I have subscribed to Dr. Andrew Weil’s free mailing list for a while now. Of course, I subscribe to so many mailing lists its hard to keep track of them all. They annoy the heck out of me, as there seem to be far too many these days. I’ve changed the way my e-mail is done so the “mailing lists” show up sorted in a folder-type thingies and my “personal mail,” that is, from actual people, shows up in front. I LOVE that feature. Dr. Weil’s e-mails, I admit, sometimes get read, but often don’t. Do I want to read something about “age spots” when I don’t give a hoot? Who cares if I have spots?
So here’s what showed up today:
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/TIP05128/Eating-When-Anxious.html
Bravo, Dr. Weil! This is the first time I’ve seen something that seemed eating disorders related that was first of all written by Dr. Weil himself, not Psychology Today, and secondly he didn’t recommend a shrink! Thank you! I know Dr. Weil has been around a while (that’s a compliment, coming from me) and seems to be an all-round doc, that is, not a specialist in any particular field, though he does tend to cater to older folks. You can pretty much trust Dr. Weil’s advice, I’ve noticed. If he says, for instance, that a certain way to do something isn’t safe, by all means, it isn’t. When it comes to eating, I’d say we all eat in some fashion, so an all-round doc should know a few things about eating. It’s sad that so many docs don’t. Or they claim it’s a shrink issue, when it isn’t. Eating is common, it’s basic, it should be table talk. Pass me a plate, please! All welcome at this table and asking for more is welcome, too. Then again, those of us who have been around a bit would know.
I guess I feel like not giving this one a proper title maybe because I don’t feel like it will be worth having it Google searched. Maybe what I say won’t be organized enough. Maybe I’ll “go on and on” or maybe you won’t understand what I am saying. But I’m gonna give it my best shot, okay? This will be done in verse, today, kiddies.
For today….
This applies if you are a woman and if you are a man it doesn’t and I apologize right here right now.
Usually, stuff I write about ED applies to both men and women, and I do say so.
But today, I am going to speak frankly to just women.
Women and girls.
And I want you to listen up.
When I was young, I was told by my mom, maybe at 16, and I’ve stated this in my blog before
That I was too big up top, and that this was not right.
At 17 my mom presented me the option of breast reduction surgery.
No, she didn’t upfront offer to pay, this I had no clue about. I didn’t ask for money andI was at the point of wishing very badly that I was financially independent,
But had no clue how to reach this stage.
There was no way I was going to ask my mom anything about doing this surgery or her participation.
Actually, me and my mom were rarely speaking.
However, the implication was that this surgery would stop the men,
I repeat, men, from doing this thing: they were driving past me
As they had done since, say, I was 14 years old,
Driving past me and rudely letting out a loud, screaming
Whistle.
Today, I hear this whistle still.
You grudge that I, today, as blogger, “go on and on”
About the Housing Authority maintenance guy
Who won’t stop his incessant unnecessary whistlingUntil 4:30 sharp when the Housing Authority all goes home each weekday.
Okay, so I formally apologize.
So the implication was that my getting this surgery will stop the whistling.
Now do you hear me? A surgery to silence it.
Now am I alone in this?
Many women were getting the surgery for this very reason: to stop discrimination based on SHAPE.
What the fuck? What kind of society do we live in?
Why don’t we just leave people alone?
Yes, I have large breasts. I wish I didn’t feel like I have to diet myself to death (actually, this saves money)
Lemme tell ya, it’s cheaper than the surgery.
I mean, yeah, you can die in the process, but never mind that
It’s not like I had to cut into them.
They don’t hurt.
There’s no silicone.
Let me tell the women and girls out there one thing.
I thought for a long time that there was a connection.
Even with being raped.
For a long time, I thought if I did the skinny thing.
Over the years, I saw a pattern….
There being perhaps an advantage to having kept my scale over the many decades…
But me, I am so short, five foot one, that I don’t really need a fucking scale to tell me how much
My body weighs.
Well, when I am skinny I know I feel better.
I can see my food in my stomach.
I see it after I eat it.
I see it pass down into the lower part of my abdomen, and pass through my colon.
I wish for it to pass quickly.
And perhaps we all do the same.
Perhaps this fascination is universal, this watching of the lumps.
Sometimes, I touch them.
I touch veins with wonderment.
I poke each one, then let the blood flow again.
This is kind of sickly fascination you do only alone, maybe in the bathroom,
When no one else is looking.
No, ladies, it’s a myth that getting skinny stops rape.
It doesn’t stop the bosses from doing it.
Having this disease won’t get you that promotion.
Even though your boss said he’d give it to you if you fucked him.
In fact, you probably won’t be able to work if you have this disease.You’ll be too hungry to concentrate.
So tell the boss to fuck off. Just quit, and keep on eating.
Being the way I am, and saying what I am saying is not going to change asshole men.
There will always be assholes out there.
And they will be assholes to anyone at any size or shape.
They will be assholes to little kids, boys too. Let’s face it.
They will just keep on whistling.
That’s why women opt for the surgery, I suppose.
They just say, fuck it, the world’s not going to change.
It’s not like the assholes are going to stop discriminating against me when I go to job interviews.
Looking at my breasts instead of asking whether I can type.
What do you think they do on match dot com? Where do their eyes go?
Why do those men insist on a photo? Assholes.
Yes, I will tell you right here right now.
I was told by a guy, “I will not have sex with a fat woman. It’s a turn-off. I will not lie in bed with her.”
Okay, marry the guy, and live in mortal fear of food. I can see it now.
Or, I guess, if you slip up, he would pay to have it cut off now and then, right?
Don’t fall for the myths.
Don’t marry an asshole. Divorce him if you can.
Oh, live on, world. I will laugh at you very hard today.
Okay, I admit it….
I hid my scale today. In a drawer. Not that I haven’t hidden it before, in various places, but today it’s in a drawer covered by a towel in such a manner so that if you open the drawer you have no clue the scale’s in there. I didn’t want anyone peeking under my dresser and seeing the scale sitting under there and thinking, “Oh, Julie must weigh herself all the time if she’s got that scale under there like that,” so I picked the darned thing up today and stashed it. It’ll sit in the drawer until I feel okay about taking it out, like, you know, safe and okay and right and all’s clear now.
So I had a bottle of Pedialyte, which I think is how you spell it anyway, and this is stuff you drink that has electrolytes in it. Now I was scared that someone would see this bottle and say, “Oh, she must be drinking that because she has an eating disorder,” so, I got my Exacto knife, and realized that I’ve had this knife since I was…23 years old…and you know something? I bought this knife…guess why? For “cutting.” Oh, how ironic. I have used that darned knife for years not for that purpose at all, but to open packages and for the purpose that Exacto knives are supposed to be used for. See, I am not cut out to be a “cutter.” It’s not in my blood. I never got off on it, I don’t know why I did it for a couple of months or so, it never made me high or anything or gave me a rush like those myths say it does. Not that I remember, nor was I doing it for “attention.” Anyway, I’ve used that Exacto knife to open most packages that I’ve received over about 30 years or so, and have changed the blade maybe once or twice…rarely, cuz it’s not like you need the sharpest, most cunning blade, right?
So like I was saying, I got out my Exacto knife and cut off the Pedialyte label. Why? Cuz I was ashamed that some random person would walk in here, not that anyone ever walks in here, but if anyone ever walked in here and if anyone ever opened my fridge (I suppose they will the day I die, won’t they?) they will say, “Oh, she has an eating disorder and that’s why she has the Pedialyte,” so I cut the label off the Pedialyte so no one would know. Now, it’s a plain bottle filled with water cuz the Pedialyte is long gone. I don’t want anyone knowing. But I get scared. Night comes. Sometimes, in the night, I get those cramps in my feet and my legs and everywhere I try to bend and kick Puzzle out of bed and stamp out my legs and I scream in pain and I want the drink real fast.
Not that I want anyone to know this, so these labels are hidden. All kinds of things get hidden.
But I’ll bet you do this, too, don’t you? Aren’t you ashamed? Don’t you hide things, too? Shove stuff in closets and drawers and in the bottom of the trash barrel so no one will see? I think everyone does.
Love, Julie
Well, yes, it’s true….I’ve got a darn cute dog. We were out today and she got an awful lot of cuteness compliments. I told folks she always wins those types of contests. Just joking around. Saying that I was older than her, you know, she being only six-and-a-half, you can kinda tell that maybe I am a little older than that.
Someone said, “You are only as old as you feel.”
Well, tell that to the insurance companies. Tell that to the drug makers. Tell that to Dr. P.
So I walked into my appointment today pretty much knowing what I was gonna hear. That she is leaving her practice at the big hospital where she works.
So instead of going in there wicked early today, I sat outside the big place and enjoyed the outdoors, me and Puzzle, just hangin’ for a bit. Yep, that’s about when Puzzle got the compliments. I’m telling you, she was obsessed about this piece of gum on the ground that someone had spat out, just staring at the darned thing for quite a while. I know she was thinking about nabbing it. Dogs love gross stuff.
I do recall that was a topic earlier, at a church get-together. Someone said her dog had rolled in poop and then she had hosed her dog down. I believe that started off our conversation. Now, how weird is that? The conversation went on to the topic of me, myself, eventually, that is, Julie, and I guess the folks who were there were drinking tea and telling me I am depressed and isolated and never leave the house and stuff like that. We have an agreement that we don’t talk about what’s talked about outside of there, but I think the rolling in poop thing is rather universal and…screamingly funny…which is why I think nobody minds me sharing it right now. And the me part is me, so I can tell you. And you know already about me hanging around here and not going out, if you’ve been reading this blog for a bit.
So I guess I cried my eyes out. Which may or may not have been a good thing. You guys know I think crying is pretty much okay and right and healthy and if you start to cry, you sure got the right to do it and it ain’t against any law. That’s the cool thing about crying. It doesn’t hurt anyone to do it, and you can cry pretty much anywhere. You can cry on a bus, and no one will notice cuz they are busy with their cell phones and ipods. You can cry yourself to sleep, and the next morning, you might not remember except there will be little goo spots on your pillowcase, and then you’ll tell yourself, “Oh, gee, yeah, some asshole was mean to me yesterday,” or whatever the reason was that you were crying about. Or you will get to your desk and see the damn credit card bill you were crying about and start crying all over again realizing you still have to pay some of it. Or you might wake up in the middle of the night and feel your dog on top of you and realize, “Gee, what a miracle, I am alive and breathing,” which was pretty much what I said to myself in the middle of the night last night for whatever reason.
Which I did not tell Dr. P. No, I hardly told her anything, because I got a damn lecture when I finally reached her office. I suppose I never know exactly what to expect from these appointments. And as I write this right now, I realize she’s gonna come to this site and read these words, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. So I’d better be screamingly funny and make it all worth her while. Yes, Dr. P spoke about me and my writing stuff online.
Oh, Dr. P, I have never called you anything else. Cuz I know I’d get in trouble if I called you Dr. Poop if that in fact was your real name, but it isn’t.
Dr. P, don’t you realize the hospital is lying to you, covering its ass about the abuse in 2011? If they in fact had been limiting me to four glasses of water a day due to “dangerously low sodium, due to polydipsia….” which is what you said today….No, this does not add up. Do you want to know why?
Dr. P, you said you had put me on “suicide watch,” while I was on a medical floor. Okay, that in the first place was not right, but I am not going to argue that right now. So I was being watched 24/7, followed constantly, right? I was too weak to walk on my own, and I never went to a canteen, so I was brought everything I drank by the nursing staff. If I recall correctly, I inspected everything they brought me. I made sure everything they brought was calorie-free, so every can of diet ginger ale had to be unopened. I insisted on this, and if the can was opened already by the nurse, I would not drink it for fear that the nurse had snuck in some sugar or something with calories to fatten me up while I was not looking. Anyone with a severe eating disorder might have this fear. I also insisted that the vegetables not have butter on them, but the butter be on the side. Again, folks with eating disorders are like this. You folks with eating disorders know this deal well.
So everything I ate and drank was controlled by the nursing staff, Dr. P. How could polydipsia occur? If I were drinking too much, they would just have decided to stop bringing stuff, or just said, “Julie, you can’t have any more.” I remember I came in severely dehydrated and they were very happy that I was finally drinking things. Upon my arrival, I was immediately given two bags of fluids, rapidly, in the ER. And if this were true, why was I not told this once? I was not once told in the psych unit that my sodium was “dangerously low” and I was instead many times told “four eight-ounce bottles of water is protocol for eating disorders patients on this unit” and given no medical reason for this “protocol.” Once, I was told it was to “prevent edema,” and once, I was told it had something to do with “refeeding syndrome” and I was repeatedly told that this was some kind of torture that I had to endure or like some kind of religious discipline, not drinking water the way I had taught myself at home to stay away from food.
Well, fuck you, all you doctors. All of you. Sometime around when I was 27, a doctor named Charles Capers (probably dead, so it doesn’t matter now about fucking liability) never checked my lithium level, and was practicing without a license anyway (no, I had no clue, nor did my parents, who were paying him a fortune probably because he refused to do his fucking insurance paperwork because he couldn’t…with no license, right?) so my kidneys got kinda messed up. Now, back then, folks, lotsa patients ended up with wrecked up kidneys, cuz a lot of doctors were not particularly careful with lithium. So lots of us ended up with lithium-induced nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. That’s what I have. It means not too much except your kidneys don’t work right anymore. Permanently. And folks like us have to drink a lot of water to make up for it. Do you hear me loud and clear? Our kidneys spit out too much water. That’s why I am thirsty a lot more than most people. The thirst I feel is natural and right and it’s my own body telling me the right thing to do and I’ve done it all my life. I’ve never particularly thought about it until your fucking hospital decided to torture me by limiting me to four tiny bottles a day. And yeah, if I’d stayed and not left AMA, I would have shriveled up like…remember that orange in that show…when they were all arguing…Gilligan’s Island? When they were arguing about vitamin C and who was going to have that last orange? Who was the most important and deserving of that one vital orange, the one that contained Vitamin C, and while they were all sitting there arguing over the fucking orange, it shriveled up into nothing? Yes, Dr. P. Julie Greene right there on that fucking psych unit holding her pencil, writing about everything that was happening around her, making sure everything that happened to her got recorded, because she felt for some reason the world should know, would have shriveled up just like that orange.
So who is most important, most deserving of that vital last bit of life? If you could change one thing in your life, make one thing different, what would it be? If you could change the world, what would you change?
Imagine: world peace. If you could only say the words, WORLD PEACE, and this would make this thing, world peace, happen, imagine this.
Now imagine, if you could make yourself happy by saying, “I am happy.” Imagine that for a moment.
Imagine nobody ever having to live on fucking 844 dollars a month. Imagine that. Imagine never being told this is what you “deserve.” Imagine saying, “There is no bullying in the world.” And presto. Bullying no longer exists. Anywhere.
Wow, I am saying that what you say is powerful, ladies. Personal is political.
So Puzzle and I came home. On the bus ride, I made a few phone calls. Told my minister I was looking forward to doing a bunch of writing. Told him at least I have a lot to write about.
And folks, I have been denied care by the big hospital because I of liability. No, not because of any medical reason, but because I will not shut my trap. And I do not intend to. Yes, I’ve been denied care because of my words. Right here.
Never, ever shut up.
I will not back down.
And I don’t want you to, either.
Goodnight.
So my card is canceled out. I’m pretty sure how it got stolen. Great town this is. Oh, Watertown Strong, they say. Bank of America is investigating. Someone ordered a hefty bunch of concert tickets and charged them to my credit card a few days ago. I hope they enjoyed the concert. And I hope these folks enjoy their time behind bars.
I have a strange feeling some very fishy things are going on right down the street from here.
Last night I got into this horrible argument with my brother Ned. And then I did this profoundly liberating thing that has jump-started me like you would not believe: I cut him out of my life.
Now I didn’t expect that I’d do that. No way. I didn’t have it planned out that way. I didn’t do it in a fit of anger or anything like that. It was the logical thing to do, that’s all, following this horrible argument.
It was a matter of a click of the mouse, you see. I have Google Voice, so it was easy. Or not so easy due to a glitch in GV. But I went over to the forums figured out how to get it done. Now, when Ned calls, he is automatically sent to voicemail. No, not spammed, just sent to voicemail.
I suppose if he keeps calling and continues to get voicemail, he’ll conclude that I’m hospitalized. I guess at that point I’ll e-mail him and tell him I’m not. And a few other things.
I am tired of being told I am not real writer because I do not submit my writings to The New Yorker. I am tired of being told I am wrong no matter what I say. I am tired of being told that no matter what I do, it’s not good enough. He’s an asshole. I’m glad I’m not his kid and I’m glad I’m not his student and I’m glad I’m not his wife and I’m glad I’m not his friend.
I liked it that he called now and then. That was nice of him. But only to put me down again and again. He never once read This Hunger Is Secret. He only looked at the cover and commented on it. He never bought a copy or the e-book or paperback and when he came here and looked at a copy of the paperback he did not open it and read anything inside. Isn’t that weird? Like he only cared about the cosmetics of the book. Then he shoved it back at me, uninterested.
Well, asshole, you are out of my life.
I didn’t feel really terrific until this morning. I woke up and then suddenly it felt like my body was breathing a gigantic sigh of relief. Like suddenly, there was this letting go, a release of something that had been pent-up. It felt incredible.
(As we speak, there is huge shouting and arguing in my hallway. Typical day here.)
I have not binged since Saturday. I don’t know why or how I have managed to stop but I am grateful for it. Well, I do have ideas. There are things I have done. I will talk about some of the things in another entry. But one of the things is letting him go.
Getting rid of people, activities, and substances that are no good for you is essential.
I started writing a blog entry about this but I had a huge technical problem in my apartment and got interrupted with my entry, lost track of what I was saying, and so I aborted the entry. What happened was that my toilet got a leak in the back of it and I had to call the maintenance guy over here. My bathroom floor is all soggy.
What I was saying was this:
If a person, activity, or substance causes you to binge, cut it out of your life if possible.
I don’t really have an overeating problem. I go on full binges. There is a marked difference, and I have a hard time relating to people who overeat and do not have a binge eating problem.
Do you want to know what this means? Binge eating, for me, is not anything like casual eating or “nibbling.” It is never done with a partner (I saw a You-Tube where someone who was bulimic talked about binge eating with a friend). Sometimes, depending on how soft or crunchy the food is, I shove it into me and and barely chew it. Huge chunks get swallowed whole. It’s extremely disgusting. I’ve seen my own dog do this.
Anyway, I have not done any of that since Saturday. I am grateful. Today I feel wicked decent.
Guess what? I am even wearing jeans, not those pajama bottoms I wore for days on end. It’s a good thing I didn’t feel too self-conscious about my weight and dared to have that maintenance guy in here, because if the toilet had leaked last week, I would have been scared to have anyone in here. The tank was leaking, not the toilet bowl itself, so no, not that gross, but the floor would have been like a wicked bad swamp.
My cell phone broke Monday night, my good one, but it’s one I was using less often than the free “Welfare” one. I decided that compared to all the other shit in my life, it’s not that big a deal. The warranty expired ages ago. It’s not one of those contract phones. I’m a cheap-o. I got another off of ebay for $30 last night. I did this fun Internet shopping to distract myself from my pissed-off thoughts about my brother.
It was a really healthy way to cope with the issue. Now I’m going to have a new phone. I mean, I could have thrown the broken phone across the room. That would have been just plain dumb, and would have accomplished nothing. Ripping up a phone book would have done nothing but make a mess and destroy a phone book, and holding onto a frozen orange would have done nothing but waste an orange and make my hands extremely uncomfortable, and oranges are expensive. I did some intelligent comparison shopping, read the reviews carefully, and made a decision.
Well, asshole, you are out of my life.
They just called, saying, “We recommend that you keep doing what you are doing in your local area….”
I said, “You realize I have no therapist here. I cannot find a therapist. My insurance does not cover nutrition counseling. I have no friends and my family has pretty much abandoned me.”
I should have added, “If I keep doing what I am doing here in the local area, it will kill me,” but I didn’t.
What I really wanted to say, but didn’t, was, “I’ll make sure you are sent an invitation to my funeral.”
What she said was, “We don’t really know what we can do for you.”
Well, fine. I ended the conversation rather quickly.
I don’t really want a hospital, anyway.
Here’s the dilemma. I don’t want to go to a weight-gaining factory like Walden Behavioral Care’s Alcott Unit. I was talking to someone about this today. Alcott’s interest is in stuffing the patients with anything they can, junk food snacks included, to fatten them up according to insurance companies’ demands. If patients aren’t gaining fast enough, never mind the reasons, they stick a tube in the patient. It’s all about numbers. That’s why, when the doctor comes to see you, they’ve looked at one thing in your chart: the weight that you were that morning, and nothing else, not your feelings, nothing. Because they have to answer to insurance. Do I want a hospital like this one? NO!
I was talking today with someone about hospitalization. She said just to keep me alive, because I am so suicidal. She meant in a psych unit. I told her the places around here are so bad that they will make me worse. They do not provide “treatment.” They only lock you up. The staff are bossy and uncaring and disrespectful. It is especially bad since I am on care/caid so I am treated like a “Welfare case,” looked down upon even though I have more college education than just about any of the staff (doctors included). So I said I would rather stay home and I am better off not being separated from Puzzle. That’s the bottom line.
Another bottom line is that one reason I feel suicidal, probably the main one, is that I have gained so much weight. Now if I can lose this weight, I won’t feel suicidal anymore. If I can stop binge eating, I will feel damned good.
It really sucks that a lot of times, I tell people stuff and they don’t take me seriously or they don’t believe me. Like when I told my shrink that I gained 28-1/2 pounds in four days. She shrugged it off. Well, the person I spoke with today (never mind who it was) said my shrink should have taken it seriously and should have believed me and ordered some medical tests at least. I also told my CBFS worker and she said it was not possible to gain this much weight, however, she knows nothing about eating disorders. I don’t know why they gave me this worker who does not know about ED. It’s hard talking to her. I felt like she thought I was exaggerating or lying. This pisses me off.
My legs are no longer blue and discolored from skin stretching, but I had to walk a bit today and it was uncomfortable for my feet, because they are like little balloons. Sometimes, my skin has a snapping feeling to it, and I know it is cracking due to extreme stretching from the weight gain.
Now do you believe me?
All I can think about is losing the weight I gained. It is on my mind constantly. If I can do this, I won’t kill myself, and I will feel so much better. I need to lose an awful lot of weight. These ED hospitals, if I go to them, they will make me stay at this weight. I consider right now that I am living in a nightmare because of the weight I gained.
I was so glad the weather was cool today. I had to be around people today and I mentioned that I was glad about the weather. They were so clueless. I was glad about this weather because then I could cover myself with my down coat and no one could see how fat I have become. It’s not the same coat that I wore last year. I hate that one so much, too many bad memories. It’s a different one.
The only pants I wear now are pajama bottoms. These are a plain brown pair I kinda stole from a hospital. They are long and very wide on me so they cover my very large ankles so you can’t see the severe edema. You can’t see that I have fat legs, and my coat covers most of my legs anyway. It is a down coat and even if the wind blows, you don’t see how fat my thighs are due to the thickness of the coat. My raincoat is good this way, too, because it does not show my fat thighs, but I wish it were not bright yellow, such a conspicuous obnoxious color.
I’m surprised I’m alive, actually. I find it all rather amusing.
They told me I should “seek treatment locally”….Well, there ain’t no treatment I can find here. They meant stabilization for depression, and they didn’t say, but for suicidality as well. She said to go to an ER, and I said no way was I going to an ER because they know nothing about ED’s at the ER’s here. I said I could not even find a therapist here on public insurance, but that I was going to have to wait until July. I did also say that Mass General has already refused to give me a therapist, flat out refused even though I practically begged them. So Dr. P is really going to have to pull some strings to get me one. I told the lady in Wisconsin that I am going to have to wait till July to get a therapist, if I get one at all, and that I know many other people with ED’s on public insurance that can’t find therapists here in the Medical Hub of the Universe.
I plan to go see my state representative or someone and talk to them about this. Something has to be done. Some magic or something. This is like a fucking sin. Our state rep has office hours, today, actually, and also next Monday, too. Maybe next Monday would be better. I swear I’m going to go and have something prepared and I’m going to speak up about the lack of care for people with ED, here in the Land of Plenty.
This is a fucking sin. If nothing else is, this is. And I don’t even believe in sin.
As you may recall, up to mid-April or so, I was doing extremely well. But you may be wondering what the heck happened. Or maybe you don’t even give a shit but I am going to tell you anyway.
I think to sum it up, there were external things that stressed me out to the extreme, and basically I snapped. By external, I mean these are not things that were happening to me mentally or physically, these were things that happened in my environment, my surroundings. Some I could take action on and some I could not. I don’t know if I should present these to you in order of appearance or as they occur to me. I guess the latter.
First of all, I was doing fantastic until the 13th. Now this was the night of the church talent show, a huge event at our church. I was a little scared at the time cuz some binge eating had returned, I think, perhaps a week previously. I think there was culprit food that I needed to eliminate from my diet that I was not aware of and I am now aware of this food and I do not eat it. The binge eating was only occasional and I was not overly concerned because I figured I would figure out what the culprit food was sooner or later. So the night of the 13th, the night of the talent show, I was all prepared with my reading, and going off to church in a very good space. I had not gained any weight from the binge eating because it was only occasional. I figured the binge eating would go away as soon as I figured things out.
The talent show went well, except Puzzle’s manners were really, really bad. There is another service dog that comes to church, and every time that this service dog is there, Puzzle cannot contain herself, and she makes little yipping sounds. It’s annoying to everyone. Not that I blame them. I can’t get her to shut up no matter what I do. If the other dog is not there, Puzzle sleeps through the whole service. I do agree the the little yipping sounds are totally inappropriate. But no matter what I do, I can’t get her to stop. In other places, like restaurants, I have never had a problem with her yipping or making noise of any kind. It’s only at church and it’s only when this other dog is there. I wish I knew when this lady was going to not show up, and show up when she is not showing up. But more on this in a minute.
So I pulled off my little reading brilliantly. It was a comedy act and it went off great. I got a million laughs and I felt good about it. It wasn’t just silly stuff, it had deeper meaning as well. You know, I’m proud to be a writer. One line I said was, “See you in church tomorrow.” However, I have not shown up for church since. I will tell you why.
I was walking out, just about to leave with Puzzle. Now there’s this lady there that I have promised myself a million zillion times I will never speak to. She is or was my friend but I cannot speak to her because she is demeaning and insulting to me, she puts me down every chance she gets. She thinks she owns “recovery” just like folks in Alcoholics Anonymous think AA is the one and only way and no other ways are okay. Well, in a very insulting manner, she invited me to some “retreat,” saying it was a very hard program, and then she looked me up and down (seeing how skinny I was, of course) and said, “Well, you probably can’t handle it, it’s too hard for you,” and said, “It’s the place I found MY RECOVERY,” like hell, like she owns “recovery.” Then she said, “You have to eat there, you know, and you probably couldn’t handle that,” (again, drawing conclusions based on my weight). Actually. at the time, I was doing very well with food. I think it was she that could not handle this retreat and would find it too hard for her. Then she said, “I’ve found a therapist now and am doing therapy.” I told her I am happy to be therapist-free and found so many of them to be abusers. She said, “Well, the therapy was probably too hard for you to handle.” Meanwhile, sometime during this bullshit conversation, my minister walked by and I hope he heard some of these horrible insults.
Oh, such bullshit. Too hard to handle? The therapists I saw didn’t know anything about ED. The last one (right before the bogus one) kept repeating back to me everything I said to her and any reasonable conversation with her was like pulling teeth. I’d finally tell her something I thought was reasonably important, something I thought she should pay attention to, and guess what? She’d abruptly change the subject and talk about “goals,” or some bullshit like that. I’d leave and tell myself it was impossible to tell her anything relevant at all. I never told her anything about my ED, she pretty much didn’t care, and if I had, I’m sure she would have changed the subject or repeated back to me what I was saying, kinda like a robot or something. I’d leave and say to myself, “Wow, I’ve wasted an incredible amount of time and the commute home is a drag. I even hate the fucking waiting room here.” Where the hell was this lady trained? Too hard to handle? I do not like conversing with someone with poor conversation skills. To that extent, yeah, bad therapy is not easy to handle.
So after hearing all these horrible insults from this lady at church, meanwhile I’m just about to leave, I felt terrible, She had asked me to contact her about this so-called “retreat,” and no way do I want contact with this lady ever, ever again. In fact, I do not want to be in church if she is going to be there, and she shows up just about every time. I fear that she will approach me again. I have told my minister about her insults. At first, he didn’t react too much, and said that people are flawed and that I should try to let it go.
It has of course been over a month and I have not let it go. I will not go to church because she is there. I want to ask my minister if he happens to know if she has taken sick and is going to be out for an extended period, and then maybe I can show up and feel safe being there.
Now here’s another interesting part: She’s the owner of the other service dog. Interesting, eh?
So meanwhile, I have been told that Puzzle is no longer allowed in church. This is legal. Churches can say no to service animals. But they say okay to the bitch’s service animal and I happen to know they have said no to someone else’s service dog and she got pissed off, and rarely shows up at church anymore…I think she used to be active in the church and now she hardly ever shows up because her dog was denied and the bitch’s dog is allowed.
I told my minister that it’s all irrelevant. The bitch is at church (I don’t call her that in front of him) and theref9re, I will not show up. He thinks this is sad and that I should let it go and put it behind me.
Well, of course I should. But I can’t. My mind does not work that way.
I will tell you something about forgiveness. When I forgive, I don’t feel better. I feel worse. I feel like crap. When someone does something shitty to me and I “let it go,” I beat myself up for “letting it go” and wish I hadn’t. When I go up to someone to try to make amends, they act all asshole to me and make me feel like a piece of shit. They put me down and make me feel like a mental case and make it like it was all my fault to begin with, and tell me what an asshole I am. I go home and cry and wish I never made amends with this person. There are no hugs and the person often does not apologize. They say, “I’m sorry you feel bad,” which is obviously not an apology for their actions or taking any kind of responsibility for what they did, but just another put-down. I beat myself up for approaching this person and wish I never did it. I feel like I gave them permission to shit on me again, and often, they do, or they go shit on other people.
Summer services are coming up. I know the bitch does not tend to go to these summer services so maybe I will go to them. I will find out if she plans to go and if she isn’t, I might go. And I will bring Puzzle. Really, I don’t feel okay going without Puzzle.
And of course, I am not leaving the house and being seen in public, not even walking down the hall until I can lose the massive amount of weight I have gained, but I will get to that in a minute. I am in hiding until I can drop X pounds at least. Like I said, I’ll get to this.
So, those incredible number of rapid-fire insults on the night of the 13th of April that suddenly were hurled at me, this quite unexpectedly, this was an awful blow to me. It was so hurtful and unnecessary. I knew that this was a person I had promise myself I would NEVER ever speak to, because I know she is an insult expert, a very demeaning, controlling person. She loves to run other people’s lives if she gets the chance. I did tell my minister right after it happened. I went to bed and just didn’t get out. I don’t know what happened after that.
I guess my CBFS worker came the following Monday and concluded that I was doing great and didn’t need to see me anymore, that she was transferring me to a “case manager” who would see me or call me like once a month. This CBFS worker knows nothing about eating disorders, I just humor the girl, who is very nice but really the least they could have done was sent someone with some expertise. She even left about 25 minutes early, concluding that I was doing great and didn’t need her. She seemed very bored with me. I haven’t seen her since. I have been so sick. I have lied to her, put her off, told her I had appointments, and it’s kind of her fault cuz she said she’d call back and she just didn’t bother, like once she said she’d call back in 20 minutes and didn’t bother. I think like most of them, she doesn’t really give a shit about her job. No way do I want anyone to see me fat like this. Another time, the house was such a mess that I wanted no one in here, and I was too sick to clean up the mess. Today seems to be Monday, guess I need to decide what to do when she calls, cuz I know she’ll call. I’m too fat to be seen so I’ve gotta make up some excuse. Maybe when she comes, I can be wearing footie pajamas and say I’m sick or something. That’ll cover up how fat my legs are. These PJ’s are really loose and they cover up a fat stomach really well. That plus she won’t see how swollen my feet are. But then what? What will I tell her? Lie? I dunno. She knows zilch ab0ut ED, it’s like talking first grade to her. I can tell her the swelling in my face is an allergic reaction. I mean, it’s pointless to tell her anything cuz she won’t understand. Oh, and every time she comes, she wants to use my bathroom. It think that’s rude. So the toilet has to be clean. I mean spotless, no evidence of laxative abuse, if you get my drift. The Housing Authority has given me the grossest toilet seat imaginable but I put up with it and I don’t understand how anyone can stand using it.
So that was the 15th, the day of the Marathon, and meanwhile, that bombing occurred while my CBFS worker was here, and of course I found out, not via TV, cuz I don’t have one, but via the Internet. I eventually followed the thing and made sure a few folks were okay. Then the next day I went running at the gym and that felt really good. I ran 5k and I ran really well. Afterward, I wrote about it in here. But still, I felt shitty about the bitch that insulted me at church and I felt lousy that I could not go to church anymore.
I guess a couple of days later, I told myself, “Fuck it, I’m going to get down to 75 pounds. Screw the planet. I don’t care if I live or die. I’m going to go on a long fast and see what happens.” Well, this was Marathon week. It also didn’t help that my minister was on vacation and he’s pretty much the only person I ever talk to and ever listens to me and the only person who really cares about me in a meaningful way. He wasn’t even picking up his e-mail while he was on vacation, not that I blame him. I think he really needed the time off with his family. But anyway, I stopped eating or taking in any calories altogether for a bunch of days.
And along came the Marathon bomber, straight to Watertown, my town. It was 1am Thursday night and I had not eaten in god knows how long, but anyway, Puzzle let me know in the middle of the night that she was not too happy about something. I had no clue that there was gunfire outside, of course. Puzzle was crying like crazy and finally pooped on the floor. This is rather rare, so I knew she must be incredibly upset about something. I figured I’d give her a breather, take her outside, so I threw on some clothes and took her out. She was scared, darting this way and that, obviously not happy about something. It was not a “bathroom” or “tummy” issue for her, so I just took her in, which was what she really wanted, anyway. She continued to shake. I went back to sleep. In the morning I found out on the Internet that our gym was closed and wondered why, then found out all the rest, that we were in lockdown. It was day I don’t know what of my fast. I continued to not take in any nourishment and followed the news. At the end of the day, I had edema in my legs and realized I was going to have to end the fast or the edema would only get worse. Suddenly, lockdown ended and they said they had caught the bomber.
Stupid me, I had not eaten for days but I went out on a binge. Guess this was Friday night. It was a very small binge because my stomach could not hold much. Nonetheless, this is a dangerous thing to do, binge eat following a fast. You can get refeeding syndrome. I have told doctors the times that I have done this. But this time, it has happened to extreme and I fear that I am in medical danger. I feel that most doctors will just laugh at me, not believe me, not take me seriously, or tell me to try some “self control,” or whatever. I will explain further in a minute.
So that was Friday, then Saturday I probably fasted or whatever, telling myself what a shit I was, still not gaining any weight. My weight had been below 90 for quite some time and I was quite happy about this and satisfied with my weight, in fact for a long time I’d been maintaining around 90 and eating well, and it would go under and I was fine with that, too. If it went over I’d get upset.
So then our church had a service about the bombing etc and I was dying to go, but felt I couldn’t because of the bitch and because I couldn’t bring Puzzle. Actually (this is sad) I took Sunday church attendance off my calendar because of the bitch. If she is going to be there I will not be there.
Monday my CBFS worker came and AGAIN was rude enough to use my bathroom (yes, I make sure my toilet is spotless) and left very early, seeming bored with me. She knows nothing about ED and I just humor her and consider talking to her a waste of time.
The next big event, HUGE STRESS for me, was seeing my mom. No, not my choice. My brother pressured me into it and he brought her over to me. The woman is a loud rude bitch and I should not be seeing her. I have not seen her since the end of 2010 and have no intentions of seeing her again. I will not be pressured into this again. This was not healthy for me and did me no good. Did it help her? Did it make her happy? I don’t give a shit she is a hurtful, rude, insensitive bitch. And so loud the whole building could hear her and I hope they all had their hearing aids out. So that was the 24th.
It didn’t take long. People that are prone to binge eating react to huge amounts of stress. This is a biological reaction. It is not poor coping. It is a built-in biological reaction to people whose brains have been wired for binge eating due to severe malnutrition.
I saw a study done on rats. I have spoken of this study before in this blog. I did not provide the link to the You-Tube because it’s a very hard thing to watch the cruelty done to the rats, at least for me, turning these rats into binge eaters to me is like the worst thing you can do to anyone, making their lives living hell.
Anyway, this is what they did to stress out the rats: they gave them electroshock. I am not kidding you. Yeah, ECT. So the poor rats got very stressed out, and the binge eaters started to binge eat, I mean the rats they’d done very bad things to to make them into binge eaters actually ate inhuman (or should I say unrat-like) amounts 0f food.
F0lks, this was so unbearable to watch, but the scientist who was doing these cutting edge experiments just HAD to know why rats binged and thought it would give us a clue about people.
So there I was, stressed out unbelievably. I think I binged. Or maybe I didn’t, the night of the 24th. Then it was at 3:15am the 25th that a pizza arrived, delivered. I devoured it in a matter of minutes. I was a very large pizza. Then I guess I went to bed and two hours later I had no clue what had happened when I woke up. It took ages to remember. This, and all the blackout binge eating that followed, was the beginning of hell for me, and it has not stopped.
So I remained awake. It was Thursday. I am not proud of what I did next. I have not told you guys yet what I did, but I will tell you. I went to the food pantry and picked up every binge food imaginable, and some food for Puzzle. I felt horrible when I left, telling myself, “These nice ladies here don’t know it, but I am about to go home and devour all this food at once.” And I did. You guys who go to food pantries know what kind of stuff they have. Well, that’s what I ate. It took about ten hours, alternating binge eating and sleeping, to finish it all. Not that I brought home all that much. And no, I did not eat the roll of paper towels. That I left alone. It felt like an inhuman amount of food and I promised myself I would not go to the food pantry again. Yeah, like heck I’ll keep that promise.
So now I really felt like crap. The next day I was in a complete blackout. No memory of the day. Saturday I had to run an errand in Cambridge, that is, Central Square. It really sucked. I did the errand, then went to the Goodwill store. That much was good, I got some good dishes for cheap. I stopped at the coop. Fatal mistake. I bought some spices I really like and a very small amount of peanuts, and that’s it, but it felt like the peanuts sort of set me off. Next thing you knew, I was at Walgreen’s. I bought a hot pot. I have a gift card there and the gift card covered the hot pot. I was happy about this but of course, I could not leave without staring at all the junk food. I didn’t buy, just stared. Next stop: CVS. Awful. I bought candy, lots, and Pop-Tarts. I don’t know how these fit into my bag, but they did. On the way home, I tried real hard to get away with eating as many candy bars as I could without anyone noticing, which is pretty easy since folks play with their cell phones so much. I stopped at Target. There was no more room in my bag so I had them double-wrap some ice cream and a very sweet loaf of raisin bread. These I held tucked under my arm but they were very well wrapped and I was certain they were not recognizable for what they really were.
It gets worse. This already was a rather inhuman amount of food considering I was going to hold it all in my stomach and not throw it up. People who vomit can eat so much more cuz all they have to do is throw up, and then there’s room for more. Me, I hold it all in and risk stomach rupture. So I just kept eating and eating, and half of this was in a blackout. Next thing you knew, it was Sunday and I’m not even remembering what I am doing, I ordered a pizza, a huge one, and I devoured it. This ran into Monday the 29th.
On the day I saw my mom, I weighed (yes, I am going to tell you) 88 pounds. On the 29th, I weighed 116-1/2.
Now tell me that’s not dangerous. Tell me that’s not hard on your heart and your whole body.
Never mind I was fucking suicidal over it, out of my mind.
I have been told that since I ate an inhuman amount of food during that period, and experienced extreme edema, I very well could have refeeding syndrome. Not just refeeding edema. but refeeding syndrome.
I can’t seem to get too many people who matter (that is, MD’s) to take me seriously on this. Then again, I really don’ t care much.
I was able to stop binge eating at that point, for about a week. I ate nothing but vegetables and managed, finally, to get my weight under 100. I knew I had a long way to go before I would feel decent about my body again, but it was a start. I was still going through a lot of blackouts. Monday and Tuesday were a blackout pretty much.
There was another really bad stress in my life I was dealing with, the incessant beeping sound in my building due to the housing authority negligence. Last Tuesday, I went to town hall and complained. I am going back to town hall again to complain tomorrow, because the beeping has been bad this weekend and obviously the Housing Authority has done nothing.
So Saturday I had an incident of low blood sugar. I was disoriented and everything. I don’t want to go into it really, but I survived. It was mostly cognitive. Physically I could walk and everything. It’s a heredity thing. My mom has it, too. When our blood sugar drops dangerously low, I mean 50 or lower, we don’t go into a coma like a normal person would, instead we just lose it cognitively. So I was walking down a street I know well and had no clue where I was. I got home, though, and ate. Had no clue how I ended up that way or what was going on. It took a day or two to figure out that low blood sugar was the culprit.
The next day was Sunday. And no church for me. The beeping sound was intolerable to me, stressing me out unbelievably. I went out on a bad binge I guess. I don’t recall the next day, I think I was in a blackout, or I did the binge in a blackout, something like that. I know I went out right after my meds kicked in. Must have spent the next day laying in bed trying to sleep it off. Then Tuesday I went to see someone to talk about my ED, never mind who it was. Wednesday I saw my psychiatrist, and you guys heard about that. I have made the calls to treatment centers and I’m sure they will deny me, probably make suggestions of places that I have tried already, or places that have already turned me down or don’t take my insurance.
Meanwhile, the massive binge eating has continued and continued. After Tuesday, the beeping stopped, but this weekend the beeping is back with a vengeance. I’m going to have to put a coat on (maybe a winter coat as hopefully it will be cold out) to cover my body and show up at Town Hall again and complain. Tomorrow.
I really don’t want to commit suicide. This is kind of a last resort if I really can’t get the binge eating to stop. If it just keeps going and going and I see no end to it. It was that way last summer and I came very close to suicide. I really never told you guys how close I got and I sure never told the folks at the hospital in July when I got there. It had nothing to do as to why I was “sectioned.” The folks at the hospital were more interested in their ipods than they were in listening to me, so I never bothered telling them that I had made a very elaborate suicide plan and it got foiled (I fell asleep by accident) and so was unable to follow through. I never told those therapists I had because they seemed uninterested. I have not yet told my psychiatrist about my elaborate plan that I had, and how sad it was that I was in fact hospitalized for an entirely different reason and how sad it was that there was no one that I could tell until maybe two months ago about all the details and the reasons and everything. I even had the documents with me at the hospital. No one cared. I could have read them to them, but no one showed any interest whatsoever. They did not even know why I was there, and barely even cared.
All they wanted me to do was eat and not lose weight. I felt bloated and fat and wanted nothing but to lose the bloated feeling. I was so happy once I did lose the edema and felt much better, but I was unable to do this until I left the hospital. I ate hardly anything while I was there, and they kept telling me I was losing weight and this was supposed to upset me but it delighted me no end. I wanted so badly to be under 100 pounds at least, and was extremely upset once I left that I was still well over 100. I still had lots of edema and it would take a long time to get rid of it. For at least a week while I was there, I only wore a johnny cuz I was so ashamed of how fat I was.
My weight…well, right now, it’s intolerable to me. I do hope I can stop the binge eating and I don’t care how I stop it, so long as it stops and I can get rid of this weight, I’ll be much happier. I feel for people with anorexia who are forced to gain weight against their will, and then are unable to accept their new bodies. Then, just like me, they hate themselves and have very little will to live.
I have no desire to go to a treatment center and then be forced to stay at this weight. I have no desire to be brainwashed into thinking that I look terrific like this. I think I look bloated and I feel horrible. I can’t even walk. I waddle. I can’t bend my legs properly. They don’t bend all the way. When I lie down I feel uncomfortable. In any position, I feel fat and uncomfortable. I can’t go out in public because folks are gonna stare. I hate the “waddling” feeling. I loved the light feeling I had when I walked when I was thinner. I know now if I fall, I’m gonna fall hard and it’s gonna be hard to get up, just like an old lady. When I was thin, I could scramble up like a little kid. I am risking injury like this.
I weighed myself a bit ago. 112. Well, progress, but I still think it’s a disgusting, unacceptable weight and I feel suicidal at this weight. I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when I go down into the next “decade,” but still, all that is unacceptable to me and I will still feel repulsive. It’ll be easier to hide at that point, though, especially getting under 105. My arms ended up getting fat, too. Aw, man, that loss kills me.
See, I congratulate anyone who can go to treatment and then feel okay about weight gain. Me, I’ve never felt okay about it. I always feel shitty about it. It’s always unacceptable to me. Guess I need some serious brainwashing into thinking it’s okay to be at some weight I now consider a nightmare weight that now puts me into the throws of suicidality.
So that’s how I relapsed into binge eating. It totally sucks and I feel like my life will continue to be living hell unless/until I can stop the binge eating. I tried a nutritionist but it was a complete waste. I can’t find a therapist, am continuing to make calls. I might call NEDA tomorrow and give them an update. I will be seeing the person I saw last week to talk about my ED, I’m seeing her and we’re trying to figure out what I can do to find a therapist and work all this out. Wish I could see her…heck, every day for godsakes. Only that would mean leaving the house with a raincoat on to cover up the weight gain. Maybe I should just take a knife and cut off the fat.
Gee, what a grand idea. Wish that would work. I’m sure it’s been tried. See ya later.
This Hunger Is Secret 