WHO THE FUCK AM I?????

Interesting question, isn't it? I wish I could say that I know, but I don't. I am the sum of so many different, and often contradictory parts, that it is tough to say who is the 'real' me. Maybe that question is pure fallacy. Maybe there is no 'real' me, just a compartmentalized multitudinous conglomerate. Whatever that means.
I guess the point is that I feel conflicted much of the time. I am an intense person, and that intensity is often directed towards that afore-mentioned feeling that I call the wanting. That feeling goes against what I value. I am filled with wanting much of the time, and I generally act out on it in some way. And then I feel guilt and shame. Conversely, when I don't act out on the wanting, I feel deprived, as though I lost out on something. Obviously, the more unbearable feeling is this latter one, as evidenced by my years of hedonism and active addiction. So there is the bold truth. My issues have painted me into a corner of loss. I lose what I want, or I lose belief in myself and my abilities to do the right thing. What is the answer? I really don't know. I suppose that I am beginning to believe in the idea that I am capable of great change. By that I mean that now I don't puke, I feel like anything is possible.
More later!
Fabu

WANTING, part two

FUCK ME!!
Seriuos need to binge today. I got by with eating almonds and raisins, an orange, an apple, a cheese stick, many carrot sticks, and later a frozen yogurt. I was and am gassy and unsatisfied and want badly to eat a big hamburger or something MEATY.
The bottom line is that my disease was talking to me today, loudly. I want, I want, I want. Always I want. Well, you know what I want, crazy ED? I want PEACE. I want peaceful food, a peaceful exercise habit, a peaceful weight. So FUCK YOU.
There, I told ED, didn't I? So back the fuck off. No matter what you do, ain't gonna binge and puke, no matter what. So think of something else to fill that hole. Something that won't hurt me, neither now or later.
So, there we are. A very tough abstinant day, but an abstinant day, nonetheless.

I AM AN ADULT CHILD OF INSANITY

My childhood was strange, to say the least. My mother was a lesbian hippie, and my father was absent. My grandfather was an alcoholic-pedophile, and my grandmother was a co-dependent and very angry woman. My sister is older, and was the favorite. I, with my chubby cheeks and my wanting ways, was cast as a problem from early on. I stole when I was 7, smoked when I was 12, did drugs when I was 12, and so on. My reactions to my family were bad. I didn't want to be around them. I was terrified that my grandfather would come on to me, and so every trip to see him was fraught with anxiety. I clearly remember sitting next to him in his truck going to the store. He had money, and would occasionally be very generous with it, so I always wanted to be around him in case he felt the urge to give me some. But I was so worried that he would try and molest me. I sat with teeth clenched, thinking that I would sock him in the eye if he ever did. In my memory, I was never molested, but I wonder. In any case, I grew up thinking this of men: they were absent or scary. I have made every partner that I have ever had pay for his sins, and the sins of my father.
My father was gone, but had an enormous impact on my childhood nonetheless. He was an unforgiving narcissist who once actually called himself a sage. He was gone most of my life, and the times I saw him he made hurtful judgements about me. About the wanting. I guess he saw it and condemned it, probably because it looked like him. I vividly recall going to visit him in Washington when I was 14. I smoked cigarettes by then, and brought a carton with me. He condemned my smoking, himself trying to quit. He told me that nothing looked worse than a woman walking down the road smoking. Then he bummed a pack of smokes from me. After I left that trip, he called my mom and told her that I had been greedy and bad. She told me, I am not sure why. He got very sick during my childhood and had a liver transplant. We found out through a 'group mail' that arrived one day. Not even addressed specifically to us. I had no contact with him from 17 to 34, right before I got married. He was very sick again, this time with cancer. We talked, and I told him that I forgave him. We talked all about him, of course. He got sicker, and so I wouldn't regret it the rest of my life, I went to see him in 2001, with my then boyfriend, Rob. His first words to me were, "I think seventeen years is a little bit excessive!" As though it had been my choice alone. Then he said, "wow! You got pretty!"
I could write novels about the things he has said to hurt me, and my hurt. I lied for him, and I am glad that I did. I told him I loved him, that I forgave him, and wished him peace on his journey out of this world. He died when I was 5 months pregnant, just 3 months after my grandfather did. No matter my true feelings for him, I realize that they are my responsibility.
I have since realized that he probably was confused, did the best he could, and that, as in many areas, I took on things that were not meant to hurt me, but to help. I have a positive genious in finding insults.
My emotional life is changing with my recovery from bulimia and binge-eating. I now have two weeks 'clean' and am overjoyed and terribly grateful.
Keep 'em coming, God!
I'm out.
Fabu

Here we are, at day 10 of my new, binge-vomit-free lifestyle. Nice. And I thought it would never happen.
I have, for years, felt so powerless over my own emotions and compulsions, that I thought I had no choice but to act out on them. Today I realize that I can have a different life experience than one of self-destruction and shame. I am worth having a serene and fun and interesting and RICH life, one not ruled by an eating disorder that demands I do things I no longer wish to do. And I truly do not wish to binge and vomit today. I am replete in my lovely meals, I am enjoy eating in a way that lets me move on. I am not obsessing on calories, nor am I obsessing on thinking through the list of everything I have eaten each day. All that ever did was either freak me out, if I thought I had eaten too much, or give me permission to eat more, if I thought I had not eaten that much.
I am having a great experience right now. Not that it isn't painful. I have stuff come up that is confusing and upsetting. I have feelings of displacement and anxiety that seem without trigger event.
Yesterday in a 12-step meeting, I was looking around the room and evaluating everyone. Not negatively, but still, feeling the compulsion, as I often do, to label all people in my immediate vicinity. I wondered, out of the blue, why I do this. Who hired me to evaluate everyone? What was the point of that?
With a jolt, I remembered growing up with grampa the pedophile. He never victimized me, but my mom and many others. We all loved him for many reasons, but we watched out for him because who knew when he might make very unwelcome advances. I can clearly remember many trips with him when I would end up being alone with him. I felt so scared and grossed out. Yuck. So I suppose that I evaluate everyone for safety. I constantly evaluated him, to keep myself safe.
Whewwww. Life is confusing. I really did love that old pervert. He was more like my father, really. But a sick man, too.
More later,
Fabu

I AM RIGHT, AND THE WORLD IS WRONG

When I decide the world is wrong, and I am right, then I know that anxiety will soon follow. In particular with my partner. He is focused on something besides me, and that can at times fill me with anxiety. I am not sure why. I love my space. I love doing my own thing. Yet at times I look over and think, "is this when it starts? The undoing of the love? The beginning of the break-up?" Often, a few minutes later I will find out that he is editing a picture of me, working on minute details of my face, hair, skin and color. Making me look beautiful. Then I am assuaged. Still later, he will pull away first from an embrace, and I will again get anxious. I have decided the world is wrong, and I am right. His declarations of love fall on deaf ears, because I see a lack behind his eyes. He is wrong, and I, unfortunately, am right. Fortunately, these moments are much less frequent than they used to be. I often feel very loved and am content with the many ways that he shows me that love. It is only when I decide that I am right, and the world is wrong, that all seems as lies to me, false and cruel. It is my mantra today that I am loved perfectly. By God always, by my partner in a perfectly human way. By myself, totally.
In fact, I am WRONG, and the world is right. I really am beautiful. I really am loved. I really am deserving and valuable.
Good thing I am wrong!
Fabu

Hope Is A Choice. . .

I am sitting here on my couch, feeling that empty feeling again. I just ate some shelled peanuts and a carrot and a cheese stick and some raisins. Why does memorizing my food make me feel safer?
I am so used to feeling as if I am limited when it comes to decisions around food. I can't stop eating, I can't stop wanting, I can't help feeling huge and crazy, I can't eat for health and energy.
I am making a new declaration today.
HOPE IS A CHOICE!
The fact of ED in my life is the only constant. How I deal with ED, what I make ED mean, how I feel about ED, these are my choices.
And today I chose to be empowered. I ate what I wanted then walked away. I took responsibility for everything that I ate, and I didn't bemoan the fact that for today I don't have the option of going and having a little binge later.
These are my choices, and I am never powerless over them. I am aware, I am alert, and I am in charge.
Blessings to my H.P. for giving me insight. Today my partner said something that struck me as true. He said that though he was not the most spiritual of men, he would fire his God if he felt that that God could not or would not help him out of the Hell of active addiction.
I can't fire a God I don't believe in. But I certainly can give shape, emotion, meaning and design to what I have intuitively felt since I was small: SOMETHING.
Hope is a choice. God is a choice. For today, I choose health, abstinance, love and empowerment.
Fabu

This morning I am a bit foggy, but feel better. By better, I mean that I feel more settled in my new, non-vomiting world.
I had much more success with eating normal food yesterday, and even got a jog around the lake in. My stress level is still a bit up, but I am hopeful that this journey will clarify itself more and more positively as I go alone, and that I will get increasing amounts of serentity as I go.
An interesting thing has come up from my not throwing up. I have had that full feeling, and have not had to eat for hours because of it. What a joy. I have felt all stages of hungry, full, and stuffed, and it hasn't killed me, not once.
I should add that I stopped weighing myself about 6 months ago. I truly believe that letting go of those numbers on the scale was what opened up the door for me to get my head out of the toilet.
That reminds me of a funny story. Well, funny in a tragic way, but funny non the less. Many years ago, I was very visible in the 12 step fellowship Narcotics Anonymous. I went to meetings constantly, hung out only with other 12 step-ers, and lived that life. It was glorious, and I became known for my fun, witty and honest message. I was asked to speak at a meeting one night, and of course I agreed. I rarely passed up an opportunity for face-time. The day of the meeting I was at a party with friends. There was tons of food at the party, plates and plates of it. I binged my way through several plates and threw up two or three times. Then I jumped in my car and headed for the meeting. I had binged on my way out the house, and was worried about getting rid of it. There was a plastic bag on the floor of my car, and I grabbed it, thinking that I could throw up in it while driving, then throw the bag out the window (when it comes to my bulimia, I was a bit of a litter-bug). I did throw up in the bag, and rolled down my window and tossed it out. I cleaned myself up, brushed my teeth in the car, sprayed on some perfume, and drove to the meeting hall. I shared from my clean and sober heart, and did mention my struggles with food, but not the specifics. I was very well-received, and had two young and trembling women ask me to sponsor them as I was leaving. I walked towards my car, feeling very high on the love and admiration of my fellows. As I approached my car, I saw something hanging by the back driver's window. To my mortification, it was the barf-bag, stuck on something and clinging to my car, spilling its horror down the side of my car. I stopped in my tracks, and had a real moment. The realities of my double-life crashed down on me. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed, and quickly pulled the bag off and threw it in the ditch. More littering guilt, more crushing hypocracy.
I have told this story many times, and some days I find it funny, and some days I find it sad. Today, I just have no more attachment to it. I no longet need to be the receiver of false accolades. I am not ashamed to be a bulimic, and I AM RECOVERING.
Fabu