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.
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