Holding on--barely

Hadn't run in ages--it is so addicting. I ran the other day and already the statistics and goals are buzzing around in my mind. 30 minutes Tuesday; might as well run Thursday and Saturday for thirty minutes. Then next week, run 45 minutes 4 times; the week after, complete 5 hourlong runs; then beging timing yourself and writing down your mileage--40 miles a week at minimum eventually! And sign up for the LA marathon in May. I'll be fit by then, back to my fighting weight of 84 pounds or less.
Ugh. One run and look where my mind goes! I should be concentrating on entering my master's program on talking to people in my field, networking, reading, writing something other than my weight related thoughts. But when the pressure is on, I go back to what is sootheing and familiar.
Food is disgusting to me right now, like sex has been for years. Malnutrition messes up your sex drive--and so goes being raped. Both are in play here, though is has been 8 years since the rape.
It is weird--I've never really deprived myself of beautiful art, literature or music for long periods of time, nor of the joys of nature. Perhaps that is because bodily pleasures (except for pain and exhaustion) are still verboten. I do love the physical sensations of activity and sport. My mind still considers any activity a virtue, therefore it is okay to enjoy being alive in a body as long as it is doing a virtuous thing. This is screwy--why can't eating be a virtue? Or sex? Or hugging a friend? Why are these things still uncomfortable or downright repugnant?
I'm stalling. I have a sinking feeling that I'm failing in so many things--that I have quite a good veneer of promise and possibilty, but a hollow interior. If I work and study and exhaust myself in endless activity, I can't find time to think of that. Busyness is the way I've kept these thoughts at bay the last 2 and a half years. I wonder how much longer this will work. When I'll burn out and be exposed for the emptiness I am.

Keeping my mind off my body

I'm trying to stay away from the infernal scale and this does make it harder to obsess. I pinch fat and examine muscle and bone, but numbers really make me nuts with their objectivity. I truly feel they measure my worth. Musculature and clothing size and bones, these are far more subjective. Because my perception of these things are often distorted by my mind, I can still assure myself that I am likey not as fat as I see myself. With the scale, all I see is a cold hard number that is too large and can be reduced. It is always too large and always should be less. It always reminds me I used to be thinner and that I should be thinner. When I'm not weighing myself, I think less of my old body and my mental pictures of how I used to look are fuzzy--I never really thought I was thin even at 20 or 25 pounds less, so when I look in the mirror, I see pretty much the same problem: areas of fat surrounded by areas of bone. I always want less fat, 70 pounds or 120 pounds. I know the mirror plays tricks and I can refuse to be caught up in the reflection of my imperfections because I'm busy and there are better and more interesting things to think about. I spend little time in the mirror and less on the scale and this is what is saving me from deterioration.

Restricting and exercising, my Default mode

My default mode is being obsessive about how little I eat and how much I exercise. What has kept me relatively healthy the past two years is keeping busy. Often, I have more than one job and I have tons of hobbies keeping my mind off anorexia. Photography, hiking, visiting museums and gardens, music, art, writing--this keeps me sane. I currently go to school and work two jobs, in addition to volunteer work. But the minute my brain has a chance to relax, it is instantly wondering how my calories I've eaten versus my much I've burned, how I can lose all my fat without burning away my muscle, how thin I can become without anyone noticing, how thin I can become and still function. . . and these thoughts are hard to stop. They are automatic. I dream about my pelvic bones bursting through my skin, I have nightmares of hospitals and becoming fat. I dream of gyms and running and food I won't eat. Even in my dreams I am afraid to eat and afraid people will point out how fat I am. Keep in mind that my BMI is under 17--that is pretty underweight, not remotely fat, but I still see fat everywhere. I never stopped seeing the fat. Even at my thinnest, I scarily looked at the bones of my hips, thought they were too wide, thought I needed to lose another 10 pounds before I would not be fat. I was 72 pounds and saw bone everywhere, but I also saw fat everywhere. I don't quite understand how this works--how could I possibly see my tailbone and pelvic bones and think my hips were fat? I called myself a voluptuous skeleton. The same distortion, to a lesser degree and with more insight is applicable today--I see my cheekbones and eyesockets are unpleasantly fleshless, my neck is revoltingly sinewy and bony, I see my ribs and vertebrae even through clothing (depending on what I wear and how many layers) and my hips are sharp with bone. It is not extreme, but it is not healthy. But I also am preoccupied with all the fat--the fat layer covering my arms when not in use (the skin is tight and veined when I execs) and the fat area on the back of my thighs. I see fat on my stomach, too, though this layer is close to disappearing. Fat breasts--surrounded by bone, happily. So what do I do when I see this? Do I think I need to boost my calories even though I logically know that is what I should do? No, I think "pudgy, need to get some more exercise and eat less." Emotionally, I react like I'm seeing a fat person that need to get in better shape for health and aesthetic reasons. The chubbiness scares me because I associate extra fat with cancer, death, disability, mental illness, hospitals, diabetes, heart failure, lymphatic disorders and suffocation. A fat body is a dangerous body to live in, is my visceral reaction. The same part of me (this is not my logical conscious thought) thinks that skinny is healthy, the less flesh the better. Extremely emaciated people don't look healthy to me, but people ranging from 10-40 pounds underweight look very fit to the diseased part of my brain. I'm trying to figure out how to integrate what I know with these weird emotionally driven ideas about what type of body is healthiest. I believe it started extremely young and was uncorrected for so many years that it is ingrained. Therefore, I am doing battle as an adult who knows better with a nine year old girl that thought no amount of exercise could be too much. She thought she needed to see bones to be healthy, she thought bones were beautiful, light, free, energy. She equated mass with fat, even if the mass she saw was muscle mass. Anything not bone needed to go. And since she didn't reduce herself to bone, although she became too thin and bruised and cold with flaky skin and brittle hair, she never thought herself thin. Never. If I saw what others see, perhaps I could be kinder to myself. My fat phobia is very strong and I seem to act on the misconception that I am fat. If I saw thin, I could better feed myself without feeling like I was doing something harmful.
Feeling a little down on myself today because I've tried to ignore anorexia all week, only to have it crop up unwanted in my dreams and aimless thoughts.
Begone anorexia! Flee--you are not wanted here!

wrestling with anorexia--winning right now

Well I feel I weathered a possible relapse. I was feeling sucked into that anorexic mentality that I don't deserve to eat, don't deserve to speak to people, everyone hates me, they are looking at my fat, etc. I think that my dog's death triggered this, as well as a new job and the associated pressures. I do need to be more vigilant when I see triggers coming.I can't be so cavalier; I can't assume that I will stay on the recovery road when I've gotten sloppy with my eating. I need to learn from this--I could have gotten sucked in again. Easily. I'm being careful not to further trigger myself right now because that was too close. I am eating real food, not junk and I am weighing in only twice a week. I won't go into a grocery store or go clothes shopping for a few weeks (for some reason, those situations trigger me badly.) I also need to go to my group--but it is tough because I am still new and already, a request to come in later one day was denied. I will try, though. It is all I can do. I think my crazy schedule does contribute to bad eating, but it doesn't need to and I certainly can't have the attitude that a skipped meal is a good thing. Like I was thinking, last week, that this crazy schedule would get me thin because it is so easy to not eat and I was thinking about how good that is. That is not my thinking--it is kind of like being possessed, weird as that may sound. But my mind is mine again and I know that weighing 80 pounds is unacceptable and extremely unhealthy. I want health, so I don't want to weigh 80. Of course, last week I really wanted to go back to my skeleton days. Life was less complicated. I got up, ate a few bites, exercised for hours, felt like I might die, ate a few bites, exercised again, weighed myself, took pictures (so I'd see exactly where that fat was lurking) and measured myself and read nutrition books and tried to calculate my basal metabolic rate and made spreadsheets of my caloric intake versus my calorie expenditure. And ate a few bites (maybe) and exercised some more before lying in bed awake all night, pinching and prodding my fat and my bones. I was a professional anorexic. Professional anorexics are basically treated worse than prisoners--they are essentially slaves, actually, (and I use that term to emphasize the seriousness of this illness, not be be cavalier about slavery), earn nothing and work all day until they are tired and ragged and they have nothing to show for it but being tired and ragged. They don't eat and sleep, they are denied love and friendship and warmth and health and comfort; they can't think clearly enough to enjoy beauty or to be interested in anything not pertaining to their affliction. God is diminished for them, or He is absent. They might feel unworthy of God, unworthy to pray or to worship.
Why is a body that looks pitiful and sick and revolting to 99.5 percent of the world sometimes worth everything to me? I know that my old body, be it the 70 or 80 or 85 pound one, with its cruel ribs and sharp hips and meatless ass was an ugly one. I hated it and I loved it. I thought I was ugly in it--in my present body, the 96 pound one, I usually feel okay--average, a little chubby but not hideous. Why would I want the hideousness again? I know that debasement helps no one and is not productive; I know God does not want that for me, no one wants that for me (except, sometimes, me).
Am a wrestling with this demon and sometimes it pins me down.

I went too far

Yesterday I went too far with my exercise and restricted too much. Consequently, I've had heart palpatations all day and managed to wear the skin off my tailbone. I guess I'd forgotten that can happen even at a fit and healthy (haha) weight. Plus my vertebrae are bruise and swollen to the size of prunes. NO MORE SIT-UPS!!!! (Unless I do them on my padded exercise mat.) I also tweaked my right hip which has bothered me off and on for ten years-- thanks to all those leaps and jumps. Sure, I had fun doing it, but I am not Nastia Liukin, I don't have the conditioning to perform these moves, I cannot be doing these things with weak joints and brittle bones! When will I learn, when I'm wheelchair bound? Why am I always pushing the envelope when it comes to my body? I wish I could learn to push where it counts, like in school, at work, in relationships (oh wait, what relationships??) I used to be a high achiever in music, art, and school. I play my instrument or pick up a paintbrush once every few months now. I used to spend 20 hours a week (at the very least) with my art and music. Now all the energy is siphoned into something that doesn't matter and actually harms me. Even though so many positive things have happened in recovery, the exercise is still a problem, though a lesser one. The good news is, I have a LOT of energy, if I could only redirect it.
Hey, I should volunteer for Habitat for Humanity! That way, my energy could be channeled into something worthwhile :)
Good idea. . .

Good day for Anorexia, bad day for Calliope

Today I've been very good, if you ask my anorexia. I've consumed 580 calories and 2 grams of fat, I've exercised 2 hrs (including some super-grueling circuit training, did loads of chin-ups and push-ups and back flips and sit-up and ran between each station like a maniac). I really should exercise more. . .
BUT!! This is NOT what I wanted when I woke up--I wanted to be a human being today, not an anorexic. I didn't even weigh myself this morning. WTF????
I think I look really ugly when I'm underweight, I hate the way I don't feel, I hate the OCD (all the stupid counting, the meaningless rituals which really get time-consuming when I'm not eating enough). I think I'm meaner, less intelligent and less creative and I LOATHE ANOREXIA I FUCKING HATE IT.
So why is it still here inside me?
There are so amny wonderful things I could be doing and I wasted a lot of time stuck in my rituals, stuck in my head. I feel like a zombie today. I feel I'm stuck again.
The anorexic part can't wait to get home and weigh in.
I need an exorcism!!
The power of Christ compels you, anorexia, get the fuck out of me.
Sorry for the vulgarity, if anyone is reading, I normally don't talk like that.
Cheers.

Intake has risen mood has fallen

Well I've forced myself to eat more the past week and didn't let my business be an excuse to not eat. But this made that manic energy I had the previous week disappear and now I feel the exhaustion from head to toe. It is so tempting to not eat because I feel better when I don't eat. Eventually it catches up with me, but when I don't eat much on a consistent basis, it takes months for me to feel the pain and exhaustion. When I starve a few weeks then eat again, I feel drained. I have less energy when I consume mnore energy. I believe this is because my body is confused and trying to repair the damage done.
I want to fight my desire to starve, but starving seems so appealing right now. It is like a shot of adrenaline, like pure oxygen. It is euphoric. Without it I feel listless and depressed. Of course, I'll feel that all the time if I get deeper into the anorexia.
The weather is turning cold which is really bad--I have little insulation to fight the cold. My joints get super stiff and it takes me several hours to move freely when the weather is in the high 60s or cooler. I live in a very temperate region--it doesn't snow and rarely gets cooler than 50 degrees during the day. I'm geographically lucky because even these mild winters are hell. I feel and move like I'm ninety rather than 29.
Ugh, this post is a downer. Guess I'm kind of depressed right now because one of my pets is very ill and she is getting put down tuesday. I've had her 10 years.
I need some good news, like starving is actually good for your health :) Yeah, I wish.
Toodles

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||||||||| 34% Stability |||| 18% Orderliness |||||||||||||| 54% Accommodation |||||||||||||||||| 78% Interdependence |||||| 23% Intellectual |||||||||||||||||| 74% Mystical |||||| 23% Artistic |||||||||||||||||| 76% Religious |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Hedonism |||| 16% Materialism |||| 16% Narcissism |||||||||||||| 56% Adventurousness |||||||||||||||| 70% Work ethic |||||||||||||||||| 76% Humanitarian |||||||||||||||| 70% Conflict seeking |||||||||||| 43% Need to dominate |||||||||||||| 56% Romantic || 10% Avoidant |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Anti-authority |||| 16% Wealth |||||| 23% Dependency |||||||||||| 50% Change averse |||||||||||||||| 63% Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 70% Individuality |||| 16% Sexuality || 10% Peter pan complex |||||||||||||||| 63% Family drive |||||||||||||| 56% Physical Fitness |||||||||||||||||||| % Histrionic || 10% Paranoia |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Vanity || 10% Honor |||||||||||||| 56% Thriftiness |||||||||||||||||||| 90%

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I want to be healthy but I want to be thinnnnn

I want health--I hate the pain the insanity the weakness the ugliness of anorexia. But I still want the thin body. I don't feel comfortable with my breasts, with my ass, with my hips. I liked my body best when I weighed 85 or less. I didn't think I was thin but I could tolerate my body then. My body at 96 pounds is cumbersome and heavy and sluggish. It is made of lead, it seems. Yet I eat because I fear relapse. But--part of me hopes I will relapse, but that the relapse only means lower weight and none of the problems that accompany worsening anorexia. Deluded much?

Anorexia's a Thief: No Time for Food

Anorexia's a Thief: No Time for Food

No Time for Food

I dropped a few pounds this week simply because I was too busy to eat properly. I worked 57 hours this week (plus my classes) and didn't eat one proper meal. I ate loads of junk food, however, and got very little exercise, so I'm surprised I lost any weight. Now I'm 5'4 and 96 lbs, which is "anorexic" but not emaciated. I like the way it looks, to be honest; I like the bones and I like seeing the muscle and sinew instead of fat. I'm worried about losing much more, though, because I feel I messed up my diet and exercise so much and need to get back to exercising and eating healthy. That would entail more calories spent and more weight lost. If I lose much more, I will look unhealthy and will lost strength. I don't want that; I definitely need to make an effort to keep the weight on.
My metabolism does require a lot of food; some people might really like the idea of being able to eat 2500-3000 calories a day and not gain weight, but I don't. I am very self-conscious about the amount I eat. I feel like people will think I'm greedy or bulimic if I eat what I need. I eat small amounts in front of people or I don't eat publically at all, which then makes people think I'm starving myself even though I compensate in private. I normally eat quite large meals at home alone; these are not binges and I do not purge them. I eat because I have to in order to keep my weight stable. Often when I'm busy, I rely on high-calorie junk food or even Boost (a high calorie supplement) to keep my weight up. I always know in the back of my mind that it would be so easy to not do this. I'm rarely hungry and can fly through the day on less than 1,000 calories. Problem is, once I do this once or twice, it becomes the new norm and I begin to crave the feeling of hunger, of light-headedness, of burning fat and muscle I can't afford to lose. I see the scale go down and like the lower number and think that a few more pounds won't be noticeable and it would be my little secret. I get addicted to lowering this number, and there is a new goal every time I see a lower number. 96 sounds too high--94 sounds better. Then maintain that weight, but if I happen to inadvertently weigh 93 one day, I will probably think 92 is better because it is an even number. Then if I get sick and lose a few pounds, say to 89 pounds, I'm likely going to wait until I hit 88 to maintain. Only once, other than in the hopsital, did the number it was okay to stay at get higher; that was 8 months ago when I felt so ill at 95 pounds. I'd been depressed and malnourished, so I told myself to get up to 100 and stay there. That worked until recently. Since I feel okay at 96, I really don't see what the harm is of going to 94. Or 92. Or 88. But then where does it stop? And is it really possible to be healthy at these weights? I doubt it.

Better than I've Ever Been

I struggle with anorexia, but in many respects, I'm better than I've ever been. When I look back at my life three years ago, I am amazed at the progress. I try to focus on the progress rather than the behavior and symptoms that persist. Three years ago, I was on a mission to get rid of all my body fat. I thought of nothing else. I ate only enough to get on my bike and ride 30 miles uphill and topped it off with an hour run. Well, sometimes an hour and a half--maybe with a hike and some calisthenics thrown in. It sounds as though I was in excellent shape--but I had this maniacal energy only when exercising. For some reason, even when my heart beat so fast I couldn't breathe, even when I was close to blacking out, I could keep going until I hit that 3o mile mark. I was perilously close to heart failure and I knew it because once I stopped my ride or run or hike, I could barely breathe, could barely move and my heart beat so hard my body shook. My brain felt fuzzy, on the verge of shutting down--I felt on the verge of fainting constantly and I sometimes did. Once I blacked out for the briefest of moments and toppled over a curb on a busy highway. Luckily, I fell toward the curb and I sustained only scrapes and bruises. This was all incredibly scary; I knew I was dying, but I had only one purpose in my life at that time: to get rid of all the fat (of course, there was already virtually no fat--I was a well-toned cadaver). If I gave up this pursuit, I had no reason to get up at all. On the days my heart wouldn't calm down at all, on the days when I was bedridden, I felt the fattest and thought I wouldn't care if I died.

Three years later and when I feel crappy, I can relax. I have many reasons for living and I usually enjoy my life. I have a job, I go to school, I have friends and hobbies and I enjoy spending time with my family. I go to church without thinking I'm too fat and too evil to be sitting there. I can attend classes without thinking about how fat I am and what I've eaten that day and what I plan to eat later. I can sit and not think that I'm getting fat because I'm not exercising. I can sleep through the night (unless I've had a bad day eating-wise). I can sometimes go a few days without weighing myself. It is not the end of the world if my pants are a size 1 instead of a 00. The things that make me proudest are that little things that used to cause me such turmoil, like getting dressed (no matter how thin I was, I always thought I was too fat to be seen and dressed to disguise my fat) are now routine. I can get ready for work in 10 minutes. I can eat even when I'm not sure how much exercise I'll have time for. I have a job and no one thought three years ago that this would ever be possible. I was described as having a poor prognosis; mental health professionals and doctors thought I would not recover. In fact, they thought I'd die within the next few years. Since I'd been told I would die in a few months when I was 19 and had made it to age 26, I thought they were full of it; now I'm not so cavalier--I feel very lucky that I escaped with my life.

I'm very grateful to be where I am today, mentally, physically and spiritually. But this is not easy and I do not consider myself recovered--I'm in the recovery process. I'm diagnostically anorexic still (though my weight is very close to being over that 17.5 BMI that is the, in my opinion, arbitrary cut-off for diagnosing the illness.) But--I have had a few menstrual cycles over the last two years, yay for my bones and reproductive health! I think about the progress I've made and I get offended when people say I look anorexic or when I'm told that is still my diagnosis. I think that not wanting to be anorexic is a major indicator of my progress! Before, I felt good when people told me how emaciated I was. Now if I'm told I'm skinny, I feel a little hurt. I want to be seen as thin but muscular. Skinny sounds insubstantial, weak.

All that being said, I need to be honest about the bad things. If I dwell only on the good aspects of my life, it is easy to ignore what should be addressed, things that left unchecked could lead to a relapse.

I feel fat. That never went away, but over the past few months, I've been more distressed about any extra skin than I've been in a while. Logically, I know that I am simply pinching skin and that the fact I have breasts does not mean I am a fat person. Yet I body check a lot. Pinch, pinch, pinch. Still want 0% body fat. I'm still jealous of ultra-muscular yet superskinny physiques like those of marathoners and ballet dancers.

I've never stopped weighing myself, and I've discovered that while not deliberately trying to lose weight, when I do lose a few pounds I want to maintain that lower weight. And that lower weight pleases me a little too much.

When I am busy I don't remember to eat. And I am very busy. Is this business a way to avoid eating? I can seldom rely on hunger cues; I rely on light-headedness and confusion to tell me when to eat and that is not normal, nor did that actually ever normalize. My meals and portions were chosen for me (it's called "mechanical eating") even during the last week of treatment. I never learned "intuitive eating;" I usually just have a routine of eating a certain amount at a certain time whether I think I'm hungry or not. And now with my schedule having gotten so full, I have less opportunities to establish such a routine. I eat lot of fruit and candy and protein powder, so I get a lot of calories, but that is not the "normal" behavior I strive for.

My exercise habits are a source of pride considering where I came from, but although I exercise far far less and don't exercise when injured or ill, I am still compulsive and I do overdo sometimes. I try and ease up when I feel the symptoms of overtraining and I have a variety of activities I do so I don't get OCD about things like mileage and intensity of training, however I feel really guilty and fat when I think about how little I exercise compared to what I did even a year ago (I struggled with the exercise part of the equation until around 9 months ago when I got very ill, lost too much weight, and had to stop for a few weeks. This interrupted the cycle and it had never gotten as out of control since). The interruption of exercise in the hospital surprisingly didn't help once I got out--I increased from 0 hours of exercise a day while monitored 24 hours a day to 3 hours a day within a week :( I currently exercise 1hr-2hrs a day, sometimes a bit more, but I generally average 2 hrs. This sounds like a lot, but most of it is moderate exercise. I count stretching and walking, and I used to not count moderate exercise in my totals. Therefore, if I walked three hours, biked 2.5 hours, ran 1 hour, I'd only count 3.5 hours of exercise.

I have started to think I really don't need to be in therapy anymore--I've cancelled several appointments in a row and say to myself it is because I'm too busy--but just 5 months ago, I would request time off from work to keep my appointments. I could still do this, but I don't. Running away from the fear that I'm relapsing? Maybe. I hate disappointing people and I always feel I've disappointed people when my eating disorder is worse. On the plus side, I'm writing this down and acknowledging it. I even said as much to my ED group therapist, explaining that because of work, I needed to come in less frequently. Then I said if it wasn't ok, I could just not come. She said she'd try to work something out and I mentioned that I did feel I benefited from the group, particularly because I felt guilty when I wasn't doing everyting I was supposed to have done. That day, I'd exercised a lot and had eaten maybe 300 cals, which is unacceptable. I felt dizzy in group and could barely concentrate. I hadn't planned on mentioning this, either, but I'm glad I did. If I hadn't, I likely would have thought I'd gotten away with something and that it was ok to repeat this the next day and thereafter. Because I admitted this out loud to someone, I felt like I needed to change the pattern immediatly. The next day, I more than doubled the previous day's intake and cut back on the exercise. That was incredibly hard. I felt so fat and lazy. But I know it was the right thing to do.

This was a super-long post, but I needed to write all this down because I have a hard week ahead with a lot of room for slipping. I'm working 53 hrs from Monday to Saturday and I have classes with tons of papers and assignments due, plus a birthday shindig to attend. Yikes!

My thoughts and prayers are with all of you fighting to beat an eating disorder. Please take care of yourself and give yourself credit for the progress you've made and don't beat yourself up if you are struggling. If you hate your anorexia, that is progress. If you've gained a pound and kept it on, that's progress. If you've had an opportunity to purge and didn't, that is progress. Focus on these steps toward recovery and admit your struggles to someone who cares about you.

Until next time, love yourself!

What is this blog about?

I plan to use this blog as a tool in my recovery and I hope others can glean something of value for it. First of all, I'm not going to talk about much other than my eating disorder past and present--I want this blog to be the only time (other than in my therapy sessions) that I ruminate or obsess about this. I know this is always going to be a part of who I've been and a part of who I've been, but I don't let it define me. Please don't let the eating-disorder centric nature of the blog deceive you! I do not think about eating disorders all the time; I have a full life right now. I want to work out the kinks in my thoughts and actions, to be public about it because I'm currently very private and secretive (and yes, I often lie) about my behavior. But I won't lie here. I'm holding myself accountable here and hopefully I will be able to stop some negative trends.
Even though this blog is mostly for me, I welcome anyone to post comments (nothing hurtful, please) and to ask questions and I will try to help as much as I can. I'm a veteran of this war!