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[milotic17]

I've been MIA for a while.  I think it's been at least a year now.  I've decided it might be a good idea to get back to writing here, though.  I'm not doing this in an attempt to reintegrate myself into the LJ community or anything--I had few followers to begin with, and I'm sure many of them have forgotten about me at this point--but because I

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[milotic17]

Thank you so much, Whitney. Your comments really mean a lot to me. You always have such kind things to say.

I do plan on getting on a meal plan. I have a name for a nutritionist and plan on calling tomorrow to make an appointment. Personally I've never found nutrition visits to be that helpful. After a while I pretty much knew everything they would teach me, and I never would follow the meal plans, because I knew doing so would cause me to either gain or maintain my weight (depending on where it was at the time), which I was dead-set against, so obviously eating everything on there wasn't going to happen. My parents came to see it as a huge waste of time because I'd essentially just bring the MP home and toss it somewhere and not look at again, and I guess I didn't see the point of it either. I still don't feel like seeing a nutritionist is ever going to necessarily be the biggest factor in my recovery, but I can see the logic behind it in this case. I honestly and truly don't see a problem with what I'm eating and think it's perfectly adequate, but clearly that's not the case, and I think it will be helpful for someone to spell it out for me. I guess I really need to know how much I need to eat to stop losing. My only worry is that I'm at a place where I need to gain weight, and I'm afraid that's what the focus will be on and the nutrionist will only tell me how much I need to eat to gain. Right now I really need to focus on stopping the weight loss first, I think, and what I really feel like I need is to know how much I need to eat to maintain right now. Everytime I try to eat more I get scared that it'll make me gain, so I think the first thing I need to do is learn the right amount for maintaining at this point. If what she gives me is the amount to gain it's unlikely I'll follow it, and then I'll probably underestimante how much I need to eat and keep losing. Hopefully she'll be willing to work with me on this.

The self-hate thing is really tricky, because it's not like there is one big specific example I can give, and I know that. I guess I just feel so much guilt over a bunch of things from over the years. It's like I remember every little thing I've ever done wrong and don't let myself forget. Like, I can remember things I said and did in, say, high school and almost wish I could apologize for them, when in reality the person I affected may not even remember that I did these things at this point. I guess I just take every single thing I can blame myself for and add them up, and, though I suppose they're not huge alone, together they become massive, or at least in my head. I know on some level it doesn't make sense, but it's something that seems to have become completely ingrained in me at this point. It's like I don't know why I know it--I just do. Yet I realize it's illogical. My mother will say things like how I'm such a good person and whatnot, and it's like I can't even stand to hear it. What you said reminds me of a conversation from work some months ago. Somehow the end of the world became the topic of conversation (you know, because of the whole 12/12/12 thing), and the discussion turned to Jesus coming down and judging who would go to heaven and who would go to hell. Anyway, someone commented that none of us needed to worry, and I don't remember what my reactions was, but I guess it hinted that I didn't believe that, and she was, "jeez Kara, have you murdered someone or something?" Thing is that I really think I would go to hell, if only for being so self-destuctive, which I suppose is a sin. This gets into all sorts of tricky religious stuff, though, so I won't elaborate.

[milotic17]

I know my parents love me, and beyond that I know that they just like me as a person and enjoy spending time with me and whotnot. I'm not sure why, beyond the expected parental love for child thing (although I know that's not always even a give, which, frankly, breaks my heart...no child should ever have to feel unloved by his or her parents, but, again, this is an issue too large to get into). Honestly, though, I think they happen to be fond of me beyond that even, although, like I said, I don't understand it. My fear is not that they'll stop liking me, but that they just won't be able to be near me because it's too painful watching me harm myself. I'm afraid it will make them too sad and they'll have to back away. I hate even thinking about what my stuggles have done to my mother. It's awful, and I feel awful about it. I think maybe they just won't be able to take it at some point. They'll become both too sad by what I'm doing and too frustrated by my inability to stop. I don't know that they'll ever give up on me, but I can't help but remember that they're only human, too.

Malnutition is such a tricky thing. I really don't believe it's at the bottom of my depression. I became severly depressed a few years before my eating disorder, and I feel like becoming anorexic was more of a response to being depressed than the other way around. I know poor nutrition has an effect on mood and thinking, and I know it doesn't help my situation, but it's just not the main factor in my depression. After I went off of Abilify last May I felt much less anxious about food and weight. I started eating better, and I maintained my weight. In fact, I didn't start losing until I decided to cut some things out this winter because I was so far above my set point. Those six or so months in the meantime were probably the least eating disordered I've had since developing this illness over eight years ago. I maintained a healthy weight (above and beyond what was necessary), ate what I wanted and adequately, and the ED thoughts quieted substantially. In fact, my thoughts still are not nearly as disordered as they always were, although there are obviously some things I don't view clearly. The thing is, though, I was as depressed as always. I do understand that in the grand scheme of things six or so months isn't a massive amount of time; I know that. My depression has never really been about me ED, though. Obviously they're not separate--they can't be--but, at the core of things, my ED is not what makes me depressed. I think I turn to my ED when I am depressed. There are differences in my thinking when I'm actively anorexic, without doubt, but they're mainly things related to food and weight. I think about it constantly (no surpise there). I compare myself to every girl I see and always find myself lacking. I constantly scrutinize every inch of my body. Because all I think about is the ED it runs all of my free time; I watch ED-related videos online, go on ED websites (and by that I do not pro-ana, though), read ED books, etc. When the ED thoughts lessened roughly a year ago this changed. I'm amazed about how little attention I pay to other women's sizes; in fact, I almost feel like I don't see as many skinny people as I used to, but I know that it's not like the population is suddenly way fatter than it was just a year ago. I go on websites related to things other than EDs. I have had no real desire to read the latest ED books (no, no even Portia's!). I'm not afraid of eating everything but the safest foods. I just don't think about it as much. It really is true what they say about how having good nutrition and maintaining a good weight lessens how distorted your views on these issues are and makes them less prominent in your head, although, yes, it takes a hell of a long time. I think my body image has even improved a little. It made a difference, of course, but I did not become less depressed as a whole. In some ways it's even become weird because I'm not sure how to fill up this big gap in my life.

[milotic17]

I guess that's part of what makes me feel hopeless. For years I was promised that if I ate well and maintained a proper weight I would be happy. No one claimed it was a cure-all, but they said I would be less depressed, less anxious, more social, would feel better about myself, etc. I won't say that nothing's happened; there's everything listed above, and obviously when you're not starving and sick you just function better, both cognitively and physically. I just don't know that good nutrition is the big answer. It wasn't there at the beginning, so I'm not sure why it would be there at the end. I know I've never maintained a period of being completely free of the ED for, say, years, but that's not what my depression is about. It wasn't caused by the ED, although I do understand that malnutrition can never help these issues. I don't know. Having ED thoughts that are less strong and frequent has certainly been a positive, but it hasn't really made me happier. Of course, the fact that I seem to be going back in that direction makes no sense, but hopefully that will change.

I'm just unsure of what to do because I feel like I've tried pratically everything, and I'm still stuck with the same messed up mind. It's hard to feel hope when you just can't see where it could possibly come from. I keep waiting because I haven't given up on the idea that something will change, but I don't know what, and whatever it is seems like it must be completely out of my hands at this point. That might not be true, but I feel like I'll try anything and there just isn't much of anything to try. How long is it reasonable to expect someone to hold on when you don't know when things will change, or if they'll necessarily even change at all?

Anyway, sorry to ramble and write so much. Thank you again for commenting. It really does mean a lot to me.