Tinkering on the edge of sanity

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

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

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

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

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

Make way! New thoughts coming through

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

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

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

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

Thinking out loud: Motivation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disapeared

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

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

Nobody's home anymore

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

I hate living in this body with everyone else.

I hate feeling dirty and unclean.

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

I hate how the number on the scale defines me.

I hate that food tortures me.

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

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

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

All my freakin' parts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's always something."

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

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

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

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

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

Dead, bloated, and bad

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

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

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

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

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

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

Failure lurks around these pages.

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

More to come later.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forgive me while I wax melodramatic.

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

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

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

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

Signed,
Nobody important

I'm a piece of sh*t.

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

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

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

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

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

Can't get out of bed today.

I'm okay, I'm not okay

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

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

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

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

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

Take care.

Lunatic sound off - BEWARE

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

Yours truly,

MIS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End of pity party.

Cloudy with a Chance of Hatefullness

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

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

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

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

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

Home of the apathetic and tired

I'm tired. It's more than not getting enough sleep or the tired you feel after a long day of work. I'm tired to the core of my being. I think my brain has stopped working. My body is lethargic and craves rest.

I feel so negative. Every time I write it's always about some crisis or negative feeling I'm dealing with. I know that was and is the purpose of this blog: to document the journey from being completely fractured to finally whole. Maybe one day I'll have something positive to say.

For now, all I can say is that I hate therapy. I'm tired of it. I don't feel we're getting anything out of it. Maybe it's all because we're mad at Therapist. Yesterday we read an extremely difficult writing from our journal regarding, among other things, certain boundaries that we let be crossed by Husband and all Therapist could say was what a good wife we are for having such compassion since Husband doesn't feel good and is still depressed. That didn't sit too well with us. How could he compliment us when all we did was sacrifice ourselves to the wishes of Husband just so he'd feel better. What about our feelings?

Plus, we just have nothing to talk about in therapy anymore. We've been in therapy eighteen years. Enough is enough. There's nothing left to share. There are no memories of the abuse to process. What's left to discuss?

Life is just so difficult right now.

And the beast is still out. She is really devouring me and there's nothing we can do to stop it. I wonder how this member with the eating disorder behavior has so much control over the rest of us. Like today, we were at the gym for 2 1/2 hours. I didn't want to be there that long. I felt guilty for it, but I felt compelled to stay. This member is young. I don't think anyone can win against her. Our focus is on restricting, working out, and losing weight. I can understand how friends and family would say to someone with eating disorder behaviors to just pick up the food and eat. It should be that simple and easy. Just EAT!! But it's not that simple at all. There are consequences to eating. Getting fat is one of them.

The thing is, I think this member wants a way out. I think she's miserable with and without the behaviors. This member was out for our 6th grade year in school and she was picked on and made fun of a lot. She is consumed with self-loathing, courtesy of children and adults. For her, being thin is her only salvation.

I don't want to eat. Then I'll be a failure. If I can't lose weight I won't be comfortable with myself and I won't feel okay with myself. This is the way to erase all the wrongs that happened.

I don't know how to help her. I don't know how to help myself. Therapist said things that he wishes for us and someone said all the wishes in the world wont' make it happen. It seems the steps necessary to take to get better are out of our reach. Today, we are just too tired. Everything seems overwhelming. We are exhausted. It doesn't seem to matter anymore. We are an empty vessel.

I feel like there's so much more to say, but it's not coming forward. I sense many members writing today and I know I won't remember the content of this blog. Such is our life.

The beast

On a housekeeping note, I want to thank Paul, cbtish, Shades of Ivory, and Grace for their comments. I know I haven't responded to them and for that I'm sorry. Your support and insight means a lot.

It's been a long, hard, bad day. I am restless and feel like I'm going out of my mind. I don't know why I'm about to write this shit. I am not in my right mind.

The beast is awake again and I can do nothing about it. It's the eating disorder behavior. I've always been one to exercise. I started when I was sixteen, almost twenty years ago. I have never been moderate about exercise. It's always been nothing or too much. Though some would argue I was average size, the past few months I didn't exercise because I felt I was fat and didn't want to feel my body moving through space. It sickened me. But then I lost a few pounds and that got the ball rolling and woke the angry eating disorder. Now, I exercise a lot.

My thoughts have become obsessive. I am constantly worrying about food and questioning what I've eaten. Should I have eaten the veggie burger? Did I pour too much cereal? Will I be fatter after I ate that one cookie?

I realize why the beast is awake again. In therapy we are talking about some pretty difficult subjects and its given rise to the parts of me that hold the eating disorder. They think we're fat, unsafe, and vulnerable. She wants to starve me until I'm invisible. They want to starve the pain out. They want to be and feel empty so they can feel nothing.

I don't want to tell Therapist about these things. First of all, I don't want people asking me about my food or exercise. It's nobody's effing business. We want to be left alone to do what we need to do in order to be safe.

That gets said but then there is a strong part of me that doesn't want to go down the self destructive road we've been on before. We can't keep silent over what we're doing to ourselves. We need to not keep it secret about our obsessive thoughts and over-exercising.

But then there's the voice that says "Fuck that. We'll do whatever the hell we want."

I'm not strong enough for this.

It didn't take long for the beast to wake up. Previously, my slides into the eating disorder behavior had been slow. But this time the beast went from 0 to 60 before I knew what was happening. Now I'm conflicted. There are two sides to this. There is the part that wants the eating disorder and wants to lose weight no matter what the cost. Then there is the rational part that knows it is self-destructive behavior and knows it's avoidance.

Doesn't matter. The eating disorder side always wins. I try and think how I've been able to maintain my weight this long and I don't have an answer. Maybe avoidance really is good. If we avoid talking about our history then the eating disorder will not be needed.

I really don't know where to go with all this. It's just one of the many things driving me crazy.

The definition of "Help me"

It's so hard to get these posts started. I just don't know where to begin. I feel everything and I feel nothing. I am angry but I'm calm. I'm sad but have no tears to show for it. Then there's the nothingness lulling me with her sweet numbness. I think I'll take her side.

I don't know what's really wrong with me. Maybe it's the fact I put my husband in a psych ward yesterday. Maybe it's because it brings up my own terror images of being locked away. Maybe it's because the last thing husband said to me was that a part of him wanted to kill me. I think that fits well.

I feel sorry for the spouses, partners, and friends who support us. Husband has it hard. I have several members who are crazy for tattoos. We have four tattoos already. They want several more. I personally don't like tattoos but I feel all members should have an outlet, like the littles should have their Barbies and Fruit Loops and the teenagers should have music and makeup. So why should I say no to other members just because Husband hates tattoos?

It was this fight that sparked his down spiral again. He is angry at me because I allow the tattoos; I don't stop it. Sometimes, when going to get a tattoo, I do want to turn the car around but I'm compelled, pushed forward to the tattoo shop. And when I look in the mirror and see the final piece I grimace but the face in the mirror is all smiles.

He says we value tattoos over him; we love the tattoos more. It's not black or white but his thinking is and this led to comments made by me about leaving him. My thinking at the time was that I just can't deal with him anymore. But I did tell him if he went to the hospital I would stay for now. But I don't see what good the hospital can do. His feelings about us will not change. The hospital will not change his view of our getting tattoos. And I feel completely betrayed by him when he doesn't show other members love other than the ones that are easy to like, for example, the littles.

A lot of damage has been done to this marriage. He was my rock, my support, my everything. I relied on him for almost everything. Which may or may not have been a good thing, but it is what it is.

I've refused to talk to him. He's called four or five times but I can't imagine what he could have to say to me. Every word would be my recall for the verbal daggers he's thrown at me.

Again, I know it's hard on loved ones who have to cope with our illness perhaps as much as we do. He's always done everything he could to accommodate me. It's a shame to lose it over stupid tattoos.

In any case, I hope this reaches someone out there, some reader in Internet land. Maybe then I won't feel so despondent, alone, and hopeless. Right now I feel like hurting myself with a glorious razor blade or the bright flame of a lighter, but I won't. I'll find other, less effective ways to cope.