore. Either way, D. was taking me to the gym today and the switching began again, right after another, I could feel them taking over me. I made a comment to myself that we were switching again and a voice I didn't recognize called it "switchy-poo." I thought it was cute. I decided not to bring myself down by acknowlidging that it was a new voice; I just that it cute she called it switchy-poo. Things have been a little switchy-poo with us lately. :)

That's all, and more than I thought I would write. I'm still blank. Tranquilizers help a lot...so why am I still writing? :)

Trigger***Some talk of death

This post is solely about death but about death and depression. I've been depressed again today. the words fail me. The Woman with the Words is not around. I don't have words or thoughts for them to steal. I've been in bed all day, although I've had the best intentions of getting up and working out for an hour. Excessive maybe...but effective.

I'm on some tranqs. right now. The voices and chaos inside were getting intense. They probably want a different view from that which is under the covers and the inside of my eyelids. I feel completely overwhelmed, debilitated, and incapacitated. I hate feeling this way. Of course!!! duh. Who would like it? I just can't seem to escape it

Certain thoughts come to me about death. If I didn't think it would hurt my husband and crush my godchildren, there would be no debate. Most of the posts I subscribe to and others I peruse are about looking back at '08. Save two months, I was in-patient the whole time. Had to withdraw from school. So now it's time to look ahead to what I can do differently in '09. I know what I want to do.

- Wallpaper the bathroom.
- Return to school.
- Get out of bed before 10:30.
- Paint the hallway.
- Make a homeade recipe at least once a week.
- Get and keep a job.
- Perform upkeep and maintance on my yard.

Those are only a few things I want to do. The list could go on almost infinitely and I don't want to bore readers with it. I would really like to get back to writing poetry but The Woman with the Words has run off and depleted me of a rich, diverse vocabulary and now I have writer's block. When I look back over posts I notice how flat and less than dynamic they are. I find myself to appear completely unintelligble.

It all seems insurmountalbe. I have but one hope and that is that one day I can move to Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Without that hope I might find it in me not to breathe. I have everything I need in places that no one could find. I'm not saying I'm suicidal because I'm NOT. We all know people can want to die or think of death without acting out on those thoughts. Other than Charleston, it is my remaining comfort.

Is that selfish of me? I have a great parnter. He would do anything in the world to try to help us, but I don't let him. Most of me loves him. I know there are members who don't love him. That makes it all the more complicated.

I feel like I'm just rambling. Sorry.

2 days into the New Year! &^*%#

I was just catching up and reading everyone's blogs and posts for the New Year. Impressive. In comparison to others, I find myself alone because I don't want to look back. I don't want to look at the year 2008. Maybe that's my problem, besides always comparing myself to others.

Without retrospection there can be no introspection.

Nevertheless,I spent New Year's Eve at an American football game, trying to cheer my college team on and it didn't work. They were dominated by the opposing team. My husband and I left at half-time, which is something he NEVER does. He says he doesn't want to be a fair weathered fan. He wants to support them during the good games and the tough games. But this game was abominable. They were massacred. So we braved the cold, windy night and made our way out to his truck. The only fun part of the evening was that tailgaters had deserted their food and equipment and as my husband and I were walking past a table I grabbed some hot dog buns. It was stupid and silly and childish and I never steal, but when I look back on it now I giggle at stealing 79 cent hot dog buns.

The last two days have been depressing. I haven't gotten out of bed for almost anything. Last night the chaos was so compounding in my head. I could feel my alters right behind my eyes and it was so disconcerting. I wish someone out there would let me know if you experience it this way or not. I was trying to read a book but couldn't focus on it because I kept switching over and over and over. It was incessant and rampant. I asked them to step back. I had a conference with them and promised them everyone would get to do what they wanted if I could only finish my book. The littles could color, the teens could watch a movie, others could do puzzles or watch football on t.v. It seemed they were agreeable to settle down but as soon as I got back to my book they started up again. So I went and journaled. I don't know what it says. I have journaled since. I do know it mentions cutting. The times before when I could not bring my alters under control I would cut and they would go away, so I decided to cut. It wasn't much. I won't give out details so as not to trigger or give war stories; but the wounds are fine and I told my husband about them later.

Ironically enough, the alters calmed down and my mind got quiet. There was no more switching. I don't know what else I could have done.

I've been in bed all day. I only got out of bed to purge and shower.

So I'm not much in a mood to ruminate on my prior year and see how far I've come and what's left to work on. The current moment is sucking me in as a whole.

The devil is in the details.

I always hold my breath when I read over previous posts. I never know, or seldom know, what they will say because I don't always know who is contributing to the blog. I thank everyone who had comments; you probably know how it feels when someone just at least reaches out to say, "I'm hear." It's hard for me to offer feedback to others because I have nothing wise or profound to say. But it's a valuable lesson learned. Sometimes it's good just to hear someone say they are listening.

I thought I might share a little about me, JUST A FEW DETAILS. I will go back later and revamp my header and personal profile, but I feel compelled currently to share it in a post, to let others know more details. I wonder if that is a good sign that I'm trusting others.

I'm in my mid-thirties and have long blonde hair with proud streaks of pink in it. I have blue eyes and black eyelashes that stretch for miles. My skin is fair and creamy white and is insanely and helplessly covered with scars from cutting and burning. The looks and stares from strangers are humiliating. I live in the southern United States. I'm G.R.I.T.S., Girls Raised In the South. I love being southern; the pleasantries, chivalry, friendliness, and getting smiles from strangers. In the south, or at least the old south, everyone was family and your house was always open to friends to stop by for cards and Jack Daniels. The good 'ol days.

I'm not working right now. I stopped working 2/08 to enter residential treatment. Docs are talking of sending me back. I'm married with no children, just two dogs that are my babies.

I want to be an English Education teacher. I want to start out with teaching middle school, then high school, and as I eventually get my post-Bacc degree, I want to teach college. I love English. I can't remember a book that I didn't like, some more than others!!! I don't know if I'll ever make it to teach English. I'm not done with my under-grad and as I keep stopping and starting school it's becoming sad.

I conspicuously left out details regarding the abuse. Baby steps.


Well, enough about the small details of me. I went to Walmart today to get the littles some big, fat crayons because their little hands have so much trouble holding the regular crayons. Walmart scares the hell out of me. I got so flustered and overwhelmed I had to just leave and not get anything I needed.

I feel my drugs finally kicking in, soothing my nerves and making the chaos in my head less dramatic. I'll ramble later.

Diametrical and contradictory dessimation

How am I to know what to say? I've scoured through dictionaries, thesauruses, classic novels, young adult books, and the every Conde Naste magazine to find the right words and images to unveil to you my broken.

I fall short everytime.

You see, I have failed. I wanted this blog to be about our recovery, not out well-rehearsed death. I want to live and succeed, but something always gets in the way.

I was so happy tonight. I thought I was going crazy. I was switching alot. My members wanted to come out frequently and were bearing down on my eyes and wouldn't give me peace. My usual mode of operation is to cut or purge. I did neither, but I couldn't read or watch a movie or do puzzles. I eventually journaled and asked the members what they needed from me, why they were being so persistanant. After a brief journal session, I felt so good about myself. That was the first time that I have EVER, EVER held off them off so effectively. Of course, later I did purge and used food to destruct, but I'm trying to hold on to that small piece of evidence that if I can experience that then perhaps I can do more, IFFFFFFFFFFFFFF I want it.

What brings me to the second point tonight. I've felt so guilty lately for even having this blog. I want it to be an honest, organic, interactive blog that reveals what I and my members are going through daily. That way people in society can benefit by our experiences when their loved ones too can't get out of bed or cuts thenselves to shreds or refuses to eat or can't remember how to get to the place they've worked for five years.

But the site doesn't seem helpful. I think it's because I'm having another relapse. I lie, lie, lie to my husband. "No, D. I didn't throw up. I just had to pee for ten minutes! [sarcasm included]) Over the holidays, I ruined our plumbing. I'll spare the general audience the details.

And now I'm tired. My arms are too exhausted to wash my hair and I love it. It means I'm losing weight.

This is the part I don't like. I feel like a phony, a hypocrite.

Let the reader know, I try everyday to live among the principles of good health, self-care, and living one day at a time. But it's all the other moments in between that are killing me and bringing me down.

And now I don't know where to go or what to be. I feel like I've a good angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, each telling me what selfish or angelic things to do.

I want to be good. I want to work hard on building a community with my members, meeting their needs through positive means, and spoiling the littles. I don't want the eating disorder anymore.

I pump my fist and rise in the air. I don't know what to do, but I'll keep trying everyday. Something has to fit sooner or later.

Fantasy or Reality?

It's Christmas. What can I say? I don't celebrate Christmas. Never had. I wasn't brought up that way. I was brought up to curse and swear, hate my body, turn a blind eye when my daughter gets raped, yell at everyone in the house, and pretend to the world we are a most loving family. Happy Xmas.

Not that I want to take anything away from anyone celebrating the holidays. I have a member that wishes to pain that she was right there with you, having a family to visit, waking up to bacon and eggs on Christmas morning, a fireplace with stockings hanging and goodies inside, a plethora of presents under the tree for me and my members from people that love me, and a big Christmas dinner where everyone in the family comes and eats and has happy conversation and good food and there is no awkardness or silence or fighting at the table. That is my grown up wish.

I see it happen in the movies and on t.v. Do families really celebrate the holidays this way? Is it all sunshine and roses like it appears to be? I really want to know. Am I missing out on what is only an idea, a fantasy, or am I missing out on the real deal where families do get together in love and support one another?

I've been really sad and depressed lately. I've tried working on the blog, making it more appealing. But I'm sad. I feel so fat I can't stand being awake and so I've stayed depressed and in bed for the past few days, just trying to sleep away the cognizance that I'm imperfect, fat, lazy, worthless, and that I will never escape. I gained much from residential treatment, but the eating disorder is the hardest to manage. It is so maniacle and deliberate and hateful. It's tentacles are in me and won't let go. I can't even breathe.

I digress and weaken the struggle against the octupus. Squeeze me till there is no more.

A little inspiration

I'm really starting to love this song. Whenever I'm feeling down, I listen to this. It's so happy and upbeat, you can't help but smile at the charming lyrics and upbeat tempo. It's called 'Lovers in Japan' by Coldplay. Love it!

Affirmations

I love this post by Katie Goode LMFT on creating affirmations. Affirmations do not sit well with me and even remind me of fingers on a chalk board.

For those struggling with affirmations it's worth checking out her post.

Scrambled brain on the side...

I am not okay. Right now the others are bearing down on me and I don't know what they want. What are they trying to communicate? The headache has been horrible. I took several tranqs; what else could I do? I hate it when it gets this chaotic. I haven't allowed any blogging or journaling and I think they might be pissed off about that. We've been following everyone else's blogs and ignoring our own. I can feel them right behind my eyes and all I want to do is just cry; I don't know why I want to cry or what I need to cry over, but there is a burgeoning need to pour my tears out.

I've stayed away from blogging because I didn't want readers to know how shitty I'm letting us be. The eating disorder is back, full blown. What justification could I have for that? I miss being in residential treatment. That was the only time I've ever felt that any real connections to the eating, sexual abuse, and the members has been made. I felt like I made progress there. I come home to a crappy IOP and lose the foundation I built in res. treatment. I eat one home brought meal to this IOP and stay for one group. The person who did my intake doesn't want me staying too long and stressing my system out. Too late!!! I couldn't be anymore ungrounded than I already am. I am off the charts!

...and I'm ashamed. Yesterday I did 95 minutes of cardio; today I did 65 minutes. And there is something masochistic and self-destructive in doing so much cardio. My chest hurts and I get cold sweats. A smile breaks out on my face because I know I'm running my body into the ground. How about using my voice instead of my symptoms? But what would I say? I don't know what the hell is wrong with me!!! I can't get in touch with my members like I did in res. treatment. It felt so safe there, and then I come home and I don't think any of the members knew what to do. Our res. therapist was the first one we shared things with and the world feels so unsafe and harmful.

I'm going crazy and out of my head. I can't speak. I just revel in the knowledge my clothes are starting to get looser and hang on me. I'm ashamed. Ten months of intensive treatment and I can't get us together.

And I'm in a panic! I feel them scrambling in my head, spinning around, crawling over each other to get out. They're still behind the eyes.

They are overcrowding me, yet I feel so miserably alone.

AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I need help. I really need help. I know that we are the only ones who can help us, but those are empty words. I've played every inspirational song I can think of but nothing is helping. I'm already losing the ability to focus and I'm having chest pains.

We left residential treatment on Thanksgiving and since have lost weight. Today, somebody felt guilty for eating a 100 calorie English Muffin and so we purged it and went and exercised for an hour. When the husband, D., came home, we went and exercised with him for 45 minutes and that made the heart start to feel very heavy. We ate a decent dinner, I guess. I'm certainly overly and uncomfortably full from it.

It is so easy to berate myself for watching this demise again. But I was afraid this would happen and in treatment I didn't prepare myself well enough for it. I was supposed to go to the IOP but that fell through. Insurance is trying to find me a new one but the only other IOP in my area is a little bit of a drive and it scares me because I would have to get on the Interstate and I don't like that.

But I ABSOLUTELY need something to fill my days. I called my old boss because I was technically never terminated, even though I was away from work for ten months, but they never said a word. I tried to keep in touch with her during my treatment but she would never call me back. Now that I'm home, she will have to deal with me. I would rather go back to work than go to IOP. At least the eating disorder would rather me go to work because I can keep us busy and forget about food.

I could tell from working out how weak we've gotten. Didn't phase me. I've exercised through extreme fatigue before. I really want to start school up again but know this is not a wise choice. The best thing for me is to do the damn IOP. I just don't want to drive. I will know on Wednesday, Dec 10th whether I'm officially going.

Another reason I hate myself is that I'm doing NOTHING that I learned in treatment. The members are not being contained and we are having images and flashbacks. The switching tonight was so awful I wanted...well, I was really upset. Constantly, over and over, they fight to gain dominancy. I hate it. It makes me off balance and as I type this the emotion is pouring through my fingertips and I fear I will emotionally erupt. I take so many medications to counter the anxiety but none are working. I'm a mess in progress.

I need a joke.

Slipping by and away

I can barely speak the disgust in which I feel towards myself. It does no good to berate myself over my eating. I've been restricting lately, but that is not the reason I'm upset. My husband, D., has been getting suspicous since coming home from treatment and so I hate some cookies today that I normally would not have. The thoughts of guilt and fat just churned inside my mind over and over and over. I felt so guilty I had to was it away through purging, so I ate some icecream and more cookies in front of him. To be blunt for the reader's sake, I also took food into the bathroom of which he does not know and sat on the bathroom floor and ate it so I could throw up more easily.

Now my throat is raw, I have no energy, and I feel ill. I feel like I'm headed to the condition in which I was in before I entered treatment. I've always told D. that my suicide would not be impulsive. It would be a well thought out decision. I'm not claiming I'm suicidal right now because I'M NOT!!! All I'm saying is that there are certain behaviors being undertaken and it is leading down a road that has a logical and rational and justified conclusion.

I'm disappointed that I'm not interacting much with my other members. Emily came out today. She makes me sleepy and as D. was driving us to therapy she swallowed me and I became so sleepy and fatigued. I dialogued internally with her and she backed off. But other than that, we really aren't talking. It's so much harder to be focused on recovery outside of treatment. I'm disappointed the IOP fell through. It would have been a difference, I do believe.

I've been out looking for other blogs by people with eating disorders or dissociative disorders and the screem starts to swim. I know of Something-Fishy (who doesn't know of them) and I've gathered some ideas for how to spend my time now that I'm out of work, out of school, and mostly out of options. Next week I start completely on my own and I worry for myself. If I can restrict and binge and purge with my husband by side 24/7, what can I get away with when he goes back to work?


I know it's not about the food. I know what it's about. I just can't look at it anymore. The transition from residential treatment to home is a bitter one. I'm starting to feel a little hopeless. Fuck. It's not about the food.

Itchy brain

My eyes hurt. There is a lot of activity in my head tonight. I wish I could just get real with it. But it seems that I just want to push it away with tranqs and analgesics instead of dealing with what lies beneath.

I fear that this post will be a toasted, scrambled rambling collection of disparate words.

I can't say anything other than how much I hate myself and I hate my husband and how badly and deeply and quickly it is falling apart. Okay, we've been out of treatment for ONE week and the m*fer is already asking about sex. I hate myself if I do, I hate myself if I don't. One is taking care of ourselves and one is punishment. I throw my hands in the air with a side-kick. Send it to hell...express.

my brain hurts

we cut last night. nothing big. but we bought the littles a gift, some kind of magnetic dress up dolls. eveything was going okay until then, but for some reason it offset the system. we wrote about it in the journal and i don't know what was written but it was significant. bottom line, we were in a state of hysteria. we just cut the tiniest little bit. but buying the doll set really had a huge impact on the system. so we've put off opening the littles the gifts until the older ones can reconcile it with themselves that it's okay for anyone who wants to can play with the dolls. but we were a mess.

doesn't it always start out that way...with the smallest lapse?

i always end up here.

we were able to dialogue with some members and that was spectacular because we hadn't dialogued since being discharged from treatment. i know where the f*ing Barbie house went. But that's my little secret.

i wish this could be easier for you, readers. I wish I could type out our story and make it comprehendable and connective; it's not that there is no wish to, but we have to keep in mind that we are just trying to jot down the random bits of information in our life so that hopefully if you or a loved one has a dissociative disorder you will know what they are going through. I don't have the necessary man power to keep the brain functional and write coherently.

the husband and i are fighting more. i'm getting really tired of his attitude regarding my behavior since returning from treatment. they are always going to imagine the worst, even if there is no cause for alarm. could i be doing better? sure.

but cut me some slack, jack.
we just got back.

my brain hurts.

What the fuck?

So here I am, at home, away from residential treatment, away from all support, so it seems. Yesterday, I saw the first person who is supposed to be on my treatment team and her reaction when she saw me was how great, strong, and healthy I look. What the fuck?

All she had to do was go to About.com and read under "What Not to Do" that you never comment on appearance. Fatal mistake.

To anyone with an eating disorder those words translate to mean one thing: I look fat.

I couldn't believe her. What was she thinking? I'm still livid. To all the readers who have loved ones who are recovering from any type of eating disorder, do not ever tell them they are looking healthy or happy or strong or better. It translates to one thing in the mind of someone with an eating disorder: FAT!!!!! She should know better. It only makes me feel so much guiltier for eating food.

So all the plans that were supposed to materialize for my aftercare have disintegrated. Maybe that's just pessimistic thinking. Fuck it. The IOP that I was to attend does not have enough members committed so they are offering me a hospital type setting for an IOP. Hell to the NO!!!!! First of all, I can get away with much more in an IOP outside of a hospital. They are seriously mistaken if they think I'm not going to lose weight, and I know what a hospital type IOP will lead to. The IOP will become a Partial Hospitalization Program which will become inpatient treatment which will turn me right back to residential treatment...not that I didn't love Yoda (my name for the all-wise therapist).

I am so pissed off!