Dealing with people's concern... the God box/dinosaur

So I talked to my sponsor.. I tried calling her last night, and it rang and then started making something like a busy tone, which I don't think cell phones have. I should probably have called again, but I was at Target and just kinda waited to see if she called me back. By the time I got home, it was late, so I just didn't. Today I went to church, which was a huge debate since it involved getting out of bed by 9.. but I managed to get up. Then straight to work. After I was about half done with the plate I was working on (the cases are organized by the plates they're run on which hold 96 samples), I texted her to ask if she was busy because I figured I could take a break and call her.

About an hour later, she texted that she had been outside and away from her phone. I clocked out and went to call her. I told my boss I clocked out and he said I didn't have to unless it was going to be long, but I didn't know how long it would be.. ended up being like 15 minutes. Don't know if that was too long, but anyway I did it off the clock.

I sort of rambled through what I had been thinking about.. the whole topic of mood altering substances and diet pills being mood altering. I brought up buying new ones and taking more and not keeping track. I mentioned buying the ephedrine. I didn't list the other ones because it wouldn't make sense unless you knew about diet pills or chemicals.. other than they're chemically similar to amphetamines according to my coworker.

Anyway, she said she's thought about it. Her concern is not about this being a relapse in terms of substances. She's worried about me having a heart attack. She says she thinks about it and prays about it. She's talked to her sponsor about it.
We talked about various stuff.. basically working the steps for it, and she mentioned reading through the 12&12 or the big book and substituting food or another word for alcohol.. to think about it that way. So maybe we're going to do that when we both have time. She also talked about how she was trying to eat better and plan what she's eating.. I think the idea behind that was how we both should work on planning and eating better? I'm not sure how telling me she's not eating sugar is helpful. I told her I'm planning to buy meal replacement stuff.. I did not say I am planning to stop eating solids.. but haven't decided that for sure.

Anyway, on top of that.. I have the coworker who has commented on my "stimulant" habit.. who made a comment that he's worried about me today. Like not even in private.. said this in the middle of the analyst room. He said he was worried and I should cut back. He doesn't want me to be saying I have heart damage later because of what I was doing now. I've only known this guy for a few months, and he's worried about me having heart damage? I feel bad because it's my fault for ever mentioning it.. though if I took pills at work, I feel like someone would have asked eventually. And that's a hard question to dodge completely without lying or looking like you're taking something you shouldn't be.

But yes.. my fault. Same with my sponsor.. I mean if I had never mentioned the eating disorder.. well that probably would have come out after I lost 60 pounds, but I could have never mentioned the diet pills to anyone. But then would she be worried about the purging? or the not eating? She's offered to buy me Ensure if I would drink it. She's tried to feed me crackers after meetings. What else would she worry about? Would my coworker still have caught on to how tired I look? He's commented on it and how I should be sleeping more.

How much control do I really have over other people's worry? That's what I was thinking about tonight. I guess if they care, there will always be something to worry about. Unfortunately, when I have this many self destructive habits, there's more to worry about. Do I show the habits off on purpose? Do I do it because I want help? Is it sometimes an innocent mistake that starts it? Like the mistake of mentioning the damn pills.

So I dug out my God box.. actually it's a God dinosaur shaped bank because I thought that was funny (so did my sponsor). The idea of the God box is that you take the things that you are surrendering to your higher power, you write them down, and they go in the box. They stay in the box for at least a year. Eventually, you can open the box and see how things have been resolved.. but the main idea is to give the things to God by placing them in the box. You can't take them back because you are physically placing them inside. I debated if this was an appropriate thing to put in there.. since I have some control over this, but I thought about it.. and I don't. Whether or not they are worried about actions I have power over, I cannot control their thinking.. they can always find something to worry about.

So I am giving this one to God. I do need to work on making less to worry about, or at the very least minimizing attention-seeking behaviors. I do not need to work on making them less worried about me. I do not need to comfort them. This is the first time I've used the God dinosaur.. I bought it and it got buried in the mess that is my apartment. I cut some pieces of paper and placed a pen by it, so hopefully it will get more use.

The God dinosaur

Diet pills and insomnia... ***Trigger warning***

I don't know how much I've talked about this topic here. I mean in detail at least. In reality, I keep it primarily to myself, but that has a lot to do with the company I keep. My friends know I have an eating disorder, so they clearly would not approve of my use of diet pills. I'm around grad students who would probably not approve for scientific reasons, but honestly I don't talk to many people at school. My therapist I don't tell the truth about this.. at least not the whole truth. Then there's AA. I have mentioned it to my sponsor and one friend, but I don't really say much. I have always worried a little about what people would think. Nothing I take is illegal or even prescription, but there are people in AA that don't approve of anything considered "mood altering" and diet pills probably are.. hell, caffeine is. That's why rehab didn't provide caffeine in any form. They considered it a trigger for some (we could buy our own. Thank god)

Then there's work.. I have mentioned it to one coworker. Our whole job is about chemicals, and he's working on a masters in chemistry. I think we were talking about coffee and staying awake. I said I get most of mine in pill form rather than coffee. I ended up commenting about it not being caffeine pills I think.. and at the time I brought up these diet pills I hadn't purchased and showed him the ingredients. I had taken a picture on my phone to compare to the bottle I had at home. I was honestly curious of his opinion.. in part because these aren't the normal ones you find in the U.S. these days that are primarily caffeine, vitamins, and usually stuff like green coffee bean or whatever the fad is. Mainly caffeine though. These are the ones that are harder to find that are phenyl-ethylamines and synephrine.. which is what he commented on. These are structurally similar to amphetamines and to ephedrine. They're I think what was left or what replaced ephedrine in some diet pills once it was taken off the market. So anyway I showed him and was oddly reassured by his shock. Of course, I bought those pills later.

This has become a joke of his now. He jokes about my "stimulants" which makes me sound like I'm on meth or something. I do find it funny though.. and really it's my fault for bringing it up. Plus, I'm not always subtle about it since I take pills at work. I keep a pill case in my purse that usually contains 3-4 types of pills. Then I started carrying one bottle of pills. I carry the bottle because the pills have this tendency to break, so I keep them in the bottle with the cotton in it. I added to the number of types I own yesterday, which is why I thought of this. I went a little crazy because Wednesday night I stayed up grading all night, and so the next day I was functioning solely on coffee and these various pills. That made it seem like a brilliant idea to buy more. Add to that that I'm feeling a bit self destructive these days.. maybe a bit suicidal, and there was the post about the girl who died. She died from a type of pill I can't buy (yes I looked online out of curiosity) but it put the topic on my mind yesterday.

So what I have **obviously trigger warning**
The innocent ones
1. Green tea extract- I don't know why I bought it.. at the time I was thinking it might be a good afternoon pill with a bit of caffeine. Plus, people say it works, and it certainly couldn't hurt
2. Green coffee bean- it's the new fad. I keep this and green tea in the pill case in my purse, and I can't tell them apart since they look the same.. so I just pick a random one if I decide to take one
3. Konjac root- I stopped taking it since it's only supposed to serve a purpose if taken with or before a meal, and I don't eat meals during the day and mainly binge/purge at night. I'm a bit afraid I'd choke if I purged after taking it (it's a type of fiber) so I have it but haven't taken any in a month at least

The "bad?" ones
4. VPX Meltdown- bought it at Walgreens, so it can't be that dangerous. But this is one that's a combination of the phenyl-ethylamines, synephrine, caffeine, and some other stuff I don't know much about. I did a lot of research online and it was similar to some kinds that I would have had to order, and I don't trust ordering pills online (even on Amazon you can get stuff that's expired or stored badly)
5. Fastin- this is the one I showed my coworker. Honestly, it's the same as the meltdown as far as ingredients. When I first started my eating disorder, I took this one.. they sold it at Walmart then. Now, I found it at Bed Bath and Beyond but couldn't find it anywhere else.. I'm not sure why. It's not expired. They make an extended release now too, so I'm wondering why stores don't carry it.
I tend to take the VPX one at home in the morning and the Fastin (in my purse) during the day
Then yesterday I added
6. Bitter Orange- this is the source of synephrine. I was reading an article on pubmed.org that summarized 20 scientific studies done on it, and there was no significant side effects. It does raise blood pressure in some because the receptor it works on in fat cells is also found in cardiac muscle apparently. I bought it at a natural grocery store. I found one brand, and I asked an employee if that was the only one they carried. He looked a little judgmental and just showed me where the diet pills were since it's a "thermogenic".. I said I know that. I wanted to know if they carried others that were just that.. I kinda wanted to say something less nice about the look he gave me. Whatever. The pills smells terrible by the way and taste bad.. I feel like natural supplements make no effort to not smell like dog poop.
7. Ephedrine- I finally did it. Ephedrine is not sold as a diet pill in the U.S. anymore. I don't think it's legal for it to be sold as a diet pill. It is however sold as an allergy medication just like pseudoephedrine is, but it's less common. I knew this for a while, but the brand I was aware of was not the same as the ephedrine sold as a diet pill. Then I discovered one that is and that it's cheap. It's ephedrine and guaifenesin, which is an expectorant (makes you cough up mucus).

The ephedrine package specifically says not to mix it with caffeine or with medications for weight loss. At first I debated this. I had taken a bitter orange after I bought that, so I didn't take an ephedrine until hours later.. I mainly took it because I was getting really tired and needed to drive home. I still almost fell asleep driving. I took an ephedrine. Then an hour later another bitter orange. That was at like 8pm. I was up until 1am or so cleaning (I will get into that another time) and then took my night meds and crashed.

I slept until 1pm.. my alarm was for 11, but I fell back asleep. It was ok since I was making up for 0 sleep on Wednesday night. Well, I got up and took a Meltdown. Then an ephedrine at some point (might have been at work). Then at work I took a Fastin and had a cup of coffee and a diet mountain dew (not all at once). I was wired. I've been having very mild chest pains off and on.. which is probably not good. I got off work at 10:30pm and went to Walmart because I knew I was too awake to go to bed. I got home around midnight, and since then I've had a couple cups of herbal tea and some water. I'm still pretty awake but starting to wind down. I'm supposed to go to an AA meeting at 10:30 in the morning, so I do have to go to bed soon if I want to be able to wake up in time.

I'm thinking of telling my sponsor about all this. Partly because it doesn't seem like healthy behavior to be taking all these pills on no set schedule. Like that seems like mentally ill (or maybe addict) behavior rather than simply attempted weight loss. Also, I don't know.. I guess even I know it's dangerous behavior, and I feel I should tell someone. I've wanted to tell her I've been cutting again too.. I see my psychiatrist next week, so I can talk to him as well.
And if anyone is worried, I took my blood pressure and it's a bit high 137/99 but not dangerously so. My pulse is about 80, so I did check that after my chest was hurting. I am not taking anything else today other than my usual prescribed medication.

Procrastinating..

I'd be lying if I said I was doing ok this week.. or these past few days. The whole boundary between weeks is weird for me.. it tends to run Saturday to Saturday because it's AA meeting to AA meeting.. since that's the major social interaction. Or it runs thursday to thursday since that's therapy. Anyway.. whatever. But yes.. doing poorly. I keep telling myself I won't eat. Then I'll eat some snack at work because I'm hungry, and because I eat something that means I can eat everything. That leads to binging and purging when I get home. So that's been the pattern every night.

I also went a little bit crazy last week (don't know if I mentioned this) because I managed to lose my Up24 (the activity tracker). I had become a bit obsessive about it. It made me feel a little better about eating some calories. It also helped with this paranoia I've developed about calories in artificial sweeteners.. like if I have sweetener in my coffee on a day I'm not eating. I have to make up for the calories that may actually have (not getting into this in detail because I don't want to be triggering). That's the more rational fear. The less rational one is that Powerade Zero tastes like it has calories even though nothing about it would suggest that it does (or not the number it tastes like it has). I switched to taking potassium pills and drinking water because of this. So yes.. crazy. And I lost the tracker and therefore didn't know how much I was walking or what I was burning etc etc.. and I cannot find the damn thing. It has to be in my apartment. I wore it to bed and set it as an alarm to wake up. My best guess is that I took it off when I was trying to turn off the alarm.. and then who knows. According to the app, the last time it synced was at like 10am that morning which is when I finally woke up after oversleeping. It wouldn't sync after that, and the find it feature on the app claimed it was in a field down the street.

So I kept looking for it.. I checked under the bed mainly and around my very very messy room. No luck. Well, Saturday I was talking about this with a friend from AA, and she was suggesting that this was maybe what they talk about in AA as a "God thing." Basically meaning, maybe I was meant to lose it.. that maybe my higher power kept me from finding it because clearly I'm going a bit crazy, and she has a point about it. I agreed. I mentioned this to my sponsor later on the phone, and she said it was good that I could entertain that idea. We were discussing this after I spontaneously burst into tears after the meeting out of exhaustion because I haven't been going to bed until after 3am usually and have been sleeping through my alarm everyday and just not getting things accomplished. I ended up spending the day working on school stuff with her at her boyfriend's apartment and then watching a movie. I did get some stuff done, and she studied for school. It was a little awkward because her boyfriend (also goes to AA) has asked on many occasions how I'm doing, and I've said I'm ok.. and I get the feeling he knows I'm lying. 1. because he knows my friend and he is friends with my sponsor and 2. he's seen me crying between meetings.. and 3. apparently I've lost a noticeable amount of weight. Anyway, he asked once when he first got home, but I had just realized my phone had been on silent and I had missed several texts and a call from my sponsor, so I said I was ok and needed to go call her back. Later he drove me back to my car and he asked again, and I basically answered that I'm not ok and mainly that other people think I'm not.. and told him about the eating disorder. He gave me a lecture about how I need to eat if I'm going to exercise. Also talked about how his mom is a recovered bulimic, so he knows now. It seemed easier to just say it than to dodge the question especially since I am never sure what my friend tells him.. like I'm not sure what she told him about why I was at the apartment.

Well, that was Saturday. Then on Sunday I bought a new one. Actually, I bought a FitBit Charge this time, which was significantly more expensive. I got the Up used for $45ish on Amazon. The Fitbit was (with a warranty plan) $150, but it's the one I had actually wanted in the first place.. and it's the same brand and therefore same website/app as my scale. The Up24 is actually worth (new) $150, so my plan is to sell it if I find it and hopefully get back the 40 or so it cost me since it should still work fine.

So yes.. I bought this new one Sunday. I was in a meeting Monday sitting by that same friend and she reaches over and points at it and asks if that's the same one or a new one. I whisper (this is during the meeting) a new one. She asks how I got it, which seems like a pretty obvious question, and I say that I bought it. She looks frustrated and says she wants to shake me..

Since then I'm still not getting a lot of sleep. I'm not getting a lot done either. Tonight other than binging, I worked on cleaning.. my apartment is a horrible mess.. empty boxes and packages from food. There's still empty vodka bottles that never got thrown away. I just never had energy to deal with it. Well, I got some notice from my apartment complex that on Friday some inspector from the city is going to be around.. it doesn't really say why, but I think it would probably be bad for anyone to come into my apartment with it being like this. So I've cleaned up a lot of trash.

I need to be grading papers.. and I'm distracted sitting here because I really just want to eat something, but I have this feeling that if I do I'm going to end up suicidal. I've already been cutting again the past few days and the other thoughts are there. I feel like right now food would be bad. I really should just go to bed and deal with school stuff in the morning. It's already past 2am. I think I am just going to get up and try again in the morning.

**TW** Stupid f***ing comments about my weight loss

So it's 2am, but I don't feel much like sleeping.. I may delete parts of this later, but I need to vent.

So the background to this you mostly know.. except I tend to gloss over a lot of the weight loss stuff. Mainly because it makes me uncomfortable and I don't want it to be triggering.. but it's kinda the topic of this.

Well, lately I have been getting more and more comments on it. This has included both good and bad. I have gotten the compliments and the questions about how I did it. I have also gotten a few friends expressing concern. That seems a bit weird to me since I still am at least 20 pounds overweight. But I guess I am not an objective judge of this... so I thought I'd actually finally post some pictures. My profile pictures is me anyway, so it's not like someone couldn't find me.

 This is from May 2014.. so we'll consider this the start, but really my weight has gone up and down for years since the bulimia started in 2007 and I lost 100lb that year.. and gained it all back eventually. I had eating issues before that though.

This is in February about 40-50 pounds lost

This was a little over a week ago and a little less than 2 months after the photo above it. Down another 20 pounds


Most of the other comments are from people at AA since that is most of my social interaction. I tried
to get it to stop by mentioning in a meeting that I was coping by not eating. That did not work. A woman came up after the meeting and started complimenting me an asking how much I lost.

Then this past Saturday... I went to get my 90 day chip, which was a big deal. It's my term to introduce myself and get my chip, and I can't remember at exactly what point she did this (still have short term memory issues) but in front of everyone a woman comments how quitting drinking helped me lose a bunch of weight. She does this in the middle of the meeting and in the middle of me getting the chip. I was so embarrassed I almost left, but 2 other people I care about were getting chips. She also came up after the meeting and was talking to me about it. I was upset because she was there in the meeting when I mentioned not eating. I was upset because she took the focus and put it on my appearance and my weight. I was also a bit upset because that is NOT how I lost the weight.. it took a lot of unhealthy work.

Anyway, I decided that night I was going to stop going to meetings at that group. I wasn't going back. I finally talked to my sponsor today. She decided I should tell everyone I have an eating disorder. I should make it the topic of a meeting.. well I guess the topic she suggests is whatever tradition states "AA has no opinion on outside issues".. and the eating disorder would be an outside issue. She later sent me a text basically telling me to tell people not to comment on my weight because I have an eating disorder. However, I don't want to. People in AA gossip. People ask dumb questions about eating disorders. I'm paranoid people will want to watch me or feed me. I am not done losing weight. I am willing to say directly that I am uncomfortable with comments about my weight, but I don't think I should have to say I have an eating disorder. I think that it will spread to other people than those I actually tell, and I am not ok with that.

So I get to tell my sponsor that tomorrow or sometime this week.. I am just generally struggling. I will write about that another time. Now I feel like sleeping.

New technology and stupid choices

So since I got the 2nd job and stopped drinking, I have not been so desperate for money, and I have made a few unnecessary purchases. Several were rather eating disorder motivated. This post is kinda related to that.. because really it's amazing how some new toys can affect my behavior.

This was the first one. Prior to purchasing this, I owned 2 scales. One was very cheap and crappy. The other was this smaller one meant to be travel sized. I like that because both scales are in my kitchen which has limited space. They're there because my bathroom is even smaller. Anyway, I did a bunch of research because I wanted a scale that had memory or could (preferably) sync with my phone/computer because I still have terrible short term memory, and I never remembered to track my weight.. so I'd never remember what it had been a few days before. This was frustrating as hell. So I kept looking at them and debating what I would spend. Then I found this one used on ebay. It's normally a $130 scale that I got for $50 because the body fat function doesn't work right.. and I don't really care. I mostly care that it works on wi-fi.

Anyway

Obviously not me on the scale.. and now I might have to check that it didn't upload that weight.. It's supposed to recognize different users. Maybe she has her own now. Anyway, before I didn't keep track everyday.. I kinda randomly remembered to log my weight, but I was still weighing myself at least twice a day. Now at least it's only once a day because I think any more than that would mess up the tracking, but I have a record of it. That's probably bad. Like I know I've lost 4 pounds since Monday.

Well, the scale is a FitBit Aria, so I downloaded the app that goes with it even though I use another app for tracking weight normally, and discovered it can track exercise like walking/jogging. This is when I decided I should start going jogging. It can use the gps on my phone, or I could by a fitbit (this will come up in a second).. so I started going for walks/jogs.. mainly walking because I'm out of shape and using the app to track it.. then I switched to RunKeeper app because it syncs better with another app I use (one that also syncs with my scale).. isn't technology fun? The one advantage to this is that any of them that use the GPS know where I am in case anything happens, so it is safer..

Well, I started looking into buying a Fitbit activity tracker (if you haven't looked at them, think fancy pedometer) but they're freaking expensive even used.. like unless I wanted one that was already broken (they apparently break easily) it would be at least $80.. and really the app on my phone could do the same things. I finally gave in and bought a Jawbone UP 24 because a used one is only $40. I just got it yesterday.

This is where the poor choices start.. well no they had already started. This is where they got worse. I haven't eaten since Sunday, so today is day 4 with nothing but water, powerade zero, and gum. I still went jogging Monday. Yesterday, since this thing was charging I stayed in and used the exercise bike. Today was the first day wearing it. I tried taking the stairs at school to add extra steps toward my goal, and only made it one flight before feeling out of breath. After work, I decided I should go walking because I was still about 1,000 steps short of the 7,000 I set as the daily goal.. so I change and go. I start to take a route I've done before. Then I decide to turn a different way.. of course I'm not using either of the GPS tracking apps. I haven't eaten in 4 days, and I'm now going a way I've never been. I think that if I turn a different way down this sidewalk, when I reach the end there will be a street sign and I can decide then if I should keep going or go back the other way. There's no street sign telling me what the street is. I am admittedly about 80% sure I know which street it is (I'm less than a mile from my apartment but not anywhere I've ever actually been), so I keep going assuming that i should just turn right. I kept walking and did find a street sign that said what road I was on.

I was right.. I did know where I was, but that was probably not a smart decision. I mean really I shouldn't have been out walking alone after 10pm when I hadn't eaten.. I shouldn't have gone a different way. I should have pulled up a map or just turned around and gone home the same way I came. It was stupid.

So yeah.. lots of stupid choices lately. My depression has been pretty bad. I've been going to AA everyday this week mainly to be around people.. yesterday was rough. I have been getting compliments on the weight loss a lot, but after the meeting my grand-sponsor stopped me and commented on how much I lost and said "Have you given up eating entirely?" she started telling me how I should eat carrots and apples.. and I said pretty much and just started crying. I was just so tired. She started telling me all the progress I've made since she's known me and how much I hated myself when I came there and how she never tried to hug me because she knew I didn't want it.. and all of this stuff. She finally stopped and then I saw my sponsor and started crying all over again. I ended up hanging out there until I had to go to work.. my sponsor tried offering me crackers, and I could tell she looked hurt when I didn't take one. I feel terrible doing that, but I really didn't want to eat it and definitely not there in front of the other people who were around.
Sunday before I stopped eating, I had started having suicidal thoughts. I did tell my sponsor that on Monday.. that's actually why I first went to a meeting Monday. They've come and gone since then. I feel like they're better when I don't eat, but then I realize that can't go on forever.. I have to eat soon.