Doctor Problem

So last night, I started feeling really shitty; really run down and my throat felt like it was on fire. I'd been in the studio all afternoon and it's super hot in there, so I figured I was just dehydrated and run down. I've been purging quite a lot recently (several times a day) and I think it's starting to take its toll. However, this is not the only thing that's bothering me- over the last few days (since saturday, I think), whenever I've eaten or drunk anything, unless I swallow really, really carefully, stuff goes down the wrong way and I choke.

Now I'm paranoid all the purging with a toothbrush has damaged the back of my throat in some way....so much so, I decided to purge the old fashioned way yesterday; which is super-stupid for someone with really long, fake nails.

When I woke up today, my throat was even worse and I felt really weak and shit. I had a quick look inside my throat and I have what look like a couple of small tears on my left tonsil. I've decided there's nothing for it but to go to the doctor and get it checked out in case it's anything serious. The only thing is, I need more of the pill...which means a blood pressure check. There's a really good chance I could be doubled busted.

Fuck.

About a boy

I don't usually post stuff like this, but here goes:

Recently, while on a perfectly normal night out and trying my hardest to "impress" one of my friends, I met a boy, J. Now to perfectly honest, I was on a bit of a booze binge and don't remember much of the night, so I  was ever so freakin' nervous when he text me a few days later and asked if I wanted to meet up with him. Was he as fit as I remembered? Was he as cool and funny as I remembered? It must be noted, I have a DAMN awful track record when it comes to boyfriends/girlfriends.

So we met up....he wasn't as cool as I remembered, or as fit or funny.....he was better :] much, much better. Apparently he was nervous about meeting me too! How sweet! We went out to dinner and everything was lovely, I felt really comfortable and we had such a good time- until it came to my eating. I wanted to be good for him, everything was going so well. He finished *way* before I did (eating over-slowly) and so I said I'd finished too. He said, "do you feel uncomfortabe eating on your own cos I'm finished?" and laughed, so I just laughed too. He got up to go to the loo and I crammed as much food as I could into my napkins without it looking obvious and left it on my plate. When he come back he laughed and said "bless, you were embarrassed! I knew you'd eat a bit more if you were on your own". I just laughed while thinking: "great, here's this super-sweet lad who I really like, it's our first date and I've already lied to him". I felt my heart sink.
The rest of the date went amazingly well, time just flew! We only went for one drink and we just chattered so much, the next thing we knew, it was really late! For the first time in a while, I actually felt really good.

We've been on a few dates since, we're just taking things as they come, which is lovely, because I've never really had that before. On Saturday night, when one of my friends mentioned all the weight I'd lost, I wasn't quite able to answer quickly enough when they asked how I'd managed....I ended up confessing my bulimia.....and J was there too. I tried to act all self reproaching and said to my friends I was trying to stop (more lies). I worriedly half joked to J "see, this is what you're getting into!" He said we'd talk about it later. In the morning, he pretty much said he kinda knew there was something the matter with me and my body image, so he didn't seem really surprised. His close friend suffered with anorexia, so he has experience of people with eating disorders. I'm just worried about reminding him of all that stuff.


I really, really like J; he seems like an amazingly decent guy, and I would hope that something more will develop between us. I'm just really scared that all my problems are going to scare him off...and if they did, I really wouldn't blame him. We're both in our late 20s, so it's really not the sort of thing you should be dealing with. I'm not even entirely sure what I mean by that!!

Well, for now I enjoy his company and he makes me laugh....frankly, for now, that's perfect.

Wrong road

Now I know I'm fucked up.

I've been purposefully not taking my medication and I don't really know why. I think a really horrible part of me hates the person I become when they start to work: empty, hollow. I'm smiling yes, but my smile feels painted on and my voice sounds like it's coming from a tape recorder. I know that it's dangerous to just stop cold turkey, but I'm trying to anyways; I wait until I can't stand the side effects anymore and then I take one, and repeat the process. Maybe I am starting to have more affect, but it really doesn't penetrate the surface. I can't FEEL anything. I've spent so long pretending in one way or another that I no longer know who the hell I am or what I actually do feel.

To make things worse, I found out there will be at least a 16week wait until I can see a new therapist. Mum wants me to go private, but I know that'll be yet another thing that she'll hold over my head. She owns me with debts that she never mentions, but infers with the way she spends her money. I'm quite proud with myself, actually; after getting really angry about the therapist appointment, my head went into a spin and all I could think was "binge....binge...binge..." I planned it out in my head: when mum left for work tomorrow it would start, I thought of all the places I'd go and all the things I would buy....and suddenly I stopped myself. I thought: "I'm 5lbs away from my first goal weight, I CAN'T fuck up now". And I felt calmer....I knew it was only the anger and limited food that was messing with my head. I love how I can see the cause and yet I refuse to act on the effect. I suppose it's not the best way to deal with bulimia, but so far, so good.

Come tomorrow, I'll see if it actually works...

Guilt Complex

It’s funny how in life you “aspire” to be many things. I aspire to be a writer, healthy, with a nice place of my own….I also, in the darkest recesses of my soul, in the parts of myself I conceal from EVERYONE, aspire to be an anoretic.

Before anyone comes after me, let me explain…

I have suffered with bulimia now for two years- which isn’t long, not by any stretch of the imagination, but my disordered eating started way before that, in the form of binge eating. It sounds ludicrous to some that a woman of my age would suddenly “develop” bulimia, but during all the time that I’ve had recently to sit and and ponder how the fuck I ended so fucked up in a short space of time, I can see it was a long time coming and, frankly, somewhat inevitable.

When I was a child, if I left any food on my plate my mum would say: “why won’t you eat that, Eff? It’s crying now!” My hopelessly sweet, six-year-old self would not stop to contemplate the likelihood that a potato had the capacity to cry, I was a sweet little soul and very sensitive- I’d get upset and eat the lonely potato, just to keep him happy.

To this day, my BIGGEST bugbear is the anthropomorphism of inanimate objects.

Of course, as I grew older I knew that potatoes, or in fact ANY foodstuff doesn’t have the capacity to cry (unless perhaps it’s really, really past its sell-by date), but nevertheless, the seed of guilt had been planted and from childhood onwards, eating and not eating has always been tied up with guilt…I’d feel guilty if I didn’t leave an empty plate, but I’d feel guilty about eating so much. People would remark on how much I enjoyed my food, how much I loved to eat, how I always left an empty plate. In the back of my mind, I was trying to eat away the guilt. Very rarely did I feel full.

Fast forward to today and this battle with guilt is still going on, but in an entirely different way. When I first started to try to lose weight, I was at war with this guilt. I *knew*  I had to eat less and cut down my portion sizes, but if there was food left, I’d feel so guilty for leaving it, I’d end up eating it anyway and feeling even more guilty for letting  myself down.

Bulimia, it appears, seemed to be the next “logical” step….I could keep “everyone” happy and eat my food and present a clean plate and I could keep myself happy by trying to get rid of that food. It was just once in a while at first, after big dinners when I was feling stuffed- it seemed reasonable, something that could be done, but only out of necessity. It’s amazing how quickly once a month becomes once a fortnight, becomes once a week, becomes twice a week, becomes every other day, becomes every day….

The satisfaction and the freedom from guilt I feel when I am able to eat to make people happy, to gorge myself in order to fill my soul’s swirling massless void, to amiably have a snack with my friends and then purge it all away, to make it disappear from the inside out; makes me feel almost superhuman. I’ve found a loophole, a way of bending the rules, that keeps the guilt at bay and no one is any the wiser.

I’m tired of fighting the guilt. It exhausts me, even now with my “perfect” system in place, it’s starting to creep back in. Except now, the guilt has another voice in my head to contend with, and that’s the one that says: “fat pig”. I can’t fight them both and I can no longer keep them both happy. I no longer want to keep the guilt happy anyway, I’m mentally too weak to carry it. Over 20 years of carrying it has nearly crushed me and I just can’t, no,won’t do it anymore.

I want to spit in the face of guilt and say “fuck you”. To me, the way to do this is to simply not eat, show the guilt it doesn’t affect me anymore. I want to control the way I feel, not have some fucked-up, deep-seeded emotion dictate to me how to behave.

Therein lies my aspiration.

Only a complete lunatic would find this rational….

Back after yet ANOTHER break

Been away for a few weeks again....Had a godawful time mentally. Had in incident of self-harm that required stitches and yet another rather public and spectacular breakdown. Not only that, I had what I *now* realise was a panic attack in the supermarket- I was getting chest pain and was really, really dizzy, thought I was having a damn heart attack!

Therapy wise, the cCBT that I was undertaking came to a screeching halt after I told the women that she didn't know her "arse from her elbow" and put the phone down on her. Eff is NOT one to do things by halves (or, usually, to refer to herself in the third person!)

Other than that...it's been pretty quiet around here.... ;)

Effy  x