No surprises (please)

So here I am for the second week house and catsitting. It feels good to be all alone after the shock I got at the beginning of the week. It’s too bad this is the last weekend I’m doing this. …

Deranged

My relationship with N* has always been stressed, there was the time when she made it clear she wasn’t going to share one bit of herself with me, there was the time when she asked me to get a CAT …

Kitties, Chaplin and bangs

Today I got something similar to an idea for a post I can actually write (I got tons of awesome ideas for posts that somehow just can’t write). It may be just a tad lame, but hey, I once heard it’s better if inspiration catches you working, so that’s what I’m doing. Anyhow, as my title very subtly implies, I will be talking about kitties, and bangs, with just a sprinkle of Chaplin.

First things first. Yesterday, I went to get my hair cut, just a little trimming of my hair ends* really, and when I sat down on the chair and the girl asked me what I wanted to get done, I just couldn’t stop myself from saying: bangs! And so, today was my first day out with a bunch of hair on my face. Not particularly comfortable, but I think I’ll be able to deal with it. Today was also a quite social day for me, which I loved (not). First I went to have breakfast with some of the teachers from work. I really wish I could get more in-sync with them ’cause they do try to include me in their stuff, but I just can’t let go and open up, it’s really hard to let my guard down, and I’m learning it only gets harder with age. That, and the breakfast was stressful in itself because it meant I was in a social situation where I was required to eat. And boy if I did! Well, I guess objectively speaking it wasn’t all that much, but compared to what I’ve been eating lately it was a huge change, and it forced me to not eat anything else throughout the day except for diet coke and coffee.

This little issue reminds me that I had a sort of a sour session yesterday with Mr. Shrinky. He was fishing for details regarding my weight and what I’ve been eating, and I just wasn’t prepared for that kind of questioning from him. Mainly because I’m used to expecting those kinds of questions only from N, but also because I was upset he didn’t notice my bangs! I know, it sounds silly, but I remarked how unfair it seems that I notice every little change both in his office and in him, things that he’s even told me nobody else notices, and he can’t even notice that half of my face is covered in hair. It just made me feel like he doesn’t really care, like my assumption that I’m just the 5 o’clock appointment is true. This, together with the knowledge that I won’t see him next week because of spring break, got me in an I’m-not-talking mood, which isn’t exactly the most fruitful mood in therapy. I’ll see him tomorrow again before the break, let’s see how that goes.

After stuffing my face in the morning, in the evening I met a dear friend from uni (my only remaining friend from uni actually) whom I don’t see very much these days with all the things we both have to do now school’s over. We met at a midway mall ’cause we live in what would be opposite sides of the city if Mexico’s City were a normally sized town. We had a lovely chat. Not that we talked about butterflies and clouds, we actually discussed sad and angering issues, but it was lovely to share our mutual stuff with a girlfriend who cares. And then, though I’m not much a buyer ever since my depressive shopping-lollapalloza that’s still has me tied by the balls to the freakin’ banks (excuse my princess-like vocabulary), I agreed to accompany her to a couple of stores to get some stuff she needed, and that’s when the magic happened. I found the cutest kitten tee I’d seen, and just couldn’t help myself when I grabbed it and walked right up to the slaughterhouse cash register. As we were leaving, I found yet another item that seemed just perfect for me, a Chaplin tee! I’m a huge Chaplin fan, though I don’t own many Chaplin memorabilia, so I thought for a sec about taking the kitties back to get Chaplin home. I’m just not in a position to buy two things on the same day anymore, but before I made a decision my friend grabbed the tee and paid for it, she gave it to me as a birthday gift, and so I got out of there with two adorable pieces of clothing and with the feeling that my friend was trying to find ways to express she’s missed me and cares for me.

I know that this post is all over the place and serves no apparent purpose, but as I said I’m just trying to keep the words coming in the hopes that the good ones come back, I certainly don’t want to spend yet another week without writing.  Anyways, maybe wishing you don’t think you’ve completely wasted your time by reading me, let me at least show you what I’ve been rambling about:

Me and my bangs, together with the kitty tee:

The Chaplin tee, which I’ll proudly wear tomorrow:

Hope I’ll see y’all real soon!

Chatte

*Is that the way you call the tips of the hair? Being a non-native speaker, I sometimes get the idea that I use awkward, old-fashioned, or right out non-existent terms, so if you catch any one of these in my posts, do let me know, it’ll be much appreciated!

Becoming me

Can’t believe it’s been a week since my last post, I’ve been so busy with the Frankenthesis that I just haven’t had the energy to write anything else. Went to see my tutor on Thursday, and though she was incredibly nice and made me feel like I can do this, she did give me a shitload of work I needed to get done…by Monday morning! I did all the minor changes that same day, which took me a couple of hours, and then I had to wait until Saturday afternoon to be able to sit down and get to work with the heavier stuff. BF helped me that evening, I was so stressed I literally got sick to my stomach, I cried, I wanted to cut, and I think it was thanks to him that I didn’t lose it entirely.

I got up on Sunday at 6 am and got back to working. I didn’t stop ’til 10:30 at night except to pee and take a 20 min nap. No Facebook, no phone, no kitties, no getting up to get food, no nothing really, and yet I was still not done by then! Anyways, I finished and sent it by 1pm on Monday. Not morning but not really that late either huh? The thing is, I didn’t feel relieved after sending it, I was both physically and mentally exhausted, but that usually doesn’t prevent me from feeling happy after I’ve finished something I’ve been working on. Yesterday it just wasn’t the case. I think it’s got to do with the fact that when I have to focus so hard on something, I know I’m losing track of what’s going on with the other stuff I have to be aware of, like my 2 jobs!

Having lots of work helps with the not eating stuff though. I’ve lost 10 pounds in 3 weeks, and I intend to keep going for at least a couple more months. Everyone thinks I’m on a diet, except they don’t know my diet is called “not eating”  🙄 Mr. Shrinky is mildly concerned about this (he’s the only one who knows the true name of my diet) but he’s not pushing it, guess he doesn’t want me closing up on him.
I do have an appointment with N on Thursday though, and she’s always up for some how-much do-you-weight-these-days kind of talk, so we’ll see how that goes… I also have to tell her I decided to stop taking the fat pills ’cause they were making me, well…fat, and I’m not taking anything else than the ones I’m already in, I’m just not willing to risk it when I’m starting to feel like me once again. The thing is, once you cross the bridge of being so hungry you want to cry, it’s not that tough anymore, once your body gets over the fact it’s not getting anything other than liquids and the occasional yogurt, that’s when the magic really starts to happen, and I’m thrilled about it…. Reading back what I just wrote, I can get a glance of it being crazy talk, but if I can’t get it out of me in here, then where can I?

Anyways, I know losing weight is another way I’ve found to cope with life, and it’s no wonder I’m turning back around it when I’ve been feeling on the verge of breaking down, like I just can’t handle all the responsibilities I’ve been getting myself into. Speaking of which, I received yet ANOTHER job offer. A former classmate of mine who works in what seems like a fancy event agency on Reforma (one of Mexico’s City’s posh streets), contacted me. We’ve never really been friends, but we’ve seen each other every now and then at uni’s events because we were both high performance students and we’ve received diplomas and stuff together.

Anyhow, she approached me and said they needed me to be a director’s assistant, that they’d improve any salary I was earning, and offered all kinds of benefits. I reminded her I don’t really have experience in that field, and she said they needed someone who had a perfect english, was smart, quick and charming (see what I just did here? 😆 ) and they’d worry about training me. I thought about it long and hard, it was a damn good offer after all!

And what did I say? I SAID NO! I decided to keep my crappy teacher job, together with my editorial-assistant-I-love-it-but-can’t-make-a-living-out-of-it job. It’s a decision that doesn’t really change anything, and yet it feels like one of the biggest ones I’ve made, like I just made a turn I can’t undo, like….like I’m CHOOSING what life I want to live, and that’s huge! I’m deciding I’m gonna keep on fighting to become a historian and/or a consul, I’m choosing to be a writer, I’m probably choosing to not have a lot of money EVER, and I’m choosing…to starve, I just hope all these big decisions don’t take a toll on me. I’m not the kind of person who regrets stuff, never been, but I just hope I can keep on being like that in 20 years ’cause if not…well then I’m going to keep filling Mr. Shrinky’s pockets I guess 😆

God I missed blogging! I wanted to post since yesterday but I literally couldn’t type another word after finishing my damn chapter, but hey! I’m ready for the dreaded thesis seminar! My chapter has been approved and sent to all participants, so now I just have to sit back and wait for their death sentence opinion coming next Tuesday. I’ll let you now. Glad to be back y’all!

Picture of my life

I’ve been having this Jamiroquai song in my mind all week. Probably due to the fact that he just had a gig here in Mexico City on Monday and I couldn’t be there. Had been waiting 7 years to see him and because of work I had to be an adult and miss it. Goddamned adult responsibilities!

But there’s something else too. I’ve been feeling so lost, filled with such hopelessness, and I just can’t pinpoint what it is. Instead I’ve been focusing all my undetected and unresolved issues on my weight. This is something that’s been torturing me for sure, and I’ve effectively starved for some days now, I’ve lost a pound a day and whenever I get on the scale I’m petrified by the fear it’s going to show how much of a fat cow I am, and yet it keeps showing I’m loosing weight and it gives me comfort and peace of mind, though it still doesn’t show the weight I want it to show. I’ve also been looking at YouTube videos of the downwards spiral many women get caught it thanks to anorexia, the aim of their videos is to warn others…but I think they just fuel me. I don’t look at those pro ana-mia sites though, don’t get me wrong, I think they’re stupid and dangerous for women, especially teenagers, to look at. You want to be anorexic? Trust me, you don’t.

I do eat when I’m with company, because I know how much of an annoyance it can be to have people noticing you’re not eating. But on weekdays nobody really notices wether I eat or not and I can get away with it. I said I was going to lose the weight I’ve gained thanks to those damn pills before my birthday, and that means I have a little more than a month to do so. I wish it didn’t matter to me, I wish I could just let it be, but I can’t, and it makes me feel stupid and sad. Just as the song says, I wish someone could show me what my life should really be like, because this can’t be it.

I never had a dream that I could follow through
Only tears left to stain, dry my eyes once again
I don’t know who I am, or what I’m gonna do
Been so long I’ve been hopelessly confused
This can never really end, it’s infinitely sad
Can someone tell me when
Something good became so bad
So if you have a cure
To me would you please send
A picture of my life
With a letter telling how
It should really be instead

The precipice is there
But will I ever dare
Throw myself in the sky, so at last I can die
See I’ve become a man
Who holds nothing too dear
Who will mind if I just disappear 
This can never really end, it’s infinitely sad
Can someone tell me when
Something good became so bad 
So if you have a cure
To me would you please send
A picture of my life
With a letter telling how
It should really be instead

On a brighter note, I’m not going to go to work tomorrow, yay! Thanks to my other job at Mount Olympus I have to go to the SAT department, which is like the IRS in the States, to do a bunch of paperwork for the uni to be able to hire me as an external employee. It’s probably going to take most of my morning and I was first bummed about it, but then I realized I could see it as getting a break from an otherwise dreadful humdrum Monday, and it cheered me up! I won’t have to give classes, I won’t have to wear my horrendous uniform, and I sure will be out of there before 3:30, which is the time I get off work, so it’s a win-win really! Well… that is if I conveniently put aside the fact that I won’t get paid on that day, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay for a day off 🙂

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Battle lost

Went to my monthly appointment with N on Thursday. She’s finally convinced that one of the meds is making me put on A LOT of weight. On one hand I’m happy that my voice is being heard. On the other hand, I’m very much pissed at N. I asked her about the med making me gain weight months ago! I’ve gained 20 pounds since then! And now after I’ve fallen into my old puking-fasting-bingeing habits, now she tells me the med’s the reason. No shit Sherlock…

I’m mad ’cause I feel like she wasn’t listening to me when I told her first, because she dismissed my guesses like those of an overly-worried-probably-anorexic girl who needed to do as she was told. And I did. I trusted her. And now, 20 pounds later, if my metabolism has changed, how in the f-ing world am I going to lose this weight!? I know, I’m still formally inside what’s considered healthy weight, but I can’t look at myself in the mirror, sex is weird, my clothes don’t fit, my self-esteem is six feet under!

Yesterday I had to buy a pair of jeans. Fat-ass jeans to be more exact. I knew I needed them but put it on the back of my mind ’cause it was like accepting a battle lost. Also, BF bought them for me. Because I can’t afford to buy a fucking pair of jeans these days. Nor anything really, almost my entire paycheck goes to therapy and paying debts, with only some spare change for my most immediate needs. Still, him paying for me made me feel a little better actually. I know he’s worried about me, he loves me so much, and that’s a whole lot more than many people have in the world and for that I’m thankful.

P.D.

This Sunday doesn’t entirely suck ass, this may be longest streak I’ve had in months.

Monday, kind of Sunday

I’ve been eating like a pig, my clothes don’t fit, specially my pants. Binge eating is something I’d trained myself to avoid, and I was successful for a long time. Now, it’s apparently become hard to remember cookies are not love nor peace of mind, and whenever I manage to loose some of the weight I’ve gained, I gain it right back. People say I’m ok, but they don’t know what it is to feel obese and ashamed and to hate yourself and your body so much you wanna cut the fat right out of you. The worst part is when they laugh at you for having such worries: “lol, your far, far away from being obese!”, or “if you think you’re fat, I can only wonder what you think of me!”
I wish it wasn’t such a big deal, I trick myself into thinking this is a silly thing to worry about, just like everyone tells me. And I feel quite dumb admitting this, but it really is a big, big issue for me, it’s something that affects me every second of every day. This is more serious than just being uncomfortable in my body, it actually feels more like being trapped in hell. This thing I look at in the mirror can’t be me! Get me out of here! But no one gets me out because this isn’t a bad dream, this is one of my biggest fears come true.
Anorexia is not something as simple as not eating. It sticks with you forever, even when you don’t look anorexic anymore. At least that’s the way I live it, I’ve almost lost hope that I’ll some time feel normal about food, because it haunts me ALL THE TIME.
This Monday looks quite a lot like s Sunday, anxiety is back at it and chest pains are creeping in on me, I wish it were Tuesday already so I could relax a bit. But I won’t relax. I never do. I just become less anxious. Well I still wish today would end so I could at least enjoy that. And also so I could start again my lately never-kept promise of not eating. I always say I’ll stop eating, and I always think I’m gonna keep the promise. But I hadn’t really told anyone about this, so maybe I’ll have a bigger chance of sticking to my goal this time.

Made it out alive

What are your 2013 resolutions?

For me, I definitely hope to finish the-thesis-that-must-not-be-named, I’ll be damned if I don’t! By the way, Mr. Shrinky and I re-named it the Frankenthesis, ’cause it’s my creation turned against me. I was just watching a movie about a girl who got in a car accident and ended up quadraplegic when she was in junior high ans STILL managed to get into Harvard and get her dissertation done in a flash WITH summa cum laude honors and then went on to a P.H.D. and a postdoctoral stay at who knows where. I mean, come on! Give me a break here! The quadraplegic gets summa cum laude and I can’t finish a four chapter thesis!*

My other resolution (yeah, I don’t trust me so I’m gonna keep it at two) is to loose all the weight I’ve gained in this last depressive time. It sucks to have such a common resolution, but my weight is really something that’s keeping me from enjoying stuff, for example my last trip to the beach. I want my skinny body back, and I’ll get it for me as my birthday gift at any cost.

There was another thing I wanted to add to the list, but I’m not sure when and if I’ll get it done, so I’m gonna leave it in the wish-category. I wish my depression goes away. Like, for good. I’m tired of the ups and downs, of the triggers, of the self-harm, of hating so deeply the way I look… I wish I could be done with it all. I don’t expect to be done with my healing path, I’m well aware that’s a lifetime project and that’s why I’m committing to stay in therapy (maybe I’ll even add it to the resolutions list just so I don’t start wanting to quit as soon as I feel a little better), but I do wish I could go about it in healthier ways. Soon. In other words, I wish life wasn’t so hard all of the damn time.

In the meantime, I’ve made it out in one piece of one of a very difficult time of the year. Now I just have to survive New Year’s Eve and then I’ll be happy to celebrate I made it out alive of 2012 and its celebrations.

‘Til next time!

*I should add, in case needed, I by no means intend to offend anyone with my remark, I just want to point out how bumming it is to find someone who has such overwhelming obstacles and still manages to strive and achieve so much, while yours truly, with much more ordinary hurdles, can’t manage to get a sad little thesis done.

Parachuting

Tomorrow is my last day at the beach, the day after that we head over to the city of Morelia in the state of Michoacán, and I’ll be home by New Year’s Eve. I haven’t posted much since I’ve been quite busy doing nothing and nothing by the sea. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve been reading, and doing this:

and hanging out with this guy:

Right now I’m reading The Hobbit ’cause after watching the film I remembered how much I loved it and also I realized I didn’t remember much of it.

As for our doggie company, we still haven’t figured out who he belongs to, but we’ve seen him everyday at the beach and he plays, runs, and swims with anyone willing to do it with him. The strongest theory is he’s with someone who sells stuff at the beach and who lets run about until it’s time to go, we just haven’t seen anyone responsible for him yet.

I’ve also been feeling fat, like I could be mistaken for a beached whale any second, which makes wearing a swimsuit a painful task 😦 but at least I’ve managed not to feel this every second of everyday.

Naked

I’m fat. Fat fat fat. I don’t know how many times a day I think about it but it’s a lot, and I’m creating a little hell for myself. I used to be considerately underweight, and I had the diagnosis of atypical anorexia sprung at me at least twice in my life, plus a lot of people sticking their noses where they didn’t belong calling me anorexic. The way I see it I was skinny, real skinny, but not in the hospitalized kind of way, I never made it that far and a baggy sweater would usually do the trick for me.

Now I’m supposed to be within a healthy weight range, but to me it feels like hell, and I wonder if I’m ever gonna lose all this fat to be back to a place where I’m comfortable with my body. It’s something that’s eating me away (haha, bad pun) and it’s only made worse by the fact that I feel vain and shallow to worry about these things. ‘Cause believe me, I wish they didn’t cross my mind, I just can’t help it.

It all started when I was in 6th grade. All of my childhood I’d been a rather chubby girl, and as all the other girls in the class where starting to grow breast, mine where nowhere in the horizon, so now I was not only fat but flat as well. I couldn’t magically appear boobies on my body, but I could control it in another way, I could be the skinny girl. And man did I get skinny.

I became almost addicted to that empty stomach sensation, feeding myself with imaginary delicacies, and in fact I don’t even remember suffering because of hunger, I could trick my body into not being hungry (an ability I seem to have lost btw). Then, when my rather minimum breast decided to make an appearance, it turned up I liked my body. For the first time ever, I liked my body!

Now I’m as fat as I’ve ever been, and I can’t even share what I’m going through with most people because they don’t understand, I get strange looks and people just go like: “But you look ok!”. The problem is I don’t feel ok, I feel obese. Really, I’m not exaggerating, I feel like I could bounce my way to work. And I feel uncomfortable all the time, it’s like I was always naked, and I’m just shocked people don’t notice.

The only thing I was never able to manage too good was people making comments about my weight, whether they’d be from people who was honestly concerned, or mere acquaintances who thought it was ok to underline the fact that I was skinnier than the average person. That’s something I definitely don’t miss, and even if it’s the only thing, I’m thankful that for the time being I don’t have to sit through these remarks.