I seem to make good decisions on Tuesdays. Today is Monday, which makes for bad decisions. I decided today to pick a fight with my boyfriend. Sorry about that.
However, tomorrow is Tuesday! I've come to the conclusion that I make important life decisions on Tuesdays. My last episode of bulimia was on a Monday, and on the Tuesday I gave it all up, for what seems to be forever. I really do not think I will go back to my old way of life. Given how I feel now. I genuinely didn't know that happiness and freedom like this actually existed and I LOVE it! It continues to amaze me how good life is every single day.
Last year, around September or so, I volunteered at a craft workshop. I put on a brave face and stepped out of my comfort zone and brought all my craft stuff over, and I spent the morning teaching crafts to some people, who, too, were obviously a little out of there comfort zones. One of the women running it seemed a bit prickly towards me, and she made a comment, about my mood. She said "You're so... you're so HAPPY... Like unnaturally so, like hyper... don't drink any more of that diet coke..." I nearly fell off my chair. Here I was, doing my UTMOST to be cheerful and give the people there a nice morning, and it didn't take too much effort, because I WAS happy. I was in a good mood, and I was, essentially, being myself. Apparently this annoyed the woman in question so much that she actually had to pass judgement. If she KNEW how many days, months, years even, that I have spent in the depths of crippling and despairing depression, surely, she would have thought twice before saying what she did. Perhaps not. Some people are toxic, and I do my best to avoid these negative influences on my life. People can poison you. I didn't say much at the time, but I went quiet, embarrassed by my happy mood. The whole room was toxic with the stench of this woman's bad vibes, and later when I was packing up, I cried. I have never felt so judged, and so put down. She allowed me to doubt my entire way of being, and it was unbearable.
Though I haven't forgotten this incident, I do not allow such comments to affect me any more. For the most part, I act how I feel and I feel how I act. I am myself, and if people don't like it, I don't adjust it to suit them, I simply remove them from my life as much as possible. I spent a long time in my teenage years adjusting, no, CHANGING my entire personality based on how other people expected and demanded me to be. At school, I was utterly unaccepted by my group of so called friends and I tried so hard to change to fit in with what I thought they wanted. This resulted in sleepless nights crying under my duvet at 2 am, and experimentation with self harm. Self harm became my release, my way of punishing myself for not being good enough for everyone. I felt so guilty about who I was that I actually had to take a blade and cut my flesh. And if it didn't draw blood, it wasn't deep enough. I was 14 years old. The other way this worked for me was that I knew what I was doing was wrong, so I had a secret, something to feel guilty about. This filled up a lot of space in my head, the guilt that what I was doing was wrong, and so I didn't have to think so much about the bad stuff, just when my next cut was going to be, where, how, etc... How is that living? At the same time, I was dieting and my bulimia was starting to take effect. I cried for hours over pictures of beautiful women with perfect bodies in magazines, not knowing what photoshop was. All I wanted was to look like them. If I looked like them maybe I would be accepted... and so it began.
Interestingly enough, later on, I began to get more attention from the opposite sex, and it frightened the living shit out of me. I do remember thinking at one stage, well they won't stare at my ass if I don't have one.... and so it went a step further. The weight fell away but the comments and stares didn't - I just got them for a different reason. I remember when it really kicked off and I went home for a couple of weeks and when I came back to college people commented, they said you look Skinny.... pure elation, it was. I was absolutely thrilled and I got such a kick out of it. Nowadays I'm lucky to get through a day without someone asking me if I am expecting a baby. NO I AM NOT. FUCK OFF. People are used to seeing me weighing less than 4 and a half stone, and they automatically assume when they see me now that there must be some reason for the weight gain, such as a pregnancy. And that is tough In fact I got so sick of it that last time someone said "When are you due?" I just loudly said DUE WHAT EXACTLY and she nearly fell off her chair. But now that I think about it I would far rather have someone mistake me for being pregnant than hear one more comment about how skinny I am and how ill I look.
I tell you one thing, writing really helps me think. If I hadn't written that down just now, who knows if I ever would have compared pregnancy and weight loss comments. This post and the last have really allowed me to step back and think about things. I noticed after the last post that I allowed a bad thought in though, as well as all the good ones, and as a result for the first time in a few months, I had a craving to have a binge session. I immediately made a phonecall, I don't even remember who to, and then I got the fuck out of the kitchen. I was cleaning the wok, and I suddenly thought, jesus, I used to eat out of these, on a daily basis, when I was bingeing and then I thought about the fact that I had more than enough food in the house to binge on... and just for a fleeting second I could have easily done it. I didn't, obviously. But just for a second I wanted to. Boredom does funny things to the mind. I am rarely bored and I find it almost impossible to sit in a bored state.
One of my many psychiatrists once told me I should sit and be in a bored state for at least a couple of hours a day. Fuck that. Being bored means that you have time to think about bad stuff and I find that incredibly hard. I do not allow myself to get to that stage, and why should I? Why should anyone? Why would anybody WANT to be bored? Ok, I can understand that it's not a negative place to be, per se, but I don't like it. Screw Dr Whatshisname, I think that being bored can lead to bad thoughts. I am not saying keep busy every second of every day , yeah, definitely allow some relaxing time, that's all well and good, but I like to have something to do for pretty much all of my time. Even when I'm watching TV, I like to be doing something else. I never just sit and watch TV. Even if it's eating dinner. That's doing something. I generally go flop after eating dinner, but that's pretty much the only time I sit and do nothing, is after eating. Funnily enough I don't get bad thoughts after eating, and that's a really good sign. You'd think it would be the opposite, that sitting doing nothing after eating a meal would be the hardest of all, because I might think about how much I've eaten. How many grams of fat. How many calories.... and then panic and go and throw up. But I don't. I just feel nice and sleepy and happy and calm.
But back to doing nothing. I hate it. Something which always USED, and I stress, used to be, because I haven't done it for fifteen days, is smoking, and rolling cigarettes. I found it really relaxing in the end, but when I first started making them I hated it so I made them all at once but in the end it was like my chill out time. Making cigarettes was something that always got done. Smoking reduced my anxiety, and it helped me a lot in the last six months or so. Even my doctor told me, when I told her I had given up bulimia and binges, she said she thought it would be unwise to try and give up everything at once. Do this first, she said, and in a while we will talk about giving up smoking. I wasn't ready. I have said many times how much I hate being alone, and sometimes when I am alone. I chain smoke. I could have up to ten in the space of half an hour. Because I'm bored, and worried about being alone.
Other times, I am in company and wish I wasn't, because I feel like I can't smoke as much as my nerves want me to, because they'll think my God she smokes a lot. So I have to wait or go home and smoke. That's awful... they had to go. I was getting shocked by the strength of my cravings for fags, and how controlled I was by my cravings, planning my whole day around my cigarette breaks. As soon as I had one I was thinking about the next one. I couldn't start anything without having a fag first, and couldn't get through half something without having a fag break and after it was finished I'd sit down for fag. So (On a Tuesday because I make all my good decisions on a Tuesday apparently) I was walking along and I thought, fuck this, and I tipped all my cigarettes in to a hedge. I gave the rest of my tobacco to Kegan and that was it. I haven't had a cigarette since.
Last time I tried to give up I told myself I'd quit when my tobacco was finished, but as soon as it was I'd buy another pack and then say this is my last one... and so on. I got one of those e-cigs, and on that I got down to two a day. But I was still smoking. That was two years ago anyway. This time two weeks ago I was smoking about 30 roll ups a day. 30 quid a week on tobacco. 60g a week. That's a LOT. The first week I bought those disposable e-cigs, but I got through 32 quids worth in a week and thought well I might as well be smoking. So I went to the dr and did it under her supervision. She prescribed me patches and nicorette quick mist which is a spray. It cost me 5euro on the medical card. And the price tag on the products in total was 160. 160!!! And it's absolutely brilliant.
It's going to take sometime to get rid of the cravings. Becuase of all the planning around having one, now I'm like ok that's in the microwave for three mins, it'll be done by the time I have a... oh fuck, I've given up. At the gym today getting changed afterwards, I was like, Great can't wait to have a... oh fuck, I've given up. That may not go away for sometime yet. Maybe two years.
The thing I am most concerned about with giving up is that my appetite has gone through the roof. I am really worried that I will eat more and put on even more weight. I can't bear the thought. I do not want that. So I drink a lot and chew gum and I have actually reduced my food intake somewhat and cut out carbs during the day. Fruit in the morning, veg and protein for dinner, no pasta or bread noodles etc. I have cereal at night though. And a few cereal bars. I gave up chocolate a good few weeks ago.
But my energy and stamina are better, same with giving up chocolate. I have more energy, I don't feel guilty, I feel more controlled and best of all I saved enough for a gym membership! By not buying chocolate or cigarettes. So, things are good. It does mean I have more time on my hands, and that worries me because I'm worried about being alone and how I am going to fill my time, but I will think of something. i always do. I surprise myself everyday with how much I can achieve. I do something creative everyday otherwise it's a zero day. Pippa doesn't have zero days. Everyday is a non zero day for me. I have proved myself, in ways I never thought possible. I am a strong woman and I know how to keep myself safe from bad thoughts, difficult situations, and if I am in those situations I either remove myself or figure out a solution. I have the mental capacity to do this now and tat's something I couldn't do before.
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