Beautiful, Terrible Days

Hello.

I suppose that's the most appropriate way for any beginning to happen; with a simple "Hello".

While I doubt anyone will ever read this, I feel the need to introduce myself. For the invisible reader... for a future self.

My name is irrelevant; you can call me Wolf Heart, Amaruq (Inuktitut for 'wolf'), or Monika (the name of my ED). I am 18, I'm a university student (taking English), and I'm from Canada.

And I struggle with an ED. This is not, by any means, a pro-ana site. I recognize that it is an illness, and I would not wish it on anybody. It is not a lifestyle, it is not something to aspire to. I despise myself for it each day, yet the illness talks me out of aiming for recovery.

For all technicalities, I suffer from ED-NOS. My symptoms almost always manifest as anorexia, but there are times (like today, but I'll get into that later) where I'll act more like I have Binge-Eating Disorder than anything else.

I suppose most ED blogs have the basic stats, so here I go:

Height: 5'11 or 6'0
CW: 153 lbs (and I'm horrified) (A BMI of between 20.7 and 21.3)
LW: 135 lbs (a wonderful feeling) (A BMI of between 18.3 and 18.8)
HW: 158.3 lbs (terrifyingly recent) (A BMI of between 21.5 and 22.1)
GW: 120 lbs (a BMI of between 16.3 and 16.7)

I'm ashamed to post this. If anyone ever reads it, they'll certainly tell me I'm not skinny enough to have an eating disorder. I've been told that before.

But EDs are about one's relationship to food; the physical is merely a manifestation of that.
And honestly, EDs are really about one's feelings, and the eating is merely a manifestation of that.


A few things that are important about me (and may give insight into the ED):

• My father made constant comments about my body, saying that I had "nice breasts" and that he was glad I didn't have a "skinny model ass", that he was glad mine was round and full. Comments like this made me want to disappear.
• My father died in November. Our relationship may have been strained, but it has still hurt me deeply.
• I've struggled on-and-off with eating problems since I was about twelve years old, but it started to get legitimate in about December 2009. 
• I am a perfectionist. My grades have been terrible lately, and I can barely function knowing I'm doing so poorly. I can also barely function knowing I weigh so much.
• I have depression. This has manifested in various ways. It started when I was about eight. At ten, I started cutting, and became suicidal (I quit cutting at 17. I had two major suicide attempts, one at 15, the other at 16. Both were overdoses on acetaminophen). At twelve, I purged for the first time (this also stopped many years ago). At 14, I started fasting and restricting (this was on and off, and didn't become too serious). At 17, I started fasting and restricting more seriously. I am now 18, and the disordered eating continues to be my outlet.

Now that the basics are out of the way, I can start with this week/day.

This week in general has been pretty terrible, eating-wise. Honestly, the past two weeks have been. I've had family visits and group events and various other things that made fasting/restricting almost impossible. It was very stressful.
Today was a snow day! I'm so glad; I had a lot of homework to catch up on.
It didn't even snow that much in my area, but everything closed anyway! Probably for commuters.
I don't know if the food halls were open or not, but I didn't bother to find out. It was a perfect excuse.
I did really well all day. No exercise, as I stayed in bed almost all day (hooray for lazy days!), but I ate nothing.
...Until... I suddenly decided "fuck weight loss, I want some hot chocolate!"
I didn't make any. Instead, I grabbed the bag of mini-marshmallows and ate them. I just sat there and ate them! Mini-marshmallows! They're 100 calories per 2/3 cup. I estimate I probably had twice that, so 200 calories for today. That may not seem awful, but they were MARSHMALLOWS! I had meant to eat nothing!
I'm going to start back on my colon cleansing laxatives tomorrow. They're herbal and really gentle, and they're just a great way to kick off diets. The new regime (re-)begins!

The only thing I'm nervous about is that tomorrow is Chinese New Year... and Chinese New Year food is my favourite! I may not be able to resist! Which would mean I'll start back into the old habits again on Friday.

I have a terrible headache from sitting around all day. Being lazy gets you nothing but trouble!
So I'm going to go do a bit of exercise (which is always difficult to do while my homophobic roommate is in town), brush my teeth, sleep, and wake up EARLY to finish doing my reading for Women in Literature tomorrow morning.

Peace to you.