October 27

I finally know what it feels like to actually want to die.

I want to die.

This is killing me, slowly but surely.

October 26

"Close your eyes. Imagine that you're standing in a bakery. Not just any bakery--the best bakery in Paris, its windows fogged, crowded with people who jostle for space in front of its long glass cases. The room is fragrant and you can't take your eyes off the rows of cinnamon rolls and croissants, iced petits fours, flaky napoleons and elephant ears. Every counter holds at least one basket of crusty baguettes, still warm from the oven.

And you're hungry. In fact, you're starving. Hunger is a tornado whirling in your chest, a bottomless vortex at your core. Hunger is a tiger sharpening its claws on your tender insides. You stand in front of the glass cases, trying to swallow, but your throat is dry and your stomach clenches and contracts.

You want more than anything to lick the side of an eclair, swirl the custard and chocolate against your tongue. You dream about biting off the end of a cruller, feeling the give of the spongy dough, the brief molecular friction of the glaze against your teeth, flooding your mouth with sweetness. The woman beside you reaches into a white paper bag, pulls out a hunk of sourdough roll. You see the little puff of steam that flares from its soft center, breathe in its warm yeasty smell. She pops it into her mouth and chews and you chew along with her. You can almost taste the bread she's eating. Almost.

But you can't, not really, because how long has it been since you've tasted bread? A month? A year? And though your stomach grinds against your backbone and your cheeks are hollow, though the tiger flays your belly, you can't eat. You want to, you have to, but your fear is greater than your hunger. Because when you do--when you choke down a spoonful of plain yogurt, five pretzel sticks, a grape--that's when the voice in your head starts up, a whisper, a cajoling sigh: You don't need to eat, you're strong, so strong. That's right. Good girl.

Soon the whisper is a hiss filling the center of your head: You don't deserve to eat. You're weak, unworthy. You are disgusting. You don't deserve to live. You, you, you. The voice is a drumbeat, a howl, a knife stuck in your gut, twisting. It knows what you're thinking. It knows everything you do. The more you try to block it out, the louder it becomes, until it's screaming in your ear: You're fat. You're a pig. You make everyone sick. No one loves you and no one ever will. You don't deserve to be loved. You've sinned and now you must be punished.

So you don't eat, though the food is all you think about. Though all day long, wherever you are--doing homework, sitting with friends, trying to sleep--part of you is standing in the bakery, mesmerized with hunger and with fear, the voice growling and rumbling. You have to stand there, your insides in shreds, empty of everything but your own longing. There will be no bread for you, no warm buttery pastries. There's only the pitiless voice inside your head, high-pitched, insistent, insidious. There's only you, more alone than you've ever been. You, growing smaller and frailer. You, with nowhere else to go.

The voice is part of you now, your friend and your tormentor. You can't fight it and you don't want to. You're not so strong, after all. You can't take it and you can't get away. You don't deserve to live. You want to die.

This is what it feels like to have anorexia."

October 25

and I just got word that I have been accepted for Spring of 2011.

Three months from now.

3.

October 20

Still no letter. This is getting ridiculous. Everyone is already signing up for classes for next term and I'm still sitting here, waiting, for this little letter that determines so much.

I'm down five pounds or so. I never eat anymore. The hunger pains use to be so much that I had to lay down on my stomach to keep from crying, but now the pains from actual life are taking over the stomach pains.

Question: What is the longest you have ever fully fasted?

I'm thinking of doing a fast and I want to hear some feedback first.

Besides me waiting though, University has been going okay. It's really just a bunch of reading and studying and making sure you're always on time. Those are things I am good at. I like knowing where I have to be, what I have to be doing and when I need it to be done by. It keeps me on track.

Anyway, I hope you ladies are doing alright. Let me know how October is treating you.

October 17

Still no letter...oy vey! I just want to be able to pick my classes for next semester already and I want to have the satisfaction of getting all my stuff together for moving in and I want to know how my roommate would be but most of all I just want to know if I got accepted or not. I worked so fucking hard, so hard. Every single day, the only thought going through my head was how to NOT screw things up so this university would have no option but to accept me. I just hope that it worked. What bugs me is that it's Sunday and the letter could be sitting in some post office or in the back of a mail car waiting to be delivered. I wish I was a mail man right now.

I haven't eaten in two days or something. I've been too focused on work and trying to get everything done like the perfect student I am trying to be. Not eating so I can be the perfect woman. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

October 14

Binged today.

Binged today.

Binged today.

Binged today.

Binged today.

I have three papers due in the span of two weeks. How the fuck am I not suppose to have multiple anxiety attacks during the process of writing them? I feel like the world is trying to engulf me in its crevices but it can't because I'm too fat for even that.

I don't know.

October 12

I just had the most horrid internal food battle with myself...and in the end, food won.

I had not eaten for 15 hours, about to reach my 16th when a friend stopped by with a burger and fries. I literally excused myself to the bathroom and cried for almost 5 minutes trying to tell myself that I didn't have to eat it. One fucking, terrible panic attack later I washed my face and walked out of the bathroom and....I don't know how to explain it. It was as if I wasn't me. It wasn't me eating that burger and fries, but I was watching someone who looked like me eat it. And I couldn't stop her.

fast restarted at 2:30 p.m.

I just, want to lock myself in a room with no food forever.

I just want to drink water.

I just want to be happy.

I just want to sleep.