I don't have a title today.

Well between the British system and the American, I'm covered on my meds. Hooray! This means you all won't have to hear the rants anymore.

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I have been playing Dragon Age at my friend's house for the past few days. It's completely intense. But it led to yet another awkward conversation this morning with Paula Deen (this is after she tried to talk me into seeing some nurse practitioner who does "great pap smears..." UH overshare.).

PD: "Is Dragon Age the really bloody one?"
Me: "Oh my gosh yes. It's crazy."
PD: "I know you have had a problem with cutting in the past. Does the game make you have urges to do it? Or does it replace the urge?"
Me: ".... Jesus Mom it has nothing to do with that..."
PD: "Oh well I was just wondering because of the violence. It doesn't hurt to ask, that's how I know!"

Ugh. I appreciate her trying to understand me or whatever, but it's like more awkward than if she talked about sex positions or something. At least I wouldn't feel like a freakshow. I shouldn't complain though, I sometimes forget that she knows some things about me I would rather forget myself and usually she doesn't say anything. That I really appreciate.

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Be safe during the next few days, we'll all make it! After January 6th when I'm back in England, I can leave all this food behind me... I seriously am not liking the abundance of food. Break please?

Paula Deen is calling me to dinner. What irony.

French Philosophy

Me: "Why are you afraid of the hospital?"
Holly: "Because it has a weird smell..."
Me: "It really does have a distinctive smell. Offputting..."
Holly: "It's because people go there to die."

I have to go to the hospital tomorrow to try and convince a new doctor to take me seriously. Honestly though, I've kind of reached that inevitable point I get to every now and again where I'm like, "There's NOTHING wrong with me! The problem lies within society! FOUCAULT BITCHES!"

But eventually I'll take like a sheet of sleeping pills for a "headache" or start throwing plates against the wall and I have to rethink this philosophy.

The hospital freaks me out in a number of different ways (hello deadly bacteria on elevator buttons!?) and I always feel like my clothes I've worn there aren't really clean until 3-4 washes/I've forgotten I wore those particular ones. But there's something comforting about it too. It's like, "Hello this is the one chance you get at a real vacation. All you have to do is sacrifice order, basic hygiene, and control over your destiny..."

Maybe what is so appealing is that relinquishing of control. Knowing everything is futile and just lying there while you get poked and prodded by bad-cop and coo'd over by good-cop.

I suppose it's why you can't really ever "recover" from an eating disorder. Something hard wired within you made that particular disease an outlet. You can take away the behavior, but your personality, the gears that wind your inner clock, still remain.

Oftentimes I say that despite my destructive behaviors, suicidal tendencies, all I really want to do is escape. I'm usually thinking the external burdens upon me that I feel are to overwhelming to control. But now and again, I wonder if I just want to escape being stuck with the broken parts of me. The parts of me that are my weakness and my strength.

Then again, where does the problem lie? Within one's mind or amidst one's cultural entrapping?

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"Death left its old tragic heaven and became the lyrical core of man: his invisible truth, his visible secret."
- Michel Foucault (The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception)

Control.

Flying back to America for the holiday in a few hours. Am super neurotic about traveling and TR isn't here to hold my hand through being crazy and resistant about it.

I don't know why I developed this fear of traveling. It happened some time a few years ago. Used to be that airports and train stations were exciting and maybe a bit romantic... but I've come to realize despite the price tag, I am in a vehicle that is a glorified city bus. And after living where I've lived, the city bus is disgusting no matter what allure they try to paint with "Red busses" in London to win me over. Nope, it's filthy and smelly and no one on there can be trusted not to have the flu or be rude.

There are also too many variables about the airport I can't control. Delayed flights. Gross people sitting next to me. Getting to the airport on time (must rely on other forms of public transport which are equally unreliable). It's all too stressful.

It's the same reason that while I like to drive, I find driving to be a stress-inducing activity. I'm a great driver, but everyone else on the road is probably trying to kill me at any given point. Most of them shouldn't have a license.

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So I'll be fat for Christmas and New Years. Hopefully this period will give me some time to widdle myself back to a respectable weight because I never over-eat when I'm with other people and food is continuously flowing. I flip out and don't want to eat much.

Must avoid the scale because my thighs are telling me I won't like the number I see. However, I know that everyone will be pleased at my weight gain. This will keep people from bothering me about things while I try to sort my body-philosophy out for myself.

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Thank you to my readers, new (hello there!) and those of you who have been with me for a bit. You all have stuck it out when my blog has veered in many directions and always been helpful, supportive, kind, and loving.

Hope the upcoming holidays are the least stressful as possible!

...Like a Sailor

Sweet baby Jesus on a bicycle!

http://cursebird.com/savory1sick

Clearly I need to bump up my twitter @#$(*#($...

I didn't realize this existed until I googled my blogger alias and it was the 3rd thing to pop up. Immediately I thought, "OH NO YOU DIDN'T! Someone is fucking stealing *my* completely unique persona for some stupid feed." Then I realized the potential of this situation and felt relieved and a little pleased with myself.

They say that cursing cheapens language, I say "they" just don't fucking know how to correctly use it. A swear with the right placement is better than the best jargon, the most eloquently placed semi-colon.

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Today I met someone I haven't seen in months. Was told the following:

"You look great. Slim but not anorexic."

This made me wonder two things... did she know? At what point did I decide that skeletal was beautiful?

Don't get me wrong, a huge part of me is still mourning the loss of my protruding spine. But I know that it looked disgusting. I could see things that you shouldn't even see on an X-Ray. And because of it, I have lost all sense of beauty. TR and I get in fights about what it is (even though he's male, I automatically think I am a better judge of aesthetic).

"What? No no no. Collarbones are beautiful! And everyone thinks hipbones are sexy! They don't? Are you sure? You don't think that little articulated bump on the collarbone is amazing? You aren't lying to me because you want me to eat pizza, are you? Ok well I don't believe you but I'll try to believe you. But I don't."

(P.S. I blame pizza for my weight gain. Cheese is Satan. It's not animal friendly and it's decidedly sneaky)

No one. NO ONE starts out at the beginning stages of an eating disorder wanting to be 70 lbs. If you do, you have other issues going on.

Something happens, and the mind flips everything around. We get trapped in the mirror we're so entranced by, and the world doesn't seem to work by the same rules anymore. Left is right.

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In other news, as healthy as I've spouted off being lately, I just realized today that I still completely don't know how to eat. This occurred when I ordered lunch and did fine. Then we had to get dinner and I realized I was NOT not not hungry nor had any desire to eat.

Shit.

English Breakfast

My sleep schedule is horrible. Woke up yesterday at 3:00pm after going to sleep at 6:00am.... It's 8:43 now and I still haven't slept.

I even ate breakfast (I never eat breakfast) to try and make myself full and tired. Now I'm full and confused about why I just ate beans and tomatoes. English breakfast is weird.

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Hope you'll all take a look at a blog that's just popped up, and I'm lucky to be the first follower. Lillie Flower is lovely; her writing is soft and delicate like her name.

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So I haven't stuck to my eating plan and it's mostly been intentional. I realized that I have company coming on Wednesday, and we're taking a trip up North for a few days. So I'll be spending 24/7 with them and my friend already hates how thin I've gotten. Then I go home, and honestly, I really want to eat my mom's food :(

But there's two sides to this coin. I had the brilliant idea of going Vegan again after I come back from the States in January as a "New Year's Resolution." I already don't really eat eggs or yogurt anymore so the only thing I really have to cut out is cheese.

The other side is I am physically not doing too well with this re-feeding. I'm above a underweight BMI in the first time in ages, so I should have more energy and blah blah. Instead, I'm breaking out. Like worst worst worst breakout ever. My hair is meh, and I'm always puffy. Like retaining fluids.

WTF? Being healthy sucks.

I do think it's important that I stay like this even though my trousers are moaning when I pull them on. At least through the holidays so people stop worrying and get off my case.

The other day TR said something to the extent of "because of the eating disorder you refuse to acknowledge, you've rendered your body fucked up for life."

They say you know you have a problem when you can't admit it.

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I keep thinking about a quote from Wasted (cliche I know) as I hop between trying to eat normally and then freaking out and starving again:

"When you eventually begin to get well, health will feel wrong, it will make you dizzy, it will confuse you, you will get sick again because sick is what you know."

I think I'm stuck between two worlds. There's this inability for me to be around food without over-thinking, and yet I can't properly starve. I'm not well. I'm not yet sick again.

Limbo.

Skinny Chant

If I can gain weight, I can lose it.

(repeat this until you believe it.)

Welcome back?

shit shit shit.

Why did I buy a scale? It was fine until I see a sudden huge scary spike this morning.

snap snap snap.

Time to start popping pills out of their metallic and plastic enclosures...

Hello eating disorder! I've allowed you to take a backseat to my nasty eating habits, but now I need you join me again to fight the terrible beast weighing me down on the scale.

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Must go about this slowly, otherwise I'll have set myself up for failure and a bad binge. Tonight I'll finish or throw away all the gross shit I have in my kitchen and tomorrow it's grocery shopping.

I'm writing out my list just so I have to stick to it:

bananas
clementines
porridge
carrots
mustard
tea
squash

I'm also back to "The Anti-Brown" diet. Porridge and tea aren't brown because I say so. Eventually though, porridge will be out as well. I'll be doing my version of 2-4-6-8, which is going to be 1-3-5-1. Tomorrow we start at 3.

OK. Doable. I'll ease myself back into fasting, one day at a time. Write down everything that enters my mouth. Grr, where did I put my notebook!?!

................... found it!

I'm going to try something I like to call: "Plan everything out the day before and don't even dare to falter from the plan." Sounds good. I can even schedule in homework (that I don't ever do, but I must if it's on the plan lol!) and chores.

OMG I'm so excited. I love being organized.

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It will take a little bit of time to start counting calories before they enter my mouth, not accidentally pick something up and eat it, or be basically neurotic about everything, but it's better than eating until I feel sick and then feeling guilty and promising that tomorrow is another day.

I know it's pretty stupid to talk myself back into starving after I've been working really hard to eat, and more importantly eat without freaking out... but it doesn't seem like the later really happened. I just ate, ate more, felt guilty and sick, waited for that to subside, and ate more.

...I hate that food controls me even when I'm controlling it.

Shopping.

"I have a horrible problem with shopaholism too. I realise what my life has boiled down too - the superficial and desperate need for quick fixes. I am the quintessential consumer, with no real ability to feel joy anymore and with the constant need to blot it out by the millions of brief flicks of satisfaction caused by purchasing something or shoving something in my gob."
-- Pasco

I want to hear about your experiences with shopping. Grocery shopping. Clothes shopping. Corner store shopping.

What kind of consumers are anoretics and bulimics? This is part of a larger discourse I'm working on, so I want to know how you shop and what shopping does to you.

Cheers,
Savory

(P.S. if you write about it on your lovely blogs, send me a link pleeease!)

Reflection Symmetry

I only ever seem to think about my money problems realistically right before I'm about to run out of toilet paper.

"Damn," I mutter to myself, "It's time to buy more. There really are so many things I need to reserve my money for and don't. Don't."

Then, noting the irony of my ways, I step over a pizza box--haphazardly thrown on the floor--and think about where exactly I spend my money.

Oh. Food. Lots and lots of food. Followed by periods of no food but equally ridiculous purchases (clove ciggys, more clothes, online gaming, "Christmas presents" which are a thinly veiled excuse for me to buy things and try to remember they aren't for me). The online gaming has to be the saddest because it's basically throwing money into a vortex, knowing it will go somewhere, but not really benefiting yourself or showing the fruits of its labor.

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I have 2 options for tonight. Things can either shape up, involving me doing a rigorous bout of cleaning and making up for any lapses in personal care.... or I can take some sleeping pills and know that tomorrow is another day.

I've only got *shakes can* 2/3 left of my Orange Tango, so if I stay awake too much longer (note it's only 8:30pm and I woke up around 3:00pm today) I'll have to ignore my thirst or bundle up to get soda again.

The sleeping pills are looking inviting. Plus, when I'm asleep, I can't possibly be eating or buying shit. I'm running out of TV programs to stream, and I can't do homework unless I take care of the physical mess. Everything in order, you know.

Trying to do some math in my head to see how long I can sleep before I have responsibilities tomorrow. Ugh, Thursday is always a long day... maybe I should just stay awake now so I don't sleep and get to the grind of tomorrow any sooner.

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Sometimes, my favorite things to do are those I am fully aware I shouldn't be for ethical/medical/moral/safety reasons. I like to breath deeply and rub my eyes until it's like looking into a kaleidoscope. Your brain can't differentiate between light and pressure, so it thinks it's looking at something (and tries to interpret it with colors etc) when actually, you're just ramming your fingers against your eye making a "I'm so sleepy" motion.

Meditation never works for me, but there's something soothing about closing your eyes and seeing things among the murky blackness.

It's times like this when I distract myself away from the mundane things in life, like when I'll make time to buy more sodding toilet paper.

I can't function.

I'm on hold with my American insurance company, listening to a looping message about managing stress.

This makes me want to punch a hole in the wall.

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I have nothing witty or supportive to say today. Officially, I am drained and more than a little discouraged. Don't feel like talking about it... for once, har har.

P.S. I tried to get private insurance in the UK but I can't even be treated for pre-existing conditions for 5 years. FML. I've run out of options.

Old Record

Spent the night in the hospital.

How many times can shit like this go down before it's completely tiresome?

Nothing to whine about. Don't drink cough syrup though... the next morning isn't pleasant. I also learned that what we Yankees call acetaminophen is called paracetamol everywhere else in the world. Oops.

Food intake at the hospital is always great. When they're worried about your kidneys failing, they don't give a shit if you eat the gravied pork (after you've already slurred your vegetarian ways) that's gathering significant precipitation under the now-swampy plastic hospital cover. So my intake was 80cal of cheese and 30cal of cracker and negative calories for whatever it was I managed to purge from the day before.

When I got out of the hospital, my mood immediately elevated despite lacking a good reason, and I bought a Subway to pretend I was in America where I wouldn't have just been sent home with a pat on the head.

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Seriously though, the one thing that is good about the hospital is that it's the shittiest hotel you'll ever stay in. This is fine if you've got nationalized health care and you aren't paying for it, but I do get a bit irked when I think about how much I'm shelling out to be mentally sodomized in the US.

But back to my original point. I like to be taken care of and know that there's a routine and a schedule that I have to follow. It's like vacation.

(omg, side note for a good paper)

Sometimes I'll say to people, "If I had it my way, I just wouldn't ever do anything. Ever." I always get the same response: "Oh doesn't everyone want that?"

No. Lock me in a room without windows and external stimuli forever and I think I'd be ok. People creep me out more than they comfort me. Too much stuff is overwhelming. Just leave me alone with my craziness and my thoughts and the promise of no responsibility to anyone or anything and I would be happy.

When you tell people that you don't want to do anything, they think you mean 1) Quit your job 2) Be rich 3) Live on some kind of fancy deserted island where you still have access to everything you want and desire.

People actually need to do meaningful things in their lives. Well most people. People like us find meaning from within. From staring down at our bodies... blobs of skin... for hours. Letting our mind race from topic to topic, conversations of the past, and things that need to be done. A mental checklist.

The only people who actually don't want to do anything are the people who are so exhausted from themselves it's hard to live in both the real world and the one that's going on inward.

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Integrating back into society after a brief hospital holiday. Remembering how to successfully lead two lives.

Update On the State that I Am In

What Ho, Readers!

I may or may not be losing my job soon. This is really shitty because I want to quit. It's also really stupid because this is the first time I've ever not been able to juggle school, social life, and hold down a job. I'm obviously less high functioning than I look ;)

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Managed to do what I have decided to be THE stupidest method of self harm YET (Oh and there have been plenty... I always get asked about "cutting" and "overdosing" but I want to say, "Wait, you don't want to hear about the really clever ones??"). I'm going to tell you about it only because I can't think of anyone as stupid as I am who would actually go through with this.

Decided to color my hair because I'm sick of the auburn color it is. Bought bleach and bleached it. Realized the stupid pink I colored it months and months ago was underneath the auburn and black I had on top that bleached out perfectly.... so fully knowing I should wait to bleach it again, I bleached it 2 days later AND put another color on after the bleach to get the yellow out.

The bleaching went fine but the color started burning my head. That's when I started getting very, "pain is gain" about the whole thing and wanted to see how long I could last.

Now my head is raw and weeping and I can already envision the scabs. This was dumb.

The pink didn't come out. It's kind of interesting looking though. Just wish I didn't effing burn my head so I could actually use toner to get the yellows out.

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Term papers are due on the 14th and I haven't started a single one. Oops.

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A care package arrived with all my favorite American Christmas candy. Damn. I think I'm going to dole them out to friends and be like "Look how kitchy this is!"

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I need to replace my toothbrush. Very anal about when they start to get old (after like a month lol!) but I can't find where I put the damn replacements.

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I have a negative balance in my bank account and my American health insurance just went up. FML

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The best thing of all though is that yesterday I came home and went straight to bed at 7PM and woke up at 7AM. Now all the shitty things in the world don't seem to bother me.

Have a restful day. Zone out on the bigger things for a bit with me!

Toodle pip,
Savory