serenajoepaulinejuliet will murder me. period.

ED has many names, many genders, and many faces, and they are all stunningly dangerous.

I think it was a month ago or so, we were discussing in my support group about the effects an eating disorder has on not just your emotional and mental state, but your physical state of mind as well. I can only imagine, what’s going on inside my body at the moment. I haven’t really done sufficient medical examinations or checkups to find out if anything is wrong, besides the obvious of that I’m always cold. Always, it’s pretty common among people with ED, we are very very sensitive to the cold, so you can imagine this love/hate relationship I have with the weather we are having at the moment here in Miami. I will be doing some blood work within(hopefully) the next week or so, but all of that aside, one of the most engaging topics I brought up and always think of when I have a slip or go on a five day hunger strike, is really…how scared am I? , how scared are you…if you suffer from an eating disorder?

Regardless of whether you know you have an issue with food or if you are in abundant denial (even though, I feel like you know deep inside you have a problem) the effects on an eating disorder are devastating. I will admit that it took me sometime to understand the physical symptoms ED places on you after habitual decorum. Now that I’m well aware of the fact that my heart can stop whenever the fuck it pleases, or my organs can shut down, my esophagus can pretty much eviscerate itself, my teeth can abandon me, my cheeks become chipmunks, and not to mention the scars I would get (Russell’s Sign) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_sign) on my hands (it’s funny how they show a woman’s hand as the example on that wikipedia page…or it could be a very dainty man’s hand…who knows?)…I still end up intrepidly leaning there… staring into the pretty pile of I don’t want to feel any of this,  and it makes me touch those scabrous questions, makes me think about what the fuck am I doing…it makes me think that oh, I went a week without wishing my gag reflex a good night, so if I allow myself to make a mistake and slip this time, and “this time only”, that nothing’s going to happen, but the truth is, even though nothing has happened, something can happen and something will happen.

I know recovery is a very long process, a very confusing process, yet when that logical side of me, that side that really wants to get better, tells me ok,  you have the recogntion, really you have ENOUGH recogniton, but what happens when that cognizant engine of yours(mine) runs out of fuel. The what? So really…how scared are you?

pulchritude is just another word for beauty which is just another word for trigger in my spastic thesaurus

oh it’s opening time down on fascination street…

It’s dire to understand that at the end of that eating disordered disordered road. The long walk you took to get there, is pretty much you fixing the relationship with you. So, I have an issue with myself. Bottom line.

It’s very polarized at times. This whole outlook I have towards myself. I love, adore who (the person) I am on the inside. The persona that embodies my body is almost perfection, yet the body that harbors this persona is almost loathed by me, and then there are those pesky blue moon days when I dont like either of any of them. It’s almost like this jigsaw puzzle, that is complete, but I keep on taking a piece out on purpose and hiding it somewhere so I can go look for it, and this puzzle piece I keep taking out is the self-acceptance I crave,  the self-acceptance that makes me a craven. Self-acceptance is a very big and powerful thing, whatever color it is, whatever shape it is, whichever gender. It makes you happy, and it’s scares the crap out of me, because to just accept is to let go, to be free, to be who you are no matter how you look, no matter how you speak, how you walk, how you act, how you view and think about things, and remembering(accepting) that no one on this mother Earth is flawless, including myself, but I can’t seem to grasp that. I think I’m a pretty handsome guy. I can sit here and type this, and then as I continue to think about what I’m going to type next, a better, more handsome Larry pops into my head, or the fact that regardless of any imperfection, I have a beautiful smile, but  I always seem to never stop thinking that everyone is focusing on that imperfection, and that I shouldn’t open my mouth, not say a word.

I continually feel that no one is going to accept or love me because of any of these imperfections that may or may not exist. I have become my own worst enemy, and this eating disorder seems to be the only constant thing in my life. The constant things that scare the living shit out of me and the constant things I want very very much.

These beautiful triggers that paint my food in abusive technicolor.

am i the only one who finds a crow to be sexy?

RuPaul told me not to fuck it up!

There are days when I wake up and there are no mistakes, no traffic jams, no math homework that needs to be done, no upcoming exams to study for, no relationships to cry over. Nothing.  Overextensions that would make anyone spoon a porcupine are no where to be found, yet I end up tripping on some abandoned rock that was left in the middle of the hallway and falling headfirst into an immoral plate of cinnamon(ster) rolls. In the eating disordered world, this would be called a slip, of course only if you are in the midst of recovery or at least trying to recover. If these slips happen more than once or twice or three times a week, then it would be proper to call it a relapse. I attempt recovery everyday. Even if I don’t manage to go through the day without a purge, or end up not eating as much as I need to, I just pick up where I left off the very next day. The longest that I consecutively went without a binge/purge and or restricting food was 34 days straight. Those were some of my most proudest and most painful moments EVER. Recovery is like irukandji syndrome, the venomous jellyfish-like bastard stings you over and over and over again. In the long run it’s for the best, but the process is such a ballbreaker. You are left without your insentient drug, the thing that keeps you coping, from completely breaking down. Open fire baby; well open nematocysts!

That aside. I want to focus on the moments, where I have been two weeks in of ED abstinence. There was something inside me that wanted to fuck up, I wanted something to happen, someone to say the wrong thing, to give me that honeyed ammunition to just give up, because deep down inside I wasn’t ok. I’m not okay, and I think that’s normal for someone who is attempting recovery, no matter if it’s ED , or alchoholism, or drug addiction, when you are on your way to recovery it’s not going to feel good, so you prey on those point in times when there is a small crack in your immune system, that can be easily mended with a phone call to someone, or a brief walk. Instead, I took myself to Burger King, and had  a “good time”, and of course once that shrapnel explodes in your head, it’s too late to try and pick up all that troubled brain matter from the abused floor.

On the other hand, I have to look at the days when there have been no ammunition provided from anyone. I’m starving, but I don’t really know what to eat, so I  start juggling options which sometimes and annoyingly so take up to an hour to finally be decided upon. Let’s say I decide to go for a salad from McDonald’s, but when I get to the menu board and the employee asks if they can take my order. I end up getting three chicken snack wraps, a small order of fries, and a medium coke(NO ICE!) in lieu of that lenient salad. This is what I call, this what you may call: setting yourself up for failure. Please be aware, that I have had that exact same order, and have kept it down, but on the days when I know I’m vulnerable, why would I even think about ordering that…?

 There are plenty of reasons. Some of them are conscious and many of them are extremely subconscious, regardless ED runs amok with your gut reactions.

Portion control or lack of is another major area I want to slice into. I love going to TGI Friday’s whenever possible. My favorite dish there was their cajun chicken & shrimp pasta. I haven’t had it in maybe three months, but before that I took a two year moratorium. It’s a lot of food, and when I would eat it, no matter if I had gotten full or not. I would continue eating. It’s the bulimic in me. Bulimics binge. It’s only to be expected, but I should of stopped. I knew that if I kept eating, I would of had no choice but to purge. I know that sounds silly. I always have a choice, but you get what I mean. I still tend to eat a little more than I should. I don’t always throw up after, but it’s still an issue I should work on. Now I opt for the dragonfire salmon. That’s some good shit right there.

Five days straight without playing hide and go seek with with the toilet. Day six here I come.

acidic composure

 

 every acerbic flashback COUNTS.

 

 

 You know, I was really scared about telling my parents that I was a bulimic. That this ghostly libertine had conquered every crumb of my life, and yet as the candid words swam out of my mouth, nothing became even scarier than the fact that the bathroom; the toilet wasn’t always going to be up for grabs…The taciturn carpet in my room stopped being mute by the fifth time I had thrown up in there. Of course I always attempted to try to be as clean as possible whenever I flirted with the back of my throat, but the smell of unrequited lovers wouldn’t shut the fuck up. I don’t have carpet anymore but that odor still cheerfully haunts me to this day.

 My alarm would wake me up at 5 AM, half an hour earlier before I had to be at work. I would get out of bed, and immediately have a blackout. Meaning I would get dizzy, lose my balance, and go blind for about ten seconds. I loved it. Whenever it would happen I knew I was doing something right. I don’t get many of those nowadays; in fact I haven’t gotten one in a few months. I suppose that’s a good thing, but to be honest, I kind of miss them. They were like foreplay.

I would finish getting ready and then I would open my closet doors, and pick up the pompous grocery bag I had thrown up in the day before, carry it outside and put it in my car, and drive to the saturated garbage disposal that lived in the back of where I worked. I inconspicuously would get out of my conspicuous car and lunge that bloated grocery bag into the garbage. This was my everyday routine for about half a year or so. That routine consisted of getting out of work, going to the nearest supermarket, buying a loaf of Cuban bread, three packs of Twix, five glazed donuts, a macaroni salad, and a two-litter bottle of Pepsi. Then I would go home, sit in front of my computer and eat like some greedy endangered species. After all of this was done, the muscular guilt that would built up inside me would urge me like the urge breeding salmon have while trying to make it upstream, that desperation they must feel, is the same desperation that engulfs me.

 I compare a binge and purge episode to those Sour Patch Kids commercials. When they say first they’re sour, then they’re sweet ( my favorite being the one where that girl wakes up to find her one of her ponytails chopped off), it’s the other way around when I  find myself on a binge, because food is like my drug, it makes me feel good and the same time bad, but when it’s good, it’s really good, it’s euphoric, so as I’m blissfully chewing on that last donut, it starts to hit me that all of this needs to come back out somehow, so then comes the purge…which is not Vogue cover material, well maybe by the end of it, it maybe.

It’s messy, smelly, and it’s painful. Not to mention that gossamer rage that builds up inside me when my gag reflex isn’t as ready, willing and able as I am. All that flows through my veins at those “please don’t bother me” moments is determined regret, because I don’t ever want to do it again, and then I would find myself and ED the very next day closing the door to wherever it was I was going to purge at, locking in all those apologetic emotions yet again.

 

long-necked overture.

when you are reading this. pretend you are feeding a giraffe at the zoo. I’m the lettuce leaf in the middle. why? because I always wanted to be a vegetarian.

I had just eaten two pieces of hopeless toast, and decided that the most “logical” thing to do next was to go running at one o’clock in the morning. So I put on three sweaters, a pair of jeans and my go like lighting shoes. I go outside, take a breath of parched air, and take off. I make my way through the bony darkness, and as I reach that particular spot where the light post first hits the sidewalk, at that very second… I disappear, like if the Bermuda Triangle somehow manifested itself in front of me. All my thoughts are gone. My insides are missing. I feel free. I have no eating disorder at that instant.

 I’ve never told anyone that before. Never really had the chance. Everytime I open my mouth to speak about ED, it’s either about how well or not so well I’m doing. I want to talk about the in betweens sometimes, and I believe that this blog will give me that chance. Will help me show people what an eating disorder is, as opposed to telling them what it is.

it’s like buying candy from lewis carroll’s personal vending machine

 

In this case it would only be appropriate to judge a book by it’s not so skinny cover.

Vending machines are aggressive. Each item that can and most probably won’t be purchased by me exhibits a very different and very ardent emotional response. Like if I would buy a pack of original skittles, all I would hear them call me as I chewed their lives away was a liar.  The honey buns tend to just glare at me with such dissolved resentment, I end up leaving them alone. I don’t know. Call me walnuts, call me wow, or just call me Larry. I’ll take any.

Oh and FYI, Jihanki(自販機)  means vending machine in Japanese.