(Wish I Had a) River

So this post might be a little triggering -- not because of numbers, but because of symptoms mentioned.

Well, the semester ended. FINALLY. I will try to provide a longer update when I can (I have a lot of beautiful, luxurious time on my hands) about how things wrapped up (short answer: without incident; long answer: without incident but with many panic attacks). I am currently at my parents' for Christmas and eagerly anticipating my sister's arrival, with brother-in-law in tow, tomorrow afternoon.

I've had a good time with my mom and dad so far. I'm not going to speculate on how I think they think I'm doing because I don't want to bother with it right now. I'm eating a little more than my eating disorder wants (definitely more variety) and substantially less than my body wants.

Two things of note: I lost my period. Again. Since it was a very very VERY remote possibility (protection + no intercourse while ovulating), I bought a pregnancy test. It came back negative. I'm disconcerted about the period loss, just because I'm not one of those anorexics who loses their period easily and I weigh just a couple pounds more than I did the last time I lost my period. That being said, I'd much rather have osteoporosis than a baby right now.

Second: my neck and back ...Are. So. Fucking. Hairy. I've kept the neck lanugo for months now; it was actually starting to become a security staple and I didn't mind it so much, but it faded from my upper arms and stomach at the beginning of the fall. Now it's back (though not so much on my arms), and it's also coating my entire spine in a most ineffectual downy blanket. I didn't notice the back portion of it until I was shopping with my mom today, trying on dresses, and I turned around to examine the cut of a hot little strapless number. I haven't really looked at my back for a while, and I was thankful for the privacy of the dressing room and murmur of store shoppers when I did, and gasped.

Lanugo has never been my favourite symptom. It's no good being anorexic if you look like the wolfman. It's also the symptom with which I'm the least familiar, seeing as even at lower BMIs I didn't get it until last summer. So, in spite of being fuzzy and trying to keep me warm, it feels neither warm nor fuzzy as far as my anorexaesthetics are concerned. It's also not a pretty word. Lanugo. It sounds like some 18th-century midshipman's disease. Also lumbago. Which I also have, though not from the eating disorder. Probably. At least amenorrhea sounds nice. (Yes, I feel the same way about gonorrhea.)

I'm going to listen to Tom Waits until I fall asleep now. I downloaded a few softer songs of his the other night and am really digging "Little Trip to Heaven" and "Ruby's Arms" right now.

Most At Christmas Time

The past few days have been difficult. First of all, it's time for me to increase my calories again (I visit the rents in T minus 9 days), which means I've been having freak-outs over nonfat yogurt and, most recently, a panic attack while eating a salad. A salad. Never mind that I was doing okay with fucking frozen lean cuisines yesterday. Suddenly I have a damn salad and the world comes crashing down. Just goes to show that my anxiety disorder doesn't really care what food I'm eating; if it wants to show up, it'll show up. Of course, eating more makes it more likely to show up, but I can expect that. Panic attacks are contingent on so many factors, and irrational thoughts about food have little to do with the food itself. I wasn't gaining ten million pounds from Tuesday's SmartOnes broccoli cheddar potatoes (I was only gaining five million, if I remember correctly), but tonight's lettuce and nonfat dressing is, of course, going straight to my thighs. So says my eating disorder. Actually it's already there. Yup.

I ask myself, then, what's really going on here?

First of all, finals are stressing me out a bit. My schedule is out of whack because it's reading week, which means no classes, which means my brain is getting all spastic wondering what to do with itself every day in between studying. (Reruns of "Dilbert" on hulu have proved most entertaining.) Anxiety level: elevated.

Secondly, it's almost time for my period, which means YAY HORMONES. Anxiety level: elevated. (It's nature's payback for not giving me proper PMS. Because nature must be fair.)

Third, I've become more involved with Michael (whom we shall discuss imminently). Anxiety level: elevated.

Fourth, the dean of the school of theatre is really pissing me the fuck off (we shall discuss this as well, but that really deserves its own post). Anxiety level: elevated.

Fifth, my anxiety increases tenfold each day I get closer to jumping on that plane to visit my parents.

All of this, combined, I'm sure, with a bunch of tiny interferences that haven't even crossed my conscious mind, thrown into the mix with increased volume and variety of food... makes for a much greater likelihood of a panic attack.

Also I'm stressing about what Christmas presents I want to/can afford to get for people.

So having said all that, let's turn to Michael.

The two of us went to a party together on Friday night. For the most part, we talked either between a small circle of friends or just ourselves, and it was quite nice. Then we went back to his place, had a heavy makeout sesh in the car, he invited me in, and we banged.

It was, objectively speaking, lovely.

I say "objectively speaking" because I didn't actually enjoy it at all in the moment. But I was aware that, were I eating, I would find this most satisfying. I knew that there was nothing Michael was, or wasn't, doing that could have made my body happier; it was all lack of food and energy and the anxiety that "oh shit, this boy's a cuddler and he wants to see me again... this might go somewhere."

One-night-stands are so much easier. I miss Edward Norton clone (forgot about him, did you?) -- simply because he gave me nothing to miss. I didn't have to worry about commitment or either one of us becoming attached or having to actually be vulnerable and become emotionally intimate with him. I use EN clone as an example only because he was the most recent in a string of perfectly wonderful, blissfully detached liaisons. Before him there was Jonny, and before that Ari, and before that Joey, and Patrick, and Nick, and another Michael, and then before Michael 1.0 there was B. --

And that's where it went wrong.

Because I had to go and fall in love with B. And that was not supposed to happen. It hadn't happened with the men before B. and it didn't happen after. It happened with B. because the two of us did become lovers, meaning we ended up loving each other at least platonically. And we stayed involved platonically through my other relationships, and he's so damn most of what I want and all of what I need (even when I don't want that) and I've never felt more okay with being me in a relationship than I have when I've been with him. I've never felt more like me in a relationship than I have when I've been with him, and I've certainly never felt as emotionally close or comfortable with any other man. In short, I'm still in love with B. It's the second time I've ever been in love in my life, and I am doing absolutely nothing with it.

I remember the first night we hooked up. (Oh, grab a nightcap and get comfortable, ladies and gentlemen, we are in for a long one.) Freshman year, my dorm. My roommates were either upstate for the weekend or visiting their local-living families. B. came by. He'd been by before; we were friends by this time. We'd met at a party, starred in a student film together, talked for hours on the phone when he called me, I'd been to his place and he to mine, and now he was sitting in my roommate's pink desk chair after giving me the best back rub of my life and gazing thoughtfully at his loosely clasped hands.

"So I have a confession to make," he'd said.

I had a crush on him. It was nothing devastating. My heart fluttered innocuously and I arched an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"I've been... fighting the urge to hook up with you for quite some time now," he told me.

Oh, sweet. I registered no emotion on my face beyond receptiveness.

"I just... I really like you, and I know you like having your guys. I'm the same with women. So I won't get jealous if you, if you do anything with anyone else, but..." it was the first time I'd ever seen B. awkward. "Ball's in your court," he finished, after prattling on for another minute or so and basically reiterating the same points.

I told him I'd have to give it some thought; callous bitch that I was, I wanted to see him squirm just a fraction of a second more. I wasn't expecting any of this, I said, and wow, I'm really sorry, terrible timing, but I had to use the bathroom.

It was a front. I returned naked, save for my matching push-up bra and thong, which I allowed him to remove as I stripped him down in turn. This is a family blog (really?), so I won't go into details. All I will say is that we were both extremely pleased the way the night went. And kept being pleased.

When I finally did put my clothes back on and B. had done the same, and I rode with him down the elevator and saw him out the door, B. turned around once more on his way out to grab my face and plant a huge, beaming kiss on my mouth. Oh, he is good at what he does, I thought to myself.

He kept being good at what he did. We kept hooking up. And he did get jealous, once, when he saw me snogging another man at a party -- I had to chase him down the lawn as he abruptly turned to make his way out. "Oh, I didn't want to stay if I was only going to be interrupting, you seemed very interested in whoever he was -- who is he? You don't know him? You were certainly acting like you knew him --"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, B., it's just some guy, I think he said his name was Charlie, and you said you weren't going to get --"

"I'mnotjealousIjustdon'twanttokeepyoufromhavingagoodtime."

We went back to his place and made love.

I think it was that envious little episode of B.'s on the lawn that really got me attached, damn it. Because after that, when he started talking about other hot girls in the school of theatre, I began feeling little pangs of spiteful indignation. Oh well I'm just so sorry I don't have enormous breasts like Taylor but I'll bet she couldn't sit on the handlebars of your bike like I can while we spirit back to your place for 90's movies and a fuck. I showed him; I re-seduced the Brad Pitt of the BFAs the night he broke up with his girlfriend who had banned him from spending time with me throughout their involvement because she swore I had been sabotaging their relationship from the outset. (I hadn't, to my knowledge.) And then I realized what I was doing -- I'd turned into a veritable sociopathic tart to prove that I didn't need love or companionship -- because I'd fallen in love and craved both from B.

So rather than do the mature thing and say, "hey, listen, I'm not at all comfortable with this but I've got some pretty intense feelings for you and thought you should know," I ran scared before B. could do any more "damage" to my icy, fiercely self-sufficient front.

I could tell this story in a way that makes me look like less of a bitch and it would still be pretty truthful (e.g., I didn't seduce Patrick for the sole purpose of trying to get over B., but it was certainly an unconsciously motivating factor), but in the spirit of full disclosure I went with the uglier version. I will say in my defense that I was only 18 at the time and had, that past summer, come out of a breakup where I had been very much in love, very emotionally connected, and as such got burned very badly (we both did, but that was no consolation).

Story time's over. I have Michael to deal with now. And I really should do something with this damned "love" situation, if that's what you humans are calling it, aside from just shouting it across the blogosphere.

Because I'm Currently Too Busy To Be Original

Expect an update soon. Right now, I'm finishing up a paper that needs to be emailed to my TA by midnight, so that takes top priority -- but I did want to leave you with something I stole from someone else's blog. (Yes, since my nascence into the blogosphere, I've become addicted to anorexia/ED recovery blogs.) It's a music video for a song called "Jar of Hearts"; I find it rather empowering. The vid was a little weird at first (I've never really been big into music videos), but it's really grown on me. Needless to say, I'm sure you'll find the parallels to ED recovery, in both the song and video.

The Piano Has Been Drinking, Not Me

I'm burning out on myself. My body's non-lethally crashing on me. It wouldn't be doing this if I weren't so academically overworked, I'm sure, but there it is.

Hang on, (not) little (enough) body! Three more days until the semester's over! And also until I have to start feeding you more for my parents' (and, long term, my ED's) sake.

My memory's going. Not really the important stuff, just details. It takes me forever to think of the word I want for a paper. I get stuck on little things. I'm frequently unable to remember where I heard a phrase or who said what in an earlier conversation, and I can't think as critically as I used to in therapy. My therapist will say something and I'll want to scream, "I'm trying to follow you, really I am, but my mind's stuck. I can't go any deeper." Also, today in acting class I had a particularly disconcerting episode where our professor was having me and my scene partner drill one tiny bit of our "Antony and Cleopatra" scene over and over again (he does this with everyone), and when I finally put my script down because I'd just said the same line six times, I could not for the life of me remember any of it. I was tripping over words, which does not happen to me. I laughed it off, and so did everyone else, but inside I was thinking, "oh, fuck."

Also, today in voice class I was helping to lay exercise mats on the floor (nearly half the voice class is yoga, for some inexplicable reason, or rather, some explicable reason that takes too long to explicate). These are the kind of mats that you had in your grade school gym, you know, the big sturdy red or blue ones that fold into quarters. I was attempting to lift one of these quartered mat-wads when I suppose my legs gave out from under me (it happened rather fast) and I straight up face-planted into the stack of mats. From all observing parties, it looked hilarious.

I don't mind the face-planting so much as I mind the memory. I've had memory shit go awry in the past; though it didn't happen so much over the summer, before I went into CFC last year I would have episodes where I'd momentarily forget a long-known acquaintance's name, or I'd much too regularly walk into a room and forget why I came in (I know this happens to everyone on occasion, which is why I threw in the "much too regularly" bit). Historically, my brainpower has restored pretty quickly with nutrition, so I hope it continues to. I know that the brain literally shrinks during starvation, particularly fat starvation (hey, it's not my fault raw foods don't have much fat. ...It is my fault that I only eat these foods, I'm aware).

I also hope I can increase my calories without flipping upwards of several shits and warping my mind into believing that X calories under my recommended daily intake is an out-of-control binge. Experience points to "probably not." But I have no option other than to try.

And I hope I don't fail this Tom Waits impersonation tomorrow morning. Experience points to "probably not." But I have no option other than to panic.

Back to Tom now, and then to bed. Over and out.

I have SO MUCH to do to wrap up assignments in the coming week, which means that I will either be on blogger very little or quite a lot (procrastination, ya know?)

I also really, really, really need to do laundry.

But regardless, classes end in 5 days. And then reading week (at one or more points therein, I am squeezing in another date with Michael, as confirmed per a Michael-initiated textchange, huzzah), peppered with some parties, and I fly to my parents' place on the 16th, a day after I wrap up finals.

And I will have completed a semester of sophomore year, so the undergrad dean of the school of theatre can shove that up his limey arse.

Date Night

So tonight I went on a date!

I think it's really funny, how long it's been since I've gone on a real date. As opposed to a booty call that may or may not have ended with a Coffee Bean run, or just a hookup at a party.

I think it had been a year.

Anyhow, I was super nervous and jittery beforehand because I'm so out of practice with the whole dating scene. You mean we're going to go do something and not have sex right away? I'm not even expected to blow him? What can we do?

As it turns out, we could see "127 Hours," which, if you haven't seen it (and aren't entirely too squeamish), I highly recommend. It's based (and when I say "based," I actually mean, "this time it's pretty much true to fact") on the incredible story of a hiker/canyoneer who was trapped literally between a rock and a hard place (a boulder was wedged against his lower right arm) with 300 mL of water for over five days. I think it was Roger Ebert who said the movie was an exploration in filming the unfilmable -- it's a guy all by himself in a cave for five days. He doesn't really move, because his arm is stuck in place. He doesn't really talk to anyone, because there's no one to talk to. But my date (Michael) and I were both absolutely enthralled the entire time. In a word, it's intense. It's also an incredible testament to the body's willpower to survive. For some reason(s), it really stirred up feelings about my own recovery (you know, the one I talk about but never actually get around to). Right now, I am alone in a cave. I mean this figuratively as well as almost literally, as most of my life is spent in my box of a studio. I don't interact with a whole lot of people when I don't have to. The cave can also be my anorexia, sure, and I guess my rock... well, my rock could be a whole lot of things. In one way, it's whatever is keeping me tied to the anorexia -- feelings of abnormalcy, inadequacy, grief, addiction, a need to (not) cope, etc. It could also be specific behaviours like restricting and weighing and measuring. Or thought patterns. What really struck me (and I'm not going to hold your hand while I take you through this metaphor; you'll have to follow me yourselves... but you're smart, I trust) was that at one point the protagonist, Aron, realized that the reason the boulder couldn't dislodge from his arm was that his arm was what was propping the boulder up in the first place. And for most of the movie he fought that notion, trying in vain to move the boulder or extract himself from it while not doing anything about his abetting arm. And then (spoiler alert, if you hadn't seen this on the news back in '03, which I didn't, because I was in the hospital for the first time with organ failure and a feeding tube, funny how things come full circle like that) eventually he realized that there was only one thing he could do, and that was amputate his own arm, and it was the most painful and graphic fucking thing, I'm sure, but he did it... and then he staggered out into the sunlight, still not sure if he was going to live or die because he was still quite alone.

He lived.

There's also a really profound line (he documents some of his struggle on a video camera with incredibly resilient battery power) where Aron murmurs, reflecting on what in him got him stuck and alone, with no one knowing where he was and no means of reaching out, "this rock has been waiting for me my whole life."

Fuuuuuuuck.

So yeah, I got all introspective and shit and was like, what's my rock?

What's your rock?

I had several victories tonight. First of all, I actually went on a date. It took a lorazepam, a long hot shower, and an afternoon nap, but I went on a date with a guy that I was seriously into, not just a "trial run." Which I did berate myself for not doing, seeing as I thought I could have used the practice with someone I wasn't actually interested in.

Then, I had like six pieces of popcorn at the movie. I "compensated," but still, popcorn is not raw. And if it's not raw, it's scary. Go me. Just a little.

And FINALLY, I wore the outfit I wanted to wear as opposed to the outfit that my eating disorder told me I wouldn't look fat in. You can't see it in the picture, but those aren't pants, they're thick, patterned tights. Which I feel always "stretch" the legs widthwise. And my shirt (again, you can't see it in the photo) had a similarly patterned, sheer back. Even though I thought the shirt was boxy, I still wore it. And I wore my gorgeous, albeit bulky-ish, red coat. Huge body image victory.

Yes, I'm posing. I'm not some road-to-recovery Zen master; give me a break.

The date itself went well. We talked all the way there and back; there were never any awkward pauses, and we laughed a lot. I hope he knows the ball's in his court to call me back, since I had to go out on a limb and (for the first time in my life) technically be the one to ask him out, since he volunteered to give me his number when we met at the party and then said to call him. It took me a damn week, but I called him. He's a cutie. I think we've been through this.

REAL TIME UPDATE: Just got a text from a mutual friend. Reads, "Michael likes u haha."

You guys, Michael likes me.

Giving Thanks

Oddly enough, I've never spent a whole lot of time on Thanksgiving actually being thankful for shit. I bitch and moan and complain to God so much that I feel like I rarely take the time to say, "hey, thanks for... well, everything, really." I did a bit of that yesterday, and the day before. It was easy, I think, in part because growing up Thanksgiving wasn't about giving thanks either, it was about my mom, my dad, my sister and I making a big dinner and starting to decorate for Christmas. There were no relatives, no big traditions (aside from who made the pie -- I'm a pumpkin pie magician), and I always felt really uneasy about a holiday that revolved around food anyway, though I wasn't really able to put this into words when I was four and a half.

Also, there was usually some sort of big argument. Normally that came as a result of my mother drinking. It's not that I don't have fond memories of Thanksgiving, it's just that it was never as warm or fuzzy or communal as others' seemed to be.

In college, things were no different. During my freshman year I had macaroni sans cheese and a shot of rum for Thanksgiving dinner, because I refused to make the 3,000 mile trip to my parents' place for what amounted to a four-day weekend (we still only get Thursday and Friday off from class). During my sophomore year I was in treatment, and on a ridiculously high meal plan. Pretty much every meal was a Thanksgiving dinner, and I had five huge pieces of pie throughout the day as well. Not a pleasant memory.

This Thanksgiving was actually very well-spent. I went over to my really good friend's place, and we made mashed potatoes, corn, salad, turkey (for her), butternut squash soup (for me), and I did pumpkin pie again. I wasn't able to make the crust from near-scratch like I usually do, but it still came out great. And yes, I even ate some of it. It was a really good day in terms of confronting my food anxieties because I ate a much larger variety than I was used to, and I ate more than I was used to, but I still lost the same amount of weight today as I've been losing on less calories (I don't say this to frame weight loss as an accomplishment, but to prove that more calories + fear foods ≠ weight gain). We smoked cigarettes and watched "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" DVDs. It was a good night. My body was also a lot happier with me because it was getting ever so slightly more energy than usual, so it allowed me to be more present. Of course, I still had massive anxieties about the food and even though I was still eating what is technically a starvation diet, it felt like a binge. So it's not something I'm comfortable with or want to make a habit of (although I'll have to eat even a bit more over Christmas break). But it was a tiny victory over the eating disorder, I guess.


^ My pumpkin pie! (Unfortch with store-bought crust, ick.)

Colour My Black And White Days

I spent the hours of a little before 12:30 to a little after 5 PM today on a film set.

Working. Acting.

Don't get too excited. It was "just a student film." But I go to a university that pretty much exists to churn out famous actors, filmmakers, and football players. So I'm not just blowing hot air out of my ass (it's too cold for that, anyway) when I say that when my school makes "student films," they kinda go all out. They hire outside talent that are actively working in the industry, for starters. I was the only actress in the short that was still in school. And they shell out wads upon wads of cash for students to learn what it's "really like" to really make a movie in the real fake Hollywood world.

They are successful.

I've done independent films, and I've done student films, and I have to say, this particular set was just as professional, if not more so, than a lot of independent work that I've done with "actual" professionals running the show. I arrived on set, was promptly directed to a green room, offered juice, coffee, water, sandwiches, hummus, anything else, and generally taken ridiculously seriously without being fawned over. They knew my place, I knew theirs, and vice versa. But it wasn't the way I was treated -- it was the actual filming/film acting process that I loved. I loved working. I loved living in this incredible story and making magic with hair and makeup and costume and effects. I loved getting and taking direction, and I loved watching the collaborative process of all the behind-the-scenes geniuses putting it all together. Director. Producers. Grips. Boom mikes. DPs. Lights. How the fuck do they do it? How the fuck do they understand what they're talking about three quarters of the time? Filmmakers never fail to blow me away.

The happiness, the fulfillment, that I get from acting is so weird. Because while I'm acting, I'm not often happy or fulfilled, not on the surface of my conscious mind at least. On the surface of my conscious mind I'm preoccupied with whatever I as the character am preoccupied with (a dozen things all at once at least) and am also semi-aware of paying attention to the director, hitting my mark, making sure the lights have got me, etc. And a lot of times acting isn't physically pleasurable either, especially not when you're standing outside wearing a sleeveless mini-dress in 60-degree weather. And film acting is fucking stressful as hell, because there are time crunches, and props go missing, and the set can't stay quiet, and the wind blows and the sun disappears and comes back out regardless of whether or not you're in the middle of a take.

But somehow... there's a part of me that, at a cellular level, is relishing the entire experience for reasons I will never fully comprehend, in ways that I will never fully comprehend, and I don't care that I'll never understand it. I just know I dig it.

So yeah, today just reinforced the love that I have for working as a film/television actress. And the love that I have for being busy. It was all so fucking brilliant.

And then the day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which I am celebrating with one of my best friends (yes, she knows about the eating disorder, so it won't be super awkward), so I'm looking forward to having something to do then, too. And some time over the long weekend I have a date with College Republican guy (That One).

Any day that I'm forced out of my own head is a good day. But any day that I'm forced out of my own head to do what I love... is an exceptional day.

I need more of them.

Title Goes Here

While in session with my dietitian on Sunday, I brought up the issue of how anxious I am to visit my parents for Christmas (along with my sister and brother-in-law), knowing that I would have to eat far more than my eating disorder (and by extension, anxiety disorder) is comfortable with me eating; that I would have to eat a far far FAR greater variety; that the entire visit would revolve around me "putting on a good show" for my family. And that I would inevitably gain some weight.

I was sitting there, telling her all this, when she suddenly asked me why I felt it was so important for me to put on this act in front of my parents.

"Because if they knew how terribly I was doing, they'd send me back to treatment," I answered, without even stopping to think. I didn't need to think. This was/is a fact.

"Here's what I'm worried about," said my dietitian simply. "I'm worried that you'll come back from visiting and feel like you have to cut your calories drastically to compensate for what you've eaten in front of your family."

"Well, yeah. But I have a plan to restrict, regardless. I know how many calories I'm eating every day until May."

"Obviously you're going to have to increase your calories somewhat, while you're visiting, so that you don't raise any major red flags," my dietitian went on, "but what if you didn't try to put on a show and instead compromised with your eating disorder? Like you'd restrict, but not as much as you're doing now. You could try to maintain over the holidays."

Maintaining. Ugh. But it's better than gaining.

"Look, I don't like where your weight is now, and your body doesn't like where your weight is now, but I feel like at this point, with your anxiety being where it is, maintaining is all you can handle. I don't want you getting off the plane and immediately going down to X calories, or fasting, or taking laxatives; that'd be awful."

"Right."

"And I still think you should use the holidays to talk to your parents about how you're struggling."

"I can't do that."

"Well, I think you should. But I also think you shouldn't be eating to please anybody else. That never ends well."

I have (understandably?) mixed feelings about this arrangement. One, I'm thrilled. It's great to have it worked out so that I don't feel like I have to deceive the world for Christmas, and it's great that if I play my cards right, I can stay actively anorexic for the holidays.

But.

But but but.

It's not as if my parents don't know to be on semi-heightened alert. They know I'm at three therapy sessions per week. They see my weekly grocery bill. They know my panic attacks have gotten more frequent. And they know that I'm terribly unhappy with this whole sophomoric sophomore situation. And -- even though I was eating super well then -- they did see me at the end of the summer, for heaven's sake. So yeah. They'll be watching. I have to play this very, very carefully. Certainly more calculated than I've been since I was living with them, maybe even longer. They know what I eat when I'm doing okay in recovery, and if they see me not eating those things, or eating them in significantly decreased amounts, yeah, it'll stir something up.

Also. I cannot remember the last time I successfully compromised with my eating disorder. Let's be real, actually: I've never successfully compromised with my eating disorder. That's sort of the nature of an addiction, isn't it? I can't be "anorexic, only just this much" for the holidays. I'm a slave to anorexia. If it says "WHAT THE FUCK, DON'T EAT THAT, YOU FAT PIG," and I say, "but I've only eaten X today, and everyone's watching, and I thought we agreed..." guess who wins?

(Hint: it's not me.)

Any "compromise" with the eating disorder is an act of defiance against the eating disorder, because the eating disorder does not rely on fairness, or give-and-take, or working in shades of grey. I'm either with it, or I'm against it. And in order to be "with it," I have to do 100% of the things it tells me to do, 100% of the way, 100% of the time. If I don't, I'm against it, and I panic and hyperventilate and hate myself. And panic some more. I've got lorazepam on hand just writing about it.

Finally -- I feel like by suggesting that I restrict (albeit only slightly) over the holidays, my dietitian is saying that my weight isn't too low. That I can still afford to lose a few pounds (even though prior to this appointment -- aka when my weight has even been a little higher -- she has said the opposite of this). That I don't need to gain weight. Wanting to gain weight and needing to gain weight are two very different things -- and, like most individuals with anorexia or bulimia nervosa, I don't want to gain weight but I certainly want to need to gain weight.

I know, logically, this part doesn't really make sense. I know what my BMI is, I know what my ideal weight percentage is, and I know that if I were to check into any treatment center today, I'd be on a weight gain plan.

But still. It kind of feels like my dietitian just told me, yeah, go ahead; restrict. You can afford it.

So that's where I am. Worried my parents will see, worried about the impossibility of "compromising" with my anorexia now that I've been told not to eat to please others (before, that was the only excuse I had for eating semi-normally while in the throes of my eating disorder), and worried about what my dietitian thinks of my weight.

Eating disorders: a total mindfuck.

You Still Have All of Me.

The past couple of days have been a bit more anxiety-ridden than usual (perhaps payback for my better mood earlier in the week?), but I got through it and am hoping that my brain soon realizes that things are winding down. I have a few end-of-semester projects due at the start of December, but it's nothing too challenging; I'm even looking forward to a few of them. For my movement class we have to impersonate a live performance of any "rock star" (read: relatively well-known singer) of our choosing, through lip syncing -- impersonations have to be INCREDIBLY precise, down to muscle twitches and even the tiniest minutiae of our/their physicality. Last year I started working on Amy Winehouse, but this year I've switched gears entirely and am doing Tom Waits. He's a brilliant study. As excited as I am, I'm not working on that or any other project or paper this weekend, save for a couple scene rehearsals on Sunday and making sure I've got the lines memorized for filming on Tuesday. (That last one in particular will take no time at all, because God, intending for me to be an actress, blessed me with an uncanny gift for memorization and linguistic retention.) It's time for a mini-vacation.

AJ-cation!

Sounds too much like "education." We'll let it go.

Last night I went to a College Republican party that ended up being a very laid-back, albeit sizable, gathering. I was glad it didn't turn into a debaucherous drunken hook-up fest, because while those are fun (and more common than you'd think among College Republicans), I really wasn't in the mood. I did meet a cute guy, though, one whom I'd spotted at past meetings and decided to make the subject of a game I call "That One," otherwise known as "Am I Sure I'm Not a Sociopath?". (Answer: No.) Basically, whenever I want to play this internal game, I pick a guy (mentally point and exclaim, "that one!") whom I know will hold my interest for a time (both physically as well as personality-wise), and deign, through reading/manipulating body language and psychological idiosyncrasies, likes and dislikes, etc., to attract him to me. In the past, I've enjoyed at least a 90% average success rate with That One, but I hadn't played in a while. I wanted to make sure I still had it.

I've still got it.

Maybe some day when I don't have an eating disorder and can actually write connected, coherent sentences for a prolonged period of time, I will explain how to play That One. There is a science to it, a formula, and it can end up being quite a lengthy game (you can even play two rounds at once, as long as the social environment of one target does not overlap with that of the other). The longest round I ever played lasted about a year, from target identification to desired outcome. Well worth it.

Anyhow, so yeah, enjoyed a successful round of That One and now have tentative plans to go shooting with That One over Thanksgiving weekend. (You see why I have to play That One at College Republican gatherings?) And now I'm starting to worry that if this guy comes any further into my life aside from a few innocuous dates and hookups, I'll have to entangle myself in yet another web of lies -- something to the tune of "anorexia? What anorexia?", followed by an inevitable separation either before or after revealing, "oh, that anorexia."

I'm not expecting to make this guy my boyfriend or anything of the sort (although he is a cutie and pretty much a 9 out of 10 when it comes to compatibility and charm). I'm just saying that this is how relationships work when I'm so mired in my eating disorder. Believe me. I have experience in this realm.

Oh, and I still haven't entirely given up on B. By which I mean, for all of my pushing him away, I still love him terribly and want to be with him. I just know no good can come of us deepening our romantic involvement when I'm this ill.

Started a new pro-recovery exercise, one which I'm sure has been done before but that I "invented" for myself without hearing about it from others. Basically I realized the number of times that I've stonewalled any sort of progress by whining, "but I'll miss my sick body if I eat that/eat more/start eating/decide to recover." I also remembered the number of times that, while at a medically acceptable weight, I have indeed missed my sick body. So what I've started to do is ask myself, "why can't I miss having a healthy body?" and, by extension, "what about having a healthy body do I miss?"

My list could go on forever.

I miss my healthy body that let me run, jump, and skip -- and not only that, but let me enjoy running, jumping, and skipping for extended periods of time.

I miss my healthy body that was able to nourish a healthy mind... one free of panic attacks, low in generalized anxiety, obsessions, and capable of being really fucking sharp.

I miss my healthy body's genuine, healthy smile and sincere laughter. I miss the energy my healthy body had to laugh.

I miss the energy my healthy body had to do anything. Period.

I miss my healthy body's sleep schedule. The way I could fall asleep at a decent hour and stay asleep all night, and wake up refreshed the next morning.

I miss my singing voice.

I miss my healthy body's ability to concentrate.

I miss my healthy body's ability to be completely cognitively present, not half-asleep or out to a lunch I'm not really eating.

I miss my healthy body's sense of gratitude for the little things.

I miss my healthy body's sense of closeness to God.

I miss my healthy digestive tract, the one that didn't take forever to move anything processed or prepared through my system and didn't cause immense discomfort in the process.

I miss healthy shits.

I miss my healthy body's ability to stand for more than 10 minutes without worrying if my legs are going to give out from under me.

I miss my healthy body's immune system, damn it. I haven't had one of those since fourth grade. I get sick all the time. I haven't had a fever in years. I miss having fevers when I'm sick because fevers mean that my body is strong enough to fight whatever shit is going down.

I miss my healthy body's ability to savour food.

I miss my healthy body's libido.

I miss my healthy body's ability to sustain social contact and relationships and take pleasure in them.

Every time one of these thoughts strikes me I make sure to acknowledge it mentally... when I recover -- whenever the fuck I recover -- and start to miss being sick and starved, I'll need to remind myself of all of this.

Today it just makes me sad.

I miss my healthy body's ability to write decent blog entries.

Tonight, I'm So Alive

All in all, it has been a good week.

Rather, I should say that it has been a week that started shitty and got progressively much much better as the days wore on. Right now, I am in a relatively good mood -- relative to me. Relative to the rest of the world, I suppose I'm in a horribly anxious, depressive state, but it's such an improvement that I'm going to go ahead, take the plunge, and call it "good."

Monday through Wednesday afternoon, everything was absolute crap. I started my period today, so you can guess what happened with my weight this week. Retention lasts between 7-10 days and every time it happens I'm convinced it's not merely water retention, but actual tissue gain. Then I start hemorrhaging and the scale starts to make me much happier. I was also stressed out about a research paper that I had to collect a bunch of data for, and which is due tomorrow. And I was having hellish panic attacks (again, I can anticipate these getting worse before my period as a result of my hormones being even more whacked out than usual, but that doesn't make them any easier in the moment). The one great thing about my period symptoms is that PMS is not included. Yet another reason that guys seem to consistently dig me. My body compensates, of course, for the lack of PMS with heightened panic, generalized anxiety, back pain, GODAWFUL CRAMPS WHEN WILL IT END, I HAVE TO PUT MY LIFE ON PAUSE UNTIL THIS FUCKING ADVALEVENOL KICKS IN, and of course bloating. But I guess everyone gets bloating. I just hate myself because of it.

Then on Wednesday, I received some delightful news via meeting with my academic advisor to pick out next semester's courses: because of the living nightmare I put myself through during high school taking all (and I mean ALL) the AP courses the school offered -- one year I was taking nothing but APs -- I have a surplus of elective credit that allows me to do one of two things: skate by on my ass taking only 14 units a semester for the rest of my collegiate career, or pick up a second major.

Let's guess which one AJ picked.

Guesses in? If you guessed "ass skating," you clearly have never met me nor read a single entry in this blog. Or you just liked the sound of "ass skating." Either way... no.

They say double majors (and even minors) can't be done with BFA actors because of the course load required in the school of theatre curriculum. What has two thumbs, is stewing about being held back a year like a total flunktard, and loves political science? *THIS* guy. Of course, it hasn't been made official yet, but I am more than on track to graduate with two diplomas. I'm also more than on track to spend 6 weeks of this summer doing an acting intensive in Oxford, England, with the likes of Alan Rickman and other knights whose names mean nothing to you but whom I worship for their ingenious work in the Royal Shakespeare Company. My disclaimer is this: I do have to audition to get into this programme, and the auditions are in March, and there's no guarantee that I'll nail the thing. But I'm more confident about it than most, seeing as Shakespeare is strangely enough a strong suit of mine. And when I approached my acting teacher to tell him my plans, he quickly said, "make sure you go in the summer and not during the school year, because you're way ahead of the students who tend to go in the winter and spring."

Ego boost ftw.

Last night I got cast as the lead in a student film that had begun to audition actors outside of the school because they didn't like any of the auditionees they'd seen so far at the university. The producer was telling me this when we ran into each other a week ago and suggested that I audition, which I did, and our first read-through was this afternoon. It went well; the producer and director seemed very pleased (and relieved) with what I was doing. The other two cast members I met are professional actors (albeit unknowns... well obviously, if they're doing student films). I play a sociopathic femme fatale who frames her ex-boyfriend for rape and assault after she finds out he's been cheating on her. Pretty sweet.

I'm also grateful that I only have 19 days left in the semester (oh yes, I am counting) until study week. Of those days, because of the gifts that are Thanksgiving holidays plus weekends, only 13 are actual class days. 6 movement classes, 6 theatre history lectures, 5 physiology lectures, 5 voice classes, 5 acting classes, 2 theatre history discussions, 2 physiology labs.

This shit is doable.

Such a Stellar Monument to Loneliness

I pulled a series of muscles in my right leg this past week, not from doing anything in particular (I don't think) but simply from prolonged overexertion. I'm not a compulsive exerciser, but I do have necessity to walk quite a bit, and I guess walking around a big campus multiple times a day + going up a few flights of stairs every day + movement classes twice a week + daily strolls hither and thither - adequate protein and electrolyte intake = muscle stress. Also, I'm not gonna lie. I do enjoy exercising my, um, libido, and my leg muscles can contract quite intensely during that process.

Anyway, on Thursday I developed a rather painful limp, which carried on through Friday, but today it was much better, and as of this evening it's practically gone. I hope that by Monday it will have vanished completely. My dietician had been scaring me about it, and as such I started swapping out some of my edamame for low-carb, sugar-free protein shakes (110 calories apiece, so nothing like Ensure or anything) and replacing diet soda with Powerade Zero. It seems to be doing the trick, although I am more bloated than usual, because 1) protein shakes are not raw, and 2) my diet now contains more sodium, which my body craves desperately. Fortunately the bloating isn't visible, but it's showing up on the scale. Despite this, my body image has been better the past couple of days. Maybe because I hit one of my weight "benchmarks" earlier this week.

Today I went to see a play that most of my (real) class are in, as it's the official Junior fall show. I cried. This would have been okay, except the play was a comedy. Good thing the lights were low. On Thursday I heard rumours that the sophomore spring show was going to be Romeo and Juliet. If this is the case, I will absolutely not audition for it. I'll only audition if 1) it's Shakespeare; but 2) it's not Romeo and Juliet. Fucking hate that play. Good God. It's Romeo and Juliet, for fuck's sake. It's the reason West Side Story exists.

There's nothing that says you have to audition for your class show; it's just expected that you will. There are plenty of other performance opportunities, however, that happen along each semester and you're welcome to choose which one(s) to take. For instance, a couple members of my (real) class weren't in the Junior show that I saw this afternoon, because they'd done other plays instead. I really need for that to be me. I really need to not do the sophomore show. In fact, I think it would be awesome if I could go my entire collegiate career without once doing a 2013 show. *Spite spite spite*

None of the sophomoric sophomores hate me. In fact, they all really dig me. I don't understand how this is possible. It boggles the mind. I was counting on being hated. I was going to be the odd one out, the know-it-all in the corner who never laughs or smiles or wants to have fun. But that's not how they treat me at all. Granted, I treat them respectfully. I'm not mean to them. I talk to them in class. But they're not my friends. Do they think they're my friends? I don't consider any of them my friends. And they know less than jack shit about me. I don't even mean the eating disorder. I mean that they don't know... well, anything. My love for Machiavelli. My taste in music. They barely know I'm a Republican; that was discovered quite by accident. They don't know that I'm a skank. That I have morals that are questionable at best and nonexistent for the most part. That I love "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." That I'm an overly analytical, highly cerebral perfectionist. Like seriously, they do not know that. They don't know that I love to pick out outfits and do my makeup. That I care immensely about what other people think.

And they don't know that the less they know, the happier I am.

Little Bits of Cancer

Being the hypocrite that I am, I often read recovery blogs and make plans for how to navigate my recovery as I simultaneously dunk stalks of celery in mustard and peel away the skin of grapes with my fingertips. So here comes another gem from my dissembler's soapbox.

Lately a quote has been running through my head, one that I first heard from a therapist at CFC and then adopted as my own so that fellow patients often attributed it to me, and that is, "you can't hold on to a little bit of cancer."

What that means, of course, is that for one to FULLY recover from an eating disorder, you can't hold onto ANY eating disorder behaviours or rules, even if they aren't technically "dangerous." Little bits of cancer don't stay little for very long, do they? They metastasize, and spread, and before you know it you're just as malignant as you were before you ever embarked upon your quest for remission.

It goes without saying that you can't recover and still eat below your required daily caloric intake, or get better while still purging occasionally. But what about the little things? What about the things that most of society wouldn't even notice had anything to do with your eating disorder? I've been thinking about what my "little bits of cancer" are, the things that I (despite my intentions) continued to hold onto and rationalize even as I earnestly fought for recovery. Here's something of a list I made, and a few guidelines I laid out for myself for if/when I'm finally strong enough to fight again.

"Little Bits of Cancer":

1. My high-heel obsession. I genuinely LOVE heels, and I think they're fun and sexy and they legitimately don't hurt my feet. But if I'm being really honest with myself, I more often than not use them as a tool to make my legs look longer and skinnier. In fact, I'm quite convinced that my legs are fat and the only reason they ever look otherwise is because I'm wearing the right shoes/skirt/shorts/pants combo. Unless I'm working out, I never wear flats. This is not an overstatement. For this reason, early in my recovery, high heels will be banned for an extended period of time. There are plenty of cute flats in this world. I should become better acquainted with them. In recovery.

2. Diet soda. The allure of diet soda is a no-brainer to most, well, people. And it's so socially acceptable; the norm, in fact. However, the only diet drink that I've found tastes markedly different from the regular is Diet Coke/Diet Pepsi, and for a while in recovery, I won't allow myself that either. Eventually, as I grew up on Diet Coke and prefer its taste to regular, I might go back to drinking it occasionally. But I won't ever have to throw back can after aluminum can of Diet Sunkist, trying to relive my childhood delight in orange soda. If I crave an orange soda, Recovering/Recovered AJ will drink a can of orange soda -- every last calorie. In recovery.

3. Vinaigrette dressing. Obviously, in the throes of anorexia, I ban dressing entirely, but there have always been those dinner outings with my parents where I've chosen to order a salad, and, consciously or not, asked for what I understand is the lowest-calorie dressing available while still not raising any eyebrows. It's a delicate balance, one I navigated brilliantly throughout high school. Now, just like high heels, sometimes a mixed green salad honestly does taste best when lightly drizzled with vinaigrette, but since I'm not fully able to check my intentions yet, I'll need to ban it temporarily. In recovery.

4. "Ana Photos." You know all about these. The pictures you took, or that were taken of you, when you were at your sickest. The little swell of pride you get when you're able to look at one of them and count each ladder rung of your sternum, or note the fact that in the gap between your two thighs, there's room for a third. I would always tell myself that since I was writing a book, I needed these pictures for posterity. To that I say, fine. Posterity it is. Delete the markedly sick photos of sick AJ from facebook and put everything else in one very cumbersome-to-access computer file. Like, folders within folders within folders that take millennia to load. I can't have my dead, heroin-addict eyes staring at me every time I open up iPhoto. In recovery.

5. Celebrity weight gossip sites and fashion magazines. I don't read Vogue for the articles. I stare at the pictures of Jean Paul Gautier runway models and marvel at the parabolic curves above their knees. (That used to be meeeeeeee!, I will think.) So in my fantasy recovery, those must be neither bought nor bought into. I have no way of knowing whether or not those models have eating disorders, but I know that I have distorted body image, so any quest to look like them will inevitably result in death and destruction. No browsing the webbernet in search of the latest incredible shrinking starlet or Actress X's BMI. In recovery.

6. Mustard. The universal anorexic food. You're right, it's not a food -- it's a food group. Deli mustard, brown mustard, dijon mustard, honey mustard, spicy mustard, grey poupon mustard, 4-6 servings daily. Fuck that shit. In recovery, I don't want it in my fucking HOUSE. In recovery.

7. Certain articles of clothing. Everyone has their skinny jeans or the t-shirt they feel makes them look especially thin. Everyone remembers how that skirt fit (or rather, didn't fit) when they were 10 pounds lighter. I have a lot of anorexic clothes; a veritable eating disorder wardrobe. In fact, it's about all I do have. I can't remember the last time I went jeans shopping. When I enter recovery, the first thing I'm doing is going to the mall, buying jeans in a bunch of different sizes, and promptly removing the size tags when I get home. Hopefully, by the time a pair fits, I'll have forgotten which size was which. In recovery.

8. Dressing/shopping "skinny" rather than "stylish." I cannot tell you how many times I have neglected my personal style in favour of something that made me look bonier or leaner. I hope to one day be able to pull a jacket off the rack without needing to try it on to make sure it hits the right parts of my torso and hides the rest. Dressing to hide "problem" areas is itself a huge problem, one that will be strictly disallowed. In recovery.

9. Choosing the lowest carb/calorie/sodium brand of something. For a while I'm going to challenge myself to buy the brand that I know is HIGHER in any of these areas, if only to ensure myself that I'm not letting the ED sneak back in. Fucking slick bastard. I'm slicker. Just barely. But I am. That's why we make such a formidable (and chronically treatment-resistant) team. I plan to use that cunningly stubborn streak to abolish, not aid and abet, my anorexia. In recovery.

10. Flavourless oatmeal. Like vinaigrette, one of those foods I don't eat if I'm letting my anorexia run wild, but if I have to make compromises or put on a good show, plain instant oatmeal is the way to go. You know what? It tastes like nothing. In recovery, if I want oatmeal, I'm rocking the apple cinnamon or brown sugar or blueberries-and-milk shit. Blueberries will play a vital role in my recovery because they're one of so so so so precious few foods that I genuinely love and still allow myself to have in my eating disorder. Grapes are good, but I don't adore them; celery and carrot sticks are okay but should not be a dietary staple for ANYONE; I'm not a fan of edamame outside of starvation mode but suddenly when my calories hit rock bottom it's the most delicious thing in the world. I've never quite understood this, but I'm sure it has to do with some protein/fat deficiency. Which I will not have... in recovery.

And mustard must go.

In recovery, of course. Not today. Chomp chomp chomp rabbit food.

Obligatory "One Year Later" Post

It was one year ago today that I began my most recent stint in inpatient treatment. It was my second stay at CFC and my sixth ED hospitalization overall. I know, 365 days later, I don't have much to show for it. I know I'm worse now than I was then. I know I should go back... or go somewhere. But rather than dwell on the negative, and spend my anniversary "shoulding" on myself, I'm trying to focus on the positives of my time spent at the Center for Change. There were a few. First of all, I made some great friends, and I finally discovered "who" I was -- and discovered that I liked her! This happened quite by accident, by two not-so-awesome (in my opinion, but that's JUST ME) therapists telling me that certain components of my personality were merely fabricated fronts and defenses... and then me discovering that no, they weren't, they were cornerstones of my identity that I really enjoyed, and really made me proud.

I also began working on my now nearly-200-page autobiography (also titled "Fatless Shrugged"), and am really a fan of how far it's come. Lately I've taken a break from writing it, because I'm in a really sad/anxious place in the story right now, and it was leaking into the rest of my life. I don't think it's a good idea for me to be writing about being so ill when I'm ill yet again.

I laughed a lot. I learned I could be real when I wanted to be, and that the "realer" I was, the more people seemed to like me. I learned to not be afraid to be myself.

And yeah -- there was an incident not quite halfway through my treatment that made me give up on my recovery and decide that I still needed my eating disorder for protection and survival (we call this incident "Caution Status"), but that is perhaps another story for another time. Like I said, I'm trying to make this post about the good, rather than the bad or the ugly. (Or the Duani.)

But best of all, I learned how to play Rock Band. And that, my friends -- that's just invaluable.

I Can Be Self-Aware Sometimes.

If you're familiar at all with the Charlie Brown/Lucy football gag... I think this speaks for itself.

Social Anorexia

I went out once this weekend (Thursday night), which I suppose is better than not at all. Oddly enough, there really weren't that many awesome parties going down on Friday, so I didn't feel guilty about staying in. But Saturday was the night of an incredible rager that practically the entire school shows up for, and I had absolutely planned to attend that, as well as a pregame with a group of the sophomoric sophomores. I was literally about to head out the door to the pregame when -- it was almost as if a switch just flipped in my head -- I made a total 180 and changed my mind.

Weight. Calories. Body image. Alcohol. Calories. Weight.

Eons and eons ago, between the ages of 13 and 16 (maybe not even that old), I still played owner to that distorted sense of anorexic pride where I thought it was really great and special that I didn't "need" food like other people did. I was different from everybody else because I could "handle" restricting food; I could deal with it. I felt... yeah, I'll say it, superior to others. Bullshit, I know. And I've realized that and I feel quite the opposite now -- I feel inferior to those who can handle food and eating -- but back then, that was where my head was.

Now I find myself doing the same thing, but socially. Replace the word "food" with "relationships," and that's what I've got going on. I find myself thinking it's really great and special that I don't "need" relationships like other people do. I find myself feeling superior to everybody else because I can handle restricting relationships. Not needing people makes me special, or something.

Of course, now that I've realized this is what my mind is doing, I'm trying to talk back to it. Of course I still need people and relationships -- right? People need people; I am not the exception -- right? There's no shame in indulging in friendship -- right?

Oh fuck. Is that what that is? Shame for craving friendship, closeness? Shit. I think that's dead on. I am ashamed to crave the company of others. And if I can resist it, if I can resist opening myself to others, then that's a success.

Oh God, that's the most miserable thing I've discovered about myself in ages.

Good thing I have therapy today.

This is Halloweekend

I made the decision to go to a Halloween party tonight and now I'm freaking out.

(I haven't left yet. I'm leaving shortly after 11:30.)

It was so pathetic; I had to go and make a "pros and cons" list of why I should go out vs. why I should stay in and be a recluse. My rules for making the list were "no ED reasons," and "no converting thoughts to truths/fears to facts," so everything I wrote down had to be very impartial. I used the word "might" a lot. The list ended up looking something like this:

WHY GO OUT

I might have fun

I usually enjoy myself when I go out, more than I do when I stay in

I have a great costume

I might see friends I haven't seen in ages

I let my eating disorder thoughts talk me into missing a party last weekend and that was not awesome

I might feel less anxious getting a break from brooding in my head

WHY NOT GO OUT

I have a 10AM class tomorrow

Everyone might be drunk but me (for mostly ED reasons, but some good reasons, I preemptively made the decision not to drink at the party)

I might get more anxious about body image in a public setting

I have a test on Monday that I could potentially use the time to study for

I ended up deciding that I'd go to the party, and if after 30 minutes I didn't want to stay, I could leave. I'll also leave early enough to wake up in time for class tomorrow morning.

"Halloween" turns to "Halloweekend" in college. I discovered this my freshman year; realized how much better Halloween is when you're a university student. I never much cared for trick-or-treating as a child. Firstly, it provoked all manner of food/body image anxieties (yeah, we're talking 7 years and younger), and secondly, I had those overprotective breed of parents who insist on going door-to-door with you until you're 11 years old and then they watch you from a few houses away. Eventually I learned to circumvent this by going trick-or-treating with friends whose parents were much more lax about the whole situation. My crowning success was Halloween of my twelfth year. It was October 2002, and I was living in Northern Virginia. I'm not sure how good your history is, but this was the absolute HEIGHT and center of the Northern Virginia sniper murders. I went over to a friend's house to trick-or-treat in a strange neighbourhood and her dad couldn't care less about following us or what time we got home. It was marvellous.

Halloween only started to become fun in high school, when I was actively quite anorexic, so I was relatively comfortable wearing relatively anything and indulged in the teenage-and-beyond female trend of using the holiday as an excuse to dress up like a slut. I was a Moulin Rouge can-can dancer, Tinkerbell, Twiggy, and then I missed Halloween of senior year due to being in treatment. For the same reason, I also missed a French class trip to Paris. I regret this terribly; it still stings a bit. Quite a bit.

But as soon as school was out for the day, the fun mostly ended. My parents were not the type to let me go to strange classmates' Halloween parties; the only reason I was ever popular in high school was because, by some weird twist in the social hierarchy, the theatre kids were the cool kids and I spent enough time chain-smoking with my cast members in between rehearsals and went to unsupervised "cast parties," for which I promised my mother and father adults would be present.

A therapist who had read too many pigeonholing textbooks once told me I had "the rebellious streak of a bulimic."

In college, Halloween-cum-Halloweekend really starts to get wonderful, especially when you party with a bunch of acting majors who love to commit 100% to their quirky costumes and don't care about being a sexy-this-or-that as much as they care about making everyone else marvel at their dedication, or at least chuckle and applaud their clever sense of humour. So I truly hope I can enjoy myself tonight, and tomorrow night, and Saturday as well.

My first Halloween! (I don't think going as a baby at 7 months old is very original, but I'm pleased to say my creativity has improved significantly since then.)

Memories and Musings

Before I went to treatment the last time (translation: prior to my second stay at the Center for Change, where I spent 2 November 2009-26 February 2010), I kept a little "journal" on my computer. The sicker I got, the more I updated it, probably because I was getting more and more secretive and had no one else to talk to. Anyhow, I've been poring over it recently and wanted to share a few excerpts with you (yeah, this will be a long entry. Read at your leisure):

On Feelings and Being Numb:

"I'm feeling [my emotions] through a film, as in, I know I'm pissed, but I don't have the energy to devote to being REALLY actively pissed. It's a very general, but very sincere, sort of 'grrr...' moment."

This is what I crave, the emotional "film." The only problem is, very shortly after the film settles over your emotions, it settles over everything else -- your consciousness, your cognitive process, your waking thoughts. It sucks. It's not a very fair trade.

AP AJ History Lesson:

"What they say about addictions, and eating disorders, is that they saved you. At one point or another, it saved your life. I know it saved my life. I can think of at least one occasion where it directly saved my life. When it first got severe enough to hospitalize me, I had been planning to kill myself. See, I'd been starvation-dieting off and on since about fourth grace, but nothing severe, and at the beginning of seventh grade, when I was twelve, I hated my middle school, I was being frequently sexually abused, I told no one, I was trapped and alone. The abuse and objectification and hatred for myself and everyone around me that resulted drove me into depression and I started a suicide journal. I had picked a suicide date. ...I felt like I was utterly worthless and that there was no way I could ever be happy again. Then, around February or March, my eating disorder came to the rescue. I thought, what if I really commit to this?... I've always wanted to lose all this weight (there was, by the way, on my body no such thing as 'all this weight'). Maybe I'll be happier, maybe I'll feel more worthwhile, maybe I'll be able to tolerate myself if I lose weight. And I was happier. I did feel more worthwhile. I was able to tolerate myself. ...I decided that things were going so well that I didn't have to kill myself after all. All I had to do was keep losing weight and everything would be okay again. That was the first instance in which I can recall my eating disorder saving my life. I'd be dead without it. Literally. Unfortunately, I'll be dead with it, too. So it's time to get rid of it, but I can't on my own. I know all of this. In some part of my brain, I know it. But I'm being held prisoner, it feels like, by my eating disorder. I know I've got to get out but I'm trapped. And I need help."

Oh, one-year-younger AJ, with your long hair and impeccable insight, what denial has since crept into you. Because here I am, one-year-older AJ, with my short hair and "I can quit anytime I want to, I just like to not party" attitude, and... yeah.

On the Relapse Before The Relapse Before This Relapse (I was "in recovery" summer '08):

"Where, when, and how did relapse start for me? I remember I ordered diet supplements in late September of last year [2008]. I started smoking [again]. I began to feel the negative effects smoking and restricting were having on my body, so I would pull out of it for a few days, maybe even a week, for every week or so that I slipped up. In January [2009] I started having severe panic attacks, so I worked on my eating and, most days I would say, ate normally. There were some slip-ups here and there. ...In February I started using cocaine and it really helped me to not feel hungry. My cycle of intuitive eating was once again broken. Around April the panic had really cleared up, and I could devote even more time to restricting, so I did. When my parents came to pick me up from [college] in May, I didn't want to let on that I'd been doing badly lately. I ate a lot in front of them, for about a week. I felt very guilty about it. ...Over the summer I would have an empty house for most of the day and for the most part, on weekdays, or whenever I could, I ate between X and X calories a day [numbers omitted]. Once I fainted at work. Towards the end of the summer, I went to visit my sister and her husband in Boston. Again I tried to put on a good show. ...When my parents and I left to move me in for [sophomore year]... I had a definite plan to lose a lot of weight as soon as they were gone."

"What happened? Why did I relapse? What clicked, or stopped clicking? I can remember so clearly what foolishness flipped the switch to get me into recovery. What made it dim over time? Was it just a case of not changing the lightbulb? I was in college. I started to feel like a failure. A bad actress. Not worth anything. Low self-esteem kicked in, I suppose. I felt unnoticed and unloved. I failed and there was nothing to fall back on. I failed and had no excuse for failing. What did I fail? [Not school] I failed at relationships. I failed at my relationship with my ex-boyfriend. ...I failed at being perfect. I expected perfection and when it didn't happen after recovery I had failed. I treated a symptom, not a disease. I stopped the eating disorder behaviours (and even then, old habits died hard, perhaps didn't ever quite die at all). I did nothing to address the perfectionism."

On That Elusive Chimera, Recovery:

"...[T]here's no guarantee that life suddenly sorts itself out after recovery. It's not like I'll come back into the real world and suddenly all my problems are solved. All my relationships are perfect. I'm the world's most amazing actress. I'll never have to deal with grief or sorrow or stress ever again. Life is still life, with or without an eating disorder. Life is more lifelike without an eating disorder -- the bad as well as the good. ...[T]he highs feel higher. The lows must feel lower, too, or at least more real. But you can probably bounce back from them quickly. You probably find it easier to face them.

I'm so sick. I know this, intellectually. Here I am, journaling about what I think life might feel like. Every day is eating disorder day, and I love it, it gives me a purpose, drives me toward a goal. It gives me an identity to serve and a direction in which to point myself. What the hell is recovery like? What the hell is life after recovery? Will it exist for me? Will I die from this?"

Too many questions, young grasshopper. Simmer down.

"Psychologically (and quite possibly physically as well), I'm in a much worse place now than I was when I first went to CFC. [And things just got worser and worser.] I feel so emotionally dead. I can't see out of my eating disorder, can't see any goals or anything outside of my anorexic life. That scares me because sometimes it makes me wonder if I will ever recover. Oh, all the days when I would say I didn't want recovery or I didn't want to get better, those are so long gone and so far behind me and so wasted. I could have been free by now. My life would have been so different."

Yeah, only things still didn't work out after CFC round 2, did they?

Righteous Anger:

"Fuck you, eating disorder. Fuck you for making me panic every time I eat more than X calories. Fuck you for making me REALLY panic every time I eat enough to maintain my weight. ...No, I just need to lose more, that's all I put any real effort into doing in life, lose more weight, lose more weight. FUCK YOU for killing me. For sucking the joy out of everything. Fuck you fuck you fuck you. Go away. Fuck you for fucking with my body. I can't take this. YOU RUIN EVERYTHING. You shatter my life with your stupid lies, how do I fall for them every single time? How did I even start to believe you, your foulness and your filth, why can't I see through you when everyone else in this world can? You sicken me in every way, there's nothing I can do to truly please you, I can't do this, I can't recover, I'm trapped. I'm so trapped and I'm so scared. I want you gone but I don't. Why are you here? Why can't you let me have a life?"

"Fuck you, ED. I'm stronger than you. I was here first. I am not an eating disorder. I never was and I never will be. I am a strong, beautiful woman. I'm sexy, too. And smart. Talented. Fuck you fuck you fuck you."

"I don't want to play games anymore. I don't want to dick around and manipulate shit. ...I just want to get better. There's never an opportune time to do it, but it needs to happen. No more games; just recovery."

"I'm taking action. I don't give a fuck about excuses. School will always be here. Acting will always be here. Friends will always be here. Now I need to make sure that I'm here to realise all these things and have them in my life. No excuses. ...This is it. There is never a convenient time to get your life back. There's only now."

CLEARLY you did not want recovery BAD ENOUGH. Shit, I talked such a good game, didn't I? I don't even know if I believed it at the time; I just wanted to convince myself that I did because I was so scared of what it would mean if I didn't.

There are also entries about how easy it was to get away with restricting at my short-lived IOP. The IOP wasn't even like a band-aid. It was like someone offering me a band-aid while I'm bleeding profusely from my skull. And me saying "no thanks."

Positive Affirmations:

"I am fierce and I am a fighter.

I am not an eating disorder.

I am not my body.

If there's anyone more stubborn than my eating disorder, it's me.

I have everything it takes to beat my eating disorder.

I am proud of myself.

I will win.

I will and can do whatever it takes until I am healthy inside and out.

My mind and my will are strong.

Recovery is worth it and I am worth recovery.

I deserve nothing less than health and happiness.

I am incredible and amazing."

On CFC:

"And of course now I'm going through all the inevitable second-guessing... am I sick enough, couldn't I just pull out of this on my own if I wanted, am I being selfish going into inpatient treatment, etc. And now on top of all of this, there's the lingering ambivalence in the back of my head. I want to get rid of this, I really do, but I just don't know if it's possible. I feel like I'll get back out and only be able to think about losing weight [congratulations, that's exactly what happened. You're psychic]. I need to be at CFC for a while. They say 18 weeks (four and a half months) is the recommended length of stay for anorexia, but a lot of people (weight has no bearing on this whatsoever) stay longer, and I think I'm going to be one of those people. I won't mind. However long they want to keep me, I'll stay."

Except I didn't.

"I'm really mad at myself right now. I just have so much guilt over having to withdraw from school... this is ridiculous. I'm so angry with myself. Leaving college, ruining relationships, all of that. I feel like a failure. I keep telling myself I'm incredibly brave and courageous and smart for doing what I'm doing, but if I were so brave and courageous and smart, I would have kicked this back in 2007 (hell, maybe even 2003... though it did help me through high school) and not be stopping my life right now. I feel like a bad student. I hate this. I don't want to do it. Nothing will change. I can't do it. I should have been able to stay until the end of the semester. FUCK. I. Fail. At. Life. I can't get better. It's not possible. I don't want to go. I don't need to go. I'm making a big deal out of nothing and it's stupid and selfish of me to take away a spot from someone who actually needs and deserves to be in treatment."

"In eight days I check into CFC and those eight days could not come sooner. I'm so relieved to be going and getting my life back. ...I can barely function. I know I need to do this to get well and I'm grateful for the opportunity. I can't wait to live again."

Such idealism.

I pretty much knew I was going to relapse by the time I got out of CFC. Not sure if I mentioned that, but there it is. It wasn't that I wanted to; I just knew it was going to happen. Have I been over this already? If so, sorry for the repeat.

I did okay for the first couple of weeks. And by "okay" I mean, "I didn't follow my meal plan that my dietician wrote out for me because she wasn't even about to think about letting me try to eat intuitively, smart decision on her part, but I wasn't trying to lose weight super fast or anything, I don't think." Who knows at this point what was going through my head? I was like an alcoholic who walks into a bar right after they check out of rehab and says, "I don't really want to drink, but I'll just sit here and see what happens."

The universe must have realized I wasn't relapsing fast enough, however, because I soon became extraordinarily symptomatic with a hiatal hernia, which is sort of like one step below an ulcer. I'd been having stomach pain/pressure and heartburn, getting very full after eating tiny amounts (this began maybe my last month at CFC and was partly eating disordered but NOT ENTIRELY), and it just got worse and worse until maybe 6 weeks after I discharged and I had an endoscopy that revealed, much to my relief and my parents' dismay, that I was not "just imagining things," I really did have a stomach problem, and it would probably be best if I followed a slightly more restrictive diet.

The gastroenterologist understood that I had a history with anorexia, so he was very wary of telling me what foods would exacerbate the stomach pain and instead tried to insist that I take Prevacid, but after that proved ineffective, he told me that richer foods might worsen my symptoms.

Again. I didn't really want to cut out richer foods (I was actually just starting to enjoy grilled cheese again), but the nausea and heartburn was getting pretty bad. I didn't know what else to do. Grease was out. Cream was out. Calories soon began to dwindle. I lost a somewhat noticeable (though not alarming) amount of weight within a month, and, well, it felt good, damnit.

Eventually, the Prevacid started to do its job and my symptoms diminished. But I was nervous to start adding the rich foods back in and inevitably gain back the weight. Weight loss was hard-wired within me, at this point, after 11 years or so of practice and perfection of methodology. Weight gain was not.

And by this time I had just moved out for the summer and was living on my own. No parents to make sure I was at least making an effort to get food down. No roommates to judge my neurotic eating habits. Just me, and my apartment, and my raw food detox. Wait, what? A raw food detox? When did that happen? How did I miss that? Oh, that's right. My eating disorder had told me it would help with the stomach pain. That it was "healthy" anyway. That it was trendy and that countless raw foodists had proclaimed they had lost weight going raw but still eating the same amount of calories. It's not eating disordered if you're not cutting calories. Besides, it'll be good to get in more fruits and veggies. You can make smoothies!

I never made a smoothie. I ate carrot sticks and blueberries and paper-thin slices of cucumber doused in mustard and other such shit. Sodium became almost as bad as calories; almost worse than carbohydrates.

And there I was. Sicker than I'd been since I was 13, struggling to walk up (or down) a staircase.

If people think I'm manipulative, wait until they meet my anorexia.

I'm

Antisocial.

The social anxiety piece of my eating disorder is creeping back in again.

Because apparently, generalized anxiety and panic-level anxiety weren't enough. I'm currently working my way down (I think) from a mild panic attack (if any panic attack can be said to be mild -- let's put it this way: mild for me) that was the result of trying to be social; gearing up to be social; namely, getting dressed for a party.

I'd planned to stay in tonight. It had been a long and arduous day -- physically as well as intellectually. I had to run (literally) around campus multiple times, counter-protest, shout at political antagonizers (I won every war of words, thankfully), make the mile-long round-trip trek to and from my apartment on foot, give interviews to various reporters, and go to therapy. Keep in mind, in case you've forgotten, that my body was basically running on empty. I was spent.

So I was set to call it a night, kick back, and catch up with "Community" on hulu when I got a text from one of the sophomores telling me about a party that was happening a couple blocks away and that I should come. I texted back that it sounded like fun and I'd see if I couldn't swing by.

I couldn't swing by.

It began with the realization that, were I to go out, I would be drinking, and this might lower my anxiety enough to get me to eat. It's weird that while alcohol tends to cloud most people's judgment, the fact that it alleviates my anxieties around food actually helps me to see more clearly -- at least as far as nutrition is concerned. Still not gonna take the old Echo for a spin when I'm sloshed, though. (Note: when I talk about drinking and then eating, there are no "drunchies" involved. For me, a post-inebration indulgence is rarely more than a sandwich and usually closer to a piece of fruit, if anything.)

So here I am, already pissed off because I didn't eat completely raw today (there were three crackers involved in measuring the correct dosage of "brain medicine"), and now I start thinking, shit, I've already nearly met my quota -- a couple shots would fulfill it entirely -- and then I might eat and go over. And then logical AJ makes a cameo appearance and is like, that would be a good thing, because your "quota" is killing you, and then anorexic AJ basically starts throwing a temper tantrum about how my weight is only just starting to make real progress and go down by "enough" each day and this party would completely ruin everything and I'm just so sure I'd gain back all the weight I'm losing from my period. And everyone will think I'm fat anyway.

I took a few deep breaths and decided to play it by ear; to act as if I had committed to going to the party. I started getting dressed.

And then body image had to go and ruin everything. After a solid hour of trying different outfits on and off and on again and adjusting and pulling and tugging in front of the mirror I realized that my heart was beating insanely fast and I had a terrible knot of panic in my stomach and I had no choice but to forego the excursion entirely.

My eating disorder, satisfied in its victory, was temporarily quelled.

And now here I am, sitting in bed, thinking... just a few more pounds and then maybe I'll be skinny enough to go to a party.

And That's When I Put My Hands Around the Only Thing That Made Sense

Brainmedicine.

That's what these extra calories are. There's no way that I can eat this little and not lose weight. It's scientifically impossible. I'm only eating what I have to eat to keep my organs alive.

This is what I tell myself so I don't want to kill myself or throw a temper tantrum after I down an additional X calories every day. "It's still a starvation diet, it's still a starvation diet, I just took brain medicine, that's all. Like a vitamin."

Lorazepam was still required after I tossed and turned in bed for three hours last night, oscillating between crying and moaning softly and having to force a pillow in between my thighs so I couldn't even imagine them touching. They'regonnatouchthey'regonnatouch it's getting so close I can feel it... PILLOW. Wham. Problem solved. But then I had to start whining about my arms against my ribcage and it's not bony enough, I can feel the valley between my stomach and pelvis and it's not concave enough and I just FEEL the FAT all over my fucking DISGUSTING BODY and so, yeah, it was time for some GABA inhibitors.

I have come to the conclusion that recovery is just not possible at this juncture in my life. Honestly, if this is what I go through when I'm severely restricting, I cannot imagine what it would be like if I were trying to gain.

I've been really anti-recovery l

ately. Not pro-ana (because I wouldn't wish this on anyone), but definitely pro-AJ-being-ana. I drag myself to therapy, not to get better, but just so I don't have to keep all this bullshit inside. Just unloading helps me feel sane. But there's no motivation. I don't know where it went. It was legitimately 100% recovery-ready back in July/August, and by the time I got back from visiting my parents I had decided I was going to "take a break" from recovery (whatever the hell that was supposed to mean) and then once the school year was back in full swing, about a month in, I was like, yeah, I totally don't give a shit anymore. But by early October I most certainly gave a shit -- in the other direction. Gave a shit about getting sicker. Gave a shit about running from recovery. Gave a shit about giving into the eating disorder fully and completely. Gave a shit about shitting all over my life.

But my life feels as though it's in stasis anyhow. Nothing new is happening; not in school, not with relationships, not with anything. That's actually a perfect way to describe it. My life is in stasis. It's not going anywhere. I don't have anything to look forward to. I have things to dread: another class I've already taken. Another project I've already done. Another guy I have to avoid seeing because I don't want him to see my disgusting naked body. Another encounter with another group of people I have to preten

d to like. Another early morning for which even the sun is too fatigued to shine. Another trip to my dietitian's office where she gets to see my horrendous weight. And this is the routine.

Fuck anyone who thought repeating a year would be good for me.

Keep Breathing

Last night I had two glasses of wine and was absolutely hammered. I was so drunk I *almost* convinced myself to eat. I knew I wouldn't have a panic attack if I did, and I thought, I'm calm enough, I can just get a veggie delite from Subway, and I'm in a state of mind where I KNOW that's not a binge... but I ended up not following through with it.

I guess I wasn't quite drunk enough.

And then today I had an appointment with my dietitian. Something about her feeling obligated to tell my parents how shitty I'm doing. I very politely told her she had no legal grounds to do that. We spent 15 minutes debating the definition of "danger to myself" and I kept arguing that this only applied to imminent danger, such as a suicide threat or plan to irreversibly harm oneself in the immediate future. I've gotten good at this argument, since pretty much every professional I've seen has threatened a confidentiality breach in some form or another. So eventually I got her to back down for the time being. And promised I would consider increasing my calories *slightly* so that I wasn't actively cannibalizing my organs. (Yes, there is a caloric threshold for that.)

"Sometimes the only thing that works is bribery," she told me. "Like having your parents say they'll only continue to pay for your education if your weight is where it needs to be."

"I can circumvent that," I told her. "My eating disorder is not above that."

"But after a point, that would become obvious."

"But you wouldn't have any concrete proof."

"I haven't had a client die on me yet," she said. "I really would not like for you to be the first."

I am nowhere near death. I promise.

Then I saw my therapist, who told me that there was a part of me that likes having bad body image because it's an excuse not to eat. I wasn't offended, because I realized she was right. And then I came home and promptly put all of that out of my mind.

My internet still sucks too badly to air full episodes of "Project Runway."