Red dress

My red dress is very tight.
Very very tight.
When I undressed for my shower this morning, the large mirror hid nothing from my eyes, the eyes that were pulled to see despite the avoidance which the ED so eagerly wanted.  The ED does not want to see a body on the way to recovery. The ED cannot admit defeat. The ED is so filled with ego that the win against it will be so rewarding. I hope this is all worth it.

I could not differentiate whether my mind or the ED wanted to shift my eyes away so eagerly from the mirror, but I do know that I heard myself speak; "yuck." I grimaced. 

The tightness of the fabric around my tummy is the proof of the oncoming "central adiposity" as a result of the ED's strain on my body. My neutrophils came out low (they are "expensive" cells according to my psychiatrist, and my body is nutritionally poor) and more importantly, my thyroid gland finally screwed up. The purging that never was "the last time," but instead a sad effort for short-term relief, has caused long-term problems. On ya, Naina. 

Simultaneously with the tightness of my expanding abdomen, I felt. I felt okay. I turned the music up and sang loudly. I made plans of what I would write about, what I needed to do at work, the lunch meeting with colleagues, going to the gym, reading at home. The fact that the gym was just one amongst the other things I will do today was amazing. I will only go if I feel like it, and at the moment I feel like it. 

I felt what I thought was the last stage of recovery. A glimpse of normal life, a spark of what it feels like to just live like a normal person. I felt one of the small pleasures of being human; I felt horny. Lustful. Sexy. Aroused. That feeling when your body is in harmony and your hormones are working and your mind is in synch? Yeah, it was becoming alien, but it was fucking awesome. By the way, it was the song, I swear!

I missed this feeling. I knew exactly what I was missing because I had felt like this before ED stole it all away from me. 

I am at work now, eating my whole sandwich with zuchinni, tomato, egg and butter; a fear food I could become accustomed to. 

Yesterday I ate six and a half pieces of baklava and hated every bite after the second. It was not on my meal plan. I had screwed up. Driving home, ED told me what I could do to get rid of it. Naina told me what I told another girl in hospital. It was like I went to a big party and had a lot of dessert because that is what you do at parties. You eat. A lot. So what? The other days, I had eaten regularly and well portioned meals. So what if I screwed up once in 3 weeks? 

This continuous tetris I play with my meals, fitting the binges in to the restrictions in a bid to justify it to myself is the basis of this illness. Eating disorders are a mental illness. I look fine, people say, but the un-fine part is not visible, it is in my mind. So today is a new day and I will stick with the meal plan yet again. Not restrict to justify what happened yesterday. (Technically, I could justify eating everything for the years of starvation my body has been through, but ED doesn't want to hear that). 

This sandwich is good. My tummy is expanding.

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