Waste

100 pageviews and climbing as of this weekend! Wow.  Considering I've literally only told one person about this, I'm pretty amazed.  I am also curious about you . . . 

This weekend was rough, as you can probably tell from my last post.  And that was just the beginning.  I am feeling completely slothful, gluttonous, selfish, unmotivated, and utterly wasteful.  Waste waste waste.  I am kept constant company by waste and shame.  The downward spiral has been slowly sneaking up on me, disguised by the brief highs and the weird positivity I referenced in an earlier post.  I have absolutely no desire to do even the smallest shred of work, activity, anything that could be considered an accomplishment.  It's been a long weekend, and I have managed to do NOTHING.  Well, I sure did eat a lot.  And had a couple of exceptionally unenjoyable purges.  And I'm caught up on practically every tv show on the air, past or present.

I have wasted time, so much time, and not just this weekend.  In the life of ED, I have spent so much time bingeing, planning to binge, talking myself into purging, avoiding the purge, and purging.  I've wasted so much money on food, on treatment, on medication.  I've wasted life, relationships, opportunities.  I've thrown so much down the toilet (metaphorically and literally) that I just can't bear to think about it sometimes.  The waste that has played partner-in-crime to ED over the past years is staggering.  I am acutely aware of just how much waste there is every time I get back into a healthy recovery lifestyle.  The time, especially, is what amazes me -- I always have so much of it!  What to do, what to do.  And it's always like there is a mental haze that lifts, and my energy levels skyrocket, and all of the sudden I'm cleaning my room, organizing my music, completing work that should have been done ages ago, making music, making jewellery, exercising, cooking, reading, and doing everything a normal (sans ED) me finds joy in.  But ED weighs me down, mentally and physically, and then weekends go by with hardly a movement from my bed.  The depths.  Of ED, of anxiety, of depression, of shame.

Here I sit, my throat raw from the purge, my work unfinished from sheer inability to convince my brain to function, my already dwindling bank account overdrawn from treat purchases, and my skin ashen, eyes red, dark circles, all from the stress of the purge and the vast amounts of grease, salt, and sugar I've been pouring into myself.  I am a mess.  And I don't even know how to describe the mental state.  I'm avoiding a purge.  Because I really want it to be my last purge.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with my therapist.  My last challenge was to get rid of the scale, which I've been quite successful with.  I know the next step is to say goodbye to the purge, and to do whatever it takes to make it happen (or not happen, I suppose).  I'm terrified.  I'm terrified of what it will take, I'm terrified of failure, I'm half terrified of success.  What if I give up the purge and the binge keeps happening?  ED has been such a huge part of me for so long that it's like ending a really important relationship.  Even though it's a completely unhealthy and detrimental relationship, it's still been a consuming one.  I don't know how to spend my time without ED, I don't know what to think about, I don't now how to make it through the evening, I don't know who I am.  At the same time, who I am has nothing to do with ED and I can't wait to get that little shit out of my life.  But right now he's in my brain and I cannot clearly see/remember who I am without him.

So off I go, to the bathroom, to tear at my throat and corrode my tooth enamel and burst the tiny vessels under my eyes and scrape my knuckles on my teeth and strain my back and stare at myself in the mirror with disgust and defeat and disappointment.  I want this to be the last one.  The fight is being sucked out of me and as the tears roll down my face I am terrified.  What if I fail.  And what if I don't.

dear weekend, I fall apart

Can of Pringles - original
Bag of Lays - wavy
Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar - king sized
Cadbury Toffe bits chocolate bar - king sized
Caramilk bar - king sized
Hershey's Cookies n' Creme bar
Bag of Nibs licorice - family size
Bag of Pull n' Peels licorice
Chinese food -- fried rice, chicken ball, spare rib
2 cans of pop -- diet grapefruit (sounds so lame, tastes so delicious)
Kraft Dinner made with sausage, peppers, and onions - heaping plate
Carrot cake batter - generous spoon licks
Cream cheese frosting - SO MUCH
Cookie dough - whole batch

Weekends are the worst.

may I have a wordle with you?

Ever heard of a Wordle? It's a cool site that takes any text and creates an interesting world cloud.  I linked my blog in, and this is the result.  The size of each word is relative to how often it appears.  Interesting food for thought.

this is why i fight

I had to turn around and write this while I'm high on the feeling (of happiness - too often a rare commodity), because I know I won't be able to fake it for a re-tell tomorrow.  Moods are a crazy thing.  I just finished posting "baby steps and horses," literally minutes ago, but I just have to share what happened between then and now.

It started with picking out clothes for work tomorrow.  Yeah, I am kind of a geek that way.  But it's amazing the time I can waste in the morning, just standing in front of the closet, trying to throw together some sort of presentable mash of an outfit.  I'm not a great morning person, and I already mentioned my ineptitude for punctuality.  I don't usually try on the clothes, but I wasn't sure this combo would work, so I put it on.  It sucked.  But I found a better option.  The mirror was kind, and the freshly-washed pants were surprisingly un-tight.   Cue a burst of joy!  Feeling high on joy, and a little risky, I decided to open the bottom drawer of pants and try on the pair I've been avoiding.  I'm in my medium weight range right now -- I have a whole wardrobe for smaller than my current size, and another one for larger.  (Perk/curse of being a fluctuater.)  These bottom-drawer pants are on the cusp of the smaller me, and most memories I have of wearing them are from weights lower than this.  But I went for it.  And they pulled up over my hips!  And then they buttoned without a fight!  And then my brain started singing "the pair of pants fit" to the tune of La Cucaracha.  So joyful I was, that I went a little wild and tried on a few more pairs!  I am currently wearing a pair of jeans that I haven't even bothered to look at in over a year, and my stomach isn't rolling dubiously over the sides!  I tried on a few pair that are too loose and I can now relegate to the pile of unwearables.  So long, fatpants.  

(Information you should probably know: I'm not a bone-thin bulimic with distorted body image issues. I'm a pretty short gal, and I've always been very curvacious.  Meaty, if you will.  My adult weight has been between 137 and 179.  Right now I'm flirting with low 150's.  I don't have much desire to drop below 140.  So when I say fatpants, I'm not referring to a size 3, I'm talking double-digits.)

It's a wonderful feeling of accomplishment, success, and most importantly, validation.  Any weight that I have lost has been in a healthy way, through proper eating and regular exercise.  The binge/purge only allows me to either maintain, or more likely, to gain.  I need to hold on to the feeling I have right now -- the pride, the joy, the hope -- because I know these pants are buttoned because I ate my veggies and did a little sweating.  Yes, it's been mixed with a lot of terrible behaviors, but I have to hold on to the positives.

And the last thing.  The reason that I'm up late tonight is because I'm trying on pants that fit!  I'm happily dancing around my room to a Mexican cockroach melody (refer to link), instead of bunched under the covers, finishing off the evening's binge, begrudging the inevitable purge.  I would much rather give my late nights to small pants and music than ED and a toilet.  When I'm tired tomorrow, I'll be much happier about it.

This feeling.  Right now.  This is why I fight.

baby steps and horses

"It starts off with my thinking about the food that I deny myself when I am dieting. This soon changes into a strong desire to eat. First of all it is a relief and a comfort to eat, and I feel quite high. But then I can’t stop, and I binge. I eat and eat frantically until I am absolutely full. Afterward I feel so guilty and angry with myself.”

                                    Dr. Christopher G. Fairburn
                                    Overcoming Binge Eating


Sometimes I read something and wonder if the author snatched the thoughts right out of my head.  This would be a prime example.  Bulimia is a pretty isolating thing, so it's nice to be reminded that there are many others out there who are having the same thoughts, struggles, and experiences.  I often feel so completely messed up in the head, with the constant anxious thoughts, and the endless battle between the ED thoughts, the voice of opposition (the "I want to be healthy" thoughts), and the false front (the lies I tell myself, the thought that goes into the front I build for other people).  It's a struggle.  I am exhausted at the end of every day.  It's a mental battle.  A full-on war, really.  I'm sooooooooo sick of fighting.


My most recent goal/challenge has been to put away the scale, and I am happy to report that I have been doing very well with that.  Better than I thought, really.  I feel a bit of freedom from the numbers.  The only thing working against it is that I am currently enrolled in a weight loss program (Simply for Life - prepaid until end of March).  I started in September, and at the beginning it was wonderful.  I had a renewed vigor for recovery, I very successfully cleaned up my eating habits, and I even lost quite a bit of the weight I had gained through extreme bingeing for long periods of time.  But then I gave in to the inevitability of a descent back into the gripping cycle of bulimia.  The above quote quite accurately describes a small part of the mental process.  So now I'm still practicing SFL by day, and ED by night.  I'm the superhero from hell.    The point I'm trying to get to is that I am committed to a weekly weigh-in (other things happen during the session but I'm making a scale-related point.  Well, trying to.  It's really hard to reel these thoughts in when there are so damn many of them).  I was planning to skip the weigh-in.  Not because I wanted to adhere to my no-scale mission.  I think a weekly weigh-in is very reasonable.  But because I was nervous that I would see a gain.  I would not handle that well.  Before my session, I jumped on the scale. I was surprised to see that I was actually down a bit.   So of course I was happy to get on the giant platform scale -- you know, the kind that doctors have, with all the metal sliders; the kind that makes you feel like a horse.  


I'm not sure how to interpret the weight loss, no matter how small.  Those of you who struggle with weight will understand that even the smallest loss means something, but even the smallest gain is devastating.  I think it's a positive reflection of getting rid of the scale.  I judge every day (without necessarily meaning to) based on the number I see on the morning or at the end of the day.  Bad number = bad day.  Bad mood, bad eating, purging, no exercise.  Perhaps I can deduce that by not weighing myself anymore, I am not as inclined to base my day on a feeling about a number, therefore less bad eating days are happening.  Or perhaps this is just a fluke, because I know very well what I've been eating, and in reality, it just means that I've been a better purger.  And that was hard to type.  I hate to even give the purge this victory, but mostly I hate to have to be honest about it.  The purge is so much more vicious about it's privacy.


Despite all of the struggles I continue to have, and the constant frustrations and negative thoughts, I am trying to hold onto the small step toward victory I have taken by removing the scale from my daily routine.  I am forcing myself to see it as an important element in the overall picture of recovery.  It's a step forward.  I'm scared that I will gain a ton of weight without the scale holding me accountable.  But at least for now I'll have a weekly check-in.  Maybe next time I can be brave enough to step on to the horseweigher without a safety pre-weigh?

Panic

Sometimes,

when my head is hung in shame

just above the rim, staring

at the mess of a fresh purge,

with guilt

with relief

with disgust

with satisfaction,

I hear footsteps coming down the hall.

Panic.

And then I realize,

it's just the sound of my heart

beating against my ears.

I wasn't aware that I wasn't aware

This week (Feb 20 - 26) is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (NEDAW). I've contemplated posting a link or message of support/awareness via my Facebook profile, but I'm just not strong/sure enough to do it.  As you can probably tell by my posts, the disorder isn't a public part of my life.  Even to the handful of close family and friends who know, I am very private about it, and I am thankful they don't push or pry.  I hate that anyone knows, to be honest.  It's not that I don't appreciate the support and prayers, it's that I hate the idea that the eating disorder is now part of their image of me.  I very much see it as a weakness, and I'm not used to being weak.  I pride myself on being a big sister and a good friend, I am often in leadership roles, and I consider myself a good person to come to for advice, support, and motivation.  I'm uncomfortable sharing weakness, and particularly vulnerability, with people, which I think is a pretty normal thing.  Some say it humanizes me.

Well I can think of more preferable ways to show my 'human' side (assuming human means to err).

• Like watching me swear at Tony Horton during the Ab Ripper video when I can't grunt out more than three stupid ceiling stomps.  (Seriously, Eric, the beautiful man-dancer in the back corner, stop mocking me with your gleaming muscles and effortless pelvic tilts.)
• Or observing how terrible I am at driving a standard on a hill, even after 2 years.  I've left a lot of rubber on the road.
• Noticing how perpetually late I am.  Every time.  No matter what.  I just cannot be on time.  I hate time.
• Oh, and that time I crapped my pants.

As I was browsing through some of the information from the NEDA, I came across a list of health consequences for eating disorders.  None of this information is new to me, but for some reason it triggered the realization, like a ton of bricks hitting me in the face, that I am bulimic.  This probably sounds a little redundant or obvious.  But what I mean is that I started thinking about myself from an outside perspective, rather than from within my mind.  I am used to my life and my ED, so sometimes I forget that it's a big deal (even though it's ALWAYS on my mind).  But I am a statistic.  I am truly a person who has been suffering from bulimia for almost ten years.  I binge, I purge, I repeat.  I am at risk for every one of those health consequences, and if I wasn't so careful, I would probably be in the hospital already.  To be honest, sometimes I wish that I would just rupture my esophagus, or have some teeth fall out, or faint into the toilet of my own puke from heart palpatations, just so that I would be forced, medically, to stop.  Isn't that terrible?  I'm being honest.  And to be honest (let's say that word a bunch so we know it's for real!), I don't often like what ends up on this screen.  It's hard to believe how much I've even been protecting from my own thoughts for so many years.  

Even though I sometimes sneer at or doubt the effectiveness of  awareness campaigns (some are really lame), I have to admit, this one has worked on me.  Ridiculous, right?  What I need to do now is find a way to pass along the message, and hope even one person recognizes they have a problem, or can find words to help a friend.  For a little more reading, check out this list of common misperceptions about eating disorders.

Stolen Comics

In lieu of a wordy post today, I'm going to share some comics I've stumbled across.  I like to collect pictures, quotes, websites, etc, that amuse me.  (I'm not sure about copyright laws, but I'm certainly not intending to claim any of this work as my own!)

I hope you found some humor in these, as I did.  I think it's important to laugh at myself, even as I'm surrounded by chips and candy and feeling like 800 pounds of horse manure.   Maybe laughter really is the best medicine . . . if I laugh for hard and long enough, that counts as a workout, right?

is time standing still?

I mentioned in an earlier post that I spent some time in an in-treatment facility a few years ago.  At the time, I thought I was going to change my life, to fix myself for good.  (I notice I use/think the word 'fix' a lot.  I just wish someone, something, could fix me.)  Leading up to my decision to go was a low, low period where I was really in the depths of the disorder.  I didn't realize how bad I had let it become until my roommate, my sister, and a close friend held an intervention.  I was shocked, mortified, horrified, insulted, ashamed, indignant.  You name it, I felt it.  But it made me really start to think about how serious my problem was.  So I looked into a few options and decided that I wanted to get away, to really be submerged in healing and recovery.  I learned a lot about myself during my short time there, and I had a lot of successes, but it didn't fix me.  Thousands of dollars.  Imagine the exponential shame with each binge/purge after that.  I flush my money down the toilet, almost literally.

Tonight I want to share some clips from a journal I kept while I was there.  They're pretty raw thoughts; a peek into the frantic/anxious mind of ED.

"I’m really happy with my eating this weekend, although I still don’t like the immediate feeling of very full I feel after every meal, regardless of how much I eat.  Like tonight, I know I ate a lot of carrots and watermelon but not much more than I think is a healthy portion.  But I just feel so full, and it makes me second-guess myself and wonder if I’m eating too much.  Like what if after all this healthy eating I manage to put on weight, if not lose any.  I feel like I’m losing a little bit, but I still despise the tightness of most of the pants I have here.  Why the hell didn’t I pack more jeans that fit right now?  And t-shirts and casual clothes.  Getting dressed every day is annoying."

"I’m nervous for and also looking forward to the session with the dietitian this afternoon.  I’m going to ask to be weighed, and even though it will be after lunch and fully clothed, I’m going to try really hard to accept it.  I keep worrying that I will gain weight because maybe I’m eating too much, but I don’t really want to cut much out, and what if I’m meant to be chubby for the rest of my life."

". . . the last thing I ever want to happen during a binge is someone confronting me about it.  And nothing anyone else can do will bring me out of it, only make me go deeper into the self-doubt, depression and regret.  And then it takes even longer to come out of it."

"I had a session with a counselor and we talked a bit about the way I take on other peoples' emotions and am really sensitive to what other people are feeling.  I also too often project what I think the other person might or could be thinking onto them.  I don’t like to cause unnecessary worry or burden to people but I often assume it will be that without giving them the chance."

It's hard reading through some of my old journals.  Mostly because I'm so frustrated at how little I've changed/grown/progressed.  I'm a smart, educated, successful woman.  I have never been abused or ridiculed, I've had a pretty great life, and I'm not overly sensitive to media images or society's labels of beauty.  Yet I cannot figure this out, I can't fix it, I can't get better, no matter how hard I try.  I keep coming back to it, and with each relapse the sense of failure is compounded.  How many more tries until I get it right?

meet Purge, my evil boyfriend

I've been really struggling with the idea of giving up the purge.  When I think about giving up the binge, I am overwhelmed and prepared for failure, but I can at least wrap my head around letting it go.  When I think about giving up the purge, I am instantly filled with anxious thoughts and a dark, stubborn voice that won't really even consider it to be an option.  I haven't realized the difference between my attachment to the binge and the purge until very recently.  I think of them as a package deal, because they always have been.   Here is the key difference: I can give up the binge, but the purge won't give me up.  The purge is the controlling one in this relationship.  If I take away the purge, I take away the only effective counterpart to the binge.

Characteristics of the Binge: fun, happy, persistent, addictive, gluttonous, excessive, enjoyable.
Characteristics of the Purge: possessive, dark, shameful, controlling, disgusting, hurtful, inescapable, manipulative.

If I had a boyfriend with the characteristics of Binge, it would be hard to break up with him.  I would realize that he is heading in a direction I don't want to go, and I would probably get tired of being roped into his constant excesses.  But I could break it off because he is a jolly fellow, and he would let me go, and give me power to do so.

On the other hand, if my boyfriend had the characteristics of Purge, it would be much harder to get out of the relationship.  It's a classic abusive relationship, and the worst part is, I let myself be convinced every time that I need him (it).  And every time I get away, out of his clutches, he follows me around, taunting me, promising I need him, and that I can have more fun with him around, even if I'll have to pay for it.

I follow a blog that tracks smokers who are trying to quit.  This morning as I was browsing through the latest posts, I read something that really caught my interest.  One of the writers/quitters said that when he's having a hard time with cravings, he think about a heroin addict trying to recover, and how much harder it would be to make it through that.  At first I just kind of laughed, but then I thought, that is an excellent point.  I don't have to suffer through physical withdrawal symptoms, my heart is not at risk of stopping, I won't have petrifying hallucinations.  I just have to stop.  I have to battle with the constant thoughts and temptations, but what is that compared to trying to fight through a serious drug addiction?

Which brings me to this: food is my drug.  I one hundred percent believe that food is an addiction that many people experience.  And the worst of it is, we can't avoid it.  You can get through life without having to drink alcohol, without having to use drugs.  But in order to survive, I have to have a bit of my addiction every single day.  I often wish that there was a pill I could take to just fill my nutrition requirements and be done with it, so I would never have to eat anything.  I know it's not reasonable, but the idea of having to control myself every day for the rest of my life around the very thing that I am perpetually addicted to is mind-boggling.  And then I think, everyone else can do it.  But just as not everyone who drinks becomes an alcoholic, not everyone who eats becomes a foodaholic.  But just as the alcoholic needs to finish the bottle, or the drug addict needs to snort the rest of the stash, I need to finish the entire bag of chips.  There's no folding it over after a few hand fulls and putting in the cupboard for later.  That is a ridiculous expectation, and I don't know how people do it.

And just like an addict, I hide my stash.  I sneak food into the house.  I carry a large purse and cram it full of chocolate and family size bags of chips.  I make batches of cookie dough at lightening speed while people are in the bathroom.  I keep garbage bags full of empty wrappers under my desk.  I have a 5-pack of cream eggs under my pillow, and a tub of sour cherry gummies tucked against me under the Snuggie, just in case anyone knocks on the door.  I don't need them to hear me shuffling around, hiding my shame.  Why do junk food containers/bags/wrappers have to be so exposingly noisy?

Through all of this, I keep wondering why I can't just stop.  Why me.  (Oh woe is me, alas, egad, boo hoo, blah blah blah.)  I think eating disorders are shrouded in misperceptions, judgement, and a lack of sympathy/empathy/understanding.  In his book, On Writing, Stephen King talks about his alcoholism and the many people who tried to offer advice about it.  He hits the nail on the head when he says (one of my favorite all-time comparisons) ". . . telling an alcoholic to control his drinking is like telling a guy suffering the world's most cataclysmic case of diarrhea to control his shitting."  I can identify with this statement a thousand times over.  And yet I wonder why I am so hard on myself when I fail.  If someone else tells me to just stop bingeing and purging, I find it ludicrous, like how dare they assume to understand and tell me what to do in such simple terms.  Yet when I tell myself to just stop, I feel like I should be able to do it, and hold myself in complete failure when I can't.

Now that I've begun to think of the binge and the purge in different categories, I think it will help to make compartmentalized game plans for attack and recovery.  Every day I realize more and more that I need to break free from my evil boyfriend Purge.  I dare say I'm finally starting to see a light at the end of this tunnel, and the kind of light that will continue to burn.  I've had short-term recovery periods, and I'm done with them. I'm looking for the real thing, and I truly believe that through understanding I will find it.  Get ready Purge, I'm coming to kick your ass.

Identity and that damn cookie dough

I've been in a weird identity flux for the past couple of days.  Not my outward identity, I think/hope that's pretty stable.  (Although some interesting and laugh-worthy career turns lately have really been stretching it.)  The identity I'm talking about in this case is the inward sense of self, if that makes any sense.  It's a little more than just my mood or thoughts, but rather the sense of who I am, how I feel about myself, and I guess that general perception of me that runs in the back of my mind.  Are you lost yet?

The flux (off-kilterness, confusion, disillusionment) is due to my mood vs. my actions.  I have been feeling very positive, hopeful, cheery, and all-around fun.  This usually happens when I'm in a period of recovery -- when I'm not engaging in ED behaviours.  Unfortunately, I am still bingeing and purging.  It's rare for me to be this deep into the cycle and experience any kind of true positive emotions.  Yeah, I can laugh and smile, but it's not a true happy, because I am constantly thinking about the next binge, and pulled into all the accompanying negative self-talk of depression, frustration, defeat, shame, loneliness, you get the point.  But yesterday and today I have noticed myself truly enjoying the life around me, and there's a positive energy in my own mind that has overtones of hope and success.  It's kind of like my brain thinks I'm already in recovery but my body has yet to catch up.  Kind of.  Identity flux.

I'm pretty sure the positivity is coming from this, the act of writing, and all the honest self-analysis that's going into it.  It makes me feel like I'm really on a mission, a path, some sort of forward motion that will lead me to a better place.

Now I'm making it seem like it's all roses and smiles in my head, and that's not quite accurate.  I actually had to make myself sit down to write tonight - I was not in the mood to think too deeply about anything.  I really just wanted to sink into my bed, throw on some tv, and eat the fresh goodies I guiltily and habitually purchased on the way home tonight.  So here I sit, comfy in bed, flanked by a half-consumed large bag of bbq chips and a bag of (1/2 price!) v-day Hershey's Hugs.  (1/2 price post-season treats are THE best.)  I was having a great day, by which I mean I ate healthfully, I didn't have many pestering thoughts about bingeing, and I even got in an exercise session after work.  And then the little thoughts started eeking their way closer and closer to the very front of my brain, digging their little pick-axes in and demanding I pay attention.

"You should eat more brownies.  They're just sitting there, chewy and icing-dusted, waiting to melt on your tongue."

"Stop pretending you don't want a cupcake.  There's an inch of pink frosting on top.  How dare you deny me."

"Just go eat the treats.  You'll have time for a quick purge before the exercise class."

"You've got a few treats left at home, but you should pick up some more after class tonight because it's cheaper than the grocery store at home.  Might as well."

"You know you'll just be angry if you don't get anything, and then you'll have to be super sneaky to make something binge-worthy at home.  Better pick up a few things."

"I'M A TUB OF PRE-MADE COOKIE DOUGH.  I'M CHEAP.  BUY ME AND DEVOUR ME."

These thoughts are perpetual, perpetual, perpetual.  Cycling through, bullying any thought that tries to shut it down, wearing out my mind and my resolve.  Constant.  And seriously, a TUB of cookie dough.  I find it hard to believe they exist for anybody other than food addicts.  Well bravo, Nestle, for satisfying a demanding market niche.  Dicks.  I'm happy to say that I successfully avoided the day-time binge, and therefore the work-place purge.  But I gave in at Walmart and threw a bunch of junk in the cart (which is now working its way into my trunk).  I left the cookie dough on the shelf, out of spite for its very existence.  It taunts me, and I just can't reward that behavior.

I haven't written much yet about the actual binge or the actual purge.  I can't seem to get my brain to form full sentences about the things which I've kept so shamefully locked away.  It's easier to articulate the thoughts leading up to or surrounding the activities than the actual physical acts.  I guess that should be a challenge to myself.  My recent relinquishing of the scale has been successful thus far, meaning that I haven't weighed in two days.  I feel lost without it, like I'm going to gain ten pounds this week, but if it's the one step I can accomplish, I'm holding on to it with vigor.  And here I sit with renewed hope despite my current binge and inevitable purge.  A change is coming, I feel it.

Letting Go

I've spent a lot of money trying to fix myself.  Some on drugs, some on medical treatment, and currently on a behavioral psychologist.  I've been seeing him bi-weekly for a few months, and yesterday I was ready to tell him that I was done, that I was beyond helping, and I didn't want to keep wasting his time and my money.  I need to clarify that it wasn't because I was unsatisfied with his service.  I was just at the point where I really thought I was beyond help, that I would never be able to work through this, and that I might as well accept my life as a continuing bulimic.  

But then we got talking, and he pointed out some very important elements of my plan to recover, and my failure to be able to carry it through.  Basically, my whole plan for the past few years has been based solely on will-power.  I try to convince myself that I should be strong enough not to binge.  And clearly that plan has failed.  I have never really looked at it in such black-and-white, down-to-basics terms.  I feel like I've tried everything, from taking a crazy mood-altering drug that eventually made my hair start to fall out, to attending an in-patient treatment center for a while.  But despite everything I've learned/experienced so far in my journey with bulimia, I have been resting my plan on will-power.  It's a funny thing, that I've been putting my hopes on the one thing that consistently fails me.  And not just me, but many people!  Will-power is a bitch.  How is it that I've been years without realizing that this is a fundamentally flawed plan.

So the next step is going to be really difficult, and I'm not sure I'm ready to let go.  Because rather than tackling the binge, his plan is to focus on the purge.  I need to take away the purge, to eliminate that activity from my routine.  The binge, well, that's just too hard to control.  Even 'normal' eaters struggle with over-eating on occasion, so how can I, a constant over-eater, expect myself to just say no to the binge.  The scary part is letting go of the purge; it has been my safety net through all of this.

I hate the purge.  I dread the purge.  I loathe the purge.  Yet I'm scared to let it go.  The purge is my abusive boyfriend who knocks me around, and then makes me feel like I need it.  My fears about letting go of the purge: I will gain weight.  

Wow, I really thought I would have a big list of fears, but I sit here pondering what else is scaring me and that's really what it boils down to.  I don't want to gain weight, and I feel like the purge is the only thing keeping me from that.  Which is a ludicrous and blatant self lie (thanks ED) because I know, and have evidenced, that when I am in the throes of a heavy binge/purge cycle, I gain weight, no matter what, no matter how often I purge.  (And it's frustrating to no end, believe me.  I can't even get bulimia right - I'm still overweight!  Imagine the shame.  I'm already ashamed of having an eating disorder.  Now compound that with the confusion on someone's face when they look at me and think, yeah right, you're not exactly wasting away.)  Part of me thinks that by taking away the purge, I will also take away the binge.  I only binge when I know I can purge, so can I eventually stop the binge when I eliminate the purge?  This is my hope.

In the next weeks, until my next appointment, I am going to work on coming to terms with this release.  It's going to be really hard.  I'm nervous of what I will have to do to successfully eliminate the purge.  I shudder to think that it might involve someone else, someone having to interrupt me or supervise post-binge bathroom excursions.  I'm nervous that it will make me sneakier and more reclusive, because ED is a powerful and resourceful snake who does not like to have power taken away.  But it's the only way. 

In the meantime, my homework is to take away the scale.  I am a daily weigher, usually once in the morning and once before bed, and sometimes once after work.  In times of weight gain I avoid the scale, so I'm a little hesitant to get rid of it.  I didn't realize (or, probably more accurately, wouldn't admit to myself) that I was so tied to the numbers until very recently.  But it really informs my day.  If I see a good number, I have a good day; I feel better about myself, I'm convinced my clothes fit better, and I'm more likely to eat well.  If I see a number I don't like, I have a bad day; often I'll just get back in bed.  So I guess I'm a little obsessed with the numbers.  For now the scale is shoved in a bathroom closet, and I am confident I can leave it there.  At least for a couple of weeks.  

Jumping In

Well here I am.  Live, on the net, and about to write my darkest secrets, biggest fears, and most shameful struggles for anyone to read.  What am I doing.  I'm a twenty-something female from a small town, and I have been struggling with bulimia for all of my 'adult' years.  I am frustrated at my inability to beat it, despite numerous attempts of varying degree, which I will talk about in future posts.  I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to put it behind me, to say "I used to be bulimic," but I am sure that I'm willing to fight it.

I've been toying with the idea of a blog for a while, but always find reasons not to.  1) What if someone discovers who I am?  I'm not ready to share this part of me without anonymity.  2) Where do I start? I can't possibly tell my whole story in the first post.  3) What if I'm just perpetuating the cycle?  I don't want an outlet that encourages my destructive habits.  4) I'm just lazy.  Why commit to writing blog posts when I could be eating and watching tv instead?

So here's my justification, the reason that I'm finally jumping in. 1) If someone discovers who I am, it's meant to be, and I will hope for grace and understanding. 2) It's true, I can't tell my whole story in the first post.  But I can tell it over time, and nobody wants to know everything on the first date.  3) This is clearly ED (my eating disorder) fighting for whatever control it has to not be taken away.  Writing about this with honesty and openness is the biggest weapon I have against ED.  My bulimia is a dirty secret, one that I realize I've even shielded from my own thoughts.  So this step is nothing but a positive one, and ED needs to let me move forward with it.  4) Yeah, I'm lazy, but typing isn't exactly vigorous activity.  I'm sitting here, nibbling (gorging) away on mini-eggs in between keystrokes.  So just because I blog doesn't mean I have to give up the binge.  And I've gotta be honest, I'm not sure I'm ready to.  In fact, it overwhelms me to think about letting go, even though I want to with every fiber of my being.  How's that for frustrating?

And that brings me to you, the reader, who has stumbled upon this blog.  How do I justify giving this awful disorder a voice?  What if impressionable minds read this and decide to try the binge for themselves?  I guess I have to accept that I cannot control what other people think and do, I can only speak with sincerity when I say that through helping myself by writing this, I hope to be able to help others.  Whether it's through what you read here, or what I discover and am able to pass on, I hope that some good comes from this blog, and I really think it will.  At the very least, I hope it's a good read and at least a bit entertaining.  (I once crapped my own pants because I ate too much.  Yup.  Now there's an embarrassing story for another time.)

Ultimately, I am writing because I believe it will help me to find a way to beat the binge/purge cycle.
Welcome to the journey.