One of the few girls I could relate to on the documentary THIN, Polly, passed away last week on Friday. In all honestly, it broke my heart. I spent all day in bed, laying around and feeling sorry for myself. But I can't do that anymore. Her disease killed her. I honestly thought she would make it, I looked up to her and now she is gone.

Another slap in the face reminder of how real this all is. Of how lucky I am. I have life in my hands and I have a fighting chance. You are at a computer right now which means you have access to the technology that half the world could only dream of. You most likely have access to food. I know it's easier said than done...believe me, I know more than a lot of people I am acquainted to...it's so hard. But you have to try. You have to try for her family, for her friends, for the little girls who look up to you. If you are reading this, I know you can do it. I know I can do it. I know we can get through this together. We're gorgeous and we deserve to see and know that.

We deserve better than this.

Polly deserved better than this. And now she's gone. But we're still here. And it's our responsability to make sure we keep it that way so we can pass on the word and stop the hurt that has affected so many lives and yet continues to engulf us all. We can stop this. We can make a difference. It starts with us. It all starts from the inside.

I'm coming back to you, dear old buddy. It's like the friend who you keep running back to when you're scared...or clutching to your mom's hand. This blog, everytime I'm scared or hurt I come running back. Within an hour of when I last posted! Pathetic.
Scared, want to keep writing forever about how I feel so I don't have to necessarily think about it too much.

I am depressed. I don't know when it started. Maybe yesterday around three in the afternoon? Can't tell if it's anything to be worried about. Can't tell if in within the next hour I'll freak or do something stupid. I can never tell how severe things will be. If I'll cry or hear things due to stress. Or if I'll just mope and then be done with it.

Ceslie is depressed again too, she says. I never know what to say. Always I'm sorry, why? And she says, like I know. And usually now she gets pissy at me. I wish I could say me too. I wish I could say that it's all downhill. I wish I could talk about what I think about at night and tell people why I can't sleep. I wish I could tell someone what's been going on. I wish that I could do that and feel better. I wish that the thought of talking about my feelings didn't make me want to barf. But all I know is that it's going to be another long night.

Claire has already sent me a letter saying she's also depressed and she says she's angry at me. Which means she'll get pissy. And Maddie is mad because we haven't hung out. And so is Dustin. So it will be a night of people texting and calling and writing about how I mistreat them. It will be another night of how I don't understand how depressed they are. I just don't get it, right?

I don't want so many people to place their happiness in my hands anymore. I don't want to be responsible for all these people. I don't want to be the scape goat or the wast basket where they unload their crap. I mean, I don't mind, it makes me feel trusted and like I'm helping. But more than five people a day is like...no, especially when if they're not happy it's my fault. It's not like that with everyone, just a lot of them.  

Ceslie is constantly updating me on how much she weighs and how much she doesn't care about it. Maybe that's true but it is triggering and makes me want to kill myself when she does these things. "Thanks. You cursed me...I'm *a certain weight*. Happy now? Oh, and I don't care either!" She might be telling the truth that she doesn't care but the way she states it she cares a whole lot. And it seems like...well...why is it a curse or even a big deal to gain weight? Why does she have to constantly remind me of weight and size and all of that? Why is she so constantly insensitive to my feelings.

I tried one time, once. I tried to explain to her how much it hurt me. She went on a rant to explain why it shouldn't. As if her "logic" can fix all of this. Everytime I want to say how I feel she counters it and makes me feel stupid for telling her how I feel. And then she wonders why I have a hard time communicating my problems. Maybe because they all get shot down.
She doesn't realize that it hurts! No matter how much she apologizes and says I love, IT HURTS. And it makes me want to die.

Oh my god, I think I'm going to throw up, I feel physically ill. I need to go.

It's been the fourth day of not eating all day and then pigging out slightly (but not quite binging) around midnight. I don't want to be unhealthy. I don't want to eat bad foods, I don't want to not eat. I don't want to worry about it. I've already got other things to worry about. Why can't I even get the basics right? Why can't I learn how to keep myself alive and healthy so that I can have a fighting chance at the other stuff?

I wish I could forget, but of course I won't. Of course I can't expect anything from the situation I'm in right now. I can't expect things to end well or for closure. It's not happening. It never will. I'm not meant to be in relationships. I say this in all seriousness, it's just a fact I am accepting. It doesn't work for me, I can't make it work.

I can't even make myself work...it's been another night up all evening. I don't have time to take a nap because I need to do school work and then go to work and then go to belly dance class and then call Claire because she's going through a hard time.

I shouldn't have time to hurt over a silly thing like a guy. I shouldn't have time to starve or pig out. I should eat my three meals and do my work and be grateful. I should face facts and live responsibly and be logical. I shouldn't be living so unhealthily, being so risky, staying up all night sitting in the backyard with my cd player and thinking about things that are never going to happen. It is not going to happen. I will not let myself get put down and let down and pushed down again. Maybe it's pessimistic but I'm just trying to be careful for once. I should know by now that it's not smart to feel these things.

I want to go outside and take a walk and then just drive and drive...drive really far away. Sometimes I get this surge of energy and passion and feel I'm better than all of this. I don't need anything or him to hold me down. I want to leave this town somedays. Somedays I want to just go and hopefully leave all the hurt behind. Of course it's not just me anymore. It's everyone. It's us. Can't just pick up and leave. It's scary.

I used to try and keep myself so busy that I wouldn't find time to eat or focus on "trivial things like hunger". Now, it's the exact opposite. I'm so busy all the damn time and I try to use that in a way to keep myself distracted from huge things like triggers, unhealthy thoughts, putting myself down, and relapsing. The latter is a bit more difficult than anything else I've ever tried to accomplish.

I wish I had the time, which I don't, to go into detail about my night last yesterday. But I really don't. Basically belly dancing has once again saved my friggin' life. I have never experienced anything more unifying and empowering than this. I'm moving on to the next level of belly dance. Last night I finished my last class of level three. So now we start learning huge choreographies and performing at events bigger than just haflas. We get to start a troup. Which is all I'm even a little bit used to right now. What a way to feel important and beautiful and talented. What a way to feel like a decent person.

I think if women would just try to do something selfish for themselves that did not involve the media or self hate, it would make a world of a difference.

So anyway. I'm a busy chick right now.

Wake up in the morning idealy early and do school work/studying/projects until around three. Go to work until only (thank god) around seven. Monday is belly dancing class after that. Tuesday is yoga. Wednesday and Thursday more belly dancing. Friday nights are usually free though.

It's hard to keep in touch with everyone though. I'm usually not fed and done with school and classes and work until around nine pm. Not enough to time to communicate with even half the people I need to.

Not enough to time to focus on the self doubt and uneasiness and fear about health and this work that it is. So it usually all comes spilling over in a breakdown eventually after being bottled up for so long.

I'm going to give myself just a few rules about how I'm eating now. See, before, when I decided to finally let myself eat and live I could not have any rules at all. Any restrictions or regulations turned bad and I manipulated them and relapsed. So I've gone months without any rules, without any scales or counting or anything. I feel healthier. But I do not feel healthy. I've not been eating right...like, most days I eat enough. But I don't eat healthy food or healthy amounts. I need to try and take baby steps and slowly implement rules or maybe just guidelines to make sure that I'm healthy and not just eating.

So yeah, I get to perform a duet my sister and I put together. I've been extremely sick so it's amazing we even planned anything, whether or not it's good. Haha. I'm not really nervous, just calm and content about it. As long as I get to be with people who share a passion for this, and I get to share my ideas and passion for belly dancing with them - I'm good.

So close to relapsing a few nights back. Wait. That's putting it lightly. So close to committing suicide a few nights back. That's pathetic, huh? I can't believe that was a few nights back. It's been a while...off any medicine at all. Went from diet pills upon diet pills and anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills, and anti-psychotics...to just nothing. I don't know how I feel about that. I do like the idea of starting with a clean slate though. Especially with my new healthy lifestyle.

And who knows, when I can truly call myself healthy and stable and less likely to relapse and be triggered all the time (I'm walking on egg shells at this point) maybe I'll discover I may still need a pill...I may still have a chemical imbalance. But let's try this out and just see what happens, okay? That's what I keep telling myself.

Right now it all sounds fine and dandy though, you see, because right now I'm happy Amy. And she's nowhere to be found but I promise you she's there...she's hiding in there somewhere and she will come back. So what I have to do right now is just take care of me and remember how I feel now and that this is what's important...not the anxiety. This feeling is what matters.

And then again, what is this feeling?

Being healthy is the hardest thing I've ever attempted to do in my entire life. I swear. I think it will always be that way.

I haven't talked to him in like almost three weeks. That's pretty crazy. You know what else is pretty crazy? I'm still hurting from my chest to everywhere else. The ache and the joy and the twinge all over is still there. I wonder how much longer it will take to go away. I keep telling myself that this is like the other people I've cared for who I didn't really care for. Ha. And I don't want to talk about it to other people because I don't want them to know that I feel anything but resentment for this guy. Because...eventually, hopefully, someday soon that will be true. Someday soon maybe I'll hate him and that's it. Someday soon I'll forget about everything that's gone but so close, like our friendship, and the pain, and the happiness. Someday I'll gain my freedom from these feelings, and lose my old friend.

I have never felt so alone and lost. I can't put anything into words. It is so incredibly...phsyically hard even, to talk about anything right now. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I don't know how to tell you.

And I don't know how to tell anyone how disgusted I feel. How fat and unworthy I feel. How do you explain the pressure to be a role model when you have none for yourself? How do you be healthy when people you respect around you are slowly killing themselves and triggering you every five seconds. How do I explain how insecure I feel about myself.

How do I explain and still sound convincing about wanting to be healthy when last night I almost gave up on everything?

How do I say I need a hug. But not from just anyone. I need a hug from someone who has been there, who is still there, someone who is in it just like me and who really, passionately with all their might is trying too.

I am afraid to open my eyes all the way because one blink...and it was a huge letdown.

I miss you, and I don't understand why I do.

Today I had my appoitment with my therapist. I told him (after the 'how are you') small talk about how the past two nights I had purged for the first time in forever. We talked about how I felt. How pressured things are getting to be. And he said something like, "You are a creature of extremes, Amy." And I agree whole heartedly.

I don't know why but for some reason he asked me how my friends were taking everything and I just began to cry so hard that I could barely breathe. When I had (sorta) calmed down I started yelling about how much pain there has been. There has been pain in feeling so alone in an eating disorder, trying so hard to get out of it so you can be healthy like everyone else, working so hard for everyone, only to wake up and realize... everyone else was unhealthy too. Just to different degrees. Everyone hates themselves too, I just didn't notice it I was so consumed in myself. So everyone is a walking trigger to me. I wanted to work to be like everyone else only to realize that I'm probably at the moment healthier than all of my friends. Combined.

Working so hard to find a role model, a buddy...a shoulder to cry on. Someone to look up to, someone healthy and comfy in their own skin. No one. That's so rare. I wasn't an outcast before when I was sick. But now I am. I have never felt so alone. I have never felt so ostracized for wanting to be healthy and love myself.

So that's what I told him. And I sobbed all the way home. I told him our societ seemed helpless...he lifted up his hands and sighed, "...you're right."

So I'm posting again because I'm really sad and this is a good distraction. I want it to go away.

And I purged last night after dinner. No idea where it came from, I wish I could pin down the answer so that I would know when another panic attack like that could happen again. I was on the phone while it happened is what's sad.

Would it be crazy to say sometimes I find it so hard to not hate myself? I mean, how selfish can you get? I can't believe that I did that...especially at the time I did it. I don't know, it's not okay, but what am I supposed to do? It's in the past. But it seems to be that the past has caught up with me and keeps holding onto my ankles while I drag it around behind me like a begging, slobbering beast that can't...won't let go.

Anyway, belly dance class tonight was fun. Learned another dance, the longest one yet and I feel confident about it. My mom did something really nice for me and said to me later after class that I was a really good dancer and that my isolations were clean and smooth. And I don't know, it's a mom thing to compliment, but I want to believe this for tonight. I need tonight to be different from last night. I need to have some self esteem.