calm after the storm.
I survived my first week of summer classes! I’m not really worried about the school part, that’s never been hard for me; the part that sends me into a gut- wrenching anxiety is making new friends and adjusting. I’ve been hanging out with my friend K all week basically nonstop. We’ve been going to yoga classes and the gym together. She is SO SKINNY, at first i wondered if she had an eating disorder but I found out her ADD medicine made her lose 25 pounds without even trying! DAFUQ, I WANT IT. I’ve been doing much better with bingeing and purging, down to once or twice a day..but I’ve been restricting a lot more, and I feel the intense urge rising stronger and stronger to binge and purge more and more though and I trying not to slide back down into the uncontrollable nonstop bingeing and purging all day marathons I have managed to decrease..
I like having a good friend here to do things with, but I’m one of those people who NEED my alone time. I am completely worn out between not getting much sleep this week and being around people 24/7; I feel utterly exhausted. K went home for the weekend and my roommate is going home for the weekend too..I’m a little relieved I get a break from people and can decompress, but I also feel a little distressed. I like being alone, but at the same time it can also spin me into a panic. I panic about all the empty time, empty space, empty silences. Nothingness so profound it engulfs me whole. I think it’s so distressing because it mirrors the chronic emptiness i feel inside, it becomes externalized. When I am alone and isolated, it is my internal state appearing outside, and it becomes too much. I can’t tolerate the emptiness, the vast nothingness that becomes me. I erupt into a panic attack not knowing how to handle all the thoughts and feelings that flood over me and transcend my body.
I search frantically for something stable, something calm and steady. I need an anchor, something to bring me back down, comfort me, soothe me, deaden me. I need relief. The panic turns into a steady purpose, your sole mission in this moment is to get in your car, go to the store, get all the foods you want and crave and devour them until you literally are paralyzingly and painfully full. You have a single- minded mission to fulfill, it is no longer the empty space and silence, you are purposefully carrying out this mission, once you are horrifyingly full, you find a bathroom and focus on getting it all out. This is your focus, you narrow in on it, consume it. You are filled with a sedating calmness. The aftermath is the calm after the storm.
