a little more willing to make a better way

after some serious thought, i decided i'm going to work my way back onto the exchange system. i know it will take work, it's kind of far from where i am right now. most of this is a responsibility thing, even though i know that this sense of responsibility is one of my weaknesses - guilt. as several wonderful people have made their way back into treatment, i feel as though i need to be "healthy" so that no one will have a reason to worry about me, because i want them to focus on themselves. i guess the best i can hope for is for it to be called an "end justifies the means" situation.
i'm so worries about each of those women and those who i know are struggling, and i think about them and the rest of the women i grew to love daily. i wish for their happiness and safety frequently. i miss them all exponentially, i miss their encouragement and support, i miss being able to effectively encourage and support them. i would love to be a shoulder to lean on and i've come to terms with the fact that i can't be that shoulder if i'm not taking care of myself.
i've let myself slip back into utter consumption. i've given into all of my "symptoms" and even returned to some with a vengeance unequal to any force i previously possessed. at times i worry that i can't or won't give them up. i don't know how to live otherwise. how am i supposed to have faith in myself when every "professional" person i meet seems to see me as untrustworthy or unwilling to take responsibility for where i am. don't they see that i blame myself for everything and that if i wasn't being honest i wouldn't seek help. they see me as the hopeless cause i've always regarded myself as.
i seem to see myself cycling from between determination and desire for self-destruction rapidly. i see myself becoming obnoxious to the people surrounding me. i'm sorry. i don't know how to be a different person. and at times i'm sound enough in who i am to say that i don't need to be a different person.
i know that i've got all i need to be the person i should be. i've got no one holding me down other than myself. i have to find new ways to cope or to realize that i have no reason to cope.

i don't know the veracity of it all

i stayed up last night, not entirely by choice. but i took the time to "reflect". i want insight so damn much, but i never seem to have the patience to find it in myself. i spent hours under my blanket with a flashlight, writing about how i "feel", yet i still felt as confused and useless as usual. i always get stuck on those hypothetical "what if i fuck up again?" questions, the large scratchy letters making up words that provide no meaningful help.

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journal excerpt

i've been trying to come up with reason why i am "sick"

and i often find myself drifting back to a wish that i could've been so small that i'd been close to death before i went into treatment. maybe because it would scare me and let me experience enough hell to want to get better or maybe because i want to experience a death of some kind.

kate sent me a post her friend wrote about recovering. she said she entered treatment with a pulse of 43. i was jealous that i was not so strong. angry at myself for not having the strength to just not eat. if anything... that is disgusting. a true reason to hate myself

i used to think i was small or at least small enough, even after the days of "skinny mini" and "bird legs". though i never thought i was pretty. but now i look back at those pictures and think i was too round, that my face was a circle, that middle and high school me was uglier than i imagined.

so where does it come from? how does self hatred learn to manifest itself into an eating disorder. what makes us "tick"? and what makes us cling to it like a security blanket. it obviously isn't keeping us safe. it feels like shit.

why make yourself feel like shit when you already feel like jumping out a window?

talk about counter-intuitive.

take it to the limit one more time

so, i broke my winning streak. i suppose we all have our set backs
i met with the new school psychiatrist yesterday, and she really seemed to think that i wasn't trustworthy (ie she said she's going to have to learn how to trust me). the more she talked the more it sounded like she didn't think i was going to get better. yeah, i know that i don't really want it for me right now, but maybe i will. maybe the fact that i don't want to hurt other people is enough.
i'm so frustrated. last night talking to alex i expressed how pointless it all seems. that perhaps there actually isn't anything wrong with me. i just blow things out of proportion. maybe i am just an eating disordered perfectionist who thinks to hard about everything, who creates her own sadness. or maybe what's wrong with me is that i'm a masochist, i'm sure it's not normal to want to hurt.
i feel like i've messed up a lot and that there really isn't anyone else to blame. i stopped talking to my sister like i used to, i don't talk to my friends from highschool, i don't have the attention span to do school anymore, and i don't know what it's like to not be tired anymore.
when did i become such a downer?

compare the two sets of data

things are not going as well as one would hope. with friendship crisises, too much school work, spinning mind and recurring "food issues".
i've taken two weeks off of therapy (one of the weeks is up). my reason behind this is because i always leave therapy feeling like i haven't said what it is i need to say, mostly because i don't know what it is that i need to be saying. i want a chance to do some "soul searching" and find out what it is that i really need. thus far, i've had a hard time finding the time to journal as i had planned. i wish i could take more time off, there's something about the therapy process that i'm just don't comfortable with anymore. i'm tired of talking. especially when talking only leads to me feeling like shit.
i've written several letters to my renfrew women, but have yet to mail them - it's not one of my strong suits - but i promise they will be coming. i miss them, very much. not at all because i'm unhappy with the friends i have here, but more accurately because i feel so silly that i have such food issues in a environment that doesn't really understand (that environment being the rest of the world/agnes). i find myself only eating things that are "bad" for me when i do eat. i'm too embarrassed to buy ensure. i've slipped. i'm trying to hold on to what i learned about myself and what determination i had worked up.
i'm not sure if i wrote about going to a ANAD meeting last week. it was nice to be in one of those safe places, although it maybe structure that i need more than support. i'm ashamed to say that one of the strongest memories i have from said meeting was that i was the largest girl there - even though i've slipped since leaving treatment. more and more i feel like i was never "sick enough" to be "treated". logically i know it's not true
i've said it over and over again that hurt is hurt
but it's slipping. sometimes i want to prove that i'm worthy of worrying about, but i hold on to the fact that i HATE people worrying about me.