Ok, enough self-pity for now. Instead of doing what I�d normally do in such circumstances � get frustrated and give up on re-writing the entry � I�m just going to fucking deal with it and try to remember most of what I wrote. But this is not going to be well-written because I am just too pissed off to do so.

Last night I went to see Better Than Ezra at Slim�s. I love Slim�s because the stage is just a few feet off the ground and you can get right up there at the base of the stage and even lean over the side without anyone caring. I was right up in front on the far right of the stage, without anyone in front of me, which was so cool :) The base player, Tom, was like a foot away from me! Kevin, the lead singer, was also right in front of me many times throughout the set, because his mic was in the center but he moved around. I had bought tickets way back in May and I talked Johanna into coming with me, since I have no friends to go with� she had a good time and was glad I made her go. She likes BTE too, but wasn�t really a huge fan because she didn�t know their music that well. But now after seeing them live (They are awesome live, by the way!) she says she is a huge fan :) The opening band ended up being pretty good, too. They�re called Dakona and I had never heard of them. They�re from Canada. Damn, so many great bands I love are from Canada!

That was my evening and it was awesome but unfortunately I had to ruin it by b/p�ing several times when I got home :/ For some reason that really irritated my throat and it got very inflamed. Ok that probably sounds incredibly stupid� my wondering why that would hurt my throat, but you have to understand that normally my throat does not get swollen. In fact, it�s gotten �used to� the throwing up I guess, because it is rarely sore after. This may be in part due to my stomach producing much less acid than is normal. In any event, I went to bed with a very sore throat and woke up in the middle of the night unable to swallow and having difficulty breathing because my airway was so narrow due to the inflammation. Not a fun night :( Add in the fact that I ended up woken up again, this time because I threw up all over my pillow. I took laxatives last night before I went to sleep and was so nauseous that I actually dreamed I was throwing up� very odd dream� and ended up waking up to actually puking on my pillow. Gross, I know. Needless to say I was feeling pretty crappy when I woke up today. Still managed to b/p on soups and smoothies, however. I fucking hate myself.

Tomorrow I am hoping to get a break from this torture of purging because I�ll be with my sister all day and night� she is in the hospital. Johanna, that is. She�s OK, it�s just a CF thing. CF as in Cystic Fibrosis. For those who don�t know, CF is a genetic disease where (to quote the CF foundation, which can explain it better than I can) �a defective gene causes the body to produce an abnormally thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections. These thick secretions also obstruct the pancreas, preventing digestive enzymes from reaching the intestines to help break down and absorb food.� So basically, people with CF have a variety of symptoms and each case is unique. Some people, for example, have more pancreas problems and are not affected by too many lung problems. Other people require lung transplants to keep them from dying. Some people die at a very young age, in childhood, and others live to be in their 50s, or older. The average life expectancy is about 30. It used to be 18 though, so there are advances being made. There is still no cure though :( My older sister has CF too, except she doesn�t really suffer from it. She gets a lot of sinus infections, due to the mucus I guess, but that�s it. I haven�t been tested. I�m most likely a �carrier� (10 million Americans are carriers; most of them don�t know it) because I either have to be a carrier or a sufferer, and I don�t seem to have any CF symptoms other than possibly a slight problem digesting food (?). Some people with CF have to go to the hospital often because of infections like pneumonia, but some people with CF rarely have to go. Johanna has an in-between case; she doesn�t have a severe case, yet it�s not so mild that she�s hardly affected. She does have to do a number of �treatments� (breathing/lung treatments), take a bunch of meds everyday, and cannot digest food properly. So she has to take enzymes with everything she eats because her pancreas can�t produce enough enzymes to break down food properly. She used to be really small for her age, short and underweight, but now she�s at a normal healthy weight. If she were to not take her enzymes, however, she would probably become underweight again as well as develop more infections. When she gets something like a cold, for example, there�s always a concern that it could develop into pneumonia or bronchitis or another infection. Right now she�s in the hospital for her annual �boost� � she usually goes to the hospital once a year, in the summer, for a two week stay. Most CF patients do this at least once a year. It�s almost like going for a short IP stay for anorexia� to get pumped full of food and get your vitals stabilized. In Johanna�s case, she has to do her treatments much more frequently (4 times a day instead of 1), and they also give her a lot of medications through an IV. So she comes out of the hospital in the best medical condition possible to give her a boost. Sorry I rambled on there� I probably lost everyone ;) ANYWAY, I�m going over there sometime tomorrow afternoon and am going to spend the night there to keep her company. So no b/p�ing. I�m going to try my hardest not to purge, either. I just need to avoid eating almost anything except maybe a few apples (only if I don�t b/p at all tomorrow though� that�s the only way I can allow myself to eat something and keep it down�) and then I should be ok not to purge. At this point, I�m in so much discomfort with my throat, my glands, even my jawbone hurts for some reason (not to mention my root-canal-ed [I�m sure that�s not a word, but you know what I mean] tooth, which is still hurting on and off), that even if I eat 500 calories I think I�m not going to purge because I need to give myself at least one day�s break.

I had group tonight and there were two new people there. New to *me* that is. Jillian, who is 17 (anorexic w/ bulimic tendencies, far along in recovery), and Rachel, who is 16 (I think? I can�t remember). I don�t know much about Rachel�s ED. I think she�s bulimic primarily, with anorexic tendencies� Anyway group went pretty well. It was me, Jillian, Rachel, Lara and Danielle this week. Oh, and one good thing was I was finally able to get up the nerve to hint that Danielle and I should hang out some time. She was talking about being so bored and that leading to b/p�ing (she�s grounded, and has been for a long time, which is a really long story as to why) because she�s home all day, everyday, and I said that if she ever needed to get out of the house maybe we could see a movie or something. I thought maybe her mom would make an exception to let her go out if it was with someone from group and not her regular friends (who helped get her grounded in the first place) and she was like �Yeah! Maybe she would!� and then she was like �But I don�t even have your number. Give it to me afterwards ok?� (after group, this was towards the end). So yay, I finally said something. She just seems like a really cool person and we always seem to be on the same wavelength. Oftentimes we�re kind of �outnumbered� as far as still being really entrenched in ED stuff unlike the �Remuda crew� girls who are all preachy and religious. Not that there�s anything wrong with being in recovery� just that they can be pretty bitchy about anyone who doesn�t see eye to eye with them. My self-defeating attitude is already causing me to think �She won�t call� though. I�m thinking �She only said that to be nice, after all, she couldn�t very well say she hates me in front of Deirdre and everyone else�� so I guess I�ll just have to wait and see. I also like Jillian, from what I could tell tonight. She seemed really sweet and I�m glad she joined. I�m undecided about Rachel. She didn�t talk much so I don�t know what she�s like.

I didn�t mention this last entry, but that first time I saw the nutritionist I got really upset afterwards� she made a comment on me seeming �much more upbeat� or something of that nature, and saying I didn�t seem depressed at all, compared to the last time she saw me. First of all, that first time she saw me was like months and months prior, and I don�t even know how she can compare the two meetings since she hardly remembered me� but I guess I just felt upset because it hurts me when I can feel so fucking depressed and self loathing and then have someone say �No, you�re not depressed.� As if they know? They know what�s going on in my head, what I feel everyday??? When you�ve been depressed a long time, you get quite good at acting �fine� and just because someone does not cry 24/7 does not mean they are happy! Some people are so fucking clueless about depression and it pisses me off. I was faced with the same thing at the hospital, actually. I think I much too skillful at acting fine and pretending things are well for my own good. These are the sort of things that motivate my ED as well. I have this need to show my pain� because obviously, if I am not looking pained, I must not be in pain. I find it too hard to express myself in any other way. And, as demonstrated by Michele and others, simply saying �I�m depressed� or even, �I want to die� is not enough.

When most people look at pictures of severe anoretics, pictures like this one, they are repulsed, horrified, unnerved. I look at pictures like this and think "That is how I feel on the inside, so I need to look like that on the outside." By not looking like that, to me is saying I am not in that much pain. I am not visibly suffering. I am not that horrifying. And I want to be horrifying, to look pained. I have to make my pain visible, because if it�s not, no one will care. They�ll abandon me and I�ll be left alone in my misery. I already feel alone so much of the time� the �alone in a room full of people� syndrome� but to actually truly be alone is so frightening. I want need to validate my pain somehow.

But at the same time, I don't want anyone to notice me. I don't want to be seen. I feel so uncomfortable in public and if anyone looks at me, no matter what the reason, I feel like a freak with two heads and want to slink away and hide. I want to merely disappear because to disappear would not be the same thing as being alone. It would simply be a state of nonexistence. Yet I don�t know if I actually want to die� I just want to cease to exist. And I know that�s not possible� I don�t know how to cope, with anything. I don�t even understand what I�m feeling most of the time, if I�m feeling at all. So how can I know how to deal with the feelings if I don�t even know what they are? I dread the attention that this disease brings at times, so I lie and hide and deceive those that actually try to help me. �Save me, help me; Leave me alone� is the constant tug of war I play. I hate myself for doing it but I can�t seem to stop. I can�t make up my mind of what I want.