a bitter aftertaste

sugarfree @ 2012-10-03T20:24:00

2012-10-03T23:29:43Z

http://internal-acceptance-movement.tumblr.com/post/26458379054

I'm leaving this link here so I don't lose it.

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a line in the sand (hold back the tide)

2012-10-03T06:18:47Z

Note: This is a warning. This was not easy to write, and I doubt it's easy to read. If you have an eating disorder, or are triggered by such discussions, please use discretion and caution. I explain my thought processes. They are not pleasant and I recognise them to be damaging.

The internet is a scary thing.

Give Google a list of symptoms. Ask a question. There's no perspective amongst the flat list of webpages and questionnaires. Answer yes to any two questions and have you experienced the following. Forget that mountainous molehill, symptoms prolonged abuse is synonymous with the Himalayas.

Houston, we have a problem. I felt ill.

The drop-down menu should feel reassuring. If the question has been asked, then maybe it's been answered. Maybe someone can help. Maybe I'm not alone. I must report that the white shining glow of a monitor offers little comfort to the one who is panicking. It does, however, provide a rather excellent background for an endless scroll of terrifying facts: walls of text and testimonials from websites which sport the word medical in their domain names. All so horribly legitimate and horribly real, and to my own rising horror, so utterly applicable to me.

Because the scariest thing about the internet is the lack of reference. It's a hypochondriac’s nightmare: every possible symptom becomes a death sentence, every personal recount becomes your own inescapable future of sickness and despair. A blueprint of a ruined life. The long term effects of bulimia. The damage in my throat from the stomach acid and bile only fueled my rising panic. I felt like I couldn't breathe. Esophagus cancer. Intestinal damage. Long term effects. Permanent.

I'd never be able to sing again.

I had bulimia.

Oh god, what had I done to myself?

It's never bothered me to throw up food. I mean, I severely dislike vomiting after drinking or when I'm sick, but food? It's never been hard. I had thrown up food before, in high school, and in university. But only one or two times, never consistently, never sustained. It had always been a conscious decision. Since puberty, I'd had problems with my weight, but I didn't have an eating disorder. Throwing up was always a choice. My choice, and one I didn't like doing, and so it was under my control. The previous summer I had been throwing up rather steadily, but I'd stopped well before any effects had been felt. It was just a stop-gap measure. The internet scared me off. I usually lost weight over the summer anyway. But last summer I didn't. Last summer, I gained weight. I worked a terrible job with shitty hours. Last summer I ate all the time. I couldn't feel full. Last summer I purged it all until I could not keep food down. Until I couldn't sing and my throat hurt all the time. Until I felt dizzy and weak all day, until I was severely constipated despite taking laxatives frequently. My blood sugars had been out of whack for weeks. I had been throwing up food at almost every meal from July to October, multiple times a day. It was no longer a choice. It was a compulsion. Eat, purge, eat, purge, eat purge.

Oh god, oh god.

I no longer had control. I have bulimia. I'm bulimic. And I truly was not okay.

I promised myself that I wouldn't purge again. I really wish I could say that I've kept that promise, but I can't. I do still purge. Not often. And I usually remember all the reasons, all of the panic that I felt last fall when I promised myself I would beat this. But we can only do so much ourselves, alone, in secret with nothing to reveal our own blind spots, our self-delusions. I'm writing this is not because I know I still have a problem with the purging, but because I have developed ways of thinking about food that are unhealthy.

This should not surprise me. But it did. I can pinpoint the moment too, when I realised that I have an eating disorder. Not just bulimic tendencies. An eating disorder. Such twisted and poisonous thoughts.

Bear with me a while, I'll give you some context.

These last two weeks, I've been in England. My father is critically ill, so my brother and I flew to London to see him. Travel is always stressful to a diet, and travel under these circumstances was not pleasant. Since I stopped my purging, I've restricted the food I allow myself to buy in order to remove the worst temptations - bread, raisins, cheese, pop, alcohol, crackers, potatoes, mayonnaise, pasta, cream, butter, oil, chips, etc... I start eating something, and then I just...keep eating it. Regardless of how full I feel, I just feel sick, but ravenous. Like a bottomless hole is trying to be filled.

It's easier to throw up when feeling overly full. It's easier to get rid of something that barely fits in. It's easier to think, well, I've screwed up, just eat everything and get it over with. I've always been an all-or-nothing kind of girl.

So vegetables. Lots of fruit. Oatmeal. Between the restrictions and the physical activity (the lack of buses meant at least an hour of activity just to get to work, plus tri-weekly visits to the gym) I had lost 20-ish pounds since March. I had developed a rather alarming coffee habit, but routine was key. Routine, activity, not allowing myself access to certain foods, and above all, a constant appraisal of my hunger levels. Questions such as 'Do I really need this?' 'Am I full?' 'Am I hungry?' 'Can I go longer without eating?' filled my daily monologue.

And most frequently, 'Are other people eating the same amount? How much is the right amount? Am I allowed to eat?'

So London is full of coffee shops. Little deli's, sandwich bars, food to-go. The hospital and the house were an hour apart by train and bus, and we spent hours in the waiting room, sitting, watching the clock. Waiting to be allowed back in, only to sit again and watch the monitors, watch for any sign of life, of recovery, of Dad. Food was the last thing we should have been worrying about, and home cooked food with carefully allocated fats and portion sizes shouldn't have even been on the radar, not at first. Not when we didn't know if he was ever going to wake up, if his brain even had activity, if he could breathe on his own. Nothing more than enough energy and decent nutrition should have even mattered, and yet, even as I held my Dad's hand, even as I worried and prayed and hoped, I counted my calories. And I panicked.

Have you seen the offerings in London's on-the-go takeaway shops? It's all endless cups of coffee, super sweet doughnuts and sweets and candy and three types of croissant and sandwiches made from cheese and mayonnaise and oh god, I was eating like, twice as much as my mother, and my brother wasn't eating at all! How can you go all day without eating in the middle? I felt like shouting, how do you do it? I could feel my muscle tone diminishing. I could feel the fat sticking to my bones, spilling over my jeans. I only brought the one pair, and they were tight enough already. I needed to exercise it off. I needed to not eat any bad foods. I needed make up for this vending machine chocolate bar, that curry, those chips, I’d already had my allowed treat. I could feel the urge to throw it all back up, just there, ever ready. So easy.

Maybe I wasn't really all that better.

My mother is an interesting person to watch eat. She loves sweet things, and buttery things. Healthy things too, please don't get me wrong. I've always felt like a giant next to her though, eating twice as much. I’ve always been so much bigger. And she eats small amounts at a very high rate - a constant snacker, as she's said herself. My eating habits are very different. But I tried to match her eating one day, because my portion sizes were all wrong and I shouldn’t have been that hungry. I bought sushi and stopping when she finished her half sandwich. I felt hungry by the time we'd returned to the hospital. My brother hadn't eaten anything at all.

What's wrong with me? What's wrong with my will-power? This is why I'm fat. I’m fatter than everyone here.

I ended up getting a sandwich at the hospital and devouring it. I felt guilty the whole time.

A few days later, I had spent most of the day walking about London by myself. Dad seemed to be improving and I didn't want to go to the hospital. I went to Westminster Abbey instead for their Evening Song. Before I went, I bought a chocolate caramel shortcake tart. It must have had 800 calories and I had told myself to only eat half and to throw the rest away. I didn't. I ate the whole thing. It was delicious. I tried to purge, but I couldn't, so I resigned myself to not eating supper. I went to Westminster, a fair walk, and felt my blood sugar drop and my worry rise. After the service, a text message. Internal bleeding. Bad. Very bad. And a blood sugar of 3.4. I had to eat. I had to eat, and get to the hospital as soon as possible. More food. More calories. More mental energy going where it shouldn't have.

One greasy samosa and an apple (and more coffee, the wonderful appetite-suppressant it is) later, I was at the hospital, and so commenced the endless waiting. Later, after Mom arranged a room in the hospital residence for the night and my brother and I went home, we had some food. It was midnight, or thereabouts, and he hadn't eaten since breakfast. I was joking about the tart I had eaten in a please please, absolve me of my sins kind of way and I said too bad I ate that, now I can't have any supper. I've gone over my allotted calorie intake for the day.

He looked at me like I had grown another head. Food doesn't work that way, he said. You don't get allocations. You eat when you're hungry, you eat when you need food, regardless of any previous intake. If you've eaten too much 'bad' food one day, then you just try to make better choices the next. You don't punish yourself.

I stared at him, somewhat flabbergasted. He returned to his (disgusting) dinner of marmite on toast, unaware of the wrench he'd thrown into my thought processes. I need to lose weight! I don't know when I'm full! But you don't understand, I have an eating disorder.

And there it was, like it had been written in block letters. I have an eating disorder. I have damaging views on food. Even if I'm not purging, I'm not healthy. I'm not rational about my body, or my requirements. Healthy people don't do this.

Well then. Shit.

So here it is, my line in the sand. I'm trying to say no further, but it feels like holding back a rising tide. I thought I had come so far. I thought the worst was behind. It's been almost a year since I googled those terrifying facts. It was hard. Overwhelmingly hard, to fight the urge to throw up, to keep it down. I swallowed a lot. I drank water like someone dying of thirst. I gained a lot of weight very quickly and fought every waking moment to lose it again. But I didn't change my thought patterns. If anything, they became even further entrenched. This whole year I’ve been scoring the same lines over and over again into my self-image. A year. A whole year. The panic tastes of bile.

I still haven't tried to sing. It feels full of scars.

I have an eating disorder. I do not have a good body image. I do not know if I can handle this alone.

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sugarfree @ 2012-01-29T22:49:00

2012-01-30T02:58:50Z

Shit fuck damn shit fuck. Dammit.

I knew this was going to happen. And honestly, I'm surprised it's taken this long. I have to move out.

Shit shit shit shit.

I 'm just no a good enough roommate. And I'm back to feeling like I'm on eggshells. I don't mean to be lazy, I really don't. This week has been a shit week. I've been sick and cranky and eating badly. She asked me to mop the floors and I didn't. I hate mopping for the sheer reason that I'm allergic to the cleaner.

But I should have done it anyway. I haven't taken out the garbage in ages. It's not trying to leave it for here. It's just sheer laziness. There is no ulterior motive.

I ....I don't know what to do. My drugs aren't covered, I hate my job, I want to move away but I have no money, I don't speak french, I don't have a job lined up. I'm fat and I feel ugly and I feel just useless. Completely useless.

It's days like this I don't feel like I deserve to be alive. I've wasted all my friendships and opportunities. It just feels too hard.

And it was such a good day, right until I got home. I hate today.

I should live alone. I'd be poor and miserable and well, poor. That stands to be said again. But I have I ruined things with my roommate, like I did before? I fucking hate this. I am no better than this, this is my normal state. And it's not....acceptable. I don't know. I'm tired. I feel uncomfortable and guilty all the time, when I don't do things on time or I don't do them to specifications.

I don't know what to do.

I just fucking hate this. I'm sick of being this way. I thought I was changing and getting better and I'm just not. And my roommate is neurotic about cleaning. It was a bad idea.

Fuck fuck fuck.

I don't know what's wrong with me. Clearly I'm the same as I ever was, and fuck that's depressing.

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This is my happy post

2012-01-05T18:55:19Z

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sugarfree @ 2011-04-10T22:03:00

2011-04-11T01:04:52Z

At the same time, you're not what I need. I'm not what you need, so I guess that makes sense.

You give what I ask for so easily. But I'm detrimental to myself. I don't know. Something. Maybe.

There are so many twists and turns here, how can I see what I'm supposed to do?

Bah.

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sugarfree @ 2011-04-10T21:20:00

2011-04-11T00:23:14Z

If the solution is to step up, to improve oneself, to be better...

That's not my fucking instinct. My reaction is to run away, to cut ties, to berate myself and act like a guilty martyr.

There's a reason I like stories filled with unforgivable guilt. Self-loathing, self-exile, self-punishment.

If I could, if I was strong enough - and how often have I said this to myself? The last 10 years? The last 15? - I would cut all ties.

I wish I could be better, for you. But... I feel like I'm only going to get worse. Fuck.

I should stop drinking beer.

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sugarfree @ 2011-04-10T20:52:00

2011-04-11T00:06:46Z

It's not hard to see that I don't know anything at all.

I can see why the rifts started? Only four years too late.

I don't know what to say. Or to do. On the one hand, I'm human, and perfectly capable of making really stupid and thoughtless mistakes because, hello, human. On the other hand...I think I'm a particularly self centered human? Un-empathetic? Maybe? I don't know.

I don't really understand anything at all. Yet talk like I do. I talk to work things out.

There are friendships I miss. I miss Evan. That friendship ended years ago, like a thousand branches slowly snapping. I like Evan. And I miss talking to him. But I can't shake the feeling that he's never quite forgiven me. For many things, I guess. I don't know.

I wish I could disappear completely. I ask myself what makes my life so hard and there really isn't anything. I doubt I'd ever actually do harm to myself, unless everyone in my family and closest friends were dead, but how likely is that to happen? Despite the various media telling us otherwise, we really aren't due for an apocalypse. So, really, I'm mostly healthy, well-off, got a good family, cis-gendered, white, middle-class, educated. Privilege coming out of my ears. And while I think I can identify as queer and I fully support queer causes and rights, I just... I always feel like I'm lying. I am positive that I'm attracted to both men and women, but I really think the whole point is moot so does that make me a liar? Does that mean my opinion doesn't matter if there is no physical evidence of it? I can get by with ...without making any waves? Maybe. I don't know.

So I don't feel like dying. But I've never really stopped wishing I had never been born. Sometimes I think that I don't do things, like become isolated and uninvolved because that's the closest I can come to not living. Living sort of scares me. (What reason do I have to be scared? What right do I have?)

I think I only hurt people in the long run. I'm so tired to being me.

It's hard to maintain friendships when you don't feel you deserve to have friends. Especially when you feel you're ...toxic. In a way. I don't know.

I worry about you. I think sometimes I'm the only thing stopping you from killing yourself. You've got so much vibrancy. I wish there could be someone else.

I wish I could just fade away.

I'm sorry. I no longer trust myself. That's why unless I purposefully stop myself that I have these major freakouts when my defences are down. Because I'm hurting you. I am so sorry.

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sugarfree @ 2011-04-08T17:11:00

2011-04-08T20:17:53Z

Title: Untitled (Ramble On)
Fandom: Supernatural
Wordcount: 210-ish
Rating: G; gen
Characters: Sam, Dean, Impala
Summary: The Winchesters, the Road, how they go ever on and on.
Notes: I stupidly like this. I was trying for both specifics and a general endless quality. It's been in my folder for awhile.

( Read more... )

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sugarfree @ 2010-10-19T23:36:00

2010-10-20T02:37:26Z

Whoever first made a kinkmeme is a god among mortals.

Holy shit, mirror!AOS, where have you BEEN all my life?

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sugarfree @ 2010-10-14T22:03:00

2010-10-15T01:05:09Z

Listless. Definitely.

I'm just so damned bored. And I can't help feeling that it's only going to be downhill from here.

(urgh)

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