I am a monster that needs to be spayed.

"The two of us, all used and beaten up. Watching fate as it flows down the path we have chose. You and me, we're in this together now."

I LOST 6LBS ON NIGHT SHIFTS!!!! 119LBS FTW!!!!

I have just spent 10 hours over the past 2 days wondering how to write this post so I guess that's a leeway into how ravaging it has been for me. After all this thinking I still don't have an answer as to how I feel or what the hell is going on with me. I have spiraled from being deludedly happy to being tired and angry to being wistful and hopeless to finally feeling like I'm some sort of monster. 

It's Joe. It's fucking Joe's fault. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Whatever is happening, and I'm really not sure what, it's wrong. It's not supposed to happen and a part of me is very, very angry about that. 

Whatever it is, I have never felt so ill in all my life. Admittedly, some of that is probably the caffeine withdrawal and the night shifts screwing up my biological clock. I've just spent the past four nights with Joe. No, not in that sort of way, we were on night shifts together, I was the house surgeon and he was the registrar. And we were the only two doctors on for orthopaedics overnight. So it was kind of hectic to say the least. 

I spent a lot of time with him, in those nights I probably spent more time with him than with any guy I've known (bar my father). That was weird. I was supposed to spend most of my time on the wards, while he was in ED, and that's how it's been for other house surgeons.  But I was in ED for most of the night. I seriously hope that the ward patients were okay because I wasn't really there. 

Not that I did much in ED. Mostly just sat there and wrote notes for him. A bit redundant really. The smarter, more efficient thing to do would have been to split up and divide and conquer the patients but Joe was having none of that. He got in trouble for not seeing patients fast enough and I heard him on the phone, several times, telling the ED bosses that it was very important that I stay with him. 

Here is the be all and end all. I wish with all my heart that I wasn't attracted to Joe. There is nothing about him that goes along with what I've always liked in guys. But I am attracted to him. I have never flirted so much than those 4 nights with Joe. Having said that, I am probably the clumsiest, worst flirt in the entire world so he probably didn't even know. 

I can't tell you how many times I wished Joe would just put his arms around me and just hold me, or just grab my hand. Dammit. When and why did I turn into such a desperate bitch? I am hating on myself right now. The bad thing is, I can imagine myself dating him, and having a good time too. 

And I'm sure Joe doesn't feel anything for me. There might be sparks flying for me but there is absolutely nothing going on from his side of things. He doesn't fancy me at all. And that just breaks my heart. 

But everything has an upside right? I can't eat, I can't sleep. I'm so numb. At least I will lose some weight. 

Damn, feeling bad because Joe feels nothing for me. Feeling like a sinner for flirting with him. I wish I could just feel something else. Dammit. 

Just let me be weightless and numb. 

the fat blonde bird.

Thank you Deuce, Alice ana, Christina and Outside in to thin for your lovely comments. As always, I love reading them, I love your thoughts and I deeply appreciate your support. You help me get through the day, you really do.

Recently I've taken up running. I did my first half marathon and let me tell you, I thought I was going to die for the last 6km. I don't know why I did it. The longest I've ever run was 8km and suddenly I was like 22km? Easy! So I stupidly worked out a 22km course and just ran it after work yesterday. Foolish! But it did prove that I can do a hell of a lot more than I think I can. I did run the whole 22km, albeit slowly at times and I finished in 2hr 20mins which is slow, but not as slow as I thought I'd be.

Running is an amazing feeling, I think I'm slightly hooked. I've been running nearly every day now and I can feel myself getting better. Usually it's only 8km a day, which I worked out to be roughly 400cal. Not much! But still, it raises my BMR and it's better than the big fat NOTHING that I used to do. Once I get used to this, I will somehow drag myself out of bed earlier to do boxing or yoga.

But finally, onto the subject matter of this post, the fat blonde bird. I go for my run at around the same time every night, and every night, I run into the fat blonde bird. She walks with her husband/partner/boyfriend and a dog.

I look into the face of the fat blonde bird and I see a Caucasian version of myself. It's easy to see that she was once beautiful. Maybe that's how she got her husband in the first place. We are of similar height, similar bone structure, when I see her, I see me. She is always dressed in a track suit, sometimes with a polar fleece jacket. The sort of outfit that you wear when you've all but given up on life and given up on hoping that there might be something good in this world. Her hair falls just past her shoulders in strange dirty blonde limp strands. Nothing that a quick visit to a hair stylist wouldn't fix. It has no shape, no purpose, it's trying so hard to not try at all. Not a single dime has been spent on that head of hair for the last 5 years, yet it is parted perfectly straight down the middle; a sight that makes me sadder than if it had been a complete mess.

That perfect parting is resonates so much desperation, a woman who hates what she sees in the mirror but somewhere deep inside her, a woman who she used to be is bursting to get out. And it is this woman who makes her pick up the comb and part her hair like that. "Do the best with what you've got honey, it ain't great but we gotta try and salvage something." Words that she'll never speak, words that she might not even know she's thinking, yet the action is automatic and the parting is perfect.

The little rosebud that is her mouth is smothered in bright red lipstick, applied perfectly but unfortunately draws attention to the fact that her cheeks are so fat that her lips can no longer sit properly. They protude outwards, in a permanent little fish pout. Her full face of make up does not go with the old, shabby polar fleece track suits that she always wears. I want to stop my run and say to her, honey, no amount of make up can cover the fat. You know it's there, I know it's there so let's all just stop pretending.

Her body shape is hard to describe. One only has to glance, but it is obvious that she has a shape. She's not one of those people who is rotund naturally. Even at her size, she has a waist, boobs and a butt, all clearly defined. Yet she is expanding so much that these features are all ballooning to the extent that these separate balloons threaten to merge into one big one, upon which she will become rotund. She gives one the impression that she is literally bursting at the seams. Her small frame shouldn't be supporting this sort of size. When I see her, I can feel her skin stretching to accommodate the ever increasing fat cells. The bits of her that stay reasonable the same size (like her knees or wrists) are the last bastions of hope in a body that has gone to the dogs. Bits of skin tagged down so that they can't expand outwards like the rest of her.

And so she strolls, with her husband and dog in complete silence, along the same road that I run down. And she'll look at me, she will sometimes move out of the way to let me pass. She's always got that strange look on her face, and I think that she can see in me what I see in her. We are almost the same person. When I see her the same message always flashes across my mind "run fat bird, run". And it's not a message for her, it's for me. She's like my mirror. I tell myself, look how disgusting you look to other people. Run fat bird, run. How can you be tired when you have that much fat to burn. Burn it off, run fat bird, run. Look how pathetic you are, how drab and frumpy and sad and unattractive. Burn it off, run fat bird, run.

things that make me think

Today I got some bad news. In one of my clinical rotations, a bitch boss hated me and borderline passed me. Which sucks because she only saw me 3 times in 6 weeks and everyone else there thought I was great. She also called me unprofessional, incompetent, not having enough knowledge, immature and told me the day before my exam that she thought I would fail. Nobody has ever had such a low opinion of me. Except my parents of course.

So I'm effectively "tagged". This is totally unfair. It means that next year, my probationary year of practice, I will be watched like a hawk by my bosses. Thankfully I passed everything and with decent marks and so I have passed the year and I don't have to do extra work, but it's the principle that matters here. It makes me feel not good enough, even though I've done nothing wrong. It makes me feel like people don't think I'm going to be a good doctor. And it makes me feel very angry, and very insecure.

But aside for my rant, a message for you girls.

As always, thank you all for the lovely comments. Even though I've never met any of you, I can totally all the support that you lovely ladies give me and when I feel down (which, to be honest, is a lot of the time), reading the words of encouragement that you leave for me, it's about the only thing in the world that has the power to lift my mood.

Having an eating disorder is such an isolating experience, I can't talk to anyone in my life about it and I have to spend a lot of time and energy hiding it from people who suspect or could suspect something. I very firmly believe that it is not possible to fully understand what it is like to have an eating disorder until you have had one yourself, which is why I value the company of you girls so much.

Furthermore, the advice I get on here, and the different points of view, they get me thinking. Here are my replies to the comments that you have left me.

Fat Piggy, Jackie, Alice ana and outside in to thin: I wish I could live away from my parents and for the most part, I do. I undertake most of my training in another city and I only come home on weekends. But I am sooo far in debt (more than $100,000 in debt) that once I graduate, I will have to live at home with my parents. I won't be able to afford to move out, at least not for 2 years.

I'm hoping that once I start working, I will be able to take extra shifts, not only to earn the extra money, but to be out of the house as much as possible and so I want to have 2 years of constant work to pay off my debt. After that, I will hopefully get a pay rise, be out of debt (or at least very close to it) and then I will move out of home to my own little apartment or something like that.

I really wish that I could ignore their comments and just take them in my stride, but in a way, since I've lived with this all my life, it is so much a part of my life that I hardly need them to say it. I already believe it all, it's just all the more hurtful when my own parents tell it to my face. At each family meeting, it's like playing a game. If I don't cry and stay defiant the whole time, then I win. And I've won sometimes. But last time, sadly, I lost the game. Still, I live on to play another day.

There really are no words to express how low my self worth is and these family meetings have the effect of a sledgehammer, hammering the remnants of the self worth and confidence into the ground. Oh what it is to weigh 121lbs and have my father say the most I should weigh is 100lbs. Crap isn't a strong enough word.

Alice ana: I've had suicidal thoughts since I was about 13. But at the time, all that consisted of was "I wish I was dead, I'd be better off dead, everyone would be better off if I was dead." I've come a long way since then. I have several different plans, most of which have been relatively "docile" up till now. For years I thought I would do a massive overdose. Until I learnt that many, many people overdose and still come back from it if they get to hospital long enough. My overdose would have to be of many different drugs, in huge quantities and I really am not sure if I can physically swallow that much. And I'm not sure if I could get to hospital fast enough and onto life support fast enough to live through the OD.

Whatever I do, it really must be the end of me, because I just couldn't face the consequences of living through a suicide attempt. The being declared unfit for practice, the mandatory institutionalisation in a mental health ward, the stigma and the being watched for the rest of my practicing life. Not to mention facing up to my family and friends. Chances are, my friends will be the ones trying to work out what drugs I've taken, pumping my stomach, putting me on life support and monitoring me.

Then I thought I would tell people I was going away for a weekend, then on the Friday night, run myself a hot bath, take a big, big dose of sedatives and painkillers and sit in my bath and slit my wrists and simply bleed out. By the time the working week started again and people realised I was missing, I would have bled out long ago.

But then I thought, even though there is a lovely, lovely way of dying, there is always that one in a million chance that someone might find me in time. I'd also have to not have a flatmate. So that's how I suddenly though, well, being hit by a train, that sounds very...final. And so I thought, if I'm going to be cremated anyway, I don't need to look good dead and so being hit by a train, that would be a very good way to go. And fast enough for me to not have a chance to change my mind. As you can see from my previous post, it is really a well developed plan.

I must be honest, I've never been more serious about killing myself. And I'm starting to get more of an urge to do it too. I always thought that I'd wait until I had done all my training and become a consultant, but I would be at least 35 years old. But I have always thought 27 was going to be my time to go. So maybe I will spend the next 5 years of my life just clinging on,

Fat Piggy, Leonie and Jackie: I am totally committed to losing the weight. Totally. But with each bit of weight I lose, I have a wee panic about what the professor will say. I don't want to upset him, really I don't. Because I am terribly fond of him, and he also has the power to halt my career whenever he wants to and force me into treatment.

But in saying that, in a strange way, I yearn for him to notice. Part of that is because I don't want him to forget about me from a career point of view, the other side of that is that I want him to care about me and if he's concerned about my weight, it makes me feel like he cares. But it is such an internal battle. What makes it worse is that the eating disorder is sort of just the tip of the iceberg. It may be the most evident one, but he has no inkling whatever of the depression, the self harm and the suicidal ideation. If he did, omg, I think he'd admit me to a mental health ward immediately.

When I worked for him earlier in the year, I was pretty upset for a variety of reasons, principle of which was my father losing his job. And he noticed. Immediately. Not only did he notice, he didn't let it go. When it was just the two fo us, he was constantly checking how I was, and trying to feed me. If he knew about the cutting and the suicidal ideation, I'd be lucky if all I got was beaten into the ground.

I live for his little compliments wrapped in love. Makes me feel cared for, and for a fleeting moment, makes me feel thin. Which, at the end of the day, is what we are all shooting for.