lets be real here

all i could write in my (personal) journal tonight:

lost lonely hopeless sad gone sad wrong alone deserted defeated left miserable somebody help me please

that is all.

sorry for the downer post.

"And here we go again..."

Quoting a Paramore song for this post
it seems appropriate...i'll post the whole song at the bottom.
So, the eating disorder behaviors have gotten kind of out of control at this point.
It needs to stop now.
I talked to L yesterday and I agree with her that we need to fight this immediately and aggressively.
I've been bingeing and purging (not exactly bingeing...it's all semantics anyway though) way too much lately and it has just gotten out of control. It has been two weeks I think since I started purging again and it just needs to stop now. It has spiraled out so so fast, and it's really scaring me.
At first, I have to admit, it was sort of a relief.
It felt nice. The purging gave me a release, it numbed the pain that i didn't want to feel and it was that quick fix that i had been looking for.
But it really has gotten ridiculous so quickly and it's not going anywhere good and it feels awful already and so I'm going to fight it.
Never, in the past, would i have understood or agreed with what L said in my conversation with her yesterday. But i have a lot more knowledge of the disease now, and the proper treatment of it, and I do respect and understand (finally) that this is a serious issue, and real disease, and i know that we must be aggressive in the treatment of it. L said we have to treat it like it's cancer. You wouldn't wait for an already seen tumor to get bigger and bigger before bringing someone in for chemo. You would deal with it effectively right there and then.
That being said, I'm just trying to get my symptoms under control at the moment, and accepting that that is what i have to focus on right now.
I have a lot of other shit going on in my head right now (i literally feel like a there is just a messy knot of issues and problems and worries growing inside my brain right now) but I am going to just focus on the behavioral for the moment, regardless of what else might be "in there"
Because of all this, I really having nothing insightful to say right now, I'm (needless to say) having a really really really hard time  right now and feeling quite awful, so I'm just gonna end now with the lovely Paramore...


"And here we go again
With all the things you said
And not a minute spent
To think that we'd regret
So we just take it back,
These words and hold our breath
Forget the things we swore we meant
I'll write you just to let you know that I'm alright
Can't say I'm sad to see you go
Cause I'm not. (No I'm not) Well, I'm not.
And here we go again
With all the things we did
And now I'm wondering
Just who would I have been
To be the one attached
At all time to your hip?
Forget the things we swore we meant.
I'll write you just to let you know that I'm alright
Can't say I'm sad to see you go
Cause I'm not, no I'm not.
Well, I'm not. (No, I'm not, no I'm not).
I'll write you to let you know that I'm alright
Can't say I'm sad to see you go
Cause I'm not (no, I'm not)
Well, I'm not (no, I'm not)
I'm not, I'm not.
And here we go again
With all the things you said
And not a minute spent
To think that we'd regret
So we just take it back "

And the best insights always come early in the morning

i fell asleep at around 9:30 tonight.

And then woke up at around 2:15, confused about what day it was.

Lying in bed, I started thinking about bingeing&purging loss.

Well, for the sake of full disclosure, at first I started thinking about food, naturally.

I thought "What's in the kitchen? I want food!" and then "Am i really hungry? What do i actually want?"

And my honest answer to myself came easily this time:

I want something to fill the fucking ginormous hole inside of me. 

I feel hollow.

I feel like there is a huge fucking hole in my chest where people used to be.

I literally feel like a walking void.

I have lost so much.

I think I am finally, really really clearly able to see how & why I am so accustomed to just filling this void with food. 

An excerpt from my journal tonight...

"So here I am left with a hole in my chest and all I want to do is fill it with food. Well..chests aren’t made for food but I guess they can be confused with stomachs sometime. Basically, it’s not going to solve the problem. It could trick me into thinking that it has solved the problem, cause a filled(and then consequently, of course, empty) stomach could be easily mistaken for a chest full of love, however, it’s not going to do anything for the long run. But I guess the struggle is sitting with this empty chest. This really just sucks. I don’t know, I may or may not go into the kitchen now, but either way, I feel like it finally makes sense, and it feels a lot like loss."

All of this loss and pain recently finally makes sense. 

All of the pain that i felt about losing R when i left MNV ( & I'm lYk $O tRendy w/ My SYmbolz) was really just built up pain of all the loss that i had experienced before. It's not ONLY about her. It's about the multitude of people who i feel I have lost in the past. Except before, I was actively bulimic, and so i never really allowed myself to feel the pain or the weight (pun intended...) of those losses. This is an unknown, unfamiliar pain. 

{So, it's kind of like being hit on the head with a ball- it hurts the same amount as it would if i knew beforehand that i was going to be hit with a ball, but it's just more shocking this way (without warning), so the pain feels worse.}

I hate to admit it (and by hate, I mean, like...it basically goes against my religion to admit that the therapists are actually right sometimes...) but my relationship with R really was like a microcosm of all my other relationships!(shocker...eh?)

I'm not going to go into it here but I really have had a lot of loss in the past few years. Most of these losses were friendships that were really dear to me, and I never really was given the chance to grieve them, because I was too intent on being bulimic and avoiding actual ingestion of food feelings at all costs. 

So here I am, left with this emptiness. I know what I used to do with it. And I know that eating to fix my loneliness is just about as effective as brushing my teeth to "help" my anger- it wont actually address the problem and, in the end, i'll probably just fuck up my teeth. I also know what I can do with this. I can choose to just sit with this emptiness and feel the hollowness and know that this just comes from years and years of loss, and only now am i able to feel it. I have a choice to make.

Aside from that though, it's nice to feel that things are making sense. Everything has felt so chaotic in my mind recently , and it feel like a relief to have my pain at least make sense, for once.

I'm feeling poetic, so here goes:

And the best insights always come early in the morning

or, as some would have it, very late at night.

The matter is, i finally understand this feeling

and, to describe it, well, - it feels a lot like loss.

xxx

Rose

Photography!

Some pictures, courtesy of my beautiful friend Ava, from the weekend that she visited me! :D First , we ate Tapas and drank some awesome spanish cocktails on the UWS....  

I dipped my toes in coolphotographer-hipsterland and tried out her camera, by taking a pic of myself (not narcissistic at all, i know!)                                                                             We ate some sure-to-cure the hangovers pb sandwiches for breakfast...      

And, last but definitely not least, Ava officially became the first person in history to ever successfully capture a cute picture of my dog {the reason for this being that he is crazy about light, (on top of everything else) and when ever someone picks up a camera, he starts running around being mad...}

Hi, Willy!

xxx
Rose

Buhhhhhh-rain chemistry

Had an interesting conversation with L today about brain chemistry.
(That is, if you can even call it a conversation, it was more like one of our little episodes where i'm just napping chilling on her couch while she rambles on about life)  I swear to god i love that woman and listening to her craziness just about always makes my day...
Anyway, she started talking about how we are all wired really really differently, and we are all meant to function differently in the world, and yet people try to fit themselves into these little boxes (which I like to call "societal norms") even when that just isn't right for them- and i think that is just SO TRUE.
I've been really frustrated with myself recently because i've been feeling so lethargic, and i've been feeling like something is "wrong" with me. I get home from work these days, and I'm just exhausted. And i feel awful for feeling that way, because in my head, and in this society, it's as if i should still be a ball of energy and now i should want to go do 6489229404050 more things! I know so many people (particularly lots of ED people) who are exactly the opposite and are super hyperactive and can't ever sit still and are bouncing off the walls. *
Anyway, the thing L said to me which simultaneously cracked me up and got me thinking was "Well, I think you just need to become a Buddhist".
Seriously though. I really am just a very chill, relaxed person. Apparently, as i have been told by many people, I have a very calm demeanor. I move slowly, I think fast, but I act on things carefully (except for when i'm crazy and impulsive, but that's a different story) I think that he way that I am is just not the desirable by societal standards, and I think that's where I run into troubule.
I have all these things I feel like i should be doing, but really, I don't want to, and maybe I need to learn to just be okay with that? Maybe it's just the way i'm hard-wired?


Anyway, it's super duper gross out today, I dont understand July city weather! I hate it so much! One day (aka yesterday when  I had to run/walk 60 blocks to do an errand for my boss!) it's like 100 degrees and disgustingly sunny out and then today its like torrential rain. WHAT THE HELL?! The rain also totally adds to my lethargy, which is very frustrating, and not at ALL good for my overall productivity at work (which was, today, about zilch)


Right now I'm reading the book Born Round by Frank Bruni. It's a memoir that i picked up because I remember reading a piece of his "I Was a Baby Bulimic" in the New York Times Magazine.Click here to read it. (it's not nearly as weird as it sounds, btw) One of the lines that I picked out from the book though, seems to fit well with this post...


"Born round, you don't die square"


Ok, that was my random thought for the day, on to research how to convert to buddhism...
Peace.
R


* I think it would be interesting to look at brain images and see where people with different diagnoses of eating disorders fit on the spectrum of slow-brain - fast brain lol i'm so technical!!! put it this way: RoseBrain-BouncingOffTheWalls/SuperProductive/Energetic Brain
I have a hunch that those on the bulimia side of the spectrum would be on the Rose camp, while those with tending towards AN would be more likely on the other side. I'm guessing this also could be correlated with the hyperactivity that often occurs with starvation induced in AN? Hmph. 

How To Grieve

That is my latest google search. 
Genius, right?
I kind of came to the conclusion today that a lot of my sadness and pain (and hence, eating disorder shit) is the result of me really really really freaking really missing my therapist from my Tx center, R.
And that really sucks.
First off, it sucks to admit it. It sucks to admit that I am that vulnerable, that I care so much about her, and needed her so much, and trusted and liked and loved her so much that I can feel this much pain because that is gone. It's embarrassing. Its as if I don't like people knowing that they mean that much to me. I can't tell R that she means that much to me, that, again, would be "too vulnerable". 
It sucks because I almost feel like i don't want to grieve this loss. I don't want to admit that it's necessary. That, my friends, brings us, I think, to the first stage of grief: Denial. It's like i want to just stay in this little bubble of "not caring" (which is, and always has been, my default when i sense ANY pain) rather than just accepting that fact that I feel this way, and that I need to really deal with this loss and the pain, vulnerability, and embarrassment that it brings me. 
The second stage of grief is Anger. And yep, I totally feel that. An excerpt from my journal tonight:

"I miss R so much. I feel so angry at her for not being here. I am so angry at her for saying what she said tonight. I’m pretty sure the only thing that she could’ve said that would NOT have made me angry would have been 'I love you too and I miss you too so much and its okay for you to miss me because I can still BE in your life'. But she didn’t say that."

And the frustrating, simple truth of the matter is this : she CAN'T say what I wish she would say (the one thing that would NOT make me angry) because that's just not possible. She legally and physically and also, probably, emotionally, cannot be in my life anymore, except in little tidbits that to me, feel vastly insufficient. 
The third stage of grief is Bargaining, or "attempting to make deals with or begging, wishing, or praying for the loved one to come back". I don't think I've done this yet and I really don't think I will. But, hey, seeing my track record --- I might very well soon call R and beg her to fly out to NYC and live with me, eh?  ;)
Next, number four, is Depression: "overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, frustration, bitterness, self pity, mourning loss of person as well as the hopes, dreams and plans for the future. Feeling lack of control, feeling numb. Perhaps feeling suicidal."
Well I know what that feels like...and I'm pretty sure I'm already in/moving through that one.
And finally, the hoped for numero cinco : Acceptance. "a decision to be at peace with the way things are.  To know that no amount of denial, bargaining, anger or depression is going to recover our loss.  We begin to accept that loss is part of life.  It's not good or bad...just how it is.  So we decide to go on, to find joy in our lives and to bring joy to the lives of others. "
I know I've heard of Radical Acceptance, as is discussed/taught in DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy), but i have never been very good at it, and so i suspect that number five might be a little bit of a toughie for me, but i know its something i need to work towards.
A final excerpt from my journal, which has some insight, along with some big questions...


"But isn’t fighting that suffering, that missing her, going to make it worse. Isn’t the rejection of suffering the cause of all suffering or some Buddhist shit like that? Then doesn’t that mean that I’m just making it WORSE by trying to find some way to not feel that? Yes. Yes it does. But how do I feel that? How do I allow myself to feel that much pain, and just let it be okay, and know that it will pass, even when I’m not really sure that it will. It just feels like more pain than I’ve ever sat with before. It feels like the biggest pain ever. Maybe I’m just being impatient? I think I kind of have a hard time with acceptance because I feel like…okay---I've accepted it…now what?"

Therapy of a New Sort...

It's not EMDR...
and I'm not talking about ICAT, the new Bulimia therapy...


I'm talking about RETAIL THERAPY!


Honestly, some days...clothes shopping is the ONLY thing that makes me feel better.
I know that for a lot of people with ED's, clothes shopping can be a dreadful, terrible, "triggering" experience, and I have those days too- but today was NOT one of them! I had an awesome time and totally love everything I bought and am actually EXCITED to get dressed tomorrow!!!


Just thought i'd share that :)
Maybe I'll post pictures soon of the lovely things that I bought
TeeHee
xxx
Rose

The Weepies

"But in the end the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself"

-Can't Go Back Now, The Weepies

This weekend on our drive out to the beach house, my dad let me play my ipod in the car.

He was trying (sweetly) to engage with me about my music and asked what the band name was of one of the songs and i said, The Weepies! He said "Oh, yeah, they do sound a little weepy"

Ha, He's a cute man when he wants to be.

That's not the point of this post though.

I want to say a couple of things. 

First is that that song "Can't Go Back Now" makes me wonder--- Have the people who have written that song been in residential treatment!? It certainly sounds like it. I can relate to that song in so many ways, and it just really resonates with my experience of being in residential treatment for my eating disorder and then having to leave and do my recovery on my own. I posted it below for reference, because aside from the song sounding great, the lyrics are phenomenal. 

The next thing is the quote I put up there. Today, was a really big step, I think, in terms of my recovery.

After my slip last night, I really was having a rough time, and, after one of my close friends kind of slipped away this afternoon and didnt follow through with our plans, I was feeling really shitty and planning on bingeing and purging. My thought process was: Hey- I have the house to myself till tomorrow night, I have money and I feel like shit- so why not?! 

I was really going to do it. I texted R, and she is on vacation so told me she could not talk, to call MNV instead. Psht. I texted two friends of mine, who were both really helpful, but I was still feeling pretty willful. 

Then I left my friend P's house and walked slowly to the supermarket, which I knew (because I had deviously checked earlier) , didn't close until 10. I stood outside the supermarket for like 20 minutes, on the phone with a therapist from MNV, kind of half listening to what she was saying, and half thinking to myself how I was going to b/p anyway. I got off the phone, stalled for a bit, smoked a cigarette, emailed my dietitian, but then just jumped in a cab. 

It felt liberating.

I felt really accomplished, for the first time , ever really.

I felt like I had given myself permission to b/p and then I really fought the battle and made the choice not to, to do the right thing, and that feels good. 

I'm proud of myself. 

I think this does feel like it really matters, because I do truly feel like I for once had the strength to do it, and although I had some help from my friends (winkwink) , i know that it was something I did by myself.

One of the things I was saying to myself while I was in the cab was "it's okay baby, you can go home and just cry if you want to, it's okay, you can cry if you need to"

I gave myself permission to cry, and that felt good. I knew that b/ping was an attempt to escape from those feelings, but I gave myself permission to feel- to have "the weepies" ;) . 

Gratitudes

1. L and K, my wonderful friends, without whom i would be nowhere

2. Music 

3.E, the therapist I talked to today, who when I was at MNV, was far from my favorite person, but really was so wonderful today on the phone, and i really really appreciate her caring.

The Weepies: Can't Go Back Now

Yesterday, when you were young,

Everything you needed done was done for you.
Now you do it on your own
But you find you're all alone,
What can you do?
You and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now.
You know there will be days when you're so tired that you can't take another step,
The night will have no stars and you'll think you've gone as far as you will ever get
But you and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now
And yeah, yeah, go where you want to go
Be what you want to be,
If you ever turn around, you'll see me.
I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
But in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself
And you and me walk on
Yeah you and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now
Walk on, walk on, walk on
You can't go back now

Recovery as a Process

proc·ess

   [pros-es; especially Brit. proh-ses]  Show IPAnoun, plural proc·ess·es  [pros-es-iz, ‐uh-siz, ‐uh-seez or, especially Brit., proh-ses‐, proh-suh‐] 

1.a systematic series of actions directed to some end: todevise a process for homogenizing milk.

2.a continuous action, operation, or series of changes takingplace in a definite manner: the process of decay.

6.the action of going forward or on.

7.the condition of being carried on

8.course or lapse, as of time.

(www.dictionary.com) 

So...I purged last night. For the first time in six months.

L (my dietitian) called me afterwards because I had texted her before I did it.

I guess it was good to talk to her. although i find it really shameful to say "I threw up". 

She has been constantly reminding me that "recovery is a process" and that means that it doesn't happen overnight. Just because I purged, doesn't mean i'm in a full-blown relapse. It just means that I need to be more careful and take it as a sign that I need extra support right now and I need to take really good care of myself.

She said that it was inevitable that I was going to purge SOMETIME in my recovery. I understand that. It has been my coping mechanism for so long, how could I just expect myself to NEVER do it again?

She also validated that I am pretty much living my own personal hell right now, and that, to top it off, it's a holiday.

Holidays are hard for people with eating disorders. They tend to revolve around three major things: Being social, Looking good, and Eating. These are three pretty big sore spots those of us with EDs tend have. Theres a post secret card that I think says it perfectly today: 

                        (TEE-HEE!)

Anyway, aside from the jokes, I just thought I'd put it out there, so that I can move on.

xxx

Rose