walking slow circles around "progress".

"Don't tear me down for all I need."

And yet again I have managed another lengthy absence without meaning to. I really wish I had more to say to you all. I wish I had come on here to be like, so I've lost 8kg and now I weigh 50kg and am starting to get a thigh gap and my collarbones and ribs stick out. 

But no. I weigh 56kg. Which given the time off that I've had is frankly pathetic. 2kg is all I've managed to shift. Pathetic! All I have to do is drink water and that goes up. I pee and it comes down. I am so not satisfied. All my fat is still there as it ever was, I never really restrict enough for it to be burned away, I never really work out enough for muscle to show through. So basically my fluctuations in weight are based on how often I go to the loo. And that makes me want to give up. 

In short, I have to be honest and say that I've not been trying. I will have these piercing moments of motivation, usually in the middle of the night, where I say I will get up and go for a run and then do yoga and then go to work and then hit the gym and eat 500cal the whole day. And that never happens. I end up crawling out of bed to work, back into bed and 1500-2000cal goes in in the meantime. 

Moving hospitals, having a boyfriend, it's all lulled me into this sense of complete apathy where both stress me out in different ways and result in me being stressed out completely that I just make myself numb and feel nothing. 

I can't even begin to talk about work. It sucks. And I'm bored so I eat. The end. 

I don't want to begin to talk about the boyfriend. There are so many layers of fucked-upness in my head. But what is clear is that he is a nice, stable, caring guy and I am generating all the problems in our relationship. With my demands that stem from insecurity blah blah blah. And my selfishness which means that I have no idea what he likes but he knows exactly what to do for me. Basically I struck gold and he lucked out. I'm just waiting for him to leave me. 

And I swore I would never be one of those girls, but I am so scared of him leaving me that I've started using sex as...a tool to keep him. He's not dumb. He'll notice that soon. I have nothing to offer him, and that is not a position I ever imagined myself in. 

But the upside to all this is that I'm currently on nights which makes restricting somewhat easier. I can eat a bit of my one meal a day and then not eat again for 24 hours, slowly weaning myself off the constant eating that I have been doing. Maybe one day in the coming month I will fast. Maybe when my boyfriend goes on his 6 week business trip I will fast for 6 weeks. Maybe he won't be my boyfriend when that happens. 

Everything is just total resignation right now. 

so what sort of lingerie did you get?

"That kind of life just ain't for us. We crave a different kind of buzz."

Everything feels messy and a bit out of control at the moment. I will admit right now that I have been completely and utterly off the wagon for the past...I don't even know how long. I honestly, honestly haven't thought about how I am going to lose weight for at least a week. Which I am feeling so very guilty about. All of a sudden I am aware of it, and it is all a bit too late! My fault, totally my own fault. 

So now it has to be all hands on deck...or something to that effect. Be all and end all is that I have to start working out seriously. I've got lots of catching up. At least I have managed to not gain anything. Still sitting extremely flatly on 58kg. I want to be under 55kg by Valentine's day. That's 2 weeks away. I feel like I've somehow got my work cut out for me, even though it seems perfectly plausible. My plan is to have net -300cal per day, with the exception of Chinese New Year which will be like, +5000cal. I'll see what I can do. Will try to eat lots of the salad and less...roast duck. 

So much talk about food dictates a trip to the grocery store. Everything in my house feels so very...high calorie. I despair at the fact that I cannot have a full meal for only 20 calories. That would be ideal. Or you know, have a piece of fried chicken for 20cal. I love fried chicken!!!! I just walked past a KFC today and I almost melted to the ground because of the smell. It was amazing. All I wanted to do was to walk in and eat all the chicken in there. 

But then I grab a few handfuls of belly fat and realise that that is not a feasible thing to do. The best I can hope for at this stage is to lose a little bit in 2 weeks. Long term investment anyone?

Feels weird...the whole boyfriend thing. It feels pretty good, but hey, the motivation changes. Now I have this huge fear that he is going to leave me for being fat. So I have to lose weight to keep him. 

Does that even make sense???

I told him that I got some new lingerie and he is sooo looking forward to taking me away for the weekend. I just don't know how I am going to feel attractive in it. I look so bloody fat. 

my fitness pal

"Well this particular scenario feels like another all time low."

MyFitnessPal. I am so addicted to it. My username is JudithMarie24 if anyone wants to add me.

So my friends, here is my intake for today:

-1 cup of mac and cheese 250cal

-1/3 cup of cooked spinach 14cal

-1 serving of rice vermicelli 90cal

-1 can of sardines in tomato sauce 140cal

-1 cup of cherries 74cal

=568cal total intake

And my output:

-30mins of Tae Bo ....which apparently is -297cal. Seems far too efficient but then again, compared with how tired I feel, it sure feels like -297cal.

=net intake of 271 calories. 

And the magic sentence...if every day were like today, I would weigh 51.8kg in 5 weeks. Oh god, please let every day of the next 5 weeks be like today. 

And even though it is only 1pm, I have decided I will not eat any more today. I may do some more exercise later. If I get hungry, I will drink hot tea and cold water. No alcohol. No juice. No coffee. Maybe a can of coke zero if I'm really desperate. 

The thing about MyFitnessPal is that it totally freaks me out about my intake. I mean, 74cal in a cup of cherries! WTF! I thought I was having a nice low calorie snack! 

I didn't feel like I'd had a big lunch/ morning snack at all but 568 in total says otherwise! I should really trade the mac and cheese for 10 cups of salad or something like that. The spinach was a really nice surprise. Maybe I'll live off spinach for a while. 

My lack of appetite continues! And I'm so glad. I still can't eat. And after a few bites I begin to feel a bit nauseated. The lack of food is already starting to give me a bit of a hunger headache, I'm still waiting for myself to adjust to it. 

Thanks for the feedback about the guy I met online. It is nice to see that my sentiments are shared. The whole thing confuses me. I agree that men can be huge sleezeballs and I just have to be super careful about it all. And in a fit of ego I agree that I deserve better than someone who is still scouting for better options. But...unless he has amazing organisational capacity that I can't even begin to fathom, then he's being really quite sweet to me. 

He's currently on holiday in another part of the country with a big group of his friends. They planned the trip a year ago apparently. They've hired a series of beach houses, brought their boats. Lots of fishing, an outdoor spa, and relaxing and drinking. Sounds good, I'm seething with jealousy. 

He left the day after our last date. But he's been texting me good morning every day, good night every night and he updates me several times a day on what he's up to. He sends me pictures of everything. He says he wishes I were there too. Tells me to rest well on my days off, tells me I must be feeling tired on my long days. 

It makes me feel...really quite...chuffed. Mind you, it's entirely possible that he is very organised and is juggling this same act with goodness knows how many girls. If he is doing that, then I wish I had half of his logistical skill. It would come in really useful in my job! Still, it's nice to pretend that it might just be me. 

I should make a habit of thinking of him at mealtimes, then I might just not eat for the next five weeks and weigh less than 50kg at the end of it all. Less than 50kg seems like an impossibility. It seems like a dream. I haven't been less than 55kg for such a long time. 

The plan is to weigh myself in 2 days time. On New Year's morning. 

I HATE ONLINE DATING. SERIOUSLY WTF.

"And I let it all out to find that I'm not the only person with these things in mind."

HAPPY CHRISTMAS LADIES AND GENTS!!!! Hope you are all having a good holiday season, one way or another. 

So a couple of things have been happening. SERIOUSLY, I HATE ONLINE DATING. I have no idea why I did this! It's killing me!!!!! And really, it just shows how paranoid I am as a person. I am definitely losing my grip on life though, I don't know what to do about it. I just wish I had never done it, then I would be in the midst of this self inflicted mental torture. 

So this is what I'm doing (yes, I know how mental it is. I know it's paranoid. I know it's stalker-ish. I know it is just plain wrong): I'm signing into the online dating site, just to see if the guy I'm seeing is still using his account. And what do you know, he is like, permanently on there! His account is so bloody active, which makes me feel great. 

We've been on 3 dates now. And the last date, it was so nice. We had dinner by the beach, we went for a relaxing walk along the beach, holding hands, or with his arm around me. We stopped and kissed. It was honestly probably one of the nicest dates I've ever been on. 

I admit I was a bit smitten afterwards. But now I know for sure that he's been on there since our date and it makes me want to kick my own head in. I don't ever want to check again, but I also can't stop doing it. It's a real problem! And it's all in my head. 

Part me really wants to just flat out ask him, how many other girls are you seeing. Are you interested in me at all, or are you just courting a big group of us and seeing who comes up trumps? Fuck. 

There is only one good side effect in all of this. I can't eat. At all. 

By my home scales, before I met up with him 2 weeks ago, I weighed in at 62.8kg. Now I'm weighing in at 59kg. So you know, that's reasonable. I'm happy with that! I can feel the difference, but it's not enough for anyone to notice, it's not enough to show in the way clothes fit. It's just not enough. 

But given the way my weight has been going, I'm just glad it's finally going in the right direction. Basically, I'll take what I can get. 

Today I ate...chicken noodle soup, half a bowl of that for lunch. 2 flat whites. 3 bites of salad for dinner. That's it. I don't know how many calories that is...maybe...500-600. Maybe a bit less. Every time I think about him, I want to vomit. I hope this feeling lasts forever. 

fat and wildly confused

"You've got your reputation and your good intent."

I'm halfway through my 2 weeks of WONDERFUL leave. I cannot say how good it is just to not be at the hospital. To be able to sleep late and sleep in. I wish I had some friends on holiday too, but hey, I will take whatever I can get. Been to Melbourne, shopped up a storm. Came back. Went skiing. Fell down lots but the weather was great and I had a lot of fun. 

And at this point I should offer a sincere apology for 1. being so absent of late and 2. being such a good for nothing fatass. And I mean that. F-A-T A-S-S. 

I am too scared to weigh myself because damn, I ate like a pig pig pig pig in Melbourne, and fuck it, my clothes feel fucking tight. I can't believe I'm not willingly starving myself. I must be stress eating. Swear to God this is stress eating. The hot cop is stressing me out.

This whole thing with the cop is fucking with my head so much that I almost want to just chuck in the towel so I don't have to deal with it. The only reason I haven't done that yet is because it is so obviously the coward's way out. Giving up something that could be great just because I'm scared to deal with old demons. 

But they are seriously fucking with my head. Old demons that I never thought I would need to hear again, old demons that I thought I had buried a long, long time ago. 

(I've had this blog going for a while now, and I don't know how many of you have been with me from the very start, so apologies if I am repeating myself here.)

It's no secret that my parents and I have almost never seen eye to eye. But things were a lot worse when I was younger. I started cutting when I was about 13 or 14 years old. That was around the time thing started going wrong with dad. I can't even remember what I did, but he was always mad at me. I was never good enough. No matter how hard I studied, I was always too dumb for him, no matter what I did, I was too fat. 

Every day he would tell me that I had to study more. I needed my brains, I needed to be smart because I needed an asset. He told me that I was so fat and ugly and utterly unattractive that no man could ever want me. He told me that everyday from about the ages of 13 to 18. Wow. Didn't realise until now that it was 5 years! 

At any rate, his point was that because I was so physically repulsive, I had to be smart to get a good job so that I could support myself. Because obviously I would end up alone and hideous. Or, if I became rich enough, some man might eventually want me for my money. On some level, I believe it was a twisted joke and just his unique way of trying to motivate me to study, but it has since become my reality. 

To this day, and probably forever more, I believe that I am so hideously unattractive that no man could ever want me. It is part of me, I have come to accept it, and years ago I made peace with the fact that I will never be in a relationship. That was just a part of life that wasn't meant for me, and that is okay. 

I didn't really think about it again for a long time. But now there is the hot cop. And my brain is hard out short circuiting all of a sudden. He is by no means perfect (but who is), but he is a really, really good guy. Why the fuck does he want to spend time with me? Since we started seeing each other, I have been trying to find the loophole. He wants to be with me because...he has a short, fat, boring Asian girl fetish?...he was desperately in love with his ex and I was an easy rebound?...he is actually evil and will abuse me because I deserve it?...there must be a loophole! 

I can't reconcile that a great guy like him would want me for just me. And so I'm always on guard, and I'm always non-commital because fuck it, even though this is nothing, I will still be upset when it ends. And the more emotionally involved I am, the more unstable I will be afterwards. It's all self preservation. 

Nothing makes sense to me anymore. A fundamental part of my being is being questioned and I'm hating it. 

If no man could ever want me, then what the fuck does he want with me? 

And the answer isn't even sex. If we were having crazy monkey sex every night and he was booty calling me all the time I would be like, okay, I get it. I'm the rebound girl and he just wants sex. And that would be fine. I am absolutely okay with being thought of as nothing but convenience. I would just wait patiently for him to find a girl he likes and then leave me. 

But it isn't that! Why can't it just be that simple! The whole sex thing is making everything worse. I wish he was using me for sex, but he's not. I never tell him when it hurts but I must have the worst poker face in the world because he always seems to know when it does. And he'll stop, cuddle me, tell me that it'll be okay and that with time, it'll get less sore and I'll enjoy it. At this point my terrible poker face will betray the fact that I feel guilty for him stopping. To which his response is always that we'll go slow, he knows I'm not ready to do any more, and that he really doesn't want to hurt me.

After a survey of my girlfriends, I've come to the conclusion that the above reaction, stopping mid-sex to do that is just unheard of. So much so that he's probably an alien. 

He's not even getting sex out of this, so what the hell is he getting out of it! I mean, I don't have the time to properly spend time with him. I live with domineering parents so I can never stay the night at his place, no matter how much he wants me to. I work so much that I'm always tired. I can't even properly fuck him. Why the fuck does he still want to see me? 

Day 9: another brick in the wall

"Threw you the obvious and you flew with it on your back."

To be honest, I had suspected her all along. I can smell Ana's stench from a mile away. I know just what she's like. I wanted to do nothing more than to leap out from behind the curtains around the bed, point my finger at her and shout "I know all of this is Ana, don't you keep telling me it's something else!" 

Nobody else knew what was going on, not until the episodes started to coincide with meals and with certain foods. But I knew. I knew all along. I knew exactly what I wanted to say to her. 

You may think she's gone but she's always with you. You may have gone to an inpatient unit, you may not have restricted for years, you may think you've left that side of you in the distant past but you have not. I know her tricks, I know where she hides, I know when she likes to come out and play. You may be able to fool your mother, you may be able to fool all the other doctors but you cannot fool me. I may be fat, I may be binge eating, but she's in my head every second of every day and I see her in you too. 

So I talked and talked and talked. I talked to her every day, I talked to her in lots of different ways. And she fought me and fought me until one day she just got it. She got it. She saw what Ana was doing, the weird ways that she was coming out, and now she's all better again. But that made me think. Do we ever shake her off? 

Sorry for being so fatalistic/nihilistic today. Sometimes I feel like we are all the same, all just another brick in the wall, the big, big wall that is ED and that is all we will ever be. 

Sometimes I think all my patients that are annoying and demanding and frustrating are just bricks in a wall that I keep running into. That's how I feel about my job sometimes. I have to get up in the morning, every morning and keep running into the same wall. 

Run, hit, bleed and binge. That's the cycle I'm in. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm so stuck. I'm stuck professionally, I'm stuck personally and I'm so stuck with my ever increasing weight. 

I want to die every time I see Mark because he's just so perfect. And now, to add insult to injury, there is a surgeon who makes me all hot and bothered as well. I don't even know what his name is. But I want to just jump on him. Dammit. I need a break from life. A permanent break from life. 

sugar daddy might not be the status quo...but I don't know what is anymore.

"Kept inside our idol race, ghosts of an idol's false embrace. Rest your head now, don't you cry. Don't ever ask the reason why."

I had wondered why people stared, I wondered why people thought it was weird. I have spent much time trying to explain that the professor is not my sugar daddy after discovering, to my horror, what that phrase actually means. It may sound stupid, but I have never really bothered finding out exactly what it meant. To my logic, it should mean an older man who is rather sweet. Makes me feel like I have twisted logic. I was stunned to find out how many people actually held that belief. The problem with trying to eradicate this belief is that I haven't a reasonable substitute to replace it with. 

Rumours can only be replaced with other rumours. And if I'm not fucking the professor to get ahead in my career then what the hell am I doing? I have no idea what I'm doing. 

Went to that bbq last week, and it confused the hell out of me. I thought he was inviting me to introduce me to important people, but that wasn't it at all. The only way that I can explain is that I felt like I was their child, forced to be presentable while they entertained their friends. I enjoyed myself, felt incredibly poorly read and juvenile but also felt young for the first time in years. Mostly because I was the youngest one there by at least 15 years.

I also realised that I eat incredibly slowly. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just the way I tend to cut things up. I don't know if cutting things up is part of this ED, or if it is more part of my OCD, but I tend to cut things into small squares before eating them and this isn't always easy to do. It can be really quite embarrassing when everyone else is finished and I'm concentrating hard on cutting things into little squares of food. 

Nice to learn something about myself I guess. 

He still monitors what I eat. Which I find incredibly odd considering how fat I am right now, and how I haven't lost any weight for a long time now. Surely he must not be worried anymore. But again, he noticed what I had on my plate, and how much I had left over. I tried to talk it down, and to a large extent it worked. I wonder if there will ever come a time when people will decide that my weight is stable enough to say that I no longer have an ED. 

It's a vicious cycle. When my weight is stable and I'm good from an ED point of view, my suicidality shoots sky high and all I want to do is to run out and get hit by a train. But when my weight is going down and the ED voices are screaming loud, I'm happier than ever. I wish I could just somehow accept this weight, because it tends to be my "usual" weight and just be happy with it. In fact, I wish I could just be happy with having a stable weight. 

I guess I still have some sort of an ED, even though I'm not losing weight. 

For the past month or so there has been a gradual but certain change in our relationship. I'm fighting my basic instinct to treat him as a boss and be super respectful and formal and professional, and my other basic instinct which is to do what he wants me to do because he is my boss. 

Up till this point, I thought we had a very normal, professional relationship. Yes, I knew he favoured me, but I didn't think we did anything that was out of the societal norm. It was only when I arrived early at the bbq, having come straight from work, let myself past their gate and into their house and walked into his friend, who almost leapt out of his skin at the sight of me when I realised that this wasn't quite normal. 

I know it's not normal, but I don't know what is going on. It's weird, yet natural. I don't know. Hopefully it defines itself in good time. 

As unbiased people, my lovely readers, please leave any thoughts you have on what is going on with the professor. After all, you read what the other people in my life hear about the professor, and I'm really curious to know what you think. I get the feeling people are rather reluctant to tell me what they really think, but you all will be honest with me, please tell me what you think. 

shattered and defeated and making decisions

"So make all your last demands for I will forsake you and I'll meet your eyes for the very first time, for the very last." 

NB: I apologise if I've not been commenting on your blogs of late. Blogger is doing that weird thing again where it doesn't tell me when the blogs I follow update. I comment on the posts that I see pop up!

I've worked too long, too many long days, too many long hours. I've been afraid, too many moments of insecurity, of panic, of feeling shattered and defeated. Too many thoughts run through my head, my patients, my boss, my future, my body. Yes, I've lost weight, but only about 4lbs, and only the weight that I had put on when I was eating like some freak. So now I am back to my baseline 122lbs. I haven't moved forwards at all and I hate it.

The flurry of clothes that I had bought for myself, all a few sizes too small, hoping I'd fit into them by now still sit on hangers, taunting me and reminding me that I have failed in another aspect of my life. I must try harder. I must eat less. I must just buckled down and do what I need to do. From deep down inside me an old desire is rising, the desire to cut. I swore so many times that I would never go back there. I swore that no matter what, I would handle it and I would not take myself back there. But let's face it, it's an easy way out and right now, that's all I'm looking for. 

A gush of blood and I can sleep. A gush of blood and I can focus and study. A gush of blood and I am no longer hungry. All I need is to bleed out my anger and frustration and fears and anxiety and insecurity and hatred. Bleed it all out, then I can be just me. Calm. 

But I swore I wouldn't go back there. But I swore. 

It's not the only aspect of me that is being questioned. Every aspect of me is being questioned. I don't know what I want to do anymore. So much for wanting to do ophthalmology. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I can't do it. The intake is too low, 2 per year. With the amount of stress that I feel just working an ordinary job, I can't imagine what it would be to live for 5-7 years desperately trying to get onto a training scheme. And then I think of Alex. Perfect Alex. Thin, beautiful, talented, not a bad molecule in her body. She speaks fluent French and is half Japanese and is femininity personified. She's a warm spring morning in Paris with a black coffee and croissant. I try so hard to be like her, but I just can't. 

I'm not that person. I'm fat and bitchy. I'm spontaneous shopping and designer labels and consumerism with all the letters capitalised and italicised. I'm wobbly cellulite and a lazy slob and a liar and an absolute cow with a bad attitude. I'm full of badness and rock and roll and whiskey and port. I'm full Chinese and I only speak English. I'm a cold, wet morning in the Scottish highlands with black pudding and a fried egg. 

How can I pretend anymore. I can't do it anymore. I think of the professor, and how much I adore him and how much I've let him down. I can't possibly face him again. I can't do it. I can't spend the next decade or more of my life with someone who hates me as he must hate me. I can't be with someone who knows all my problems and wants to solve them. I can't spend my doing something that constantly reminds me of how inadequate and unworthy I am, no matter how much I love it. 

I will do general surgery and be worked to the bone. And be yelled at by my bosses and sleep 2 hours a night in my car and slice my own body to pieces and feel like I'm finally in my place. 

Time to do what I must. Book another tattoo, cut as deep as I want to, eat nothing at all and buy the biggest bottle of port and whiskey I can get my hands on. Fuck what other people think. Fuck "taking care of myself". Fuck it all. I don't care if I'm self destructive, maybe that's how I've always been. But it's the only way I know how to get by and right now, all I want to do is get by, one day at a time. 

If that means being hungry but thin, drunk but calm, put together but cut up then so be it. 

preoccupations of a bored, female mind

"Hate and fear and to do what it takes to move through."

Well, it must be a sign that I'm somewhat bored. I don't think this would have happened in surgery. I'd be far too busy in surgery to think of such things. However, what remains is that I'm not in surgery, and I am bored and I have therefore started to think about boys. *sigh*

I should say first up that me thinking about boys EVER is a big waste of time. Nothing ever happens, and that's probably my fault every time. Still, the odd flight of fancy never really hurt anyone and it does keep life a bit more interesting. Generally speaking, I hate these days where I get preoccupied with a guy. It seems so frivolous. It seems so immature. At times like this, I wish I could just focus and forget that guys exist and just get on with my job. 

His name is Josh and I used to think he was a real dick. But on the job, he's just transformed. He's sensible, easy to get along with and has a certain flair of spunk, or is it an undercurrent of rebelliousness, or is it simple laid back style? I can't decide. When I think of him, I think of the first resus I ever went to as a doctor. How scared I was, and how we looked through the notes together, and how afterwards he told me how good I was to talk to the family. And that made me feel good, because I had been hating on myself for freezing in the moment. 

He's actually worried about patients, he hands them over so well. He seems like such a pro already. Today, when he was showing me a computer trick, he came right over and leant on me. I didn't want him to leave. 

I want him to do so many things with me/ for me/ to me. And then I run my hand across my stomach, and I feel the lumpy scar that spells out "THIN" cut onto my skin and then I don't want it anymore. 

All my demons come laughing out again. How can I even let him near me when I'm really so very foul. It makes me feel like a little brat who wants it all and needs to be put in her place. At least my calorie count today was pretty good. All in all, I don't think I exceded 800cal, maybe even around 700cal. And you know what, I don't even feel that hungry. 

Dinner time is definitely the worst time for me. When I get home, I just want to collapse and drown in pasta and cheese and fried chicken and cake and everything that is a hundred calories per bite. But resisting it is the key. I've decided to go for quantity over quality. So for dinner I had a HUGE plate of cabbage. Filled me right up. But it was just cabbage. Was doing so well, until I ate some bread, and avocado and some egg. 

Still, this is one of the best calorie intakes I've had for a while. Water works so well. I drank like 3 bottles of water today, not once did I feel hungry. I'm going to keep the water up. Let's see how this change up works for me. 

The best way to lose weight for me has always been to have a crush. And if today has been any indication, then I shall be hitting my goals soon. Ah Josh, useful after all. 

when it all boils down

"I am surrendering to gravity and the unknown. Catch me, heal me."

The past 2 weeks have been an absolute rollercoaster for me. There were highs, and many, many lows that came with a pile of stress. I don't exactly know how I feel about being a doctor anymore, in the past few stress filed days, I've felt less than happy to be in my position. 

The level of stress is almost intolerable. I don't know how to deal with it and apparently I've developed a real psychosomatic way to expressing stress. I don't necessarily feel it, but I will become sick. And right now, I'm really, really sick. It does save me from the hospital, but I feel overwhelming guilt about it. 

There are no words to explain how it feels to make the transition between student and doctor. Nothing on this world could have prepared me for it. Life is so different when it's my head on the chopping block, when people expect me to know the answers and make the decisions. The reality is, nothing has changed inside me in the month between student and doctor, I haven't suddenly gained magical diagnostic skills, magical communication skills and magical insight into the processes of the hospital. But now, I'm expected to know. And it's fucking scary. It's fucking scary when I am the only on one the ward at 10pm and somebody is spiking fevers or has high blood pressure or is having chest pain and the nurse calls me and I don't know what the fuck I am supposed to do. 

Up until this point I have only had one situation in my life where I have been too stressed to eat, and that was when I thought the professor was going to fire me. But now, that level of stress is daily, even when I'm not at work, I have no appetite. I can't stop thinking about my patients, I can't stop thinking about all the times when I didn't know what to do. I can't help being scared about the next day. 

Everybody told me that the first 2 months of being a doctor is absolute hell. And I still wasn't quite prepared for it. I can't tell you how much I've cried the past few days. This is a whole new level of feeling inadequate, a whole new definition of fear, a whole new way of life. 

But there must be some sort of silver lining to all this. I am trying to retrain my body into not getting sick when I feel stressed, and I'm trying to express my stress with a loss of appetite. A lot of people lose their appetites when they are stressed. It will also be less suspicious, because all doctors lose a bit of weight when they start work. Or they gain weight because they are emotional eaters. 

My paper is also a massive stress factor for me right now. My co-author has been procrastinating his part for months now, and now the professor is making a big push for it to be done this weekend and he's freaking out. On top of that, his laptop isn't working, and he's asking me to do things that are way out of my depth and I'm freaking out. Sick as a dog, guilty as hell, freaked out to death and scared out of my wits. What a great end of the year. 

I better get some decent weight loss out of this, it will be some sort of consolation. 

Liebster Blog Award

I have been nominated for The Liebster Blog Award by Loveylou and Rachel and let me tell you, after an extremely busy week, and just arriving home from a 14hour shift, it lifted my spirits. I now have 100 followers, and I can't believe it! I've come a long way from the little blog I started for my own sake really. So I am deeply grateful.  

The Rules.

In your next blog post....
1.Thank the person/people who nominated you & Include a link to their blog.
2.Include 11 things about yourself.
3.Answer the 11 questions from the person who nominated you.
4.Choose 11 bloggers to nominate, they must have less than 200 followers.
5.Create 11 questions for them to answer.
6.Let them know you nominated them. 

Hi! My name is Judith Marie. 

1. I am 22 years old, but I have been mistaken for a 14 year old. I sometimes still get let on with child fares.

2. I absolutely adore old Brit shows. 'Allo 'Allo, Dad's Army, Open All Hours, Porridge, Blackadder etc etc.I've seen them all. 

3. I have so many clothes that I had to convert my study into an extra wardrobe. It's a little embarrassing but I still love my clothes!

4. Red heels. I love red shoes. But then again, who doesn't? 

5. I can count the number of people I really call friends on one hand. But that's not something that the general public know and a lot of people I secretly hate consider me a good friend.

6. My German Shepherd is my most treasured possession. I adore him. He's my little baby. 

7. Ever since my parents suggested I get my eyes "fixed" (I've got Asian single lids and this is the double eyelid surgery) a few years ago, I've been considering the surgery, and I'm starting to think about rhinoplasty and liposuction too.

8. I'd love to look like Twiggy. She's my idea of beauty.

9. Secretly, I wish I was Scottish. I'd love a soft, Scottish accent. I find it so charming, I think it would make me charming.

10. I once went to a doctor about being depressed. But even though I scored full marks on the depression scale, I managed to brush it off so well that she ended up telling me "even though you score so high, I think it's just your personal nature and that you're not depressed." Somedays I think about that and I think "if only". I might be very different if she'd referred me on.

11. I love ballet. I'd love to be able to be a ballerina. When I have enough money, I plan to take lessons.  

Questions from Loveylou

1. What do you love most about yourself?

Boy this feels like a job interview! Physically, I love my wrists. I think they look lovely and boney and that's why I would never cut there. Otherwise, I like my stubbornness. How I always do what I think is right and I won't bend to please people who mean nothing to me. 

2. Describe a memory that makes you proud

My qualification ceremony, hands down. Biggest moment of my life. All my hard work built up to it and it embodied everything that I wanted, cared about and had worked for. The dress, the shoes, the lipstick and all my classmates. It was the moment of my life where I lived entirely in the moment. 

3. If you could change one moment in your life, that you think would be pivotal, and could change the course of your entire life, would you? What moment would you change, what would be different?

When I was 11 years old, in intermediate school, I tried out and got the position of an aerobics instructor at my school's physical education program but I missed the first practice and was too embarrassed to go back. I think that if I had kept going, I would have been in the "in" group with some of the popular and pretty girls and my life would have turned out very differently because I have never been popular in my life. 

4. What would you do if your family and friends found out about your eating disorder and/or blog?

The first sign that anyone had found it, this would be deleted. I can't afford for people to read the contents of this. I doubt my family would be first so hopefully deleting it would be enough damage control. If somehow everyone found out, I would go out and throw myself under the first train I found. 

5. If you could be anyone, who would you be and why?

Miranda Kerr. What she has isn't exactly what I want, but she seems so happy with her life. I'd love to be able to be happy with my life even if that means a hunky hubby, a cute son and a killer bod. Okay, so that life doesn't sound so bad after all. 

6. What is your relationship with your parents like?

On the surface we joke around but I don't really feel very close to them. I hold a lot of pent up anger directed against them but I don't think they know about it. Maybe that's why we have so many conflicts in the house. 

7. What's your favourite 'safe food'?

Cucumber. It's so refreshing and tasty and it's sooooo much water and so few calories. 

8. What are you doing when you feel the most happy and joyful?

Driving. I love to go for long drives, fast, winding drives with some good driving music pumping out of the car stereo. That's when I feel so completely myself, that's when I get to do my thinking and sort out my shit, that's when I feel so free and alive. 

9. If you could be any animal what would you be?

Arctic wolf. I'd love to be a graceful wolf, living in the beautiful North, snow, cold, fur. I'd love all that. 

10. What is your favourite fashion statement or 'look'?

It's hard to describe. If any of you happen to be familiar with the designer Alannah Hill, then you will know. It's sort of mismatched, eclectic girly but I prefer to do it with a mix of edgy. Does that make sense? So, super feminine with an oddness that might be a mismatch or a slight hint of rock.

11. If you could make one wish, what would you wish for? (can't be body related in any way)

I would wish for an ididic memory. Then I would read every single medical textbook and know all the answers to everything at work and never feel like I'm panicking when I'm faced with a puzzling medical dilemma. 

Questions from Rachel

1. What music to you like and why?

I love alternative music. Think Tool. And I love Nine Inch Nails. My current love affair is with the Icelandic Of Monsters and Men. I think I like it because the lyrics all mean something to me. I just find it so hard to connect with most mainstream music today. 

2. Do you sing or play a musical instrument?

I used to play violin and guitar but I had to quit both when I got super serious about scholarships and school. I'm trying to pick up guitar again but time makes it difficult. I will do it though. I love the guitar. 

3. Can you pinpoint when your ED began? Why did it start?

I have 2 major points in my life. I can pin point when my anorexic and self harm thoughts first began and it was when I was about 12 years old and I had gone from my multi-racial, down to earth public primary school to an exclusive and exclusively white intermediate school. I was shunned socially, but found a few other outcasts to hang out with. Then one day one of the popular girls asked me what I had got my sports badge for (it was for orienteering). When I replied, she said to her friend, to my face "oh, so that's it. I was wondering, because, you know, look at her." I had first started to really seriously restrict when I moved out of home. At home I my parents dictated my meals but when I moved out I just stopped eating.

4. What's your favourite season?

I love winter. I love winter fashion, I love layering, I love coats and boots. And I love the fact that all that covers my ugly fat.

5. If one food of your choice could have no calories, what food would you choose?

My first instinct is to say fried chicken! Boy, I love fried chicken! But, I'd have to say noodles because I eat a lot of noodles. 

6. Describe your hair: is it long? short? straight? curly? dyed? how do you like to wear it?

I have short, straight, black hair. I wear it pretty much in its cut, almost bob shaped. It's growing out and I have to recut it soon. I'd love to have long, curly hair but I don't have the patience to grow it. 

7. Diet coke or diet pepsi?

Diet coke. But if I could really go around the question, I really only drink Coke Zero. 

8. 3 favourite books?

The Color Purple, The Bell Jar, The God of Small Things.

9. Who are some of your celebrity thinspirations?

I'm sure this will be the same as lots of other people but, Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Also Kiera Knightly, Victoria Beckham, Rachel Zoe and Karlie Kloss. 

10. What's your bedroom like?

It's got cream walls with dark wood furniture. I have a series of photos in frames tessellated on one wall with a dresser and a mirror opposite. I also have a great stereo. Right now I've got clothing covering the floor. I wish I had a bigger mirror but I've only got one thin, floor length mirror. 

11. What is your dream career? do you think you'll end up doing it?

My dream career is a doctor. And I am doing it! 


My Questions:
1. How would your life be different if you didn't have an ED?
2. Thinspiration or reverse thinspiration and why?
3. Favourite item of clothing?
4. What is your dream holiday?
5. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? (can't be body related!)
6. Besides your ED, what is your next biggest problem?
7. How much do you think the fashion industry has contributed to your ED?
8. Do you have any tattoos or piercings? Would you ever get any?
9. How does your ED affect your relationships?
10. If you were on death row, what would be your last meal?
11. What is top of your bucket list?


My nominations:
1. Toofatforwords
2. Oustsideintothin
3. Sam Lupin
4. Jackie
5. striveforperfection
6. nothing tastes as good as skinny feels
7. Christina
8. Lana Banana
9. xXpOsErXx
10. fuckingpicnic
11. Beth