It's Like I Can't Think Without You Interrupting Me

It's the middle of a heat wave. I'm hot, so I can only imagine what others must feel. (I never get hot.) I do have air conditioning in my apartment, but I think my A/C unit is in desperate need of a freon charge; it's not doing much, if anything, to quell the effects of the scorching heat. My apartment unit is significantly hotter than the hallway or any other building I've been in. I've taken to going on long drives, air and radio blasting, to nowhere in particular just to get some relief, particularly in the late afternoon when the sun is at its most sweltering angle against my windows. Every time I pull back up to my building, I halfway expect to see my second-floor flat having melted away.

Even so, I almost enjoy this entire experience: being in a city heat wave and not having a competent air conditioner. Because it's a normal college experience. It's the kind of thing that anyone, panicked or not, eating-disordered or healthy, might go through. And it calms me to think that for once, I'm being plagued by something that would bother anyone.

Another "normal" thing I did this weekend that I really enjoyed (though perhaps the enjoyment of it wasn't so normal): spent the majority of it cramming for a physiology exam. I sat in my room, in one of the campus libraries, in the laundromat, and studied, studied, studied. It was glorious. I synthesized all my notes, drew diagrams, read and reviewed, organized, and really felt all productive and shit. It gave me something to do all weekend, rather than actively sit and brood about my fat ass (don't get me wrong, I did that too -- but it was an unrelenting underscore, not an unrelenting central monologue) all weekend long.

I've been talking to my therapist about the food panic attacks. How the second I even begin to think about eating normally or ordering that frozen yogurt, my throat closes up, my hands and legs begin to shake, my heart pounds, and I get a tight pressure high in my stomach/low in my sternum. Since I've got the lorazepam on hand, and it's near bedtime anyway, I'll see if I can't walk you through the psychosis of it all:

No no no fuck no I'm gonna binge I'm gonna start eating and never stop and I'll gain so much weight I'll be so fat NO what is normal eating? How will I know what normal eating is? Normal eating doesn't exist for me it's either anorexia or be fat and I can't be fat I just can't be fat, eating food outside of the regimented calories and quotas and grocery lists my eating disorder has set out for me is so chaotic and bad and wrong. It feels so wrong. It feels like I've done something wrong, shameful, I shouldn't be eating this much food this is not normal and I'm going to gain so much weight and it's never going to stop. FUCK I want COMFORT I want GRAPES and LETTUCE and I want rituals and regimentation and numbers and measuring cups and counting and breathing and I can breathe... now... thinking about that... thinking about being empty again, the numbers on the scale going down, bringing me back to a place of normalcy -- what I consider normalcy, what everyone else knows is emaciation -- but I don't care, because that's what feels normal and right inside my body, inside my brain... yay for not eating. This feels so much better.

"You're abusing yourself," my therapist said.

"No," I said. "The real abuse is the alternative. If I really wanted to see myself suffer, if I really wanted to inflict pain and terror, I would eat a normal day's worth of food. Starving is comfort. Starving is soothing." It's not that I didn't get what she was saying, but it was important she know that I wasn't trying to hurt myself here, not really. I wasn't aiming to suffer or die. I was aiming to find a solution.

"Will you do a medication eval?" she asked me, after I'd described the panic attacks.

"Sure," I said. Really, at this point, what do I have to lose? I stand by what I said earlier; that if there was a pill to cure anorexia, fuck, I would so take it. And I'd fucking go and order a fucking medium frozen yogurt, maybe even a large if I was really hungry, and you know what? I'd put fucking mini chocolate chips on it.

Okay, now I have to stop. Getting symptomatic again. Deep breaths, AJ. I'm not there, I haven't done that, it was all conjecture... I'm okay. Just calm down.

I want B. FUCK. We talked the other day. Not about anything important. He'd just gotten his hair cut and he sent me a picture. I love his hair short, because then I can see his absolutely beautiful face. He has the most piercing steel blue-grey eyes and these amazing black ringlets that sometimes (like recently) he lets get a bit too long and then you can't tell how gorgeous he is; you can only tell that he has gorgeous hair. And really, pretty much anyone can have gorgeous hair. B. actually is so divinely gorgeous.

Anyway, today wasn't that bad of a day. I was pretty tired in the morning but I got over it, I had a really good run of my scene in acting class, I spent the evening with a room full of poli-sci dorks watching the gubernatorial debate on TV, and by the time I got home the sun had set and it was considerably cooler. Also, I just got news that my movement class is cancelled tomorrow morning, so I get to sleep in. Don't know if my body will let me or not, but it's calming to know that I at least have the option. Huzzah and all that.

I Talk to Myself; Then I Talk Back.

On the top of each date square in my calendar, on my computer, there is a number.

That number represents how many calories I get to eat that day.

The numbers start out small and get smaller every week. Every ten days or so I throw in a bigger number to keep my soon-to-be sputtering metabolism in check. Bigger, not big. But it feels big. And I feel big.

And I wake up the next morning wondering how it's possible that my thighs ballooned by six inches overnight. But then I follow the numbers, and after a few days, I feel better.

Starving isn't even painful anymore. It's normal. Eating a solid meal is what's abnormal. That's what's uncomfortable. That's what gives me panic attacks and forces me to reach for my lorazepam.

"Do you think you can do this on your own?"

What the hell is that supposed to mean? I'm not doing it on my own. I have a therapist and a dietitian. And I am managing just FINE, thank you very much. I pulled myself out of a decided death bed two months ago and I can do it again. See, see how the numbers start getting bigger again before Christmas and spring break? That's so I can go through refeeding and eat normally in front of my parents.

"What about the panic attacks you get now when you try to eat normally? What do you think will happen after you've been starving yourself for even longer?"

I think I'll feel better about eating normally because I'll be at a lower weight, that's what I think. And I won't have panic attacks because the number on the scale will be more tolerable for my brain.

"Do you want to get better?" my therapist asked me.
"Yeah, definitely," I said. Like she had just asked me if I wanted to make a Starbucks run. "I mean, if someone could just wave a magic wand, I'd let them. But I know that's not how it works, so..." I want Starbucks. I just don't want to drive to Starbucks. Could someone take me there? Or better yet, pick up coffee and bring it back to me? In my apartment? So I don't actually have to do any work? And while they're at it, my laundry needs doing.

Basically, I want recovery to happen to me. I want it to fall into my lap like relapse and coke seem to fall into my lap.

It has fallen into your lap, you dumb shit. It's a new year. You have a new apartment free of bad memories. B. fucking thinks you're the most beautiful woman in the world and you KNOW you could call him this second and he'd jump at the opportunity to help you in any way he could. If somebody made a pill that instantly cured anorexia in one dose you'd probably find an excuse for why it's too much of a hassle to take it. "Oh, but I have to go all the way to CVS to pick it up? The Ralph's pharmacy doesn't carry it? Fuck that shit."

*Whine whine yeah but whine whine whine*

I think that's my super-ego. I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

Am I, as my super-ego, accusing myself of not wanting recovery? Because I do want recovery. I do. Not badly enough. No; I do. It just, it's a slow process.

Fine. Take the first step. Delete the numbers from your calendar. Like you won't remember them anyway. Just take them off. You can still restrict. All you have to do is highlight and hit a button.

... Yeah. No.

Why not?

Because I want to lose weight.

So you don't want recovery.

I do. I just want to lose weight.

You want to recover but lose weight.

Yes. No. What? No. I want to -- I want to not want to lose weight.

You know, you KNOW if you keep "moving in the right direction" --

Fucking euphemisms --

You'll eventually not want to lose weight.

I don't know that.

You'll find other things in your life. You'll get an agent. You'll get booked. You'll have B. You'll have friends. You'll be working and playing and fucking and you'll stop caring about some petty number.

I have no proof that any of those things will actually happen.

True. The only thing you have proof, certainty of is that they WON'T happen if you die.

Fuck you.

Do you want to die?

No! Fuck no, that's the most terrifying thing... I just don't think any of those other things will actually happen.

Would you rather die or live a life of misery?

Live a life of misery. And I'm probably an idiot for that, but at least there's some adventure involved in a life of misery. More adventure than there is in death, anyway.

Would you rather die of anorexia or be fat?

... Shut the fuck up.

It's just you and your super-ego here.

It's me and my super-ego talking on my blog.

Oh yes, your blog, with your ten million followers. Answer the question.

I would RATHER rather be fat than die of anorexia.

That wasn't the question. As you are, now: two alternatives -- a lifetime of being decidedly FAT, or your romantic little death from anorexia at an absolutely emaciated weight. Which is it to be?

Neither.

But if you had to choose, right now.

I have an answer. But I'm so ashamed. I plead the fifth.

You don't want to recover. You WANT to want to recover. There's a difference.

What the hell is this, six degrees of separation from recovery?
No. Just two.

Fuck you. I'm going to masturbate and then I'm going to bed and I'm going to forget this conversation ever happened.

Yeah; enjoy your decrease tomorrow. That's what you've got on your calendar, isn't it?

Go away.

I'm your super-ego; I don't go away.

You're more obnoxious than Jiminy Cricket on Prozac.

Hey AJ.

What?
You're so anorexic, when your eating disorder does its taxes, it lists you as a dependent.

Get fucked.

*

I think I have the bitchiest super-ego on the whole damn planet.

A Storm is Calling, But I Don't Mind

"Why would anyone want to live like this?"

"Because it beats actually living."

Sometimes restricting feels like being on heroin. Kind of mediocre heroin. Where you don't feel ahhh-maaaaz-ing, but you don't feel at all, and that's better than the alternative, which is responding to life. It was like that today. I was very tired, and I really didn't feel like doing shit. I slept for a long time (which I needed to do), and the entire day my body was exhausted, but I didn't much care. I wasn't frustrated that I was so tired and numb. It was nice. I went to therapy and that was okay. I made a naked salad with tofu and bell peppers and that was okay. I worked through a couple monologues and projects and that was okay too. I didn't get mad and I didn't get sad and I had a bit of directionless anxiety driving back from therapy, but that subsided after I ate a few grapes. It was probably triggered by hypoglycemia or something. I'm not too worried about the anxiety getting worse. I have pills. It'll be... okay.

Anorexia or coke. That's my newest excuse for why I continue to starve myself. If I don't use my eating disorder, I won't be able to resist the urge to use drugs. At least eating disorders are legal. You can't go to jail for driving while anorexic (although over the summer I remember the effect being markedly similar to what I've heard of the effects of driving while intoxicated). You won't get arrested for counting calories. And anorexia costs less. Way less.

I called B. last night when I knew he'd be rehearsing for a show he's in and left a message. He has yet to call me back.

That's okay too.

Part Three: Validation Bouquet/Temptation Thorns

Then there was Friday.

On Friday, life tried to go out of its way to make things easier for me, which was a pleasant change of pace.

I woke up having terrible body image. (What else is new?) Honestly, on plenty of days the distortion is so bad that I genuinely do not want to leave my apartment. If you could hear what the hell goes on inside my head... what people must be thinking... but today I got a brief reminder that it was all bullshit as I was walking to class and two sorority girls passed me. Through the veil of my sunglasses, I watched one of them -- pretty, thin, and well-dressed -- eye me up and down as we approached each other. She turned to her friend quickly, and as soon as I was presumably out of earshot, I heard her murmur: "she has the skinniest legs."

I actually froze for a full two seconds, then whipped my head around and stared at these two perfect sorority girls, the distance between the two of us ever increasing, in shock. It might not have been meant as a compliment; the girl's tone had made that inconclusive. But I took it as the most beautiful validation I had gotten in weeks. Because you need to understand -- in no way, shape, or form do I consider my legs skinny. They're one of my hugest (pun intended) problem areas, and even at my sickest I've thought they were too big for the rest of me. So to hear this girl say something like that out of the blue, to have compelled her to mention the size of a total stranger's legs to her friend, was incredible. It was all I could do not to call back out to her, "REALLY?!"

And that high lasted for about half an hour.

*

Later that night I forced myself to go out. There was a huge party, with a bunch of my acting friends, and I had told myself in advance, I don't care how fat I am; I will attend this party and I will enjoy myself. So I tried on about seven or eight different outfits, called myself about seven or eight hundred different synonyms for "fat" and "disgusting," had about seven or eight thousand mini-breakdowns, and got a text from one of the sophomores asking if I wanted to pre-game with him and another classmate at his apartment.

The honest answer was "no." That was also the ill-reasoned answer, because extended it read, "no, because you're a sophomore." I kicked myself, texted back a cheerful "sounds great," and left my Cave o' Reclusive Rumination.

It was fun. I had fun. Once we got to the party, a bunch of my junior friends greeted me with bear hugs and cheek-kisses and "yes! I'm so glad you're here!"s and "We miss you sooooo much"es. "How are you doing?" was a very common question. I suppose they all fancied it was such a novel thing to ask, looking me dead in the eye and pulling me aside like they must be the first people all night to really try to get to the bottom of my baggage, prodding until I finally stopped grinning and began to graze the surface of the truth. You see, there are different levels of honesty with which we as humans generally respond to the "how are you doing?" question, and we gauge the necessary level based on a number of factors and external cues. Tonight, my Candidometer Levels read something like this:

"HOW ARE YOU DOING?"

LEVEL 1: "I miss you guys... but I'm good!"

LEVEL 2: "I'm okay."

LEVEL 3: "Well, you know, it's a bit of an adjustment."

LEVEL 4: "The kids are great, it's nothing to do with them, but it's been hard."

LEVEL 5: "Eh... things are rough."

LEVEL 6: *Nonverbal shrug accompanied by telling facial expression*

LEVEL 7: "Fuck this shit."

I never got to "fuck this shit." For the most part, I didn't go much deeper than level 3. Once or twice I got to level 4. But my friends understood that "well, you know" and "the kids are great" were cleverly shrouded grunts of "fuck this shit," and they gazed at me knowingly and sympathized with their eyes and understood when I kept pressing the conversation topic back to "how are YOU doing? What are YOUR assignments? How's YOUR new professor? How's YOUR show going? What have YOU been working on? How do YOU like YOUR agent?" And so on.

My friends are great. I've never truly realised this before. They're so incredibly... genuine. And compassionate. It was like they were throwing palm fronds of validation at my fucking feet. "[Insert names of two sophomores here] were over," said one of the juniors, "and I was like, 'guys, AJ's the fucking best. You really have to understand that.' I told them you were this amazing opera singer and pianist and you're this incredible actress..."

"They really do understand what you're going through," another junior nodded to me. "Like, they get this isn't easy. I was talking to a few of them and they were all like, 'yeah, we really, really like having AJ around and we know this is hard for her but we just hope she's able to come out of her shell more.'" I felt like an egomaniac just listening to people gush about how they gushed about me, how others gushed about me, ad nauseam. Not that I didn't love every second of it.

Finally, I was able to sit down with Scott. He put his arm around me and stroked my shoulder and leg and asked me how was I doing, really, and please not to give him any of that bullshit about being okay because that might work for everyone else but I should know better than to try that with him. I got between Candidometer Levels 5 and 6. We were having a real conversation. Then a sophomore approached. Harry. We'll name him Harry. (P.S., don't try to find any significance in any of these pseudonyms unless I expressly allude to any, a la "Edward Norton clone.") I like Harry more than I like many of the sophomores. There's something very real about him, and he has a definite intelligence of character. I'm also more afraid of him. I can see him see me.

So Harry came up, and basically chased Scott off. Had any other sophomore done this, I would have been irate, but this was Harry, and Harry really intrigues me. So I let him try to investigate me. He did well.

"I just wanted to say," he began, "that I really, really like you and I know you're -- can I sit here? -- I know it must be really difficult having to hear the same stuff that you heard last year, and I'm sure it's really boring. But I also think you're really cool and you have... you have so much to offer."

"Thanks," I said with a smile.

"But you hide behind this -- " he lightly stroked the fringe of bangs that I always make sure are perfectly groomed to fall across the right side of my face, "-- and this," he crossed his arms and legs and hunched over sullenly. I laughed. "And I see that."

"I know," I confessed. "I can tell you see me. It's unnerving. But I do want you to know that I really dig you, too. In fact, I'm a fan of most of the people in your class. You're all really great, and you in particular, I like." Harry smiled. "So it's nothing to do with any of you. I'm just..." I searched for a sufficient word. "I can be... prickly."

"Oh, I know! I saw that the first time I met you."

"When was that?"

"Last year. Early last year at a party. Beginning of my freshman year."

Early last year. His freshman year. Beginning of my (real) sophomore year. That would have made me pretty shitty into my eating disorder, perhaps slightly better off than I am now. I cocked my head. "I'm usually better at parties," I said.

"I definitely felt the prickles," Harry told me.

"What did I do?"

"Nothing. It was just you. You looked right at me and I was like, oh my God, she breaks hearts with those eyes."

I had no memory of such an incident, but I didn't tell Harry so. It is like me to play with eye contact. I laughed. "I'm sorry," I said. "Listen, I think it's important that you and everyone else in the sophomore class know... I love you guys. I hate where I am. But you, you all are really great." Harry was nodding. He proceeded to tell me about how much he, too, loved his class because he's estranged from his biological parents and baggage baggage baggage and this is where the reciprocity comes in, and I loved hearing about it. I loved the back-and-forth, the mutual exchange. He was doing very well. He was engaging me. We were laughing, shooting the shit, making friends. I was making a friend. Oh God.

Then another student casually approached Harry and tapped his shoulder.

"Yeah," Harry said.

"Did you bring anything?"

"You guys have weed."

"I don't want weed; I want blow."

"Fuck; I don't sell blow at parties. That shit's in my room. I've only got about two and a half grams now."

"Shit," the student walked away.

"You sell coke?" I asked.

"The best you'll ever find. Guaranteed."

The words came out of my mouth before I could think about their implication. So did the smile that spread across my lips, and the way I leaned in closer and touched his knee. "We'll have to talk, then."

And the universe had just flung the gate wide open for a year of snowblind madness. Easy access. Easier than freshman year when I did coke with Scott, because Scott was only a recreational user and had to jump through all kinds of hoops to score a gram for us to share. Here was Harry, though, and Harry was a dealer. The kid I like most in the sophomore acting class is a drug dealer. Part of me hears a celestial choir singing heaven's praises. "You've just won a year's worth of SoCal snow! Your favourite diet pill and study aid, the best you'll ever find." Another part of me hears sirens and pounding heartbeats and the hyperactive, laboured breaths that come with tweaking out.

Midnight coke binges. Days of complete abstinence from food without even realizing it. Rocks. Lines. Student IDs. Altoid cases. A leathery one rolled too many times, cracks in its creases. That caustic, burning, chemical dump scent. Tingling. Molecules of rebellion tickling my gums and nostrils. And... numbness.

Only the good in life. Life, squared.

I mean, there has to be a reason this happened. There has to be a reason I was drawn to Harry, a reason Harry was drawn to me -- and I don't mean any of this in a romantic way, mind you -- and a reason I stumbled across the fact that he dealt. There's no way God can trust me enough to just throw this kind of shit into my lap, with everything else I have going on, and expect me to ignore it, or deal with it constructively.

Like, really.

But what do I know? Coke could be a lesser of two evils. Back in the day, I forced myself to eat *almost* normally on days when I wasn't using. I knew what I was doing to my heart; I knew it couldn't be good. I sweated so much, my metabolism went so fast, I was going to lose weight either way. It could be by not doing coke and restricting, or doing coke and restricting less when my body remembered to be hungry.

I should probably tell somebody about this. I should probably call B. The ball's been in my court for days and I have done jack shit with it because *insert lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel's "I Am A Rock" here*. He probably thinks I don't care to spend time with him. The reality is, I care far too much.

I'll keep you posted on this... whatever this shit is. But veritably it is shit, and as such, fuck it.

Part Two: Walking Away Isn't the Same as Running

My voice class in particular has been a shit show lately. I guess I take it for granted the understanding that the way you direct your body, movement, and voice has a profound impact on various things that come up for you psychologically. Mind-body connection and all that. It's not "woo-woo," as one of my rehab's yoginis would say; it's actually science. You change your physicality; you change your thinking. You speak from a deeper place physically; you speak from a deeper place emotionally.

OH GOD NO.

So we do exercises, you know, to foster this kind of progress. And it's a small class. You can't bullshit anything for more than five minutes without the professor coming over and literally forcing you to do it right. "[AJ], you're super flexible. Make the stretch deeper." Fuck you. If I make the stretch deeper, I start to tremor, and then a few seconds after that I get all teary and I want to throw something. And everyone else in this damn class is making fucking guttural noises and getting all deep and shit. I don't want to stretch and holler. I want to write a fucking fifteen-page term paper with a full annotated bibliography, 100 sources. That is so much safer.

So I shouted, one day, as everyone else was belting out a Shakespearean sonnet independently, and my voice was indistinguishable from the rest of the cacophony about me: "I'M CHANGING MY FUCKING MAJOR!"

Immediately. Tears started to flow. I didn't even feel a lump in my throat. I didn't feel my eyes sting. But there they were, marbles of salt water rolling down my cheeks. I turned to face the wall. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

People cry in voice class all the time. Because that's what happens. Shit comes up that you didn't even know you had in you. But I -- I don't cry in voice class. AJ does not cry. AJ is a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside of an enigma and you would be a fool to try to ask her how anything makes her feel.

And my heart was breaking, right here in voice class, because for the first time I was seriously entertaining the notion of switching majors. It wasn't as though I hadn't threatened to before. But in the past, these threats had been similar to those of the idiots who say they're moving to Canada every time the nation elects a politician they don't like. You know their frustration is real, but you also know they won't be relocating to a new country any time soon.

Now it was different. Now, I thought, oh my God. I can't survive in this fucking class. Look at what it's doing to me. Even anorexia-induced numbness can't grant me complete solace.

But I didn't want to switch my major. I kept telling myself -- "it's not the right decision, but it might be the only decision." And that scared me. And I cried when I got home, and I stared at my wall and I cried some more. And I looked at the clock after a couple hours and realized I needed to head back to campus for acting class. Next to eating, it was one of the last things I felt like doing.

I did, though, because even amid all these threats to switch my major, acting -- "doing the work" -- is the only thing that ever takes me out of myself and away from these emotions. It's become a necessity. I need to absorb every fictional detail; completely immerse myself in whatever alternate universe the director gives me. And my craftsmanship has benefitted from it. Immensely.

So I went. And after acting class was over, and I'd done my scene, and had the only good time I was to have that day... as a grieving widow... the professor pulled me aside and once again asked how things were going for me. He does this every couple of weeks. He is a saint.

I shrugged. "Difficult," I said, politely. "It's gotten to the point where I've been thinking about switching majors -- not because I want to do anything with my life other than acting, but --"

"Then don't," he said, cutting me off abruptly. "I know it means putting yourself through a lot to be here, but don't make any rash decisions. Because..." he paused. "... you've really got something. You know what you're doing up there. You've got something."

It meant the world to hear that coming from a man I so respected as an actor, scholar, and director. Some day I'll tell him so.

Week(end?) Update With AJ, Part One

Dear Self, please start updating your blog more. The world could stand the schädenfreude. Sincerely, also yourself.

God, what have I been up to since I last wrote? So many things, as I recall. I still feel like shit, but there have been plenty of more positive experiences along the way. Life is trying to play nice. It feels sorry for me, I think. Glad I'm not the only one.

I've been being really honest in therapy, exploring a lot. I should really write out more of the revelations I make. I really dig my therapist because I feel like I have such a firm, self-aware grasp on the roots of and contributing factors to my various neuroses, but almost every session she'll say something that causes me to go deeper and discover something completely new. Or at least discover the absurdity and abnormality of a long-fostered belief. Like, "creative is a euphemism for stupid. ...Right-brained people are not as intelligent as left-brained people."

What the fuck?

Or, "friends are pleasant but unnecessary accessories." Congratulations, you're a sociopath.

So Purely Conceptual, and Quite Unattainable

My voice professor is making us memorize poems to help restructure our breathing. It's just as well that they aren't monologues, seeing as everything else in the acting programme is saturated with proper scenes and soliloquies and shit.

I've just never been one for poetry.

OH, THAT IS A LIE. It's a lie and I'm calling me on it. I used to write poetry allthefuckingtime in elementary school. Funny shit. Limericks and the like. I was damn good, too. And then in seventh grade. Depressing shit, and songs. I was still damn good. I wrote as my eating disorder totally spiraled out of control, nearly killed me, and then I stopped. That's probably why I'm turned off by poetry now. There are too many painful memories associated with where I was at the height of my poetry days.

My poetry always rhymed, and I once harboured a great distaste for free-verse poetry. Now I'm beginning to appreciate it a little bit more, if it's good. I have friends who write really legit free-verse. Frankly I'm a bit jealous, because now I realise that while I was busy abhorring free-verse, I was really hiding behind my complex rhyme schemes to conceal the fact that I wasn't talented enough to write a really meaningful piece that stood on its own without rhyme or rhythm.

Anyway, the first poem my professor gave us to memorize was entitled "Wild Geese." I started out pretending to hate it and now can't shake the fact that I think it's really beautiful. Yes, it's free-verse. It goes a little something like this.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the plains and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clear blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination.
Calls to you like the wild geese -- harsh and exciting
Over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

My heart breaks when I read this poem. I want to believe it. I want to become it.

But even if I did believe it -- would I eat? Could I eat?

*Calorie Numbers: May Trigger (...it's a little late for that, don't you think, AJ?)*
I don't get hungry. If I do, I pang for 20 minutes or so and then it goes away. Completely. I can eat 100 calories, 150-180 if I haven't eaten all day, and feel stuffed. Maybe I'm misjudging "stuffed," but there have been a few times in the past couple weeks or so when I've tried to eat 2000 calories and my body hated me for the pain I was putting it through. Yes, I'm trying to lose weight. But I'm used to being ravenous while I do it, at least for the first while. I mean, for a little bit I was eating 2000 calories a day and feeling fine. Now processed food, greasy food, high-carb food seems to repulse my body as well as my mind.
*
Part of me gets envious when I see people eating ice cream. You have no idea the pain I would go through if I ate that. Objectively it looks so delicious. Fuckkkkkk. And then the eating disorder part of me rejoices, because evidently my body has now developed a built-in punishment system for when I try to do right by it. This scares me somewhat, because hunger upon starvation was at least a sign that my body was working properly. Now I don't know what the hell it wants or needs. What gives? Is it anxiety that's curbing my appetite? Depression? A thyroid problem? I don't have any other thyroid symptoms; in fact, the days that I've eaten 2000 calories are the days that I've cranked my A/C to generate a motherfucking blizzard and still sweat through my clothes. This bit of evidence would suggest I'm hypermetabolic, and given where I am now in terms of refeeding/percentage of weight restoration that would match up to past instances, but if I'm hypermetabolic, then why am I not hungrier?

I was in therapy this morning. 8:30 AM is much too early for therapy. One ends up letting too much slip. My therapist asked me if I thought I could continue to feed myself healthfully.

I made an idiosyncratic AJ noise that was halfway between an "eh" and an "arrrrgh," shifted uncomfortably, and said, "Probably I... won't."

My therapist correctly pointed out that if I didn't, my eating disorder would only continue to stand in the way of my dreams and ambitions.

"Yeah," I said, massaging my temples between my thumb and forefinger, "but honestly, at this point my dreams just seem so... purely conceptual. And quite unattainable."

"What makes you think they're unattainable?" she asked, and I'm sure she was expecting a response citing the statistics of actors who try to make it versus actors who actually do make it; or a self-aware statement about the politics of winning an Oscar. But instead I told her the pure, unvarnished truth, which was:

"I can really see myself dying from this."

A pause. "Why?"

"I don't want to," I said quickly. "I'm not okay with it. It's just, logically, that has become a very real possibility."

It does scare me, yes, that I feel this way. But seriously, what the hell. If I haven't gotten my shit together by now, after the innumerable "this is the last time, I know I said that last time, but this is the last time"s and the "I hate my eating disorder so much and I'm willing to do absolutely anything to recover"s and the "just one more pound"s and the health scares and the IVs and the NGs and the EKGs and the CBCs and the ERs and every rehab/medical unit in between, you'd think something would hit me and stick and that enough would be enough.

Apparently not so.

I wish I had a pocket-pal Robert Downey, Jr. that I could pull out to give me a pep talk. 'Cause if we're being honest, I basically want to do to my eating disorder what Robert Downey, Jr. did to drug addiction. And then do to Hollywood what Robert Downey, Jr. did to... Hollywood. He's the only person I know of for a fact who's fucked up at recovery more than me and come out the other side even more awesome. It's so hilarious that I thought this year was going to be my comeback year and then realised that in order to have a comeback, you have to come back from something. You can't have a comeback from the same place you were when you left, which is what I'd been trying to do. Oh yeah. Shit.

Anyway, the poem we have to memorize for tomorrow, I've heard before. Perhaps in one of the aforementioned rehabs. I don't like it as much, seeing as it seems to be about codependency, something from which I've always been too much of a bitch to suffer. But here you have it:

"The Journey"
One day you finally knew what you had to do,
and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice --
though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations --
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough,
and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
determined to do the only thing you could do --
determined to save the only life you could save.

You Congest Me; I'm So Hollow from Your Gift

What does it feel like to feel good?

I've felt good before. You know, when you feel like everything about your body is working like it should and you're in alignment with your functioning and you don't notice little things acting up or being too much of an effort... basically, when your body is doing what it wants to do, where it wants to be.

I remember that I have felt good, in a very distant past, and for very fleeting moments, but I don't remember what good felt like aside from a few vague phantom sense-memories. I don't remember it non-intellectually. In this regard, it's rather like having a sore throat: you know there have been times when you didn't have a sore throat, but now that you have one, you can't replicate that same feeling of comfort that you felt when you were healthy. You don't remember what precisely was or wasn't there when you didn't have a sore throat, aside from pain. You just remember "no sore throat" feels better than "sore throat."

I've remember feeling good twice in the past... seven years, probably. And when I say "feeling good," I don't mean "feeling happy," or "feeling okay." I've felt those things a lot. By "good," I mean just feeling totally in harmony with your physiology. Like your body's really happy.

The first time was in summer 2008 (I think I've touched on this before). A 2009 journal entry reflecting on that time reads:

"There was an instant when I was at [college as a freshman] -- it was either orientation or welcome week -- and I was walking through campus. Of course I was elated to be [here], I was elated to be in recovery, I was elated to have a shot at life. And I felt so alive. There's no other way to describe it. I'd forgotten how life-y life was. I'd forgotten how high the highs were. I never knew the sky was so blue, or the sun was so bright. I never knew happiness could feel so happy. I never knew relaxation could feel so relaxed, no caveat, no strings attached. No nagging exhaustion or anxiety in the back of my head. But what really got me was the energy I realized I had. I'd been walking all over campus for quite some time -- not even walking, running -- and I felt so ALIVE and full of ENERGY. Again, I never knew it was possible to have so much energy. To feel so alive, I never knew. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt that strong and vivacious. Strong. Mentally, physically, psychologically POWERFUL. And I just thought, oh my God, this is wonderful. This is so beautiful. This moment, right here -- this is what it feels like to not have an eating disorder."

The sad thing is I know that's just a normal moment in a non-eating-disordered individual's life. I know they feel that practically 24/7 and think nothing of it. But to me, it was like... wow. It was like breathing for the first time. It was like being high on cocaine, only a hundred million times better. Seriously.

The other time was during my second stay at CFC (my sixth stint in treatment overall, I believe). So it was very early 2010. I was newly weight restored, probably by about a month or so, and I remember there being an instant when I was sitting at dinner goofing around with some of the other girls there. One of them said something funny, and I laughed, and -- BAM -- that same feeling returned. Of strength and power and focus and energy and life. Coursing through every vein in my body was life, strong and steady. I didn't feel sick, I didn't feel exhausted from walking to the dining room, I didn't feel in pain. I just felt really entertained by this joke that my friend had told, and I felt excited for NIA later that night, not to burn calories (for once) but to release some of my newfound vitality.

Today, there isn't a shred of that. Today, my hands are shaking because I'm hypoglycemic. Today I'm sweating because I'm hypermetabolic. Today my head hurts. Today my breath is a bit laboured. Today my eyes are heavy. Today my joints are throbbing. Today my organs ache. Today my muscles are ridiculously sore, as well they should be, seeing as I recently found out my body is cannibalizing them (I swear it's not as dramatic as it sounds). But today is a normal day. Today I haven't really even paid that much attention to these things; I've just accepted them as part of living, and it's only creepishly watching a cohort of small children run around the park directly across the street that's gotten me thinking, I could never do that. They have been at that shit for hours. And their parents are even joining in, if they're not busy tending to their Labor Day barbecue and chatting it up with the neighbours. And laughing. And it's only now that I'm certain that were I to put a healthy person in my body that they would be like, "are you serious? How are you living like this? This is torture!" And I would look at them incredulously and say, "this is the norm. What are you used to?"

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck this shit.

And now for something completely different:

I'm officially an intern for the state Republican gubernatorial campaign. I'm excited and a little nervous because I don't know exactly what they're going to expect of me, and as an actress and not a poli-sci major, I'm probably not coming in with as thorough a knowledge of the law or public policy. Everything I know I've learned from a few introductory courses I took just for funsies, books I've read and may or may not have comprehended, and my understanding of current events. I'm good at bitch work, though. I make a badass spreadsheet at 106 words per minute and I do a mean coffee run.

And now for something you really didn't want to know:

Last night I got really tired of not owning any working toys. So I went to this amazing, high-end sex shop that has literally EVERYTHING and practically half an entire floor dedicated to vibrators and I bought myself two -- a larger bullet model and an internal massager -- 'cause I had money to burn and I didn't know which one I would like better. (Speaking of "feeling good"...) My favourite actually ended up being the cheaper one (the bullet). The massager is purplish in colour, which already kind of turns me off because the last thing I want while I'm getting off is to be holding something girly-looking. It's still nice, though.

Anyway, I've got to memorize some shit for voice class tomorrow, so I'll let you go with that charming sentiment.

Feel good.

You're All Gonna Be in This Experimental Film

I had quite an enjoyable night last night. Whereas I spent late Thursday and the wee hours of Friday morning with my acting ladyfriends, Saturday-Sunday I got to kick back, relax, and just be one of the guys.

One of my buddies -- who is a film major but whom I know quite well through my acting guy friends -- was celebrating his 21st birthday, so I went to the house he shares with a bunch of my favourite men and drank with all of them. Basically all the males in my (real) class ended up coming over, along with a few cool chicks, and we all shot the shit and made merry for hours and hours.

I dig these people so hard. Not only are they some of my best friends, but there are also some subtle sexual undertones to my relationships with each of them that make things interesting. Some are more pronounced than others; Scott, for instance (no real names), will openly greet me with a big kiss on the lips, Stewart is very touchy-feely, and none of the others have qualms about hardcore bumping and grinding when we dance.

Of course, things get awkward when multiple friends start exaggerating said undertones at the exact same time.

Which is what happened last night.

I'd come to the party figuring I might hook up with Scott, because honestly, that shit has been years in the making. Things were mildly successful at the start: there was some sexually-charged dancing that really heated up once everyone else had cleared out of the room for another round of tequila shots (we were both pleasantly drunk enough as it was), but Murray -- the birthday boy -- cut in shortly afterward and started getting quite handsy. Scott, being a good bro, allowed him to take over and dipped after a while.

To my displeasure, I soon discovered that while I'd been dallying with Scott (now gone) and Murray (whom I love to pieces and have absolutely no interest in banging), Stewart (whom I would totally get ten kinds of nasty with) had been laying it on thick with another one of the girls at the party. And this is where, objectively, I have to laugh at myself, because the instant I saw Stewart flirting with this perfectly cute-looking girl, the first thing that popped into my head was:

But that can't be right. She's bigger than me.

To clarify: this girl was not big at all. But as distorted as my body image is, even I knew that she was heavier than me. And I couldn't comprehend why Stewart would possibly be so into a larger (NOT large) girl.

Haven't we been over this, Self? You know that skinny ≠ attractive. You know that in numerous scenarios, skinny is actually UNattractive. So what gives? Stop being neurotic about this.

But I don't understand.

Well, she's pretty. In fact, she probably looks a far sight better than you.

Naw. I look fine. You know, not ill.

You never thought you looked ill. What makes you think you can tell how other people perceive you now?

They're going to bang. You know, when I was a freshman, Stewart and I almost banged. We came so close.

And then you met B.

Yes, that was the night I met B.

You were also at a much healthier weight then.

I'm at a healthy weight now. Or I look like I am, at least.

God, you're insane. I can't talk to you right now.

Well, that's going to be problematic, seeing as we're the same person.

Well, I need another drink, then.

A tequila shot ensued.

So then I went back into what had become the dancing room, which Murray had temporarily vacated, and the next thing I knew I was grinding a man we'll call Ryan because he looks like a hotter version of Ryan from "The Office." I only met Ryan at the beginning of this summer. He intrigues me, being quieter than Scott and Murray, but no less amiable. He's big into music and pontificating, and he's a total sweetheart.

Chemistry was beginning to happen when once again Murray came in and stole the show, as was his right, it being his birthday. I was still slightly miffed (not with Murray but with the situation), but decided not to let Ryan slip away as easily as I had Scott. Especially seeing as Ryan was a new commodity, which made him more interesting and infinitely easier to lose. Every fifteen minutes or so I would shoot him a smile or brush against his side.

Then I climbed into a dryer, curled up into a ball, and shut the door. Everyone marveled. It was pretty sweet.

Eventually, things began to die down: a small group of us (myself, Murray, Ryan, another "one of the guys" girls named Leigh, Leigh's friend, and Leigh's boyfriend) determined to migrate back to Ryan's apartment just under 10 blocks away. I'd driven (albeit unnecessarily) to Murray's place, and decided it would be easier to drive back to Ryan's rather than walk. I announced this to Ryan, and he sprinted to my car.

Just then, out of nowhere, Stewart and his Femme Du Jour approached me.

"Hey you! Cute girl!" said FDJ, running over to me as I was getting ready to shut the driver's side door. "You're not driving, are you?"

"Oh," I said, smiling. "Really, I'm fine. It's been a while since I've had anything to drink."

"Sweetheart, no," said Stewart. "Really, please don't."

Is this about the dryer thing? Because you know I do that kind of shit when I'm sober, too. "I promise I'm okay to drive," I insisted. "It's only a few straight blocks, I know exactly how to get there, and I feel perfectly lucid."

"Listen, you don't seem drunk, but... I just really don't think it's a good idea." FDJ looked at me imploringly.

Fuck you, bitch. "I..." She might be right. I feel fine, but why risk it?

"Seriously," said Stewart.

"What is this, Stewart, a PSA?"

"I can drive," volunteered Ryan.

"Can you?" asked FDJ.

"He's had more to drink than me!" I sputtered indignantly.

Stewart ignored me. "You'll drive her, Ryan?"

"If you're okay with it," said Ryan. He looked at me. "Do you want me to drive?"

I considered. Stewart's bitch really had a point. I would probably be totally okay driving, but there was a reason something had compelled the two of them had come over here. Half an ounce of pride was not worth a possible DUI -- or worse.

"Yeah," I sighed. "That's probably a good idea."

We Chinese fire-drilled that shit.

"Just don't kill her, 'cause she's really cute and I like her shoes," said FDJ. I managed a laugh. Fucking bitch. I like the guy who pinched your butt half an hour ago. I didn't even like him that much until he pinched your butt. Now you've just confused the hell out of me and you're ruining my perfect little anorexic paradigm.

"Thanks, AJ." Stewart smiled at me. Yeah, fuck you too. Fucking try to babysit me. "AJ's had three shots over the past four hours; she must be plastered."

Eventually we got back to Ryan's place just fine, Ryan rolled a spliff with expert precision, and I watched the rest of the crew smoke it while we made casual conversation. I felt so lucky to have friends who didn't judge me for not smoking or pressure me to get high. I was just as much one of them, with or without a joint in my hand. Reflecting, I also felt lucky to have friends (and girls I'd never even met before) who cared about me so much that they were willing to start a fight with me rather than risk letting me drive drunk.

Things wound down, and I decided to head back with Murray (as we both lived extraordinarily near one another). Leigh and her plus two had taken off, and it was just the three of us -- me, Murray, and Ryan -- alone in Ryan's living room.

"You ready to go?" I asked Murray, who was approaching the door.

"Yeah."

"Okay," I said to Ryan, and made to hug him goodnight. Maybe a peck on the lips, too, since that had happened earlier. Suddenly, effortlessly, said "peck" turned into a full-on snogfest, initiated by Ryan but welcomed by me. This felt really good, but Murray was still in the room, and I needed to break away from this without making it seem like I wasn't enjoying it.

I tried to break away. Twice before I was actually successful. My mouth just kept coming back.

"I really should go," I whispered to Ryan, and he kissed me one more time before I said, "I'll see you later."

I think this is one of the key reasons I like hanging out with guys so much more than girls. I love sexual tension. There's always the possibility of an even more heightened intimacy, and flirting is just too much fun. Sexuality is such a powerful, beautiful thing; I don't need to have sex to be sexual. There are so many ways to explore it and -- fuck, I just love guys.

Dudes, man.

Everybody Hungers Peace But They Thirst War

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck panicking because I didn't restrict today.

I was hungover. I went out last night, had two shots of vodka, and woke up hungover.

That's not supposed to happen. I'm fivefootfuckingeight.

I was hungover, my blood sugar was crazy low, and my muscles were on fire. I decided to make it a high-protein, normal-calorie day. And now I feel like I've gained ten pounds for it.

That's not possible.

I hate photos where I have my hand on my hip. They always make my arms look so much fatter, especially the upper arm, because it presses into your shoulder. I hate cameras with flashes because they make my chest bones nearly invisible. I shudder to think what such photos would look like were I at a normal weight.

It's weird that I was so hungover after last night, because while I did get drunk, I wasn't insanely sloshed. I was sobering up just as the rest of my friends were getting wasted at the bar. I'd made the mistake of partaking in pre-gaming festivities, and while I allowed a hot guy to buy me a beer at the bar, I only had a few sips of it. Then (practically sober by this point) I took him home with me, realized he was a terrible screw, and sent him on his way. Courteously. The tool actually wanted to have sex without a condom. Fuck that shit; we'd just met that night. I made him wrap it. I think he was pissed. I faked it. He was entirely too enamoured with my personality. Whatever happened to guys who just want you for your body?

*

MY WEEK:

I spent most of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday chain-smoking and feeling sorry for myself. On Wednesday evening I went to the first College Republicans meeting of the semester, and by the grace of God somehow got information on interning for this fall's conservative state gubernatorial candidate. The following morning I emailed the internship program director back and forth and suddenly found myself practically being handed an internship. "Oh, look, Self," I said to myself. "Some semblance of a life. Please don't fuck it up."

"Fuck that shit," said my eating disorder.

Last night was good in many respects (aside from the disappointing hot guy), because it was the first night of the fall semester that I actually dragged myself out of my pit of body image despair and hung out with my (real) acting class girlfriends. It was great to be with them, and they were all overjoyed to see me, which made me feel really good. I never do as well with groups of girls as I do with guys -- I don't "get" them as well -- but these women are just so amazing and compassionate and fun that they make it easier for me to come out of my shell. (And if you know me at all, you know that my "shell" is still extraordinarily social and raucous.) I miss them terribly.

Of course, I'm missing another party tonight. I tell myself it's because I want to give myself time to 100% recuperate from my hangover. In reality, I know it's because I'm too fat to go out. In reality of reality, it's thoughts like that that make me wonder just how long I expect to stay not dead out here.

I just wrote a paragraph on how I think about my death entirely too much for someone my age (beyond the abstract sense, which I believe everyone does), but I deleted it. It was too black and came off sounding overly emotive. Don't get me wrong; I don't want to die. I'm actually one of those few people who would legitimately choose to live forever, given the option. I just... I'm not doing a whole lot to save my life at this point.

Blah blah blah melodrama.

*

I really should call B. I keep saying this -- to myself, my friends, my family, and my therapist. Everyone agrees. "Why don't you?" they ask.

To my friends I say: "I'm waiting to bang Edward Norton clone again first."

To my family I say: "I'm busy; he's busy."

To my therapist I say: "I'm afraid of commitment and attachment terrifies me and I don't want B. to become any more entangled in this whole eating disorder mess."

The truth is a combination of all three, along with the added element that I don't share with anybody, which DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE given what I've written about previously, but which is: "I'd like to lose more weight first."

Doesn't make sense, doesn't make sense, doesn't make sense. Especially because there's the one component of me that doesn't want to pursue a more consistent relationship with him until I'm further along in my recovery, and then on the other hand here I am saying, "yeah, but five pounds in the opposite direction would really make things better."

I don't understand myself.