I broke my abstinance.  In a horrible way.  Twice.  I threw up on purpose.  Yesterday and today. Funny thing is, I don't feel bad or aweful or remorseful like I should.  I feel better.  Ugh.  Shit will hit the fan tomorrow I know.  or it will be fine.  I am so busy today I can't think so I will think over night and write tomorrow.

Back in The Saddle

In OA, we are encouraged to take a good look at our compulsive eating, and the self-destructive things we have done to avoid obesity- the dieting, starving, over-exercising, purging..."
a.)What solutions have I tried, and what were the results?

I have tried dieting, restricting one or more food groups, exercising, fasting, taking laxitives, taking ephedrine, throwing up, hurting myself for punishment, not eating in front of people, Jenny Craig, therapy, reading books, drinking coffee.  The results were varied in the short term, but I still ended up where I am today, feeling fat, out of control, not feeling like I understand food, my body, how the body works, nutrition.  But i can spout out facts like an M.D. 
b.)am I still looking for a solution outside OA?

In perfect honesty yes.  I still exercise specifically to keep from being fat.  I still eat as moderately and sparingly as I can most of the time so I can be as small as possible.  I would like to say no, but I know that I am still trying to eat for weight loss and work out for the same purpose. 
c.)How have I used food, exercising, dieting...to escape life's problems?

Food/Dieting - I use coffee, jelly beans, diet coke, or in general eating at night to relax and to have something to look forward to after work.  I look forward to the release of veronica mars and mindless munching after work more than hanging out.  It's me time.  I let myself eat nearly a whole bag of jelly beans two nights ago.  I was exhausted, in pain and stressed out and I just munched and munched my way through.  Of course it wasn't much of an escape because I have felt aweful about it since.  It's in the past and I can't change it and I haven't done anything like it since.  Today is a new day and each good choice is a step in the right direction.  But I'm still disappointed over it. 

I use hunger or skipping meals or restricting to help from feeling lost or overwhelmed in social situations.  Eating in front of people makes me feel vulnerable and refusing or eating so little makes me feel powerful, and in control....even beautiful and exotic.  When I am uneasy or insecure in front of a boy I refuse to eat "I'm not hungry" or something like that or I nibble as Scarlett O'Hara did "with disdain as if you weren't possibly interested in that buttermilk biscuit".  I have always associated that with femininity and that's what I do to try to gain femininity.  

Exercise - if I exercise, I can feel like I deserve to eat and to rest and relax.  I don't deserve to sit down and read or watch a movie with boyfriend if I haven't exercised.  Exercise makes me feel disciplined, even better than other people.  I am above being sloth, I am above relaxing, so I don't have to feel insecure in front of them. 
d.)are there any particular foods or eating behaviors that always give me trouble? triggers?

Jelly Beans, pretzels, tic tacs, chocolate, candy really of any kind, frozen yogurt, dips like pita and hummus, though I love it I want to eat all of it.  
e.)here is a complete inventory or my dieting/overexercising/self destructive history...

oh god, this is going to take a long time.  i started when I was nine and I don't know if I have the strength to go through and relive it all right now.  I'll come back

Exerpts from "Appetites"

Before I started this program, like a long time... a year maybe? I picked up this book called "Appetites" by Caroline Knapp.  I loved it.  It's not a recovery book, its a memoir by a woman who was anorexic.  I love her writing style and I liked her honest estimation of things.  

"The Lure of starving - the baffling, seductive hook- was that it soothed, a balm of safety and containment that seemed to remove me from the ordinary, fraught world of human hunger and place me high above it, in a private kingdom of calm.

 This didn't happen immediately, this sense of transcendent solace, and there certainly wasn't anything blissful or even long-lived about the state; starving is a painful, relentless experience, and also a throbbingly dull one, an entire life boiled down to a singular sensation (physical hunger) and a singular obsession (food).  But when I think back on those years, which lasted through my mid-twenties, and when I try to get underneath the myriad meanings and purposes of such a bizarre fixation, that's what I remember most pointedly - the calm, the relief from an anxiety that felt both oceanic and nameless."

An anxiety that felt both oceanic and nameless.  I have described this feeling as "the darkness"   huge, endless, "nameless".  

I was explaining my new lease on life to Maia today.  The weight will go slightly up and down my whole life and there are so many other things to worry about.  I like my experiences.  I have been really sick that last few days... ugh, and embarrassing UTI.  And I pee every few minutes and I have this constant hunger.  So tonight when I got home I had a can of soup and then I ate nearly a whole package of dark chocolate.  2.5 servings and I had 2.  Wow, doesn't sound that much now that I put it out there but yeah, I'm a little embarassed of the 2 servings of dark chocolate. but I do have to say that my hunger was gone and I was able to go to the bathroom.  I have been backed up for two days.  and now I feel like I should be ashamed and I'm going to get fat, but in all honesty, I'm too tired to care.   My life is more than the dark chocolate.  I'm active (when I'm not peeing fire) and I eat a reasonably healthy diet.  nuff said.  But that anxiety, that darkness... it ebbs and flows, a constant thread throught my whole life. It's in ebb stage right now.  I'm happy, works good, enjoying spending time with my new boy.  It'll flow again but I know that it's a cycle like everything else....

just writing with no particular goal.

And here it is.

The explaination:

"It quit working, and in reality it gave rise to more pain than was ours to begin with.  Stil we pursued it chasing that elusive relief it had once provided.  We are enormously persistent people.  We don't give up easily.  We couldn't admit that our feelings of control were a hollow parody of freedom, a cruel joke orchestrated by some invisible jester.  We were certain that if we just kept trying, we could recapture that magic of the early days."

The magic of the early days, the relief that came from anorexia, from weight loss, from hunger, from being small, from being "needless", being in control, being above human desires.  I miss that.  I  miss it like a lover, because it was more effective than any man, parent or activity.  It was measurable and, for a time, maintainable.  Show me something that won't turn on me, that won't demolish me.  But you see, apparently anorexia did too.  So I have nothing.  No religion, no family, no relationship, no addiction that doesn't turn it's back.  And maybe that's the lesson of life, it's cyclical,  noone and nothing is steadfast. That is nature in general.  I am not steadfast.  I should let go of the need for consistency because it doesn't exist.  You read about people who have been the same weight since highschool, who married their first love, who's parents are their bedrock of stability.  But behind those stories are the ups and downs I suppose.  Noone is exactly the same weight thier whole life, noone sweetheart has never hurt them and no parent hasn't screwed up their kids perception of something.  Perfection doesn't exist as much as I want it to and as much as I think that it only doesn't exist for me because I am not trying hard enough, that is untrue.  Oh when will I find balance? Even today, I only have work at 5:30 and I woke up at quarter to 8am.  I have been punishing myself for not hitting the gym yet, I don't know what to do with my time.  I visited with my roommates, read, ate breakfast, laid down again, read some more and it's almost eleven and I feel like an idiot because I'm not productive.  Ugh.  I am packed to leave so I can do something, then go to the gym then to work but i don't know what that something is and I feel anxiety over it.  I have low energy today despite falling asleep early, I started my period, which I haven't gotten in over a year and I have cramps and I'm crabby for no reason.  

I HATE THIS

Step One Questions

1. What actions (or lack of actions) can cause a person to lose weight?

Actions that can cause a person to lose weight are exercise, eating less calories than are expended, speeding up the metabolism through exercise or supplements, sweating (a whole hell of a lot, but I'm trying to be thorough), ceasing exercise(losing muscle)
2. Which of these strategies have you tried? to what extent? were you consistent? 

Oh god, I've tried exercise, eating less calories than I expend, speeding up my metabolism through exercise (strength training) and supplements (ephedrine, chromium picolinate), sweating, I've never tried stopping exercise.
3. How have these efforts backfired?

When I exercised I have gained muscle and gained weight.  I have lost weight through exercise in the past, but not recently and not always in the past.  I have eaten less calories and lost weight but I have also eaten less calories (or I thought I was eating fewer calories) and stayed the same or gained weight. I have never really seen a difference in my weight or metabolism through taking supplements. 
 4. Does it feel like you're doing everything you should be doing? Trying as hard as you can? Doing everything right? Yes and no.  I feel like I have eaten moderately and worked out and I should be losing weight.  I should be an ideal body.  Except you know I don't understand what to eat so I eat wierdly.  I'm trying but I feel confused all the time. 

5. What more could you possibly be doing? Is this something that you realistically feel you are capable of doing/maintaining? I could be dieting more strictly, I could be working out at a higher intensity.. I always work out pretty moderately.  I think I could be capable of say running and doing intensive strength workouts if I had a trainer.  I'm not certain I would lose weight doing it though.
6. What in your history leads you to believe that you can control your weight? When I was anorexic and I stopped eating I lost wieght.  THere have been phases in my life where I changed something and lost weight.  When I was on the Atkins diet I lost weight for a good two years.  When I went to Japan I lost weight from just stress and lack of sleep.  I would walk for hours every day because there was nothing to do.  So there have been times where I thought I controlled my wieght.  But now similar attempts don't work but I wonder if its just that I'm not disciplined enough...
7. If you had any power to control this, how can you explain the fact that you have been unable to do so? the only explainations I can come up with are I'm not doing it right, my body decided it's not going to change regardless of what I put in it or expend, or I'm not actually out of control it's just my perception
8. What is keeping you from admitting that you are powerless? What do you gain from the illusion of power? Is that something you are willing to give up for a chance at something better? I want to admit that I am powerless but I have been taught and have seen that people control thier own lives.  I have watched people change thier body's for good.  I have seen people turn into athletes because they chose to. Every failure of mine is a failure I own because I have the capability to CHOSE.  I have the resources to learn and the ability to decide what I put into my body and what I do with my body.  So it seems that admitting I am powerless is a cop out for a situation I own.  I did this, I made the decisions that made me fat.  I want to give up the illusion of power but I don't want to mess up.  I don't want to give up the idea that I have power if I'm going to ruin myself again.  I want to give it up knowing that it will work.  But you never know anything will work until you dive in.  So I guess I'm willing :) It's funny because at this moment the song that's playing on my playlist is called "Giving Up" by Ingrid Michaelson and she says she's giving up looking for greener grasses.  

Long Time Coming

So I haven't written in a long time and well, frankly that's one of my chronic problems.  I get busy or lazy and want to just fix everything myself.  But tonight I am home so I am going to just let it loose for a while.

I took a break and I thought it was the best thing.  I stopped going to meetings because I couldn't fit them in my life for the last two weeks.  I stopped doing exercises and reading everyday and writing everyday.  I took a break from defining myself as someone with an eating disorder.  I have kept to my plan of eating (for the most part). I eat every two to four hours something as balanced as possible and I usually have it pre-proportioned.  Sometimes I have gone six or more hours but that has only been in a small handful of unmanageable circumstances.  I did maintain my abstanance!   and on November 1st I will have gone thirty days :) I'll get my chip! I kept up with my checklist except for three or four days where I slacked. I have even, against my will, taken a few days off of exercising.  And all in all I feel pretty good.  I ate and sometimes I felt stress but I would put it aside... I already ate it, I eat healthily, I work out, I'm fine.  I guess I'm babying myself a little bit.  If I feel uncomfortable in an article of clothing I take it off and wear something else and try not to think about it so as to save myself from self-deprecation (does this still fit? is it tight? are my legs bigger? what made them bigger?)  I just wear what makes me feel good.  I let myself do sit ups when it allows me to feel more settled and if I don't work out as hard as I think I "should" I divert my mind to something else.  I'm trying to relax and see the bigger picture.  The one thing I am focusing on is eating purer foods.  So when I am planning my next meal my goal is to find something as whole and balanced as possible AND I focus on what I'm craving.  Most days I really want salads.  and I fight it because salads are expensive but if I know that that is what I want, what will make me feel good about myself before a show, I eat it.  And that, my friends, has made a huge difference.  Asking myself "what do I want to eat? what will make me feel good right now?"  and then when I am in situations (like last night) where I was going on six hours without food and needing something and my boy fixed me something entirely reasonable (1/2 piece of focaccia with tomato avocado and parmesan) but outside my comfort zone I can eat it out of neccessity, enjoy it, and know that I ate what I wanted and made me feel comfortable the rest of the day.  This is a good practice for me.  I have to keep coming back to that because I will start to feel anxiety, especially since I have decreased my workouts. It's hard to see ballroom as a workout.  But I guess it's a little psycho to do 3 hours of ballroom 1 hour on the treadmill, conditioning and then a show.  I still feel lazy though.  

But now that I've had my break it's time to hit the books and call my sponsor and force myself to work.  I've made some strides.  But I can't rest on my laurels because ED will wait till I'm feeling good then hit me hard.  I have to be ready.

Ugh

I'm going to be brutally honest this post and I know that it's not going to sound good.  But in being honest with myself this is what comes out:

I don't want to do this anymore.  I don't want food plans and meetings and exercise plans and discussions.  I don't want to!  I went to a meeting last night in Santa Monica and I sat absolutely still looking around the room and listening.  All of these girls, these young girls in SM talking about fat and calorie counting, throwing up over exercise and horrified I listened but I took note... they were all fat.  Or pudgy.  Oh my god, these girls devote thier lives to a calculated nutritional existence and all of them are not at all the way I want to be.  I left there angry... Fuck It!!  Why the hell should I try?  I don't understand science or phisiology or anything.  and if I can spend all my time being careful and look like THAT then I don't want to be careful anymore.  I don't want anything.  But I can't just leave it behind because I came home and saw pictures taken from earlier that day and I squeezed the burning tears from eyes... I'm fat.  I have to always compensate for how thick I am.  Ugh.  Pictures taken by the boy and every shot he looks good and fit and I look thick.  I give up.  I don't care anymore.  Really truly all that matters to me is that I get smaller.  I don't need anything to taste good or feel good I just need to be smaller.  So how do I do that?