I have not written for a couple of weeks now.  I think I got discourgaed by the realization that no one was actually reading or responding to my blog, a primary reason why I created it to begin with.  Journaling got to be such an isolating exercise in frutility.  I want my words, thoughts, and feelings to be heard, and I want to reach out and enter into a dialogue with like-minded women who may perhaps make me feel like less of a freak...perhaps.  Yet once again, my input and contribution, my existence and bareing of my soul to the world was going invisible, unnoticed, and unseen.  I am happy and proud to see as I logged on this morning that I have my first two followers, and to you ladies I want to extend a hello and a thank you for motivating me to drape my bony wrists over the keyboard once more.  Feel free to comment, and I highly encourage you to do so.  It is love and support I need more than anything, and the successful running of this site depends on your willingness to contribute.  Without you, this page is simply a compilation of letters standing stark against a pale and silent back drop.  P.S.  I apologize for the lack of frills on this blog in comparison to others.  I'm a pretty plain and boring girl whose words, I hope, are enough to make this site colorful and engaging.  (Reading over this, I realize that I am quite self-deprecating, no?  Why is it that I feel as though everything I do is too much of something and not enough of another thing?  Never perfect.  Never the best.  Never worthy of more than a fleeting look.  Never can compare or measure up to others'.  See any connection here to the feelings which possibly prompted my and your eating disorder to begin with?)

I am trying to reflect over the period of time since I last wrote and how I have been doing since then.  As I told of last time, I had recently gone on a vacation to visit a friend in the midwest who was clearly worried about me and expressed genuine concern over the state of my appearance and behavior.  My constant shivering and runny nose in any domicile that had the air conditioner running (it is summer here).  To others the AC was a welcome relief from the suppressing heat; to me it was torture.  The concern that he could see (supposedly) see my entire chest cavity from across the dinner table.  The fact that he had to sheepishly ask me to share in the nacho appetizer he ordered and my response that I was when I hadn't touched a damn chip.  The fact he told me my skin was comparable to that of a 65-year-old woman...something to do with lack of nutrients and elasticity (as a tattoo artist, his profession entails working closely with the human body and flesh).  And as you know, I returned home that week 107.3 pounds after leaving the thinnest I had been up until that point 101.3 pounds.  (I am 5'2" and in my mid-twenties if you were wondering my stats, which can also be found in my profile). 

The problem about this was that not only did I return home depressed, anxious, and determined as fuck to get those extra pounds off by the end of the week, but that I had promised my boyfriend, who is all too familiar with the obnoxious nuances of my eating disorder and who is rapidly tiring of them, that this trip would serve to cleanse my soul, and I would return home "better."  Instead, I returned home worse.  I decided to just stop eating entirely, fast if you will, to atone for my sins in Montana and the extra baggage I was visibly carrying around me with as a result.  In addition, I was headed to Maine the following weekend with my parents and boyfriend and knew I would be tempted by the abundance of food available to me while there and could not afford to gain more weight on top of the weight I had already gained.  It HAD to be got rid of.  Monday I successfully fasted all day.  Not a stitch of food, and I exercised.  Managed to fast and shit my way down to 105.3 by the evening and 104.3 by the following morning.  Tuesday I successfully fasted all day until my boyfriend wanted to go for beer and a pizza.  The pig that I am ate two slices of pizza in the midst of his pitying looks.  (Let me just insert here that I am getting quite sick of people staring at me with that same damn expression on their face like I'm some exotic and endangered bird trapped in a cage in a zoo and suffering from a clipped wing whose future flight looks grim.  It's like they all read the same manual which tells them the look is recycable and when seen often enough by the sick patient will begin to take affect on their psyche.  ::When someone is struggling with _______ insert ______ expression here::  At first I lusted for attention and people to comment and notice the state of my withering frame.  Now, it has become an annoyance and aggravation.)  Wednesday, I ate nothing but a couple bites of salad and diet soda.  Thursday, met my boyfriend at a Chinese restaurant...successfully avoided the crab ragoon and scallion pancakes he ordered.  I'll be honest and say here that at this point in the week I was struggling.  I noticed that my joints were starting to ache, especially my knees.  It was becoming difficult to stand for any extended period of time and I was incredibly shaky.  When I got out of the shower before meeting him at the bar, it took me a few tries to cover the dark circles around my eyes and put my eyeliner on straight without drawing black lines all over my face.  I had to frequently lie down in between strenuous activities (i.e. putting my eyeliner on).  I was quite dizzy any time I stood.  I notice the less you eat and the more hungry your body becomes, the less of a desire you to have to eat.  It is as though your body becomes so deprived of food that it detests the mere idea of it.  Walking to the fridge, rummaging around for an acceptable and safe meal, and lifting into your mouth, swallowing, seems an insurmountable task.  It is too much energy.  And when you're doing so successfully as to have to grip the porcelain edge of the sink to steady yourself as you brush your teeth, you become almost paranoid to NOT feel that feeling.  Otherwise, how do you know if you are doing a good job at successfully starving yourself?  Where's your tangible sign of success?  I could not process anything anyone said to me, and had delayed reaction times for everything.  My brain felt like a literal pile of mush being fried in a my far too heavy head.  I ordered a diet coke with lemon and lime at the bar and could feel my boyfriend's eyes running over my vacant stare and vibrating fingers tightly clutched around my drink for stability.  I managed to starve myself all day, minus the crab ragoon and scallion pancake I chewed and spit into the trash right in front of him to his dismay and horror, until around 11pm when the thought of food became a running obsession through my head no amount of extraneous bullshit would let me forget.  I debated for an hour whether I was hungry enough to eat something and what the point of it would be anyway considering the time; might as well just go to bed.  However, I knew I would not be able to sleep with the thought of food and the immense hunger I felt gnawing away at me through the ceaseless din of empty hours on the bedside clock.  I eventually got in my car, telling my boyfriend I would be back after I found something to eat.  I think he had become so sick of me at that point, he knew he didn't want to come with me.  He knew I would take too long to decide on what to put in my mouth, and his patience had already run dry by the time the witching hour rolled 'round.  I'm surprised he even let me drive considering how shaky my knees were, and how I couldn't walk without clutching the wall for support.  I spent 25 minutes driving up and down a stretch of road that contained a Burger King, McDonalds, and numerous gas station convenience stores/mini-marts.  I pulled in and out of drive-thrus...nothing on the menus were safe enough.  I pulled in and out of mini-mart parking lots...there were too many people around, didn't like the "vibe" of this one, etc.  Finally, I ended up at one, walked inside wearing a black pair of shorts, converse sneakers, and a black hoodie with the hood on.  I had make-up smeared on my eyes from pressing my face into the pillow of the bed as my boyfriend fucked me from behind earlier that night.  And I must have looked like a damn loon.  Pacing frantically throughout the displays.  Picking up bag after bag of candies and chips.  Examining nutrition labels.  I ended up deciding that fat free hard candies were the only "safe" things in the store and settled my bony ass on the tile floor with bags of hard candies surrounding me like scrap booking materials.  The cashier finally came to check on me.  He either thought I was stealing and taking a hell of a long time to do so, or that I had fallen dead on the floor.  I decided on a bag of runts after thirty minutes of panic and desperate need of food.  Shoveled the runts into my mouth in my car out in the parking lot, skittishly looking around to make sure no one was watching my admission of human weakness.  I realized then that I had officially gone insane.  Normal people didn't do this, I decided.  I then panicked at the amount of runts I had eaten which was far over the recommended serving size and debated throwing the rest of the runts out of my car window, but thought sugar-coated banana shaped candies flying at the windshield of the car behind me might be enough to cause an accident...or just look plain fucking weird.  I ended up driving to my apartment and decided to make myself a greek chicken salad wrap.  I ran into my house breathless, my stomach in incredible pain from those candies after not eating for three days (non-consecutively).  I was becoming nauseous and was salivating uncontrollably.  I walked into the kitchen, banging my hip bones on the corner off the corner of the island in the center of my kitchen as I swayed and stumbled my way to the cabinet.  The entire kitchen was lopsided and moving like a see-saw.  I came to the horrible realization I was either going to throw-up, pass out, or die.  I crawled into bed, began to cry, and began to die feeling nothing but guilt over what I had just eaten.  Way to leave the world, no?  I finally blacked out.

Waking up the next morning, I had to confess to my boyfriend that I was too sick and weak to venture back to his abode and blacked out at my apartment instead.  He did not speak to me for the entire day, and we headed to Maine that night.  The car ride there was silent and uncomfortable.  I realize that Ana makes you paranoid about everything.  Not only your weight and physical appearance, but it makes you question everything about yourself.  Did he think I was an unworthy human being because he didn't like the choice of music I put on for the ride?  You become incredibly self-conscious and feel as though you are contantly being judged and measured up to some invisible standard standing behind you to which you are not allowed to turn your head and see.  We stopped at a rest stop, and I caved (after not having eaten since the runts and wrap the night before and essentially nothing since the slices of pizza before that).  I ordered a skinny vanilla latte from Starbucks, bought a container of strawberries, bag of trail mail, and went back and got a bag of Teddy Grahams (bad idea).  I drank the coffee, ate half the container of strawberries, two-thirds of the trail mix, and half the (extra-large) bag of Teddy Grahams.  I had also taken laxatives a few times that week, one of which was the night before, and was ready to explode by the time I got to my parents' cottage in Maine.  I felt sick and guilty and tired.  (P.S.  I managed to achieve the goal I set for myself and left for Maine a solid 101 pounds once more.)

The first morning in Maine, I woke up at 5:30am with the mantra, Teddy Grahams, Teddy Grahams, Teddy Grahams, running like a refrain through my head.  This propelled me to get up and jog/walk five miles until I had to limp my way down the driveway into the kitchen for water and black coffee, my hips felt like they were deteriorating, my knee was pulsating and felt as though it were splitting, and I had the biggest blister on the side of my foot I had ever seen.  Everyone was astounded at how far I'd gone, especially being in another state and having no clue where the hell I was and with no cell phone on my person to call for help if necessary.  My mom commenced in making bacon and the fluffiest, moistest, golden French toast with fresh blueberries which I denied and refused to put to my mouth.  I ran upstairs and showered instead, abandoning my boyfriend at the kitchen table with my parents alone.  That day, my boyfriend and I went into Boothbay to look through the shops.  I was so weak after walking/jogging for five miles, shitting out what I had eaten due to the laxatives I took, and was so dehydrated and weak from fasting all week long, that talking was too much effort.  He said I was swaying all over myself and could barely stand, nevermind walk around the harbor.  I eventually had to sit down on a bench because the walking was all too much for me with my state of bodily starvation and the excrutiating pain radiating through my hip bones.  He forced me to eat a peach which I did after much hesitation and attempts at coercion.  I broke down on the bench overlooking the harbor and cried.  "I'm sick," I told him.  "And I'm sorry."  After the peach, I felt a little more energized and the cry didn't hurt either.  I ordered a vodka and tonic, drank half, and had a couple bites of the sandwich the waitress brought to the table.  I felt so horrible for the both of us in that moment, it was really quite sad and pathetic. We bought fudge which I think he purposely knowing I'd eat some.  I then felt compelled to get my tarot cards read.  Ironically, the gypsy told me that I had all the support systems I needed around me to succeed and the luck to do wonderful things, yet it was my own self that was holding me back.  She said I had something self-destructive going on and needed to get help fast before all those support systems were lost.  She said a lot of other things that I don't quite have the energy to share with you here, but it was surprisingly and freakishly accurate her account of my current state of affairs and the consequences that would result if I did not proceed with caution.  That night we went for dinner.  I ordered a Shirley Temple, ate a slice of bread with butter, steamed vegetables, and some scallops.  Scraped half my dinner onto my boyfriend's plate, saying I was "full."  Went home and ate half the box of fudge with whip cream.  The next day I biked ten miles and passed out in our tent. I then ate an ear of corn, a few clams, and half of a milkshake.  Later that night consumed three pieces of pizza, and the following day had my final hurrah.  Cheesecake, lettuce wraps, mini sliders, french fries, queso dip, and a mudslide.  Weighed in at 105.7 and returned to work the next day.

Breakfast was provided at work.  I did not eat it.  Lunch was provided at work.  I concocted a salad out of what was provided.  Avoided the delicious wraps, cookies, brownies, and pasta salads.  Fielded shocked looks and comments from my colleagues who expressed utter surprise and concern over the look of what them appears to be an emaciated frame.  Next day, avoided breakfast.  Lunch was provided.  Avoided the subs and pizza.  Ate a little salad.  Went out to the grocery store that afternoon and made myself a fat free cottage cheese and cucumber wrap with strawberries and some sugar free sugar cookies (where's the irony in that?)  As I was at my desk working, a couple of my closest colleagues approached me and broached the topic.  "How much weight have you lost exactly, honey?"  And then the birage of concern and worry came flooding my way.  I confessed to them that I think I might have a problem and that I eat around 200 calories a day.  They were shocked and cried for me, and said they would do anything they could to help.  Everything in my line of vision was composed of dots and I couldn't think straight or really hear what they were saying, I was so hungry.  Later that night, I went to a store to shop for some work supplies and realized with horror that the floor was sliding.  It was on a vertical slant.  I wondered if the store had some whacky architect who designed it that way or whether I was simply seeing it that way.  I decided I was overly tired and went home to go to sleep.  Keep in mind, I've been waking up at 4am to exercise before work and have maintained a 200-400 calorie a day diet.  Attended a baby shower Thursday, ate some fruit and a small slice of cake.  Friday, some fruit, raw vegetables, sugar free cookies, two slices of turkey, and a tiny slice of egg keish.

My weight this morning is 99 pounds.

The interesting thing about the whole thing is that even though the numbers keep going down, I don't think it LOOKS like I'm getting thinner.  Everyone around me keeps expressing concern over how skinny I am.  Colleagues, friends, family, lovers, strangers.  But I think I look normal.  I notice people stare at me when I'm out in public or that sometimes it hurts to sleep on my side because my hip bones dig into the mattress, or that it hurts to sit on hard chairs because my butt bones ache, or that tiled floor in unsupportive shoes hurt the bottoms of my feet.  I also notice that my BMI is a tad underweight and I'm only about 16% body fat.  I realize that no healthy grown adult woman weighs 99 pounds.  I realize that never before in my life have I been called "skinny" or "too thin" or "scary skinny" or that I've gone "too far" and "need help."  Never before has anyone whispered "eating disorder" as I walk by, or examine me when I eat to see what and how much I eat.  Never before have people whispered about me or given me the pity look before.  These comments about how thin I am, actions of people trying to force food upon me, skittish eyes and expressions of worry should say something to me.  The double zero pant that is too big on me should say something to me.  The extra small skirt that hangs on my frame should say something to me.  But all I see is that my physical frame has remained stagnant despite the diminishing numbers and that in all accounts, I look normal.

I've also noticed a swift and sudden change in my demeanor.  Before I would keep certain foods in my house in a "forbidden" cabinet which was stored far out of my reach.  I have moved those items to my main cabinet because I now feel confident I can resist and avoid them.  I also notice that in earlier times I would want to share and divulge my stories and dieting secrets with my boyfriend or friends.  Now, I am becoming more secretive, and the glances and noteworthy appraisals of my weight loss that were once my sustenance is now a daily annoyance.  I wonder when I will begin wearing clothes to hide my frame and lying.  I told my friends I drank a glass of milk for breakfast the other morning and they were so proud.  Really, I just drizzled some fat free milk into my latte and accounted for that as a whole glass of milk. 

My dilemna now is my relationship.  I have not talked to my boyfriend all week since returning from our vacation.  Not one phone call.  Not one visit.  I spoke to him yesterday on the phone and he admitted he is not happy with me and wants to break up.  That I am sick and his patience has run out.  To this, I do not know how to respond.  A part of me thinks that I can win him back if I learn to smile again and that maybe this time I really can learn the tricks of the trade and how to hide my disorder the more I become immersed within it.  Another part of me thinks that maybe we should break up.  It would be one less look of worry to field, and one less thing in my life to feel like a failure at.  He said he did not love me.  And I wonder what is so inherently wrong with me that no man can find it in his heart to love me.  Can I blame him?  I am meeting him tonight for a drink.  My game plan is to exercise.  Eat nothing.  If I am shaky or low energy, I will consume some celery and a posicle to get me by.  Then I will order a rum and diet.  If we want food, I will be able to order something (still healthy of course) because I will not have eaten prior.  Tricks of the trade.  I am going to put a smile on my face and gush about how happy I am to be back at work and feel productive and blab about my week and how much better I am doing.  That I am seeking therapy and feel boat loads better and healthier already.  We'll see what happens and I'll keep you posted.  After all, today is a celebration of sorts...I've broken into the double digits!