and a month on

the sun is shining


I have stopped drinking
(let's call it a hiatus)
lost 2 kilos
am feeling more positive
and tomorrow night I have a date with a very handsome boy
who, quite possibly, might not be a horrible arsehole


I will post again when I have more good news

x

i have realised...

...that now-a-days the only times I ever blog are when I'm drunk.

so

this weekend I am fixing it
this weekend I am doing it
my life is an awful pile of shit
it is a tragic and pitiful waste
I've had enough

I see the life I want
clear as crystal


I'll never get there
but I can at least get as far as I can from here

hate this

why can't I just fix my life?
why am I just so shit?

i want

i want so badly to give you something



today i had some green vegetables steamed with a little soy sauce for lunch
and some carrot and celery sticks and a mango for dinner

and now im soooooo drunk



but believe you me, girls,
it's worth it.

By golly
Stay drunk and startlingly emptytis all

tis all I gor

I think I'm a bit over this.

Anyone still read?
Anyone give a shit if I sod off?

mastercleanse

Tonight I drank bleach
because I was too drunk to throw up

I threw up

And now I am so clean
Horrifically lemony fresh

I AM KILLING MYSELF

This is absurd
Awful

To think I was so proud when I woke up this morning.

This is not just an all new low
It is so much more
It is the embodiment of my imminent demise
The intensity of me desperation

I am so fucked
So fucked

I know now I am probably going to die from this

Breakthrough

Yesterday I didn't binge or purge.

I wasn't really trying, I was just busy all day.
I hung out with a friend, went out for lunch, did some shopping, got a hair cut, came home and went to bed around 11pm.

It was the sort of day I imagine perfect people have. Not really caring or thinking about food. Eating out and able to enjoy it, but then too busy and carefree and not-eating-disordered to even think to eat for the rest of the day.

This morning I feel good.

...or maybe I'm just not ready

will I ever be?

...starting today

Time to breathe some life

7 days left of September
and I weigh about 59kg

So with my gastro head start I need to lose 1kg in 1 week to be 58 by October. On target. Numbers are so boring and shit. Right now I need them because I'm vomiting every day. EVERY day, no exceptions, it is what I do when I come home from work. I'm not even trying to stop now. It is routine. I don't know what the hell else I would do instead, I hate to try and think about it, it fogs my head with stress. So I don't fight it. I just puke on schedule.

This is why I need to talk stupid shitty numbers.
So for 7 days I am going to not throw up. I am going to record everything I eat, good or bad. At the end of each day I will let you guys know.

And at the end of the week I hope to be 58kg.

"Yeah right" I hear you say?... Well you gotta keep trying.
I can't keep my head in this paper bag for the rest of my life.
It's OK, but I'm becoming nothing, and I want to be alive.

today I had a small moment

Was walking through my neighbourhood and the air was warm. Perfect skin temperature air you pretty much can't even feel as you move through it. And fresias and other weedy spring time flowers you forget exist making those quirky "summer's-coming" scents that catch you off guard. And I thought shiiiiit I haven't actually walked around these streets in... what? 8 monthsish? This is the best time of year and it was nostalgically depression-wrenchingly lovely. How easy is all this? How can life be hard and sad? When I hate myself and all I want to do is eat or puke or hide, can't I just step out and be in this and have everything be great?


The reality is a rare day off buffered all sides by a zillion crippling days on. And I still did puke twice. Still, warmth is an amazing distiller of optimism. Now I've had a few late night lonesome g&t's but not in the sad way. Solidarity with the changing seasons. I feel relaxed and OK. My cat is here and anyone who says cats aren't loyal has never had one. He looks at me, lowers his eyes and slowly pushes his nose into my mouth for the briefest of kisses. It's not gross. Maybe you have to be there.

It's warm. Give me my moment.

58.5, thank you gastro

Now my mission is to make the most of this head start.

Lulu, I'm glad you're back, I've missed you!
It's time the old crew returned to challenge these anonymous upstarts ;)

i am fat and disgusting and i hate myself. i dont know where the last 5 kilos came from. it was so quick and seemingly painless and so strangely imperceptible and yet here i am... fat

actually fat

not just not as thin as i want to be

i went from finally getting thin... to ok... to fat

fat fat fat actually fat

62 kilos of fat

im back at my starting weight

and im so ashamed

JUST TAKE IT OFF ME
HELP ME
HOW DO I FIX THIS??
FIX THIS

i am very drunk right now
and very lonely
and very ugly
and angry
and very desperate

I LET THIS HAPPEN

because i knew i could regroup and change

and here i am and i cant change

HELP

JUST MAKE IT RIGHT

PLEASE!!!

"thinspo"

it isn't found in images

it is words and memories

a boy I slept with a month ago

"I love this bone on women"

knowing he was thinking back to his former, beautiful girlfriend and caressing the sharpness of her hip in his imagination, disappointed by mine. disgusted, even.

"oh god I must look like shit this morning"

awaiting the affirmation

"you look... ok"

what was he thinking, he was thinking




I remember when I had hip bones like that

oh

small apple... 100
salad... 0
quinoa... 150
salad... 0
egg whites... 150
small apple... 100

500ish

yoga

out of the sand

61.7kg

I have been head down in the sand, forging recklessly through my ugly life and ignoring the knowing fat. Today means numbers and accountability. Raising myself out of the dust and letting Spring envelop me. I think I'm out of second chances. I think this is it.


12 weeks until Summer
12 kilos to lose

Spring

As I type this the clock will tick over midnight and Winter will become Spring. Like magic something in my brain will tick over and the Winter in my head will clear and Spring will bloom. My problems will evaporate, my will resume. I will find the love I need for myself, the desire to nurture my body with freshness and life, exercise and water, salad that stays down instead of sludge which comes up. Everything will reawaken bright and beautiful.


I have seen it coming, felt it coming for weeks. Waiting for this moment, telling myself this will be the time. Telling myself this is my last chance to turn something horrible into something wonderful. My life.

I know it sounds like delusion.
I know it does.

a week, maybe?

Perhaps one week of kindness is more achievable. Less daunting. Just a week.

And only one rule: Do not throw up.

Simple enough, except that of course that one simple rule is dependent on the fulfillment of 10 million other rules, such as:

Do not eat muffins
Do not eat toast
Do not eat lollies
Do not eat unplanned foods
Do not overeat at meal times
Do not have dessert
Do not eat at somebody else's house
Do not eat at your own house
Do not reach a feeling of fullness
Do not allow yourself to get bored

...all of which lead to an inevitable downward spiral into purging.


But I have to have to HAVE to do this

The cracks in the corners of my mouth never heal
My skin is horrible
My teeth hurt
And I'm FAT

I lose so much time to this beast. Between long shifts at work, all I do is binge and purge and not get enough sleep. It is easier than facing the prospect of finding and building my own life. It is a safe and secretive.

I hate it so much, but I'm increasingly realising how much I love it.
How much I need it

Kindness?

Cruelty.

I can't do this
I don't know what is wrong with me
I am not an inspiration. Anybody who thinks that I am, go back and read my blog from the beginning, 18 months ago, and watch me ruin my life

Sometimes I feel like the only way out of this is to kill myself
and yet I don't want to die

I know I need help
I know I know I know

My insides are on the outsides and everything hurts

a dozen days of kindness

This is my plan
12 remaining days of August, of winter.
This will be a time for kindness. For stability.

Antidepressants stopped
Feeding myself what I feel like
But trying not to overfill myself
No purging no matter what
No weight monitoring
No exercise pressure

Kindness
Stability


Come Spring it will be time to weigh in, reassess, and think about a sensible but serious plan leading up to Summer.

whirl. wind.

out of control
spinning all over the place
nothing to hold on to


4 different boys have been in my bed in under 2 weeks
last night I woke up somewhere in my house in the dark and terribly afraid, no idea how I got there, no idea how long I'd been there. still not idea where I even was because by the time the panic subsided I'd forged my way back to my room
thick, thick fog hangs everywhere


and the only time everything snaps back into clarity is when I see a huge pile of vomit at my feet and I know I am empty again

I think I will stop taking my antidepressants
there is something so horrifying about feeling your whole world crumbling around you and screaming in your head and crying for no reason... but not actually feeling sad
I think I want to feel sad again
at least it may be an incentive to get better

58.7

I have been trying VERY hard and am finding in the evenings the overwhelming NEED to feed myself just insurmountable. How can this be?

58.5

dehydrated, probably
yesterday OK

59.5

Hug me til you drug me, honey

Kiss me til I'm in a coma.

I walked down to the shops this morning. Beautiful day, late winter spontaneous burst of sun. And I walked barefoot, like I used to do a long time ago before I had a car and before I had an eating disorder. And that smell of footpath and road and flower weeds. Skirting around bits of broken bottles and breaking into a half-jog mid road-cross to avoid slightly too quick cars.


And there it was. A tiny touch of myself again and what life used to be like. When small things all around imprinted me. When stuff was noticed. When I moved in the world and I felt it.

Now I live in a stupor. Blotting out time with obscene secretive behaviours because I'm frightened. I'm not sure what of. Decisions, maybe.

When I realise this I feel like I have nothing left.

Just a Perfect Day

That's all

All it takes is one. If I can force every ounce of strength from my tired body into making just one perfect day then it will be the start of something again.

Today was awful. It was every ridiculous synapse of a bulimic brain firing. Every tiny cave in led to an all-or-nothing and inevitably all.

I can't have that be who I am.
So tomorrow will be the start of something.
I will be someone else. Someone good.

Tomorrow will be 1 again

I never said it would be easy
Sundays are always hard. There is going out for breakfast, there is seeing friends, relatives, there is time to pass. I shouldn't make excuses but the facts stand that on the 6th day I lost control.


I cannot despair, because I cannot perpetuate this cycle.
The important thing is to make sure I don't give up now that my run is broken.

Tomorrow MUST be 1. It is more important than 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 500.
Because 1 is the hardest. It is when you've got nothing to lose you needn't bother trying. But I DO need bother.

Tomorrow will be 1 again
I will not throw up tomorrow
I WILL NOT

Pasco

5 (in progress)

This morning I weighed 59.2kg

I'm not going to lie to you, the morning of "1" I weighed 60.2kg. Perhaps the shock that spurned the change. I had long ago said I was NEVER going to weigh above 60 again! And suddenly I did.

So 59.2? It is not a good number, but it certainly sits a lot easier with me.


And what promise does the future hold?

There is a month left of winter. By spring I will weigh 57kg. Just half a kilogram a week. Slow, steady. Not slipping back. Not giving in.

Then 3 months of spring, gradual rising warmth, slow shedding of skins. 6kg in 3 months, slow, steady, not slipping back. And emerging in summer back at my personal best.

4

done
dusted
could have done better
but could have done a lot worse
had a few drinks and few bad eats but found a way to stop and a way to not binge eat when I got home. My standard practice - my standard catastrophe - averted

5 is going to be great. I know it!

3

It's at 3, it seems, that the self doubt gets you

And the "what's the point?"
the "Why not"?

And the will I, won't I, will I? Won't I?

And I didn't,
but it was close.

I will need to muster some strength if I'm to tackle 4

2

When it feels THIS much better,
Why do I always revert back?

I don't know,
All I know is that I won't revert back tomorrow,
Because tomorrow is: 3

1

Did not throw up
Ate like the person I want to be
Defied temptation

Instead of binging and purging after work, tonight I moved a fridge, tidied my lounge room, went for a drive, prepared my lunch for tomorrow, washed my face and am going to bed early. I'm evening soaking my little portion of oats and chia and quinoa ready for breakfast in the morning.

It is so easy to forget the main reason why I need to beat bulimia.

It is not because it is making me fat
It is not because it is rotting my teeth
It is not because it crushes my self esteem
It is not because it makes me feel weak and sad

It is because it deprives me of all of the rest of my life. Just one day without it has shown me how much more I can accomplish.

Next installment: 2

Nostalgia

"I'm amazed how easy it is getting to restrict. My body is getting used to less food. Going to bed hungry, and it feels so lovely" - 31/03/2009



Days of innocence and arrogance, it was all so easy then.

slipping

I hate my life, my job, myself
but I am the eternal optimist.
I know, KNOW that somehow everything will work out
and I will lead a wonderful life
and I will be OK.

It is strange. I can be so depressed. I can feel so low. And yet always there is hope. It makes me smile to think that beneath the surface there is person in me somewhere who realises there is something wonderful out there for her. Despite hours of fighting tears today to the point that the lump in my throat was HURTING me. A hairs breadth from an explosion of emotion, held fast by the faintest hope (and that horrible lump). I know I will be OK.

And yet I take such risks. I am typing quickly because soon I know I won't be able to. Gin and maximal doses of multiple sleeping pills. I don't really even know why, saves to say I guess I just need the sleep. And to blot things out. There is hope, sure, but the more I can blot out in the meantime the better.

I feel this is making less sense. I feel my conscious state is waning.
I can't be clever. I'm impeded.

And I want to stay awake to feel the strength and the will forced out of my body and to feel myself be dragged away from all my problems by a haze to thick to fight.

There was something here I wanted to say, some insightful point. Now it's gone. It's all going. I'm losing time. I love to watch as my fingers try to make the words on my keyboard and they struggle and backtrack and try to show sense.

And somewhere in my mind an ancient library and spiral staircases and I don't know why but it is beautiful

See now, I'm going

Anise my love I miss you immensely.
Lulu, Savory, are you even still around?

I am not around

I am messy and in about 15 seconds I will be unconscious

Nothing feels quite as good as this

And yet, optimism. Someday I will find something good enough not to need to blot is out.



xx
Pasco
Ethereal

tomorrow weigh in

and try, try again

4 days

4 days sans spew
Each a difficult and desperate battle
But the calories are coming down
I'm eeking them down
With every ounce of will and strength and struggle

Mon 1200
Tue 1100
Wed 900
Thu 900

Working all weekend this weekend
It will be horrid

But hopefully distracting enough to keep me ploughing on

I'm not sure I'm cut out for this any longer

I'm really no good at it. And yet I'm too terrified of normal meals and normal eating to break free of it. Guess I'll just bumble along in the same sloppy fashion indefinitely. If only I felt a little more inspired. I need a goal, something to really strive for, instead of this ambiguous dissatisfaction.


I miss my old blog life, too. For a while I was following so many bloggers that it took me hours to read everybody's posts. So I stopped adding new ones. Now all my dear old friends seem to have slipped away and my reading list is rarely updated. It's sad! I'm a little lonely. My anonymous hate comments will soon outnumber the rest! They're fun, but in moderation.

Anise? Savory? Lulu? Can you recommend me anyone good to follow?

Maybe I should just let my blog wither and die like the others.
Let's face it, it's getting pretty stale.

Today was good

Worked: 15 hours
Walked: most of those
Saved: maybe 3 people
Killed: none (yet)
Ate: 1200 kcal
Vomited: nil

Amnestic

Life is getting hazy


Too much vomiting, daily, at least, and electrolytes all over the place. Long hours of work, seemingly coping but all that rallying my resources to get through the day and there is nothing left when I get home. Then I blank out the blur even more with drink and diazepam.

All I need is a simple and fail safe plan to get me through this next week. I am so tired I cannot think of a thing.

Maybe in the morning I'll step on the scales and try to claw myself back to reality.

anonymous

You
rock
my
socks
off

I fucking love you, dude! Keep up the hilarious commentary. I mean, damn, I'm a chubby U-duckling? Ouch! 'Scuse me while I slash my wrists...

BWA HA HA HA HAAAA

Do you provide this service to other bloggers or am I special? If you are giving anybody else similar attention then please, do let me know who. I just can't get enough! In future onslaughts, appropriate syntax and grammar would be appreciated. I'll allow for creative license, of course. I wouldn't want to restrict your unbounded creativity!

x

dust yourself off, Pasco

Dust yourself off and start again.
Start again again.


Start again, again and again
Just keep going
Keep trying

You are OK
You will be OK
There is hope left
You needn't be so frightened

crap and fat

nothing
works
anymore

WORKING IT

Work is crazy

As a student doing prac I would stare at the clock all day, willing the time to pass so I could go home. Now I stare at the clock all day, willing it to slow down so I can get all my work done in time to make it home at a reasonable hour. I'm so busy I can't get bored.

And so busy that today I did not have time to eat. I could have made the time if I needed it. But I did not have time to think about it and it was so easy to just keep starving away. I ate my apple but the salad I bought on the way to work to have for lunch remains at work for my lunch tomorrow.

I must have walked 50 flights of stairs too. Thousands of steps. Constantly flipping between wards and racing to meetings and responding to pages. Rarely standing still, rarer still to be sitting down.

When I got home I had a mountain of cooked veges and salad, with fruit for dessert. It was all still too much and I still purged a little bit, which was stupid. I could have stopped eating much sooner, but I thought "I'm allowed this so I will eat it all" then became uncomfortably full. Uncomfortable physically, and psychologically. That feeling is frightening, even when you know there aren't all that many calories in you.

All in all, a good day for me.

Work is exhausting. It is frustrating. It is incredibly stressful. Tomorrow I'm at work from 7am til 11pm.


But work will make me rich and it will make me thin.

Half a Glass

Not full
Not empty
Just half a glass.

My plan is working... kind of. I'm not buying extra food but bits and pieces are creeping toward me from outside sources. I have been purging a little bit. I am trying to stay positive... I'm overeating a little at the ends of my meals, but no real binges. And my purges are relatively gentle and still getting up all of the excess (and probably half of what I should be keeping down).

The fact that I'm struggling with my plan is not good
But the fact I'm not binging is not terrible

Just sort of a half glass of who knows what

57.2kg

125.8lbs

Let's none of us ever weigh more than what we do right now

"the inside voices on the outside"

they are all around
who knows what is theirs and what is ours?


and now, in bed, glimmer, hope. flatter, lighter, cravings abate. satisfaction descends. what of tomorrow? maybe, something good

glimmer glimmer glimmer

No Quick Fixes

It's shit. All we ever want is a quick fix.

I was just reading Lulu, torn between trying to shed the weight with the desperate DROP IT RIGHT NOW mentality, and the hideous reality that this never ever works. I know so many people who lost heaps of weight and I don't know ANY that kept it off. I can't be one of those. I can't suffer that shame.

BUT I WANT TO DROP IT RIGHT NOW

And it doesn't work. The weight that was pouring off me this time a year ago is back. And this time it is sticky. It takes huge and desperate measures to melt off even a tiny bit of it, only to have it squelching it's way back on moments later.

I am so so hungry right now and it doesn't feel good and I don't feel powerful.

I JUST FEEL HUNGRY

This morning I decided to kick start my new plan with a day of juice fasting. I could have my salad dinner on the way home if I needed it. I decided I didn't. Then when I got home my resolve dissolved as my desperate hands found a cold piece of pizza in the fridge and my starving mouth chomped through half of it. I already recounted my demise to my dear friend Anise. She who truly understands the strangeness of a mind trapped somewhere between starvation and desperation.


Half a piece of pizza, maybe 200 calories, maybe less. 300 calories of juice. I feel I can make it to the end of the day without consuming any more. I still feel like it wasn't good enough. And worse, the thought of endless days of the same ahead... What a horrible fate.

I won't be fat and I can't be thin.

sighhhhhh

When will this feel good again?
When will I feel powerful and magical again?

Please, someone show me the light at the end of the tunnel.

Plantastic

Time to try again.

I start a new hospital job tomorrow. One that will be hellishly busy, with horrendously long hours and a lot of inevitable pain and tears. But I will have finished shift work. I will have routine, and I'll have my hands so occupied with work that there will be little time left for them to go delving into the fridge.

The first part of the plan is to stop grocery shopping. I will not keep food in the house. I will learn to associate home with a state of emptiness. It is not the place I eat anymore. It will not trigger me and I will not be plagued by a restless desperate need to put hand to mouth.

On the way to work, I will buy my lunch for the day. A salad, a punnet of cherry tomatoes, a couple of bits of fruit perhaps. Maybe a can of tuna. Light, healthy things to sustain me through work. On the way home from work I will buy dinner. Alternatively, I will go out for dinner. A glass of wine and a beautiful meal in a restaurant. Salads, of course. Fish. Entree size, if you please. Bread basket? No thank you. But delicious, social, and most importantly, teaching me to have happy and normal associations with food.


I need to find love for food again. See it as pleasure, instead of punishment. I don't binge because I enjoy it. There is a sickness in me that wants me to hurt myself.

Well, not anymore.
Taking control back.

Pasco
xxx

BANG

I took a big self esteem hit tonight
It hit me hard, like a bullet

I am perceptive

People tell me I read too much into things,
I am paranoid,
Overanalytical

But I always end up being right

And tonight I was right and I was not wanted.
I can't be bothered explaining the details,
Just know this:

I AM NOT SPECIAL

In-co-herent

strrrrange
sick
odd
alone

can't quite make a sentence of it
Save to say my left eye is closed
as I squint and try and make my keyboard make sense

and I realise I am so in love with so many things
and nothing loves me back

and clearly,
through squinted eyes
all I lack is self esteem

Oh I'm sorry but this will be a no good very bad post
because I can't think straight or even type

every letter iis effort

I am innnnnnebriated

Stilll compelled to saay helllloooo to you all

ohhhhhhhh I'm ao sorry

WHAT?

WHAT is this even aboutt?
I don't know

Morning Has Broken

I wake up positive.


I am a morning person. Always have been. One of those annoying children who rises with the sun and races into mum and dad's room, bounding onto their bed demanding plans for the new day. At boarding school I would force myself to stay in bed until the wakeup call, while others forced themselves out after it.

There's a little twinkle of optimism in this. I wake up excited, brimming with anticipation of a fresh new day, flooded and driven and so desperate to embark on the day's activities that I can't bear to stay in bed.

It is always so fleeting and I waste it so quickly...

So today I'm making the moment last a little longer. Sitting in my bed and documenting this feeling. Promise and potential as yet unspoiled. Today will be a good day.

Try as I might

I like anonymous comments.

It isn't because they are anonymous, but because more often than not they are challenging. Criticism or questioning that makes some effort to open up a new perspective.


Not that I don't love the rest of you all to bits. I guess it is just that, well, when you've been a blogger for a while you start to notice that we are all a bunch of yes-men. Any photo posted by anyone, ugly or beautiful, receives a rave review. And we jump like dogs to defend one another against perceived onslaught or offense.

So anonymous comments are welcomed on my blog and I'll never delete a single one. Generally refreshing and frequently correct.

Honestly though, this time I think I have been pinned wrongly.

Sitting on my bed, watching my mess revolve around me, I'm feeling so immersed in my own body and my own head. Looking out through my own eyes. So real. To you I am fictional, but this really really is my life. Sometimes when I'm not concentrating it does feel like fiction (really crap fiction). But now, right now, I am so normal. Just human. Just trying to live. Looking out through my own eyes, the same way you're looking out through yours. And my mind tumbles in similar ways.

And I try.
I do try.
I really really really try.

I didn't throw up today. Not because I didn't want to. But because every second, every moment, despite screaming in my head and near-delusional justification for why I should eat and spew, I tried desperately to hold it back. And it was really hard.

Tomorrow will be hard
And the next day will be hard

And I'm sure at some point I'll fuck up. And for a while I'll give up. And for a while I'll probably crumble like cake and I'll turn into a sticky stale pile of horrible fucking puke and it'll take me a while to try again.

But I WILL try again. And again and again.

What do you think I could possibly have to gain from this?
I can't understand how I disgust you.
You don't seem to know me at all!

Just stop fucking around with this disease!

There is no glory in this disease
There is shame and disgust and hate

I dreamed one night that I was sticking my fingers so far down my throat that I could reach my hand into my stomach and gently scoop all the hurt away

I scream tears down the phone and hope that somebody will save me

Every day I start again
And try SO HARD
To win my life back

I don't think that this is "cool"

This is sad

I am a bright, pretty, talented 24 year old doctor and I hate myself so much that I torture myself every night until my throat bleeds and I have haemorrhages in my eyes

This is so SO sad



And so we laugh about it.
OK?

that makes two of us

"you. make me

sick"

Are you kidding me?
I make myself sick all the fucking time!
Ah hahahaha haha ha


Could you possibly be MORE of a bore?

Fade to Grey

It is as I expected.


I still have the insight to appreciate having had nearly a full week of some kind of happiness. Even if it's over now. It was good enough to know there's purpose in trying to reclaim it.

One day.

All I can think about right now is how badly I want to starve myself stupid again. I'm having flashbacks of comments received at my thinnest

"Oh, you're even tinier than I realised"
"You really are very slim, aren't you"
"If I had your body I'd wear jeans all the time"
"I saw you walking down the street yesterday and I thought you were an angel"

and of course: "You're the prettiest girl I've seen in a long time"

What a thing to have thrown away!
Now I am overlooked and ignored. Palpably, painfully rejected. The bigger I get the less I become. And I feel so utterly insignificant.

24 hours on and still shinin'

I really love this!

We spend so much time building an identity around our misery. We wallow in it and find solace in it and we start to believe that it is what we want. We don't want out of it so we don't really even try.

Yet here, against my will, a few cracks have spread through the concrete in my mind.
And sun is streaming through!


And it is so much better.

I love you too
x

glint

It's in my eye! It is!


I have just spent the last few days feeling strangely happy. Against the most unlikely odds. Despite almost no sleep, times of loneliness, mountains of pressure, tangible rejection and a whole lot of hangover... All of these things that normally squish me and hurt me and make me miserable and incapable have just slid off my surface. I don't get it.

It may be a phase but it doesn't feel like a phase. My eating disorder isn't really any better or any worse, but I feel calm and my mood is good. I have new patience for my family and friends, I have new energy to tackle work and I have a tiny spark of new love for myself.

In the very least I want to care for myself. I'm feeling all these surges of "first day of the rest of my life" palaver and I'm going to try to start eating normally. I'm gaining weight steadily as it is because I'm continually trying to restrict too hard and rebound binging. I'm going to try and eat around 1300 calories a day, I'm going to try and do some gentle exercise and I'm going to try to get my life back.

See?

Waste

It's easy to make promises when you're drunk.

Tonight I was dancing and my hands wandered to my abdomen and rested there somewhere for a while. And I was overwhelmed with conviction. This is going, this will be starved away. There will nothing better than shrinking all of this mass away to nothing and it will be amazing. And it will be easy because of how amazing you know it will be. And the music and the lights pounded through my head and the conviction pounded through my heart.

And now I'm home and I'm still drunk and the promise is still there but it has become a little tepid. It's there, but it's painful and difficult again, instead of amazing.

I haven't blogged in so long. I'm busy, but even more so I'm ignoring the gnawing of the fatty guilty fatty-ness and every passing moment builds more fat and more regret and more of that uneasy sensation of feeling your control being swept away. And that promise seems so light and lovely but I know how hard hard HARD I've tried before and how horribly I've failed over and over and OVER again.

I'm not really sure where to go from here. Tomorrow is a new day. ANOTHER new day.

Stick with me. Please, PLEASE, I'm inattentive but I do do DO love you all. And I need you all so much. It breaks my heart to think of you out there so far away and so hopelessly desperately horribly lost because I KNOW HOW THAT FEELS

and now I'm just ranting.No more sentence structure just a blur of grasping desperation. I am wasted. I am a waste.

fuck this shit

Sorry for the obscenity
sometimes you just need it, y'know?

damn damn damnit
I can't explain it

I just...

fuck

Here comes the fear

This can't be my life, can it? This isn't who I am. This isn't good.

I don't trust myself
I am running out of safe places
My mother's place is not safe, I binge there, without fail
My own place is no longer safe, I used to feel in control here, but no longer
Now I binge here, without fail.

I feel safe at work. My new department, my new routine, and so busy busy busy
I am happy at work because I feel safe there, and I don't fear myself.

I leave, and driving from place to place is safe
Where will I go? Developing plans, smiling
But there is no safe place to arrive at and suddenly I am frightened of myself again
And with good reason.

A self-fulfilling prophecy
Fueled by fear

Ugly Day

I know that we all feel irrationally and disproportionately ugly most of the time, and I know that almost all people, even those with normal self esteem, have ugly days. Bearing that in mind I know this isn't a particularly profound revelation, but today I am feeling stupendously ugly.


I am mortified at my reflection.

And almost in a kind of angry-fucking-pissed-off way, rather than in a sad way. In a self-loathing way, rather than in a self-pitying way. In a get-yourself-together-Pasco-and-stop-being-so-fucking-gross way.

But I feel the heavy static pull of repugnance and I can't be bothered with the futility of fixing it. And soon it will be too late, I will have to drive myself to work looking like this, and I'll wind up hating myself for it.



I know, I know, it's just an ugly day. It will pass. And I have been doing very well lately - infrequent purging, moderate restricting, about two and a half kilos lost in two weeks. Just keep calm, ride out the ugly wave, it'll pass... it will pass.

This morning I am dizzy

I haven't been dizzy in so long. I like it. My body is finally feeling hungry. Something is working.


I am inspired today by my own fuzzy head.

My oh my,

how time flies!

I haven't blogged in almost 2 weeks, although it seems like yesterday. I really have nothing to say. I want to write something, I want to be uplifting or encouraging, but really I am just tired.

Goodnight
x

grief and loss

I'm poured in concrete. Every part of me is heavy. My chin is on my knee. I'd swear it's fastened there, I'd swear I can't move it, but I try anyway. What do you know, my neck tilts and my chin lifts off. Not fastened after all. Just heavy.

Last night I dreamed I was dying of cancer. "Why me?" a thousand times. I was so angry and so frightened. I was driving down a dark freeway and I ran my car into a concrete pylon to be finally free from the fear of death.

There is acid in my throat. My mouth is filled with glue. My eyes can't focus. They can, but I can't make them. I can't be bothered.

Everywhere there is stuff.

I am not young anymore. I wasted my youth. Even as it trails off I am still wasting it. I will only ever be older and older. There is grass and long slender limbs and experimentation. There is breaking the rules and slipping away and sly smiles, secrets. And I am outside it, and so far beyond it I will never be inside it. I am grown up.

I will get older and older and then I will die. I will never get any of it back, and I missed all of it. And I spend so much time pining for it I am blind to all the things I am currently missing. Those that I will later miss with as much yearning and loss and grief as for the things I now grieve.

I'm doing more better

It's true!
I am!

I'm feeling a bit more detached. I think. Something about telling my mum has changed everything. It's pretty much made me stop purging. I'm not sure how, but it has. My mother has become omniscient, this constant overhead reminder (even though she actually isn't) just, I don't know, I know she's there... I know she knows... Some how it just CHANGES it. It really does.

And I've been in control. In control with food.
Eating fuck all but enough and it's great.

In other news, tonight I turned down Mr King Dick of medicine. Male model most popular man in all of planet hospital extraordinaire... thought he had me... til the last minute when I informed him I WOULDN'T be getting out off the taxi with him sor-reeeee...

...and did it feel wonderful? Yes!

Am I a wee bit drunkened? P'raps!
And feeling powerful!

re-ap-plying myself

I am a fat

Some days the panic crawls over my skin and clutches at my throat and wraps itself around my brain so tightly that I think I will die from it. Some days I feel calmer, never quite comfortable in this skin, but confident I can change it. It's based on two principles: time and trajectory. If I can change the trajectory of my weight and allow for the passage of time then everything will be OK and I will become thin.

Today I downloaded and ap for my phone that is effectively a food diary. I plugged in all my goals and details and it records exactly what I need to eat every day. When I enter the foods I eat it works out the calories precisely from an enormous database (which includes all the collective entries from its users). It calculates percentages of fat and protein, graphs results and measurements and intake, and sits safely in my pocket so I can enter every item. I'm still going to try and stick to my 2 meal replacements shakes a day and the rest lean protein and produce.


Right now I am confident the trajectory will be down and the time will fly.

sex with the shrink

So, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but...

...is it to look more attractive to a man?
...so a man can sweep you off your feet?
...because of that boy you had sex with?
...so he will find you more attractive?
...so other men will find you more attractive?

Not even in the ball park.
Maybe I should switch to a female therapist.

Sick

in the head.
I phoned work and told them I wouldn't be coming in today.

Made an appointment with a new GP. Walked in, stated my case, walked out literally about 45 seconds later with a blood form, a psychologist referral, a sick note and script for vanlafaxine with 5 repeats. She didn't even ask me if I was thinking of killing myself, which was disappointing because I was looking forward to saying "yes".

All day has been surreal and I've felt lost and bewildered. So far it's my 5th day purge free but I really don't give a shit. I guess I just want to be able to answer my mother honestly if she ever asks me when I last threw up. The bigger the number the better. I phoned the psychologist and he sounded young and silly and expensive. I'm seeing him Thursday night, but I'm not really seeing the point.


For the record, I'm not going to kill myself.
But I'm almost always thinking about it.

It has barely been mentioned

I can't remember the details of Friday night because I was so full of booze and benzodiazepines, just sobbing into the phone to her for a long time. I'm not sure how much I told her, suffice to say I think it was a lot and I think it was fairly honest.

I still wish I hadn't

I think I'm surprised there isn't more judgement. My vague recollection of her reaction is that it didn't feel like a big deal. I still feel watched. I still feel it hanging between us. I made her swear not to tell anyone and not to tell dad, but I suspect she will.

This is the woman who read my diary after all
A mother who doesn't always respect secrets

I sense she wants to talk about it,
but I really don't
And yet
I sense she doesn't quite understand it,
but I want her to

She has been quietly kind and supportive, her occasional probing questions gentle, I know she is doing her best.

the B bomb

more alcohol and more tears
and more phone calls to my mum
and more skirting around the real reason for so much misery

then, finally, for some reason it came out

mum I have bulimia

uttered out loud

she's on her way over now to get me. lives about 20 minutes away. won't take her long. i feel wretched and putrid and embarrassed and i hate myself. but this is a change. i don't want her to see me but soon she will. everything has changed now.

Good Morning Day 2!

Day 1 went off without a hitch. I'm looking forward to getting out of bed and having my breakfast shake. I'm not sure how long "looking forward to it" will last, but for the moment I'm appreciating the feeling.

I think the concept I like most about this plan is that while the shakes are incredibly unsatisfying to your tastebuds and your tummy, they are perfectly nutritionally balanced. Low calories and low carbs, yes, but packed with supplemental nutrients and enough energy that my brain should not be hungry. Which means that if I can stick to it, I should eventually learn to respond to my brain's need for fuel, rather than my stomach which is now insatiable or my jaw that demands to be chewing constantly. Dare I say, it might one day be possible to learn to understand hunger again?

The other thing I'm loving is the possibility that my mostly-liquid diet will flatten out my horribly bloated belly... mmmmaybe... Sounds too good to be true? As I said, we'll see how long "looking forward to it" lasts!


Nuff chat, time to milk it!
x

in the details

Righty, so the plan we on is "celebrity slim" (lame-o I know) and the idea is to have two meal replacement shakes per day, one sensible meal, usually dinner, and up to 3 "allowable snacks". My housemate and I have concluded that dinner is our trouble area though, so we are going to make it sensible lunch and milkshake dinner. For lunch I'm going to stick to mainly salads with a bit of lean protein. And I intend to avoid the "allowable snacks" except for a small piece of fruit where desperate.


Just had my first shake of the program and it was... tolerable. I think I can do this. I know I can do this!

Got Milk

re
start

And this time with a buddy! My housemate and I have decided to embark on a meal replacement milkshake diet starting tomorrow. We have shaken on it and will spot each other through it and I'm quite excited.

A month. We are endeavoring to make it a month. For me, it would not just mean the promise of real weight loss but also the possibility of a month free of purging. Could this really work? I think being able to be diet openly with someone I'm living with will certainly help. She doesn't know about the bulimia, but I have whinged at her about my unstoppable weight gain and she has reciprocated with similar angst. It's time to shake things up!



My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard

re

lapse


too much stress, too much fat, not enough resolve
you all believed in me and I blew it

but I'm starting again tomorrow

my weight is up

UP
i knew it would be
I JUST KNEW IT i've been feeling so huge
but i did everything right
EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
it doesn't make sense and I feel so utterly helpless

i wish i wish i hadn't weighed myself. now i don't know what to think or what to do. like it is completely out of my hands and it doesn't matter what i do my body will continue to just get infinitely bigger

maybe it's muscle mass, rehydration, constipation, some other physiological shift...
but it just FEELS LIKE FAT

FUCK

Lulu the wise

She told me it was a stupid idea and she was right.

So I did better than that. Much Better. I ate about 800 calories and I went to the gym and knocked off about 400. An impressive and moderate effort I think. It stills feels terrible. I still feel the weightiness of food inside me and I'm horrible and blubbery and revolting and all I want to do is NEVER EAT AGAIN...

...but it would be stupid, fucking stupid, to try. Because I would fail and I would stay bulimic the rest of my life. Instead, here I am, a whole solid 7 days BULIMIA FREE!

I struggle endlessly with incredibly disordered bulimialike eating though. I pretty much didn't eat all day, then decided to have a light dinner. Which led to more light dinner, to more and more and more light dinner. Thank goodness I had previously abolished all the junk food from my house or I'd likely have demolished it too. The only way I could stop myself eating was to race as fast as I could to my car and drive to the gym. It was more about distraction from food that it was about burning calories.


At the moment this is helping, but to be honest it is really just another form of purging. Granted, I'm not allowing myself to binge first to the same extend as if I were throwing up. But still, it won't always be an option for me. I won't always be in a situation where I can dart off and burn off everything I've eaten. And the more important thing is to learn how to stop eating. To just STOP without needing some urgent other task or distraction.

I'll get there eventually.
Baby steps.

In the mean time, Lulu, I love you xx
And the rest of you too

ONE WEEK
WOOOO
!!!!!!

I wonder...

Could I liquid fast through the week?
Sometimes I propose this and only last a few hours, other times it just seems to work.


I'll see how I go,
But anything I accidentally eat stays down NO MATTER WHAT

I'm meant to weigh in tomorrow, after a full week, 168 hours, purge free. But I'm not sure I can stomach it...

pizza

My mum can't understand why I never want to come home to see her. It's hard to explain that I associate her house with eating and I can't be there without binging. So having been coerced over for dinner tonight, I was at panic stations. At pre-dinner grocery shopping I was so crippled by anxiety I had to huddle myself down on a pile of toilet paper in a promo display. The anticipation and the calorie counting and the bargaining, remembering my pledge that vomiting was not an option, a way out of it. Strategising. Knowing it was hopeless.

We made pizza for dinner and for a few brief moments during the preparation and the nibbling and the playing with ingredients it was almost fun. But then it came to the eating, with trembling hands and lurching stomach. Afterwards I sat on the kitchen floor with awkward tears and no explanations for them. If I sat there, if I just sat there long enough, I would digest enough of that pizza that I couldn't throw it up. I needed to pee, but if I went near the toilet I knew there would be no way to stop myself. So I sat and sat and sat, and when finally it became time to settle beside my mother on the couch I accepted her hot chocolate and her cuddles and everything slowly became OK.

eeeeurgh I'm coming up against a brick wall this morning. I can't dress myself because I feel horrible and huge in everything. Each subsequent outfit attempt just increases my panic and heightens my distress. It's OK, I'm OK, I'm not giving up... sometimes it is just so fucking hard SAD FACE

139 hours

Since my last purge.


139 hours down the road to freedom.

I'm tempted to starve myself entirely today. I know it is a relapse risk. But I am brutally aware of the immense volume of air my body still displaces, I'm taking up too much space. I know it is the panic to shrink too quickly that usually paves my destruction. I will be careful and if it gets to be to much I will stop. I still have no idea what this new non-bulimic body weighs. I haven't the heart to find out.

Thank you all for you well wishes
I love you so much

Pasco
x

a story of success, especially fo Ancora

I am not bulimic anymore.
I am adamant.
I do not throw up anymore.
I am determined!

I didn't go down to the shops last night, I didn't buy chocolate peanuts, I ESPECIALLY didn't throw up. I did eat a bit too much, about 1500 calories for the day. But that would be OK for a normal person and I didn't let it get me down and I didn't let it lead to a binge. And this morning after a sensible breakfast I did a spin class then ran 10km.

Love,
Pasco
x

it wouldn't be so bad...

...to go down to the local supermarket and buy a big back of cheap horrible chocolate coated peanuts and eat them all and throw them all up. Would it?

Yes, Pasco, YES IT WOULD BE THAT BAD

OK

Mind Flip

I'm not sure if it is a blessing or a curse, but this evening I felt my mind click over into a new place... or a new version of an old place in which it resided several months ago.

I tortured myself at the gym again, and at the end of my workout forced out an extra 150 calories worth of running on the treadmill to "earn" myself a protein when I got home. Then as I went to claim my reward I hesitated. Bank the calories, take advantage of this moment, don't eat it. Or maybe have an apple instead. No! Have the protein bar, it's part of your plan. Why not just nothing? Have nothing! Go on, have nothing... no, the apple. No JUST FUCKING HAVE THE PROTEIN BAR. That screechy internal monologue, the frantic indecision. A week ago I'd have had the protein bar AND the apple and probably a few handfuls of cereal, a slice of cheese and several fingers dipped in peanut butter. Now every decision must be carefully metered and measured against all other options.

I ate the protein bar. It was part of my plan.
But I can sense it, I know it, I've seen it before and I'm seeing it now.

The mind flip.

Yet more punishment

Still eating more than my plan says
But still reigning it in, keeping in control
And punishing myself at the gym each night


I punish myself for everything. Pounding along, pouring sweat, grunting and yelping through my workouts. So many beautiful, tiny, obviously underweight girls at my gym. They all drift along so soft and light, but barely lift a finger on the machines or break into more than a slow jog. And I am made hyper-aware of every bounce and jiggle as I push myself harder and know I need to go harder still. And I burn off all the anguish that the boy brings me. I vocalised my fear and apprehension of impending heartbreak and "I am important to him" but clearly not that important, so I run run run until I can't feel it. And until I can't really feel my legs either. His ex girlfriend who he always loved and will always love posted an emaciated looking photo of herself to her facebook profile. She recently moved away and I guess she's starving herself harder than ever before. And I punish myself for allowing all this fucking fat to get on top of me and smother me when the other girl he has always loved and will always love proudly wears her banner of delicate pain and exquisite beauty. I have a string of old boyfriends who had old girlfriends they would always love. Nobody has ever always loved me. I am a fat nothing. And I eat too much. So I punish myself.

But at least I don't throw up

And last night I threw the half empty jar of lecherous peanut butter into the bin