After a bingey week, I'm finally back on track. 303 calories today, with a tiny dinner as a possibility. Either way, I'll be running. I didn't post last night because I felt strange. Really strange.
I spent yesterday afternoon at E's house. We re-dyed my hair, and it's a nice vibrant auburn again, instead of that shitty, faded out blonde. I'll take better care of it this time, and hopefully it won't go back to my natural color any time soon. After fixing my hair, I watched anxiously as she made dinner. Brown rice and homemade tomato soup. We were eating, and whining about how much we hated doing it. I've known for a while that E is bulimic, but it surprised me when she said out loud, "God, I want to puke." She knows I have issues with food too, so we joked for a while about going upstairs to her bathroom for "best friend bonding time." And then the strangest thing at all.
Suddenly, I was standing outside her bathroom bouncing on my toes, waiting for her to finish up, listening to the sounds of splashing in the bathroom. She opened the door, still swishing her mouthwash, when I pushed past her, turned on the sink, and fell to my knees. I briefly spared a thought to how fucked up this was, but got the job done anyway. We laughed nervously about it before walking around her neighborhood for a few miles. We agreed to be fasting buddies. She won't eat more than 1200 calories in a day, and complimented me when I said I'm terrified of eating over 800.
I feel like I lost some of my legitimacy at that moment. I refuse to admit to an eating disorder. I'm no better than those 13 year old wannarexics. But the fact of the matter is, I do eat a lot less than I should, and I do throw up my meals about two times a week. I smoke instead of eating. I drink shit tons of water so my stomach doesn't growl. There is something wrong with me. But crazy people don't go find other crazy people to enjoy their craziness together. I don't know. I feel lost.
Time to run off this negativity. I have a lot more to talk about, but this post is getting kind of long as is.
Despite having spent my life hating my body, struggling with weight, comparing myself to every other girl I saw and am unable to have a healthy attitude towards food, joining blogger has made me question myself a lot too. But what I've come to learn and accept is that "eating disorder" is a very vague, very broad category and that to believe there is one perfect definition, one precise pigeon hole in which you must fit in order to "truly have an ED", is very unrealistic. There are a lot of other disorders that go along with having an eating disorder that adds to the complication. But in the end these labels don't do anything for us. Labels are the means for other people to understand and simplify the truly complicated aspect of being around someone "different". We all have our quirks and I do believe not a single one of us goes through life acting as the text book definition of anything, but we spend a lot of time worrying whether what we're doing would be considered "fucked up" by society's standards anyway. We are human. We are imperfect and unexplainable. We will wander through life doing a lot of things that don't make sense and can't be rationalized. But at the end of the day, we're all a little disordered in some way or another. I say you are incredibly lucky to have someone in the real world who will understand and not judge what you are going through. I would give so much to have that. Embrace her my dear.
ReplyDelete<3
Thanks for your sweet comments on my latest, you made me well up and I don't cry lol. I bet your hair looks beautiful, I love auburn hair ♥
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to think of something constructive to say re the last few paragraphs only it's hard because I've kind of been there but it didn't last long and I never had a real life friend with an eating disorder. :/
Sorry this wasn't more helpful :( xx
Having someone else to be crazy with makes it seem... less crazy. I have a friend like that too and I don't know if I could really be as strong as I need to be if I didn't have her sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear you beat the purge cycle! I hope you stay strong. & I had a best friend this past summer who I was the same way with.. we'd binge, then take turns puking & repeat.. You're not alone
ReplyDeleteI want a friend to do this with but I'm afraid of exactly what you were talking about. As if having support would take away some of what makes this real to me. I like having a secret, even if it does get a bit heavy to carry around sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI envy that you have a friend to share this with yet I feel like I should caution you as well. I know it is my own baggage but I have such a hard time trusting anyone.
ReplyDeleteI think you are really fortunate to have a good friend like her. I hope you keep one another strong.
xox,
A