I feel like I've really been neglecting this blog, and all of your blogs. I'm sorry. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm reconnecting with my life again. I've actually been doing things that make me happy. I've been hanging out with friends, people I didn't even realize were my friends. I've been breaking all of my mother's rules and it's fantastic to feel free but bittersweet to feel guilt from all the lies. I've been writing a lot. I've been singing a lot. And I've been crying a lot, too, but in the past few days I've moved on from all-consuming, overwhelming depression and into more mild-to-moderate general unhappiness and apathy. I've also been binging less and losing more. I gained like 12-15lbs since Thanksgiving kicked off the holiday season and as of now I have about 6lbs left to lose until Christmas is off of my torso for good. I've stopped obsessing over food, and somehow, miraculously, I've been eating less of it. Naturally. I'm eating more than I would like to, but less than normal. And I've been losing. I haven't been restricting calories, rather I've been setting a time limit on how late into the day I can eat. As it turns out, eating normally until 5:00 and not eating (or hardly eating) for the rest of the day is more effective than eating nothing all day and binging at 2AM until I pass out in a fit of tears. Go figure. I'm going to keep going like this until it stops working. Right now I feel like I'm hiding out in the real world from the monsters in my brain. It's a much nicer place than hiding out in my brain from the real world.

"Nothing isn't nothing; nothing's something that's important to me... that's right..."

Oh goodness goodness goodness goodness goodness me!

I just saw Ben Kweller!

It was so amazing!

I just don't know what to do with myself!

He hugged me!

And he sang the most beautiful songs!

This isn't related to food at all but I figured I need to let you guys know that I have like NEVER EVER been this happy EVER and I don't know how I'll ever be sad again! Tonight was beyond words.

I've had no amazing breakthroughs... I lost two or three lbs, not exactly sure because I haven't been able to weigh in a day or two. Basically it's been a rough week but today was great and I'm definitely getting out of my slump.

I haven't been posting much, sorry... I haven't really known what to say. I'm fucking depressed and the only thing I'm looking forward to is getting sick again so i can stay home from school for a couple days. Blahhh.

I might sum things up like this:

I go to sleep every night hoping I won't wake up. Then I wake up, and I'm so disappointed that the frustration still exists. Then the only thing I can find the energy for is making the effort to fuck myself up more that day than I did the day before. By the evening I usually am feeling a little bit better, but by nighttime I usually end up doing something really stupid that overshadows any good thing that happened that day. Then I go to sleep hoping I won't wake up.

or maybe

From day to day I cycle between binging and starving. And from day to day, the intensity with which I think about killing myself depends solely on where I've gained or lost weight. That's generally what's going on when I sound unhappy. I lost 60lbs by starving, gained 10lbs back from binging, and the latter thought alone steals all my happiness away from me.

or maybe

Killmekillmekillmekillmekillmekillmekillme etc x2 tenfold.

I don't know how any of these would go over in casual conversation. Or a heart to heart. I want to reach out to someone so bad it kills me inside.

But I have to say thank you all so much for your support lately. It means more to me than you know. Sorry I haven't commented much lately, but it would appear that I've become the type of whiny self-obsessed bitch that I hate.

Y'know, none of this positive thinking and not hating myself garbage makes sense when I have SOLID PROOF that all of the terrible things I think about myself are completely true.

Recovering, and more random ED philosophy...

It's time for me to recover. Half way. Yeah... or maybe this will just go down in history as the shittiest attempt at recovery ever, but here's the deal: I want my mind to be healthy. I want to recover that part of me. I'm taking my mind back from Ana--I'm not going to let her tell me to hate myself anymore. If I keep on listening to Ana I might just go ahead and kill myself before I even graduate. She's put me right in this hole, she's made me give up on my friends, my family, my dreams, myself. There's no getting around it--if you listen to Ana, she will ruin you. And I think she's ruined me, most of me, but that tiny sliver of self I can still see through these blurry hateful eyes is strong, and that part of me is willing to fight that stupid bitch off. My eyes aren't cloudy anymore, oh certainly not.

I am not thin enough, but I am not ugly, I am not a monster, I am not disgusting and frankly if I met myself I would want to be my friend. The reason I don't have many friends is because of the shyness caused from self-hatred, caused from Ana's influence in my brain. She tells me not to trust anyone and to be self-conscious when I talk. The only thing actually wrong with me is my preoccupation with what I perceive as being wrong with me. I need to chill the fuck out. Because I seriously don't know of a single person that dislikes me, aside from maybe a few lame kids who think they're too cool for me. And a whole lot of people that have no opinion of me whatsoever, because I'm too shy to let myself make an impression. Which is so not a big deal at all! Because if I let myself relate to people I would have more friends. I have to believe that, I have to believe that I'm an alright person. A good person, even. It's so hard for me to believe but every single day that I think something negative about myself that's unwarranted I'm going to give myself a good talking to.

It's so much easier to hate myself. While writing that last paragraph I decided to give up on this whole "recovery" thing like twice, because it's so hard to even let myself believe for a second that I may be a pleasant, virtuous, nice-looking? (one day?) person. It's easier to lie in bed and cry than it is to text someone to hang out. Buuuuuuut...

I refuse to give up my eating disorder. I do, however, intend to perfect it. It makes sense, right? I want to be happy. I want to be strong. I want to be beautiful. I have no desire to be "perfect" but all of this does extend from this concept. So how is it "perfect" to be depressed? And yeah, isn't the whole point of the eating disorder to reach our personal ideals of perfection? Well this life I'm living is by no means perfect. Hating yourself isn't perfection. Your means (hating yourself) can't contradict your desired ends (happiness) because that's like a total paradox; it'll never get you anywhere because it just logically does not make sense. Do you see what I'm saying here? I'm afraid I've lost all ability to explain myself, but I hope my point is coming across somewhat clear. Basically, the "perfect" eating disorder would be one where you restrict ad lose weight rapidly and constantly but you are HAPPY. You are beautiful on the inside as you seek to make yourself more beautiful on the outside. That's the perfection I will aim for now. I won't let myself be depressed anymore. I'm no longer allowed to hate myself. I don't find myself particularly attractive but I'm not the fucking ogre I once led myself to believe I was, and anyway there are more important things about my person than how I look.

(I realize that the one bit of faulty logic in my plan is that starving has detrimental health-related effects, the main one being that it will physically affect your brain in the way that makes you depressed. Well, supposedly. I, however, have not found that starving actually makes me depressed (binging does.) so I'm still completely hold the belief that I can starve and be happy about it, like I used to be.)

Conclusion? Restrict, but don't hate myself. Don't call myself ugly. Don't call myself worthless. Stop saying "I am fat" and replace it with "I'm not thin enough, yet, but I will be." Still not super-positive, but it's better. Turn this ED into an eccentricity rather than a disease. Don't call myself a monster. Stop using these negative thoughts as a security blanket. Don't run to the scale every time sometime goes wrong in my life. Don't let Ana kill me anymore. I know we've had some good times, girl, but I just don't trust you anymore.