i went to bed for two hours this afternoon because it was the only thing i could think of doing that would stop me from eating everything in the kitchen and then throwing up. the urge has been growing significantly this past week, infecting everything i do and everything i think.

i was starting to feel just a little safe; i will be at six months tomorrow and that’s the longest i’ve gone without bingeing and purging daily since 1989. that’s a lot of throwing up, in case you were wondering. it’s true when they say anniversaries are a challenge.

bingeing is starting to be all i think about. as soon as i’m in the house alone my brain starts plotting against me. at first it was just subtle pushes – eat a little more, you’ll be fine; go ahead, have a couple of bowls of ice cream, you’re good now, you can totally handle it – but as of two days ago my brain switched over to full-on attack mode, urging me to stock up on food and go to town. urging me to buy and consume and vomit. it starts to get hard to remember why i stopped.

i have a short-term memory problem regarding what hell was like, it seems.

at first it was only emotions and urges. i have felt off-kilter and my anxiety has been growing for several weeks. now it has grown into specific thoughts. i walk through the kitchen and my brain starts composing the “perfect” shopping list for a potential binge. it’s like a kick in the face.

my eating disorder reminds me of the psychopath or monster at the end of a thriller. you think they’re dead, so you edge closer to inspect the body to make sure, when suddenly it explodes up off the ground, knife or tentacles aimed at you as you flee, terrified for your life.

i’m scheduled to have some dental surgery at the end of the month and after that i won’t be physically able to throw up for several weeks, a fact that my eating disorder is using for its own ends with gleeful abandon.

act now or lose your chance. it’s your last opportunity for a while. you’ll be sorry. you could be eating a litre of ice cream and half a dozen doughnuts and a casserole dish full of cooked noodles and some chocolate before throwing up. don’t worry about that last part. you’re overthinking it. it really wasn’t that bad.

my eating disorder is a total bitch. it was that bad. i know it was. my memories of standing on a literal ledge getting ready to leap are a testament to that fact. yet despite that, here we are again, playing games with an eating disorder that i’m still in bed with, on some level.

sometimes breaking up is hard to do, especially if one half of the partnership really wants to stay and the other half can be, at times, ambivalent about going it alone.

having a full-blown eating disorder was hard, but it was also easy. i knew what i was going to be doing. i knew how to fill my time. i understood my identity. without my eating disorder, i’m at a bit of a loss. there’s part of me that misses that. there’s a part of me that regrets not having it as my primary identity: who are you? oh, i have an eating disorder. it became the only label.

labels are good. they’re easy. it’s nice to know how you fit. i just don’t want to fit there anymore. unfortunately, the constant urges and nagging my bulimia is engaging in is starting to tire me out. would it be so bad, i wonder, all the while knowing it would, to give in just once?

(april 6, 2018)