turning over a new leaf...

...or possibly it's just the other side of the same leaf. who knows?

anyway, i went to a meeting (formulated after alcoholics anonymous) for ED people on sunday. it was riddled with religious intonations, but other than that, was an interesting experience. it was the first time i've ever been in a situation where people just talk openly - and so matter-of-factly - about their ED experience. i spoke just for a minute, and said that i'm not sure if that's the right place for me, i don't know if i'm ready to give up the binge/purge/starve/binge cycle because it's my drug. it's how i cope with anxiety, depression, the shit that my life throws at me.

but things had been really bad the week before i went. spring break was pretty hard. both my roommates were gone, which means i had the apt to myself. and so, like usual, i became something of a hermit. binged and purged and starved myself. on wed the OAOA came over - we drank rum and had great sex - but i had binged so hardcore the previous day that i was more concerned with how i looked naked than anything else. the next day, a friend of mine from d.c. called saying he was in town and did i want to meet up to go clubbing? of course! until i got home and ate so much i thought my stomach would actually rupture. so i canceled on him. these are the reasons that i do want to be done with this. i eat and eat and can't even be involved in my own social life. i cancel on friends and am too preoccupied with body image/what i've eaten to be present with anybody.

on friday i didn't eat until nighttime when i started to binge. i felt it coming on. and then something clicked, or snapped. and i started just looking for something else. doing online research for support groups, i read an excerpt from one of geneen roth's books, i was ready to reach out to get help. which is something i've never done before (other than therapy, which is honestly rather disenchanting...) i felt like i was ready to be done with things.

i didn't binge saturday or sunday. yesterday was monday and i ate more or less normally (or whatever normal is for me!) and then this morning i had a mini-binge, but i don't think all is lost. i've been cranky and frustrated and angry at myself over these past days, because without food to mask things, all i have is myself and my emotions. it's really f-ing hard. which is why i don't want to give this up.

so it's a constant battle between wanting it and not wanting it, between having the energy to fight it and just giving up. i don't think i'm ready to just give up yet. but i really can't think about the long term. if i think that, right now, sitting here on my bed, i am ok. right now i don't need to eat something. (even though i feel like i could totally raid the entire fridge and eat every last drop of food in the house!) i can just sit here for this minute and finish this entry, move on to the rest of my school work, maybe work on my thesis a bit, and i don't need to have food to do that.

if i think that way, maybe i can get through today. and then maybe tomorrow. but i'll cross that bridge when i come to it.

the irony of this all is that in trying to get over my food issues and in trying to eat normally, i think i think more about food than i ever have. it has occupied my mind even more intensely over these past few days than it did before. because before, i would eat to numb myself. before i was stuck in the vicious cycle of eat/numb/freak out/purge/binge/get anxious/eat/numb... etc etc etc.

and now for these past few days, i'm trying to not do that. and in addition, i'm trying not to hate myself for every little thing i do eat, and also not to hold myself up to impossible standards of perfection. like this morning and my mini-binge: it's not the end of the world. i don't have to give in to the 'fuck it' mentality that i've already screwed up, might as well go buy out a grocery store, and start again tomorrow. i start again right now. and in this moment, i am ok. in this moment, i can just be here and i don't need food for that.

sitting in the corner of my room...

it's been way too long since i've been here.

so much has happened yet i don't really feel the need to update anything because i'm back where i always am. the proverbial vicious cycle that is my life is back in full swing, and i'm sitting here, resentful. the other day in my german lit class we were talking about nietzsche and thomas mann and kafka and the question was posed whether man has free will or is predestined: ein Schicksal oder das frei Wille?

sometimes i believe in one more than the other, but in the end, i'm not sure it really matters. the choices we make, whether it is us that makes them or some higher power that ordains this upon us, i do believe that everything happens for a reason - no matter how fucked up that reason may be.

it is five minutes before midnight and i am realizing that i will wake up tomorrow with the repercussions of what i did today. and by did, i mean ate. i feel sick. same old story. i took a bunch of laxitives and maybe it makes me feel better to purge to a certain extent, but i am so sick of this life. so sick of living the same day and the same experiences over and over again. i told myself i was going to "detox" this week - i'm on spring break, and what a perfect opportunity for some introspection? well it's not starting out too well. mostly because by detox, i secretly meant to starve myself while drinking a lot of peppermint and ginger tea in order to lose the weight i've put on over the past few days from bingeing.

the other day i was at lunch with some girlfriends and heard a friend of mine talk about a friend of hers who has food issues - and from what this girl was saying, pretty much like what i have. and the way she spoke about it, almost with respect for the path that this girl must travel and what she must go through every day, made me want so badly to be able to talk to her about my own issues. and maybe i will. i was so close to being ready to tell this guy about my shit - we were on the brink of dating, you could say - and then he decided his own emotional issues that were coming up from a previous relationship he had been in, were just too much and he can't do the whole relationship thing again right now. except the way he did this was basically to ignore me, and upon my own insistance and grovelling, practically, we got together and had an actual conversation about it. and i haven't heard from him since, whence i deduct his decision to not want a relationship. regardless. i was so close to telling him, or to wanting to tell him. to wanting someone to know so that i don't have to do this all alone. it's so hard to go through life as if in a bubble, and that's what i've been doing my entire life.

so spring break. starting off with a bang. and by a bang, i mean one of the worst binges i've had in a really really long time. and now i'm realizing i won't wake up tomorrow without the consequences of this. and it might take a few days for me to not have the consequences of this - physically. but then again, the physical consequences are almost secondary to what goes through my head. i just wish i could overcome. wish i could like one normal day so i would know what it's like. good god i wish i knew what that was like...