Today Has Been Ok

How do I start this, my virginal entrance to the blogger world? I love to write, but have found myself without words or the patience to express them in the past several years. I will take this small leap here tonight, trusting my voice in the winds of cyberspace. There is no easy way to jump into this story, but that is what I will do - hoping that these words pouring out of me will bring me to the reason and center that my brain cannot find alone any more.

I am in the midst of a battle - a great war - with myself. What I am fighting is an eating disorder, most appropriately diagnosed as "anorexia - purging type." The label shouldn't be important, but it is. I have been "sick" for a long time... the other day I realized that the last "free" memory I have - free of this beast inside me - was over ten years ago. I was fourteen. I am now twenty five.

I started treatment four months ago, and I love talking about how I "want to get better." But when it comes down to it, I'm not always sure that I am ready to give up my eating disorder - it has been the only order I've found in this chaotic world. And now, I am sitting here on this precipice, four months into treatment, having been given the ultimatum that I must gain weight in the next month or enter an inpatient hospitalization program. So I guess now I must decide: is it time to "fall or fly?" I've been talking the talk for months, but am I ready to sit down and face my demons in the most terrifying way I can imagine - by eating and gaining weight? By jumping off this cliff into a void that terrifies me just as much as the monster chasing me?

I am becoming honest. I am learning to respect people in my life by letting them into this craziness instead of "faking" that I am okay and spinning other stories to distract them from the little bird dying inside me. I have started leaping - it is now probably too late to go back. I have told my family, friends, and therapist the honest truth - that I am scared, tired, and alone. They know that I don't eat, and am terrified of everything from burritos to pears and granola and sugared gum. They know now that I have been starving for years, and that I fully believe I deserve and need to stay in my "non-eating" world to feel safe. When I venture outside that world, it seems I cannot stop eating - and that ugly, awful, pig inside of me cannot be left to run amok with my life. To protect myself from anyone knowing what I pig I am, I purge food that I cannot possibly imagine myself allowed to eat. After many years, the most important people in my life - my parents - now know that this pig exists, and that I purge to make sure and keep her in check.

I know that I must eat to get better. But even though I "feel" sick, I don't think that I "look" or "seem" sick. My health stats and vital signs are strong. I am not severely underweight. I don't look gaunt, don't need tube feeding, and still have enough energy to function in our world as much as I need to. I don't necessarily "want" to be gauntly thin... but I have trouble understanding that I am legitimately "sick" when I look in the mirror and see an average sized person, who, if anything, could lose weight and look better. Stronger. More appealing.

I don't want to eat. I like the idea of "better," but not the process it will take and the surrender I must practice to get there. But I have taken lots of steps that cannot be taken back - my parents are in on the game, and my therapist is to the point of issuing ultimatums. So I cannot retreat. I have to do this. And I don't want to. I am scared.

Today came, I got out of bed and had a stare down with my breakfast. The cream of wheat and I came eye to eye, and I swallowed it down after swearing at it and acknowledging that I did not want to be eating. I called my mom after winning the stare down and cried.

For lunch, I had an enormous victory - eating an unplanned and scary lunch and NOT PURGING afterward. I was at a farmers' market with my friend Linda. It was lunch time. She said that she needed to eat. All I wanted was to run home to my safe peanut butter sandwich - the thought of eating that was hard enough. But instead, I stayed with her, ate a flatbread, hot, rib sandwich, and DID NOT PURGE. I walked around afterward and didn't go home until I knew that I was safe enough to act "sanely." I drank my Ensure when I got home, had some Hot Tamales, and did some dinner prep. I took another walk, took a bath in rose petals and lavender buds, and came home. I finished making my dinner, cried for a minute, prayed for some strength, and then ate. Even though I wasn't hungry and felt disgusting. I finished my dinner, cleaned up, and ran out of my house, to this coffee shop where I am hiding from myself, hoping to get through this full feeling without trying to make it go away.

I am writing this for that exact purpose: distraction. I cannot be trusted alone in my home; I need a project to keep my brain active and distracted enough so I am not tempted to wander in the wilderness inside me where the beast resides.

This blog is for me.

I am feeling tired. Emotionally exhausted, and doubtful that I can do this on my own. I am a smart kid, and a disciplined one. But how am I supposed to fight and be "disciplined" when the thing that I am fighting is myself? How am i supposed to exercise discipline when the most discipline I know is the controlled life to which my eating disorder has led me? How do you fight a battle that kills part of yourself... a part that has become the biggest piece of your identity and worldview?

My mom keeps saying, "one day, you'll wake up and realize you're ready to be done with all of this." But I don't know. Because I am ready. And I'm not so sure it will be that easy.

Right now I'm still feeling unsafe. I feel fat. I feel full. My fingers feel like sausages and my stomach is hanging over the edge of my pants. What if my body won't readjust to eating normal amounts of food? What if it can't? What if I gain weight and find my clothes don't fit and that I'm not able to be physically active? What if I get so fat I breathe heavily when walking up stairs and am horrifically "average?" What else will set me apart?

I am also tired. I have to work early in the morning; I'm scared of being at my job. I am a baker, surrounded all day by sweets and breads and pizza. It is overwhelming; I have developed the ability to eat by experiencing food in a myriad of other ways (nibbling at it, smelling it, touching it, staring at it...) and by the time I get home I'm either so sick of food that I don't want to eat or I'm so full of pastries that I must purge and then "non-eat" to cleanse my eating sins.

I must work in the morning. I must be brave, and disciplined. I cannot eat the scones. I need to eat my breakfast, and stay as close to "safe" as possible. Because I cannot get home at noon and purge, or eating dinner and getting back to "regular eating" will feel impossible. I need to win this. I need to win. I need to win.

But to win this, part of me also has to lose. How am I supposed to do that?