No Way Out

The following is an excerpt from my journal. It was written a few months prior to me realizing that inpatient treatment was inevitable. I not only needed to go, but I had to go. I would have died without help. I had tried on my own to beat the eating disorder. I was at rock bottom. I was no longer able to even pretend that I was okay. I had no hope left, and the only thing carrying me was my family. The burden on them was getting to be too much. I was destroying them- emotionally and mentally. I found this in my journal and think it sums up a lot of what I felt in the months leading to my stay at an inpatient facility to finally confront the eating disorder, and the issues behind the development of the disorder.

"I can hear laughing out in the kitchen. I should be out there. I give myself credit for even being in the house. Well, I don’t have a choice really since it is below zero outside. I am in a lot of pain today- both emotional and physical. My stomach is swollen and feels like a thousand knife blades are slicing through it. I cannot even look at my body. It disgusts me. I ask myself over and over again why do I continue to eat? The eating perpetuates the stomach pain and makes me feel worse. Yet, I still do it. Binge after binge. I have not learned my lesson. Why not? If I so desperately want to be thin, then why am I not starving myself? I do not get it. Maybe because I know that it will be impossible to maintain the weight loss. I have not been able to do so in the past. I know that the road of starvation will not get me anywhere, but either does eating. I am stuck in this body that makes me so sick that I try to numb myself to get away from it. School distracts me. Allows me to pretend that I am not in this body.  That I do not have an eating disorder. It is a way out. It does not work for long. I go and go for so long, and then I can go no more. I feel that my well has run dry. I have no strength to continue on. Nothing to draw from. It is all gone. I do not even feel a flicker of hope. Just despair. Desperation because all I want is a way out. A way for the pain to go away. I want a quick fix-and there is none. The only way out is a quick death. Yes, suicide. I have thought about it. Never planned it out, but I have wished for death. Because I cannot find any relief from the pain. It is constant. It is with me while awake, and while I sleep. I sometimes sleep to get away from the pain. But when I awake, my first thought is why? Why did I have to wake up to this pain once again? If I could have glimpses of or moments of relief, then maybe I would find hope once again. Why can’t I be fat and happy? Or better yet, thin and happy? Or even better yet, just happy? Why do I have to be so miserable all the time. I ask the question “why” a lot. I guess I am just searching for answers. Anything that might give me a path to follow. A reason for this craziness that occupies my mind. Most of all, I am looking for something to give me a reason to live.  Something that shows me that I deserve to be here. I guess what hurts the most is the loneliness, and my inability to change that.  I can hardly get dressed anymore. I cannot live with this pain any longer. I say this all the time, and then I keep going. But there is no quality to my existence. I just want this to all go away, and it devastates me that it is not going to. People say I am selfish. I can see why. I always thought people that were selfish thought they were better than others and wanted the attention to be on them. I am the opposite of that, but since I have no energy or interest in being with others people see that as being selfish. Being consumed by this pain leaves me little energy to deal with anything. I am too busy trying not to feel. When I do feel, I fall apart. I am a wreck. There is no relief. No relief.

My brother says there has to be another way out. That I need to change my focus. I need a new reality. How does one change reality? I was always taught that reality was concrete. There was reality and then there was imagination. Do I have to imagine loving my body? Imagine that it is thin? That it is acceptable? That it does not take up too much room? I don’t know anymore.  Others say that I like to be sick. I do not think I like being sick., but I cannot figure a way out of the sickness."