The Edge

chuck it in the f*ck it bucket.

So I've had crappy body image for days now.  Pretty much since the first.  Sorry this entry is going to be all over the place and choppy, I can just feel it coming.  

Last night, I got a rather irritating piece of news about my job.  I had been vying for the Tues/Thurs night Zumba class that my friend J currently teaches (or, taught, rather.)  She was planning on quitting.  Last night was her last class.  So she and I both expressed to our manager that I wanted to cover her classes until a sub could be found, and have the sub take MY classes over, which are Monday night and Friday morning.  After J I have seniority over all other Zumba instructors there, as I've been there the longest.

2 weeks went by since J put in her notice and I heard nothing from H (our manager.)  Meanwhile, our other friend/instructor, A, picked up a Friday night class.  She had been covering my Friday morning class for me, but had gotten a full time job that interfered so she got a sub for it (T.)  At the same time, the lady covering my Monday night class (whose name also starts with A, so I'll call her A2) told me on Dec 17th that there was no classes Mon Dec 24 and Dec 31 on account of Christmas and New Years.  So I told H that I'd be back January 7th, aka this coming Monday.  

New Years eve I got a facebook message from T.  It said "hey, I went to go to your Monday night class tonight because I wanted to meet you, but you didn't come so I went ahead and taught it.   Hope you don't mind!"  I was like "WHAT?!?!?!?" A2 told me there was no class, and anyway that's not my problem because I told H I wasn't coming back until 1/7/13.  Needless to say I was irritated about the lack of communication.  Thank God T was there!

So last night I go to J's final class.  I got there early.  J showed up and wouldn't look me in the eye.  I figured maybe she was just having an off day.  A showed up, my really good friend, and she wouldn't look me in the eye!!!  They both avoided me! I was thinking, do I have leprosy or something?  Also, I found it odd that J said nothing to her class about who would be covering her Tues/Thurs classes.  I decided to ask her after class.

After class, J, A and I were all standing around and I said, "so am I covering your Tuesday/Thursday classes starting next week?"

Silence.

Then A said, "I'm sorry.  H called me and asked me to take Thursdays.  I didn't ask for it!  She called me!  I told her I'd do it, but I don't want it to get in the way of our friendship!  I don't want you to feel like I'm stabbing you in the back.  If you don't want me to take it, I won't take it."

Okay, I know I'm a bitch but I'm not that much of a bitch!  I'm not mad at A.  It's not her fault.  I told her that.  I'm a little surprised she didn't tell me sooner, but whatever.  What's done is done.  So then I said "well what about Tuesday?"

And this is where it gets ridiculous.  A said, "they gave it to N..."

"Who the f*ck is N??"

"The new teacher... she teaches Saturdays...."

I stared.  "Is she the one who doesn't show up half the time?!"

"....yes."

"Exactly how long as she taught here?"

J and A exchanged glances and I knew I wouldn't like the answer.  "A week or so."

Lovely.  So J and I both asked H to let me have those classes.  She didn't even have the guts to call me!!!

But wait!  It gets better!

So then today... I was on my way to a nutritionist appointment and my phone rang.  I answered it with the hands-free in my car.  It was my work!  I heard "Hi this is ****** from Boom.  H wanted me to call you and find out why your classes aren't being covered."

I almost drove off the road.  "Sorry, what?"

"She wants to know why your classes aren't being covered."

"You mean today's class?  I have no idea.  How would I know?  I've told H I don't come back until January 7th.  Today is the 4th.  It's not my class yet.  As for New Year's Eve, I was informed that there was no class that night.  And even if there was, it's not mine either!  You'll have to tell H that she can take that one up with A2, because it was still hers at that point.  Thank you!"  Click.

Shitty, right?  So annoying. 

So I get to my appointment.  My nutritionist asks me lots of questions.  I tell some lies, mostly truths.  She weighs me.  "You've gained.  Your weight looks good."

F*ck.  Me.  

My heart cracked like a glacier.  My blood turned to needles.  My jaw hit the table.  My hands balled into fists.  My eyes stung.  I held it together until I got to my car.

Why am I being punished?  What did I do to deserve this?  I try to be a good person.  I help people when I can.  I pay all my taxes and I donate time and money to a few charities.  I've given bums coins and holiday cards.  I do favors for people.  I'm a good person, damnit, why do I have to hurt so much?

J says "chuck it in the f*ck it bucket."  I am trying to do that.  I laughed about the phrase.  But so far, the f*ck it bucket is mostly empty.  I've thrown the Zumba stuff in there.  It's not my fault anyway.  If H wants to fire me, she's more than welcome to.  I wouldn't recommend it to her, because then she'd have to find replacements at the drop of a hat, but that's her business.  

But I can't chuck the weight thing in there.  No way.

Enough

I've had it.

I am not eating for 2 days.  When I eat, I feel like shit.  What's the point?  I can't see any reason for it.  I'm happier when I feel empty. 

This is it.  When I get home from Seattle it's back to the diet cranberry juice, laxatives and fat free processed crap.

What's the point of eating, trying to be "healthy" when it kills me inside?  I'll end up dead either way, so why bother?

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve - Anorexia Style


Happy incipient diet-ad day!  Seriously... I freaking hate this time of year.  I love fall, I love winter, but I hate January 1st through January 14th or so.  

Anyway!  As you may or may not be aware, anorexia is a lifestyle.  Honestly.  For someone entrenched, or at least as entrenched as I am, it is a lifestyle.  It influences every decision you make.  Every thought you think.  Everything you see and do is stitched with anorexia.  It never leaves your mind.  Never ever ever.  

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing for the last minutes of 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.  

2004- In Disneyland with my parents and my sister.
2005- In Hawaii, on the balcony watching fireworks with my best friend who I had just met 2 days before.
2006- In Hawaii again, at the Cheesecake Factory, picking at salad, with my same best friend and her family.
2007- At a party in Sunriver, Oregon, hating my (significantly heavier) body after just coming out of the worst treatment session of my life.
2008- In Las Vegas, sitting on the floor of my hotel room eating a grilled cheese sandwich.
2009- In Las Vegas, kissing my (then) boyfriend (now fiance) who had flown in to surprise me.
2010- In Hawaii with the (now) fiance, watching fireworks at our resort.
2011- In San Francisco, standing at the window of the hotel room, watching fireworks over the bay.

At the end of every one of those years except 2004, I was hating my body.  This year is no different.  I have accomplished a lot of things in 2012.  Made a lot of good friends.  Lost a few friends.  Gained some new family.  Lost some family.  Tried new things.  Went new places.  Got better.  Got sicker.  Over all it was a good year.

There's an hour and 31 minutes left of 2012 and what am I thinking about?

My accomplishments?  No.
My goals? No.
Fond memories? No.

What am I thinking about?  I'm thinking about how fat my thighs are and how I can get rid of my love handles that I hate so much and what angle is most flattering for a picture.

Speaking of pictures.... this is another thing that happens when a person has anorexia.  They become obsessed with pictures.  You see, pictures have the ability to make me look fat.  But they also have the ability to make me look thin.  So I take tons of pictures.  And this is one way I can tell that I've gotten a bit sicker: before, I would discard half the pictures I took because I looked fat.  Now I only discard 3 or 4 out of every 20.  Because maybe I really AM that thin.

Happy end of 2012 everyone.  I hope 2013 treats you well.

Seattle

Quiet.

Hello from Seattle.  I don't have much to say right now.  Just hanging in there.  

This picture grabbed me, though.

Missing Pieces

Sorry.

I realized after the fact that I left out a lot of important things from last night's post.  In my defense, I hadn't slept more than 3 hours per night in about a week and had just spent the day being flung from sea level to 38,000 feet, to 5,000 feet, back to 36,000 feet and back to sea level again (although airplanes pressurize at 10,000 in the cabin, so it should have been all the same to me.  Haha!)

Anyway... one of the reasons this blog exists at all is because I have an eating disorder and it is supposed to help spread awareness and help people understand that eating disorders are not:
-a choice
-fun
-just a "rich girl's disease"
-easy to overcome
-easy to live with
-easily fixable

Eating disorders are:
-painful
-scary
-my best friend
-my worst enemy
-capable of ruining lives
-sometimes fatal

I sometimes think to myself that other people (such as my parents, friends or fiance) can forget about my eating disorder when they walk away from me.  But I can't ever forget about it.  It's with me all the time.  It's always in my head, telling me really awful things.  

But... one thing I know for sure is this: imagine, if you can, that God (whatever he/she/they may look like for you) has a quota for eating disorders.  What if God had a quota for everything like cancer, AIDS, eating disorders, broken bones, deaths?  I would take this eating disorder if it meant that it would keep someone else from having it.  That is how hard it is.

So here's the parts of South Dakota I left out:

Eating yogurt for dinner on Christmas eve...

And then beating myself up for eating something else later.

This is what the dessert table looked like at our Christmas Day gathering at my mom's cousin's house.

One of my cousins later stated, "oh my God, I'm gonna gain so much weight!"  Furthermore, another one of my mom's cousins has an eating disorder and she was incredibly triggering.

This is what I had for dinner on the last night we were there.

Merry Christmas and South Dakota

Winterized!

So... it's been several days since I updated.  I was in South Dakota, freezing my ass off.  Nothing quite like the midwest in winter!  I have several pictures, links, anecdotes and other things to share with you from my trip.  But before I do, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year and best wishes for 2013.

Okay.. now on to the "stuff":

We (meaning my mom and me) got to Vermillion, South Dakota at about 1:00am on Monday, December 24th.  But first, let me back up just a smidge.

Sunday, December 23rd, I taught Zumba at 10:00am, rushed home, finished packing stuff into my carry-on suitcase (do you have any idea how hard it is to pack for below-freezing weather in a carry-on?!) and zoomed to the airport to catch a 3:30pm plane.  My mom only told me right before we left that we did not have assigned seats.  I was thinking, 'oh great, we're screwed.'  We almost were.  We barely squeaked on.  I was in the very front of the economy class and my mom was about 40 rows behind me on that 757-200.

So.  We get on that flight by the skin of our teeth and fly, uneventfully, to Denver.  We pull into gate B27 30 minutes late.  Our next flight leaves in 20 minutes out of gate B79!  As soon as the flight attendant opens the door I am barreling out of it, up the jetway and into the terminal where I discover we have to run clear to the other end of concourse B, which is about a half mile long at the very least.  My mom gets off the plane eons later and we literally RUN through the Denver airport.  I was laughing the whole way because we must have looked ridiculous.  I was in my parka and boots, carrying my backpack and dragging my mom's suitcase as well as my own, and she was running after me in slip on shoes and a ski jacket, her purse flapping everywhere.  We got to B79 only to find the flight was delayed - our plane wasn't even there yet!

We get to Sioux Falls, SD at around midnight.  It was dark and it was cold.   We rent our car, a very stylish, very white Chrysler 200 with remote starter and heated seats!  Oooo.. heavenly.  We drive speedily down I-29 and make good time to Grandma's.  One interesting thing to note was that once we got to Vermillion, I had to remind my mom how to get to Grandma's.  The "city" (such as it is) seems to morph and grow every time we go.

After tromping around Grandma's at 1:00 in the morning, trying to be as quiet as possible and of course making tons of noise, Grandma wakes up and comes out in her nightgown, pushing her walker and scares the living shit out of me.  She looked like a little whitish ghost coming down the hall!  I blew up my air mattress (manually), ate some bread and peanut butter because my heart was skipping and stuttering like crazy, and went to bed.

Before I passed out, I wrote a journal entry to be entered into my journal or onto here later.  Here it is (entry in blue):

Monday 12.24.12

Grandma’s house

2:00am

I must lose weight in South Dakota.  I was such a pig before I left, it was totally unacceptable.  I ate a little when I got to Grandma’s because my heartbeat was all crazy and I was shaking.  But tomorrow will be different… I will not eat very much. 

Here is the food/eating schedule I will write down (but I will add the times in according to when I wake up):

11)   Plain coffee from McDonalds w/ stevia and ¼ - ½ c. nonfat milk (might have to be ½ cup because the coffee is bigger than what I make at home)

22)   Tea with stevia

33)   1 packet oatmeal with ¼ c. nonfat milk

44)   ½ fat free yogurt

55)   fat free hot cocoa

66)   Try to restrict as much as possible during lunch/dinner if out.  Eat the oatmeal for the remaining meal. 

Also, I can walk here.  I packed gloves AND mittens, hat, scarf, hood, UnderArmour, hoodies, leggings, jeans, thick socks and boots.  I should be set.  No excuses here.  I can walk to the other side of Vermillion in about an hour.

Goodnight.

Well, it didn't really turn out that way.  But oh well.  Also, sleeping became impossible past 7:00am because Grandma's caregivers arrive at that time and, of course, have to shout to be heard.  Also, Grandma likes to watch Wheel Of Fortune reruns at that choice time of day, at about 1000 decibels.  It was snowy, though, and pretty.  I do love white Christmases.

Here comes the first link.. hold on, wait for it...

On Christmas eve day I took the rental car to go buy some bread and other random shit at Walmart (shush, it's the only option) and I discovered a wondrous thing.  Really brought the Christmas spirit to my heart.  God bless us, the car had Satellite Radio!!! Relieved, I turned it on and heard this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9mmhh_wvkA

I. Cracked. Up. Laughing.  I love this song.  I cranked that shit and rocked out all the way back to Grandma's.  I had it up so loud that apparently my Grandma, who wears 2 hearing aids, heard it from the living room.  "What's that racket?" she apparently asked my mom.  So funny!  Anyway I played the song for her later.  She was not amused.  She's 97 so I doubt very much she knew what "cock" meant in that context.  Ha!

I went for a walk in the 12 degree weather.  2 hours.  I was freezing.  Enough said.

Christmas eve my mom decided we were going to church.  Oh... no...  Me?  In church??? I have a Star of David tattooed on my back and the word "shalom" written in Hebrew on my right shoulder blade!  I do not belong in church!  

So after "Christmas eve dinner" (which consisted of grilled cheese sandwiches for my mom and grandma and a fat free yogurt for me), we went to Trinity Lutheran for Christmas eve mass.

I have to say, I had never really heard the story of Christmas before.  I knew it was "Jesus' birthday" and about the manger and all that jazz,  but never had I really thought about it.  I don't mean to be totally anti-Christianity, because I'm really not, but... pardon me, the story makes no sense.

So there's this girl, who sorta-kinda has sex with this guy but they never really have sex, just kind of dry hump and all that good stuff.  Anyway, she get's pregnant because she doesn't realize that there exists a thing called "pre-cum."  But oops! This girl is engaged!  So her fiance comes back into town and she says to him, "I'm pregnant!  But I never had sex!"  And for some reason he believes her and says, "wow! It's a miracle!"  And she's thinking "uh huh.. sure..... just keep thinking that..." and 2000 years later we are still celebrating Christmas.  I bet that Mary, whatever happened to her, is shaking her head in disbelief about what has become of the world.  I believe Jesus lived and I believe he was a really good guy.  But sorry, I don't believe he was the Son of God and I don't believe that Jonah lived in a whale and I don't believe whats-their-name lived for 900 years, and I certainly don't believe that people can rise from the dead.  That just cannot be.  

Nevertheless, the service was actually enjoyable.  We all lit candles and it looked pretty.  Then we drove around looking at Christmas lights in Vermillion.

Christmas day dawned clear and colder than anything I've ever experienced.  We drove up to Arlington, SD in almost sub-zero weather.

By the late afternoon, however, it had warmed up just a touch.

I've decided that I have a new favorite Christmas song.  I've heard it at Starbucks many times, while having coffee with my mom or sitting at a table drawing in my sketch pad.  For a Christmas song it is very easy to listen to.  Funny that it turned out to be Sixpence None The Richer.  I've known of them forever but I never would have guessed it was her: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-b5IC_Jsfc

December 26th was a balmy 16 degrees!  I walked for 3 hours that day.  Here are some pictures from that walk:

This morning we woke up to a litte blizzard!

The roads were clear, though, and we had no trouble making to Sioux Falls to catch our plane.  On the 2nd flight, the guy next to me was fighting with his wife across the aisle the whole way.  I have never been so glad to feel the wheels hit the tarmac!  

So now I'm home... and tomorrow I am off again!  My fiance and I are going up to Seattle for New Years.  Here are some more random pictures from South Dakota.  XO! 

My Grandma opening Christmas presents before church on Christmas eve.

Me telling my Grandma what 16 degrees feels like (photo credit: my mom)

I learned to drink my coffee black with Stevia (fewer calories!)

My mom and I baked scones on December 26th.

Representing USD (Go Yotes!)

Some more random pics taken with my computer:

Peace out South Dakota, until next time. XO

Rant

Thursday

I'm sitting at my kitchen table, trying to make a meal plan for the day.  So far I'm stuck with:

9:45am - coffee with 2 pkts stevia and 1/4 c. nonfat milk ---- 28 cal

And that's all.

The rest of my food for the day (at least until dinnertime) will consist of half a fat free yogurt (40 cal), one packet of fat free hot cocoa (20 cal), one cup of corn flakes (1oo cal) and 1/4 c nonfat milk (23 cal), and 3 oz. of baby carrots (35 cal).  That totals 246 calories by the time dinner comes around.  Which will be at about 8pm, because I have Zumba.  Which should burn off those 246 calories.

I'm dying.  Whatever.

So anyway, things are crumbling around me at an alarming rate.  My family is going down in flames, my job is picking up steam (which I actually like, but it's hard to reconcile that with the next thing..), my therapist/dietician are at odds with my Naturopath about whether or not I should even be doing Zumba at all, I think I'm addicted to laxatives, 26 innocent people died in CT, two innocent people died in the mall here, my good friend is in the hospital, and my cousin, the only one who understood me fully, is dead.  

There's a whole other part of this that I don't feel I can really bring up on the internet, but just know that it has to do with my family (i.e. parents and sister) and it's breaking my heart.  I mean really breaking it.  I am so, so tired.  Sometimes I don't want to keep fighting this fight.  I'm sick of fighting!  Why can't anything ever just be easy?  Why does everything have to be so hard?  I've been asking that since I was a little kid!

But.... I know I am strong.  Better me than someone else.  At least it's me.  I will have this eating disorder and all the other shit, if it means that someone else is spared.