Angry and sad

I am not doing very well. Still binging and purging daily. Not getting enough sleep. I keep falling asleep around 3am.. I think it's because I've been drinking a lot of caffeine or taking diet pills to make up for how tired I am.. vicious cycle.

I really haven't been very honest about all this. Mostly because I don't have many people to be honest with. I hardly ever see my sponsor, and I have this argument in my head about if she needs to know non-alcohol related stuff. I don't want to bother her or waste her time. There is one other person (I apologize if I'm repeating this) that did vaguely know about the bulimia.. in that I mentioned I had been binging. I didn't use the word purging, but the conversation involved the words bulimia and binging, so maybe that was implied. That was Friday the 6th.

Monday, I got my 30 day chip.. and my sponsor came to the meeting to give it to me. She was really excited. She's been my sponsor for over a year and this is the first time I've managed 30 days sober since then. Anyway, at the meeting she was telling me I look well and was complimenting me on my skin and my smile. Stuff like that. Nice things, but it bothered me. I've been sleep deprived because I get home after 9pm and stay up until at least midnight binging and purging, and I'm pretty miserable.. and being told I look healthy and happy sort of invalidates how poorly I feel... does that make sense? It's like I can't be that sick if everyone thinks I'm happy.

Well, the next day I texted the other person from AA to ask if I should tell my sponsor the truth. We (this person) had a long phone conversation about how alcohol and probably ED are symptoms of our problems.. and about fear.. and all kinds of stuff, and I think the conclusion was that now that I'm sober I'm more aware of how scary school and graduation is and this is my way of avoiding things. I also said I'm afraid at some point I'm going to decide drinking was better than bulimia and go back. But then this was on Tuesday and I never did call my sponsor.

So today I saw my sponsor at a meeting.. and it was not a topic I had much to say about. I tried talking and I was saying something about school messing with my brain. I don't know how I said it exactly, but my sponsor interrupted me. She honestly interrupted me in the middle of sharing and said that school doesn't mess with my brain the way alcohol does.. and she said something to someone else who I guess must be in graduate school. Then that person said something about that and then about how when she first got sober she had trouble expressing herself in meetings. At this point I was mortified. The 2nd woman apologized and asked if I was done talking (notice she apologized for interrupting but my sponsor didn't) and I said I was even though i hadn't been. I just couldn't say anything else. I was so embarrassed. It even makes me want to cry now. I have this serious fear of not making sense when I speak, and my sponsor should know that..

And my point was that grad school does fuck with my brain. It's an environment that fosters fear and anxiety and competition that I used alcohol to avoid thinking about. Now I don't have alcohol so I binge and purge and restrict to manipulate how I feel. I use diet pills to have energy since I can't sleep. I act in all sorts of fucked up ways. I was talking about this on Tuesday with the other person about how everything got worse in grad school. Everyone in grad school goes a bit crazy. I tried to explain that in the meeting but I was trying to say this without being able to say what behaviors I was doing.. and I don't make sense.. and I just did NOT need that pointed out. My sponsor left before the meeting ended and didn't say anything about it.. I did start crying a little (only one eye for some reason) not sure if that was before or after she left. I texted her a couple hours later to clarify what I meant. I want her to apologize but I'm not going to ask her to. I couldn't make myself call her because I started crying in my car in the parking lot and again in the parking lot at the grocery store when another person texted me and asked how the meeting was.

I know my sponsor can't know how bad things are if I don't tell her, but she does know how self conscious I am in meetings. She also interrupted me once before that to ask how long I had been sober and make me say that (I had picked up my chip at a different group) so she got to draw attention to me twice.