faking it and more compliments wrapped in love

It would seem that I can't spend a day at work without my weight being dragged into question. Today TS said to me that I shouldn't lose any more weight. "Don't lose any more weight", he says, "this weight looks good on you." And like the professor, he thinks that my waist is starting to look very small. I'm scared that one day all this will go right to my head and I will be grasped by the delusion that I am thin. But ah! I was prepared for this and well aware that I am still fat. I wore a very tight waist belt on purpose, so I could feel it digging into my fat.

It's not that I think they're lying to me, but I just don't think I'm thin enough and I think they get concerned rather easily. I do not think they need to be worried. When I weigh 45kg/100lbs, at that point I think I would understand why someone might be concerned because I would have lost 20kg from my original weight.

The worst thing is that I have to pretend I'm not trying to lose more weight. I am essentially lying to them. But as they are worried, if they catch a whiff of an eating disorder, it will be straight to the mental health ward for me! One thing that I didn't lie about was how it is to lose weight. There was a time when it would just drop off but I've been trying for a week and not shifted a pound. It makes me think I'm taking on my calories than I realise. It's frustrating because there have been times when I dropped weight without trying but now that I'm actually trying, nothing is happening.

I also ran into the professor today. He seems to be in an amazingly good mood recently. I've had more cuddles and kisses in the past week from him and SPM than I have in the past half year of my life.

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.

a compliment wrapped up in love

It was 2 o'clock in the morning and as a huge insomniac, I was up watching youtube videos. I suddenly realised that I was many MANY years behind everyone else and had never seen any footage of Ellen and Portia's wedding. So I looked them up and that was all good. Then I came across an interview of Portia on the Ellen Degeneres Show and she was talking about her anorexia.

And then she said something that made a huge amount of sense. She said that when someone said "you look too thin, I'm worried about you" it was like a compliment wrapped up with love. To say that someone is too thin, there's no such thing and so it just felt like a great compliment and to be worried, that was like love.

Which is unbelievably true. It's something that I've always sort of known but never really put into words. It's why I feel so flattered when the professor says those exact words to me and not the least bit concerned about my health, which I suspect is what he is trying to bring my attention to.

Last time I saw him, he said something to me that I have started to fixate on quite a bit. He was talking about how small my waist was looking (oh please, I looked in the mirror and it is soooo fat) but then said, "the rest of you looks fine, you don't look anorexic". And it just haunts me. I keep thinking about it. What does it mean? I think he was pleased by it, but that just irks me so much.

I don't want to look fine, I want to look thin, I want to look too thin. I want to look the way the general public would describe as "anorexic". It has given me something to aim for strangely.

I totally long for the day when I can walk into his office and he looks at me and says, you look anorexic. It really, really stresses me out that I don't look that thin.

accidental intervention

Well if I'm completely honest with myself and all of you right now, I'd have to say that when I set of to go into work today, I had every intention of killing myself. I was going to go in and just sit there for a bit, collecting my thoughts, and then go down to the railway and wait for a train. I was dressed all in black, even my horrific black leggings that show off my HUGE thighs perfectly.

I don't really know what came over, I just had enough of everything and faced with the prospect of seeing my parents when they arrived home from work, I just decided fuck it all. So I left before they arrived home and told my grandparents I was going to work.

Then I arrive at work and set myself up in my little room, I get myself some tea and I see immediately that the professor is in his office. I avoid him. I don't want to see him (but I did want to, so badly). I'm sitting in my room, listening carefully. I hear him leave his office and I decide, I have to just say hi. So I walk out of my room and I see him, waiting for the lift.

[As I am writing this post, I find myself crying. I don't know why I should cry. There is so much emotion tied up in this. So much emotion in every encounter I have with the professor. So much fear, and hope and love.]

And he was surprised to see me, gave me a hug and a kiss and we had a little chat. Nothing out of the ordinary. He told me that I looked too thin, and that it is so easy for young women to become anorexic, especially if there is stress. He said that right now, I don't look anorexic but my waist was starting to look very small. (And this is the repeating tale of how I feel super thin because he says so, only then I look in the mirror to find I'm still fat.)

He asks me how long I will be around this time, and says that it is good to have me back. And now comes the accidental intervention. He asks me about my love life. I, of course, balk insanely at this and end up as a blushing mess. And he says to me, "you're the only family I've got...so I have to ask."

This little comment, coupled with others he's made in the past, just makes me wonder. When we went to lunch, he said that the staff there must think his daughters are getting more Asian and that they'll have to say that they bought me in Asia. He always offers me a ride and says he's just being a concerned parent. He ran through the rain to his car to pick me up so that I wouldn't get wet. He says he gets worried about me when I don't look chirpy. And now this.

In a way, it makes me feel sad for him. But in another way, it makes me incredibly happy. His lack of children and my desire for a functional father makes a potent combination. On some level I am reluctant to accept the possibility that he might feel some sort of fatherly affection for me. I'm so hurt by my own father, I don't want to make myself vulnerable in the same way again. I'm so afraid that I'm imagining it all and it's all in my head and that I'll find out some awful truth that he really doesn't like me.

The professor is so moody, I never really want to waltz into his office because I'm so scared he'll yet at me, and I'll just lose the plot and step out in front of a bus or train. But excepting the time he actually did yell at me, he's always been good to me, regardless of his mood. So I guess in that sense my fear is rather unfounded, but still it persists.

After this encounter with the professor, I just thought, I can't do this. I can't step out in front of a train now. What if what he says is true. If he does consider me as his family, my self inflicted demise could really upset him. And I can't bear the thought of him being upset. I'm so fond of him, and he's such a dear person to me, I can't upset him like that. And he really did seem happy to have me back. So I drove home, and tucked myself up in bed, which is where I am now.

Funny to think, he'll never know that a simple sentence from him saved me from a date with the head of a train. But it's something I'll always remember. The day I almost did it.

something big, something nasty

"There is something big growing inside you, and you have to hide it away and push it down...you are just too nasty for words."

Now those aren't words that are easy for anyone to stomach. And as for me, my father's rather unfortunate choice of words there makes it all the much harder. If I read that sentence out of context, as you will be doing, it makes it sound like I come from some sort of hugely religious family and I have just gotten myself pregnant out of wedlock and my father has just found out I am carrying a bastard child. Would you have guessed that I earned myself that walloping by staying in bed because I was feeling sick and not wanting any lunch?

A very long time ago I wrote a blog entry (professional incompetence) about being sat down and having a "family meeting" whereby my parents dragged out for hours all my incompetencies and shortcomings and reinforced a message that I have hearing all my life: you will never be good enough to be loved by anyone.

Well today there has been another meeting. Another serious meeting. The year is always filled with these sorts of meetings scattered around but fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) there are only 1 or 2 serious ones each year. I had one earlier this year and today was another one. At least I can rest knowing that there shouldn't be any more serious ones this year.

Today's meeting was triggered by me wanting to stay in bed. [For fuck's sake, what's wrong with that. I'm recovering from exams, all I want to do is stay in bed.] I was already in a rotten mood because I'd wanted to drive around the countryside and had woken up too late to do so and so I all I wanted to do was stay in bed.

Riveting, isn't it. I'm sorry that this isn't very exciting, to be honest, I don't know why my parents made such a big deal out of it. Their reaction really sort of would have been appropriate for something like, if I'd been found injecting myself with heroin and wouldn't get out of bed due to some drug induced stupor.

And since I'd woken up around lunchtime, I didn't want to eat any lunch and when they called me for lunch, I said that I didn't want any and didn't go down. Honestly, tell me if I'm crazy, because thus far, I don't think I've done anything wrong at all.

But because of this, my father stormed into my room and dragged me into his room and sat me down to have another family meeting. Apparently, I'd made my mother cry. And he was mad. How dare I have the insufferable cheek to something like that. How dare I. Don't I know how lowly I am?

I have to say that I bore the vast majority of this meeting with iron will and poker face. I was actually feeling rather smug about how well I was handling it. But then, suddenly, for no real reason, I felt it all control slipping away and no matter how much I willed my eyes not to produce tears, they wouldn't listen. It was a moment of total and utter loss. Like all the energy drained out of me and I felt like slumping forwards, have all life drain out of me and just die there.

Afterwards, it was the first time in my life when I've actually physically crawled into a corner and beg to be left alone. I've never felt so small, and so attacked. It's been almost 12hours since the event and I'm still crying. My eyes feel so strained, they feel like they are shriveling up in the sockets and getting ready to fall out of my head. My father told me to always remember that I have something big and nasty inside of me, and that I have to hide it or I will never be loved. That I am not perfect, and unless I improve, I will never be loved. Among lots of other things that I shan't bore you with.

The long and short of it is, I'm an awful, awful person and I will never be loved. The end.

I think that for a long time now, I have been slowly losing hope. Hope in what? I don't really know. Perhaps, hope of me possibly having a happy ending. After today, I don't really think I have much, if any, left. And I find myself making very, very different suicide plans. Previously, I'd always thought of taking a big overdose. Saving up on drugs and taking a huge dose and just being found, dead on my bed. But now, I find that this method has too much uncertainty. What if I am found before I am dead? What if I don't take a large enough dose? No, I've decided I need a method that will make sure I will be dead at the other side of it.

So I've decided that I will drive my car to a neighbourhood that I used to live in and then I will be dressed all in black, and it will be late at night and I will wait in the bushes by the train track and then just leap in front of it. Being hit by a train seems like a reasonably certain method of committing suicide. And I really do want to do it. I'd do it now, but for the moment, I'd feel too much guilt about leaving my friend all by herself next year, in a flat that she can't afford by herself. But part of me is really itching to just go out and do it. This is perhaps the most serious I've ever been about it. I don't care that I have a big holiday coming up, I don't care that I'm so close to qualifying as a doctor, I don't care that I am going to work in Bristol for a bit next year. I don't care. I just want to die. And not have to deal with any of this bullshit.

But I am too fat to do that just now. I have to die thin. I need to be thin. I want to be thin so that I can curl up on my bed and look small. Does that sound stupid?

fattening up

Well this certainly is a new experience for me. Never in my life have I tried to make myself look fat. I haven't completely lost my mind. I'm not actually trying to gain weight. I'm just trying to make it look like I haven't lost any more. I had a wee bit of a panic after work and now realise that I'm in really quite deep. I can't stop the weight loss. I can't bear the thought of not losing more weight. All I can think of is how I can alter my eating and exercise to lose weight even faster and how upset I am at not losing weight fast enough.

When I look in the mirror all I see is fat everywhere and problem areas and places that are so hideous, I can barely bring myself to look, but I force myself to. I have no idea what everyone is on about when they say that I definitely look like I've lost weight because the scales haven't changed and my clothes don't feel any looser. I don't know why people are so worried, I've still got lots of fat left on me, there is definitely no cause for concern.

I'm not totally out of touch with reality. I can understand that if I was super thin, people might be concerned but as I'm still really fat, there is nothing to be concerned about. I do find it flattering but it is starting to get extremely annoying, and it is making weight loss more complicated. For the first time in my life I'm finding myself trying to work out how slowly I can lose weight without people noticing and what I can wear to look fat.

It's much more traumatic than I thought it would be. I hate looking fat and I've always tried to look thin so to make myself look fatter than I am is an extremely hard thing to do. Still, whatever it may take to keep my job and continue to lose weight!

trouble.

Started work and I can already sense the trouble. I must have been seriously deluding myself when I thought that I wouldn't have any trouble losing weight and working at the same time. Today was my first proper day of work and everyone I spoke to in the department are up in arms about my weight.

I have completely mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I am completely flattered. I feel great when people notice that I've lost weight. It's marvellous affirmation of what I am doing and I feel like my work has paid off. For a fleeting moment, a wonderful fleeting moment, my soul feels light as a feather and I feel like I'm floating away, a shadow of myself, floating with the light, pure and holy. But it is only for a moment. Deep down I know I am still fat, that I haven't changed weight from the second before they told me I looked thin, and that I am still extremely fat, that I look pregnant and that I have many, many more pounds to lose before I am content.

On another level there is fear. These are no nonsense people. I didn't expect anyone to notice my weight loss, especially because I have lost so little since I last saw them, so little that I can't notice a change at all. If they can see weight loss that I can't see, what are they going to do about weight loss that even I can see?

This fear is especially because I haven't seen the professor yet. And he is the one who is hawk eyed about my weight. If he thinks I've lost weight, I am going to get my ass kicked. I am going be sitting in shit up to my eyeballs. But I may be able to avoid seeing him for quite a while yet so I have some self preservation time left. I have no idea what might happen if he decides I've lost too much weight. I just know with a certain degree of certainty that if that day comes to pass, shit will hit the fan.

Lucky for me the work that I'm doing doesn't really require me to be that exposed o the department so they can't really be giving me a hard time for losing weight. I will lose the weight, regardless of what other people think. I know that I'm fat and I will be thin!

With great relief I find that I am back to 121lbs today. Got rid of that one stupid pound! My legs are so sore I can barely bend them. Still, that one pound gain made me drag myself out running, it's a really odd feeling, running with legs so sore that they feel completely unstable. I will have to start doing more yoga to tone my upper half.

To end this post with some sort of a positive note, if I stand with my feet together, only the tops of my thighs touch and if I tilt my pelvis, then I have the most slender little gap between them. It's insignificant. It's not really a gap, it doesn't count until I can stand with my feet together with no pelvic tilt and see a gap. But it is encouraging. It means that it is possible. And it means that I'm close. When I reach 115lbs, I should see some sort of gap. I can't wait!

Fat Piggy-thank you for your comment. I hate looking pregnant, I can't believe someone actually thought you were pregnant! You look slim to me! I would've been tempted to slap their face! Hope the exams went well.

Jackie-I know that 1lb isn't a huge deal, but still, like you said, I can't help but feel like a failure for it. If only the scales would only go down!