This day started off alright and then just went downhill from there. I managed to wake up, go to my mandatory small group on anemia, and not make a total ass out of myself even though I have not caught up on any of the anemia lectures I've missed. For real, I'm so lucky that I can just randomly offer up information that is magically right. I don't know how it's possible, but apparently it is.

Then my afternoon class got canceled which was great news because a) it meant that I could go for another run (less than 12 hours since my last) and b) I would have plenty of time to start and finish my internship applications for this summer. Great, right? Wrong. Got to the track which was invaded by toddlers and a class of handicapped children. Toddlers and handicapped children, I have no problem with; it's their freaking teachers walking anywhere on the track in any direction that I have to zigzag through that piss me off. Not only that, but there was a guy from my college that showed up at the track and just sat on the benches clapping and yelling at me not to quit every time I went around. I was going INSANE. So I called it quits after 4k and 200 crunches. Made good time with the 4k in 20 minutes flat. Then I was gonna head home to work, but the bf insisted on joining me for lunch. So we ended up eating (gah), watching TWO episodes of E.R. (gahh) and then frolicking (gahhh). And what really pissed me off is that I had to leave my apartment by 3 to get to the hospital for a mandatory palliative care visit (meaning that I, with a group of other students, was meeting someone with terminal cancer) and I TOLD the bf this, but he INSISTED and didn't let me leave until he had been "satisfied". Efff. So I got to the hospital late, humiliated and drenched because there's a huge snowstorm outside. Then, when I was meeting the patient, I BLACKED OUT. This has never ever happened to me before and, excuse the medical mumbo jumbo, but I think I had some kind of arrhythmia because I had a MAJOR vasovagal reaction (I was dying of heat, became drenched in sweat all of a sudden, couldn't stop yawning and blacked out). Now, don't think that this is because I was meeting a dying patient; I've met dying people before, it's not a problem. This was something purely physiological that was happening at the worst possible moment. I somehow managed not to fall over when I blacked out and then came out of it and was fine (except freezing because I was drenched), so it was ok in the end, but it seriously was not a good experience. Then my meeting with the other students ran late, so the guy that I TA for that UN thing told me not to bother showing up, so I came home. And, because my roommate prepared food for me, had to stuff my face. So there's goes the run.'Nough said.

Basically, I got nothing done today but am incredibly exhausted. My net intake is at 757 for today, but, to be honest, it's significantly less because I did a lot of walking that I couldn't time because I was with other people. I'd say that I'm definitely not over 700. Not great, but not terrible.

I think I'm going to go die now, preferably in a hole. Tomorrow is when I'll have to get some serious work done.

Goodnight girlies!

xx
P.S. I was just re-reading yesterday's post, terribly sorry for all the typos, I wrote it on my phone. I hate typos. 
P.P.S. I was forced to socialize with way too many people today, which I think is why I'm so exhausted. I usually go to school, to the track, wherever, and don't talk to anyone, then only talk to the bf and my roommate. Today, I must have talked to at least 40 people. Way too many. I don't deal well with socializing. 

Runner's high

I love that feeling. Ran today, 7.6k in 39min07sec. Not my best time or my best distance or my best anything. But it's my best distance since I started running on the track. And I did my little speed-walking there and back. And it's the only reason that I left the house today at all. So I'd say that it was important. If there's only one positive thing in your day, it becomes very important. I also walk incredibly fast, My shrink laughs and says that it's because I'm a Type A personality. My 6' boyfriend has to job next to me to keep up. And I tried to enter in in MyFitnessPal just now, and it doesn't even fall under "walking". It falls under "running". I mapped and calculated it, and I walk at about 5.3MPH (8.6k/h). I know, right? Insanity, haha... I also did 500 crunches at the track. So, all-in-all, even though I'm still a waste of space, at least I tried to do something about it today. And it kind of paid off since, even though I ate waaay too much today, my net is at 325 for the day. Finally a good day. Yesterday's net was 769.  I don't have a scale to weigh myself, but at least I know for sure that I can't be gaining with these sorts of intakes. 

My super-duper plan for this week also majorly failed. I was too embarrassed to post about it, but I'm still trying, still keeping starting over and trying not to give up entirely. I'm exhausted, but I know I'll get there. I got my grades back from my last Unit and, though they weren't great, they weren't any worse than anything I've gotten this year so far (which is seriously below what I'm used to, but at least it didn't go down last Unit in spite of my having a lot of trouble getting through it). I passed everything, which is a miracle in and of itself; I didn't think I would pass the histology and anatomy portions, but I did. So that's a relief. Every time I get my marks back, I'm relieved. I used to be excited because I would know that I did really well; now I just want to pass. It's all I need and it's all that I can offer. I'm not in danger-zone, I'm safe, my marks aren't great, but they're getting me where they need to. So it's ok. Every time proves to me that I'll get through the next one too. So, just as I got through Units 1, 2, 3 and 4, I will get through Unit 5.

Finally, I just want to say how lucky I feel to have you supporting me. I mean, you don't know me, you aren't obliged to comment or to write, but you do, which I truly appreciate so much.

Sweet dreams :)

Lena xx

Thoughts

I think about all the thoughts that go through my head. Of how ugly I am. How unworthy I am. How stupid I am. How I'm a bad student, a bad friend, a bad girlfriend. A bad person. How I don't deserve to eat. How I deserve to throw up. How I deserve to have bags under my eyes. I am unworthy of having people talk to me or look at me. When I run too fast and too hard, passing everyone at the track, going faster than the jocks, and I feel sick, all I can think is "you deserve this, you fat lazy bitch, you deserve this pain, you deserve the shame of having to throw up in the locker room, you deserve it all". When I see people eat, I analyze what they look like, how much they're eating. When I see the girls who are clearly anorexic running ever so slowly at the track because their bodies are broken from malnutrition, all I can think is that I'm unworthy of their bodies because I don't suffer nearly enough. When I slice angry, hateful words into my calves, I know that I deserve them. I told my shrink a fraction of these thoughts, not even one percent of what goes through my head, and I told him with a smile and a laugh as if it meant nothing. He stared at me. Shocked. Speechless. Because apparently it isn't normal to think this about yourself. Apparently it isn't normal. Huh. Apparently it isn't normal to track all the calories going in and all of them going out. Apparently people don't do that. Huh. I haven't told anyone that I spend hours reading blogs of girls starving themselves and looking at pictures of girls where we don't even see their faces, just their bodies. Because I don't think that that's normal. I don't think that it's normal to spend dozens of minutes in front of the mirror pinching and pulling at myself. I don't think that normal people do that. It takes a lot of self-loathing to spend hours a week leaning over a toilet bowl. It really does. It takes strength and anger and self-hatred like most people never experience. I don't think most people hope for nothing but sleep, forever and constantly. Not dreams; just a hollow, empty sleep that never ends and that I would never have to wake up from. When you're 20, I don't think that that's supposed to be all that you could ever ask for. That and being thin. I don't think so.

Quick update

I kind of messed up before because I actually had 10 lectures to listen to and I also have homework in 4 of those (anatomy homework). I won't finish tonight for sure, especially if I want to go to bed early, but in a little over 5 hours I did manage to listen to 5 lectures, so that's not so bad. Halfway mark! 

Anatomy is what kills me, really, because I'm so terrible at learning things and their names by heart. I'm great at dissections and at understanding how things relate to each other and work, which is why I understood endocrinology so well: because it makes sense. Learning a bunch of gibberish in Latin will be the death of me. But, at the same time, I love anatomy. Not learning it, but learning about it. I love it. I learned today that four-legged animals don't have collarbones (clavicles). Did you know that? So their forelimbs are only held to their trunk by muscle. Birds have clavicles, to keep their wings out to their sides. That's what the wishbone is: sternum and clavicles. And some babies can be born with a congenital defect where they simply don't have any clavicles and the docs have to implant titanium ones. If they don't do it early enough, the baby's muscles will grow in such a way that his/her arms will stay in the four-legged position. Crazy, huh? And I love learning about all the landmarks on the body. Is it crazy that, after we learned how to palpate ribs, I would count mine whenever I was having a panic attack? It's so reassuring; without an X-ray or anything, I am able to say that I have exactly 12 ribs, in a normal anatomical position, just as they should be. And I can feel them and count them, and they are always there. No matter what. 12 ribs. When I learned the bones of the pelvis, it was the same. There's the ASIS. There's the pubic tubercle. All where they are supposed to be. Phew. Now we're doing upperlimbs. The prof is amazing, she just keeps telling us "Feel them on yourselves or on a confrère." And there they are. The clavicle. The scapula. The acromion. The humerus. Pectoralis major that you can just almost slip your hand under. The bicipital aponeurosis that disappears into the skin just like she said it would. Exactly where she said they would be. Anatomy is so fantastic.

Thank you so much for your wonderful comments on my last post. I haven't replied yet, but just know that I  am very grateful for them (though I find it terribly difficult to accept compliments of any kind). I hope you've all had amazing weekends.

Going to get back to listening to lectures.

All my love,

Lena xx

No more messing around

Ok. Time to get this show on the road. It is 1:30pm. I woke up feeling sick, then binged and now feel sick again. Stupid? Yes. But now it's done. I will not throw up because enough is enough and I deserve to let all that food fester inside of me anyways. Now. I have 9 lectures to listen to today. I also have 4 lectures' notes to highlight and 2 lab talks to listen to. That probably will not be happening today, but will have to happen some time this week. My midterm is next Monday, including an MCQ portion and an anatomy practical portion. So I will also have to go to the anatomy lab a couple of times this week to take a look at the things I missed this past week. This week, I will also have a Small Group session on anemia to prepare and 10 lectures to read up on, as well as 2 anatomy labs and 2 histo labs to prepare for. I will NOT miss anymore lectures. I missed one histo lab this past week, but I can do that before the final, no big deal. I am working 4pm-8pm on Monday and 4pm-9pm on Thursday. I have a Palliative Care visit on Wednesday at 3:30, then a recap meeting with my group, and then the UN TA-ing thing from 6-9 (which I will most probably be late for). I won't have time to go run today, but I WILL go tomorrow before work, on Tuesday after class, and on Friday. I will be missing part of the histo lab on Thursday because of work. And I'm seeing my shrink on Friday and I won't be seeing him for 2 weeks after that because he's going to be on break. I WILL go, no matter how much I don't want to. I will not eat any meal but dinner, if I must. We hardly have any food left anyways, except the things that I've cooked and frozen of course. The vegan thing is going well and the cheese and yogurt cravings have died down, so that's very good news. I will NOT let the bf come over and distract me this week. My midterm is next week and I need to have my head in the game. He and I can see each other after that exam, though he might be going back home for Spring Break.This is my plan for the week.  This week WILL go well. It isn't overly-packed and I can do this. Tonight, I am going to bed early so that I can get up tomorrow to go to school and I WILL sleep. I luckily have Tuesday night and Friday night off, so I WILL have time to do everything that I want to do. I will make one-page summaries of each lecture like I did for my last exam and I will get my roommate to quiz me. It'll all be ok. Better than ok. I will not be ashamed of this Unit like I have been of the other ones. I have already ingested 881 calories today (gaaahhh), so nothing but tea and gum and water will pass my lips from this point forward. I will focus. Anxiety or no anxiety, depression or no depression, concentration issues or not, food issues or not, sleep or no sleep. I. Will. Focus. I know how to learn, I love to learn, I will learn. I will learn all that there is to learn about the upper limbs and I will be a great doctor. That is all. Rant. Over.

This is my very last post for today, I swear. Well, technically, it's a new day, but still.

So here's the update. The bf acme over, brought about FORTY dumplings with him, plus dried mango. Gahhhh. Ate as little as I possibly could without seeming rude/making him ask questions. If karma exists, it's having a field day by giving me the runs now (tmi, I know, sorry). Siiigh. Anyways, he was in a great mood because he had just gotten out of a five-hour midterm that was worth a lot and that he did well on, so he wanted to stay. And, of course, I can't say no, so we ended up watching the third HP (he had never seen any, so we're slowly getting through them). Then he wanted to frolic, obviously. Which, ok, like I said, I'm a sucker, so I couldn't say no. But then, again, he tried to cross the boundary, and so I told him (really kindly if you ask me) that I wasn't comfortable with that. And he just lost it. Well, I mean, he doesn't lose it like I lose it or like Italians in general lose it (screaming and all that), but he was essentially just gonna leave. So I was trying to smooth things out, explaining my point of view and how I feel about these things because he has asked me to be more honest with him and all that, but he was blaming me for a bunch of things that were just plain old misunderstandings. It was really frustrating. It's like this whenever we argue; it turns into an I-said-you-said or he just says the opposite of what I'm saying because that's the way he is. Anyways, he was pissed because apparently I don't initiate anything and he feels like I just passively lay there and set boundaries, telling him what he can't do. What I've tried explaining to him a million times is that I don't like being touched. At all. Everyone who knows me knows this. So it just generally makes me uncomfortable, but I do it because I know that he enjoys it. But there are certain things that I won't do because I know that I will literally have a panic attack and freak out and push him off me, kicking and screaming, if let him. So I won't. But he doesn't get that, at all. And he keeps score about what he does "for me" and what I do "for him". Which is clearly not how this is supposed to work, never mind the fact that the things he does "for me" aren't for me at all because I don't particularly enjoy them. I know this sounds super strange and complicated, but anyways. The gist of it is that I ended up groveling and making him stay and making him happy (I didn't give in and cross my boundaries though). I just hate that this is how I've become. I'm not this girl who apologizes or begs or any of this. I've never been this girl. I'm super independent. He's sweet and everything, but I'm not in love with him and I know that I never will be. I just don't have the energy right now to go through a break up, let alone find someone else. And he's one of the few people that I still talk to regularly because I'm just so exhausted and all my old friends expect so much from me. So I don't want to isolate myself even more. But I know that something's gonna give eventually. I know what you're thinking, that I shouldn't drag this out if it's going nowhere, but please don't judge me. It's complicated and I need him sometimes just like he needs me, so I'll make it work until I can't anymore. In spite of the fact that we have pretty much nothing in common and in spite of many things. I just can't.

In other news, 870 is my net for today. Blegh. And I've only managed to listen to one lecture that I missed last week. Double-blegh. So, all-in-all, another sucky day. Tomorrow (today) will better. I hope.

Guess what? The bf has just left. Can you say screwed? -.-'