Tonight was my stepbrother Aaron�s 18th birthday dinner celebration so I was obligated to go. Last weekend was my dad�s and I ended up getting out of it by being sick but I came over the next night for dinner to �make up for it� and, of course, it was awful. But tonight was even worse. I only went because I care about Aaron and I knew that if I didn�t go he would take it personally and wouldn�t understand that it�s just because I cannot deal with being around my dad. So anyway, I drove Johanna and I over there tonight and we got off to a bad start, of course, because my dad made the most heartless remark to Johanna. He asked Johanna and I while we were sitting in the living room waiting for everyone to get there to go to the restaurant: �So what�s new?� to which we said �Nothing really� and he goes �Nothing?� and we said no and Johanna said �We just saw you so nothing�s new� and he said �Nothing�s ever new with you!� and it was like gee, thanks you fuck. We�re just not good enough for him, not popular enough, not social enough, not successful enough. He asks about school, and I tell him that I pretty much done. �What does that mean?� he asks and I tell him I have one more book report and then I get my diploma. So he asks if there is going to be a graduation ceremony and when it is and I said �I don�t know. I guess. If so I assume it�s going to be in June.� And so he says he wants to �honor my achievement� (yeah, as if he really consider this an achievement � he�s insulted my school and my lack of spectacular academics a million times) by going out to dinner, having a family party etc. Johanna, who passed the CHSPE (California High School Proficiency Exam � which is the state�s equivalent of the GED), says �I never got a party for graduating� and my dad says, in a really rude and snotty way �Well YOU didn�t graduate.� !! WHAT A FUCKING ASSHOLE! Johanna says �What?! Yes I did!� and he says �No you didn�t.� and she says �Yeah, I passed the CHSPE and that�s the equivalent of graduating.� To which he says �No it isn�t; you didn�t get a high school diploma.� I couldn�t believe he said that. Well actually, yes I could, because this is my dad we�re talking about after all and nothing he says surprises me anymore because he�s said the most insensitive things you can ever imagine. But still, I was stunned and fucking mad as hell that he would say something so mean to her. So I of course defend her and say that it�s the same thing and how could he belittle her achievement like that?! He then acts like what he said wasn�t mean at all and I had had enough by that point so I get up and say I�m going to say hi to Lucy, who had just arrived outside with her boyfriend Chuck. The rest of the evening I tried my best to just avoid him because that is the best thing for me to do in order to survive the night. I tell my sisters to sandwich me at dinner so I was sitting next to Lucy and Johanna and my dad was next to Lucy and Chuck was next to Johanna. We had 2 tables pushed together but they were circles so it was kind of awkward the way we were arranged � my stepbrothers, stepmom, Aaron�s girlfriend and his friend were all at the other table. Anyway, there was an empty chair so we kept moving around trying to decide where the best place to leave the empty chair was. After being settled for a good 20 minutes, my dad gets up and moves to the empty chair, which was between Chuck and I (we had moved so that it went my dad, Lucy, Johanna, me, Chuck). I seriously had to fight back tears� I just started crying merely by having him sit next to me. That�s how badly he affects me so you can see why I just tried to avoid him. Anyway, luckily Lucy, Johanna and I talk the whole time while waiting for our food and my dad ends up talking to Chuck so I thought I was spared. But then, after eating, my dad makes a remark about family therapy to me, quietly enough so that only me and Johanna could hear. He says something about how he has always been open to family therapy with me and still is and that �the door has always been open, you just have to walk through it� or some crap like that and I say �Well it seemed like you just forgot about it and didn�t care either way anymore.� (which is so true, he hasn�t mentioned it to me since like December before I went to Dallas, which is the last time we tried to schedule a session) And of course, I don�t want to AT ALL, and since then he has stopped paying for anything medical of therapy-related for me, so the last thing on my mind is pleasing him by doing family therapy. He says �That is BULLSHIT Ruth. I have tried on numerous occasions to make it happen and you have always neglected to do it.� And I said that�s not how I remembered it; I don�t remember him trying recently to ask me to schedule anything. And so he keeps arguing about how he has tried and I�m just so �unresponsive� and blah blah blah and he�s really laying it on by this point and I am getting more and more upset, of course. And I say that honestly, we can�t AFFORD more therapy because as it is my therapy costs enough. And I know that he isn�t going to pay for the family therapy (nor did he ever say tonight that �Well I would pay for it� which further reinforces this thought). Because dammit, I�m pissed off. I�m pissed off that he made me continue therapy as a requirement to come home from Rogers, and go to the doctor, and the dietician, yet he won�t pay a cent and makes my mom pay for everything and she is broke and he is filthy rich. Up until that point, I was having an ok time. I was glad to see Aaron and dinner went ok (dry salad with chicken on it) and I was even getting along with Lucy, who can really get on my nerves, and he has to go and ruin it. HE ALWAYS DOES. It�s like he can�t stand that we�re all having a nice time � he has to go and start a fight! I say �Why are you antagonizing me all of the sudden?! Why can�t we just have a nice time? Why do you have to go and ruin it????� and he goes �Forget I said anything� but not in an apologetic way, in a really mean way. And then he goes �But don�t give me this bullshit excuse. If you�re going to refuse to cooperate don�t make these bullshit excuses.� He really kept saying bullshit. He was really spitting these words at me, right there at the table in the restaurant, IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. So then I�m crying and I can�t help it and I can�t stop and no one knows what he said to me because he was saying it under his breath (believe me that made it no less awful or hateful-sounding). So for the second time in an hour he has managed to make me upset and squash what tiny hope I still had that I could get through the night unscathed.

Later at the house we had cake and I actually ate some (fully intending to purge) and then my stepmom has to go and read all the ingredients of the cake, after we had eaten it, and talking about how bad all this shit is for you. Reading off like �vegetable shortening� and �partially hydrogenated soybean oil� � �which is the worst kind of fat you could possibly eat� � gee, thank Debbie for that information. Not that I was going to not puke it anyway but I was planning on waiting till I got home and new I might get some of the calories absorbed but not caring all that much since I hadn�t b/p�ed today and it was a small piece of cake� it was so fluffy and un-filling I didn�t think it was all that bad, anyway, as far as cakes go. And my dad suddenly acted all �nice� to me, repeating whatever compliments Debbie was giving me about the scarf I had made for someone. Like yeah, nice try you fucker but I know it�s completely insincere and do you REALLY think that makes up for all the shit you�ve said tonight, not to mention all the other crap you�ve done?! The thing is, I bet he DOES think that makes up for it. Because he�s a complete psycho who has no fucking clue and thinks he�s the most faultless and important man in the world. I said goodbye to everyone else and hugged them all except him. And that�s it, I am not trying ever again to be civil to him. He can fucking kiss my ass because I have had it. And you know I really do think I am going to do a family therapy session, just one, and I�m going to let him have it. I�m going to spend the whole hour telling him how much I hate his guts. I�ve told him my deepest feelings before and he is still in denial about how much I (and Johanna) hate him, but maybe this time he will really hear me and it will hurt him. I want to hurt him badly. I am not a vengeful person, not usually. I can�t remember another time where I�ve really wanted to hurt someone because they hurt me� normally I just turn all those feelings inward and blame myself when others hurt me� but I want to really hurt him. I can�t go into length all the ways he has wronged me and my mom and my sisters right now but this hatred runs deep and it has nothing to do with tonight. This is just yet another typical encounter with him and leaves me raw and remembering all the times he has fucked up and hurt me.

I�m not really sure what else I can say right now because I�m pretty upset, obviously. Nothing much has changed the past few days except my mom is making virtually no effort to get me a flight to Milwaukee so I don�t know when I�m leaving. I want to leave Wednesday or Thursday because I would like to get there on a Thursday or Friday. Because then I only have one or two days of full-programming, and then Saturday and Sunday to help me ease into the transition of IP� because going from home to all those therapy groups is rough. For one thing, I don�t get much sleep there because they wake you up at like 6am to get weighed and then who can sleep after that? Breakfast is at 7:30 and all day long you�re busy until the evening. It�s very draining. So having just a few days of that and then getting a break for the weekend will help, I hope. Anyway, that was my plan but I still don�t have an airline ticket. Someone I was IP with last time told me about a charity called �Wings of Mercy� that flies people who need hospitalization (including psychiatric) to their destinations for free, if they financially qualify, which I think we do. But that charity only does short flights, like from Michigan to Wisconsin, for example, so I can�t use it. So we called this hotline, which is for many of those types of organizations, and they told us to call Southwest. So we did but they have a blackout right now on discounts so we needed to call the other airlines but my mom hasn�t done that. She really doesn�t seem to care at all when I go and it�s making me feel worse and worse� like I don�t need this, no one thinks I do, etc etc. Except I know that it�s just my mom who is not fully supportive because my doctor and therapist and dietician all say I need to go. I wish I didn�t let my mom influence me so much. I wish I wasn�t so sensitive. Every little thing affects me and I get so upset over minor things. I HATE IT!!!! I hate myself.

I got a letter from Caroline today though, and that was nice. It was so wonderful; she is really having a change of heart and wants to live and try to recover and is going to give it 6 months after she leaves the hospital (she said hospital/residential so I am even more happy because I think that might mean she is going to residential afterwards, which I really believe she needs) of just trying her best to pursue her dreams and live and not engage in her ED at all (as much as she can) and then hopefully, after 6 months, her ED won�t be important to her anymore. Sounds like a good plan and I am so happy for her :) I had just mailed off a letter to her, too, which was funny.

I wish my weight was lower. I know that it must be annoying to hear this over and over� but I just feel SO FUCKING FAT. My mind keeps saying �How can you go back to the hospital weighing more than you did when you left?!� Because I�m 81 now. Birth control seriously made me gain weight. I was 75 in February! I was up to 84 a few weeks ago and then stopped taking my birth control and since then I haven�t changed anything food-wise. If anything I�ve b/p�ed more and finally I�m starting to lose some of this weight. After talking to some people I hear that the patch, Ortho-Evra, does have a tendency to cause weight gain. I figured that since it was so new, it must have the LEAST chance of weight gain compared to the other birth controls� I also thought that when people say the pill causes weight gain that was just cause it caused like, appetite increase or something. But I really think it did fuck up my metabolism even more. Cause I went from keeping down a little bit to keeping down nothing and I was gaining in situations where I normally would lose. Plus it made my edema even worse. That had been more under control until then. Damn hormones. My boobs got bigger, too, which I hate. They were always sore too. Really weird. I actually think they have shrunk just in the last week but maybe that�s my imagination. Who knows� all I know is I�m not going back on birth control and since Charlie isn�t even talking to me I really have no need for it. Speaking of Charlie that�s another long story but I am too depressed to talk about it right now. I�m going to go play mindless card games for hours and then go to bed. The usual.