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? 

getting skinny, getting skinny bitches!

"Take a chance you stupid ho, take a chance coz you might grow."

Well that's certainly what I'm saying to myself. Take a chance. I'm trying to psych myself out for my first circuit training class tomorrow. I can already see the silver platter with my arse on it. And I'm pretty damn sure it'll get handed to me a minute into the class. Why am I going? Because the hot copper will not stop asking. 

I don't get it, I don't understand why he keeps asking me to the gym. And I know it will not stop so I just have to suck it in (literally) and just go. Well fuck. I might look a fool but if I can keep it up, I'll get thin. I'm going to be so hot and sweaty, it'll be gross. Why the hell would he want to see that?

I've lost a good 6lbs since I met him because I have absolutely no appetite at all. Can't bloody eat, can't bloody sleep, can't bloody work. And that's without me trying to lose weight at all. I'm now at 118lbs, the lowest that I can remember being for a very long time. If I add the gym into that mix, well. Who knows what might happen. I want to get to 110lbs soon, and then I'm going to pick up ballet again and make a good go at going en pointe this time round. 

Trying to psych myself out by looking at celeb fitspo and thinspo. They must hard out work out to look that good. And frankly, if I go through any of the above transformations then it will all be worth it, even if he dumps me on the spot at the gym for being such an unfit slob. 

There. I said it. What I'm really afraid of. I've spent my whole life feeling like an ugly, good for nothing piece of crap. Truly believing that no man would ever want me. I spend most days feeling fat and ugly and preoccupied with using all my energy to look presentable. And now somebody has appeared to have picked me up, and not just somebody, a fucking gorgeous cop who seems to have his life sorted. He is very quickly becoming the conduit for all my greatest fears. 

I'm already scared to death that I'm too fat for him. Now I'm fucking scared I'll be too unfit for him. He's not even my boyfriend and I'm already scared that he's going to dump me for not being good enough. 

And I really don't want to lose him just yet. Just last night, when he was on duty and having his dinner break, he came to my house, picked me up, drove me to the beach where we sat in his patrol car, looking out at the city lights. And so we made out again. I'm really starting to like this whole making out thing. 

Right now it's too late to change anything. All I can do is go tomorrow and do my best. And hope that it's enough. I hate feeling so inadequate. 

if it hadn't been for Cotton Eyed Joe.

"Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren, one that pushes me along and leaves me so desperate and ravenous. I'm weak and powerless."

With the safety net pulled out from beneath my feet I find myself medically managing all the orthopaedic patients. And it is so scary. These past few days I've been running on nothing at all. I don't know how I keep going. I've made a few silly mistakes as well. Today I was so hungry and nauseated and dizzy and deluded I had to ask a friend to come bail me out for an hour while I drank hot tea. I'm effectively breaking a 24 hour coffee and tea fast with a small meal each day.

Thinking of Mark makes me sick. I don't want to see him or speak to him. But I feel even more sick if I don't see him or speak to him because I don't know how to manage my patients' infections without him. And that thought scares me more than I dare to admit. So I call him every ten minutes until he answers his phone, and I run after him on the wards. 

Tell me what to do Mark. I don't know if this man will live without your advice. I know I'm asking dumb questions, I know I'm pissing you off, I know you want my bosses to do things that I can't get them to do. I'm only a little junior doctor and I'm doing my best, even if you don't think it's enough. I'm doing all I can. Tell me off as much as you want, if you've had a bad day, take it all out on me. Take it out on me, let it all out. All the bad things my bosses have done to you, all the unreasonable demands that they make, all the annoying patients, all the other doctors, all of us that won't leave you alone. Say what you like to me, but don't make my patients pay for my incompetences when you can cover the holes I'm leaving. 

So I say sorry over and over again, apologising for mistakes that aren't even mine. And I say thank you, over and over, and I tell him how unfair it is for him, how difficult it must be for him, and how much I appreciate him. And I eventually get what I need. Bloody long phone calls for the one sentence answer that I need. 

I'm stretched so thin. So thin. When people don't answer your calls for help, what do you do? How much longer can I battle on myself? 

But I get it done. I don't care. I don't care who I have to call, I spend all day ringing if I have to. At the end of the day, my patients are prepped for theatre, they're stable after theatre, they're discharged with a solid plan. I might be dying, but they're not. I'm so tired. I can't sleep at night. 

If it wasn't for Joe I'd be crying in the cupboards by now. He might call me every ten minutes with new jobs, he might pull me with him to see patients, but it's only because he trusts me. He's the first person in 3 months to acknowledge how hard I'm working. It makes me want to curl up cry on his shoulder because until he pointed it out, I hadn't realised how much I'd done. Until he said thank you, I didn't realise I was doing anything worthy of thanks. Such a small gesture, but it's made everything feel justified. 

If this isn't trial by fire, I don't know what is. 

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. 

you and me. we're in this together now. none of them can stop us now.

...we will make it through somehow. 

Before I launch into this post I want to start off by tying up a few ends. 

Firstly, I want to say hello to any new followers! I looked today and suddenly realised that I have 91 followers now. I'm stunned. Hello, thank you so much for following my blog, please leave a comment and I will follow your blog right back. 

Secondly, I want to say a big thank you to everybody. I really do. I must admit that Andrea's comments threw me wildly. I went to a really low place for a while after reading them. I felt so useless. Reading what she said, well, I'm already miserable, and I know that what I am doing is bad, but if getting a boyfriend and perking up would be enough to snap me out of this, then why wasn't I good enough to do just that? I felt like such a worthless, useless, incompetent mess that I would be better off not existing. I have never known such strong suicidal urges. 

I can't say I'm over it, I can't say I'm not still suicidal. I've been cutting more and more and I can feel the old grip of depression creeping in. But. I've also made myself a plan to lose weight. For now, if I can get a grip on my weight, then I can start to get a grip on other things. For now, I need to focus on one small thing at a time to drag myself through thiss. 

Thirdly, I want to say sorry for my absence. For a while there I really did think I was going to end my life and I didn't want to come here and be talked out of it by anyone. I didn't want to post any sort of message that some people might think to be attention seeking. When I end my life, it will be my choice, and there will be no apologies to anyone. 

At any rate, I return to you all with renewed vigor and determination. Just like the way I've titled this post. This is you and me. We're in this together now. None of them can stop us now. We will make it through somehow. We're fighting a battle that no one can see. That doesn't make it any less real. We are all doing it together. Though we are apart physically, we are all striving for the same thing, we live and breath for the same thing. We are linked together by a common thread that separates us from the rest of the world. And I know for sure that I cannot do this without the knowledge that you are all out there, sending me love, wishing me the best. And I do the same for you all, every second of every day. 

In a strange way, this blog has prolonged my life significantly. This knowledge makes me want to wake up in the morning and give it all another go. And I can't thank you all enough for that. I hope that you all can appreciate that. 

I think this is all I can say for now. I am still struggling with the cutting, and the can of worms that comes with that. I am still somewhat scared and wary of posting anything on this blog because I don't want to read comments like that again. I'm scared by how they affected me and I'm scared of how I may react in the future. When you can no longer trust your one outlet of self expression, everything gets thrown up in the air. 

So I bid you goodbye from this post, with the promise that I will post again, and that like you, each fibre of my being longs to be thin and fears food and the consequences of eating. 

I'll tell you good news that I don't believe if it will help you sleep.

Strange mercy. 

Did you ever really stare at me like I stared at you? 

A person like you could never understand the tsunami of emotion that crashes into the core of me each time I see you. The cold, bitter bite of love mingled with the warm, viscous red of my self hate sends my fingers tingling and makes the tip of my nose interestingly numb. 

For a moment, just a sweet, split second of paused time, the length of half a heartbeat, hope clouds my vision and I look into a future that will never come to pass. A feeling, an intuition that embodies another version of myself that has the ability to reach for a possibility of a promise of tenderness. 

There is so much that happens. Eternity and my whole universe melts around me and I find myself breathing in, just in hopes of catching your scent. (I've not managed to identify the exact fragrance yet but it is familiar.) 

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. He walks towards me, he's next to me, he passes me. And just like that, the moment is gone. I can probably count the number of words we have ever exchanged on one hand. I have never, ever been able to make eye contact. 

I might be smitten, hopelessly infatuated, but I am not, not, not, not, not stupid. And I have always had the wonderful gift of knowing my place. I know very clearly what I do and what I do not deserve. 

Then the weight of reality slams into me and that elation of love and hate and blood and promise turns into a rancid stench that crawls like insects across my skin and absorbs into my muscles and drags me down. 

The fatigue stays with me. Even at the gym. But I just think of you. And all the glory that surrounds you. I think of your biceps. Your abs. How I don't deserve to meet your eyes. And so I run, even when I feel like I'm going to fall off the treadmill. 

And so I run, I run like I am trying to get away from you. Because seeing you reminds me that I am not good enough. 

I want to have control. I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul.

It's 5am. The world is quiet but for the endless pounding in my head. I binged last night, bad enough to give myself nausea. There is so much food in my system that my body can't process it fast enough. 

I know that I must sleep. It's going to be Monday morning ward round soon and I need to be awake for that. But in my head I'm there already. Patient lists fly across my mind, what needs to be done for each one to make them stable enough to shove out the door. Clear hospital beds. I see now that's why I don't like medicine and I prefer surgery. 

When a frail elderly woman sits in front of me, unable to cope and full of problems, I cannot bring myself to force her out just because she is considered "medically stable". Just because some bureaucrats who haven't spent half an hour at a medical school want to shorten hospital stays and clear beds. They teach us the art of medicine is almost all compassion. "It is the physician's love that heals the patient." Then they teach us to ignore it. 

Patient lists, patient names, discharge summaries race before my eyes and in an instant I've already lived the upcoming week. Then in my head, I'm going home for the weekend, home to my parents and my dog, home to where things will be okay. So different from how I felt about home before, but I am so lonely. So lonely that all I want is mum's embrace. 


Slowly, slowly but surely I am losing weight. It's only about a pound a week, sometimes less. But with around 800cal a day, that's as fast as I can lose it. So much for cutting down calories, it's not possible. Not possible without it becoming vastly dangerous. 


Even as I am now, 1000cal today and hugely PMSing, I have a day long headache. I'm shaking. I'm losing focus, I'm forgetful. Then when I'm admitting patients, when I'm ordering tests, when I'm looking up results, everything is a haze. 


I'm so scared I'll miss those subtle signs, the subtle facial droop of an evolving stroke. The small difference between someone who has Alzheimer's and is talking rubbish and the one who is talking rubbish because they are psychotic, and the one who is talking rubbish because they are having a stroke and their brain connections are wrong. The chest pain of reflux and the chest pain of a heart attack. The myriad of tests to order for the elderly lady who keeps collapsing. I can't focus, I'm scared I will miss something, forget to order something, chart the wrong drug. If I do, someone will die. 


And so I fill myself up. I don't want to kill someone. But I refuse to eat enough. I'm going to the gym. I'm losing weight slowly but surely. Slowly, but it is enough for me to notice. Clothes are slightly looser, I'm buying tighter clothes. I'm going in the right direction. Safely. 


Safely, for the sake of my patients because they are the ones who give meaning to my life. But for now, I am sick, nauseated, bloated and miserable. Wanting to chuck it all in and just stay at home, starving myself and exercising. 


I want to. But I am a doctor first and foremost. And my patients come first and they should not have to pay for my incompetence and fatness. I can lose weight slowly, I will get there. But my patients come first. 

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.