The Last Two Months

A little over two months ago, I had one of the most horrific experiences of my life. Crumpled on a bathroom floor in my work clothes, I held back every emotion possible as my shaky hands pressed against the porcelain seat of a toilet to push my body to a standing position. I wiped off the remnants of whatever semblance of a breakfast I had earlier in the day from my lips and replaced it with the mask. The mask is what I wear. She is who I am not. She is who I wish I could be. She was the woman my students saw. She wasn't always there, but she was there a lot. She covered up the tears and the shame and the guilt and the shaking in my legs after days of restriction. She made me look put together.

Only God knows how I got through two classes after that... It was after this girls' bathroom experience that I had a meeting with my dietitian. Somewhere in the mix of all of this, she and I decided that I needed residential treatment for my eating disorder. I went for seven and a half weeks until I was kicked out for reasons that I find completely illogical. Regardless, while I was there, I did learn a lot about my eating disorder. I learned a lot about myself. Communication became better with me and my family. That's the Reader's Digest version. In truth, I don't think I could ever explain what happened between October 10th and December 1st in any blog or in words at all. It was a convoluted mess of writing agendas on how I "need to be sick" and what my eating disorder was trying to say to everyone around me. I wrote a history of my life as I saw it through my rose colored glasses. I uncovered memories I had suppressed from the age of four, some when I was thirteen and the most grotesque from when I was eighteen. I had therapy, endless hours of therapy. I made relapse prevention plans. I battled insurance companies. I ate three meals a day, three snacks a day, one cup of chocolate soy milk with dinner, and tried going without acting on behaviors.

While in treatment, I did listen to Ed. He was pretty sneaky. I did what he wanted, and I still do to this day. That's a scary statement to write. He won't let me wear jeans; so I haven't worn jeans in six weeks. He won't let me wear form fitting shirts; so I haven't worn a form fitting shirt in weeks. No butter. No cream sauces. No fried anything. No ice cream. The last time I ate ice cream (save one time at Castlewood), I binged. I didn't know I binged until recently. I told you Ed was sneaky.

More recently, things have been.... different? I suppose that's a fitting word. I'm seeing Thom. Ed hates him. I love him, and that's the way it should be. I'm seeing Katherine again. Ed still hates her. I still love her. As Thom says, we need to be pissing that son of a bitch off. Who knows if I'm pissing him off now or not... Sometimes his voice sounds a lot like my own. It's pretty hard to discern. I have no idea if my forced restriction upon myself is Ed. I know... I know... Forced restriction, Ann? That sounds like Ed. But seriously, I am in pain if I eat to my meal plan. That's not right, is it? Maybe this is all rationalization. I don't know. I feel like I don't know much of anything these days.