1:40 p.m. - 10/04/02
--she's a hurricane-->::
He said you live in the eye of the storm, and a higher dose might calm the winds a bit, might make the eye you work within a little larger. When things grew to the point of horrible yesterday, I told myself, no going back this time; I'm upping my antidepressant. I didn't care if it wouldn't work, if it would make me anxious, if side effects would interfere with school. I just wanted one reason to believe that tonight might be different than last night; when all else fails, I'll take the placebo.
And it didn't help that the morning was horrible, was unexpected. Waking up before 10 to find that my always nocturnal brother had already risen and left for his new home. Startled by my mom's panicky return, which lasted less than fifteen minutes but all the same caught me off guard. Plagued- yes plagued- by the need to destructively preserve myself, to do something violent and sudden and "protective." I fought it by making a huge mess fingerpainting and scratching at the splattered paint with my nails. It worked well, until the paper was dull and soft from abuse, and the marks no longer stood. I need some canvas that can really take it, instead of taped-together drawing paper that tries its best. But the lines in the dark paint were nice; they looked the way I always expected they should look. Light lines in darkness, not the other way around. Maybe it's just the whiteness of scar tissue that I'm used to now. I don't know. I do know that it's painful, and I didn't know how to get through it, but I did anyway. I know that as I put the tape away, trying so hard not to move the blade that cuts each piece against my skin, I wondered *why* I put so much effort into this. I work at it so vigilantly, you would think not only am I certain, I'm passionately so. It's not the case. Recovery is habit, and I'm not competely ungrateful for that- I remember when very different things were ritual- but it's odd to do something without consciously deciding to do so. Everything in me, it seems, says "cut! purge! restrict!" and I act "no." The therapists I always imagined in my head would say this is a good thing, but I don't think I trust them now. I don't think Dr. R would be so quick to affirm it either, even though we both know that not engaging in ED behavior allows me to continue finding new ways to deal, to have my second chance be more effective than the first. I think my motivation is as important as the action it invokes, and even if I do want to continue recovery (let's face it; anything else would terrify me at this point) I still want to be doing it for reasons that feel good to me. I thought I quit recovering for other people when I started talking about how I had been doing so, and when my fear became too much to let me eat. Now I don't think it was quite that simple. I think part of that need to please them, to keep everyone on my good side, has continued. I wanted Rogers to love me, so I kept doing what they wanted. And that's not to say I didn't truly face some things, and I didn't *truly* want to do this as well, but a large part of what has made my habit so ingrained is that I don't want to destroy my reputation as a poster-child. I want to continue being good. I know they loved me even when I screwed up (well, I know they treated me well; I never know without a doubt they loved me) and I'm really glad I am where I am (because of them) but I do remember how much easier it was to screw up with Harriet. And if she hadn't always responded so inappropriately, it could have been good to screw up with her. I do still wish what I said in that earlier entry about wanting to have made more mistakes this past year, but I also don't know how far along I'd be if I had made them. So I guess I'm glad, in part, that I have kept this up as long as I did, but I don't want to keep it up for the wrong reasons anymore. I don't believe that all reasons to recover are good reasons anymore. I used to say, "hey, whatever gets you started" and maybe I still believe that because starting is *so hard* but I think it's time I have healthy reasons for being healthy. It's easy to replace your eating disorder with your recovery. It's easy to be compulsive and self-shaming and destructive with your recovery the way you have been with your eating disorder. I think I've maintained my same sort of love-me-I-don't-make-mistakes perfection this past year, and even though I don't want changing that to mean getting sick so as not to be perfect, I do want to change it. Is it possible to alter your motivation for doing something without stopping what you're doing? Can I say, "I don't want to not hurt myself in order to be perfect anymore" without hurting myself? And can someone explain to me why the universe does not understand that all this recovery junk is enough without daily life continuing on? Without school and politics and relationships and plays? Someone explain.
Daily life is about to return. I have three tests that need to be taken, whether or not I take them all, and one is reminiscent of the first physics exam. I need her help with some of the material this time because it's oh-so-geometric, and I'm only friends with algebra, but maybe I'll survive. A couple hours after taking meds, I was lying on the couch with a blanket over my head, listening to my heart speed and trying to breathe, and when I finally got up (feeling amazingly, can-upped-meds-work-this-quickly better) I'd regained the knowledge that, wonder of wonders, today's lesson period *will* end and she will leave, and the weekend will appear. It's the most amazing information when you live life without it. The things I am most scared of will come and go again. And on the other side of their dismissal is the weekend.
Hallelujah. (& more later, as I did some post-journal writing last night that I need to talk about.)
chord
�
�
