She's broken.

I'm trying.
I know it doesn't look like it.
But I'm trying.

It's 01:08 am. I binged again. Earlier this evening. It started off slowly, the binge monster slowly stepping it up from a casual stroll in my mind to a gentle jog, the kind of unthreatening behaviour that doesn't really forearm you against the fact that it's about to turn that slow gallop into a full-tilt-fucking-sprint.

I do believe the phrase 'excuses are for people who need them' is applicable here. Regardless; I'm about to make my excuses.

It started on the way back from the hospital. In the car, sitting next to a friend as she drove, I began to crave sugar. Coke Zero. Mmmm, I thought, I want kilojoule-less goodness. Okay. No. Breathe. Have a piece of gum.

Got home. Sat down next to the mother. Avoided telling her that my best friend - who I love very much even though she is a very difficult person to love - has had a breakdown (although she's kind of been having it in slow motion for about 6 months it seems) and has been hospitalised, that her body doesn't work properly, and her mind doesn't work properly, that although she sounds almost like herself she is somehow unrecognisable. She thinks blue is red, she repeats herself over and over, she vomits blood on the bed-linen. And I'm really scared. I'm scared by what's happening to her. Scared they can't fix her. Scared for her. Scared by thoughts of being without her. Scared because there may be something else seriously wrong with her. Scared because she's in a Surgical Ward 1, looking beautific in white (just like my grandmother before she died), waving her hands while she talks - so normal - except the translucent line of the drip sways and bobs along with her gestures. I'm scared by the blood tests and the scheduled brain scan. I'm scared by the look of anxious love on her mother's face. I want them to know what's wrong. Because once you've found the problem you can treat it. But what if she's right? What if she is just "broken", as she says, and she can't be fixed?

Anxiety.

Threw the gum in the bin. Told myself I'd have a cup of tea. Opened the fridge to see whether we had the no-fat milk I want (I need). Ostensibly that's why I opened the fridge. Open. See container of tinned pears. Grab. Rinse pear of sugary juice (why, even when I binge, do I still behave in a restrictive way? it makes no damn sense!). Pear gone. Didn't make her not be sick. Didn't fix what was broken. Neither did the three slices of tinned pineapple. The sundried tomatoes. The other pear half. The salted peanuts. The chocolate. The crisps. Or the three chocolate milkshakes.

Dissapointment. Sadness. Anxiety. Emptiness. Can't cry. Empty. But full. Body full. Swollen. Hurts. Wrong. Mistake. Error. Hate self. Didn't fix it. Powerless. Foolish. Enemy. Purge.

I vomited and vomited and vomited. Slowly and methodically teasing as much of that crap out of my system as I could.

Afterword I scrubbed the toilet, then jumped on the scale. Still maintaining just above 60 kg.

You have no idea how much - how deeply - it saddens me to say that.

Food never fixes anything. Why do I even bother? Why do I do it? Why do I make the same mistake over and over and over and over. And she's all alone, in hospital, bored or asleep, in shitty, sterile, air-conditioned, uncomforting room, on a single, isolated bed, trapped by her body and her mind and her leash-like drip.

Why can't I learn how to cope without food? Why can't I be free? Why can't we be free?

Going to go have a cigarrette.
And hope for better days.