I'm Your Hate When You Want Love

Right now, today, I am completely bogged down my my eating disorder.  My dad has a TON of frequent flyer miles left over from when he traveled a ton at his old job many years ago, so we got to fly to Palm Desert California FREE.    It was pretty sweet.  First class, however, gets a meal on a long flight.  They served this disgusting nasty vile thing called steak, and despite how bad it was, I ate it.  I ate that and I left the nice healthy salad.  I ate the bread, and I left the green beans.  I felt awful after, it was like I couldn't stop.  Addicted to nasty shit apparently as long as it's not healthy for me.  Then they brought out a nice oatmeal cookie, which I ate half of, then started crying and gave it to my dad.  I cried so hard, so ashamed of what I did.  Not even the mimosa helped me out (yeah, I drank).  So I went to the gross airplane bathroom and cried more because recovery was fighting Ed, and I was caught in the middle of the battle to purge or to sit with all this food in me.  I was able to resist.  When we got to the place, we checked in and then had to wait 3 hours for our rooms to be ready.  With nowhere to go, we sat by the pool, where I had another drink.  Drink and a half if you include what I finished of my mom's.  We ordered appetizers to share.  Did I eat from the veggie tray?  No.  I ate a corner of the quesadilla instead.  All I could see were beautiful people walking around in their swimsuits or tanning by the pool, and all I could think of was how I am the fattest one here.  This isn't like a 90lb girl thinking she's fat, no matter how convinced Ed has her, this is TRUE!  So I cried more.  Finally we got into our villa and I laid in bed while my parents got groceries for the week.  Then we went out to dinner (SO MUCH FUCKING FOOD FOR ONE DAY) and got pizza.  I didn't cry this time, because Ed took over recovery, and kept me reassured.  I ate a lot.  Then I came back to the villa and broke my 4 month streak, and I purged.

Hey, I'm your life, I'm the one who takes you there.  Hey, I'm your life, I'm the one who's there.  They, they betray, I'm your only true friend now.  They, they'll betray, I'm forever there.

Everyone keeps calling me brave.  They tell me how brave I am for fighting, how strong I am for choosing life.  I don't feel brave.  I feel afraid, SO afraid, like the girl who used to be strong is now cowering in a corner crying and trying not to be seen.  That little girl is really glad that Ed is here to take control.  I don't feel strong.  I feel incredibly weak, actually.  The little girl is glad that she doesn't have to fight right now, and she's feeling so much shame for NOT fighting.  It weighs heavy, so heavy.  It's too much, and at some point she decided to give up and let Ed take over her life.  I'm not really talking about myself in third person...kinda.  Right now, recovery Julie IS that little girl in the corner.  By the way, it's a dark corner in a brick alley covered in soot, and it's raining.  Hard.  Anyone would run from that image, right?  The picture I see so clearly, however, is enticing.  That little girl is crying in the dark and the rain and the dirt, but she's also really skinny.  Like, skeletal.  This is such a dichotomy in my head, and I know the "correct" answers, I know what the difference between disorder and recovery is.  It's not confusion I'm feeling.  It's mostly, I think, shame.  Like how you feel after you tell a lie to a really close friend.  It eats at you until you either give in and cause chaos, or your friend finds out and calls you on it, causing chaos.  Once you've told that lie, there's no ideal conclusion to the situation.  If you have a soul and a conscience, that is.
I was reading Hollow by Jena Morrow on the airplane (REALLY bad choice given my state of mind) and she talks about how her first memories of feeling fat were at age 3.  I remember being about 4, when I went from a children's size 6 to a 6X.  I'm not even sure I know what the X stood for, I just remember thinking, "I'm supposed to be a size 6.  6X means I'm bigger than everyone else.  And I'm not taller than them, so it must mean I'm fatter."  Shit, dude.  That's the little girl that cowers in the dark alleys of my brain.  I feel so bad for her.  I both want to help her get better, and I want to look like her so at least we can be skinny together, no matter how we feel, we'd at least look good.

You, you're my mask, you're my cover, my shelter.  You, you're my mask, you're the one who's blamed.  Do, do my work, do my dirty work, scapegoat.  Do, do my work, for you're the one who's shamed. 

Hey, I'm your life, I'm the one who took you there.

Hey, I'm your life, and I no longer care.