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. 

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. 

losing it COMPLETELY

Firstly, thank you to Princess perfection for your lovely comment on my last blog entry. Secondly, I deeply apologise for the hundreds and thousands of blog entries I've been doing lately. I don't normally post every day (or more often than that), but recently a LOT has been happening in my emotional world for some reason. 

It would appear that I'm sometimes seized by moments of absolute madness. Such as this morning when the professor caught me off guard with a meeting. I was just popping by his office and popped my head round to say hi. Which quickly turned into tea and a discussion about my eating. From my last post you can probably tell that my weekend didn't go that well. And I told him this. 

Which of course leads to discussion and I cried in front of him again. Apparently I'm making a habit of this and I'm not proud. I swore I would not ever cry in front of a supervisor and I've cried in front of this one twice. When my self esteem is being discussed, I just disintegrate. He tells me that several people have been talking to him about my weight. I don't see a difference at all. In my eyes, I still look exactly the same. I'm amazed that people think I've lost enough weight for them to concern themselves over it. 

He asks me if I have a boyfriend. I balk at the question. He knows the answer already. 

"You should have a boyfriend. I would have thought that someone as pretty and intelligent and caring as you would have had lots of boyfriends. Do you not think you're pretty enough to have a boyfriend?"

The question sends me reeling backwards. It's not one I expected. Also, it took my best friend a good 5 years to work out that as the reason for me not wanting a relationship so for the professor to just spit it out like that stunned me. I'm still stunned. And a bit worried about how easy I am to read. 

He is the only person I can't hold it together for. The way he looks at me just calls to some part of me and everything just comes flooding out. At some point in the conversation I feel like he's getting far too worked up about my eating. QUICK! DISTRACT HIM! is what my brain tells me to do. Without thinking, I say that my eating isn't a big deal, it's not what worries me the most. BIG MISTAKE. 

The expression on the professor's face becomes totally unreadable and he stops mid sentence. He demands to know what worries me more. The new look on his face makes me literally squirm in my seat. I'm writhing around, twisting my hands, not looking at him. Slowly, and with much trepidation, all I can manage to say is:

"Well...there is the self harm...the cutting."

Something in the professor snaps upon hearing this. I can see in his eyes that he has lost all self control and he looks at me in complete disbelief. He doesn't say anything and in my utter folly I try to fill the silence and start rambling on about it and how it's not that much of a big deal. I talk about cutting my forearm and he immediately grabs it and looks for scars. I show him the cuts on my thighs and the heart of my chest. I talk about the cuts on my abdomen that I can't show him because of my dress. 

Now there is a completely new dimension to his expression, which I'm studying with my heart in my mouth. If I didn't know better I would call it panic. 

"That's crazy. That's absolutely crazy. It's just not normal at all. What's to say that next time you won't do something stupid like cut your wrists? You need help, you need to get help now!" 

I'm scared now I've never seen him like this. He's not exactly angry, although it almost sounds like it. But his voice, his face, his manner, he's lost all self control now. If I were an outsider looking in, or if I were watching two other people in the exact same situation, I would say that he was rather scared and panicking and blurting out the frightening thoughts that raced across his mind because the shock had eliminated his ability to filter them. But I can't quite believe this of the professor. What he says next upsets me no end. It's along the lines of, my behaviour is completely mental and sick and he can't work with anyone this sick. There is so much judgement in it that I don't even bother trying to explain. 

He's almost climbing over his desk to look at my cuts more clearly, pointing out parts where I have cut deeper. Slowly but surely, some of his composure returns. I start working in another city next year on Jan 4. That weekend, I am coming back and he is going to take me on a long walk to discuss how I am going to get help. He's forcing me to get therapy. 


"People look back [at suicides] and say, oh that thing they did was a cry for help and wish that they'd done something about it. Well I'm hearing your cry for help and I'm going to do something."


Man, he's going to be PISSED when I kill myself. 

I'm not entirely sure how to interpret all this. But I'm certainly beyond the point of no return now. The professor knows absolutely everything now. I don't even want to think about what he thinks of me now. He clearly thinks I'm an absolute nutcase. He can't possibly want to work with me now. I'm just waiting for him to wash his hands of me soon. He can throw me into therapy and then disown me. 

That's how I lost it completely. 

heaven is a cloud of laxies

It's 3am and I've been pretending to sleep for 2 hours now. I might have drifted off for a few minutes but the pain in my bloated and ever suffering abdomen won't let me have any peace. Suddenly a bolt of pain shoots through me and I'm jolted upright. My actions are automatic and from muscle memory. Without turning on my lights, I leap out of bed, open my door and sneak into my bathroom. 

This time is worse than all the other times put together. This time it's many days of not going to the bathroom, many binges and horrendous bloating and a fast approaching department Christmas party that have me popping the laxies. 4 of them, double the highest recommended dose and boy are they working. I can't walk in straight lines. I try to move quietly, so that I don't stumble but it's hard. I've never felt so dizzy in my life. My head is spinning, spinning, the room feels like it's sailing rough seas with me clambering around desperately trying to get to the bathroom. My eyes, they can't focus on anything, not even after I turn the bathroom light on. 

As I sit on the toilet, I grab onto the towel rail in an effort to steady myself. The pain is unbearable now. I feel like I'm going to pop. The strange thing is, I also really, really want to vomit. I know there is nothing to vomit but I am nauseated as all hell, it must be because of the dizziness. 

There is no peace for the next 3 hours. Just pain and more pain and more pain with a large serving of nausea. Still, I step on the scale and what read 123lbs a few hours ago now says 120lbs. I yearn for the laxies to keep working. I want to see 119lbs again. I'm convinced my scale is fucked up. I need to get on the one in my parents' room. The analogue scale, I trust it more. Still, at this time of the morning, that's not possible. 

I crawl into bed again at 6am. Exhausted. But still in pain and still nauseous. I'm just grateful that the intensity of everything has died down. I roll into a ball and force myself to ignore the pain. I'm so tired, I feel like the only thing to make me feel better is sleep. 

When I wake up, I'm only feeling marginally better. Even so, I'm forced on a long drive with the family. It's almost Christmas, we like to drive and eat junk food and do that all day during the holiday season. Normally this is a fun time to catch up but today it's hell. I'm staring at the road like I believe that will somehow distract me from my bowels. They are squirming. They feel inflamed and angry. Every now and then pain will wash over me. I still want to vomit but I have to eat so that my parents don't suspect anything. It's a miserable day. I feel like I've given myself ulcerative colitis with all the laxies. 

I hate them so much. But I love them. They make me feel like I'm trying. They make me feel like I'm paying my dues for all my horrible binges. That whole episode was almost 12 hours ago now but I still don't feel right. I'm hoping that tomorrow is better. I have bought a lovely, expensive dress for the Christmas party and I don't want to be feeling this bad when I'm wearing it. 

I had a mini-break down while dress hunting. It's so hard to find anything that I look good in. And I have to look good. It will be in front of the department. I risk being completely overdressed but they are used to me being like that. I want people to think my dress is pretty, even if they will never be able to think that I am pretty. Ah, I am so jealous of those blessed with beauty. It's something no amount of weight loss will give me. I will always be butt ugly. 

I still look bloated. It's all fat. I've definitely put on weight and I hate it. I'm looking forward to Jan 4th when I move out of this house. I will start fasting again and going to the gym. It's always easier when I'm in another city. Then the weight loss will start! The professor will forget about me, I am sure of that. And I will be able to drop as much weight as quickly as I can muster. 

Thank you to Zapfire, Christina and Sammy for your lovely comments. Yeah, blogger is doing something weird, it doesn't always update the blogs I follow either. It's really annoying! I miss out on important news! 

This is definitely an odd place to be. I'm rather scared because if by some fluke the professor doesn't forget, and I don't get any "better", I'm scared he's going to do something about it. I know that it's probably in my best interests...but I don't want anyone to stop me trying to lose weight. 

Also, about the depression, he says that about 1/5 of medical students are depressed. When they start working, that number rises to 1/3 to 1/2 of new doctors being depressed. He doesn't want me to start my first job without sorting out the depression. Obviously, he doesn't know I'm actually suicidal and I'm actually counting on that job tipping me over the edge. The speed with which he came up with an action plan last time scares me. Why do I talk myself into these corners? At the time I was crying because I felt cared for. But now, I don't want any of it. 

FUCK IT!!!!....I'M GOING TO LOSE WEIGHT!!!

Old habits die hard. 2 whole days have passed since I last used laxies. But I'm bloated and ugly and fat. I hate this. So I only ate dinner today. It was a binge too, but I bet it's around 1000cal. 

I have so much ugly fat on my belly. I have so much ugly fat on my thighs and my arms. 

I had to buy a new bra today. My cup size? DD. THIS FUCKING SUCKS!!! I hate my boobs. They are fucking enormous. I really wish they were smaller. 

After my talk with the professor, I was feeling super good for a few hours. I felt like I was thin, like I could do with gaining a few kilos. Everything he said, I believed. For a couple of hours. Then it all came crashing down when I looked in the mirror. I am bloated and fat and ugly and absolutely disgusting to look at. I want slender gazelle thighs with a gorgeous gap between them. I want a concave stomach with my hip bones and my ribs sticking out. I want much smaller boobs I want my arms and calves to be thin, so that I can feel the bones easily and not be able to pinch a layer of fat. 

I WANT TO BE THIN AND BONEY AND NOTHING CAN CHANGE THAT. 


I don't know how to live and not be trying to lose weight. I've been trying to lose weight for as long as I can remember. I don't know how to eat something and not think about the calories in it and feel guilty about consuming it. I don't know how to feel accomplished without fasting. I don't know any thrill equal to standing on a scale and seeing that I've lost weight. 


I also don't know how I'm going to get around the professor. All I know is that I have to keep trying to lose weight. I will not spend the rest of my life being this disgusting and vile. I will be beautiful and boney thin. 


I hate that I haven't lost any weight for a long time. I hate all the fat on my body. I hate myself for being so weak and actually for a second thinking I might not want to do this. I wish I could snap my fingers and just be a size zero. 


I went shopping with one of my best friends yesterday. She bought some size 0 jeans. I wanted to die. She's much smaller than me so I am still so far from the size 0 dream. But I will get there one day. I have to. But what do I do about the professor. 


Maybe he'll be too busy to notice. Too busy to bother with me. Too busy to remember that conversation. Too busy to notice my absence. 

recovery

"I'm sure you're busy enough without being a therapist."

"You know what, I actually am. But I care about you. And I want to work with you and I won't be able to if you're sick."

So I blurted it all to the professor today. He saw me in the student room and we chatted for a while about a paper that I'm working on. He suggested that we go to his office and go over the data with another lady that we are working with. As we walk, he tugs at my high waisted pants. 

"I love the high waisted pants. It makes you look very tall and slim." 

I smile at him and he puts an arm around my shoulders and we joke as we walk. I've never felt so cared for. D, the lady we are working with looks surprised to see us like that. After discussing work, he asked if there was anything I wanted to talk to him about. I had spent the entire day telling myself I wasn't going to say a word to him. So what do I say? I tell him I've been making myself sick all week. 

"Oh no."

And so we talk about some things. I think he thinks I'm being a bit too sensitive about them. He asks me if I think I'm fat. I say yes. He asks me why. I answer because I've always been called fat. 

"What sort of horrible people would call you fat?" 

He thinks I'm too thin and wants me to gain some weight. I tell him my dad calls me fat and has done for a long time. He gives me a look. He's surprised any father would call his daughter fat. He asks me if I'm depressed. He wants me to get treatment for it. 

"I can get you treatment, someone you can talk to. It would be discreet, nobody would know."

I refuse. But he says that if I'm not feeling better by Easter then he is going to get me help. Very quickly, ground rules are laid down. 

"Don't lose any more weight for now." 

It's a compromise. I want to lose more weight, he wants me to gain a few kilos so we settle for zero change. To be honest, I think I can lose some more before he notices. 

"I think we should meet every week to talk about this." 

It's going to be hard as I'm living in a different city next year. But he says I can go see him on weekends, especially if I'm going to be working on weekends. He tells me that work is going to be okay. That the delays aren't my fault. That work isn't something I should be killing myself over. That the big prize is mine, I'm going to get it. The big prize that guarantees a position as an ophthalmologist. I don't know what to say. 

We talk about work a little bit more. Then he says he has to get back to work. He stands up, walks around from his huge mahogany desk and comes around to me and just holds me for a while. 

What have I done. Now that he knows, I will never be able to let this go. He won't forget it. He was going to take me to the department scale to make sure I weighed how much I said I weighed. He offered to adopt me. As a joke, but semi-seriously. He wants to ask me over to his house for dinner so that he could make me eat and make sure I don't throw up afterwards. 

Part of me regrets telling him. But all of me has never felt this safe and cared for. I have never believed until now that everything is going to be okay. 

nowhere to go but up

Firstly I want to start off by saying sorry to anyone who has been reading my blog lately. It's become like some sort of super agony column and I've been nothing short of a misery on here. So I'm going to try be more positive. I feel like this must be rock bottom so I have no place to go from here but up. 

Over the past few days I've really just lost it in terms of my food control. I've spent hundreds of dollars on food and binged like mad. Then I've taken lots of laxies. Having previously sworn that I would never take more than the normal dose of laxies, I've doubled the dose and boy am I feeling the effects. 

I've not had a proper night's sleep because I'm up in the early mornings in the bathroom, then I don't really go back to sleep because I have to go to work. Which isn't going well at all. It's starting to scare me because work was all that I really excelled at and now, the machine I use keeps breaking down and I'm well behind. It's not my fault but I'm still stressed. Despite all the advice to not avoid the professor, I still am, and I can't help it. 

It's like I'm convinced he's going to immediately start hating me. That, and I'm scared I'll blurt out everything and just lose the plot. I almost cried in front of him last time so I'm trying to steel myself for future encounters. Something's gotta break here and I'm pretty sure it will be my career. To be honest, I almost hope it happens. I'm starting to think that I'll off myself before I start any sort of ophthalmology work. It's notoriously hard to get into and I'd just be being selfish  if I took the spot of someone who is more deserving. I'll just do my dues as a general doctor for a few years and that'll be me done. 

But my laxies, they have to stop. Largely because I've run out of them. I'm going to do whatever I can to not buy any more. My guts ache from all the binging and the laxies. So I guess I won't be taking any more. But I've taken so many of them that I'm just almost always needing the bathroom and I hate that. I also don't want to vomit. So it will be back to restricting. 

Today I threw away the left over food from my binge yesterday. I really wanted to eat something but as usual, my house is full of sad looking old fruit and frozen meat. So I've resolved to fast today. I might have a coffee sometime though. I've almost done a 24hour fast by now anyway. 

Yesterday my father attacked me again. I was just lying in bed, rather early, on the computer and he barged in and immediately started telling me that I never do anything properly and how I look so horrible and ugly just lying there like a fat slob. Then I felt so bad that I went for a 200km drive through really, really poor countryside. It was really tragic but beautiful scenery and I drove really fast. There were no police and so I drove the winding roads as fast as my car would go, maybe 140km/h. The roads go and up and down the mountains and are really winding and I felt like world rally champion. 

Part of me needs that. I need to be in a really dangerous position to feel alive. So for me, fruit and veges now, and fasting today. I can't ever begin to express how confused I am right now. But I'm going to try and cut out the laxies because they are terrible. Surprisingly, it's not that easy. 

I don't know. Maybe I will talk to the professor. But that scares me. I don't know. I don't know what to do. 

The binging has taken a toll. I weigh 122lbs now. 3lbs up. But I feel like I weigh 140lbs again. I feel like I look that fat again. 

Oh well, nowhere to go but up! Gotta do my best. Thanks for all the comments and all the support. 

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. 

because just what I've been through is nothing like where I'm going to...

...give me some sign to pursue a promise. And you're unhappy - this is only a guess. Do you know what it's like to hate when it's way down deep inside? Oh God, I hate what's been done to my life. I could rule the pain, I could rule the night, or would I ruin my salvation?

It's some ungodly hour of the morning and I've done some unknown hours of transcription. I can't really remember the last time I slept properly, I can't remember the last person I talked to, I can't remember what the hell I've just transcribed. But I know exactly when I ate, I know when I took the laxies and I know that they should be working soon.

With the Violent Femmes playing softly along with the howling wind and my howling dog, I can't help but think about how I got to here.

I don't really remember a time when I was happy. I don't think I really understand what that means. That doesn't really bother me. But sometimes it's hard to see how I got from a high achieving, scholarship winning, perfectly content girl to how I am now: severely depressed, suicidal, self harming, personality and eating disordered, intellectually challenged person who swings wildly from restricting to binging to taking 4 doses of laxies in 24 hours.

What happened? I thought I was in control. I thought I had it all under control. I said that I wouldn't cut myself again. Now I can't sleep until I've cut myself. I said that I would never starve myself but of course I started restricting and fasting. Then I said I would never binge or purge and I've been doing nothing but binging and purging for the past few days. I said I would never use laxatives. I've taken 8 of them in the past 24 hours, one dose after each meal. I said I would only use them if I needed to. Now I have to take some each time solid food passes my lips.

I'm not in control at all.

...you know that I want your loving but my logic tells me that it ain't never gonna happen. And my defenses say that I didn't want it anyway. But you know sometimes I'm a liar...

The Violent Femmes continue to croon to me. Every now and then the music will speak straight to my soul. And this song is doing that... Good feeling, won't you stay with me just a little longer?...

My alarm sounds, that annoying bell. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. It's 3am. That means that I should go to sleep now in order to get up in 3 hours time. But I can't sleep. I haven't cut anything into myself yet... it always seems like you're leaving when I need you here just a little longer...

I give up, I reach for my little box of love and pic out a blade and etch a little heart below my left clavicle. The angle is so strange that it makes me cross eyed. Gently, very gently, I sway to the music. Who told me to listen to the Violent Femmes anyway? Oh yes, of course, it was the professor.

The professor. In theatre, a nurse walked by and said "I don't do love". He laughed at her and turned to me and said "that's something you'd say because you're wedded to success and ophthalmology". I don't make any reply. I don't need to. He already knows the words that I can't allow myself to say. But that's okay. It has to be.

Laxatives. I look at my little red purse. It's full of laxatives. I never have any coins to put in it anyway. All I need are laxatives. I know this is a one way track to tolerance. Then I will have to teach myself to throw up. But that's later. For now I still have hope that I will go back to restricting.

I wash the little heart under my clavicle with alcohol. It burns. I'm tired. My thoughts float around the place. I can't think straight. I have work to do. I have people to please. I have scars to create. I have misery to wallow in. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

As usual, thank you to aliceana and strive4perfection and fat piggy for your lovely comments.

binge and purge: the circle of life.

I should have somehow known that it was too good to last. This has been one of the worst binges ever. I've always been honest on here but right now, I'm way too ashamed to say how much I ate on here. Apparently life is all or nothing for me in all respects, including binging. When I binge, I do it good, honey *snaps fingers*. So I've taken more laxies and it makes me feel a bit better. I've only just started taking laxies (as you probably know already) and now I understand why people say it gets so addictive. Why don't I ever listen????? The human race would be doomed to fail if everyone was like me.

I've gone through an embarrassing amount of laxatives since I bought them and I need to cut back, simply because I can't afford to keep buying them at this rate. At first, I took some just to see if it worked and how quickly. Then I was nothing short of delighted at the flatness of my stomach and how un-bloated I felt. Well, really, I was more surprised because it really brought home how bloated I was normally.

Laxies really, are only good in retrospect. Because at the time, it is absolutely miserable. I took some last night, ended up having an all nighter watching movies and found out that they work faster if you're awake. So at about 3 am I was chained to my bathroom. And for the next 2 hours I was back and forth and even now, 11hours later I'm still running back and forth to the bathroom. For this reason I don't think I will be taking more than the normal dose, or I will actually just have to move my life into the bathroom.

I've just had another binge at lunch and taken more laxies. And so the circle of life continues. Binge then purge then binge then purge then binge then purge. And all the warnings people have given me about laxies go unheeded. I'm not really losing any weight because yeah, all I'm doing is gaining food weight then losing food weight. But somehow I almost prefer this because it allows me the chance to binge and I have to say that I get some sort of satisfaction in binging.

Now I almost don't have to deal with the guilt of it. Because, for now, the discomfort and pain of the laxies makes me feel like I've repented enough for a binge.

When I started my weight loss bid, I never thought I would ever flirt with Mia. Never. I'm not sure if I am right now. But I can suddenly see the possibility of going down that path. We'll just have to wait and see.

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!!!

p(urges) part 2

Every now and then I consider purging. I am thoroughly opposed to the notion, I know that it is bad on every single level. I know that if I started purging, the amount of trouble that I'd be in if people found out would multiply 100 times. (Does that sentence make sense?) I'm already being hounded for not eating enough, I'd probably be burned at the stake for purging.

However, despite all this, if I were somehow granted the ability to purge easily, without too much effort, doesn't leave me coughing and spluttering on my bathroom floor, I would do it. But until that happens, I'm unlikely to make a habit of it.

My problem with purging is really more on a moral basis. It's a bit hard to explain but I'm going to try to, and I apologise in advance if I horribly confuse anybody.

The whole point, is to lose weight by not eating and by exercising. To me, this is almost like an exercise in self control. No matter how much I want to eat, no matter how hungry I am, I don't let myself eat. And I make myself work out. It's like, learning the art of discipline.

There is something in fasting, restricting, essentially starving that I find so comforting. I might be hungry, so hungry that I'm in pain. I might be dizzy and salivating at merely hearing people talk about food but the thing is, I never feel more accomplished and powerful than when I am starving but still refusing food. I feel in total control. I'm in control, and I control what I eat. When I get into these moods, the weight loss is almost a very lovely side effect.

Not to say that the weight loss is insignificant, it's just a cyclical process. I restrict to lose weight, then I become full of power at the being hungry but still fasting and I lose more weight. But there is no such thing as "thin enough". So I will always be in a state of being too fat. Well, I can't imagine ever feeling thin. Not until all my bones are sticking out.

For those of you who have followed this blog, you will know that I am rather into self harm. For new followers - hello! Welcome and thank you for following me. I think restricting is like a form of self harm. Refusing myself food is like punishing myself and there are so many things that I feel like I need to be punished for. I don't deserve food, I don't deserve to be fed. The way I see food has changed dramatically. I don't get any pleasure from binging anymore. I used to though. I only feel a sense of dread when I see food, oh no, what if I binge, oh no, I don't deserve that, oh no, I'm too fat.

As an aside, the self harming, is getting worse, I'm getting lots of ideas of where to cut, but now, these are places that I want to have scars. I've cut 5 lines on my right flank. Parallel, and sort of in line with the contours of my body. And I want them to scar. But the problem is, I haven't cut them deep enough to scar well so I will have to re-cut them at some point. But for now, I can see the pattern and I will go over the cuts before the marks go away. They might be deep enough for a light scar, but I want bigger, darker ones. I found a box of miscellaneous stuff at work, and this included a collection of scalpel blades, some were clearly out of date and so are not sterile but still, scalpel blades are scalpel blades.

Back to purging! I sort of feel that purging is almost like cheating. If the aim is to exercise self control, then I have lost the game the second I put food into my mouth. In saying that however, I would rather purge out what I have eaten than be in a situation where I can't fast the next day. As of yet, I feel like I am still 'with it' enough to not purge. But I can certainly foresee me purging sometime in the future if this doesn't stop. Especially when I start working properly, which won't happen until November next year. I can see myself being consumed by work and restricting.

On some level, I want this to stop. And I think this contributes to the suicidal ideas. This really is a miserable state of existence. I think that at this point in time I have enough insight left to feel like I should get help. I'm now a qualified doctor, I know that this is wrong. But I'm too scared to get help, and nobody knows how bad I am. I'm still fully functional so no one suspects that I might be deeply depressed, suicidal and have an eating disorder. If I add purging to that list, well, I'm going to be in deep trouble if this ever gets out.

I can see that one day I will purge on a daily basis, probably when I'm living by myself. And then, it won't spell the end, but it will certainly be another nail in a well nailed down coffin. By then I will be so far gone, that there will be no possible success for me post-recovery and so the only way to continue will be go on and lose as much weight as I can and then off myself.

Some people would be very distressed if they could read this. I can't possibly tell anyone in my life about this. And this is why I treasure you girls so much.

As always, thank you to:

Leonie

Alice ana

Jackie

Christina

Fat Piggy

nicoleandgwendolyn

Haley

for your lovely comments. I absolutely love your comments and you ladies make me feel so supported in this.