Switching Back to 5th Gear - life back in the fast lane of an eating disorder

Welcome back!


I feel like i'm sitting down on a very familiar worn-down sofa, with the debis of lollisticks, crumpled paper and empty wrappers still in the same place, stuffed down the sides, where i left them.


This all feels incredibly exciting again despite the fact very little has changed in the fundamentals of my eating disorder. In other words - it's still erratic, still fucked up and i'm still ever so unwilling to part with it or accept that i cannot continue like this.


I will climb this mountain even if i have to claw my way up the rest of it with bleeding fingernails. I will not have 12 years on a constant battle of thinness, in and out of the bathroom, round and round in circles end in me 'giving up'. Not yet...


So, now we are comfortably settled back on the blog sofa with big mugs of hot stock, coffee and baggy pyjamas, i can begin to recall what has been happening.



THEN:
I really didn't intend to leave my last blog entry, as i phrased it to someone, like 'a trashy cliffhanger ending to a cheap novel'. I had intended to return, however it got close to the summer ball and i was desperate to squeeze, poke and prod myself into the red dress by any means.

The night before i was still 7lbs off and i sat in my shower room wrapping myself in mud, dehydrating myself, almost fainting again, trying to lose the lbs. I managed to get into the dress although i was still a few lbs off. After the ball i graduated and moved back home. Then came the absolute chaos and upheaval, turning my authority moot in my family home. Back under mum's wing again, or was that foot?

I put on all the weight i had lost and by the time 2010 came around i was back up to 200lbs (14st). After a desperate binging session, crying over the vienesse biscuits, caramel, praline, nuts and chocolate, baked crisps, warm bread wet with butter and ice cream dripping off the spoon, i self harmed deep. It shocked me into action and has, even now, left me with the scars to remind me how upset i was at that weight and the helplessness i felt.



NOW:
Well, since slapping my eating disorder back onto the, by psychologist standards, 'critical' list in February, i have lost 3st 9lbs (51lbs). This is currently the lowest i have been ever in my adult life and, most of, my teenage life too. I am happy with my eating disorder at the moment and will not give it up. That said, i can now crack on to the day's happenings.

I decided to write today's events as they generally filter, like a running commentary, through my own head...
In case you get dizzy or wish to leave the hell hole that you are about to enter, exits are here, here, here, here and here.

1. Get up and weigh myself - careful not to have a drink even if you are incredibly thirsty and/or dizzy. Check pee colour to see whether it will affect your weigh in. If it is very dark water weight won't affect it, but if it's light then it might. Sneak into the bathroom with scales under my arm. You MUST weigh yourself before leaving home otherwise it will haunt you all day. Do it even if it means you speand 20 mintues naked in your room waiting for your mother to go downstairs, leaving only 2 minutes to get ready before leaving.

2. Go to work, NEVER have breakfast. There's definitely no need - overrated. Sit in the car on the way to work breathing in and out, observing how tight then loose the trouser band gets around your stomach. You still need to loose loads of weight - your legs look like trunks.

3. At work you go get your mum's coffee as usual. Stare at the croissants, shortbreads, paninis and muffins behind their cases, sweating their smells onto the glass. You turn your head and, today, feel superior. I don't need them. Secretly you are glad the hunger pains are less than usual otherwise it would be more longing and not pride you would feel. Someone you know from your department orders a ham and cheese croissant. You marvel at the scene: them happily eating it in front of other staff, unaware of the grease and fat lining the pastry, and all the staring eyes. It seems like another world. I try to imagine myself doing it and cannot...at all.

4. I read exams for students, and pray in the quietness that my stomach doesn't decide to start it's own one man band. Apart from a few squeezes luck stays on my side and the Beast stays quiet. I suddenly don't want to be around people and, instead hide in the toilets, reading my book for 15 minutes before scooting off to the next class. The book was on eating disorders and i roll my eyes at the irony.

5. The next two hours of class go well. I sit in the corner - not much to do. The class go over some fact cards, 'which statement is true about yourself'. I find it almost amusing how 2D the questions on 'healthy eating are' and mentally answer them.
a) 'I generally stay away from takeaways because they aren't nutritious and are expensive' - err...i generally stay away from takeaways because they are full of greasy shit and will make me fat, however if i do eat them then i will purge it up, then eat another then purge it up.
b) 'I have my 5 fruit and veg a day' - does it count if it goes in then out? If not, rarely. Do multivitamins count?
c) 'I eat a lot of convinience food' - yes and no. Eat, yes, retain, no.
As you can see, i suspect that it was a good thing i wasn't doing the card quiz. I played this little game in my head until the class broke up and my working day finished at 2pm.

6. Walked to the supermarket. Noted how good the walking was and made sure not to take the shortcut. Picked up a diet magazine and blueberries, bumped into my mum on her lunch break. Thank god she only saw me with blueberries! We divided off, me on the pretext that i was in a rush. I told her i was grabbing a chocolate bar as well, just to cover my own back so she doesn't suspect my restricting too much. I did grab a chocolate bar...and a tub of ice cream. Totally unintentional but i had been meaning to treat myself to b/p ing it as soon as i found that new brand in one of the local stores.
Yes, you heard me right - TREAT myself to a binge / purge. Well, if you want it but don't want to gain weight then why not.

7. Marched to the bus stop, aware of the melting ice cream in my bag. Remembered i was supposed to be buying a new pair of work trousers as i hoiked up the pair straddling my hips. Oh well, i'll just have to pin these grey things in place until tomorrow lunch. Bus was late - my foot tapping against the sun soaked pavement and it's like i can feel every particle of ice thaw from the tub one by one. I notice the garish pink cafe sign to my right and frown, the sign offers 'pininis'. It annoys me, too much, that they spelt paninis wrong. It's only a god damn sandwich poppy, i tell myself, get a grip.

8. The bus ride i spent thinking about being thin while i felt the cold compress of the ice cream pressing against my side. I sit at the back to avoid people - Today a woman comes and sits opposite me. I turn my head and close my eyes, dreaming of silph-like dresses on my goddess-like spindly frame as the wind rushes through my long hair. The music on my ipod is melancholy and joyous. I stare back down at my legs, the shopping bag nudges at my side - not there yet.

9. At home, i thrust my keys into the door, push myself into the lounge and throw my bag onto the table. The ice cream lasts a few minutes, i eat it as i gather up bottles of fizzy from the counter then purge into the empty salad bowl. I realise the houses out back have the potential to witness this spectacle and i imagine a neighbour tentatively knocking on our door later, enquiring to my mother if she knew that her daughter had been throwing up in the kitchen that day. I ran upstairs with the bowl, the fizzy and the health magazine. The bluberries stayed downstairs. I continue to purge until i am positive all the ice cream is back up, until i can feel the sharp bite of stomach acid on my cheeks.

10. I meant this to be such a good day to start this blog again. I thought i was going to be able to go 'see, see! i have been such a good little china doll since i started starving again - i only eat grass and berries'. But it hasn't happened like that - i would probably be classed as Bulimarexic. I starve, i eat a little then purge. If i eat again i purge. Very rarely do i eat and NOT purge. But i don't binge majorly either, not on the scale that DSMV class a 'binge'. So, this is pretty much a typical day.

11. Mum gets home and spots me in a small pair of crops. Particualrly tight fitting, but everything else keeps falling down on me. They are a size smaller again. She comments on how good i look and asks if they are new. I lie - 'no, i've had them for ages'. What size? she asks. I lie again and give a size bigger than they are. I'll cut the labels out later - very few of my clothes have size labels in. Theyare all carefully removed with scissors before going in the wash basket.

Later she expects me to have dinner with her and my stepdad. I think about refusing but then consider that the only thing they saw me eat yesterday was a handful of blueberries. I decide not to raise alarms today - after all i can always purge it later. Note: When you eat always use a certain plate or bowl, this makes it easy. Somehow cleaner and simpler - you don't know why. It makes you uneasy if you cannot have your plate and you bicker with your stepdad, sometime in an almost paddy-like fashion in front of guests just so you can have your brightly coloured plate. You don't know why... you just have to.

12. So, after purging potato soup, a buttered roll and a piece of slightly stale birthday cake (which has taken me a long slow process of 2 hours to get it ALL out), i am here. I have weighed myself again since the last purge. Although i am still nervous about whether i will make tomorrow's goal. I will not have anything to drink now.


Thank you (all 2 of you probably!), for listening to me recap and mumble aimlessly on. Hopefully this is something i will keep up regularly. I am happy to keep up correspondance with other ED sufferers, and enjoy talking to all of you and listening to your comments. They are truly invaluble. If you do want to talk, my email is lifeisafreefallplunge@hotmail.co.uk. Sometimes it might take me a week to reply, but i promise i will.

Shout out to Bonnie and Naomi - thanks for being so encouraging about starting up my activity on mymirrorimage and on this blog again. Hope you are both doing well? Also waves to Lily, Lilly TCStar and Alissa if you guys are still around. Please get in touch with me if you are because you are amazing and i have missed chatting to you.

Hugs, smiles and bumblebees,

Poppy xox

PS. The red dress is now too big on me...