June 11, 2006
It's been awhile
I'm still inpatient... still doing my best to keep moving forward, though each day is one more uphill battle. Somedays are pure hell---
Like last Monday. Here's the journaling from then. I apologize for the negativity, but some days are just that way.
June 6, 2006
I hate the interior so much that I attempt to tame the internal rage by destroying the body it is housed in. I despise me. Can not stand being in my own skin these days, can not stand living in a body I hate. As each day passes, that hate only intensifies, leaving me to wonder why I'm here when lately all I want to do is run straight back to the familiarity of starvation.
And yet, it is completely and utterly senseless. The logical me knows that. The logical me can separate myself from myself, put everything into perspective and say, "dude... that's fucked up." And yet, somehow, for whatever reason, I still seek solace inself-destruction, justify my actions, justify my thoughts under the guise of "security", "safety".
The days go by, hour after hour and I find myself constantly in a state of anxiety. Even in the moments I'm enjoying whatever it is I am doing, it is always overshadowed by the thought that "it won't last". I am always waiting for the figurative shoe to drop, balancing on the edge, waiting for the inevitable fall. My thoughts, my mood changes, shifts on a daily basis, often numerous times a day. I'm beginning to think I should not have gone off the effexor before I came. But yet again, despite Judy's difference of opinion, I believed I knew what was best for me-- and subsequently found that my belief was grossly inaccurate. I oscillate between 'good' and 'bad', my moods at the mercy of the external world. It changes moment to moment. I woke up this morning feeling fairly positive about the day ahead. Less than four hours later, I'm sitting on the front porch, this overwhelming feeling of anxiety and sadness and god-knows what else leading me to the state-of-mind I have been stuck in for the last 13 hours. I don't want to feel this way, don't want to BE this way. And I fight so f---ing hard to make it appear I'm ok. But where then, does that leave me? Overcome by this pervasive and insiduous desire to return to the eating disorder. I think, in some ways, I undermine my own recovery simply for the fact that I cannot accept change.
Bryan said it perfectly to Lauren this morning, whenhe said that I was a "reluctant success." I do what I have to do here; make small, tentative steps forward, but I hate every f---ing minute of it. I take the knowledge, the tools offered, accept them for what they are but hesitate to allow myself to apply those things to my own life. It's ok for everyone else, but not me. And I can't explain why. In no way do I think that I am "better" than anyone else, or more special or whatever term one wants to use; in all actuality, it's quite the opposite. I hate the fact that I have to eat, that it's a physiological need in the first place. I hate the fact that something as simple as eating has become this war of morals in my head, as I calculate each day the level of my "worth-ness" or acceptability based solely on the sum of calories I've consumed. I fight against those who try to help. Yet at the same time I push them away, I'm silently pleading for their return, their help. Hoping someone notices the lie behind the smile, the tears pounding at the door of the nervous laughter. Constantly say I'm fine, when I'm anything BUT...
I have gained weight since I've been here, and I'm NOT okay with it. I DO NOT want to just accept it. And the bigger I get, the more it intensifies the self-hatred. It invades every aspect of my life. Even with my running-- I feel like the extra weight is dragging me down, holding me back. There is truth in the idea that losing weight will improve running performance. Lower body weight means a higher VO2 max, thereby increasing a person's endurance and ability to run in the first place. The trick to the "game" however, is figuring out the fewest number of calories one can consume in a day and still reach adequate levels of performance, and then maintaining that. Some of my BEST running times came at (almost) my lowest weight. My problem is that I took it too far, assuming that I would be even faster if I weighed less.
But back then, running made everything disappear, much in the same way that cutting does now. I found a sense of freedom in my running that I hadn't found elsewhere. I could run, anytime day or night and the longer I ran, the more the thoughts and feelings disappeared. I too, wanted to disappear, and I figured-- on some level-- I had to do it a little at a time. Start with the feelings, move onto the thoughts, and disappearance of the body itself would follow.
I know that is utterly illogical, but yet, when this all began I had no one there to reframe that ideology and it thus became a belief. I think in many ways, I'm still attempting that same thing. As I slowly lose my grip on the one safety net I've always had (eating disorder), I find myself seeking solace wherever I can find it. Try to rekindle it through running more and more, through cutting, drinking, getting high. Sometimes I feel completely out of control. Overwhelmed. Anxious. It seems everything-- my thoughts, feelings, the world around me is moving at warp speed and all I can do is sit here in a silent daze, waiting for it to stop. (Or at least slow down long enough for me to stand up again.) How is it possible to go to such extremes in the course of a day--or an hour for that matter-- and still maintain any sense of stability? That in and of itself leads meto brief (and fleeting) moments of awe at my own resiliency.
Physically, yes-- I'm stable, but on the mental/emotional side of the pendulum, I've swung so far in the opposite direction, I wonder sometimes if it's even possible to come back down again; wonder if it's worth the fight; if I'M worth the fight. Hope never completely disappears, yet sadly, some days, I simply don't care enough to care in the first place.
I feel like all of this random stuff in my head is pointless... meaningless to anyone else but me. And yet at the same time, I know there has to be SOMEthing to it, or else I wouldn't still be stuck here. But I don't know how else to explain it or to say it, don't know where to go from here. I question everything, analyize everything, find that--despite all my efforts-- I am merely left in a toxic state of absolute uncertainty...
"How will you know I'm hurting, if you cannot see my pain?
To wear it on the body tells what words cannot explain."
--G. A
Posted by Wendy on June 11, 2006 2:16 PM
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