Intake History

I have a friend who tells everyone about his problems. All our acquaintances know about his latest bruise or bump, relationship drama, and family issues. Admittedly, he's gone through some pretty fucked up nonsense and doesn't always live a charmed life.

I have to retreat to the bowels of the internet and create a fake persona to share the things that are troubling me. In fact, I don't know that any one person (other than perhaps TR but probably not even him) knows the true extent of the ridiculous things I've gone through.

I have reasonable evidence to support this. By this count, I've seen... 8 therapists. Those of you who have been to the shrink know the drill. First session: History. Every single therapist I've seen has given me that look of "Oh yeah you definitely need therapy" or "Why are you so functional?" or "JESUS".

I have known for a long time that everyone suffers in life through one form or another. When I was younger, I used to look to the sky and ask why I had been forced to live such a life when others were so fortunate? But now I know better. It isn't what's happened to you but how you deal with it.

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Sometimes I just want to be that person who can't deal with it so everyone else has to deal with it too. Distribute the burden so it hurts a little less. Sit and listen to people tell me how they feel bad for me and tell me exactly what I should do. Hold my hand.

I'll never be that person.

But I want to get it all off my chest. I have to tell someone about the baggage I carry. Someone who isn't paid to care about me.

So here it is.

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I have to start the story of my life before it begins. I have to tell you the story of my mother. It needs to be done this way because my mother lives through stories. Something reminds her of some other thing. She needs to relay her motivations by explaining what event caused her to feel that way. And sometimes, she just talks. And talks.

My grandmother is and was a wicked woman. She married a soldier going into WWII fully expecting he would die in the war and she'd be given a widow's pension, set for life. Unfortunately for her, he lived. And through that union, my mother was born. It was made very clear to her that my grandmother did not want her. When my mother was 3 years old, my grandmother (let's call her Petunia) took her door to door asking the neighbors if they'd like to adopt her. When this strategy didn't work, she told my mother (let's call her Rose) that she'd tried to have an abortion to prevent this entirely.

Several important events happened to Rose during these formative years. Most significantly, she almost died at age five.

Rose followed a trail of candy that the local newspaper boy, of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, was leaving behind along his way. The trail led into a barn. She was brutally raped and beaten. Her teeth were kicked out, her nasal cavity collapsed, and bones broken. The attacker buried her in a shallow grave and left her for dead. Rose softly cried out and was eventually found by a neighbor. She spent months in the hospital.

My mother had two younger siblings. Petunia's displeasure at having given birth to Rose never relented. Rose endured punishments like having her head shaved for wearing make up. Being a religious nut, Petunia told Rose that fiction books like Lassie were from the devil. More things than not were sins. Rose could quote scripture and play the organ in church, but she could barely read or write. She did poorly in school and other children teased her.

When she was 13, Rose became ill with the German measles because of which she contracted viral arthritis. She was hospitalized for almost a year, wheelchair bound. At one point, doctors told her she would never walk again. That night she attempted suicide. Her father wouldn't allow her to use the wheelchair in the house and made her crawl if necessary. Rose attributes his brand of tough love as the reason she was able to walk again.

Rose married at 16 and was pregnant at 17. Her husband was abusive (himself having been physically and sexually abused by his mother) but she gave the marriage 5 years, not wanting to return home to her former life. Her life was incredibly sheltered and her husband allowed her to have no friends. She couldn't drive a car and she hadn't finished high school, neither of which he allowed. He had a PhD. They divorced and she quickly remarried for financial security and to avoid Petunia. The only person she knew was her ex-husband's brother. So they married.

Husband #2 turned out to be even worse, but she would not know this immediately. She would have another child, a second daughter, by this man. Rose discovered later that Husband2 was sexually and physically abusing her children. He beat Rose and mentally tortured her. It was during this time she weighed 80 pounds at 5'3". Still, he called her fat and ugly. This husband was the principle of a private school. He was later accused to be sexually molesting children, but being a church run establishment, was relocated to a different area (after they divorced). My mother met another man, slowly but eventually, divorced husband number 2 and married husband number 3.

Number 3 was my father. By this time, my sisters were 13 and 17. I was born shortly after they married and a younger sister was born 2 years later.

Four years after they married, my father was killed in a plane crash.

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I think this is a good place to rest our eyes and continue another day.

Moderation

Have you ever felt really thin and looked at yourself in the mirror and said, "I am definitely like 20 pounds lighter. Sleep really does wonders!" Then you go on the scale and you actually weigh more? And it cannot be explained by water-retention or the weight of your ever lengthening hair (whenever I'm growing my hair out, I always think to myself, "If you would just cut your hair short again you'd probably weigh like 5 pounds less!") or the weight of tiny robots that may be camping out in your spleen!

Anyway, I'm still going to call it a victory. I feel less revolting so win! Actually, I'm incredibly proud of myself. My family has been spreading out Thanksgiving so we don't eat everything in one day and want to die. This has a downside for me because I'll be going to TR's parents house for Thanksgiving (aaah the first holiday spent with in-laws! My life is turning into a romantic comedy!) so basically I'll be eating Thanksgiving food at my house for 3 days then go to his house and have a huge dinner and then 3 days worth of leftovers.

The only thing saving me is that his mom isn't a great cook (fucking would it kill you to maybe season your food?! WOULD IT!?!!?) and I'm incredibly picky. So hopefully I'll just eat the pie I'm bringing and push some of her food around on the plate until it looks like I enjoyed her hospital food.

But anyway, I'm proud of myself. Today I was all set to make candied yams so my mother put out everything for me to make it. I LOVE my yams. I really love most Thanksgiving food actually but only if it was made by me or my mother. Otherwise Thanksgiving and most holiday food can go fuck itself.

So I decided that after my mashed potato overload yesterday (and midnight snack of hummus and pita) that perhaps today should be one of moderation. I put the yams back in the cabinet and ran upstairs to avoid the kitchen all together.

HOORAY FOR ME! I've done something that normal people have no problem doing on a daily basis.

*smug*

Ugh!

... That was the story of my life!

Savory gets "real"

OK, I've decided a few things. These are a few things that I have to be open about if I want to keep blogging. They might sound (and be) incredibly selfish and make you think less of me, but what the hell I've talked about my bathroom habits and you haven't run away or slapped me in the face yet.

There are several reasons why I blog infrequently. Let's list them:

1. I feel I am inadequately thin and/or disordered. Now this may sound silly coming from the person who locked herself in her room today and denied herself any food or drink (water included) until she saw a number on the scale she liked, but whatever. I'm not skinny and I don't feel like anyone wants to read about an average girl whining about her average problems.
2. My life is at a point where I sometimes can find the time to blog, but I don't find the time to contribute to the community in other meaningful ways. This is entirely my fault and I feel incredibly guilty that I never comment and hardly take the time to read other blogs. In my mind, it's incredibly selfish for me to expect my readers to keep checking on me when I don't have the common courtesy to do the same. But isn't that what a blog is? You write and other people read it? This is where it gets into existential gray areas.
3. ......... actually there might be only two reasons. Sorry for getting you hyped up about reading an in-depth list.

So there you have it. Basically I'm too inconsiderate to read your blogs but I still want you to read mine and comment because that's how I evaluate my self worth.

Now that I've said it, maybe we can have a more honest relationship. I apologize.

And as much as the proper Southern-bred lady in me wants to say "I'm so sorry, I promise to blog more and be more active in the community" that would be a lie. I'll try to be more active in the community, but I'm just not in that place anymore and as much as I try something's keeping me from going back there.

So there you have it. Probably the most honest I've ever been to the people I've always been able to be the most honest with.

[I have to write something here because I can't end a blog post with a preposition-grammatical-error because that's embarrassingly awkward]

In defense of my dog.

Ouch, lost a follower. Message received.

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Does anyone else have an unnatural attachment toward animals? I don't mean this in the "furry" kind of sense (shudder) but I find that an injured animal upsets me more than an injured person. I hate watching movies where there's a battle with people on horse because something happens and the horse falls over (probably crushing whoever was riding it) and I get incredibly worried about the horse. The fictional horse.

I've always felt this way about animals. Something about people I just can't connect with. Maybe I feel like people will inevitably choose to leave me. Maybe I sense that people are morally corrupt and too ambiguous in their motives. Animals are incredibly predictable. The rules are clear and engagement is simple.

The other thing is that an animal, specifically a pet, needs me. There is an obligation to care for it. If I disappeared, it wouldn't understand.

It wouldn't endeavor to harm me out of spite or hurt me for revenge.

They remind me of everything I am not.

Another Survey

OK first off, I apologize that this is going to be the second time I bombard you with something asking you to do something, but I recieved this email and I'd love to participate but I dropped out of the program before I even started. Oops. But it's an important study because I hated the UK mental health services.

Also it supports a charity!!

We are currently conducting a study which is looking at treatment experiences of people who have had eating disorders. The findings will improve our understanding of what treatments people are currently getting and how helpful they find them. The ultimate aim is to improve access to effective NHS treatments for everyone with eating disorders. We will donate £2 for every questionnaire completed to B-eat, the eating disorders charity, until our target of 130 completed questionnaires is reached.

We are looking for people to take part in the study who have received psychological therapy in the UK for bulimia nervosa or a binge-eating problem. If this applies to you, please click on the link below. If not, please forward this email on to as many people as possible. We know that eating disorders are often kept secret so you might not know which of your friends could help us - so circulating this email widely is likely to be the best way to help.

Taking part involves filling out an on-line questionnaire about your eating problems and treatment experiences, which can be accessed via this link:
http://www.b-eat.co.uk/Supportingbeat/ResearchRequests/BulimiaBingeEating

It should take 15-30 mins to complete, and we will be incredibly grateful for your help.

Here's the small print: The study is being conducted at UCL as part of Rachel van Schaick's doctoral thesis. The study has been approved by the Ethics Committee of University College London. To find out more about B-eat, the Eating Disorders Charity, or to make a donation, please visit http://www.b-eat.co.uk.

Many, many thanks,

Rachel van Schaick
Trainee Clinical Psychologist
Research Dept of Clinical, Educational & Health Psychology
University College London

Supervised by Lucy Serpell
Lecturer, Doctorate in Clinical Psychology Research Dept of Clinical, Educational & Health Psychology
University College London

Clinical Psychologist, Eating Disorder Service, North East London Foundation Trust

Real post soon my dearest readers. Don't abandon me!

An Outside Query

I've been asked to pass along the contents of a survey:

Hello. My name is Sheila and I am a college student working on a research project. My study focuses on girls and women who consider themselves to be pro-anorexic. I hope to better understand the users of online, pro-anorexia websites. If you are willing to participate, I would like to ask some questions about what this website means to you. I am not here to judge or make assumptions, but to simply gather information on a group that many know little about. All participation will be anonymous. Please use screen names that do not identify you in any way. If you are willing to participate, please post a reply to the following questions. If not, thank you for just taking the time to read this.

Questions:

1.) How did you first come to join this website and what keeps you participating in it?
2.) Do you consider others on this website to be your friends? What kinds of support do they give you?
3.) How does your family support -- or not support, --you?
4.) Are you closer to your friends who are online or to those who are offline? Why?
5.) Do you see a difference between anorexics, “anas,” and “rexies”? What term do you use to refer to yourself?

The researcher prefers to remain anonymous but if you have any questions, I believe she will be monitoring any comments and will respond to any concerns or questions in my comment form. I don't think I have to caution anyone here about protecting your identity (are we paranoid enough?) but be aware that anything you say may be published or widely disseminated.

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Actually, I've been meaning to mention that for some time now. Intellectual property on the internet is incredibly tricky. Basically, a good means to know whether your speech/writing is protected is via the website you are using. Is a username and password required to gain access to your work? If not, it's probably up for grabs (this includes artwork and photographs) and considered in the public domain. Just a thought.

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I'll write a proper post soon. I've had a visitor from the UK for two weeks so that's taken the bulk of my time! I've missed you all loads though. Can't wait to catch up.

Cheers,
Savory

God's Wrath and a Cryptic Rant

I hate when other people complain to me.

I hate more that I think I have the right to be a complainer.

Isn't that always the case though? Someone tells you how awful their life and you think "Well at least you aren't going through this this and this. I'm the one who has it bad!" And then you realize, that you're them, except worse because you can be self-aware and still not give a damn about changing your mindset.

It's so much easier to think that the world is against you. And it's even easier to think that everyone else is floating in rainbow bubble slush while you are getting kicked in the teeth. What do I have to do to shake that part of me? The part of me that always laments over getting dealt the bad cards. The part of me that scoffs at a God who might intervene on our lives (if there is a God, he is surely uninterested in anything but deep time) but secretly thinks that I must have done something horribly wrong to be punished so profusely.

The worst part is I probably wouldn't feel anything like this, and definitely not this profoundly, except that obviously I've skipped my medication several days too many. It makes me wonder if my meds keep me emotionally regulated but complacent and blind to the true nature of the world. And if so the question remains...

Is ignorance bliss?

I obviously wouldn't be nearly as upset about a topic (that I can't even reveal to my readers because I have no idea who might read this from my offline life) except I accidentally found out about it. And I definitely would feel less bad if I had stayed on the medication that keeps me emotionally drained.

At least most of my day went well. Exceedingly well.

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"On the ignorance of learned men:
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
(Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, 124)

And we come full circle again.

Shock Therapy

If you haven't seen this yet (I meant to mention it before it went viral but meh), this should turn you off from a good percentage of food you shouldn't be eating:

Let me know if it doesn't.

Battenburg and Bakewell

Today was strange.

We went to visit my sister who is in San Diego doing some freelance work right now. That city is so emotionally charged. It isn't neutral for me like Los Angeles or Seattle. I associate it with Comic-Con and TR (who is obsessed with his home town and like practically every San Diego native thinks it's the best city in the world. Weirdo.) So I always feel a little sad going there, it's like walking into an old memory. Seeing ghosts everywhere.

But today it was compounded. We were trying to figure out things to do, and I suggested we stop in this British imported goods shop.

Literally everything in there made me so wistful. In the back of my mind, I tried to remind myself "When you lived in London you were hospitalized or at A&E 3 different times in 8 months... it wasn't as great as you remember it now". But I just kept thinking to myself, as I gazed at the Cadbury chocolates and Twinnings tea boxes, that my life would be so much better if I was still there.

Obviously with some minor details like my own kitchen and a job, but still.

I don't know. I'm just now coming to grips with the notion that my life there is over. It all feels like a dream. And if I didn't know that Anise, Lulu, and Lola-Rose would quickly remind me, I might think that perhaps it never happened.

During that time, I walked down the lane, looking at myself at my absolute thinnest and later at my loathsome stubborn neutral weight. At different points, I wore size 4/6 and 10/12. Sometimes I liked to put my teeny tiny Topshop skinny jeans on top of my fat cheap Primark jeans. Like it told a story. In reverse.

At the import shop, I bought a box of Mr. Kipling's Battenburg cakes (which may find itself atop the fourth plinth in Trafalgar apparently) and Cherry Bakewell Tarts. Some of you may remember they comforted me many a night during my kitchen boycotts.

They're still sitting in the bag on a countertop. I don't think they've ever lasted this long before. Perhaps I'll freeze them. It was lovely to see them and though I almost cried at the thought of my favorite delights, I have utterly no desire to eat them.

Maybe it truly is an emotional addiction I have to food. It's not that I don't want to eat anything, but I'm worried that I'll eat a battenburg cake and it just won't taste as frantically good. It wouldn't be associated with lonely nights in my 8x20 room watching TV and spending 16 hours in bed. I didn't have to throw on clothes and an awful hat, doing a walk-of-shame to Sainsbury's just to get them before the shop closed so I could survive another evening.

It would just be food. It would just be the remnants of a memory.

And it's not really about food. Never really. It's about thoughts, and desires, and obsessions, and sadness and loss. It's about eating my ups and downs. It's about finding something that doesn't want to be found. It's about filling up a bottomless hole. A gaping wound. It's about love. Hate.

It's just a cake now.

Relinquished

I fucking hate how out of control I feel. It's like I'm sitting here watching my life happen.

Even if I wanted to start fasting right now, I can't, because I live at home. And I'm too old to sneak around pretending I ate somewhere else with someone else. Emptying out food into the trash and leaving bowls around. If I don't fucking want to eat something, why do I not have a choice in that? It's my fucking body. I'm not doing anything illegal. Yeah, I know I should at least eat 1300 calories a day, but I also shouldn't be eating the chemicals that get poured into all my food. No one cares about that (except for obnoxious "green" people who shove their lifestyle down your throat... no offense to any of my granola readers).

I'm just so mad at my mother for constantly pointing out that the meal I have planned out won't be enough calories. But she doesn't say anything to my fat sister about her meal which is her day's worth of calories on a plate.

Sometimes it feels like I don't make the decisions in my life. Either someone else does it or shit just happens and takes control away from me. I don't even want to be here anymore. I can't believe this is my life.

I have to take control back.

Homogenous

I don't understand why food is so important to me. I mean, we need it to live so yeah it's one of the most important things in the whole world.

But why can't I just eat potatoes and oatmeal and oranges (which apparently contains enough nutrients to keep you alive -- no scurvy for you!) for the rest of my life? I mean, I don't think I'd have a breakdown if I had to wear the same outfit forever, assuming it was comfortable yet fashionably acceptable (btw, I would choose a gray hoodie, green cap sleeve t-shirt, push-up bra, skinny jeans, and ballet flats).

Sometimes I find food and eating completely repulsive, but even then I'm obsessed with the idea of food and eating. I used to think that it because I was bored and it was something to do. Kept my hands occupied.

The smoking excuse, if you will.

It's really pathetic.

I need to figure it out. I want to dream about great sex, and buying fabulous clothes, and visiting magical places...... not spaghetti. I'm not even talking about amazing 4-star restaurant pasta, but plain jane spaghetti with sauce from a jar.

I don't want that to be the thing I'm longing for.

My life has to be more than what I'm not eating and what I want to see on a scale.

There has to be more. There has to be.

Harbinger

I've been thinking about it. About what it is that turned me around to something that started out as a positive change in my life. A swooping down and tearing me away from my dysfunctional eating habits. For awhile I could put something in my mouth without thinking. I even forgot to count calories.

Now if I don't count the calories it's because I loathe everything I ate and know I won't like the number. But I know the number in the back of my head anyway.

I remember there was a day back at my lowest weight. For just a few fleeting seconds I saw how awful I looked. Sometimes, I come across a picture (I think something like five exist from that time because I was too fat to photograph at 105 pounds) and I can see it again.

The good thing about the whole experience and my fucked up body is that everyone always thinks I'm a smaller size or weight than I really am. Girls working in retail are absolutely useless because they always hand me a size that I know literally won't fit but they are convinced that it'll fit me perfect. I even had an argument with a friend who weighed more than me but we wore the same size trousers 8 UK, at the time. If I was actually 105, what must people have thought I weighed? How horrible would I have looked if I let myself get smaller.

I guess it's the reason why people get so annoyed with me about my weight whining now. I don't look fat. I'm not fat, I guess. They think I weigh far less than I do and can wear clothes that haven't fit in some time. Blessing and a curse?

But anyway, as usual that's not what this is about at all.

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So I know that glimpse in the mirror got me started in a different direction. I promised TR that I would try and get healthy, and I mostly meant that. But I think the biggest factor in my short-lived-recovery was a friendship I made.

I think I've mentioned her before. We all got incredibly drunk when I first moved to England and she walked me home because she was British and could hold her liqueur while I was a belligerent American who had over indulged in cider and possibly that's all for the day. Most of the night is a blur except I clearly remember one question she asked me on our walk home. She asked if I had an eating disorder. Now that I think about it, I believe we were walking by the ED clinic that was about 5 minutes from my flat (how things seem to come together after the fact). Everything's fuzzy but I know she confided in me that she was a recovered anorexic.

Her friendship prevented me from truly allowing myself to fall back into my compulsive behaviors and neurotic thought processes that encouraged my previous self-destruction. It was for the sole reason that while I trusted her word that she felt recovered and sure of herself, I would not be the guide that led someone back into that life. I tried to recover to make sure she continued to remain healthy.

She's still very much part of my life but countless time zones and countries away. I can compulse without fear of triggering her former life. My impact on her disease has become minimal. What I chose to do to myself has become almost entirely my own again (I can't say I'm completely free as I always have TR and Paula Deen carefully monitoring my every whim).

All in all, it was wonderful to have someone to be fairly healthily disordered with. I loved telling her that I really felt guilty for eating whatever we were indulging in but because she was doing it too, it felt ok. Anyone else would cock their eyebrow at me and mutter something about co-dependency. But she and I could openly talk in pubs or on park benches about something that had previously been relegated to clandestine internet blogging, forum posts, or pen-pal letters.

I don't know what I'll do without her. From what I know, her disease progressed far worse than mine ever got, and I feel she's so much wiser and healthier than I. But maybe its because even as I recovered and forgot how to be disordered, I never really wanted to.

What is to come?

The Chase

Hello new followers. What a pleasant thing to see when I logged onto blogger. Thanks for making my morning.

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This place seems like an old friend or a relative. That person that you love talking to and telling stories with. The person who listens to all those little things you find interesting, and you get to the point where you think, "Have I said this already?"

I'm sure I repeat myself constantly. In my head, I outline the nonsense I want to say, the message I want to convey in each post. Sometimes I have a little story to go along with it or sagely advice. Then I think to myself, "How embarrassing would it be to realize later I've basically repeated a blog from 8 months ago?"

There are bigger things in the world to worry about but these are the things I choose to spend my time fretting over.

Needless to say, we may have reached the point in our relationship where you have to tell me that we've already talked about that. I've told you this particular thing. You know that already.

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Those of you who have hung around for awhile know how I feel about the show Dexter. One of my most popular rants (which I can tell is a high traffic post because almost all 39 comments are spam bots!) is about him. That time feels so far removed. I remember what it was like to be so little, the obsessions that ran through my mind 24/7, and the lengths I went to just to get through a day.

I felt so far gone that I could relate to a serial killer. A likable one, albeit, but still. Which is worse, the fact that my thinking was so disordered or the fact that I miss it now?

Television is one of the most important things to me in the world. It's a real escape. I can't stand film because you know it's going to be over in 2 hours. My favorite shows provide the promise that if I can just hold on for one more week, I can transport myself back into that world once again. Suppose fiction books are the same, but I've been in school for so long without time to read that I don't really know how to pick the habit up again.

Television is the same as food. It numbs me out. The first few minutes, the first bite are addicting. I never want it to end. I chase that feeling, knowing that the remaining time, what's left on the plate, won't be as satisfying. But I just want to experience that first taste again. The sheer joy of escape.

Dexter started again last Sunday. I waited as long as possible to track it down and watch. I knew that watching it would lead to inevitably seeing its conclusion. Dancing with the notion of its promise was more exciting. I couldn't wait anymore. It was an hour well spent. But I noticed that I no longer understood the motives of our protagonist. He hadn't changed but I had.

But I haven't. Not really. I talk about food constantly. I never want to go outside because it means putting on clothes which means thinking about a wardrobe full of garments that don't fit me. It's my longing to be back to a time where I felt fat with a BMI that flirted with underweight (that seems like a healthier ideal than skeletal thin, right?). Despite this ache and cravings and good (bad?) intentions, I can't seem to stand behind them with any conviction. I've lost the drive. It's just too hard.

In the end though, I'm not fighting with some "recovered" part of myself. None of you in my position are. We got thin, painfully thin, disgustingly frail. We let ourselves eat again, gain weight. Played with the idea of control and who had it. And now we are just as unhappy as ever. But we aren't better. We are just fleshy versions of the same self. And the person that we wish to be isn't who we used to be. Our memories are distorted and we have become nostalgic for a time that didn't exist. We want something that, looking back at it, seemed so effortless.

I lost how much weight? How fast? Why can't I do that again?

I can't because I haven't come to terms with the agony I was in before. It wasn't easy. I'm chasing that first bite, the allure of thin. Running after a version of myself that is as real as the television world I long to be in.

Of course, as usual, I have no answers. No words of wisdom to impart. Nothing I can say will make you step away from your computer thinking, I am enlightened and I know what I must do now. The best I can hope is you will sit and read these words, silently nodding to yourself. I can relate. You know what I'm thinking. We're in this together.

Stop chasing that escape.

God and his Rath

FUCK!

So I'm looking through this girl's facebook, lalala. She's this super thin girl who isn't that pretty (I love it when naturally thin girls are kind of homely, makes me feel like there is a God and he looks out for me now and again) and she's pregnant.

Looking through her pictures because she was in grad school when I was at uni and I always think its weird to imagine people I know having babies. It just doesn't seem right. So I'm looking at her photos trying to absorb the idea of her pregnancy.

Then I realize it. Minus her gigantic belly, she looks like my size. Like her arms could be my arms.

I might as well be fucking pregnant!!! God smites me again.

inside my head

I literally said this to myself today before I had a chance to think about what I was saying... well thinking...

"My whole life depends on me getting thin."

Melodramatic, a little? Then why does it seem to ring so true?

Be Relevant

So I'm sure you all know what the economy is like...

It's hard enough to get a job you're qualified for these days, but it's 100x more difficult when you live in the bowels of Hell. A desert wasteland where dinosaurs go to die. The only places that have anything for me are in LA or SF... and since money makes the world go around, I'm stuck at home until I can fly away with a trail of green Washingtons following me.

I've been thinking about something for awhile now. As far back as I can remember, I felt I was a performer. An artist. An actor. It kept me thriving. My life on the stage was a drug. In the fifth grade, I remember my teacher signing my yearbook with "We'll see you on the silverscreen someday!" And I really thought it would happen.

There's something strange about being a child. Everyone tells you that if you believe in yourself, anything can happen. You can achieve whatever you want. People praise and nurture your talents. Then, you reach an odd stage in high school. The mailbox starts getting packed with college pamphlets recruiting you, and your teachers tell you its time to start thinking about your future. Your schedule is packed with classes like biology, calculus, literature, foreign language, trigonometry, chemistry, and psychology... and after you graduate, you will probably use less than half of what you learned in your coursework.

Your teachers, school counselors, parents, and loved ones start to groom you for a respectable career. Maybe you'll be a nurse, or an insurance adjuster. If you're lucky, you might be encouraged to go for graduate school and be an academic. But those dreams that were instilled in you are forgotten and discarded. If you're like me, still hungry for stage time, it becomes "community service" and everyone tells you that this will be a great activity for college applications.

Go to college, grow up, work in an office, retire at 65, cash in your social security, play golf or bridge, think about how great it was when you could walk with a spring in your step, start to deteriorate, die. If you're fortunate.

---

I can't get a good job. It seems so funny because I could have been a working actor by now. Even if I wasn't remotely successful, I wouldn't be saddled with over $60,000 in debt. I keep telling myself that it's never too late, I can start acting tomorrow if I wanted to. But something happened to me in college. I'm no longer the confident, assured person I used to be. I'm riddled with insecurity, I feel fat and ugly and talentless. It takes every ounce of me not to let anyone else see that.

I don't know. There's something about me that I want to fix. I need to change. When I was 8, 12, or 17 I couldn't wait to get out of my small town, with its horrible resident townies, and make something of myself. I suppose I've done that, but I want to get back that spark, the drive, and the passion that kept me going every day. Nostalgia is killer.

But honestly, it wouldn't even matter except this tiny voice in the back of my head keeps telling me that I'm meant for more. Something about me is destined to be great. I battle my emotional insecurities and the hubris that tells me I could be famous if I only tried. And I can honestly tell you, I have no idea why this is important to me. If I'm doing something I love, I should be perfectly content to live in utter obscurity. My wise Irish friend once said to me, "Don't strive to be famous, strive to be relevant."

What does that even mean?
"The relation of something to the matter at hand."

How vague. I suppose that's my life though. Blindly, I wander my world, following a trail whose destination of which I am not aware. Sometimes, I wish I could escape and move into a tiny town in the middle of no where, somewhere in the heartland of America. I'd live in an imaginary town where everyone knows each other.

I just want to get away from this desire for greatness because I'm afraid it will never happen.

Nothing is Happening

I feel like my life is so busy but nothing is happening.
Does that make sense?

I just want to be back in the place where all I did was sit in my giant bed (RIP bed) and read blogs all day and watch TV. I have a legitimate (aka whiny) post written out in my head but of course I have to go meet someone for coffee.

Do I still have readers? I feel like I have 3 people reading.

Ugh I hate that I can't write on here anymore without sounding pathetic.

End transmission.

Dumb words strung together

I don't have time to write anything profound because I have to make dinner for my mother (which sounds awful but it means I can tell her exactly what we're having and feel satisfied that no one is telling me what to eat... tonight, a scrambled egg and vegetarian protein patty).

So I finished my masters degree--yes my dissertation is awful--and now I have to look for jobs. I hate the world. Going out there, I feel unqualified for everything and I don't want to the jobs I could easily get. I have 200 dollars to my name.

I need to go back to the psychiatrist and convince him that I need the following:
150 Wellbutrin (currently taking)
100 Topamax
80 Prozac

It's the magic combination.

This was an awful post, but I had to throw something up there so you all know I'm honestly trying to contribute again.

Cheers (I can say it again now that I'm back in California)!
Savory

late night punishments

I ate a jar of pickles.

5 calories per pickle 16 pickles in the jar. Overall, an amazing way to stuff your face, except now I feel sick and puffy and sorry for myself. I just don't understand why I can't do it anymore. Why am I broken?

I think its partially the lack of diet root beer in the house. Seriously I adore it. I almost want to tell my mom I have to go back to the grocery store (we already made a trip today and filled the cart with safe things to eat!) even though its 9:00pm.

---

My friend and I are trying to make our dreams come true. She knows exactly what that means for her. My problem is that I like a lot of things, and I don't think I'm good enough at any of them. How can I chase a dream that's broken into a thousand pieces?

She and I were driving in her car and I remember myself saying, almost as if I was outside the car watching the whole thing, "If I could just lose 20 pounds everything else would fall into place."

---

I've eaten 900 calories today. I weigh 142. Yes, you read that right. Say all the awful things I know you're thinking. Honestly, I'd think them too if I was reading someone else's blog that had gotten so far and then just thrown it all away.

The really pathetic bit, is I'm going to go look back at my blog and find out what the fuck I was doing back then that I'm not doing now.

Also, I smell like pickles.

EDIT: I'm pulling on pants and going to the grocery store. Pray I don't get anything else besides the joyful diet soda. Pray that if I do, God immediatly smites my ass in the parking lot.

Ambition

It's 7:27 in the morning. AM if you will. I haven't gone to sleep yet. This has become a regular occurrence. And yes, we're going to ignore the fact that I've been absent for far too long.

Now that I'm writing it all out, talking again to the only people I can be truly (mostly) honest with (if anyone still even reads this), I suspect I know the true reason behind this insomnia.

Everyone says I'm still adjusting to the time zone. What they don't realize is if this is true, I should be going to bed earlier, not later. I should be getting tired in the afternoon, waking in the early hours of the morning. Instead, I wait until the sun has risen, and tuck myself into bed for a good part of the day.

The other thing that complicates matters is I was doing the same thing in England. I slept when I saw the first rays of sunshine light up that horrible little room I lived in.

Something about me has fundamentally changed. I don't feel the same and I don't have the same feelings. I think I just want to be alone. I sleep during the day to avoid company and responsibility and I live my days when everyone else is asleep. Just leave me alone please. It's almost a little alarming. I don't feel terribly strong about much anything, unless you count the ache of my imagined failures.

But I don't need to tell you what imagined failure feels like. It's pathetic how it has become a recurring theme in my lifetime.

I haven't forgotten about anyone, but sometimes I don't think I have enough emotional energy to lift my head. To put things in perspective, my master's dissertation is due on September 15th and I haven't written a word. I just can't bear to put my thoughts into anything productive. I wish you all could just poke around inside my head and pull out something that looks interesting to you. Mental yard sale. I'm probably full of bad records and plastic furniture.

I have a bad cold. I remember the days when I could turn it into a positive and think, "At least I won't be hungry." Right now, sick or healthy, I don't even care. I've come to the realization that fat or thin, hungry or full, I don't feel pretty or happy or successful and nothing is going to change that. What does that leave me with?

If you need to find me, I'll be the one sleeping until dusk. Like a vampire, only less cliche.

Fellini

I believe this will be attempt number four at beginning this post. Something about me got discarded somehow and I'm useless. Everything about me lately seems awkward, contrived, and forced. What happened to the words that used to flow so easily, the creativity and the drive?

I want everything and nothing. And it seems I can't have either.

This state, thereby, is making me loathe everyone with an ounce of creativity within them. I'm avoiding all mediums of social networking, where I might glance upon someone else's success, and I couldn't even read many blogs because I kept saying, "Why can't I be brilliant like _____ is so effortlessly."

I want to sleep all the time and never sleep. And that is impossible as well.

What is it about myself that I can't accept? That really should be a why question, I suppose, because it seems I reject nearly everything about me that makes me. What does the world have in store for someone like me? Someone broken... but so broken that no one else can know about it?

I want to scream at everyone and be silent forever.

The desk I'm currently using is an antique school desk, with built-in inkwell. I'm looking at the stains and scribbles as if something written there might hold the answers to all my problems. I wonder what the children who sat here before me were like. Did they share my fears and dreams about life? Why can't I just surround myself with old cabinets and pottery for friends. Ask them to tell me stories to put my life in perspective. Stories about days when butter churns were more than just umbrella stands. When your shoes were lined with cardboard because they had holes, but you needed to keep walking. Not for exercise. Just because you had to.

I want to live and I want to die.

The house is creaking as if to tell me I need to sleep. It's saying, "Listen to me settle. Why don't you do the same?" I can't sleep. I keep losing pieces of myself every day. Something about my bed steals bits of my soul, and I wake up less functional, more tired, and without hope.

The days seem too long but I don't want tomorrow to come.

rambling along

I'm going to be the bitch and say it, even though I know I'm not the only one thinking it.

I hate thin men.

Something about them makes me feel huge, even when I'm comparatively not. TR used to be very thin but then he discovered that he liked food. I'm too exhausted to write a proper treatise on the whole male thin phenomenon. Plus, I feel a bit slighted as I don't believe I have any male followers. Prove me wrong, make yourself known! Shelving this for now...

---

I'm going to try and start writing more often again. Not because I think you all are just sitting and waiting for an update from me, but because it might keep me away from those damn meringues that made my evening the other day.

Also, I've become dependent on diet soda. Welcome me into the fold.

Hot dogs and eggs are being plated. Seriously people, I must say, high protein, low everything else has shockingly proved effective. Fuller longer on less calories? Why didn't I think to do this sooner? I'll discuss the incredibly unhealthy but helpful benefits later.

I woke up at 3:00pm today so forgive my lackluster nature.

Cheers,
Savory

More diazapam please?

If I could have a second skin, I'd probably dress up in you.

Oh, Hello!

Guess what? I'm on another diet. Surprised? I'm not.

Trying the Dukan diet, and if I just stayed at home all the time, I'm sure I'd have lost like 194 pounds by now. Temptation lies beyond my doorstep, away from my fridge of safe foods. I've still lost like 5 pounds in a little more than a week, and I can at least say I'm being pseudo-healthy.

Just getting that boring stuff out of the way.

---

I've just gotten confirmation that I'll be appearing in a feature-film documentary. It's a secret, but my identity is supposed to be a secret to my readers, so I figure I'm not really telling anyone anything. Besides, it's not really featuring me, but my best friend... I'm a supporting character as usual. I'll probably end up on the cutting room floor.

I wouldn't care so much if I had prospects in my life beyond finishing my MA in September. However, it looks like I've taken the wrong turn in the backroads of life and ended up on a dead end street.

It's not even a street at this point, it's like a dirt road. No, not even that nice. It's the little patch of dead grass where people take a shortcut off the main path.

That's where I am, and the shortcut abruptly stops and I'm stuck in the middle of a forest.

It's kind of pathetic that after hearing people say, "You should do stand-up.... why don't you write a book?..... you are a really talented writer" blah blah bullshit blah blah, that the most I have to show for my talents are the random things that come out of my mouth too quickly for me to remember, or the writing on my anonymous blog on a topic that I can't share with anyone.

I'm stuck in the forest.

The only bright spot may be that being on camera (before I get cut out of the entire movie) might motivate me to get back to a respectable---but not skeletal---weight again.

I am obviously rusty, because I can't think of a way to end this rant. So I'm just cutting the transmission. Ah pun!

Silence

I've written about 4 really mopey posts this week, but I delete them right before I publish.

Like flipping on a lightbulb.

Last year, writing my dissertation fueled the flames of the fire that was my compulsion to lose weight.

This year is an entirely different matter.

I'd be really happy if things fell into place and I reached an equilibrium, but I still don't have a healthy relationship with food and my self-image. Today I ate a whole pizza. The only good thing about it is I washed it down with Diet Coke, which actually makes me feel pathetic. Like snickering at my fat friends who guzzle it down. What good does it do when your fridge is stocked with full fat milk and pudding snacks! Just drink goddamned regular Coke.

Diet Coke is for skinny people. Just like frappuccinos....

No, seriously, listen to my logic here for just a second. You and I both know that every time you see someone drinking one who isn't pathetically slim, you think "Well, that's why she's not a super model." You can seriously only get away with one if you're tiny. You might as well be eating a tub of butter in public, otherwise.

But the irony is when you're small, you will *never* ever want to drink one. Because like a McDonald's burger, you know that your indulgence is basically one day's worth of calories (possibly even for a normal person!).

I don't know why this dissertation has me flipped in the opposite direction. Possibly because I'm home by myself all the time. Even with my mother and TR, who have to love me no matter what, I would never ever eat a whole fucking pizza.

But when I'm alone, I trick myself into thinking that the calories don't count, because no one saw me. I can eat chow mein and cake at the same time without feeling grossed out. My bed becomes a dinner table. I basically lose all remnants of what makes me a human and not a pot-bellied pig rolling in its own muck.

My face is constantly broken out, posture ruined, I feel like I need to shower like 3 times a day, I get winded from how fast I'm accustomed to walking. My clothes all hang horribly. I'm embarrassed to even let myself see me naked.

Last week, I had a good few days. But of course, something replaced the food. Shopping. I spent about half of what was in my bank account. Now I'm saving money again, and somehow food keeps entering my mouth.

Something about keeping my hands busy, I think. When I'm not eating, I feel this urge to play tetris all the time. I'd take up smoking if I was less neurotic about smells.

I just need that flip to switch and stay there. Cast light on the dark, gross corners of my life. Compulsively read and write instead of eat. Be a starving artist.

Sphere? Triangle?

I keep trying to deny it, but I can't avoid the truth any longer.

My body has become... shapes.

That's the only word I can think to describe the unnatural weirdness that is encasing me.

I'm going to water fast for at least 3 days.

I will not break down and eat.

That is all.

Absence of God

	Rilo Kiley - The Absence Of God
	Found at skreemr.org

And I'm not my body or how I choose to destroy it.

I don't feel like talking about my failures or my next plan. Sadly, I haven't neglected this safe little space because I've been doing amazing things, or even because I have been spiraling into a horrible decent toward madness, but rather because my life has come to resemble a stagnant pool in a dip of grassy lawn after heavy rain. Unwanted but not particularly noticed. Just sitting there hatching mosquito eggs.

Thursday morning I'm supposed to go to Paris. I am the only 20-something in the world who apparently doesn't give a shit about doing it. Can't I just stay in my room? Better yet, can't someone please please fucking get me some diazapam so I can just dream my life away?

I've decided, last night actually as I was attempting to fall asleep, that I know what the afterlife must be. It's so simple, I don't know why I hadn't previously figured it all out. One of my biggest fears is eternity. Seriously, either way you believe, it's fucking horrible. An eternal Heaven? I distinctly remember, as a child, telling my mother that it must get very boring, and what do you do after the novelty wears off? On the other hand, just try to imagine nothingness. Sure, if you prescribe to that understanding of the world, you die and then you don't exist, but it's still FOREVER. No matter what you believe. There was time before us and time after, and even after time ends there will be an eternity of timelessness.

Time is fucking fucking scary.

That can't be the afterlife. Or the non-afterlife. It must be some kind of dream state forever. You die, you no longer exist as you know it, and then you just dream. And it's a perceived reality. And perhaps there's multiple dreams over this eternity (creating a false sense of beginning, middle, and end) like when you have several distinct dreams in one night. Fade to black. Curtain rises to reveal a new scene. If you aren't a vivid dreamer, I don't think you can quite comprehend how amazing a lifetime of dreaming would be. For instance, if I found out I was going to be in a coma for 30 years, but I'd dream the whole time, I think I'd be OK with it. But then again, I'm convinced I'd be just fine in solitary confinement because could I just retreat into my head and entertain myself for years. Staring at the wall. Paradise.

So that's basically an option that works for believers and non-believers alike. You want to believe your dreams are Heaven? Go right ahead. You want to believe Heaven is actually a fanciful creation of your cerebral cortex? Ok, I'd buy it.

This gives me something to look forward to since eternity is just too fucking much to handle. I can't emphasize the fucking aspect enough.

To get back to my original thought, I don't want to go to Paris. And I'm tired of people trying to reassure me and say, "Oh you know, I'm sure you'll have fun! Just don't worry now and go anyway. You'll be glad you did!" Yeah well screw you. Obviously, you aren't very good at being able to ruin your own prospective enjoyment based on irrational concerns. If I don't want to go, then I don't want to go and that should be the end of it.

Maybe I'm just broken and the part of my heart that's supposed to melt over baguettes and poodles and the Eiffel Tower and brie is just not there. I must have a hole in that spot. I knew there had to be at least one somewhere.

And I'm not my perspective or the lies I tell you every time.

P.S. Thank you Flushed and Ophelia. I'm sorry I haven't responded Pasco. I've started to about 27 times. That last bit applies to almost every aspect of my life, including here.

Addicted

Food is my addiction.

I'm sure I've known this for awhile, but today it seemed like a revelation.

As soon as I was finished eating, all my troubles came rushing back at me, full speed. And then I realized that while I was shopping for food, bringing the food home, eating the food.... all I thought about was the food.

And afterward, it was like the worst crash you could ever experience. Everything came back, and I almost couldn't remember eating at all. The memory, the feeling, was just out of my reach.

All I wanted to do, at that point, was eat something again. Numb myself. Focus, completely focus, on one single tangible thing in my life.

Is this what heroin is like? Am I a junkie? Of course, I mean that last bit without any hint of the humor it so glaringly implies.

How do you break an addiction that you need to survive? How do I give up food?

I don't even care about losing weight anymore. I just don't want to be that girl who needs her fix, a sugary fattening fix, to get through the day.

I don't want to think about food. I don't want it to solve my problems for a few minutes while being its own problem all together.

Someone please tell me how to detox from one of the few things I need to keep me alive.

What time is it? Berlin Time!

I went to Poland for what was supposed to be a lovely holiday last week.



Then there was the plane crash. That was sad but it was interesting to see the country's reaction.



NOW Iceland decides to blow up the day I'm supposed to come back home. So now I'm stuck in Europe until next Wednesday when I can get a BUS back to England from Berlin.



Berlin for 5 days! I think I'm getting sick. Stress and all the indoor smoking in Poland I think. I have no appetite.



Thank God for small favors.



If any of my readers are Berliners and would like to meet up for a Tasse Kaffee I would love that. Send me an email (savory1sick@gmail.com). Love for at least some happiness to come out of this mess.

Any advice on awesome Berlin things are appreciated as well :)

Time to go practice my German.

xxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXxxxxxxxx

A Proclamation

I declare that today shall forever be known as

Savory Day

A moment for fasting and reflection
---

Give your heart to starvation.

Ouch.

I have just seriously messed up my arms and shoulders from tensing up while dry heaving. My inability to purge is a blessing and a curse.

Lessons from the Second Great World War

Conversations in Passing

Sometimes, most of the time, I don't take seriously the gravity of my situation.

I'll be watching a television program or movie with and adorable little elderly couple. Or see them on a park bench squabbling. And I smile to myself and turn to TR.

"Do you see us growing old together?"
"Yes."
"Sitting on a little porch laughing and bickering?"
"Of course."
"Who do you think will die first? Me or you?"
"You will."
"Why do you think that?"
"How many times have you already come close to dying?"

I live in a world where my partner doesn't actually see me sitting with him on the little porch. In a life where it will be a success just to survive the times. I'm not in a third world country. This isn't a time when there isn't proper medical care.

I live in my own private Hell. It is slowly killing me.

Pet Peeve

So facebook keeps suggesting this fan page to me: "Not saying 'gay' as a synonym for 'stupid' "

Aside from the really poor wording choice, I have several problems with this campaign. Note, I do not use the word gay to mean anything other than homosexual. Major movie stars are making public service announcements about this like we're talking about getting tested for chlamydia (the silent epidemic!).

Who is making campaigns about using the word "retard" ? Here's why I find that word more offensive. People who are mentally deficient can't always stand up for themselves. Most people know that 'gay' doesn't actually make sense as a synonym for stupid, just like 'wicked' doesn't actually make sense as a synonym for something amazing or impressive. They are just cultural appropriations of our lexicon.

But retard or retarded IS a word meaning lower IQ, less able to function normally, impaired cognition. The "insult" is making a juxtaposition by comparing someone who is obviously not mentally retarded with their behavior which may be reckless, careless, thoughtless, or impulsive. I know many individuals who have adapted to homosexuality but I can't think of anyone I know (and I do know many) that doesn't have a lower quality of life with mental and behavioral deficiencies. And their family suffers even more.

For that matter, how many of your friends get corrected when they say "Why are you acting so crazy?" "Are you insane?" And we know how often people joke about eating disorders. Who is standing up for those minorities?

People might respond to this argument with the case that homosexuals have been persecuted for centuries and it is only within recent history they are not regarded as diseased. But many people don't know that the mentally retarded and disordered people were also sent to concentration camps to die. That until very recently (and only in 1st world countries) psychiatric facilities were prisons, sites of experimentation, and places to die. People with mental disorders were killed for being witches or possessed by Satanic forces. And they are still regarded with suspicion.

The homosexual community, while still marginalized, has made significant strides within the past few decades. People with impaired mental capabilities are still treated as if it's medieval England. Sure, we may know that masturbating or the moon don't cause people to develop mental illnesses... but we don't treat people with schizophrenia as victims. We treat them as possible perpetrators, individuals that will harm us if we let them. Eating Disordered individuals can't speak out about their illness unless he or she is in recovery because we can't expose our children to that kind of perverse thinking. They might just catch anorexia and become infected too.

I understand when my gay friends complain about their co-workers or family members using "gay" with little regard to their feelings. But I don't understand how someone who knows persecution can't see the suffering of people in the same situation. A situation worsened by the fact that the majority of us can't even talk about this major aspect of ourselves. Our families are ashamed. We might get turned down for a job. Rejected for health insurance. And those of us who know someone with mental retardation know that you don't need to say anything. People just stare.

It is the silent minorities, suppressed by the times, that can't help themselves nor expect sympathy from others.

Law of Diminishing Returns

"We are always in danger of overeating, if only because we cannot escape from the idea that if one portion gives pleasure, two portions will give twice as much pleasure and four portions twice as much again. Alternatively, we imagine that the delight of the first mouthful - or first drink - is infinitely repeatable. Even when we have direct sensory experience to the contrary, we cannot be disabused of this seductive idea. Sometimes the search is less for repeatable pleasure than for an imagined pleasure that eludes us. We eat a second orange in the hope that we shall this time taste the warm sunlight it promises, feel the color orange in the mouth rather than the slightly acid sweetness we crush out of the slices as they die between our teeth, our palate and our tongue. The pleasure may be entirely in the idea - in the anticipation. I remember as a child looking forward all day to the Sunday evening roast dinner, my anticipation being wound up by the delicious aroma pervading the house, and then finding the pleasure I had looked forward to proving curiously elusive. Each mouthful was a mini-disappointment, that sent me on to the next mouthful in pursuit of the experience that eluded me. For Gustave Flaubert this was at the root of his commitment to art: 'wine has a taste unknown to those who drink it'. Taste can be savored only through art."
Raymond Tallis Hunger pg 54

Sigh.

My life is infested with ants.
This is not a metaphor whatsoever I am sad to say.

It's a sign. I'm sure of it. Nature is saying to me, "Savory, if you bring even one bakewell tart in here, we will make your life miserable. Ants will crawl all over you in bed to remind you of your earthly sins."

I missed a party to clean out drawers and squish bugs.

---

So here's some requests I have for people who are interested in contributing to a website.
- Photography or graphics
- Short fiction or prose (your choice... just nothing overwhelmingly gushy you'd find on fanfiction.net)
- Articles (these can be on a wide range of subjects as long as it's intelligent, makes some sort of argument/position and relates to something like mental health, popular culture, gender, medicine/science, consumerism, or related etc)

It would be great to have a section similar to the Post Secret type thing, where people can anonymously submit short worries/fears/secrets/desires/concerns to share. Anyone who has ideas for setting that up, let me know.

I'd also like some kind of "Dear Abby" feature.

Anyone with ideas other than what I've listed definitely contact me as I have a limited imagination :) I've found a good company to do the hosting so I just need to research into buying a domain name.... and find the money to invest in it!

Cheers,
Savory

savory1sick@gmail.com

A "zine"

Here is how the website is evolving and taking shape in my mind.

The way I'm imagining it being successful is sort of a web magazine. I'll be the "editor" but the site will rely on outside contributions, creating a multi-vocal experience. I say magazine because the content will change, but at an orderly interval (once or twice? a month? With interactive aspects/forum/etc to keep the visitors returning).

Ideally, I'd like to have a photography, poetry, fiction, and personal account as the main sections. It would be lovely to have an advice column as well, with 2-4 consistent individuals responding to written in questions (about life not tips or tricks).

The content doesn't need to be ED focused, but rather this will be a place where disordered individuals feel they can lower their normally heightened defense, be his or herself, in a supportive non-judgmental environment.

Because I'd like to make sure this is feasible before I invest in domain purchases and web hosting, if anyone has content they'd like to contribute or an idea for something, please send it over to me so I can begin to compile the foundation. Of course, your personal blog will be linked and your online persona appropriately credited.

I would really like to see this work out, so please spread the word and let people to get in touch with me: savory1sick@gmail.com

All my love!

206

Frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital, sphenoid, ethmoid. Mandible, maxilla, palatine, zygomatic, nasal, lacrimal, vomer, inferior nasal conchae. Malleus, incus, stapes. Hyoid. Scapula, clavicle. Sternum (manubrium, gladiolus, xiphoid process). Rib. Cervical vertebrae, thoracic vertebrae, lumbar vertebrae. Humerus, radius, ulna. Scaphoid, lunate, triquetral, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate. Coccyx, sacrum, coxal. Femur, patella, tibia, fibula. Calcaneus, talus, navicular, medial cuneiform, intermediate cuneiform, lateral cuneiform, cuboid bone. Metatarsal. Proximal phalanges, intermediate phalanges, distal phalanges.

Pages and print

Some books on my bookshelf right now:

"Foul Bodies: Hygiene in Colonial America"

"Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand: Curious Adventures of a CSI"

"The Cultures of Collecting"

"Archaeologies of Sexuality"

"Comic Art Now"

"The Way We Live: Things We Love"

"Photos of the Gods: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India"

"Design for Shopping"

"The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook"

"Prostitution and Victorian Society"

"Inventing the American Dream"

"The Wonderful and Surprising History of Sweeny Todd"

"Phenomenology of Landscapes"

Among others.

I picked up a book today specifically with you all in mind. "The Art of Living: Hunger" Haven't done a proper philosophical, long-winded thoughtful post in some time. Been mulling an idea around in my head about starting a real website. With guest writers. And a place for outside contributions like art and poetry. Not that bad stuff you see on all the pro-ana websites. A site for the eating disorder that shouts "We are eating disordered, but we are more than that."

Just the thought of doing it makes me realize that it would still have to be an underground off the grid kind of thing. It makes me get a little taste of discrimination and prejudice.

---

Random thoughts for a random day.

Oh bother.

Time flies when you're avoiding Mondays.

Not that I have anything particularly important to do other than make 2 public appearances, but I know it's the week and I shouldn't be hanging around my apartment in my PJs ignoring calls to go out. I just can't be bothered to get myself out.

I've been thinking a lot about infatuation vs. true love. Can't say much more than that because I know TR occasionally reads this and as much a he pretends to be non-judgmental and sagely, he's anything but. Sigh, I wish there was true anonymity on this thing but I don't want to start all over and hope everyone finds me again. Can't be bothered to do that.

Today I ate nothing. Well at about 4:00am I had 2 pears, but the rest of the day I really just went without food (and drink) out of pure laziness. This I am ok with. Say it with me again, "just can't be bothered..."

Maybe I'm in a rut. I just don't particularly feel strongly about anything right now. The dissertation is at a dead end, I don't think the way I want to do things is the way my supervisors want me to. This makes me wonder if I'm truly heading in the right direction for my future career. I love writing, I just don't like other people telling me how to write, what to write, and being cynical at me for wanting to do something purely because I find it "interesting." I don't want to "make something interesting" merely because it has analytical value and I can attach it to stupid philosophers and researchers more successfully.

I want to write about things that I am so passionate about that I do research without it even feeling like work. Get up in the middle of the night to write something on a scrap paper because I've just had an idea.

But perhaps that doesn't really exist. We all have to do things we don't want to do or don't particularly like.

Is it selfish of me to expect more of myself? To expect that due to my self-critical eye and drive to always be better than yesterday, that perhaps I deserve to do something I actually want to do? That I've achieved this little reward?

And if we all just do settle for the good and the bad, then why do we try so hard anyway? To achieve something that apparently doesn't exist. We could all just be fat and be a cog in the assembly line of production. We could be indifferent.

But we reach for the stars. We know we are better and perhaps even gifted at something. And we know that our way of cognition is one that society claims as an ideal, but shuns as reality. We are exemplary and because of that we cannot assimilate.

Right now though, I can't really be bothered to make society bend to my will or become more acceptable to society. Today, I will remain different.

I can hear the birds chirping.

Intake:
handful jelly beans
Percy Pigs & Friends
2 ciders
Juice

(You can see a pattern with me and sugar. No brown things! And finally under 1000cals again!)

I have THE best idea for a cheesy sap sap romantic comedy. But I'm also high as a kite, so I might wake up tomorrow and realize I was talking about 2 people falling in love because they love the same color. Although there could be an angle to that one!

I'm back.

And I mean business.

I've been shying around, hiding and isolating myself for too long. Come on, when you avoid your blog, that's hitting a sad sad state of things.

I don't want to talk about my failures in the past weeks (though I will tell you that I learned how incredible "fondant" truly is) because I just want to focus on now and tomorrow.

Baby steps baby steps baby steps.

Here are the new rules:

1. Try to stick by the "Anti-Brown" if possible. Exceptions can be made for truly healthy brown food... but even this should be in moderation.

2. No more food in my room. In fact, I'm going to eat everything in public. This serves 2 purposes: there won't be any food at home to comfortably binge on AND I hate to eat in public. Today I ate a salad in the middle of a plaza and it felt like everyone was staring at me. I couldn't eat like I do when I'm alone (inhaling food, stuffing face, eating to the point of exploding) and this forced me to eat slow and thoughtfully. No distractions. Just me and the meal. I had to keep reminding myself that only 20% or so of the people who passed by me actually noticed me at all... if you aren't familiar with this psychology finding, definitely check out these lab demos and case studies. It helps me to try and remember this when I think everyone's looking at my fat legs.

3. One meal a day. I'm looking into meal replacement shakes for emergencies since I used to do well with those.

3a. Nothing goes into mouth without knowing calories. If it's not listed or I don't know off the top of my head, I don't eat it. Only eat salad with dressing on the side at restaurants.

3b. Don't do anything else while eating this meal. Eat and focus on eating.

3c. Drink a cup of hot tea with the meal. Hot liquids make you feel more full.

4. Juice is ok in moderation. Tea is preferable.

5. Weigh and take measurements regularly.

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So as an added bonus to you all, I'm going to finally reveal just how huge I've gotten. It needs to be said out loud, I can't run from it.

Weight: 134lbs or 9 stone 8

Measurements-

Thighs (at biggest part): 23

Butt: 38

Hips: 34

Waist: 28.5

Bust: 31 and 33

Upper Arm: 10

OK, I didn't catch on fire and die. I can't believe how I've let myself go. My thigh is almost as big as my waist used to be just months ago. I've put on this weight rapidly and through an equally unhealthy means as starving.

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6. I'm going to have to also be boring and start recording what I eat on here, but I'll put it at the end so you can skip!

7. I promise I WILL start commenting and religiously reading blogs again.

8. Little rewards for good behavior. Haven't figured out what the rewards are yet.

So there you have it. I'm moving back into Savoryville!

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1 cherry bakewell (198)

1 waitrose italian salad (101)

1 serving watermelon (50)

Juice (not doing calories of juice)

Cheers!

Savory

I feel

Fleshy.

Tesco

I should be really horrified by this, but I can't help but feeling smug and pleased with myself.

After a few pints (I know, I'm eventually going to cut them out.... eventually) I walked home with a friend and decided to pop into the Tesco across the street--it's not a big problem normally because I loathe the whole Tesco corporation--and pick up something I really didn't need, and my stomach REALLY didn't need.

The automatic doors won't open. I think to myself, "Shit, it's almost 11 and they're closing up." Then I think, "Shit, it's not quite 11 they shouldn't lock me out when it's still technically open!" So I start knocking on the window. I get the brilliant idea to wait for a customer to walk out and then I'll dash in and grab that *thing* I didn't need. So I made a break for it, and apparently let in a couple who followed my lead as well.

So I grab this thing and am ready to go queue up, when this ridiculous completely uneducated man-boy says to the couple (who aren't nearly as fast as me, and still at the door) "No no, we're closed."

They look crushed and ask, "But we can't even get milk?"
"No" is his reply.
Then they kind of gesture toward me, and he looks and sees me and my thing in hand and says "No no we're closed."

And I, feeling brazen and full of Dutch Courage, show him my cellphone and say, "It's 10:58. You aren't closed. I'm buying this." And I walk to the queue. He says the same thing again but I don't budge and then the couple went and grabbed their milk and broccoli (at least someone was eating veggies in this story!).

So after waiting for this ridiculous man who was buying a cart full of groceries (UH, this is a Tesco "Express" who does full shopping at the chain-version of a corner store?!), I throw down ₤1.50 and say "Keep the change."

During the previous incredible wait, I did manage to have a lovely conversation with the broccoli woman next to me, who then decided to make her guy (who was on crutches) go an grab the thing that I just got. I'm so influential.

So I should feel horrible that I got completely rude in order to satisfy my bulging tummy, but I'm not. And you shouldn't either.

The moral of the story is... always do something that makes you a stronger person, even if your figure doesn't agree.

I'm watching "Notting Hill" because I was there today...

... the movie isn't terribly good. But I don't have high expectations for either Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts, both of whom I find terribly terrible. But "Notting Hill" the place is lovely, while simultaneously reminding me of my poverty and impending doom.

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I can't tell if this makes me hungry or revolted, but I suppose the moral of the story is I would probably be thinner if it was 1974.

Today I'm going to keep my eating habits a secret, as I'm afraid I'll jinx myself. I might have already done it just in this last sentence. eeee!

The only thing I will tell you is I can't fit into my teeny tiny ultra skinny jeans anymore. Size 6 or even size 8. Lord, I can probably barely manage a size 10 these days... but in my defense I like my skin-tight jeans to be ironically comfortable.

In other news, cheers to skirts that cover up wobbly bits and swishing thighs.

With all my heart,
Savory Sweet

P.S. I'm going to list off every British phrase/word that I've started to pick up in my every day language: "cheers" "can't be bothered" "brilliant" "mates" "tosser" "rubbish" "the bin" "queue" "fair enough" "wellies" "trousers" "jumper" "crap (as in 'these are crap directions')" "gorgeous (as in the way good food tastes...)" "sweetie" "lads" "slag" "chips" "crisps" "cheap and cheerful" "clever" "gobsmacked" "tuck in" "knackered" "mental" "tanked" "wanker" "nosh"

I have never been able to say "bloody" without sounding like an idiot. Yes, I sometimes practice aloud at home. Don't pretend you haven't ever thought about wearing one of those stupid bluetooth headpieces so you could talk to yourself without looking "mental." Whatever mates, I can't be bothered. Fairenoughcheersthnxbi.

"Resolve to Dissolve"

Does anyone else still wonder what happened to Jenna? I still worry about her.

A mop of hair

This is a manifestation of what I can only think to describe as a "food hangover." Note the distress and lethargy.

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2 more things and then I'll get out of your hair.

1) I just started reading Cinderella's blog and I'm her only follower! She's got a few archived posts so it'll be a good read. I suggest you check out her site. She's very articulate and no one should struggle alone.

2) Question for you to debate in the comments section: Eating Disorders as we know them now were first documented during the Industrial Age and have become worse ever since, affecting people in 1st and 3rd world countries. As we know the disease isn't just about the media infestation of thin and pretty in our everyday lives, what are contributing factors that progress eating disorders around the globe today?

too much sleep and too little sleep.

uuuugh. Today I'm a slug. It's finally caught up to me. The starvation and lack of sleep.

The monster is unleashed!

That's being relatively over-dramatic. My stomach, however, is quite distended and would argue with that statement. Here's me again thinking I could grocery shop and pick up a nice little lunch. Nope. I eat the lunch. Then I eat what I had planned for dinner. Then I eat a box of biscuits and bag of Percy Piglets I was going to send over to TR. There was a cream soda somewhere in there too. At least, I think so because there's an empty can next to my bed.

This past week has been one of the most productive, but ludicrously insane, weeks of my life. I averaged about 3 hours of sleep every night. It wasn't even forcing myself to wake up, I'd go to sleep at midnight and open my eyes at 3AM.

Then I started my task. Two tasks actually. One being the obvious, taking advantage of this energy source and doing some work. Two being a marathon of horror films that seems to be never-ending. I freak out relatively easily. Well, at least I used to. I haven't yet seen something that makes me afraid of sleeping facing toward the wall (everyone knows that's when someone sneaks up on you!). Maybe I've just become completely numb.

Anyway, the lack of sleep was great except I was always yawning, disinterested in other people (more than usual, I guess), and at 2PM every day I thought I would fall asleep no matter where I happened to be. I would also get really nauseated and start gagging every now and again. Kept a reserve of crackers for that. Weird.

It didn't really bother me so much until I became noticeably irritable, withdrawn, and... well started hallucinating. Nothing exciting, for better or for worse, and I wouldn't even have known I was hallucinating were it not for a psychology class I'd taken years ago.

I kept seeing spiders crawling up the wall. After I realized this was not actually happening, I realized I don't think I've ever seen a spider here.

This post doesn't really have any purpose except to let you all know I'm alive and functioning, at a snail's pace.

Over and out.

Loads Of Liquids Day 1

Alright kiddos, here's how it's going to work.

Because I hate my kitchen, there's no way I can rely on keeping anything in there. So boxed juice it is!!

I'm going to cut the juice as much as possible, and I've got diet 7Up to mix with it now and then to spice things up. For every cup of juice I drink, I'm going to drink a cup of tea before I can have more juice.

I usually get cravings for savory things and sweet things. Juice for sweet. And I've figured out how I can have more juice for savory!

Tomato juice. Some hot sauce and pepper and I've got juice soup.

Tonight I'm taking some laxatives just to cleanse out my system and I'll think about taking a daily diuretic just to counter-act fluid retention. No abusing pills.

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I also took pictures of myself in those hideous leggings. Not very good at the whole "before" and "after" thing so we'll see if there's noticeable results.

Buuuuut because I hate myself (preaching to the choir?) I'm not ready to show you... so here's my lower legs and feet!

Loads of Liquid 'til We're Light!

I'm liquid fasting. I've only ever done a water fast before, so this will be a new and different adventure.

I've just thrown allllll my food away in the trash. Emptied my cabinets. Everything is garbage. For safety, I'll keep my emergency baby food jars just in case.

So I'm about to put on a hat and sweatpants to walk over to Tesco and the corner store to pick up loads and loads of liquids.

It's Loads of Liquid 'til We're Light! People. Anyone who wants to join me should :)

Here are the rules:
You can consume *anything* you choose as long as it is liquidy enough to be drank from a straw out of the box (that means no sneaky cheating with milk shakes or something... juicing is ok though).
You HAVE to write down everything that's gone into your mouth. Keep a tally of calories.
Weigh yourself no more than once per day.

Additional Rules I'm setting for myself:
If you begin to feel sick or nauseated, you can slowly chew on a cream cracker or saltine. That's the only reason to break the fast.
Do something productive every single day, even if it's little, and keep track of this as well.
Alcohol is forbidden. This is a cleansing detox.
Unless you're going out to buy more liquids, leave your wallet at home to keep yourself out of temptation's way. If you feel it is absolutely necessary to have some money, put a few small bills on your person for emergencies.

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OK people. Wish me luck.

With Liquid Love,
Savory