I'm exhausted. It's just been one of those weeks. It doesn't help that I essentially compressed 5 already busy days into 4. I was in the lab until 7pm yesterday and have basically been in there constantly every day, except for the few minutes I force myself to take a break and eat lunch. And tonight even though I left at a decent time it took me more than double my normal commute time to get home. Weeks like this tend to wreak havoc with my sleeping, eating, and broken brain things. And by that I mean my self-esteem has been low and my body dysmorphia has been high. I've been beating myself mentally black and blue for little things like losing a protocol sheet or eating an extra cookie.
This wasn't helped when today I followed a blog link from a link from a link in the comments of a blog I love. I do this often and I've found some of my favorite blogs that way. Unfortunately today I ended up at a pro-anorexia blog, complete with "thinspo". (I have a lot to say about pro-anorexia but that's for another post. Look for it soon!) It was like seeing a car wreck. I couldn't look away even though I so desperately wanted to. I just stared at these pictures of totally normal-sized girls deemed "whales" by this blog writer and at the emaciated, supposedly good, comparisons.
And I wanted to cry. It's been so hard for me to smother the voices in my head that tell me I'm a cow and insist that everyone who sees me is staring in disgust at how huge I am. They say I'm not worthy of love, not worthy of anything. But I've been doing pretty well at not having those thoughts as much lately, or at least ignoring them. I still hate mirrors and pictures of myself but all in all I've been feeling okay in regards to that. This one single website though just brought it all rushing back. It was truly incredible how quickly it happened. All the hatred and anger at myself were right there, just waiting for me to let my guard down in the slightest. It was like the last 3 years of recovery never happened. I could only stare at the mirror in the bathroom, wishing I was dead, positive that every single person is, like this one sick individual, as horrified by my appearance as I am.
It sounds overly dramatic, I know, I'm sorry. But I'm a little scared now. It feels like I have some sort of chained beast right behind me and the littlest thing will set it free to eat me. (Get the irony? Eating?) I really thought I'd put most of this behind me and it was shocking to realize just how present it still is.
The good news though is even though it upset me way more than it should have, I didn't let it change my behavior. A therapist once had me take phrases like "I gained a pound and I'm upset so I can't go out with friends" to "I gained a pound and I'm upset and I'm going out with friends". She said that it was okay to have these thoughts but you can't act on them. So today I felt fat and didn't want to eat dinner but instead I felt fat and ate dinner. It's a victory. A couple years ago I would have done anything I had to to not eat tonight. But I had a big tuna sandwich and some kettle chips and I feel better. Still fat and gross and terrible but okay. I can live in this body another day.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to eat ice cream and watch the SciFi channel.
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