Sinking back into a dream

I'm not feeling terribly poetical right now, too sleepy to make a pretty post, or whatever it is when I put in effort. Just going to write things as they are. 
Things have changed, a little. I've begun working, for one. It's just part time, but it's so nice to be making a contribution even though it's small. I love my job. I'll describe it later.
I've had some medical issues lately, and after a few seriously nightmarish episodes have been prescribed muscle relaxants to help me sleep (lack of sleep either caused or seriously exacerbated the issue). I'm also supposed to start seeing a therapist soon, my medical issues are brought about by anxiety and stress.
I may be moving again. Fiance and I may be getting an apartment with some friends, maybe right by campus. That would be lovely. I hope this happens.
I had a little breakdown today. It started a week ago when I pulled on a pair of shorts and realized I couldn't button them. I've been  trying to eat better since but I don't think I've been doing well. I can' tell, it's like the second I get into all this the me from before no longer exists, maybe even never existed. I can't compare how I eat now to how I ate then, because the past me doesn't exist. She didn't eat she didn't breath she didn't exist. But I tried, and today, I tried those shorts again. It seemed easier to pull them on and zip them up, but then I caught my reflection in the mirror and I just looked so awful I started crying. This all must seem so silly to a normal person, but it's like thinking you're a human then discovering you're a monster and have been one the whole time. I ran into Fiance when I was leaving the mirror and I asked him how I looked, just to gauge a more normal persons reaction. He didn't seem to understand why I was upset or felt I looked bad. That scared me. I've been worried about body dismorphia for a while, afraid that either I have it or people are straight up lying to me about how I look. This instance was much more extreme then ever before though. I look so...big. I tried to
I tried to
I attempted to induce vomiting.
I've never been able to before.
Still can't.
Ate maybe 200 calories since then, and I'm planning how I'll get away with not eating tomorrow and the next day, hopefully I'll manage until the end of the week, then the next then the rest of the month and next month and next year. I miss my bones. My hipbones, my collarbones, my ribs. I miss feeling them, so delicate and intricate like lace. They're smothered now. Just the tips show, like iceburgs. This thaw's gone on too long, we need a good freeze.

OH BOY CHANGE

My ramblings may get a lot darker, more confusing, and maybe even more disjointed then usual, because, oh joy of joys, my antidepressant prescription is changing again. Before I landed on the last medication, my antidepressants had actually made me a lot more depressed, what with the suicidal thoughts, and causing frightening episodes starting with severe vertigo followed by emotional breakdowns.
Then we settled on my old medication, which was great. It was odd though, I could feel it kicking in everyday. Or imagined I could. There was a moment every morning when it felt like the part of my brain that takes offense and holds grudges, throws tantrums, etc., was sinking back under the covers. Like it was going back to sleep. I felt like I had the perfect morning, and by building on that, my day would be okay.
The generic came out about a year after I started taking the old medication, which was fantastic, because I could afford  it without worrying about the consequences. I wouldn't have to wonder if this medication meant not having dinner. Wait scratch that. If buying this medication meant my fiance couldn't have dinner. For me it would just be a convenient excuse. Everything seemed to be fitting together so well. Until I started forgetting. I'd ask someone a question and within two minutes, I could barely remember whether or not I had asked at all, and the answer had completely vanished. It no longer existed. Bit by bit, minutes of my life were just disappearing. When I was lucid enough to realize this, I could feel those minutes adding up. Even though at the moment I could stand to only be half present, I knew that I would need to be fully there soon. I was worried for how I would handle those times when I needed to be fully present. And a little freaked out that I felt I didn't need to be there at the time.
So I had to decide whether I wanted to be happy but blank (generic), able to cope but dirt poor and guiltridden (name brand), or...thrown into complete disorientation. For some reason I chose the latter. So let's see where this take us.

I ate two rice cakes, and now I feel fat. This is stupid.
Let's see if I can get away with some lettuce. An entire head of lettuce is about 100 calories, so...if I can't eat some lettuce, then I'm an idiot.
I've been binging lately, had ice-cream and chips and candy I didn't really want. When I'm binging, I usually find myself trying to eat everything so that when I'm sane again, there will be no temptation. That's the excuse anyhow, it's what I tell myself.

Ugh, I'm two-rice-cake-fat and stupid today.

I have no idea if I'm better or worse...but I am smaller

My calories have been on average, under 500 a day. Yesterday I went all the way to my limit of 700 but not over, and that was the worst day all week.
But I almost fainted in public, repeatedly. Oftentimes, when I'm feeling faint, I can sit down for a moment, get up slowly and continue on. But this time, I could not get back up without feeling in the immediate danger of fainting. The beautiful and sick thing about this was that while this was going on, because I was excited and had eaten nothing and had more physical exertion then normal, I knew I needed to eat but I had no desire to. The thought of food was repulsive.
Eventually I got to a food court and got vegetable and tofu stir fry, ate enough to feel steady, and had nothing else the whole day. And I felt lovely.
Also I fit into a size small skirt. I'm sure much of that has to do with vanity sizing, but, while by the numbers I am dancing around the underweight line (haven't weighed in a while though), I have huge hips. Great child-bearing hips. And all my weight is in my hips. Even if I weighed nothing, they would still be pretty wide, I can see wear the bones are and yeah, wide. So I can NEVER fit my stupid hips/butt/thighs into a small. I'm a small or extra small shirt size but medium or even at some places, a large in pants. But I fit into a SMALL. I could say I am, judging by clothes, officially small all over. I wouldn't believe it, but I could say it. Ah, I will push this from my mind, I'm sure it's vanity sizing. But still...

History is a cyclical bastard

When I was a little girl, my family was not wealthy. We ate a lot of Kraft Mac and Cheese with broccoli thrown in so we wouldn't die of malnutrition. I was more aware of this fact then many children would have been, and was therefore much more concerned about money then many children were. If I saw a toy in a store that I really wanted, either I would mention in it passing to my mother, hoping she would realize I wanted it (because if I directly asked and we couldn't afford it, it would be a humiliating and painful experience for us both) or I would stand in front of it and look sad, because, being a child, I was certain one day a kindly old lady would come along and take pity on my and buy my that toy out of sheer generosity.
So when people did buy me things, it was a big deal. I was a it of a hoarder for a while, because I had such an attachment to everything that had been given me. I would make an effort to play with toys I didn't really like just so the person who gave it to me wouldn't be sad.
One birthday, I think I was about four, my mother and sister gave me this toy called Mister Bucket. I believe it was meant to be a group game but once they gave it to me I took it to the kitchen to play. Mister Bucket worked like this: he was filled with many brightly colored balls, and would spew them around the room and the goal was to collect the balls and put them back in him, and he would proceed to spit them back out, you would chase them and bring them back.
So I began to play, and my sister and mother came to watch me, probably smiling beatifically because that's what people do when they watch children play.
I activated Mister Bucket and began running around the room collecting balls as they rolled and bounced around the floor. But as I was bringing them back, I realized a serious flaw in this game. It would never stop, the was no end, I could not win. I would keep collecting balls, and once I returned them to Mister Bucket, he would send them out again. If I stopped, he would just send out more and more and my sister and mother would be sad that I hadn't enjoyed my birthday present. I couldn't allow that, they had spent precious money on this toy, thinking I would enjoy it, and I would not disappoint! I rallied, and began to collect again in earnest. But seen I felt completely overwhelmed, this was a hopeless endeavor. The stream of balls would never stop. I began to panic as I collected the balls, and soon began to cry. I don't remember how it ended, but this has stayed with me since it happened, a constant source of guilt: I did not enjoy this toy. They went out of their way to make me happy, but I cried all over it and ruined everything.

I've noticed this same situation happening again and again, to a lesser extent. I work myself into a frenzy to please someone, but it doesn't work out right and I feel guilty and stressed for creating the situation in the first place.
Like today!
So, I am a gamer. A casual gamer I guess, I prefer exploring worlds and discovering secrets to them then leveling and fighting people.
There's this new game coming out soon that my fiance and sister are incredibly exited about, and yesterday was the first day of the last beta testing, meaning the last time we could play until the game is officially released. Fiance has thought of nothing else for days. There's this one type of puzzle found in this game, a jumping puzzle. Basically, there's an area suspended somehow, and you have to jump from one location to another, finding the right path to whatever treasure lies at the end. There are many obstacles along the way; things that push you off whatever it is your standing on or attack you. Basically, if you fall or die, you have to start over, sometimes completely. As this is happening during beta testing, there are also flaws with the game itself, so even more obstacles. Funnsies.
But my fiance loves these things. He seeks them out and tackles each one. While I had my character out gathering ingredients to cook with (yeah you can cook in this game, and have mini adventures finding strawberries to make tarts and stuff. This is what I like about it.), he invited me to join him on one particular jumping puzzle. And history, being the cruel bastard he is, repeated himself. My character fell and died so many times I lost count, and each time I had to begin again from the beginning. Fiance was frustrated too, but enjoying himself as well so I kept at it. After about 20-30 minutes I had gotten to hair pulling frustration. About 10 minutes after that I was crying. And maybe 10 minutes after that, having been sent all the way to the very beginning AGAIN, I fell AT  THE BEGINNING of the puzzle and died, and I just couldn't do it any more. I was miserable that i had pushed myself to the point of crying, but so much more miserable that fiance must know I was crying because of this puzzle he invited me to join thinking we could have a nice adventure together. I just broke down completely, shut my laptop and curled into a miserable, embarrassed ball of sniveling gross.

I'm an idiot.

On the plus side, I'm so unhappy with myself that I have the determination not to eat today. So there's that.

The fuck. Honestly.

So I was eating well today, I was out all day and taken to lunch and dinner, had salads for both and one piece of bread I ate slow as balls. Then I got home and developed a shrieking headache, and I always weirdly get paranoid having headaches that are unbalanced, asymmetrical, because a little part of my brain (never the part that is partially debilitated due to pain) insists it's cancer and then I stress and the headache gets worse. And then I started eating because when I'm stressed and in pain, another very tiny part of my brain, another incredibly stupid tiny part of my brain, thinks food will make it better. Now, the reason for the headache is stress. And there is stressed caused by this headache, which causes binging which causes stress. It's all a fantastic merry-go-round of I'm an idiot who can't handle simple issues.

BUT let's get to the issue. So, last night there was a beautiful storm. Where I live, we never get summer rain storms. But we did and it was lovely. But I couldn't sleep. So I stayed up reading, with the window open because it was hot as Satan's coffee or something I don't know. When it is this hot, I do not sleep in pajamas, because I do not have a death wish as far as I know. Yar that's right I sleep nekkid. It's hot, give me a break. It was so hot we even had the curtain open and a fan on the windowsill. Our window points directly to our backyard, with nice high fences. Ah, she's making a point of the backyard, and window, and being nude, you might be thinking. Hold on it get's better. So while I'm reading, by very dim light, enjoying the storm, there is this bright flash of light from outside. Good gods, what could that be? I ask myself. I wait, and soon enough I hear the telltale sound of thunder. But still, I couldn't help but notice that there was about 40 seconds (I always count when there's a storm) between that flash and the thunder and I find myself wondering how I could see the lightning so brightly when the source was obviously far away. I push it to the back of my mind, I'm enjoying this book. There are more flashes, and I don't bother spending the energy to see if they match up with the thunder since I'm beginning to get sleepy. Then I sleep. I wake up from some hellish bug bite about 2 hours later, and at once I run to the bathroom to check out the incredibly painful and itchy bite in the mirror. Being exhausted, I soon decide I had better look up my symptoms on WebMD, because in my so very tired mind, I may well have been bitten by something poisonous and that thing must have been in our bed and if it is poisonous, I had better wake up boyfriend fiance to at least shake out the bedclothes if not rush me to the hospital. I was very tired, please don't judge. So I'm looking up my symptoms and trying to work through the fog of sleep and panic and pain to navigate the symptoms page and find out how to select skin instead of arm when I notice that flash again. But this time there is no rain. There is no storm, there is no thunder. It is the exact same flash as before, but this time, accompanied by that universally recognizable click of a camera.

What the fuck.

I close the curtains, lie in bed under thelevel of the window, and peer through, carefully covered, hoping to catch a glimpse of what seems to the telltale flash of flash photography. At this point I was hoping to affirm my confused suspicions and perhaps find a source, and perhaps see that it is pointing somewhere other then my BEDROOM WINDOW. No more flashes. Back to sleep, busy day of wearing clothes at all times.

Now, I do not know what to think. The first time I noticed the flash, I was not tired. It was not imagined, it was not a trick of the mind, and upon some contemplation, couldn't have been lightning. I do not know for sure if it was a camera. All I know is I heard a sound I was NOT listening for that explained the odd flash I hadn't been thinking about. I also do not know if, had it been a camera, it had been taking pictures of me. All I know is mysterious unexplained flashes and the one time it was quiet enough to hear, the sound of a camera, and all this when I not wearing clothes, the curtains were open and I was within view of the window. I'm trying not to flatter myself by thinking someone could have been taking pictures of me, that surely something interesting must have been happening wherever the flash originated. But I heard no talking, and I know no one who goes out late at night to take pictures in their backyard unless something phenomenal was going on, and apart from the storm, which is hard to capture by camera especially at night, there was nothing. Gods I wish I knew what to do. Other then to get thicker and wider curtains. I'm sure this isn't enough to approach the police about, but I feel so uncomfortable. I wish I knew what to do.

I wish I had people to talk to.

Getting better

The past few days have been really good, often keeping under 500, never over 700. Except yesterday, maybe. My boyfriend fiance(!) took me out, we never go out! I hadn't had anything to eat all day, but we saw two movies and during each I had about 2 cups of popcorn, without extra butter, which after looking up just now when I remembered I could, is actually a total of 190 cal. Not sure if that's right, seems so low...but if so, fantastic. I was thinking maybe 100 a cup. Good good ^-^ I'm a happy Sugar Bones.

It's also been good in that I've been getting out, (not just of the bedroom, of the house!) and I had people over today, one I never met before, and I was fine. I felt only a little weird, mostly pretty confident. I baked and only barely tasted the batter, when I tasted the finished product I just put some on my tongue and then spit it back out when I had an idea. Sounds weird but made me feel better. Anyhow I'm at 400 today, and I spent the day with people instead of hiding under the covers even though it was raining and perfect for hiding away. I took care of work issues this week, each day doing as much as I could do, so I don't stress about it. Looks like I'll only be getting 6 hours a week, but still, it's work in the same field as my chosen career, with experience that would help me get a job at any university I attend. And considering my boyfriend's job takes care of the bills, this will all be able to go into savings to pay for college when we transfer. The more I think about it, the more I love this job. Just paranoid that I'll somehow ruin this opportunity.

But last night we went grocery shopping, and my boyfriend wanted me to get myself a snack for home. I almost cried. He noticed, and I couldn't tell him. There was a point a few months ago when I would have been very tempted to tell him what was wrong, that I knew if I ate any of that food, even an apple, I would hate myself, I would bury myself in self loathing and who knows, maybe even cut again because I can't bring the food back up and it would be killing me just letting that food seep into me and I would need the endorphins to calm down. But no matter how upset I was at the moment, I had no desire to tell him. This disturbs me.

But I WANT to weigh myself, I know I've been goodgoodgood and I'm not afraid of the numbers. I'm a little afraid I guess, I always am, that I will be wrong. But I know my hipbones stand out more then a week ago, and the hill of my belly in between the bones is a little more shallow. I hate that I somehow have a belly even though my hipbones stand out, I feel like I have the weird lumpy body of a Skeksi from The Dark Crystal.

And on a happier note again, I love chai tea and I've been working on chai tea muffins for about a year and I think I've perfected the ratio of spices. I'm always tempted to put in too much cardamom, because it is of my HUMBLE opinion that a chai tea made of solely of cinnamon is NOT proper chai, even though chai really just means tea so I suppose you technically could call any tea chai. But I digress, I really need a ratio of about 2:1 cinnamon to cardamom and add less then a 1/2 of the measurement used for cardamom for any other spices I feel like, ginger or clove or black pepper. I also always forget vanilla, which I feel makes it taste more creamy, which is very important. Now I need to use all this on my super low cal muffins, so I can actually eat them and my boyfriend fiance will stop worrying. I only really eat around him but still, he says he's noticed I don't eat much. Need to work on that.