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. 

spiral out, unprofessional conduct, gratitude

Things are getting worse now. The suicidal ideation is daily, hourly. I can’t stop thinking about how I want to kill myself. I have so much to finish, but even that is no longer enough. I know I will upset some people but I am sure that they will get over it with time. 

I can also see that I will soon develop a full blown eating disorder. If it’s not next year, it will definitely be the year after. And it will be anorexia with a binge/purge subtype. I know that already. I hate the feeling of having food in my stomach. It makes me feel like such a failure. I only feel accomplished when I’m hungry. My desktop background says it all: I only feel beautiful when I’m hungry. 

The laxatives aren’t enough. I don’t want to put food in my mouth and recently I’ve started losing control resulting in some epic binges. I will walk down the road and buy food from every food place and eat as much as I can. Then I will wander around work aimlessly, restlessly. A part of me is thrashing around, wanting to vomit, another part of me is desperately holding onto common sense. So I settle for laxatives. I know it doesn’t do anything about the calories but the misery of the pain and the running to the bathroom makes me feel like I’m repenting. 

But none of it is enough. When I have food in my stomach all I can think about is purging. I feel like I’m lucky. The doctor in me says that I have caught an eating disorder in the early stages. There is so much hope. Now is the time to turn back. Now is the time to catch it. Now is the time to do something about it. It would be so easy. I have people who would help me in a heartbeat and not bat an eye. I have people who would make sure that I succeed and probably not think any less of me despite all my failures. I have everything a person could need to recover. Almost. 

If I were one of my patients I know I would try to get some sort of referral, something to prevent this getting worse. I'm teetering at the edge of a cliff and I want to step out into free fall. I have all the tools for recovery, except the will. I don't want to recover. I want to spiral into my ED. I want to get smaller and smaller, I want to feel pretty for once in my life. 

Yes there are side effects. Yes I've spent many ungodly hours clinging to my toilet. Yes I've spent many sleepless nights crying and willing away the pain in my stomach. Yes I've worried people I care about. But it's just not fair. Every little girl deserves to feel pretty. Every little girl deserves to feel like a princess at some point in her life. If life won't give that to me then I will work hard to get it for myself. I will starve and purge and binge my way to what is rightfully mine, a moment when I can look at myself and think that I am pretty. 

The email was only a line long but it almost brought tears to my eyes. I love it when this happens, when a perfectly professional exchange deteriorates into something completely different. In a strange way it makes me feel so cared about. And although there are times when I can see it in his eyes, I have trouble believing what my see. For all I know my eyes could be deceiving me.  

He calls me F******. The first real nickname I've ever had. He calls me F****** so often that there are people who think my real name is F******. Some people take this as a sign that the notoriously tough professor is fond of me. I wish I could think that way. I remember that once we were in theatre and he was transplanting the inside layer of the front of the eye. To make sure that he had it the right way up, he wrote an F on it. That way, if it is the wrong way up, the F will look back to front. Why do I use the letter F? he asks and the other students in the room look around. Everyone looks at me. Finally he looks at me. It stands for F******. He smiles sweetly and the other students stare at me. I know it doesn't stand for my nickname. He's used that letter for years, long before he met me. It's still a sweet thing to say. 

I call him BB. He always jokes to other people that it means Big Bastard. It's his way of saying, hey, I've got a cute nickname. It does make other people stare at me a bit though. 

F******, I'm sure I can find time for you, BB. 

It's only a sentence long, but it still almost brought tears to my eyes. It's unprofessional conduct and it makes me feel cared for. 

Thank you to Fat Piggy for your lovely comment on my last blog post. It's absolutely wonderful to have you back with us!!!! Thank you also to Anafly, my Aussie neighbour. I'm sure we will become great friends on here! And thank you to wonderful Jackie. You keep me strong! I shall keep on resisting the temptation to purge, although it's getting harder and harder. 

Darling Mia

As usual, thank you to Jackie, Christina, Anafly and Fiandshalimer for your lovely comments on my blog! I love you girls!

In my darkest hours when my phone is silent because all my friends are too busy with their own lives to answer my texts, when I can't sleep because of the tears, when my abdomen is aching for my binging or my fasting, Mia comes to me like an avenging angel. She holds and rocks me and smiles at me with love. Everything will be okay. She hands me the laxies. As soon as you take these. 

Sometimes Ana goes on holiday. But I'm never alone, when Ana is off keeping someone else company, Mia comes and takes my hand. Darling Mia, she whispers to me, she holds me when no one else will, she gives me hope when there is none. I swore I'd be off the laxies. Judith Marie doesn't like them. 

Judith Marie remember being at work, sitting in her room with her eyes shut, riding out the waves of pain coursing through her body, waiting for silence in the corridor so that she can run to the bathroom. The paranoia, hoping that nobody realises she is going to the bathroom every few minutes. Then she sits in the bathroom, in yet more pain, waiting for the person in the next stall to leave so that nobody sees her in there. 

But those moments are Mia's little triumphs. During my pain she points out to me that my abdomen is flatter now, and isn't that empty feeling just second to none? 

Recently I've been binging like mad. LIKE MAD. And Mia is with me during each binge, silent but watching. Immediately afterwards she tries to drag me to the bathroom. Vomit it up again. But Judith Marie refuses. She knows that it's bad. She knows it's really bad. She knows that if she does, she'll be letting a lot of people down. She knows that if anyone finds out it will be a one way ticket to the mental health ward. 

If you are wondering why everything seems to be so much in third person, it's because right now, I don't really understand my identity. I thought I was very Ana, now I seem to be much more Mia, and somewhere in there is Judith, desperate for an Ed free life. 

Never before now have I ever lost control while eating. I will eat and eat and there is an unbelievably strong urge to continue. There are no thoughts in my head. In a strange way it's really peaceful. No stress, no depression, just nothing. It's like a compulsion, I just do it. But immediately afterwards, I want to vomit. So far I haven't yet. And I really don't want to. But I will one day. 

Recently I've gone from one tiredness to another. I used to be fully exhausted and breathless from the restricting, now I'm exhausted by the binging. I hate this. Sometimes I want nothing more than to walk into the professor's office and tell him everything and ask for help. That's probably why I've been avoiding him lately. I'm scared somehow that bit of me that wants recovery will break through and blurt it out. 

The professor. I don't want to see him again. I'm scared. I'm scared of being found out and of giving myself away. I'm scared that he'll call me out for being so late with my work. I'm just scared. I don't want to see him. I care about him so much. I don't think I can face being rejected by him. I'll finish the work, I'll hand it in. Then I'll think about if I want to see him again. Seems stupid doesn't it, me burning the bridge between myself and the one person in my life who is even vaguely supportive. 

I counted my blades. I have nearly 100. I keep getting more of them. I am feeling that it's probably nearly time to cut something else into myself. 

24/7 - chocolate cake, lies and suicide notes

Well I was going to go through everything that I listed in my last post but something has got in the way and I feel like I must write about this. This isn't something that I talk about with my friends and so I will write about it here! You girls have become some of my best friends anyway. I know I've turned this blog into a sort of agony column, but I hope that some of you get some sort of entertain value from it. 

Most of these are about the professor, and this is another one. Don't worry, it's weight related too. I've written him a suicide note. I cry every time I read it. But I owe him a thousand apologies for being such a space occupying lesion and I can't bring myself to speak the words. So I will whisper them from beyond the grave. I'm not going to kill myself now, but when the time comes I want to just do it and not have to delay it by writing many goodbye notes.

I've now got 24/7 access to the labs at work. This is how dedicated I am to work! So dedicated that even the professor is pricking his ears about it a bit. I ended up chatting to him today. He's a real gem to me sometimes. And he told me I look too thin! Which always makes my day. It's been a while. He asked me how much I weighed and how tall I was and I accidentally spat out my BMI immediately afterwards. 

I said it to calm him because my BMI is 21 which is perfectly normal. But later I realised that most people don't really know their BMI off the top of their head. It's little things like that that will give me away. Or, what I really mean by that is that it's things like that that will give me away to the professor. He kept asking me if I'm okay and I said yes, and I almost said that I'm doing better because I'm not taking laxies. He is the main reason I stopped taking them and I had temporarily forgotten that he never knew about them in the first place. Still, I'm lucky that I didn't let it slip. It would have been awful if I had accidentally said that I was better and had to explain why. No laxies for a week! I'm proud. 

I thought he had forgotten about the weight loss thing. It's been a long time since he last mentioned it. But he's watching. Always watching. He actually embarrassed me in front of the entire department today. 

We were having cake to celebrate the promotion of some of the staff members and I was eating mine very slowly. It wasn't anything conscious, I just do that out of habit now. I was staring at the dense brown chocolate that was the cake. The mousse layers called to me, called to a part of me that I buried a long time ago. I looked over to J, the professor's wife, the only person in the department who had refused a piece. Why hadn't I done the same? Just last week a whole bunch at them beat me for not eating breakfast or lunch. Refusing cake seemed to be too risky. What if someone suspects something? Then an icy grip tightens around the core of me. Nobody is allowed to find out. 

So I take the cake with a smile. And I have an animated conversation, hoping that good company will distract me from what I'm spooning into my mouth. But it doesn't. Laughter and happy words that spill from my own mouth seem like muffled sounds in the background. The mousse, the brownie base, that is the only thing in my reality. How many calories are in this? I have no idea. But I keep spooning it into my mouth, slowly, slowly, as if that somehow lessens the calories. The very core of me is screaming for me to stop but the action is totally automatic and mechanical. This is what happens when the professor is near me. He's sitting one seat away from me. I have to eat or he might find out. 

I slowly work on it during speeches and when they had finished there was this silence and I was still slowly picking at my cake. So there is this silence and I'm just staring at my cake because the silence is an awkward one for me. I'm the only one still eating my piece. I've barely made it through half of it. Are you playing with your food? I look at him, confused. Yes, I am talking to you. The entire department is staring at me. I can feel the redness rising in my face. 

I'm just eating it slowly, I reply, unable to look him in the eye. TS leaps in to save me. He's the man who saves me from the professor, my saviour from my saviour. It has half the number of calories if you eat it slowly! People laugh and start their own conversations. I can't look at the professor again. 

Later that night I tell the professor about Fat Piggy. Her suicide attempt weighs heavily on me. Every suicide attempt does but she means so much to me. I don't say much. But I tell him. It's why my work is so overdue. I can't focus. I tell him about my friend who has just had a car accident. I don't tell him I'm restricting again, but he suspects it. I'm sure that's why he keeps asking me to clinic and theatre. That way he can feed me and he knows he can make me eat. You're not going to do anything like that are you? It's the second time he's asked me about suicide. This time I'm more prepared. I look him in the eyes. No. But I can't tell if he believes me or not. 

Why are you so defensive? See how I'm sitting? I'm relaxed. You are looking very defensive and you are quieter than usual. I try to consciously force my body into a different posture. It immediately reverts back to my "defensive" stance though. It's been a hard week but I'll be okay. He looks at me, I know the face. You don't believe me do you? I ask him and I know I've just made a mistake. Believe you about what? We both know that he knows what I'm talking about. He's just using a nifty trick, one that I use to lure more information out of patients. But I know every trick in the book and I'm not about to fall for it. 

I can tell he wants me to say more but I stop. You can come talk to me whenever you want, about whatever you want. You can talk to me as a doctor, or a boss or a friend. I wear many different hats. I say thank you politely. I think he knows I'll never talk to him. He asks if I confide in any friends. No I don't. Not even on here to I put all my twisted thoughts. I'd be writing forever if I did. He stands up and walks around from behind his huge mahogany desk. You look like you need a hug. 

the burning fat.

It would appear that I have a penchant for late night posts. Once again it is almost midnight and I'm posting on here. I've got a huge backlog of work to do and my emotions are in complete turmoil and I've just made the decision not to sleep tonight (which is the best way for me to get to sleep). 

Most of you will know that I am highly skilled when it comes to the art of procrastination and suppressing emotions until they all swirl inside and generate so much pressure that they all burst forth at once. The insult someone threw me a few months ago, the cutting from last week, the scolding for my parents last year, it all comes out in some putrid mess and then I have absolutely am forced to try and clean it up. 

There are a few reasons why tonight is a time for great contemplation for me. One is the comment that fiandshalimer left me. One is the conversation I had with TS a few days ago after Fat Piggy's suicide attempt. One is the cute Australian guy I met in theatre a few days ago. One is the vast pile of work that is burning my candle from one end. And last but not least, one reason is that in 45mins, it will be midnight and then it will be my birthday, one of my most loathed days of the year. 

Being a surgeon, highly methodical, slightly OCD and just anal in general, I shall deal with this the only way I know how, one at a time. So! Firstly, to fiandshalimer:

Your comment really made me think. Probably not in the way that you intended. Let me just say that I know you don't mean any offense, and I do not take any offense. I know that you talk from experience and you are trying to save me from a horrid experience that you've gone through and never want anyone else to experience. I have to say that I think that is a very noble thing to do. 

From reading your blog it's very obvious that ED has ripped your entire life away from you, it must be frustrating for you to read about other people seemingly happily skipping down the road of EDs. I guess I can only relate to that feeling on a much smaller scale but even so, I understand that you want me and other people in similar situations to avoid it at all costs. 

I don't know how to explain myself to you. I guess that I don't have to. In all my honesty in this blog, I've never felt like I owed anybody an explanation, but I do owe myself an explanation because at present, there is a small part of me named 'insight' who is taking the exact same stance as you. I don't know how long you've been following me, or how many of my blog entries you've read but I really REALLY hope you'll believe me when I say that I am certainly not skipping any road to ED happily and that yes, I do know exactly what lies at the end of that road should I ever go that far. 

So let me just say this for you and for all my new followers who might not know this about me; I'm a surgeon, I've worked in general surgery and I've worked in psychiatry in the past. I know what happens. I've had ED patients in both these areas, and I've spent a lot of time mopping up the mental and physical mess that ED begets. I'm not ignorant. I don't think having an ED is glamorous. No part of it is glamorous. The physical effects are nothing short of horrific but at least there are physical things that can be done to attempt to rectify the damage. The mental effects are by far the more crippling. 

If I had any strength or tiny scrap of self worth, I would drag and crawl on streets covered with broken glass straight into recovery and therapy. But life isn't quite that simple. Part of me is very careful about hiding everything because I don't want my colleagues to find out. Part of me feels pretty reckless about this whole matter for the exact same reason. I'm surrounded by doctors, they'll find out and do something before I ever get that sick. Or so I think. 

Work burns my candle from one end and my ED burns it from the other. There are no two ways about that. That's just the way it is. Believe me, if I could stop the ED burn, I would. All my friends are highly successful and are constantly riding the high. I pretend to be riding my high too, and I'd love to be able to actually ride it. I have a rather privileged life. I have great friends, a beautiful dog, a promising career...I'm pretty lucky. I'd love to be able to enjoy it with the rest of my friends. 

I think this ED snuck up on me. The last I remember, it was a choice, it always was. I chose to starve for a bit to lose some weight and then I'd stop and go back to normal and just live life. Slowly, without me noticing, it just took over. Now food occupies my every thought and every meal is an internal battle. I don't know how or when I got this bad. And now I don't have a choice. Every action is automatic, a compulsion. A compulsion that is a response to the obsession that rules my mind. 

Fiandshalimer, I don't know what it is that I want to say to you. I think your sentiments are probably echoed by some of my friends, and it certainly would be echoed by all of them if they knew. I hope that nobody thinks any less of me because of my hypocrisy and incompetence and every other weakness that I've displayed in my blog. I've never claimed to be a good person. I just try to do my best. Let no one say that I wasn't honest! 

I find a strange amount of peace in my ED and all the rest of my mental illnesses. I'm so privileged. I'm privileged enough to be a doctor and a surgeon. I'm privileged to have the professor and TS and J and a bevy of great friends. I'm so privileged. But so undeserving. I don't deserve any of it. Deep down I think I'm a terrible person, the definition of nasty and evil and ugly and disgusting. I tend to overcompensate for this and as a result most people think I'm rather vain. But I'm truly awful and the constant misery brought to me by my mental problems actually works to balance my life out a bit. I feel like I can continue on because I'm suffering like the loathsome worm that I am despite my undeserved luck. 

Maybe one day I will see things the way all recovered/recovering ED patients see it. Maybe one day I will see things the way my friends see it. But until then I don't know how to be what I'm not. Like Newton's first law of motion, I will remain in my state until some outside force acts upon me. 

I've discovered the underline button.

I think I'm reaching that stage where I'm so old and tired, too tired to be paranoid and be in denial and to get in my own way. This is probably the first time I've been able to see my situation clearly. 

Firstly, I'd like to say thank you to Christina. LOVE YA GIRL!!! Don't you EVER apologise for leaving long comments. I LOVE your long comments, especially since you always agree with me! It's a very egotistical thing, but I love it when people agree with me. Leave as many long comments as you want! Hell, leave even longer comments! Have you seen how long some of my comments are? Freaking long! 

Secondly, I'm really starting to get more of an idea of how I look. I don't think I'm ever going to think that I'm pretty or thin enough, but I know that some of my outfits are a bit...well, a little...tarty. Not that I ever show that much skin. I have a strict rule, I'm it's low cut, then I either wear pants or the skirt will be just above my knees, no higher. But I seem to...gravitate towards, super professional tarty clothes. 

It got me in a bit of trouble today. Which is probably the only reason I noticed. My access card to campus stopped working and I needed security to show me up to the department. The entire way there the security man was telling me how good I looked and how beautiful I was and insisted on taking me the entire way. It wasn't flattering in the slightest. It creeped me out like mad. 

I went straight to ask for my access card to be extended. I'm also probably going to ask the professor to give me after hours access so I can work some weekends too. So I never have to ask security to show me up. I was really, really scared although I'm not sure why. 

I remember saying that I would be flattered if a complete stranger told me I was beautiful. No, I was so wrong. I'm not flattered at all. Just scared. 

Today I wore a dress that I've not been able to wear for 5 years because I was too fat. It's made of that sort of material that shows off every single lump and bump. I still had lumps and bumps today, but far fewer than before and I sort of felt like I deserved to wear that dress again. 

The professor was very nice to me. He said that I looked great and tres chic. Then continued to refer to yesterday's patients that we operated on as my patients and then presented them to them as if he was the student and I was his boss and then introduced me to another doctor who is on the board that chooses who gets onto the training scheme. It was most bizarre. I did not know what to say. Sometimes he acts as if I'm his boss and then lets people know that he's doing EXACTLY what I want him to do. 

Honestly, with professors like that, who needs boyfriends. He compliments me and tells me that I look good, he buys me coffee, he does what I want him to do. AND he also pays me, gives me publications to speed up my career path, introduces me to people who matter, mentors me and even gave me my first proper nickname. That's like, so much better than any boyfriend I could ever imagine. 

And one other thing I realised...how bad my eating disorder really is. I always knew I had some form of EDNOS. But then, now, when I do eat, it's one meal a day. And almost always vegetables only. I found myself getting really upset when there weren't any vegetables and today, after a dinner of vegetables only, when my parents were out of the house, I went around looking for food. I wanted to go sit and cry in a corner when I couldn't find any food. 

But I've come a long way. Yes I binged. But then again. My binges now are VERY different to how they used to be. My binge today was probably a 400cal dinner and then 500cal of noodles. That's still less than my BMR. And not even a quarter of what I would normally binge. Normally I can sit and eat thousands worth of KFC and miscellaneous other fried stuff.  Not to mention potato and gravy. Oh, and pasta. And if there is ice cream or cake...oh that would be trouble. God I miss those binges. But I haven't binged like that for a long time. And I've been pretty good at restricting this week. Even though these binges have been getting better. I still feel bad about them. GOD I MISS LAXIES!!!!

Now I'm way too scared to go near any of that. I only eat it if I'm with a good friend, to stop them suspecting anything. I don't really go out with friends and so when I do, I have to appear normal. 

noticing.

Fiandshalimer, jackie, Christina, aliceana and Bella. Thank you lovely ladies for your lovely, lovely comments. It's very lovely. Lovely. As you see, I'm demonstrating my vast vocabulary for you there.

HELLO BELLA!!! Follower number 50. WHAT! I can't believe I have 50 followers. That's just crazy. And you were saying how smart I sounded. Lol. Because so far in this post I haven't sounded very smart at all. Job no. 2 is killing me so normal mental status will resume after today. Which is my deadline for finishing the job.

Well I just weighed in at 119lbs. *breathes huge sigh of relief* When I started I was 124lbs and so I'm 5lbs down and hugely relieved. You may remember that I had a fit of joy when I hit 119lbs last time, but it didn't last long because I gained weight. I'm so glad I'm back here. 115lbs here I come! However, I don't know how I'm going to lose 2lbs with the weekend coming up. Not to mention my birthday next Monday. Just a nightmare because my family celebrates everything with a feast.

But onto the theme of today's post...I feel like Sesame St...you know, today's post was brought to you by the letter N. N for noticing.

I'm noticing that I'm smaller. Even after I eat, my abdomen doesn't pouch out as much as it used to, which is something that I'm really, really enjoying. I'm loving trying on my old clothes and seeing that they don't get stretched as much as they used to. There is progress!!!!!

As long as I'm moving in the right direction. Yesterday I sat down and suddenly noticed how huge my thighs are. They're smaller than they used to be, but omg, they are still enormous. I feel so ashamed of them! Still, take what you can get, as I always say. One day I will have the thin, lithe gazelle legs that I've always wanted. Granted, I'll have a shorter version because my legs are so short.

I've decided to just not have the laxies, unless I seriously can't stop myself. My bowels are now back to their usual irritable self. Fiandshalimer, thanks for reminding me. I mean, I knew all that, all the stuff laxies do, I knew all that but for some reason it didn't click. Then the colostomy thing, that's what finally made me think I should stop entirely. I did my time in general surgery (loved it!) and I've seen patients with colostomies and failed anastamoses and rectal prolapses, I've even done a few colostomies. I remember thinking that that truly was a fate worse than death. I would rather die than have a permanent colostomy.

On the downside, I did notice something yesterday that makes me a little worried. I went for a run and I just couldn't do it. I was so tired and I had to walk every now and then. I got breathless so easily. It probably means I'm getting anaemic again. From the restricting and mostly eating vegetables, I'm probably anaemic. I'm going to have to think about how to proceed from here...

On a completely different note, met a really good looking guy yesterday. Don't go getting excited though, he's Australian and is going back to Australia on Monday. He was in theatre with me and the professor. Really smart guy and he was also SO BIG. Like, really tall and quite well built, even if I say so myself. He made me feel really small, which is probably why I liked him. A nice, smart, tall, hunky Aussie guy. And now, I apply my rule that I use for all medical students and doctors: taken until proven otherwise. Not that it matters, I won't see him again.