The story- it's long..

The girl in these pictures... are me. DUH. The one on the right was 2 years ago, the one on the left was 1 year ago- both in the winter. I can barely associate myself with them. I have not only changed physically but emotionally I have no idea where I was or what I was doing.  I know in the picture of the left, for the majority of the evening I was thinking fat fat fat. And the picture on the right was during finals junior year and I was so busy with studying and trying to get in some sleep--i never ate, I got caught in the slippery slope of restricting. It looks like I'm having fun in both these pictures and I WAS. I had a good time at the Carolina's bday party and a great time...doing whatever the hell it is alex and I are doing...but I am now well aware of what a facade and manipulation to myself those both were. I didn't think or react to outside stimuli. In fact, I refused to react with emotions.. In the picture on the left I was more aware and blocked more out consciously. I restricted my emotions, not my food.. at that point. I was midway into falling into my ED though w/purging.  I consciously chose to try not to think. In both these pictures I was not horridly deep into one of my cycles of ED. Although in both these pictures I was in the cycle. I can't say I can think of any time I wasn't engaging in some sort of symptoms even if they were very subtle. But I was ignorant enough and able to restrict my emotions enough at times to just have fun but the emotions had to go somewhere. I was pretty much an empty shell with a pathetic attempt to look put together that knew organic chemistry ( yeah bullshit, pretended to know organic chemistry ), sociology shit and other stuff. No emotions usually. And then the almost scheduled panic emotion attack to let out a flood of emotions then I had to stop it and pretend it never happened and move on. It was a nice cycle I had going for quite a few years.

Then I crashed. hard. It wasn't a schedule panic attack that quickly got buried, it became physiological as well. I fell deep into my eating disorder. Both b/p and restricting. I had constant headaches--which I actually did not associate with my symptom usage.... My anxiety had taken it's last toll on me. I was literally failing classes bc I couldn't function or think. I was making decisions of blacking out so I wouldn't have to wake up bc all I would do when i was awake was b/p. That's when I finally dragged my ass down to student health and begged to see my psychiatrist whom I had seen earlier in the year ( about the time that the above picture on the left was taken ). At that time, when i saw him, I was a bit aware of the fact that something was not right...but when he told me I should be on prozac and I had bulimia. I told him he was full of shit and left... Then I crawled back...after business hours begging the secretary to see him. And he took me, he saw me after his last scheduled patient. I crawled into his office bawling. I seriously didn't think i was going to make it to the stereotypical couch that every shrink has. But also due to ignorance, I thought seeing a psychiatrist would just make everything dandy and better again. NO NO NO NO "it gets worse before it gets better".  but I couldn't take where I was anymore. I had to go somewhere else. I had to.

and HELL YES did it get worse. I don't know how I managed to graduate. I truly don't. My last month at Emory was nothing but pure obsession, restricting, excercising and studying when my brain functioned which wasn't very often. But I was loosing weight. I was for the first time starting to feel decent about my body. The closest picture I can find around that time is this one-- .. I was happy with my body but ironically was holed up in my room most of the time, obsessing, hating, confused and watching the food network. My social life went down the drain. I flushed it down the drain because ED replaced it. Ironically I was somewhat pleased with how I looked but I rarely let anyone see me and the body I was working for..and using restricting to regulate my emotions. I remember anytime I felt an emotion that I was worried would spiral, I'd immediately go use symptoms to numb. It wasn't even a second thought. if i felt like i was about to be hurt, I immediately went for a 5 mile run--even if i had a final in a few hours. I was always in gym clothes. My life revolved around studying (when possible ), the gym and restricting food and emotions.

Finally I agreed to go see a therapist after my shrink had suggested/pushed me to do it about 10000 x. It helped quite a bit, of course, but then I went home. shit hit the fan. The bulimia relapsed on top of the obsession with restricting and overexercising. I couldn't handle home. I'm pretty sure my body was screaming for help. I was using every symptom in the freaking book that week. I came back to Atlanta 20x worse than how I left. My psychiatrist was quite shocked actually as I didn't really talk about my family ....ever. So, with things getting even worse and it being summer--> more free time...the symptoms got worse. The b/p turned into an addiction, a painful one I couldn't stop on my own. Finally, I got an ultimatum- either an inpatient program or ACE...I chose ACE( Atlanta Center for Eating Disorders ) bc it was partial hospitalization program and not inpatient. yes, I had to live at the house that ACE owned across the street but I refused to go inpatient. ACE helped a lot...at one point I was symptom free, semi-realizing I needed to process emotions instead of running or purging them away and was decently okay with my weight. I was progressing-sypmtom wise.

Emotionally, I was all over the place. Realizing how "sensitive" I was to emotions - not only mine but those around me- turned me into a walking train wreck. I had to deal with years of pent up anger, fear, blah blah blah, i still have a small emotional vocabulary- i tend to just make weird animal noises now.... but it was a god damn rollercoaster and I remember thinking "I thought ED was bad...this is 10x worse". I want my ED back- emotions are not worth it. I didn't truly mean it though, well probably 20% of me did but the majority just wanted this whole nightmare to end. I wanted/needed to fucking WAKE UP. I couldn't go to graduate school, even though I had been accepted, I couldn't hold any job I got hired for.  I was truly non-functional.

Therapy had to be a full time thing. I had to focus entirely on me because at that point, I had torn down my walls to myself and was lost as shit, need the professional guidance and grad school and or the job both made me cut down tons on groups and therapy. I found myself blacking out, panicking and basically loosing it. So...I quit it all. I quit trying to be who I wanted to be bc of my age and degree. That helped...massively...accepting that.. I need this right now and obviously these other options which I thought would help my self esteem only made me fly downhill emotionally.

Then I had to leave my psychiatrist who I probably had (have) an unhealthy attachment to bc I attribute him to hitting me over the head w/a hammer and saving my life. I wasn't ready for the flood of emotions that come with.... leaving someone you .... trusted and allowed into my life. I had always refused to acknowledge those emotions- i ran them off- or made up excuses- blamed it on me- just never dealth w/it . I had always repressed them to a degree that I could handle. Except this time, I didn't....I lost it. I completely lost it and what a great opportunity for ED to jump back into my life and take over. Symptoms started popping up...I fell down the slippery slope...way tooo quickly. Now i'm still trying to dig my way out....both emotionally now and symptom wise. I do feel some progress with my changes in medication...and now that i've upped my individual therapy and ACE has me on a threatened contract. FEAR is a great motivator...at least a good one to start with. So...from 2 winters ago to now... i'm still Lisa. I'm still the same person, yes I look different, yes I act different, yes I am rationally still the same person but in about 1000 ways I am different. I still haven't met myself yet.

NOW...i'm doing my best to not completely purge my social life down the drain when I hit a hard spot but it's hard to keep up with the real world. I try, this is blog my one of my best efforts to let people in because I only see  people at ACE and a few select friends ...even though I want to see more people.... I still do find myself purging some of my social life down the toilet. I can't put on the happy mask anymore. I can't be who I WAS and it's embarassing to show that to people- to let them know I'm human and not put together.

I can have fun when I'm in the right place with the right person, I can joke, I can BE HAPPY. I CAN. I CAN LAUGH.I CAN LIVE. I CAN LOVE( well...maybe i'm not there yet )  but I no longer know how to manipulate it to myself anymore. I can't just let shit happen and purge/run it away. I have to process it now....

So...this means...that...I am working towards reacting to outside stimuli in an appropriate emotional way. In other words= I'm learning how to be human. I'm still quite... unclear about how i feel about this...recovery still scares me. I'm scared I'm going to turn into the stereotypical emotional chick that everyone is annoyed by when I've made such a conscious effort for years to not be that person. Now I am going to drink an ensure so that... I can meet my goal that I am not 100% sure I want to meet. lovely.

xoxo -Lisa