anorexia settling in

Once you really stop (eating) it becomes more and more hard to eat again, or to even want to eat again. Food suddenly becomes very frightening

Arriving back in the mountains after Courtney was born was the time at which I really went down hill.
( 4.12.01) I can tell I am not better at all now because I so wish I could be back there. It was near death, and although I don’t wish to die I do wish I could have such a scare so I can see what this is doing to me. As ironic as that sounds it is the truth. I know what it can do to me, but because I haven’t had a big enough scare I feel the need to push on and see what happens.
I pretended I was still doing okay, and even pretended to be enthusiastic about my first visit to the dietician in Penrith. At this stage I weighed about 43kgs. The dietician wrote out a diet list for me which frightened the life out of me. I told her how I was going with the basic plan that Deanne gave me but she insisted that I need to eat more. I decided to eat some of what she had told me, but was going to prove my point that it was too much for me.
I lived on rice cakes with alfalfa on top, and rice noodles with a handful of corn thrown in. I slowly lost more weight and the dietician was doubting that I was eating anything at all. I thought that was really funny because I knew I was eating, so I couldn’t understand myself why I was actually losing weight by eating real food and not just drinking tea and coffee. Shelly, the counsellor was by far not impressed. I had such a problem seeing her. She towered over me and was so intimidating. What I hated the most was when I tried to tell her how I felt she ignored it and just kept trying to give me practical solutions for day to day problems. I wasn’t feeling any better at all by seeing a counsellor who Is meant to be able to deal with eating disordered patients.
I gave up trying to be sensible from then, and stopped eating altogether. All I had through the day was coffee and tea. I walked to tech from the train, which talk a good hour, then walked back again in the afternoon’s.
When I got to 39kgs, Shelly and the dietician got together to discuss me and my weight loss and decided I needed to see another doctor who then ordered me to have an ECG and various blood tests. It was strangely satisfying to be talked about. I felt as though I had almost reached a point of “real anorexia”. I had become a case where they thought I needed more help. Unfortunately I never received the right help, otherwise I would be sitting here at the correct weight, and feeling happy about my life. Not still trying to achieve the goal of skinniness.
It was a Thursday morning when I had my blood test and ECG. I was lucky to have Hanna come along with me because I am absolutely scared shit of needles. I told the people who were giving me the needle that I was going to pass out, but no body believed me. They kept saying “you’ll be right love, just take a deep breath and don’t look.” initially I was okay, until we got up to leave. Hanna was walking ahead of me,
then everything went black and I had passed out. I think I was out for about 10 minutes. I was actually lucky they didn’t drag the doctor in. After that little episode I was to have my ECG. Now that was embarrassing. All sorts of thing were hooked up to me to test my heart rate. The worst part of it was that a cute guy was doing this and I had to take my bra off. My only consolation was that I would probably never see him again.
To my amazement (not) the blood tests all came back low, and the ECG was no good. My heart rate read as 38 beats per minute. The doctor said if it was any lower I would be hospitalised. Stuff that like I really cared then. I have to admit that I was a bit worried, but because I felt no different, or didn’t even feel sick it didn’t really hit home to me. I became obsessed with my heart rate from then. I knew what was good and what was bad, and every time I checked my pulse I was content if it was lower than 50 beats per minute. The thing I was most worried about from that day too was that they would try to hospitalise me. I had a few more visits to the doctor who actually requested all the tests, and she kept drumming into me that any day now I would end up either dead or in hospital. I hated seeing her yet at the same time I wanted to just to see how far I could push her until she put me in hospital. My attitude reflected the way I looked then…horrible. I didn’t care at all that I was at death’s door, too be honest though I didn’t really believe it. I read about people who had died from it but that wouldn’t happen to me. I was little Miss Invincible whose body held out for this long and there’s no reason why it wouldn’t go on longer because I still had enough fat to lose.
I really had no idea then. I was a walking skeleton with a sunken hollow face, bones poking out through places they shouldn’t be, and a smile…did I really know what that was then?? I wasn’t skinny enough though. I wanted to be skinnier. I guess that comes with the disease. You are never skinny enough. I may be able to count my rib cage even through my back but that is not skinny enough. Until my legs are skinny I refuse to believe that I am too skinny.