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."