Happy Halloween!

Welcome to my new followers and happy Halloween!

Things have not been going so great, but I'll write about this later. I just wanted to quickly wish you all a great day. I love Halloween but, unfortunately, I will be stuck writing this important review article on the pharmacology of eating disorders. It's actually pretty interesting to learn and write about, but I would have liked to be able to do something tonight. Anyways, if any of you would like to take a read once I'm done, ask and I'll send it to you, no problem. You do sort of need a science background though because I'm dealing with all the neurotransmitters and receptors involved. 

In other news, Dan and I are now official again. And he told me that he loves me. I (sort of) said it back this weekend, but it is a big struggle for me. I don't quite understand love, what it means, what it's supposed to feel like. I didn't grow up being told that I was loved, my parents (especially my dad) never say it to me unless it's like mandatory (in a birthday card, for example), so I don't really know anything about it. Try explaining this to someone, though, and things get messy. Anyways, I'll be doing a post of Dan and on sexuality soon because I'm really struggling and I want to get it off my chest. Also, I've been crying constantly. It's such a foreign thing to me because, before my Nonno's funeral in June, I was too numb to cry at all. Now, in the past few days, I've been crying multiple times per day and having to stop myself from crying in public. Maybe it's just exhaustion (tons of people in my class have been randomly bursting into tears this week), maybe it was PMS (I just got my period yesterday), but I'm really worried that it's depression creeping back in. I mean, I never "lived" my depression this way, it was much more numb, but I know that one of the symptoms can be unexplained crying or the urge to cry. I don't know.

Tomorrow night, I have this soccer gala thing that I go to every year. It's to thank the volunteers and, because I'm a coach, I am always invited. However, I feel really anxious about it this year because, first, I hardly coached because of my Nonno, then Singapore, then the huge fallout with D. So I feel guilty going because I don't feel like a "true" coach/volunteer. Also, D. will be there (probably). I haven't seen her since August, haven't spoken to her in weeks. I've been thinking about her all week, good things, bad things, just wanting to cry every time. I'm filled with regret and guilt and anger and feeling like this all must somehow be my fault. I don't know. Dan is telling me to just completely ignore her tomorrow, but I can't do that for many reasons, one of which is that we'll probably be seated at the same table. Another reason that I'm anxious for this gala is that a lot of our mutual soccer and referee friends will be there, and a lot of them have "coincidentally" stopped speaking to me after this fallout with D. It really hurts me, because I made a point of not telling anyone at all that we had had a falling out, but I'm realizing that she has been talking badly to me to our mutual friends, I know this because these people have stopped contacting me and have stopped inviting me to parties and events. I find it so hurtful, especially considering that no one asked me what had happened. These are not my closest friends, thank God, but they are still people that I saw regularly and hung out with at parties. It just stings. So, all this to say that I'm sort of regretting RSVP-ing to this gala tomorrow. Maybe I shouldn't go. There is a mass for my Nonno's death tomorrow night as well. I don't know what to do. At the same time, I want to go to the gala and look strong and beautiful and like I've got it all under control no matter what anyone says or does to me. But I don't know whether I am truly strong enough to do it...

Anyways, this was meant to be a short post, but I guess I ended up having a lot to get off my chest. Here are a couple of pictures, in honor of All Hallow's Eve. The first is a pumpkin I carved of an anatomically correct heart. The second is just one of me rocking some Halloween colors today.

Have a great day!

All my love,

Lena xx

Clarification

Again, this won't be a proper post as I'm just writing this between classes. I promise that I'll get to it asap.

First off, just a huge welcome to my new followers, it's so flattering, as always. (Though it does make me feel a little anxious to think that I now have to "perform" or something... Make things interesting in some way...)

Secondly, just a clarification concerning my last post, because some of the comments made me feel as though there was a bit of confusion. I have never been nervous about mental health lectures before and have always found them very interesting. They don't make me sad or stressed or anything normally. It's just that now, just a few months I was "ill" (this is code for "tried to seriously hurt myself", which is also code for attempted suicide and was hospitalized in a foreign country for 10 days, all of which is very difficult for me to say), these lectures are difficult for me to sit in on. This is partly due to the fact that I'm still having flashbacks from that event, from the hospital, from everything, so I spend most of my time pushing those thoughts out of my head/being in denial. Also, I always feel as though the lectures are describing me, which is a bit unnerving. It is also partially because I hate hearing people talk about things that they have never ever experienced first hand. The lecturers are usually ok, because they have obviously been exposed to these situations, but my peers aren't. In between lectures on mental illness, they judge and analyze and pretend to understand when they don't. They talk about how "Yeah, sometimes I double-check if the door is locked, God I'm crazy" and "Once I imagined hanging myself and got so scared that I immediately stopped and saw a therapist for a year because I was so concerned". And I just can't deal with it. We had a Small Group on overdose and their level of ignorance was driving me insane. I have overdosed. I am/was sick. I have experienced all of this first-hand. I don't feel superior, I just feel as though they will never adequately grasp what they are talking about and I really wish that they would stop pretending to.

Anyways, I just thought that maybe my last post warranted this clarification. I hope that you are all having a lovely day.

Love,

Lena xx

P.S. Dan is meeting me for lunch and I have a feeling that he will be telling me that he loves me, and I find this so incredibly terrifying because I have absolutely no idea how to reply to that sort of thing... But this is definitely a story for another time.

This won't be a proper post (I feel as though I haven't written a proper one in a while, and I have so much to say, it's kind of annoying...). I just wanted to say that I'm waiting for class to start, and there is going to be a lecture on psychopathology and suicide this morning. I don't know if I can sit through it. I don't know. I'm actually terrified.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

All my love,

Lena xx

P.S. I'm still waiting on my exam results. I just really hope I passed. Thank you all for your kind words and well-wishing last week.

You know you have issues when...

You skip your shrink appointment and the guy you're seeing lets you stay at his place alone to chill, and you take the opportunity to raid his and his roommates' food, just because. And then get sick. Ughhh. What is WRONG with me?!

Midterm

Exam tomorrow. Didn't do much today, but cracked down this weekend and managed to get through all 50 lectures. I don't know if I'm ready, but it's 10pm and I've stopped caring. My rationalization: it's only worth 22% of my overall grade, I only need 55% on it to not get into any trouble, and my brain randomly retains things. So it should be ok. In the end, even if I don't get that 55%, I'll just get into sort of trouble, I think. Can you hear my brain rationalizing from where you're reading this? I've also made a post-midterm plan of how to better study for the final. I think that it should work out better than what I've been doing until now. But, honestly, I'm so much better school-wise than I was last semester, so I'm trying to have faith. I'm just anxious because I failed the last exam I wrote (this retake exam in August before school started) and I had to retake it. It was the first time I failed anything in my life, and it put me on sort of probation with the Associate Dean. Anyways, that's another story, but it's just making me anxious that I haven't written and passed an exam in a while.

After that, I'm going to a hospital not too far away to interview a patient (yes, a real live one, lol), then I have that UN thing that I do. I might also force myself to go to the post-midterm party, if only because I've never been to one of my class parties and I feel like I'm such a loner. Realistically, it probably won't happen because those sorts of things stress me out too much, but I'm keeping my options open. The UN guys might want to grab a beer too, so we'll see. 

I'm going to be exhausted. But I've been telling myself that it's just one day. That's what I've started telling myself when I can't sleep and/or I've got a big day ahead and/or I feel overwhelmed: it's just one day. That's all I can do, right?

Shrinky appointment on Thursday. Not really down, but whatever. Again, it'll be ok.

Mood and food and sleep have all been bad. I've had my first few binges in a couple of months. Nothing insane (so always under 1000cal at a time, never really over 2500cal in a day), but still. I can sort of feel myself sinking into old moods and hurts, and I'm not quite sure how to stop it from happening. I think that it has a whole lot to do with my sleep cycle being ruined since that roadtrip with Dan. Not that I'm blaming him at all, but I just really need to reset my sleep to get back to a good place, I think. It's amazing the impact that sleep, or the lack of it, has on how I'm feeling.

My Nonna came over for (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. It was hard because all she talked about was my Nonno. Honestly, I love her, but I just can't talk about him that much. I need to talk about him in small doses, only when I'm ready. I feel terribly guilty about it, because I know that she needs me right now, but I'm just not strong enough to do it. I'm a terrible person, I know.

Anyways, this post is sort of all over the place, sorry about that. I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

All my love,

Lena xx

Quick update

Sleep's been terrible, mood's been terrible, studying's been terrible.

Only gotten through 6/50 lectures, not to mention the 22 Small Groups that I have to review.

It's Thursday night, my exam is on Wednesday.

I'm so screwed.

Keep thinking about bad things.

Keep missing/wanting to text D.

Dan came out to study with me tonight, God bless him.

He's being super supportive.

We may be about to get serious again.

We talked about it a little when we got back from our road trip (which I've been meaning to give a proper update about, but haven't had the chance). 

I think I may also be starting to fall for him.

Which is weird because I just don't do that.

I think he may be starting to fall for me too.

He kind of keeps dropping the L-word in weird/semi-joking contexts.

Weight-wise, been basically feeling sick/throwing up every single thing I eat, so I have no idea what my calorie count is at.

Lost 2lbs between yesterday and today, but I'm pretty sure I'm just dehydrated from vomiting and running.

Also, cancelled the shrink appointment I was supposed to have today because I didn't feel like spending 3 hours in transit just to go talk to him for an hour.

I kind of feel like tons of people (docs, shrinks) just want to pick at my brain like I'm some interesting creature to study because I was "sick" this summer (yes, that's the euphemism I've been using because I have trouble saying the real words). 

I mean, I'm all for science, but it's a bit much when you become the research project.

So that's sort of how I feel with mister shrinky-man. 

I should stop now and go to bed. 

God knows that I have so much to do tomorrow.

Including randomly going to school to do a mock patient interview.

Whoever scheduled this was really stupid.

Don't worry about me, girlies, I'm doing fine. 

Just a bit of a drop.

I guess it was overly optimistic to think that I was magically cured.

I was kind of expecting this.

I'm sure things will get better soon, that this is just the sleep-deprivation from the trip talking.

Sorry for this floundering, incredibly random, stream-of-consciousness post.

I'll stop now.

All my love,

Lena xx

"This is when the feeling sinks in

I don't want to miss you like this

Come back.

Be here."

Last night was a bad night.

Today is a bad day.

Exam in exactly one week.

Haven't started reviewing anything at all.

Can't.

Stuck.

Brain going round and round.

Ping pong balls of thoughts.

Flying and bouncing and giving me no peace.

My beautiful Nonno.

How I miss him.

He said he couldn't die until he attended my wedding.

That will never happen.

He will never see me graduate medical school.

I will never make him proud.

God, I miss him.

The worst was when they closed the coffin.

All I could think was that he wouldn't be able to breathe.

I can't do this anymore.

I can't do this without him.

He was the one sure thing.

And now he's gone.

I'm so tired.

I just want to cry and sleep forever.

Please leave me be.

But I can't.

This stupid exam. 

I couldn't care less.

Just leave me be.

Just let me drift away.

To a painless place.

Please.

Some numbers

Officially lost 1 more pound from my "pre-period weight". This tips the scale (oh, the pun) and leaves me below a BMI of 23. So I now have a BMI in the 22s :) It also leaves me 2lbs away from the weight I was at after my hospitalization in Singapore. Then, I had lost about 12lbs in 10 days, mostly muscle mass, and was very weak. Now, I've been eating clean and healthy, keeping my calories in a healthy range, and running 3-5 times per week. This is the right way to do it. I mean, I'm still throwing up sometimes, but it's only a few times per week now, and I honestly think there is something physiologically wrong with me, more than just the ED making me sick. This also leaves me 7lbs away from the LW I hit last December, and 20lbs away from where I'd like to be (though I may want to lose another 8lbs after that, but let's take it one step at a time. I honestly don't know if I have the frame to get there). Slowly but surely, I'll make it. What I've realized is that I'm in no hurry. Sure, I'd like to get there ASAP, but I'd also rather not constantly be bouncing up and down, so I think that slowly is the way to go. I can be patient, right?

In other news, I'm leaving on my roadtrip with Dan in a few hours. Still need to pack and everything. I wanted to go for a run, but there are construction guys redoing our driveway so there's a huge hole in front of the house that I don't really feel like crawling through and embarrassing myself in front of all of them... So I guess I won't  go. There probably isn't enough time anyways. I'm extremely anxious about this mini-trip for a bunch of reason, including food, meeting tons of new people/his closest friends, potentially meeting his brother, driving for 6 hours straight there and back, food (again), parties, them smoking up (I don't do weed), them drinking (I don't like who I become when I'm drunk), Dan wanting to stay up all night to party (I can't afford to do that since I have developed a very precarious sleep cycle that is just keeping me from having insomnia every single night and I don't want to ruin it with staying up and waking up late), the TONS of studying that I have to do since my exam is in a week and a half and I have about 150 hours of lectures to review before then (fml), frolicking... Oh, and did I mention food and meeting new people? Ugggh. I know, I sound like a boring old lady, but, seriously. I have finally found some form of (precarious) balance in my life, I don't feel like ruining it all this weekend. But I told him that he can do whatever he wants, I won't at all hold him back, but I may just head back home on my own when I'm tired.I just need to be brave enough to tell him when I need to go.

*Breathe*

Ok. It will all be ok. Right? Right.

Have a great weekend, my dears (where did the week go??). And be kind to yourselves.

All my love,

Lena xx

Comic

I should definitely be sleeping because I have to get up again in 7 hours and have tons of work to get done by 9:30am tomorrow. And I should definitely be posting about something more important/articulate/whatever because I have a lot on my mind and there is a lot to say and a lot has been going on. But instead I've been catching up on blogs and facebook and other intellectually stimulating things, and I happened to come across this, which I thought some of you might enjoy.

So, enjoy!

All my love,

Lena xx 

P.S. I seemed to have put on 3 pounds, but it might be just water-weight from being on my period, so I won't freak out just yet.