Rather cliche year-end survey

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Quite a bit... It's been an eventful year, if not in too many positive ways. For the first time I did an actual hospitalization treatment program for my ED, got hooked on the Simpsons (albeit twenty years late, really), busked, got a ferret, got on welfare.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't remember making any, actually. This year my new year's res's are: money and a book draft.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Doesn't quite count as someone close to me, but Linda, a blogger I've been following for quite a while now, had her second and he is just absolutely cute. Also my... I'm not sure how she'd be 'related' to me... My partner's mom's cousin's granddaughter had a kid. Hee. Also, my close friends Marque and Dylan had their first beautiful baby girl, Emma Rose. Seriously, I love babies and kids in general but this little baby is gorgeous beyond cute.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

A good friend of mine from back East was murdered. It sucked. And I still keep thinking about him and wondering what the hell is wrong with people.

5. What countries did you visit?

"Can we list counties instead? Because not so much with the exotic travel in 2008." I like and am yoinking Linda's answer here. Aside from no money to travel I had no car to travel with for the latter half of the year...

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

Hahaha money. I know, I know, money won't buy me love and it won't make me happy and all that crap... But people who say money is worthless have never scrounged for pennies to buy something, anything to eat. I will not hesitate to say that poverty can be a severe damper to recovering from an eating disorder.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

January 24th, the day I started inpatient; September 20th, my four year anniversary!; October 31st, my first night on the floor at Nordstrom's. There are other dates which, for their trauma, ought to be seared in there but for better or worse I seem to have blocked them out. Quite literally...

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Not getting evicted, arrested, or sent to debtor's prison. Also, getting a good job that I love, being 'wife' and mama to a beautiful lady and our three baby cats and one baby ferret.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Eh. We'll leave it short, sweet, and vague with "car fiasco".

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Aside from the relapse which put me inpatient at the beginning of the year it's been remarkably healthy! Thank jeebus for that one, at least, given all the rest.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My Blackberry makes me happy every single day it's not got its service suspended. I'm also loving the apartment, the ferret, several super cheap seasons of Futurama, and the blanket I bought/made when I graduated PHP.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Everyone in this country who voted for OBAMAAAA!!! Everyone who voted NO on Prop 8 (seriously, even though the...achem, conservatives, beat us, it still means a lot that we tried). The state of Colorado for going blue as a New Hampshire aristocrat despite all the religious cluster bombs in the Springs! Tina Fey for rocking my world and saving the election. (Uh, in imagination and theoretical application, not literal... Though the offer stands, Ms Fey!)

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Freakin Sarah Palin... Casey Anthony. Blagojevich. Marylin Musgrave and that whoreish chick responsible for Prop 48. Those responsible for Prop 8, too, for that matter. Mugabe, Putin, BUSH (can't forget that bitch, neh?), Israel... Many who deserve to be drenched in kerosene and tossed in a bug zapper this year.

14. Where did most of your money go?

You know, it's seemed that every time I had five bucks there were at least ten people demanding it. Seems you truly can't get a drink of water for free anymore.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

God, I've gotten super excited about many things this year. The election and all things related would pretty much dominate...

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

Haha, the Obama song. Also Swing Life Away and that one song by Lilly Allen, something something something the way the cookie crumbles something. Both will always remind me of poverty and romance and attempts to romanticize poverty.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:


a) happier or sadder? Happier, undoubtedly - at this time last year I was relapsing hardcore and facing more hospitalization.
b) thinner or fatter? Haha a good ----- 'fatter'.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer...

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Fun, luxurious, relaxing things. You know, massages and cotillions and money baths and other rich things like that.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying... I'm pretty sure I've shaved a good forty years off my life with all the worry this year. Damn, hopefully somehow I'll still be in the black with the years gained from a stint inpatient...

20. How did you spend Christmas?

With cousins and aunts and uncles and thinly connected distant relations and their cute babies. It was a good Christmas!

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?

I had a couple new fuzzy carpet shark loves this year. :-P Molly, who in her short life with us hopefully had as great a time as we did with her, and Charlie, her successor.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Futurama baby. Also the Simpsons (old seasons, not current crap) have risen steadily in the ranks. South Park remains strong as ever though.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Did I know about Palin this time last year? I don't remember. There's a couple people I'm distinctly angry with at the moment that I wasn't last year but I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate them.

24. What was the best book you read?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his sexalicious Hundred Years of Solitude stole my freaking heart, despite all the weirdness. I've read quite a bit this year and enjoyed it all immensely.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Hm... Think her name is Stina Nordenstam. She's sexy.

26. What did you want and get?

A sexy apartment!

27. What did you want and not get?

Money?

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

Hmm... Se7en, Dark Knight, Harold and Maude, uh.... God, my brain is failing me tonight.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I worked on my birthday but I regret it not one bit. There is nothing like working-on-your-birthday sympathy to get great tips!

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

God I hate this theme, but, money.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Finally graduating from the Cheesecake Tighty Whiteys and then 'trying'?

32. What kept you sane?

God, a good chemical combination of fluoxetine, lamotrigine, buproprion, crystaline, and THC.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I am still a complete puddle of mush for my Angelina. Six kids and still sexy... Nom... Also, I would in less than a heartbeat go straight should President Elect Obama ask. I'm really, really sorry Mrs President, but if he asks I don't think I'll have the willpower to say no.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Props 8, 48, and the whole damn election in general. I narrowly avoided god only knows how many heart attacks this election season!

35. Who did you miss?

My brother. George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Ben Franklin, and whoever those other guys are.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Erica, Lindsay, Ainsley, Johnnie, Stephanie, Judi, lotsa cool people this year!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

You can get by successfully on a lot less than you think you need. That said, there is still a line.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

We'll sit on front porches and swing life away
We get by just fine here on minimum wage
If love is a labor I'll slave 'til the end
I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand!

Moderate improvements to the financial state... Well, minor, really, but I'm not and have never been one to give in. We scraped by for December and now it's a matter of figuring out next month... I'm pretty sure we'll be okay but am DEFINITELY still taking commissions because things are still really shaky.

If anyone would like to commission a scarf or plate or, I dunno, anything, you can just email me with a request. My paypal account is novareproject@gmail.com and that's the same email by which to reach me. For those who have me on facebook I've got several scarf pictures posted there. I'd also be happy to email them. Unfortunately I can't post photos to my blog directly from the blackberry, which is still my only source of internet accessibility.

Thank you guys for being there... I'm sorry for the craptacular lack of posts the past months.

something of an emergency

So. Since last posting I've switched to a new job at nordstrom's which, overall, is going well... But the last two weeks were absolute bullshit and since at Nordstrom we make comission I'm screwed.

The rent check will be cashed any day now and my account is $250 short.

I have scarves and gorgeous plates and art to sell... They'd make good
Christmas presents for people....

I hate calling on charity. I've never not worked my ass off for the things I need, the past two weeks included. But right now I really need help.

Semi-temporary computer!

Crystal's mom has given us her laptop so that she can get papers done more effectively... She's been typing them out on her QWERTY keyboard on the Blackberry. Rather inefficient.

I'm kind of just sitting around sick today... Not horribly, dreadfully ill, just a cold. Enough to knock me on my ass a bit, though. There are not many new developments out here. Crystal's worried because I've been cutting back on food again... It's really not a hundred percent intentional, though - we just can't afford any groceries. Right now I have in my cupboards: cereal, oatmeal, some flour, canned fruit, and a couple half-empty boxes of 99 cent pasta. I eat when I'm at work but otherwise it's tough to do much with what I've got in stock.

To compound matters, through a series of events I'd rather not detail, we no longer have a car and likely will not have one for quite some time. The grocery store is not walking distance from here, nor is it on a bus route. Sooo... still trying to figure out how that one's going to play out.

In the mean time rent is paid for another month. In an odd stroke of luck, our apartment is close enough to the main offices that we can piggy-back off their internet, so that's one other worry diminished. One positive thing about having a computer with internet access again is that I can once more put out job apps. I sent out sixteen last week, three of which were to head-hunter sites. I have yet to hear back from anyone but please, please put in a good word for me with the saints upstairs.

Hours and sales and business are so horrific right now that I'm lucky if I can procure twenty hours a week. In those twenty hours, I'm even luckier if I can walk with $200. By doing the math, I've figured out that in order to simply break even with just a $50/week grocery budget, I need to pull in about $500 a month. Right now this is simply not happening. We're overstaffed and under-businessed (yes, that is now a word) and the GM we've had since last August is running the place into the ground. If worse comes to worse, I'm about to start looking for a different restaurant job just to help pay the bills better while I continue to search for something office-y.

To supplement income, I've started busking. I'm actually loving it quite a bit more than I thought I would and am trying to head downtown at least several times a week to perform. After finishing this post I plan on working on setting up a busking blog, so keep an eye out for that one.

So in conclusion... I'm still alive, still scraping by, and still flipping a bird to The Man. It'll take more than this financial crap to stop me!

so will it work to update from my blackberry?

Life's kinda weird right now. In some ways it's better than ever, but in others it's at a nerve-wracking level akin to my dog food days that first summer in DC.

The reason I'm updating from my blackberry is that my computer died and I can't afford to get or even finance a new one, and aside from that had my cable/internet service shut off recently because I can't afford to pay the bill. I've got lots of plates and art projects that I want to list on Etsy to try to bring in some cash on the side while I continue my ongoing quest for a job that will actually be adequate for my bills and needs but have no way to get the pictures up.if it weren't enough that I have no computer and no internet service, my worthless ex-roommate stole my digital camera (and iPod) as a parting gift when we moved out. So I have no way to take the pictures which I have no computer to load them onto and no internet to use Etsy anyway. Mom and dad... I'm sorry. I feel fucking terrible about the digital camera and it's one of the best presents you've ever given me and I feel like losing it is somehow my fault for not protecting it well enough.

Wow, I'm an overflowing bucket of cheer.

On the plus side, I'm making rent on time each month, not getting evicted, still have a job and gas for my car, I'm in a great relationship and have two beautiful, healthy cats, I've got some great friends and my best friend is expecting her first in a week and i'll be an "aunt" so... Things could always be worse. It's kind of a best of times, worst of times scenario at present.

I don't see my financial status improving any time in the near future, barring a deus ex machina, but I'm getting used to it. I'm reading obsessively again and doing lots of art even if I have no way to sell it. So it's all good, in its own way.

Well, one obnoxious thing about updating via blackberry keyboard is that a qwerty is much more time-consuming than a reggae, so my thumbs are getting tired. On the plus side I do have this option available to me, so when I have the patience for it I'll be more likely and able to update, if only in brief.

Hope life is still bright for all my readers! Siri, if you're still around can you e-mail me your current address? You've been on my mind a lot lately and i'd love to write sometime. Peace!

A moment of minor mourning

For my computer. ::hangs head::

Over the past year or so it has slowly succumbed to old age and decay... Or something... It started with spiderweb cracks on the screen which spread until only the bottom left quarter was still visible... Those lines were joined by white bands... The touch pad started to go... The speed slowed to I-25 at rush hour... Then yesterday I opened it up to find this odd tartan of a screen, red and black and blue with spider cracks and nothing resembling words or icons remaining.

Yes, the screen is the worst part of the current problem, but the computer itself is also so far gone that it doesn't seem worth buying a new screen to tack on to the computer. Probably I'll find some way to hook it up to a screen for at least long enough to download all my data, though. (I know, shame shame SHAME on me that I have never made data backups in all the years I've owned computers. Yes, I truly know better than this. No, even multiple losses have not made me shape up.) Crystal's school rents iBooks for fifty bucks a semester so what I'm thinking is that we'll rent one of those when school starts in a few weeks then buy a CPU when we can afford it then eventually a new laptop. Jeez.

So I bring all this to the table to say that my computer access will be even more limited than it has been, at least until school starts. The computer has been such a pain to use over the last few months (try blocking out three-quarters of your screen then putting a dark mesh over the rest) that I haven't even wanted to bother, hence the sparce updates and all. At least that should change once there is a new computer! Hopefully!

Well, the library computer is about to time me out. Sooo peace out my dears. I'm leaving to go camping on Sunday and should be back late next week; otherwise I'll be in the middle of nowhere and pretty much unable to communicate. I doubt there will be cell phone reception but I could always be surprised. Tchao!

Crystal and I tried to have a "house"-warming party today... Only problem was a grand total of four people showed up over the course of six hours. Many more had said they would come but I hadn't really counted on them, anyway... Servers are really damn flaky people. Still, I thought the promise of pizza and beer might have helped.

So, basically, Crystal and I need to find some more lesbian/straight friends in the Denver area. It's sad, I posted an ad on Craigslist just for the hell of it, but not a single person responded... There is no love for the me. Ah well.

In other news, I'm finally starting to get up to a therapeutic dose on the Lamictal. I'm only at 50mgs right now but I've noticed a slight difference at least. I've been keeping a mood journal, tracking my ups and downs in particular, and they're starting to even out. I meet with Dr C again in a couple weeks and that should determine what I'll be taking regularly. We'll see!

Umm... Blah, I'm a bit zoned out and am having a hard time thinking of anything to write, so I suppose I'll cut this off. Peace!

I'd like to buy a diagnosis, Pat.

So where have I been? MOVING. Honestly, that's been the biggest, busiest thing lately... Between April and May it was all about looking for a place to move into once our lease expired in June. From May to the middle of June I was packing and working and cleaning constantly so that we'd be ready to make the shift on June 13th.

And now we're here!

The new place is absolutely freaking gorgeous and I love it. You know that place where you walk inand just know that you're home? It was kinda like that. Not sure why, but even entering the furniture-free, blank apartment just felt right. It's a bit pricier than our last place (and it's just the two of us paying this time, no help from the mostly-worthless roommate) and because of all the security deposits and fees and costs of moving it's been a huge, constant financial scramble. Particularly seeing as we moved in on the 13th, which is mid month and therefore left us with only two weeks to gather the entire next month's rent.

In addition to the constant working, my depression has been worse worse worse. I doubt it could be picked up too well from the sparse updates I've been giving, but my meds started giving up the ghost about a month and a half ago... Conveniently coincident with moving and financial stress... Go life. Isn't it just lovely like that?

I was able to save up for an appointment to my psychiatrist two weeks ago and up came that old freaking label I can never manage to escape: Bipolar. I've been given this diagnosis by pretty much every psychiatrist I've ever had, given familial evidence and personal instability, but continue to balk at it. Granted, I have had one certifiably manic episode. No one, not even myself, can deny that. It was full-blown mania with psychotic delusional symptoms and all. However, this episode was also one hundred percent chemically induced. I started on Lexapro and within three days was delusional, unable to sleep, suffering paranoid hallucinations (inanimate objects seemed to be conspiring and attacking, for one thing), talking my head off and incapable of maintaining a single train of thought. I wasn't out buying snake bite kits or trans-European vacations but it wasn't that far off.

Reasons I've used in defense of my non-bipolar-ness:
-Chemically induced, and the only true manic episode I've ever had. There have been hypomanic episodes but never anything close to the Lexapro incident.
-Similarities between DID patients and Bipolar patients, due to instability within the self and conflicting displays by alters.
-Lack of true manic episodes or strict demarcation between highs and lows.
-The fact that Bipolar is the diagnosis en vogue right now. Twenty, thirty years ago, I probably would have been labeled borderline. Fifty years ago, schizophrenic or schizotypal. And now: Bipolar. How should I feel about this? Accept it as accurate or refute it because of the commonality?

A couple factors have lately made me start to reconsider the label. For one thing, every doctor I've ever worked with, even from the very beginning, has thrown it at me. Yes, Bipolar may be the favorite label these days, but does that mean it is always illegitimate? The very fact that I deny it so much makes me think I should reconsider... After all, strongh denial always seems to be characteristic of those people who truly deserve any particular label.

One other consideration is that I trust Dr. Christensen more than any psychiatrist I've ever worked with, perhaps excepting the doctor I had in DC. He really does know his shit. When I told him about the diagnosis in the first place and that my manic episode was purely chemical in origin, he nodded and said, "All right." Then we moved on. "Now, though, he's been working with me pretty intensely for about six months and, very carefully, brought the issue up again at our last appointment. After this amount of time, I know that he knows me as more than a case file. When he gently said that he didn't want us to "fully dismiss the possibility" I don't think it was because he just wants me to have another label to add to my list.

Additionally, I have been on mood stabilizers more than once before, and they have helped me significantly. Previously I've attributed this to it helping with controlling the DID (mood stabilizers have been known to help ballance multiples out) but it's possible I'm just trying to explain away evidence because I don't want Bipolar added to everything else. Depression, anorexia, even DID can eventually be cured in many cases, but bipolar stays with you forever because of its physiological foundations. I can't stand the idea of being medicated the rest of my life.

Soooo... Not sure what my opinions are on this matter, but I'm back on mood stabilizers. Lamictal helped me a lot before and the only reason I stopped taking it was that I hit my prescription cap with insurance. This time Lamictal is just about to become available in a generic form so I'll actually be able to afford it long-term! The brand name is an extremely expensive medication so it's a relief to know I'll have the generic available.

Lamictal has to be increased really slowly because of risks of complications with the body's tolerance, and I've only been on it a week now, so I'll let you know. I should be at a therapeutic dose in another three or four weeks.

So that's what's going on right now. Yay.

In other news, GO OBAMA!!!

I'm not sure how to begin an entry of this nature... Probably, even if you haven't been following all the news reels you're still aware of the earthquake that took place in China on Monday. It's four days later and they're still dealing with aftershocks and, increasingly, with an extraordinary lack of fresh food and water for the survivors. Cleanup and continued excavation to search for bodies and any survivors is probably going to last months.

Please, I don't usually try to recruit anyone for personal causes, but if there's any way you can afford just TEN DOLLARS you can make a donation to the Red Cross international disaster relief fund. (It's the first choice on the site provided.) I'm broke as hell right now but somehow this still feels more important than my rent money or bills. Skip Starbucks three times over the next week and there's your ten dollar donation.

I mean, I'd give anything to be in China right now, working hands on to help as many people as I could... But I can't. Thank god for the internet, though, right? An instant donation to go directly toward helping all these hundreds of thousands of people. That's a pretty huge fucking deal. I don't know what all ten dollars can buy, but I'm thinking it's at least a few cases of bottled water or antiseptics or, hell, even gas money for the guys working the excavation equipment.

Please, please, please, if there's any way you can make a donation, do.

http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main That takes you directly to their donation page if the link above doesn't work.

Pictures!

No exciting news about my trip to Fascinations yet, or about my job hunt, or sundry other things... Just a brief picture post before I have to head out. If I can ever get my ass back in gear I'll supply you all with a decent update sometime on the near future. >.<

Not sure if I mentioned it in the blog, but recently we purchased a dining room table and chairs set which Crystal had the brilliant idea to turn into a recovery project. After all, isn't the dining table the 'center of healing' and all those other cliches? Anywho, I've been working on this project for a few weeks now and it is turning out to be a pretty fantastic deal. The other day we purchased a set of clear glass dishware which we have also been working on decorating so that our new apartment (move in on June 13th!) will be all snazzy and crazy and bohemian.

"Before" pics -

And after!

Walking around the table clockwise, starting in the front, it looks like this up close:

At left is a close-up on one of the two chairs.

Here are the cups and plates which have been made so far... (Crystal decorated the beer stein on the left; the rest are things I made.) I also have four more large plates, four small, two coffee mugs, and four bowls left to do. :-D I plan on listing some of them on Etsy to see if anyone would be interested in buying some, because they just are turning out to be so damn cool! I haven't been this proud of my art in a while.

You can't quite tell in the picture, but the left-hand plate is covered with song lyrics from a Northstar album. The center print says "I am the piano that nobody plays when everybody's home."

I'll keep posting with pics as more of the project is finished.

Therapist #30869054

Well, I did make it to see the new therapist today. It's so frustrating seeing someone at the school counselling center, though... I can't develop any sort of rapport before they move on to a new internship! I'll only be seeing this one for four weeks, when the semester ends and she goes off to somewhere.

Actually, I'm rather peeved with them in the first place... The head of the counselling center told me that I'd be seeing a practicing clinician, not an intern, since I really need more intensive help than a grad could offer me. That and I have a tendency to intimidate interns. I mean, think about it: I've probably been in therapy far longer than they've been studying it! And of course there's also the little factor that I'm quite a bit crazier than the finals stress, break-up grief, homesickness, that most of the students at the school come in for.

The biggest problem I have with new therapists is called ACTIVE LISTENING. It's the therapy practice in vogue (I thought Jung started it but Crystal tells me it's way more recent) and it's a load of crap. No other way to put it. Basically, active listening looks something like this:

Me: Basically, I'm just having a really hard time adjusting back to real life. I feel guilty when I eat because I feel like I'm betraying an old friend but I feel guilty if I don't eat because then I'm betraying myself and everyone who's been supporting me.
Carol (therapist): I'm hearing that you're dealing with a lot of conflicting thoughts... That must be a very stressful thing for you.
Me: Yeah... It's like either way I can't win. It's so much easier to fall back on ED patterns because they're so familiar and simpler. I don't have to think about it to act on my anorexia but it takes constant effort to pursue health.
Carol: It sounds like you're pretty discouraged. I can see how it would be tempting to revert to the old, familiar habits.
Me: ....Yeah.

Me: Blah blah blah, something about the work I've already done in therapy.
Carol: I just wanted to say how very impressed I am by the amount of work you've done... You have so much insight into your thought processes and struggles! It seems like you have been working really hard to be serious about recovery.
Me: OH MY GOD WHAT I'VE ALREADY DONE IS NOT THE POINT. IF IT WAS, I WOULDN'T BE HERE BECAUSE I'D BE HANDLING LIFE ADEQUATELY BY NOW.

Sigh. Active listening just pisses me right the hell off. If that was what I was needing from a therapist, I could just go talk to one of the empathetic robots that AI scientists are working on now... Active listening is easy enough that ROBOTS CAN AND DO PRACTICE IT.

If I'm paying a therapist to help me, I'd like a little more participation than an echo plzkthx.

That said, tune in next time for a discussion of my latest trip to the sex store and why I feel American society is hypocritical, prudish, and operating on out-moded Puritanical ideals! (Because I'm never on a high horse or anything.)

A dingy little window in

I'm having a Bad Day.

Yesterday was supposed to be my first appointment with my new therapist through the UCD counselling center. I've already done my intake and everything but because of spring break and some trip or other the therapist had last week yesterday was the earliest we could schedule an appointment. When the alarm went off at 8:30 I looked it over, thought about how desperately I wanted to sleep, and disabled the alarm.

Lora called me later that day and left a message since I looked at the phone, saw who it was, and ignored the call. In the gentle, unaccusatory therapist tone, she said how her schedule had me down for ten and it was now noon and she wondered where I was. She made sure to preface any sort of admonishment with an, "I know we haven't talked for a few weeks, so I'm sure you must have forgotten or something came up." Yeah, my anorexia came up. And it says it doesn't want any more therapy.

I woke up around 12:45, meaning I should have gotten my first meal around one. I finally decided to prepare something around 2:30. According to the clock on my cell phone it is now 2:51 and my two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and glass of milk are barely touched.

Every time I pick the first sandwich up for a nip (bite wouldn't be accurate today) I think about the list of "behaviors" I'm engaging in... Small bites, check. Excessive chewing, check. Eating in order, check. I've got a couple of sandwich rituals which aren't on EDC's list but those certainly fall under the behaviors category for me, too. Eat in a spiral until the crust is gone, avoiding any actual bread content if humanly possible. Once completed, eat back and forth from top to bottom. Rest sandwich on the back of the hand instead of holding it.

One of the few big annoyances I found at EDC was their list of behaviors, complimented by a thoroughly unhelpful list of ways to counteract those behaviors. Instead of taking miniscule bites, take normal bites. Instead of chewing too much, only chew necessary number of times before swallowing. Vary order of foods instead of eating safe foods first. Etc.

I feel like it's been forever that I've been doing this damn recovery thing. I'm bored with food and eating. I feel like I eat the same things over and over and even if I vary the way it's presented it's still the same basic food. Really, there are only so many choices. I don't know whether it's worse that I've been maintaining or worse that I'm supposed to be gaining weight... Every time I go in to see the nutritionist she does her little blind weigh-in with the somehow muted old scale, purses her lips and tells me that I'm not losing weight but I'm really not gaining it either. Really, though I feel like my body has exploded from its acceptable confines, I'm only about back to my pre-relapse-that-put-me-in-the-hospital weight.

As always, one of the biggest things holding me in check is the fear of financial detriment. I've got such a tenuous grasp on finances right now and if I start to hard-core relapse again my quality of work will be down, my energy and hours will be down, my medical expenses will be up. Aside from that, so much has been invested in my treatment over the last few months that it feels like a betrayal of the basest kind to just jump back in to my eating disorder.

Has it really only been two and a half months since I started up again with recovery? Crap. And I'm supposed to stick with this thing for the rest of my freaking life?

I miss the excitement of dying. That sounds ridiculous and counter-intuitive but it's true. As boring as starvation is, there is still a strong element of danger and thrill at the fact that I'm a few inches from death at any given moment. For one thing, when there's no food in my system I'm basically living off whatever adrenaline I can muster to get me on my feet. I don't know why it feels like such a testament to the will to be able to say, "I'm starving myself to death but I'm not going to actually die! Just you watch!" but it does. I guess in its own way self-imposed starvation is a David Blaine type of performance art.

3:06 and I'm almost halfway through sandwich number one.

My head hurts. I miss feeling invincible by being able to go without anything resembling food all day, for several days or weeks or whatever. Now I start to get tetchy and dizzy after maybe two hours. I feel weak, depending on food like this. I'm disgusted with myself for making this lunch in the first place and, moreover, for eating it despite all my convictions to the contrary.

Every time someone at work tells me they're proud of me I alternately want to sob or punch them in the face. I don't look "good". I don't look "better". Can't they see that I'm betraying myself to the weakness of 'health'? Why can't they understand the power and beauty of starvation? Why do they look at me like I'm crazy when I say that no, I'm really not happy with how my body is changing? The worst part of it all is that my metabolism is so revved since it's in organ repair mode that I have to eat twice as often and significantly more than normal, healthy people, so all these coworkers who knew I was going in for treatment for my anorexia now look at me eating a meal or large snack every two hours and think I must have been faking. Every time we make eye contact their expressions say, how can you possibly be anorexic if you eat so damn much?

It seems like all I do is grocery shop and eat. And then go back to work to earn more money for more groceries.

I saw Annie last week as I was leaving EDC from the nutritionist's, and she looks awful. My heart broke for her but I was insanely jealous at the same time. Erin and Crystal and I had dinner together at Red Lobster a few nights ago, the first time Erin and I have seen each other since we were in program together... It felt like all we did was watch the other one eat to see who had more and who ate faster and who showed better "self control". I desperately miss all my friends from EDC but what I'd been afraid would happen is exactly what's taking place: our biggest connection to each other was the program and now that we're out the bonds are broken.

Recovery is a bitch.

Is she alive? Or is this just an April Fool's prank...

Why has it been so hard to write? I don't know. Primarily, life lately has been work, work, work, work, AAAAH WORK WORK WORK!!! It's amazing what six weeks out of work will do to your financial stability, even with outside help. Actually, at this moment I'm having a mild freak out because our paychecks just came and they were (combined) a couple hundred less than I was expecting.

How do I begin describing life at present?

I miss the security of program, for one thing. I'd never been able to fathom Munchaussen before spending so much time under the care of others but now the appeal is pretty easy to recognize. If for no other reason than I didn't have to worry about planning, purchasing, and preparing each of my six meals a day the idea of PHP has a somewhat dream-like quality. I've probably said this a thousand times already but I had completely forgotten how damn expensive it is to eat as much as a normal person is supposed to (and then some, in my case). I honestly used to see food as a sort of guilty commodity, purchased only when my basest animal impulses could no longer be ignored. It's still hard to not look at the hundreds of dollars I spend as frivolous expenditures. I'm late on my car payment and will have to be a few days later still because I have no groceries left in the cupboard. One example among many.

Another struggle is that I'm once again facing the feeling of being absolutely bored with eating. I suppose that when one consumes as much as I do on as little a budget as I have it may be an inevitable thing... Or perhaps I'm short on recipes and ideas. (Hint, hint, dear readers! Lolz.) Or, as a third option, maybe I'm just weird. Either way, it's to the point that I open up fridge and cabinet and just stare at it all with distaste despite the hunger I'm feeling again now. My current staples are chicken, rice, potatoes, PBJ, cheese, yogurt, milk, and ritz crackers. Factor those out to six meals a day, every day, and it gets highly repetitive.

Okay, technically I probably shouldn't say six meals. It's three meals, three snacks. However, the snacks to me seem like meals... They've given me a snack list to choose from, and it'll have options like: 1 yogurt, one slice bread, two tblsp peanut butter or two servings fruit, 1 1/2 c. cottage cheese, one serving cereal. These, to me, are more than 'snacks'. When I think 'snack' I think a handful of crackers or a yogurt or a serving of fruit... Not this AND this AND this.

On the happy side of things, I am really working at this thing with an intensity and seriousness previously unseen. Crystal even admitted that I'm surprising her and surpassing the expectations she had for me and EDCD. Not that she was expecting me to fail or whatever, just that she hadn't anticipated I'd really try to get healthy and not just less sick.

Because I am who I am, artsy fartsy crap is a big part of this. We just purchased a dining room table and chairs a couple days ago (yay craigslist, fifty bucks for all!) and Crystal had the idea to turn it into a really recovery-oriented project... Since the dining room table is the main battleground for healing and all that schmaltz, she had the idea to collage over the top of it with encouraging images and words and such. I'd already stated from the get-go that I wanted to make the table all crazy and bohemian and absolutely insane looking but Crystal really gave it a direction.

Haven't started on the table yet but I started work on a couple of chairs yesterday... One I'm just painting and haven't got much direction on yet, but the other I've taken a bunch of my 'sick' jeans and cut them to pieces which I'm wrapping and gluing to the chair. It's pretty freaking awesome, much neater than the haphazard picture it suggests. Very Soho/Greenwich Village/Dupont/Eastern Market/San Fran/etc. I'll post pictures and progress pics as things come along. ^.^

Speaking of sick clothes, the things that fit are falling away slowly but surely. It's getting so that I hate going into my closet to pick something out... Much easier to keep one or two outfits readily accessible to avoid any possibility of pulling something on only to realize it fits like Spandex. I'm holding out for a while as the weather gets warmer, though, both to hopefully help stabilize moolah and wait to purchase clothes that will last me the season instead of a few remaining weeks or months. Mostly I alternate between work uniform and sweatpants.

Despite this, I'm still not gaining the way EDCD wants. I can tell my body is changing and am royally freaked out by it but whenever I go in to meet with the nutritionist she purses her lips a little and asks what I'd be willing to add to my meal plan. I'm not losing, she'll say after the blind weigh-in, but I'm really not gaining, either. Apparently I have the metabolism of a hummingbird.

The nutritionist's comments about my not gaining aren't enough to thwart mirror melt-downs on a regular basis. Any lingering BDD seems magnified now that my body actually is changing. Depending on the moment I'll be in tears because I think I've surpassed the girth of an aircraft carrier or because I see no change and think I'm a failure at recovery and shouldn't be bothering. There appears to be no win. Pulling on too-tight clothes which fit yesterday is not in the least helpful. Similarly, the day I pulled on a pair of jeans and realized they stayed up without a belt now caused one of the worst relapse-y days yet.

Well, I need to go find food for the day. I've yet to put something in... But then again I didn't get up until 1:30. (Restaurant closer schedule.) Blaaaah food. Why is something so banal such a complex, pain in the ass issue? I may never figure that one out.

Love and hope to all y'all. I'll try to be less negligent in the future!

A weeebsite, a weeeebsite!

Hey hey hey!

Oh, so much excitement... Squee!

Yesterday was my last official day in program. I'm gradumacated! Hopefully as I start to slide back in to real life I'll start dutifully recording my experiences in the partial hospitalization program, reporting on my epiphanes and heart-wrenching confrontations and whateverthehell else... For now, I'm STILL on my back with the flu. And on Nyquil. Nyquil is not very conducive to writing long, musing, introspective tracts.

However, an exciting bit of news is that I just officially put up the first Novare Project website prototype!!!!! Being the computer genius I am it only took me three days to figure out how to actually publish the site once I'd finished creating it. Go me. It's still quite raw and bare-bones, but you can order shirts more easily and directly than through Etsy, as well as being able to see the new designs that I've got all purtied up! I want to say there are two completely new designs and I've made a couple of modifications to the old ones. So, please, go take a look!

I HAVE A DOMAIN NOW!!!! MWAHAHAHAAAA.

http://www.thenovareproject.com

There is where you will find me and all the other interesting bits of crap. Yay!

Naptime now... Nyquil make me goofy.

Wow, what nonsense

Good god, can't I be healthy yet? Breathing.... Oh how I miss it.

I've worked a little on the website and still hope to have it up by Monday but I'm on hiatus from site work for now. Because my brain is on hiatus from me. PROFOUND.

Ummm...

Crap, I really have absolutely no idea what I want to say. I have this big compulsion to write blog entries, quite probably because I can't speak, but the thoughts to create those entries are just not anywhere to be found. So I think I'll go back to bed.

This has been the most pointless entry ever, courtesy of me.

Quick way to purchase t'shirts!

At long last, I've found a site builder which is free and can actually be fathomed by my feeble, flu-addled brain. (Go figure, I get over the stomach bug to come down with full blown influenza or something really damn like it.) I was supposed to have my graduation from PHP today but because I'm so ill we've had to reschedule my last two days in program for Monday and Tuesday.

Sooo I've got the whole weekend left bare to work on a website! A new shipment of t'shirts arrived and I've finalized work on two new designs, revamped a couple of the old ones, and, damn! I'm especially happy with the new shirts.

Also, eating disorder awareness week is coming up incredibly soon! (By which I mean Monday, I think.) I hope to have the site up and running with all the new designs and ordering options ready to go by the start of ED Awareness.

Take care! I'm off to find my lungs... they went flying out somewhere in the course of this update.

Very brief update

I've got about two minutes before breakfast starts, but a lot of drama has been happening which I should update you all on... So, bullet style.

-Daniel came home a couple weeks ago, strung out on something, totally irate and irascible. We had a big conflict, in which he outright refused to pay back any of the four months' utilities that he owes me, as well as to pay this month's rent. Talked to the office and, despite a bunch of different points in our lease, they insisted that if Daniel didn't pay Crystal and I were responsible for it and they were going to proceed with eviction if we didn't come up with the money. I scrounged and got together the $560 which Daniel owed, between rent and late fees. We have less than a hundred left in our account, but at least we're not getting evicted.

-Last month, as a birthday present to Crystal, I put unlimited text messaging on our cell phones. When I got the bill a week ago, it was almost three hundred dollars because it didn't reflect that the change had been made. I got in contact with them, because the salesman had assured me the plan would be enacted that day and backdated twenty-four hours as well. According to a TMobile customer service rep, the guy lied to me. According to customer service dude, the charges are valid because our billing cycle ended that day and, as such, no change could be enacted until the next cycle. So now I have to find out a way to come up with $276.

-I haven't even LOOKED at utility bills this month.

-I'm beginning my last week in program. This means I've still got about two weeks before I get back to work.

-Daniel is refusing to move out, but also refusing to pay. Again violating points in the lease, the office refuses to do anything, saying it's a "roomate problem and therefore a personal settlement". Which is bull. He's on the lease, and the lease states we're responsible jointly AND singly. We're trying to find a new roommate because how the hell are we going to pay next month's rent? But we can't move someone in because Daniel won't leave.

-For a bunch of reasons I don't have time to discuss, terminating the lease is really impractical right now and we really have no option but to stick it out until june.


Blah, breakfast. Got to run.

100th post!

--Day Eight--

This has been a helluva lot harder than I anticipated, which is primarily responsible for my lack of updates. Every day I resolve to blog/journal more, because the last thing I want to do is end this and look back knowing I have no record of it, but every day the emotional and mental strain leave me so exhausted that I can't even think of writing an entry. You'd think that having been in therapy as long as I have I would have better anticipated the labor involved in eleven hours a day, seven days a week.

Speaking of, I've only got about five minutes for this entry before another group starts.

My moods are all over the place through the course of a day. I feel like all my nerves are constantly on the surface here... I may be doing fine one minute but then something comes up in group or session or meal and it's as though someone's broken through my calm as easily as the skin which covers scalded milk. Often, my primary emotions are anxiety and disorientation, as even after a week I can't get the hang of what comes next or whose names are whose.

Meredith is my primary therapist, and I love her already. We've only had three sessions (God, that few?), one Mondays, one Thursdays, and I've been doing my best to dive right in, covering the basics as quickly and openly as possible, so that we could start actually working on some of the issues which have brought me here. My primary care physician is Dr Ross, medical physician Dr Rooney, and psychiatrist Dr Christensen. I love all but one of them, with whom I had a really bad conflict last Thursday and for which I've still not forgiven her. April is my dietician, Stephanie is my so-far best friend here, and there are about 4359879487221 bajillion other millieu therapists who lead groups and I can't for the life of me remember all their freaking names. (Oh yeah, and there's Pam, family therapist, Trish, program director, Shae, interview and initial coordinator, Ricky, financial lady, Laura, art therapist, Sue, psychodrama.... Seriously, SO MANY PEOPLE.)

Crap, group's getting started. I really will do my best to be less negligent!

Today is my day

PHP - Day 2

I've got about twenty minutes before lunch, so let's see what sort of an entry I can shape here... By the time I left yesterday, I was too overwhelmed and reeling to make sense of anything that had happened or form a cohesive entry, so I didn't bother trying. Today I've not got much time, but I'll give it a shot.

The rooms and halls are rapidly, gratefully, growing familiar to me. Each face is no longer a complete stranger - I've eaten meals with them, seen them cry, heard them expose quiet fears and secret hopes. It's amazing how a program like this can bond you together so quickly... I mean, for nothing more than sheer numbers, you're spending a good eleven hours together each day, eating all your meals together, and when not doing that, engaging in deep, serious, heartfelt conversation. I guess it'd bond any group quickly.

....God, that was about the shmaltziest thing I've ever written. I'm gagging on the saccharine.

I'm in our little breakroom/cubby/coat room, on the computer (duh) while Courtney and Erica perch on facing couches behind me. My group let out a little early, which is why I have this long break; half the patients are still in a different group. (Aggravatingly enough, the sack which has my chapstick is in that closed room with all of the others. It's driving me batshit.)

My morning's been a little scatter-brained, as I took the light rail for the first time today and it took quite a bit longer than I'd anticipated... I got here a half hour late, right as breakfast was about to start. I ate %100 of my breakfast, even though I seriously didn't think there was any way I'd be able to do it... A cup and a half of raisin bran, a cup of milk, and one carton of yogurt. It was more of a breakfast than I've eaten (barring special occasion brunches) in years. But I did it!

As an interjected aside on meals, we prepare our own breakfasts but have lists from which to choose things. Everything has to be portioned out, left in the cup measures for the millieu therapists to verify, before we can eat. Lunch and dinner are brought to us pre-prepared and pre-portioned; all we have to do is reheat them and select a fruit and a drink. I successfully ate %100 of my dinner last night, too, but yesterday's lunch (my first meal at the center) was a lot harder than I'd anticipated. I uncovered the plate to find half of it mounded in pasta, the other half portioned by a chicken breast and some mixed vegetables. Those I was fine with. Pasta... Not so bueno. I only managed about %75 of that meal, and ended it in tears unable to choke down another noodle because I was so overwhelmed and ashamed and fearful.

Back to today.

After breakfast, I was bundled off into a cap to St. Somebody-or-other's Presbyterian Hospital for labs. Normally they would have done them yesterday, I was told, but since it was MLK Jr day the offices were closed. My arm got stabbed, I oozed three vials, I pissed in a cup, and all was well. I meet with the doctor this afternoon to discuss the lab results.

When I got back, I went in for the last fifteen minutes or so of group. The title of today's entry came from that: we talked about how making the distinction between our own thoughts and desires and those of the eating disorder can make a huge difference. One girl, Stephanie, mentioned her wedding day and how she was pretty much free from the disorder for just that one day. When asked why, she answered, "Well, I guess because I just woke up that morning and said, this is MY day - not my eating disorder's."

That kinda resonated with me. We also talked about eating disorder-imposed "deadlines" (lose this much by this date, eat this little by tonight, do this many crunches in this amounth of time) and how they never can be met, only expanded. When one deadline arrives, none of the qualifiers seem to make it good enough and there's just another, harder one put in place.

That made me think about the fact that claiming the day as my own, purposing to be more present-minded, can help both those aspects: if I'm in the present, deadlines lose importance, and if the day belongs to me and not the disorder, its demands mean nothing anyway.

Aaaand have to go in for lunch now.

I'll see if I can update again later; otherwise, peace!

Blather.

Sorry for the lack of posts... I'm at a constant level of baseline panic as the days until inpatient narrow to hours. It's making things really difficult at home, at work, online. My words are all stunted as my fingers freeze in anxiety and... whatever else I'm too freaked out to think to say right now. I'm treating Crystal and my friends horribly, snapping and mouthing off way more than is even usual. I can't concentrate at work for perhaps obvious reasons.

All I can think about is how scared I am to do this, how badly I want to back out, how desperate I am to be healthy. I obsess over every detail of the things I'll miss about my anorexia. This obsession makes me think I 'like' my eating disorder a lot better than I know I do... But there are still many things I'm going to miss about it. It's strange how integral grieving is to recovering from an eating disorder.

That's all I can think to say right now, guys, I'm sorry. I'm sure that once this thing actually starts I'll be so much calmer and better able to function... I know from experience that nine and a half times out of ten the dread is so much more insufferable than the event itself.