DEAR EDDIE/DEAR FRED

 Poor body image. I have a "phantom" muffin top; it's not really there, I got rid of it, yet I still feel it there. I'm pretty sure I can still even see it in the mirror occasionally. Years past, I remember looking at myself sideways in the mirror from time to time, grabbing the whole mess that was my stomach area in my hands an pressing it together between my palms, trying to pull out and away to the side, trying to hide it... so that I could see what I might look like with a small waist.  Now, the "phantom" never goes away. Even when I know it has.  

Wowie!  I was this year's old today when I found out that there are hundreds, thousands even,  of audiobooks posted to YouTube.  This sure sparks a lot of joy for me. I love reading.  I LOVE someone reading out loud to me.  This happens rarely if hardly ever at all.  The last time I was read to was in the fifth grade, Mr. Dunn, my teacher, read the entire Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy one hour at a time for the whole school year.  Whenever I read these novels myself, I still hear Mr. Dunn's voicing the characters and I still pronounce the names and the odd languages the way he did.  When someone reads out loud to me, everything else in my life just vanishes away and I'm Bilbo trying to save his own life by playing the riddle game...or I'm tripping down the yellow brick road, or I'm colonizing another world.  Even poetry had me singing a Song of Myself.  It seems to make troubles sink into the back nether regions in my mind, and joy to just pop in my heart

The one nice thing about blogging, journaling, diary keeping, whatever, is that once I’ve written something, even the ED stuff, once it’s out of my brain like that and onto the blog, I’ve been able to put it out of mind.  Like, it’s here on the blog and I don’t have to keep ruminating about it.  It’s here if I want to go back and read it, like a repository.  Both good and bad thoughts live here, even those tricky random thoughts that we know intellectually are not real, just random, but ones we tend to listen to and think they are truth.  They are not anything of the sort, just random slag in our heads. Some are fluffy, some…..not so much.  I’d like to keep the fluffy and put the slag in the recycle bin, please and thank you.

  "When you train to failure, also known as "concentric failure," you reach the point at which whatever part of your body you're working out literally gives out (or fails) and you physically can’t complete another repetition with good form If doing another rep is possible, you haven't reached muscle failure." ~ definition from  the Very well Fit website Have I trained my whole body to failure?  Yesterday, I was so incredibly fucking tired after workout, I could barely keep from passing out.  Today, I'm now below my lowest recorded weight, which was the number that brought on the epiphany that clued me in to think that there might be something wrong.  I don't want to go to inpatient, I'm not ready, but now I wonder if the reason that I don't want to is because I'm somehow afraid it will help and I don't want to fail at becoming fit yet again.  But……isn't that actually the definition of how I train?  I'm really having difficult

If any one person deserves to be happy, it's me. If anyone else deserves happiness, it's you, too.

 No one praises me spontaneously, not when I was a kid, not even as an adult. I have to be actively starving myself to death before I am worthy of notice, I guess. And then it's just click the heart and forget it. The only time in the entirety of my life I do anything that is praiseworthy is when I lose weight. Even the significant others in my life never do it.  And yet, people keep telling me I need to give encouragement to others, sheesh...I've done that  my whole life.   Anxiety, depression, and anorexia nervosa has me living in hell.

" The Perfect is the enemy of the Good"…otherwise known as "I'm not crazy, just broken." Let me make this perfectly clear:  no one made me become sick with a mental illness, societal norms or cultural standards of beauty did not push me into being thin.  I have anorexia nervosa because the genetic markers to have anorexia nervosa are hardwired into my DNA (I can and will show y’all the original studies and all the subsequent conclusive replications of said study) , which in turn has been exacerbated into its current use as a coping mechanism by childhood bully abuse and other types of trauma in my life.   I have been beaten up by eating disorders my entire life, and have never been at peace with my plate.  I am not a model that is being pressured to be the thinnest. What I am is someone who’s mental health has caved in to the pressure of being me.  Of being enough.  Of being my idea of perfection, or what I've been made to believe was my perfect.  Being

 In one month, it is my 61st birthday.  I'd like to have spa time, just to get some aesthetic stuff done, such as lash extensions and have my eyebrows micro bladed.   I should really make an appointment, but I don't seem to be able to just pick up the phone and do it.  I'm also considering a short vacation trip to Ocean Shores...I know people there I could visit, and I love it there.  I really like just doing normal things right now, even if I'm by myself 💫

 "Blood work is all you need worry about".....yeah, fuck that.   I'm no health care professional, but even I know that's a dirty lie.  How can you state that you're completely healthy when you refuse to study the whole picture?  And how do you expect a doctor to treat you without all the information? Don't let someone on the internet that doesn't care about their health, "influence" you to not care about yours.

 I just found a very well made documentary about Anorexia Nervosa.  It gives info on the latest medical research, and most importantly, what is is... and what it is not .  If you have someone in your life that is suffering from it, I highly recommend watching it more than once; educating yourself on this horrible life threatening illness is one of the best ways to support that someone.  Here's the link: https://youtu.be/HJDAcrgbIuQ Please watch it.  You'll gain a much better understanding of it...it helped me fill in a lot of gaps.

  "1 in every 5 people diagnosed with this illness will die from it."  Those odds suck an awful lot.   "50% of these deaths are from suicide." No thank you. I've got crazy fun stuff to do and see in the world, so I'll be busy.

I’m pretty content with my therapist…so far, it’s been a soothing, kind experience.  Blogging has started out well, hopefully I can sustain it, as this isn’t my first rodeo.  I’m learning to stop watching the news once the agitation and anger start up.  Cooking for the Lads is okay, now that they understand I won't take apathy when it’s time to plan meals.  It’s their food, not mine after all. I do my own planning for myself, such as it is. And there are tentative plans in the works for camping in a few months, that’s one of my favorite activities.  Now, if I could only cut down on the amount of bloody coffee I drink.

Whenever I have/need to look at my food logs, check my lists, count calories like mad, and recheck to see if I've exercised enough and deserve it, all to figure out what to have for a meal, and just obsess, obsess, obsess until I'm tired of it, it's just so much less work just to skip it...not eating is so much easier.  I'm wondering if Eddie came up with that to deter me from food.

 Okay, that's out of the way.  This is my disclaimer/info post.  When needed, I'll refer folks back to this, just in case.  I'll give more info about me as needed. I warn y'all now...I take no responsibility if you think your actions were engaged by my words - manage your own triggers yourself, it will NEVER be my job to do that for you.  If you need help learning how to do that, go to a therapist.  If you don't like how, what, or why I post, you have the choice to leave.  You are welcome to shame me on your own social media. I don't care about likes or dislikes, or if I ever get any sort of audience, I do not care about any of that. Flouncy exit posts and comments designed to provoke me or shit on me or mine will be deleted, because it all boils down to one thing and one thing ONLY - It's. MY. Blog.   This is a non-fluffy, non-romantic diary to Eddie, my eating disordered head space, and Fred, my non-eating disorder "normal" brain.  I'm not an