too

too needy
too selfish
too sensitive
too damaged
too inconvenient
too worthless
too greedy
too slow
too fat

I wanted to spend time with him. The only reason I wanted to go to the pub at all was to spend time with him. He's the only thing that makes me feel ok sometimes, and I didn't see much of him today, and I wanted to walk with him to the pub instead of just meeting him there. And for some reason that made him angry. And then I regretted wanting to spend the time walking with him.

We walked. We didn't touch the entire time. Our eyes didn't meet. Our footsteps, normally in sync with each other, were awkwardly mismatched. I wanted to crawl into a hole and cry. I didn't. Not then anyway.

I'm back in the lab, alone. Wanted to throw up; realized there's nothing in me except booze and coffee. Wanted to cut; realized I don't have any razors here; remembered my pocketknife.

There's so much about me I hate, I can't stand someone else being angry at me.

New goal: let's see how long I can go on nothing but coffee.

through the looking glass

Yesterday was wonderful. Something of a break through.

I woke up at 2:42 a.m. Thursday night (Friday morning?), convinced I heard my alarm going off and that I needed to hurry up and get dressed. I stared at the clock in confusion for a few moments, finally realizing that I should still be asleep.

Despite my not-so-restful night, I still woke up at 5:30 when my alarm went off for real. A girl I work with is really into sports and fitness (in a healthy way, I'm trying to learn from her), and we've become gym buddies.We both like going to this "total muscle conditioning" class that starts at 7 a.m. on Friday mornings, so we've made a deal that we'll go together. That way, when my alarm wakes me up at 5:30, I'm less likely to say "screw it, I want to sleep some more," because I'll know that my friend will be waiting at the gym for me.

Except she wasn't there; she'd slept in. But I went. And it was great. The class itself was good - we mostly worked on upper body muscles, arms and back stuff, and my shoulders are still sore today. But I like doing this on Friday mornings for more than just the gym class. I love walking around the city when most people are still asleep, when the sun is just coming up. It's calm and peaceful and an absolutely amazing way to start a day.

I didn't worry too much about calories yesterday. I had all-you-can-eat sushi for lunch. And even ate some things that were fried, like the tempura and the spring rolls. Then finished it off with a mango ice cream. 

I went to a cirque show on campus at night. It was based on Alice in Wonderland. The Mad Hatter was the host, complete with green and purple clothes, wild hair and make-up. He introduced the three acrobatic acts: Alice falling 'through the rabbit hole' (and twirling around a suspended hoop); the White Rabbit 'late for a very important date' and twisting around two black straps hanging from the ceiling; and the Queen of Hearts (played by the same girl as Alice) who did an amazing routine with red silks.

They were serving finger food, beer, wine and cocktails at the show. And there was a table of chocolate too. I sampled all 3 types of solid chocolate, and even had a shot of the iced 'drinking chocolate'. It was delicious. It's been so long since I ate chocolate just like a normal person would, without turning it into a binge.

I got home a little before midnight, slightly drunk and in a great mood. I realized I was still a little hungry, so I had a sandwich with cheese, something else I don't normally let myself eat.

This morning I weighed myself; I still do that every day, I can't help it. And despite all the food I had that I normally don't let myself eat, I hadn't gained any weight. It was something of a revelation. It's possible to eat those things without getting 'fat.' I don't think I'm ready yet to stop counting calories everyday, but maybe I'll be able to handle some of that 'unplanned' food without freaking out so easily.

i am a tangled web

...and I need to start unwinding my knots.

I'm starting a second blog to help me with doing that. This blog will stay focused on the present. The other blog will be where I sort through my past. There's a lot of stuff that I don't think I ever really faced and dealt with, and I blame that for the panic attacks and general "I'm losing it" feelings I get. I want the panic attacks to stop; I want to treat myself better; I want to be free of the things that sneak up on my mind and haunt me at times. So I'm going to write about them, and analyze them, and figure out what still bothers me about them, and then (hopefully) figure out what to do about it.

It's going to hurt at times, I know it, but I also know that I need to do this.

I also don't want to hold anything back in the new blog. I'm going to use details, real names, real places. And so that second blog won't be made 'public', because if anyone I see in real life were to stumble upon it, it might give me away. But it doesn't have to stay completely private either. If anyone following me here wants to follow that one too, let me know.

maybe

I don't know why I called them. I wouldn't have under normal circumstances. If Mom hadn't been in the hospital, if Dad and I hadn't fought (but then, we nearly always fight), if I hadn't temporarily run away from home, if I hadn't seemed upset enough for a friend to recommend a place at school I could go to talk to someone. "Yeah, I might need to talk to someone by the time all this stuff is over with." "Why not now? You're going through a lot, it might help." "Yeah, maybe I will..."

And so I made an appointment for a phone interview. I found a semi-quiet place at school for the phone call; I didn't have a 'home' at the time, nowhere that was really private. A lady with a nice voice asked me questions, I answered them. I told her I was upset because my parents were sick, that I fought a lot with my Dad, that I had panic attacks I couldn't control unless I hurt myself to make them end. That I'd been hospitalized for being suicidal when I was 16, but that I wasn't like that anymore; I hurt myself sometimes but I don't want to die anymore.

Our half hour was up. She said there was a waiting list, but that she would try to rush me through a little bit, to expect an in-person appointment in 3 to 4 weeks.

I saw my new doctor for the first time the next day.

I was confused. Why did they want to see me so soon? I'd told them I wasn't suicidal anymore. By that point Mom was finally home from the hospital, Dad was acting as if nothing had ever happened to drive me out, there was a fragile sort of peace in the air and I moved back home. Life had returned to its usual state of somewhere between bad and good. I was starting to wonder why I'd felt like I needed to talk to someone at all, and yet they thought I needed to talk to someone right away. Why?

I kept the appointment. Why? What did I want help with? What did I want to work on, to change, to deal with? I didn't know. I still don't. I don't usually admit I'm not fine, even to myself.

If something hurts, I ignore it. If something hurts so much I think it might break me, I tell myself it happened to someone else. I distract myself from it. I've had a phobia of boredom since I was 15. If I don't have something I need to do, if my mind is quiet instead of racing, then my mind can turn to things I don't want it to think about. So I don't let myself slow down or stop. I keep myself so sleep-deprived that by the time I do sleep, I'm out right away, there's no time for my thoughts to haunt me in the space between waking and sleeping. No quiet time, no boredom, no unwanted thoughts, no pain. I go on.


I've seen the new doctor 5 times; I've cried during 3 of those times. I don't think I cry easily, but there I was, crying about things that weren't even recent and sometimes not even knowing why I was crying. I was angry at myself for being so weak, for wasting time crying, for letting things that happened so long ago still hold power over me.

Maybe I never really dealt with them. Maybe they're what I still run from, in my too-busy, perfection-driven schedule. Maybe they're what catches up to me when I have a panic attack and feel like I'm losing it.

Maybe I need to, somehow, deal with them. Maybe that's why I called.

3

I lasted 3 days.

Didn't throw up Monday night, though it was really, really, really hard. I was fine until I got home from school...then my family's left-over dinner was still out on the counters in the kitchen. I picked up a plate. Lifted it, started walking away with it. Stopped myself. Forced the plate back down. Stared at the food. Breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. Walked away, empty-handed, and went to bed. I almost caved. I almost promised myself "just this one last time." But I walked away.

Tuesday and Wednesday were easier. I planned ahead of time what I would eat and when, and avoided foods that I know usually trigger binges.

Thursday...caught me by surprise. There was a lunch party at school I'd forgotten about. Couldn't avoid. Couldn't control. And there mia was, waiting. I didn't eat as much as most of the people there did, but I felt like it was too much and I couldn't keep it.

Even though I only lasted 3 days, this, in itself, is an accomplishment. For some reason I thought I've been fighting this for 3 years. But no, now that I stop and think about when it all began, it actually started in November 2005. So it's now been over 4 years. And since it started, I haven't been able to last a week without mia unless I was on vacation with friends and surrounded by people nearly all the time. And even then, sometimes we've managed to sneak away, me and mia, in the midst of a party or a restaurant in a city I don't even live in.

So I'll consider those 3 days as a starting point, as the first signs of change. And I'll last longer this time. And I'll try harder to avoid surprises.

so a psychiatrist and a girl with low self esteem and control issues sit down in a room...

How much do you weigh now?
160. 

And how tall are you?
5-8.

And how do you see yourself? Do you think you're fat? Obviously your body wasn't happy being 120 lbs if you're back here. It's amazing how hard our bodies will try to correct themselves...
I'd say ... I'm...average I guess...

Yes, so would I.

...but I've never been one to be happy with being average.