Out of Order

[shadesong]

You know a good way to find out what's really going on in your head? Talk to someone who hasn't read LJ in months. Whatever comes out first and most. That's what's going on.

You're welcome.

So I started talking to kires about baby stuff, which deserves and will get its own post. And then I slid into body stuff. Weight stuff, to be exact. Body image stuff.

Stuff that I will do anything to avoid calling eating-disorder stuff, it seems.

When I was in middle school, I didn't eat lunch. I rarely ate breakfast, didn't eat much dinner. I wasn't a classic anorexic, because I never thought I was fat. I was just going through a lot of traumatic stuff that was completely beyond my control. And the only thing that it seemed I could control was my food intake. So I did.

This changed. I've had body image issues since, but nothing having to do with eating or not-eating. Believe me when I say that this is not stuff that has troubled me; this is stuff that was classified under "control issues" and mostly forgotten.

I gained weight when I had Miss Kid, but not too much. Still okay with my weight. Then I gained weight when I moved to Atlanta, and I wasn't so happy with that - too much! I didn't feel like me. Major depression. I felt very out of control.

Then I got put on Lamictal, and I dropped 30 pounds in three months, and kept dropping, for a total of 45 pounds over the past almost-two years.

My entire body has gone haywire. I am in control of absolutely nothing.

Except.

I could be in control of the one thing that I was in control of when I was 12, 13.

I can lose more weight.

This is the battle I have every day now.

I look at myself and I KNOW that my body is not healthy at this weight. But I see the little roll of a belly and think "If I skip lunches this week..."

"If you skip lunches this week, you'll be what, 87?"

"But I won't have any fat anymore."

"You're supposed to have fat."

"I can make it go away."

"You shouldn't."

"But I can, and there's so little that I CAN DO..."

I eat my three meals a day, and dessert whenever I'm not too nauseous. docorion sends chocolates, and I eat them. And I don't have this battle every day, but when I do, it's horrible. When I do, I panic, I want to cry, I'm desperate to not have to choke down that burger - every bite an act of unwilling surrender, another wave of nausea.

I have not succumbed to this. I am a tough chick.

It's hard. I have to hold these two things in my head at the same time all day every day. The knowledge that I am unhealthily thin - and the image in the mirror that tells me that I have that fat still on me. The voice that tells me that my body is crashing, and the voice that tells me that a few more pounds won't make a damn bit of difference.

It. Is. Hard.

Okay?

It is.

And there you have it. I am done writing about it for now.

Comments

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

Ok, so reading this helped me to confess a bit of my own issues (http://www.livejournal.com/users/elionwyr/1231799.html)..

I am not anorexic.
I do have food/eating/body image issues that are... I don't generally trust what I see in the mirror. There are times (like now) when I know I should be eating - feed the machine - but I prefer to feel hungry. It's control, and I frankly feel like an idiot admitting to it because..well, see statement above. 'You're not anorexic, so what the hell are you complaining about?' is what my head tells me.

..Eh. This is a very badly composed post. But..I think I grok. It's not (much) about what you're eating or changing your menus, is it? It's about what the monster in your head is telling you. And if it's anything like my monster, it's hard sometimes to get him back into his cage with the muzzle on.

(Where the hell IS that monster mute button..?)

*hug*