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. 

my last message ever to the haters.

Let me be brief about this, because this is not the first time that I've left a message to haters who comment on my blog. But it will be the last time.

I've tried, time and again to reason with you all. I know that having a blog like this, and putting my opinion out like this will inevitably attract the attention of those who do not agree with me. Yes, I know this will be most of society. I'm not saying that my opinion is "correct", but it is my opinion, and it is the reality that I live in. 

I don't ask anyone to agree with me (although it is nice when you do) but I do expect common courtesy. If you disagree, do not blatantly attack me with comments. What do you think that will achieve? That calling me a selfish, senseless, ignorant bad doctor will suddenly make me think "oh gosh! they're right! I've decided not to have an ED after all!" 

If anyone thinks that, well, God help them. You may detect that I've got a hint of resentment in this, and that's because I'm sick and tired of repeating myself. Leaving me, or any pro-ana blog comments like that is not caring, it does not show compassion or empathy, it's not anything good. It's just an attack, nothing more. And it's juvenile. 

If you are clearly not pro-ana, if you do not want to lose weight, if you do not have an eating disorder, please, please, please do not waste your time on my blog, or any of the other blogs. Time is precious. I spend time here because it's a release for me. If spending time here angers you, angers you enough to leave such hateful remarks, do yourself a favour, don't waste your time here, making yourself miserable. 

Feel blessed that ED isn't one of the things that haunts you, and leave this world of ours alone. 

So let me just say this: any comment left on my blog that is derogatory, insulting, rude, aggressive will be deleted on sight. 

Yes, it still hurts me to read those comments, they were the reason I deleted my blog earlier in the year after all. But now I've learnt that if I let them get to me like that, then I will lose my only outlet. If my last attempt is any indication, I will then rapidly spiral into depression, increasingly suicidal ideation, and with a job, I may just do it this time. 

And finally this leads me to a message of thanks. 

Firstly, thank you to all my followers, I can't believe there are now 100 of you. Thank you for your continued support through all my ups and many, many downs and your kind and patient words. 

Secondly, thank you to faithandmeow. I know that we do not see eye to eye on this whole issue. But I really do appreciate the fact that you show me respect in your comments, you have never attacked me in them, and have yet been able to make your point clear, standing on the opposing side. I wish all the hecklers were as mature as you. 

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. 

don't care if it hurts, I want to have control.

I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul. 

Mirror, mirror. The unscrupulous bitch that stares back at me is unrecognisable. Silk shirt tucked into high waisted pants and a lanyard with a garish name tag. In the great hullaballoo of figures and colours and ailments rushing by, her image is the one that strikes me. Breathe in. Fiery hatred floods my being as a natural instinct, everything about the way she looks is so utterly repulsive to me. The bulge of her stomach, the way her arms balloon from her short sleeves, the way her voluptuous breasts seem to be bursting past the buttons, the subtle double chin. Hideous. 

Breathe out and stop. The hullaballoo has moved on, and it is only me who remains, staring. All the hatred, the revulsion, the disgust, the torrent of emotion that flooded through me in a river of rage has been stunned into pause. In the rush I had failed to recognise my own reflection. I had directed so much hate towards someone who I thought was a stranger, only to realise I had been looking at myself. How did I become this?

ANDREA!!!! 


I see you are back to commenting on my blog. If my posts upset you, why do you continue to read them? I think your efforts would be better employed doing something you enjoy, such as going out with friends, or undertaking whatever hobbies you may have instead of leaving abusive comments on my posts. 


Do you really expect me to change views that I have held my entire life because someone like you, who I have never met, finds me selfish and stupid (and whatever else you have called me over the years)? 


I know what I'm doing isn't normal. And I can see why you and others may see it as selfish. But you know nothing of my life and how I grew up and my motivations. Not every woman dreams of having a husband and children to cook for. Just as not every person is able to look at food normally. You can't really think that when I starve myself it is some sort of conscious effort to hurt and betray everyone who might care about me and sabotage some vague dream of an idealised family unit. It certainly isn't. Sometimes, it is a coping mechanism that I must do to make it through the day. 


Most of us who have eating disorders are highly intelligent. You obviously don't think so, as you've called me stupid many times now. But most of us get top grades and have highly paid jobs and have high functioning lives and we know more about nutrition than most people who aren't nutritionists. Nothing about ED is about getting nutrition, it's a fear of food, a fear of losing control, a fear of gaining weight that runs in our bones and it's not something that can be changed by telling us to snap out of it. 


Do I like the way I am? No. I'd change many things. And if I could look at food normally, if there was a chance of that, I would. An existence where I don't have to face my worst fear everywhere would be lovely. I would not wish this upon anybody, not even you. For you to think that this is such a simple problem is rather ignorant of you. I don't think you can understand what it's like, not unless you somehow develop an eating disorder. 


What is it that you try to achieve with your comments? Do you hope to inspire me into recovery? Do you want to shame and ridicule me until I fall into a pool of misery and kill myself? I can tell you right now that neither of those things will happen. 


Do you simply want to point out my stupidity and laugh? Feel free to laugh and jeer all you like. But you don't need to be abusive. You don't need to post those comments on my blog. You don't need to read my blog at all. I like to think I've been reasonably civil with you. And you should give me some credit and believe me when I say I'm not a silly little pre-pubescent girl who is online attention seeking. I'm an much older girl, using this as a forum for expressing my thoughts and perhaps meeting people who follow my wavelength. 

laxies and responses to comments

So I took laxies for the first time in my life. I've been feeling super bloated for a long time now and I've also been on some sort of God almighty binge. And by that, I mean, I've been eating the amount I would normally eat before I started dieting almost a year ago. Which is heaps. No wonder I put on so much weight. It scares me that I can still do it.

I've had a lot of warning from people on varies proana sites not to take laxies. And up till now I've heeded them. But I do think it was always inevitable that I would end up taking them. I bought a pack of them "just in case" and it was a full half day before I took some. So much for self control. After a HUGE dinner, I thought, right, let's see what these things do. I thought I'd start with the normal dose and see what effect that has on me.

I woke up the next morning not feeling very much. I had expected to be up and running for the bathroom but I so wasn't. Disappointed I just milled around aimlessly for a while, after about half an hour I started to get cramping pains in my abdomen. Then they got really bad. Is this what it's normally like?

It's a really interesting feeling, watching my tummy get flatter. Really satisfying, but really, really odd at the same time, seeing as how it is accompanied by little waves of pain cannoning around my abdomen. But still, I don't regret it. I know I wouldn't have gone to the bathroom without the laxies and I'll still be huge and bloated.

I know it doesn't do jack shit about getting rid of fat, but for after a binge, it sure makes me feel like I'm at least attempting to redeem myself. And I quite like the feeling of being empty. I don't like the feeling of needing to sit on the toilet for ages, just in case, but I suppose I'll get used to it/get better at using laxies over time. At present, I don't see myself abusing them as such. The pain I'm experiencing with the normal dose is sufficient, I think if I took more than that my bowels might actually burst.

Now for a couple of responses:

strive4perfection: surgical markers are really, really easy for me to get hold of, because I am a surgeon in training. Where I work there is a lab set up like eye theatre with all the operating microcopes and cataract machines, and a big cabinet full of knives and scalpel blades. I'm not really supposed to go in there, but sometimes I work late and the door is left unlocked and so I can go in there and take some blades.

This is why I was able to carve the bird, because even normal scalpel blades are too big. I know you can't tell from the photo, but it's really not that big at all and so I needed small, very sharp knives to do it. The scalpels that I used are actually for operating on eyes so you can imagine how fine they are!

I've never really thought about what I'd do if people see the bird. And I almost wish I had thought of that before I cut it and then you asked me! I'm going on holiday with my parents at Christmas to Singapore, to a hotel with an amazing pool, so if it scars they will definitely see that I've cut a bird into my leg. For now, it means I can't wear short shorts but that's not a biggie.

Krystal: How are you girl! For ages there Blogger was telling me that your blog didn't exist anymore and now, even though I'm following you, it won't tell me when you update your blog. And it also says I can't comment on your blog. So I have no idea what is going on!!!