Where we've been

We've been back in the hospital. When we got out, we turned our computer on and got a virus. We'll be posting again as soon as things settle down in our head and we get our computer fixed. Take care.

Loss for words....

but I'll try anyway.

I'm empty and blank inside and outside. I have no words to say. I've lost a big chunk of time today and have the new clothes and shoes show it. Someone else was out and bought us clothes. I just hate not being present.

It's been a while since I blogged. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to get back. It's not due to business. Although I'm still in the partial hospitalization program, I'm starting this week to scale back. So instead of being there 10:00 to 7:00, I will hopefully get approval to start leaving at 5:00. This is beneficial in two ways. My healthy side says I can go home and eat dinner with D. The unhealthy, anorexic voice looks at it as a means to go work out, eat a late dinner, and not eat evening snack.

A part of me is ready to leave the program., I just don't know where to go from here. There's only so much I can glean from the groups with is not therapy in any type of way. Therapy does not take place at this hospital. At the most, you meet with your case worker once a week. They are given me extra sessions by an Intern, but I really like her and feel trust with her; however, as I scale back on the time there I don't know how often she will meet with me. I would like to meet with my dietician so I can know if I'm eating to much or not enough.

I've spent my time reading everyone elses blogs. Seems like every one is going through something. Being D.I.D. means there is always something on our radar.

One of my roommates that I got really close to in the hospital has left. I haven't called her. I despise speaking on the phone. A bet a card would be really nice. Everything in life seems like just a horrendous chore.

I did good yesterday. One of my alters was out with my and we made two desserts. Of course we gave them away. CAN NOT have dangerous food in the house. (more on that later) So T. and I made something called a Dump Cake and the second was a fabtabulous, sweet chocolate cake. I got the recipes of f of The Pioneer Woman. Her blog, though not touching on mental health, is very interesting and entertaining. I got a lot of good recipes from her. I have alters that love to cood, which dratstically crashes with the other alters that don't want to eat food, much less the fat and calories that are laden in their diet. As a result, we are letting D. take them to wok so there won't be temptations in the house. Besides, it wasn't about the final product; it was about cooking and releasing the creative juices. It felt fun. We've decide to order the Vegetarian Times magazine. Maybe we'll get some healthy, creative ways to cook without meat.

I feel hungry and that makes me happy. It means we've had a caloric deficit and that usually leads to weight loss. I made it to the gym yesterday but working out was hard. I felt tired, lethargic, and like I couldn't continue. But I make myself. Working out helps me feel clean inside, and erases the dirtiness surrounding me that food seems to cause.

I'm trying to hold my head high. I've put more into my recovery than I ever have before; however, I feel like I've created a house of cards. My recovery is that delicate and easily toppled.

Even though I'm dissociative, most of my parts are pro-recovery as well. However, the troubles from the past and the seeming inability to find work weigh heavy on my mind. I ask around and nobody is hiring. I don't have to work, but it would sure help, not just financially, but emotionally. I need to feel productive and like I am a success at my job.

Well, for being at a lost for words, I feel like I said too much.

Will someone please look for me?

Indulge me. I have no words, feelings, or emotions, so I will have to ramble on and hope that some reaction to life is forthcoming. I feel stuck in this dead zone where I don't have the option to live and I don't have the right to die. It's a pretty miserable condition. I worry for myself. I worry that life will overtake me and consume me. I volunteer that "ideas" have found me tonight, knowing there would be a silence in my soul to exploit. And it fills the silence so beautifully.

I'm not working out, as per the treatment team. It's been two days without exercise, but tomorrow I give in and I'll take myself to the gym. I eat all day in the Partial Hospitalization Program, so working out shouldn't be that big of a deal. Besides, I still wonder if I have an eating disorder. Stupid, isn't it? How far down should my weight drop, how many times must I experience chest pain while working out, and how many times must I listen to the experiences of other ladies before I start taking things seriously? Is this how far I've gotten: letting the eating disorder talk me into believing I don't have a problem?

I've struggled with an eating disorder for over twenty years; how can I reasonably conclude my eating isn't skewed and I do have an eating disorder?

I feel sad, unloved, lonely, and scared.

I know my parts are channeling through me. We purchased a new journal that is way cooler than the one we were using. True, it doesn't have the cool black paper we wanted. but this one is fun too.

I'm feeling a lot of self-loathing. I really want to cut, and just putting it out there makes me want to do it more. It's a last resort when every other coping mechanism is shut down. I would like to see the blood well up from the satisfying division of flesh. It's been almost a month since we've cut. This is a dangerous subject.

Just reiterates that we are hopeless. There will always be another self-destructive ploy, so my eating disorder is stolen by them and all I have is cutting. Can't see beyond the scars. I am blind to what all can be found in life. I'm too scared to test the water. I just might drown.

I keep hoping we'll wake up to life, that we'll have a big epiphany and it will make everything better. Yes. As the littles would say: kiss our boo boos. They deserve better than me. I love them dearly. Even got a mini Teddy Grahams in one of the boxes with a handle. They like those special little things. Sad part is the eating disorder parts won't let them have Teddy Grahams or those Princess Graham Snacks. They loved eating them in residential treatment, but now the eating disorder parts will only let them carry around the box with the handle. It makes my heart sad that fun-loving children are denied food.

Another voice says, "So what. We were denied love by the f-ing parents."

I can't argue with that.

Cooking up a big pot of amnesia..

I'm a little bit unsettled after seeing the movie Bride Wars. It wasn't the movie itself that bothered me; it was that D. insisted I had taken our god-daughters already to see the movie. I went over it back and forth in my mind and felt adamant that I hadn't seen the movie. Even as the movie was being played I tried to see if I could remember a scene here or a scene there.

After the movie I phoned my god-daughters to see if they could remember seeing the movie. C. gave me a play by play of the movie and said I took her and her sister. I remember none of that.

I'm scared.
Week 1 in PHP went fairly well. We begin week 2 tomorrow. I do fine while I'm there. I eat 100% of my meals and snacks. It's when we're not there that causes a problem. Behaviors run unchecked and I act like an ass.

The weekend has been pivotal for myself and my husband, D. It has just been relaxing and we've had some good talks about my D.I.D. and the eating disorder. I've always told people he is supportive and caring. But this weekend he astounded me of how supportive he really is. We were able to talk and let him inside the dark halls in our mind. We openly talked about D.I.D. and what that means for him, me, and us. He helped us at the grocery store when we were going to get a possible binge food and he lovingly and gently asked if I was really sure if I wanted to buy it. He helped me make the decision for myself which was not to buy the food that could set me up for a binge.

This weekend has brought me the satisfaction of cooking. I made a delicious cake and had a little taste. I love to cook; I stopped cooking because it just got to be too much for me. I couldn't make a list of the grocery items I would need and couldn't manage going into the grocery store because I would be completely overwhelmed. I would stare at the apples for fifteen minutes trying to get the one that looked okay to purchase.That's a mild case of the anxiety that hits me up hard every day. Now D. and I go shopping together so it's less anxiety provoking.

I would like to start cooking meals again; now there is no reason to really cook since I won't eat the food. It pains me to see others enjoying their food. The whole time they are eating I study them to find out how come they aren't upset over the calories or that they'll turn into one big mass of fat.

Projection? Maybe. Nevertheless, I envy people who can intuitively eat. My eating has always been disordered: over 20 years. I don't know what it's like to eat food and not obssess over the calories and fat content. I've been chained too long in my eating disorder. I don't know where I went wrong or what I did. I just don't get "it". Makes me very sad.

Sigh and sigh alone

Potential triggers: Read with caution.



I hadn't planned on posting today, but the urge hit me, so here we are. I'm exhausted physically and mentally. Still in PHP. I sigh because things aren't going the way I want for my recovery. We've been doing well up till now when we are starting to be non-compliant. It's baffling, but so is my eating disorder. We were 100% compliant with the meal plan while in-patient; now that we are responsible for evening snack and breakfast we can't seem to get "it" together. Having poor body image sucks. I know others can relate. Life would be so much easier if we could eat healthy but not gain weight. Pardon the pun, but I want my cake and to eat it to. Why can't I have it all? In this case, I can't and that has to be a reality. I must choose recovery and try to get everyone on board with the plan.

So we've noticed weight gain. Clothes fit differently. The hollows of the cheek are now filled in. We aren't as weak and dizzy as we were before. This is preached about as progress. It sure as Hell doesn't feel that way. I don't know where to go from here. If I'm in recovery I need to stop listening to my inner critics. The truth of all truths is that I hate the way my body is shaped. The weight never goes to my chest, but it settles all along my ass, thighs, and hips. I hate it. How can I love something so offensive? How will I every get better?

There are at least two members that have the eating disorder. I would bet money that they are the ones perforating me with negative comments. I can't hate them; they are coping the only way they know how. But I feel the 2 and 1/2 weeks I spent in patient they were more "inside" and they only criticized. Now that we are out and have more freedom, the alters have rebounded and are exerting their influence over our food by restricting. I've tried to talk with them, allow them to use the journal; I don't know what to do anymore.

What can I say? We are a work in progress, and there's no shame in that. Times like these I abhor myself and hate myself for even breathing. I feel like a screw up and can't find anything nice to say to myself. I can't counter the intrusive thoughts. I get angrier at the fact that I've lost time. So many gaps during the day. Pardon the pun...again....but my plate is full, full of hateful words and libel accusations. I hate myself and I don't know why. I want this post to be over with. And so it shall.

Excuse me! I know you how?

Not once, not twice, but three times today did somebody say they knew me and I have no recollection of them. This is quite a disconcerting feeling. Granted, all three ladies were in the same support group for eating disorders, and, according to the three amigos, they say they were all in treatment with me last Spring. I hate this feeling. It's almost like being out of control because you, rather I, don't remember these people from Adam. This isn't the first time it has happened. Several years ago I ran into someone and they asked me how I was doing and to give his or her best to my "parents." Again, I didn't know this man from Adam.

It is one of the worst feelings in the world; it's almost an embarrassment because people remember me but I don't them. It almost seems rude. In any event, I could have met the Pope last Spring and not have remembered. I was struggling so much over my eating disorder that I was never well and didn't have brain cells to remember them.

I have a new but relatable crisis on hand. I'm losing pieces of time. I'm in a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) and I find myself not remembering group therapy or not remember if I had my snack or not. I lined up today to go to lunch and was informed that we had lunch five hours before and we were going down to dinner. It's embarrassing and dehumanizing. That's the only way I can describe it.

To make thing at least a little more difficult, there is an alter that has been dominating time outside and I am not sure why this alter is there. Was she chosen? Did she volunteer? I don't have the answers. All I can say is that this alter has made my life in PHP dreadful. Her words get jumbled and tongue tied, She never can relate the point she wants because she loses her thoughts and she can't articulate anything. This has only been a new problem. I don't know who this alter is. I'm trying to get to know her by tuning in to what she's doing and leaving the door open for any communication. I don't know what else to do. I don't hate this alter, but I hate how we look to the outside world, at least my therapy groups. We look ignorant, stupid, and like what we have to say is invaluable. This must be a new alter that hasn't "come out" yet.

We've been doing so good with our meals. Some actually enjoy going to the hospital cafeteria. Seems silly but it puts a smile on my face. So, yes, we've been doing better, at least when we were inpatient. We completed 100% except one snack. Now that we are in PHP, we have to take care of eating breakfast and evening snack. To be honest, we haven't had it in the three days we've been PHP. I am reminded of last year and how miserable we were. I don't ever want to go back there.

I'm too scared to go forward and staying behind in my eating disorder is not an optional. But some of my behaviors act as if it is an option.

My thoughts are starting to crumble. I'm crashing into the calming, wonderful world of sleep meds. The ultimate escape.

Ramblings of an unquiet mind

I've let my friends down. I've let myself down. I've let my members down. I can preach up and down the Mississippi River but none of it matters if I don't head my own advice. The truth is I am non-compliant with my meal plan. Just my evening snack and breakfast is all I am missing, but even that is too much. I did so well in the hospital. I completed 100% every day, every meal, every snack. I didn't have to be supplemented once. But now that I'm in the Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP), I am responsible for my own snack and breakfast and I've failed miserably to eat it. In fact, my stomach is growling and empty and I like it a lot. Hunger pains are my drug of choice.

Perhaps I am being too hard on myself; maybe not. With an eating disorder there is no margin of error, especially if one is underweight. My dietitian says I am still underweight but I only see myself as being disgusting, fat, and ugly. I can give people in my group all the feedback I can, but if I don't heed my own advice what good has come? I know I'm in the wrong; I know I should eat my snack and breakfast; I know to trust the treatment team. But I hate myself more than is possible. I feel ugly.

I know it's so much easier to focus on the food than the real issues at hand. Out of respect for the readers I will neglect elucidating on my "real issues". I just know I feel fat and, while fat may not be a feeling, it sure as hell feels like one. I can tell I've gained weight and I'm not happy with it. With my clothes not fitting loosely anymore, the mirror reflects a person who isn't happy with herself.

I think a migraine is coming on.

Thanks to all of you who e-mailed me or posted a message on my blog. I genuinely and authentically appreciate it.

Take care to all of you who stop by to read how we are missing in sight.

Back from the looney bin!

Watch out world! We are back home. Yeah, me!



We were inpatient for a little over two weeks. I must admit that it wasn't as bad as I had predicted. The group of ladies I was with are phenomenal. We formed a bond so close that it will continue past our time in treatment.



Any way, it's good to be back home and on the computer. Computers were not allowed on the unit so I couldn't keep in touch with other bloggers. I had almost 300 entries that needed to be read!



So, now what do we do with ourselves? Well, we aren't discharged completely. We are doing a partial hospitalization program (PHP) for at least another week. The structure of the hospital made it possible to get our eating back on track. We were 100% compliant the whole time. I know that should be motivation for praise but it's still hard. This is the closest we've ever come to recovery. It's scary and hopeful all the same. I want recovery to stick this time, but something inside me feels differently. It's always the same old push/pull. Part of me wants to get better, part of me doesn't. But I have to fake it till I make it. I always say "Do the right thing and let your heart catch up later." I have to keep trusting my treatment team to make the right decisions for me and in our best interest. Giving up that control makes it scary as hell. I know some where deep inside that is what we need, but there is always another voice to take it's place.



Well, that's all for now. It's good to be back.

Spies in my midst...and he's on my list

After tonight, it may be a short while before I can post again. Right or wrong, good decision or bad, I have agreed to be checked in to the psycho ward on Friday. I am only going to check myself in for D. He is all up in arms that I'm killing myself, whether it's through starvation or downright suicidal gestures. I love D., and that is the only reason I will humiliate myself and be hospitalized again.

I hate this hospital with a unbridled passion. They antagonize me as my I my defiance frustrates them. I have a mutual love/hate relationship among many of the staff there. This is the same hospital that I tried several weeks ago to do their partial hospitalization program and lasted one day. They just bring out the worst in me. I know it will be a knock-down-drag-out-fight with staff members. They do not inspire me to get better, only to say f*ck off to them. So when the plate of food gets put before me and I'm expected to eat their sh*t ala king, I envision it hurled against the wall.

I'm vegetarian, which complicates matters further with these jerks. My last incarceration there I was to put cheese on my veggie burger to "complete" the protein. I asked if they had soy cheese and I was answered with "What? Are you a vegan or something?" I hold back the anger, reply, "no", and five minutes later I am accosted by the dietitian with the "hate to be the bearer of bad news speech, but we don't do vegans." WTF? You don't DO vegans? This amuses me on so many base, depraved levels from which I'll spare you, except to say that looking at her she probably doesn't "DO" anybody. Whatever. I just didn't care at this point except they were frustrating me because I had just told Ms. Clinical Assistant that I wasn't vegan. But, hey, lucky me. Maybe now, I can be "done!!"

What I also find bothersome is that they don't treat, much less recognize, dissociative identity disorder, and I don't know how you can treat the whole of my being without treating the D.I.D. I don't have the eating disorder. I know two members that do, and unless you are willing to deal knowledgeably and patiently with my alters, the eating disorder will go nowhere and we will bump heads again.

I am petrified to go in. I am already crying because I feel trapped. Part of me knows I need the help. The only reason I"m not exercising 2 hours a day is because I can't get out of bed. It was wonderful taking care of O., my god-daughter, because I could turn my attention to her and helping her recover from her sickness. Now she's better, back home with her family, and I have a gaping hole inside of me because I know if I didn't check myself into the hospital then I would still be pulling the horn on the depression chain I'm riding.

But the hospital feels like a wast of time. I have been checked into this hospital I would guesstimate six to eight times. Their format doesn't work for me. But I'll grin and bear it. Naw, I won't grin. I'll snarl and bear it. I can feel my angry alter raising her hackles already at the thought of going back there. She is very protective of those who are damaged, which includes the two with the eating disorder. You don't want to cross T. She will eat you alive, spit you out, chew you up again, and spit you out twice.

There are spies in my midst. I realize with this blog being public, any Joe Blow can read it and I'm fine with that. I want people to read the blog to see how slow and exponentially painful it is to recover from a dissociative disorder and an eating disorder; however, I feel there was a conspiracy by my therapist to share my blog with other members on my treatment team. I would not have approved others on my treatment team read the postings because they don't know me as well as my therapist and can't judge objectively the rantings, ravings, confessions, and downright incriminations I blather on about. So, with that said, I have spies in my midst and my T. is on my sh*t list.

So this might be it. I'll try to get one more post off before I'm handcuffed, strip searched, and pee into a cup for a drug screen. But I make no promises. I'm getting a full body wax in the morning. That'll give the strip search ladies somthing to talk about.

To all the readers, a quick update. Rebeca is no longer around, but the remainder of us are still around and haven't fallen off the far of the earth.

Bad news has reached us and we find ourselves a personified dillemma. The fork in the road offers no good options and we've become silent as the grave. A member is so depressed she has been tethered to the bed for days and can't even garner the energy to shower or brush teeth.

The world has gone black and we fear the darkness. It's not as hard to say goodbye as I thought.

We'll keep you readers updated.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

The Missing In Sight Theme

The Perishers, featuring Sarah McLauchlan

One may think we're alright
We need pills to sleep at night
We need lies to make it through the day
We're not okay

One may think we're doing fine
But if I had to lay it on the line
We're losing ground with every passing day
We're not okay

That's one thing I would never
That's one thing I would never
That's one thing I would never
Say to you.

------------------------------------------------

Music says it best these days. I'm fading out of sight. I am a riddle, a rhyme, a cryptogram. If you can figure me out then you get to keep me. I don't want me, but maybe I'll be a good girl for you and you'll keep me. For now, something is missing and I'm all alone.

I sit with no satifaction. There is no saving what you have forgotten. At least do me the honor of a tear. Maybe someday you'll look up and realize I was really missing. Once I was sacrificed, there was never going back.

Get me out of here. I went willingly but I changed my mind. Once again, the pleas "no" don't mean "no". I ache all over again. I feel it over again. Please, just kill off what they started. We'll close our eyes and no one will ever have to know. Familiar words laced with booze. Fuck them.

I hate this nightmare that confiscates me. The more I try, the less I become.

Something is missing. Children sacrificed. You've forgotten, but I know how unimportant and insignificant we have been. Can't you tell we're gone? Do you even try for me?

I die to know that you could love me. You look at me and I breathe deep, (hoping), but you see right through me because we are missing in sight and it hurts like hell. Please forgive me.

Off my meds = on to a psych ward

So, since I have no psycho-iatrist, I have no meds. Since I have no meds, I am one heartbeat away from being committed to the psycho ward/looney bin/crazy tank. My emotions are all over the range. Sad, content, committed, depressed, excited, hopeless, frantic, ect... I am fighting with D. day and night. Not just verbal fighting but throwing things, explosive outbursts, and an apt to curse him out. Parts of me just can't control it. It builds and builds and builds. Tonight, I took my laptop to the living room to do my computer crap, blog, e-mails, etc... and I'm surprised I didn't hurl my laptop at him.

Instead, I gathered sweet foods in the house, took the carton of ice cream in the bathroom, sat on the floor, ate, and then gave the food to the toilet bowl so it wouldn't be hungry.

It's getting too hard to handle. I don't, don't, don't know if I can make it. Make it to anything or anywhere. My weight continues to slowly decrease. Painfully slow. I wish it would go faster. But never mind that. I had chest pains today. Scared me for the first time because I wasn't working out when they occurred; I was just watching a movie. I find it ironic though that as intense as this relapse is appearing I actually applied for a summer job and have been called in for a mass interview next month. It's at a water park and I would love the job. I spent one summer as a guest at this water park and it was better than going away on vacation. So how cool will it be to work at the water park! I don't know if I'll be in treatment or not, but I'm going to proceed as if I'm not.

I reapplied to my university. I had to withdraw this same time last year because of the eating disorder and I am determined to go back this August. I miss the university setting and I love to learn and read and really want to be a teacher. We have so much to offer our future students, it would be criminal not to finish school and at least try and be a teacher. If it's too stressful, there are other jobs in the school system that would probably suit us just fine.


I came across this quote and found it thought provoking:

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. ~ Tom Stoppard

I don't know what to think of it, but I wanted to include it in my meaningless post. I guess what strikes me is about how we burn our bridges and have nothing to show for our progress but waste and want. It's a rather cynical take on the human condition and trying to get better. Does recovery mean all or nothing? Maybe it should. Anorexia has to be all or nothing. You can't have a little bit of an eating disorder and relinquish some of it, too.

I love quotes and songs and writings. One of my alters stores our words for us and for the past decade has kidnapped all the words that could adequately convey how we feel inside. Sure, we can say we're sad, but the woman with the words could say it in a way that would take your breath away and MAKE you feel through her use of words exactly how we feel and what we are going through. I know she's still around; what I can't figure out is why she isn't as vocal as she has been in times past.

Words from this alter would be just as helpful as meds would be. Words, whether in books or music, are very therapuetic and can save a soul. But I'm usually too zoned out to focus on the book, which is a fear I have of these postings: that they are random and unfocused and hard to follow.

No matter. Don't sweat the small stuff. I can only hope and pray that we'll gain better ground and be focused soon. We have to by August for school. It feels like this time it's all or nothing.

That's alot of pressure to put on ourselves. Gulp.

OUCH! goes the weasel and OFF go the blinders

OMG! So today I had to go to the Dr's office to get the final of three epidurals for my degenerative disc. Though they typically give me I.V. sedation for it, today they couldn't find a vein that would work. Said my veins were too small and not hydrated enough. So my smart-ass husband looks at me grinningly and asks, "Why are they having trouble with your veins NOW?" I knew what he was alluding to. I didn't respond. I don't think he's trying to be a pain; guys are just born that way.

So I'm told from the residential facility that it will be 2-3 weeks before they get a bed available, which, in residential speak, means 4-5 weeks before a bed is available. No problem here. I have to admit the first things my mind goes to is that I can lose more weight before I face having to put it back on. It would just be logical to not lose any more weight because putting it back on is a bitch. Why are we making it harder on ourselves by continuing to gain weight? D. likened us to a heroin or other drug addict right after the intervention but who continues to use all the way up to walking through the doors of treatment. We continue to exercise 2 hours a day, eat small amounts of food, and purge other times and will continue to do so until we walk, if we walk, through the treatment doors. It's not set in stone that we are going to res. tx. There are so many factors involved, especially money. It's a sad commentary when mental health in the Western world is dictated by insurance and mostly out of pocket expense.

So I'm lying on my back wondering how I'll be able to work out tomorrow. Usually the stiffness from an epidural lasts a couple of day, even with ibuprofen.

I'm heartbroken to read some of the blogs I follow through Google Reader and how people are having such a hard time. I feel more compassion for them than for me. My littles really want to color and put stamps in their stamp book but I have very little mental energy to facilitate that for them or ask others in the system to go forth and take care of things. An e.d. will cost you everything. I didn't realize it in treatment last year. I guess I've grown or am able to see things in a different light. My blinders, for the most part, have come off.

Last year in treatment I kept asking my nutritionist if I could just lose a few pounds I would be okay, could she help me do it? I couldn't bear to think of living life in a "normal" body. I now see what that line of thinking has led me to. Every day something else worse happens, i.e., I almost fall of the exercise machine from fatigue, I can't let my spouse see me naked for fear what he will say about my bones, my skinny jeans are now too fat, "safe" foods are becoming risky and rituals worsen, I am sleep deprived, and, worst of all, I am mean and cranky and irritable all because I don't feel well. I am too tired to even speak to my god-daughters. They call through Skype but I reject the call because talking to twin thirteen-year olds is exhausting.

I don't know whether I should sit down and speak with them of the misery of eating disorders, (though know where and why I was gone for the better part of last year...treatment facilities yeah!!! just kidding) so they will think twice before toying with their weight or just skip the subject altogether. C. always wants to look at the fashion magazine and, since she doesn't take ballet anymore, she, at thirteen, worries about her figure and getting back into shape. She seems to eat heartily, although she is now a vegetarian thanks to me. I'm hoping she'll grow out of it. She is just too vulnerable to be messing with her nutrition. And she always comments about how skinny I look and I'm, what SHE calls, a Fashionista. I don't know.

For a long time, anorexia and bulimia helped us out to cope, but not anymore. We don't need it. We've allowed ourselves to be robbed and ruined of what could have been a good life. Decades have been eaten alive, died, and been buried by some disorder or another.

It's just too much to bear.

Becca out

Checking in...checking out

I'm exhausted. It's been a tumultuous weekend and I feel so dirty and unclean. Music is my salvation and is soothing and calming my soul as I type.

Though I have a lot to say, I am going to catch up with other blogs and post comments. I'll fill everybody in at a later point.

Take care and stay safe.

The Crew of Missing in Sight

My Crummy Valentine

I always spoil things good. It's Valentines Day. It is supposed to be a day dedicated to love, Cupid, chocolate, and all things immoral. It's true origin begs to differ. No bother. For me, it is the half year anniversary D. and I always celebrate. Our real anniversary is August 14, but we always celebrate our half years, too, so today we were supposed to exchange anniversary gifts and go out. He had a day planned to go paint pottery and go eat at a restaurant he thought was safe. That's an oxymoron. Is there any "safe" restaurant out there?

Doesn't matter. Me being the good anorexic that I am, I was exhausted, deprived of sleep, irritable, cranky, and rattlesnake-mean. I lay down to pull myself together. A little "me" time. I ended up falling asleep and when I woke up several hours later, I had ruined D.'s plans. Fuck me. I hate me.

However, it is a good lesson. It is so true that when you have an eating disorder you have no other relationships than the e.d. I sacrificed a day with my spouse because I was too exhausted and petulant to go out. So we stayed in and I hate staying in. How do you burn calories just staying in your house under the glare of your husband. So I decided I would eat "normally", whatever the hell that is, so that I could startle my metabolism, kick start it, and shove it into burning calories at a higher rate. My stomach wasn't used to that much food. Made me ill. But I didn't throw up...at least until dinner. I ate dinner and knew as I was eating it I could consume it without worry because I would offer to the porcelain bowl later. And so I did. I consumed two more of those apple dumplings that are so rich you have to be sick.

So I sit here, typing, caught in a purgatory where nothing will make me happy. I just want to drink myself to sleep, wake up tomorrow, and start all over. I've already told D. I'm working out and not to come with me. I can't let him get in the way of my work outs. It's why I hate the weekends. I have to tailor what I do to hide things from him.

By any regard, it looks as if I am going back to residential treatment. I don't know when. I just need to get the finances in order and wait for a bed to open. Reading this blog one would think I don't want recovery but that is far from the truth. I'm being held hostage by this eating disorder and I'm hoping the structure, therapy, and diligence of the nutritionist will help me find my recovery voice again.

I do want recovery. This is no way to live. In August, D. and I will have reached a significant milestone and I want to be healthy and happy when it comes. I deserve better than an eating disorder. My parts deserve better. We don't need to revictimize ourselves and perpetuate the abuse of others by not eating, purging, or over exercising.

Someone inside wants to cook again without repercussions and fallout. Angie wants to go back to school and get back on the President's list. The littles want to color and we presently don't feel happy enough to color.

Not happy enough to color? Imagine a child sitting at her table with crayons and a coloring book but with big, fat, weepy tears woundedly trailing down her sweet face, blurring her vision of the coloring page. That's what my child parts are experiencing.

I found a new album on my iPod. I didn't buy it. I've looked back over the e-mails that iTunes sends and it was purchased last week. It is a rock/alternative album. The lyrics are about death and suicide. I can only imagine one of my teens purchased it or my suicidal alter. It is very disconcerting when they pull stunts like that.

I shouldn't be judgemental. We are all going through the shit. We just need to hang on. Please, help us hang on. We need to get to treatment soon. I hear voices in my head say, "What does it matter", but it does matter. It has too. I found more patches. Someone is stockpiling them.

I feel so split, severed, and separated from my internal family. Disconnected and broken. Detached and disjointed. It's my fault. I'm not dialoguing with parts. There is no internal communication. The only writing taking place is what is put in the blog. I have only myself to blame. But I can get back. I close my eyes and click my heels three times and chant, instead of "There's no place like home," I chant "It will get better, it will get better, it will get better."

I'm so tired; I can be nothing but done.

"It will get better. It will get better. It will get better." click, click

Death by Self, Death by Sugar, Death by Men, Death by Tradition

I think I'm dying. It's a familiar feeling, one I've danced with most of my life. More often I wanted to die than not; now, I don't know what I want.

My psycho-iatrist fired me. Said I belonged in-patient, needed to be locked up, and since I left the outpatient program AMA he wouldn't treat me. Nothing makes you feel as hopeless and helpless as a psycho-iatrist firing you. I don't think I could be any lower than I am right now.

I've no plans of finalizing the deal, but I have "a go" in place in case I need it. A plan, you ask? You could say a plan, but there are no details or time frames. Just a means and a desire; does that count?

I hate myself every second of every day and I find comfort nowhere. There is no hope I can scrape together to force a smile. I could call my therapist, but he's clueless as to how to treat me, us, them, whoever the fuck lives here. Every second that dwindles by elongates into eternity. I'm so fucking hungry but I'm not allowed to eat. Repercussions. It's hell. I would say it can't get worse, but Dante had seven layers of hell and I'm sure I'm about to explore each one.

I'm bitter and irritable. I spaz at every comment thrown my way. I need help. I need hope. I need.

We finally cooked today. Tina made these apple dumplings to die for. Just two of them made me sick so I had to eat four so I could more easily throw them up. D. knew what I was doing because he commented on it when I emerged from the bathroom as if I was taking a shower the whole time. I just don't get why he doesn't bust the door down and make us stop, but, then again, it is within our power to stop purging. We just haven't done it yet. I don't understand why we're not dead yet. We worked out for 1 and a half hours straight today. Didn't eat till dinner and dessert and threw it all up. How are we still standing?

I lost sight of the point. It felt really good to be back cooking. I used to cook all the time. My specialty were chocolate chip cookies and nobody could make them like I could. It wasn't your average Nestle Toll House recipe. Everyone who had these cookies said they were the best. I loved baking. I don't know why it was always preferable. It certainly is more exact. There is no margin of error when baking.

I remember my first foray into baking/cooking. I was going to make pancakes but didn't have a recipe, so I made one up. I think I was around ten years old. The pancakes didn't turn out well. I didn't know I needed a leavening agent, so the pancakes were a little on the flat side. I only used milk and flour. The brother, ass*ole, made fun of me and my pancakes and called them flatjacks instead of flapjacks. But the ass*ole didn't mind eating up all of my delicious creations. In fact, the porker is still wearing food I cooked decades ago. Ass*ole.

I hate him. About a month ago I saw him for the first time in a year and he reached out as if he was going to hug me. I'm like: what the hell? Why start to hug me now after years bad blood? All I could do is freeze like a little girl. He said, "Don't you want to hug me?" I said, "I didn't think you would want a hug." I haven't spoken with him since. I don't know what he was thinking or what kind of relationship he wants. I hope he feels good and damn sorry for making my childhood a living, walking hell.

Now I need to find a new "thing" to cook. I've got cheaters in the cabinets: mixes for cookies and brownies. Those aren't fun. Cooking from scratch is fun, but the others don't know how to contain themselves with the finished product. We've thrown so much food away because they don't know how to eat in moderation or eat and not feel guilty.

What will we do on V-day when D. gets us chocolate? There are warring groups inside: those that feel they can eat it and be okay (non eating disorder side) and another group that knows the food will be purged (eating disorder side).

Back in December, the non-e.d. side order over $50.00 in truffles from a company in California called Sees Candies. The non-e.d. side thought nothing of it. They felt in control. However, when the chocolate got here, some of it was eaten, purged, but the rest was thrown out in the trash. $50.00 literally down the drain and in the trash.

When I started this post I felt like I was dying. Truth be told and rediscovered, death has had a grip on us since we were babies, babies, babies, when men thought it was okay to mess with a five year old.

Why mess with tradition? Death hasn't come for us yet, but it can't be long this time. It just can't be. Like Sylvia Plath, whom I always quote, she wrote she had nine times to die. I think I'm on 8 1/2.

I'm once, twice, three times a purger...

I lied. I've actually purged four times today. I hate Sundays. There is no structure. D. is home and hovering and watching what I eat. I had the merciful luck that he went and worked outside in the yard. I ate just a little and up it came. It wasn't like I was binging. I was just eating a little then purging it. I can't stand the feeling of food in my body. Not working out only makes it worse. Drenched in sweat, I feel I'm cleansing myself of all the literal and psychological filth that paints me dirty and leprous. But the feeling after I workout, though sick and wobbly, is one of elation. I feel clean and pure and absolutely wonderful.

I'm getting sicker. I say that for the erudition of my fellow bloggers. My T. gets this blog in an e-mail, but what I write is not and never will be for him.

So we saw "Rachel Getting Married" at the movies last night. My suicidal alter loved it. Over all, it wasn't a great film; the editing was pathetic and the cinematography was nauseating. Between the close ups and the hand held camera walking all over the place it had a strong documentary feel that just fell short. But one of my teens that is suicidal loved Anne Hathaway's portrayal of an addict getting out of rehab after ten months. My alter felt she was in the right skin.

Which makes me wonder for each alter. How do they feel about sharing the body? Do they all seek to find fictional skins and outer structures to embody; are they clawing to escape and feel they can escape to a world where it's just them? I know B.K., my suicidal teen, is in a mess these days and I'm not sure she grasps the idea if she kills herself she kills us all.

Her response is how frustrating and claustrophobic it makes her. I guess she does understand the lack of separation between self and state. How sad for her. Her one comfort in the world, death, is a punishment for the rest of us. At least the littles can deal with their sadness with their sticker book and drawing and hide-a-pictures. One of the teen shops on-line, but she is beginning to understand finances and has stopped spending, although like some window shops, she screen shops b/c she shops on-line. So many alters not feeling comfortable coming out.

So my heart hurts and I've been wanting to cry for a few days but nothing happens. There is nothing to pinpoint that makes me want to cry.... I take that back. There were a couple of highly charged items we journaled about but the writing was robotic. It was from our Public Relations alter who seldom shows emotion. Lord knows the other alters are trying to push it away, stuff it down through restriction and purging.

This lifestyle just doesn't work anymore and I want to get marathon treatment for this relapse because, come August, I'm back in school. School can either be a savior or an enemy. The pressure, the pressure, the pressure. I need to be in tip-top shape to be strong enough for school. And maybe this we won't cry at getting a B. I long for school. I'm at home at school.

I'm growing irate and irritable with myself while I'm writing out this post. Yes, g*d dam*it, I have alters contributing. why let that bother me? Because I'm not reaching any emotion. I am so damn robotic. So empty, so blank. I've always been blank, their shadow, their mouthpiece to the world. Taken advantage of in my role. I deserve to cry. I deserve to feel and meld with my alters. I'm tired of being on automatic and programmed. I need more.

I do, I do, I do want more. How would you know it from today? I will get better. You wouldn't know if from today. I'm sure there will be more days like this. But I have to get better. I'm shriveling up inside, dying more and more each day. I wonder if anyone understands how I try. I just can't do this on my own. I can't do this here. I can't do this with out self sacrifice.

I just want a tear. I'll fell better if I can conjure up a tear.

Can anyone help me? Feedback if you could. I'm so heavy in the heart; it won't be long.

Sad

D. And I are at the mall before we go see the movie, Rachel Getting Married. Everyone at the mall seems so normal. They walk around drinking fattening coffee drinks and munching on delicous smelling pretzels. I'm so jealous. My life is so so out of control. But I still feel day and worry over my calories, even though I worked out for an hour and purged lunch. I don't want to do this anymore. I deserve more out of life. I don't want to be afraid of food.
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To be, or to be better. How is the question.

Do we ever face more than one crossroads in our life? I'm at one now, several actually.



Meeting with our T. today provided a reason for us to stop and take pause. There are many unanswered questions where he is concerned and I, myself, don't know where to take this.



For starters, another eating disorder program bites the dust. The PHP we began on Tuesday elicited some, shall we say, combative behaviors from us, and we were told in certain terms to shape up or we'd be put in-patient. We shaped up all right; shaped up and out the same day. Not having that shit. We will not be incarcerated behind lock doors at a facility that can't help us and could teach the Gestapo (for a grave lack of a better word) a thing or two. My apologies to those I've offended by the reference. Bottom line, I lasted one day in the PHP. Now, we up to our old tricks, which isn't necessarily good or healthy.



So the question on the treatment team's mind is, "What do we do with her? Lock her away? Make her see her T. 3-4 times a week? Maybe she is untreatable and we just medicate her sorry ass into a coma-like state. Maybe we could go all the way and kill her off."



My vote was for the latter, but I don't seem to count. I guess when you fuck up so many times you become less and less deserving. At least that's the feeling of the moment: undeserving. There will be a new mood shortly. Our emotions and moods are set to a metronome and rhythmically pace back and forth.



Several items of interest were brought up with Dr. Therapist. First, whether he is an appropriate T. for us. Can he really lead us to the Promised Land? The pendulum swings provocatively with the answer. He doesn't specialize in trauma or D.I.D. He says he has, and I paraphrase, a good amount of experience working with adolescents with eating "issues." Which made me wonder why he kept saying "issues", why not say eating disorder or anorexia or bulimia? But whatever, I don't subscribe to the ideology that one's T. must be an expert in the field in order to treat one effectively. I posit one must have complete trust in the T. , have a sound working relationship, and be able to let oneself go in the idea the T. will help pick up the pieces when you are on the floor, writhing in pain and your own messy tears.

It's the last part that makes me sad. We've never been able to let go and get down, dirty, and messy with any T. but our residential T. That makes me sad and frightened. Now, we live in a metropolitan city, replete with T., I hope are competent, so it may just be that we haven't found the right fit.

To be sure, I don't want to change T. But if I have to be totally honest, we aren't pushed hard enough. I find in disconcerting that the changes we've made and the work we've done and the education we've received regarding our inner world all came in just a couple months of residential treatment. We've been with our current T. for 3-4 years (not good with dates) and we didn't learn as much. We need more from him than his obtuseness and his fumbling around for ideas on how to treat us while we do down in flames. We are losing time and ground. Daylight is burning. The body isn't twenty years old anymore. We need to see real progress under his care.

It's been my contribution over and over that T. doesn't listen to us. I've had huge fights with T. about his not listening but, of course, he didn't listen to that.

And I find it very telling that littles were able to come out and tell parts of their story to our res. T. and to the res. group than they have with our current home T.

The last thing I'll say over the "should I/shouldn't I" find a new T. is a comment he made today that leads me to still believe he just doesn't get it. Again, the conversation was regarding whether to reenter residential treatment. T. wants me to do all the work here. See him more often, throw a dietitian into the soup, do assignments, and "build" on what I did in residential treatment. First of all, doesn't T. have assignments or ideas of his own on how to treat us without cheating and looking at the assignments and work completed in Res. Treatment?

Secondly, he brought up a comment we have made many, many times before. The comment is basically that we would rather be sick so we can get attention. What can I say? I'm pathetic.
But the more I thought about it the more it stuck in my craw. Anyone with an eating disorder knows how fucking miserable it is. We're done with it. I can't say some are committed more than others, but we know we need help and realize how important at this point to listen to a treatment team....at least one that you trust. What a low blow to say fundamentally say res. treatment is contraindicated b/c we want/need attention. Excuse the fuck out of us for never receiving anyone growing up and trying to make up for it now. BUT I will say this, there is nothing comforting or soothing about the attention you get in an eating disorder or trauma program. My res. treatment was nothing but hard work and tears and bad moods. For me to suggest the possibility of going back can ONLY indicate how much we're hurting and how desperate we've become.

We hid the patches. Ha ha ha!

Lastly, T. also argued that we couldn't live in res. treatment all our life. Well, whoopty-freaking-duh!!! When did we ever see that as an option? We gave our cons as being away from D. and god-daughters. We don't want to go to res. treatment, but we also don't want to live like this ever again. Enough. But being so determined here in Georgia doesn't mean it can be done on our own, even with excessive therapy appts., dietitian, and Dr. psycho-iatrist.

So, we're at a crossroads in so many ways. How do we know what to do? Go to res. treatment, stay home and continue treatment with current T., stay home and find new T., just say fuck it all and spend another two hours straight on the elliptical? I don't have the answers, but I sure didn't like leaving the T. office today more screwed than I already am.

When I think on these matters it makes me feel so utterly hopeless and helpless. D. is convinced we will kill ourselves. He's resigned to that fact. I don't want that to happen. I just want to feel better.

So sue me if the only place we felt better and hopeful was in res. treatment. As Timmons said in Dances With Wolves, "Put that in your book."

How to Save a Life

I don't know what to say or how the last twenty-four hours have been. I know we're in deep and will rely on song lyrics to say what we might say if only we could. Anything bold or in italics is our own and does not beling to the songwriter.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spend all your time waiting for a break that would make it okay.
There's always some reason to feel not good enough.
And it's hard at the end of the day.

Let me be empty, and weightless and maybe I'll find some peace tonight.

It don't make no difference, escaping one last turn
It's easier to believe.

Sarah McLachlin

Fed up with my destinty
This place of no return
Think I"ll take another day
And slowly watch it burn
Doesn't really matter how the time goes bye
(Amanda Marshall)

It always ends in the sorrowest of goodbyes.

You're a mystery
Always running wild
Like a child without a home

You're such a secret
Misty eyed and shady
You got the best of me
You're bringing on the heartbreak.

Hard to see the life inside
Wane as the days went by
Trying to preserve each word
He murmured in my ear
Watch part of my life disappear
(Mariah Carey)

I'm scared and I'm alone...
I'm ashamed
And I need for someone to know

Will anyone get close to me?
I'm damaged as I'm sure you know.
There's mending for my soul
An ending to this fear
Forgiveness for a man who was stronger
I was just a little girl, but i can't go back
I can't go back.
(Plumb)

Only night will ever know
Why the heavens never show ...
Night has brought to those who sleep
Only dreams they cannot keep
I have legends in the deep
Paint the sky with stars
(Enya)

All of my life
I've been waitin' in the rain
I've been waiting for a feeling...
that never, ever came
It feels so close, but always disappears....
and I'm left dying with unused years
(Quarterflash)

I woke up late
Guess I'm never really early
I hesitate
Only to fail
I get so tired
Of procrastinating
I need a change

I can't pretend
That I'm fine
I get so ill
Crazy, agitated
When I'm not really dying
(Plumb)

I don't wanna talk about things we've gone through,
though it's hurting me,
now it's history.
I've played all my cards and that's what you've done too,
nothing more to say, no more ace to play.
The winner takes it all,
the loser standing small
beside the victory,
that's her destiny.
The winner takes it all,
the loser has to fall,
it's simple and it's plain,
why should I complain.
(ABBA)

I'm so tired but I can't sleep
Standin' on the edge of something much to deep
It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word
We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard
(Sarah McLachlan)


everything you think you know baby is wrong
it´s all over but the crying
fade to black I´m sick of trying
took too much and now I´m done
it´s all over but the crying
(Garbage)

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
(Evanescence)

Solid wood will rot
If you don't keep it from the rain
We were surprised when we found out
That love feels just like pain
(Ks choice)

Look at me
You may think you see
Who I really am
But you'll never know me
Every day It's as if I play a part
Now I see If I wear a mask
I can fool the world
But I cannot fool my heart

Who is that girl I see
Staring straight back at me?
Why is my reflection
Someone I don't know?
Must I pretend that I'm
Someone else for all time?
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?
(Christina Augilera)

Again
It seems we meet
In the spaces
In between
We always say
It won't take long
But something's always wrong
(Toad the Wet Sprocket)

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

"Fools" said I,"You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence
(Simon and Garfunkel)

What'll I do
When you are far away
and I am blue?
What'll I do?

What'll I do
when I am wondering how
you feel just now?
What'll I do?

What'll I do
with just a photograph
to tell my troubles to?
When I'm alone
with only dreams of you
that won't come true,
what'll I do?
(Judy Garland)

Gloomy is sunday,
With shadows I spend it all
My heart and I
Have decided to end it all
Soon there'll be candles
And prayers that are said I know
But let them not weep
Let them know that I'm glad to go
(Sarah MacLachlan)

My voice and my thoughts have been taken refuge. These songs are the only thing that comes close to anything I might feel.

Forever...

Personality disorder examined tonight - News

Personality disorder examined tonight - News

Nothing to laugh at

I totally forgot! For the first time in I don't know how long, we didn't purge tonight! Small victories are nothing to laugh at.

Paint our secrets a different color

Hate days like this. We are so sad we don't know where to begin. Don't know what to do when we get like this. The inertia is so pronounced there is nothing to be done. Our heart is broken and visions of the past perform before my eyes. Our secrets percolate under an eating disorder. We need help. We need for someone to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. We want the reward, but our heart is too heavy to let us seize it. Like this, we shall surely perish in our colored secrets.



It's official. Tomorrow, February 2, 2009 I start a partial hospitalization program. Bugger. This is the same program I entered last year who said I needed a higher level of care and didn't believe in D.I.D. They can't treat me. How do they propose to get my alters with the anorexia to eat if they don't believe I have alters? My one saving grace is my psychiatrist believes in it, but I've only seen him twice; hardly a relationship built on trust yet. On the plus side, one of my teens thinks he's hot. Go figure.



I've decided I want a tattoo. I guess the pink hair of 2008 wasn't rebellious enough or the piercings of '06 and '07. 2009 is looking ripe for another one as well. The teens are rambunctious. I think we are all feeling claustrophobic and trampled on right now because NO ONE wants to go to this damn program. It's quite hard, as anyone with an eating disorder might imagine. The lines are drawn and the battle begun. One side refuses to comply with any procedure, policy, or course of action set by the hospital. The other side knows the stakes and the fervent need to gain weight, get on track, work on trauma issues, and take care of business. Before tomorrow was firmly set, we could tell we were losing weight. Even our "skinny" jeans were falling off and belts didn't have enough holes in them. Now that we know our resolve will be tested by the mean 'ole dietitian tomorrow, a review of our body makes us see fat where there probably is none and curves we thought we had denied. Ironic the mind tricks that tease one.



After our intake at the hospital, we came home and was too tired to breathe. So, I put in the DVD of "The Notebook", my favorite movie. D. always knows when I'm in a bad place because I always play this movie when I'm sad or depressed. I love the movie. I want to move to Charleston, South Carolina, United States so badly I can taste it. I've visited it twice and have fallen in love with everything about it: the history, the culture, the coast, the locals, the schools, etc. It's my goal to get there one day. I have a bangle bracelet I always wear that has a palmetto tree and a crescent moon on it; the bracelet gives me hope that things will get better and I'll make it to Charleston and be an awesome eight grade Language Arts teacher. Pipe dreams.



I am hungry. The pangs of an empty stomach provide solace and comfort. They make me feel clean, unsoiled, faultless, and pure. I know in my head that food can't make you dirty, but when I eat, I feel disgusting, dirty, nasty, and worthless to name a few adjectives. That's why a shower before or after food is imperative. I must cleanse the filth that I have become.



It pains me to write that because I think of my littles and I get angry for them. One of my littles holds parts of the e.d. and I would never consider her dirty. She was a victim and I'm so tired of all of us revictimizing ourselves because it's more tolerable and it's what we know. I know where the blame goes, so why do we hash ourselves to death?



As we were on the elliptical machine today I kept thinking how stupid, how pointless, how senseless to keep pushing us like that...out of breath, back pain, knee pain, chest pains, pain under the right rib cage, etc... There are very good reasons for us to have a life. True, we live in a sub-par house that is in constant need of repairs we are ignorant to undertake, we live paycheck to paycheck, have no savings, and I'm out of work. However, there are five good reasons to try to find reasons to make it through just one more day: a husband( I shan't sing his praises but I hear good things about him and he's put up with my tirades for more than a single moon), 2 god-daughters (twins, age 13, who would be lost with out us), and two very beautiful dogs that know when to crawl into my lap to absorb my trickling tears.



That should be enough, but it's not. Right or wrong, it only feels good when it hurts, and now, our voice has been taken away. Sufficiently.

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. :)