Hospitalization: Part 2

From my first morning on the Psychiatric Wing.

I hate social situations that involve a lot of strangers. This was no different. Most of the other patients were nice, friendly, and reached out to me, but my anxiety was high and I wanted to flee.

I arrived during dinner, which was bad in itself. I hate eating around others. However, I decided not to draw any more attention to myself than necessary by refusing to eat. After dinner, I promptly purged. I was so happy to have the room, and therefore the bathroom, all to myself. I then had my first shower in a few days, which made me feel worlds better. Then, off to my first group.

During my last hospitalization, I didn’t eat and I didn’t attend any groups, and that obviously wasn’t helpful. This time, I decided to attend as many groups as possible and try to get the most out of it I could. My first group had me questioning this decision as it comprised breaking up into 2 groups and playing balloon volleyball. I still don’t know the purpose of this group.

I chose not to actually participate in the game. It had been a long 2 days, I was tired and grumpy and just wanted to go to bed. I’m sure I looked terrified whenever the balloon came my way because I did not want to have to hit it. Luckily, “my” team was good and won without my help. After group, I took an Ambien and went to bed.

I woke up several times cold but was too tired and too achy to get up for another blanket. This morning, I woke up with a lot of self-loathing, wanting to die, wanting to stab myself, wishing I could destroy myself. This feeling persisted throughout the day.

At breakfast, I was tempted to take the knife with me and cut. Purging helped soothe me a bit. There are a couple ladies here I’m 99% sure are anorexic. I want to say “I’m eating, but I’m also purging everything!” I feel the need to justify eating. I am, by far, the fattest person here.

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Expression through art *Trigger Warning for self-harm and eating disorders*

I hate me. I was overcome with self-hatred tonight. I hate that I’m a giant blob of fat and I am disgusting and revolting nothing I do changes that. 

Last Night

Last night, I was hanging out with my ex. We’ve maintained our friendship for the last year.

I don’t know what was different about last night, but he called me sweetie and we kissed.

And we kissed.

And we more than kissed.

I was enjoying it. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him, how much I missed being close to him. It felt good to be close to him again.

Then it happened. Before I realized it had happened, we went further than I was comfortable with. I suddenly found myself overwhelmed and scared. I didn’t know how to respond.

As I type this, I can see and hear all the people who tell you to “just say no” but it’s so much harder to do when you’re in the situation and you’re panicked and confused. I didn’t feel capable of stopping it. I felt trapped.

He didn’t know. He thought everything was fine. I disassociated and played the part. Why? I don’t know… I guess because that’s what I’m used to. That’s what I was trained to do.

I hated myself for it. I still hate myself for it. I wish I would have told him. I wish I would have stopped it. I feel dirty. I feel cheap. I feel like a liar. I feel sick.

Afterward, I wanted to die. I wanted to take out blade and cut into the vein on my wrist. Instead I lay there and cried silently into the pillow.

This morning, he was all smiles. He greeted me cheerily and kissed me. I was revolted. I think then he could tell something was wrong. He invited me to come shower with him. I declined. He left shortly after, and I haven’t heard from him since.

I woke up repeating to myself, “I hate you, I hate you.” I keep finding it playing on repeat in the back of my mind. I’ve been near tears all day.

I feel like I have no right to be upset. I am not justified in my despair. I feel guilty for last night, and I feel guilty for feeling guilt.

I don’t know where to go from here.

 

Fever and hospital threats

I set my alarm for 8:00am today. I needed to leave by 8:30 to make it to my appointment at the mental health center. I had so much trouble waking up this morning, and with hitting my snooze button, I finally crawled out of bed at 8:26am. I threw on a dress, pulled my hair back, and ran (walked slowly) out to the car.

I was a little late to the appointment, but not excessively. The appointment was painfully long. (It really just felt long, it wasn’t longer than normal.) I did end up telling him about how not-well I’ve been doing. He suggested/threatened calling an ambulance right then. I was able to talk my way out of that. I’m not sure if that was the wisest choice, but I’ll talk about that in another post.

When I got home, I was absolutely wiped an very dizzy. I thought to check my temperature and it was 102.4. Well, there’s your problem. I think I was also very dehydrated. So, I drank some water and went to bed. I slept for a couple hours, got up, binged and purged, and went back to bed.

Now, I am resting and chatting with my family. One of my brothers is over. He made his own board game and my dad asked him to bring it over so we can play it. It’s a fun game. They got pizza. Yay….

So, now I shall spend time with my family. I’m looking forward to it. Not the pizza part, but enjoying the company of my family.

Oh, and I still haven’t heard from the ED clinic. I called again today. The mental health guy said he’ll also call them. Hopefully I hear something soon.

Internal Dialogue

“I want to cut my fingers off.” 

“Why?”

“I don’t deserve to have fingers.”

The need to destroy myself

I wrote this in my journal last night in bed.

I keep finding myself wondering if I can recover.

When I am living with my disorder, I am “stable”. When I try to recover, I lose all semblance of stability. I start feeling the all-encompassing self-hatred. I start having thoughts about jumping off buildings. I start trying to stab myself.

I can’t handle the level of all out hatred and loathing I have for myself. I don’t know what to do with it, other than to destroy myself.

The other day I wanted to slash my face and throat. I can’t stand to see myself in the mirror. The sight of myself makes me nauseous. I wish I could destroy the mirror.

I want to cut the fat off my body. Some days I don’t even care if I wouldn’t have any skin left after. I can’t possibly be more hideous than I am now. I can’t possibly hate myself more.

If I had a sharper knife, I could probably succeed at stabbing myself.

Luckily, just after that, I started talking to a friend and that helped me a lot. Sometimes what I need is just the opportunity to get outside of my own mind and connect with another person.

Fail Better *Triggering picture warning*

I came to a realization tonight as I inhaled a large pizza, cheesy bread sticks, and a whole 2 liter of soda.

I should stop trying to restrict. I’m too bulimic for anorexia.

I just purged and I feel better than I’ve felt all day, both physically and emotionally.

As much as food might scare the hell out of me, and as much as I hate to eat around others, no one can deny that food has a strong hold over me. I love it and I hate it.

And let’s not even get started on purging. I love to purge. I can’t tell you why because I don’t know. I don’t even need to eat, sometimes I just drink water so I can bring it back up.

Unfortunately, bulimia isn’t a very effective means of weight loss for me. Nor for most people I know with bulimia.

Below is a picture some will find disturbing and others will find triggering. Be warned.

This is what I crave. Why? I’m not sure.

I can’t seem to attain this with bulimia. But I can’t seem to eschew bulimia long enough to attain it.

Perhaps I should resign myself to being bulimic. Perhaps I should accept that I am not going to look like the person in the picture above. And perhaps that’s a good thing. But it feels like a failure on my part.

So I sit here, feeling my post-purge elation, feeling really for the first time today, and I realize that binging and purging is the only thing that brings me out of my crippling apathy at the moment.

I spent the entire day lying in bed and lounging on the sofa trying not to eat, too listless and apathetic to do anything, too flat to try to find enjoyment from anything.

Until I finally caved. And then I felt again. And then I came alive again. Although I hate myself for eating, hate is better than apathy. Apathy gets me in trouble. When I’m apathetic I start making horrible, terrible, self-destructive decisions.

Plus, along with self-hatred, I feel probably as close to happiness as I’ve felt in a while.

So there you have it. I’m just far too bulimic to go back to anorexia.