A Year Ago Today

You know when just a little something, an image, a place, a smell, an outfit whips your mind back to another time? This weekend that's happened to me so many times. It was a year ago during Capitol Hill Block Party that I started diligently digging towards my bottom that had me admitting I needed to go to a treatment facility for my alcoholism and bulimia.

I was binge drinking and eating nonstop. I was out of control and it was a rush. After years of controlling my food, my exercise, my money, my life I was screaming fuck you to the rules I had created. I couldn't believe the terrible things I was doing to myself and that I could still keep going. How much further could I go? How many more times could I make myself throw up? How early could I start drinking. What combinations could I do? How flirtatious could I be? How much attention could I get? How much money could I blow on booze, food, people?

I wrote this a year ago:

"My knees hurt from the tile. My left hand clasps the porcelain, while my right has teeth marks on it. My heart races.
Just keep going. You did this to yourself. The cake I ate ten minutes ago fills the toilet while relief fills my head.

I finish, brush my teeth and stop to look at myself in the mirror. I've popped blood vessels in my face, they look like freckles. My mascara is running down my face. I leave the bathroom in disgust.

I try to write.

I can't. I'm shaking too badly. Tears fill my eyes.

I do what I don't want to-I call my sponsor.

"I've done it again. I drank last night. I didn't want to. I over ate last night. I didn't want to. I ate a cake this morning. I didn't want to. I threw it up. I didn't want to. I called you. I didn't want to."

Deep breath.

"I want help.""

Damn am I a good writer.

So now of course I get reflective.

I cannot write words of total recovery, of health, of victory over addiction.

Because I was doing exactly what I wrote a year ago this time yesterday. I binge ate and threw up until 6 PM when relief came by having to go meet friends to see A-Track at this year's Block Party. A year ago I don't think I would have left the house out of hurt, shame and pure addiction and selfishness. Going to meet them was a relief and the only thing that kept me from continuing to just eat until I hurt and get rid of it. Not knowing why I can't stop, what made me think it was once again a good idea to start.

While I'm not recovered yet I am in a much better place.
I am 60 days sober today.
I have been through partial hospitalization treatment for my bulimia, intensive outpatient and now outpatient.
I have been getting help through AA for my drinking.
I have more good days than bad.
I have a real relationship with my mom and a growing one with my dad.
I have become a better person, less selfish.
I hold four jobs when this time last year I lost one and could barely show up for another.
I have a steady boyfriend that I'm there for, present for and honest with.

However, I still have deep shame for my body. I am 20 lbs heavier than I was. I see and feel the weight and grit my teeth. I cannot look at myself in the mirror unless the angle is just right the light flattering and I have enough makeup on. I put pictures up online of when I feel pretty to hopefully get a boost from my super close facebook friends (yes that's sarcasm) that I am in fact ok - pretty, worthy.

I am still seeking attention from guys to make myself feel once again worthy, important, desirable. I am not getting that satisfaction from myself.

My priorities are still my looks over all else but now I'm starting to make room for being a good person. Measuring my success not by my weight but by how many people I can help.

If this is how far I've come in a year, I can't imagine the words of hope and wisdom I'll have in another year. I won't give up, I can't.

I have you all that have reached out to me and given me kind words of encouragement and understanding to thank for much of my perseverance.

I now have faith and knowledge that what I cannot do for myself will be done for me if I keep believing and asking for help. I'm living proof of it.

Checking In

This is a letter I wrote to my therapist and dietician this morning. I haven't seen them in two weeks, nor have I said one word to them. 

"I feel like we are friends who had a slight falling out and I'm not sure how to approach you again. Or where I stand.

But that's crazy. 

I've twisted being away from treatment into this huge thing that's creating me a lot of anxiety.

I wanted to prove to you all that I could do it on my own (not that you ever dared me to). That I could just do AA and not have behaviors and be free finally.

Wellit hasn't gone that way. I've had ups and downs but more downs I'd say. I've BP at work two days in a row causing me to not finish my work. I have felt like even though I know what the right thing to do is I can't stop doing the wrong. I know that I can't just deter from my meal plan for a buffet at work for a moment to pretend like I'm normal. But I did it anyway. 

I see myself doing things that I shouldn't do, like stealing, bingeing, trying to get on the light rail for free, running red lights on my bike and I feel I can't stop. Each choice makes me more mad at myself and watch the negative pile up and the failures so I can't see the good.

I'm a bit calmer now but the past couple of days I've just been upset and not known why or how to fix it or feel my feelings which pisses me right off.

I haven't followed my meal plan, I haven't been exercising, I haven't been going to AA, I haven't been talkign to anyone about what's wrong and it's left me miserable. I don't know how many fuckign times I'm going to have to go through this until I get it through my head that this is no way to live but it looks like I had to do it once more.

I feel out of control. Who knows how much I weigh now. I know it's gone up. I can feel the rolls on my stomach and sides when I do things like bend over or curl up to sleep that weren't there before. I had an illusive control when I was doing ED behaviors regularly like over eating, under eating, exercising compulsively but now I don't have that illusion and since I can't do what I used to do to feel in control I feel even more out of control.

I hope this makes sense.

But what does make me feel calm now is getting to work on time, helping other people, eating on my meal plan, keeping my room clean, hanging out with friends, working out normally and i've been doing that too I just have let the negative over shadow everything again. So I guess I'm ok now. It's just when I think of my weight and how much I've fucked up for so long I can't bear it and want to just run and run until there's nothing left of me, nothing left to feel or see or hate."

Thanks for reading.

Inventory

I haven't written in a while because I was so happy then I was so sad.

I'm coming off a week long binge after a week long of not bingeing and before that it was a week long binge.

So much money wasted and time on eating and throwing up-I disgust myself.

Anyway, I felt compelled to write-not about the above but about what I'm doing right now.

I'm doing an inventory on my life up until now. I'm listing out resentments, fears and people / places I've harmed.

I resent over 300 people. Going through my facebook friends alone got me most of them but my God I had no idea I was this jealous, bitter and angry at people...especially my dearest friends.

Every girl who is happily married (not sure why I am jealous of that), who is thinner than me, in better shape, has a fiance, has a job I want, who was once my friend but doesn't talk to me anymore, any guys I dated or thought should be more interested in me and show me more attention...I AM STILL UPSET AT THEM.

And half the shit I'm saying is my own opinion and not facts, like "She's prettier than me. She's happier than me. She thinks she's better than me. He talks to her more than me."

I've have created so much hate in myself that it's clouded my head and my perception. It's blocking me from moving forward.

I will share them with a trusted friend so these resentments and fears are no longer inside of me, no longer holding me back.

Also, I've realized I'm petrified of losing my job, getting a new job, trying to get a new job, trying to be sexy, trying on jeans, being overweight (we knew that one), of never being good enough, of everyone else's opinion, that I'm never going to figure this out, that everyone has it better than me, that I'm missing out on something, that I'm not doing enough...etc

And the hardest one is going back through not the people that hurt me (the kids that spray painted WHORE in my lawn, the girls in the 6th grade that called me Super Bitch, my "best friends" that wrote shit about me anonymously online, my parents who never got me help) but rather those I have hurt.

The best friends whose guys I've taken, the boy friend I cheated on, the guys I moved onto one to the next without a break, the ones I used so I could feel important and get attention, all of the times I've made my family late for something because I was working out or staring at myself in the mirror.

All of my shame, fears, worst traits have been brought up lately and it's really fucking overwhelming.

I know it'll get better after this but it sucks listing over 300 things that make you a bad person. But I guess we're all flawed and I'm doing something right by doing something about it.