when life is a numbers game...

:: before :: February 12, 2003 :: after

in my last entry i was talking about my first group session. on monday i went again and this time was better than the last. i really like the whole group therapy thing. i knew i would since i'd had a little in the past, but anyway it's nice :) this time there were 2 new people. well, they weren't technically "new" but they were just back from residential. so there were 7 of us total. cara is the one who deirdre told me about - who had been in the group since she was 14.5 and she's now 18. she's been anorexic & bulimic since 14. she was just back from remuda ranch. it was her third time. but this time i think she is going to fully recover. at least that's what she says and she seems really motivated and such. she's just had ENOUGH you know. and she's a senior also and applying for college and such. she really wants to go but she had to gain weight and get healthy before she could, so that's another motivator for her to stay healthy. but damn... 3 times at remuda?! that would be so much money! i'm pretty sure she's rich though, so i guess her parents can afford it... it's sad actually. that she can afford to go 3 times when most people are struggling to pay for one time. i mean it's so expensive and they have what, a minimum stay of 30 days? and that is the MINIMUM, most people stay much longer...

the other "new" girl was natalie. she was at center for change in utah for anorexia. she was at stanford, too, in the past, so we were bitching about how much it sucked lol. she's... quirky. yeah, that's the right word. it seems like the wrong word here but that's just the best way i can think of to describe her. the way she talks and her facial expressions are just... quirky! lol. she's uh... 15? i think so. i know a little more about the others now, too. the fruit/veggie girl is named laura i believe. and i think she hads BED/COE. cause she has a problem with bingeing [but doesn't purge]. so that in combination with not eating fruits and veggies has put her in a bad nutritional state [cause she will binge in carbs and then try to restrict to make up for it so she ends up eating just mainly crappy foods]. it seems as thought she just doesn't LIKE fruits & vegetables. i don't think it's a "fear" [plus, how could someone fear fruits and vegetables? i mean they don't make you fat...?]. she said she just doesn't like them. doesn't like the taste. some people don't develop a taste for certain things... like me and onions, so i guess it's possible. *shrug* hard for me to imagine though, since i love fresh produce! a few fruits are "ok" according to her but most aren't. for like a month now her "weekly goal" has been to eat lettuce. and she's still not doing it.

then there's lara. she is the recovering bulimic i mentioned who is 15. she hasn't purged in 2 or 3 months but she restricts some now. but she's normal weight. i'm not sure if she still binges without purging. i'm thinking that maybe she does and that prevents her from losing weight. then there was danielle who i also already mentioned. the "beautiful one" lol. i got to know her more this week and i think we have a lot in common, disorder-speaking that is. but also maybe in general. it's too bad she lives in danville [that's really far from me]. so we couldn't really hang out or anything. next week i might try to get up the courage to ask her if she has aol. to see if she has aim. i think that would be a good way to talk to her without some awkward phone conversation. not to mention, it would seem odd to be like "can i have your number?"!!! it would be like asking her out or something! i've never actually asked for someone's number. cause when i was at piedmont, all of my friends and classmates had their phone numbers and addresses listed in a directory that i got every year. anyway i'm going off topic here but danielle is nice :) just to reitorate, she is 18 and a senior in high school. i found out she moved from ohio back in september and before that she lived briefly [9 months] in florida. i was surprised though, when she was talking about a girl where she works who is a size 2 and how it really annoys her cause she has to see her everyday and she really wants to be a size 2. i was thinking "you're not??" cause i thought she looked like a size 1/2! i guess she is taller than me so maybe i didn't take that into account. but she is thin i think. her upper body is thinner than her lower i guess. i think she has a nicer, flatter stomach that me by far. anywho, she is bulimic w/ anorexic tendencies.

one thing that helps us not feel so awkward is that we color. we are supposed to make name tag things when we join the group [but even though the other people had already been in the group their name tags were just like, half done so i wasn't the only one still doing mine], just a piece of paper with our name on it, which sounds stupid, but it ends up being good because you can sort of look down and draw while you're talking if you don't want to make eye contact, you know? and coloring is relaxing. well, i sometimes get obsessive when i'm doing art and then it's not relaxing... but overall it is :) so we're all just basically doodling while we talk and that helps. the group is an hour and a half, and honestly i think that even if it were 2 hours it would not seem that long. there are rarely lulls in the conversation.

at one point, deirdre wanted us to talk about bingeing though, like "how we do it" and "when" and stuff [seemed like a stupid question to me, but whatever] and THAT caused a silence! lol. it's not really something you talk about in a group of people usually. i wouldn't have minded if deirdre wasn't there... like i can discuss it with other ED'ed people but when you add in a therapist i'm not so talkative. but some people ended up talking and that got us going. it started out pretty funny, people sharing various stories, but then it was sad because caitlin [she's the 18 y/o senior who is a recovering bulimic, who went to remuda, and is really christian] was talking about how she would just binge & purge over and over again until she was too dizzy and exhausted to do it again. and how even then, purging 7 times a day, she felt like a failure because she never got skinny. that was just really, really sad :(

on a good note, i asked danielle more about dr. mary lowen, that MD that deirdre recommended to me when i first saw her, but i thought i would be seeing dr. moffit so i hadn't followed through with that. anyway, she sounds really cool. my mom called her last week though and she said she wasn't taking any new patients. but when i told deirdre that this week after group she said she would call her and ask her to take me on. so i guess i will see her in a few weeks or something. but god i don't want to, i feel so huge. i'm retaining water so badly right now. the edema is just so horrible. my legs swell twice their size sometimes. i was 73 a few days ago but i am too scared to look now because i know it's up. and i won't know how much is false weight so i would just rather not know. this weight is impossible to maintain, seriously. combined with my poor metabolism and plus the lower your weight the less calories it takes to maintain... i can't seem to. it's either gain or lose. and when i have to go to a doctor i have to get weighed... and i can't stand getting weighed backwards because i can't stand someone else knowing my weight if i don't know it, so i will have to find out... god i hate getting weighed!! i just hope it's on a "good" day when i'm not puffy and swollen. i really look a mess lately. my glands are so swollen that they are painful and they throb sometimes after purging. my hair is so ugly i cry. i know it's a stupid thing to cry over. but i just feel so ugly. i want to hide my face but it's the one part of me i CAN'T hide :( i can only imagine what my potassium and other electrolyte levels are. i need to remember to drink my emer'gen-c... i just can't remember anything. like the calcium. i can't remember the last time i took that. i bet it's pointless anyway, to take the oscal, cause i have such poor digestion and those pills are very hard to break down. it would be better to take viactiv, i think i would absorb that, but i can't bring myself to take them because they are 20 cals each and i'd need to take at least 4 a day the doc said. and they have half a gram of fat each, too. they are yummy though, the caramel flavor. but last time i took them i purged them so i figure it's not worth it.

my mood sounds a bit more upbeat than it was a week ago... it's not really anything more than superficial happiness though. that i have a group of people with EDs to talk to. i mean other than that nothing has changed. i don't have a therapist. i saw 4 in a period of a few weeks but didn't like any of them. one i thought was ok... so i went back for a second session but then after that session decided i didn't like her so now i am still without one. i don't want to just see one for the sake of seeing one if i don't like them and i don't think it would be helpful. that would just be a waste. i got another referral from deirdre. god, i think i've been to 1/2 the shrinks in berkeley... they all seem to be in berkeley! it's annoying cause berkeley is really a pain in the ass. parking sucks, traffic sucks, lots of narrow streets and one-way streets where you need a 2 way... and no left turn signs for no fucking reason. stuff like that. it's like when you get stuck on a one lane street and then the person in front of you needs to make a left turn against traffic, without a left turn signal. you end up stuck behind them for god knows how long because of all the traffic coming the other way. so annoying. i am really sick of where i live. there are too many damn people. it seems like everyday lakeshore [it's a short street lined with shops near my house, stuff like bakeries, restaurants, coffee, small stores, a GAP, etc] is more full of people. and i've given up on piedmont ave. it's fucking INSANE. i refuse to go there now just because parking is impossible and you get stuck in the damn tiny lot for 1/2 hour waiting for a space and even then you usually don't get one. and it's the kind of small lot where there's always a stream of cars waiting to park so even if a spot DOES open up, you're way down the line and have to wait and wait and wait for all the other cars to get spots. i had to go there today to go to the post office. DAMMIT. i was dreading this so bad. after literally 30 minutes circling the lot, and still no place i had given up and was going to try going back later. but luckilly i found a spot on the street. but it was 5 blocks away. and it was raining. so i had to walk 5 blocks in the rain with just this long sleeved t-shirt on cause i wasn't prepared for the rain that suddenly started pouring down. and i had packages i didn't want to get wet. arrrgggh. by the time i got to the post office i was really in a pissy mood. then i find out it's going to cost me $30 to mail this package. it's going to canada and if i wanted to do it regular mail it would apparently take 4-6 weeks to get there! that's insane! what the hell is wrong with the fucking postal service!? B.C. is only like a 20 hour drive and they're telling me it takes 4-6 weeks?! so i had to upgrade to air mail or something. which is still going to be slow... and i had to pay $30. and the package is NOT that big. it's just one of those large padded envelopes. it's not that heavy either. so that cost me so much that i didn't have enough money to mail sarah or kristina's packages :( sarah if you're reading this, i'm going to try to go back tomorrow when i get more money from babysitting [where i am now]. i just hope i can fucking PARK tomorrow! arrggh i really am quite fed up.

well that's all of my ranting for the moment. unforunately i can't even post this because i'm not online, this is just on notepad. the kids i babysit have DSL so i'm afraid to go online because then it would tie up the phone line and their mom might call. not that any of this matters. i mean i could say i was in jamaica right now and you wouldn't know the difference :P now i'm really rambling... bye!