Wednesday, December 30, 2015

All Alone in this Empty Apartment

Hello lovelies.

This week has been a weird one, as I have been entirely by myself.  I am the only one at work this week, my roommate is on vacation, and my cat is staying with my sister at my parents' apartment.  I think this is the longest time in a long time that I've gone without speaking out loud to someone. Like, I'm texting my friends, but I haven't had an in-person conversation in days.

I've been mostly restricting, only eat one full meal a day and I try to keep it at 500 calories or less.  Still feels like so much, I remember when I could fast for days in a row like it was nothing.  I need to get back to that.  I have found that the best way to fall back into this though (I sort of hate and love that I have a go-to pattern for relapse) is to start restricting steadily.  If I restrict too much too soon, I just give up and binge because I'm too hungry.  Fuck hunger.  Also, fuck the fact that alcohol has so many calories.  I would love to just get completely wasted on New Year's Eve, but instead I'm probably going to be miserably sober and just go to bed early.

Sometimes I wish I could just take a break from being me.

Monday, December 14, 2015

Updates and Realizations

My anonymous Twitter is starting to scare me.  I don't know if I can fully articulate why it is that I'm uneasy, but I think it has to do with a lot of the eating disorder community that tends towards that sort of instant validation, gratification.  While I do feel more connected to those followers, since conversations are a little easier to start, I find it to be oversimplifying when I try to explain what is going on in my head in 140 characters or less.  Sometimes it's a valuable tool, because I have a tendency to ramble and overthink, but other times I edit and edit and edit to the point where I don't feel like and individual anymore.  I'm just another mentally ill person shouting things like "I can't believe how fat I am" or "Why can't I lose these last 10 pounds??" or "I am so lonely".  In some ways it makes me feel more alone, more ostracized, like I'm shouting into an black hole where peoples' eyes pass over my words while scrolling through a feed, comprehending for half a second only to be replaced by the next person's cry into the abyss.

Anyways, life update.  I am working at a biotech company, back in California near where I grew up.  It's nice being back in California, but I miss New England. I miss how dark it gets, and how cold the air is, and how beautiful the snow is.  Everything here seems so endlessly consistent, full of drab grays.  Probably doesn't help that my job as a research scientist means I'm staring at lab instruments, pipets, and plates all day.  Even my new apartment seems hollow, empty somehow despite my lovely cat and decor.

Currently applying for graduate school.  I thought I'd need a good break from school after graduating from university in May, but man I was mistaken.  I miss it so much.  Hopefully going to get my PhD, how crazy is that? I feel like someone else is living my life.

I've been so bad about taking my medications.  They make me so sick that I have to be on heavy duty anti-nausea medication (like, the stuff they give to cancer patients during chemotherapy), which is pretty bad for you to take long term. And I take them daily.  So a lot of the time I just won't take anything (I'm the worst patient ever).

Oh, and I have full on relapsed.  Hello, eating disorder.