The Wallflower that dances on tabletops

My goodness was today a good day. The sun is shining, my schedule is packed, and I am abstinent from binging and purging!!! What more could a girl in recovery ask for?!?! I think part of my serene mood is coming from the fact that I actually got some solid sleep last night. I took a target sleep aid before going to bed, and drifted right off to sleep at around 11pm. I woke up at 2:30 to pee, but was able to get right back to sleep. I woke up again at about 5ish and had more trouble lulling back off (until 5:40 when I feel back in to a deep sleep) and was "Up and Atem" at 6am this morning... READY TO GO!!! I got to school in PLENTY OF TIME and had a wonderful day of learning.

I was having a conversation with one of my good friends who also suffers from an ED. I'm not sure what prompted me to bring it up, but I asked her about her thoughts on permanent recovery. I really admire her, and respect her so I hold a very high regard for her wisdom and insight. Basically we found that we both feel that our ED's are something we are going to have to struggle with be conscious of for the rest of our lives, and that there is no true "cure" for our illness. However, we also do believe recovery is possible (depending on how you define it) and that not engaging in ED behaviors does create a more meaningful way of life.

We discussed how long we had been living with our ED and how long we had be "clean".. and it was at that moment that I realized that in the last 46 days... I have managed to only throw up twice!!! This may not sound like a big deal, but if I was still engaging in my sickness I would have thrown up somewhere between 50 and 80 times. I don't know about you guys... but that sounds like progress to me ;)

In the afternoon I went to a lecture called on the Neurobiology of Eating Disorders. It really focused on the etiological factors of eating disorders and the effects of learned fear responses and anxiety on the development and stabalization of Eating Disorders. I found it really interesting and took away some "nuggets" of info

1. The act of starvation/restricting makes food the most important thing in life
2. We can tend to view restricting as a sign of strength and moral character
3. The feelings of abnormality or that "something is wrong with me" originated at a really young age. For it, it stems back to when my father and mother divorced and his and my relationship became strained
4. We are programmed NOT to starve, so when we do, our body begins to compensate by doing very bizarre things
5. The feared consequence goes of an eating disorder goes beyond the fear of gaining weight, but it is more or less about what we are afraid of once we gain the weight
(For me, this is that people will think that I am disgusting and not want to be around me. I am afraid that I willl be alone and unloved if I gain weight.I'll write more about this later)

The most important thing I took away from the lecture was a quote that the lecturer said:

"The bulimic is a Wallflower that dances on tabletops" - Norman Kim, Ph.D.

I don't know exactly how to describe what this means... but when he said it, I felt as though he was saying it directly to me!!! I feel like I try so hard to not stand out, but be the center of attention with everything I do. I want to blend in perfectly, but be noticed and appreciated my others... its a very bizarre combination of needs and wants.

After this lecture, everything went down hill for me today. I felt so insanely full, and uncomfortable and all I wanted to do was either poop, run or throw up to get rid of the horrible knot in my stomach. I spent the rest of the afternoon irritable, agitated and pissed off at everything. I even created an "Irritated Inventory" while I was on my run. It looked something like this:

I'm irritated that:

- I have made my life unmanageable

- That I have a boyfriend who takes 24 hours to respond to my texts

- That I have to compete with everyone

- That this damn process has to take so long

- That I spend the majority of my day thinking about food

- That people in the Lifeline Sampler have found recovery and are abstinent

- That I am so aware of my maladaptive behaviors that using them for comfort wouldn't be comforting at all

- I'm irritated that I cant just figure this shit out

This could go on for a while... but I think you get the point. The best part, is that this is one of the best runs I have EVER had off of a treadmill!

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	38:13.5	4.70	8:08
1	8:18.7	1.00	8:19
2	8:12.7	1.00	8:13
3	7:51.2	1.00	7:51
4	8:08.3	1.00	8:08
5	5:42.5	0.70	8:1

Do you see that dark blue line.... that would be a sub 8 minute mile. There's a really good story behind this. So, I'm running, and all of a sudden this guy comes out of nowhere and starts passing me. I had been running a pretty good pace up until then, so I saw this as a challenge... CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!! he was running SUPER fast and it was actually really difficult for me to keep up with him, but I had accepted a challenge, I couldn't back down! So I kept at it, and eventually he dropped out of the race (that he didn't know he was running). I looked down at my watch and saw this for my lap time and about died!!!! That is suuuper effing fast. 

I wish I could say I was proud... but I have still just been in a sad place all evening. I'm not sure what to do. I really want to binge, but I know it wont help. I'm going to try and go to sleep and hopefully I can wake up in the morning feeling better.

Take care and Pray for me,

CC