If you never read any of my posts, read this one.

It's getting to the point where I think I know more women who've been raped than I know ones who haven't. It's that common, isn't it? Common as dieting. Every single one of us known someone it's happened to, if it hasn't happened to you yourself.

And it almost feels like we just accept it. I mean, think about it. Did you report yours? Did your friend/cousin/sister report hers? It's like, they take a day (if that) to sleep it off and then go back to life like it never happened. Maybe bring it up with a girlfriend over a late-night conversation. And she nods her head and tells you that it happened to her too. And that's all the counseling we get. I think as a gender, or maybe just my generation, we're almost completely numb to it. "Oh yeah, I was raped." How much more casual can we get about it?

So, I know this is completely off-topic from my normal blog posts. And I hate to talk about this in particular because the automatic response (from everyone, friends, counselors, complete strangers) is "Oh, she has an eating disorder because she was raped and that's her way of getting control over her life."

No.

That's not it.

That's not the answer for me and it's not the answer for you. Well, maybe it is for you. But for me, I can honestly says that it was almost trivial. Yeah, whatever, rape happens. It happened. Shit happens. That's been my attitude since I was nineteen and it's still my attitude today, four years later.

So yeah, something triggered this post. Becka. My friend, my best friend since I've moved, my training partner and confidant. The girl I talk about most in these blog posts. We went out to the bars last night to babysit her newly-21-year-old little sister. Becka saw a guy at the bar and thought he was cute, but she's always always too shy to make contact. So I went over and introduced myself and brought him back to talk to her. They hit it off. She was so excited. They went out for coffee this afternoon. Tonight, he came over to her apartment to watch a movie with her. And she didn't want to have sex with him. But she's five feet tall and she weighs 105 pounds and so what, right? And now, at 2am, she can't sleep and she just wants so badly to sleep. And she's not going to talk about it because no one ever talks about it. And it all feels like one giant gray area, and I respect her too much to move without her asking me to.

So for my part, I'm asking you to stop pretending it didn't happen and don't just fucking accept it and don't treat it as common or casual. Talk to each other.

I swear, I'm not some kind of liberal feminist. I don't hate men. I don't hate anyone. And I don't try to understand why people do the things they do.

I'm just a woman who's sick of seeing her friends get hurt.

Failed Experiment

I don't know how many of you have gotten a headache from insurance companies before (judging by the general tone of my readers, most) but deductibles can be a pain in the ass when you're a single young grad student, unemployed, trying to make a life out a studio apartment. I'm still on my father's insurance, and there's a $500 deductible to be met at the beginning of every year. Which means that instead of my specialist appointment costing me $40, it would end up costing $200. So glad they called and told me this before I took the bus into the main city and wasted an entire morning. I cancelled the appointment.

Is that healthy? Probably not. But I don't happen to have $200 in my pocket. I have to pay for things like, I don't know, rent? Food? Books? Gas?

Am I disappointed? Not in the slightest. I don't want to go to another therapist. I'm sick of getting tossed around. I just want to lose weight. Not talk about my feelings. This is the fifth mental health provider that's either passed me on to someone else or been too expensive to afford.

I'm really dreading telling Liam. He doesn't feel like money is ever an excuse for avoiding treatment. And that's how he'll see it: I'm avoiding treatment because I think I'm too fat.

He's definitely right. I am avoiding treatment because I'm still too fat to deserve treatment. But, on the other hand, I genuinely can't afford it either. I pay around $500/month in rent (which I pay through years of saving as an undergrad) and I don't have a paycheck coming in. I've applied for two serving/waitress positions in my city. I've never been a server before and I'm not thrilled at the prospect of getting yelled at all the time. But, I can't rightly waste my money on therapy if I don't have money to waste.

I am too much

That's the phrase that bounces around my head. "I am too much," "There is too much of me." I don't want to take up this much space in the universe. I know it sounds contradictory when I say I don't want to be skinny. I absolutely do not want to be skinny. I just want to be less fat. I want to be muscle and skin and bone, perfectly streamlined and smooth. More human, less animal. More machine and less human, maybe.

I'm sorry I'm getting poetic and off topic, but there you go.

I was on the phone with the second clinic this morning, and I think that's the one I'll go with. It's intensive outpatient therapy, which equates to weekly individual therapy, group therapy, and nutritional counseling. I won't be able to to start until January, as I won't be around during Christmas break.

And I'm absolutely horrified that they'll take one look at me and think (just like I think) "She's too fat to have an eating disorder." So, I keep thinking that I'll have to lose at least ten more pounds by January 4th, so that I'm worthy of treatment. And I know those thoughts are FALSE and delusional.

I am worthy of help and health.

But I don't believe that I'm worthy of treatment because I haven't earned it. And that's a fucking sick way of thinking about it. Just the fact that I have thoughts like that should be enough to tell me that I'm sick and I need help. But I can't see it.

Hungry

From October 2010 through February of 2011, I liked being hungry. Especially at night. It was a signal that I'd done something right, and that I was safe. Then, over this past summer, I started seeing hunger as a negative trigger, meaning that my body was in starvation mode and that it was already too late and my muscles were being eaten away, or something like that. So, I started to panic whenever I was marginally hungry, but I'd also freak out whenever I felt full.

Right now I'm trying to find the middle ground. I had my second therapy session this morning. It was more of an intake assessment than anything. The doctor referred me to a specialized clinic for eating disorders and disordered eating. Yeah, there's a difference. Apparently I'm on the cusp between the two. I don't want to go to a clinic. Not to mention it'll probably cost even more. But more that I'm afraid of the label. I don't want to go to an EATING DISORDERS CLINIC. That's like putting a big red stamp on my forehead. The label makes me feel even weaker, like I've "really done it this time."

And right now, I'm hungry. I'm so, so very hungry.

I've started adding a lot of tea back into my diet, hoping the caffeine will push me off this plateau. I was 139.8 this morning, which might as well be 140.

On the plus side, I had a fantastic workout this evening. I hit arms, mostly biceps and chest. I feel self conscious about my arms because my triceps are overdeveloped compared to my biceps. My arms are actually considerable bigger than they out to be, proportionally, because I concentrate a lot on my shoulders and upper arms when lifting. I'm not going for a stereotypical hourglass shape, more like two triangles. I want my upper body to look like an inverted triangle. I've come to terms with the fact that after I'm done losing as much fat as I'd like, I'll more resemble a gymnast than a ballerina. I have a lot of muscle. Yes, I'm relatively flat-chested, another thing I'm coming to terms with after losing so much weight. I went from a 36DD to a 34A. My breasts are more pectoral muscle than breast (and I'm totally fine with that; running is comfortable now).

I also did a hard half hour of cardio on the elliptical (hard meaning that I didn't just pedal and fiddle with the television.) If I'm not sweating hard half way through, I'm doing something wrong. I got to add 300 calories onto my total for the day! Not that I'll get to eat them. New rule, no eating after 8pm. Hopefully I actually see some movement on the scale tomorrow!

Fear

I don't want to keep going to therapy. I realized that this afternoon. I'm afraid (illogically, delusionally) that if I get better, I'll gain weight. And I'll get so fat again. I terrified of even gaining back five pounds. But I've convinced myself that if this goes away, I'll turn back into the terrible obese monster I used to be. I am absolutely mortified.

I talked it all over with my boyfriend. He thinks it's ludicrous to stop going, or to avoid it. He only wants me to get better. My family would say the same thing. I also talked to one of my friends in the program. She agrees. I'm going to keep going. But I'm just so scared.

This is all I have. I feel like this is all I have. This is what keeps me grounded. I don't know how to go for a day without counting calories. Because mystically, that constant worry is what keeps me from getting fat. That's the only control I have.

And writing that out, I know how insanely delusional it sounds. I know it's crazy talk. It's not real. Normal people don't count calories, don't exercise obsessively, and they don't blow up. There's nothing magical about it. I just can't quite make myself believe it.