Recovery, philosophy, mental health, things that interest me, and random poetry.
I binged and purged last night. It was the fat thoughts. I’ve gained about ten pounds and the weight that is supposed to help me is killing me, or at least that’s what it feels like. Thinner, thinner, thinner is all I think about now. Diet hard, exercise. Forget quitting smoking, forget friends and family. Forget writing, forget recovery, forget life. Forget everything but getting thin, back to bones...
I wasn’t going to write about my eating disorder today. I have a draft post about my PTSD waiting for revisions. I’ve resisted looking deeply into it to date but had big plans to do so in the somewhat near future. Those plans flew out the window this morning when I put on the jeans that are supposed to be baggy only to find they were less baggy than expected. Just like that, my mental equilibrium got shot to shit...
"I’ve been obsessed with my scale of late though truthfully, I’m not exactly sure where it is. It was hidden under a pile of towels in the back of a bathroom cupboard for the longest time, ‘til my son needed it to weigh his suitcase for a trip he took in December. Where it ended up after that is a mystery and needing to know its location is an intrusive thought that I’ve been unable to discard..."
"Eating disorders are hell and they are full-time. They don’t take days off. They don’t give you a break. They’re always there, lurking, talking to you, telling you how awful you are, how much of a failure. How you have nothing to offer because you aren’t perfect yet. You aren’t thin enough..."
"If you don’t have an eating disorder that requires you to throw up the foods you eat, either regular meals that end badly or binges, you may not understand the thrill that comes from being able to abstain from doing so for protracted periods..."
"...Sometimes I feel that way in recovery. Sometimes I feel as trapped as I was before I started doing all the things one needs to do to get better. Recovery, in a way, is proving almost as problematic as the mental illnesses I’m seeking relief from..."
"i like to read books about religion and philosophy. they’re often helpful as i battle with mental health issues. i read an entry every morning, a kind of daily devotion practice, and i usually find something applicable to my current situation. of course, my inside voice tries to point out that i’d be much further along in recovery if i’d started doing this years ago, but i’m getting better at telling that voice to go away and leave me alone. it’s enough that i’m doing it now."
