rambling. the price of peace.
02/23/04|3:28 p.m.

I am completely worthless is not a very healthy thought, especially when I've only been out of the doctor's office for an hour. Oy. I don't like to write when I'm not doing "well." In general I don't like to not be doing well, by my own estimation. And my own estimation, my own perspective and standards, are each entirely skewed right now. How much do I hate distortion? How little does that do to change the fact that my thoughts are distorted? How much do I want to bang my head against the desk?

After Friday's session, I was a big wreck, certainly. I was all weepy and upset, but when I got 'home' - something clicked; I felt that sort of insight that makes you think there's only been one piece of the puzzle missing, and you just found it, and now no mystery remains. I realized when I got 'home' that I feel like things are the same as they were (roughtly) three years ago not because there are so many similarities (which there are) but because I haven't been very open or honest with anyone lately. I didn't mean to stop being open and honest, but I think I did. I've quit discussing certain things, I've quit asking for help, I've quit telling people what I need. I'm too confused right now to tell whether or not I'm having a hard time with food, but Friday night I called my dad to ask for some details about the setup for my grandma's surprise birthday party (because I was freaking out and didn't want to go) ... and just asking him for the specifics around food, so I didn't have to be so scared, just making myself say, "it's been harder lately," just being that honest made such a difference. It didn't make him think I'm restricting and purging and totally back where I was. It didn't take away any of how glad he was to see me and spend time with me. He wasn't any less proud of me, and he was so supportive, in a way he couldn't have been if I hadn't told him. And I thought, what have I been doing?! Why have I been doing this all alone? I don't have to do it alone now. Why, why would I?

And today's session? I'm a wreck, but I don't feel relieved by it. I don't feel better about it. I am so tired of going around in circles in my head, and I can't make sense of anything enough to stop the cycling. All the thoughts keep going around and around, and I'm beating myself up for still being sick and for never having been sick simultaneously, so there's no comfort I can find. The doctor says, your eating disorder is simply one facet of your struggle - or - it's not the same as your friends' disorders, (he later said their struggles weren't the same either) and all I hear is, "You're not really sick! You never were!" He tells me, "Your eating disorder is beating you up right now," and all I hear is, "You worthless slob! Do you mean to say you still haven't gotten over this?"

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I can't make it to Friday on my own.

I think, I'm not really sick. I don't have an eating disorder, not really. And thank God, I don't have an eating disorder because I hate eating disorders! I hate eating disorders so much, and so I had better get as far away from them as possible. I've got to get far away because I hate them, and I don't have one. I can't have one. I can't have ever had one. Even if it means that I never would have gone to Rogers. Even if it means I would never have known the people I know. Even if it means I would never have received any help because my parents were so caught up with John, they couldn't even SEE me. I can't be sick, and I'm not sick; I'm not really sick because look. Look at the people who are really sick with this. They don't just get better. They don't just let it go. They don't go into their first hospitalization ever and just never purge again, and I don't mean to say it hasn't been hard for me, but please. How can I have an eating disorder that was life-threatening, if the second I got in residential, it went away? (Ok, I was restricting, still, and I had a lot more work to do. But I don't know *one other person* who has maintained recovery like this after only one hospitalization. And I don't feel special. I don't feel proud. I feel like a fucking freak.)

But I'm not well. I'm not well. I can't be well because if I'm well, then I can't feel things that I'm certainly feeling and I can't have all these thoughts I know I have. Plus, if I'm well, everyone will go away again. John's struggling, and given a mild push in one direction, he could even have an eating disorder, and all energy will go back to taking care of him. I'll be alone, and I can't, can't, can't be alone. I can't. Is it fucking coincidence that I got no help, no help, no help, until my dad SAW me purge? Is it fucking coincidence that I had to leave Rogers as I got well? They showed me something worth getting better for, and I threw myself toward it; I'm still caught up in the process now, all for this thing that's not even here. All for something I already lost. There's a Rogers outside? There are people like that? There's a home like that? I don't believe you anymore! I don't believe you; you aren't living my life. You don't curl up in pain thinking over and over again, "I want to go home" and trying not to - because you've had that same thought for nineteen years, and you can't pretend anymore. You can't keep wishing for something you didn't have, then did, then lost, and can't ever have again. How can I ever have it again? I only got to go there because I was sick, and I'm not sick enough anymore. Even then, I wasn't who they thought I was; I was some sort of fraud. I was fake-sick. And so they put me up as this shining example, and I'm not anything; I'm not. Because I recovered so brilliantly from something I didn't really have. Because I was a scam artist. I took the love that was there for other people, people who were really at risk; I took it and took it and took it... and other people lost out. Other people ended up back in the hospital. Other people died. Because I took more than my share.

I want more than my share! I want more than my share; I want more than my share!!! You stupid, stupid, stupid eating disorder. Fucking with me, and making me think it's not you just because I can put in and keep in a certain amount of calories. I know what you think is my share; I remember! Do you remember? Nowhere near enough, and then even less, and then nothing! Do you think I've forgotten that? And the hollow feeling, and the headaches, and the hunger, and the desperation. The attacks, and the numbness when I didn't even know I was hungry, and the times when I did, when I could feel - I was starving - and couldn't do one damn thing about it because you had me so cornered and so scared. So convinced I didn't deserve it. In other countries, people are starving, they said. You have food to eat and don't. I said, in other countries people are starving. Someone give this to them; I don't deserve it.

John is another country. Sara is. Jenna is. My mom, my dad... All with real struggles. All with real needs. Begging out of hunger, not from greed. You stupid eating disorder, it's not greedy to need to not be alone! It's not greed to say I need people to stay with me, I need love, I need it shown to me, I need people here to touch. Do you know how many calories a healthy person needs? Do you know how much more than nothing the bare minimum must be?

I hate you. You take my intelligence, and you use it against me. I don't know if I'm having real insight into anything, or if it's just another trap you set. I want nothing to do with you, but can't get away. I want to keep you to stay safe, which you will never make me. I want to lose you to show Rogers I was worth what they gave me, but as I lost you, I lost them, too.

Didn't I? Aren't they gone away?

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I can't tell.

I don't deserve this bullshit. I don't know how to stop it, though. Two and a half years without one bulimic act, and what the hell do I have? What am I? I'm alive. I'm not living in hospitals. Oh, but hospitals. I can't say I don't remember. Don't remember dreaming of the white room. Don't remember watching documentaries with girls in hospitals, seeing the attention they got, craving that. Don't remember Rogers, so good, so incredibly good, I called it home. I called Rogers home and nothing else. I don't want to die. I don't want to stick my finger down my throat. I don't want to get so skinny I can count my bones; I don't want to do this. But who's going to be my family and where am I going to have a home without it? How will my parents see me when someone else's crisis gets so bright? How will I ever find home again, if I can't get it the one way I did?

I was in recovery when I went there. I couldn't have had it as a home if I weren't in recovery. I couldn't have experienced the people or made the connections, and I couldn't have maintained them so much as I have, if I'd been sick. Entirely. Not getting better. Not wanting to. I had to be me, and I had to be in recovery. Over and over I've told myself these same things; it wasn't really the sickness that made it happen, but what else haven't I tried? In the past two years? What haven't I done to not be here, alone in a room in an empty apartment, on a street where no one recognizes me, and no one knows my name.

I'm a freak. I hate it. I don't want to hear about it or read about it ever again, and here I am writing about it. But not really. Because I'm too well to be sick. Too well to start it all up again, too stubborn. Too intent on being theirs, on making them proud.

Do they even claim me anymore? Am I even theirs? And when they don't exist, when those last few familiarities fall away, and I no longer recognize a single feature of the place - whose will I be? What will I be fighting and eating and staying alive for?

~me

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