Looking towards the Future

I haven't yet told anyone. But unless God is going to intervene in the next two days my decision is made. I am going to leave. I have started looking at rooms to rent, I have mentioned to my family that I'm considering leaving, I have been looking for part time jobs with flexible hours that fit my skills to at least some extent.

Somehow I am still hoping for God to give me a sign, to either let me know it's ok to leave or to make me stay (but, please, also give me the strength to stay if that's his will). So far there has been nothing. I still feel very much loved, though, so I suppose that might be a sign in itself. Who knows.

Regarding my ED I've realised something. Eating or not eating doesn't occupy my mind all the time like it used to. I can live quite comfortably and happily around meal times without thinking too much about food. Sure, I don't want to eat and even when I want to I often can't. But I don't spend hours and hours just thinking about losing weight, meals, avoiding meals, counting calories. Sometimes I even forget that I've got a problem.
If things with my ED-thoughts stay the way they are I think I might be able to live with it and be ok. And wow, that would be a huge thing. I'm even hopeful things might get better once I leave. And I haven't had a positive outlook for quite some time now. Really grateful for this, thanks be to God.

Choices and Decisions

Why did I relapse?

This question has been following me for a while now and I'm still not sure I have an answer to it.

What I do know is this: Eating disorders have a close connection to control. So far my ED always appeared strongest at times when I felt most out of control. It appeared when I didn't know what to do, when I felt left alone, helpless, or controlled by others or circumstance. I believe part of my answer may lie in this: even though I felt really happy at the time my ED caught up with me, I believe now that I wasn't.

I am living in circumstances that allow me little control over my everyday life. I can't decide when I eat and what I want to eat. I can't decide when I want to get up in the morning (I can decide when to go to bed at night but that usually only leaves me sleeping too little). I can't decide much regarding my prayer life. And I can't just take a day off.
I am also living in a community that doesn't always value me and my strengths (to say the least... sometimes individuals were only just short of verbally abusive) and I often have a hard time accepting this. I don't know where the future will take me and it's not in my hands if I keep living this life that I chose. This is one of the hardest things for me: not being able to make my own plans and see them through, be it on the small scale of everyday life or on a larger scale when it comes to career choices or just my next holidays.

So now I am left wondering if maybe my relapse is a good thing because it makes me reconsider my choices. I am on the verge of quitting. I know my ED won't just disappear the moment I quit. It never is this easy. But at least I wouldn't have to lie to everyone each and every day pretending to be ok. At least I could make my own choices, big and small. I could try to find help without having to ask for money first because I'd have my own. I could go back to work (at least part time) and regain some sense of independence.

I am not young anymore and I feel like I've left it off for too long. Like I haven't got any options left if I get out now. But I guess that's not entirely true. There are always options. Maybe not the option to one day have a family - I don't feel ready for that any time soon, but biologically time is running out for me - but certainly the option for love, whatever that might look like. And there still is some time left to have a career, to travel, to spend time with friends. It's not too late for that.

The decision to leave hasn't been made yet but I feel that it may happen soon. I'm scared of leaving but as long as staying scares me more I suppose it might be the better choice.

If anyone is reading this please pray for me. I really need God's guidance in this and he has been uncomfortably quiet these last weeks and months. So knowing that someone else is praying for me would be really comforting.

Art Project

So, there's this art project I'm working.
But before I tell you about this, first things first:
Regarding Ana and Mia - I'm much better than I was a few weeks ago. Depression has left me alone for several weeks now after I discovered that amber actually helps with my mood swings. So this is very good and I feel so much better. Still clearly eating disordered but I'll just be grateful for the little things. And being happy and feeling like myself again after a time of depression is no little feat, so thanks be to God for this. I'm actually really happy with my body atm - I can see the weight loss (not just on the scales but actually in my face and on my body) and I really like how I look. I'm by no means skinny yet, the numbers still classify as obese but only today I thought how lovely I look and how I would like to stay the way I am. Ah well, we'll see about that - Ana has moved a little to the background but Mia is quite present most days. Fortnunately, there is only little binging but quite a bit of purging what I eat.
Anyway, about this art project.
It involves using blood (it's about Revelations, being washed white in the blood of the Lamb). For a while I considered going to the nearest slaughter house to get pigs' blood but in the end I decided to be brave and use my own blood. So I started out filtering and using my period blood but in the end it turned out it was too much hassle and too little to get anywhere quantity wise. Instead, I went to the nearest pharmacy and bought hypodermic needles and syringes (turns out these are dead cheap), got some skin disinfectant and have now started to draw my own blood. This is really strangely fascinating and in some weird way I really enjoy doing it. So far I've hit the vein every time, even on my very first attempt. It took some experimenting to find the right size of needle (I didn't tell the pharmacy assistant that I intended to draw my own blood but just mentioned that it was for an art project - so I couldn't really ask which size was best and instead got various sizes and tried them out at home), haven't bruised myself at all yet, it's not painful and somehow painting with my own vein blood makes me feel very close to Jesus. This is a project I'm really excited about and I wish I could tell people about it but somehow I know that most wouldn't understand and would just think me completely mental and sick for doing this. And yes, I know, this fascination with needles and blood and sticking myself really does sound strange. If someone else told me this, I probably would consider them disturbed, too. But hey, no one ever reads this blog so it's a great place to talk about this without being sent to the loony bin.

My old friend Mia

So, after a while of restricting my old friend Mia has decided to join me today. I felt her coming on last night and today I just crumbled, didn't have the strength to fight her. So I binged and purged for lunch and dinner and now I'm just feeling horrible. This is what Mia does to me. But at least purging is still no effort whatsoever, even after all those years without purging I can still just lean forward and throw up without even having to stick my fingers down my throat or anything like that. So at least it's not physically painful. I guess I ought to be grateful for those little favours, right?
Other than that I'm considering painting again. A verse from one of the psalms has been resonating with me for a bit now and I feel that putting it into something a little more tangible like a painting might be sort of therapeutic. Well, maybe I'll get a canvas during the next days and start expressing the darkness that's inside of me, who knows.

Just a little step but at least a step

I met with a friend over lunchtime and managed to eat 8 pieces of sushi. Not big ones. But 8. And I didn't throw up afterwards - thought about it briefly but in the end I actually didn't feel the need to. This is feeling almost too good to be true.
Yes, I know that I wouldn't have managed to eat anything if I had been alone. Just imagining having to decide what to get gives me shivers and makes me want to run away. But my friend was there and so I couldn't run and in a way I didn't even want to run. I'm really happy about this.

Out of control

I really really want to eat. I think about food so much, I've even taken to watching food videos online (might be triggering for some, I know, but somehow it's really satisfying for me atm) but whenever I open the fridge I just can't eat. I've been craving cheese for a few days now and we've got plenty in the fridge. I take it out and look at it and then put it back - not because I'm so wonderfully in control but because I'm so incredibly out of control. Every now and then I decide to eat, either because I'm not alone and it cannot be avoided or because I'm sane and realise it's the only sensible thing to do when I'm about to faint. But I can't eat. I simply can't, even though I actually might want to. I managed to eat plain lettuce but today I couldn't get myself to eat anything else. Whenever I'm with company I just munch on a tiny bit of food forever and push around anything else on my plate. So far I've got away with this but I'm not sure for how much longer this can go on.
Last night at mass I actually fainted (managed to sit down just in time and then had to wait for my hearing and vision to return for quite a bit) but I still find it impossible to eat. It feels like it's completely out of my control. This is so scary.

Guilt

Right. So I had a fairly good week during which I restricted only occasionally and only threw up when I really couldn't cope. And then that week was over and I'm back to restricting properly. The really annoying thing about both weeks is the guilt, though. First I felt guilty for not restricting enough and not throwing up enough and now I'm feeling guilty for restricting and even more so for lying. It's not even a real lie. I blame the fact that I'm not eating on my allergies. And I am having a bad time with my allergies but it's not nearly half as bad as I make it out to be. But at the moment this is what I do because it allows me to eat very little and only the stuff I feel good and safe about. Like oats in water or plain rice or certain types of fruit and veg. Not too much of anything, of course. Using my allergies as an excuse is also a great way of keeping myself from bingeing - since the others know that I can't eat certain things it helps me keep myself under control because I have to keep up appearances. But of course, guilty feelings ensue.
I wish I could just live with my ED without all the guilt. I know that my ED is not something I chose and that I'm not to blame for having it. But this is just the rational side of it. Whenever I don't eat it certainly feels like a choice, like I could have eaten and been fine about it. My mind knows that that's not quite true and that EDs don't let you be 'fine about it' (or about anything, come to that). But emotionally my ED makes me believe that it's my choice, that I could just snap out of it if I really wanted to. This is what makes the guilt unbearable and uncontrollable. My guilt is not a matter of objective reality but a matter of perception and somehow I can't get a grip on this.
Sometimes I've got a couple of good hours when I don't think about it, when I feel ok about myself. But then it's mealtime and the guilt kicks in and I start loathing myself for feeling guilty and the loathing makes me feel like I have to punish myself for being such a messed-up person. The punishment is, of course, to not allow myself to eat. Hunger is a great way of keeping my vicious circles running wild. Which, in turn, makes me feel guilty.
And no, confession doesn't seem like an option to deal with this sort of guilt. I know very well that it's not even a sin to have an ED (ED = no choice = no sin), and as for the lying - I do regret it but I also know that I will do it again - so I couldn't even get absolution for it.

Relapse

It's been a long time. Just over 10 years after my last relapse and just under 20 years after first falling into this pit.
The time between recovering 6 years ago and the relapse now has been good, very good in fact. I found myself, I found my place in life, I found people to share my life with (and really share it with, not just live alongside them). Maybe I'll write more about this another time. Today is about my most recent relapse.
I don't even know why I relapsed. Seriously, there is no real reason as far as I can see. I knew my triggers and I knew when to be careful. I've had a few relapse-scares over the last years but I've always managed to pull through and get out before I got in too deep. Not this time. There was no warning, no danger signs, nothing out of the ordinary. I was (and still am) happy with myself, I've learnt to like and love myself including my body no matter what I look like. This hasn't gone. What has gone is the ability to eat. I just can't. I've fallen back into thinking about calories, avoiding meals whenever I can (and since I'm not living alone any longer this has become rather difficult), pretending. The switch in my head is flicked the wrong way and I can't get it back to normal.
Somehow I feel like I've come home. I've embraced my ED like a long lost friend. This is what scares me shitless: the fact that I've managed to not relapse during really hard times and instead just handed myself over to my ED when all was going really well.
The thought cycles have once more begun: I want to get out but at the same time I keep thinking I can still get out in a few months, let me lose some weight first.
I'm scared of what this will mean to my future. I'm risking everything I love and I can't stop even though I want to. I feel like I went on one of those scary fun-rides and deliberately chose not to wear my seatbelt. This is reckless and stupid and if I could go back I would in an instant. But there is no going back, only fighting through.