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."

Sonnets

Also --

For my acting class, we have to pick a Shakespearean sonnet that we really dig, and memorize/perform it. There are so many that remind me of my eating disorder (how fucked up is that?) that I'm having a hard time choosing. Here are a few of my favourites:

SONNET 57.

Being your slave what should I do but tend

Upon the hours, and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend;

Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world without end hour,

Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,

When you have bid your servant once adieu;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought

Save, where you are, how happy you make those.

So true a fool is love, that in your will,

Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

(The middle bit -- the part about how the subject is probably sleeping around -- I equate not to my eating disorder cheating on me but about the generally awful things it does.)

SONNET 61.

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open

My heavy eyelids to the weary night? (Yay anorexic insomnia...)

Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,

While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee

So far from home into my deeds to pry,

To find out shames and idle hours in me,

The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?

O, no! Thy love, though much, is not so great:

It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:

Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,

To play the watchman ever for thy sake:

For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,

From me far off, with others all too near.

(I'm a huge fan of the line "it is my love that keeps mine eye awake," because while it's easy to pass all my suffering off on my ED being so cruel... I'm the one who keeps going back to it. It's my decision to subscribe to its torment. And that's something I could fail to realize if I were, you know, stupid.)

SONNET 109 (this one would be how I feel every time I begin a relapse... you know, the "I hate recovery" sonnet).

Alas! 'Tis true, I have gone here and there, (renounced anorexia and sworn myself to recovery)

And made my self a motley to the view,

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new;

Most true it is, that I have looked on truth

Askance and strangely; but, by all above,

These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays proved thee my best of love.

Now all is done, have what shall have no end:

Mine appetite I never more will grind

On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confined.

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

Even to thy pure and most loving breast.

The lines "these blenches... best of love" represent how every time I come out of recovery, I'm even more committed to my eating disorder. It's never quite the other way around, at least not for very long.

SONNET 141.

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,

For they in thee a thousand errors note;

But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.

Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;

Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,

Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone:

But my five wits nor my five senses can

Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,

Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,

Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:

Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

SONNET 147. (This is probably too close to home for me to actually use with successful discretion)

My love is as a fever longing still,

For that which longer nurseth the disease;

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

The uncertain sickly appetite to please.

My reason, the physician to my love,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve

Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,

At random from the truth vainly expressed;

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

So then I decided to challenge myself to write a 5-minute sonnet to my eating disorder, cause I was all inspired and shit, in the flowery and verbose style of Shakespeare, and this is what I'd come up with when my time was up. Not nearly Shakespeare caliber, but I was semi-pleased, given my sleep- and food-deprived state:

O! That I were not strong but had the strength

To ever more your slave and subject be,

And not so fear time's ever waning length

The longer you dominion hold o'er me;

That your effect should hasten full to take,

That worldly eyes could my efforts behold,

To worldly pleasures, physic's needs forsake

And my life to let your dark arms enfold;

Then would my soul know worth, my mind some peace

As evermore do you forswear will come

In tandem with indulgence's decrease,

That in its mercy doth rend me so numb

Until thou, Tyrant, hath rent me bereft

Of mind and life; that I no I hath left.

I call it, "AJ can't write in iambic pentameter for shit." But it makes me smile.

Only Happy When It Rains

My internet sucks so bad, you don't even know. It's gotten a bit better -- this past week it was literally nonexistent at my apartment -- but now the connection is so insanely spotty. I just watched "The Office" on hulu and had to reload the video at least 8 times.

Worth it. ...Though now I have "Sweeney Todd" stuck in my head.

So... this week was fair enough, I guess. I did a lot of fun stuff; for instance, I got to meet one of my all-time favourite politicians while I was volunteering at a stump spot on Sunday. Rudy Giuliani. I was so excited, it's one of the few times in my life I've been legitimately starstruck -- more acutely than when I've met/talked with Jon Voight or Joel McHale (love those guys too, though. So cool). I've also gotten really friendly with one of the girls who volunteers with me. She's currently taken as a lover this one guy I used to consistently bang (and still dig but mostly just on a friendly basis), and there's no animosity between us at all; I've even given her advice on their relationship. Would that all girls were so level-headed. Of course, I had to go and find out she does coke as well. (Never say Republicans don't know how to party.) Clearly, life wants me to go back to drugs. OH FINE.

Yeah, I've resigned myself to the fact that it's going to happen. I don't fucking care anymore. Like, I'm not actively going out of my way to score, but if the opportunity presents itself, or if I'm offered, then yes, I'm using.

I did better than most of the students on my first physiology exam. I still got a B. It was a high B, but a B nonetheless. I'm grateful we have two more exams and a paper to go, because I'd really rather not get a B for the final grade. I can do better than that. As for the rest of school, it's also pretty okay. I'm passing all my acting classes with flying colours while doing practically jack shit, so that should tell you something about just how much I needed to repeat sophomore year. This says very little about my acting ability and much more about what level of the programme would truly serve me. I've opted to semi-feign "coming out of my shell" because it's so much easier than being poked and prodded by professors, having the other students think I have a bad attitude. Granted, I do have a bad attitude, but they don't have to know it. I have this rule where I have to voluntarily speak to a classmate (i.e., without being spoken to first) at least three times a day. It's usually something small, like me making a comment about something they've said in regards to an assignment, or adding a semi-spirited jibe to some playful banter. But it's enough to stave off most of the students' hatred of me, I think.

We had to keep "journals" for movement and voice class. Not "journal" as in, "today I woke up and brushed my teeth and this cute boy from across the hall looked at me," but entries that respond to different exercises and warm-ups and character studies that we're doing for class. I decided to make mine *alllllmost* emotionally honest. This means that I had to make it very snarky, ironic, dry, and cerebral.

"Cerebral" meaning that it has footnotes.

My voice professor loved it. She said it was the best journal ever. From her commentary: "This journal is nothing short of brilliant. Your honesty, irony & rage are palpable in every page. ...You are courageous, move that courage into your feeling life, not just your critical self." There was other shit too. That part made me the happiest though.

Not that I will actually do shit with it. But it's nice to be validated.

Oh, and body image: Worse. Than. Fucking. Ever. I'm about to start my period (got it back last month), and I know this because 1) it's time for me to start my period, 2) I'm getting cramps and elevated panic symptoms, and 3) FUCKING BLOATING. My weight has been dropping oh so slowly this past week, which I intellectually know is due to water retention (if I weren't restricting so vigorously I'd be gaining from it), but which my eating disorder tells me is because I need to eat less, less, less, so much less (that's not really even possible but whatever) if I want to lose X pounds by December.

So that's where we are with that.

I'm living (?) off edamame, grapes, blueberries, and salad vegetables, plus the occasional carrot sticks/celery with mustard. If I really want to treat myself I'll have mushrooms and mustard. FUCK I love mushrooms. I haven't been able to get an accurate calorie estimate for those babies, though, so I'm wary. I wish there were a way to get more fat in my diet without drastically increasing my calories. I haven't been a huge fat restrictor for a while, partially because I know I'm so woefully deficient (nutritionally, NOT physically) in that regard and it causes a whole slew of problems. Slower response time due to decreased nerve myelination, panic/anxiety through the roof, horrible energy crashes, etc.

But it is what it is. At least I've started taking a multivitamin.

Some days I don't even want to be seen in public, my BI is so bad. And I can't convince myself it's just my head.

I will be so pissed off if my period doesn't start in the next couple days. This is horribly unfair.

Open

I might as well have dial-up, given the current speed of my apartment's internet connection.

Apparently they tried to fix it today (everyone in the apartment has been complaining about it), but they'll have to come back tomorrow to get actual shit done. It doesn't bother me too much. It's more of a nuisance than an actual problem; things load eventually and on campus the internet is still as fast as ever. So it's not as though I'm without internet. After my computerless stint over the summer, very little fazes me when it comes to technology. As long as it's functioning and I understand how to operate it, I'm fine with whatever shit it wants to pull. (My GPS, Loretta, is a different story. She always loses satellite reception. I scream at her and have to wave her around above the dashboard until she gets it back. Quite nerve-wracking.)

My therapist wants me to start coming in three times a week. Where the hell am I going to find another expendable 3 "business" hours? At least IOPs allow you the courtesy of existing between the hours of "reasonably after school" and "slightly before bedtime." Not that I'm in a position to be accepted by most IOPs. Not that I'd want to be anyhow. Not that an IOP has ever kept me from doing (or more accurately, not doing) shit.

My lanugo survived the heat wave. I find that fascinating. I literally was running my fingers across my spine, saying, "holy shit, it's 113 degrees, I do not need you." At least it's not so much on my stomach anymore. That just made me feel like some furry woodland creature.

I bought a new scale over the weekend. I just needed a second opinion. My old one spent a few weeks in an overheated car during the summer, and, well, I was just anxious I wasn't getting as accurate a reading anymore. As it turns out, the reading was still accurate, but my dumbass new scale has this annoying habit of fluctuating slightly if I set it in a different spot in my room. A normal person wouldn't be bothered by this, but my heart always skips a beat if I gain or lose 4/10ths of a pound in 30 seconds. So I ended up weighing myself throughout the room, taking the average of those weights, and permanently placing my scale in the spot that gave me a read that was the same as the average.

I have never been diagnosed with OCD.

On another note: it has recently been brought to my attention how "in the closet" I am with my eating disorder. By this, I mean that while tons of my rehab buddies dabble in ED Awareness Week and Tri-Delt "Fat Talk Free Week" and "Love Your Body" campaigns and do presentations on eating disorder activism and body image, and openly join pro-recovery groups on facebook, I markedly refrain from doing any of these things. Since starting college, I think I've explicitly told five people (outside of treatment) that I have an eating disorder. Before that, I was slightly more open, but that was only out of necessity. I went to a tiny high school and everyone was fucked up, and people asked questions, and I was more than happy to make anorexia my identity.

Mostly, I don't talk about eating disorders or body image because... I don't know. I stared at that fucking flashing cursor for a solid minute before coming up with those sage words, "I don't know." I don't know why I don't talk about it. I guess I still cling to the illusion that nobody knows, or suspects, that I don't look anorexic, so why would anyone assume I am? Do I look anorexic? I don't know. No. Maybe. People say things. Scales say things. But mirrors, man... they counter everything. And they're so damn convincing.

And I don't want anyone to know because I don't want to let anyone in. That's so personal. It's my little shell. It's my little secret world. I could regale you with stories about my sexploits (patent pending) or being molested or my alcoholic mother before I let you anywhere near my eating disorder. Because the first three things, I can talk about so dispassionately. I can pretend they never elicited an emotional response from me. But an eating disorder? That's proof that you're vulnerable and wounded and human and hurting. That's why, if I do talk about my eating disorder, it's in joke form at best and "pro-ana" at worst. I don't suffer from anorexia; I laugh at it. I like it. Sure, I'm anorexic, but I'm happy. I'm proud. Right. I'm fucking proud of being some pathetic little ball of nerves whose life is dictated by calories and a scale. "Proud?" How can you possibly be proud of something like this? Anything, though, to show people I'm happy. Anything to show them I'm not suffering or struggling. Anything to show them I don't feel.

Finally, I'm ashamed of my disease. I'm ashamed, one, because it says I can't take care of myself and I'm immature and vulnerable; and two, because... fuck. There's my inner insurance company, my inner George Carlin, my inner most-of-society who says: "I don't get it. You're not paralyzed. Pick up the damn fork and put the food in your mouth." It says, "you're selfish. You're vain. This isn't a disease. Cancer is a disease. Anorexia is you being an overprivileged brat who can afford to decide she hates the way she looks and she isn't going to eat." It says, "you have a credit card, a car, and a 24-hour drive-thru two blocks away. All you have to do is start eating and do it consistently and you'll get better, so... start."

And it's this same part of me that knows that's how other people will react if I "come out." They'll either worry too much and try to "help" me, or they'll be disgusted. I wish I were brave enough to help the majority of the population understand anorexia better. The woman or man who can speak about their battle with an eating disorder as though it were a battle with cancer is my hero. Maybe if more people were like them, insurance companies wouldn't deny coverage to patients on death's door. Maybe people would stop thinking anorexia could be cured by smoking pot and getting the munchies, or by telling an underweight person that they're too skinny to be attractive. (Because it's all about being attractive, right?) Maybe people would stop telling bulimics and binge eaters that all it takes is "willpower" to just not eat, just not vomit. Maybe eating disorders would stop being one of the most common, yet most underfunded, psychiatric illnesses. Maybe lives could be saved.

Maybe. But I'm too much of a coward to find out.