Tears before bedtime

I'd intended to write in my blog sooner, but what with events over the past few days and subsequent interruptions, it never got written.

It's always a somewhat difficult time when L has his friend S here, not because I don't get on with S or anything, but because it can be somewhat isolating. There's a lot of computers, beer and food. It's not so bad now I eat some stuff too, but when things were worse with my ED I used to get quite triggered.

Things were awful all Friday. Things were strained between me and L most of the day, and I felt second best a fair amount of the time. I don't thing it was intentional, but it's how I was made to feel. But the worst part was dinner time. L had roasted a huge joint of beef for him and S, and I was going to have a bit with some veggies. When the time came to make gravy, S said he wanted to put the juices from the beef in the gravy. I asked L if there was fat in it, he said it was full of fats. So I quietly got on and made my own "safe" gravy. When L saw this he exploded, started slagging me off to S, calling me "f*cking ridiculous" and ranting on abusively about my ED. It was too much to cope with on top of a day where I'd felt unappreciated and worthless. I did the usual stressed anorexic thing and didn't eat at all. Every time I tried to speak to L that evening he ignored me so I spent the evening watching TV in bed, while they got steadily more drunk and played the damn X-box downstairs. As my tears fell, I could hear him laughing at the game. I felt so, so hurt and so alone.

Next morning L went off in his car before me and S were awake. S said L had felt guilty about his actions the night before but didn't know how to rectify it. When L came back he was still very distant to me, though fine with S. I eventually told him we should talk - I hate an atmosphere and am often the one who tries to fix things. Turns out the crux of it is L can't deal with my ED. Even though I'm trying to have some sort of life, he can't let go of the thought of me being ill, and punishes me subconsciously because of that. I told him he was pushing me away, and that while I'm still ill, I'm also a woman with hopes and dreams, needs and desires. He never takes me anywhere special, never looks at me, rather sees a patient, an anorexic, an ill person. So I gave him a choice: if he wants me to stay with him, marry him next year, etc etc, he has to see a counsellor. It's hard enough for me to let go of my ED, but he's effectively keeping me chained to it.

All this sounds so trivial now that I write it. When I think of how much he hurt me, how ill I was yesterday as a result of the emotional pain, and how exhausted I still am today, it seems terrible. But in words it seems like nothing. Even though we'd sorted things out between us by yesterday afternoon, still the tears flew last night and I was very sick - my body is so weak that severe emotional strain batters me down. And I feel like such a fraud. As I was telling L yesterday morning that things are better now than 2 months ago, as I'm not in and out of hospital on a weekly basis, my mind kept thinking of the new diet pills I had bought the day before.

For me to give up anorexia is like stepping off a cliff and trusting that I won't fall. But I'm too scared to take that step because I have no one willing to catch me. L's support can be fickle, and my friends are too busy with their own lives. I see the future I want - hell, just to get out of the house would be a start! - but I cannot take that journey alone. Anorexia has dominated my life to some degree for 19 years. I do not know how to be without it. I need it. And that really scares me because it's killing me.