Man Vs. Food

I like the title. It's really a t.v. show on the Travel Channel about a man that tours the United States finding "out of the way" eateries. I like the title because it's about us. It should be entitled "Missing In Sight vs. Food" because that's the direction we are heading these days. Safe foods have become unsafe. The one meal we were allowed to eat without repurcussions was dinner and now there is always a reason to get rid of it.

It has been an extrememly long day. I can't say that emphatically enough. Every other day we go through the same hell with our pain patch. We have a herniated disc, L5 S1. Had it for about ten years. We've had all kinds of procedures done on it. We are going through another round of epidurals....again. The pain that has been shooting down both legs is gone, so we can at least celebrate that. But the normal, constant, chronic, dull, ache hasn't lessened and because of our restricting the patch we use is not dispensing the medication into our system like it's supposed to. So every other day we go through withdrawals a few hours before it's time to take the patch off. The patch is supposed to last 48 hours, but we usually get 42 before we start to feel the effects of the back pain and withdrawal symptoms. Now, I've never taken heroine, but I've heard Duragesic pain patches compared to heroine and so the withdrawals are like withdrawals from heroine. It's misery to the highest exponent. There are visual disturbances, weakness in the legs, sensitivity to temperatures, anxiety, sweating, cramping in the limbs, stomach disturbances, and that's only to name a few. The obvious solution is to put the new patch on earlier, but that means doing so each and every time, eventually using my supply of pain patches before it is time. And the doctors WILL NOT give out a new prescription until the thirty days is up. So I have to be miserable every other day and go through the withdrawals.

A better answer would be to eat. When we were on a regular schedule of eating and keeping the food in we had no problems with withdrawals or the patch wearing out too soon or not dispensing enough at the time. But we are getting so lost in the eating disorder it's not as silly to me anymore. I hear my members telling me we are not thin enough, but I don't know how to rebut them. I don't know what to live for. I feel extraordinarily hopeless. I am afraid I don't have what it takes to finish school. Maybe I've been pretending all along.

D. and I have our 9 1/2 year anniversary on Valentines day. Our ten year is August 14. I spent my 9 year anniversary in treatment. I really want us to get our act together, but I have members who are in such pain from trauma that this is all they know to do and I don't know how to help them. I really don't. What motivates Lola to work on her eating disorder? How does she find life so amusing as to entertain us with her witty blog? I envy that so much. I used to be a good writer. I also used to be a good cook. Those things have been taken away from me. What will be next? Should I even care?

So today we were at Costco, like Sam's club, a warehouse retailer where you buy in bulk and throw half of the items away because you don't need a pizza the size of a Hummer's wheel base. Never mind that. It was a good day to go, at least for non-eating disordered people. There were tons of samples, none of which I ate, or would take a little taste and give the rest to D. I only bring it up because I thought the U.S. was in a recession, but everyone was getting ready for the Superbowl tomorrow by purchasing 32" HDTVs, cases and cases of beer and expensive wine, and everything your delicate food pallette could want for kickoff. D. and I sat down and did bills and we're in it. How did we get so in debt? I don't know. I used to pay cash for everything. Never the matter. I don't care. But a new iPod would be great. But it just boggles my mind that the economy is so horrible and people are spending money right and right and left and left.

I sit here typing, trying to think of something poignant to write, but nothing is there. My mind keeps going back to food: us vs. food. It just happened so fast, our downward spiral, and I think if I write here something may pop into my head and make it all make sense and make it easy to eat. Monday's the day we start the program. At least that was the last word. I'm so scared I had a nightmare about it. Everyone views their dietician as a Nazi, but this woman really is. This is not my first time in the program. I don't like the program because you get no therapy, really. I mean there is group therapy and you see your case worker once a week, but no "let's get down to the nitty gritty" therapy. It's all too predictable. At least we get to see our outside T. while in the program. Somewhat of a consolation. We need to work on the trauma. No dancing around it. No tiptoeing. We're ready. Scared, but ready. It has to be done. We will never gain weight until we feel hopeful and that progress is made with the member's trauma.

Well, we've rambled sufficiently enough to say nothing. We just hope if we write long enough we'll have an epiphany, something that will change us. I can honestly write that we want an end to our suffering, but I don't know how to do that.

We truly live on this side of hopelessness, and finding a reason to live is getting harder and harder. It's just too much. Too much to deal with, too much to handle, too much to try and claw our way to the surface.

The Sound of Silence

I am quiet today. Silent. Not much to say. Certainly nothing of significance.

We slept all day today. Woke up just in time to shower and look presentable before D. came home from work. I guess we were really tired, or maybe depressed. We slept solid until 2:30. No breaks. I'm sure the body is tired and gutted from working out so much and purging. We've had to reset our "sobriety" counter on our main page...again. We're in deep.

So we missed the assessment for PHP, again. Supposed to go tomorrow, but we are also scheduled for an epidural for our herniated disc, so we may not make it. It's always something. I don't care anyway. Any excuse not to go to that program. I need some hope at this point, and that program has never given me any hope or faith that I can get better. I only have bitter resentment for it.

The only time in my life I ever felt hopeful was in residential treatment. I really felt we could get better there. That's not an option anymore. How does one breathe in and out everyday without hope? It's like dying a little more each and every day.

We are feeling extra fat today because we didn't work out. And sleeping makes it worse. You don't use alot of calories sleeping, so that makes us extra undeserving of food and more inclined to restrict. I am trying to gather up enough motivation to go workout in the morning before the epidural because afterwards my back will be so sore and stiff we will only be able to lay down on a heating pad.

In other news: We attended my god-daughters conferences this week. They are twins and in the same grade. C. got straight A's in her advanced classes, and O. got all A's minus one C, which is okay because I know she did her best in math, so I'm okay that she got a C.

Lastly, a Seventeen magazine came in the mail yesterday. I had to laugh. One of our insiders, a teenager, is a fashionista and loves to shop and order crap on-line. So when the magazine came, we had no doubt who had ordered the subscription. We asked her and she sheepishly admitted to it. Lovely little minx. At least it wasn't a $250.00 purse that she ordered one time. She's been known to order high priced items we can't afford.

Images and flashbacks are circling me. How much more can I take? If only someone had a magic wand because I just can't do this anymore. I feel like I'm so alone, in this all by myself. I'm so friggin' tired that I honestly don't know what to do or what's best for me/us.

I want to go home...if I only had one. There's crying on the inside, but on the outside is the sound of silence. No one knows. Tonight, we're missing in sight.

Final curtain call

The purpose of this blog was and is to hold myself accountable, mostly to me, somewhat to my T., and then to the rest of the blogging community. Maybe I've been honest and called it like it is. I don't know. It seems those in my life are so obtuse that it only feeds my hopelessness. Can't they see the weight loss? Can't D. (husband) see the newly protruding ribs? How can he not know we are down to the weight we were when we entered treatment last year? Men are clueless. When I first got out of residential treatment, D. was so diligent, if not overbearing, on my eating my meals and not over exercising. Being I got out of treatment two months ago, he has settled into comfort that we're okay.

I guess we are okay if okay means it's normal to exercise for two hours straight on the elliptical and to binge and purge twice the same day. I guess being "okay" includes chest pain when working out, lightheadedness and dizziness. "Okay" means resurrecting food rituals, eating only certain food items, and eating off the same plate every time.

The hopelessness is mounting. The admittance to the outpatient program has been delayed, delayed, delayed, and, if truth be told and I hold myself accountable, I'm glad. I don't want to go to PHP. I don't want their food. There is no therapy there; it's all about fattening us up.

The trauma memories are coming harder and faster. They are alive in the dreams and fuel the desire to disappear. I know it cannot be fixed. Who gives a fuck? Our case manager says we need to be thinking of getting a job. I could not be more overwhelmed and desperate. This is not going to work.

I DON'T want to live my life like this. I hate it, but I don't know what else to do. I want to run from the PHP. I've been there before. This program can't help me. And nobody knows how far gone we are; how we worry about each calorie. Can we afford to eat the five calorie stick of gum? Oh no!! We had two pieces. That's ten calories. Shit. Shit. Shit.

We step on the scales before, during, and after. After what, you may ask. Does it fucking matter? We are always on the scale. We've had slid so far back.

It may sound like we don't want recovery. Not true. I want it, but not all my members want it. I know the PHP does not believe in or treat Dissociative Identity Disorder, so how are they going to treat an eating disorder that my alters have? I predict, as almost happened last year, we will be asked to leave the program. I know my members will not eat their fucking food. They need to heal their trauma. We're probably not healthy enough to do that now. Our weight is lower than it was last year when they tube fed us and we sure as hell ain't goin' that route again.

I don't know; I don't know; I don't know. I just feel a panic, a desperation, an immediate need for help. I need my husband to know I'm not okay.

After dinner last night, I went straight to the bathroom and threw up. When I returned, D. had his head phones on, listening to his computer, completely oblivious I threw up everything I ingested. After all we've been through, how can he be that imperceptive? I think it's a man thing. Our current T. seems just as stolid. (I'll get hell later for writing that.)

We're spiraling down fast, and I just need the world to know that it hurts, it sucks, and I can't tolerate much more. We have no answers and the well-rehearsed smiles can no longer triumph. It's a sad face we wear these days.

I hate myself.

Winning the fight, losing the war.

I've finally got a moment of privacy to jot some thoughts down, or more like questions down. Though not possessing a headache from Satan today, we've still not fared well. I don't know what to write about or where to begin.

Maybe I can write about posing for the toilet bowl twice today, or maybe I can write about being too exhausted and out of breath to stand and fold laundry, or maybe I can write about not exercising and feeling so G*d d*mn fat that suicide looks appealing. Oh,oh, oh!! I know!! I can write about how we prostituted our soul to D. today, (the husband) and violated our own *no sex* rule.

Not working out today has really thrown me into a funk. I feel dirty, fat, worthless, and damaged. Food is dirty and has made me dirty, which is one reason I had to get rid of it. The other reason being I can't get fatter. We are tentatively scheduled to enter a partial hospitalization program on Tuesday, but the anxiety is high and I don't know if we will acquiesce to our own demise by letting them fatten us up. A lesser program is more, shall we say, appetizing. As I write that, the more logical and healthy voices of reason speak to me. I do not shut them out, because I know their words are true, but it's too late for us now.

All the time health care professionals told me recovery couldn't be sustained at a low weight I wouldn't believe them and figured my body was just different. I said we were different and we could recover and still be anorexic, so I ignored their advice.

But now we've had an epiphany, a light bulb moment! I understand it now, although it doesn't change my mind. However, it puts me into the position of MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE one day letting go and giving in to the pros. You see, when we got out of residential treatment, we were normal weight; still acting out with symptoms occasionally, but a normal weight nonetheless. As the last two months have dwindled by, we've dwindled down. I always argued that we could due trauma work and stick to a meal plan while being what they consider underweight. I've proved my own d*mn self wrong.

As we've lost weight, we've lost hope and our desire for recovery. Losing five pounds wasn't enough. Losing ten pounds wasn't enough. Eating three meals a day was too much. Then, eating two meals a day was too much. The game plan has changed, as everyone professional that we ignored said it would. It has consumed us again sheerly because ED is sneaky and lays his snares and traps and lures us in pound by pound. I finally get it. I finally know why I should have let it all go and let the professionals help me, instead of micro-managing our recovery.

But just because we now realize that you can't be super skinny and underweight and be in recovery doesn't mean we've accepted recovery on Recovery's terms. ED has us trapped and whipped. All his commands and demands have to be met or we won't know what to do; all hell will break loose and we'll lose control and be dirty, fat and dirty. Even with a BMI that suggest being underweight and hunger pains that satisfy self-harm urges, it's still brings us to a hopeless and helpless fork in the road.

We try to wiggle free from ED's grasp, knowing now everyone else was right, but we can't escape. I venture to say some want to get free, but others can't fight the good fight. It's bollocks, as Victoria would say.

So what do we do on Tuesday when the hospital we've been incarcerated in so many times expects us to eat a big fat plate of food and we don't want anything to do with it? Last year we went head to head with these people. I hear Erin asking me the same pernicious question, "Rebecca, do you REALLY want to be in treatment?", as if every single patient there was doing jumping jacks over having the opportunity to eat fattening, cheesy lasagna swimming in orange grease. Pardon us for having an eating disorder. No we don't want to be there. Do we want an ED for the rest of our lives? Hell to the No. Does our will to recovery wax and wane like the ocean's tide? Hell to the Yes. What will we do on Tuesday? Time will tell.

My Cousin Skinny

Wondering what's on my mind? Only an anorexic could turn a movie title into a reference for being small and tiny and skinny.

The ability to write coherently has vacated me. Perhaps it has something to do with the all-day migraine removing all capacity from me. I've written a post several times but keep deleting it because I can't find the right words or thoughts. So, I'll just keep it simple today.

The alters have been very busy today. I can feel them coming and going, cycling rapidly. I have one alter who, when present, puts so much pressure behind my eyes that I just want to beat my head against the wall; other members I can just sense, but this one member is very protuberant, which is why I have a migraine.

Everyone got to do something they wanted today. The littles put more stickers in their sticker book and colored a picture. One of the teens got a new pair of jeans and shirt. Another member downloaded music for her iPod.

Exercise was on the agenda for other members, which amazes me. One, because there was a migraine, and two, because of the food restriction. I think it shows the power of the mind to dissociate and accomplish what needs to be done even under less than ideal circumstances.

As a future English teacher, I would know that articles, writings and postings should have an interesting beginning, an informative middle, and a proper conclusion that sums up the main points and ideas of the writing. However, since my synapses are dying on their journey to connect to a neuron, I'm just going to fuck it and say

Conclusion. And as the liquor makers of Bartles and James always said, "Thanks for your support."

burn BEFORE reading

i beg of you not to read this post. it's like the children's book about Grover and a monster at the end of the book. Don't be engage in self-harm behavior by reading a post that is nothing short of dull, obtuse, unimportant ramblings.

I warned you. :)


i don't know who I am right now. Seriously. My hands feel real. I feel attached. But I also feel really blank, unaware.

But I also feel something like a secondary emotion; the emotion is fear and it's not mine but is being filtered through me. I don't feel safe inside my skin or mind. I'm literally sitting on the floor of my bathroom, the only place I've ever felt safe. When we were children, some of the littles would sleep in the bathroom because they were too scared to sleep in the bed. It's not my apprehension, but another member is dictating me to blog in the bathroom tonight.

I guess it makes sense. As adults, there is nothing more relaxing than a dimly lit bathroom overdosing on odiferous candles and a hot bubble bath ready to disencumber one from all his or her troubles. But I'm lying on a cold tile floor with a space heater whirring in my ear. Not the same as a bubble bath, but the room itself is what makes it safe.

There is a lot of self hatred brewing inside; i don't know where it comes from. it's irritability, a consequence of inadequate nutrition. although if you are viewing the main page you will see the widget recording we have gone four days with no purging or self harm. exercise is not included in that number nor restrictive meals, so it's only half a victory.

as am i, this day also was: nothing special. our "bank of knowledge" and collective memory tells me that we took the girls to school today, came back and fell asleep and woke up fifteen minutes before our therapy appointment. but we scrambled, grabbed our gym bag, and ran out the door.

therapy has been very...what's the word...peculiar this week. (We go 3x's a week for now.) Yesterday and today we've played some type of game instead of just sitting and having our usual interview-like sessions. Tuesday it was Uno and today it was a board game. at first some members were glad and some mad at wasting time or not being able to really talk about heavy issues, as if they ever do anyway ( I hear fighting in the head as a result of that comment.) To Randy's (our T.)credit or not, an important and strategic move has come about by playing games. Randy is established as a real person, a human, an individual with feelings, and someone with whom we can let go of our "proper" facade. I guess I'm just trying to say the whole process is much easier when you can relax with your T. and sit on the floor and play a game of cards. And it brings the littles out.

Randy didn't know it today but one of our eleven year old alters was watching, wanting to jump in, but feeling the game a little too complicated. She was pretty frightened, not of the game, but just the outside world. She's very damaged but I would love for her to come out and play. She just needs to take that leap of faith. But I can't really ask her to do that, or at least I wouldn't feel right asking her. She's so damaged. But perhaps if she knows she has bodyguards and that nothing bad will happen she will do more than peek over shoulders.

Tomorrow we receive an evaluation for an Intensive Outpatient Program. I'm not looking forward to this because I feel I'm walking into a set-up. I'm probably just being paranoid but this is at a psych hospital and when we've been evaluated there before we were put inpatient, even though we thought we would only be admitted to the IOP. We're not skinny and we are physically healthy and not actively suicidal, so there is really no chance that they would recommend in-patient. The answer's "no" if they try.

I must admit that there will be battles ahead. Say I'm in the IOP, I can guess they will want me to at least maintain and I'm not down with that. Hell to the NO!@!
I'm trying to work my schedule out, also, to be able to fit in my workout routine. The IOP starts at 10:30, I believe, and goes to 3:00. There's a second one that lasts longer and goes to 7:00. Either way, I can get my work out in early in the morning. If, and it's a BIG as me if, that I stay till 7:00, I could probably workout as well, it just wouldn't be as long. But I could make up for it in the morning by working out before group and after group.

When I hear this crazy, shit talk in my head I also hear the flip of it and how the weight isn't important and it's about the abuse and the abuse and food are directly related. we've made that connection and can't go back on it. it's a reality. and we can't help the littles or each other by downplaying or down right ignoring that the ONLY way to get healthy physically and mentally is to let go of the food and weight and focus on the internal world. I know we really want to get better. This is the time. Deserving or not, I can't stand dying like this anymore.

well, i'm going to call this post a wrap. i wish i had something poetic or poignant or motivating to offer the readers. My life is dull. I hear laughter in my head, I guess because it's not true. It's always crazy and always messy and we are always high maintenance. Something is always forgotten or missed. We need to stop comparing our blog to others. We write about the ups and downs of everyday recovery and relapse. We don't always have a theme, and that's just the way it is.

I've rambled way too long and most of you are beginning to nod off at this point in the post, if you've made it this for. Congratulations, but promise me you won't indulge in anymore self-harm anymore by reading the posts of mine that are this boring.

one alter down, missing in action

p.s.
as this was being typed, more images of old times came raining down

Once in a blue moon.

It rarely happens, like a blue moon, but occasionally I'll have those off days where I/we actually get items on our "to do" lists accomplished. Today was one of those days. I guess what really happens is that I let all my shit pile up and up and up until I can't take it anymore, even my dogs beg for me to clear the clutter, and so we finally get busy.

Actually, it's not that bad, but I do procrastinate. However, today I unloaded the blasted dishwasher and reloaded, took our "daughters" to school, folded all the laundry AND, THIS IS KEY, we even put it away. I made a run to the grocery story (scary), gave myself a pedicure (I put the paint on tomorrow), washed, dried, and flat-ironed my long, thick, curly hair (no inconsequential task). We journal ed (more about that later), worked out at the gym, saw our T., and check voice mail.

For us, that's a lot, considering most of our days have consisted of us afraid unable to get out of bed, tied to Will and Grace or Pride and Prejudice.

It occurred to us after the fact that the reason we might have accomplished a few things was because we weren't switching. I know one member was out earlier and in our therapy session, but we haven't been cycling through our Rolodex of alters as we usually do (until later. More to come.) So I'm wondering if there is a correlation, and, if there is, then that should speak volumes to us about cooperation and collaboration. If we can get through life without clawing and fighting to get out and present in the world, then there is so much we can achieve. But if we are in contentions, fighting, shoving and pushing each other out of the way, then nothing will be accomplished except frustration leaking down through to each member.

But there is a caveat to this, an inexplicable pattern that has just now been picked up on. There was no switching until just an hour or so before D. (spouse) came home. I guess it was around 2:30 pm when I started noticing shifts; along with the shifts came images and the smallest of recalls and memories. It was disconcerting, but nothing I couldn't handle. Then the shifts and images started growing in intensity up until the time D. came home. At that point, there was a takeover, a hostile takeover. I was aware of the controlling alter and locked the body inside the bedroom to try to deal. An overriding need to journal was manifest. I'm afraid to go back and read what is in the journal because I don't think it was good. In fact, it made me hyper-vigilant, easily startled, jumpy, and extremely fearful.

There's new info in that bloody journal.

So we conferenced, safe placed, contained, tranq'd, and, voila, we got ready for the chore of eating dinner.

So this has happened before...the increasing of shifts in the afternoon. I don't know if it's because D. is coming home or I know dinner is on the horizon and I don't want to it and I'm being triggered.

Whatever the case, we realized two things:

1) We REALLY do work better when we work collaboratively. We were always told that but realized it for ourselves today.

2) We need more communication as to why the shifts have of lately been getting stronger in the afternoon. Is it D. or is it dinner or neither?

To be continued...
...unless we procrastinate, then it won't be continued. :)

Living and dying in 2 different worlds

The moonlight offers her condolences on such a dark night. How did she know? Why don't more people know? If they did, would it matter?

I haven't posted lately for a couple of reasons. One, I'm tired of hearind my own complaining, whiny voice and the voices of others.

Secondly, I havn't been around for portions of the last few days. I believe it was yesterday that I "came to" purging what I assume was dinner. I went away again and "came to" this morning, not feeling great, but not feeling as depressed as I had previously. I even decided to shower with my expensive Vanilla shower gel and use my Vanilla dry mist oil and my Vanilla butter cream. I only use those things when I feel I deserve it, such as if I feel thin or I worked out or my legs aren't as hairy as they are now. I know: TMI!!! :)

I know I should always treat myself as if I'm deserving and worthwhile and always use my special and favorite products, the shower gels and creams that make me smell and fell good. The other alternative is to marinate in my potty pot. It's so hard to treat myself well when I fuck myself up and I don't lose weight or I go off my restrictive meal plan.

I don't really know how to express myself tonight. I've worked really hard today at using effective coping skills and not just running to the bottle of tranquilizers. There has been so much switching today. I didn't dialogue with them; the thought didn't occur to me, but that would have been effective. I'm not sure why there was so much switching, but I just worked so hard not to run away and to stay present. I did laundry, took a shower, did a search-word puzzle, and went to the gym. Now I'm blogging to cope with the day and the switches.

I still feel very hopeless about the switches and can recall having serious suicidal thoughts this weekend. I'm really not whining or trying to be discontent. But you can't argue with logic or with facts. I think to where I was mentally the summer of 2007 and I ended up in the hospital because of my thoughts. I think back to my state of mind in February of 2008 and I ended up in the hospital. And I look at my thoughts now and they are tiny little replicas of what landed a suicidal maniac in the hospital. It's called hopelssness.

For me, it's more than the D.I.D. or the E.D. individually that trips me up. It's their cunning cooperation with each other that brings me down. I can't cope with them singularly but there seems to be few people that know how to treat someone with both and it feels utterly helpless. My thoughts are getting in the way of what I really want to say. Literally, my head is getting fuzzy.

Bottom line: I don't think anyone knows how to deal with a patient like me...not that I'm anything special, but I'm not sure anyone knows what to do with me at this point.

I'm clueless as to alot of things, but to this I'm sure. I scared to death as to the future. I'm elated that I'll go back to school in August, but so scared of it that I may not make it to August. The very thing that will save me will kill me in the end.

I'm sure of this: I am REALLY ready and willing to let go of the eating disorder. I am ready to deal with the issues behind it. But that presents it's own problem. To deal with the eating disorder, you have to deal with my two alters that have eating disorders, and they need more help, more help, more help.

Lastly, I'm sure of this: At some point, we will die. The thought travels repeatedly through our head. And if a stronger change hasn't happened in us before August, I see a messy repeat that we will not be able to back out of.

Well, that's that. I don't know if it was pretty or coherent, but there it is. Half the time when I go back and read a post I'm wondering what in hell I was thinking or who was out at the time to write such crap, such nonsense.

I'm scared. Oh, God, I'm scared.

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.