Relapse is weird

Milk might have been exactly the catalyst to push me over the edge, and here we are.

Obviously I could have seen the warning signs for what they are. My obsession with ensuring protein intake and meal timing was probably a red flag, and the desire to time exactly the right amount of calories at each meal to prevent catching up at night wasn't exactly normal. Hell, even the need to catch up on calories and devour large meals in a single sitting was perhaps a little disordered.

Admittedly, it's been months - perhaps more - of eating to a regimented plan. Protein oats, chicken breast & vegetables, chicken breast & vegetables in a rice bowl with some kewpie mayonnaise and salad, protein shake or protein yoghurt for a snack. But it has rice and mayonnaise included. And I had cheat days sometimes. And I wasn't hungry.

But it included none of the tenets of recovery.

I was deluded to think that rice and mayonnaise once a day would have saved me. I was ambitious to think an attempt at milk would have helped, milk that is still in my fridge now by the way. It was naive to think that I could disorderedly get myself through recovery. What's that saying? Insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Yeah, that one.

So I gave up on the milk. I went back to my water made oats after 2 days of crying about milk in the morning and panicking about how much it weighs and how to track it. "It's just so much smoother" I told myself and anyone who dared to listen. "It doesn't upset my stomach". Hell, to people I trust I even explained that I was just plain defeated by the milk. It was too scary.

I consulted with that psychologist I see every so often. I initiated the appointment by explaining I was going to share something vulnerable and asked that she focus more on reflecting and exploring the experience than providing an answer. She immediately jumped into telling me everyone has the same issues and to not worry about whether I relapse or not because I have no control. She told me it was silly, that I look fine and that it wasn't an issue. That sounds like permission enough to relapse if you ask me, just so long as I wasn't stressing about relapsing I could do it. 

Well that's a relief, now I can relapse in peace.

[Rice and mayonnaise exit stage left.]

Trying to keep my cool at work, getting a new job, ambiguous interactions with people at the gym and failing on exercises I used to find easy. Sleep at a beautiful 5hr average.

[Peanut butter runs off stage right.]

I awake to thoughts of whether I'm hungry or not, I sleep to fears of how much I ate, I move throughout the day with the hopes of undoing food.

Scales need new batteries and I body checked so hard I nearly walked straight into someone.

Body checking by proxy through the coaches and they're starting to get annoyed.

My brain has this beautiful skill to fall into the following conundrum: nobody will like me if I'm this big, and my eating disorder can solve that, but nobody deserves to be in a relationship with me while I'm in my eating disorder.

I want desperately to have a partner and a family, and I think my eating disorder will help me get that, but by engaging in my eating disorder I'm pulling myself away from social interactions and destroying the health that is necessary to have a family.

My eating disorder makes it difficult for me to engage in meaningful relationships and is the only skill I know to make someone find me attractive.

I don't find myself to hold any inherent worth or value without having some neat party trick like not eating for 72hrs.

My eating disorder is still the coolest thing about me.

And relapse kinda fucked that all up, because I don't really have any of the cool brag worthy behaviours that my eating disorder provides, and I certainly don't have any of the resulting physical manifestations of engaging in those behaviours either. So instead of resenting my brain for telling me the eating disorder is cool, I resent the recovery behaviours I've engaged in from pulling me away from the best thing about me.

Anyway, I'll get batteries for my scales and check how much weight I've lost so far and in a week or 2 I'll be down a little bit. It's wild how quickly this escalated to full blown eating disorder.

I will say, having friends tell me I need help and they don't want to be in my life anymore also kinda stung.

That's okay, I have my eating disorder to keep me safe and happy. I can keep myself company. I can go for walks and try new sugar free foods and eat cucumbers and drink water and black coffee.

What the fuck is wrong with me?