[EDIT: 3/24/11 I wrote this under the influence. So excuse the GARY rambling.]
It's hard to say when I decided I was capable. Enrolling in 5 courses (English 2, Geometry, World History:part 2, French 1, Health:part 2) sounds absurd, given that it took me nearly 3 bulimic-crowded-years to complete 9th grade. But back to capability. It spread like a heinous disease, point for point with my anorexia. The more I restrict, the more I lust for knowledge. I read like a glutinous snorting/rearing pig, and take 4 xanax and 3 adderall a day to keep my flock of thoughts sequestered in a padlocked pen. Functioning, like my labored breathing, is unfathomable without my drugs. Dear Lord, I'm Gary personified.
Gary, my fun-loving 40+ in seniority, pill-popping friend, is who I'm referencing. I love him, dearly; not a puppy-love sort of crush, but a all-encompassing stifling love that expands day by fleeting day. I've known him as a sort of uncle figure all my life, and I've always favored him, always felt crushed by the weight of our fastening personalities.
I have a friendship with him that fetters me, and I'm always concerned for him, his life choices, and his girlfriend preferences. Not jealously, but more like a festering agitation for his well-being in those relationships. I could never be jealous, I only yearn for a blissful relationship for him. It's hard to intelligibly make this clear in my own head, never mind in a blog post. But, to be neat and fair, I love him and only wish for him the best in life. I'm doubtful he'll ever vacate my thoughts and future choices, but when I'm in a relationship just based on a no-strings-attached liaison it's easy to forgive and forget my love. But by the next day my stomach is roiling at my betrayal to my one-sided love.
I suppose I've only managed to disappoint, and that's a hard cross to bear.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
popping oblong pills
When I get up at 4:30 in the morning to wolf down my breakfast, a path is woven, and I wonder, am I in control or being controlled? Because I need and have become accustomed to my solitude, it usually doesn't cross my mind that I have no restraint - until I have none. Guzzling down my coffee and pouring cereal into my gullet is surely not normal. But it's my normal, for now. I am not steady on my feet, yet. I can't justify this compulsion other than the fact it's a routine that I've become comfortable with.
I joined a book club. I'm still not sure if that was a wise decision or not, given that it takes me 3 xanax to just read for a few hours at a time. I don't know when it happened - one day I could read with no interruption and the next day I couldn't stop the racing 'I'm not good enough' thoughts. That was January of 2010, a full year, and still, I can't read without popping a few pills beforehand. It's ludicrous given that I love books: the scent, the tangible turning of a crisp page, the binding, the very words that transform into pictures. That right there though is what I'm afraid of, the images. I lived out of reality for so long, I had forgotten life and it's vibrancy. I eschewed reality and embraced fanfiction - from which stemmed my OCD-bulimia. I am screwed. I can feel it in the very marrow in my bones.
I joined a book club. I'm still not sure if that was a wise decision or not, given that it takes me 3 xanax to just read for a few hours at a time. I don't know when it happened - one day I could read with no interruption and the next day I couldn't stop the racing 'I'm not good enough' thoughts. That was January of 2010, a full year, and still, I can't read without popping a few pills beforehand. It's ludicrous given that I love books: the scent, the tangible turning of a crisp page, the binding, the very words that transform into pictures. That right there though is what I'm afraid of, the images. I lived out of reality for so long, I had forgotten life and it's vibrancy. I eschewed reality and embraced fanfiction - from which stemmed my OCD-bulimia. I am screwed. I can feel it in the very marrow in my bones.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
early bird catches the worm
I wake up early - twilight hour early, birds not even twittering early: 4-5 am.
My compulsive nature compels me to trudge out of bed at 4am and drink coffee, study french and have a minuscule bowl of cereal. I am not a person with an eating disorder, but an eating disorder personified. What is that? Nerves? My fear of having no solitude? But even with that awareness, I am an automaton and ritualistic at 4am: roll out of warm bed, turn coffee pot on, take adderall + xanax, go to the bathroom, blearily walk downstairs to pour my 1/2 cup ration of cereal with sliced banana, grab coffeemate and mug, and then hurry up stairs and scarf down my food like a dying person guzzling their last sumptuous meal. Halfway through I comprehend this is not normal, eating a bowl of cereal and 3 full mugs of coffee in 10 minutes but I can't discipline myself. It's a strange experience, realizing that when you wake up at 4am for the solitude and peace, you don't earn any of it because you're too busy stuffing food down your gullet to notice.
A night ago, my mother purchased more correspondence classes for me, to occupy my interminable time, and so no binge lists intrude my thinking. I appreciate the expediency she applied, and surely what it took to lobby the credit card from my father's hand. He wants me to complete high school as exhaustively as possible, covering any and every subject no matter the cost. It's a vicarious exposure to High School he never had, being shipped of to military school at 14, and then getting GED and masquerading as a hippie for a decade - give or take a few years. He's assigning all his ramshackle aspirations onto me: a doctor, an archaeologist, a scientist. I would be happy simply editing manuscripts. That was my dream. To sit, and smell, and immerse my soul into the words of fresh copy paper and polish the story into a gleaming book or article or an anthropology of short stories. An Editor.
But with all this newfangled technology running about, is that even a logical option anymore? I want to be affiliated with a quaint, idyllic publishing house. Will Piedmont Community College help me discover that? The kindle, the nook; what happened to the magical thrill of turning a page, of tangibly clutching a book rapturously for the next sentence? I feel cradled in a swath of library smells, of old books and new books. The phenomenon of words transforming into otherworldly adventures is something to live for, and console you in times of need. They have the revolutionary power to refine our thoughts, give a new perspective in our lives, and motivate us to rearrange our perceptions.
My compulsive nature compels me to trudge out of bed at 4am and drink coffee, study french and have a minuscule bowl of cereal. I am not a person with an eating disorder, but an eating disorder personified. What is that? Nerves? My fear of having no solitude? But even with that awareness, I am an automaton and ritualistic at 4am: roll out of warm bed, turn coffee pot on, take adderall + xanax, go to the bathroom, blearily walk downstairs to pour my 1/2 cup ration of cereal with sliced banana, grab coffeemate and mug, and then hurry up stairs and scarf down my food like a dying person guzzling their last sumptuous meal. Halfway through I comprehend this is not normal, eating a bowl of cereal and 3 full mugs of coffee in 10 minutes but I can't discipline myself. It's a strange experience, realizing that when you wake up at 4am for the solitude and peace, you don't earn any of it because you're too busy stuffing food down your gullet to notice.
A night ago, my mother purchased more correspondence classes for me, to occupy my interminable time, and so no binge lists intrude my thinking. I appreciate the expediency she applied, and surely what it took to lobby the credit card from my father's hand. He wants me to complete high school as exhaustively as possible, covering any and every subject no matter the cost. It's a vicarious exposure to High School he never had, being shipped of to military school at 14, and then getting GED and masquerading as a hippie for a decade - give or take a few years. He's assigning all his ramshackle aspirations onto me: a doctor, an archaeologist, a scientist. I would be happy simply editing manuscripts. That was my dream. To sit, and smell, and immerse my soul into the words of fresh copy paper and polish the story into a gleaming book or article or an anthropology of short stories. An Editor.
But with all this newfangled technology running about, is that even a logical option anymore? I want to be affiliated with a quaint, idyllic publishing house. Will Piedmont Community College help me discover that? The kindle, the nook; what happened to the magical thrill of turning a page, of tangibly clutching a book rapturously for the next sentence? I feel cradled in a swath of library smells, of old books and new books. The phenomenon of words transforming into otherworldly adventures is something to live for, and console you in times of need. They have the revolutionary power to refine our thoughts, give a new perspective in our lives, and motivate us to rearrange our perceptions.
Monday, January 24, 2011
like a marble
As I'm scribbling notes for my French class this morning, it occurs to me that I reflect the the characteristics of the people around me and end up scattering myself to no one. The world is a scavenge hunt for vitality and life and experiences, and I explore nothing but the stagnant hole I've dug. It's familiar, and unchanged. I cling to my childhood like a patient with peter pan syndrome, and wait for life to become a reality. It isn't yet, but I still wait like a child for her overdue parents. Lost little girl, clinging to her pipe dreams of nonexistence.
A few weeks ago I taught my mom how to recognize and circumvent a binge session by watching my eyes. They glaze over, like filtered glasses, and I am caught in a stare with the floor, pondering my options: what to eat, how much I can get away with eating, when to eat, how long I going to be binging, and what exactly I'll be occupying my mind with during the episode. See, I can't binge without simultaneously doing something else, to disconnect my brain from what is actually happening. Otherwise I don't binge. My OCD decreed I was not allowed to binge/purge without watching television or reading fanfiction. So now I eschew them. Hedonism may be glued to my core, but I am still versed in starvation. Like an old friend, it comes by to check up on me occasionally, see how I doing, and if I'm okay. But, I never dabbled in anthropomorphizing my eating disorder. I never gave it a name and personality, never let it become more that what it really was - a salacious relationship with food.
I have to prompt myself to remember that I become someone else under the influence of the ED. It devours my thoughts and my life, and erodes any sort of respectable personality I've managed to scramble together in the meantime. I become an animal, as my father was quick to point out. I rummage through the pantry and kitchen, my mind racing with stratagem. The cycle starts with my incompetence and spirals like a hamster wheel - round and round - until the doubt and feelings are gone and I'm left anesthetized. That is what I miss most; my stoicism towards life, and the grueling history it imparts.
A few weeks ago I taught my mom how to recognize and circumvent a binge session by watching my eyes. They glaze over, like filtered glasses, and I am caught in a stare with the floor, pondering my options: what to eat, how much I can get away with eating, when to eat, how long I going to be binging, and what exactly I'll be occupying my mind with during the episode. See, I can't binge without simultaneously doing something else, to disconnect my brain from what is actually happening. Otherwise I don't binge. My OCD decreed I was not allowed to binge/purge without watching television or reading fanfiction. So now I eschew them. Hedonism may be glued to my core, but I am still versed in starvation. Like an old friend, it comes by to check up on me occasionally, see how I doing, and if I'm okay. But, I never dabbled in anthropomorphizing my eating disorder. I never gave it a name and personality, never let it become more that what it really was - a salacious relationship with food.
I have to prompt myself to remember that I become someone else under the influence of the ED. It devours my thoughts and my life, and erodes any sort of respectable personality I've managed to scramble together in the meantime. I become an animal, as my father was quick to point out. I rummage through the pantry and kitchen, my mind racing with stratagem. The cycle starts with my incompetence and spirals like a hamster wheel - round and round - until the doubt and feelings are gone and I'm left anesthetized. That is what I miss most; my stoicism towards life, and the grueling history it imparts.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
I be feelin' fat
Like a bulging-out-of-my-flesh size two. This is corpulence at its best stifling my lungs. I can't breathe, and I take shallow lung-expanding gulps of air. I may be in recovery, and actively participating, but I'm not anywhere near 'recovered' in the psychological aspect. A logical part of me knows that this is a product of the mind, just a petty delusion I have. I know that this is a fickle disease. I know I need to accept that weight gain is a part of the recovery process. But it's definitely crazy-making.
Living with my anxious-overly-demonstrative aunt at this point, and it's most assuredly rubbing off and sticking like glue to me. The unexplainable moments of anxiety are debilitating and breathless. I worry, I fret; I can even nourish and stroke my flitting butterflies. She makes me eat whole meals, and for that reason only, it's hard for my ED mind to harbor no grudge against the fact that she blatantly shoves any worry I may have over the situation aside. I must feel like Atlas - a hulking weight pressing on my body. But I worry over worrying.
I want to be back in my nest: at home, alone with my books, and my pills, and my ED.
Living with my anxious-overly-demonstrative aunt at this point, and it's most assuredly rubbing off and sticking like glue to me. The unexplainable moments of anxiety are debilitating and breathless. I worry, I fret; I can even nourish and stroke my flitting butterflies. She makes me eat whole meals, and for that reason only, it's hard for my ED mind to harbor no grudge against the fact that she blatantly shoves any worry I may have over the situation aside. I must feel like Atlas - a hulking weight pressing on my body. But I worry over worrying.
I want to be back in my nest: at home, alone with my books, and my pills, and my ED.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
I want I want
We owe 17,560 dollars in outstanding credit card charges. I find that astonishing, and the euphoric gratification when shopping just doesn't cut it as an explanation. How, why, and when, did this happen is most on my mind. How? By secreting away the the money spent, Why? The fleeting moment of glee when purchasing new and shiny things (you, klepto, you), When? The past 4 years.
I am still befuddled beyond belief at this number. So many digits to comprehend, that it's mind boggling. Never mind the ready reserve the bank employs when you overdraw your account. My father went ballistic, claiming my mother and I stole from him, smashing and upturning the plaster and flinging crockery everywhere; he broke his hand punching a porcelain pot sticker.
And, you know what? I want a safe place, a place I can run to when I frightened out of my wits or angry beyond any wits. A place so secluded and surrounded with empathy, a place where I can go to when I want to slam the door and be anywhere but there. The option of fleeing at any moment fills me with doubt, and thrill, a thrill that fleets through my head with pictures: a room - a warm, breezy and cramped crawlspace with enough legroom, with an individual personality, and animated color spread along the walls. A secure and silent and unaffected by reality.
I'm just tired of my shallow breathing feeling like my world is caving in around me; my anxiety whipping through my veins like thumping blood and attempting to mentally flee at the drop of hat - escapism is not my forte. But, I want it, I want it so badly it hurts.
I am still befuddled beyond belief at this number. So many digits to comprehend, that it's mind boggling. Never mind the ready reserve the bank employs when you overdraw your account. My father went ballistic, claiming my mother and I stole from him, smashing and upturning the plaster and flinging crockery everywhere; he broke his hand punching a porcelain pot sticker.
And, you know what? I want a safe place, a place I can run to when I frightened out of my wits or angry beyond any wits. A place so secluded and surrounded with empathy, a place where I can go to when I want to slam the door and be anywhere but there. The option of fleeing at any moment fills me with doubt, and thrill, a thrill that fleets through my head with pictures: a room - a warm, breezy and cramped crawlspace with enough legroom, with an individual personality, and animated color spread along the walls. A secure and silent and unaffected by reality.
I'm just tired of my shallow breathing feeling like my world is caving in around me; my anxiety whipping through my veins like thumping blood and attempting to mentally flee at the drop of hat - escapism is not my forte. But, I want it, I want it so badly it hurts.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
think of this nicely, dearest
In a nutshell, I'm positive I'll be left in the rotten, old dust of the world. I'm Jane. Mmh, always been stuck with that Pain Jane moniker. It just rolled off the tongue, and it frustrated me to no end that everyone in school used my name to mock me. I vividly remember becoming so enraged at a boy in elementary school that I held him in a choke-hold for several seconds. Then I was immediately repulsed and ashamed and all the anger oozed out viscously. I was sick to my stomach and didn't want to face him or anyone. I skulked into the classroom, face burning, and quietly sat down on the floor, shaking with anxiety. Then in aftercare I was screaming out the injustices of the world, and climbing trees and high on life. I went home and I was ashamed and lying and alone, and remorsefully wrote a note to the boy apologizing.
Fickle. Ambivalent: I'm bipolar with an ED, if someone could just stick with a diagnosis. It can be very tiring shuffling in and out of a psychiatric identification. Validation is hard to come by these days. People talk about ups and downs, but it's hard to express what it feels like to be uncontrollably up or down. My father calls it 'mind over matter' and that makes me feel like a ball of shit for being unable to 'control' myself and my actions. I could wake up one morning high as a kite, then go from ecstatic to depressed like someone flipped a light-saver switch. I could do something one day, and wake up the next regretting whatever I did or said. On a high I lost my virginity in the girls bathroom at fourteen; by fifteen I was a full time bulimic. I've written suicide notes - as early at age eight, I've put a gun in my mouth, I've counted and separated the pills I would need to take to overdose. But I have to face to the world - there are no magic words to make my problems go away.
My EDNOS, I'll address as comprehensibly as possible. I've been a bulimic/anorexic-alternating for six years or so; I get disoriented about the passage of time. There are periods where I deny that I have an eating disorder and delude myself into believing I'm 'on top on the world' and nothing is wrong at all. I look at others around me and how effortlessly they live and accomplish moving on with life, and wonder why I'm still stuck in the same old rut I've been in for 6 years. I want to know that there is something out there calling my name, something I haven't found yet but is waiting for me to grasp it. It's the only way I can go on living.
But I feel secure and impregnable behind this new blog. The name's very misleading. This blog is a way of learning about myself, and seeing where this takes me. I hope to stick with this blog for as long as possible, before I lose interest. I just want people to be aware of my illness, and how it affects me and the ones around me, the ones I count on for love and support.
To end on a happy note: I like appreciating the world, the way colors dance on the skin, the transformation of golden and bright light on the diorama of life. The way thoughts pirouette in your head, those kind of bizarre thoughts full of imagination, so much so that you think you're the only one feeling them. We are all like that, I think, to some degree.
I hope you enjoy getting to know this crazy person ;)
Fickle. Ambivalent: I'm bipolar with an ED, if someone could just stick with a diagnosis. It can be very tiring shuffling in and out of a psychiatric identification. Validation is hard to come by these days. People talk about ups and downs, but it's hard to express what it feels like to be uncontrollably up or down. My father calls it 'mind over matter' and that makes me feel like a ball of shit for being unable to 'control' myself and my actions. I could wake up one morning high as a kite, then go from ecstatic to depressed like someone flipped a light-saver switch. I could do something one day, and wake up the next regretting whatever I did or said. On a high I lost my virginity in the girls bathroom at fourteen; by fifteen I was a full time bulimic. I've written suicide notes - as early at age eight, I've put a gun in my mouth, I've counted and separated the pills I would need to take to overdose. But I have to face to the world - there are no magic words to make my problems go away.
My EDNOS, I'll address as comprehensibly as possible. I've been a bulimic/anorexic-alternating for six years or so; I get disoriented about the passage of time. There are periods where I deny that I have an eating disorder and delude myself into believing I'm 'on top on the world' and nothing is wrong at all. I look at others around me and how effortlessly they live and accomplish moving on with life, and wonder why I'm still stuck in the same old rut I've been in for 6 years. I want to know that there is something out there calling my name, something I haven't found yet but is waiting for me to grasp it. It's the only way I can go on living.
But I feel secure and impregnable behind this new blog. The name's very misleading. This blog is a way of learning about myself, and seeing where this takes me. I hope to stick with this blog for as long as possible, before I lose interest. I just want people to be aware of my illness, and how it affects me and the ones around me, the ones I count on for love and support.
To end on a happy note: I like appreciating the world, the way colors dance on the skin, the transformation of golden and bright light on the diorama of life. The way thoughts pirouette in your head, those kind of bizarre thoughts full of imagination, so much so that you think you're the only one feeling them. We are all like that, I think, to some degree.
I hope you enjoy getting to know this crazy person ;)
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