My friends Mia and Ana

So, I made a new friend, but Mia and Ana are very jealous. In fact not only them. Also other “real life” friends dislike my new friend. And it is not fair, it made me lie and it made me feel bad about myself so that Ana and Mia tried to take care of me. Mia especially on Friday and Saturday and then Ana took over. I have fought them though tonight. I had dinner. A good, healthy dinner.
Anyway, so I am glad I made this new friend. She is great. We have a lot in common and we don’t judge each other. I even asked her if she is anorexic and that I was worried about her, because she is really skinny, but she reassured that she is fine. That she actually tries to gain weight, but that her mother is also really tiny… so I believe her, although it is hard to believe. she is a pretty, but dangerously skinny girl. And also my other friends commented on that and said pejoratively that she was sick and anorexic. And they just looked at me like I was stupid when I said, that’s he may be, but that this was nothing to judge someone by and that she may have some problems because of that and that Anorexia and eating disorders in general are mental illnesses. They really looked as me as if I was talking crap. They don’t understand. And because of that it is making me angry that they judge her. They don’t know her. They talked to her a couple of hours-that’s it. Frustrating. So now I realized I would feel bad if i would tell them I was going to hang out with her. And since I do they kind of distanced themselves from me. I hate that. Talk to me but don’t treat me like that.

Anyway, I also saw this guy again this weekend. He was in town for a night and he came with his cousin to meet me at a bar where me and my new friend hang out. I went home with him and we got home at like 3am, staying at a Hard Rock Bar or something that late. It was good, fun and interesting people. And M. and I talked a lot, too, I did not tell him everything I talked about with my therapist but mentioned a couple of things, especially my problem with men and the way my brother treated me when I was younger. I also said that I had bad experience with men sexually but I did not say what happened. He asked me if I ever mentioned it to my therapist… and that I should. It’s difficult though and again, I have said that before – ye more I think about my past ye weirder it feels. There is so much I don’t even remember. I always thought I will never forget my life, but I have. I wonder what my life was like when I was little? It must not have been as great as I have always wanted it to be. I wasted my youth and there must be a reason why I did that.
It’s painful to think about it because I do not have an answer at this very moment, but I can sense the evil as strange as it may sound.

I want to start living again. I want to be whole with my soul and body.
I am working hard to get there but I am stumbling, there are too many rocks on the path and it’s sometimes too dark to see them before it’s too late.

How my childhood was really like

Breaking one lie at a time. This was basically the bottom line after therapy today.
I told her that I was scared that if I would stop creating lies around the truths of my life and if I would not repress my painful thoughts and memories that I could collapse, fall and eventually break. I am sensing my true self and it is painful to see how cruel it has really been for me to grow up and how hard life has been. I have always repressed these thoughts by saying I can be thankful for being who I am, for only having to deal with this, but the truth cut so much deeper that I even made up lies. I lied at myself. And I hate lies. It is such a dilemma. It is as if the fact that I am a professional liar makes me see all the liars around me right away. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s like a cat that can smell a character’s trait and then decides to like or dislike someone. I can do the same for liars and I can also do that for people I am being judged by, which is why I can’t deal with so many people and have a hard time with relationships. I don’t want to be judged. I want to be acknowledged.
This roots in my childhood. While my brother has been verbally and physically abusive towards me, I started to see myself as that kind of failure he would labeled me with. He would not only put me down in any kind of situation, basically everything I did was controlled by him, was judged by him, was “stupid”. He embarrassed me and destroyed the smallest bit of self-esteem that would have ever come up in me. It is very difficult for me to find the right words about him on here. I love him, he is my brother, and although I still can see this behavior in him and catch him looking at me (sensing it again) in a way that tells me, that he must think I am stupid, but he is probably one of the reasons, I am struggling today.
He has always been the smart one, he has always been the one with many friends, the one who got along with pretty much everyone, the one who knew what he wanted, the one being successful, the one succeeding… the one who made me become smaller and smaller…
And yet I know it is not all his fault. It’s society, it’s the world we were put in. We both did not chose to be in that very place and time and environment.
So, what should I do? How can I get rid of the thoughts telling me I am stupid?
My therapist said I need to acknowledge them. I need to understand that they are there because that is how I grew up. At one point I may be able to replace these thoughts. Hopefully.
So that is the first lie for me to break…
Acknowledging for myself that my childhood was not all that good. It was in fact horrible and one big hurdle that I am still stumbling over was or is my older brother. I sometimes wonder what was worse the verbal or the physical abuse. Life for any child must be a nightmare. And I am not really sure what to make out of this remark. I wished though, that this had been my only obstacle. And I wished by just posting about it on here it would be undone.

What I truly desire, lies within the secret of who I really am.

Who am I? This question is going through my head daily. Sometimes, I am able to push it aside. Sometimes I am just not. Today I think I should face it.
I cannot concentrate on my working tasks – I know I need to, and I will later, but I think maybe just in this very moment I need to focus on myself. Again.

So, I tried to think back on situations in my life in which I seem to have known myself and what I wanted.
Very difficult.
I remember that when I was 3 or 4 and competed in my first skiing races, I was devasted if I did not win a medal. I really was, although I just started skiing. But I lost and I thought I was actually a good skier. So, I envied those who won. They were all older and bigger than me, but all that mattered to me was: I lost. I can’t remember if my Dad at that time put pressure on me. I don’t think so. May have though. At any rate, when I was 13 I finally won first prize and I was proud, although my brother was putting me down in saying I was the oldest who competed, so it is not really a success. He was jealous a lot I suppose. I mean, he always pinched me or slapped me, and I always ran away from him, hiding in my “cave” or even in my closet. He must have had a lot of anger inside him when we were young and I don’t blame him at all. I sometimes wonder if he has come to terms with our parent’s divorce and the way Dad in a way rejected us. He had his own new family and we had to struggle daily.
Anyway, so I was born a perfectionist I believe, but I was never the best in anything.
Well, I was able to read when I was 4, but who cares? I mean once I entered Elementary school, I might have been ahead of some but I mean, they all picked it up fast. I was a good student. But I got very depressed if I was not as good as someone else. I always compared myself. I gave up quickly, too. I am not a fighter but I always wanted to be.

I always had such high expactations and at the same time high moral views and values. I also believed that I can accomplish anything I wanted, but for some reason I failed most of the time. I stumbled and fell. Every day.

When I was still in elementray school I believed in friendship. But I lost my best friends so easily to others who seemed to be so much better than me. I mean I was the one whose parents were divorced. I could never count on my dad. I had this big brother who would put me down and punch me if I did not do what he said. I could not do all the same things my friends did because I had to do hat my mom said, and we did not have the money for all the things other kids could have and do..
I have many friends today, but noone is like really close to me. Well, at least not in the sense that they REALLY know me. They know the person I presented to them: Funny, sarcastic, outgoing, direct, stubborn, sensitive, moral, sweet, courageous, smart, just living life. BUT, I am not. I don’t believe that is me. Maybe that is the only problem: I don’t believe in myself and if I walk through the streets alone, I am small, I want to disappear. At the same time if I walk through the streets with a friend, I know I am minor, too, although I wished I was ‘the better’ one. My friends would never think I would think that way… It’s just so ridiculous… over the time I have managed to master in my behaviors. I would be the one, bringing people together laying emphasis on the idea of LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, bound to teach tolerance, acceptance, individuality, while I myself felt like a failure constantly.

Another thing I always held on to for example was the idea of true love. I am kind of disenchanted with this belief today. Now that I have made painful experiences myself, but I always believed in the power of genuine love. It just never reached my ideal conception. And I am scared love as I believe in it does not exist or that I cannot receive it that way. And it is making me so angry, because I feel like there is so much love inside of me and I want to share it. But I feel like I have wasted it most of the time. I feel like I have made naive choices in the past. I regret so many steps I took to find that love. It has only been painful. Rejection, disappointment, abuse… all not contributing to my illusion of love. And all I want is feel it, I want to know how it is like to truly be loved and love that person back. Of course, I know my mom loves me and I love her, but I mean to find that special someone.
I cannot understand why I fail all the time.
Why do I scare people?
Why do I get scared myself?
Why does my heart tell me lies, why does it lead me into misery all the time?
All I want is to be happy.

I always thought just because I have not been deported from my country of origin, have not lived in diaspora, or was moved around in the early years of my life, that I knew who I am or better that I have to know who I am. I have never experienced anything traumatic myself, well, my parent’s divorce and the fact that I have been taken advantage of from several guys sexually, but if that already wrecks me where is my life going then anyway?
I know the world is a bad, cruel and unfair place, but I was fortunate enough to have the life I am in right now. I am not starving (I chose to or binge), I am not poor (but always spend my money right away), I have a job, a place to live, a car, a cat, friends, family… I should be happy.

But I guess the secret of who I am and what I really desire lies inside of me.

At the psychologist

I went to see Paula this morning and it was a good session… just extremely overwhelming.
And I took another step today: I talked to my “boss”. She was very understanding and I am glad she knows. She is great and I promised that my job will not suffer from this – in fact, work is the only thing I can still rely on and hold on to as well as pull myself out with from the real world around me.

At any rate. The session was basically about my family history or better my mom’s and grandparents family history.
Another issue we hit was me and my trust issues esp. with men which then connected to my past and my relation to my dad.
I guess my life has been stressful ever since I was born. Traumatic she called it. And I guess, I have just never talked to anyone about it really.

She talked to me about my self-confidence (which is at the moment not really existing) and we also leveled out, that I’m living in these two worlds.

There was so much, and I wished I could jsut write it all down, but I guess I need a while to let it sink in myself and maybe it organizes itself a bit and I will post on it later in more detail.
Gosh there is just so much.
I will need to reread my blog and make an analysis of the patterns I can find….

Also, I will go and weigh myself today. I’m very very scared, but I need to, because yesterday the not-knowing was one of the factors to push me to the b/p.

I wanna get better soon!

Maybe I need more than one session with Paula each week to speed it up. I will ask her about it.
Also, Amanda was saying something like she will not be able to see me any longer and I should find a nutritionist in the community. But I am just not sure…
I know when it’s about my health money should not matter, but if you don’t have that money it does matter and seeing Paula is not cheap already.

I need to find myself though.
I am so lost.

Therapy

Where do I start?
Maybe I should sleep a night and write then, but I felt today’s session was just really really really good. This psychologist, let’s call him Brian, is excellent. I’m kind of sad that today was the last time meeting with him, because I feel like in those few sessions we have hit very important and valuable points.

I don’t know where to start?
There was so much that fit in that hour!!
My childhood was part of it, as well as the break-up with my “bf”, me being a failure, me being stupid, fat, ugly, imperfect and of course me starting to realize things, my values, my morality, my will to change me and my behavior. Yes, it is a mental and behavioral change that I need to face. I can’t explain though, why I feel so strong now!!!
It is a great feeling. When I came home I looked in the mirror and saw a pretty good-looking girl who is able to give and receive a lot of love and who maybe even is quite awesome… I have NEVER thought that of me. NEVER. I don’t want to sound like I was full of myself, because I am not, but I start realizing that everyone has that unique, special beauty inside. We just have to let it out. And I am not talking about this superficial beauty our society tries to preach us.

(INSERT: I feel like I could tell my mom about this…. just this very moment I feel that, but I will not, I will need to reflect and think over this…. but eventually I may will… and I feel great about even thinking this right now!!!!)

Ok, I guess I should start with the childhood part touched…
I told him about my parent’s divorce, of course he already kne from the eval in the beginning but you know and that’s what I liked about Brain, he simply asked “I see you thinking” and I would start talking… of course that is his job, but he is doing it well.
I started off by saying, I know my childhood might have something to do with it, but I mean, I know, so should that not mean I am aware, and not develop a “stupid” behavior like that? I thought I accepted it and yes, I may have, but still my childhood formed me. He asked if I knew in what age human beings are most influencial, and of course I know… I said: “I read Freud.” He told me that “smart people like you, and you are smart, think that they can help themselves on their very own” and he is right, noone can help him/herself… this is probably the key to understanding psychology.

Oh, I am so happy I finally am getting help. I never thought I was sick, but I am. And I need help and I am receiving it at whatever costs!!!

Ok, so my childhood is one of the key parts of why I am binging and purging. I always was trying to get my dad’s attention, but never got it, until actually recently… Once I told him I will go to Texas to get my PhD he would care more about me. But still, our relatuonship today is not really good. Anyway, I will need to talk about this more with my new psychologist, let’s just call her Paula.

But it gets me to the next point which was actually our first point to discuss:

Me and my problems with trust and relationships….
He agreed with me that I was having troubles with relationships and trust. We hit that issue at the last session already. In the meanwhile my “bf” broke up with me. He said he was sorry and to be honest him saying that made me feel worse about it. I am trying to think that the break-up was for a good reason, but I am still believing that we might have a chance when I am cured. But him saying he was sorry makes it sound so definite. So done. So like what I am trying to ignore. This guy is just amazing and I actually saw him again tonight when I went home. I just need to look into his eyes and I feel secure.
Anyway, I know I need to accept his decision and it hurts very much, that Bulimia has destroyed this. But that is how it is.
I told Brian that I don’t trust people, simply because I always got hurt and simply because I am losing my faith in love. He said he was said I did not belive in love anymore. But I told him again that my values and morality is very idealistic and I asked if I had to stop holding on to them…. I am a little puzzled about this in fact… hmmm… I ust seet that now. Well, I wondered if my thinking was immature, if I was way too idealistic, if I needed to change that, if at 25 I should already give up in some views… should I???
Life is difficult.

In any case, I told him how Bulimia always made me feel minor, unwanted and guilty. I told him, that in the past I have been disappointed a lot. Many many people lied to me. Many people would use me and many people would simply turn out to be different in what I was always thought they were. And yes, my experiences have caused my faith in love and the good in people to fade but Brian made me realize that if we give up the faith (in whatever way) we will give up faith in ourselves. And yes, I am the living proof.

So, he asked me what happened if I met someone (a guy for instance) and I told him that I don’t let people get close to me. He asked me why and I said because I was scared. He asked me about my (now) ex “bf” and I said that I believed he was perfect, that I thought I could trust him and that I even told him that I was bulimic and other things…. but I forced it to fail. I told him how I knew how to end relationships myself rather than having the guy hurt me. I told him about how I knew what to say to make him not want me anymore: that is, by saying things that person would not agree with, by acting a certain way that I knew the other person would not want and by being simply not myself. He said this was typical for people who had problems with relationships and he asked if I wanted to end up alone. I found that pretty harsh but now I think he is right in confronting me with that. No, I do not want to be alone (not only speaking in the sense of love-relationships). I play safe, but am not secure about myself at the same time.

Which in brevity brings us to the next point:
self-esteem, insecurity…. self-image
He pretty much told me in my face that I was very insecure. Well, he said it indirectly (as he did with most statements, but this was a great strategy). I caught exactly what he was saying and agreed. I know I have low self esteem which is why I feel so strange about feeling so good today, I guess. Inever found myself pretty nor successful or even perfect (While I know start realizing that perfection is nothing to really strive for, but even normality is sort of difficult).
Anyway, I lost my “bf” because of how I was used to be dealig with relationships and trust. I still wished I could turn back time, but I try to accept how it is. It is hard, and now I feel very sad. But even though there would be much more to write about but now I feel like I should let things settle a little.

I got a movie from netflix on eating disorders it recieved bad ratings but I felt like I should still watch it and see…. so I will do so now and am thankful for this day, it was exhausting, interesting, enlightening, good.

I keep fighting.