08/01/03
hah.. didn't last long this time. it could be that after the previous weeks i'm severely depleted and it will take months, a year, years to build up the energy to try to focus again. fuck, i hope not. i suppose this time i can try writing about all of the crap, and put it out here semi-publicly, and see if it helps. basically, that's what i'm doing. i feel like hell, and i don't know how to escape the feeling. i can feel it all slipping away, i can feel my mind adjusting to the feelings of disappointment, i can feel time creeping up on me, i can feel new despair heaping upon years of old despair, and i don't want it to happen, not this time. there must be something i can do to break the cycle. but i've thought this way before, and i have been unequal to the task. i get trapped, and i don't know how to get out. no one can reach me, no one can help me.
from time to time, i like to look at pro-ana and pro-mia sites. i like to look at the photos, the 'thinspiration' photos of beautiful models, actresses, etc, and the photos of the individual ana and mia sufferers. i like to read the words, the struggles, i like to be drawn into the obsessiveness, but i always seem to like to go back to a kind of solitary suffering. i silently wish the sufferers that contribute to these sites (as well as the others out there who are silent) well, i wish them to achieve what they want to achieve, to get what they want out of life. i hope they're not dealing with all of this when they reach my age. but at the same time, i know there are things we all get out of it, and that some of us may continue to struggle until we die, and that some of us accept that. for some of us, there is just no other way of coping with life.
i wonder how many are suicidal. i wonder if any would relate to me at all.
[wanted to make a note of this.. there was one site that seemed to fetishize eating disorders, and there were some somewhat 'shocking' images on it. i found the site interesting.. but i've never been able to find it again. not that i've had the energy to look very hard..]
if a person feels so badly about her body that she doesn't want to live, or finds it impossible to enjoy life, if she can't be helped to accept her body or change her body in a 'healthful' way (and many of the sites i've seen do explain ways of being as healthy as possible while trying to achieve personal ideal weight), i think it's reasonable that she change it in whatever way she can, whatever the risks. i also think it's acceptable not to accept what others think of as 'healthy'. not everyone was born to do the conventionally accepted 'healthy' thing, and we don't know enough about the body and mind to really know for sure what is best for everyone.
when i've made a conscious effort to lose weight, i usually have tried to do it as 'healthfully' as possible: to not go too low in calories, to eat from as many food groups as i can, etc, although i do realize that with the amount i've exercised at times i've still eaten too little, especially considering how weak and ill i felt, or else i was not eating the right foods.. i want to be strong enough to dance, and so i try not to cut down food too much, usually.. my thinking is that the current medical standards do not apply to everyone. i don't think my perceptions regarding my weight and the way i appear are completely off. i realize that even at my normal weight, i can look slim in some clothes, from some angles, and that even naked from some angles i can look somewhat slim. dance is about motion, and you cannot hide any part of your body, not really. you can move in ways to try to transform parts of your body, but i feel a need to be as thin and fit as i can be, so that i am more pleasing to watch from more angles. there is sometimes pleasure in dancing even without an ideal body, or there can be for some people. however, i cannot make myself stop wanting to see what i can achieve visually in this area as well. and i want to know what it's like to dance when very fit. i also don't think my perceptions are off in thinking that from some angles, even at a fairly low weight, i come across as somewhat large.
i have fasted for as much as 9 days on a couple of occasions. for months at a time in the distant past, i have eaten fewer days in the week than i have fasted: eg, eat one day, fast for 3, eat one day, fast for 5, etc..i think that this pattern probably had a significant effect on my mental patterns. as for excessive exercise patterns.. on one occasion, i can remember working out 7 days a week, for a little over 3 hours a day, very strenuously, for 3 weeks. i did an hour of stairclimber at a fairly high level, one of the ones with an attachment for upper body work, i did strenuous step aerobics holding 2.5 lb weights, other strenuous high impact aerobics, plus some light weight work. the first week, i ate 1200 calories per day. the next, i went down to 700, and the next, i went down to 500. i realize that this is nothing compared to what a lot of people do, but for a severely depressed person with very little motivation, this was a big accomplishment for me, and it made me feel very good. i am still proud of those 3 weeks. i think often people focus on the over-exercising of those with eating disorders as pathetic, but i think that a lot of us have accomplished things that we will never receive any credit for.. i mean, we have been capable of feats of endurance, we have experienced highs that no one will ever know about.
i've often not liked people to know just how strictly i'm dieting and exercising.. because i've been ashamed of my results. they always seem like not enough to justify all the effort. and then when i stop, it seems like my efforts were enough to maintain a certain level of fitness for quite some time. not the level of fitness i want, but enough so it doesn't seem my body is immediately about to fall apart. i can never get past a certain level of fitness. and even when i am reasonably fit, i'm still not as fit as i could be, either because i'm a bit too starved to have enough energy, or i've been vomiting too much and am a bit weak, etc.. in spite of those things, there have been times when i think i've been capable of incredible feats of endurance.
most of the time, i feel that i am
starved for human interaction, for feedback, to be out in the world.. but i know that with the way i feel now i'm not up to it. if i force it, past experience has taught that the added stress will only serve to weaken me further, i will become further depleted and it will take longer until i can face anything again. not that i'm ever really facing anything. i mean, who am i kidding? i don't ever really feel up to new experiences or relationships of any kind, or i can't remember the last time i did. sometimes i feel myself caught up in something for a while, but there's always this feeling of things being fleeting, this feeling that i can't hold on for long, that there's nothing solid to base anything on. but i don't see how i can 'face' anything. other addicts who 'kick' usually seem to have something in life to grip onto.. i can't see myself ever having that. i can't imagine having a job, having ongoing things to do that i enjoy doing, having lasting relationships, etc. if i were to let a 'higher power' take over because i feel i am powerless over food, i'd think that the only 'higher power' i'd be willing to accept would be related to some unconscious part of myself, and i'd think that part of me might actually want me to suffer.. my thinking is that 'higher power' doesn't necessarily translate into 'something that wants you to feel personally contented with life and yourself,' because i don't see any reason to believe that our humanly limited ideas about what is positive or desirable are actually valid.. there is probably more to life, the universe and everything. there's really nothing i can count on.when i was much younger, i had something of a religious-spiritual experience, in which i felt a kind of connectedness with everything, a kind of feeling that i *would* find something to do with myself, that everyone had a special purpose, etc.. but what i think now is that that came from my youth, strength and inexperience. i achieved 'highs' related to physical exertion that combined with my emotional pain, isolation and my 'potential' and 'positive' way of looking at life: all of this and more combined to give me the idea i was special in some way, and to help me to have a 'spiritual' experience. when you're young and still somewhat strong, and still somewhat egocentric (although some people's experiences in life give them something so that they never outgrow this), it is possible for certain people to have these types of experiences, or to interpret their experiences as having cosmic or religious significance. what underlies things is the fact that you still believe you are more special than some people. and this is based on experiences you have had regarding your own genetic superiority.. experiences in which you have received feedback, or 'won' in matters regarding things like intelligence, physical attributes, etc. you don't really understand yet what makes some people 'unspecial' or less special than you, or what these people go through, although you may have some limited experience in this area that makes you feel you are now quite knowledgeable, open-minded and understanding of it all. you have a vague idea that everyone has a purpose, but your mind finds ways to gloss over the suffering of those who make up the everyone who has a purpose, and you gloss over that some 'purposes' may seem unappealing not only to you, but to those whose 'purposes' they are. it is possible to see it all as being to fair to everyone if you are able to see time as an illusion, if you think our present world is an illusion or dream or training school or somesuch thing, if you think there are multiple realities, etc, if you think there is something beyond this life, if you think that some part of you exists beyond your body, this life.. i used to be able to think of those things, but now, what seems most realistic to me is that when we die, that's it. there might be someone very much like us at some point in the future, there have probably been those like us all through the ages. we are not really all that original. we are all pieces of patterns, parts of equations, and we are expendable and replaceable. we represent qualities, aspects. what i'm trying to say is that i have lost that feeling of specialness. it's depressing to know how little i matter. in a way, the illusion made life more bearable. now it's all on my shoulders. my life is only for me, to get out of it what i can. i won't be missed when i'm gone. i don't have anything earth- shaking to contribute. all i can do is either go for the pleasure aspect of things: to see what i can enjoy in life, or i can listen to whatever little subconscious hints i may get about things to write, create or do. and know it's all for nothing, but just do it since i have so little control over my mind, my self that i can't kill to escape this fucking hell. i wouldn't mind going for the pleasure aspect if i could actually feel pleasure rather than neverending stress, and i wouldn't mind mindless creation if it occurred more regularly, because most of the time i just honestly do not want to do anything at all, and i find this incredibly stressful, but apparently not stressful enough that it motivates me to kill myself. any time i try to give up bulimia, i have to face this huge emptiness all over again and try to find some shreds in life to cling to. the potential rewards don't seem all that impressive, especially considering my track record.
perhaps i'm kidding myself, and one day i will find some purpose, i will be able to connect and bond with others, and i will have endless things i want to do, i won't struggle with my body any more, and somehow i will magically find some way to cope with ageing to boot. haha.
i feel like an idiot. a simpleton. i don't feel any better for writing. so, i'll probably write more. why the the fuck can't i just let it go, since it never fucking helps anything, and only makes me feel worse about myself??? i know, because i'm a fucking moron, and i never fucking change.