Ana thoughts and recovery hopes continue to mix in my mind. I'm starting to realize that eating alone is not healing my anorexia.
Random journal entries (since I've come to Beaumont Hospital):
February 6, 2010
6:10 a.m.
I can't think and all the noises make me want to fly into a panic and I just want out of here. I have no hope of escaping Ana. She said I would die, die bitch and it's the truth. I deserve to die of this. . . . I have no future. I'm 44; what's the point? More years of this? I want to die, because I can't ever find peace and Ana is the perfect destroyer.
(And I scratched "Ana Wins" into my hip bone; no knife available, only my Sharpie and fingernails.)
5:30 p.m.
And I watch the food go away with no regrets. I'm still listening to you, Ana. You still have the power. I still want to lose weight and I know I don't deserve to eat. . . . I am feeling light, even lighter than before. It is so easy to eat nothing here. . . . Had I known I would or could slip into a coma (because of starvation), I would never have come in. I would have let it happen.
In you, Ana, I have found the ultimate weapon. You are so perfect and so easy to use. . . . Who am I without you, Ana?
February 8, 2010
10:25 p.m.
I hate myself. I hate myself for having anorexia and not being able to stop it.
Will Ana go to heaven? No, of course not. She will go to hell, her bones burning in the white hot heat. She will scream for mercy, but none will be forthcoming. She will deserve to burn, for she is evil.
I just want to die of anorexia.
I am so tired. Tired of being Ana. It really is not fun. And I didn't even get below 100 this time.
I am lost in a swirl of hopelessness. I will never not be Ana. And she will always be me.
So tired. I just want peace. I want it to end.
But Dr. Sackeyfio says there is hope. Do I believe him? Am I a fool? To think of being free, free of anorexia, having a real life.
No, impossible.
Oh, and Ana doesn't have a heart.
(End of journal entries)
And now? I am just eating to get home. I still have the feeding tube in; however, it was disconnected today because my doctor wants to see if I could completely finish two meals. (The tube itself is still in in case it has to be reconnected.)
I am afraid once I am home, it will begin again. I am still not hungry. The feeding tube and food has made me think clearer, feel more awake.
But it was not the panacea I had hoped it would be. I wanted to be free of the Ana thoughts. Instead, the thoughts hammer at my brain almost continously.
Ana is not ready to die. And I am not ready to live.
Showing posts with label feeding tube. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feeding tube. Show all posts
10 February 2010
09 February 2010
Anorexia tubing
He tried to be gentle. A nurse stood by one side of the bed, holding my hand as I anxiously eyed the hollow tube that would soon be placed inside my nose and down my throat, snaking its way through my body and into my stomach, ready to continously feed me 24/7 until I was able to feed myself.
It was the throat part that broke me.
Slowly the tube was inserted into my nose. Then it hit my throat, and gagging and wretching, I threw up on the floor, the nurse's shoes, and in my hair.
At least I know bulimia's not in my future. I hate to throw up.
The tube was again pushed down into my throat and I started crying as I again retched, leaned over and puked.
Third time. The tube again was gently pushed down into my throat - it had to go in there; it needed to reach my stomach to feed me.
This time I didn't move quick enough to throw up on the floor. The bile - there wasn't much in my stomach, anyway, after a month of starvation, landed on the pillow.
Shaking, I wiped my lips with a tissue. I swallowed hard and breathed slowly, nodding that he should continue to push in the tube. Gulping, gulping, I ignored the gag reflex, albeit with a lot less ease than I am able to suppress hunger.
The tube finally made its way to my stomach, but a certain part needed to open to allow nutrients to flow through the tube and into my stomach.
It wouldn't open. They said I needed to relax in order to allow the tube to enter its final destination.
Relax? I just puked three times, I was shaking and crying, and I was still trying to cough up the tube like a cat coughs up a fur ball.
So the nurse and the technician started using imagery, as in imagine I am in Tahiti and there is this handsome man with a tiny small bathing suit and I am being fed some luscious tropical fruit . . .
STOP! Fruit? Food? I hadn't eaten more than about 100 calories a day in more than a month, I'm still terrified of food, and the thought of anything luscious made want to hurl a fourth time.
Poke with the tube. The stomach wouldn't open. Wiggle the tube and poke some more. The stomach still wouldn't open. Threaten to leave me to go watch the Super Bowl and come back tomorrow . . . I grabbed the technician with both hands, pulled the front of his shirt and dragged him toward me, saying through a gagged throat, "We are staying until you get this damn tube in my stomach, I don't care how long it takes. Forget the Super Bowl!"
Finally, 45 minutes later, he placed a thinner wire through the tube, nudged and prodded, and the tube slid in.
I could be fed and he could go watch the Saints triumph.
The tube still gags me and my nose runs constantly, trying to dislodge this foreign object out of me. But for some reason, it has given me an odd sort of permission to eat. I'm told that happens to many anorexic patients; maybe it's a breaking down of defenses, maybe it's just a sheer desire to get the damn thing out.
I'm still eating what most people would consider minimal. I have been told they don't want to shock my system with too much food too soon. It takes my one hour to eat a simple meal. Small bites, chew until very soft, swallow and gag it past the tube. Then repeat about a thousand times.
And that's eating anorexic-style.
It was the throat part that broke me.
Slowly the tube was inserted into my nose. Then it hit my throat, and gagging and wretching, I threw up on the floor, the nurse's shoes, and in my hair.
At least I know bulimia's not in my future. I hate to throw up.
The tube was again pushed down into my throat and I started crying as I again retched, leaned over and puked.
Third time. The tube again was gently pushed down into my throat - it had to go in there; it needed to reach my stomach to feed me.
This time I didn't move quick enough to throw up on the floor. The bile - there wasn't much in my stomach, anyway, after a month of starvation, landed on the pillow.
Shaking, I wiped my lips with a tissue. I swallowed hard and breathed slowly, nodding that he should continue to push in the tube. Gulping, gulping, I ignored the gag reflex, albeit with a lot less ease than I am able to suppress hunger.
The tube finally made its way to my stomach, but a certain part needed to open to allow nutrients to flow through the tube and into my stomach.
It wouldn't open. They said I needed to relax in order to allow the tube to enter its final destination.
Relax? I just puked three times, I was shaking and crying, and I was still trying to cough up the tube like a cat coughs up a fur ball.
So the nurse and the technician started using imagery, as in imagine I am in Tahiti and there is this handsome man with a tiny small bathing suit and I am being fed some luscious tropical fruit . . .
STOP! Fruit? Food? I hadn't eaten more than about 100 calories a day in more than a month, I'm still terrified of food, and the thought of anything luscious made want to hurl a fourth time.
Poke with the tube. The stomach wouldn't open. Wiggle the tube and poke some more. The stomach still wouldn't open. Threaten to leave me to go watch the Super Bowl and come back tomorrow . . . I grabbed the technician with both hands, pulled the front of his shirt and dragged him toward me, saying through a gagged throat, "We are staying until you get this damn tube in my stomach, I don't care how long it takes. Forget the Super Bowl!"
Finally, 45 minutes later, he placed a thinner wire through the tube, nudged and prodded, and the tube slid in.
I could be fed and he could go watch the Saints triumph.
The tube still gags me and my nose runs constantly, trying to dislodge this foreign object out of me. But for some reason, it has given me an odd sort of permission to eat. I'm told that happens to many anorexic patients; maybe it's a breaking down of defenses, maybe it's just a sheer desire to get the damn thing out.
I'm still eating what most people would consider minimal. I have been told they don't want to shock my system with too much food too soon. It takes my one hour to eat a simple meal. Small bites, chew until very soft, swallow and gag it past the tube. Then repeat about a thousand times.
And that's eating anorexic-style.
07 February 2010
Tube day
I get my feeding tube today and I have to admit I am very scared. I'm scared it will hurt. I'm scared of the loss of control. And yes, I'm scared of gaining weight.
This relapse wasn't about weight loss. The drop in pounds was incidental. But any anorexic would be lying if they said they didn't care about weight gain. Because the weight lost is an outward symbol of the inner pain I feel, and part of the stripping of skin and reappearance of protruding hip bones and prominent collarbones shows that to the world.
And then of course there is this world's current obsession with being thin. When I was trolling the pro-ana sites (not allowed here, and that's part of the safety of the hospital), I saw pictures of thin, tanned women who were so beautiful it ached to look at them and think I could never, ever look like them. I know that many of the photos are lies - Photoshopped to show a flawlessness that doesn't exist in nature; I bet many of them get pimples and under-eye circles and have a little flab here and there.
But it is hard not to buy into the lie, and if you are already suffering and your mind tells you not to eat, why not try to be like one of them?
But I want to like being me - dark, wild curly hair, a smile that many say is beautiful, a slender (not skeletal) body, and a few little lines near what my husband calls my "cornflower blue eyes."
And I want to eat normally - sometimes too much, sometimes too little, sometimes a bit of junk food, most of the time just boringly healthy. I'll never be a big eater - that's not been my nature for most of my life, and I am a bit of picky eater even in the best of times. But I could, in the past, scarf down some popcorn at the movies and slurp it down with a regular icy Coke,
I don't want to sit at my plate and eat one grain of rice at a time, one pea at a time; slicing a banana into miniscule pieces so small that I can't even taste it. I don't want to shred my allowed half piece of bread into tiny pieces, balling it up until I can't taste the yeasty taste of whole grain bread with the little piece of nuts because I have crushed the life out of it.
And I don't want to mark my body with red ink, the color of Ana, writing across my hip "Ana Wins." She is not going to win, not if my doctor and others have any say about it. (It's too bad, because I actually like the color red. Maybe someday it will again just be a pretty color for me.)
Just like anorexia has been crushing the life out of me.
So today is tube day. I am scared it will hurt. I'm afraid maybe it won't help. I feel like it marks me as someone who could not get past the demon of Ana without medical help, without tube feeding.
But the choices are either reclaim my life or die Ana. And she doesn't deserve that honor.
When I do die, I hope people will remember me as someone who fought and won, someone who was kind and funny and full of life, a good writer and someone with an insatiable drive to learn new things. Not someone who cowered under Ana. Not someone who sat at her computer and counted every single calorie, and couldn't even take a sip without fear.
And I want to be remember as someone who liked a good hamburger with Swiss cheese, mayo, ketchup, Vidalia onions and a cold beer once in a while. (That's in the future, ha ha.)
This relapse wasn't about weight loss. The drop in pounds was incidental. But any anorexic would be lying if they said they didn't care about weight gain. Because the weight lost is an outward symbol of the inner pain I feel, and part of the stripping of skin and reappearance of protruding hip bones and prominent collarbones shows that to the world.
And then of course there is this world's current obsession with being thin. When I was trolling the pro-ana sites (not allowed here, and that's part of the safety of the hospital), I saw pictures of thin, tanned women who were so beautiful it ached to look at them and think I could never, ever look like them. I know that many of the photos are lies - Photoshopped to show a flawlessness that doesn't exist in nature; I bet many of them get pimples and under-eye circles and have a little flab here and there.
But it is hard not to buy into the lie, and if you are already suffering and your mind tells you not to eat, why not try to be like one of them?
But I want to like being me - dark, wild curly hair, a smile that many say is beautiful, a slender (not skeletal) body, and a few little lines near what my husband calls my "cornflower blue eyes."
And I want to eat normally - sometimes too much, sometimes too little, sometimes a bit of junk food, most of the time just boringly healthy. I'll never be a big eater - that's not been my nature for most of my life, and I am a bit of picky eater even in the best of times. But I could, in the past, scarf down some popcorn at the movies and slurp it down with a regular icy Coke,
I don't want to sit at my plate and eat one grain of rice at a time, one pea at a time; slicing a banana into miniscule pieces so small that I can't even taste it. I don't want to shred my allowed half piece of bread into tiny pieces, balling it up until I can't taste the yeasty taste of whole grain bread with the little piece of nuts because I have crushed the life out of it.
And I don't want to mark my body with red ink, the color of Ana, writing across my hip "Ana Wins." She is not going to win, not if my doctor and others have any say about it. (It's too bad, because I actually like the color red. Maybe someday it will again just be a pretty color for me.)
Just like anorexia has been crushing the life out of me.
So today is tube day. I am scared it will hurt. I'm afraid maybe it won't help. I feel like it marks me as someone who could not get past the demon of Ana without medical help, without tube feeding.
But the choices are either reclaim my life or die Ana. And she doesn't deserve that honor.
When I do die, I hope people will remember me as someone who fought and won, someone who was kind and funny and full of life, a good writer and someone with an insatiable drive to learn new things. Not someone who cowered under Ana. Not someone who sat at her computer and counted every single calorie, and couldn't even take a sip without fear.
And I want to be remember as someone who liked a good hamburger with Swiss cheese, mayo, ketchup, Vidalia onions and a cold beer once in a while. (That's in the future, ha ha.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)