Meal by Meal

I saw Mary this morning
She asks how I am
I tell her how tired I am all the time
That I can't get through the day without a couple of naps
How I feel my motivation is in the toilet, literally
That I have no fight left in me
'You know why that is' she says
I do
I do know
I seem to be in denial though
She asks to see my food monitoring records
I reluctantly show them to her
There's nothing of any substance and if there is it is purged
And to be honest my records are not entirely honest
I add in food here and lie about purging there
But even with my censoring, she still thinks it is a huge problem
She brings up inpatient again
She says that if this is not working then we have to try something else
She can't continue to enable me and she feels that is what she would be doing
I tell her that I don't want to go in to treatment
'What are you willing to do to not have to go then?'
I explain how my thinking is skewed
That the sick part of me wants to feel bad and doesn't want to feel good
Feeling good is so alien to me that I don't know how to handle it when I do feel good
Although these days I rarely feel good
Feeling weak and tired is not particularly nice but it is familiar
It's safe
Feeling good or happy is uncharted territory for me
Part of me feels that I don't deserve to be happy
That I should suffer
Why?
I'm not entirely sure
I'm reading a book called The Anorexic Experience
It talks about how people with anorexia often deny themselves what they need
Not just food but other things like taking care of yourself or heat or fun
At first I couldn't relate to this at all but then I got thinking
I often deliberately keep myself cold
Like if I am the only person in the house, I won't turn on the heat because it's only me and I don't deserve to be warm
Can any of you relate to that?
I don't do nice things for myself for the same reason
It's as if I am not good enough for these basic human rights
I have another appointment with Mary next Tuesday and she said that if things haven't started to move in the right direction she will have to consider other options
So she asked me to make 3 goals that are manageable by Tuesday
So my goals are -
1. - Not to purge
2. - Eat 3 small meals everyday
3. - Keep proper monitoring records
Sounds simple enough doesn't it?
But I would rather climb Mount Everest in a bikini and I would probably have more success
I really don't want to have to go to treatment though and that is motivation to at least try
I explain to Mary how I think that I'm not that bad
That I've been in worse states than this before
However I also thought this when I was addicted to heroin
I thought there were people in worse positions than mine
But I guess it's all relative
Yes, I am not at my lowest ever weight but as I truly believe that weight is not an indicator of how sick we are
It's hard though not to slip in to the way of thinking that it is
And I have to remember that this is not my first rodeo
This has been going on for well over a decade
I am a few years older than a lot of you and I have to remember that
I don't have the luxury of time
I remember my birthday last year
 Suddenly I panicked at the thought of losing another 10 years to this illness
I rang a treatment center and was motivated to change
I don't quite know what happened but I fell in to a rut and am still there
Years of abusing myself is starting to catch up on me
My body is hurting
It's tired and drained and cold and frail
When I came out of the session I poke to my mother
I said to her what I said to Mary, that I'm not that bad
'Ruby you are '  she said 'You look sick'
She said that yes, I have been a lower weight but now I am so entrenched in these behaviours that it seems I am getting worse
I'm not getting any better that's for sure
Yesterday my mother and I went to visit my neighbor in hospital
She is in her sixties and up until very recently was in good health
But she has gone down hill rapidly and having avoided going to the doctor for a long time, she is now in a bad way in hospital
I panicked a little bit when I realised that she was in the same ward  that I was in back in March
When I saw her I got such a shock
She was lying in bed and she looked like she had aged 10 years
This was a woman who was full of life
A true Dub (person from Dublin) with a great sense of humour
She always said exactly what she thought and I guess you would consider her a bit fiery
Fiercely independent
But I loved that about her
She seemed to recognize us but she was making very little sense
As we held her hands she she started to cry
It was heart breaking
I came out of there feeling quite upset
It suddenly hit me that that will be all of us someday
We're all going to get old and die and it will come sooner than we think
It made me think about how life is not a dress rehearsal
We don't get a second chance to do things properly
It made me think how much I am missing while in this state
I've already lost so much
My independence
My friends
Job
Education
Peace of mind
Sanity
Happiness
Health
Do I really want to lose any more?
Possibly my life?
A good friend once said to me that it's not a choice between recovery and my ED, it's a choice between life and death
I think this is so true
Living with an ED is choosing death
It's choosing not to live
For me it is anyway
My mother asked me today was I afraid when I was admitted to hospital in March with pancreatitis
The  truth is I wasn't
I wasn't afraid of death
I was more afraid of life
I'm 'living' in a bubble at the moment
Nothing comes in and nothing goes out
Everyday is the same
I get through the day only to start again the next day
I get through the week only to start a new one
Nothing happens
Nothing changes
It's like ground hog day
The same day over and over again
I'm so very tired of it
So bored of it
My ED  has become monotonous and boring
I'm over it
I remember when I gave up drugs I was motivated
I had sunk so low that I couldn't go any lower
I had a fire inside me that motivated me
And when I'm determined to do something there is no stopping me
Drugs are similar to EDs but the do differ a bit
With drugs I could walk away from my old life
From old friends
From my town
From the drugs
I moved across the country and started over
With an  ED it's not that simple
I can't cut food out of my life
Well I could but that would defeat the purpose
I have to learn to deal with food and that is the hard part
So I'm going to try
I'm going to fight
Even if my only motivation is to stay out out of hospital
That's ok
Whatever helps
I'll have to take it day by day
Meal by meal
This shit has to stop
And it stops today