What's eat(en) me?
I'm sorry I haven't written in a while love, you know how I am lately - all caught up in my days and strung out through my nights and whatnot. I barely function without caffeine and social services knocking on the door.
So listen - I was thinking - perhaps you'd like to know a bit about what being an 'old anorexic' is all, well... all about? You wouldn't? Oh. Uuuuuhhhhhhh.... Well, this is awkward. I was about to launch into a soliloquy - a sort of "balls-out apoplexy of pent up aggression, 5 stars!" (The Quitic's Choice), of the kind only the skeletal among us can really grasp. Another time then perhaps?
It's a term coined by my current psychiatrist, who, for all intents and purposes is a rather bumbling but astute man (or so I thought) - just somewhat lacking in the area of tact considering his vocation. But I suppose he's not there to actually do the therapy. He said he has done in the past though, and one imagines he's been working long enough in a psychiatric setting to at least have had a conversation with someone who needs to be in a hospital, but isn't themselves convinced of this.
I can only assume that when he told me he'd wait until my 'brain had gone' to section me under the mental health act, he was intending me to think 'Gosh, I don't fancy that much - get my own room in a ward full of much younger girls who you'll have to do group therapy with, and be supervised at mealtimes, or tube-fed if you refuse? No thank you!' and then start eating properly again. That would've definitely worked if I didn't happen to quite like the idea of being an inpatient. I know, right? - craaaazy. Who in their right mind would go into a place like that willingly? I think you've answered your own question there.
Maybe there's something else you might find more of an eye-opener - I'll try and cover a few areas, just for the sake of completeness. And because there's almost certainly not a plethora of videos about eating disorders on YouTube (note the sarcastic tone here, which I have to point out because I can hear my own voice reading this out and you can't). I'm thinking of making a video at some point too, but I'm still undecided because the layer of anonymity (not really) afforded to me by the interweb does actually make it seem a bit more of an outpouring than it might otherwise be.
So listen - I was thinking - perhaps you'd like to know a bit about what being an 'old anorexic' is all, well... all about? You wouldn't? Oh. Uuuuuhhhhhhh.... Well, this is awkward. I was about to launch into a soliloquy - a sort of "balls-out apoplexy of pent up aggression, 5 stars!" (The Quitic's Choice), of the kind only the skeletal among us can really grasp. Another time then perhaps?
It's a term coined by my current psychiatrist, who, for all intents and purposes is a rather bumbling but astute man (or so I thought) - just somewhat lacking in the area of tact considering his vocation. But I suppose he's not there to actually do the therapy. He said he has done in the past though, and one imagines he's been working long enough in a psychiatric setting to at least have had a conversation with someone who needs to be in a hospital, but isn't themselves convinced of this.
I can only assume that when he told me he'd wait until my 'brain had gone' to section me under the mental health act, he was intending me to think 'Gosh, I don't fancy that much - get my own room in a ward full of much younger girls who you'll have to do group therapy with, and be supervised at mealtimes, or tube-fed if you refuse? No thank you!' and then start eating properly again. That would've definitely worked if I didn't happen to quite like the idea of being an inpatient. I know, right? - craaaazy. Who in their right mind would go into a place like that willingly? I think you've answered your own question there.
Maybe there's something else you might find more of an eye-opener - I'll try and cover a few areas, just for the sake of completeness. And because there's almost certainly not a plethora of videos about eating disorders on YouTube (note the sarcastic tone here, which I have to point out because I can hear my own voice reading this out and you can't). I'm thinking of making a video at some point too, but I'm still undecided because the layer of anonymity (not really) afforded to me by the interweb does actually make it seem a bit more of an outpouring than it might otherwise be.
There are some pretty humongous questions I just know people want to ask me but can't - I never shy away from the awkward, in fact I positively lean in (yeah, well maybe I started reading the book but got distracted and then forgot everything I'd read so I had to start again...).
I'll just start now, shall I?
I spent my wedding day thinking about food. I thought about having it - about eating it. I thought about not eating it - not not eating it, not not eating it. I saw some macarons. I ate all of them. I tried not to, but I couldn't not not not. I was afraid if I didn't they'd be gone. Everyone was looking at the speeches, so I shovelled all of those delicious vanilla and chocolate lovelies into my face as if my life depended upon it. I didn't even taste them. They were virtually inhaled. I felt it was ok because I was THE BRIDE. I was afraid my belly would bloat as it does every single day as soon as I eat a morsel of food. I have no idea why this happens and my GP refuses to treat it whilst doing a sort of 'Oooooh you're going to have to get a bigger boat...' kind of face. I'm obviously not deserving of relief because I bring it all on myself.
Food has become more important to me than anything else, even though it's not. I love my evening ritual where I methodically chop up vegetables. I could quite happily just throw the lot in the bin, as long as I can execute the ritual of chopping it, separating it into bowls according to 'wetness', before dry frying it and watching it cook down into a sauce to be served with indigestible pasta. And when I say 'indigestible', I don't mean that it tastes bad - it tastes fine (to me) - but it's made from something the human body cannot digest, and as a result it has virtually no calories. I have a tendency to eat exactly the same thing at each mealtime for months on end. I actually look forward to eating it, it becomes the focal point of my day. I build up to it as if it were a fantastic dinner cooked by a Michelin starred chef. Then one day I just won't feel like eating it anymore and I'll transfer to some new foodstuff. I realise how ridiculous that sounds but it just is what it is I suppose.
I started out with Ryvita Crackerbread - cheese flavour. They're 19 calories a pop. I ate boxes and boxes of the buggers. After my son was born, when during my pregnancy I'd had a sort of enforced weight gain/maintenance in order to maximise our chances of conceiving via IVF, I just carried on breaking my own rules and seriously bulked up as a consequence. I don't remember what 'being fat' (disclaimer: my words about myself and not a judgment on anyone else's weight) was like now. I didn't think I was very fat, but once I started feeling that all too familiar feeling I get when the numbers starting dropping on the scale, I was hooked all over again. It's much easier to lose weight the bigger you are. Now I'm lucky if I drop a pound a month, yet I still wake up every morning feeling hungry and desperate for a loss.
I'll just start now, shall I?
I spent my wedding day thinking about food. I thought about having it - about eating it. I thought about not eating it - not not eating it, not not eating it. I saw some macarons. I ate all of them. I tried not to, but I couldn't not not not. I was afraid if I didn't they'd be gone. Everyone was looking at the speeches, so I shovelled all of those delicious vanilla and chocolate lovelies into my face as if my life depended upon it. I didn't even taste them. They were virtually inhaled. I felt it was ok because I was THE BRIDE. I was afraid my belly would bloat as it does every single day as soon as I eat a morsel of food. I have no idea why this happens and my GP refuses to treat it whilst doing a sort of 'Oooooh you're going to have to get a bigger boat...' kind of face. I'm obviously not deserving of relief because I bring it all on myself.
Food has become more important to me than anything else, even though it's not. I love my evening ritual where I methodically chop up vegetables. I could quite happily just throw the lot in the bin, as long as I can execute the ritual of chopping it, separating it into bowls according to 'wetness', before dry frying it and watching it cook down into a sauce to be served with indigestible pasta. And when I say 'indigestible', I don't mean that it tastes bad - it tastes fine (to me) - but it's made from something the human body cannot digest, and as a result it has virtually no calories. I have a tendency to eat exactly the same thing at each mealtime for months on end. I actually look forward to eating it, it becomes the focal point of my day. I build up to it as if it were a fantastic dinner cooked by a Michelin starred chef. Then one day I just won't feel like eating it anymore and I'll transfer to some new foodstuff. I realise how ridiculous that sounds but it just is what it is I suppose.
I started out with Ryvita Crackerbread - cheese flavour. They're 19 calories a pop. I ate boxes and boxes of the buggers. After my son was born, when during my pregnancy I'd had a sort of enforced weight gain/maintenance in order to maximise our chances of conceiving via IVF, I just carried on breaking my own rules and seriously bulked up as a consequence. I don't remember what 'being fat' (disclaimer: my words about myself and not a judgment on anyone else's weight) was like now. I didn't think I was very fat, but once I started feeling that all too familiar feeling I get when the numbers starting dropping on the scale, I was hooked all over again. It's much easier to lose weight the bigger you are. Now I'm lucky if I drop a pound a month, yet I still wake up every morning feeling hungry and desperate for a loss.
I have bits of wrinkly skin that bear testament to my 6-stone-in-6-months weight loss. Small red blood spots are popping up on my skin at random, my hair is falling out in clumps and I have bruises where my fatter bits used to be. The inside of my knees is bruised from where the bones bump together when I walk (which I do - a lot). My fingertips are so dry they've formed a layer of impenetrable rough skin and it takes me 4 or 5 attempts to do the fingerprint recognition on my iphone. Breasts were never made to stretch and shrink this quickly, I'll leave the rest of that one to your imagination. I have always had hair on my face in places I didn't want it to be, it was one of the things my school bullies picked on) but now I have a sort of peach fuzz effect around my jaw and throat that gives me the appearance of an arctic lizard - now those are two words that really don't belong together.
It just doesn't give up. I consider myself 'a lifer' with this crap - it will never leave me. I just have to learn how to ignore the little voice in my head and that's much easier to do with the benefit of hindsight. My brand new husband now knows that if he buys Oreos Double Stuf, they're not his. I will eat them all. I just have to, because I can't have them in the house. Often it takes me so long to piss about making any bloody dinner that I'll fall asleep in my chair before it's even cooled down.
Last time I saw my psychiatrist - again, it was voluntary - he tried the scare tactics but this time he really fucked it up. He wanted me to say that I was ready to gain weight - I know I could've lied to make my life easier of course, but I hate lies, just don't see the point. Now I'm angry - either treat me when I ask you to or don't. But don't try and scare me because you know what? I'll just run.
I'm sorry I haven't written in a while love, you know how I am lately - all caught up in my days and strung out through my nights and whatnot. I barely function without caffeine and social services knocking on the door.
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