9:00 p.m. - 04/13/02
everything I can think of to think about.
I am way too exhausted for the clock to be accurate. I think it's a joke the house is playing on me; I hear noises, like someone is lurking around, and then I look up from my research, eyes heavy with words, and it's only 9:00. I mean, it has to be at least midnight.
This isn't to say that I don't enjoy the research I'm doing for my paper, or that I don't feel affirmed and fascinated simultaneously - not to mention productive, poring over books this way. However, my speed-reading is significantly constrained by the presence of notecards in the equation. Sure, I'm *glad* that I don't have to keep all this information in my unreliable (if well-intentioned) brain, and I'm *glad* that I will still have this information in a handy, legible form should I want to use it for a future project or piece of writing. I'm thrilled. However, working for hours a day and getting through say, two chapters, is not a thrill-ride for a girl. I'm learning a lot, (somewhat surprisingly) and I'm feeling better about my own identity as (post) eating-disordered (meaning, my current book understands the development of an eating disorder in a non-thin-obsessed girl as well as other 'unique' parts of me that tended to be misunderstood, overlooked, or attacked in treatment.) I was starting to wonder, naively, if the whole thing hadn't just been a bizarre manifestation of other problems that appeared ED-like, but really, it was just a bizarre manifestation of EDs. Which makes me feel better about having spent the past year-and-four-months working on it.
(Nearly 8 months no purging; I rule.)
I'm worried that I'm losing weight though. Well, worried might be a stretch - considering that I tend to curtail weight-thoughts of any nature before they become obsessive. But I've been feeling weird lately - one day I'll have a fever, than I'll be fine, then a stomachache, headache, or migraine, then fine...no conceivable pattern, no noticeable cause. Today, I felt fine, but hungrier, and realizing I was noticeably warm I thought I might be hypermetabolic. I ate a snack (which is optional) and my stomach went off like a garbage disposal almost instantly. I just hope things stay stable for the dietician (I really think they will) because I don't want to lose any trust, and I don't want to have to regain ground I've already gotten through once. It should be fine, just bizarre...
The Really Amazing Therapist kept her healthy boundaries and her full clientele list and said no to the charm of Dr. R. :( I think I'll be ok with this (after all, I didn't even know the woman, and what I need will be, and blah blah blah) but it's kind of painful to think that this was his First Choice and she's not happening. I think I'm pretty shell-shocked about the whole Harriet experience, though I'm having trouble expressing it (because I feel like I'm exaggerating when I do...) and there's been so much *energy* placed into coercing this woman that I feel like she's Good and anyone else will be bad. I don't want to get hurt again. Of course, before I found out (about three minutes ago) that she wasn't willing to overwork herself, I was scared that she wouldn't be so wonderful as everyone thought and I wouldn't know how to explain that it wasn't working with this amazing therapist. So obviously, the issue is me and my fear. And hopefully when I see Dr. R on Wednesday I'll remember to say something.
I'm excited about my paper, and about all of the other questions the research is bringing up for me, and the other writing I want to do on the subject, but I'm worried that I'm restricting my resources based on my own vulnerability. For instance, I picked up one of the books and after flipping through it once, I haven't been able to touch the cover. I was terrified, in a way, by the things it said - offended, in another. It's ignorance to the point of fear because these are the words taken as God's, and they can have major impact on treatment...when they're wrong, they *do* wrong, and that's scary. I'd like to think that I'm only counting out resources that aren't true, but my definition of true and another person's could obviously vary. I'm learning that. I'm learning that my insistence early on that eating disorders never stem from the media or social factors, that the obsessive quest for thinness is a symptom not a motive, was exaggerated if not innacurate. I was defending what was true for me, but I inadvertantly downplayed the reality of girls who would later become friends of mine. Tracy's disorder was largely society-based; commercials and magazines affected her in extreme ways. It makes me watch my tongue.
So things are ok...just buried in research and weird pseudo-ailments. Plus, the theme of the weekend has been, "I shouldn't have told my mom that." Either my not having a therapist is resulting in increased (sometimes detrimental) communication with the matriarch or my not having a therapist is resulting in an inability to handle the perfectly normal exchanges she and I are having. Well, perfectly normal for us anyway. I don't know; things are odd. Dr. R was a sweetie and didn't make me go tonight, so I escaped the hours of therapy they both needed...but...I don't escape why they need them.
I think that's the most I've talked about ED in a long time. And I can't imagine when I was this able to read about it. I'm trying really hard not to be obsessive (and not to completely blow off a major portion of my English grade + a possible writing sample for colleges), but it's difficult. The information is interesting and the routine is comforting to an addictive point. I need to be in therapy, honestly - mostly because I don't know how much longer I'll know that. I'm already becoming less and less certain. But I do. Because I've gone into many survival modes the past few weeks (avoiding parents, staying home, controlling my schoolwork, etc) which are effective and in some cases give the appearance that I'm doing well (even to me - they feel good) but are ultimately counterproductive...
Yeah. So. I talk in disordered paragraphs when I've been reading medical documents all day...You're so sweet to decipher them.
chord
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