Willing to be willing but unable to stop

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

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

better today

i need structure in my life. i am back at work and very busy. when i think too much, i get in big trouble. the mind is a dangerous place as they say in AA. i am trying to be focused on my goals and to not pay attention to negative thoughts.

last night when i got home from work, my roommates surprised me with champagne, gifts, cake and flowers. since i had already had frozen yogurt with a friend, i felt somewhat obsessive about the ice cream cake but i had a small piece and was committed to not make it into a b/p, especially on my birthday. i woke up today with my stomach flat as ever. they cheered me up and i went to bed feeling better.

i will not let a small slip on sunday that was born out of intense emotional pain to define my recovery. my goal is to have a few months of sober time behind me for the holidays. i hate bulimia and how it takes over my life.

will write again later.

Monday, July 24, 2006

tired of living

over the weekend, when i was shopping with my friend david, i felt this wave of depression and despair overcome me. and it really has not left since.

today is my 30th birthday and i am heartsick. i can't catch my breath; my breathing is shallow and i have to consciously remember to breathe. i feel like i am suffocating. i am so unhappy. i do not know why--maybe the failure of this recent romance to be a good thing, maybe seeing my birth daughter yesterday on the potty, maybe seeing my mother fatigued and sick with lupus, perhaps the disappointment with myself over my slip yesterday.

i have been having thoughts of suicide. not that i would do that but i find myself wondering what it would be like to be hit by a car or to throw myself over the edge of the boat i was on in nyc. usually such thoughts are an indication that my depression has returned. i would never do it but the thoughts are there...wishing i could go to sleep and not wake up for a while.

i am so incredibly lonely. i have no prospects for a partner. no children. i am feeling so damn sorry for myself right now that it is making me feel pathetic on top of it. i have 3 clients tonight so i have to get my act together and be strong...put on the professional face. i wish i could stay in bed all day.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

slip

i slipped tonight. i can't write about it right now, i am too numb, anergic and at the same time angry with myself to even acknowledge it. i am truly sick of myself. tomorrow is my 30th birthday.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

my family and friends

with all this drama that is going on, i have been crying and opening up to my grandmother, sister, mother and 2 good friends. most of those people are pissed at me right now because i chose to see ed last night. they believe i am a fool and have bad judgments about men. maybe i do. i wish i could be a better judge of character.

i find that lack of self-trust is really my issue. when a person who i care about gives me his or her opinion, i am easily swayed and question myself. someone else, like my male friend, may feel differently and i am swayed by his opinion then as well. the whole time i become more and more confused as to what i originally believed and then i have lost the connection with my own inner voice. i just cannot tell at that point which is my intuition and which is another's opinion.

i really am uncomfortable when others are pissed at me. my friend caroline was harshly honest with me this morning about this guy. she feels i am being "played" and does not believe anything he says. she is really pushing that i cut all contact and says she has a very "bad feeling" and that i am making a "HUGE mistake" by continuing to see him. well, why isn't my intuition as strong?

my grandmother is pissed at me. she told me last night that because of my constant mistakes with men, i will always be alone. i felt doomed when she said that.l i started obsessing about self-fulfilling prophecy. i shuddered to think that possibly she was correct about my future.

i do not know. all i know is that i got 3 hours of sleep last night and am about to fulfill a commitment to spend the day at the beach with another guy from match.com, the guy from earlier in the week. i feel guilty about going out with him and sleeping with ed last night. this is not who i am, or at least who i was. what is going on with my life? am i that desperate to find a man and afraid of being alone? why is it all so complicated? the single life is so confusing and difficult and i will be turning 30 on monday...ughhhhh.

finally some clarity and peace

so i sent ed that email, a very honest, non-blaming email. sure enough, he calls and we talk. he still is not able to tell me why he wants to see other people but says he really likes me, he was saddened by the email that i wanted to stop seeing him and he felt like we were ruining a good thing that could have a future. so still the mystery, i.e., why the need to remain on match.com. although clearly, he felt a similar connection at least based on his words and most of his actions. and i felt better being straight with him and realized i had not completely misread things. i was not such a bad judge of the situation and i was not crazy.

so we got together at my request last night so i could say goodbye to him before my trip to nyc tomorrow. we had a few drinks, we talked, and i tried my best to hold back from anything sexual. i was not strong enough. in the middle of it, he stops and looks up at me and tells me that he wants to stay with me after, that he wants to hold me. i am not sure if i wrote this on the blog but last time we had sex, immediately after he put on a jazz record to entertain me while he went to take a shower. i had felt very alone and cheap. so last night was very passionate although i thought it somewhat ridiculous that he was trying to make up for what happened last time.

after the passion which was incredible, and around 4am, i had some tears because i felt like i had betrayed myself once more and was feeling alot of guilt. and i laughed a midst the tears and told him that he did not have to hold me, that i knew what he was doing, that this was ridiculous, and that he could hold me for as long as he wanted but to me it didn't mean anything since he was unwilling to be exclusive. i then gently demanded the reason for his insistence to not be exclusive, that i truly did not understand.

that's when he told me he was moving back to his life in california in a month to 3 months. he does not want to get attached. and he feels "scared." of course, i shed some more tears because i now knew the outcome of this relationship, that there would be a definite goodbye in the near future.

the good thing is that now it makes sense and all of the sudden, i have this strong desire myself to protect myself and not get attached, probably a little late for that. now i want to see other people and i agree with his plan to do the same. i willadmit that i have fallen for this guy. i have some strong feelings for him.

is it possible to be friends? probably not but the reality is that i want to try. i enjoy his company and want to hang out with him before he leaves. i am figuring as long as we set some ground rules and remain in public places, it is possible.

am i crazy? all this drama of late is making me feel crazy.

the good news is that i resisted all strong temptations to binge and purge. on monday, when he did not call, the temptation and desire for bulimia brought me to my knees in tears. but i knew i was going to see my friend this weekend in nyc and had to remain strong. i wish something else got me through but truly this trip was the only thing in my mind that kept me from this monster. thank you frida for your support.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

a date with myself

today, i spent the whole day with myself. i walked to harvard square, laid out and got caught up on some psychotherapy articles, ate a healthy packed lunch, bought something at ann taylor, bought a cd i have been wanting and treate myself to an iced coffee. it was a great day. alone time is so important to recenter and put things in persepctive and i feel a thousand times better about things with this guy.

i just sent him a very honest email about how i have interpreted the last few weeks. it was not a needy email, but an honest one and at the end i wished him happiness. it was a sincere email and it felt good to not react out of anger and want to seek revenge from feeling hurt. i feel some closure no matter what his response will be. and closure always brings me peace.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

asshole

i am in idiot, at least that is how i feel. i can't beleive i gave myself to this asshole. i can't believe i let him charm me so well into thinking we had a special connection that was mutual. after we had our "honest" talk about seeing other people last night following sex (to which he was not willing to commit to seeing other people either way but "i will let you know", oh and "i like you but i am not crazy about you." ouch) , we had a great dinner out, chemistry was there, lots of laughing, goodbyes and his last words ("let's email each other tomorrow and i will talk to you then!). i went home feeling relieved that i was not going to have premarital sex anymore until we were inlove,( mind you, the assumption that we had a future together.) i was hoping still that this relationship would grow into something special. it felt good to slow things down so that i could be true to my morals and that he could now fulfill his "curiosity" about other women until he was ready to make a commitment to be exclusive.

then yesterday i checked to see if he was online and he was at noontime!! he never did send me an email like he said he wanted to and of course, neither did i. when i got home from my 12 hour day i checked to see if he was online because i was surprised he had not called me yet like he usually does and sure enough at 9:00pm, ONLINE on match.com. he never did call last night and i cried ALOT. i felt so rejected and hurt and foolish that i had slept with him. and i thought he would have had a little more respect for me the day after to at least call and communicate that this is what he wanted to do. after all, this guy was emailing and calling me multiple times per day. this is the same guy who wanted to see me everyday and talk to me on the phone for 3 hours at a time. a guy who couldn't let me leave his side until 3am 4 nights last week. now i know that it meant nothing special, and that he is needy and an ass.

i guess what i was hoping for in my own romance addicted thinking was that when i encouraged him to see other women and to slow down, that he would have said he felt what i did and did not want to see other people, rather than "well i like you, but i am not crazy about you yet."

this morning, i feel more centered, although my heart is still hurting. the disappointment is overwhelming, the questions of how i could be so foolish in misreading someone's character, and all of this breeds more lack of self-trust.

i know eventually he will contact me and i am not sure what to do. in a way, i want him to know that I DO NOT WANT HIM ANYMORE. i do not want a guy who does that, who has such little respect for women that he uses them because he is lonely. all of those compliments and his charm stemmed from his neediness and inability to be alone and i foolishly thought it meant something. now that i am not willing to have sex, he is online the very next day. what an ass.

what to do...what to do...the last time i was this dissapointed, i relapsed. except at least with that one i did not have sex. i am really hurting and yet, it has been over a month now since i last b/p. i do not want to return to it but it is tempting. it is tempting to say "fuck it, who gives a shit? men suck" i am starting to feel hopeless in my ability to be in a relationsip that is healthy and honest. i just do not know what to beleive anymore.

and i want my ella fitzgerald and loreena mckennitt cds back. and my brownie pan. yes, like a fool, i made him brownies one night because i knew he loved them. i do not know how to get my stuff back. my sister said to forget about them and she would replace them if it meant i would ignore his calls and emails. any ideas from you wise women?

Thursday, July 13, 2006

FEAR OF BEING KNOWN

things have been intense. i wonder if i am subsituting romance addiction for bulimia now. i have been seeing ed since he returned from mexico last week almost every day and we are spending ALOT of time together. in fact, 3 nights this week i went home at 3:00am and survived thw rok day on 3 hours of sleep. last night was a 3am night and i am exhausted today. so no ed tonight. i am going to be good and go home to sleep at 5:00pm, hopefully to sleep until tomorrow morning if i can.

we have had sex and it is incredible. i have not been with a man with whom i am compatible on a sexual level in years. i think i was sexually starved because i am so much more calmer these days! i feel many connections with ed on an emotional, mental, intellecutal and physical level. when we are together, the time flies by and all of the sudden 7 hours have passed.

last night, i told ed about my bulimia except i had to leave out a few details (namely the stealing, 2 arrests, and my "slip" 3 months ago). he is very inquisitive and i had no plans to tell him but it felt like the right time as i was trying to explain to him my complex relationship with my father and my anger towards my step-mother. he wasn't getting it so i ended up telling him ALL of it. (basically my father refusing to pay for treatment and dismissing bulimia as something i should get over and just grow up, many neglect issues and feeling unloved by him and his bitchy wife)

anyway, i am feeling very vulnerable but worse than that, quite guilty about not telling him about the slip. he asked me how long it had been and i told him 4 years which is true in a sense but not so true when i really think about it. i do not want to be dishonest but i am also not feeling comfortable telling him the truth of it which is that exactly 3 days before we met, i had just decided to give it up again.

he shared some really intimate details about his past as well, having to do with his own body image issues, distorted thinking and insecurities. in fact, i am beginning to think he is a 3 in the enneagram due to the image struggles he has had. i shared with him the whole story about my birth daughter and he was so supportive. but when it came to the bulimia, he wanted to know what triggered it and if it would return and was worred about making strupid comments about weight that may make me relapse. at least he is sensitive and incredible honest.

i was thinking after a few weeks when i am feeling more comfortable with him, i will tell him that i was not so honest. i also want to have more time of recovery behind me. i am not sure how he will react but i am just not ready to tell him now. this is feeling too intense and incredibly frightening to me right now. the fear of being known, of being rejected... gosh, it was so much easier being alone.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

UNCERTAINTY

michelle blog wrote about this a few days ago--the fear of uncertainty and that is what i think my problem is. see, if he rejects me, fine, i can move on, i just want to know. am i that uncomfortable and impatient with uncertainty that i have to know his feelings NOW? how does one accept and, even more, relish in moments of uncertainty.

i have been obsessed with my death for years--i.e., when, how, whether it will be painful, the afterlife, if there is one--as well as the deaths of my loved ones. i am terribly frightened of death, particularly feeling the loss of a loved one. i tend to wonder when i say goodbye to my mother and other family members if that was the last time i would see or talk with them. if the phone rings at a weird time, i assume the worst, that it is bad news that my brother was killed in the navy. when i was little, i was frightened that my little 5 year-old sister would be kidnapped and tortured. why would a 12 year-old be thinking this way?

not to change this morbid subject but, i am going on another date tonight. for ice cream and of course i will get fro yo.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

my heart

i am in such a bad way tonight. i can't say my day was bad but i feel horrible. i want to binge so much right now to make the pain go away. i just wish i could go to sleep and wake up in 6 months. my heart literally hurts. i feel like it is broken and i do not know why.

as much as i have tried to not be obsessed with ed's emails (or lack thereof,) i still have my moments and perhaps days since last week when i cleary am perseverative and highly anxious about it and my imagination runs wild... certain wording in his email to me last night, what does it all mean, does he like me, etc. lots of crazy thoughts.

so, he did email me late last night at like 1:30 am, california time, but it was 4 lines. i feel so stupid writing this because i know it is not a big deal and i am way overanalyzing but i have to be open. i want to be really honest on this blog even if i look and feel like a fool and a crazy woman.

it has been so long since i really felt drawn to someone. i have been on so many unsuccessful dates. people have told me i am too picky. and at the same time, i am panicky about my age and want so much to have children of my own. this is the ache in my heart, my desire to have a family. and at times, like now, i feel so alone and lonely in the world.

why is it one extreme or another? black or white? either i can't stand the guy and can't be bothered or i put the guy up on a pedestal where he does not deserve yet to belong. and then i feel desperately afraid of rejection, like he is better than me, like if he knew who i was, he would reject me.

why can't i be normal in relationships? i feel so borderline which btw is the worst label anyone could have in the mental health field. my best friend the other day told me i reminded him of my MOTHER! my mother, who i have diagnosed as borderline with her desperate fear of abandonment, anger issues, wild mood swings, and mild paranoi in her fixed beleif that the world is against her. god, i really do not want to be like her. i feel guilty just writing that since i love her.

the truth is that everytime i see jackie (that is my birth daughter's name and the one i have chosen for this blog), i feel horrible. i feel so much pain. i do not really think the pain is about ed after all--it is about her and my desire to have a family and somehow he fits into that image of what i want in a husband (as if i know this about him already--i know it is irrational). i saw her today so happy, again observed my aunt's wonderful family and life, and ability to give her everything i could not. i felt so envious...and then i felt guilty for my envy.

today she saw me and told me "i came from your belly!" and she gave me a big hug. i told her she was a special little girl. i played with her. i watched her jump on her queen size bed in a room fit for a princess. and i put on a face for everyone in my family that i was having a good time, that i was happy. it just takes soooo much energy to do that.

i was very good with food. i actually ate very little so that right now i am hungry. but i feel so depressed that i am obsessed with every little calorie. i have swung back to anorexic-type thinking. i came home and had some soy chips. then i made myself a ham sandwhich with only one slice of ham and lots of mustard. and i felt scared eating the whole sandwhich, so i spit the last bite out and threw the rest down the drain. and now i am still hungry.

maybe i am not doing so great with this recovery after all.

why do i have to be so obsessed with a guy? it feels so pathetic and goes against everything i stand for in my personal life, in my advice to friends and certainly in my professional life.

i am too attached to someone i do not even know. i wrote him 3 funny but pathetic, needy emails while he was away in mexico. i did not get responses because he did not have internet. on saturday, i checked his match and it said he was active within 5 days so i knew he did not have internet. i wrote him because i love to write and i wanted him to know i was thinking of him. but now i feel like such fool for telling him i missed him, that i had reread all of our 25 emails from 1 week, etc. they were goofy, funny and slightly mushy emails. what an idiot!! what was i thinking? he wrote back to me late last night a 4 line email in which he called me a nickname he made up, that it was true that he did not have internet, that he had a great time and that he missed me too and would write later. now i am obsessing about the fact that he wrote "miss you too" rather than "i" missed you. yes, people if you are reading this and shaking your head, please have compassion. i know i am crazy!!!!

i really wish i had not hooked up with him. i really wish i had gone home when i wanted to and not stayed when he asked for 14 freakin hours. i wish i had played hard to get and had not sent him any emails. then i would feel safe. now i am waiting for another goddamn email to come my way. he should be getting back tomorrow from california and i will be waiting for him to call me. waiting, waiting, waiting...my emotions dependent on some guy whom i barely know to write or call...i just can't believe it.

i told my sister all this today and she said i was foolish and that i would freak him out by sending him 3 emails. she made such a big deal about it! in reality, i sent them because it felt natural to stay in contact, even if it were one-sided and if i were away and really liked someone, i would love to get 3 emails. i guess the point is that he may not really like me and if that is true, then he REALLY does not like me now! who would?

relapse dreams

last night, i woke up every 2 hours and had difficulty getting back to sleep. today i feel exhausted with little energy or motivation to do anything. i just ate a good breakfast and i am planning on working out this morning, especially since the family bbq is today and i know there will be a ton of food that may be tempting. i do not know if i am ready to indulge on certain sugary things. i am fearful that these foods will induce cravings for more and then tempt me to purge.

last night, i dreamt that i did eat too much and half way through the binge, i decided to purge and allow myself to binge therefore to the fullest. i do remember that the permission to purge in the dream was not so easy--it came with mental warfare and a struggle. but in the end, i just could not tolerate the amount and kind of food i had ingested. when i realized it was a dream, I WAS SO RELIEVED. i have had dreams like this before off and on in my recovery but i do not believe this was by accident given that today i will be seeing my birth daughter and faced with big food issues.

maybe it is good i had that dream because it is forcing me to face what is ahead of me today. i certainly do not want to slip up today and i imagine how great it will feel to go to bed tonight with a feeling of major accomplishement: that i survived my first major family gorge fest (because that IS what my family does) without participating in the gorge or doing harm to myself through purging.

also, ed is getting back tomorrow and i want to continue to feel good about myself. i do hope he calls me and wants to continue to get to know each other further beyond our 3 intense dates. but if not, i will move on rather quickly and will not push the issue. too much pride i guess.

happy 4th to y'all who are in the u.s. and be safe!

Monday, July 03, 2006

too easy?

guys, this has been way to easy. i can think of only 1 time over a week ago when i had actual food cravings due to loneliness. come on!! am i missing something? i noticed today i had a slightly bigger appetite but i attribute it to pms. no withdrawal, no depression, no fear and most important, no desire to binge. i think when i stopped more than 2 weeks ago, i was really ready. i do not even miss this monster. course, if my love life turns sour, who knows how i will feel? i guess then i will be revisiting my "friend" bulimia.

it is so great to not waste money on binges literally down the toilet. maybe i should put that money aside and save up for something worthwhile. let's see i believe i spent a total of $700 on binge food these past several months. i will get the exact amount from microsoft money but that is my guess. i know because early on in the relapse, about a month and a half into it, i had already spent $260 on food.

i have been exercising again and my body feels great. i think my misake all those years of "recovery" was the diet food. i really beleive that all of that aspartame and sucrulose may have precipitated my food cravings. does anyone know more about this subject?

am i being naive? or have i really experienced a shift?

the only complaint i have is my insomnia. i have been taking a benzo for a few months and now it is not having the same effect. i knew this would happen but now i am afraid to sleep on my own. i have tried melatonin and have had variable success. i guess i need to go cold turkey and let my body naturally form a new sleep cycle. the problem is not falling asleep, although when i go to bed too late, that is a problem. my main problem is waking up around 4am and not being able to fall back to sleep. so that is only 4-5 hours of sleep. and the next day i have hige bacgs under my eyes and on my eye lids and i feel very tired. not good to be tired for 2 social work jobs.

does anyone have any advice about this?