eating disorders

It's late. I should be asleep. I've been trying to stick to a schedule, I can see how much better life is in general when I simply ensure that I get 7-8 hours of sleep consistently. But I slept in today, and I could fall asleep but I don't want to.

I haven't written in a long time. I keep telling myself I need to do it more. It feels therapeutic - I guess this was one of my first coping mechanisms. I don't understand why writing a private journal doesn't give me the same feeling as writing a blog - addressing faceless, nameless strangers - but it isn't as satisfying or cathartic, somehow.

A lot is going on in my life.

I'm back home in AZ. My ex, N, wants absolutely nothing to do with me, and somehow that hurts more than I thought possible. The loss of our love. The loss of her friendship. The massive awkward of being in a very very tiny queer kink poly community and feeling like if I go to an event where she is, it's just going to be overwhelming.

I'm in a relationship, with J, the woman in Memphis. Very specifically an undefined relationship, although for convenience I sometimes say that we're dating, or she occasionally makes jokes that refer to us as girlfriends. She's a play partner. I don't actually know if she's a friend, but she's definitely a confidante. Does that make her a friend? If I trust her with secrets that no one else knows, because she asks questions no one else asks? I wrote about not holding walls well with her, or holding them selectively. I'm afraid that I'm still doing that. I worry that this will hurt her, when this ends, and that that will hurt me. Pushing it off, a worry for future me.

I'm starting intensive outpatient therapy this week. For "adults with eating disorders." I'm grateful that I won't be around a bunch of teenagers, but I'm trying to figure out what it's going to be like to be in a room, eating a meal, with people who might have very different struggles than I do.

Doing my 2 hour intake appointment was terrifying. But it was also a relief, in some ways. Out of habit I still lied on occasion, but I tried very hard not to, and most things were true and close to accurate. There were times when I couldn't quite believe the words coming out of my mouth - I sounded unhinged even to myself. My interviewing therapist was amazing and did a wonderful job of staying neutral and supportive and reassuring. It felt overwhelming to verbalize the extent of the problem - to hear my obvious attempts at control that still failed. It felt good to finally share this part of myself, to let someone see the piece of me that disgusts me the most and to have her react in a way that was reaching out and offering help. Not horrified, or guilty, or disgusted, or ignoring. Acknowledging that this is a problem, but not in a way that made me feel like it's insurmountable. Stating that she was proud of me for being there, in a way that felt genuine instead of patronizing.

I need to take lessons on patient interviews from this lady.

So that was yesterday. Today I got a call back to work out a payment plan (holycrapIcanonlyhopethishelpsbecauseit'ssoexpensive) and to tell me my group schedule. In theory it's an 8 week program. I'm going to be gone so often that if I did all of the sessions it would be a 13 week program for me, we'll see how that works out.

Either way, I'm telling myself that it's time.

I've told myself I can control it.

That works, until it doesn't (often the same day).

I've told myself that it's only temporary, until I lose the weight I want to lose.

That works, until binge/purging becomes the way I deal with food every single day to stay "on track".

I've told myself that this time, after (vomiting trace amounts of blood, getting symptoms of a sinus infection, vomiting in public restrooms/a bag in my car/in friend's houses/in the kitchen sink, having heart palpitations, feeling constantly nauseated, almost getting caught, reading about what I'm doing to my body in my textbooks, having to role-play a conversation with a bulimic patient) that it's over, I'm done, I'll never do it again. Even writing and reading that list I'm kind of horrified. I was horrified in those moments, swearing that this was the last time.

But it never was.

The last time I vomited was 3 days ago. I pulled over on the highway exit ramp, behind a semi truck, after binging on snack foods. I almost got the straw I was using stuck inside my mouth twice, which made me suddenly wonder if this was how I was going to die - chocking on a straw in my car in the hot New Mexico sun with a bag full of vomit in front of me. My mother would be appalled. I was appalled.

Instead of going home when I got to town, I went to my parent's house as I stuffed myself full of everything I could eat so that I could purge again without worrying about my roommates being home. Afterwards I found myself still eating everything I could get my hands on, but when I tried to purge again hardly anything came up - my gag reflex was exhausted. I freaked J out because she thought I should be home by then - when I didn't call as promised she panicked. I'd forgotten that I'd promised to call, because I was so single-minded in my focus.

The last two days I've actually been eating fairly well, possibly a little less than necessary, although I'm being quite sedentary. It's still regimented and limited, and something I count up multiple times during the day to ensure that I haven't gone over my calorie goals. Part of me suddenly starts to think "hey, maybe I've got this. I don't need their program, their embarrasing meals, I can do this on my own."

I know that's a lie. There's always a next time waiting, even if it's tomorrow, or in a week, or in 6 months, or in a year. If I don't want there to be a next time, I need help. My way hasn't been working very well so far, and I'm well acquainted with the definition of insanity.

prozac

It never fails to intrigue a detached intellectual part of my mind when I notice that I'm holding conflicting feelings. I know everyone has these moments, there's nothing unique about them, I seem to recall that there's even a word for it. But it's still just...interesting.

Right now I'm feeling numb. Tired. Proud. Scared. Like I've failed. Embarrassed. Or maybe ashamed? Validated. Resigned.

When I was a kid I was depressed. I didn't have the word for it, but I was hopeless, suicidal. I made a tiny suicide attempt, such a little whiff of a gesture that I immediately knew it was halfhearted at best. I didn't believe I was actually in any danger of dying, and I was too scared to die to try again. And slowly things got better for a while. Until they weren't. But this time instead of reading morose books about kids with terminal diagnoses and longing to be diagnosed with leukemia as an excuse to go out nobly, this time I was scared. My suicidal thoughts felt like urges, like compulsions that jumped into my brain without my permission.

In hindsight I feel like such a stereotype - a cutter, bulimic, trying to deal with coming out to myself. I kind of brush it off now, but it was still pain, still so real for me in that moment. So I had a friend who forced me to tell a teacher, who forced me to tell my parents, who forced me to tell my pediatrician who wanted nothing to do with it and left as quickly as possible with a referral for a psychologist and psychiatrist.

And thus I landed my 16 year old self in therapy. And pretty quickly I stopped cutting for the most part, and came out to an adult for the first time, and then she tried to limit the damage when I came out to my parents. After a little bit we turned to medications as a possibility and I started on Prozac, America's favorite pill.

I took it for 4 years. It wasn't bad - I didn't want to die any more, and I learned some coping skills, and met other gay people, and found things I wanted to live for. Life became more hopeful. Eventually one of the times when I forgot to take it for a week, I had a death in the family. And I got the news and I cried. Cried. For the first time in 4 years. And then I realized that normally the bad feelings would return when I forgot my pills, but this time they weren't. So I didn't start again. And that was 7 years ago. I still get kind of happy when I cry because it feels so good to be able to feel that hurt, and inversely that joyful.

But since I started school and started having relationship troubles I've been struggling. Increasingly anxious. Nervous. Hesitant. Pulling away from things I used to like because I was afraid it would upset N. Internal pressure to do well at school. And then after our breakup it didn't resolve like I thought it would. Increasingly cut off from communication and from the potential for a good resolution or continued relationship with mutual friends. Anxious about going back to Tucson, to the point of worrying so much I couldn't concentrate in exams or when I'm trying to study. And the past month or two. I'm doing things that should make me happy, that used to make me happy - hanging out with friends, playing in the scene, having sex. But there's a curtain - it's happy, it's lovely, sometimes it's even fun, but it's muted.

It's like when you've gone on a roller coaster and it's amazing - full of adrenaline and excitement! You can't wait to go again! So next year you go back to the amusement park. You wait in the long long line and watch the ride, and you can feel that excitement building, can feel the tension as the cars edge up to the top of the first big drop, imagine the way your stomach hits your throat as you float in mid-air at the top of the loop. And then it's your turn! You get on the ride, you can't wait!

But then you get to the top of the drop, and you go down. And suddenly it's nothing like you remembered. Now you're nauseous at every drop. Going around a sharp turn makes your knees bang on the side of the car. The loop just makes you dizzy. You get to the end and you think "Yes, I made it! But why do I feel like I'm faking the excitement? It was exciting, right? I guess that weightless part was kinda cool. Do I really want to do it again? I mean, I remember it being really awesome, maybe next time will be better?"

That's how my life feels right now. I'm so tired of faking the happy again. I didn't call it depression until my therapist used the word yesterday. I'm still not sure about it. It feels so hard to use that label because to me that word means high school, means being scared that one day I'm going to cut too deep, almost-but-not-quite on accident.

Having a diagnosis feels validating. Being prescribed a medication is like a proof. Look at me! Look at my hurt - I'm so hurt that I need chemicals to alter my brain chemistry to help me! This isn't just your run of the mill Ivy League anxiety here, this is the big time, other people believe I need help.

Intellectually I'm proud of myself for finally asking for help. For telling my therapist about my bulimia and binging instead of the vaguely worded insinuations to my friends about "eating issues". For using all the tools at my disposal, including getting on medications sooner than later. For wanting to change, even if it's out of fear that I'm going to erode or rupture my esophagus.

But I also feel like such a failure. How can I be back on this medication again? The same fucking one? What if it doesn't help? What if it makes me foggy or even more numb? Why am I not strong enough at 27 to be able to deal with this in a different way than my 16 year old self needed? What happened to all those coping skills? Aren't I just blowing this out of proportion? I'm just being melodramatic - it's not bad all the time, I have moments of happiness and hope, it'll be fine. I'm fine.

Tomorrow I start taking Prozac again. Another pill to swallow, one day at a time.

play partners?

I just had a lovely evening with friends, two friends.

I notice that I use that word a lot. "Lovely." What does it even mean to me anymore? Generic goodness? I can't think of a better word to say but the overall sentiment is positive, if not exactly worthy of a better descriptor?

But really, when I stop to think about it, it was fun. More than lovely?

I think I feel connected to people, feel their approval and support, through being sexually desired. This is, pretty clearly, not the best thing. I know this logically. And yet.

I have these two friends. I met them in the kink scene. I liked getting to know them because they play together, go on dates, have sex, function socially as a couple. But she's married, to someone else, who also has a similar arrangement with another woman. And yet this all works well for them. They navigate disagreements about what is and isn't ok. And that fascinated me (still does), especially when I was struggling so much in my own relationship with just such things.

For a while when she was interested in me I was flattered but not interested in that way beyond friendship and maybe as a rope partner. It bugged me that her boyfriend was doing the suggesting, the negotiating, instead of her. I used my girlfriend as an excuse - sorry, I can't, my GF isn't down with me playing with other people like that. Sometimes there were things I wanted to do and felt that I couldn't, which sucked, and it still felt like they were testing those limits which made me nervous.

Then we broke up. And there was still the testing of those limits, but I dodged and sidestepped and generally managed to stay where I wanted things to be. And I got involved with my school fwb, which has been less than a stress-free ride. And I got involved with J from Memphis - both as a play partner and as a sexually intimate partner. As time goes on and I see more and more that I've ended up in a place I don't want to be, I become more and more stressed about it. The setting in of expectations, responsibilities. The ability to hurt someone. The ability to be hurt, or rather the emotional walling off that I do to avoid that, which hurts in itself. This armor is so. so. so. heavy.

But there's always the lure of that initial contact. When everything is new and shiny and exciting! When you're just feeling out someone's interests, what gets them going, what makes them make the happy noises and faces. It's a drug, it makes the sad and the stress and the anxiety stop, for just a moment. Self-medicating through dopamine and adrenaline.

We had a lovely evening. There was kissing and hair pulling, scratching, some biting, finger sucking. All things I enjoy, and things I enjoyed with them. But I can't feel them the way I remember feeling them. The hair pulling actually let me out of my own head for a minute, asking him to be tender after would have made me cry if I'd let myself shed more than a tear. I want so badly to be vulnerable. To open up. But I can't, not with these people. I opened up inappropriately with J, told her about emotional things that really aren't her business, things that force a false sense of intimacy in a way that I'm not willing to truly give. If I'm going to have walls they need to be solid, not a two way mirror - it's unfair to put out my emotional pain but then refuse to let her share hers back, so now she holds both of them.

And it's unfair of me to ask for intimacy from these two with the clear understanding that I think they want more than I really want to give.

I'm thinking more and more that I need to abstain from sex for a while. And flirting. And eroticism. I'm going to miss it, I already do. But I need to learn how to have platonic friends. Friends I can be playful with in a way that isn't contingent on feeling sexual approval. I don't know if I even remember what that feels like.

And what do I do about J? Why does this feel like letting her down, hurting her deeply, making her feel somehow unworthy? How do I convey that this is my emotional state, not a reflection on her? Every little thing I say or do makes her cry, and I still need to preserve my self-image as a good person.

unfriended

once upon a time i went through a break up. it sucked, quite a lot, as break ups often do. as time goes on i expected that it would kind of get better, that the rough edges would smooth just a little. that maybe we could hope to some day be friends again. but as time goes on i find that i've been cut out and erased from more and more of her life. blocked on fetlife. then photos of us together deleted from her facebook profile. then unfriended on facebook. then untagged in any photos of us together. how has it been 3 months and yet the distancing is getting worse, just as i'm getting closer and closer to moving back? if my anxiety about this wasn't already sky high, this put it there. i just feel so hurt - why was this necessary? how did i possibly inspire this much hatred?

a fwb is going though a breakup and it hits too close to home

The landscape of a breakup

Looks a lot like grief. Mourning.

It is. It’s a loss, an absence. A crater where there once was a blooming fucking tree.

And you still love the other person. And maybe they still love you too. At any rate, most of them are decent sorts, they don’t want to see you hurting. It kills them to see that devastation in your eyes, in your heart, in every exhausted line of your body as you struggle to get through the day while wrapping your mind around the end of everything.

You’re losing a vision. The future you built in your head. The house and the career and the 2.5 children born with a midwife at home in your bathtub. The trips to share the places where you grew up, the experiences that made you who you are. You want to share everything with them, want them to see every nook and cranny of your soul.

You tell yourself that even some conflict is good. That it’s really not that big of an issue, that it just shows that you both have good communication that you’re able and willing to find a middle ground. You’ve both been here before (we’ve all been here before). Those fundamental conflicts. Identities. Absolute needs, or must have’s, or absolutely not’s. In that first flush of love, that beautiful endorphin waterfall, suddenly those are things that you can see another point of view.

Maybe I could have children if I were going to raise them with her. Maybe it’s ok that you’re telling me you’re interested in an open relationship, we’ll just take it one step at a time. Maybe my life will settle down and I’ll travel less once I finish school, or get a better job, and we can finally live together and move forward.

At some point you don’t realize that your happiness is slipping away. You cling to each other in the storm, washing up exhausted on desolate shores, telling each other that it’s just stress, the job, the housing market, the internship. Soon it will be over. We’re here for each other. I just need to focus on getting through this thing, he understands. She has her own battles to focus on right now, but we’re there for each other. We love each other.

Someone reaches a breaking point. As much as the relationship hurts her, she doesn’t want to hurt you. He justifies the break up by pointing out how unfair it is to both of you. The damage you’re both suffering. As much as he needs to get out, he needs you to agree. Her self-image can’t take being the bad guy.

And you are devastated. You feared it was coming, you knew it was bad, but how was it this bad? When did you stop seeing the reality that you were living in? But you know that she’s right. And you even have a tiny sense of relief in the sea of hurt. The struggle is over. You don’t have to pretend that things are ok anymore. You can focus on finding a new partner, one who doesn’t think farts are valid joke material, or one who is doesn’t loath the scary movies you adore. Every partner you’ve had has been better than the last – why should this time be any different? You are a brave independent modern feminist woman – you don’t need a partner to find happiness and fulfillment! Set forth on your brave new adventure to conquer the breakup emotions!

But. Trickles of doubt creep in. Fear, of change, of the unknown. How will you live without this person who is full of so many incredible qualities that surely cannot possibly coexist in another human being? How is it possible for your heart to be ripped out of your chest and inverted onto the table as you struggle to comprehend the meaning of that loss? You will never travel with him to see the places that you both dreamed of going. You will not debate cloth vs disposable diapers. You will never wake up to her smile, or fall asleep in her arms. The pain is overwhelming, a fire that is destroying every fiber of your being.

Anything to make the pain stop. Anything.

Compromise. Grasping. Gasping. There’s more to be done. We didn’t try hard enough. Now we’ve both seen how terrible it is to not be together. Now we’re both motivated to make it work. If we just had better communication. If I could just see her point of view. If we wait to make a final decision until I move out, or you move in, or the campaign season is over, or we live in the same city. We could start again, start slowly, get to know each other again. Rebuild the future we envisioned, brick by brick.

Things will be better, this time.

the stories that we tell ourselves

My therapist kept telling me that today. Asking, really.

“Is that the story that you’re telling yourself?”

I suspect she might not know how accusatory that sounds to a native English speaker, but her question is valid. Is that what actually happened? How do I know? Or is that just the way my brain has processed a stimulus, the narrative that falls in line with my expectations and background and patterns? What does it show about my thinking patterns? My beliefs?

I’m looking through my FL photos. The oldest ones, with Natalie in them. She was still awkwardlaughter. Now she’s someone else, territory. Still lowercase. Still butch. Still 34. But instead of the smiling face I love, she’s a rainbow paisley pattern. It’s very pretty. It’s not what I would have expected from her.

(I just realized that I probably wouldn’t have even looked for a new profile of hers if she hadn’t deleted the old one. Funny? I’m blocked from seeing this one, I’m guessing it’ll be that way for a while, but I can’t stop visiting it now that I know it’s there. It aches.)

Maybe that’s going to be my story. The unexpected.

“The thing you love most about a person is going to be the thing that drives you crazy.”

That’s what my cousin told me, when she married her husband. She loved his “robot brain,” his predictability. Boring. Stable. Safe. And it drove her crazy to think of the wild crazy days of her youth, the spontaneity and excitement. But she knew that what she ultimately needed was someone like him, that even if his clockwork routines drove her nuts, they also kept her sane.

At first I was grateful that Natalie was constantly a surprise to me. That she didn’t always react the way I thought she would. What better way to beat that relationship boredom, than to have a partner who is constantly surprising you with new depths to be explored? And explore we did!

We leaped into kink. Rather, she started slowly exploring while I was road tripping. She had some emotional setbacks, things that affected her much deeper than I expected, than I think I realized. Things that, sadly, aren’t all that shocking to me. Offensive, yes. But not enough to put me off a location, just the person. Perpetuating the cycle, as it were.

I’m grateful that she taught me to open my eyes wider and to raise my voice higher when those things happen.

But back to kink. I arrived back in town and was ready to dive into the deep end. She…wasn’t. That was ok, because everything was new to both of us, it felt ok to just stick together and move at that pace.

Until it felt a little stifling. Until she surprised me by saying no. Not directly, but with her discomfort, with the new rules that we put in place after things I thought would be ok turned out to be unexpectedly not ok.

That photo where she’s tying me and we’re both smiling too hard. She was about to leave to take a phone call, I untied myself and tied the next pattern myself. My very first self-tie. She was a little grumpy the next day because I wanted to be tied in an arm binder by one of the presenters and I didn’t understand why she was so unhappy about the idea.

The next wave of photos – self ties. Born out of inspiration by RING, and frustration at my lack of play partner. At first I was hesitant to post the photos. Worried about objectification. Concerned that she might be jealous of the comments they could garner. But she liked them. Encouraged me wholeheartedly. Unexpected, but not unwelcome!

Slowly I realized that she seemed to hope the self-tying (and the minor flurry of internet notoriety) would be enough. That I would stop asking to play with others, and wait until we could be together again. At that point, this wasn’t too much of a surprise I guess, but still a disappointment. Another rust point in our structure. Feeling untrusted and boxed in, hampered, frustrated.

The smurf-arm photo. 5 months ago was the last time we actually played and had fun while we did it. 4 months ago was the last time we had sex, and tried halfheartedly to play. No photos from that one, although there were a good number from that trip of us smiling together. Trying so hard, wanting it to work.

The most recent photos. Back to playing with M for the first time in months. Still some things to iron out there, but I suspect we’ll find a place that’s only slightly strained, where we can both enjoy rope and try to not force the other person into a box they don’t want to be in. I look happy in them, giggling, blissful. It was a fun night, the kind of experience I’m comfortable with right now.

That was when I found out Natalie had taken down her profile, when I put up those photos. Before the shock of how terrible this break up has been, that also would have been unexpected, but now fits in to the story that I’m telling myself.  

How will I re-write this story over the next month? The next year? When I move back to Arizona? Will I ever get to hear her story? 

Do I want to?

denial and dates

I went to Arizona to break up with my girlfriend. I mean, I told myself that I was open to reconciliation but the reality is that it was a very small possibility in my mind.

We talked. There was hope, if not for continuation at least for a good ending. Laughter. Tears. I abandoned my plan to just state facts and stay strong and consistent. I admitted fear, confusion, uncertainty in this decision. She seemed to understand, spoke truths but relatively kindly.

We talked some more. Cuddled. Cried. Accusations. Hurt, so much hurt. Anger. Anger? Self-valuation and worth is one thing, but does it have to come with feeling victimized? Perhaps. Carelessness, on my part, unwillingness to do things I could have. "You always have people who want to bring you things, it's true." Leaving with hurt, tears, so much pain.

An unexpected invitation to talk again the next night. Hesitation - seems like a poor choice after the night before? Hope still springing eternal - maybe we can make it different, have that good ending, as amiable as possible, like adults. But quickly it repeats, accusations, hurt. Accepting blame, accepting anger, trying to show the pain so that she believes me when I say that this is genuinely hard for me too. Why do I not love her as much as she loves me? Not love her in the same way, show it in the ways she needs me to show it to feel secure?

Silence. Haphazardly wrapping pain in a thick blanket, in plastic and duct tape. A bubble, sitting on it in denial, floating. Distraction techniques perfected when dealing with depression - focus on the positive in the moment to deflect the negative. Denial was blanketing the bubble so thickly that even when asked directly by friends and family I was intellectual, logical, unhurt. Able to be happy with loved ones, mostly even able to feel their love, their compassion. A good ending to a disastrous week, the loss of love, clinging to the shreds of silver linings wherever I could find them.

I went on a date, my last night in town. Kind of on two, really. A sweet conversation and goodbye kiss with a friend who has been a flirtation and make-out partner on and off for a year. Then an evening adventure with an acquaintance/flirtation, wine on a mountain side overlooking the city while the moon rises and the wind encourages cuddling close together. She used to intimidate me with her queer coolness to the point that I could hardly talk to her, now I know she's even more self-conscious than I am and had been too nervous to ask me to play at the last party we both attended. We chased ducks in a park, and I listened to her sing in the car and sitting under a canopy of little christmas lights in her back yard. We danced around it for a long time, but she pulled me in for a kiss goodnight and I actually felt a tingle of lust dancing in my body as I deepened the kiss and we both kept coming back for more, welcoming me back to my sexuality that had been so shut off by being shot down over and over in times of relationship strife. She said goodnight and I left with a grin. I've had her songs stuck in my head ever since.

I feel weird going from ending a 2 year relationship that has changed my life, to kissing a woman who wants things I know to be incompatible with being in a partnership or any kind of relationship. A guilt of betrayal, and a guilt of not stopping things from escalating with someone who thinks kissing is a fairly intimate activity not to be done with just anyone. Safety in knowing we will likely never live in the same place, but awkwardness in avoiding what could be plainly spoken and cause a proportionate amount of hurt rather than waiting for it to cause more. Clearly this is a personality trait I need to iron out.