Friday, Jan. 09, 2004/10:10 pm

rituals and rambling

Eating a sandwich in the car. On the way back from my clinic apointment which went well in all the ways i wanted it to. In all the ways it shouldn't do. In all the ways i'm hiding. So many secrets concealed under my skin.

I'd skipped lunch before heading off, an intention to fast all day. It gets to 10.30 and i feel ravenous. I didn't hide the lack of breakfast earlier on so my Mum is very willing to buy me something. I get an assortment of goods from the resteraunt to take away and pretend i'm doing my insulin as she waits outside the toilet.

So, anyway, back to the sandwich. Radio on, early morning Chris Moyles, usually an object of amusement for me but today i'm not listening. Rain pouring down the windscreen ahead of me and sliding down the window, pounding onto the road and grass embankments, hectic but a strangly pretty. Calmed away by my focus. I don't care about anything else, i know it's all there but it doesn't matter, my concentration is on the sandwich.

My hands are frost clamped, nails bitten blue by the cold. First i slowly pull of and eat the crusts, carefuly skimming the thick edge away, leaving the soft middle. Next i pull apart the mass of bread and filling. Clear the surface of basil and peppers, nibbling on them like a hampster. Then smooth away the cream cheese and butter on my fingers, leaving just the dampened white slices to rip into tiny pieces before consumption.

I check the back of the plastic container, only 271 calories. Unexpected really, quite low. That being no reasurance or consolation, still have to purge, still have to remove it, remove the superficial problem, as soon as i get home. Into the bathroom, silently, unknowingly work back to empty.

Don't forget the numbers. Take 7 swigs of diet coke, then 21 bites. If you forget where you are, get distracted somehow or confused, go back to 1, count up to 10 and reserect the ritual.

Muffins are harder. Okay, calm down, don't worry, you know how it goes. Section it into 7, then peel away the outer layer, before disecting the inside into chocolate crumbs. Quite difficult to achieve with no plate, just the wrapper resting on your lap.

Why can't i just sit down and get on with it? I'm so utterly obsessed. Sometimes i can speed up the pace, especially during a binge but normality is foreign.

Meals have to be re arranged, destroyed, mixed together into one great disgusting lump, and kept neat, always neat. Scraping the licks of sauce from the sides of the plate, before dipping into the carefuly formed concuction. I never used to be this bad, it's just got worse and worse. I remember way back, in the beginning, the first 'diet' to extreme in 2001, i always had to chew 21 times. Just to prove i could stop, that i wasn't going to go overboard, to aid digestion and make it easier to accept inside me. I took tiny forkfulls and reduced them to mush in my mouth before being allowed to swallow properly. I had to make the little i had last, the soup and bread, or 300 calorie weight-watchers pasta, all i'd run on from rise to dawn.

What have i done? how could i let it get this extreme? Back then i was so naive, almost innocent, unaware of where my struggles were leading.

My inclosure scares me, because i know i can't get out, and i can't let anyone know that i need help out, that i've failed. I'm supposed to be getting better. To everyone else around me i am and the lies are chewing me up inside. Such detailed deceit, such isolation within this disorder. Hanging onto it with my life, guarding it with these false, fixed smiles.

I

can't

leave it behind.

Turning my back on what i should be running towards, because i'm a coward.

Silent.Still.Motionless.

Guilty.Selfish.Bitch.

Wandering across a glass ocean.

/watch/me/drift/watch/me/drown

Rambling over the shubbery when i should be rooting through the soil.