Aimee just wrote a letter to her parents. In her letter, she dedicated a paragraph to explain what it's like to live a day in her life pre-HG. I wish I could claim this brilliant idea as my own, but hey, I'll give credit where credit is due. After reading it to me, she said "This makes me know that I NEVER want to go back to this." I figured it might be therapeutic, so here goes:
A Day in My ED Life:
I wake up while it's still dark outside so I have time to work out before going to class. I eat something fat-free and about 100 calories for breakfast. I work out for over an hour, knowing that I've burned the calories in the first 15 minutes and exhilarted to know that I'm going to burn so much more before my workout is done, and then I'll have technically consumed 0 calories for the whole day.
I go to school, all the while worrying and hoping I don't make myself binge and purge later in the day. For some reason, I don't feel guilty or think I'm doing anything wrong when I restrict and overexercise, but when I binge and purge--THAT'S when I feel like there's something wrong.
At school, I'll sometimes eat an apple mid-morning but immediately feel guilty after. I'll think "Was that REALLY a medium sized apple?? If so, it's only 80 calories, so I'm good. But large apples can have up to 110. Shit. Fuck. I think it was a big apple." I worry about this until lunchtime, when I consume a bowl of vegetables with no dressing, cheese, or croutons.
I feel good walking around campus and knowing I've probably burned off the rabbit food I've eaten for lunch. I get home, think about dinner when I'll actually eat something that resembles a normal meal. I don't do homework because I don't have the energy. Sometimes I don't call any of my friends because I'm too depressed to even pretend to be happy. And they can't know I'm upset. I have too many problems. To tell anyone about them would be selfish and time consuming and no one REALLY cares enough to listen.
I eat dinner. The entire meal has 0.5 grams of fat. This is the only fat I eat all day. Even so, I take a diet pill before eating that is supposed to block 25% of the fat in the meal.
If I don't binge/purge, the rest of my night consists of hoping I don't binge or purge. I continue to not do homework. Sometimes I call my mom and cry. She never manages to make me feel better.
If I do binge and purge, it's a couple of hours after dinner. I'll be sitting in the living room, trying to think of something productive to do, but not having the motivation to do so. I start thinking about the Oreos in the kitchen or the peanut butter or whatever, never realizing that I feel empty inside and the only way I can think of filling that void is by binging and then punishing myself by violently getting rid of it. I go to the kitchen and get everything I can until I physically CANNOT eat anything else. I'm pissed. I want to keep eating. I go to the bathroom and get rid of as much as I can. Since I now have room in my stomach, I go back to the kitchen and binge some more. Then bathroom. Then kitchen. Then bathroom.
I never can get rid of it all. I'm pissed and angry and frustrated. I think I'll get fat. I think about having to buy new clothes in bigger sizes. I think about how thin I used to be. I think about how much willpower I used to have to not eat ANYTHING and be skinny skinny skinny. Skinny is good. Not eating is good.
I feel exhausted. I can't do anything. I go to bed. I wake up. It starts over.
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Fuck. That was depressing.
But writing it out makes it seem less powerful for some reason. It's as if by condensing my entire existance into a couple of paragraphs shows me how simple yet horrifying my life was. I never, ever, EVER want to go back to that place. The place where my life was so meaningless and ritual and numbing that I hardly ever felt any emotion at all, even the good ones.
I'm seeing my parents tomorrow. And NOT looking forward to it at all. I talked to them on the phone today and my dad was SUCH a fucking dick.
Mom: "...here, I'll let you talk to Dad."
Dad: "Hello?"
Me: "Hi, Dad."
Dad: "..."
Me: "HELLO?"
D: "WHAT? I'm here. You wanted to talk to me."
And then he proceeded to yell. And be the big asshole that he is. I'm just worried that tomorrow I'll get extremely anxious and be tempted to do some not-so-nice-things to myself while out with them. I'm so scared. And pissed. And tired of everything.
During yoga yesterday, we did this new thing at the end where we all layed in a circle and held hands and "sent our energy" to our neighbors. Extremely gay sounding, I know. But while we were doing it, it occurred to me that I love the people here SO SO much. I feel like we're at summer camp or something. Not that I ever actually WENT to summer camp. I was far too high maintenance for that. But anyways, living here has been so, so great. I love having the ability to be pissed and not have to apologize or explain myself. If someone else is pissed, it's okay and I don't constantly think "Is it me?? Was it something I did??" I realized I ALWAYS do this. I apologize for stupid shit and always assume I did something wrong if someone is upset. And I'm SICK of it. I don't want to do it anymore.
I was going to eat mac & cheese for lunch. I was stressing about it. But when we got back to the house after the beach walk, I automatically started making a sandwich and it wasn't until midway through that I thought "Oh, fuck. The mac and cheese!" Oh, well. I probably wouldn't have done it anyways. It was dessert night tonight. I can only handle so much saturated fat in the day.
Today was the best beach walk day EVER! Casey & I walked together and talked in-depth about Ed, etc. After our walk, we noticed Aimee sitting with her camera and decided to take some "candid" photos that made us look like celebrities being caught by the paparazzi. But we just wound up skipping around and rolling up our pants and running through the water. Aimee got some awesome shots of us running towards each other, getting ready for an intense high-five. Some of the shots are so awesome. Granted, they're far away, but I actually don't hate how I look. In the pictures, we're skipping around and I look really carefree and happy. Which is pretty damn amazing, because that's actually how I felt today. For some reason, when we were walking back to the car, Laura, Casey, and I started singing the Fresh Prince theme song. We moved through "The Facts of Life" and eventually worked our way up to "The Golden Girls."
Today at dinner, Aimee, Casey, Laura, Barb, and I laughed so incredibly hard through out the whole thing that I was certain that Adrienne was going to yell at us. I don't even remember what it was about; part of it involved Casey saying (after dessert) "I'm hypoglycemic and can't eat sugar. I'm probably going to crash REALLY soon." For some reason, we all found this extremely hilarious and shouted "Then why did you eat it???" We also thought of a new phrase "______, THAT'S WHO!"
"There aren't any clean bowls. Who's on dishes today?"
"ANGIE, THAT'S WHO!!"
"Oh, my god. Someone ripped one during yoga. Who was it?"
"BARB, THAT'S WHO!" Barb has this tendency of letting some rip during yoga. No matter how many times this happens, I wind up laughing so hard that I can't do any of the positions we're doing at the time and I'm always out of breath.
Oh, life at the HG. Always filled with laughter.
Dear Lord. I can't believe I'm still awake at 11:30. Not late for the average 18-year-old, but as I've previously established, I'm not an average gal. I'm a TIRED one. Fuck. Recovery is exhausting.
Good night.
