I�ve been back in Oxnard since yesterday, visiting Siobhan. When I got home on Sunday night I immediately left the next morning and drove up to Oxnard to see her. I�m so depressed. The extent of my depression just hit me today, hard. I broke down and told Siobhan that I didn�t see the point in living anymore, because after all this time I�m just the same fucked up mess I was before, and I don�t think I�ll ever be happy.

the OA meeting (the meeting that I attended after having been discharged Sunday, while I was in town visiting Siobhan. That was the meeting where I went after I had basically broken down and was seriously considering ending my life. Lynn and Siobhan had come with me to the meeting, and Lynn explained how I was feeling after the initial discussion was over, because I didn�t feel able to. Everyone was so supportive� it was a great meeting, and I�m so glad that I went. That lead to me being readmitted the next day, voluntarily, after I spoke to Dr. Mendiola and Dy called my insurance company to persuade them I needed more time.)

Friday, May 21, 2004

There is a new girl named Carrie here who I really like. And I think I am finding myself becoming attracted to her� I hesitate to say this, but I feel myself falling in love with her. She got here Tuesday night right before the OA meeting (the meeting that I attended after having been discharged Sunday, while I was in town visiting Siobhan.). We didn�t speak that night, I just saw her from across the room and didn�t know who she was since I wasn�t an inpatient at the time. She is 26 and a �purging anorexic� � in her words she is bulimic, but like me is at an anorexic weight, 5�8� and 98-101 pounds. We�re very similar in our eating disorders, in that she binges all the time but purges everything she eats. She lives in LA. We started talking on Wednesday, the day that I hung around the hospital all day waiting to see whether Dy would be able to get my insurance company to allow me to be readmitted. Today is only Friday but already we�re friends, spending every moment of free time together talking (usually while smoking, which I do way too much here). After just a few hours of talking, I felt like I had known her forever. We are a lot alike and she is in my process group which makes me really happy. I found out today that she�s bi (she recently broke up with her girlfriend of 5 years but during that time also dated guys) and since then I�ve been finding myself wondering what it would be like to actually date her which is unusual for me because I have never had any lesbian feelings before (though I have sort of wished in the past that I did, just because guys can be such assholes). I feel like a horrible person to admit this, but I am not usually comfortable around lesbians, yet I have no problem with and actually love to be around gay men. And I swear it is not that I am homophobic, because I strongly believe that a person has the right to have a relationship with whomever they wish� I cannot explain exactly why I have felt that way in the past, but I suppose it has disappeared now since I feel perfectly at ease around Carrie. Perhaps I sensed a part of myself was attracted to women but had yet to come to terms with that, and felt that way only on a purely subconscious level, and was not ready to face that, thus tended to shy away from similar people? Who knows.

I was very surprised, actually, when I thought that Carrie was a lesbian (at first I only heard or her girlfriend, no boyfriends), because I never would have guessed. It came out because she was very upset after a phone call, and I had come to her room to see if she was alright, and she ended up telling me that she had just been on the phone with her ex-girlfriend. She talked a long time about their dysfunctional relationship, and when she asked me if I thought she should cease all contact with her ex-gf while she was at Rader, a little voice inside me said �Yes! Get her out of your life! I would never treat you that way��

When I first saw Carrie I felt the common trigger, the envy of her body and hatred of my own (�she is so thin, she�s perfect, she�s much thinner than me� etc). She has long lean thighs, unlike my own short stubby legs. Medium brown hair, brown eyes, a tattoo around her upper arm. Her hair is short, just above the shoulders, the length mine was the last time I cut it but it has since grown out a bit. It is slightly longer in front and she straightens it so that there are a few longer pieces framing her face, with the rest pulled back in a short ponytail the majority of the time. I can�t help but stare. I have seen women before, and wished I looked like them � believed them to be attractive � but I was not attracted to them. I feel differently about Carrie. During Body Image Group today, we did a meditation at the start, and she was laying down next to me and I couldn�t take my eyes off her. I find her so sexy. I was staring at her stomach and hipbones (she had on low pants and her shirt had crept up a bit) and wanted so badly to just touch her, but at the same time the thought scared the shit out of me, and just looking at her scared me (Can you tell I was not even CLOSE to meditating? Lol). Halfway through the meditation, she looked up at me and motioned for me to lie down next to her (I was sitting close, but was not lying down myself). So I did, and then she fell asleep. I almost did myself, but my mind wouldn�t allow me to rest. Instead I pretended I was asleep, sneaking glances at the beautiful woman just inches from my face. I watched Carrie sleeping and she looked so peaceful and beautiful lying there.

During another group, the EDA meeting, she asked if I wanted a hand massage so she gave me one and then I have her one and while she had her hand in mine and I was massaging it she layed her head on my knee and napped. It was so adorable, I felt myself melt inside. She is so sweet! Tonight I was in my room on my bed, writing in here, and she ran in and joumped on top of me which was really funny. And when I was painting earlier and she didn�t come to joing me when I asked because she hadn�t heard me (I thought she had, but she was in the middle of a conversation with Amanda and Bob so I thought she just wanted to keep talking to them instead), she later apologized with a kiss on the cheek, and I thought I would die of kindness.

Tonight this new patient, who came last night, got hand-cuffed and taken away by the police which was rather exciting. What happened earlier was that Ann, who is the woman�s roommate, confronted Susan about having food in their room (I�m not sure how she snuck it in, but she had two bags worth), and Ann had removed the food herself (what she saw, but there was more). Susan was livid and started yelling at Ann, saying �You have no right! Fuck you bitch!� etc. and slammed their bedroom door practically on Ann. That�s when Ann came storming down the hallway yelling that Susan had food all over the room and she (Ann) refused to stay in that room and Susan kept on screaming (no one could tell what she was saying since it was so loud and hysterical) and slamming the door repeatedly. The nurse on the unit, Allison, just stood there looking panicky and didn�t do anything, while Judy took the food from Ann, who then stormed off somewhere to bitch about Susan, and put it up on the counter of the nurses� station. Then Susan got something sharp from the back of a picture frame hanging in the bathroom by the nurses� station and then, to Amber, she said she was going to kill herself. That�s when Allison (the night nurse) called the police. When they came, Carrie and I were on my bed talking so we had a great view of everything (my room is right in front of the nurses� station, AGAIN, which is so annoying). Susan started crying and saying it was all �a mistake� but they hand-cuffed her and took her away. I think they took her to the county hospital�s psych ward. She was really crazy. She had to have food with her at all times, and so she carried around a paper sack with food in it. WHY she was allowed to do that, I have no idea� they seemed to let her break all these rules regarding food. It was annoying having her here, though, because they put the unit on �lockdown� basically � the double doors leading from one half of the unit (the half with the front door, which is kept unlocked) to the other, where the nurses� station and most of the patient rooms are, was kept locked, so we had to constantly be going around the long way and I felt really trapped.

Anyway, back to Carrie. I really think I like her. I would say every day that goes by I like her more. When I�m laying in bed trying to nap and I hear her on the phone I wait in anticipation for her to hang u p, because I know she will come straight to my room when she does. She comes and lies down next to me and kisses me head and rubs my back and it makes me feel so warm inside, so loved. She�s very affectionate which could very easily just be the way she acts towards everyone� but I secretly hope she feels something more towards me too� at least I have the satisfaction of knowing she chooses to spend all her time with me and no one else :)

I have to go to snack now though; Carrie is sitting on my chair next to me telling me to hurry so we can be there first to grab the biggest cinnamon shaker (I�m fucking obsessed with cinnamon now!) hehe.

Ruth