Status Quo

"However people know things about themselves...I knew this.  And I was afraid.  Yet I wanted it more than anything."

This is where one splits between bulimia and anorexia.  I'm almost there again.  I know I focus a lot on how terrible the bulimia is (because it is) and how addictive, but once you cross the line it's just as addictive.  Maybe more so because you want it.  You know it's bad but you want it so much anyway.  You know that you can't live your entire life as an anorexic (unless it's a short one) but you so desperately want to try.  You're addicted to bulimia because it alleviates the fact that you ate when you didn't want to so let's get it out.  It let's you react with food and then erase.  But to not need it?  To just not eat?  To be so so so thin that people notice? That's the goal from the start when you were probably first able to walk.  Let's be honest. 

I don't think I can put into words what I feel when I think of the times in my life that I actually met diagnostic criteria for anorexia.  It's actually pretty sick how proud it makes me that I ever did when so many are 'only just' FEDNOT (or EDNOS).  It's sad that I hate thinking I'm 'only' one eating disorder over another. 

I fantasize about being anorexic again.  It slipped into being a goal once more... though if I'm honest it never stopped being the goal, I just took a break for outside factors.  I say it's the relapse, it's the stress and it's because it's easier or I'm addicted.... but maybe it's simpler.  It's the status quo.  I have lived more years in this fluctuating state than anything else.  It feels more normal with a constant war inside than to be without.  Dr. M once was helping me because everything was calm and easy in my life and I was more anxious than ever before.  She ended up telling me that I unfortunately had conditioned myself to only feel normal when I had an over full plate and more on my to do list than I could ever handle.  I think I may be the same with health.

The healthier I am, the more off and anxious I am and then anxiety and insecurity pair and game over.  I don't want to count how many relationships have ended due to that friends, family and guys.  Life just is easier when I just embrace it all.  Just say whatever happens happens.  Have faith I will never take it all too far.  Because life was never better anytime I lived my life according to everyone else's rules of health. 

So back to secrets by omission.  I won't lie if anyone asks.  It's been a really long time and no one wants make be feel bad by suspecting but it'll come soon.  I wonder how it will play out this time.

Secrets

I tend to follow a certain pattern.  I try very hard to be 'normal' or 'recovered' and then I throw in the towel for one of many reasons and I start relapsing or regressing depending on your definitions and then I start rereading Wasted.  It's the only novel I have read more than 3 times... this is probably close to my 10th or more.  I tend to read it at the beginning of a relapse/crisis and then toward the end.  The end I think in order to remind myself of how messed up it all is and to remember why I should not want to live this way.  The beginning like now?  I think it's because even though I know I am one of millions, I feel so very alone and not normal. 

I could be obsessive about exercise and healthy eating and find dozens to talk to and it be socially acceptable.  I could over eat, eat terrible and be over weight and find dozens to talk to and it be socially acceptable.  Not so much for someone who is stuck uncontrollably purging what they eat to the point that starvation is really preferable.  People in my boat are out there in lager numbers, but you can't just talk about it. 

I lucked out in a way finding J when I did because I truly knew I wasn't alone and I could really attempt to talk about my feelings with someone I thought understood.  I'm alone again though because she has been recovered from a much milder case than mine for 6 years now.  I have to keep how I'm really doing to myself from her now or risk triggering her.  I won't mess with someone else's progress. 

So I'm reading old faithful again because no one has published something I can relate to more than Marya.  "I had a secret.  It was a guilty secret, certainly.  But it was my secret.  I had something to hold on to.  It was company.  It kept me calm.". This struck me tonight. 

I miss being 'sick'.  I miss hiding it.  I miss justifying it.  I miss is defining me.  In the 2ish years I attempted (more than ever before) to be recovered and healthy, I felt so empty.  It was like I was having an identity crisis and I tried desperately to define myself in many different ways (including a very dysfunctional relationship).  But I missed the identity of eating disordered.  I missed wearing the badge.  I missed people knowing or wondering.  I guess it's just been such a part of me for so long.

I'm restricting because once again the bulimia is out of control, but really I can't wait for restriction to take hold and I also, sort of, can't wait for people to take notice.  I'll hate it when it happens but it will mean I achieved something on some level.  And no matter how many ways I achieve, that one always seems to mean more to me.   

It's not perfect, but I'm not dying

I couldn't decide which shows to choose to watch this year so I gave a lot a try and picked after the first 2 episodes which ones to keep.  One was Red Band Society.  I ended up keeping it and I have to be real so a big part of the reason was that one character is an anorexic girl at the hospital.  It just naturally fascinates me to watch someone act out an ED person.  It's just so rare I get to feel that 'we have something in common' truly relatable character feeling.  It's why I love memoirs.  But I think I was also into it because I often wonder how my life would have turned out if I had been 'sick' enough to raise suspicion and alarm when I was a teen.  If I had been put in rehab or a hospital early on, would I have really recovered? 

No one questioned my health and habits until I lived with a boyfriend (I dismissed the worries) and then took the first ones serious when it was my college friends my senior year of college.  Then I went into denial and no one worried again until it was impossible to ignore at work 4 years ago.  I was 20-22 the first times and they thought it was just bulimia that was the problem.  4 years ago the restriction became apparent but I was 28... a little late to work on all that...

I watched last night's episode tonight which really struck me.  If you don't watch, the character is in the hospital, who isn't actually doing much to rehabilitate but focuses on watching her intake and weight, and as soon as she fakes it enough and gains just enough weight they let her go home.  She then goes home and is under such pressure to be normal and eat that she hides in the bathroom and for the first time purges. 

It's was really hard to watch for me because I remember being that girl.  I remember going from addicted to eating my feelings to gaining weight to trying to fight that by not eating.  And I did that so well for years until the social pressures of being normal and eating were so much that I went home desperate after eating with friends I worked with at the Italian place and I broke.  I felt she mirrored me tonight when I locked myself in my bathroom, looked in the mirror absolutely hating myself in every way imaginable.  And then I saw my toothbrush and I remember thinking if only I could get it all out...  I didn't think I could put my finger down my throat (though now 15 year later I almost don't need anything) so I grabbed the toothbrush and purged for the very first time.  And everything was better and everything was worse and nothing would ever be the same again. 

I cried when it wasn't even a scene worthy of tears because if there was one thing in my entire life I could take back it would be that.  And this is from someone who has made so many mistakes one could wish to do over but that would be the one. 

I hate how much attention anorexia gets.  I'm not saying it's good, but you either deal with learning how to survive with some level of food or you don't.  The end.  Bulimia, however, is such a silent deadly horrible thing.  You can live with it so long and no one knows.  And that is why it is so much worse.  You do so much more damage for so much longer before anyone notices.  And in my opinion it is so much more addictive.  And when someone who restricts realizes they can purge when they give in, go on auto pilot or have to appear normal, well game over. 

The day I purged and decided I preferred it to the chaos that eating did to me and that it could also throw people off... well that was game over for me.  The problem with so many of the ED is that it's not just one you're treating.  It's several.  And they each need to be dealt with separately and differently but you have to figure out which one you need to deal with and when.  I could see a therapist every day and I don't think they could keep up with which version of me to deal with.  I guess that's a big part of why I figure I just have to balance and accept them and keep living.  It's not perfect but I'm not dying.  So there.

Who wants to be normal anyway?

It never stops to amaze me, though it shouldn't, how much easier life is when I don't spend all my time trying to be 'normal' and 'healthy'.  Things this year have been so stressful and I can't lie, the moment I threw in the towel on recovery for the millionth time everything was so much easier.  And I just can't blame myself for it.  It's human nature to give in when things get really hard.  I'm not going to beat myself up over it anymore.  At the end of the day, the honest truth is this... I have been much happier while others would label me 'sick' than I have when in 'health'. 

I won't go overboard.  I can't handle random people making comments to me like 'you know it won't kill you to eat.'. But I'm more stable when I don't focus on being normal.  All I do when recovered is beat myself up about how not normal I am in my head.  I'm 31.  I'm not going to drop dead from some bulimic and anorexic tendencies anymore now than the 18 years on and off again sick.  ED kills many, but I seriously doubt I'm one of them.  I guess I'm sort of like a functioning alcoholic. 

An ED is seriously a screwed up addiction when you think about it.  For me it really all started with being addicted to food when younger.  I wrapped it all up with emotions and dealing with them until it was actually a problem. If it had been drugs the answer is to quit and never have it again.  But if you are addicted to food, you aren't allowed to quit it for good or that becomes an ED of itself.  It's like I'm a drug addict who is told I have to quit abusing the drug and learn to use it in moderation.  No one would ever advise that of a drug addict, but you do in fact tell that to people are ED. 

Maybe if I was more addicted to the starving it would make more sense.  Maybe that's what gets true anorexics, but for me it's more about not being able to handle my addiction to eating my feelings.  Then I feel guilty and purge and after enough time of purging I have to restrict in order to stop the cycle.  It's a terrible rollercoaster.  And at the end of the day I feel better restricting.  I know that these old habits I'm falling back into are not good, but they seem better than the alternative.  My head is too chaotic when trying to pretend to be someone I'm not.