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. 

as I formulate denials of your effect on me

To start off with, thank you to Rachel, Fat Piggy, strive4perfection and Christina for your lovely comments on my last blog post. 

It's raining outside. I'm upset but I forget exactly why. All I know is that I feel as though the world is ending. Melodramatic? Yes. 

I rush through many sets of double doors, down vomit-beige coloured corridors and I know that I'm in an unnamed hospital somewhere. I'm running and running down my vomit coloured hospital corridors and somehow it is raining inside now. The stinging icy shards of rain melt into the hot tears streaming down my face. I'm cold and tired and devastated.

In that way that can only happen in dreams, I am suddenly redirected from my Newtonian method of running to walking down carpeted floors and richly painted walls. It takes me a while to notice that I am no longer where I used to be. His arm is draped across my shoulders as we walk and then he picks me up and I am being carried through time, and I know I am going to somewhere safe. 

I find myself standing in his living room. He's sitting on his leather couch and he pats his lap. I squirm a bit and shake my head. "Why not?" I shake my head again. "Are you scared you'll be too heavy for me?" 

I sit in between his legs because no force on this earth and in the land of dreams will compel me to sit on his lap. He cradles me and softly croons to me in that deep, melodic voice of his. I slowly drift off...

...I look around my room to find what has woken me. 

My phone is buzzing. New Text Message. I curse it for waking me from such a nice cream. I look at the time and find that it's some ungodly hour of the morning. Who on earth is texting me at this time? 

The professor. The shock of seeing his name immediately after that dream causes me to fumble and drop my new iPhone. His text says that he's in Abu Dhabi. At least that explains the time difference. 

The past week has been an unmitigated disaster. I can't even bring myself to stand on the scales because I know I've gained weight and I really, REALLY don't want to know how much I've gained. And I know it is A LOT. 

I started the week off with binging. I stained my bedsheets with blood from all the cutting and I snuck around at night cleaning them. I felt so full that I was dying for some laxies. And by the time Wednesday swung round, I resolved to fast and go to the gym. Good plan. I was looking forward to getting back on track. That morning, I rush to theatre, scrub in for the first case of the day and faint within the first half hour. Fainting in theatre. I will never live down the shame. 

And this brought on an amazing amount of binging. Endless binging. More and more food. Clothes are tighter, things cease to fit me. I can see the fat piling on. And that's not a turn of phrase. I can actually see that I am fatter. I hate it. I hate it so much. But I brought it upon myself. I am so ashamed of myself. I didn't want to open this blog because I don't deserve to post here and have you lovely ladies read what I write when I am such a failure. 

I miss the professor so much. Somehow, knowing that he is in Abu Dhabi makes me miss him more. I wish he was here. I want to do what I did in my dream and sit in his embrace and tell him about how I hate everything that I have become. I can't even lose weight properly. I want to hear him to tell me that it's okay and that I am a good person and not a complete waste of space and energy. 

But that scenario is really one that only exists in dreams. 

Then I think of J, the professor's wife. She's slightly taller than me. Maybe by an inch. And she weighs 56kg. He told me this. And so it makes me think. J is like a mother to me. So if my mother is going to be 56kg, then I should be well and safely tucked in the 40s. The ideal would be for me to be 10kg smaller than her. I'm not sure why, but I feel like being smaller than her will make them both like me more. 

Flawed logic, yes. 

Next week will be better. Next week. 

8 is a lucky number

Today I took one of those online depression tests. At the end, instead of giving me a score or something that said mild or moderate or severe depression, it just gave me the number of the crisis helpline and said that if I should call it immediately if I was having thoughts about hurting or killing myself. 

After a horrendous day at work, I went on the most amazing binge fest ever. I don't think I've ever eaten this much in my life. Then, on my way back to my room, I found myself automatically going to purge. Which is odd before I've never vomited before and yet here I was going to purge as if it was the normal routine. I didn't do it. I'm not going to purge, I'm going to fight the urge as long as I can. It's getting harder. But I have to try. 

Still, even though I'm not vomiting and I've taken 8 laxies in the past 24 hours. So much for not taking more than the recommended dose. 

I find myself avoiding the professor. I know all you girls tell me not to, and I agree with you, but I'm doing it subconsciously. It's only later that I realise I slipped away so quickly to avoid talking to him. I don't want to see him, but I so do. I want to march up to his door and give him all my laxies and ask him to take them all away. And give him all my scalpel blades. And ask him to fix me. But that's not how it works. He can't fix me. Only I can. But I don't want to. 

Alex still haunts me. But now there is a new girl in town. YW. Just as beautiful. Just as wonderful. And I get along terribly well with her. She's great. We could be great friends. But like Alex, YW reminds me of everything that I am not. She's so clever, so good at writing papers, never delays projects. Everything that I'm not. 

I can't even be eating disordered properly. I wish I'd just be full out mia and vomit my heart out. But I can't. I can't do anything. 

As usual, thank you to Fat Piggy, Christina and xXzapxfireXx for your lovely comments on my last entry. I'm sorry that I've been down so much lately. Things must pick up from here though. 

birds fly [warning...pic of cutting]

Hello. I know some of you really don't like cutting and I know that others participate in self harm so I thought I'd put a warning in the title.

This is the picture of the bird that I carved into my leg. It's on my left thigh, about 20cm up from my knee and slightly to the side. I felt like doing some cutting and earlier today I thought about getting a series of small hearts carved into the area just below my collarbone. Then I thought, I've always wanted a bird tattoo, so why not do that. It might not scar so I can just keep it while it's healing and then that will give me an idea of whether I want a bird tattoo or not.

Ignore the circles, that's just me marking out where on my leg I want the bird. I traced the picture off the computer and onto my leg with surgical marker. Then, with my beloved scalpel blades (god I love being a surgeon) from my little box of love that I keep all my cutting materials in, I slowly carved out the design.

God the scalpels that I got, which apparently you can get for super cheap at art supply stores, are super precise and so the design was easy to follow. I have lots of pictures that I can show you, but I'll leave it at this for those of you who don't like cutting.

I just had to share it with you. Riding on a high and super proud of myself right now.

Skinny thoughts as always!