Willing to be willing but unable to stop

About my bulimia and other people/romance addictions...

Friday, June 30, 2006

a little more grounded....

so i am feeling much better today. i began to feel better after writing that huge crazy blog but talking about it with my best friend for 2 hours after really helped. i just cannot believe how insane i am sometimes and how much energy i am willing to waste on a person i barely know.

i am just going to play it by ear and not freak out anymore. i guess my biggest fear is that some guy will sweep me off my feet through lying, manipulation and false charm. i do not really care that much if he is seeing other people or does not want to be exclusive, i just want to know the truth so that i know what i am dealing with and can move foward. i need truth. maybe i should first start by trusting myself. maybe that is why i have so much trouble trusting others.

i do know one thing. when he gets back, i am going to slow things down. even though we did not have sex, i still feel vulnerable in a female sort of a way because of the level of physical intimacy we shared. until i trust him and know that we are exclusive, i am going to go slow. i wonder if one can pull the reigns on something like that now that we have already crossed that line.

i did go to the gym today, the first time since march when i relapsed. it felt sooooooo good. i continue my recovery today and did not b/p. a bit lonely tonight, since it is friday night, and i have these notions that i should be out and about since it is friday night. but who really cares? and then again, am i really feeling lonely or just feeling what the world projects onto someone to feel? i do not really want to be out and about. the truth is i am exhausted from the work week and i had just as much fun hanging with my roommate, doing errands and going to the gym.

thank goodness such madness did not last another day. thank God.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

vulnerable

i have had a really hard day. before i begin, i just want to thank you for all your great feedback.

i realize that i am INSANE when i am in a romantic relationship. it happens everytime i feel vulnerable and i am sober from bulimia. in fact, at the height of my bulimia some years back, i dated some really great guys and i never felt vulnerable or crazy because i had my bulmia. in fact, i scheduled my time with them around my courtship with bulmia. if they cancelled or did not call, i did not become obsessed and borderline--rather, i was excited at the prospect of another opportunity to binge and purge. i NEVER felt lonely because i was not "alone" with food.

now, i have met a great guy, or so it seems. i admit i am on match and have been for a long time, several months in fact. i have been on SO MANY dates, usually never wanting to go for a second. i know what i want in a guy and i am not willing to settle for less. yes, i am scared that i am turning thirty and still single but i truly want to be with the right person and have a lasting, healthy marriage. i do not want to feel lonely in a marriage like my parents.

this guy (will call him Ed) and i had 3 amazing dates. i felt a connection on many levels on the first date (a wednesday) although i was not sure if i was attracted to him. i left that date thinking if he calls, great, if he doesn't, that is fine too, i wish him well. well, he called and kept calling. he wanted to move our date from sunday to friday night of that week. i said no because of other plans and we ended up talking on saturday night. which is rare for a guy on match to even admit that he has no plans on a saturday night. i pay attention to these little details, and misinterpret them to mean that he is not a player type but a nice guy. who wastes time talking to a stranger from match on a saturday night unless you are really into each other, right?

our second date was incredible. we were together from 11am to 1:30 am. my cell phone was turned off the entire time because my nutty family is paranoid about me going out on these dates and continually call to check in. well, wouldn't you know, i forgot to turn it back on. i was so lost in the moment with Ed on this second date. the time absolutely flew by. i wrote about it in my other blog. during this second date, i realized how physically attracted i was to him and how much i was starved for physical intimacy. it seemed like we really hit it off. i was giddy the entire next day even though i had hardly slept that night.

again, we were talking and emailing daily. i knew he was leaving for mexico yesterday and he insisted on wanting to see me again before he left. so after a 12 hour work day on tuesday of this week, i couldn't resist. again a date from 9pm to 1:30am. we had so much fun, innocent fun and not- so innocent fun. i let down my guard and let myself be touched EVERYWHERE. i couldn't believe how comfortable i felt with him. it was as if we had known each other for a lot longer and i had made huge strides with my poor body image. in reality, this was our third date only and we had met each other in person less than a week before. i have to mention the time frame for you all just to stress how crazy i am. i should not be feeling this vulnerable this early on!! and i hate that i am feeling this way. anyway, back to the sequence of events.

he told me he was going to miss me and that we seemed like a good match. he wanted to talk about plans for this summer, what things we what do together, places we would see, travelling, etc. we also have a lot in common with music. i do not know anyone else who owns simon and garfunkle and crosby, stills, nash, and young, two of my favorites. again, i thought a connection on many levels. he played guitar for me, i sang for him. we talked about having a band together. we laughed, and laughed. he told me he wished i were coming with him to mexico and that he was going to miss me, that a week was "too long" to not see me and that he wanted to email "if he had internet access." i even told him about my birth daughter and he did not seem to be bothered by it.

again, i was giddy the next day, the day he left, and that was yesterday.

now comes the bipolar swing. from manic and feeling high to some pretty obsessive thinking, jealousy, cravings for bulimia and depression:

so today i woke up and for some reason was curious to see online if he was checking his match. it always has the time frame from last time you were on (active within last 24 hours, 3 days, 1 week, etc). now for about 3 days this week, we stopped emailing via match and used our own email accounts. so clearly, i was not checking my match. but today i got to thinking, is he? and if he is, what does that mean? did those dates and level of intimacy mean nothing? does he do this with everyone? and why does he have condoms in his drawer next to his bed? are those there always? does he sleep around? and why was he so willing to have sex with me during a THIRD date--was it the "passion" as i thought or is he a player? what would have happened if i had not stopped him, and i mean i stopped him multiple times. and meanwhile, why DID i have to stop him mutiple times? maybe he is not a nice guy after all and not the guy i will marry.....yes, i had actually thought to myself this past week, "maybe this is the one". i am SO SICK of that thought and being disappointed.

so after trying to hold back the urge from checking, i did and did and did and did. and sure enough, he had been active within 24 hours. i tried to calculate when he left for mexico with the 24 hour time frame and it did not make sense to me. it does not make sense to me that if he had internet access and was checking his match, that he would not email ME. i had sent him a nice email yesterday and have not heard back from him.

i obsessively continued to check ALL DAY, on the hour. and everytime, "within 24 hours". i felt sick. why hadn't he emailed me? what did this mean? i couldn't conecentrate at work. i even talked to my co-workers about it. i felt very "borderline" with all the fear of abandonment bullshit. i wished i were back doing bulimia.

then, i decided to write him another nice email as if everything were normal because as everyone keeps saying, maybe i should give him the "benefit of the doubt." but after the nice email, i turned off my auto sign-in on match so no one would know i was checking and i could monitor his activity for the next week while he is gone. i know, i know, i am crazy.

even tonight, "within 24 hours". i am really hoping that tomorrow it will say "within 3 days" because i think, that means, he does not have internet access and that is why he has not written me. and what if it does say "24 hours" and he has not written me on my hotmail account. who cares? after all, it has only been 8 days since we met in person. and really, how do i know so quickly, that i want to be with him? have i really made up MY MIND? the answer is no. i do not know him. i like what i know but there has not been enough time to establish trust. so now i am wishing i did not get that intimate with him because i am hurting, i am feeling vulnerable and afraid of getting hurt. very afraid of being dissappointed AGAIN.

i prayed today. i asked God to take away these obsessions and compulsions to check the freakin match account. and yet, i know that i will check it tomorrow and the next day. and then probably the day after that, i will begin to disengage and not care about him anymore. because that is a whole lot easier than feeling what i am feeling. i will convince myself that he is not for me. and i will feel a false sense of "better".

ok, in actuality, i do feel kind of better, now that i got that all out. and that it has been almost 2 weeks since my last b/p. my skin is clear again, i have lost 5 pounds and i feel physically good.

thanks for reading all this craziness.

Monday, June 26, 2006

gratitude

i m so grateful for the 8 days that i have of abstinence. my body feels cleansed. i have no cravings for the most part except when i have loneliness and then i can usually talk myself out of it. once you have clean time, it is difficult to justify a slip and i do not want to ruin a good thing.

i met someone. we met on match and we had our second date last night. it lasted from 11am to 1:30am. i had not meant to be out so long but i so enjoyed my time with him (coffee, church, pizza, walking, looking at the boston skyline from the roof of his apartment, watching a movie, watching frasier and more frasier, and finally a whole lot of passion). we did become fairly intimate. not intercourse but very passionate foreplay (sorry if i am weirding people out).

it was intense and wonderful and yet, i discovered how i still suffer from major body image issues. i would not go farther, not because i did not want him, or that i have some moral conviction that says you cannot have sex on the second date: i did not go any farther because i was ASHAMED of my body. i was terrified of him feeling the stretch marks on my belly from the pregnancy and binging and of him disovering my freckles, body hair, odor, and small breasts, everything from which that i want to hide someone and myself.

i am tired of being ashamed of my body. also, i do not want to be hurt. i want to have sex when i feel like my partner is my best friend and second half. and obviously, it is a little much to feel that on the second date unless one is a romance addict.

i REALLY like this guy. and he seems to be really into me. and as much as i insult my body, it was obvious that he was attracted to me. we have a lot in common, want similar things and have similar values. and we are physically combatible. i am so fearful of being rejected becuase of my past: my bulimia, my theft of food, my promiscuity, having a child out of wedlock and the adoption. how does one tell someone all this. and it is not like i can keep the adoption secret because she is in the family; my aunt is raising her.

i know, know, know that if he does not accept me then, he is really not the person for me. however, i can feel myself getting my hopes and expectations up. as much as i am so excited, i am terrified of this.

oh well, life goes on. i do believe there is a higher force that wants the best for me, if i am willing to be patient and heal. Lord, teach me to be patient.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

5 days and counting...

hey fellow friends, i will have five days at the end of today. i feel surprisingly very good! it almost scares me how good i feel because i do not want to get my hopes up if i end up slipping before my 30th birthday. i just can't seem to figure out the balance between being "gentle" with myself and not giving myself unconscious permission to slip. i remember in my therapy, she had so much compassion and pointed out so many strengths that i ended up minimizing my behavior and allowing myself to continue to b/p all in the name of being kind to myself. it is dangerous thinking for me. what do you guys think?

i attended a conference on eating disorders today at a local hospital that specializes in it and has the whole continuum of care. i was not that impressed. it was pretty basic. much more focus on anorexia than bulimia. i realize the medical complications with anorexia are often, not always, more serious and risky for patients but still.... i always felt this weird sort of competition with my fellow anorexic patients.

saw my psychiatrist today. he is continuing the celexa 40 mg and gave me a script for klonopin. i think i have built up a tolerance for ativan which i have been taking for sleep since my relapse. i have had an insomnia problem for about a year and i am convinced that is was the precursor to my depression which led to my relapse a few months ago. i was exhausted and still am. sleep is better for sure but i wake up often throughout the night and have difficulty getting back to sleep.

after visiting with the doc, i had my own client for therapy. my boss at the counseling clinic sat down with me before the client and asked me how i felt i was doing with the work. now my assumption was that he was going to tell me i was not cut out for it and was not doing a good job....blah, blah, blah, all those negative, self-defeating distorted beliefs and thoughts! but it was the opposite. he told me that in just the past 6 months since starting, i have grown incredibly as a clinician and that he would now consider me to be "seasoned!" it felt so great to hear that.

i have felt a calling to be a therapist since my teenage years when i used to watch those channel 2 specials with john bradshaw from the 1980's. whatever happened to him? when i was in residential tx for 4 months a week after graduating from social work school, one of the therapists there told me i was a "natural." i thought he was just trying to build my confidence.

i always have believed that if you have a strong passion for what you do, that certainly it counts for something. a desire must be fulfilled. sure, i do know people that are delusional about their talents and have a strong desire for it despite being really bad at it but most people have a passion for a reason. it is intuitive.

i love my work. i feel very lucky to hear my client's stories. now...if i could just follow what i tell them to do in my own life!!!

Monday, June 19, 2006

2 days!!

well guys, i have gotten through two days! my days have been jam-packed that i have not had time to write. i have not had any food cravings yet which is miraculous in and of itself. i am trying to eat enough to nourish my body. still working on adding the fats.

i did have a weepy episode during the car ride home tonight from my grandmother's. it was like i was grieving over my mother's death which has not happened yet but something i fear very much. i know that sounds crazy. however, she is ill with lupus, arthritis, fibroid tumors, a hyperthyroidism and kidney disease. and also borderline. the combination of lupus and borderline scares me the most because she is not taking care of herself. she has been in emotional pain most of her life and now the illness which i swear she uses as part of her borderline behaviors but still, she IS sick. i found out my grandmother had no idea about her diagnoses. that is just like my mother to tell some people and not others. anyway, for some reason, i got real emotional at the thought of her dying young. she is only 50 y/o and so sick! i am afraid she will die within 10 years because she does not take care of herself. went to a whole conference today on borderline and still do not know how to help her. i am caught between loving my mother and wanting to "help" and "care" for her and forcing myself to not be a part of her nonresponsiblity with her life. i hate watching her suffer.

anyone out there have a borderline family member?

thanks for all your helpful comments on food. i am truly grateful.

will write more tomorrow. it is past 11:00 and i am exhausted but happy about my 2 days.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

so tired of this....

i do not want to jinx this but i think i am really ready to give this up. tonight i gorged myself so much so that just a few minutes ago, i actually threw out the rest of the food because i was so sick of it and i do not want it around for tomorrow. i mean, tonight i actually had to force myself to binge. i didn't even have cravings. i think i am ready. i CAN and will do this. i am so looking forward to leading a normal, open life again. the secrecy is the worst and i can't wait to give that up.

today, i had a blind date and it went really well. i had my hair highlighted and by the time i got home around 3:00pm, i was in a good place, except i felt the need to gorge myself as much as possible in light of my upcoming goodbye to this demon tomorrow. as if i could get it out of my system by allowing myself to spend, oh about $50 today on binge food, as if it were a reward for my deprivation tomorrow.

except giving up bulimia is not deprivation--it is the opposite. not only do i want to say goodbye to this horrid addiction, i want to make healthy, satisfying food choices from now on. no more diet yogurt, diet coke, diet lemonade, diet salad dressing, diet bread, etc....all that aspartame and splenda! i read an article that talked about how splenda can be contributing to people's mood swings, fatigue and food cravings. does anyone out there know more about this subject?

i have to add healthy fats to my diet. those of you who are reading this, please send me some reassurance that good fats will not lead to real fat, that i will actually lose weight if i have the right proportions of things and will not suffer from horrible food cravings any longer. see, i rationally know this but i still need some outside reinforcement. i have been told this for years but was too afraid to give it a solid try. now i know that 4 years of no purging was still a form of deprivation and would ultimately lead to a relapse.

i want to be healthy inside and out. i will say that celexa has helped a lot in the past few months. i have read some of your blogs in which people are not in favor of meds. but for me, i will say it has definitely helped my depression. it has allowed me the motivation to start and continue this blog. who knows how long i will be on it but for now, i know it will help me through this shaky period.

well guys, this is it. tomorrow is the fist day of the rest of my life. i know i am being a bit dramatic. but i do feel that way!! thanks again for those of you who are reading this.

Friday, June 16, 2006

second thoughts

ok guys, i am having second thoughts about my deadline. i can't believe it is two days away and i am starting to feel anxious. of course, what will i be doing tonight but a few rounds for myself? friday night and i have said no to plans just to i can sit at home in front of the tv and b/p. i have been obsessing all day at work what i will be eating.

no, no, no... i have to give this a solid try. luckily i will be with my grandmother over night on sunday and have a full day conference monday. so that should get me two days easy.

just keep thinking about how i will feel at christmas time. in 6 months, clean, abstinent, joyful, able to cope...

thanks for all your comments. i will really be needing them come sunday!!!

will write later.

Monday, June 12, 2006

relapse--a gift?

thanks heather so much for your response, comments and questions. can relapse be a gift, or "perfect", in the sense of leading us to a more genuine recovery and fuller life?

i have often thought about my relapse as maybe a blessing in disguise. when i look back on my almost 4 years of "recovery", it is clear that i was not really living life to the fullest. i still suffered from low self-esteem, bouts of severe depression, poor body image, fear of food or rather my desires of food, occasional binging, and self-deprivation following binges. still i thought i had made huge gains by not purging.

the height of my bulimia was around age 25. i was b/p 7-8 times per day and keeping down no food whatsoever. i was throwing up carrots sometimes. i had been arrested twice for stealing food the year earlier because i could not afford the binges during grad school (can you believe it--a social work grad student stealing food everyday). i was promiscuous and sleeping with assholes. i became pregnant, no big surprise and a huge shock and disappointment to my family who all thought i was in recovery....also the first family member to become pregnant out of wedlock. what a mess. and i was so scared.

luckily, my food cravings were replaced with food aversions during the pregnancy. i simply did not have such intense desires to binge. i still did b/p but much less often and mostly from loneliness while being pregnant. i was committed though to staying healthy and having a healthy baby and slowly, my b/p decreased. by the end of the pregnancy, i was practically free from purging behavior other than once per month and even then it did not feel like bulimic behavior since i would never plan to purge...it was more like morning sickness.

when the baby was born, i felt like it was my ticket to freedom from bulimia, the start of a new life...and it was. my baby was adopted by my aunt, something that was decided from the first months of pregnancy. she had already been planning to adopt due to a horrible miscarriage she suffered and an inability to have anymore children. i knew i could not give my baby everything she needed and that she deserved so much more. this may sound odd but i actually felt that having my daughter out of wedlock and giving her up for adoption were such a gift since it freed me from the compulsion to purge. i think of her as having saved my life. i can honestly say that until 6 months ago, i felt no such desire to purge. i would have dreams of throwing up and wake up in a cold sweat relieved that is was only a dream. but purging was not part of my life or an option anymore.

however, after the baby, my food intake invariably was always correlated to my love life. everytime i would enter a new relationship, i would become so excited and hopeful, i would loose my appetite and with it the 5 pounds. it almost felt manic....not that i know what full-blown mania feels like. i had no desire for food, only for this new man in my life or maybe the hope that this was the beginning of my life. how long i had waited....and how disappointed i would feel when it became clear that this man was not the one for me. how pathetic i feel just to read what i wrote but nevertheless, it is true.

i believe my biggest trigger for binging is loneliness which is why i have found food a comfort my whole life. i have always felt lonely, apart from, different from the others, etc... i am much less lonely than i was say 5 years ago but i still am obsessed with finding that "true" love, my dreams of being a mother and a wife, of making a home that maybe i always longed for myself growing up but never had. and yet, having self-insight to this and DOING something about are vastly different from each other.

i choose today to view this part of my life as a gift. many will not understand but those of you who suffered through a major relapse and came out on the other end will understand and i believe that it is not only possible but a great opportunity.

today i did binge and purge twice. i had all the food from yesterday's stockpile which i could not finish over the weekend. i could not wait to get home and consume it. i felt almost excited about it. i will be honest and say that even as i sat listening to my 5:00 client for therapy, i was distracted by my desire for food. i am so ashamed of this and yet i want to be honest about it. my bulimia has taken over my life in less than 4 months...even my devotion to my career cannot distract me from it entirely. but i know it does not have to be this way. i am looking forward to sunday, my first day of abstinence.

thanks again for all of you out there and your blogs.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

a good night

i only b/p 3 times today. believe me, that is good given the fact that i spent the entire day until tonight alone in the apartment.

i had a great night. i made a healthy dinner. had my grandmother's escarole bean soup. a huge bowl of it. i know it sounds weird but it was symbolic for me of her love and support. for Italians, food is very symbolic and actually recovery can be difficult when relatives are constantly trying to stuff more food down your throat. it is alot of pressure. but anyway, her soup was so wholesome and very good nourishment for a body that has been depleted of nutrients all week. after dinner, i took a long walk. it was glorious out. i breathed in the sunlight and the wind. i said some prayers asking that God help me next week when i start my recovery. just saying the prayer made me feel that actually i am already starting. just by thinking about it.

after the walk, i had received a message from my roommate wanting to pick us up some ice cream (froyo for me). my other roommate and i ended up meeting her. everyone was out and about davis square...live music...and i ate peanut butter frozen yogurt. a small size, not the medium i usually get because i did not want to be triggered.

i have to sleep tonight and i am trying to make it through the rest of the night b/p free. i usaully make the mistake of allowing myself the whole day if i already screwed up but no success is too small and i want to make it to the end of the night with my supper staying in my stomach. tomorrow is an 11 hour work day. i am tired of being tired.

The countdown begins...

this weekend i have spent a lot of money on food. i am afraid to total the amount. all i know is that my deadline for giving up my bulimia will be 6/17/06. i just cannot go to nyc next month for my 30th birthday and not have more than month of sober time behind me. visualization of myself happy, hopeful and starting again at age 30 makes me excited and it is a huge motivation to say good bye to this unhealthy behavior. i hate lying to everyone and i want to look back on this as a diificult time in my life but something i got through by myself with the help of my best friend, therapist, my faith, and my dreams of being a mother. am i baing naive thinking i can do this with a deadline. maybe i am setting myself up for failure. but i have always done well with deadlines. and now when i look in the mirror, i see the bulimia. my face is broken out, my coloring is off, and my streth marks are worse than before from the last 3 months of bulimia. i do not feel beautiful anymore.

Monday, June 05, 2006

can i start again tomorrow or is this denial?

so i did purge tonight. of course i did...i would not have been able to sleep with the amount of food i had consumed. i feel so clean after a purge in a physical way but dirty on a spiritual level. i would like a chance to be completely honest here on this blog. i do not want to sugar-coat things as i do with my best friend when she asks how i am doing or even my therapist whom i am afraid of disappointing. i crave self-honesty. i think it is the only chance i have. --jackie

just another bulimic

Well, i never thought it would come to this. i guess i was naive to think that God saved me once and for all from this horrible nightmare of bulimia years ago through the birth of the child i gave up for adoption. for God's sake, i will be thirty-years old next month. i have a plan every day that this will be the first of many days of abstinence so that on my 30th birthday i will look back at this time as a "slip" and not a major relapse. i will be able to smile at myself once again in the mirror and not feel like a liar to my loved ones. a fake who counsels others with eating disorders and all sorts of addictions.... what a hippocrate. this was a a slip due to loneliness, still being single, no children of my own but the one i gave up for adoption , working with the dying, depression, depression, depression....

i am sorry i sound so negative. i just reread what i wrote and really do not feel that negative. to be honest, i am in the middle of the cycle now and am about to go purge.

i believe i shall get through this. but i cannot do it alone. i know that now. and looking back on my years of "recovery" i realize that i was still weird with food (i.e., overeating, restricting, poor body image), even though i was not purging. when i am feeling hopful, i choose to beleive that this time when i enter recovery, i will go even further and maybe even reach a point where i forget to eat like normal busy people and not have so much guilt for everything. i suffer from much shame and guilt. i feel like a failure that this happened and i am very dissapointed with myself.

thank you anyone who is reading this.