Booooooring

I don’t know how many others feel this way, but one of my biggest cons for recovery is that without the bulimia I will be uninteresting.

Part of this is my interest in myself. The #1 thing I think about by far is bulimia. My bulimia. How to recover. Why I binged. Why I purged. I can’t help it- it’s the most unique thing about me, so I focus on it the most. Without this, what will I think about? The rest of my life seems so bland in comparison.

The other part is my interestingness to others. This is the part that is illogical. None of my friends knew about my illness (and most still haven’t a clue) when we became friends. So clearly they must think I’m interesting without the disease, right?

Yes, and this is the main challenging point to my issue.

But the problem is that I feel like none of my friends find me interesting, with the exception of maybe 3. And I feel like I don’t have a lot of friends because I’m uninteresting. I know it’s weird to think that friends don’t find me interesting, but I’ll give an example.

Adam and I were close in high school (not dating!). At first I was one of few friends that he hung out with, and so we spent a lot of time together and he really enjoyed hanging out with me. Later, his mood greatly improved and he made a whole bunch of friends that weren’t in my crowd. I still like being around him and spending time with him, but he seems to have a lot more fun with his other friends than with me. We still call each other friends and every couple weeks we hang out with each other but I feel like he’s putting up a front- that he’s just doing it to be nice and to honor our friendship commitment that we made a couple years ago.

It’s not bad that friends drift apart sometimes, because of different interests and whatnot, but I feel as though all my friends have done that, which makes me think that it’s more to do with me that our interests.

Why do they reach out to others but not to me?

Why is it that when I reach out to them they blow me off or make excuses?

Why is it that people never think to invite me to things?

Why is it that I’m so awkward around people I want to impress?

Why is it that it’s so hard to make lasting friends?

My new therapist advised me that I have to believe that I’m worth other people’s time and that I’m interesting and then it will be easier to seem interesting to other people.

I agree with that, but I’m already as interesting as I’m going to get. If people don’t like me now, they never will. Believing I’m interesting instead of just acting like it won’t change anything, in my opinion.

Facing that truth is awful. I’d rather just huddle in a corner of my room and eat. 

A Trickle of Blood

Yesterday I vomited up blood. It really scared me, because I know all about the dangers of purging: the stomach ruptures, esophagus tears, blah blah blah. I never expected that I would have to suffer any of it.

What I think really happened yesterday is that my nail scratched the back of my throat and it bled a little. At least it wasn’t a stomach rupture, because I had no abdominal pain and obviously I didn’t die.

The trigger for purging today was going out to a restaurant. Really it was because I tried to follow my meal plan rather than the lesser amount of calories I have prescribed for myself. I got a drink other than water, and ate a little bit of the appetizer than my family ordered, and that combined with my side of veggies and 1/3 of the portion of meat I got was too much. I felt like I was expanding at the table, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I decided that I would try to wait it out and to not purge, but when I got home I was almost in tears because I was sure that I was getting fat and that I would never be able to stop binging. So I tried to empty some of the fullness out of me. It sort of worked, but after I purged I felt so awful that I ate more food. Not enough more to make me vomit again, thankfully.

The blood scared me, that’s for sure. I’m going to try to use it as a motivator to keep my food down.

Broken Scale

Something wonderful happened yesterday: my scale broke. This is great because it relieves me of the pressure of deciding whether or not to constantly check my weight. I can’t now. There’s still a scale in my parents’ bathroom, but I can’t sneak in there every hour, which means that I will have to stop knowing what my weight is all the time. And I will have to focus on other things.

I’m not inclined to replace the battery in my scale any time soon.         

Pro-Ana Blogs Scare Me

Pro-Ana blogs scare me. It’s because on these blogs eating less than 600 calories a day is seen as a success. I know I agree with them to some extent because my intentions are always to basically be anorexic, and I think that’s part of it. Then there’s also the fact that 600 calories a day is not a lot. In fact it’s less than enough calories than the body needs to stay alive every day.  Even someone who’s 100 pounds (which is very light for the average height woman) needs at least 1000 calories just for her body to carry out its normal function. That people can see 600 calories as more than enough is painful. And it’s so wrong that it’s scary.

I’m not telling anyone who’s anorexic that I think they should stop their eating disorder, and I’m not trying to judge them. Honest. I’m just scared for their health.

Pro-eating disorder blogs are not bad, in my opinion. Yes, they can spread tips about how to ruin your throat by vomiting, or let someone know the secret to stop eating forever, but if someone is going to become eating disordered, I don’t think any blog could cause that, nor would the absence of one stop the disordered behavior from occurring.

Along the same lines, the other complaint I can see about pro-ana/mia blogs is that they offer positive reinforcement for eating disordered behaviors, which might perpetuate the illness. Again, I consider this argument irrelevant because there are many many benefits to eating disorders other than those found on blogs. There’s a reason why we stick with these things for so long.

Pro-eating disorder blogs do offer a community to the person with the eating disorder. So at least there’s someone somewhere to talk to.

As a side note, the pro-mia blogs don’t scare me a bit, only the pro-ana ones. I hope one day I’m scared by both kinds. 

Two Weeks Purge Free

I have officially gone two entire weeks without throwing up! This is the longest time in the history of my disorder that I have gone purge free. I am incredibly proud of myself and I really have no idea how I managed to make it this far. My goal is to go at least one more week without purging.

I’ve only been two days without binging though, even though my binges (over the course of one day) for the past week were not more than 3000 calories.