re:read

Wow, I’m really not sure where all the time went, or where I even went.

I just read back through all of my posts – all of them, and I have no words.

If everyone around me witnessed the craziness that was my life as it was written, I can’t believe I wasn’t admitted at one point.

Oh wait, a doctor did try really, really hard to admit me earlier this year. But that’s just a tiny tidbit of fun you guys have missed out on while I’ve been on a crazy, unintentional hiatus.

(By the way, there seems to be something about my parents’ basement. It’s where I do a lot of writing and reflecting. Maybe I should come back here more often just to get a freaking scope of things.)

Okay, well seeing as it has been over six months since I last posted, here is a very abbreviated version of what’s been going on:

– end of 2013: changed out roommates, began living with my best friend and another close friend (spoiler: doesn’t end well.)

– beginning of 2014: decide it’s a good idea to take 20 credit hours and start working at the paper again. For anyone who hasn’t gone to college, the average college course is 3 credit hours, and the way they figure up a credit hour is how much time you spend in class and how much time you spend doing the work outside of class. Three credit hours is taken by most institutes to mean 45 hours are spent in the classroom and 90 hours are spent outside of the classroom on that subject during one term/semester. And I took 20. I also began working at the paper again as assistant news editor. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

– also beginning of 2014: started seeing a psychologist again through the local hospital in my college town, despite my horrible experience with the first one; this one turned out to be a little better than the last.. he didn’t charge me at least.

– um, the months run together so we’re getting out of this list for now.

I started seeing the psychologist really toward the end of the spring semester, I feel like. It’s all such a blur that I can’t really remember. I remember going to see the counselor at the University and she referred me to him practically ASAP, mainly because I hadn’t slept in days. The guy tried to have me admitted basically on the spot, and I refused adamantly. I WAS NOT going to the 2nd floor of that awful hospital (psych ward.) After calling my roommate and making her promise someone would watch over me for 24 hours, he gave me meds and an excuse from work and classes and sent me home. I took one of the pills and slept for the next 24 hours. No exaggeration whatsoever. It knocked me out and I swore I wasn’t ever taking those meds again. I believe that might have been a real manic episode, not just hypomania, and I think the doctor thought that too. He bumped my diagnosis up to bipolar I but I haven’t had any other crazy episodes like that since.

I managed to finish the semester somehow.

OH.

I also managed to finish the semester without drinking. I stopped drinking January 5 and didn’t drink for 5 months. It was crazy, and that’s a whole ‘nother post in itself.

As I saw this psychiatrist, I also started seeing an affordable substance abuse counselor. Between the two of them, I had a pretty good thing going for a while.

Until my eating disorder came back full tilt.

When I quit drinking, I was automatically consuming  hundreds, if not thousands, of extra calories each week, and my weight began to drop.. quickly. I also began working out per the advice from my SAC, and with the help of my best friend began eating very healthfully in an effort to maintain my out of control moods.

Three pounds, 5 pounds, 8 pounds.. it was a bad thing. 3 months and 20 pounds later, everyone around me freaked – again.

I was really starting to get sick of everyone panicking around me. I wrote a while back about how someone catching me in a moment of mess sent a thrill of satisfaction down my spine, but that wasn’t the case with this.

As I’ve written before, my eating disorder was/is/will always be MINE. It is nothing that other people have any business getting into, but by losing so much weight (for my frame) so fast, I basically opened the door and invited everyone into that crazy party. It’s only been within the last month that I’ve really, really tried actively to fight it again. In fact, I’m meeting with someone from Eating Disorders Anonymous tomorrow because I think I’m going to start attending their meetings.

Everything is pretty timey-wimey all through here, and I apologize. Between my moods and the food obsession, everything seems so.. strung out and far away. Even though I know these things happened only two months ago, they feel like another life time at this point and it’s still difficult for me to piece back the timeline.

Somewhere along this clockwork whirlwind, I stopped seeing the therapist. I skipped several appointments with the psychiatrist; at one point, I was only going because that was how I knew how much I weighed. (My roommate had taken the scale away at that point.) I finished the semester, and then took three summer classes, all of which are finished now.

I also relapsed, again. Drugs and alcohol seemed to fill the void – oh this dreaded word, again – as I tried to extract the eating disorder. As history goes to show, I just can’t let myself be: there’s got to be some destructive force chipping away at my life force otherwise, I’m obviously not content.

Whew.

And now I’m here. I just got back from spending about a week with my boyfriend. We spent the 4th of July together, the first one for us. Even though we’ve been dating for nearly three years now, we still have a lot of firsts to come. I had a good time, and I didn’t want to come back. I told him so, and when he asked me why, I said “I feel better here.”

His damn response?

“You can’t run forever, Lauren.”

Where the hell did I find this guy? Why does he always seem to say to me the things I need (but really, really, desperately don’t want) to hear at the precise moment I should be hearing them?

So there’s the last 6+ months. There’s a lot I could go way more into detail with, which I’m sure I will at some point.. although now is not that point.

I need to try to sleep, because being with him messed up my sleep schedule as he’s working nights currently. I should really get back on track and this isn’t the best start.

Good night, all. More later, I promise (as I always do, yeah? Let’s find out if I’m better at keeping my word yet.)