I went to the gym today and realised I gained a kilo. I became very very very very upset. I burnt 275 on the elyptical in 20 minutes. Then I went to the pool. I swam without looking at the time or counting my laps and I felt very free. At the same time I percieved that I was in a hamster cage, or an exersize pen, and kept thinking I want out of here, this metro life is not for me, with the cues, and the people, and having to pay 60 euro a month to be a hamster. I went to the steam rooms then back to the pool, back to the steam rooms and while I was in there I meditated, and I felt very peaceful when I left. I realised I need to stop weighing myself and looking in the mirror. I was able to get changed and everything without looking at any of the dozen mirrors around me. I felt much more sane this way. Like I said, I was tired, and when I am fatigued after exersize, I feel i am left with my more basic thoughts (or Im more able to focus on my main thoughts). I began asking myself questions and thought it would be a good idea to ask them like in an interview. It happened very naturally. I got on a sort of roll and decided it was important that I write it down. I was able to detatch my head from my “self” and ask my Self questions as a seperate person, as though I were my own psychologist. Some parts get a little funny but oh how I love being semi anonymous ——————————————————————————————————————————–
-What is most important to you in life?- My mental health. -Do you feel mentally healthy?- No. -Why is this?- Because I look at myself in the mirror and do not like what I see. My clothes don¡¯t look right on me. -What Else?- I eat too much. Then I vomit. -What else?- I feel trapped in my job and in a lifestyle I do not want. -Anything else?- Not anything major that I can think of at this particular moment. ¨CYou said you vomit after eating too much; Would you consider yourself to be Bulimic?- Yes. -Why do you think this?- Because I looked it up online. I vomit more than 3 times a week, after binge eating. -Why do you do it?- I do it to correct my mistake of eating too much. -Why do you think you overeat?- I tell myself not to and the urge to do it becomes overwhelming. I rebel against my own rules. -Why else?- I eat to distract myself. -What are you distracting yourself from?- Myself. -Don¡¯t you find it ironic that you eat to distract yourself from yourself when really you are literally plumping yourself up to examine later?- No I do not. -Why?- Because I eat to distract myself from my mind. When I look at my body I am not thinking about things wrong with my mind but rather the problem of my body. -Why do you rebel from your own rules?- I¡¯ve always broken or bended the rules. -Always?- Well, not as a child. -When did you start?- When people started telling me wrong or I felt like I experienced injustices as a child, I used them as my excuse to break the rules. -Why do you make rules for yourself when you want to break them?- I don¡¯t know. To feel in control. -Again, is it not ironic that the things you do to feel in control are precisely what make you feel out of control???- Yes, I would say that is ironic. You got me there. -Would you say you contradict yourself in this sense?- Yes. -Do you enjoy the binge/purge process?- No definitely not. -How do you feel while it is happening?- I feel like I am on a merry-go-round that I can¡¯t get off of until I vomit as proof that I am sick. -Proof to who?- It was a figurative example. -You mean a metaphorical example?- Yes, whatever. -Metaphors are examples with a deeper meaning. What were you really trying to say by using this metaphor?- It seems obvious: I feel that I am stuck, and I want to get out. -Interesting. You say you feel stuck, does this apply to other parts of your life as well?- Yes, obviously. -When did you first start to feel stuck, and where?- At home growing up. From my primary years, even. But especially in my mid-teen years. ¨CWhy did you feel stuck?- Because no one understood me at home and even my brother agrees that that we were a mentally abusive family ¨C What do you mean when you say you were mentally abused ¨C I mean I felt that there was no way out. I felt very frustrated, very alienated, and deep grief at our situation from a young age. We were laughed at, mocked, and teased until tears, and even when we cried my father would not stop and would encourage the rest of the family to tease or mock his target of the day. ¨CWhat would he tease you about?- anything. Each of us were teased to tears for wetting the bed. Bringing friends over was a death sentence because my father would make sure he would mortify us in some way or another in front of our friends. And after our friends left he would make tell us we were trying to be ¡°hot shots¡± while the were over. ¨CWhat was your most mortifying experience in your child hood years with your father?- The time I brought my best friend Jody Lynn over, I was very nervous about how my dad would act. I actually sat him down ¨C I was ten years old ¨C and I asked him, begged him very seriously to please act like a normal father, please don¡¯t embarrass me. When she came over he immediately came up to us and started doing things to embarrass me, like make grotesque noises with his mouth, make noises you might hear a mentally challenged child make, whatever. I asked him to please, please act normal and I pleaded with my eyes that he stop, clearly expressing distress. He seemed to thrive off of this. He started saying ¡°Yes sarah. I am normal. I-M-A-RO-BOT. I-M-A-RO-BOT. HOW-ARE-YOU. I-M-NOMAL¡±. I became very upset by this and almost started to cry but I couldn¡¯t because Jody was there and I wanted to have a fun time with her, and crying would make things more embarrassing because she might tell people at school that I cried because my father was teasing me. I went to my room and shut the door and pressed the lock. My father went to the kitchen and grabbed a tooth pick to push into the lock hole (this easily unlocked the door). I ran to hold the lock down with my thumb. My father began making absurd noises on the other side of the door very loud while my friend stood there amazed. I was yelling at him to please go away, please leave us alone. He pushed the door open and began jumping around my room, saying ¡°GOLA GOLA¡± (this was a kind of noise he made with his throat). I was very upset, almost crying, and I was in a corner behind the door, and he came up behind me and tapped my butt, not to hurt me, just to embarrass me further. This is where my memory ends¡­ there was not much I could do to excuse my fathers behavior and my friend was shocked. ¨C How was your home life as a teenager? ¨C I hated it. I wanted to leave. I knew by then my family was fucked and there was nothing to do about it. My sister was mentally unstable and would manipulate me into hysterics. I think she felt trapped too but took it out on me. Even if we had an otherwise healthy family situation I think we would still have relationship problems but I think that our particular situation made things much worse. She needed to control me and cause me to lose control and she openly showed satisfaction when I did this, which only caused me to get even more upset. She also would try to turn my parents against me by manipulating me in a way that she could not get in trouble for. She was very smart -That seems a little absurd, are you sure this is true?- Yes. -Why are you so sure?- Because my sister would openly tell me that she wanted to be the favorite, and that she thought she was. It was very important to her. She also needed to be my grandmothers favorite grandchild and would often tell me that my grandmother loved her more. -Would you believe her?- Yes, and it made me very upset because I was a sensitive child who wanted to be loved by everyone, and my sister made me feel like I was un-loved for no reason. -Did you think your parents loved her more?- Sometimes, when they sided with her when she would manipulate me and mentally abuse me until I became hysterical and acted out. They never understood that I was highly provoked and the sheer cruelty of my sisters behavior, especially since she was 5 years older than me. -Was this all she did?- No, she was a control freak. -What do you mean? Can I have an example?- Talking about all this makes me upset. There is a lump in my throat. -Sorry. Do you not want to continue speaking about this?- No, I can continue, it¡¯s just difficult. I try not to think about these moments normally, but I think this interview is uncovering some connections I may not have otherwise made. What was the question again, I can¡¯t remember. -How was your sister a control freak? Can I have an example?- She would sometimes follow me around the house if I was cleaning and tell me where I could and could not put things. As a child when we played games if I did not make my toys say the right thing she would terminate the game and get very hostile with me. Once we were digging a Barbie pool in the back yard and I dug it the wrong way so she kicked it in and took all her barbies away from me. When I got older things became more complex. I can¡¯t remember specific examples, only that our conflicts often started that I did not do something to her precise measurement, and as I got older I would challenge her with rebellion, and things would escalate. ¨C How would she manipulate you?- she knew I was sensitive, as she was. She would figure out what she could say to hurt me the most and then she would say it. She criticized every part of my body at some point in my life. When she was being Nice Jennifer she would dress me up, or we would do a photoshoot, or play mind reading games where we had to guess the same number. She just knew how to make me flip out that¡¯s all. I don¡¯t want to talk about it. But eventually I learned how not to flip out. ¨C What did you learn to do? ¨C I started going to the gym to lose weight, and it fatigued me enough to calm down and not cry in ballistics. ¨C And is this around the time you began to vomit as well? ¨CYes ¨C Because it made you feel in control? ¨C Yes and no. ¨C What do you mean? ¨C I felt very powerful and in control at the gym. I spent 3 hours at a time there atleast 4-5 times a week. Every time I got on the scale and I dropped a pound I became very happy. But when I went home I would be very hungry. I would eat and eat. Then I would feel that I lost control, or that I was wasting my visits to the gym. To escape weight gain, I regained control with my purge. ¨C what about feeling trapped, your merry go round metaphor? ¨C That plays into the situation as well. I could not control my family and the pain I felt because of them. I would go to the gym to control my emotions and to have control over myself (my weight). When I got home I would panic because things would still be the same, I was still stuck at home for x amount of years, months, whatever. I felt a void, and panic, so I would frantically fill this void with food, not even sitting down at the dinner table ( I always ate standing up in the kitchen, always). Afterward I would feel guilt for wasting my time at the gym when I was only going to fill myself with fat. I lost control. I had to regain control and get the food (my emotions) back out of me. ¨C Interesting. So where are you now? ¨C Across the ocean from my family. ¨C Do you miss them? ¨C no. ¨C Now that you are no longer trapped at home are you no longer bulimic? ¨C Unfortunately, no. ¨C Why?- I don¡¯t know. I am used to reacting to things beyond my control this way. I am used to responding to panic and nervousness this way. ¨C Do you feel trapped even now? ¨C Yes. It is a cage that follows me. ¨C You are making your own choices. How are you trapped? What makes you feel trapped right now? ¨C I am afraid of not having enough money and having to go home. I got anxiety about fucking everything up over here. So I trapped myself in two jobs working 7 days a week, saving euros so that I can really escape. I am still running on a hamster wheel. ¨C What can you do to feel less trapped? ¨C I need to stop feeling so worried about money. I am trying to not think about it. I have already quit both my jobs and on August 10th I am leaving Dublin to go work on an organic farm, volunteering. It is on a healing retreat farm where they only use recycled material and eat organic food. I think that doing a more physical job, having healthy food, and being in a spiritually healing sort of place will be good for me. I am going to work hard at learning how to relax, and give myself time to meditate. I want to overcome my obsession with money and stability, and break free from that chain. I Hope that meditating and writing, and maybe a few more interviews with yours truly will help me along my path to healing. ¨CI look forward to our next interview- Uh huh, me too.
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