I Fucking Hate It

...when I'm doing well, I feel strong, and then The Universe throws a headache at me. Threatening me to eat something that I don't even want, or suffer a migraine.

I have to weigh the pros and cons.

Stick to my guns and have ONLY the 2 10-calorie soups for lunch/dinner today and nothing else.

Pros:
--Probably drop a pound and a half, especially if I have time to do half an hour on the treadmill before bed.

--Feel good about myself. Strength is motivating, baby!

--I'm already tired and lack of food might make me tired enough to sleep for longer than 3 hours tonight.

Cons:
--Possible consequences in the form of a full-on migraine attack


Or.. Find something edible for lunch and then do the 10 calorie soup for dinner.

Pros:
--Possible total aversion of migraine

Cons:
--Means eating additional calories, possibly up to 200 depending on what my canteen has in stock.

--Additional calories = less weight loss, or even weight gain

--No guarantees that it WILL stop a migraine - this might be completely unrelated to no-food-in-system


Hmm. According to that list, I should just not eat. But the pain in my head is screaming otherwise.

But I managed to gain a pound yesterday, and I need to not go there.

I'm going to be honest with you, even though I'm ashamed.

Yesterday, after going to the hospital and waiting for J to go through for her surgery, my aunt and I went to the mall. On the way out I downed a cup of water from the water cooler, completely parched and dehydrated. It was so cold and soothing and tasted yummy. Awesome.

At the mall I picked up some birthday cards, a present for my grandma from Lush, a new perfume (Harajuku Lovers - Music. I love it, it's fruity and sweet and warm), a face mask. Nothing exciting. Except for when we were in the card store.

See... I am not a morning person. And I don't just mean that in the sense that I am grumpy and grounchy if I wake up early. I mean that my body doesn't even function properly. I can't eat breakfast before leaving the house because if I do, my body will reject it and I will wind up with explosive diarrhoea for the rest of the day, sometimes into the next. Yes, my body is entirely fucked right up.

And yes, that goes for drinking anything, too.

On the drive to the mall I was okay but my stomach felt a bit weird and I knew I'd probably need to use the toilet as soon as we got home, but nothing insane was happening. After going to the bank and then to Lush and to the card store, though, it suddenly became very clear I could not wait. So I hurried to buy my cards, told my aunt I'd meet her by the escalators, and took off.

The main toilets were shut, but I forgot that until I got to the entrance, and then had to turn and walk all the way back to find another one. And at this point I was seriously praying that I would make it in time. I realize this is probably too much information and I apologise, but oh. my. god. it was excruciating. I was on the verge of complete panic and practically ran.

I won't give you gross details haha. But when I met up with my aunt afterward, I was completely shaking and both severely dehydrated and feeling faint. So on the way out I grabbed a sandwich bagel thing, after spending no less than ten minutes of reading the labels on every sandwich in the display. Total calories were around 300 but at that point I doubt I would have been able to walk to the car. I also got a bottle of strawberry flavoured water (7 calories for the whole bottle) and downed it in one go before eating the bagel.

Things were okay, I started to feel better and my body was calming down. Or so I thought. Until we got home and I had to run to the toilet to... uh, evacuate the remains of the bagel, I guess. After that, I went to bed for an hour.

After an hour, I woke up feeling even more exhausted than I had before I went to bed. But, I had to get up because J was out of surgery and was awake and we had to go visit her. So we spent around three hours there sitting and talking to her, before we headed home. As we stepped outside, my aunt asked what I wanted for dinner. I just shrugged noncommittally and got into the car, because I'd already planned to try the onion flavoured 10-calorie soup (the chicken ones are mucho nice, for real). But she banged on about how we don't have any "real food" in the house and we need to either go to Morrisson's to pick something up or hit McDonald's or something. Of course I said "well if we go to Morrisson's we can pick up some salads" because they have this awesome salad bar thing. There's a lot of crap in it, like pasta and potato salads and stuff, which my aunt likes, but they have generic salad stuff too. And the cherry tomatoes look awesome.

However, the weather was INSANE. Parts of the city were flooding and traffic was horrendous. At one point we were stuck at a red light for over fifteen minutes, no exaggeration. By the time we got to Chapeltown, my aunt had decided she couldn't be bothered messing around in Morrisson's and stopped at the KFC near our house instead.

I dutifully ordered a small meal, ate the fries and shared the chicken with the cats (the cats are total pigs, which is probably a good thing lol). And then went upstairs for my shower.

You can see where this is going.

I turned on the water, laid some toilet paper in the bottom of the toilet bowl, and stuck the end of my toothbrush down my throat until I'd brought up as much as I could. I felt shakey but the empty feeling was back and that was good.

The thing is, I felt SO ashamed. I do not feel an ounce of shame about not eating or starvation. Starving makes me feel strong and proud. Purging, whether I've "binged" or not, makes me feel like a failure. And it's something I wasn't going to admit here.

Until I realized, if I can't admit it here, where the fuck can I? The only people in the world who understand are right here.

Don't get me wrong. I have to reiterate that Bulimia is NOT my friend. I pull back every time that bitch Mia tries to wrap her arms around my gut and force me to heave. Shame aside, my teeth are far too important to me. That's probably a really dumb and vain reason, but it's my motivation to not let Mia take over.

But yesterday I felt so helpless. My aunt wasn't backing down, telling me I'd been up since 5:30 and had only had a bagel and I needed to eat something more than just soup or whatever. So I did as I was told like a good little fucking subservient. And I had to do something about it.

The panic I felt while I was slowly dividing the chicken between small bites for me and larger pieces for the cats, rivalled the feeling of panic in those moments at the mall when I honest to God thought I wasn't going to make it to the bathrooms in time. So I did the only thing I could think of.

Looking at myself in the mirror after, with my mascara smudged all around my eyes and dripping in wet streams down both cheeks, from my eyes watering from the force of vomiting, I was disgusted with myself. Reminding myself that this can't happen again. That not eating, regardless of the familial consequences, is better than this. Anything else is better than this. Anything.

So I got in the shower and washed it away.

And still woke up a pound heavier today.

Mia is unreliable.

Ana is dependable.

... I think my story just successfully talked myself out of eating today. It's just really, really, not worth it.