There’s nothing much to write today. I’ve been in long term treatment for a complete week now and have settled in fairly well. I like my treatment team. I have yet to be compliant with anything; the purpose is not to be mean but the food seems like so much and I still want to lose weight, which are conflicting goals. At times I’ve questioned whether I want to give up the eating disorder but I know I don’t want to live with it. I am miserable. It has contorted me into a creature I don’t know and don’t like what she does. I have become my own abuser. Why worry about the uncle or the neighbor or the boyfriend when I can just abuse myself?

I’m starting to get the routine down, but I’m still not able to go out on the outings like the two other members in my group. I feel alot of pressure to adhere to the mealplan so I can move up levels and go off with them. But we all know that I can come up with a million reasons in the world to eat and adhere to the plan but one thing and one thing only gets in the way and that is that I don’t want to gain weight. I accept the face that if I don’t gain weight I won’t get better, I won’t uncover the issues beneath the eating disorder and I would be squabbling an opportunity to get better. To get a full scholarship to treatment is pretty special and I don’t want to waste.

I’ve had mini-flash backs lately. A lot of ones that take me back to the grandparents house. The two groups were doing karoke earlier and they sang a particular song that reminded me of one of my uncles, and I cried deeply inside, but I had my mask on outside so no one knew how much I was bothered. Why it bothered me I don’t know because it wasn’t the uncle that hurt me, that I know of. They tell me it was one particular uncle and the neighbor, but they let me feel that there are more secrets like the brother and the other uncle. I remember wrestling with the other uncle, but that was benign. And just because we were dumped off on them doesn’t constitute a reason for abuse. I hope to escape the suspicions and deal with what really happened; I know the eating disorder and others are still protecting me from the truth, and I have to say I’m tired of living a half life.

I know things happened to me but happened to someone else. I know I’m a half life. I’m a partial. I would really like to pull the sheets back and find the rest of me underneath this eating disorder so that I can find myself and find out what happened to us.

The weekend is here and there are no groups to go to. So we just kind of find things to do like play games, write, watch movies, and eat. Those on the higher levels are playing miniature golf and going to the mall. My favorite store is here: Sephora. Even that is not a good enough reason to go follow my meal plan. I’m finding that my skinny clothes are getting a little bit bigger and I can’t help but write that with a smile. I know how counterproductive it is. Some of the groups are going out for a walk, but I’m confined to the house. My psycho-iatrist said I was not allowed to leave the house for any reason. However, there is a candle light vigil tomorrow night that I might get to go to because there is no physical activity (I could find some) involved and it would be physically safe.

I’ve been very frustrated and anxious since lunch. The anxiety has only increased, despite imagery exercise, deep breathing, and medication. I felt guilty because I ate a piece of bread for dinner even though I only ate half my entrée. Why is weight gain so hard for me? What is lying beneath the surface? I’d give anything to know. It’s later in the evening and the girls are playing karoke. I’ve declined to play. I would rather be alone with my thoughts, or lack thereof.

Gaining weight means that all these people that are paid to care about me won’t care as much anymore. I know my husband cares about me. The birth parents might, depending on the day. But no one else in the world cares about me unless they I’m sick and I have to pay for attention. That’s what the neighbor was all about: getting attention from inapporpriate sources and in inappropriate ways. But that’s partly why I do it: I’m attention seeking. It’s a little like being a prostitute; I sacrifice and violate my body just to get attention or something (anything!) out of the exchange. Even if it is the threat of a tube being shoved down my nose. I find it sad. A lost, lonely little girl searching for someone to take care of her and willing to sacrifice herself so someone can fill those needs.

But also, seeing bones in the mirror can be thrilling, a natural high just like the hunger. Like right now I’m hungry and snack is scheduled for twenty-five minutes from now and I plan on refusing it. Part of me is scared because I know I will still look in the pantry and take half of what I’m supposed to eat. I may eat it or not. If I eat it, I will be a loser, if I don’t eat it I will be a loser because how can someone be in “recovery” yet not eat their assigned food. And my dietician added two more exchanges to my meal plan but failed to put it on my meal card so I’m happy as a clam that staff can’t enforce the increase. They don’t even know about it.

These are not the behaviors of someone who wants to get well. These are the behaviors of someone who desperately needs attention and help and doesn’t want people to give up on her just because she struggles with what she knows her body needs but can’t seem to convince her heart to follow through.

I also have some idiotic notion that starving myself will make me clean. I remember as a girl, maybe nine or ten years old, and I was showering and scrubbing so hard. I remembering feeling hungry and when I got out of the shower there was just a pure sensation all over me because I wasn’t dirty, I was only clean and fresh and pure. I know it’s all about that damn uncle. The eating disorder has so many layers, or maybe I started using it in the beginning to cope with one stressor in my life and then I started using it for all the stressors in my life as I got older.

I deserve more than this…I think. At least that’s what I’m being told. Maybe I believe them. Maybe. I don’t know for sure that I should keep hurting myself over what others did to me. According to them, I have a right to heal; however, I can only do it if I gain weight. Didn’t we write earlier we can just lose the weight if we don’t like the way we look. Losing the weight is fun; feeling hungry and relishing it is like what I imagine rolling a cigaratte between the fingers would be like or swishing around an age old brandy in a sniffer. If feels good and the release is incredible and indescribable. But if there could be other things that might make us feel better then why not just try them?

We colored yesterday. someone got angry with the kids because they weren’t Koloring in the lines. I just let them continue. Then someone else played puzzles and others watched a movie on the computer.

The unit phone is ringing but I don’t care. I don’t want to answer it. I don’t want to write anymore either.