I am not your typical eating disorder sufferer.
Girls who develop eating disorders generally possess a fairly predictable set of personality traits - things like perfectionism, fastidiousness, obsessiveness and cleanliness. And might I add a spark of downright brilliance too!
I don't. I am a pig and a slob. Reading through everyone's blogs, you talk about how other people's mess disgusts you. My mess disgusts other people. I have been meaning for weeks to clean my room and I CAN NOT DO IT. The dishes are piled high in the sink and I know most of them are mine. The bin needs to go out. My house stinks. I stink. Every time I shower I just eat and throw up again. So why bother? I can't stand the sight of myself, I can't leave the house, so why bother washing my hair or getting dressed either? My skin is breaking out. I am developing a monobrow. My toenails are growing long and my nail polish is chipped and ugly. My head hurts. I am disgusting disgusting DISGUSTING.
I loathe it too. I long to be surrounded by bright, crisp beauty. Light, clean, fragrant airiness. I feel trapped under my oppressive filth. So why the hell am I so powerless to change? I can't for the life of me find the impetus to actually DO anything. Sometimes I feel as though a vein of all of those eating disorder personality traits runs through me. I'm a perfectionist. I'm obsessive. But almost so much so that I know I'll never reach my own standards of perfection so I don't try. Why bother if I can't do it right? I may as well just rot away in my own stench. My life is this ugly dichotomy of extreme chaos and extreme order. They are mutually exclusive for me. Half of my expansive wardrobe is immaculately colour coded, displayed on matching coat hangers. The other half is all over my floor in haphazard piles that give off vague putrid wafts of cat pee. My food is either a perfect rainbow of neatly chopped vegetables on crystal platters, or it is binged straight from the bag, often in the dark in my car.
I wish I could cut myself in half, keep only the good and purge the anarchy. Failing that, I think I would almost accept an amalgamation of both sides such that they evened out into a normal person. The chaos is killing me.
In other news my body is refusing to purge again and my ex took me out for brunch, which was pancakes, which meant secret muffins and icecream when I got home. Once your day is wrecked you may as well seriously fucking destroy it, right? So I have 2000 calories sitting in my stomach right now. And they won't come up. And a birthday dinner tonight. And a chocolate fondue party tomorrow night. And I'm just about ready to kill myself. I won't of course, but god I can't wait for it to be Saturday.
Love you all, please may you be doing better than me!
Pasco
xx
I'm the same as you with the mess - I can just never be bothered to clean/tidy. But I find that when I do, it makes it easier to restrict/fast because then I'm clean and the room is clean and I don't want to ruin it? lol.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried mustard & water for the purging?
It's absolutely disgusting, though I think that's the idea. Always makes it easier for me to throw up anyway.
Good luck x
errrr not typical? so both have identical atypical eating patterns??
ReplyDeleteI'm a slob too. If all i'm doing is staying in and bingeing then i dont shower or change or clean or get out of bed, theres no point. And my room is never tidy. NEVER. I'm famous for it.
I think thats why i've found it easier since i got away - fresh clean slate means i can keep the momentum going. One day in bed leads to more, as does mess and dirt and throwing up. Now i just have to keep it from slipping away from me!
I hope you find your turning point sometime soon xx
vascillation is the story of my life. i wear the same clothes every day. i never do my laundry. i forget to change my sheets. my dishes stack up so high that strange smells emanate from beneath. my fridge is covered in sticky messes of fruit juice that i am too lazy to clean up. i am strangely interested in molds and the way food decays, so i leave it in the fridge and observe for weeks. BUT i also get really cranky and antsy if my floor is not swept and i hate long nails and i have to shave often and i go on random cleaning bursts. so, i get it! soul mates.
ReplyDeletei think, really, it's all about momentum. the dirtier things get the crankier and angrier and frustrated i get and the more i eat and pick at the fridge and eat sugar and it builds up and up until i am screaming inside. so i put on a movie i love and grit my teeth and grumble and start picking up and maybe talk to someone on the phone to distract me and then by the time i've gotten off the phone or gotten really into the movie i've built up enough momentum, and then the trick is to just KEEP GOING until you've finished getting everything you wanted to get done done. it's a bitch but it works. and then the other trick is to try and do that, say, weekly, so the sheer amount you have to get done is manageable and you won't dread it so much.
maybe this won't work for you. maybe it will. all i know is it's SUCH a wonderful feeling to have everything clean and in order again after living in filth for so long. and i eat less, and i pick less, and i make better food choices.
p.s. i'm serious about putting on a movie while you clean. REALLY helps. disney movies are the best for this. you can sing along. :D
I think you do possess the traits but you also possess the black & white tunnel vision that we all seem to have too! I'm a halfer as well. I find myself repeating the ole, "when it rains it pours" saying. I can't help it, it's just too fitting. When I'm good, I'm great. There is no middle ground. i WANT to be on middle ground but it always seems to turn on me. Be it Black or White.
ReplyDeleteI totally get that your body is refusing to purge, I hate that!
Feel better Pasco the Magnificent.
Things will get better (and cleaner)...eventually but it's in your and yours alone power to decide when "eventually" will be the here and now.
XO
XO
try this....
ReplyDeletehttp://zenhabits.net/2008/07/the-beginners-guide-to-zen-habits-a-guided-tour/
I checked it out and it has helped me keep my sink free of dishes, that's as far as I got, the rest of my house is a mess, but its a start lol
I know exactly what you're talking about regarding the unreachable expectations, the messes, the sense of failure-so-why-bother.
ReplyDeleteI'm also trying to fix it. It's hard though. Start small, I guess. LIttle by little?
Your expansive wardrobe sounds lovely, btw. :) I wish I had one.
Stay strong,
XOXO
Rena
It's probably a good thing (given that you want to stop!) that your body is struggling to purge.
ReplyDeleteI'm sadly one of those typicals - perfectionist, organised, competitive, super-high-achiever types. Wouldn't say I was OCD about cleaning, but I am higher than a lot of people.
Regarding "binging" though, I'm really v bad, I'll eat if food is there. Really really will. BAD. Then feel ill afterwards. It never stops me during though, it's like I have a mental block and just forget.