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.

Seriously WTF? AA bitches and boundaries...

Still been crazy, and avoiding this place. Sorry I didn't respond to comments. I meant to. It isn't that I'm not writing and not getting things out. I'm sharing things in a less healthy place than this where I worry less about what I say.

Anyway.. so I went to AA today. The women's meeting Saturdays is one of the only ones I go to these days. The topic was a reading from a daily reflections book. It was about control and holding onto things. There was part that basically said that by holding onto fears and resentments we are not able to accept help being offered. By not being open we cannot accept what God can give us.. or worded differently.

And I'm sitting there thinking about the eating disorder, and the fact that I've been holding onto it and onto the fear of telling people and a lot of other fears. And by doing this I can't accept any sort of help or support because nobody even knows what is going on or how bad it is. I still wasn't sure if it was ok to talk about because it's not alcohol related, but I really have gotten sick of people complimenting me on the weight loss. This is in part because I have trouble responding. A guy at school said "You look like you've lost a lot of weight" and I said Yeah.. and I realized after that I'm supposed to thank him.. but I didn't think about it at the time because I know I'm sick. I texted my friend sitting next to me and asked if I could share this, and she said it was fine.

I basically said that I tried to control my fears by drinking even though that made no sense and it didn't work. When I stopped drinking, the fears were still there, and I tried to stop them. I said I tried to stop them by not eating for days at a time.. I was not going to mention the bulimia, and probably won't because people ask questions about that one. Afterwards, I started crying. My sponsor patted me on the back and told me to breathe.

Well, after the meeting a woman comes up to me and asks how much weight I've lost. I tell her around 50 pounds. She says I look really good. After a little bit, I tell my sponsor, and I tell her that after what I shared it is not fucking ok to ask that and compliment me on that. So my sponsor makes me tell the woman that.. and the woman apologizes. And she still says a bunch of insensitive shit about how she's trying to lose weigh and she used amphetamines and the past and that helped and how she hasn't been able to get below 200lbs now and can't eat all these different foods, and it was ridiculous. She said she cares and I should lose it in a healthy way, and I just nodded a lot until she stopped talking.

She also asked how she could compliment me without saying things about my weight. I told her not to. I just don't like it because I'm sick and I'm tired. So yeah.. it's just not ok. The rest of the day was ok-ish. Went shopping. Awkwardly sat and watched my friends eat because I decided not to eat today. Went to a second meeting. Went for a walk/jog. Now I'm off to bed.

An explanation of my absence

I was going to write tonight.. but I really should go to bed. I am going to give a brief explanation of why I'm avoiding writing instead.. there's a couple reasons.
1. I'm fucking exhausted. I'm still working evenings, so I'm not getting home until after 9 pm. I'm not going to bed until after 1am usually.. and at least some of that time has been doing schoolwork and necessary things. Reason 2 will address the rest

2. I'm fucking insane.. well that may be exaggerating? I don't know. We'll go with the eating disorder is bad, and I've been determined to not let this blog become as eating disordered as some I've had in the past.. meaning when I decide to post about therapy or recovery or anything like that I may post it here. When I am indulging the insanity, I am spending my time elsewhere. Lately, the eating disorder is tending to get more worse than better. I am not planning on abandoning the blog, but I just haven't had much to write. If you comment, I will try to answer.

I am still alive though and relatively well. Still going to AA. Spent the last couple evenings at my sponsor's house. Still taking my meds. Seeing my therapist Thursday unfortunately.. haven't made the effort to find someone else yet. Work is going well. I'm improving. School is.. school.

Try a positive post?

Had this random thought that I would try to post some positive things.. you will inevitably hear the bad at some point, but it hasn't changed much.
I think I last posted Thursday.. and Friday I managed to accomplish some things. I saw my doctor, and I actually did not lie when she asked about the eating disorder. I didn't give a lot of detail, but I admitted to the behaviors just not the frequency. I also mentioned being dizzy sometimes. At the end of the appointment one of the papers I got was like my vitals over time.. so like blood pressure over last several appointments and also a graph of my weight. I give her credit. She did ask if I wanted it, and I said it didn't matter since I had a scale at home anyway.

I went to school after to talk to Dr H (my advisor). I had to sit around for a few hours for her to actually be free because she is never free when she says she will be. She had finally read the last 8 pages I gave her, and had some edits.. it wasn't too bad. A lot was stuff I had planned to expand on or have expanded on since. I brought up the issue of my committee form that I needed to be signed and had been avoiding dealing with. The issue was who I was asking.. mainly because I asked the people 3 years ago and hadn't talked about it with them since, so this seemed odd. Also, since then I changed from doing research to doing the paper, and I didn't know if that mattered. Well, I found out prior to talking to Dr H that one of the people who I was possibly going to talk to is going to be out of town for this week and next, so I kinda had to deal with it.
So I did.. I had to hang around another hour.. spent alternating sitting at a computer upstairs and wandering the building because his office light was on but he wasn't there. Finally he got back from lunch, and I talked to him and he signed the form. As did the 3rd person. I didn't expect her to be a problem. Dr B the one going out of town.. is interesting. He's been very nice to me, but has also said some very not nice things to me trying to be helpful. Like telling me I could have done better in a class if I tried harder (which mainly wasn't true) or while I was drinking that the only way I would have a family is that if I got pregnant by some guy in a pub (yes he said it that way). He also told me that at least I wasn't anorexic at one point.. so yeah. But I had mostly never explained why I switched from doing a thesis, and he is friends with Dr H and I would have to come up with an explanation that does not involve my anger over shit with the lab. But he mainly asked about who I was working with and said it was fine and signed it, so all is well.

Also, work is going well. The trainees currently have to send our cases to the toxicologist to review before the reports get sent to the doctors. We get feedback from the toxicologist.. well we are currently splitting our reports between him and 2 others, but his opinion is the one I value because he kinda makes the policies. Anyway of the 20 or so I sent him yesterday he only sent me one correction. Of the first 10 I sent today he sent none. One of the other people is an absolute bitch, but she put great job on my cases from yesterday.. and one of her comments was on something that the toxicologist had told us was ok (and that's the issue with splitting the cases). I'm feeling better because there was a day where I got like 8-9 corrections out of 20-30 cases. Obviously improving, which is good especially since the rules keep changing.

So that's the good. There is bad. And at some point I will get to that, but there is other stuff I really need to be doing rather than writing this..

Hello again

I wanted to update since I know my last posts have been rather bleak.. I have good and bad. That seems to sum up everything lately. As always I supposed there's a trigger warning with this.

So the good first. I am taking my medication again. I didn't really tell my psychiatrist I stopped.. I didn't see a point since he'd probably just say to start. Honestly, I feel like he doesn't listen a lot of the time, so I tend to only tell him things when I feel he needs to do something. But he ordered the new prescriptions, and I picked them up.
Work.. is going ok. I am talking some with my coworkers. We're all in school, so we all bitch about school. It means I'm not as terribly isolated as expected. Also, we did finally write a schedule of sorts.. so I have written down what times I go in and have written down that I unofficially leave at 9pm even though I am welcome to stay later if I want.
I am still sober.. and with the bad weather I did make some meetings last weekend. My sponsor was telling me last Saturday how her boyfriend is working during the week so I am welcome to come over after work and hang out or spend the night. I told her I wasn't sure.. it's a mix of reasons. Mainly I've been exhausted.

Then there's the bad.

One is school. I'm still not getting shit done. I'm tired, and my brain isn't working. I'm trying. I even wanted to go see my professor last week, but the weather was bad and school closed Friday. This week I don't know where she is because I emailed her Tuesday and she never replied.
The other one is food.. still. I saw my therapist last Thursday and she asked how my eating was, and I said not good. She said she could tell. I hate things like that. I don't know what that means. Does she means I've lost weight? Well.. yes. Does she mean I look sick? Because I swear my mom was looking at me weird too. I don't know. She said something about how we need to figure out why I don't want to do something I need to do to stay alive. I said I don't know.. and I wasn't lying for once. I don't. A lot of times I'm not hungry. Sometimes I am but don't want to eat. Sometimes admittedly all I want is to eat but I won't. But we came up with no practical plan or solution or anything, and I don't see her again until the 19th.
I told my sponsor I am thinking of finding a new therapist because what's the point of that? That isn't helping, and it's wasting a lot of my time.
So admittedly the other reason I haven't been going to my sponsor's house (and even before she offered, why I haven't wanted to ask) is that she always wants to feed me if I haven't eaten. It's a problem with being around my other friend from AA too. We went to Walmart Saturday and she wanted food from McDonalds and asked if I'd eat some.. I gave in and said I would eat a couple chicken nuggets. She then even said I should have some sauce, and when I said I didn't want some, said it wouldn't be that bad for me and started reading the ingredients. I mean I hadn't eaten all day and had been feeling dizzy, but still.
So I don't know. I'm still alternating days of not eating and days of binging and purging. It's exhausting.