Right, so I last wrote on this blog two years ago, in the heart of the pandemic and coincidentally, when my heart decided it had enough of my bullshit and started showcasing the high blood pressure my parents passed down to me.

I’m better, for the most part. The main updates concerning my mental health are 1.) I eat now 2.) I went to therapy, went to antidepressants, went off antidepressants, went back on them, and back off again. Both are positive things that I can attribute to a few factors, but I’m not going to write another cheesy list in this monologue. To sum it up, I moved back to school, aka began living alone, and had to deal with feeding myself, with the added challenge of doing so, but on my own coin. With the help and presence of friends, I’ve been able to somewhat regulate my eating. I bounce between bouts of extreme motivation and eat 3 square meals a day, and back down to 2 larger meals that somehow make me feel better (in terms of my ED) and worse (also, in terms of my ED). (Not sure if that makes sense, but it does to me!)

So, I’m eating now. I’ve fallen deeply into the body neutrality movement. It makes sense, to honor one’s body and to base it’s worth on how it functions rather than how it’s perceived. I can’t lie, though. I still bodycheck in every mirror. I still weigh myself multiple times a week. I still suck in my stomach as far as it’ll hold whenever I lay down, just to see if I can feel my ribs a little better. I weigh heavier than I ever have in my life.

It hurts, hoping and wishing that you’ve made progress, regarding my ED (and ironically, honoring my ED and regarding my body), and knowing you’re different now, but realizing that it all still boils down to the same few tricks that your mind is used to.

There’s honestly not much more that I can say about it, other than my loathing has basically subdued. It’ll never be gone, not unless I somehow get the body I’ve always wanted to be in. But it’s dulled. Whatever thoughts I had in the past are still being have-d, but that’s not to say I haven’t improved.

In other news, I have a partner for the first time in my life. They’re good, really good, in fact, sometimes so good that I don’t understand where all this good is coming from. (I’m not saying that they’re perfect, I’m just saying that they’re different.) (Bonus points if you know where that’s from.) (Never thought I’d be the type of person to write notes to themselves like this but, we are who we are.) (Bonus points if you got that reference.)

Anyways, being in love feels simultaneously like the best thing that has ever happened to me, and the worst. Obviously I’m exaggerating, it’s all mostly good. But now I live in fear that I’ll never be good enough because this other person’s opinion, who just a year ago was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger, now means more to me than my own god damn opinion does. Not that their opinion would ever stray from mine, because now those are intertwined as well. The good greatly, greatly outweighs the bad, though. I can’t lie. I’m happy.

And here comes the drama. Drumroll … drrrrrrrrr…. the drama is that I think I’ll never fully heal. It seems like everything is improving, and for the most part, it is and I am grateful. But it’s like a never ending spiral, of hatred towards my body fueling my suicidal tendencies, which then results in me vastly increasing/decreasing my intake of food, which leads to my weight gain/metabolism slowing/weight gain again, and back and forth, and back and forth. I don’t know what to do. I’m able to process information in much healthier ways now, so things like exercising don’t trigger me as much. Atleast, it doesn’t make me feel like I’m doing it to die. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I feel like I’m at a stalemate. Everything feels right and good but I still hurt so bad sometimes that I can only imagine something must be out of place.

My thoughts always, always, always boil down to, “I want to be skinny.” And it makes me sick to my stomach, but I don’t think it will ever change for me.

Not sure how to end this on a non-sad note. But I will say this. Every night I get to haul my ass into a warm bed, and even if it’s on the god-awful soft mattress that makes my entire body sink in and makes me sleep so limp that I wake up and can’t sit upright because my waist has been unsupported all night, even if I’m sleeping on the flat, blanket-thin, floppy pillows at my partner’s place that get hot within seconds and do nothing for my neck, even if I step on rabbit shit on my way to the bathroom every night, I get to be held by someone I love, and it feels really nice to be loved, and I am really, really lucky.

I’m not sure if anyone’s going to read this, but I had to put my thoughts out there. A shout into the void, perhaps.

It’s been over a year since I posted something on this account, but I’ve always checked in occasionally. Since then, I’ve finished my first year of college. It’s sort of crazy to see my posts from a year ago and have the realization hit you that you’ve been suffering for years and years. I started eating as little as possible in sixth grade but didn’t think anything of it, but that was the catalyst for another 8 years of spiraling through severe restriction, bouts of bulimia, binging, fasting, and obsessively tracking.

When I moved home from college (ms. Rona), my restriction and mental health got to the worst that it’s ever been. I lost 30 pounds almost immediately, but loathed how I looked. LOATHED. The fact that I still looked at myself in the mirror and felt pain after each time even though I was self-quarantining confirmed to me that my dysmorphia had gotten worse. Combined with my depression, I couldn’t handle my thoughts and tried to commit suicide. When I couldn’t even bring myself to complete that through, I felt even more worthless. It was just one more brick on the wall, yknow?

I’m rambling a bit, so I’ll get to the point! I’m writing this because I got help. I finally told my mom, who still doesn’t quite understand but knew that I had to be absolutely on my last godforsaken option to be asking for help. I went to my primary doctor, who referred me to a psychiatrist and a nutritionist. After I took a blood/urine test, my nutritionist explained to me that had a severe lack of vitamin D, and that there was acetone in my urine. ACETONE. From my body breaking down my storages to use as energy instead of food. I had been starving myself for so long that my body had gotten use to the miniscule amount of calories I was allowing myself each day, and had begun breaking itself down from the inside out.

It’s a kind of harrowing feeling, to be 19 and lucky enough to have POC parents who are willing to take your mental health seriously, and STILL rejecting the help. I’m trying my best. Really My nutritionist and I are working on getting me to a place where I can stomach the proper amount of calories I’m suppsoed to be eating. I’m about halfway there, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t cry while eating breakfast sometimes because I haven’t eaten before noon in almost 5 years. My parents are trying their best to understand that a large majority of my food issues stem from their comments, things that were said as a way to be encouraging, but had the opposite effect on me.

Up until the past couple of months, I really didn’t think I was going to live past 30. I’ve never made plans about my future because I just sort of .. assumed that I’d be dead before then. I have no aspirations. I’ve never thought about having a family, or falling in love, or what I’d like to do after I graduate, because I just assumed that I’d end it at some point in my life before I’d hit the big 30. But as of right now, I’m 19. I tried to commit suicide, and I continue to feel worthless on the daily. But maybe there’s a little hope that I’ll live long and have a fulfilling life where I’m not miserable. I dunno. I’m working on it.

Again, this isn’t particularly for anyone to see. If anyone does end up seeing this however, I want to say one things. If you’re suffering, please, get help. Please. If you read this and take one thing away from it, please let it be that you deserve to be happy, even if I don’t necessarily believe that for myself 100% of the time.