Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

I.Am.Exhausted.

Basically, Wednesday night, I had to fly home so I could help my mom pack up the car and the dog and drive BACK up with them to my apartment on Thursday. Paula (aka Mom) was not in the best of moods.

Wednesday, I fasted throughout the day, and used the money I saved to buy some homeless men lunch and feed a woman and her grandson. It felt good, but a bit pretentious. Continued starving.

Arrived at the airport and my mom wanted to go to the Mall (AUGH! bad place) to get my sister foreign currency for her trip abroad, and of course they wanted to eat at one of the restaurants. But I was good. I figured out a way to order a hamburger (vegetarian) not eat any of it, but not clue them in, and only have a bit of broccoli.

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Here's some tips:
1) I've discovered something called "Metromint Water" ... it's basically like drinking really watery mouthwash, but drink it anyway, because it will taste like you've just brushed your teeth after EVERY sip. Kills the appetite.
2) Ask if you can order steamed vegetables as a side instead of fries, usually they have them.
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Thursday, I knew my mother would want to get fast food for the road, so I started panicking. But then I realized I didn't have to because someone had brought her grapefruits!!! So I ate a little one, and poured a slimfast shake down the drain to make it look like I had a full meal. So she got something and I could say "Thanks, but I've already eaten."

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Friday, I was a bit bad and kind of splurged when we went to a hamburger place, but I think it's ok because that day at lunch I only picked at a plain salad and pretended to eat the fries one of my friends offered me before tossing them under the table (oops!).

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I feel like there was something I actually wanted to talk about but now my stomach is super angry at me for eating last night so it's fallen out of my head. Churn churn churn. Thankfully, my weight is finally almost down to something manageable again (I think I'm at something like 118 plus or minus 1), and I'm beginning to hate myself less. Though, I do feel deceitful for the things I say to my mother about why I don't want to eat. She's naive. Basically I've just said that I feel really sick to my stomach when I eat breads and dairy, and why can't I just eat protein and fruits and vegetables.

She coo'd at me and did her kind Southern lady talk and said she understands but other people just think that it means I have a problem with food (........ ah tears me apart). But I don't know, lately, I've been thinking to myself, if that's *really* what I want to eat, what makes me happy, a good food day, isn't it only a problem because society has deemed it as such?

If I don't think it's a problem and Paula Deen is fine with it (with all her Southern naivety) then where is the disorder?! There can't be one. Because there's no external judgement, no hiding, no leaving out plates of stupid shit so it looks like I've eaten a giant plate of fried-fatty-grease-gross-mess that other people think I *should* be eating.

Ok. I'm getting too excited. I'm starting to stand on a proverbial soapbox about this. Better get off while I still feel on top.

Cheers, girls! Will read and comment soon, promise!!
Savory

1 Step Forward 2 Steps Back

I hate repeatedly talking about my failures here but that's my life. If I mean to get it under control and maintain an outward facade of perfection, you all get to see all the cracks.

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After yesterday's bad food day, I feel uncomfortably full today (chant our mantra: "I just want to be empty") and there's a gain. But I'm pretty sure I can lose whatever I've gained in a day, and then if I can finally stop this pattern and get back on track and not have on and off days, I'll have continued daily loses.

Here's my new plan:

• Staying away from the scale again.

• When I'm eating, I have to count how many times I am chewing.

• I can only eat at 9:00am, 12:00pm, and 6:00pm. And only if I'm hungry. If I'm never hungry, I fast.

• When I eat, I can only eat 1 fruit or 1 vegetable serving.

• If friends call to hang out, say "No."

• Drink at least 2L of water every day.

• Tell my mother I have a wheat sensitivity.

I feel ok with this. It's just neurotic enough to work. After this starts going, maybe I can trust myself again to do something like 2468 again, but right now that's too many calories.

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Today, I'm flying home to visit my mother and them I'm driving back up with the car to get my stuff out of my apartment since our lease is up. What am I packing for the plane and my visit home? My fruits and vegetables. They are going to think I'm crazy.

I am. But in my defense, my mother doesn't have anything healthy at home, and if I don't bring anything I'll have to eat nothing which will be suspicious or eat her scary food. So crazy it is.

Cheers!
Savory

Worry From Unexpected Places

Today was not the best food day. I blame this on several things:

1) This was the first real day in more than a month I could finally use laxatives again. Of course I over indulged and had cramps. So I had that "I feel hungry" sensation and felt like if I ate something it would feel better... but of course it didn't.
2) Stupidly, I stepped on the scale, and was disappointed when I didn't see like stars and rainbows or slot machine read outs (I don't know what we expect, no number is ever going to make us happy), so even though I'd stayed away from the scale long enough that I'd lost like 5 pounds, I was mopey.
3) TR was eating in bed next to me all morning, like that was acceptable behavior.

However, I'm ok with this because yesterday I had no appetite and didn't eat anything until I got home at like 8PM and told myself I should probably eat a little something so I wouldn't binge later (hah) and ate a little baby cucumber, which is basically like nothing.

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Yesterday we ran errands and went to the store. I had to make TR help me pick out my foods because I felt so manic and ADD about what I was going to get. But everything's safe:

+ Watermelon, Plums, Grapefruit
+ Corn-on-the-cob, Celery, String beans, Baby cucumbers
+ 3 boxes of lean cuisines under 250cals each for emergencies only
+ 2 packs of TickTacks (I'm allowed five a day as rationed by TR as a treat, they are 1cal each)

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Today TR as part of my bad food day went out to the little place next to my house to get me my favorite depression lunch while I moped in bed. He comes back and throws the bag at me:

TR: "Oh, while I was there, the owner asked about you" (this is that place where they know our order by heart)
Me: "Yeah?"
TR: "He's worried about you"
Me: "Why?"
TR: "He wanted to know if you're sick or like ill. He said you've lost a lot of weight."
Me: "Really??? I'm not even that thin. And I don't know when he's seen me."
TR: "He sees you all the time walking on the street. We're right next door. And you're too thin. Look at your wrist. Mine is big and strong. Yours is so small I feel like if I tap it, I will break it. Your wrist is so fragile."
Me: "Well, whatever, if I keep feeling depressed and going to his place for lunch, I'll balloon back up and neither of you will have to worry."

Jesus Christ.

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I'm working on a list called "Crazy Things My ED Makes Me Think." Feel free to contribute. My favorites so far are that I'm always touching my collar bones because I'm afraid that one minute they'll just sink into my skin and disappear never to be seen again, and sometimes I hesitate when someone offers me lotion because I wonder if my body will absorb any fat or calories. haha.

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I was going to post a picture of me to show you all what I've been doing this summer but TR said I looked fat, so sorry. But I can't make that kind of first impression.

AWOL

I've lost my phone, and of course it's dead, so I have no idea where it is. I feel completely fractured.

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The little voice in my head is being SO damn mean. I guess I call her the dominatrix for a reason though. I love it. I know it's me, but it's a part of me that's been absent for about 2 months, so I'm glad... I'm... back.

Anyway, my hair is starting to fall out again, like really noticeably. I was at my best friend's house last night for a BBQ, eating fruit and pushing around the grilled vegetables he made just for me, when I noticed ALL THIS HAIR ON THE PLATE. So I quickly started picking all of it off. Ugh, I keep shedding. I mean, I've always kind of shed, but it hasn't been this bad since my sophomore year when I dropped 20 pounds during the summer when I was depressed and living alone on Slimfast.

My period also has been strangely awol. I've so far attributed this to the fact that I stopped my birth control awhile back and I might just be in shock. But I told both these things to TR and he was like "Hmm... well maybe you should Uh eat some real food other than grapefruit!?" I'm way not at that point. I'm like at a low BMI but it's still normal. It's not like early May where I was legitimately underweight.

So, I dunno. My body is teasing me. All the side effects, with no benefits.

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I need to start keeping a pad of paper with me. I had this existential blog post written out in my head while I was riding the subway yesterday, and then I forgot what it was about.

Sorry for the boring post. I'm having a boring day ;)

Death at the Hands of An SUV

So I've kind of unintentionally eaten a grapefruit and then fasted for 24 hours. I might do this again, but if I don't feel like fasting for a full 24 hours, I can eat another and not be punished.

I'm staying off the scale. And away from measuring myself. I fear my thunder thighs and numbers, but I know my thunder thighs will maybe go away faster than the numbers and I just won't notice it. I'm kind of a believer in the scale lying.

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I am SUCH a bitch.

At work, I was sitting working with this huge girl whose face kind of permanently looks she is smelling something really bad and thus reacting to it... even when she's smiling. It's a weird sneer.

If she wasn't kind of rude it wouldn't matter that she was so huge. But she is huge. I was thinking about this last night when I couldn't sleep. Her calf is probably the size of my thigh and her upper arm is probably the size of my waist (it's one of those arms where her elbow like disappears under the fat)... I'm not exaggerating, I've seriously stood and eyeballed the difference.

So she was sitting and being prissy and somehow the conversation ended up at the "South Beach Diet" ... and I was like "What exactly *is* this? I've just seen the frozen meals and bars." So she explains it, which to me, it just sounds like a societal accepted eating disorder (lots of rules, really unhealthy, good/bad foods, LOTS of rules, and it will basically make you neurotic if you follow it, which only the hardcore actually will). So I'm like "Wow." And she was like "The first 2 weeks are the hardest." And I'm like "What the fuck are you supposed to eat!? Can you be a vegetarian??" And she's like "Oh yeah, I have a bunch of cookbooks! This diet REALLY works."

Me: "*Deadpan* .................................... really ... ? *furrows brows*" (Followed by an equally bitchy but cheery) "Hmm, I'll have to try that..."

And that is why I'm going to Hell. Or why I'm going to get run over by a GIANT Range Rover.

Cheers,
Savory

Hello There

• I have not abandoned you!

• TR (formerly known as BF) plus work, plus the little girl I've been hanging around with all day every day because her mom has brought her to work and that's become my new job apparently... have provided TOO many distractions for me to get on blogger. I apologize. But it's not a good excuse, because if I was really as obsessive as I was 2 months ago, I would make time, so I promise I will start doing that again.

• So thanks to all the girls who came up with names for BF but I really got a chuckle out of Lulu's suggestion of "DWTR" (Dude With The Ring) and have just shortened it to "The Ring" or TR... I'm shallow ;)
  

• New plan. I still have a bunch of grapefruit from when my mom took me to costco to buy produce in bulk (is there anything more amazing than being surrounded by safe foods?), so because I still have a bunch left and I want to stop eating gross stuff that will keep me fat, I'm on a grapefruit diet! How retro cliche, I know. But that's all I'm going to eat until it runs out, then I'm back on raw foods again. I'm super excited. You should be too. We're getting me back on track. Back to 115, and then down to 110.

• Oh. I got high again, and had another crazy paranoid hallucination trip. I hated it so much I gave my friend's boyfriend the rest of an 1/8 I had just bought and a new bubbler pipe. I WASTE MONEY. This just shows me I should pretend to have a religious awakening so I have a new excuse for shunning drugs and alcohol. The later is empty calories and the former makes you eat things you don't even like.

Ok, off to be a glorified babysitter and construction worker for 9 hours. Promise to read a million blogs when I get home today!

Withdrawing

Above all, I hate failure. But I'm going to withdraw from the Summer Challenge because I feel like it's a failure to withdraw but I'm failing if I stay in it.

I've gotten to the point where I'm completely freaked out about my weight and I can't share the number with you all right now. I can't even trust the number. Last Monday it was 127. I got down to 119 before the fast (didn't weigh myself during fasting), and then I had to break the fast because I was babysitting.

I'm too ashamed to tell you what I weigh. I think even if I weighed 22 pounds, I would be embarrassed. I'm just weird about numbers right now. So I need to get my head straight, figure out something that works for me, and stick to the straight and narrow path. NARROW.

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I'm still tired of everyone telling me I'm too skinny, but the other night I found a photograph of myself at a "normal" weight. I know we are always talking about people being jealous, but I guess people are just so used to muffin tops being normal, that we get alarmed (as a society) by anything else. But I have some serious muffin toppage in this photograph. So it makes me feel better to see this photo because every once in awhile I think to myself, "Am I too thin? Did I look better?" UM NO. This picture is proof.

I think I'll have to show it to you all. I'll find a picture of myself at my current weight (they are few and far between, other than the grad photos where I'm wearing a tent, because I avoid photographs) so you can see what I'm talking about. Fair warning, I'll probably cut off my head, because I don't want anyone to be like "Wow, I pictured Savory as being *pretty* like all the other bloggers" so you can just put in whatever monster or model face you picture me as ;)

Maybe some day I'll be able to face up to you all.

Much love to everyone! All the garbage and food has been taken out of the house, so I'm excited to start fresh this week!! And my apologies to the Blue Team. I'll still be cheering you all on :)

Water Water Everywhere

OK. I'm in that lovely mindset again. It's time for a fast, at least until Saturday.

The only annoying thing is I'm back on Wellbutrin, Topamax (both of these are good b/c they have weight loss side effects) and it can sometimes cause nausea if you aren't eating. I'll start prozac next week, which is the only SSRI that's been FDA approved for bulimia and binge eating. You all know I don't like labels, so even though I really don't see myself as bulimic, I think that everything's a spectrum and if it can help one ED it can probably help them all :) Plus I need to stop eating like a fat fatty cow.

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I'm sure I have loads more to say, but I'm late for work! I'll blog more and read comments later. My little frog is so happy swimming around in his tank, I need to take a page from his book.

Cheers!
Savory

I Know. A Rant.

Ok readers. No more pity parties.

I'm choosing to embrace determination and feisty-ness instead of self-loathing and depression.

No, I haven't had my meds adjusted yet, but I refuse to allow myself to continue on a path of self-destruction. Well, the self-destruction I don't approve of. I'm sick of binging on food, alcohol, and SI. I'm welcoming my ED back into my life.

So what if I'm constantly afraid to answer phone calls from my friends (because their plans might include food or alcohol), go to restaurants (because I can't count the calories or know the ingredients), or go out in public (because people might say something about my size)? I'm going to hate myself if I'm starving or binging, so I might as well choose the former and keep losing weight.

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Now, I caution you, readers, against writing me off as obviously not tackling my emotional problems or continuing down a bad path. If you still feel this way, however, you are completely correct.

To address this, so we can get it out of the way: I've been seeing therapists and psychiatrists for four years now (four years that I can't get back), institutionalized twice, had my second amendment right taken away, and tried almost every major anti-depressant. Doctors have labeled me with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and EDNOS.

I don't have much faith in the system. For those of you out there who have found hope or relief with psychology or psychiatry, I am exceedingly happy. That's why it's there. Try it, if you can. But for me, it doesn't work. And I've realized that what works for me is doing whatever it takes to keep from self-destructing, and maybe taking a drug cocktail that while ineffective, doesn't make me suicidal.

Perhaps this is largely in part to my philosophy of life. Really, who am I living for? Myself? No. I could die at any time and I would probably be relieved. I'm living for other people and that's ok for now.

But who am I losing weight for? Myself, entirely. I know wholeheartedly that BF (ah he needs a new name now!) would prefer me to be a healthy 130 pounds. I know that it's stressful having to constantly avoid the worried faces. But I know that as meaningless as I find nearly everything in my life, for brief moments, tiny glimmering instants, I have something that makes me want to wake up tomorrow. Work towards something.

I don't know why we're a bit messed up (come on, if you're reading this, you are at least a little bit screwy... otherwise, you wouldn't be able to put up with my nonsense). But I'm glad to embrace this return of determination, because we all deserve something that makes us loathe ourselves a little less, even if just for a minute.

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Have a fabulous week, lovelies.

Cheers!
Savory

A Bad sort of Empty

I'm in a weird place right now. Need to get my meds adjusted. I'm literally swinging between feeling absolutely nothing but empty and then feeling this darkness overcoming me.

Neither one is good. When I feel empty, I try to fill the void with SI, food, alcohol, TV, anything.

And when I feel dark, I just want to feel nothing again... to make all these thoughts disappear.

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In any case, I can't shake it, and nothing I say on here is going to be helpful for me or my dear readers. I have an appointment on Tuesday with my shrink. I've just got to hang on until then.

I'll be reading everyone else's blogs and trying to offer something other than pitiful or empty words.

All my love!

The Other

When I got back to work after my lunch break (augh! my professor wanted to take me out to lunch again... I had 150cals max), some girls I work with were having a conversation about how to gain weight:

Me: "Uhhh I know I just walked in on this but WHO wants to gain weight and erm... why!??!"
HatGirl: "Oh I do. You know, I'm just too skinny right now. I need to gain some weight."
BlondeGirl: "You should just do what I did. I lost a bunch of weight in Italy so I just started eating gelato all the time right before I left so I would gain some weight."
Me: "I don't understand wanting to gain weight. But if you want to know how to do it, I can tell you how..."
GirlThree: "I don't get it either, but I've always wanted to LOSE weight! I used to be the chubby girl."
Me: "Oh me too!"
(Note, chubby for me is like 150 two years ago)
HatGirl: "I just want to gain some. I'm too small. It might not look like it, but I'm 110 pounds."
Me: "OH MY GOD. That's what I want!!"
GirlThree: "I'm 155. Savory, I can't imagine you as chubby."
Me: "Oh, erm, my weight goes up and down... if you want to gain weight and not be flabby about it, just start lifting weights, and eat a lot of fruit for breakfast with like oatmeal or cereal, then like a big sandwich for lunch, and have something like pasta and meat for dinner. You can snack on stuff like granola or nuts. But you have to eat at least 2,000 calories. Just eat good foods that are high in carb and the good fat. Or come to my house and eat all the high cal foods I stuff my face with. I'll watch you eat haha."
HatGirl: "I think you looked really good last Fall. That was like the perfect size for you."
(Last Fall I was between 130-140)
Me: "Oh thanks... I was like 10 pounds heavier."
HatGirl: "Are you satisfied with the size you are now?"
Me: "Yeah, I guess. I mean, a few more pounds wouldn't hurt, you know?"

Later the conversation turned to eating disorders. GirlThree was talking about how her friend had bulimia and she found out when said friend drunkenly confided it to her. And she said this shocked her because she didn't know how she could keep it a secret, and because she was very overweight. Then she said something else:

GirlThree: "I just feel so strange when I find out something like that. Like, I would never think anyone I knew dealt with things like that or had that."

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Sigh. Things like that make me feel like a ghost, just floating through life. Not part of this world but with no where else to go. I'll always be the other. An outsider.

Thank You

I don't have much time, but I wanted to say thank you to everyone who left me comments. I'm worried too, but I'm not going to let myself spiral out of control.

Today is the beginning. 500 calories. Water water water. I won't let myself and everyone else down.

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To clarify, BF proposed Saturday night (I'll give details later) and my weekend was absolutely magical. I definitely said yes.

Now I just have to physically and mentally get myself to a better place so I feel like I deserve the happiness I've been given.

Black and White

Can you hit rock bottom while you are simultaneously experiencing what is supposed to feel like the best day of your life thus far?

I think I'm there.

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It happens every year. June rolls around and I turn into a fucking crazy bitch. It's my father's birthday on the 6th, and everyone else is celebrating father's day this month. What has made me this way? Maybe it's from making too many meaningless cards for my uncle or my dead father in elementary school that would just get shoved under my mom's bed. Or maybe it's just like how penguins are hard wired to just suddenly know they're supposed to migrate and probably die during the journey.

Every June I'm supposed to self destruct.

I forget about it too. Every year. And then I'm sobbing and screaming and reaching for sharp objects and it all comes back to me. "Where's a calender?! God what day is it?"

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I just weighed myself. 126. Early last week I was down to 118 again after all the graduation food that was shoved at me. Now? Well, I'd talk myself into saying it's just food weight blah blah, which some of it is... but my measurements are up too. On my arms and my waist. So I'm restarting ABC with tomorrow being my first day. 500.

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Got a prescription for Ativan. But it's too late. The anxiety attacks aren't nearly the source of my problems right now. It's my desire to destroy myself. Old habits have returned. Binge drinking, SI, eating eating eating.

Locked myself in the bathroom and found my poorly hidden kitchen knife. Performed the ritual. At first BF ignored me and didn't notice it. Then when he did, we danced the somber dance of silently cleaning me up and bandaging my wounds. He bought me ice cream and root beer which I began to eat, hoping to feel something other than empty.

Then I stopped. I began to feel too much. Happiness began creeping in and BF decided to go to bed, thinking his trip to the corner store had saved the day. I locked myself in the bathroom again and pulled off the band-aids -- the only things standing in my way of numbing myself again.

This time BF wasn't as supportive. "What the hell? Do you know how unacceptable this is? You don't get a bandage this time. You don't deserve it." I must have cut deeper than I realized, because blood was dripping down my leg this time. I don't know what I feel now. I agree with him though. I don't deserve to be soothed and told everything will be ok. My head is fucked up and I destroy everything I touch.

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Oh, this past Saturday BF proposed. I'll comment more on that some other time when I feel less like putting my fist through a wall.

All my love and support to everyone and all my readers. I'm sorry I haven't been commenting as much. I'll get better. But don't worry too much about me... I probably make my life sound worse and more dramatic than it actually is *hugs*