Assault, Battery and Shopping Frustration

Today was an entirely strange and unpleasant day.

It started with the realization that Summer Had Gone again, at least for now - it is back to almost-wintry cool-and-grey-and-stormy-ness.

As I type this, raindrops are starting to splatter against my windows; by the sound of it they measure as much as the egg of a midsized pigeon, each.

To properly celebrate the last day of my spring break, I got it in my head to go shopping today - clothes shopping no less - starting at American Apparel.

I never really noticed this when I was still skinny - but they appear to be quite sizeist.
They really seem to have a sizing policy that is designed exclusively for those flesh-and-bone-skinny twigs on legs that we'd all want to look like, the ones that I idolize and strive to imitate physically, the ones that I am woefully far from emulating at this point.

I only tried on a few items, but I could barely squeeze myself into a size M with most of them, despite the fact that I am now at the lower end of normal according to BMI.
Even the Bra that I tried - Jesus Christ on a stick, my boobs are rather on the small side, but an AmApp size M is about two sizes too small for them regardless.

I used to leave shitloads of money at that store, but today I walked out without having bought a single item, as is the irrevocable fate of the fat person at the clothing store.

Then I went and blew a small fortune at Zara - on clothes that were labeled size S and actually fit me, one particularly freakishly sized jacket still fitting loosely in XS even.

That just goes to show, as it has been proven many times before, how tremendously you can affect your sales and influence your customers through sizing policy.

How much of a difference it makes, whether the sizes you employ give them the illusion of being skinny - or the illusion of being fat.

Then, when I was barely out of the changing room, my mother called.
She had been assaulted on the street by a Random Old Crazy Guy, who set his dog on her before pushing her to the ground and starting to kick her and the grocery bags she had been carrying with great abandon.

An absolutely random attack, absolutely bizarre and therefor all the more frightening, absolutely traumatizing to my mother, evidently.
She was lying on the ground sobbing when she called me, by the time I arrived a friendly young man from one of the neighbouring apartments had also come down to help her, and the police arrived not soon after.

I accompanied her to the station, where she gave her statement so that charges might be filed against the assailant, and to the doctor to document and treat her injuries.

Neighbours that had gathered at the scene told us that the man was notorious for incidents like this one, and had attacked many a passer-by in a similar fashion before, while the police said that probably nothing could be done about it unless something "really bad happened" one day, like the dog maiming someone in a severe and lasting fashion.

It's instances like this, really, that make you see for a moment why self-justice and vigilantism might actually seem like a good idea.

When I came home I was slightly shell-shocked and shaky from all the excitement; I made myself dinner, a large one, and didn't even feel bad about eating it as it seemed like an utter necessity in order to calm down and replenish my energy.

Tonight I am due to go drinking and clubbing with friends, so there will be alcohol, and even more calories.
It has been a bad day in regard to calories, but then again it has been a bad day in regard to pretty much everything else, so I'm figuring what the heck.

I'm sort of out of the loop, I would like to go to bed early and look forward to getting up right before dawn for my customary run - still I feel like I should not pull out of the group activity, lest I become a complete recluse which I am constantly on the verge of, anyway.

Serious Business

After a week of so-so restricting, I've decided I need a plan.

I need a firm and serious regime to adhere to, instead of starting my day without a definite maximum level of calorie intake in mind.

Restricting "into the Blue" has led to some fairly good days, where I stayed around 500 to 650 - but also to a major binge day and a few so-so ones, like yesterday.

I didn't binge yesterday, not exactly.
Rather, some friends of mine quite spontaneously invited themselves over to my place for brunch, bringing most components of said brunch with them and only asking me to supply a few more missing pieces.

I was thrilled about them coming over - they are wonderful friends, more so than I deserve really, for not being mad but wanting to cheer me up after I have pretty much hidden under the duvet, given in to depression and not answered the phone to anyone for weeks.

I was less thrilled about the "brunch"-part, obviously... I made a fruit salad and an omelet, supplied freshly pressed orange juice and a lot of low-cal snacks like baby tomatoes and chicory leaves.

Still, I couldn't get by eating nothing but small tomatoes - not only would it have caused attention, it would have been infinitely hurtful of me to reject all the food they made and brought for me, and to reject their thoughtful idea of a comfy and relaxed day of eating and chatting together.

So I ate - I didn't go overboard but I couldn't exactly weight and measure the food I consumed either, and with some of the more fancy stuff they brought I have no idea what the calorie content might have been.

Although I did try to minimize the damage - they ended up staying over til midnight, and at various points throughout the day the others would get up and get themselves a fresh plate full of left-overs from the brunch, as a snack, a late lunch, dinner, second dinner, whatever.

I, however, maintained that I was still full from the morning's eating, and politely refused every third and second helping I was offered after the initial brunch-period was over, so in principle I only ate once all day.
Still, because that "one" meal was a lengthy and copious one, I strongly assume the calorie intake was enough to gain, in the end.

I still haven't weighed myself yet - but from the way I look, I strongly assume it hasn't budged from the 60 or at least 59 I estimated it to be.

So, to get on track, I have decided to make up an individual plan for myself detailing how much I want to consume over the next 20 days.
It should incorporate a fast about once a week, as it has been too long since I've done that, but I'm not doing ABC or 2468 or any other existing plan.
I think I need to find something individual for myself that I can stick to right now, and that might provide results in the time-frame I have in mind.

Stay tuned, I'll keep you updated.

Tonight, I am invited to a party and will later go out clubbing with my friends, probably, so I have to take care to limit my alcohol intake (actually, I'll see whether it will be possible to get away with not drinking at all), and of course to not eat any party snacks.

I think it won't be too hard though - at the fist party, I will say that a) I have already eaten at home and b) I cannot drink too much because I will be going out later. Meeting up with my friends, the excuse will be that I already drank a lot at the previous party and am feeling rather tipsy now, so no more alcohol for a while, please.

... actually, I think today will be a good day. I also think this was a rather uneventful post; I do apologize, I simply had to think aloud and organise my thoughts on how I want to proceed in relation to food and weight.

In other, possibly slightly more exciting news: My mother called this morning, and actually apologized for her behaviour the other day, saying she should have perhaps been a bit more understanding.

She friggin apologized, people!

Knowing my mother, that is quite a big deal, and a rather pleasant surprise at that.
I'm deciding to feel happy about this, as despite the rocky nature of our relationship I do prefer to be on good terms with her.

Have a wonderful Saturday everyone, I hope you all get to do something you like. <3

Update, late afternoon of the same day:

All right, change of plans - I think I'm doing the ABC after all.

Two main factors were my inspiration in this change of heart:
1) I just read Bella's post, where she said she would be starting abc tomorrow, and it inspired me to go along (humans are gregarious animals, ain't that the truth..) and "inspiration" number 2:

I literally just met a "friend" I hadn't seen in a while, and he asked me whether I had put on weight.

... yeah. I think well can all imagine how ecstatic that made me feel.

So, I decided I need to stop dicking around and making excuses - a 20 day plan won't even cut it, I need to think way more long term than that and abc seems like a good start.

Plus, I haven't been doing too well in coming up with my own plan anyway, so I will focus my creative endeavors elsewhere and go with what is tried and tested in the restricting department.

It's settled; I'll continue trying to be good today (hopefully, 280 cals so far), and then officially get on the abc wagon tomorrow...

On Sleepless Nights and Guilty Pleasures

Blargh, no sleep again last night, although I was feeling so goddamn tired... know that feeling when you're actually TOO tired to sleep?

Kept telling myself to get up and do something useful, like say reading or crunches, if I couldn't fall asleep anyway - alas, I remained absolutely paralyzed by lethargy and inertia.

I just lay there all night, morbidly fascinated with watching the shifting shadows on the ceiling and the excruciatingly slow passage of time, firmly held in the withering, vice-like grip of total apathy.

Then a big fight with mother dearest this morning, where she called me "manipulative" because I cried in front of her.
I said I didn't mean to be, what made her think that, and she replied that I was purposefully trying to make her feel bad by crying.

I wasn't though - I was sad, feeling alone and helpless, I wanted to talk to someone familiar and was hoping that perhaps she'd comfort me - clearly a naive notion.
So I said I was sorry, I didn't want her to be mad at me, I was just trying to tell her how I felt.

And she just yelled at me, that I should do whatever I wanted with my life but leave her alone with my manipulative ways, then she left.

Obviously, a very successful mother-daughter meeting.

Teaches you that crying in front of other people is seldomly a good idea; unless they happen to possess a modicum of compassion, which you cannot always count on.

Hmpf.

On the positive side, I did exercise today (go me, one step towards easing into becoming the happy exercise freak I used to be - I'd almost forgotten already how GOOD your body feels when you actually give it some movement!)

Also, I'm going to meet up with a wonderful friend right now, a friend I haven't seen face-to-face in a long time, and who happens to understand from personal experience a wide array of troubles and obsessions of the mind.

So, that should be nourishing for both body and soul (we are going to a sushi place and I haven't eaten yet today, therefor low calorie makis and high satisfaction with self will be provided).

I really liked the comment Summer left on yesterday's post - saying that it's a highly satisfying guilty pleasure to be "that other girl" that someone suspects their bloke might long for.
It is indeed, and while it doesn't exactly make you feel like you deserve a Nobel prize in the category "high morals", there's no denying that it feels good.

I've been there with The Coward and his new girlfriend before - not too long ago, there was a party that we all attended.

She was looking rather plain that night, as in my eyes she always does, and I had actually pulled myself together, bringing my hair to shine and my eyes to sparkle, making an effort with my make-up and my clothes.

So there I was, surrounded by friends, the center of attention, laughing, looking my best and pretending mirth like there was no tomorrow - and there they were, slightly isolated in a corner as overly clingy couples often get, not really talking to anyone.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see her gaze darting over to me every five seconds, filled with uneasiness and fearful concern - the kind where she knows that her man and I had something once upon a time, and that even if he decided to break my heart and choose her to become his girlfriend instead, that doesn't mean she can stop worrying.

It felt good then, even though clearly if she could see inside my heart she would know that I still feel the loser, still cannot quell the longing for a guy that decided to lead me on and hurt me in a most undignified fashion.

When they were getting ready to leave, she actually came over to me.
She tapped me on the shoulder while I was immersed in conversation, just to say a shy goodbye, all down-cast eyes and batting lashes, staring at her feet.

And I smiled at her, generously, all teeth and insincerity; gave her a warm "goodbye" back, in a voice much louder, much more affable and cordial than was strictly required.

It was my On-top-of-the-world act, my I'm-so-great-I-can-afford-to-be-friendly-towards-you, You-are-but-a-tiny-blip-on-the-outskirts-of-my-world and of course I wish you luck dear, you sure need it.

And damn it felt good that night, if only for a few hours.

I also liked how Bella said her self-esteem won't "rear it's fragile head" - the fragile bit is spot on, she has an almost non-existent self-esteem that depends entirely on validation from others, particularly men.

Now, I am not the queen of the "Love Yourself"-club either - but the particular way she goes about openly putting her insecurities out there - all "ooooh, look at me, I'm so poor and insecure guys, don't you wanna saaaaave me, make me feel pretty?" - it is appalling to me.

I hate hating myself, I never think of it as an advertising advantage.
Nor would I want to talk about it to potential romance interests or passing acquaintances all the time.

Found the below picture with the caption "Jealousy. The best motivation for revenge.".
True indeed.

Sunday's essay rant: Food and I, the endless dance

I know that my relationship with food isn't exactly "normal" or healthy, that it hasn't been for ages - certainly not since I was a 12-year old kid, with my parents begging, yelling, threatening, pleading with me to have "just a few spoonfuls of soup, please!", and me crying into my soup as if that was the end of the world, wailing like there was no tomorrow, thinking that they were torturing me, trying to destroy my life; that they wanted to purposefully turn me into a fat and hideous monster.

Here's the thing though - I have never felt "hindered" by that, I have never felt restricted in my liberty by the desire to be slim, the desire not to eat.

I have felt, instead - perhaps falsely - that the times I was most at liberty, most at peace with myself, were those where that desire came to fruition.

Times when I was fasting every other day and going to the gym often twice in 24 hours, were the times when I felt "right" and freed from the oppression and restriction that masses of fat and the crushing failure associated with them impose.

Really, it is the other end of the scale, no pun intended, that has always made me feel trapped, imprisoned.
The moments when I'm bingeing, eating far too much although I'm not even hungry, eating and eating because if I'm not eating nothing then, hey, I might just as well eat everything.
Because I am unable to distinguish a margin of "just right" in between extremes, because there's either all or nothing, so every bite that passes my lips seems "too much".

And once that first bite of too-much, of more-than-nothing has been consumed, the day has turned into a bad day anyway, and I might as well, no I actively need to make it official by wrecking it with ridiculous amounts of food, so as to punish my transgression, so as to show myself just how properly I have messed up.

I am sure a lot of you are all too familiar with the mechanisms I am talking about...
The thing is, that I cannot bring myself to see the restricting/starving side of things as the oppressive, abusive partner in that dance.
I realize it is a masochism tango on the whole, still only one participant seems hurtful, the other endlessly liberating.

The days were I actually manage to consume few enough calories so as not to trigger that switch in my brain to flip, as not to trigger a binge because "it has all gone wrong, anyway" - those are the good days.
I feel proud then, like a bulimic who has manged to keep their food down for a change, has managed to eat little enough so they won't feel the need to purge.

Only I don't purge when that switch gets flipped, when I've had that one piece of fruit salad too many, I simply start bingeing where I have been eating "reasonably" before.
I've always hated the thought of purging enough to avoid it on most occasions (I go out of my way not to throw up out of "natural" causes even), which I guess is some kind of blessing - and still I engage in that ridiculous "all or nothing" scheme, where everything spins out of control as soon as I feel I haven't stayed completely in the straight and narrow with restricting my intake.

I don't know what that makes me or where it will lead; all I know is that I want to go back to the good days, where I keep myself in check and keep my intake in check, where I starve myself just enough to be skinny and free.

And I know that am unable, at this point, to see those days as anything other than liberating, highly desirable.

PS: Getting graphic on the subject of food, I'll add today's estimated calorie intake which stands at about 620 (Half a grapefruit, a cup of steamed veggies, 170g of soy yogurt mixed with applesauce - they incidentally list the same calorie content per 100g -, a 70g piece of a boiled potato, a smoothie at 133 cals, 2 cocktail gherkins, half a slice of brown bread and 40 g of Gouda).

Meh, that's ok, about same as yesterday; yet I feel full and vaguely guilty.

So much for the no-binge-days being liberating, eh? I guess it only makes me feel that way when I am already skinny, otherwise the hideousness of the bod cancels everything out.

Oh well, gotta think positive though, and a moderately successful restricting day is certainly good news.

"I'll do what I can..."

"...nothing more, nothing less."

It's a mantra my therapist has me repeat as a means to avoid anxiety attacks and counter perfectionism.

I'm not sure it is helping - but then again I know she didn't mean for me to apply it to food intake, either.

So, did I do well today, did I do everything I could?

I ate some stuff, namely 160 g of soy based yogurt (57 cal/100g, which means 91.2 cals), half a banana (medium size, so let's say 50 for half of it), a 10-cal cup of broth I drank in the morning, half a grapefruit at maximum 50 cals; for lunch I went out to have sushi with a friend, so I had a miso soup plus an avocado and a shinko maki roll.
(Taking into account the differing numbers you find on the calorie content of sushi, I estimate I come in at somewhere around 600 cals total for the day, perhaps even below.)

All in all, that adds up to considerably more than I wanted to eat in an ideal scenario; but on the other hand it seems pretty reasonable for a "first day back" to restricting, and is definitely better than the fiasco I have indulged in lately.
Still, I just don't know what to think.

I feel low.
No, that's not right - I don't feel either or, really.
Mainly, I feel disgusted with my body, despite doing relatively well today where food is concerned.

I have that kind of feeling where you want to peel off your own skin so badly, shed it like a reptile, that you have to restrain yourself hard not to take a kitchen knife and cut it open from top to bottom so you can wriggle out of it.

In positive news, I like the fact that spring is beginning - the first sightings of crocuses (crocus? croci?) and lilies of the valley, the re-awakening of the world, the metaphorical rebirth of life and all that sappy crap.
I'm just very fond of this season, whenever I step outside it elevates my mood by a tiny fraction.

I hope, if you are reading this, that spring has set on wherever you live, too, and that it is bringing you some amount of pleasure.