Oh god.  Oh god oh god oh god.

I'm going through my old blog.  Looking at all the followers.  So ANGRY that I have to give that up and start from scratch.
I'm never showing ANYONE in real life this thing again. 

Boy is trying to take my dog.  He claims "it's his dog too", but that's bullshit.  I absorbed the vet costs.  I did everything else.  Now he wants to visit with us tomorrow, and I don't think I can do it, even though I already promised.
Fuck.
I am so sick of all of this.
So fucking SICK.
I'm shaking.


Yesterday, I went from 141.2 down to 140.2.  Then I smoked a bowl and I binged when I was super stressed, and now I'm back to 141.2, and I know my period is close, and that's why my weight isn't moving, but I know it's also because i'm eating, and this whole recovery thing is completely shot to shit and I can't make it better.  My wall is now coated with thinspo and my mirror and white boards are all just fucked to hell with quotes and pictures and it's just...it's just terrible, but wonderful, and I think I'm going to be sick.
I hate this.
I hate him.
I fucking HATE him.
Why can't he just disappear?
WHY?

So much bullshit.
So much absolute bullshit.
FUCK.

o4) In Soviet Russia

A Christmas Tree in March.
It mocked me.  I swear it.  My new roommate--a friend I've had since the days of the cult, as equally fucked as I due to the crazy-ex who ran the psuedo-religious sect--has had it up since his wife left him around Christmas.  Standing over ten feet tall, and too wide around to reach the middle of it by shoving my arm in, he hasn't been able to remove it on his own.  As a result, the five cats his wife left him with have used it as a marking post, as well as the 80 pound dog she abandoned here as well.

It bugged the fuck out of me. 

There are a lot of things in this new setting that bother me.  The neighbor next door who has five families in a three bedroom house.  The fact that they have a child under two who was running up and down the street under her father's watchful eye with a handgun (a pistol, of all things--the sort that stores an extra bullet in the chamber, so even if the clip is out, it could still be loaded), even going so far as to just laugh as she put the end of it in her own mouth.  Or the people behind us, who live on a small plot of land with five chickens, a goat, a few kids, and two dogs.  But the Christmas tree was something that I could handle.  A symbol, for everything that's been bothering me.  A towering goliath that, if I could conquer, would mean I could handle more than a typical man.

A tree, twice my height.  Literally.

Piss soaked.  Chewed on.  Dry.  Forgotten.  Dead.

Falling apart.

It was like the relationship I had just gotten out of; beautiful when it was in season, and having lasted too long to remain a good thing.  And the challenge was like all of my life.  Being told it's impossible.  Being told I'm too small.  It was the monster in the room, a hazard waiting to go up in flames.  A reminder of things that should have been happy but never would be again.  In the past week since I've broken up with my ex, I've remained numb to almost everything, removed, like my Father always taught me.  I've stamped away the emotions until nothing is left but panic attacks that fade quickly under a strict grip and a sudden fear of food.  The feelings I hide manifesting in strange obsessions--such as the Christmas Tree.  As if it were truly so symbolic.  It made me insane.  It made me think too much. 

So I decided to kill it.

It took some struggle.  And much scratching of branches, some leg work, and a lot of god damned will.  But I took it down by myself.  Dragged it outside.  Dismantled the base.  Removed the star.  Then, in a fit of victory, I kicked it.  Not once, not twice, but multiple times, stomping on it like the ghosts it seemed to represent, allowing the rage that has been building for so long flow out.  How dare my ex use all the things I told him in confidence against me?  How dare he say that everything wrong in my life, I brought on myself.  How dare I let him hurt me like this?  How dare I be so stupid to let myself feel anything at all.  How dare that fucking tree infest so much of my mind that it seemed to mock me by scratching me whenever I walked into the living room, getting chewed on, acting like some sort of dangerous monument to all the shit I've been struggling with in my mind?

Of course, this tantrum didn't go unnoticed by the neighbors. 

Nor did my outburst of, "Impossible?  HA!  I'm Russian!  All Russians must know how to chop a tree, because in Soviet Russia, TREE CHOPS YOU!"

On a good note, the little toddler with the gun was quickly rushed away from where she was trying to play on our front lawn, and told strictly to "stay away from the crazy woman's home".

You take what you can get, I guess.

o3) Strange Rituals

Twitching, shoulders slumped, toes jumping.  The smell of a philly cheese steak.  Half.  Home made.  Portion sizes purposefully portioned out so that rather than three, it's six servings.  Technically only 1/3 of a serving.  The smell lingers.  Fingers twitch.  Mouth watering.  Salivating.  

Horrifying.

All the weight lost.  The movement, the running, made into nothing.

I need to eat.  I'll just eat a little.

You ate more than a little earlier.

You know what to do.

Flick of a lighter.

Deep inhale.

Hold for ten.

Lungs constrict, eyes water, body shivers, smoke pouring out on a ragged cough.  Limbs settling, I take a fortifying breath and reach for the meal.

I'm supposed to be in recovery.

Eating defeats her.  I must defeat her.

She can make the pain go away.

Chew.

Chew.

Chew.

My esophagus shudders as if in protest--as if it, too, is terrified by what is worming it's way down to the stomach.  I manage more bites, each one taken quick, chewed fast, swallowed faster, as if to devour it with utmost haste before the fear takes hold completely.  When the beast is slain, that sandwich eaten--when my edible Goliath lay masticated in my belly--I take a breath and try not to feel the way my stomach sticks out.  The way my breasts sit heavier on my chest.  How my back is softer, the flesh almost seeming to be preparing to form back into rolls.  I try not to feel how thick my thighs have gotten, or baggy my arms have become.  I only think of nutrition, the requirement to live, the reminder that the weight gain came from stress inspired binges with my ex.  

I try not to let the trembles hit, though a few break through.  A harder day.  But they are steadily becoming that way.

I take the pipe.  Take another hit.

The anxiety eases.  A part of me crows in victory at the knowledge of what my life has become.

I have trained myself to eat only when high.

So when I give up pot?

I'll give up food, too.

What roundabout bullshit.

o2) Collateral Damage

I find myself pulling at my clothing, tucking away the assets that make me desirable.

My breasts shame me.  The eyes that are drawn to them, the way people stare.  Trepidation sidles up beside me, an old companion, reminding me of precisely all the things that I despise about myself.  It is a nasty monster that tells me that Boy was right--I have brought it all on myself.  Perhaps if I hadn't developed so early.  Perhaps if I hadn't relied so heavily on those terrible things on my chest.

Perhaps.

Perhaps.

Perhaps.

A million "perhaps"-es.  

Hunger makes me tired.  Dizzy.

My limbs are weak. 

My legs are heavy.

I've eaten nothing.

Haven't stopped moving for ten hours.  Running.  Serving tables.  Playing nice.  Smiling.

It's not fair that smiling through pain--playing off your emotions so cleanly--doesn't burn more calories.  Hell, it's shocking it's not an Olympic sport.  I find the effort more exhausting than any run on a treadmill.  The sheer determination and willpower to keep moving is sometimes unbearable.

All I keep telling myself is the same simple credo.

"This too shall pass."

o1) Feel Her.

I can feel her calling to me.  Her siren song sung quietly in the back of my head.  She speaks of things that can never be--feelings that can never transpire.  I dream of a life sometimes where I cease to exist as a sexual being. Nothing but prepubescent lines and corners, pretty in the way of tom boy ten year olds or feminine boys.  I dream of never having to show my body again--never having to touch a relationship again.  I am weary.  I am exhausted.  And she uses the time to murmur thoughts into my mind.

Don't eat that.
Don't drink that.
The hunger will make you feel better.
The hunger will make everything go away.


She operates in every bite I take, spurred on by my misery.  By every sharp word and cruel barb he lashes out at me.  I opened up my soul to him, and he accuses me of all the bad things I was afraid I was.  He hurts me, he says, because I hurt him, while claiming he loves me in the same breath.  My ex.  Thank goodness.  Things are almost over.  Almost.  Just a little bit longer, and i have no need to deal with this again.

But still she lingers.
Still, I find myself hesitantly stepping on the scale.
Seeing my weight.
Thinking about how low I was before recovery.
Thinking about how much I want to say...just...put down the food.
Drop it.
A little bit at a time.
Cut back on certain foods.
Certain meals.
Certain things.

Not out of desire to make people want me.  I find myself becoming so afraid--terrified--of the prospect of people being attracted to me.  I want to scrub away any beauty off my flesh and become something invisible.  Something nonsexual.  A being of pure personality and intellect and just child-like cuteness that has nothing to do with sex.  Nothing that will compete with other women, or lure the lurid attentions of men.
I want to just stop existing in a way that forces me to define myself by my body.
I want to melt away into nothingness.  Until I am skin and bones, and then I crumble to the ground in a pile of ashes and forget that I even exist.

I am tired.
I am alone.
And when I am as such, I feel her then more than ever.  My constant companion.  My quiet voice in this solitude.  My sickly Ana.

Hunger makes the feelings go away...