Anorexia Weirdosa

I really have no idea how to talk about this except to be blatantly truthful:

I've kinda maybe sorta stopped eating. A little.

Shhhh! It's no big deal! Really!

At first I chalked it up to simply losing my appetite or maybe it was a side-effect of the Wellbutrin or maybe even the idea that since I'm working through my shit in therapy, I'm FEELING my feelings instead of silencing them with cheeseburgers.

My sister hates it when I say this, but I'm saying it anyway:

I CALL BULLSHIT. On myself.

I'm not eating for one reason and one reason only: I don't want to.

Case in point: I spent approximately seven straight hours pulling weeds in my garden on Wednesday. My friend, Sara, was here keeping me company and helping me decipher weeds from vegetables (not so easy when you've let your garden go to shit!). I'd offered her lunch when she first arrived, but by about 3:00 she was finally hungry. I think her exact words were, "I need my salad now, bitch." (I love her.)

So she made herself a big-ass salad with lettuce from my garden and homemade ranch with fresh croutons and chives. I, however, didn't eat any of it even though it looked really good. Even though I was starving.

Then, because she loves me too and knew I needed it, Sara pretty much forced me to eat something. I ate about a half cup of leftover risotto and put the rest back in the fridge. I was easily hungry enough to finish all of it. I just didn't want to. Eating even that much made me feel gross.

Regretful.

This has become a pattern for me. I almost never eat at all when I'm at work, which can often mean I eat nothing until after 9:00 at night. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a foodie, so when I get home I'll usually spend an hour or two making a mean dinner for the baldman.

(We just got a bunch of giant zucchinis from the lesbians next door and last night I stuffed them with sausage, mushrooms and fresh herbs from our garden. As I'm writing this, the leftover stuffing is cooking down with a dozen fresh tomatoes as sauce for the fresh pasta I just rolled out. Don't worry, I STILL LOVE TO EAT!)

But I can only eat a tiny bit before pushing my plate away (which is normal for me since I don't technically have a stomach). Honestly, the only time I really eat is when I've had a cocktail or a glass of wine because it loosens me up enough that my self-control falters.

Because control is what this is all about.

Duh.

Since I'm all SELF-REFLECT-Y lately, I finally had to admit to myself that I'm doing this on purpose. I LIKE not eating. I'm getting off on it. It's like a happy little serotonin party in my brain every time I skip a meal. When you grow up overweight, not eating is a good thing, right? For the first time in my life, I'm completely in control of the one and only thing that has ever made me feel like a huge disappointment. In fact, I'm PWNING it.

Food is my BITCH, y'all. 

As someone who has been food-obsessed her whole life and who ate her feelings all the way up to 309 pounds, let me be the first to say that THIS IS REALLY FUCKED UP. I recognize that. My therapist recognizes it. She is worried. So is Joel.

But for now, I'm just riding it out. I'm taking my vitamins and forcing protein shakes down my throat whenever I get a headache from lack of calories. I have TONS of support and (contrary to the belief of some of my commenters) plenty of wonderful real-life friends on my side.

But the reason for all of it is pretty obvious: my brain has never been more chaotic. It's busy in there (here?) since I'm finally acknowledging all the voices and letting them wash over me instead of shoving them away so I don't have to listen to them. I'm actively trying NOT to control or stifle my feelings or thoughts for the first time in my life.

So it makes a lot of sense that as a control-freak, I'm making up for it in other ways.

The strange thing is that this is NOT about my body. Sure, I like watching the number on the scale get smaller and smaller every day because I've been conditioned to think weight loss is better than crack, but I was honestly HAPPY with my weight. I liked my size 14 body. I was weird that way. I even liked my wardrobe. 

Another month of this shit and I'll need a whole new one. This morning I weighed 171. A month ago I weighed 183. Two months ago, it was more like 190. I think I might already be pushing a size ten (which hasn't happened since I went on Weight Watchers in high school.) Today I pulled out a pair of $100 jeans I haven't worn in a year because I thought they were too tight. They're already too big and doing that annoying saggy-ass thing:

I realize this is NOT. GOOD. It's not healthy. But I think it might just be part of the process of figuring everything out. The good news is that since I started as a person who was NOT AT ALL SKINNY, I have plenty of time and poundage to figure it out. I'm not going to fight it. If I'm still losing weight six months from now, feel free to go all FIFTY SHADES on me and stage an intervention. Until then, I'll just sit back and try not to enjoy wearing clothes I haven't worn since high school.

Comments

[Canadian Rachel]

Aw, buddy. Keep doing your work, thinking, feeling. Call bullshit on yourself as often as you need to. Stay safe. You have lots of people pulling for you. *hugs*

[Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing]]

You pretty much wrote out my entire mental dialogue from my junior and senior years in high school (aside from the whole gardening thing - mama doesn't garden).

Maybe try a sandwich in the middle of the day? ...I don't know. You know what you're doing; you don't need advice. Putting it out here for people to read and know is your way of accepting what you're doing?

You're strong enough to do what's best for you and maybe change your habits sooner rather than later.

[shawn]

Hey! I'm going though the same thing with the same drug. I'm finding it amazing and wonderful. I've always wondered how people could just forget to eat. It is such an amazing feeling to have to think about eating!

There isn't the sexual side effect that other antidepressants have, which is a very good thing.

Life is good. It would be better with the winning lottery ticket, or a sugar daddy. Ha. As if either of those will fall in my lap.

[cc]

I'm kind of in the same place right now. The heat makes me not want to eat and anything bigger than a really small side salad gags me. My advice is to listen to the cues from your body, and be careful.

[Amy]

The drug is definitely contributing. When I took it (known in another form as Zyban) I didn't want to smoke, drink, eat or sleep. It was crazy. I would lay in bed waiting for Target to open so I could start my next photo framing project or buy more cleaning products to clean-again. I would be starving but could never decide what to eat and when I did I didn't enjoy it. Crazy what 'scripts can do, yet they can't invent one that makes you orgasm at the drop of a hat. Hmph.