general medicine

2012 has ushered in a general feeling of confusion and despair and cold determination for me. Thank you to my Sammy (the gorgeous Jude Law) and ZapFire for your comments on my last post. I've missed you girls so much! 

I think my brain has been processing some stuff since that last post full of not much. Thought number 1, as always, is about my weight and food. I have to stop eating. There are no two ways about that. I weigh 124lbs and so that means I put on 5lbs in S'pore. This doesn't really surprise me since in one of those 5 days, my parents and I ate $65 of Haagen-Dazs. That was probably 2lbs right there. 

At any rate, I'm taking part in a study that means I will have to be on a vegan diet for 2 weeks. So that should help me kick start the restricting and fasting and weight loss. That combined with the gym. I almost can't wait to get started. I bought some clothes that are too tight for me in anticipation of weight loss so I kind of have to lose the weight because I want to wear the clothes!

Thought number 2 is about work. My papers are such a big mess in my head that I won't bore you with the details. I start work on Jan 4. With general medicine. Last time I did general medicine it was an unmitigated disaster so I approach it with a certain trepidation but also some determination that I will do better than last time. Once I graduate as a doctor, I will spend 2 years doing pretty much just general medicine so I better get good at it and get good at it fast. Part of me is looking forward to doing some solid general medicine before I give up the human body to focus on the human eye, part of me doesn't want to do anything general ever again. 

Thought number 0.5 or rather, thought infinity is about the professor. He's always haunting the back of my mind. I will email him and my other colleague about one of our projects and not mention anything else. I've been solidly praying (I'm not religious at all so when I pray you know things are serious. The only other time I pray is during take off and landing because I'm terrified of flying.) that he's somehow forgotten about everything that I said. Every day I regret telling him all that stuff. I wish I'd just sucked it up and kept it in and then I wouldn't be in this colossal mess. 

Tomorrow I will be visiting friends and the day after that I will move out. Then I will plan my diet and exercise. I swear to you all that I will be 50kg/100lbs by the end of this month, if not faster. I have to get there, I just have to. I'm so sick of being this weight and this fat, I really, really am. I want to be thin, I want to see bones, surely that's not too much to ask. 

I will be bringing my scales down to monitor everything. I will be thin. I will be. 

the fat jeans

Hello my lovelies!!! I'm back from Singapore. And to find that I have 60 followers? What! I'm amazed! Hello to my followers! I missed you all when I was in Singapore, and I thought of you all at every meal. 

And let me tell you, every meal was a binge fest. I've been too scared to weigh myself but I can totally feel that I'm fatter. I ate more in those 5 days than I am allowed to eat in a whole month so I bet I've gained at lot. On the upside, I'm moving out in 3 days and task number 1 is to join the gym. And I will burn this disgusting fat off. 

People in Asia are tiny as. TINY. I'm a size XS at home, but in Singapore, I am a size L. It was a thoroughly demoralising experience. But at least I know that I have the genetic potential to be very small. It's not like it's impossible for me to be thin, I just have to work hard for it. I was TOTALLY one of the fattest people there and I was so ashamed of myself. 

While I was there I threw away my fat jeans. They're my big, comfortable jeans that always fit just right when I'm at my highest weight. I threw them away because I don't ever want to get to the stage where I'm able to fit them well again. I bought myself some new jeans that are too tight. They are going to look fabulous when they are a little bit loose. And I swear, in a month's time, they will be loose. 

Just a short post for now. I sincerely hope that you are all having a good holiday and that you are all doing better than I am on the weight loss front. I will catch up with your blogs as soon as I can and also post a longer entry. I'm sort of feeling lost with the new year approaching and me moving soon, and me trying to avoid contacting the professor but also needing to contact him for work...I'm so confused. I need to sort out my head and work out what I'm going to do next. I'm scared. 

I really missed you all, and to my new followers, or to anyone really. If you want me to follow your blog, just message me. I can't work out who I am following because blogger doesn't seem to tell me of all the blog updates. 

I hope to have some good news for you all on the weight loss front soon! 

holiday thinspo!!!!

The holiday season is a difficult time for everyone. And I'm currently binging my face off in Singapore but I set this post to post itself when I'm on holiday. To remind you all that there is a common goal that we are all shooting for and to work hard for it! 

When I ate that little strawberry tart, one of the girls said "a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips" and I almost spat it out again. I would have if I wasn't in front of everyone. 

My favourite motto: I only feel beautiful when I'm hungry. 

Enjoy the thinspo ladies! Work hard, see you all when I get back! 

happy christmas girls! memories are made of this

Happy Christmas girls! Thank you all so much for the wonderful support you all have shown me throughout this year. I really do wish you all the very best for this holiday season and the 2012. I look forward to moving onwards with you in our journey together to thin perfection.

I've been moaning and groaning and crying on this blog so much recently that I thought I'd celebrate this season with a really pleasant memory. I sincerely hope that each one of you will be so lucky as to experience a happy, safe, warm moment like this. I love you girls. 

He smiles at me. A small smile, not his usual teasing one, but one that is somehow softer around the edges. His eyes strike fear into the very heart of me but they are utterly magnetic. That odd shade of blue that can look ice cold or filled with warmth depending on his mood, once I make eye contact, I can't bring myself to break it. Somehow he is standing beside me now. I've been so locked onto his eyes that I didn't notice him move from behind his desk. 

My heart beats with a dull thud, thud, thud. The blood slowly creeps around my body and I don't feel very much except a paralysing fear about what the future holds. I've never put my trust in anybody but this man holds the most trust that I can bring myself to give to anyone. It's not enough to take away my fear, but it's enough to stop me running out of the room and never coming back. 

His smiling figure is right in front of me now. When he is this close to me everything else just fades into the background. I'm no longer aware of the room, the secretaries gossiping behind the closed door, the cool breeze blowing through the open window, the awards that cover the walls, everything fades away. 

I wish I could fall into the blueness of his eyes, into that blue paradise of ice and fire where nothing really matters and none of my issues exist. His expression softens further still. He opens his arms and I step into them. I love resting my head against his chest and not being able to put my arms all the way around him. I love feeling his arms wrap around me, holding me up. I love the roughness of his stubble on my face. Right now, everything about him makes me feel safe. It's a rare feeling for me. 

I look up at him and he brings his hand up to my face and brushes my fringe out of my eyes. We'll get through this together, whispers the deep and melodic Scottish voice, I want to look back at this with you in five years time and see this as a dark period that we got through. 

breaking my resolve

There is an uncontrollable bitterness rising in my chest, an unbelievable pettiness laced with sour shots of jealousy and revulsion and hate. I want to vomit it out but I've only had a mini strawberry tart today and that was many hours ago. It took me an hour to eat and everyone was staring at me. Thank God the professor wasn't there. 

If find myself leaving the room when Alex and YW walk in. I can't look at them anymore. I can't deal with that right now. I've got a much more bitter pill to swallow. 

Her name is Izzy. Izzy, baby girl, why did it have to be you? She's older than me, BMI of 17 something. Thin, beautiful, witty, cynical, intelligent, ambitious. She's one of my best friends at work. Together with Steph, we are the dream team. We are sitting at her desk, chatting, laughing, being stupid. 

I wonder what the professor and his wife got me? I don't even understand the question. Not until I see her gesture to a Christmas present. She opens it and peers inside. The rest of that conversation is not something that I recall. 

How can I have been so stupid? How did I not see what I was really doing? How did I get so desperate? How did I break my own resolve?

I presented myself to a doctor. To my boss. To the head of department. To the one person in this whole world who has any power over my future. I said, look at me, poor little me, look at how sick I am, look at how I'm hurting. I asked him to fix me. And now he is going to try. 

How did I not put myself in his shoes? If I was looking at a patient who was exactly like me, I'd do everything I possibly could to try and heal her. To help her. I would work all the extra hours, I would bully all the other departments, I'd do what I could to get her what she needed. It doesn't mean I feel anything for her. She is my patient, I'm doing my job. 

Now I realise I was being stupid. I was ignorant, running away with my daydreams, floating around on clouds of hope and love and all those things that don't really exist. How did I not see that I am a patient? I am a patient and nothing more. I am a patient and I've stupidly checked myself into the hospital that is the mind of the professor and I don't know how to discharge myself. 

I know why I've done it. For a brief moment I felt special. I felt like I mattered to someone. I felt like I made an impact on someone's life. What folly. I'm not usually this dumb. People see what they want to see. And I saw what I have so badly yearned for for so long. 

Izzy loves her Christmas present. It's such a good present, I almost wish I'd thought of it and bought it for her. Am I just jealous that I didn't get one too? Maybe. But the truth hits me like a wrecking ball. I smile weakly at her but I'm not really seeing her. I see reality. 

I see myself standing before my own eyes in a hospital gown, hair disheveled, skin broken and bruised, walking around with a drip in my arm down the hospital corridor. There stands the professor, with my chart in his hand, checking my vitals and my weight. Another patient on a very long list of patients. That's all I am, another person on a long list of people who need help. How could any doctor refuse me? 

I go to say goodbye to the professor. And I say goodbye. It's a word I never use because it sounds so final. But I mean it. He tells me to be good and to contact him when I'm back from my holiday. I nod, but I'm not going to do it. I don't want to see him unless I must for work. I refuse to be another name on a patient list. I don't want help. I know what I want to do, I don't need someone to hold my hand. 

I see 2012 stretch before me. Long work hours, no food and a gym membership. I can see the perfect me. Ribs and spine and hips. Doctor. 

I step on my scale. 119.2lbs. The lowest I've been this year. I leap off, jumping in happiness. A lot has happened but little has changed. Still, nothing compares to the feeling of losing weight. My abdomen hurts from the hunger but I have no appetite. Maybe I will see 118lbs soon. 

On Christmas day I fly to Singapore. To binge on food and clothing. Then I'm back for work, gym, fasting. I will lose the weight. I will lose the weight. I will lose the weight. How could I be so stupid. Nothing can break my resolve. 90lbs. What wouldn't I give to see you now? Still, one step at a time. As long as the scale goes down, that's all that matters. 

losing it COMPLETELY

Firstly, thank you to Princess perfection for your lovely comment on my last blog entry. Secondly, I deeply apologise for the hundreds and thousands of blog entries I've been doing lately. I don't normally post every day (or more often than that), but recently a LOT has been happening in my emotional world for some reason. 

It would appear that I'm sometimes seized by moments of absolute madness. Such as this morning when the professor caught me off guard with a meeting. I was just popping by his office and popped my head round to say hi. Which quickly turned into tea and a discussion about my eating. From my last post you can probably tell that my weekend didn't go that well. And I told him this. 

Which of course leads to discussion and I cried in front of him again. Apparently I'm making a habit of this and I'm not proud. I swore I would not ever cry in front of a supervisor and I've cried in front of this one twice. When my self esteem is being discussed, I just disintegrate. He tells me that several people have been talking to him about my weight. I don't see a difference at all. In my eyes, I still look exactly the same. I'm amazed that people think I've lost enough weight for them to concern themselves over it. 

He asks me if I have a boyfriend. I balk at the question. He knows the answer already. 

"You should have a boyfriend. I would have thought that someone as pretty and intelligent and caring as you would have had lots of boyfriends. Do you not think you're pretty enough to have a boyfriend?"

The question sends me reeling backwards. It's not one I expected. Also, it took my best friend a good 5 years to work out that as the reason for me not wanting a relationship so for the professor to just spit it out like that stunned me. I'm still stunned. And a bit worried about how easy I am to read. 

He is the only person I can't hold it together for. The way he looks at me just calls to some part of me and everything just comes flooding out. At some point in the conversation I feel like he's getting far too worked up about my eating. QUICK! DISTRACT HIM! is what my brain tells me to do. Without thinking, I say that my eating isn't a big deal, it's not what worries me the most. BIG MISTAKE. 

The expression on the professor's face becomes totally unreadable and he stops mid sentence. He demands to know what worries me more. The new look on his face makes me literally squirm in my seat. I'm writhing around, twisting my hands, not looking at him. Slowly, and with much trepidation, all I can manage to say is:

"Well...there is the self harm...the cutting."

Something in the professor snaps upon hearing this. I can see in his eyes that he has lost all self control and he looks at me in complete disbelief. He doesn't say anything and in my utter folly I try to fill the silence and start rambling on about it and how it's not that much of a big deal. I talk about cutting my forearm and he immediately grabs it and looks for scars. I show him the cuts on my thighs and the heart of my chest. I talk about the cuts on my abdomen that I can't show him because of my dress. 

Now there is a completely new dimension to his expression, which I'm studying with my heart in my mouth. If I didn't know better I would call it panic. 

"That's crazy. That's absolutely crazy. It's just not normal at all. What's to say that next time you won't do something stupid like cut your wrists? You need help, you need to get help now!" 

I'm scared now I've never seen him like this. He's not exactly angry, although it almost sounds like it. But his voice, his face, his manner, he's lost all self control now. If I were an outsider looking in, or if I were watching two other people in the exact same situation, I would say that he was rather scared and panicking and blurting out the frightening thoughts that raced across his mind because the shock had eliminated his ability to filter them. But I can't quite believe this of the professor. What he says next upsets me no end. It's along the lines of, my behaviour is completely mental and sick and he can't work with anyone this sick. There is so much judgement in it that I don't even bother trying to explain. 

He's almost climbing over his desk to look at my cuts more clearly, pointing out parts where I have cut deeper. Slowly but surely, some of his composure returns. I start working in another city next year on Jan 4. That weekend, I am coming back and he is going to take me on a long walk to discuss how I am going to get help. He's forcing me to get therapy. 


"People look back [at suicides] and say, oh that thing they did was a cry for help and wish that they'd done something about it. Well I'm hearing your cry for help and I'm going to do something."


Man, he's going to be PISSED when I kill myself. 

I'm not entirely sure how to interpret all this. But I'm certainly beyond the point of no return now. The professor knows absolutely everything now. I don't even want to think about what he thinks of me now. He clearly thinks I'm an absolute nutcase. He can't possibly want to work with me now. I'm just waiting for him to wash his hands of me soon. He can throw me into therapy and then disown me. 

That's how I lost it completely. 

heaven is a cloud of laxies

It's 3am and I've been pretending to sleep for 2 hours now. I might have drifted off for a few minutes but the pain in my bloated and ever suffering abdomen won't let me have any peace. Suddenly a bolt of pain shoots through me and I'm jolted upright. My actions are automatic and from muscle memory. Without turning on my lights, I leap out of bed, open my door and sneak into my bathroom. 

This time is worse than all the other times put together. This time it's many days of not going to the bathroom, many binges and horrendous bloating and a fast approaching department Christmas party that have me popping the laxies. 4 of them, double the highest recommended dose and boy are they working. I can't walk in straight lines. I try to move quietly, so that I don't stumble but it's hard. I've never felt so dizzy in my life. My head is spinning, spinning, the room feels like it's sailing rough seas with me clambering around desperately trying to get to the bathroom. My eyes, they can't focus on anything, not even after I turn the bathroom light on. 

As I sit on the toilet, I grab onto the towel rail in an effort to steady myself. The pain is unbearable now. I feel like I'm going to pop. The strange thing is, I also really, really want to vomit. I know there is nothing to vomit but I am nauseated as all hell, it must be because of the dizziness. 

There is no peace for the next 3 hours. Just pain and more pain and more pain with a large serving of nausea. Still, I step on the scale and what read 123lbs a few hours ago now says 120lbs. I yearn for the laxies to keep working. I want to see 119lbs again. I'm convinced my scale is fucked up. I need to get on the one in my parents' room. The analogue scale, I trust it more. Still, at this time of the morning, that's not possible. 

I crawl into bed again at 6am. Exhausted. But still in pain and still nauseous. I'm just grateful that the intensity of everything has died down. I roll into a ball and force myself to ignore the pain. I'm so tired, I feel like the only thing to make me feel better is sleep. 

When I wake up, I'm only feeling marginally better. Even so, I'm forced on a long drive with the family. It's almost Christmas, we like to drive and eat junk food and do that all day during the holiday season. Normally this is a fun time to catch up but today it's hell. I'm staring at the road like I believe that will somehow distract me from my bowels. They are squirming. They feel inflamed and angry. Every now and then pain will wash over me. I still want to vomit but I have to eat so that my parents don't suspect anything. It's a miserable day. I feel like I've given myself ulcerative colitis with all the laxies. 

I hate them so much. But I love them. They make me feel like I'm trying. They make me feel like I'm paying my dues for all my horrible binges. That whole episode was almost 12 hours ago now but I still don't feel right. I'm hoping that tomorrow is better. I have bought a lovely, expensive dress for the Christmas party and I don't want to be feeling this bad when I'm wearing it. 

I had a mini-break down while dress hunting. It's so hard to find anything that I look good in. And I have to look good. It will be in front of the department. I risk being completely overdressed but they are used to me being like that. I want people to think my dress is pretty, even if they will never be able to think that I am pretty. Ah, I am so jealous of those blessed with beauty. It's something no amount of weight loss will give me. I will always be butt ugly. 

I still look bloated. It's all fat. I've definitely put on weight and I hate it. I'm looking forward to Jan 4th when I move out of this house. I will start fasting again and going to the gym. It's always easier when I'm in another city. Then the weight loss will start! The professor will forget about me, I am sure of that. And I will be able to drop as much weight as quickly as I can muster. 

Thank you to Zapfire, Christina and Sammy for your lovely comments. Yeah, blogger is doing something weird, it doesn't always update the blogs I follow either. It's really annoying! I miss out on important news! 

This is definitely an odd place to be. I'm rather scared because if by some fluke the professor doesn't forget, and I don't get any "better", I'm scared he's going to do something about it. I know that it's probably in my best interests...but I don't want anyone to stop me trying to lose weight. 

Also, about the depression, he says that about 1/5 of medical students are depressed. When they start working, that number rises to 1/3 to 1/2 of new doctors being depressed. He doesn't want me to start my first job without sorting out the depression. Obviously, he doesn't know I'm actually suicidal and I'm actually counting on that job tipping me over the edge. The speed with which he came up with an action plan last time scares me. Why do I talk myself into these corners? At the time I was crying because I felt cared for. But now, I don't want any of it. 

pro ana tinted glasses

Thank you my darling Fat Piggy, Christina, Jackie and Zapfire for your lovely comments and words of support. Especially to Fat Piggy for your advice. I love you girls! 

The thing is, I've been on a rollercoaster ride of tumultuous emotions about what I've done. I know you've all been congratulating me for being so brave in telling the professor. And I do know that I am extraordinarily lucky to have someone like the professor in my life. But the following is a diary entry and all I've changed is I've taken out the names. I think it shows how I feel about all this. 

December 16th 2011 23:21

So I talked to the professor. It felt great at first. I felt so cared for. He seemed to care about the weight loss attempts and the purging and the depression. He said he thought I was attractive and smart and caring and a host of other things that I can’t remember and he said he thought I was too thin. Ha. There’s no such thing as too thin. 

I don’t know what to do. It’s not that I don’t believe him. I want to trust him, I really do. But I don’t trust anybody. I don’t know how to trust people. I don’t know what it’s like to be able to rely on someone and know for sure that they will come through. 

When someone tells me I’m beautiful, I can’t stop myself thinking that they are crazy. It makes me sad because I’d love to take it as a compliment and have it make my day. 

Now the professor wants to monitor me. I hope he’s too busy to remember that. I hope he’s too busy to remember our conversation. It was great to feel cared for for a few hours but now I regret it. I have to lose weight. I’m a big, ugly, disgusting, incompetent, idiotic slob that is a sad, sad excuse for a human being. The only one of those things that I can change is the weight. I want to be thin. I want to feel beautiful and I want to really believe it. I want to be able to feel proud of myself. I want to be able to be in front of people and not be ashamed of how I look. I want so many things. 

My weight hasn’t shifted in 6 months. This fact makes me want to crawl into a corner and die. This is how useless I am. I can’t even work at the one thing I really want. How pathetic am I. 

I hate reading the pro-ana blogs. Everyone else is so much better at losing weight than me. Everyone else is so close to size 0. Everyone else is so much stronger than me. I feel so useless. 

YW is now the research fellow. I’m thanking my lucky stars that I am in Waikato because I think being around YW as the research fellow would drive me into suicide within a few months. She’s gorgeous. I still rate Alex higher, but YW is wonderful. She’s tiny thin. She’s perky all the time. And she’s amazingly intelligent. I know the professor likes her. And just typing that has made me cry again. I don’t understand why I don’t want to share. 

I feel like he can’t possibly like all these other people and still like me. I think so highly of him, but that is so incongruous with my opinion of him that I can’t accept it. If he knows these people at all, he’ll see that I could never even hope to be a quarter of the people that they are and that he is simply wasting his time on me. 

Even if he wants to help me, he’s spending a lot of time on a hugely disordered girl who is beyond any help and knows she will kill herself one day. I can’t believe what he says, I can’t believe that he likes me. Except, when he’s there, in front of me, and I see that look in his eyes and I feel his arms around me and his beard rubbing on my face, I can’t help but to believe every word he says. 

They are such precious moments. For a fleeting moment, a moment I wish I could freeze and remain in forever, a moment I wish I could bottle and revisit, I feel cared for, I feel like I matter, I feel like I’m not a waste of space and oxygen, I feel like I’m beautiful. But then the moment is gone and I’m staring at myself in front of the mirror and the fat and ugliness is too much to bear. 

I want to tell the professor everything. Just sit him down and tell him about all the torment, about crying myself to sleep each night, about the cutting and the suicidal thoughts. I want to somehow make him understand how much it hurts and how worthless I am. I don’t even want him to fix it. I want him to reject me so that I can go ahead and kill myself without any regrets. 

Yet I want him to think well of me. I don’t know why he is so important to me. Maybe it’s because for some reason I feel like he is the father I wish my real father could be and so right now I have a second chance to get the approval and love of a father. I might not have done so well the first time, but now I have a second chance and I don’t want to screw up. 

Ironically, I screwed up before I even started. I don’t have a hope of holding a special place in his heart. My chances were dead before the idea even formed in my head. But when I see him, I want to give him all of me. Maybe then he’ll love me. Maybe then I won’t feel so alone and I’ll have someone I can trust and rely on. 

But these are all rose tinted dreams. That’s all they are. And now I want to cut again. 

FUCK IT!!!!....I'M GOING TO LOSE WEIGHT!!!

Old habits die hard. 2 whole days have passed since I last used laxies. But I'm bloated and ugly and fat. I hate this. So I only ate dinner today. It was a binge too, but I bet it's around 1000cal. 

I have so much ugly fat on my belly. I have so much ugly fat on my thighs and my arms. 

I had to buy a new bra today. My cup size? DD. THIS FUCKING SUCKS!!! I hate my boobs. They are fucking enormous. I really wish they were smaller. 

After my talk with the professor, I was feeling super good for a few hours. I felt like I was thin, like I could do with gaining a few kilos. Everything he said, I believed. For a couple of hours. Then it all came crashing down when I looked in the mirror. I am bloated and fat and ugly and absolutely disgusting to look at. I want slender gazelle thighs with a gorgeous gap between them. I want a concave stomach with my hip bones and my ribs sticking out. I want much smaller boobs I want my arms and calves to be thin, so that I can feel the bones easily and not be able to pinch a layer of fat. 

I WANT TO BE THIN AND BONEY AND NOTHING CAN CHANGE THAT. 


I don't know how to live and not be trying to lose weight. I've been trying to lose weight for as long as I can remember. I don't know how to eat something and not think about the calories in it and feel guilty about consuming it. I don't know how to feel accomplished without fasting. I don't know any thrill equal to standing on a scale and seeing that I've lost weight. 


I also don't know how I'm going to get around the professor. All I know is that I have to keep trying to lose weight. I will not spend the rest of my life being this disgusting and vile. I will be beautiful and boney thin. 


I hate that I haven't lost any weight for a long time. I hate all the fat on my body. I hate myself for being so weak and actually for a second thinking I might not want to do this. I wish I could snap my fingers and just be a size zero. 


I went shopping with one of my best friends yesterday. She bought some size 0 jeans. I wanted to die. She's much smaller than me so I am still so far from the size 0 dream. But I will get there one day. I have to. But what do I do about the professor. 


Maybe he'll be too busy to notice. Too busy to bother with me. Too busy to remember that conversation. Too busy to notice my absence. 

recovery

"I'm sure you're busy enough without being a therapist."

"You know what, I actually am. But I care about you. And I want to work with you and I won't be able to if you're sick."

So I blurted it all to the professor today. He saw me in the student room and we chatted for a while about a paper that I'm working on. He suggested that we go to his office and go over the data with another lady that we are working with. As we walk, he tugs at my high waisted pants. 

"I love the high waisted pants. It makes you look very tall and slim." 

I smile at him and he puts an arm around my shoulders and we joke as we walk. I've never felt so cared for. D, the lady we are working with looks surprised to see us like that. After discussing work, he asked if there was anything I wanted to talk to him about. I had spent the entire day telling myself I wasn't going to say a word to him. So what do I say? I tell him I've been making myself sick all week. 

"Oh no."

And so we talk about some things. I think he thinks I'm being a bit too sensitive about them. He asks me if I think I'm fat. I say yes. He asks me why. I answer because I've always been called fat. 

"What sort of horrible people would call you fat?" 

He thinks I'm too thin and wants me to gain some weight. I tell him my dad calls me fat and has done for a long time. He gives me a look. He's surprised any father would call his daughter fat. He asks me if I'm depressed. He wants me to get treatment for it. 

"I can get you treatment, someone you can talk to. It would be discreet, nobody would know."

I refuse. But he says that if I'm not feeling better by Easter then he is going to get me help. Very quickly, ground rules are laid down. 

"Don't lose any more weight for now." 

It's a compromise. I want to lose more weight, he wants me to gain a few kilos so we settle for zero change. To be honest, I think I can lose some more before he notices. 

"I think we should meet every week to talk about this." 

It's going to be hard as I'm living in a different city next year. But he says I can go see him on weekends, especially if I'm going to be working on weekends. He tells me that work is going to be okay. That the delays aren't my fault. That work isn't something I should be killing myself over. That the big prize is mine, I'm going to get it. The big prize that guarantees a position as an ophthalmologist. I don't know what to say. 

We talk about work a little bit more. Then he says he has to get back to work. He stands up, walks around from his huge mahogany desk and comes around to me and just holds me for a while. 

What have I done. Now that he knows, I will never be able to let this go. He won't forget it. He was going to take me to the department scale to make sure I weighed how much I said I weighed. He offered to adopt me. As a joke, but semi-seriously. He wants to ask me over to his house for dinner so that he could make me eat and make sure I don't throw up afterwards. 

Part of me regrets telling him. But all of me has never felt this safe and cared for. I have never believed until now that everything is going to be okay. 

nowhere to go but up

Firstly I want to start off by saying sorry to anyone who has been reading my blog lately. It's become like some sort of super agony column and I've been nothing short of a misery on here. So I'm going to try be more positive. I feel like this must be rock bottom so I have no place to go from here but up. 

Over the past few days I've really just lost it in terms of my food control. I've spent hundreds of dollars on food and binged like mad. Then I've taken lots of laxies. Having previously sworn that I would never take more than the normal dose of laxies, I've doubled the dose and boy am I feeling the effects. 

I've not had a proper night's sleep because I'm up in the early mornings in the bathroom, then I don't really go back to sleep because I have to go to work. Which isn't going well at all. It's starting to scare me because work was all that I really excelled at and now, the machine I use keeps breaking down and I'm well behind. It's not my fault but I'm still stressed. Despite all the advice to not avoid the professor, I still am, and I can't help it. 

It's like I'm convinced he's going to immediately start hating me. That, and I'm scared I'll blurt out everything and just lose the plot. I almost cried in front of him last time so I'm trying to steel myself for future encounters. Something's gotta break here and I'm pretty sure it will be my career. To be honest, I almost hope it happens. I'm starting to think that I'll off myself before I start any sort of ophthalmology work. It's notoriously hard to get into and I'd just be being selfish  if I took the spot of someone who is more deserving. I'll just do my dues as a general doctor for a few years and that'll be me done. 

But my laxies, they have to stop. Largely because I've run out of them. I'm going to do whatever I can to not buy any more. My guts ache from all the binging and the laxies. So I guess I won't be taking any more. But I've taken so many of them that I'm just almost always needing the bathroom and I hate that. I also don't want to vomit. So it will be back to restricting. 

Today I threw away the left over food from my binge yesterday. I really wanted to eat something but as usual, my house is full of sad looking old fruit and frozen meat. So I've resolved to fast today. I might have a coffee sometime though. I've almost done a 24hour fast by now anyway. 

Yesterday my father attacked me again. I was just lying in bed, rather early, on the computer and he barged in and immediately started telling me that I never do anything properly and how I look so horrible and ugly just lying there like a fat slob. Then I felt so bad that I went for a 200km drive through really, really poor countryside. It was really tragic but beautiful scenery and I drove really fast. There were no police and so I drove the winding roads as fast as my car would go, maybe 140km/h. The roads go and up and down the mountains and are really winding and I felt like world rally champion. 

Part of me needs that. I need to be in a really dangerous position to feel alive. So for me, fruit and veges now, and fasting today. I can't ever begin to express how confused I am right now. But I'm going to try and cut out the laxies because they are terrible. Surprisingly, it's not that easy. 

I don't know. Maybe I will talk to the professor. But that scares me. I don't know. I don't know what to do. 

The binging has taken a toll. I weigh 122lbs now. 3lbs up. But I feel like I weigh 140lbs again. I feel like I look that fat again. 

Oh well, nowhere to go but up! Gotta do my best. Thanks for all the comments and all the support. 

8 is a lucky number

Today I took one of those online depression tests. At the end, instead of giving me a score or something that said mild or moderate or severe depression, it just gave me the number of the crisis helpline and said that if I should call it immediately if I was having thoughts about hurting or killing myself. 

After a horrendous day at work, I went on the most amazing binge fest ever. I don't think I've ever eaten this much in my life. Then, on my way back to my room, I found myself automatically going to purge. Which is odd before I've never vomited before and yet here I was going to purge as if it was the normal routine. I didn't do it. I'm not going to purge, I'm going to fight the urge as long as I can. It's getting harder. But I have to try. 

Still, even though I'm not vomiting and I've taken 8 laxies in the past 24 hours. So much for not taking more than the recommended dose. 

I find myself avoiding the professor. I know all you girls tell me not to, and I agree with you, but I'm doing it subconsciously. It's only later that I realise I slipped away so quickly to avoid talking to him. I don't want to see him, but I so do. I want to march up to his door and give him all my laxies and ask him to take them all away. And give him all my scalpel blades. And ask him to fix me. But that's not how it works. He can't fix me. Only I can. But I don't want to. 

Alex still haunts me. But now there is a new girl in town. YW. Just as beautiful. Just as wonderful. And I get along terribly well with her. She's great. We could be great friends. But like Alex, YW reminds me of everything that I am not. She's so clever, so good at writing papers, never delays projects. Everything that I'm not. 

I can't even be eating disordered properly. I wish I'd just be full out mia and vomit my heart out. But I can't. I can't do anything. 

As usual, thank you to Fat Piggy, Christina and xXzapxfireXx for your lovely comments on my last entry. I'm sorry that I've been down so much lately. Things must pick up from here though. 

spiral out, unprofessional conduct, gratitude

Things are getting worse now. The suicidal ideation is daily, hourly. I can’t stop thinking about how I want to kill myself. I have so much to finish, but even that is no longer enough. I know I will upset some people but I am sure that they will get over it with time. 

I can also see that I will soon develop a full blown eating disorder. If it’s not next year, it will definitely be the year after. And it will be anorexia with a binge/purge subtype. I know that already. I hate the feeling of having food in my stomach. It makes me feel like such a failure. I only feel accomplished when I’m hungry. My desktop background says it all: I only feel beautiful when I’m hungry. 

The laxatives aren’t enough. I don’t want to put food in my mouth and recently I’ve started losing control resulting in some epic binges. I will walk down the road and buy food from every food place and eat as much as I can. Then I will wander around work aimlessly, restlessly. A part of me is thrashing around, wanting to vomit, another part of me is desperately holding onto common sense. So I settle for laxatives. I know it doesn’t do anything about the calories but the misery of the pain and the running to the bathroom makes me feel like I’m repenting. 

But none of it is enough. When I have food in my stomach all I can think about is purging. I feel like I’m lucky. The doctor in me says that I have caught an eating disorder in the early stages. There is so much hope. Now is the time to turn back. Now is the time to catch it. Now is the time to do something about it. It would be so easy. I have people who would help me in a heartbeat and not bat an eye. I have people who would make sure that I succeed and probably not think any less of me despite all my failures. I have everything a person could need to recover. Almost. 

If I were one of my patients I know I would try to get some sort of referral, something to prevent this getting worse. I'm teetering at the edge of a cliff and I want to step out into free fall. I have all the tools for recovery, except the will. I don't want to recover. I want to spiral into my ED. I want to get smaller and smaller, I want to feel pretty for once in my life. 

Yes there are side effects. Yes I've spent many ungodly hours clinging to my toilet. Yes I've spent many sleepless nights crying and willing away the pain in my stomach. Yes I've worried people I care about. But it's just not fair. Every little girl deserves to feel pretty. Every little girl deserves to feel like a princess at some point in her life. If life won't give that to me then I will work hard to get it for myself. I will starve and purge and binge my way to what is rightfully mine, a moment when I can look at myself and think that I am pretty. 

The email was only a line long but it almost brought tears to my eyes. I love it when this happens, when a perfectly professional exchange deteriorates into something completely different. In a strange way it makes me feel so cared about. And although there are times when I can see it in his eyes, I have trouble believing what my see. For all I know my eyes could be deceiving me.  

He calls me F******. The first real nickname I've ever had. He calls me F****** so often that there are people who think my real name is F******. Some people take this as a sign that the notoriously tough professor is fond of me. I wish I could think that way. I remember that once we were in theatre and he was transplanting the inside layer of the front of the eye. To make sure that he had it the right way up, he wrote an F on it. That way, if it is the wrong way up, the F will look back to front. Why do I use the letter F? he asks and the other students in the room look around. Everyone looks at me. Finally he looks at me. It stands for F******. He smiles sweetly and the other students stare at me. I know it doesn't stand for my nickname. He's used that letter for years, long before he met me. It's still a sweet thing to say. 

I call him BB. He always jokes to other people that it means Big Bastard. It's his way of saying, hey, I've got a cute nickname. It does make other people stare at me a bit though. 

F******, I'm sure I can find time for you, BB. 

It's only a sentence long, but it still almost brought tears to my eyes. It's unprofessional conduct and it makes me feel cared for. 

Thank you to Fat Piggy for your lovely comment on my last blog post. It's absolutely wonderful to have you back with us!!!! Thank you also to Anafly, my Aussie neighbour. I'm sure we will become great friends on here! And thank you to wonderful Jackie. You keep me strong! I shall keep on resisting the temptation to purge, although it's getting harder and harder.