Some people like to make my life difficult.
Please, ladies, coexist. Be calm. Stop freaking out about dumb things.
I'm a student too. I have exams. I have rehearsals. I've got as much on my plate as you and I don't need to handle your personal problems too.
58 days until the end of my presidency.
It couldn't come soon enough.
I feel like my personal life and relationships have been put on hold for this year, with the weight of everything on my shoulders I have trouble relating.
That's why I gravitate to Trey, Matt, and Alex. They at least sort of get it.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Blogs are dumb.
Let me just preface this posting by saying that I think blogs are stupid.
Every time someone mentions their blog my knee-jerk reaction is the slow, painful groan.
And yet, here I am, writing in one.
I'm just going to use it to be my own sounding board, I think. To discuss with myself the issues in my life to hopefully get a more rational perspective on them. Sometimes just articulating ideas helps to organize them.
First order of business.
I need to tell someone, even if it's no one.
I have an eating disorder.
The dreaded diagnosis of EDNOS. I don't fall into a category, so I have the worst of both worlds - enough of a problem to be labeled "disordered", but not enough defining characteristics to be grouped with others like me. I don't know why I have such a hard time telling people this - I'm not really ashamed, its more that I know that without extensive conversation and clarification, there is no way they will understand. I think it's just about impossible to understand the ins and outs of an ED unless you yourself have struggled with one. It doesn't help that people don't think of EDNOS as a "real" eating disorder, and because I'm not thin they write it off as a minor issue. They couldn't be more wrong.
I literally feel like I'm imprisoned on a daily basis by a monster that controls my emotions, leaving me lonely and starved for human contact, but also makes me sprint in the opposite direction when I see someone who might - god forbid - be coming to help me. My emotional world has a radius of about three feet. Nothing outside of my body or my weight affects me at all. I'm not free to fall in love, to laugh, to cry, to feel anything not weight-related. On one hand, this world is safe. It protects me - nothing and no one outside can hurt me. At the same time, I'm deprived of a world of feelings. With my eating disorder, I can feel depressed, guilty, ashamed, disgusting, confident, anxious, proud, accomplished, powerful, hopeless, helpless, ugly, fat, and driven. What I can't feel includes anything like being compassionate, carefree, in love, peaceful, connected, beautiful, or stable. I can't sit in a chair and smile freely without thinking about the heaviness of my legs and stomach, the way my body feels there. I know what it feels like to be thin. I feel like I'm wearing a thick full-body suit all of the time, like I'm not at home in my own skin. I don't deserve to be happy unless I weigh 110lbs, I tell myself directly and indirectly every minute of my life. My self-worth barometer ebbs and flows at the drop of a hat - when your entire outlook on life revolves around something so small, it's very easy to build up and crash and burn, all within a period of a few minutes.
I'll wake up, and before I even open my eyes my hand goes to my stomach. What did I eat last night? Can I feel my hip bones? Is it totally flat? Do my thumb and pinky meet around my wrist with ease? Out of bed, rush to the scale. Two options:
1) Fuck. I'm fatter than yesterday. Life isn't worth living. Retreat to bed, skip my classes, ignore any phone calls, and shut out the world.
2) Yes! Thinner than I was expecting. I float to the shower, go through my day elated, confident, and driven. I am powerful. I've got my life under control and there's nothing I can't do.
Re-reading that sounds ridiculous, but that is literally the thought process I go through every single morning.
Clearly I want to get better. I still, however crazy it is, feel that if I could just weigh 110lbs my life would be perfect. There would be no obstacle I could not overcome. I would be beautiful, smart, confident, lovable. At the same time, unless I dig to the bottom of and deal with whatever lies under my eating disorder, even if I get to 110lbs again, I'll forever only be 10lbs away from suicidal despair.
I mention suicide like I've actually considered it. I do think about it, at times, but in truth I don't want to die, I just want to heal. As long as I believe there is a shred of hope for me, I'll be fighting for it.
Every time someone mentions their blog my knee-jerk reaction is the slow, painful groan.
And yet, here I am, writing in one.
I'm just going to use it to be my own sounding board, I think. To discuss with myself the issues in my life to hopefully get a more rational perspective on them. Sometimes just articulating ideas helps to organize them.
First order of business.
I need to tell someone, even if it's no one.
I have an eating disorder.
The dreaded diagnosis of EDNOS. I don't fall into a category, so I have the worst of both worlds - enough of a problem to be labeled "disordered", but not enough defining characteristics to be grouped with others like me. I don't know why I have such a hard time telling people this - I'm not really ashamed, its more that I know that without extensive conversation and clarification, there is no way they will understand. I think it's just about impossible to understand the ins and outs of an ED unless you yourself have struggled with one. It doesn't help that people don't think of EDNOS as a "real" eating disorder, and because I'm not thin they write it off as a minor issue. They couldn't be more wrong.
I literally feel like I'm imprisoned on a daily basis by a monster that controls my emotions, leaving me lonely and starved for human contact, but also makes me sprint in the opposite direction when I see someone who might - god forbid - be coming to help me. My emotional world has a radius of about three feet. Nothing outside of my body or my weight affects me at all. I'm not free to fall in love, to laugh, to cry, to feel anything not weight-related. On one hand, this world is safe. It protects me - nothing and no one outside can hurt me. At the same time, I'm deprived of a world of feelings. With my eating disorder, I can feel depressed, guilty, ashamed, disgusting, confident, anxious, proud, accomplished, powerful, hopeless, helpless, ugly, fat, and driven. What I can't feel includes anything like being compassionate, carefree, in love, peaceful, connected, beautiful, or stable. I can't sit in a chair and smile freely without thinking about the heaviness of my legs and stomach, the way my body feels there. I know what it feels like to be thin. I feel like I'm wearing a thick full-body suit all of the time, like I'm not at home in my own skin. I don't deserve to be happy unless I weigh 110lbs, I tell myself directly and indirectly every minute of my life. My self-worth barometer ebbs and flows at the drop of a hat - when your entire outlook on life revolves around something so small, it's very easy to build up and crash and burn, all within a period of a few minutes.
I'll wake up, and before I even open my eyes my hand goes to my stomach. What did I eat last night? Can I feel my hip bones? Is it totally flat? Do my thumb and pinky meet around my wrist with ease? Out of bed, rush to the scale. Two options:
1) Fuck. I'm fatter than yesterday. Life isn't worth living. Retreat to bed, skip my classes, ignore any phone calls, and shut out the world.
2) Yes! Thinner than I was expecting. I float to the shower, go through my day elated, confident, and driven. I am powerful. I've got my life under control and there's nothing I can't do.
Re-reading that sounds ridiculous, but that is literally the thought process I go through every single morning.
Clearly I want to get better. I still, however crazy it is, feel that if I could just weigh 110lbs my life would be perfect. There would be no obstacle I could not overcome. I would be beautiful, smart, confident, lovable. At the same time, unless I dig to the bottom of and deal with whatever lies under my eating disorder, even if I get to 110lbs again, I'll forever only be 10lbs away from suicidal despair.
I mention suicide like I've actually considered it. I do think about it, at times, but in truth I don't want to die, I just want to heal. As long as I believe there is a shred of hope for me, I'll be fighting for it.
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