blood

Life always seems so complex when you sit and try to figure it out but when you actually take time to walk on the sidewalk and not count your steps, life is very simple. I just closed my eyes and imagined how my space is not as diluted as it seems, that I am not as closed off, and shut inside my own little box.

Last night, I was itching for something, and morose, and agitated. A bundle of rapid fire emotions. I wanted someone to save me, but I dreaded the moment they would. And the only people I can imagine saving me are D, Gary, or my mother. So, I cut, twice. Deep, but on the shallow side, and this pain, physical and not emotional, was flowing through my veins like a shot of herion, and I was finally immune to the overwhelming chatter in my head. The chatter that told me I was fat, that I would always be second rate to Gary, that my friends were drifting away from me and I couldn't reel them back in - I didn't deserve to reel them back.

It’s not the triggering moments, that me feel crazy, it’s the full on rapport I have in my head with myself when it’s happening. It’s the way I pace around my house as if I don’t know where I am, till I forget where I am. How I had my hair chopped off, and bleached it again. It’s the need to have something my hands, to aggressively swing an object or my hands. It's getting completely angry, and then very depressed within minutes, it's the need to break something or someone. It’s the fact the better side of me doesn’t want to, but the temptation is emotionally overwhelming. It’s the fact I can’t manage my thoughts enough to break the urge, but I can pour them out articulately to my therapist.

I hate expressing my emotions, they're all pent up inside, and I like it like that. Nothing to worry or fret over if I'm just a fake personality. But, the fight with L made me realize something. I have no patience or immunity to people. It's too much, so I broke the dam and began screaming.


I've noticed that for me, it's easier to cry in the shower than anywhere else. It's as though the water running down your face mixes with your eyes, and the tears come without hesitation. I was so overwhelmed, I just sobbed, and sobbed. I had cut a shallow line this morning, and watching the blood mix with water and pour down the drain was cathartic.

If you repeat it

In the past few months, I have lost everything close to me. My relationships are falling apart. I'm distant. I'm fully Anorexic again. I couldn’t balance everything. I shut things, or rather, people out when my life is in chaos and have no idea what I am doing anymore. I am no longer in control - Ana is. It's frightening how much I'm comforted by restriction.

No one, but my ED friends, could know what I’m going through, it’s a fight everyday and it just keeps getting harder and harder. I’ve lost myself, I don’t even know who I am anymore. This constant battle between myself and the voices in my head is never ending. I don’t even know what it’s like to feel happy anymore, I always just fake it and put on a show to hide my real emotions behind this facade I wear. I want to disappear and never come back. I just want perfection- thigh gap, slim hips, whittled waist, tiny arms. I’m torn between my real thoughts and the thoughts this ED is feeding me.

I don't hear any whispers at the door trying to help me, either.

I've had my ups and downs the past few days. I decided twice in one week that restricting was bull, and binged like crazy and it was really terrible. I purged it all up, and had heart palpitations, and acid reflux everyday this past week. I had forgotten what a toll Bulimia takes on my dilapidated body.

I'm restarting ballet on June 13th, and am so stoked! This is the event that's kept me moving, moving through the dregs, and past all the bullshit thrown my way. On Wednesday, my mother and I went to The Hip Joint, to purchase new tights, leotard, ballet shoes, and knit shorts (in the academy I wore a skirt). I've either grown to tall to fit into my 2-year-old outfit, or it's too ruined for class. Nevertheless, it was a heartwarming day, and I twirled around, pirouetting, and standing on relevé.

I love S, I see her every Thursday; she’s not a bitch and she definitely does not judge me and she makes me feel comfortable in her big plush couch. Several times, she's gotten me to do an assignment where I would write down what I felt like before I binge, whether it be anger, sadness, bored, hunger or cravings and so on, and this is what prompted me to keep a journal, and then a blog in the first place. However, while this blog has become my confessional of sorts, it's not private. I've considered publishing all of my journal entries from December 2010-February 2011. That's when I stopped, and began using this blog full time.

Gary has been calling almost regularily, and the afterglow of our conversations is intense. Yet, I can't help but think, 'who do you think you are? running around leaving scars on my heart- perpetual wounds.'

Basically my reaction to those to situations is to self-harm, but I didn’t. Actually I’m feeling every ounce of stress they’re causing me. I don’t remember the last time I let myself feel this way.

binged

I’m disappointed, very disappointed with myself. Last night I have ate everything possible that would make me feel fat, disgusting, worthless. I seriously ate like such a fucking cow, it’s not even funny. I ate whatever was in sight. It was a horrible mess, and purging it all back up was so easy. I just leaned over, and purged, like it was second nature again. I couldn't believe myself, I had no willpower. What the fuck is wrong with me?!

I honestly don’t know why I thought I could eat everything. I don’t even know what my weight is. It feels like I’ve gained weight but I don’t know for sure. I weighed myself a little while ago and it was 116, so I think I’m still at 117. I had so many binges that I purged all up. You can see the evidence on my face from the broken blood vessels, and the chipmunk cheeks.

Why am I such a failure? I ate more food in a day then I would ever think to eat over a period of at least 4 or 5 days. I had been restricting for 3 months. To eat food I hadn't allowed myself was insidious, and I felt disgusted as I shoved bite after bite into my mouth.

I told Gary about I my eating disorder in a phone conversation last night, and after all this anticipation, all he said was, "I dated a girl with eating issues." I'm a little hurt, but I know how sympathetic and yet, completely disinterested at the same time.

For the past days, things seemed to be so overwhelming to me. School, friends, life, my future. Everything, except for my ED. I just lived everyday like a puppet, doing what I needed to do without feeling any accomplishment anymore. Yet, because of this, I’m finally feeling back on track on knowing what I need to do. I just don't want to leave what I already have, and I'm afraid to regain what I lost. Ar and L have been the only support system available, and I love them for it. I'm just afraid of relapsing again, after so many steps forward. I don't want to live with my aunt. I don't want to b/p. I don't want anything. 

in over my head

Is it possible that my aunt being in the shower is the perfect time for relapsing?

D was laid off from her job. I went over there, not out of my best interests, but to console her and keep her cheered. I had a couple moments where I cried and couldn’t manage to get out of bed, because I was so down. I didn’t eat, and then there were periods where I ate dinner, out of sheer exhaustion. 

On Saturday, while my aunt was showering, I binged. I was only at 300 calories, and I thought oh what the hell, and decided to just eat and eat and eat, I purged it all in the toilet. I was again hungry after, so I had a spoon full of peanut butter.  Considering I probably only kept in around 200 calories from my binge, I was at 500, but after taking a klonopin, I had the munchies, and ate dinner with D. Stupid. Without adderall, I am hungry. I have no willpower to not binge, and I disgust myself. I'm still restricting, eating only 474 calories a day, but I have the severe urge to binge. I'm sleeping all day, getting nothing productive done, and wallowing, mourning my lack of close friendships, my bipolarity. I could feel it, my days were on the edge of blurring. The sensation when every day melds helplessly into the next. The very idea that just may drive me insane. I want to fly. To be defined, by the lines of nothing and everything. I've been thinking about this, ever since I saw Gary on Friday, the idea that I need to be a weightless, ethereal, dancer has been lodged into my head.

That Friday, I felt like a drunkorexic. I drank at least 3 beers; Gary kept opening a new one and asking if I wanted to split it with him, and eventually I got to the point where I was toeing around tipsily, and jumping on his bed, snuggling with his dog. He gave me 2 1/2 Dex to supplement my lack of Adderall, even though that only left him with 6. I really love him.

I really just need to write my feelings down right now, maybe it will help this mess I’ve gotten myself into. I was doing so well, I felt great. Now I feel like complete shit, I feel so worthless. I just want to sleep forever and never have to face the world. This body I’m living in disgusts me incredibly.

no one belongs

So today was a complete bust. After a nice early morning (4am-8am) doing nothing but reading Degrassi Fanfiction, the skies grew dark and I retreated into my bed after talking with L for a couple of hours. I really do love L, she and I are more similar than A and I were, and I can feel it in my bones. But, I feel as though nothing, no one, can help me now, even though I'm screaming as loudly as possible for it. I feel like I lost my head with D last weekend and haven't been bothered enough to find myself a new one. I've just been sitting around my house in a daze, doing nothing but talking when spoken to, blinking and mustering a smile when needed. I feel unwanted, impure.

I've been living in the middle of life - unsure about my place in it. My mood is terribly all over the place, the drugs are conflicting with my body, and I can't seem to find my own voice. I am just blah, and I really hate blah. I don't like eating anymore, because it's blah, I barely drink enough water to keep an elephant alive because it's blah. 

Sometimes I like to excuse my eating disorder, forget I have one in the first place. Very often, I trick myself into believing the body I have is permanent. My slight stretch marks running across the space where my thighs used to not touch are permanent. I am skinny, and yet I am fat. I feel out of place, and like I no longer belong in any category.

It is when I begin to think things like that, that I resort to a nice hard slap to the face via my own hand. I wake up. Permanence is what you make of it. You can be permanently fat or permanently thin. My favorite past time is looking my own body in the "eye" and saying "fuck you".  I've hit a plateau, and I guess it's finally time I did something about it. My mom purchased meal replacement drinks that are worth 74 calories per scoop, and even though I appreciate the care, I don't want to drink it. Ar, has been massively supportive, and for that I adore her. Something about her draws me to her - her spirit, her demeanor, her genuine personality, whatever it is, I love her for it.

I need some relief, and that relief comes in the form of sex or Alcohol. Whichever is more readily available.

trust myself

I believe I've figured it out, I feed people their pain. The more I try to get closer to the people around me, close enough to trust them with this mess… the further I push them away. I don't really do it purposefully, but I’m beginning to feel like nothing good would come of telling anyone anything, because the very moment someone found out they knew exactly how to hurt me. Trusting people has all ways got me hurt, made me persona non grata, and as nice as the idea is of having friends that I wouldn’t have to lie to, that I could be completely open with is, well not possible anymore. I just don’t trust people enough to do so. I tell people things for the beginnings, not the ends; for the answer I'm searching for.


I think it's the worst when you’re feeling happy, yet there’s still something under the surface that tugs violently at you, telling you to cut, and restrict. Thats whats like for me today. I have no reason to be sad, to self-harm, yet the thought is lingering around my mind. I know about 'urge surfing' and how I should be waiting for the emotions to drift away, and the water is still again, but I can't today. It makes me feel like I’m going crazy, and it's only 9am. I need to be doing something something something, with my hands, like typing or fiddling with my nails. I have so much energy, but I can’t distract myself. I was cutting every single day for a few weeks and now I've been 3 days clean and it's just doing my head in. It’s literally just ‘cut, restrict, cut, restrict, cut, restrict,’ in my head. I just want to fucking cut, and starve. I want to bleed.

I have dozens upon dozens of scars on my legs, but they represent the emotional ups and downs I’ve experienced and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I thought I was free of cutting, but I am tethered inextricably, and god is it a realization.

My mind feels unstable and unhealthy today, which is horrific. It terrifies me that I don’t want to be healthy, anymore. Originally this was all about my ascent into recovery, and now it's all about my descent into my eating disorder and self-injury. What happened? I'm very disappointed with myself... I'm my own worst enemy.

I just want to float off into Fantasyland.

greedy

I don’t understand why I am so much pain over something so silly. It’s overwhelming and uncontrollable. Part of me wonders why I deserve this, but the voices remind me I'm a greedy, selfish, idiot. I finally revealed to A, who I considered a best friend, that I felt slighted when she 'spoke to other people.' She in turn assumed slighted meant mad. I finally told her, and it just made the problem worse. I began wondering who she was telling, and what kind of story she was spinning. And those 4 days were torture for me. Which she tried, and then failed to understand. I feel like she used the only weapon she had against me, which was fear of being alone. I can't say I tried though, because I tweeted about my failing mood, and my cutting' hoping she would see, which makes me the bitch. I wanted her to feel guilty. For 4 days I did this, and am still tweeting about how depressed I am, even though, we don't follow each other anymore; we don't talk anymore.

I just want to stay curled up in bed, and do nothing but cry. I don't know if I'd be able to get out again though – get out into the world again. After I suggested the break, she went and talked to one of her other friends, who made her feel like she did nothing wrong. At all. And that none of what I was feeling was her fault. Which really, really hurt me, because it felt like my feelings were just thrown out the window. That my cutting wasn't important, that my starving wasn't important. That I wasn't important enough, to befriend any longer. I mean, what the hell. We've only known each other two and a half months. Was does that do for a friendship? It just scares me to think that you might not miss me if I left.

It's sick and disgusting. From now on, it is all my own fault. I have caused this situation, my isolation, my desertion. No one else is to blame, just me. It's a depressing feeling, and yet a liberating one. If I want to become someone who can walk down the street and hold their head up high, without always focusing on just one person. I determine who I will be, and what I will look like.

I wished for emptiness and I received it, and now I don't want it. My heart is empty. I cannot find the drive to move forward, to walk until I pass out, or to snarl at the sight of no food. That emptiness in my stomach has expanded and consumed me like a disease. I did not heed the adage: be careful what you wish for. It was my own idiocy that drove me to this point.

I can feel myself falling down the rabbit hole again. It's like I was running down the hill to escape the big bad monster. I was running and running and forcing myself to pick up the pace. And then suddenly, my feet grow lumbering and clumsy and I'm losing my footing. My face is crashing down face-forward into the mud and my hands are reaching out to catch my fall, but I can't. And now I am rolling down the hill; without any control, or any way to stop myself.

In the morning hopefully, I'll be a different kind. I don't want to wake up one day with regrets. I just don't know what's wrong with me.

rash

In the safety of my bedroom, I sobbed without restraint. These weren't the choked tears, I had dabbing away with a tissue. These were very real, very hard sobs that I had let my guard down to cry. I felt broken and defeated, in a sense, but at the same time I felt some relief. I was finally expressing my honest feelings about the situation.

Essentially, A abandoned me for 4 days and I felt ridiculed for revealing how I truly felt. What she did was inexcusable, and I felt that my rock-solid demeanor had been crushed. I was triggered into a depressive stage, one which I don't know how long will last. I don’t know if we’ll ever be how used to be - best friends who talked to each other day and night - or if I'll be able to forgive how she handled the situation, but I hope that after a cooling off period we can be friends. But, what I can't forgive is that I cut, I cut today, and I cut for 4 days in a row. The only person I had was H, who helped me through it all - she talked me down several times from doing something rash.

I may be going to my aunt's again, because no matter how much she's hurt me, she's never deserted me. I'm also planning on seeing Gary (!) this week, hopefully tomorrow, because I have an eye appointment.

I'm getting better. Not in the recovery sense, but in the fact that I have now placed a welcome mat for my ed back into my life. I've been down to pretty much two meals a day: cereal and yogurt. There's plenty of medications I'm on that suppress my appetite, and this is the first time I've ever felt truly empty.

something bad

I wanted something bad to happen to me. I wanted to get run over, shot, to hurt somebody, to go to the hospital. To take too many pills, overdose, and die. I want to bash my head into a mirror, and I want to cut my legs up. Because I hate myself and want somebody to realize that. I guess my thinking too much has been fucking me over, and I've become my own worst enemy.

When you already desperately don’t want to wake up breathing, when you already don’t want to be alive anymore and someone turns around and tells you shouldn't be expecting them to stay much longer, that cuts deep. I don't have doubt that I'll end up isolated completely with my ed, and 00's, friendless and alone.I don’t have the confidence nor strength to ever seek help, and I can already see how my mental state is continually going to get messed up, rapidly and quick. But it’s still something you don’t want to hear, you know? I’d be surprised if I even make it another 2 months with my ed ans si, but it stills rips you apart when someone really makes you feel detached, and abandoned, it fucking crushes you. I feel really fucking low; because all it really does it amplify my own thoughts of worthlessness, and for some reason I can't stop them. They keep running through my head like a reel of tape, and I can't find the rewind button. Please make it go away.

I feel like I'm stuck here in this cage. A cage where you can't eat unless you want to drive yourself mad through numbers that seem to have their own power over you. You're powerless in there, and I've locked away the key.

The older I get the more I realize no one really cares and it just really ruins me; I can’t handle people anymore, no one is ever a good friend or anything at all. I just don’t want to be part of this world anymore, and cutting again gave me that release.

scrambled

An eating disorder is a gradual erosion. It’s a chip chip chipping away. A slow, insidious takeover that removes all traces of an individual, erases all suggestion of an identity, dominates thoughts, actions, feeling, and enunciates one devastating message: “without me, you are nothing."
It doesn't feel like a lie anymore. I keep caressing the bandaid that hides my cuts and liking the sting that comes along with it. I wish I had explanations. But, because I have very few answers to my copious amounts of questions. It's also the very source of my pain, at times. Life comes me fast. I don't want to get caught up in it. But I am, and I cut, again, and again. Cutting when I'm alone. Cutting before bed. This is really starting to get ridiculous. Do you ever just want to slap yourself for being stupid? I kind of just want someone to bash sense into me, but it shouldn’t take that. I already know what I’m doing isn’t good in long run, I know its a temporary fix. It’s just the fact that stopping has never been a harder choice. It's hard to explain to people that you really need this when they always think you're lying/wrong. I am always dropping in and dropping out, always having a foot in the door, sometimes being found of my addiction, sometimes hating it...
Wanting to quit but being afraid at the same time. I've given up trying to understand all this. Actually, I really started seeing it as an addiction. It's like drugs. The only difference is, that food is always around. If I need a quick fix, I can get it everywhere. Eating and purging. That's what I did in my 4 years of isolation. But now, I restrict. Severely. I only eat 400-450 calories a day, and I love the schedule of it.

This feeling is something that I know too well. The empty, dumb, hot head. Little pain in my stomach. The eyes still warm from crying. Despair and apathy at the same time. No reproaches, not anymore, it’s been too long for that. There’s a voice in my head, screaming at me “Look, here you are again! Same spot! Same place! We will always meet again. You can never say goodbye! Same place, always!” And I’m afraid. I’m afraid that little voice might be right. For now, not knowing what will be is the best thing I can get. Uncertainty means there’s still a chance. But, I don't like change.

I think about suicide a lot, I know we keep a hand gun underneath the mattress in my parents bedroom. I wasn’t meant to know we had it, but I found it one day while fiddling around in their room (jumping on the bed) and it fell out. I was 9, and I wrote to notes, one to my mother and one to my father, and then put the gun in my mouth, counted to ten, and my mother drove up the driveway. That was about 9 years ago. I’m to scared to even go see if its still there, because I know if it is I’ll almost certainly use it on myself. I think I’m better off believing we got rid of it, or it's somewhere else now.

Ahh! I'm just so pissed off tonight! It is my secret and mine alone. She needs to learn to curb her mouth, that's all. I was banned, unfriended, and unfollowed by a bitch who needs to learn to fuck herself on her own; she forced me into isolation again, and I cried all night because of it. For 2-3 hours I just lied in bed, like a zombie, and cut. I want so desperately to be able to parse my thoughts into words, but I can’t. I just know I want to cut, I just know its the only thing I’m really good for… and I know I want to sleep. I just feel like I’m talking to myself, in some constant argument 24/7. I just want to cut. I always just want to cut these days. Fuck.

relapse

My mind is obscured and heavy, and even cutting takes an effort. I cut this morning, three times, nice neat horizontal lines on my leg. It wasn't even a release, I just wanted to cut, so I did. I've been playing my favorite game of  "pushing you away so I can say no one gives a shit about me when you give up and stop talking to me." And it's working. I feel like my friends (what friends?) have given up on me, left me behind for a life that wasn't theirs to take. 

I'm avoiding the world. I'm taking xanax again, along with klonopin, and that shit is POTENT. I'll just take two or three and even if I don't get woozy, I get high. There is evidence of things I have done in the last few nights that I have no memory of doing. I've cleaned my room: it's spotless. I've posted billions of pictures of tumblr. I've eaten cereal. If I actually looked at my life as it is right now I would cry and never stop. I had to brace myself because I was so close to just lying on the floor and crying just a few moments ago. I should NOT be feeling sorry for myself. I dug my own hole and now I have to climb out or just sit in it. But, I do feel sorry for myself, and the isolation I've been feeling again is not skipping over me. I've been talking myself into believing everything I do is dramatic, just over-thinking and over-acting, or something.

I tried on my pair of "fat jeans" (0's, that really wear like 0 1/2) I had left on a shelf in my closet at home. I could barely get them over my ass. Great. I wanted to scream at the whole world. Instead, I did something I haven't done since last January, I slapped myself...thighs, belly, then face. Hard. The slap on my face had left a mark that lasted for days. My self-made recovery has been fucking me up - and it needs to stop. Now.

I am relapsing and I love every moment of it. I want Gary to hold me, his head bowed on my shoulder; my hands clasping his back, so tightly that I can sense the strength. This is what the eating disorder stole from me. That kind of hug, is what I'm missing, what my isolation has stolen from me. The distance feels too far to bridge.

bipolar

I posted this on my tumblr, so I figured I may as well post it here as well.

Bipolar disorder for me is ugly. When I am up and manic, life is great. I’m a party girl, love sex and drinking. I have this feeling that I can do anything, I take on project after project because I can hey I don’t sleep for days when I am manic. The thing is my mind races and I can’t finish anything I start because I race form thing to thing and can’t finish thoughts or even sentences. I talk really fast because my mind races and my thoughts are pressured; going faster than I can keep up with. Spending sprees, I once charged 1000$ to my parents credit card when I was 13. So people have learned not to trust me and that hurts. Hurt and regret are a big part of Bipolar for me. It’s like there are a thousand radios blaring at you and you can’t choose which one to focus on. Normal people can focus on one radio and turn down all the other ones, but people with bipolar can’t focus and frantically switch from radio to radio getting stressed and frantic. Then you crash. All of a sudden you realize the responsibilities you have. My brain feels like it is being squeezed and my eyes want to close. I realize I don’t have very many close friends because it is hard to get close to anyone. Life is dark and bleary and all I want to do is sleep it away. Major disappointment to everyone. Medication works, with counseling. There are some mistakes that I have done but I have apologized for everything. Bipolar people have a few rational days when we know we hurt people and kick ourselves for it, but when the swing starts it is a crazy ride that you just try to survive.

listen

It's so fucking hard to articulate how much I want you, Gary. Just hear me.

Recently a friend of a friend said he didn't and never would understand cutting. For me, it's because I either think too much or not enough, and either way it results in doing, and I just do it, because in the moment that's all you know how to do. You don’t just sit and go, ‘Oh, I might as well slash a razor through my leg, because it releases addictive endorphins, and shit, and it's the only other way you can make yourself feel alive.’  You don’t think like that when you self-harm, or at least I don’t. You just do it, and you deal with your actions afterwards, because you can't realize your thinking is screwed and you don't listen to the rational side of your brain; you just cut and cut. And it feels good. I have a bad day I cut. I have a good day I cut. I got in trouble I cut. I don’t get in trouble, I still cut. I have 100 things to do in a day, I cut. I have nothing to do, I still cut. I listen to music, I cut. I don’t listen to music, I cut. I eat, I cut. I don’t eat, I cut. It’s just like cut cut cut cut cut cut! And it's such a fucking distraction, I just don’t know what to do with myself this past week. I'm always thinking about cutting, and it's become a substitute for b/p-ing. I want to be skinny, and scarred. At least, that's how it seems lately.

00

I sit in my room, in my big pleather chair, staring at four walls. My bedroom has so many horrible memories plastered to the walls that it's a wonder I'm still living in it. I used to hold it together while I was asleep, and then as soon as I was awake, the nightmare started. I returned to the point of complete isolation: skipping school, skipping books, skipping family, skipping life. Pacing the country road at three in the morning, not sure if you’re awake. Binge and purge and pass out and wake up and try purging again, only you come up with blood this time. And a potassium pill or two, in a vain attempt to be okay. You stop feeling human. But this time it has been different, I'm able to sit semi-comfortably in my seat, and type, or read. Do my school work.The whole house is quiet except for the fan beside me.

I'm pulling an all-nighter tonight, and I took 2 adderall to do it. I'm awake and  pacing the room I sleep in, occasionally doing yoga poses I found on tumblr, doggedly deleting every file I don’t need on my computer. I have a fascination with accumulating excess; with completing things. I always save all my old school work longer than necessary, I obsessively bookmark every page I find useful. But, I also try use every last drop of shampoo, standing the bottle on the top for weeks, snipping off the top to be sure I’ve gotten every bit; I not only fold the toothpaste tube but crumple it as I go, and when I'm sure I've used every last bit, it's a neat little rectangle. When I’m thoroughly finished, there’s a strange and unjustified sense of accomplishment.
The parallels are obvious, a purge, a restriction, a number to bridge on my endless spiral downward. And in all of it, a sharp control. Order. Efficiency. Perfection.

I've been worried I'll rip my jeans, and I know it sounds irrational, but it scares me. Bulging out of my size 0's does nothing for my self-worth, and my massive thighs. They're always just barely rubbing, touching, and never parting. To be honest I cannot gauge my own sanity anymore. Lately, I’ve managed to convince myself I’m Fine, and that I really don’t have an eating disorder at all. I’m so entirely used to doing all this that it seems “normal”, and discussing it in dramatic, critical ways is just over-thinking and over-acting, or something. And I’ve talked myself into believing I can increase my “safe weight” and deal with it rationally: ignore the siren of 100, and accept 105 as fine-safe-good enough. And then accept 116. And then accept 117, which used to be safe, a million years ago. If I could just maintain 117, my head tells me, I’d be fine. I COULD accept it, couldn’t I? It would put me at a BMI between 17.1 and 17.4, which is almost healthy, and I can eat 800 calories a day, without gaining. It used to be fine. It is fine. And you could be magically cured and then just live and things would be perfect and you’ll live happily ever after, the end.
 I could accept 105 easily: a BMI of 15.5 feels safe because it’s the doorway of emaciation, medically speaking; I can soothe the ED voice by reminding it I’m still “sick enough”, but I can silence the voice of reason by saying I’m not in danger. I’m thin enough to see it, but not so thin that I can’t look reasonable if I dress correctly. I want to be there. I want to be 00 again, and look for the tiny-thin-emaciated-girl clothes, but I not getting there.