Trying to recover some semblance of normal function after being in the grip of massive anxiety all day. I had been pressured into making plans to hang out with the coworker guy, and due to my inability to do anything at all today I flaked without any explanation. I'm trying to come up with a suitable lie to explain my absence, probably something about having a migraine (I do get them so this is a viable excuse that doesn't involve me talking about my mental health issues).

I looked at thinspo on tumblr and tried to focus on being happy about having bought smaller jeans last week because all the ones I owned were too big. Its helping a little. They make my legs look thinner. I haven't weighed myself or recorded my calories lately, it gives me an easy out when I see my therapist and she asks about restriction or the scale. I can do it all in my head at this point anyway, although the lack of accurate weight checking every morning is difficult.

Stay strong xo

Figured out how much you have to push to get the medication to feel like its not doing a damn thing. Its not as much of a buffer as I'd hoped. For about a week now I've been unable to sleep or get out of bed, constantly binging, and having rough mood swings. Today I bumped up my dose since technically I am at the low end right now, and the notes my psych gave me said I was allowed to up it at my discretion until I hit a certain threshold.

My biggest stressor has stopped being money/bills (I'm back on partial unemployment for the moment), and instead I'm now completely upset about unwanted crushes. I have massive trust issues and a history of abuse. If I can ever manage to have a successful relationship it will be a fucking miracle. The coworker I mentioned a couple entries ago is now showing definite signs of being smitten with me and while he's a cool friend, a friend is all he is to me. I wish I was able to just lay things like that out in conversation, but I'm awkward as fuck and a stupid part of me likes the attention.

Sometimes I think about how much simpler my life was when I was a bloated whale and everyone left me alone.

My stupid traitorous stomach

So I'm a terrible liar in therapy and when pushed admitted I was back to restricting. Then my stomach just started being noisy as if admitting verbally was not enough. Fuck.

I guess I'm visibly getting thinner although I personally can't see it at all. My friend asked me today if I had lost weight, he said I'm smaller. Then he started fishing. He asked me if I'm doing coke or pills to kill my appetite. I wanted to say oh honey, if it was only that simple. Because that would mean at some point I could decide it was enough and stop.

This morning I weighed 158. I'm almost 50 down from my highest weight, and just another 45 until I hit my goal. Its crazy when I frame out those kind of numbers in my head. Its rather a shame that this is the only thing I excell at, I can't even imagine what I could accomplish if I could put this much focus into my art.

I'm hoping that if I finally get this out I can go to sleep instead of silently agonizing over it all night.

I feel like my bare minimum standards for dating should consist of more than
a) is mostly nice to me and
b) doesn't seem to want to beat the shit out of me.

My ideals of course include things about looks and shared interests and the possibilities of a future together. What happens in reality though is that I'm so starved for kindness and affection that showing a little bit of interest in my life and maybe some gentle hugs or other innocuous touches will make me throw everything out the window if I'm wanted. Now I'm sure there's plenty of genuinely sweet guys out there, but I have had some shit luck with the ones who like to take advantage of the fucked up boys like me.

So when I feel like a coworker is probably showing a special interest in me and yeah ok he's not at all my type, I'll sit around all evening after work and think about how yeah I guess if he keeps being nice to me I could let him fuck me if he wants. Not because I really want to, but because its better than being alone.

excuse me while I throw out all of my skinny jeans

Clearing out my email inbox lead me to a horrifying thing I had forgotten about: pics of me from a vacation I took with my best friend last year. There were a couple of full body candids she'd snapped of me while I was getting ready in the hotel one morning. I just, I don't even know, but I look like even more of a huge fucking cow than I ever seemed to in the mirror. I'm so grateful that she never uses her facebook for posting photos because I don't want these to be all over the internet. When I came home from that trip, everyone started asking me about my weight loss. If I was looking like that and people were saying I was thin, just how bad did I look in the months prior?

Scale said 158.6 this morning. I wonder if I can make my next goal weight before the week is up. It's probably too much to hope for.

160.9

I finally faced the scale this morning. And instead of the 5+ pounds I'd expected to have gained, I'm only one up from where I was 2 months ago when all my difficulties began. Holy shit. I am ridiculously happy despite the fact that this number is still high compared to where I want to be.

I feel like the meds are really kicking in now, restricting has become effortless again. The only major side effect I've noticed is that I'm having crazy vivid dreams at night. But I'm not feeling ragey or super depressed at work anymore, and that's such a huge difference. I will take all the weird, fucked up dreams in the world to not feel like I want to commit bodily injury on people or eat everything in sight.

Now I just need to find a way to phrase my success to my doctors and therapist so they'll allow me to continue taking it and not switch me to something else that will make me gain weight again.

For whatever reason, mobile Blogger isn't working on my phone. I can still post entries and approve comments but I can't go on the site and reply to things or look at everyone else's posts when I'm out and about. I hope they fix this soon.

My clothes are fitting better again, the binging seems to have calmed down for the moment. I think the medication is finally kicking in. I also haven't been so ragey lately. I'm really pleased with this. I might even be able to weigh myself before the weekend is over and see how much damage I did in the last month.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, ladies and gents. Stay safe. Xoxo

I'm almost a week into the medication and so far I'm not really noticing any changes. Although in the mornings when my alarm goes off I actually seem to be able to wake up and get up, rather than my usual feeling that I have become permanently attached to the mattress. But I am unsure at this point if this is due to meds or because I'm trying to have a regular-ish bedtime routine.

This morning I had my first therapy appointment since the holiday break. Mostly I just went on about my problems at work and with my family and avoided the subject of eating for the entire hour. I don't want to talk with her about it right now. Or ever. But I can't exactly just up and quit going right now because of all this other shit I've got going on that I can't handle. I need help, but I need it on my own terms or I'll end up quitting my entire treatment program without warning like I did two years ago. It didn't help that time, and in fact I think that's part of why I'm such an absolute wreck right now.

Also today I did the very adult thing of signing up for a service that helps track spending and budget your money. So as I had figured, most of my money goes to rent and then another large chunk goes to medical bills, then it trickles down to other bills from there. The only bit of money that regularly gets to be for me is for cigarettes, and I've even had to cut down significantly on that one remaining pleasure. At my current rate I can never afford to retire, so it looks like having a reduced lifespan will actually be a benefit for once. It's been a very cynical sort of day today.

A couple of links

I emailed these to myself and then forgot and let them rot in my inbox for a while. Basically it's two opposing viewpoints on nutrition, calorie counting and weight loss. Personally I hope the professor with the Twinkies has it right.

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts.

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.

His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most -- not the nutritional value of the food.

Why Calorie Counts Are Wrong: Cooked Food Provides a Lot More Energy

Whether we are talking about plants or meat, eating cooked food provides more calories than eating the same food raw. And that means that the calorie counts we’ve grown so used to consulting are routinely wrong.

I'm so tired and frustrated. My rent was due yesterday and I don't have the money. I haven't even been spending the money on frivolous things, it's all gone to medical bills and public transportation. At least food is not an issue (har har) since I was approved for food stamps last year.

Met with the psychiatrist yesterday. I've been so completely depressed and anxiety ridden lately that I didn't even fight against the idea of long term meds this time. I just told her I wouldn't take anything that was going to make me fat. Supposedly this one won't make me gain a lot because if it does I will stop and tell her we have to try something else. My googling on the subject gives conflicted results in the studies where they've used it on persons with EDs, it seems some of the patients lost more weight during treatment. I would guess that when the depression lifted the binging was easier to control. I hope I am one of those people.

I went to a Target pharmacy to fill my new prescription since $4 generics are the only thing remotely in my budget. But after all the stress of the morning, I spent my time waiting for them to fill the prescription by picking out binge foods in the grocery department. A can of frosting and 2 large bags of chips were involved. I woke up this morning feeling so gross.

I hope you all are having better luck than I am. xoxo

I got my latest review at work. I was told I have a negative attitude. Yeah, no shit. Hate the job, work with idiots, bitchy customers, constantly being triggered by the smell of food. Its a wonder I haven't punched someone yet.

I'm thinking about trying out the master cleanse thing next week. I don't think I can possibly get any grouchier, so its the perfect time to do a serious fast. And also they've expanded the yoga classes offered through my work's fitness club so I'm gonna try working that into my schedule as well. They weighed me at the doctor's office last week and accounting for shoes and clothes, its not as bad as I'd thought. I'm still too nervous to get on my own scale for a real result, I know already I will end up crying about it.

Thank god the holidays are over, maybe now I can get back to doing what I'm good at.

Don't let the motherfuckers get you down. Xoxo