you and me and the devil makes three

I always try to assign supernatural explanations to my Bad Nights. Thankfully, they occur with less frequency than they used to (possibly because I eat somewhat normally now and no longer abuse drugs {that aren't prescribed to me} and am also miraculously no longer suicidal). But every once in a while, I still get a Bad Night.

Bad Nights mean I cannot sleep, even with sleeping pills. My usual dose is 200 mg of diphenhydramine. If that doesn't work, I'll add up to 150 mg of doxylamine, and/or a shot of Everclear in my fizzy water and orange juice. I try to get by on just the diphenhydramine, but I kind of need sleep so I do need to add alcohol or more sleeping pills about 4 out of 7 days a week.

Sometimes, though, I still can't sleep. I toss and turn and toss and turn and flail and rearrange the bed and go to the loo and toss and turn some more and go have a cigarette and flail around the bed and rearrange the sheets again and go to the loo and go walk around the house and toss and turn and then when 5 AM rolls around and the mockingbird starts up his R2D2 routine I usually just say feck it and call it a night, and go read until I have to actually get up for work. Those are the regular Bad Nights.

Because I do not drink enough water during the day (I've tried, I can't, leave me alone), I tend to get a powerful thirst at night and guzzle like a gallon of water before I go to bed. For this reason, I get up to go to the bathroom like 3 - 6 times a night. I always wake up around 4.00 AM and for whatever reason, it is that particular trip to the loo that sometimes ends in the other kind of Bad Night.

It happened this morning. I went back to bed, and I could not go back to sleep.

I blame the weather for some of this. Hell cannot be much hotter than New Jersey has been the last few weeks.

 

there isn't much else to do but sit here and puddle

 Like seriously, it's been in the 90s F (~30-35 C) and so humid you feel like you're swimming instead of walking. I HATE THIS WEATHER WITH EVERY FIBRE OF MY BEING, and of course my room is the hottest room in the house so even sleeping nude with no sheets or blankets and three fans pointing right at me, it's still too bloody hot.

So I went back to bed at 4.00 this morning and ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT go back to sleep. I can't take sleeping pills or alcohol at 4.00 AM because I need to get up for work at 7.30. All I can do is will my brain to please shut down for a few more hours.

Usually it doesn't. At least, not right away.

Then an hour and a half later, my brain decides it's time to try and drive Mich to total insanity.

I know it's coming, too, which makes it ten times worse. A feeling of Epic Tired comes on suddenly, and then the heart palpitations start. It's the weirdest feeling ever, like my heart sort of flutters for a sec, stops for what feels like a little too long, and then races for a couple seconds and then pretends to go back to normal before starting the whole flutter-stop-racing cycle over again. But by the time I'm like oh f*ck not again, I'm so tired I physically cannot stay awake.

Then the nightmares begin.

Always the same nightmare (or various versions of it)--they take place in my bedroom and I think I'm awake, something horrible and terrifying is happening (axe murderers, demons, random weird things that wouldn't be scary in real life but are scary now because it's a nightmare), and I am completely paralyzed.

I wake myself up when my attempts at moving my dream-paralyzed body end in me flailing like a lunatic and falling out of bed. (I usually try to scream or cry out in these dreams as well, but there have only been two accounts of me waking up actually screaming.)

After the first nightmare, it's a constant repeat of the same exact try to stay awake-->nightmare-->flailing-->wakeup-->do it again until I have to get up for work. At which point I am so exhausted and emotionally shaken that I have trouble functioning the whole day.

My doctor wants me to go to some fancy sleep clinic where they will attempt to INDUCE THIS ON PURPOSE so I can be studied. I was like ummmm no thanks.

(Plus my insurance won't cover that.)

So I always presume this is the result of a demon actually trying to possess me, or a poltergeist, or something. I hang dream catchers. I spread blends of herbs and junk for psychic protection. I obsessively clean in and around the bed in search of something that might be causing negative energy.

As if I'll actually find the source of these night terrors.

Does anyone else get these?? Someone please tell me I'm not alone.

.....in other news (and as a follow up to the post before the last one) I think I have finally shaken off the epic depression. I have gotten my finances in order and once I come back from CO in mid-August, I plan to move out of my house into my own apartment. (There was a rather large fight with Mumsy over something retarded, which was the final straw as far as me continuing to live with her.) For the first time in over a year, I go to bed at night NOT praying to die in my sleep. It is an amazing feeling. 

I want into him of my flesh I want out

A real post! ...sort of. Since I'm trying to check in on everyone's blogs, I thought I would offer a proper post/update with pictures...

So apparently, I am ‟not coping well."

I have dealt with loss before. I'm pretty sure everyone has dealt with some kind of loss by the time they're into their late 20s (and if you haven't, consider yourself exceedingly lucky). We lost a cousin  to cancer when I was 7. Granddad died when I was 10. Other Granddad died when I was 13. One of my best friends committed suicide when I was 13. Uncle died when I was 18 (that one hit me the hardest, before now). My ex-boyfriend committed suicide a few years ago, right when we had started to get close again. Granny died two years ago.

None of those compare even remotely to how painful the loss of my cat is. Callisto was like my best friend/child/dæmon/other half. Personally I think that warrants the current ruination that is my mental state.

But according to the *experts*, I am Not Coping Well.

In fairness, I suppose that is somewhat accurate. I've kind of unraveled past the point of even caring whether or not I'm going loopy. The evidence:

- I cannot go more than 8 hours without breaking down into a soggy sobbing incoherent mess, which sort of disturbs my normal everyday activities.

- If I want to sleep at all, I need at least 150mg of diphenhydramine + alcohol, so instead I've been doing the alternate and just not sleeping more than 3 hours a night (the maximum I can manage without substances).

- I have had a total and complete epic relapse when it comes to the abuse of certain substances.

- Since Daisy, the other cat also appears to be very depressed, I lay on the basement floor with her for up to an hour at a time, just staring at the wall.

- I haven't decided what I want to do with Callisto's ashes yet.*

*I cannot part with the last piece of Callisto that I have left.

- I have taken to sleeping with this pillow:

My stepgrandmother gave it to me years ago, because it looks just like Callisto.

- I don't eat unless other people give me food (i.e., getting dragged out to eat by family and/or friends).

- I have emotional breakdowns when cleaning only Daisy's messes from the cat litter, or when I find Callisto-hairs in the house or on my person, or when in the supermarket buying cat food only for Daisy.

- I'm approaching hysterics right now, just from writing this.

- At night when I'm reaching the very limits of my sanity, I crawl into a corner in my room and watch videos of Callisto that are on my phone, or on youtube, and then cry until I can't breathe.

ugh

This seriously makes the incident formerly known as the Worst Thing That Ever Happened to Mich look like an over-cliched over-generalized and poorly scripted episode of Law & order SVU. (And trust me: I watch far too much SVU, so I know what I'm talking about.) I would very gladly spend a month locked in a small room with that pervert who still haunts my nightmares if it would magically bring my cat back.

But he's dead, so I can't even try.

On top of all that, this loss has apparently made me into an even worse person. Stepdad (also known as the walking dead) is still alive, and I hate him for it. I can't even be in the same room as him anymore, because I resent him for every rattling breath he continues to take. Because Callisto deserved to live, and he--the lying, thieving, spineless scumbag that he is--continues to live, to the utter befuddlement of all his doctors.

I'm a grumbling little ball of rage and despair and I feel like I'm going to cave in on myself.

Carol-Anne, I have asked you to keep the children quiet today! And for Christ's sake, get them out of the gaaaaaaaarden!!!!

I gave my mother a bit of a fright the other morning.

(Actually "bit of a fright" might be an understatement...)

You know how sometimes you have a really vivid dream right before you wake up in the morning, and the stuff happening in the dream kind of mimics stuff that's been going on in real life at the time, so when you wake up it takes you a minute before you can separate the dream from real life? Like for example, I often have dreams in which I find and purchase super exciting stuff like Baroque-style gowns, epic shoes, or extremely rare and expensive My Little Ponies, and wake up thinking I actually DID find and buy these items for a low price. And then when I wake up properly, I get kind of depressed when I realize it was only a dream.

The other morning, when I went back to bed at around 5.00 after a trip to the loo, I had a dream that my colourist, Greg had died. Aside from the fact that he is the one and only person on the planet whom I trust with colouring my hair, I adore Greg as a friend. We're both kind of snarky and sarcastic and love to gossip whilst I'm getting my hair did. We've even gone to see the Pogues together. So naturally, in the dream I got quite upset about his passing. Like REALLY upset. And because sometimes in dreams, your reactions to things can be quite a bit more extreme than they would be in real life, I was like FRANTICALLY upset. (I don't get frantic, even under extreme stress or in life-threatening situations.)

Most of the time after these types of dreams, it does take me quite a while to sort the two out (more than it probably takes normal people, I think). But the other morning... Perhaps it was a result of the sleeping pills? Or just a side effect of having epic sleep problems in general? Whatever the reason, that morning when I woke up again at around 6.00, my brain refused to separate the dream from real life ever after the normal waiting period.

My brain also failed to shake the frantic-epic-panic-attack that Greg's death had caused. I was wide awake, I knew I had just had a dream about Greg's death, but I COULD NOT figure out where the dream ended and real life began. That made the panic attack worse.

So, naturally:

You know when something sudden and startling shakes you out of a deep sleep, you get that heart-stopping FEAR? That particular kind of terror that is only caused by nightmares.

Yeah I'm pretty sure Mum almost had a heart attack.

While her brain was struggling to (a) wake up properly, (b) make sense of what I was saying, and (c) respond in the appropriate fashion; my brain decided to figure out how to separate the dream from real life.

Funny story:

This one time, a bunch of us stayed up at my friend, Number2's house in Upstate New York. His parents were away, so we were having the craic wandering around in the wilderness, dressing up in Number2's mother's old 70's and 80's clothes she had stashed away in the attic,

and drinking ourselves into a stupor. Even my friend T was drinking, and she NEVER drinks.

We retired to bed at around 2.30/3 in the morning--T and M in the spare room, S downstairs on the sofa, and me in with Number2. Myself and Number2 stayed up until like 4 in the morning finishing off the two bottles of wine we had stashed in his room and trying to convince the old and quite contrary VCR to play Harry Potter. (I'm amazed we didn't keep anyone else up with the racket we were making trying to get that VCR to work before we eventually passed out.)

I had a really bad dream. I was locked up in some kind of hospital, and awful horror-movie type things were happening all around me, and then someone started screaming. Like SCREAMING--horrific, blood-curdling screaming. It was so horrific if woke me up.

Except the screaming didn't stop when I woke up.

My brain actually cannot recall the sound of the screaming. It was that terrifying.

I tried to wake Number2, but he sleeps like the dead and so after shaking did not work, I punched him in the arm several times until he woke up and then made him go out into the hallway first to investigate. The screaming was coming from the spare room, and the more awake and alert I got, I realized it sounded like two people screaming. To be precise, it sounded like both M and T were screaming.

S was first to the scene, which still amazes me as she was downstairs, in the dark, ALONE, and yet she still rushed TOWARDS the scariness. By the time Number2 and I got there, the screaming had stopped and S was in the bedroom doorway asking T and M what the heck happened.

T was sitting up in her bed, the blankets pulled up to her chin, with a look of confusion and terror on her face. M was standing in the closet looking kind of dazed.

(Now before I go on, I should perhaps mention that M has a long history of intense sleep-walking and sleep-talking. (Sleepovers at M's house were super fun in high school.)

[His exact words--none of that was fabricated.]

I feel bad for M's mom. There was a while there that she kept finding all of M.'s pillows at the bottom of the basement stairs every morning for like 6 months. And then there were the times she'd be sat in the living room watching tv, and M (whose bedroom was on the other side of the living room wall) would start banging on the walls and screaming swear words.

Oh and my personal favourite:

The time M knocked his bedroom door clean off its hinges. And that didn't even wake up him up.)

T, still shaken from the whole incident, said she had half-woken up to M wandering around the room in the dark. He wandered into the closet and then started banging around and shouting "ARE YOU SERIOUS? ARE YOU SERIOUS, T?!?!?" etc., and so T not being properly awake, she got frightened and started screaming, and then M started screaming louder.

I'm guessing that's when I woke up.

M.'s version: "I don't know what was wrong with T, I was just getting up to go to the bathroom."

He managed to say that with a straight face, while still in the closet.

S managed to calm T down and the rest of us--dazed and shaken and still kind of confused--went back to bed. The next morning, once we were all fully awake, we discussed the events of the night until all of us were doubled over and sobbing with laughter.

That incident still makes me laugh quite a bit, actually.

Statcounter is really fun. It shows you more detailed info than the Blogger stats (although the downside is that there's a limit to how many records it keeps, unless you pay for it). I am greatly amused by some of the ways in which people have arrived at my blog when searching the internet. I think my favourite ever was "nude man bears explosion". And A LOT of people search for images of women in electric chairs. And baby bunnies. It's a bit disturbing how many people search for baby bunnies. And recently someone read my entire blog over the course of 2 days. I'm not gonna lie--I felt immensely flattered. :)

Oh, come on Donny, they were threatening castration! Are we gonna split hairs here? Am I wrong?

...Does anyone know what happened to Mona? Her blog--Shaking/Waking (formerly She Smiles With Me)--is gone again. :(






Earlier this week, Boss and I discussing one of the many child custody battles with which we're dealing:

Me: "Who's she married to, again?"

Boss: "Some Chinaman."

Me: ....... "Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please."

Boss: ......... "Fuck it, Dude, let's go bowling."

That was probably the highlight of my week.

Guess who's not sleeping again?

-____-

It started out awesome, with the acupuncture. And then it slowly stopped working. After like 2 and a half weeks, I began taking longer and longer to fall asleep, waking up more and more during the night, and then beginning last week (or maybe halfway through the week before? it's tough to keep track of time when you don't sleep that much) I stopped sleeping altogether. So I'm back on the diphenhydramine. And the occasional Jameson or Bailey's nightcap to make it work faster.

Oh yeah, and the nightmares. SCREW YOU, BRAIN. WHHHYYYYYYYYYY must you torment me with blood-&-gore fests?? Epic warfare in the middle of the Armageddon? Dream-bingeing?? And let's not even talk about the people who keep showing up in my dreams, night after mother-effing night. I'M GOING TO STAB MY SUBCONSCIOUS WITH AN ICE PICK.

Food-wise, this week has also been a disaster. To steal a phrase from a friend, I have fallen off the recovery wagon and been run over by it.

ED roadkill. I have not eaten in 4 days, save for the occasional cup-a-soup (50 cals),

which takes me 2+ hours to consume; and sips of protein shake when I feel faint. (I'd say 5 days of no eating, but I had a handful of pretzels on Monday afternoon [140 cals]). And I've been exercising off more than what I'm consuming. Ephedrine is a miracle-worker.

FML.

But my size 0 work trousers are fitting a bit more loosely, so at least I can take comfort in that. I nearly sliced open my brachial artery when I came back from the shore and discovered I had to wear the size 2's to be comfortable. (Express's editor trousers are more true to size than their jeans...)

In more positive news, I finally finished typing and proofreading the 1st major edit of the 3rd book in my pirate/adventure series. The fairy book is still crawling along at .00000000000001 kph, but I am determined to finish it before Christmas. 

Oh, yeah--Christmas. That scares the holy hell out of me this year. None of our relatives are coming out from abroad this year. And Cousin Lisa--who always used to do every family and holiday related thing with us at our house--is still stuck in Florida trying to sell her house. Big Sis#2 always ditches Mum and me for Dad. We can't go home to Ireland like we always used to because now that Granny is dead, there's no home to go to. 

Mum's idea to go away somewhere and pretend Christmas isn't happening is starting to appeal to me. But then again, if my Christmas Spirit dies, I'm not sure what that's going to do to my psyche. I just want a house full of people for Christmas. :( 

......anyone out there in the NY/NJ area? Want to come for Christmas??

I feel like I'm fading away. Like a light, getting dimmer and dimmer until it finally goes out. 

When life gets you down, play dress-up.

TSIF!

Sometimes I live in the country; sometimes I live in town; sometimes I have the great notion to jump into the river and drown.

Hurricane? Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaasee!!


We scoff at predicted weather apocalypses in my house. We make fun of our friends who are all flying out to the supermarkets to empty their bank accounts on "supplies." 


Ok yeah it's always good to be prepared. But until I see a Category 587874894389 hurricane spewing hellfire all up on the northern east coast, I'm not going to believe that we will have anything more than lots of rain, some wind that may knock out power for a bit, and some flooding in the places that get flooding anyway every time it rains. 


This is the 21st century, folks. And weather-wise, we live in the most boring spot on the planet. 


So yeah, as far as mixing magical Chinese herbs with sleep meds--I did think of that immediately AFTER taking the sleeping pills on Monday night. When it's getting closer and closer to dawn and you need to get at least some sleep in order to function at work at 9.00, you tend not to make good decisions. 


But I'm still here, and MIRACULOUSLY, I have been falling asleep without drugs or alcohol!!! 


LIKE OMG.


First time in something like 8 years? I mean I'm not falling asleep right when I go to bed--it's more like at 1.30 AM or 2, and I'm still waking up every hour or so, but this is still a HUGE improvement. 


I'm currently waiting for Aliens to finish downloading into itunes so I can go to the gym and watch it on the elliptical. 


(And am praying the good people at Planet Fitness are not sissies who will close early because we're about to get a bit more rain than usual.)


Then I'm heading to a supermarket. Not sure which one yet, but I need dinner supplies. I'm hoping some of the nearby ones will still have food items left by the time I get there. Mum, Little Sis, and I are planning on being stranded at home, so we're having what used to be our Saturday Night Dinner before eating disorders ruined that sort of thing. 


If Mum and her 2 youngest children are going to be stuck in the house all night, the only way they know how to behave is to stuff their faces. 

Otherwise we'd only eat each other instead. 


So Saturday Night Dinner: steaks (filet mignon marinated in lite Caesar dressing and broiled), fried onions (there's no way to make that healthy--it's just a load of onion chopped up tiny and sauteed in a pan with butter), and chips (steak fries--in the oven though, not deep fried). This is the ultimate comfort food, and we haven't done this on a Saturday in AGES, so I'm trying not to freak out about the calorie content. 


Plus if we do end up getting a giant hurricane and we're stranded in a post-apocalyptic New Jersey for the next month, I'll need to beef up for when we run out of food. 


-__-


Hope you're all having a good weekend! <3

No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering.

I'm really impressed with myself at the general coherence of Saturday's cat post. Because I was WASTED. Went to din with Mum and Step-dad (idk.... this week they're friendly again because the doctor told him he's dying again, and has a year to live [again?], so Mum feels bad for him... again. It won't last because inevitably he will turn back into his usual nasty verbally abusive self.) But yeah it gets kind of awkward going out with the two of them as opposed to just going out with Mum, and I had not eaten anything all day except for an egg on a piece of safe bread, so drinking three glasses of Pinot Grigio in a short period of time ended in me totally fluthered. 

And then I got into a texting argument with Paul#2. He wanted me to come over (that usually means he's drunk and looking for some @ss, or he's trying to pass me off onto one of his friends and I AM SO DONE WITH THAT SH*T). I declined, saying I already had plans to go hang out at Friend's new apartment and maybe we could hang next weekend (which was true, except Friend ended up bailing because she had to work late, but I never told P2 that because by then it was late anyway). Then he gets all pissy saying that I always bail when we try to plan to hang out, and that I never come over anymore and blah blah blah whinge whinge whinge whinge.... 

I started to get mad because not once has P2 EVER driven up to hang out with me close to my house. He didn't even make an effort to come hang out for my last two birthdays. Oh it's too far? You don't feel like having to drive home late? Or you don't want to come because you won't be able to drink too much?? 

GO EFF YOURSELF. Up the AAASSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

....

Ugh. I'm really sick of people. But I'll get back to that...

So yesterday (Monday), in my never-ending quest for normal sleeping patterns, I went for acupuncture. I had never been acupunctured before, and was rather excited. One of Mum's friends recommended the lady (Tammy, who is Chinese, and fabulous), and said that she treats insomnia, so I thought what the heck. Let's give it a go. 

I was like REALLY excited about this. The way I saw it, acupuncture is like self-harm that is socially acceptable. But I would discover that my expectations were not quite realistic. 

I didn't feel a thing. Not so much as the equivalent of a mosquito bite.

I kept silent though, as I figured she might question my mental state if I suggested she employ the use of some knitting needles and a hammer. 

It wasn't unpleasant--Tammy put on nice relaxing music, put one of those lavender-filled beanbag things on my face, poked me in the arms, hands, head, legs, and feet with miniscule needles, and massaged my arms and legs afterwards. Apparently my chi is weak, and I have a lot of fire in me.

She gave me some herbs:

not a clue

When she suggested "herbs," I had expected something that smelled worse than Valerian root and tasted like a sewer, but I was pleasantly surprised. Those things smell faintly of ginger snaps, and have no taste. 

(And she said she was starting me off on the children's dose, because I'm so small.) 

 So not a bad experience altogether. 

Afterwards, I went home, went to the gym, skipped dinner (and am somehow GAINING weight even though I haven't binged in 8 days?!?!), and--as Tammy instructed--took the nighttime dose of herbal supplements and soaked my feet in hot water half an hour before bedtime. 

I did not expect a miracle cure for insomnia. I figured acupuncture is the sort of thing that would build up effectiveness over time. Sure I was completely open to whatever positive effects it might have on me, but I did not expect that I would suddenly and miraculously be able to fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time and remain asleep for the duration of the night. 

However, I did not expect that I would not be able to sleep AT ALL even after taking my usual sleep meds. Nor did I expect the intense chest pain and racing heart that occurred about 20 minutes after I took my sleeping pills. I was tossing and turning and panicking because I thought I was having a heart attack until I finally fell into a weird half-sleep around 4.00 in the morning. 

And then the Mother of All Nightmares began. 

I'm not going into details. I can't bring myself to write it all down again (it went straight into the dream diary this morning). It involved me slowly losing my mind as a result of not being able to sleep, and ended in me being committed to a mental hospital and injected full of sedatives (which was not all that bad in general, but there was something deeply horrifying about the dream as a whole). 

That was hands down one of the most vivid dreams I have ever had in my life. To the point where I am STILL checking the sides of my neck for the 2nd and 3rd degree burns that were in the dream. And I still get the faint sensation that the skin there on my neck is stiff and numb and kind of achy. I don't think she even stuck any needles in my neck. 

I heard that this sort of thing can be a normal side effect, so I'll go back for a few more sessions and see how it goes...

...Getting back to feeling sick of people....

I think I might take a weekend and go off into the woods alone. I've been checking out the KOA website. I would rent the cheapest one-room cabin they have (no running water or bathroom) and just be a hermit for a few days. I'm thinking the most remote one I can find in New York, New Hampshire, or Maine. 

Will think about that as something to do for the upcoming weekends weekends....

Hope you all survived the earthquake! <3

I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

This is amazing. 


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
My ceiling fan is making a noise like a genetically augmented housefly being tortured while on steroids. 

I feel very tired today. Most likely this is directly related to the fact that I have not been sleeping very well. The OTC sleepy-pill cocktail remains unreliable. Either I'll feel very drugged-sleepy, but will toss and turn for hours and hours and HOURS unable to even half-sleep; or I will fall into my usual state of almost-mostly-sleep only to find myself waking up every hour or so. The end result of both is the same: by 7:30 in the morning when I'm supposed to wake up for work, I feel so physically and mentally exhausted that I just want to crawl under a tree and sleep for twenty years. 

I would really like a prescription for Restoril, but considering a friend couldn't even get them from his pill-happy Russian doctor, I'd say there's not much chance of my very anti-pill doctor giving me a prescription for the pharmaceutical equivalent of the Draught of Living Death. Friend gave me a couple of these other things instead--Belladonna alkaloids and phenobarbital. Friend insists that they will knock me unconscious better than tranquilizer darts (I've tried finding those--no success). I haven't tried these new pills yet. According the internet, they're used for treating tummy issues like colitis and irritable bowel syndrome, and can cause "mild sedation." Now I was under the impression that deadly nightshade (belladonna) was in fact DEADLY. Apparently it's not even a very controlled substance. I may add these pills to the collection of things I don't plan on taking unless I get incredibly bored/desperate/suicidal. (Currently that collection contains lithium, steroids, giant blue pills for Crohn's disease, ambien, some kind of estrogen supplement, and Celebrex.)

I am also feeling incredibly tired of this problem with eating. 

...I know; shocking, right?

-_-

I'm sick of being afraid to eat. Afraid to go out to eat. Afraid that 700 calories in a day is way too much. Afraid of not exercising for at least an hour, 7 days a week. Afraid of exercising without vitamins* because I can't burn as many calories. Afraid of weekends, afraid of the scale, afraid of my smallest pairs of trousers. Just sick to death of being afraid of EVERYTHING, and of having this knot-in-my-stomach jittery anxious feeling following me around all the effing time because I'm fat/stupid/failing at life/worthless/directionless/AAAAHHH and it makes me feel so SO tired. 

And it doesn't go away with "recovery." I can exercise normally, eat a healthy amount of food every day, and that little ball of lead is still there in the pit of my stomach. If anything, the attempts at recovery only make it worse, leaving me with a bigger ball of of lead and ringing in my ears. 

Ugh. Idk. Maybe I'm just in a funk. I still feel incredibly fat and bloated from the shore trip (was too scared to weigh until tonight--101 lbs; not as bad as I thought...). My trousers are quite a bit more snug around the middle than when I left, and every second that I feel them pressing against my belly is a second spent in a state of panic (basically, from 8.30 in the morning until 5.45 in the evening). I can understand now about this girl in my college years ago who apparently got so disgusted with herself one day that she took a  freshly sharpened pair of scissors and sliced  off the "roll of fat" around her stomach. She was found trying desperately to hold her insides in and was taken to the emergency room. 

.....Remember our rich friends with the perfect daughter? Guess what she just went into the hospital for. 

She's my height (5' 1"), and my current weight (101 lbs). She's been starving, and bicycling in excess of 30 miles a day. The doctor said that even though her BMI is "healthy," the weight is all muscle, and so she is most definitely underweight, malnourished, etc. because her exercise addiction on top of the starving has left her with "not enough" body fat. 

Mum glared at me and did not blink for over a minute after telling me this. How can she possibly still think I'm too thin when I feel fatter than I did right after Christmas?

Each time I have tried to recover, I feel like Frodo coming back from Mordor--after facing death and Mount Doom, of course it seems like a wonderful idea to come back to a nice quiet, happy existence in the Shire, but after a while I realize I can't stand it. I can't stand to be around everyone else with their dinners and going down the pub and parties with cake and laughing and Normal. I just want to sail away to the Grey Havens with the elves. 

The elves were all so fabulously thin. 

I haven't eaten since Sunday night. I can't. I tried. Every time I look at food, or think about it, I feel my trousers pressing into my abdomen and I want to die. So living on coffee and Spiru-tein until I feel less bloated....

What it really comes down to in the end is that I am completely, irrationally, stubbornly incapable of loving myself just as I am. I need to work on this, but I'm not sure how. :/

...I'm also not taking vitamins* anymore. Again. As I've think I've said in the past, I have not yet managed to kick both the vitamins* and ED at the same time. The one time I tried, it led to an epic relapse of both, so I'd rather tackle one hangup at a time. Even if it feels like juggling large ball of fire. 

Yeah so being happy with and loving myself. Work on that...

Speaking of happiness, becca did a really great post about finding happiness in little things. Such a simple idea that most of us seem to forget so easily...

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AND NOW on to some exciting news!!

...

...wait for it....

.......

...

The boy I like gave me his number!!!

He answered the facebook message, saying how sorry he was he didn't get it sooner and that since he doesn't go on facebook much, I should just call or text him. He also said he was sorry he missed Sunday's BBQ. He had other plans, but Friend said he had seemed genuinely disappointed that he couldn't go. Friend is a very lovely friend indeed, as she did not try to press me to talk about him or my crushing; in fact she didn't mention it at all except to casually suggest that I invite him again, and that I should definitely call him on the weekend. (We haven't been close friends for that long, considering how long I've known most of my other friends, so I wasn't at all sure how to proceed with the fact that I'm crushing on her cousin.)

Sooooooo after some anxious wall-climbing, I put a full hour of thought into a very short text message, basically saying I got his fb message and oh hey here's my number. 

I feel like I'm back in grade school. A third grader with a crush on the cute boy sitting next to me, asking him to the school Sock Hop via a passed note.

He responded. I shall try to find something to do with him on Saturday.  :D