Holy Shat!

Jemaine: What's wrong, Brett?

Brett: Ah, I'm just having some body image problems.

Jemaine: Oh. Are you bulimic or something?

Brett: No, it's just that after that photo shoot yesterday, I felt really small.

Jemaine: Is that what made you bulimic?

Brett: I'm not bulimic, I just need to eat more.

Jemaine: Well, that sounds like bulimia to me. Hey remember at your mum's birthday party, when you got really drunk?

Brett: Yeah.

Jemaine: I heard you in the bathroom after. Being bulimic.

Brett: I'm not bulimic!

~Flight of the Conchords

8:45 am

Snuggled up in bed after what turned out to be another successful breakfast!

I know! I KNOW.

I can’t believe it either, but there you have it.

I always have an Extra at Breakfast, partly because I am so famished from the night before, and partly to make sure I don’t get hungry until the next feeding time. But today, I had my two bowls of oatmeal with vanilla soy milk and my large cup of tea, and I felt full, so I decided to stop. I wanted so badly to get up and go to the Extras cupboard and get more food, since I still had five minutes to go, and had nothing to do but sit there in total agony.

My eating disorder and I fought back and forth the whole fecking time.

I want more, Ed said plaintively.

Well, I don’t, Dick Nuts, I thought, and snickered to myself. Dick Nuts.

Please, he pleaded. I’m still hungry, and we won’t be able to eat again for two HOURS.

You’re not hungry, Ed, I challenged him. You’re addicted to food. And it’s okay to be hungry by the next feeding time! It didn’t kill us yesterday, did it?

It nearly did, he sulked.

This conversation went back and forth in my head while I waited out the clock, and finally, Breakfast was done.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I did it! AGAIN!

FUCK YOU, DICK NUTS! Rahahahahahahahahaha!

With Breakfast completed, the girls and I shuffled back towards the dorm room. I was the first one in, and made a beeline for my bed. I was just climbing under the covers when I heard Sweetface gasp.

“What the fuck?!” she cried.

I sat up and looked where she was pointing.

The sink? Huh?

I looked closer and snorted.

The hot and cold taps were gone!

I saw that one coming! I thought.

Remember when I tried to have a glass of water after Snacktime that one day? And the stink I raised about dehydration when they told me I could only have water during alloted mealtimes?

Well, over the past two days, I have sat and watched while both FuBu and Auschwitz-the-Lifer have gone up to the sink whenever it took their fancy, turned on the tap, and drank as much water as they wanted. I was often tempted to do the same, but the sink was a good five feet away from my bed, and I couldn’t actually be assed to get up and make the effort.

Well, turns out that somebody is suspected of water-loading for weigh-in this morning, so they removed the taps from our sink. I was passed out all morning, so I didn’t see anybody drinking exceptional amounts of water, but it seems pretty fucking obvious to me who was doing it. I would bet the farm that Auschwitz-the-Lifer was 49 pounds this morning, instead of 47.

"See?" I bet she told the nurses, from atop the scale. "I am eating!" (water).

The other anorexic girls continued to freak on the nurses for the theft of our taps, but I just sat there and watched, bored. The only time I had used the taps was when my acid reflux was acting up, and my body was pushing food back up my throat. I would run to the sink and spit it up, then rinse it out with water.

Oh well, I thought, and while FuBu kept the fight against the nurses going strong, I lay back down and pulled the covers over my head.

12:40 pm

Morning Snack went well this morning. I was given a banana and a single-serving yogurt, which I added maybe half a cup of granola to. Then I had my cup of tea, and it was over. Yes!

Lunch was not quite as successful, but I have decided to still see it as a success. I had a really yummy meal - sweet n’ sour chicken with brown rice and steamed carrots. It was delicious and quite filling, and I sat and sipped my tea afterwards while I debated about Extras.

When my tea was finished, I looked up at the clock. Still seven minutes to go. I wasn’t allowed anymore tea, but I could have an Extra.

Are you still hungry? I asked myself.

I don’t know, I answered honestly. I think so.

Let’s have one Extra, then, I told myself. But just one, cuz you are already relatively full. Okay?

'Kay.

I got up and went to the Extras cupboard, and brought down the box of granola and bag of Olympic Mix. I poured about one cup of granola into my styrofoam cup, and added three teaspoons of Olympic Mix to the top, trying to get mostly raisins and Smarties.

I sat down and ate my delicious dessert, savoring every bite and fighting hard to keep Ed at bay. I ended up picking out the peanuts after a few mouthfuls - I just didn’t enjoy them enough to justify eating so much fat. I thought that everyone would be grossed out by that, but nobody said anything, and I finished my granola-and-Olympic-mix in just the nick of time.

Lunch was over!

Now I am sitting up in my hospital bed in our dorm room, uncertain as to whether or not I am too full. It’s nice to have a tummy full of food, and we have two and half hours until our next feeding, which is part of what compelled me to eat the Extra - two and a half hours is a long time for me. I wanted to make sure that I ate enough to get me there.

This is the first Sunday I have spent here in hospital, and while I have done very well at keeping myself busy with writing and reading, the threat of all-that-time-to-fill is constantly at the back of my mind. I can’t imagine what I would be doing if I didn’t have this blog to write, my books to read, my comedy to watch.

If I am honest, I don’t think I would still be here. I'd either have left to eat my way through the universe, or to shoot myself in the face.

Oh hey, they gave us an update on Pissy Kitty today, the girl who refused to eat with us yesterday morning.

They had to shove a tube up her nose. Force feeding the Kitty. MWWRRORRRRR.

As I sit here in my hospital bed and contemplate this news, only one thought really springs to mind.

WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO FORCE FEED AUSCHWITZ-THE-LIFER, FOR FUCK'S SAKE?!?!?!?!?

2:55 pm

I’m just after Afternoon Snack. Another success, just ate my banana and Rice Krispie square, and spoon fed myself my tea.

Let’s see, what else?

Um........hmmmmm.

I miss Bf so much.

5:40 pm

Argh. It really is hard to wile away a day here, without the Groups. I’ve done well for most of the day, but right before dinner I was started to go a little stir crazy, being stuck in my hospital bed all day, and -

Oh God, yes! Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.

Just when I was wondering how I was going to get through the next three and a half hours stuck in my hospital bed, Nurse Sarah walked in.

“What would you guys say about Nurse Purple Lips taking you out for a walk?”

A cheer went up through the dorm room. Something to do! Thank-you, Je-bus!

We're just heading out now, everyone's waiting for me. Back in a bit.

7:00

I couldn’t write right away when we returned from our walk, shortly after 6.

We had walked down the hill to the side of the hospital, to sit on the benches in the sun. All I could see as I sat there was the Sar Cee Hill, the road that I always took home to M’s place. I couldn’t look away, I just sat there staring at it and trying to breathe.

It snuck up on me - the pain and regret of what I’ve done to him, what I’ve ruined, I've been keeping it at bay, but it somehow snuck in tonight. I’ve been trying so hard to run from it, for fear that my own self hatred would lose me my last chance to get some help. I don’t know what else to do from here, except to keep running from it, to keep from harming myself.

So I had to watch a couple episodes of Sons of Butcher to distract myself, as I was a the tip of the downward spiral, about to fall. Luckily I found the one episode on YouTube that isn’t censored, and got to hear Sol Butcher say fuck two times! Very helpful in cheering me up.

Everyone has had visitors today, except for me. Even FuBu’s Dad came by. Not that I care. It would just be nice to have something to fill the time with, though of course, whenever someone does show up to visit me, I feel exhausted at the very thought of being out of my bed.

I’m just never happy, hey?

So, back to treatment. Dinner was pretty good tonight, I was served brown rice, green beans and some kind of bean-and-corn mush, that was delicious and filling, but this was Dinner - the longest break between feedings was coming up. So I filled my styrofoam cup almost to the brim with granola, threw on a few scoops of Olympic mix, and chowed down.

I wanted more when I was done, but settled for a cup of tea instead.

Something that irked me, though, was Fubu, watching me pick the peanuts out of my cup and deposit them on my plate.

“Why do you eat it, if you just do that?” she asked.

You were doing it yesterday, too! I wanted to snap at her, but I just shrugged and told her I thought it would be rude to just take what I wanted out of the container, and leave the peanuts for everyone else.

I now have one hour and fifteen minutes until I can shower, and one hour and forty-five minutes till I can eat again.

Please God, help me. I’m feeling tempted to leave again. Don’t let me.

9:50

Omigod.

Omigod, omigod, omigod.

I was just writing that last line, the ‘please God help, feeling tempted to leave, don’t let me’ one, when FuBu walked by my bed and addressed whoever was at the dorm room door.

“Are you looking for someone?” she asked, and I looked up to see Bf standing in the doorway, holding a purple-potted plant with pink flowers.

My mouth dropped open in shock.

He was so gorgeous.

FuBu turned around and looked back and forth between M and myself, as we both just stared at each other. My mouth closed and opened again like a guppy, but no sound came out.

“I guess you know who you’re looking for,” FuBu smirked, and I suddenly yanked the earbuds out of my ears and climbed out of bed.

He put the plant down on Day Program’s table, and turned to me as I approached him. I walked up to him slowly, and tentatively put my arms towards him.

M moved his arms towards me too, and I stepped into his embrace.

We stood there in that hug for a long time, prolly because I simply would not/could not let go. I breathed him in, and even stuck out my tongue to taste his neck.

M.

When we finally parted, I was so grateful to see him I wanted to prostrate myself at his feet. Instead, I decided we should go and sit in the squishy chairs outside the Group room for a bit.

We walked to the Group room and sat down, and he held my hand the entire time.

He wanted to know what happened that weekend; I didn’t know what to say. How do you tell your lover that hey, yeah, sorry about that, all I could think about was ME ME ME and how MUCH I HURT, so I ran away and tried to kill myself?

I was filled with shame and disgust and rage towards myself for what I had done, but as I wept frustrated tears onto his sleeve, I knew that it wasn’t going to help me get better if I allowed the rage consume me, once again. I was so very, very sick when I did the cowardly, selfish things that I did, and I am still very sick now. I wouldn’t be in a fecking hospital if I wasn’t. I had to accept what I had done, and find the courage to get better.

I apologized to M for what I had done, but I knew it wasn’t enough. How many times has he heard this? I wondered. How is he even here now?

He admitted that he had been angry with me, and had packed up some of my stuff, which I already knew.

“So," he said, looking around, "you can’t make phone calls here?”

“Oh...Um...I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me. I thought you hated me,” I muttered.

“I came pretty close,” he admitted.

His next words were left hanging in the air, unspoken - but I don’t hate you.

I wept some more tears onto his sleeve, a strange, heady mix of gratitude and desperation, love and a fucking killer instinct to succeed and get back the life that was so obviously meant to be mine. Not the skinny me, not the dancing me, not the ‘I drive a 300’ me, but the real me, the me that M clearly still believed in.

He still believed in me. And if that’s not a fucking miracle right there, then I don’t know what is.

I didn’t want him to leave, and he didn’t - he stayed right till the end of visiting hours. We ended up cuddling up on my hospital bed and giggling over an episode of Flight of the Conchords together.

When it came time to leave, I shamelessly begged him to give me his shirt. He was wearing his grey and black striped long sleeved one that is just so him, but even better than the clothes of his I was already harboring in the dorm room, this one smelled like him.

He smiled and agreed to trade me for one of his sweaters - I gave him one of his sister’s that he had nicked, so I could keep his, tee hee! - and he let me take his shirt.

I stood there cuddling it to my chest as I watched the elevator close behind him. Then I gave a little shriek of joy and sank to my knees in the middle of the hallway.

“Thank-you God, oh thank-you God,” I said to the floor, over and over and over again.

M!