I love roller coasters, but I don't want to live on one.

I feel like I'm in a much better place right now than I was last night, this morning, even a few hours ago..

I went to bed last night with a binge. I ran with the team, with a shirt on of course. I looked in the mirror before I left for the track disgusted with myself. Then I came home to start the morning off before school with a binge. What the heck.
I just felt so depressed/alone/I can't even describe it..
So I text my therapist and say, "I really do feel depressed.. I don't know what's wrong with me. :("
She responds a few minutes later by calling, but I was in class.
She leaves a voicemail telling me to call her back, and I do when class gets out early at 9:00.
As soon as she says my name on the other line, I burst into tears.. Where these came from? I have no idea.. But she tells me she is at the Union now and she would like to meet.

So I find her there and we start talking.. She says that she can notice this change in me within the past couple weeks, and it's worrisome.
Somehow this floodgate has opened though, and I feel so vulnerable, so exposed to all of my emotions.

We're sitting at a spot in the Union where I told her I remember I used to sit last fall between classes. I remember my stomach growling and me telling it to shut up. I will give you your 80 calorie non-fat yogurt in just a few minutes if you are patient! Now I cram spoonful after spoonful of yogurt and pb and granola in my mouth at night, not even tasting it. I hate both of these extremes.
But I tell her that I don't remember hurting near as much when I was in the height of my eating disorder. I didn't worry so much about others. I didn't focus on the pain I felt from others' actions, either. It was more about me, more about the food. As long as I concentrated on getting my daily calorie intake, it would all be fine.
Now, not so much. It's a good thing, really. But it hurts to feel so exposed the way I do.

[Taken in July].. I have to remember that this girl wasn't happy, either.
She just didn't feel anything, or tried not to, at least.

Anyway, we talk for almost an hour before I head off to Chemistry class.
I call her after class as she asked me to, and I find that she set up a doctor's appointment at the Student Health Center for this afternoon. We had talked this morning about how I may be suffering from depression, plus I haven't been sleeping very much.
So I go to the Health Center and she walks with me as we make our way to the doctor's offices. She tells a nurse that she'd like to speak to my doctor before he sees me. We part ways, and I go with the nurse as she has to get a few stats on me. She checks my weight, and I close my eyes. I don't want to know the number. But she says it aloud, anyway. :/ 123. What the heck. I'm thinking, "fatfatfat. Wow, you gained 4 pounds in a month. Out of control." I tear up then and there. But I try to stay calm as she checks my blood pressure/pulse rate. She hands me some forms to answer about anxiety/depression.
They were these statements like, "I am very critical of myself." or "I really worry over what others think of me.". Then there were bubbles 0-3. 0 being not at all. 1-somewhat. 2-moderate. 3-a lot. Most of my statements fell in the moderate range, with a couple "a lots", and quite a few 0's as well. I didn't have any of the panic attack symptons, just overall feeling worrisome/depressed statements pretty much.

So the doctor comes in after speaking to Dr. Tatem and tells me that based on my answers I am suffering from extreme depression. Me?? Extreme depression? I don't know.. I tell him that it's not all that bad.  I've just been going through a lot lately. Especially after my mom's relapse, it seems that every little thing is getting to me. Anyway, all of the blood work he needed was already done cuz of my countless previous visits for both ED checkups and track, so he didn't have to do much before prescribing something. He said that it looks like my B-6 levels are low, so he put me on this vitamin called Stresstabs that should raise these levels, and that will apparently keep my serotonin levels up. Then he prescribed a 10mg dose of Fluoxetine. It's not much. He said I probably won't feel any of the effects until next week. He also told me that I need to be on fish oil as well as a multivitamin. I knew this already, I just suck at taking them. Also I need to be better about taking iron! Gotta keep that in check.

Anyway, I don't really know how I feel about all of this.. part of the reason Dr. Tatem talked to him beforehand was to let him know that I don't want anything that causes dependency. My family has a bad history of addiction. P.s. I found out last night that my mom was buying adderall off my sister (who actually has ADD) for about a month before she technically 'relapsed'. Greeeeat.
So yea, he said it should be fine. I don't know.. I am excited to see if anything happens.

I really did not like this doctor, though. He downplayed everything I told him, and when he asked why I wasn't satisfied with my body I told him that I felt like I was fat. He says, "but you are not fat. You have very little body fat on you, if any at all." He proceeds to show me by squeezing my hip that I don't have fat. I understand his argument or whatever, but the point I am trying to make is that I feel fat. It doesn't matter if I really am fat at all. If you feel a certain way, then that makes it true for you.
He goes on to say that I'm "lucky [I] don't have the other end of eating disorders." He says that some people just eat and eat and eat!! I'm respond with, "Well I am like that. It's just every other day or so." He's like, "Oh no, you don't have what they have. They gorge themselves, and they're so big." I said, "Eating 2000 calories in an hour is disordered eating, no matter what size you are." But he just wouldn't kept arguing, not listening.
I find this man to be very ignorant. You could just tell that he hates fat people. Seriously, dude? He kept talking about how they eat Mcdonald's every meal and it's disgusting. "You look super thin compared to most. I mean, Mississippi is the fattest state, you know!" he tells me. Umm, yea, I know. But what does that have to do with me? Just because some people eat fast food does not downplay my problem. I don't know.. I was just very annoyed.

I came home to talk to Connor on skype for about an hour. This really cheered me up. We've kinda been on the rocks these past couple weeks, with me being weird/sad and dealing with everything that is going on. But we talked through a lot of stuff, and I am so glad that we did. Sometimes ED is on the hush-hush in our relationship cuz neither one of us wants to talk about it cuz it controls my life so much already; we don't want it in our relationship, too. But it's there, whether we discuss it or not.
The difference with this conversation was that Connor finally got to talking. He told me his feelings regarding my ED and how my going from super high- "I'm never gonna binge again" to super low-"I hate my life.." affects him. We compared it to my mom and her relapsing. So I understand that he doesn't take either one of this statements too literally because they're just temporary. That's the way I view my Mom's words, as well.
But it was good to see that my ED is not only affecting me. It affects others, too. My life can't stay like this, with me and everyone else being hung on this emotional roller coaster. I can't imagine all that I have put Connor through, and I so very grateful for him and the rest of my support team, as well, family and friends alike.

Taken the last time I saw my handsome man.. almost a month ago.

This is long. Very long. To all who have commented, and even those that just read, thank you. I didn't get to read your words until this afternoon, but they mean so much. I am going to keep them in mind as I welcome a new, stable perspective on life and myself.

I've gotta do what that one post said and learn to be happy with myself. I deserve that. Yes, I'm uncomfortable in my body at the moment, but once I stop binging and then purging through extreme exercise/diet then my body will find it's natural weight, and I'll have to accept that.

My eyes are so tired from crying. I took a nap before writing this, and I'm about to write a speech I give in class on Monday. Then I've got a bunch of Chem to work on. I'm going home after my long run with the girls in the morning, so that should be good. I was going to go home today, but with so much going on, I just needed to stay here and rest for a bit.

Btw I got a 95% on my last speech, so thank you for the good luck wishes!
Also, I walked out of my Chemistry exam this past Tuesday in tears, sure that I had failed it. I called Connor and cried. Then I cried for another half hour. I go to class the next day to find that I made the highest grade, and he curved it so much that I got above a 100%. Things like this let me know that I do worry too much..

I hope you all have a great night. Thanks for always being there for me, through my roller coaster. Hopefully things will be better soon, starting right now.
<3