Breathe Me

Anxiety has been hell this week and I really can't tell you why, other than the whole weight thing. My physical symptoms are getting to be pretty shitty. I'm a lot more lightheaded than I'm used to (even whilst starving) so that kind of concerns me. I really hope I can talk myself into booking a dr's appointment next week. I'm always wary of seeing doctors because I hate getting weighed by others. I worry that their scale will show my weight as being higher than what my scale says at home; that they'll think to themselves, "I've seen worse"; that I won't be "sick enough" weight-wise by their standards. I know what my scale says I weigh, but then I worry that for whatever reason it's inaccurate (even though I just bought a new one). ...And yes, I go through these fears every week when I see my dietician. But both she and my therapist have been urging me to see a doctor, and I don't want to go back to the student health center (the ED doctor there SUCKS and I'm afraid that after all the bullshit I put her through last summer, she might force me out of school as a medical liability). So I have the number of a doctor my dietitian recommended, and now it's just a matter of picking up the phone, making an appointment, and following through with it. I did make an appointment with him last semester but cancelled the day before because I panicked and decided I was too fat to be taken seriously.

I did hit one of my weight benchmarks, along with a body image benchmark, this week, so ED-wise I'm happy about that. Body image has actually been super the past few days. At least I've got that going for me -- and that's no small matter. It's the other physical shit that's got me down. For the most part, my reasonable side has given up on trying to talk myself into eating more, even when I'm really feeling ill. Instead, I've sort of resigned myself to the fact that there's no way my eating disorder is going to budge in its rules -- so when I'm feeling dizzy and weak I no longer think, "come on, eat more," but instead think, "come on, get out in public so that you can pass out and someone will call an ambulance and maybe, just maybe, you can get a couple hours of IV fluids and stabilization for whatever else you need."

Not even my rational side wants to eat. It wants to get caught. And no, not for attention -- really. For time.

I just want to buy myself some time.

I was talking to my parents yesterday afternoon and they were proudly telling me about how they started doing some volunteer work with NEDA (the National Eating Disorders Association). Hearing that from them was like a knife in the gut. They had participated in a lobbying day and were getting involved in whatever that upcoming ED Awareness Week is about, and they just sounded so happy and fulfilled and shit. And I was like, "that's great; I'm really glad that makes you feel good," and they were like, "are you uncomfortable with this at all?" and of course I said no, because really, I'm not; it just makes me feel so damned guilty.

I imagined them going up to legislators and handing out pamphlets and dutifully spouting their cause, and I wondered what, if anything, they said about me. "Our daughter has anorexia"? "Our daughter had anorexia"? "Our daughter is recovering from anorexia"?

I wonder what the fuck they think is going on with me.

My mom asked how I was doing "with [my] eating," in the midst of all my anxiety shit, and I said something like, "well, I'm not consciously trying to cut back" -- lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie -- and she was so genuinely, heart-wrenchingly supportive that I had to excuse myself from the conversation as quickly as possible and go cry. You have no fucking CLUE how deep in shit I am. I'm not angry with them about it. I just feel so alienated and so, so alone. And I can only imagine how it would kill them, how it would destroy them if they knew. Oh, they'd pull me out of school, no question. It would tear the family apart. Again. And I'd be so pissed there's no way I'd even give recovery a shot.

My fault. Shit's such a mess.

/Endrant.

Braver Than You Believe. Stronger Than You Seem. Smarter Than You Think.

Dear Lorazepam, I love you. I love how whenever I am crying or rocking myself back and forth or hyperventilating from fear and relentless panic, I can pop one of you and within 30 minutes you will have soothed me. I will feel reasonable. I will feel capable. I will feel confident and competent. I will know that I am okay and I have the power to keep myself okay. I love how if I take you at night I will wake up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready; grateful that the sun is shining and at ease with the world. I love how I don't feel drugged or dazed or unmotivated. Just... pleasant. And, actually, quite motivated. Quite "ready."

Dear Lorazepam, I have to be careful and only take you a couple times a week because this sounds like the shit that addiction is made of.

So. There we are.

Anyway, for the most part I've been doing really great with managing my anxiety without meds. I think before tonight I went almost a week without the benzos, which is great for me, especially in the throes of all this. I'm actually rather shocked with how well I've been doing -- so many units this semester, so much pain with the sophomore situation, so much acid reflux drama, so many obligations related to the ridiculously difficult double major class I'm taking, so few calories, so much stress with having to start thinking about new apartments, so many uncomfortable emotions about being cast in Motherfucking Courage and Her Sophomores (actual title Mother Courage and Her Children -- I have always loathed Brecht, really). But through it all, I haven't fallen apart. Yet. And yes, my life is unmanageable, BUT I'm managing the unmanageability quite well.

Today my therapist proved that, as lovely and patient as she is with treating my eating disorder, she has very limited experience with generalized anxiety (GAD) and panic disorder (PD). I was talking about being afraid of going crazy, of snapping and doing something completely irrational, of having schizophrenic hallucinations, etc., and she didn't seem to understand that these fears had absolutely no basis in reality. She kept asking me if any of these things had ever happened, or if I'd ever had violent urges or anything, and seemed really confused when I told her I hadn't. My fears have no basis in reality; that's what makes them part of a disorder. She seemed to think that there might be some underlying psychosis; even though she'd never seen evidence of it in me (as she explained), the fact that I worried about it might mean something.

Yeah. It might mean that I have an anxiety disorder.

So I got through the session, slammed my car door, and started doing the panic attack shaky sobbing thing -- if you're familiar with that. You know, where you're crying and unable to control your breathing and the volume of your voice and the sounds you're making all at the same time so you're just kind of making this high-pitched "ah ah ah ah ahooohoohoo ah ah ahoooOOOooo ah ah..." noise.

And you know what? It was incredibly cathartic.

I cried because I was psychotic. I cried because my therapist thought I was insane. I cried because while I was crying I was going to have a heart attack. I cried because everyone hated me. I cried because I was a serial killer in the making. I cried because I was going to kill myself. I cried because I was never going to make it through the semester. I cried because I was never going to stop crying and I would get in a car accident while sobbing on the freeway. I cried because I would never live a normal life. I cried and cried and cried and then I stopped crying.

Because I was enough.

Because it was okay to cry, and I could cry more if I needed, but right now I should slowly pull out of my parking space and make my way home.

Because I had a disorder, and right now, in that moment, it didn't matter that my therapist didn't understand it. I understood it.

I understood it was normal for people with GAD and PD to worry about being abnormal. Crazy. Psychotic. Insane. Violent. Manic-depressive.

And I understood that the incidence of any of these traits in GAD/PD sufferers was next to zero.

And I understood the fact that because in 30 minutes (sans medication at this point), I could bring myself from uncontrollable, inconsolable, infantile sobs to doing a little happy dance behind the steering wheel because my two favourite radio stations just played "Hold It Against Me" back-to-back, I was competent, capable, stable (outside the eating disorder), and strong.

Dear Rational AJ, thank you for once again proving that you do exist and are still very much alive and kicking under all that bullshit called anorexia.

The lorazepam entered the picture back at home, just as a precautionary thing because I still wasn't feeling completely back to par and I knew my amygdala was still reeling, on the lookout for anything that might be a sign of danger.

And yes, with the lorazepam, I get a taste of what "normal" feels like. I get a taste of how ordinary people must go about their moments -- not without stress, but without the constant whatiflookoutyou'regonnawhat'sthat undercurrent of anxiety, forever simmering and threatening to boil itself into panic at an instant's notice.

When I don't have an eating disorder, that's what things will be like, only even more awesome. I won't need the lorazepam.

I'll just be.

Tense

Tonight I bumped up my new, lower calorie level up by 150 (back to last week's level) because I started shaking, got really dizzy and felt like I was going to faint. I probably would have just been okay with drinking a bit of water, but no, in my moment of panic I had to opt for calories (along with the water, which alone would likely have sufficed). Now I feel weak -- physically but more so in terms of my eating disorder. I just didn't want to have something happen with no one around. Nothing would have happened; worst case scenario I would have fainted and woken up in like 25 seconds. Heart rate was and is normal. It was probably simple dehydration or even just a panic attack. Damn it, now I'm mad at myself. Not only did I eat more than I wanted, I ate too late at night (per the eating disorder's rules).

And now I'm going to have a panic attack anyway because my amygdala is on red alert from physical stress as well as the psychological stress caused by the extra 150.

Bah.

It's Like I'm Not Me

I don't want to be premature, but my reflux seems to have been getting a lot better these past couple of days. It still flares up, but it's not constant anymore, and when it does get bad, it's not ten million symptoms at once, and it doesn't get to the severity that it was just a few days ago. I'm still being cautious, but I'm not terrified of absolutely everything causing heartburn/nausea.

But... I've also been eating less. I cut my calories again to below the "congratulations-your-organs-aren't-cannibalizing-themselves-yet" threshold. Yes, bad AJ, I know, but my tummy feels better, and my weight is dropping faster, and I feel better about myself. It was a really difficult week body-image wise and I'm just starting to turn it around, and honestly I'm beginning to care less and less about my health. My social life. My everything that doesn't directly involve my weight, body, or anorexia.

Still doing well in school. That's all that really matters in my life at this stage -- high grades and low weights. I just keep getting nervous about inexplicably gaining despite my efforts, or plateauing, or retaining water like a motherfucker.

I keep telling myself that I'm only going to keep my calories this low until I lose three pounds (that will get me to one of my "benchmark" numbers), but... that's probably a lie.

I live in a world of numbers and measure time in calories and pounds.

Where has my life gone? Does it even exist anymore? Is there anything good waiting for me at all?

Caffeine Withdrawal

My acid reflux (due to hiatal hernia) has been acting up so badly these past 10 days or so that I have made the difficult decision to cut out caffeinated soda and coffee, at least until I finish doing my 14-day Prevacid treatment which DOES NOT SEEM TO BE WORKING.

I fucking hate reflux. I wouldn't mind it so much if it was just localized chest heartburn, your run-of-the-mill flare-up after eating something spicy, but it isn't. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I eat causes at least some pain, the question is just how much and what kind. Sometimes it's nausea, sometimes it's bloating and pressure, and sometimes it is heartburn -- but it won't stay in my chest. The tight, burning sensation runs the gamut from where my esophagus meets my stomach all the way up through my throat into my jaw, and when it's really bad it even changes my voice because there's so much acid stuck in there. And like I said, it's "really bad" at least once or twice a day and it's almost never just one symptom. It's some deathly combination of bloating/heartburn/nausea and I feel fat and disgusting all over and nothing helps.

This has been going on for almost a year, but not to this extreme. I found out I had the hernia about 10 or 11 months ago, and it was about as bad then as it is now, but once I started popping Prevacid (and, yes, restricting a lot), it eased up. Now I'm halfway through another round of Prevacid, and I'm restricting, and this fucking acid will not stop ruining my life.

My gastroenterologist is 3000 miles away. If the reflux stays bad I'll see him when I visit my parents for spring break (in 7 weeks), and if it gets worse or doesn't at least improve a bit I may have to either fly out for a long weekend or see someone here. There does exist a surgery to remove hiatal hernias, but it's almost never necessary and I'm not sure if the benefits outweigh the risks. I'm not sure what the risks are, really, but I've heard it's painful and you have to be super vigilant so as not to aggravate anything during the recovery period.

But yeah, now I'm fatigued and shaky because I can't have caffeine.

I would also like to note how profoundly unfair I think it is that I have such horrid acid reflux, seeing as I've NEVER PURGED IN MY LIFE and I should have normal anorexic problems like kidney failure or Q-T prolongation. But nooooo. No, instead I'm spitting into an empty water bottle every half hour because there's so much acid running its way up my throat and into my mouth.

The one benefit is that now my stomach is so teeny and so overwhelmed with acid that I don't even WANT to eat, and I start crying from pain if I even begin to broach more than the calories my eating disorder will allow. But really I'm not certain if that is such a benefit because now I can't use hunger or feeling empty as victory markers.

Fuck you, hernia.

I Walk Alone (and hello again!)

Hey, look at that, I didn't blog at all over Christmas.

Whoops.

In short, the break was mostly good. Well, kind of. It was terrifying to eat more, and most of my days were spent trying to figure out how to get in the fewest calories while still sending neither my body nor my family into shock. I discovered a few things about AJ's brain on food, which include:

1) The anxiety I experience as a result of eating more/worsened body image is directed OUTWARD in the form of irritability, rather than my starvation anxiety, which is directed INWARD (e.g., worrying about going insane, having a heart attack or some form of infection/bleeding disorder that hasn't been seen since 1502, etc). I really had to continue to check myself so that I wouldn't lash out at my mom, dad, sister, and brother in law. I really did feel like a drug addict going through withdrawal.

2) Continuing with the 'withdrawing addict' simile, I did realise that, irritability and anxiety aside, I did feel SO MUCH MORE clear-headed when I was eating more. The whole mental/psychological fog was lifted entirely after a couple weeks of refeeding, and I found myself running around the house, bounding up the stairs two steps at a time, laughing out loud, chasing and being chased by my ferrets, engaging in lively conversations, and slowly seeing more and more of myself emerge. It wasn't perfect, but it was the beginning of re-revealing who I am, to myself and the world.

3) My body felt stronger physically. Not strong, but stronger.

4) Good Lord, my face. I'm pretty sure every ounce of water that my body retained got stuck on my cheeks.


^Evidence.

It's a lot better now.

I also came to terms (or maybe just came out of denial) with the fact that my mom binges. It's not awful, and she's not overweight or anything. She does it at night because she (either consciously or otherwise) doesn't eat enough during the day, or if she does, she's always going for "healthier" alternatives. Once I saw her grab an apple after eyeing a bowl of chocolate squares, and the next morning when I came downstairs every last chocolate square had disappeared. She can't really control it, either. One time I bought some fat-free yogurt at the store and specifically asked that she not eat it, and she promised that she wouldn't... and it was all gone the next day. DUDE WHEN YOUR ANOREXIC DAUGHTER TELLS YOU SHE WANTS TO EAT SOMETHING, DON'T EAT IT. I can kind of pretend it doesn't happen if I'm not awake while she's bingeing, but usually I was. Usually my dad and I would be watching a movie around 11PM when she'd come down, having gone to bed maybe an hour or two earlier, and start just fucking devouring everything in sight. Boxes of cookies, bags of pretzels dipped in cottage cheese, more boxes of cookies dunked in milk, milk, more milk, and packages of Christmas candy. Plus any leftovers she could find in the refrigerator -- Chinese food, remnants of the spaghetti I'd forced down with a smile on my face for lunch, and lots of cheese.

That was when I really couldn't handle it.

I had to leave the room, take a lorazepam, or both. The eating disorder voice just kept saying, that's what you'll become. That's going to be YOU. That's in your blood, see; you're going to end up just like her if you start trying to recover. That's your future. That. Will. Be. YOU.

And then I'd just curl up into a ball and rock myself back and forth until my ferrets started looking at me weird. And then I'd snap at them not to judge me.

I sort of indirectly addressed it with her once -- we were having coffee in the morning and I made a joke about how much she eats at night (nothing mean -- just something like "oh, I don't want to buy any of that because it'll all be gone tomorrow anyway," with a laugh). Then the woman goes and says, "you know, I think I'm addicted to sugar."

*facepalm.* HOW many times has my mom had Intuitive Eating hammered into her head, both by myself and countless clinicians? I even fucking asked her to read it during my last stay at CFC. My dad did -- even though he'd read it before -- because he's awesome. My mom "hasn't gotten around to it." She's had more important things to do, like wait for her husband or daughters to bring her coffee in the morning when she's feeling sluggish because she just put away half a pumpkin pie eight hours ago. What do I find in her bedside drawer instead of "Intuitive Eating?" The "You: On a Diet" manual.

So I'm like, no, mom; it's impossible to be addicted to something your body needs, you don't eat enough during the day, yadda yadda yadda hunger/fullness cues, I never see you eat breakfast, and to her credit, the next couple of days she would have a big bowl of cereal and a banana in the morning, seemed to honour her cravings more throughout the day, and ergo ate considerably less or even not at all after 9PM. But a couple nights before I was scheduled to leave, she was back to her old shenanigans, and I was back to lorazepam and the fetal position.

Oh, and one day she also told me that the reason she didn't use any of the Christmas card photos we took over the summer was because she didn't like the way her "big stomach" looked in the pictures. Really, mom? It's difficult for me to hear my mother bad-mouthing her body, if only for the selfish reason that then I start to wonder if I'm built like her, and so if she has a big stomach, what sort of stomach can I look forward to in 40 years?

At least my sister's intuitive. She and, for the most part, my dad are pretty legit with that.

Also, my sister was super great this visit. We've never really had problems, but a lot of times when she comes to visit with her husband, their stay mostly involves the two of them taking off and visiting local high school/college friends the whole time. They still did that, but this time, both Em and P. invited me to come along, which was really nice, and I felt like they were seeing me more and more as a peer and not Em's narcissistic little sister. (I know their old friends, too, so it wasn't awkward.)

*

But now I'm back -- been back for a week -- and my therapist says she can tell that I lost weight even while I was visiting my family and eating more, which I guess is good.

Thanks, anorexic AJ, for peppering that one in.

This week has been maddeningly hectic. Yay double major and what the fuck do I think I'm doing? I'm trying to get more sleep, and, oddly enough, I've been pretty successful. I know there's no way I'm going to survive this semester if I don't conserve as much energy and regenerate my cells with sleep as much as I possibly can. Double majoring with a 400-level class + regular acting classes that require memorization and emotional presence/clarity + being in a show (which is looking, sadly enough, more and devastatingly more like Mother Courage and Her Sophomores) + anorexia 2 THA MAX!!! = potential burnout if I'm not very, very careful. Or even if I am very, very careful. We'll just have to wait and see.

Today I was so disgusted with my body (for no discernable reason) that I took a long walk for the sole purpose of burning calories. I'm not an overexerciser, and I really don't hope I pick that up this year. Fortunately the weather was nice, so I could semi lie to myself and use that as an excuse. But I knew what was up. I'm slick.

Also, I have an insanely hot TA that leads my theatre history discussion. He's German but grew up in France while attending a German/French school, so he has the perfect combination of both accents. My goal is to bang him, but I'm not sure how strong his sense of academic integrity is. Something tells me it's very strong. Strong like his biceps. Damn it.

Oh, and I did end up getting my period back this month (like the last week of visiting my family and eating x calories of not grapes, blueberries, celery, and edamame) so I'm not preggers.